Red Dirt Catholics
Join Jayce, James and guests from "Red Dirt" Oklahoma as they discuss what evangelization and discipleship looks like in real life.
Red Dirt Catholics
An Age of Extinction is Coming. Here's How to Survive. (ft. Chris Scaperlanda)
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In this episode, Jayce and James sit down with Chris Scaperlanda, a father, attorney and friend, to wrestle with Ross Douthat's New York Times article, "An Age of Extinction is Coming. Here's How to Survive," all about how technology dulls desire, rewires dating, and thins out community, then offer concrete ways to choose presence, prayer, and embodied friendship. They strive to offer a grounded, hopeful take on resisting the virtual treadmill and building a human life that lasts.
• why distraction deadens desire for God and others
• tech as bottleneck replacing real practices with simulations
• dating apps, risk, rejection, and thin relationships
• McLuhan, Pascal, and the medium shaping attention
• junk food analogy for addictive digital design
• practical resistance: books, sports, gardens, live music
• parenting guardrails and tech-free formation
• community as inhale and exhale, parish at the center
• prayer off the phone, rhythms that restore attention
• ending with “choose life” as a daily practice
Article: "An Age of Extinction is Coming. Here's How to Survive.": https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/19/opinion/extinction-technology-culture.html
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Links and other stuff from the show:
Pastoral Letter, "On the Unity of the Body and Soul:" archokc.org/pastoral-letters
Red Dirt Catholics Email Address: reddirtcatholics@archokc.org
The Book "From Christendom to Apostolic Mission" (Digital and Print): Amazon
The Social Dilemma: https://www.netflix.com/title/81254224
Daily Examen Prayer: https://bit.ly/309As8z
Lectio Divina How-To: https://bit.ly/3fp8UTa
Anyway, welcome to Render Catholics. We've got we've got our boy James here, and we've got Chris Scaperlanda. Welcome to the pod. Hey. How are you? I am good, man. How are you? We're great. So Chris kind of brought this article to the forefront that we're going to discuss today, which we're super excited about. But you were sharing with us off air about your family vacation gone awry in Wisconsin.
SPEAKER_03:Well, to be clear, it was a it was actually a great vacation. Okay with my wife's family. It was awesome. But um we did discover something called lake itch, which um apparently in in the north, when the water temperature reaches a certain point and the goose poop has a certain uh parasite in it, then um it's basically the parasites get into your body and um they make your skin look like you have chicken pox and it itches like crazy. Um so there was one day, it was our second day there, and all the kids just started sobbing and scratching all over their bodies. No. It was uh not not not it was weird and it was good to find out it was in some communicable disease, but it it's not great.
SPEAKER_00:I haven't been have you been to Wisconsin, James? I have not. I've not been to Wisconsin either.
SPEAKER_03:It's a beautiful state.
SPEAKER_00:And that it has a lot, but it does have a lot of lakes, kind of like Minnesota in the same way.
SPEAKER_03:Anybody from Wisconsin will tell you that they uh they actually have more lakes than Minnesota, that Minnesota's just claiming the uh claiming the mantle.
SPEAKER_01:There you go. Okay, so for anyone who's enjoyed Minnesota or the Twin Cities or whatever, they just need to go on up to Wisconsin, is apparently the I I think that's what everyone from Wisconsin would tell you.
SPEAKER_00:Fair enough.
SPEAKER_01:I mean I I enjoyed that area, Minneapolis-St. Paul and the surrounding.
SPEAKER_00:I've gotten to know a few people. I knew a guy when I was uh when I was at like a national director's thing, I was with a the director from uh from Green Bay and for the director from Milwaukee, and they were great people and they were doing great things like even for the church, like those dioceses. Even even a couple weeks ago, I was looking at some of the stuff that Green Bay puts out. They're they know what they're they know what's going on.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, Lacrosse has a really cool shrine too, the shrine of our lady of Guadalupe.
SPEAKER_00:Right. That's where that's where Leaf came from, who was who was at the Blessed Stanley Ruth shrine for a while. Yeah. Um and he's awesome. So what's going on in my world recently is we've we've been ha we there's been a gastrointestinal bug running around, and it and it hit us and it hit us hard. Um Peter came in one morning, our six year my six-year-old son, and tapped Danielle, who's her whose back was kind of turned as as she was sleeping, and was like, mommy, I don't feel good. And then there was no there was no stopping what was coming, and he just and he just hurled all over the bed and Danielle, and it was a it was a bloodbath, and now Danielle's been sick um the last couple days. And now you're here with us. So far, I mean, so far, I I feel great. Um so I hope I hope that everything's okay. But yeah, it's been wild.
SPEAKER_01:What about you, James? What's going on? I feel for your kids. I I had I recovered from it about a week and a half ago or so, but I had the nastiest poison ivy thing going on. Like, and I was just I've been working with my hands a little bit more, like trying to get in the field of our developments and be out there and even work with the guys some when finer things are done. And you can just tell, like, well, apparently you're not practiced at this because you walked right through a bunch of poison ivy without noticing. And now I'm keenly aware, you know, what the three look like. But and I guess I knew, but I was I was so I was actually like kind of enchanted with this forgotten part of our uh land we're developing that has a beautiful creek view, like not unlike if you're in a neat part of Martin Nature Park or Bluff Creek Trails or State Park. It feels that way when you're down in that and you're like far this, far, far enough away from the nearby streets that for a good section you feel like you left. Um so it's actually taking a video, explaining it to someone and some ideas, and I'm pretty sure I was like walking through everywhere and itching, but I had like both legs full on. And then they ended up swelling. So with my more than the normal disease, I had to I was kind of worried at one point.
SPEAKER_00:I used to always think that I was immune because I would like when my family used to live on some acreage, and so I'd go and dig around and find stuff and explore and shoot grasshoppers with my BB gun. And I never I never had a problem with uh with catching it, but my friends would all the time. They would come home and they would be all bad, and I was like, Well, we were in the same spot, so I'm great. Then there's one time where I I was disc golfing and I don't know what I touched. Um, but it got me and it got me bad like my face and my arms and my legs, and I have become much more keenly aware since then it's it's a brutal thing. Um but lake itch lasts a month though.
SPEAKER_03:You say yeah, my son, uh my four-year-old still has uh spots all over him and will for another couple weeks. We had to explain when he goes to gymnastics and stuff like guys, he's not contagious, it's just lake itch. And then no matter what.
