Episode 1: Relax, Pull up a Chair and Listen In

Brian and Tommy's premier episode of They Call Me The Seeker—a no notes spontaneous discussion about life, mystery, faith and whatever else pops into our mind.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

All right, it says we're recording in progress. One and over only the great Brian Conover. Tell how we're related to each other.

SPEAKER_01 0:11

Well, we are in-laws by marriage. You are married to my wife's sister.

SPEAKER_00 0:18

So what are we called? Brother-in-laws. Huh. Honestly, God, I did not know that. That's why I asked you. We are Jack. So we're brother-in-laws. Yeah. Well, how can I? By marriage. Yeah, by marriage. Brother-in-laws by marriage.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

Like my sister was when she was married, you know, that was my brother-in-law. Yeah. You're married to my wife's sister, so you are my brother-in-law.

SPEAKER_00 0:47

Yeah, I got it. I got it. I got it.

SPEAKER_01 0:51

It's a it's a pretty it's a pretty easy one.

SPEAKER_00 0:53

So, how long have you been married?

SPEAKER_01 0:56

I we have we just celebrated our 27th wedding anniversary. We have been together. We have been together for 34 years, and you could do the math. I'm 51. So we've been together, yeah, since I was 17 and she was 15.

SPEAKER_00 1:11

How have you been able to stay together for 27 years? My first was I have no idea. And mine was let's see, my combined is 17 and 20. So I have 37 years over two. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:27

I've got, yeah, I've got I've got I've got you beat.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

Oh, you got me whipped by a by a long shot.

SPEAKER_01 1:34

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

Let me tell you my first impression of you when I when I met you all is from my perspective, because I've been doing this since I was 18, 18 years old. Um, when I met you and Chelsea and went over to I th I think you I've been at two of your houses, but it's the same thing. And let me tell you, let me tell you what I saw. I think I told Karen this. I remember driving away from your homes and thinking to myself, man, Brian would be a great pastor. Let me tell you why. Well get me there. Okay, well, let me tell you, let me tell you why. Because the early, the very the church at its core, at its very beginning, met in homes. Okay, so it was the center of the neighborhood. Right. So you had people, yeah, the hub. You had people walking in and out, you had uh people serving other each other with food, taking care of problems, and all that. And it's like in the places that y'all are out, you're you're kind of like the Pope of the neighborhood.

SPEAKER_01 3:01

Uh yeah, I'm the uh well, I'm the self-proclaimed deputy assistant mayor. That's what I that's what I consider myself. Um, you know, I I just had this conversation the other night, actually, with a good friend of mine. Um I was telling him, you know, he gets kind of upset. We all do. Um, we get kind of upset. We have a very large group, you know, we got 20, 20 plus of us, and you try to do something altogether. And it sometimes you just can't do that, you know. So I've got I've got several friends that, you know, and including myself, I get upset when I don't get invited to something, but you know, I try to tell them, look, man, you can't get invited to everything. We try to invite everybody when I do something at my house, everybody's invited. But when we go somewhere, we have to take a step back and go, Well, we can't go out to dinner with 20 of us, that's virtually impossible. Yeah, it would take three hours to get food.

SPEAKER_00 4:02

But the amazing thing to me is the home is the most intimate place in your life, and your door is open, open to anything. Open, I've never I've never seen anything like it, and it reminded me of how the early church grew just through relationships and people like you and Chelsea with that. So, so where did you get it? Where did you get that kind of uh of gift of service and care for others? Because I'm not trying to embarrass you. You do have no no no no. So, where did that come from?

SPEAKER_01 4:45

You know, when I was when I was little, I'll start back, I'll start back when I was little. You know, when I was a little kid, I I growing up, I was the most shy person you would ever meet. You know, my son's the same way. My son is the same way, he's now 20, he's now 23, and he's starting to finally open up. Didn't take me quite that long. I hit a I hit my early teens, and from that point on it was a whirlwind. I think I think the east coast came out in me. Um, because you hear that a lot. You know, you're from Jersey.

