[00:00:06] Speaker A: Hi. My name is Katie Malone.
[00:00:07] Speaker B: And I'm Brendan, the husband.
[00:00:09] Speaker A: And you're listening to The Little Flock, the podcast that offers practical insights about living a counterculture of goodness, truth, and beauty in a world of increasingly hostile secularism and indifference.
[00:00:19] Speaker B: So if you're looking to learn from two imperfect followers of Christ about how to live like the wheat amongst the darnell, this is definitely the podcast for you.
Hi, everybody. Welcome along to this, the inaugural. Do you call it an inaugural, Caddy?
[00:00:37] Speaker A: Yes, you do.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: So that's first. Does that mean first? I guess my wife is the one who has a postgraduate degree in linguistics.
[00:00:47] Speaker A: No. Translation.
[00:00:48] Speaker B: Yes, that's what I said. I was about to say translation before I was so rudely interrupted.
That's why I threw that question to her. But it is the inaugural episode anyway, regardless of the fact that I just got that wrong, which means the first ever episode of this brand new podcast, The Little Flock. And, yeah, as we were preparing, actually for today, katie said to me, we're going to get grief about that name. People are going to hassle us.
[00:01:15] Speaker A: I suggested that he call it the Woman behind the man.
What was that last?
[00:01:21] Speaker B: The neck that turns the neck that turns the head.
[00:01:23] Speaker A: I thought that was brilliant.
[00:01:24] Speaker B: Yeah. Behind every great man was it an even greater Woman, one of those cliched posters. Anyway, thanks for being with us. It's great to have you here. Please share and subscribe. So if you find value in this podcast, let others know about it, subscribe to the podcast, whatever platform you're listening to this on right now, hit that little follow or that little subscribe button. Give us a rating. All of that helps the show. If you want to support The Little Flock and you want to do your bit to sort of help these episodes and support them being made, then you can do
[email protected]. Left foot media. There is a link in the show notes for this episode. There's also a link there if you want to make just a one off contribution, you want to leave a tip in the tip jar. You can do that if you just enjoyed this episode. So, yeah, all of that really helps. Hey, caddy.
[00:02:10] Speaker A: That's right.
Pay the grocery bill.
[00:02:13] Speaker B: Yeah. Keep our children in the lifestyle to which they have become.
[00:02:17] Speaker A: Gone up to 349 a kilo. So we need your help.
[00:02:19] Speaker B: It is crazy at the moment, eh?
[00:02:21] Speaker A: Nuts. Yeah.
[00:02:22] Speaker B: Veggies. Fruit and veg, man, what a this is the podcast where we complained about the price of fruit and veggies.
[00:02:29] Speaker A: Even be a vegetarian and say and.
[00:02:30] Speaker B: I went outside and the sun the sun's got hotter. I'm sure of it. It's disgusting what's going on. But seriously, though, one last little admin thing, and that is this. Send us your questions. This is a podcast where we want to do our best, among other things, to be able to respond to the issues and the questions that you have, the topics you want us to talk about. There is a link in the show notes. We have a permanent Google form operating. It's totally anonymous and and it takes you 30 seconds to fill in where you can just let us know what questions you have and what topics you have that you want us to talk about in future episodes. So we're going to start today by looking at that. We've got a few things to talk about, but before we jump into that, I thought it would be good for us to start with a bit of an introduction so that you know who we are and all that kind of jazz, or that palava.
So, yeah. Katie, how did we meet? That's a good question, isn't it?
[00:03:22] Speaker A: It sure is.
[00:03:23] Speaker B: So how did we meet?
[00:03:25] Speaker A: We met at a ten day Catholic summer school for young adults in 2000 and, well, officially 2002, but we didn't really meet because you were bald that year.
I avoided you.
[00:03:36] Speaker B: Yeah, I asked that question because I couldn't remember how we met. No, I asked that question because I wanted to see what she said about that. And it's true. I was the first year that we barely met, didn't we?
I had a shaved head, I had a number two haircut all over, and I was driving a Holden Kingswood HQ. If you're not in New Zealand, go and Google Holden Kingswood HQ, 1972 202 model, and you'll see what I mean. And yeah, I was a bogan, right? Yeah, well, I looked like a bogan.
You thought I was scary.
[00:04:14] Speaker A: I did, yeah. I know. Just was an impassing meeting, wasn't it? It wasn't really.
[00:04:19] Speaker B: No, I was really meeting and then we met the next year and she's.
[00:04:22] Speaker A: Like, the same summer camp. You had hair, so you were much more approachable.
[00:04:26] Speaker B: And it's like this bad boy. I like the bad boys with their big bad cast. He's got hair.
I approve.
Yeah. And then we were engaged day six months.
[00:04:37] Speaker A: Yeah, later.
[00:04:38] Speaker B: It was six months later, wasn't it? No mucking around. You just know.
[00:04:41] Speaker A: Hey, when you see if you can.
[00:04:42] Speaker B: Remember the date oh, my gosh.
Was it July?
[00:04:50] Speaker A: No. June 13.
[00:04:51] Speaker B: Yeah, June 13. That was my next guess. And after July, the whole month, was it? That whole year that I can't remember what year it was.