SPEAKER_01:Exactly.
SPEAKER_00:Well, there's something to that. There is a there's a certain degree, like even with like at the cathedral we're running, we were running our lake camp the other week, and if it got too hot, then you can't go out there. Um you can't go on the lake, and it's probably for something similar, but maybe our goose poop is different here. Who know? Who knows? Um, basically. But uh Chris, we're super excited to have you to talk about the age of extinction and how to survive. So uh let's let's start with a prayer. Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Come Holy Spirit, Lord. Thank you for Chris and for James and for Avery uh and for this team as we create uh uh yet another podcast together. Um Lord, allow us to have our friendships uh shine a light on the Trinity uh and the internal community. Uh allow us to uh uh communicate well and share our thoughts and be articulate and whatever's whatever's come in before, let it let it fall away and let us just be focused and present and intentional. Um and we pray for all of our listeners that there will be something in this uh in our discussion that will be uh uh eternally fruitful for them. In your name we pray. Amen. Father, son, holy spirit. Amen. So, Chris, tell us a little bit more about yourself.
SPEAKER_03:Uh well I'm an attorney here in Oklahoma City. Uh, work at a firm called McFee and Taft. Um I have six children, uh ages 14 to 4. Uh my oldest will be in high school next year. Um anything else you want to know? Where do you go to where what's your what's your home parish? Uh St. Francis of Assisi.
SPEAKER_00:Nice.
unknown:Nice.
SPEAKER_03:We've been going there since we moved back to Oklahoma in 2013.
SPEAKER_00:What kind of law is McAfee and Taft?
SPEAKER_03:So we are a full service business law firm. Um, so we have people who do IP work, people who do mergers and acquisitions. I do litigation.
SPEAKER_00:Gotcha. So you how often are you or how often are you at trial when you're in the litigator?
SPEAKER_03:Aaron Ross Powell, an actual full-blown trial is probably once a year at the most. Wow. Um, but we're in front of judges a few times a month.
SPEAKER_00:Wow. Um, so give us a little bit of uh the backstory of like this New York Times article that you that you found and like where you where it came from.
SPEAKER_03:And yeah. So um it came up. Jane James and I, our kids go to school together. Um, and uh James and I are actually on the board of that school together, and the uh the headmaster had asked the board if we would read this article, and um James and I got to talking, and that's how this article sort of came up.
unknown:Nice.
SPEAKER_00:That's easy. That's easy. And and James, what what what stood out here?
SPEAKER_01:Aaron Ross Powell Okay. So as I'm reading the article, you know, I was first reading it under the pretense of like, oh, okay, we're prepared for this meeting about the school, you know, and and then I'm reading it, I'm like, whoa, this has like deep implications for my own life, you know, for life of my friends, for the life of my family and how I raised my family. And I just started to like kind of think a little bit deeper about lots of ways that I'm engaged with technology or um really anything, or to say it conversely, ways I'm not living in the real world. Or ways that our children, especially if this amplifies, could find themselves um not, you know, living in the real world, so to speak.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think that this article, like in its in its crux, is just talking about like when you first sent it to me, I was like, whoa. I just saw the headline. I was like, on my I was just on my way to Sam's Club to buy some, to buy some trace for an event at the cathedral. And I was like, man, that seems that seems really intense. And then I actually got in, and then I got in and to read it, and I was like, man, this is something that we all, I feel like we all kind of know already, in a sense. Like there's a part of the human part of us, like cries out for knowing that like that we're settling for less sometimes whenever we're reaching for something um in the digital world in whatever way it is, you know, like like the other, like the other podcast when we were having messing around with AI, having it roast you, and somehow knew you were a uh uh and knew you were a uh real estate agent just by how you were dressed and and and different things like that. It's a pretty funny moment.
SPEAKER_01:You like send a picture to the into the AI and it gives you a roast just based on the picture. I think it just had to be this guy works in real estate and sells conspiracy theories on the side or something. You're like, none of that's even a roast, that's just me. It's like were you listening to my conspiracy theory conversation 30 minutes ago?
SPEAKER_03:So you guys are the professionals. Should we tell the audience what the article is? So if they want anybody wants to hit pause and go find it.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, 100%. It'll be down, it'll be down in our show notes. Avery will be putting it in there, but it's there on the New York Times. It's written by Ross Duthat. An age of extinction is coming. Here's how to survive is where it's at. And Avery will we'll make sure Avery gets that in the show notes. So yeah, if you want to go read that real quick. Um or don't. Whatever you want to do, really.
SPEAKER_01:Or listen, then read it. Or listen. Because we're not gonna hit every little sentence in here. There's some good. We're not.
SPEAKER_00:So like James, dive a little bit more in, like, of where we're where we're coming to with the podcast or with the with the article.
SPEAKER_01:Um I I think like if you what I would say is if you've pondered, hey, technology is accelerating and what how do I think about this AI thing and how should I engage with it? I think the article and hopefully our conversation gives some fodder for for how we might engage that in that way. And I'm hoping we can just kind of drill in. I don't want to.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So one of one of the things that the that the article states um is that there technology throughout the ages just kind of creates some bottlenecks where things don't get out and things don't survive. You know, we can think of the age of streaming and how it murdered Blockbuster or, you know, the car, you know, killing carriage manufacturers or whatever it is that like as as there's some sort of progress happening technologically, some things don't survive. And it's it's kind of extrapolating with everything that's happening with social media, with streaming, the way that we consume content, our phones, AI, um, all of those things where we would end up. And I think the I mean, the basic thing is that there's a fatal progression happening, that we are moving towards uh an undoing of the human person.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I was gonna say, I mean, that that's the key difference between this bottleneck and streaming killing blockbuster, right? Is that um in that case, you know, blockbuster gets destroyed, okay. But in this case, what you're talking about is the ability to live in the real world, have real relationships.