SPEAKER_00 5:16

I forgot about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:18

Yeah, so people from the East Coast are very outspoken. You can ask my wife, she'll tell you that I'm outspoken. You can ask your wife, you can ask your wife, and she'll tell you that I'm outspoken. Yeah, you know, um, you know, so it it it it stemmed from that, I think. I I don't know. Um I just really like to make people feel happy. I like to have fun. Um, I like, you know, I I like to do all kinds of things, you know, and it's not just normal everyday things, you know. I mean, there are normal everyday things, but I I just like to make people feel welcomed, um, and and and have a place to go where they can, you know, where they can relax. And, you know, me and my me and my buddies will, you know, hang out, you know, hang out. That's what we do. We hang out instead of going to the bars or going here, we'll hang out at my house, or we'll hang out at their house, mostly my house. But you know, that's uh I was I was super shy when I was little and I just I don't know what happened, how it happened, but I just became that person that likes to talk. Yeah, I'm a I'm a I'm a speaker, I like to speak. So whether it all makes sense or not, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:25

That makes that that makes that makes complete sense. And it is, you know, we all have our own baggage and gifts. I am blessed and cursed by uh being an introvert. And when I when I look at someone like you with those, well, your wife, wife too, with those gifts, it is it is uh yeah, well, she's quite amazing.

SPEAKER_01 6:51

She's on the same page, she would like it toned down a little bit sometimes, which I understand. You know, she wants peace and quiet sometimes too.

SPEAKER_00 6:59

Just tell her you're on a mission from God.

SPEAKER_01 7:04

I'm trying, I'm I'm trying to tell her I'm on a I'm on some kind of mission. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so you know, um that's that's just a little bit about me.

SPEAKER_00 7:12

Well, I appreciate the way God, man, it's been Karen and I, I don't know if we celebrated it. We'd be everything's just been going crazy. Um we we had our 20th anniversary. Congratulations. Yeah, last June.

SPEAKER_01 7:28

20's a 20's a 20 is 20 takes a lot of work.

SPEAKER_00 7:31

Yes, it does. Two 20 is something, and then we've got Colton going into the Marines that's excellent. Monday. And so his last day to spend the night is let's see, Sunday. We're gonna give him a give him a blessing at the church, and then he goes downtown, and we have some meeting with some marine guy that's gonna tell us where we can write, and then he has to stay at the hotel, and then we leak we go Monday morning to uh watch him uh get sworn in, and then we have about five minutes, and then they put him on the bus. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:13

I have yeah, I have a buddy that just did the exact same thing just the other day. Um, his daughter went into the navy, so they just went through that too. And I'm I'm I'm proud of her. Um, you know, that's uh I didn't go in the military myself. My father did, my grandfathers did. Um I did not, um, I didn't see I don't know if I didn't see the need to do it, but I just it just wasn't a thing for me.

SPEAKER_00 8:38

Oh, there was no way. I don't know where he gets it from. I military doesn't run. And it's great, it's amazing. Yeah, I I I think it's it's great, but you know, I don't watch what we haven't talked about it last much. You know, I love I love my country and all that, but I never encouraged him to kind of go that route. And he's just yeah, and he's passing on that route for a while now, you know.

SPEAKER_01 9:03

Uh yeah, last two, three years, two, three years he's been talking about that. Yeah, so 100%. So he is which is good for him. I'm I'm proud of her.

SPEAKER_00 9:13

So after all these years, we're um what do you call it? Empty nesters, empty nesters, yeah. And so, yeah, it's uh we've been hiding our emotions pretty good, but me and Karen are pretty miserable, but acting happy.

SPEAKER_01 9:27

So well, I'll I'll tell you what, my son's been gone. Nick's been gone now for almost five years. Good heavens, yeah. I know. Um, and it it's tough, you know, but the thing with him is he's only two hours away, so he's back and forth.