Brilliant. And then we got married. How long after that was it?
[00:05:05] Speaker A: Was it almost a year?
[00:05:06] Speaker B: Yeah, it was, wasn't it? Wasn't quite a year, though, was it? And we were married the following May.
[00:05:12] Speaker A: That's right. Got that one right.
[00:05:16] Speaker B: Then next thing you know, we were having kids and well, not next thing you know. We know that's right.
[00:05:21] Speaker A: There's a story there.
[00:05:22] Speaker B: Yeah, there is a funny story, and that might come up in a future episode if people ask about kids and fertility and stuff like that. Feel free these questions far away, but we'll be honest and frank with you.
But, yeah, it didn't happen straight away. We thought it was and then eldest daughter Lucy was born, what, almost 15 years ago now, isn't it?
[00:05:44] Speaker A: That's right, yeah. She's 14 and a half. Yep.
[00:05:47] Speaker B: Yeah. And then what came next?
[00:05:49] Speaker A: Twins.
[00:05:50] Speaker B: Twins.
The toesler, as we call them. And then identicals Nathaniel, our boy, one of a kind.
And then Eleanor, our youngest. She's a wild beast.
[00:06:04] Speaker A: Yeah. One of her own kind.
[00:06:06] Speaker B: Yeah. So we've been married now 17 years. Over 17 years.
[00:06:11] Speaker A: Right.
[00:06:12] Speaker B: Do you get a certificate?
You should get a certificate.
[00:06:16] Speaker A: A for every first anniversary, babe.
[00:06:18] Speaker B: Paper, is it?
[00:06:19] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:20] Speaker B: Really? So what do you get normally, like, traditionally, what would they give you back in the old Tamey days when we did the anniversary things, what would you get? A piece of paper. Just a certificate.
[00:06:29] Speaker A: I don't know why it was paper for the first anniversary.
[00:06:31] Speaker B: It's like an NCEA of marriage.
Congratulations.
[00:06:35] Speaker A: Achieved.
[00:06:36] Speaker B: Achieved. One year. Just wait till year two.
[00:06:40] Speaker A: High. Achieved.
[00:06:43] Speaker B: So, yeah, that's a little bit about us.
As we said in the intro, we're not perfect.
I don't know about you, babe, but one of the things that frustrates me today is that there is sort of almost like a cottage industry of experts out there. Yeah, we're relationship experts. We're marriage experts, we're parenting experts. And in actual fact, our experience has been, yeah, there's great tips you can learn along the way, but the most experienced people are actually the people who are not. You don't really hear from much and you learn so much on the job. Right.
[00:07:16] Speaker A: I think these days you get to be an expert if you can update your Facebook, say this how you qualify hashtag on Facebook, I'm an expert.
[00:07:26] Speaker B: Yeah. Here's our child rearing hack.
Put your children in a bag and lock them in a cupboard for peace and quiet life. Hack.
So, yeah, we're not experts by any stretch of the imagination, but we're striving and we're learning. We're in a stage now with we're coming into the teenage years, man. How have you found that? I found that a little bit challenging, actually.
[00:07:52] Speaker A: I think we're only at the beginning of it.
[00:07:54] Speaker B: Don't say that. I just said it's challenging.
[00:07:56] Speaker A: Generally, pretty good.
[00:07:58] Speaker B: She is good.
[00:07:59] Speaker A: But, yeah, one thing that always makes me laugh is when we after we had Lucy, you thought it was going to be a boy, and then we had Lucy and you said, that's all right, I'll take five girls if that's what God wants to give me. This is awesome. And I said something along the lines of, you won't want them all when they're 13. And you said, well, they won't all be 13 at the same time. And then we had twin girls next.
[00:08:17] Speaker B: Yeah, well, be careful what you wish.
[00:08:21] Speaker A: What you say to God.
[00:08:23] Speaker B: Yeah. Funny. Right, enough of the palava let's just jump straight into the first topic of conversation for today. We've got a couple of questions we want to look at. And by the way, we're going to do some sort of regular things each month in this podcast. We've got something called A Moment of Goodness, Truth or Beauty from the previous month that both of us want to share with you that we've experienced inst a little scriptural reflection that each of us will bring. And then also we want to answer your questions and get into the viewer mailbag. The viewer. The listener. The listener mailbag, as the cool kids call it. But before we do that, we thought we'd talk about the P word, the pandemic, and how that's sort of affecting stuff and gosh, it's everywhere. It's sort of inescapable. And talk about a plague. The biggest plague is not actually COVID, it's COVID related.
What would you call it?
[00:09:19] Speaker A: Crises. Drama.
[00:09:21] Speaker B: Drama, yeah. Psychology. It's in your head.
All the cranberries in your head.
Have you found it?
[00:09:30] Speaker A: Oh, you know, I've had my moments.
[00:09:35] Speaker B: You know.
[00:09:37] Speaker A: You've heard all about it.