SPEAKER_00:And I think that I think that that's so key and so important. And and you see it all the time. Like I have a friend who, uh amazing guy, super great, has been struggling in the in the dating pool. Um, and I think that some of it is like he his perception of women, I think has been skewed by all of this digital stuff. And it mentions it in the article, like that dating is really suffering. And we see this all the time. Like the Archdiocese is in doing a great job with have hosting like Art of Dating series to try to like make it easier for people to pull out and connect with that real world. But there's something there's something that's missing and is dampening, and it's not as even as fun to re-enter real life after having been only finding your spouses digitally recently. And the and the percentages of like how you found your boyfriend or girlfriend, I feel like the vast majority nowadays tends to be from an app. It's going up. Um, absolutely going up. And so as they change with that, things change. Um like people aren't going places anymore. Like instead of instead of going to a bar, we're just scrolling mindlessly through Bumble or something like that. Um I don't even know what Bumble is.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:It's it's one of the apps. I mean, there's uh and and there's so much money to be made in these apps as well. Like I think Bumble is one of the fancy ones where um it prioritizes the females, like the female has to initiate the interaction because otherwise, like I actually watched a whole YouTube video about the the the economics of uh of the dating apps, that there is a a huge difference between how what how the guys use a dating app and versus how the girls use a dating app. And as the guys use it, they will they end up becoming numb to it all and start just spamming every single woman. Um and it just becoming a numbers game for them of whatever woman wants to return back of having some sort of letter. Whereas the women are very specialized in that 50% of the women only respond to 2% of the men naturally on the dating apps.
SPEAKER_03:Interesting.
SPEAKER_00:That's fascinating.
SPEAKER_01:You have any thoughts?
SPEAKER_03:On specifically dating apps, uh, no. I mean, I I was fortunate enough to get married before those became a became a thing. Um, I was telling you guys a little bit before the show started. I mean, as I was kind of reflecting on this article this morning, one of the the the realizations that that I had in this sort of piecing it together with some other stuff I've been reading, but there's an article in, you know, I mean we all know that everybody's using technology a lot more and spending a lot of time on their phones, right? And the stats are the stats are the stats, right? We all know that that's happening. You see it when you see somebody walk to the bathroom at work, right? But one of the the realizations I was I was having is there's this other article in The Atlantic by a guy named Derek Thompson talking about how despite people spending more time alone than ever before, people are actually self-reporting loneliness at a lower level than they were in the 1990s and early 2000s. And so it's not just that something is missing, but that like this technology is actually depriving us of the sense that something's missing. Um, which I frankly I think has some pretty terrifying implications for religion, right? Because I think if you, you know, one of the primary reasons that religion can flourish is because people realize that something's missing in their life, right? It's the you know, the God-shaped hole, right? And um, you know, Pascal writing 300 years ago talked about distraction as one of the major threats to people really engaging with that reality. And that was back at a time when you had to sit in a parlor and play cards, right? And and now you could just sit alone in your bathroom with Twitter or X, I guess.
SPEAKER_01:That's fascinating. I love that you mentioned Pascal when you brought brought it up. I was thinking of screw taped letters when the minor demon is getting instruction from the major one and saying, like, hey, look, like I think the demon was trying to get him in to get the subject into like really big sin. Right? Like really something fleshy and bad. And he was like, hey, like, we don't really want to get caught right now. Like, don't go that far yet. But just keep him kind of busy. Just keep him worried about a lot of a lot of other things, you know. And I'm paraphrasing, but to your point, like it seems like the enemy would want us to be very distracted and very thin in our engagement with life. Um and to your point, it's if even if I just examine my own life across seasons, times where I'm really thin, I'm like way less aware of this my spiritual movements, of what God's doing, of what my higher roles in my family are.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think we've we've talked about this before. Um as we've you know, when we were talking about the religion of the day and how our phones are such a a way to disappear um and to numb that God-shaped hole uh and whatever and or whatever other wound that we're nursing, um, that it's just a it's just so easy. And and it's so and everything all of these things are so much easier. And w nobody disagrees that the the experience of meeting your future spouse uh at church or at a bar or something, nobody disagrees that that is a a more natural and a more human way to for that to happen and that and probably a a better way overall, but the speed of it, um the speed of it isn't necessarily as fast as when you can just swipe through on your phone left and right. Um, and it's a lot less safe. Like you were talking about this off-air, that there's a risk with human-to-human interaction. There's a risk of like risk of rejection, there's a risk of um just not getting your own needs fulfilled or something like that. And when we're diving into all of these things, like one of the nice things about my phone, it always listens. You know, AI, AI, when we ask it to entertain ourselves for whatever or not, like it's it's uh theoretically the machine of infinity, like the anti-infinity almost in a way, of that it can just go forever. And like like people, it's on the rise. One of the craziest things is that it's on the rise in our like if you look at the top app store stuff, like apps that are like talking about AI companionship is way on the rise.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I think you know, Dalfat says it pretty explicitly in the article, which I think is to me was one of the more insightful points. He says the substitution, right, of he goes through a list of things like you know, book talk is to literature as OnlyFans is to the great great romantic love. Online sources of local news are generally lousy compared to the vanished ecosystem of print and newspapers. But then he says um the substitution nevertheless succeeds and deepens because of the power of distraction, even when the new forms are inferior to the older ones, they are more addictive, more immediate, easier to access, and they feel lower risk as well. Right. And so I think and I think he's nailed it that the the the lack of risk, right? The fact you don't have to really put yourself out there and engage with reality, um, which is inherently risky, is is is one of the reasons this is all attractive.
SPEAKER_00:Why do you think, like, where do you think the moment comes from? Like if we're looking at it from how we got here, like it wasn't always like the the ethos of the of the day to not go out and seize the day. In fact, sometimes it was like go out and go find something, like go to the go to the club and meet somebody and all of that stuff. Like, even though it's not not ideal the way that it's asking us to do human friendships, it still encouraged that. But now there's been a change. Where where do you think that comes from?
SPEAKER_03:Aaron Ross Powell Well, I I I think I would at least push back a little bit on the idea that it it that that that this hasn't always been there to some degree, right? I mean, and back in the 1980s, Marshall McLuhan wrote a book called Amusing Ourselves to Death about the fact that um basically the rise of television meant that that people just want to be entertained, right? They're no longer engaging in in reality in the same way. And so I think you're seeing a progression that's occurred for a very long time. I mean you know, I think to some degree it's not unlike junk food, right? Like we're sort of wired to want certain things. And then basically companies have realized there's a way to make the extreme version of what we're addicted to, um, what what nature has made us to crave. And then, you know, we are biologically it's very difficult to turn off that desire, right? And and so things that in small doses in in in the real world would would be good become bad because they're overdone and being monetized.
