#716 Discussing ACT One! Seeking Truth and Authentic Love in a Toxic Culture

Act One Discussion with Steve Thomas: I Wonder What Sort of Tale We’ve Fallen Into?

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived… for the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” — Henry David Thoreau

Dilecti Amici. Dear friends and brothers in Christ.

Let’s speak plainly.

You are living in a world that is loud, chaotic, and confusing. Social media, influencers, advertisers, schools, and even government all compete for your attention. Each tells you what to think, what to buy, what to fear, and who you are supposed to be. The noise is constant, and it leaves many young men disoriented and exhausted.

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Transcript

Why Young Men Feel Lost

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome to the Claymore Become Who You Are podcast production, the John Paul Tour Renewal Center. I'm Jack Riggard, your host. It's such a pleasure and an exciting time to be walking and journeying with young men. And we need the older guys because they're they they all sense something's wrong. And especially these young people that are saying, you know, what is the truth of things? You know, what is the meaning and purpose of my life growing up in this toxic culture? And we need the other people that are concerned about them that also grew up in a in a toxic culture, but but are a little bit ahead that say, hey, you know, I want to journey with those young guys. Uh uh Steve and I were just talking right before we came on, uh, that that there's something powerful that happens within a man, even an older man. Uh when when he when he starts to work with younger men again and and remembers the battles that we got through, some some of us are starting to come out the other side of this. You know, we've been seeking the truth our whole life. And what a what a what a privilege it is, uh, Steve, to, as I introduce you here, to be able to relate to these young people, to say, man, I was on a journey. I started, you know, with this, with this awe and wonder of the beauty of our sexuality and what is the truth of things and the awe and wonder of the sacred, and then this culture just destroys us, doesn't it? Twists and distorts our hearts. And and we've come out of the other end there, and it's so important for us to pass down the story because it's really our witness, Steve. It's it's it's it's people that have started to come through the other side, not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but found the truth of things and say, hey, my life was changed by this. And this is what we got to tell the story of young people, Steve, because if we don't do this, this isn't about dogma. This isn't about just learning rules. This isn't uh uh about just a morality issue. This is saying, you know, these lives were changed, and your heart uh knows something's going on. They know something's wrong, Steve. And thank you for joining us here today, brother. Uh Steve is himself an author, a writer, been working with young people uh a long, long, long time. Got a got a big family. Do you have eight eight children, Steve?

SPEAKER_00 2:09

Eight kids, yeah. I I also am a contractor, so I do contracting work and then uh like I said, like you said, wrote a book and uh very much interested in your topic, um, Jack, and thank you for having me on.

SPEAKER_02 2:22

You join you joined this Claymore leadership team, Steve, and and uh and uh we love your book, Catholic Joe, and and you know, that also speaks to young people, so it's a great novel. I'll make sure I get that in the show notes, brother. And and so yeah, you gotta pay the bills. We all gotta figure out ways to pay the bills, and and writing always doesn't do it, does it, uh uh Steve? So people don't realize how much energy.

SPEAKER_00 2:45

I was told early on, yeah, so you're not gonna make money writing books, but that's we don't we don't do it to make money. We do it because we want to inspire and and hopefully help some of these guys that are listening to um not make the same mistakes that we made, and and also just to give them, you know, kind of a real sense of hope and light. Um, just you know, I'm gonna share some things for my life, and you're gonna we're gonna dig into your book. We're gonna start that first the first act, right?

SPEAKER_02 3:10

Yeah, so so I'll just put I'll hold this up. You know, so we we we have an apostolate uh that people are hopefully familiar with now, Claymore Militas Christie. We're our whole journey is to help young men, especially, that are asking questions to seek the truth, um, and and do it in a systematic way. So this handbook was written in our apostolates based on a journey taken, starting from your heart, understanding marriage and the family, our sexuality, understanding what the culture has done to us and how to restore that in the nation. Uh, this is act one out of 52 acts, one for each week of the year. Um, I already recorded, so go back if you haven't done that already. You can listen to it. You can read it, of course. You know, get the handbook and read it. But I also recorded an audio for people that don't have the book yet. So today we're gonna add some color to that, Steve. We're not gonna go through that whole act. Uh I've already done that and it's in the handbook, but let's add some color to that act and and uh and and let's help young people unpack that. Cool. Sounds good. Let's do it. Jump in. Well, you start. I'm gonna let you I'm gonna let you ask some questions of me, brother.