SPEAKER_00 9:43

But you know, speaking of your son, you're you're right about the the uh the shyness in him coming out. I tell you, man, that dude, there's been I think there's two times in my life, one at Christmas, and then another, and then another time. That that brother just out of the blue would send me something like uh hey, Merry Christmas. Here's an Amagon Amazon card, happy birthday. You know, I'm thinking of you. And I was thinking, man.

SPEAKER_01 10:15

He's a good he's a good kid. He's a chip kid. He calls me no trouble. That's the best part about it.

SPEAKER_00 10:21

While he was grow while he's growing up, while he was growing up, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:24

No trouble.

SPEAKER_00 10:25

You think he'll you think he'll get married young or old?

SPEAKER_01 10:28

Well, he's pushing 24. You gotta have a girlfriend to get married, huh? So I don't know. That's a topic for another day. Well, that is a topic for another day. Um, you know, um, I I think within the next couple years, yeah. I think uh, you know, I had him when I was 27. Chelsea was 25. Um so I I think maybe he'll 30 years old. I I think that's that seems to be the that seems to be the new age for the this generation, you know. Um it seems to be that that uh that 30 to 35 now is when they settle down because it takes so long to get a career going and make money and try to afford to live anymore. You know, everything's so expensive, especially living in California. You know, I don't know what your gas price is, but mine is still five something. Well, it's a little under four or a little under five now.

SPEAKER_00 11:21

330.

SPEAKER_01 11:22

Yeah, see, so I mean, you know, just gas alone, just paying for that. Yeah, it's it it's expensive, you know, and and rent of obviously in California is outrageous, you know, just like everything else. It's it's it's expensive everywhere, you know. We we looked into um I wanted to move um out of state, out of California. I love the state. I've lived here since I was five years old. Um, so I've been here 46 years. And, you know, I thought about it and I just was like, we gotta get out of here. But then, you know, we went to Montana and we look we're looking at places there. Tommy, the the the the house prices are relative to California, but your pay is basically cut in half. It's like that in Florida, too. Same thing.

SPEAKER_00 12:15

You live in the most beautiful place in the world. It is well, yeah. I mean, it really is.

SPEAKER_01 12:19

Yeah, I mean, I wish you could see the I don't know if you can see it, but the backdrop on mine, that's a picture from my backyard. That's from my deck right there. So that's the house. That's that's my view. Um, you know, it's it's beautiful. I know every I know nobody else can see that, but yeah, um, it it's just amazing. And you know, as much as we sit here and we complain and we complain about where we live and how much we pay. I said this yesterday, actually, this exact quote I said to another one of my buddies. I said, you know, we pay a lot to live here, but I'll tell you what, this state is probably, if not, it's probably the top five states, not just in the United States of America, but anywhere in the world. We have all four seasons. Um, you know, um, the weather is phenomenal. Yeah, it gets hot here in the summer. We're in northern California, so it gets a little hotter here. Um, you know, down south it stays 80, 85. Up here it gets 100, 110, you know, so it's a little warmer. But I mean, what what else can you ask for? You know, I mean, we've got the ocean two hours away, I've got San Francisco two hours away, I've got Tahoe four hours away. I've got, you know, it's just an endless supply of y'all are y'all are just four hours away from Tahoe. Four hours from Tahoe. Yeah, so it's it's not it's not a long drive. My son's two hours from here towards Tahoe. So, you know, it's it's two hours for him to go there because he's got a bunch of friends in Reno, you know, so he goes there.

SPEAKER_00 13:51

Well, I figure, see, we'll be in Tahoe the early part of September, I guess. Yep. Um, that's what it sounds like. So my money is on death by heart attack or mauled by a bear. I think it's a close. It's a it's a close first and second.