SPEAKER_01:Aaron Ross Powell It's a r the junk food analogy is a really great analogy. I like that. Because I mean if you think about processed food and stuff like to be really specific, like sometimes our body wants salt and fat. Like our brain needs that. Right. That's really good for you. It's good for you. Like we shouldn't, and the whole counter-rejection of like all the low-fat foods actually did went the wrong way in some respect. Like, yeah, your brain wants fat and salt and then it wants protein. But so, like, what's a potato chip? It's like fat and salt and extra hydrogenized and put in a package, and then we added some other addictive things. But it's base level. I am designed to want the chip, or the things it has at least, right? But now that they've hooked in where that's easy. It's interesting. I agree with you that, and I this is where my thought was sometimes is like he's talking about this cultural bottleneck in the article, right? So there's this almost this insinuation that it's been something moving in progress for a while, and now we're at the we're near the scathe and it's about to be we're fully trapped. Sure. And so it's interesting, like one thing totally different. We're gonna roll back the clock, maybe even further than the 80s, right? Like when did the Great Books program at KU happen? I think it was in the 70s, wasn't it? In the 70s, that's right. And so like you even look at that moment in time, and I'm just you could probably speak more intelligently about this, Chris, and others in our community could, but like, you know, John Sr. is known for like realism, right? And I've just been like scratching the surface on that. But I know like some of my parents' friends and the people I grew up with, an Archbishop, and we've had Bishop Conley on here too. Like, we've seen the product. Like if we're around and we're Catholics, we see some of the people, even right. And we've seen what they've written. But like even at that moment in time, these things were happening. While they didn't have the smartphone or AI or whatever, like the shift in the culture was happening where they were being drawn out of things that are real, out of things that are true, good and beautiful, and into temporary and cheap. Right. You know, and and now we're at we're at a pace where we're super accelerating, where maybe more of us can notice. Um, but like I'd even share like my own career as an example. Like, I'm a real estate broker. Well, lots of my on the past few years, lots of my stuff has been between distant parties in theory and lots of electronic communication. And there's a different level of human engagement and fulfillment when I'm developing a piece of property that also has to do with real estate, and I'm talking to the people who are doing the work, if that makes any sense. And it's harder, and I have to negotiate with it, and I don't know this person as well. Whereas, like, oh, I know the boxes I need to check here, send the deal, you got it. I don't know if that makes sense, but I've been questioning my own life the way I live. Like, well, they're both real and affecting the real environment. This one I'm really engaging with humans and I'm really touching and seeing the thing. Um, but like go back to the great books program, sorry for the monologue. Like, some of those people were just on a way, a path that was unquestioned, that was default for them, that was shoveling them into kind of a you know, a consumeristic world. And then they were disrupted and spent a scandalous amount of times together and reading great books and viewing the stars and like the juxtaposition of their lives, trajectories of where they were and what changes.
SPEAKER_03:Well, but I think to your point about the real, I think it's very easy when you talk about great books to think about like people in a room just reading and talking and sipping whatever they're sipping. Um but but I mean, John Sr. ran away from home to go work on a ranch, right? I mean, like there's there's very much an element of it's not just about um like just sitting around talking about books, but it's also about experiencing the real world and having the books that you read influenced by the real experience you have and then influence the way you interact with the world, right?
SPEAKER_00:I love that idea, and that's something that like as I'm looking at my own life, this idea of experiencing the role in the real world and how often like the current age that we're in and even the way that I operate in my own life, that I I see it as an inconvenience sometimes, or at least I can. Like the other day I had to go grab something from the store really quickly, and and but I needed it right then, so I couldn't just like order it off of Amazon and let it be there the next day, you know. Um and I I think that that's something that we do all the time. Like, oh it's just it'll be easier to like go on Amazon and go get it. And so that's why, you know, the malls are dead or whatever, that there's an online there's a there's something there about how it I don't know if it's a prioritization of the self, like this like the the the initial pride of like looking at what our what our goals are and looking at it as a purely cons consumable thing. Um but yeah, I'm just I'm I'm feeling convicted about in that specific area that there's something there's something about an overevaluation of how we should be spending our time.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, and to kind of go back to your earlier question, I mean, I think and I think to kind of sum up what James and I were saying a little bit, um there's like basically the desire to be entertained has always been there for people. But like if you live in a world where you have to like work in a field or you know, like there's there's a limit to how much you can do that and still survive, right? And then we just live in a day and age where it's really easy to just be entertained all the time, right? I mean, um, you know, it used to be you had to bring a book to the bathroom if you wanted to be entertained. Now you've got a phone with like a hundred apps and six different games, and you can I mean, uh basically every moment of your life can be entertained.
SPEAKER_00:So where does it so what does this naturally lead us to? Like why why are we talking about extinction when it w when we're when we're discussing this specifically?
SPEAKER_01:It's interesting, I I like that he's compared like later in the article, like if you were to preprint the PDF, it's only a couple pages in, but it's like the second page. He talks about like, okay, we're not just talking about the goal of survival, we're not looking at a physical threat like a plague or a famine that's gonna that's gonna address us, but really this era is kind of killing us softly by drawing us in into the virtual and out of the real without us knowing it. Um and so you know, it's gonna make existence on a human scale seem obsolete. And so I I guess the if it were just through a human view, it's like if if people are coming, I mean we see the the psychological rates skyrocketing of of you know complications, but then even spiritual implications are huge. But even the breakdown of the family as it as we know it, like if if my primary modality is having technology act upon me and me being sucked into its little web, um and there's nothing intervening me out of it, like the the human person being reflecting and that article doesn't say this, but it's where I'm convicted, the human person like reflecting the creator and like actually having the ability to create and add value in of themselves instead of being just this cog and a wheel. Like I think that we're j to your point that anti-infinity, we're being drawn and we're being put on some treadmill that's just gonna change who the human race uh how the human race is and who they are as opposed as opposed to where we've been. I don't know if I'm making any sense. So but yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I I a hundred percent agree with you. I love the the treadmill analogy with it, right? That that it's just gonna kind of keep going around because we're we're dealing in things that are not transcendential, beautiful things and truthful things anymore when we're doing that. And I love how you're talking about like within the family construct itself. Like the article talks about, and I think it's true, like people are meeting each other less and less because they have they they can get their needs fulfilled in a quicker and a cheaper way, just like that, and what in whatever way. Um people are getting married less and less, they're getting having children less and less, and are viewing it like I've been seeing articles writing recently where they're having to try to justify having children. Like, like I am less, like the the the the headlines of these articles is I'm less happy having my children, but I'm glad that I did it. And here's why. That it's uh that's some sort of like this noble thing, and that's what's that's what we're talking about. now is that that children are this um this priority that we don't want to have um anymore because it's gonna get in the way of what I want to do on a a daily basis. But I think that we see that every night in all of our homes in one way or another in one way or another. Like I can think about it like even within our family. Like when we come home, we're all spending time together, we're eating dinner together, we're going through our going through our routines sometimes sometimes we're reading a book, sometimes we're watching a movie, whatever it is, but there's a togetherness with it. But there's also like a moment of once all of that's done, there's like a little retreat unless like Danielle and I have specifically scheduled things there's like a little retreat to like all right let's go to our phone or something like that. Like that's something that happens I think that in a high percentage and we see it even more like within our kids. Like I remember taking a group of students to Steuvenville recently and I was this close to like banning phones for the whole trip but I like I didn't want to I didn't want to like I didn't want to ha make it so that parents could couldn't communicate with their kids. So that was there was a balance there that I gotta figure out. But the second they're going through this life changing thing they're receiving the gospel they're ha engaging in friendship they're not having their phones out while they're there but the second we come back and they get back to their rooms or into the lobby where we were just like eating pizza and deconstructing the day like they were all just like they it was like their default. Like it was the second that something in front of them wasn't big and happening there was a movement back to it. And I think that there's a there's a countercultural rebellion that we'll have to have. And then a greater intentionality to fight against that. Because I think it's just easy. Right?