SPEAKER_00 4:18

Okay, so um, so first of all, the very opening statement at the at the very beginning, I read it, I probably read it at least three or four times. And um I love it. And it's something that yeah, it's something that uh really spoke to my heart. Why did you start why did you start with that statement? Tell me why you started with that statement.

Thoreau And Quiet Desperation

SPEAKER_02 4:40

First of all, because I I wanted young uh young people, especially young men, to know that that this is this is this has been taking place for a long time. This brokenness has been coming down to us. It's accelerated, Steve. So so this is historically unprecedented what these young people are going through for many, many reasons that are being unpacked over time. But we have to get to the truth of things. So this is Henry David Thoreau. I I this stuck with me. This um what you're alluding to here, this phrase from him stuck with me since high school. I I read civil disobedience in a in a class uh talking about politics, etc., etc. And then I started to read other things of him and Emerson and stuff, but here's what he says. And because there was a time in his life where he's looking for the truth of things and he decides to go into the woods, Walden Pond, and just live out in the woods because he wanted to settle in. Like, what is going on in my heart, you know? And he said, I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, get rid of all the noise, right? What how how do we need that today, Steve? And see if I could not learn what it had to teach, the woods, nature, my own heart, meditation. And not when I came to die, discovered that I had not ever lived. And now he's looking out. He says, Because of the mass of men that I meet that I know live lives of quiet desperation. And why do they live quite lives of quiet desperation? Because they never take time to seek the truth of things, Steve. So that's what we're doing. And that's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_00 6:16

I get goosebumps when I when I hear that. It's just again, you know, how many of us really skin the surface, especially as we get older? You know, when I when I give talks to men, and we, you know, I I talk about guys, what's it going to be like when we come before God? We're all gonna take our last breath at some point. You know, what's it gonna be like when we come before God? What are we gonna bring him? You know, how have we, you know, how have we given him a return on our lives? I think about that Mel Gibson movie, um uh Braveheart, right? And uh and he's talking to the men, you know, do you want to at the end of your would you rather be safe and comfortable, or would you rather live a life of heroic virtue and you know, and just live life? Like that's why I love I love that that first state. That's that's so good. Um, another thing you talk about, you know, you talk about the noise, and you talk about the disorientation of of men, you know, of young men. The fact they're disoriented. So why why is that you know, talk about that a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 7:15

Well, they're disoriented because your heart is seeking the truth. You know, we're we're made to seek the truth. We're in embodied souls, and we're given something that the rest of creature creation doesn't have. And I don't think we really sit back because we don't teach this these things in school anymore. That we were given reason and intellect that the animals don't have, and we're given free will that the animals don't have. So reason, uh Steve, always always seeks the truth. What is the truth of things? So this is innate in us. It's the noise and the toxic culture that says, no, we can normalize sin, we can normalize using each other, we can you normalize violence, we can normalize abortion, we can normalize uh all these twisting and distortion of our sexuality where we no longer become a gift. And that's the truth of things, right? So talk about being a gift to somebody.

The Dictatorship Of Relativism

SPEAKER_00 8:07

Yeah, so talk about Pope Benedict. So Pope Benedict, right, he he mentioned something about um the um what is it called? The the dictatorship of moral relativism. Moral relativism, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:18

What is that? So we live on the surface of things. Yeah, and the dictatorship of moral relativism is is basically what I was alluding to there, where the culture tells you there is no truth. There's just my truth or your truth. So for you and I had to have a discussion, uh, Steve, if there's no truth we're ever going to get to, then it's all opinions, and that's what you see in the world. And so this is the dictatorship of moral relativism when we're told there is no objective truth that's out there, we just make it up as we go in in essence. And this brings an incredible dysfunction. I mean, what what what a bunch uh when you think about it, Steve, what a you know, what a bunch of uh prideful uh idiots we are. You know, we're we we are exploded onto the stage of this world, you know, with a universe that's that's huge. And we're this little tiny pinpoint, you know, on the top of a gas-fired planet spinning around, exploding out into space, and we think we got the truth of things, and it's gonna be my truth, Steve, not your truth. Instead of turning around like Henry David Thoreau and saying, Hey, I want to be quiet, I want to know what is the truth of things so I can apply it to my life and live it out. But he said the the the culture, and of course, uh Satan himself wants to rob you of that, and so yeah, it's just a bunch of opinions. So we just fight and argue and and uh and and and really even worse, we'd we try to bring legislate into law. All you know, you can kill your your own child. This is this is how barbaric we've become. We have a law that we can just kill our own children. Right, right. It's crazy, huh?