SPEAKER_01 14:10

Because I'll tell you, I I know you've been there, but I'll tell you what when you live there. Like Tahoe is not a town for me to live in. That's not my style. Um, but it is amazing to go to. Um, I love it there. It's beautiful. It's one of the I mean, it would be, you know, where I live, we have the biggest natural lake in the in the United States of America, you know. But Tahoe would be that lake, or in the state of California, but Tahoe would be that, but you know, half of it's in Nevada, half of it's in California. Yeah, but I mean, you have I I don't know how much you visited the actual lake, but I tell you what, it's just one. There's there's nothing like it. There's nothing like it.

SPEAKER_00 14:49

It's I have seen but the thing about it, I've seen YouTube videos where I'm looking and there's a wall of white. Hey, where's the house? Well, it's behind the snow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:05

Okay, so how do people get out of the house? Snow accumulation on that roof. Yeah, you're serious matter.

SPEAKER_00 15:11

So, how do you get the snow off the roof? I'm not gonna climb up there. I I am gonna buy some dynamite.

SPEAKER_01 15:17

There's there's a you you you it's the homeowner is a social media.

SPEAKER_00 15:21

You just hire somebody to do that. Oh, really? Yeah, good luck with yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, tell Kelly. Oh, I know. We're gonna hire him.

SPEAKER_01 15:28

Your wife and my wife are the same person, just 10 years difference.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

Let me ask you this. On all your journeys, and uh in in all of your journey, how would how would you um how would you describe your relationships or perceptions with the church? I mean, it did you come from a baggage that it's a negative experience, and I don't care about it.

SPEAKER_01 15:58

No, no, no, no. Coming, but coming into this, uh this subject for me, I'm I'm I I will openly admit I'm 100% ignorant on. I know what I know and I think what I think. You know, a lot of people, a lot of people think a lot of family members, whatever, you know, they go, oh, well, you're like, what are you, an atheist? And I no, I'm not an atheist. That's absolutely not correct. I am a realist, which sounds harsh, you know, speaking to you because you believe in what you believe, and I believe in what I believe in, but I'm a realist and I believe in I believe in reality, the everyday thing, you know. I but I I also think that there has to be something greater than us that created all of this that just didn't come from nothing. Yeah. That to me seems impossible. Yes, they say evolution, but what have we seen evolve in the last hundred years that we've been alive for? So you're telling me everything was evolved uh million years ago, and then you know, we just went from that. No, you know, I I my relationship, I was I was baptized as Episcopalian. What that means to me, yeah, what that means to me, I don't know. Um, you know, but I do know, you know, my my family, you know, they're all from back east. So, you know, religion was a big a big thing for them, you know, back in the 40s, 50s, 60s, you know, that was a that was a big thing. Um, especially in the east coast, you know, they they still they still call their neighbors Mr. and Mrs. You know. Um But I I don't know. I I tried going to church several times. Um, I went to there's a uh Latter-day Saints church um in the town that I grew up in when we moved to California, and all the neighborhood kids were basically, you know, uh Latter-day Saints, LDS.

SPEAKER_02 17:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:00

Um, and I went a few times and it was, you know, it was it was okay. I was young, so I I don't really recall most of it. I was five, six, seven years old. And then later on in life, um, when me and Chelsea got together, when me and the wife got together, you know, her mom is a is a is a every every weekend church person. Yeah, um, she goes to church every Sunday. Um, and Chelsea would go, you know, obviously as a child, you know, and and and when we got into our teens and when we went when we actually started dating, she was still going to the church. Um, and I started going with her, not to per se church, but we started going to youth group together.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 18:43

And we did that for quite some time, and I got turned away from that. What turned me away from that was, and this is just my own feeling and my own opinion on this matter. The the the pastor at that time told me, he said, Brian, you need to love God or Jesus before you love your parents, and that kind of threw me in like a loop, like that I didn't comprehend. Yeah, I I I said, Well, wait a minute. Sir, my parents are the ones that created me. Granted, yeah, okay, if if if you say God created everything, then they created, you know, my my grandparents, my parents, me. Right. I get that part of it. But in the reality-based part of it, I said, Well, my parents are the ones that created me, so I'm gonna love them first, you know. Um and that kind of that kind of just made me feel like I don't think he said the right thing. I don't know if he meant that um in that way, um, or if he meant it more of a spiritual way. Um, but the actual process of loving, like for me, that's like something that I can I I can grab.