SPEAKER_03:Well that that's one of the things I find interesting about I was going to ask you guys if you if you like if you thought that Dowthat's conclusion the article was I mean is it because it you know obviously everybody should read the article but but basically he he comes to the conclusion like look it's tempting to say that we need you know to found some giant movement or something like that, but really what we need to do is like have kids practice religion found you know found a school support local theater and museums and operas and concert halls, even if you can see it on YouTube, pick up the paintbrush, the ball, the instrument so his his solution it's a solution, but his answer is is extremely personal, right? That that all we can really do confronted with the fact that these these things which by the way we should acknowledge that James and I are both reading the article on our phone. I know amazing commentary but but but these things are um you know they're like the they're they're they're there and they're not going away and so his answer is is is intensely personal and and just like look we just have to rebel against this and live our lives differently. Do you guys think that's a satisfying answer or is is it it is it not enough?
SPEAKER_01:I felt really compelled by that like the last paragraph you just read in paraphrase like it felt like a battle cry even though they're very simple things some of them are simple found a school is quite complex to be clear but for sure um and like upstarting an orchestra or whatever but supporting one or going to one or the pick up the ball I I love that he almost illustrated in a poetic way like some a menu of options but um I think there's probably I like that you're tempting us with the is it not enough um I think that if we're not doing those things, if we haven't started to retreat out of you know off of the current treadmill or notice when we're on it and retreat out of the digital and find more moments in the real life like we that's like permission to play have to I don't know if that makes sense like we have to do that if we're gonna yes you can't give what you don't have. Yeah and so I think you we have to all of us as Christians period I think we have to start spending more time in reality and have a healthy discernment posture of when am I getting on that treadmill? When is technology acting upon me instead of me being its master kind of thing. And I think we have to guard against and this is me speaking from my personality because I would immediately because I'm kind of a let's go conquer I think we have to guard against not being too intense about the counterinsurgents because we could accidentally and I like his line earlier he says mere eccentricity doesn't guarantee survival there will be forms of resistance and radicalism that turn out to be destructive and others that are just dead ends but but then he says but normalcy and complacency will be fatal. Which is kind of cool because he's kind of almost talking about virtue like virtue's in the middle of this and so I think it's it's not an option as Christians or as people who don't want to get caught up in the cultural tide to be to be normal by the world standards and to be complacent. And so like um to I'm answering your question roundabout way I think we have to do what he said there. But I think some of us particularly if we're in a realm of leadership particularly if we have a family I think we have to be a little we might have to go a little farther depending on where our charisms are than than what he's suggesting there. No. And I think he gave an example like found a school is quite an undertaking and some people need to do that. So we're talking about someone who started a whole institution right but what are your thoughts? Do you think it's enough or do you think we need to go farther?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah I I think you hit the nail on the head. I mean I think you know all all of us are called that whatever our sphere of life is to r to respond in in a way that we can and if that's um you know I mean like you and I are on the board of a school and at that school the kids like there are like the kids are not assigned there's no technology in the school right I mean I think I to me that's critical, right? But that's also just the sphere we happen to be in. But you know at the same time like yeah you're right like it has to be you have to live it out right you have to make intentional decisions and and probably be a little more intentional than any of us actually want to be.
SPEAKER_00:Mm-hmm Yeah the thing that came up in my head the first thing is when I when I was thinking just for myself do I think the article is enough and like the the instant knee jerk reaction is like no because everything everything's still there and we're competing against something competing against something that's really difficult for us to tackle systematically as an entire society on a macro scale was like was where like the source of my disfaction was coming in well there was macro le there's really not a whole lot we can do like we could we could write policies we could ban TikTok we could do whatever it is you know from a from a government standpoint or even from a a city standpoint church standpoint but like I think the thing that the temptation is within that is to see the problem as elsewhere um and everyone else's problem is or say or see other people's it's worse off for them. But like genuinely what I think what I like about the article and why I do think that it's a great thing and it's hard to be more than what it's doing here is that it's asking the question but it really is we have to look at ourselves. Like that's the difference between a Christological worldview is looking at the world and saying this is what's wrong with the world and it's everything that's outside of myself but really we just have to look at ourselves um and how we respond to some of these things. And I think that's why that's why I'm like trying to look at my own living room every night and think through like well what's what could we do differently um but I think the other thing that's a chal that's challenging is like doing something like this when everyone else is looking at their phone to an extent and and all of that like it's hard to find that community even you know and or to find the people to go and found a school with or the the people to go to the concerts with and different things like that. It can't all you can't just only do it within like a singular family construct. There has to be a a a community there though that's where I think the church ultimately comes in um but yeah so I'm like all sort I'm I feel all sorts of different ways like on the one way I'm like man how are we can't put the genie back in the bottle um and our kids are growing up with this but at the same time like it's just a on a it's such an individual person scale and like looking at it that way.