Pornography And Stolen Innocence

SPEAKER_00 9:51

You know, it reminds me too of um of Charlie Kirk, right? And uh yeah, his his um what he stood for. He really, again, he was somebody that it he tried again, he tried to dialogue and share it, he tried to dialogue with that moral relativism, and he just you know it was like pounding your head against the wall. But I mean, look at the sacrifice that he made. Again, he was the yeah, he was he was kind of representative of the turning point, right? What so what is the what is the turning point in your opinion, Jack?

SPEAKER_02 10:21

Well, you know, I I I I touched right a uh right away on uh pornography in here and the twisted ideologies, and and and really that's the turning point, you know. When a young man looks at a woman, and this is why I relate a story when I was a very young guy, still early grade school, and I'm leading my brothers out to an alley. Uh we lived in the city, and the alley was was this adventure, you know, and it was these three core things of a man. You know, we always knew we were going out in the alley. Uh we were gonna, you know, we were gone all day. We would just find these adventurous things to do. We always were well armed. You know, we had our our our plastic swords, our we had these rubber game uh uh uh rubber band uh guns. And one day, uh on this adventure, going out for battle, we knew it was gonna be a battle, right? We we we knew it right away. Young men know this, right? We're always fighting and bringing swords and army guys because we know it's life's supposed to be uh it's gonna be a battle, and we're getting prepared for that. Well, what's it all about? And I'm leaving the alley one day and I hear these voices, Steve, and and they're angelic voices coming down the alley, and I stopped, and and I and I was undoing the lock to the gate to get out, and I stopped and I look up, and and and there's these twin girls, just a few years older than we were, probably like fourth, fifth, sixth graders, and coming down the alley, and ooh man, it was I just got to that age where they all of a sudden I looked up, and it wasn't just a girl that where I was playing with, you know, on a playground anymore. All of a sudden they were beautiful. And so that's the third thing, right? We're on an adventure of life, a journey. We know it's gonna be a battle, and it becomes a battle to answer your questions for the beauty of things, especially the beauty of young women. What happens then is you see that awe and wonder of that beauty, and what the culture wants to do is twist and distort you so that you're using that beauty. In other words, true love is to say, hey, I want to be a gift to that young woman. I want to rescue her. And that's what I talk about there, and I won't get into it now, but I we want to rescue her from the evils of the world. And I get into this knights that that kidnap them in our imagination, and we would go there to rescue them. That's what a young man should be doing. You know, we see the sacred and it touches you. What does pornography do, Steve? It twists and distorts that until I become the evil person that that actually wants to use her, and the culture will tell you that's normal. So, so to you, we have to get back to the awe and wonder of how we're built. And we're built to be self-sacrificial. We're built to go on the battlefield. And like you said, look at uh this is not a man to go down in your parents' basements and live there and look at pornography and masturbate, Steve, you know, over some vision of some woman, right? I get it, you know, and all the young men we know and we meet today have been exposed to this on purpose, Steve. This is a twisting and distortion of their hearts. They've taken their hearts away from them, stolen their innocence, uh, uh darkened their moral imaginations. And and so what we're doing is just, hey, let's go back to Henry David Throw, let's get back to the truth of things and and know that there's there's more out there. But it's gonna be a sacrifice and it's gonna be a battle. And here's the last thing I'll say right now that battle begins on the individual person's heart. That's where the battle begins, you know. Yeah.