SPEAKER_02 20:06

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 20:07

You know, so meet me trying to say that I I love a a being or uh entity or a god or whatever it be over over my parents, that kind of threw me for a loop. And then I kind of just stopped going and I never went back. And you know, over the years, I've asked my I've asked our mother-in-law, our mother-in-law, our I said, hey Nancy, I have just the one simple question, and this is the biggest question, and we could talk about this on the next topic, but of course I just want to bring up the question because this is my ultimate question out of questions of of of believing in God and Jesus and and every everything else. If God created Jesus, what created God? That's the ultimate question for me. And I haven't been able to find anybody to answer that question for me. I think if somebody can put it into reason that maybe uh my my thought process might be different. You see what I'm saying? Oh, absolutely, absolutely. It's an I and I know it's a question that is very tough to answer. You know, the answer I usually get is well, he's just always been there. But that can't be there, had to there had to be something before that, you know. I and I and I get it, you know. So that's usually the answer I get. Anyway, we could we can make another topic about it.

SPEAKER_00 21:38

Well, of course, but but see, this is exactly why this discussion is good because we can come at it at both perspectives in our own life journey. Let me tell you, let me tell you a mistake pastors make, and they make it all the time, is okay, they carry around. I don't know why I'm doing a visual. Nobody can see it. Boy, God, I need to I need to retire. Um, so what happens is well, you know, if they read a passage from the Bible, like I know the passage that the pastor was referring to, the Bible is made up of different letters and gospels and biographies. It is a like reading a book. And what happens is that pastors sometimes can lift, uh, I mean, we call them verses, but verses wasn't added until the uh I can't 15th century or 16th century. So scripture did not even have numbers and verses until 16 years afterwards because people got tired. Where are we at? Where are we at? And so somebody is okay, I'll put in some numbers. Well, what happens is that somebody will pick essentially one sentence and place it out of context, and then force their own belief system on that one sentence, sure. And that's how you get um extreme uh amount of of really terrible teaching and teaching that just doesn't add up. So so so I think one of the things for for uh for our listeners, wherever they are on the spectrum, is yes, you know, the the Bible and scripture as our guide, but it's very important, like if you say, okay, I'm gonna read Paul's letter to Philippians. Well, it's like you you're receiving a letter from a loved one, everything is in context, and you've got to look at that, at that one sentence in context, and that will lead you down a path where you can uh see some light in the darkness. And your your question does have a an answer, uh, but that's something we can we can get to later. But but here's the thing is that if you ever run into a religious figure or anyone who gives you the can response of you just gotta believe it, right, or run away from that as fast as you can. Yeah, that's you know, that's that's that's just um um heretical. When I was I I can't even put into words how much I hated going to church. My parents made me, I hated it with a passion.

SPEAKER_01 25:12

Well, and that's what I was gonna ask. I was gonna ask you the same question. Like, how how did you get involved in this?

SPEAKER_00 25:18

And and how how my parents made me go and I couldn't stand it. I hated it. The sermons would drive me out of my mind. Of course, I'm an introvert, and you know, I just didn't want to be there. My personality hasn't changed that much, so knowing me like you do, what do you think I wanted to do on Sundays more than anything else?