SPEAKER_03:Of course oh you might have a thought I was gonna say I should have thought that I had a question for you. I think in some ways you you obviously can't put the genie back in the bottle but I think I I I will say that I I think it's easier to be a parent with this stuff now than it was maybe 10 years ago in that people are waking up to the realities of like how how in pervasive some of this stuff is right like I mean I've you know my oldest is 14. We're at the age where like you know kids and kids' friends like have access to phones and things like that. And I think on the whole parents are a lot more attentive to what their kids like parents who grew up with this stuff are aware of what it can do and are a lot more attentive now than I get the sense that maybe parents were 10 years ago where it was just like yeah here's your here's your smartphone go for it. And there's a lot of services out there like I mean Apple has figured out a way to you know you you can through the screen time app control what your kids can and can't do on their phones. I do that for myself. Yeah. Yeah. And um yeah but the difference is you have the passcode on your phone so I give it to him. It's baller. But uh you know but but I think people have realized like there like different companies have realized there's a market for this, right? Because no people don't want a 12-year-old to walk around with a smartphone that has unlimited access to everything in the world. So I I I agree with you you can't put the genie back in the bottle but I am grateful that people are starting to realize like hey these these some of these things are a real problem.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah it's almost like when you become so perverse in a way that it's hard to ignore it's almost like when the cigarette first came out and it was kind of cool and we're playing with it and we're almost thinking that it's not that different than smoking tobacco out of a pipe or whatever. We don't realize everything that's worse about it, right? It's like okay after you get enough away from the intervention we can see a little more soberly what might be wrong with this. Still problematic perhaps but we can understand it's the same thing with technology I think it it is more helpful. I had I had two thoughts I have one thought I have a question I want to ask you Chris but while we were talking about it it's interesting to your point on like the culture waking up to it. And I think I might have quoted on here but um there Forrest Frank popular he's gone viral a lot of kids love him. He's got this song um where for whatever reason even though I feel like I'm like unplugging off of the like endless scroll on the social media and stuff like it resonated in my bones and if the song is going viral I think it resonates with the current generation but it I think it's called Good Day and like the refraining lyric is like I've got Jesus my family and my health and I don't need anything else he says that a lot but then a little bit later he says like I'm sick and tired of endless scrolling on my cell phone and so to just see in the culture and this is a Christian songwriter but he's hit categories of chart topping to see that group of consumers celebrate that song with their listen count and sing it out loud. You know what I mean? While they're scrolling. While they're scrolling right and so he's to your point on like not enough like the other question is and the article insinuates being a master technoling instead of it mastering you I think there are some people and some times where we have to be engaged in the system we live and for some families and people we might have to choose no I'm gonna cut that totally off like almost an Ignatian way of looking at it like in the principle and foundation is like even in it's just interesting to look at in that way like okay he's leading the culture and it's coming through this digital stream but he's intentionally got some jarring you know things that are counter opposed to the culture in there um I don't know you guys have any thoughts on that post part about yeah I mean I I mean to me there's I mean I think you're right.
SPEAKER_03:I also think that we need to be careful about the extent to which you can do that because you know there's another McLuhan thing right the medium is the message right like when you um you know when when you like I I I I it always bothers me a little bit when you see like Catholic influencers doing like you know short form video and I I've actually never used TikTok but I know what it is right but like like that medium is communicating something the the use of that medium is communicating something to people um about attention span and about you know the need for things to be presented in an entertaining way that is I I think counterproductive. And so I I I do think you're I mean look making a song is something people have done for a thousand years. Like there you know if you happen to have a new way of communicating songs I think that's great. Although live music's better. But um but but I but I I I do think that it can't just be as simple as we use whatever the tool is that's available to communicate our message because I I think that the the medium that you use communicates something whether you want it to or not.
SPEAKER_01:The goal necessarily ought to be actually bringing people out of this medium into a more real medium is kind of what I'm hearing.
SPEAKER_00:Is that a fair well I think what Chris is arguing for a little bit, you can correct correct me if I'm wrong that there's like the fact that the fact that we that someone would post a TikTok video communicates that there's like some sort of what is the what is the right word like promotion of TikTok itself. And so we shouldn't be on there is kind of your is the thesis there.
SPEAKER_03:It's a hot take if what you if what you well I just if if what you do is is you know if if you think attention spans need to be like 30 seconds long and that everything needs to be flashy and entertaining then um you know you're you're assuming something I think is contrary to for example we experienced at Mass, right? Where's things are not flashy and entertaining and they're not susceptible to a 30 second attention span.
SPEAKER_01:I like the hot take. Because to your point I you know what's interesting is I'm almost studying the subculture of itself that's on the treadmill and what it's telling us. But to your point it's like we hey you're actually kind of going hey we got to be all the way cautious I'm gonna err on the side of binary don't do it. Don't get in the medium right um and I I mean I tend to agree with that I don't have social media on my phone. Um I have a question for you kind of on a personal nature Chris like one thing I admire about you and Mary and your family and your extended family is I I think the company you keep of other families models I mean generally I full stop I admire the company you keep and like the the witnesses to Christ in your life of the people around you but also I think having knowing some of them and knowing you guys some I think there's a circle of people around you that like live this way or are trying to the way the article's cautioning like hey let's and so I'm curious do you have any stories, examples, thoughts or suggestions like from families you run with that you where you see people you know making sure they're not getting caught up in this cultural bottlene bottleneck I mean I think everybody's got it everybody does it their own way I don't really have a great answer to that.
SPEAKER_03:I mean I I think you know most of the families that you're you're referring to are people that we've met through church or through the larger Catholic community in in Oklahoma City. And um I I think you know one of the best things you can do is go to church and go go to church events and and and meet meet like minded people there, right? And obviously not everybody at church right Catholic church for everybody not everybody at church shares those values but um there are there are people there that do and if there's not go you should find a different church but um not not not leave the Catholic church to be clear just just you know if it but but look for like minded people right they're there.
SPEAKER_01:Um and and uh yeah how do you know them when you come across a person that's you know l living the authentic Catholic life in a short conversation do you get a sense do you you know let's say you meet someone after there's a new family there it's African donuts and in your heart you're wondering you're trying to get to know them wondering if they're like minded how do you explore that?