Marriage As A Sign Of God

SPEAKER_00 13:39

Yeah, for sure. And uh again, we think about all the you know, the the heroic people. I and I think about um Pope Benedict's statement. He said that you know, that we were made not for comfort, but we were made for greatness. And and the thing is, is that again, we need to we need to rediscover that part of us, right? You know, especially as we get older. Some of the older men are like, ah, you know, I'm I'm over my prime. And but that the thing is, is that we we all have a part to play, right? We're all on mission. And again, this this this point that you bring up about love, you know, which eventually leads into you know into marriage. The whole the whole world is distorted, the whole understanding of what marriage is. You talk about you know self-sacrifice, that really is kind of that really is where the battle is right now, right? It's it's about um not just you know love, but but that whole idea of marriage, what that means.

SPEAKER_02 14:38

And the in the importance of of the other side of this, uh also in Act One, I talk about when I was a young person at the same time that I saw the beauty of that woman, I understood the beauty of the sacred, uh, even as a young man, really as a young boy, really hearing those stories of Christ. Uh I, you know, going to these beautiful churches, our church was beautiful, and just the beautiful stained glass and and just like how this was built. And there was something about that sacred that that that grabbed me too. And so these are two connecting stories. So you brought up marriage and how many marital problems there are today. And why? Because we've disconnected those stories. In other words, marriage is an icon or a little uh a reflection, like a like a little mirror in this visible world of Trinitarian love. And when we don't connect those two, when we don't see that we're created in the image and likeness of God, marriage just becomes something between two biological people, and it never lasts because what we're trying to do, and this is the point, Steve, is I'm trying to fill the infinite desires of my heart. We're made for eternity, eternal love. And instead, I'm looking at my wife, I'm disconnected like a cut flower from that eternal story, and so I'm trying to suck the infinite love out of my poor wife who's a finite person just like I am. And so I'll never find that. So what I think is I think, ooh, I must have married the wrong person. My wife thinks I must have married the wrong guy, and we go on searching for something else to fill us, right? Drugs, alcohol, porn, another woman, another man. And so when we make the connection, and these five words that I bring out in this first act, Steve, uh, God wants to marry us. God wants to marry us. And you go, what are you talking about? All the scripture. And and the last thing I'll say onto this is the whole Bible starts out in Genesis with the marriage of man and woman in a in an earthly paradise. It all leads to, right, at the end, you know, it it all leads to a heavenly paradise with Christ and the church. That desire, that thirst that Christ has for Steve and Jack and everybody listening, is the same desire, that same love that we were supposed to express in marriage. And and if we disconnect those two, Steve, it's you it's what's happening today in the culture, you can see.

SPEAKER_00 17:00

Yeah, there's a lot of fear, right? There's a lot of fear around marriage and a lot of people that are kind of stepping back from that. So what so what would you say to that young man, again, who's maybe not been given a great example of what marriage is, maybe from a divorced family. Um, what would you tell that person that's kind of like been, you know, uh been burnt? What would you uh, you know, what would you say to that person?

SPEAKER_02 17:25

Yeah, you have to you have to you have to understand the larger story that you came into. And that's again, that's what Claymore Militus Christie, that's what the Claymore battle plan is all about, Steve. Exactly that. It's it's journeying with a person to get their hearts back. So there's three steps to this. The first is to get your own heart back, to to have this this this connection again uh to God and the truth of things, and and you'll know it in your own heart. You know, John Paul II would say it's when when your your desires, your burning, yearning desires to love and be love and to know meaning and and and purpose in your life, meet your life experiences, what you see out there, good and bad. And that's what we're talking about. The spark is supposed to be good, and and Satan in the culture wants to twist it. Well, when it meets the gospel, it meets the truth of things, and you know it. So it's not like pushing something down on somebody, a young guy is asking questions, and it's he's just opening himself. So instead of clamping down, Jesus would call it hardness of heart, he's just opening up and saying, What is the truth of things? And now you hear the gospel and you go, Ooh, that sounds true. So, what we're doing is journeying with a person through this journey that lays this whole foundation out, uh, Steve. And so that's what this is all about. Uh, so you if you're seeking authentic love, I am afraid of it because I see uh too many marriages come apart. Uh I grew up in a broken, dysfunctional uh family. We hear that all too often. So you lay this out again systematically in a way that my heart opens up to the gospel. Because, you know, if you see Jesus hanging on the cross, you know, he's pouring himself out to you. This is my body given for you. This is my blood given for you. This is the sacrifice that a man is is offering to his wife, and and versa, and vice versa, as a sign of again, eternal life. But they have to be connected because you know, Jesus didn't come to manage our sins, uh, Steve. He he came with power to give us a loving heart. You know, we have mercy, forgiveness, love. This is the first thing to understand that I'm forgiven, that God just wants to shower me with mercy and his love story, so that I can take this into my marriage, my children, and live this out. But if you don't know what you're living out, uh a young man would just get tired. You just get tired of the fight, and I start drinking. I go to porn. We see it over and over again.