SPEAKER_01 25:45

You want me to say it out loud? Yeah, watch football, heck yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:50

I wanted to watch football. 100. I wanted to I wanted to watch football. I went early game, late game, Walt Disney. I'm good, and I don't want to sit and listen to this. I I I I remember taking a thermometer and putting it up against a light bulb and and hoping that I I mean then you know when I was it was 106 degrees. Yeah. Um so then we joined a church, and I just ran into Brian and Chelsea in the youth group. Yeah. Uh the youth minister there was like you all. The youth were like that, just really kind and opening and caring. You know, they cared about me. It wasn't so much pushing some type of theology or perspective, but from that period, from that time when I was I started getting serious when I was 16, 17 years old, because I was given a Bible, it's an ugly green cover called The Message, it's a translation of the Bible. You know, why did I want to read the thou? And yeah, right and all of this crap. I, you know, I'm not gonna read this. Uh, and so I began to read it for the first time and began to ask questions and understand. So the point of the whole thing is it is through the questioning and the seeking, you know, they call me the seeker. Through any discipline, that's where you find your answers, and you just take the light wherever it goes with you throughout uh you know, throughout your life. But that's one thing we could we could pick up.

SPEAKER_01 27:58

Yeah, sure. There's a lot of conversation in that.

SPEAKER_00 28:03

Yes, absolutely. And it is through the open conversation and and dialogue is where it's just like anything else, that is where you you arrive at a truth. If you if you read read through the gospels, Jesus is very irritating to people because they want to ask him yes or no questions. And every time he's asked a question, he'll come back with a question. And people want it in black and white, but he's he's attempting to draw people out and and to ask questions. So I think that's that's uh that's one of the things we can do on our journey, on our journey together.

SPEAKER_01 28:50

Sure, yeah. I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm excited to have this journey and and and and hopefully and hopefully expand my thought process on the church, on God, on Jesus, on all of it, you know. Um I I really I don't know how to phrase it. I I really want to see if there is something there. Um, it's not that I'm closed-minded and I don't think that. I know I I know a lot of people think that I am, um, and I don't want to know, but I I honestly do. Um I man, I I I just I'm I'm enthralled and I and I want to know more. Um you know, I'm sitting here right now watching this trial on TV. Um, you know, and that made me that made me even more, you know, oh the the kirk.

SPEAKER_00 29:47

Yes. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 29:48

You know, and it and it made it made me even want to uh know more. Um the guy was very highly Christian valued. Um and he believes in the same things I believe in. You know, I I I tell people I I my beliefs are pretty Christian based. Yeah. Um, you know, I believe in, you know, all the same things. I'm I'm uh you know, I'm not a I'm not a bad person. Um I don't go to jail, I don't get arrested, you know, all that kind of stuff. So I'm I live a normal life just like everybody else, but is there something else? Is there that's that's what I'm looking for. Um, I want to know for sure. And I think you can lead me in that direction.

SPEAKER_00 30:32

Well, we can we can certainly talk about it. And the good thing about it, it's just you and me talking, right? But the great thing about it is that you have you can have people listening to this all over the world from the comfort of their home, and just you know, we just invite each each other to just come come down and have a have a seat at the table as as we go through this and everything.

SPEAKER_01 30:54

100%.

SPEAKER_00 30:55

So we will put this online and we'll tell everyone uh uh when we're gonna do next. By the way, I got um I I don't know if it'll work because I'm you know I'm a genius at technology. Um I think I got artificial intelligence to summarize our conversation. Okay, and they will put it in a way. So so I like that. You know, we'll see. We'll see.

SPEAKER_01 31:24

You're you're a step ahead, you're a step ahead of me. Hey man, I don't know. I don't know what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_00 31:29

I'm Mr. Technology, just just just as Karen as I um I didn't shave today because honest to God, I I I couldn't figure out I got new razors and I couldn't figure out how to get the pokey thing on the razor. Brother, you take care of yourself, and I mean I will you do it. We'll talk to you soon, man. And thank you so much for being vulnerable. Um that takes open. Well, happy to do it. Okay, man.

SPEAKER_01 32:02

All right, brother. Say, brother.

SPEAKER_00 32:04

Behind a Chelsea, you take care.

SPEAKER_01 32:06

I certainly will.

SPEAKER_00 32:06

All right, my friend. Bye bye, bye bye.