SPEAKER_03:I always talk about books. If if uh somebody's a reader then they'll uh they'll be they'll be excited about that and if not they won't but um so that that's a decent litmus test but it's not perfect right um you know you mentioned disc golf earlier right I mean I think anything that people like to do that's outside and and uh enjoyable is you know a good indication that people are not you know tied to the phone all the time.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah do you touch grass or not? As the kids say that's the thing that they say now is like oh really go well yeah when this is just like a a funny subculture thing that it kind of talks about a little in here where if someone's like really good at a video game they'll say that they're no life in it and that they need to go touch grass. That's the that's the phrase where they're just not leaving their concrete jungle or whatever which is fascinating. But I agree with you that um being out and about and everything. But there's also there's a part of me that I think that that I think that this article actually warns us against that I think we're talking about a little bit is there's a there's a line for us of embracing radicalism and wanting to become insular and facing ourselves and like finding finding our people finding our people and letting it be our people and then and that's where we end. And I would I would philosophically disagree that we have to go out as well. We have to do both um yeah you have to do both they're like they're like we talked about with Josh Payment and like in how to form community like there's an inhale and an exhale like you definitely got to have your people and be built up by them. But I think that that there has to be a a both and where and this was actually I was going to play devil's advocate I actually don't know if I have a that strong of a opinion on the be on TikTok or not on TikTok thing, but like for all these people that are on the treadmill, how else are you going to get them off the treadmill if you don't hop on the treadmill with them for a brief second and try and pull them off, you know? Like there's a there's an argument to be made that there's some like that could be a fun debate. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah no and you may be right about that. I mean I think my reaction to that would be maybe we need to stop trying to reach the you know maybe the best way to do that is to invite somebody to go play disc golf with you, right? But more than it is to get on TikTok and post about why they shouldn't be on TikTok. Like may maybe it's like hey dude like this afternoon let's go play disc golf. 100% agree.
SPEAKER_01:No you're right. That's where my first gut went like at a macro level, you know, maybe trying to be in the system to pull them out, you know, perhaps that strategy makes sense. But the like the Mother Teresa way or the you know all the things that the Mother Teresa would say like if you want to change the world go home and love your family. Right. And so very much the little way of evangelization like if pretty much every Catholic listening to this could stop today before they walk into their home and talk to the neighbor who's also out right you know or could s get off their phone while the gas station clerk is is checking them out and have a human conversation. Right. And I'm just speaking about experiences that I fail and succeed at. But to your point, like yeah I could invite a guy to come fishing with me. Yeah and that I know he's probably spent a lot of time on social media, but because we're fishing, we're necessarily in the real Lord form it's a whole thing.
SPEAKER_00:Like it's like what comes first the the chicken or the egg and I agree that the primary mode is to just go and spend time with people. In fact like that was we did we we had a whole thing two weeks ago at the cathedral of like how to do that and like a a specific exhortation of have dinner with other families and spend actual time and don't just um and that's how that's how everything changes and disc golf is my primary mode of hanging out I will do that with uh anybody and everybody James knows I've tried for forever with James he's he's a tough I'll go something I actually really like disc golf so um but uh but yeah in my mind it's a bit of a both hand where like I don't know that you just have to have a thought like have the end in mind like whenever we're talking about like let's tie it back to discipleship somehow right here. Like when we're looking at your average person who is stuck on the treadmill like going to work probably partially on the treadmill for po a good portion of that day if they're if they're good enough at their job to like multitask they come home like they're not coming to stuff. They don't have any reason to come to stuff um right now so there has to be there has to be some sort of something to kick them out of there other than like I mean and maybe maybe there doesn't need to be maybe this the pure desire for the human connection will eventually win out. We'll have to see I mean I guess it is winning a little bit now because we're all becoming more aware and putting things on our deal.
SPEAKER_03:Hmm but you but you're you're you're you're right like I mean that that is in as my mention earlier about Pascal right I mean like it's the deadening of that desire is precisely the thing that's scary about these things, right? You know you think back to the 80s and like you two had that hit song I still haven't found what I'm looking for, right?
SPEAKER_01:Like would that even resonate today or do people just like not even know what it is to have this like deep desire that is I think it might resonate Chris but to the point previously discussed we've been able to get most of our chemically chemical needs within our own brain and body met through the cheaper form that like even though that's desirous for me I'm just like three seconds away from forgetting about that desire and getting does that make sense you have the desire it's just I have the desire but I don't have enough long form time off the dopamine hits of life that's embedded in this little device here to like soak in that desire. And maybe I don't have enough friends or real life moments to like be to be feeling it. I don't but like I think the desire is still there but it's the amount of time that someone actually contemplates that desire and the amount of time that they get experiential moments where it's reinforced is like my my my feel on why to even I think the human desire will always be there because God made us as desiring beings as we've geeked out on and he made us for himself an infinite being so like that's not going to go away. It's just how many seconds do we have attention to to be able to spend time with that desire and act upon it.
SPEAKER_00:The dopamine hit thing is so real like the competition is so hard. I keep bouncing back and forth between hope and like esoteric dread um with where we're at uh because I was I was just thinking about another thing with like like a video game just broke the record for the most concurrent players all at the same time. The game the game the platform the game is played on is called Roblox um and it's like the crudest little video game like they're just little blocky looking people like Minecraft esque looking things. And the game the every there are they're all playing within there it's called Grow a Garden and every five minutes there's a new task and it's just like constantly and I even listened to one of one of my teens describe it as like every five minutes dude if you're not there you're missing out on that double mean hit of just like getting to do the next thing and having the biggest and the baddest garden and all this like 28 million people at the exact same time playing like that's Super Bowl type numbers.
SPEAKER_01:Um what if we were all just growing a real garden?
unknown:Right.
SPEAKER_00:Um but it takes too long.
SPEAKER_01:It's risky you might you might spend week lots of your weekends working and you didn't get the water or the soil or the season right and it's all gone and you got like five tomatoes.
SPEAKER_00:And so that fear um so I just wonder what the right way to communicate or to disrupt that cycle is I guess is like my evangelization oriented brain is like what's the right way to do that? Or do or or is it simply the Holy Spirit who like uh does that or like in conjunction with us.
SPEAKER_03:That's where I'm that's where I'm my brain's heading no I think you're right. I mean I think there's got to be a detox element to that because I you know it it's hard right I mean I I know that like if I am in a phase where I'm you know using my phone more than I should and then I you know try to go culture for a while like you kind of like you start I don't know if depress is the right word but you're you're like clearly missing something because that was just this this very real thing. And so I you know I I just come up with I don't do we just come up with a new service for people to pay for like how to detox but but I I guess what you're saying that that does get it my my point earlier about TikTok right is like as long as what people are doing is seeking the next dopamine hit, they're missing out on something on something real, right?