SPEAKER_00 19:52

Yeah, and that's a that's a spiral that leads to to death. And uh yeah, we don't want that for you guys. We want what we want for you is we want you to rediscover that spark, uh, that hope, um, that and that desire that God has for you to to towards greatness, right? And greatness really a part of greatness is is being a loving person, is being a giving person. It's not being a person that's enslaved, right? And that's that's what you talk about in the book. Um, I think about myself, you know, I came from a divorced family. I came from just a lot of darkness. I mean, you know, father was an alcoholic, and how many times have you heard that, you know, that uh, you know, and so I guess I guess what I would like to share from my perspective is that, you know, again, I and I love what you're doing in the in the book, you know, to kind of give a breadcrumb, you know, like a trail for men to follow, um, to really define a sense of wholeness, healing, but also a sense of identity. Um, because I I think, you know, even as an older man, sometimes I struggle with my identity. I'm like, who am I? Why am I here? Why did God create me? You know, why did Jesus have to die on a cross? You know, it's like there I think these are a lot of questions that a lot of us ask, you know, and and I think that again, this is a journey that that you that you take people on in your book and you help them to take each step. Again, it's a it's a breadcrumb trail, one step at a time towards um greater healing, greater fulfillment, and greater sense of identity so that they can know what their purpose is in life. And that's that's the beauty of I think the book. And again, I was I just started reading it, you know, just kind of for pleasure, and then um and then I went back and I took a few notes and things like that. But um, but it's a good again, it's it's it's great to have some type of a framework to take somebody towards again a clear vision of what it means to be a man, what it means to to love, and and again, what is our what is our purpose in life? You know, that's those are the those are the key questions I think that you you tackle very well in here.

Passing Down The Faith Story

SPEAKER_02 21:59

Yeah. And again, you know, uh, it's not me, right? It's this is the beauty of our Catholicism, this is the beauty of our faith, you know, that that this was just given, uh, this is given to us, you know. We don't make this up. If if somebody says, you know, well, this is just Jack's opinion, you know, or this is another guy to read. No, this isn't more information, you know. This is actually unpacking that which has come down to us for you know since since eternity, right? The way we were created. So the this beauty of this is timeless. It's always been coming down. The problem we've had is we stopped passing this down. We we didn't receive it ourselves, Steve. And so we're you know, these poor young people are coming in, asking questions of generations like ours and and and before us, even, and we didn't provide the answers. We we kind of gave it up. We got materialistic. Uh, we we start to think, well, I don't need God, everything's going okay. You know, you think about your life. If your life's going okay, you you can reject God real easy. It's when the stuff twists and turns and gets distorted that you go, ooh, maybe I got to go back down on my knees. Well, here's the difference, Steve. It's evil is accelerated so fast that these young people are experiencing this at a very young age, which sometimes, if if understood and given the proper guidance, it's actually in a way it's better. I get hammered so bad, I've been attacked so much at a young age that I'm anxious, I'm nervous, I'm depressed even. And I say, you know what, guys, there's a reason for that because your heart was made for more, and you're sensing this. So the whole idea behind this, uh, Steve, and what we're doing here today is this isn't isn't just Jack or the John Paul II Renewal Center or Steve and Catholic Joe that you wrote. You know, that this is this is really every single man and woman needs to reach out to those around them. And this is what this is what the Claymore does, right? It gives us the tools to help our kids, our grandkids, our neighbors' kids, you know, whoever seeks our help, whoever God puts in front of us, because often we need some way to help them that's systematic, that gives them a whole layer of the land, and it makes it fun. In other words, instead of being an energy sucker, you know, you know, it just sucks the energy out of you. It's the opposite. You start to lit, you know, you start to journey with them in a way that is it's you know it's given to us, you know, flowing down to us. You step back into that journey. You you said this earlier, um, right before we even came on, I think, that you're invigorated when you turn and help the next guy because you realize, oh yeah, I remember when I was a young guy searching for love, searching for the truth of things, you know. And now you come out the other end after all the brokenness ourselves, and you go, It's the gospel. It's really the gospel. So that's what we're sharing, right? The gospel, the scriptural story.

SPEAKER_00 25:01

Yeah, no, and just to re-emphasize, so you know, even Jesus himself, again, today is Good Friday. Um, even Jesus himself.

SPEAKER_02 25:09

It won't be when it won't be when when this goes out to to make every it clear to everybody, right? So, but we're recording it on Good Friday, yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:17

So that my point is that even Jesus did not want to suffer alone. So any of you guys, you know, you we need each other. We need each other. And that's again, I what I love about what you're doing with Claymore is that you know, it's it's we we gotta help each other. We we get each other to heaven, right? Salvation is corporate, it's not individual, it's we get we work together to help each other, and um, that's what I love about it.

SPEAKER_02 25:42

Yeah, that's critical. It's the brotherhood, you know, find another man, walk, walk it together. It's so important uh what you just said, Steve. You know, we're starting to journey, and you'll say, Oh, I'm not alone. There's other men that feel this. In fact, all of us have gone through this, guys. That's what makes it so much fun because when when you're reading, even in the handbook, you'll you'll meet some saints in there, uh and and they'll tell their own stories, and they tell the same stories, Steve. I was searching for something. Look at St. Augustine. St. Augustine was a man of the world, you know, seeking it, you know, his adventure, his, you know, and knowing it's about, but going out into the world. He he never married the woman that he lived with for 15 years. He had his only son out of wedlock. And one day he's searching for the truth, and he hears uh Bishop Ambrose just declaring the gospel. And all of a sudden he goes, Ooh, what is that? And they came up with that great phrase, you know, our hearts are restless, Lord, until they rest in you. And again, it gets back to those things I said earlier. This desire is already in his heart. Yeah. You know, he sees the life experiences and says, Well, something's not working. What is the truth of things? And then he hears it at the proper time, at the right time, at the right place, and goes, Yeah, my heart was open at that time. And he knows it's the truth. That's what we're doing, Steve. We're we're we're we're journeying into what is the truth of things, and it's and it's and it's a it's it's it's a beautiful journey, man, and it's comprehensive. It answers all those big questions, right? Again, who am I? What's the meaning and purpose of life? What what is our human sexuality about? You know, how do you find happiness? How do I find love that satisfies forever? And you go, Yes, this is what I want to know.

Two Practices For The Battle Plan

SPEAKER_00 27:30

Exactly. Yep. It's a it's a it's a battle that's worth fighting. That's all I can say. And it's been a battle, right? It's been a battle. It is a battle. I remember when I when I give talks to people and I say, Yeah, I've been married 35 years and it's 28 of the best years of my life. People laugh, and I'm like, hey, there's you know, there's some years in there that are just really, really tough. And uh, but it's but it's but it's worth it, right? It's worth it. And that's the thing, is that we know we've got to we've got to uh we've got to have the that long vision, right? Not just short-sighted. And again, just to call people to greatness, to call people to mission, to let people know that there'll be souls in heaven if you are faithful to your mission. You know, we all have that part to play, even even in the smallest part is essential in God's plan. So we all have to, you know, we all have to find our way, right?