SPEAKER_01:And so it sort of doesn't matter what the content of that dopamine hit is I mean obviously if there's better and worse contents, but it's really what what you need is for people to not spend their life seeking the the the dopamine hit the thing that stinks about I mean tick dopamine what's interesting is like every time you have a hit on dopamine, you you necessarily fall just as far as that hit was. And so like because of how God made our bodies for survival and all sorts of other things like it the cycles work a certain way. But what's back to this point of like cheap, what's interesting is like what's going to get you off that is a higher a higher swing just to be clear. So like you go on a you go out and go on a run or you go do something fulfilling the tax on the front side costs more and it's why people aren't doing it. But the fulfillment level is higher than the arc of fulfillment that comes through your phone. And so like I think people need to like get out and begin to experience that. And to your point I don't know how you do that systematically but you we can we have agency in our own life to do it and I think that's the proper first response is how the article ends is like and I would give people a practical challenge. Like if you've been on social media and you're there's that one that you love that viral reel or whatever I'll cite one that conservative country moms see probably seem to like is there's this trend towards like which is actually affirming what we're saying kind of like a grandma culture or like a you know sourdough there's a name for it. I don't know but like sourdough and like urban farming and homesteading like there's this subset of people that are wanting that.
SPEAKER_02:Sure.
SPEAKER_01:And some people are actually doing it because they want it. Other people are really are watching videos of I've seen your ducks and I've eaten your sourdough. So I mean we're in that we're actually doing it but I'm just saying there's a group of people that I mean just necessarily by the amount of you counts on different things like this like there are just watch people do it. There are people that are just watching people do it and they're legitimately desiring that right and so it's like okay you don't have to like quit your job and and sell your house and go buy 160 acres to get a farm. If you can do that go and you want to and your family wants to go for it great. But if you live in an apartment and you have five pots you can grow a garden. You know what I mean? If you live in in a house you can grow a garden and so that's just like an example. So what I would say is like if something motivated you when you were on the treadmill, maybe try on for size the if it's true good and beautiful to get off the treadmill and do that thing would be like a little tactic. But or to ponder a time maybe it was your adolescence where there was something you love that was real go do that thing.
SPEAKER_03:Go play basketball go go play whatever or to be even more simple you wake up don't open your phone open a Bible walk outside like you wait you change that one morning and don't wake up to the monsters that are in our phone the monsters of life self-comparison workaholism I mean you could go through it all and you wake up to God's truth and you wake up to the nature he created most days and start repeating that I think you'll know start to notice things shift yeah and that that particular example is it it's sort of resonant with me so I you know I I I do that but for a while there I was in the habit of like reading the Bible on my phone. Right. Or I've got a Saint Jose Maria app where I you know you you go just scroll through his sayings and um and I realized like that's not what I need for my prayer time right what what I need is disconnection from the digital world and so but but but you know a lot of stuff's free and so it's it's very attractive to to do it on the phone. But um yeah that was a realization I've had recently is that that you know at least for me doing prayer using the phone as a median device is is probably probably not the most productive use of my time and energy.
SPEAKER_00:Hallow shares are dropping.
SPEAKER_01:Well it's interesting to think about I'm glad you mentioned this because I've had this like internal dialogue with myself as I was adjusting to my daughter's sleeping routine is I was because life is busy and I'm trying to attack that but because it is I was trying to give myself some grace the ideal was the Bible in my hands and I'm in a habit of reading the next chapter of scripture every day is the current kind of path I'm on. Um and so I like let my sometimes it's like four in the morning it's dark I'm trying to get my baby back to sleep and I don't want to fall asleep myself I want to start that habit. So I'll read it on the phone. But I've noticed a distinct difference in days when I don't have to but also since I'm getting off the train some, we have to remember that like prayer doesn't always have to mean consuming something right so like after I've read that scripture instead of keeping my phone open or going to the next thing is like put it away or like if I can't read something because it's dark like we can pray a rosary we can recall the scripture we read earlier and true on it with God. And so like there's way if we are moderating the phone use, I've just really thought about it sometimes we're I want to jump to the next chapter of scripture to check my little box, but all I have with me is my phone right now and I I can't read the Bible. I'm trying to make a conscious choice of like, hey, actually don't. Read the Bible when you're at your desk. Start to talk to God. You know what I mean? Sure. And I think that like yeah, having a really healthy like suspicion of why am I reaching for the device and choosing another way is really you made a comment Halo earlier, so I do want to like at least in my view, like everybody's gotta make those decisions for themselves.
SPEAKER_03:I think if I think if it's if it's genuinely helpful to you, I think that's great. Like go go for it. I just for me personally, what I need is more separation from this.
SPEAKER_00:I agree. We I use Halo and I enjoy it. I do put it away and like do the listening thing and like um with like the guided meditated things. But yeah, that was mostly just a funny, uh, a funny aside of just like like it's fun to it's fun to make fun of like when we're radicalizing ourselves against of not wanting to use the screen the screens at all. But the way that I wanted to land the plane today is um it talks about at the very end of the article, and I think that this that this quote um really kind of summarizes like what needs to happen. And so it says, as the bottleneck tightens, all survival will depend on heating once again this ancient admonition. I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore, choose life that you and your offspring may live. I think that that's like the the small first step is like where's where's the life giving happening for you? Um and it and it'll be different for everybody. But I think if we're paying attention to that, then we'll be on the way.
SPEAKER_01:Deuteronomy 39.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, is it is it scripture? That's hysterical. Yeah. Well, you can't say that in the New York Times, right? It sounded like it.
SPEAKER_01:I'm glad I'm glad I liked it enough to make sure we said it. Yeah, I love I I smiled so big and I went and looked and was like, okay, this guy's gotta be Catholic. You know, because I'm on a kind of low media diet or whatever. And so I looked him up and I was like, yeah, if you just quote a dude or army, you've got to be a Christian. But yeah. Thanks for ending it there. Yeah, that'll be good.
SPEAKER_00:Well, this has been Red Dirt Catholics. Thank you, Chris, for being so thank you, Chris, for being on. James, it's always a pleasure. We'll see you guys next time. Thanks. Thanks.