SPEAKER_02 28:23

And I I would just reiterate to people don't when you read the handbook and you're and you journey into this, go to our website, Claymore Militis Christie uh dot com. You'll see a battle plan outline there. Print that out. It's only six pages or so, and look at that. That'll give you the big lay of the land up here. So when you're journeying, you'll know what you're journeying for. And there's two asks, Steve, because everything that we're talking about, we asked just two things in the beginning. You know, knees before the phone, before you look at that phone in the morning, and it brings all of this in. It could be good or bad, but it's gonna fill you up right away and take you away from who you are. And so you fall to your knees. There's a shine-minute Claymore morning ritual there where you get into prayer. One of the most beautiful things and powerful things is you learn temptation is not a sin. And so all of these things, the guy goes, Oh, well, I'm addicted to porn, man. You know, you got to help me here, right? Temptation's not a sin. We get it. Hey, trust me, man. That that you know, God knows what he's doing when he asks us to pray, right? And so there's an act in the book, it's act 11, if you got the book, and and pray that prayer because it teaches you how to pray with temptation. It's really beautiful, and it's everything we're unpacking here. So that's the first thing. You you're because you're connecting, even if you've never prayed before, you never went to church before, you're just willing to listen to a story and say, hey, God, is there a plan for my life? Why not take a chance? You know it hasn't worked so far, right? And you're asking questions. Right. And so that's the first thing. Second thing is just read one act out of that book a week, and it's so important to discuss it with somebody, right? To talk it through because you'll connect your heart again and and you'll see that, oh, yes, it's reaching something deeper than I even knew was possible. But I I was restless, and the restlessness was a sign that says something's wrong. What we try to do instead is we we we get into uh addictions, we want to numb those restlessness. We don't we don't want that anxiety, and uh because we're doing something in our hearts that's that's twisting, or you're seeing something on the outside, and you're saying, no, something's wrong. So you get this anxiousness. Well, what do we do? We get addicted to to porn, drugs, anything to numb that pain because we don't know what to do. Now we know what to do. We're gonna open up those temptations, we're gonna read the story, the larger story we came into, and we're gonna discuss it with other people, and we're gonna find out. Oh, Steve, you went through that too. Jack, you went through that? Yeah, of course, dude. And you your journey together, it it's really I look at I I think it's the most fun thing you can do. It's brutal because you got to fight. Look at we we have a sword for a logo, Steve, and it's a big claymore sword, and it's two edged. The it the one edge goes into your own heart. You you fight that battlefield of your heart. The second one then goes out and you become a person of love. This is everything we're talking about here. It can be summed up like that. Fill me with divine life and love so that I can go out and be that love, that sign in the world. And that's become set self-sacrificial, man. I I have to I have to will the good of another person and take my selfishness away. Ooh, you know that's gonna be a battle, brother. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Love Story Closing And Next Steps

SPEAKER_00 31:33

Well, thank God for his mercy because we we definitely need it. And uh yeah, and I uh thank you for sharing that, Jack. It's it's um it's a great gift. Uh the book I would definitely recommend. And you know, and any anybody that's watching this, if you feel like in your heart there's an unsettledness, do you know that there's more? I just I encourage you to just you know click on, go go to the website, take a look, um, and find out where your place is where God where God wants to put you in life to again to bring other people, bring other people to heaven and bring ourselves to heaven. So thank you, Jack. Thanks for for uh for putting this together. Thanks for joining me.

SPEAKER_02 32:16

So let's end like this. You know, life's an adventure, it's a battle, and it's for beauty, especially the beauty of love. This is the love story, Steve. So thank you so much, man, because I know that that you're a lover, brother. I I I I've known you long enough now. So Claymore, become who you are. It it begins in your own heart, but it was never meant to stay there. It's always meant to be a visible sign in the world. It's when you take it out, when you act, that you'll really notice something different. Because you'll see the joy in another person, Steve. When when when I visit uh say my parents, uh, which I'll see today, uh they're old, they're getting old, you know, and uh they're beautiful people, but you know, you see the joy just because you walked into the room to say hi to them. I mean, yeah, what did I do? Nothing. And my mom does more for me, you know. Hey, sit down, I'll make dinner, I'll do this, I'll do that, right? But but you see the joy, and what is that joy? It's just your presence, being a person of love, and then you see that reciprocated, right? So it's a love story. It doesn't seem like it, does it, Steve? This battle doesn't seem like it, but that's what it is.

SPEAKER_00 33:16

No, it's it but you know, again, if you think about, you know, I again, you know, you think about why, God, why did you create me? Why, why did you create? I mean, you see the mess of the world, and you're like, God, why did you do it? And like you said, Jack, it can only be described as a love, as a love story, and again, you know, something worth fighting for. So I would say, you know, let's get let's, you know, let's get ready to rumble, man. Let's do it. Let's knock some, let's knock some teeth out, man.

SPEAKER_02 33:46

Yeah. Hey, God bless you, Steve. Thanks, everybody. Thanks for joining us. If you have any questions, my email will be in the show notes. And we want to bring up those questions and comments on the next show. So make sure that you're right. Talk to you later. Thanks, everyone. Bye-bye.