Yeah. It's just weird, isn't it's? A weird way to live. And I think one of the things I'm pretty sure I wrote this in your birthday card last year about that we've been through so much in our married life that you couldn't have predicted I don't know if we could go back, whether we would know yeah. What we would have we wouldn't have known how to prepare for the things that we've gone through. I thought moving towns from Auckland to Christchurch was going to be one of the biggest things. And then we got hit with a massive earthquake and lost our house.
And then now we're dealing with this ongoing saga.
[00:10:18] Speaker B: It's crazy. It's just the latest in a we're the disaster couple. What? I just realized that too. Yeah.
[00:10:25] Speaker A: Our life is like a movie.
[00:10:27] Speaker B: Yeah. A bad not a good one. It's not even like a good horror movie or it's just like kind of.
[00:10:34] Speaker A: Like that movie what was that deep what was that movie about the asteroid? That wasn't the good one about the asteroid. Not Armageddon, but the other one. Deep Impact.
[00:10:41] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:10:41] Speaker A: It's just really depressing the whole time. You're just like everything's just so depressing. There's nothing uplifting about it at all. At least we've had moments know, we can still see God's goodness amongst all the crap that's happened.
[00:10:53] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:10:54] Speaker A: I remember saying to you when we were deciding whether to have another baby or not after the earthquakes, after we'd been refugees.
[00:10:59] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:10:59] Speaker A: And we had Lucy and the twins were about two, and we just said, look, we need something good. We need a happy know, baby is always a happy thing, even if it's in a hard yeah. Thank goodness we've got our Nathaniel.
[00:11:12] Speaker B: Yeah. And then we got an Eleanor. Yeah, that's true.
If life is a know, return of the Jedi we're the cheap bloomin Chinese knockoff return of the Jedi or something. What is this movie? These characters seem familiar. Yoba. Like those cheap toys you see in the Cry not.
[00:11:32] Speaker A: There is no smile.
[00:11:33] Speaker B: I don't know. Yeah, those two dollar shop toys, trust us, they really are marble. Just as good marble toys. Superman. Superman. I remember him. And yes, spider person. Okay, so it's been a challenge, though. I don't know about you, but I find it gets into your head, like, if you're not careful.
[00:11:55] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:11:56] Speaker B: You've got a filter, it's nuggety and it stays. And then you wake up and, you're know must be hard for people in Auckland in particular, here in New Zealand or in other places, in a lockdown.
[00:12:10] Speaker A: And I think we get into that, especially now with the easy access to media and updates and every single person's opinion is apparently allowed on the newspaper.
So you're constantly inundated with more and more thoughts and opinions about COVID It's sort of all the time. Or how the government's reacting to COVID or what could happen with COVID That seems to me like every other day they're going to a different modeler. One of them will say, oh, we'll only get 100 cases a day. Next one's going, oh, we're going to have 16,000 in a week.
[00:12:42] Speaker B: A million people are going to die next week.
[00:12:44] Speaker A: You don't all know anything, do you?
[00:12:46] Speaker B: No. And it's funny.
Also on top of that, there's that whole thing now. There's that next layer of stupidity, I think happening. It's like, how will COVID affect your tomato growing season? And you're like, It won't get into that.
[00:13:01] Speaker A: Apparently. It's affecting the carrots, though.
[00:13:03] Speaker B: Well, it's like there's this whole crazy business going on. It seems now of sort of trying to, in a sense, what's the word? They're trying to exploit COVID for everything.
How to choose the perfect COVID themed dinner party.
It's getting to that crazy.
It's like okay, enough.
[00:13:25] Speaker A: It's just the thing.
[00:13:27] Speaker B: We move through it. But what about faith life? Because for me, that was interesting at the start.
I found that there was this sort of particularly the massive wave of fear and hysteria that initially hit and has sort of gone along with this. Those moments are a real assault, I think, on your faith life, if you're not careful.
Yeah. How have you found that?
[00:13:47] Speaker A: I think for me, it was hard in the sense that more that my routine was lost because we went into lockdown and so suddenly the kids were home, we couldn't go to Mass, go to church. So you sort of lose, like, I try and have quite a good prayer routine, but when suddenly everybody's at home and I'm trying to homeschool, I lost that a wee bit and that probably didn't help me to have to maintain my peace, my equilibrium. Yeah.
[00:14:14] Speaker B: Have you got any little tips or things? What was your prayer hacks? Did you have a prayer hack for.
[00:14:19] Speaker A: COVID, if I refer to that for COVID or just for life in general.
[00:14:25] Speaker B: Did you find a way to get that equilibrium back?
[00:14:27] Speaker A: I think I was better the most recent lockdown. Yeah. Even though it was so sudden, I think I just knew that I still needed to try and have that time alone with the Lord in the morning and even praying through things more than just than kind of trying to struggle against them a little bit.
[00:14:43] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a good point.
[00:14:44] Speaker A: Yeah. And we have our family prayer, which is sort of non negotiable most nights, so that when you know that's always going to happen.
[00:14:51] Speaker B: Yeah. It's funny, that point about not praying through rather than struggling against, because that's the temptation right. Is to go, Right, I'm going to fight this beast. And it's like, well, maybe like Jacob wrestles with the angel, we're just supposed to wrestle with this COVID thing.
[00:15:06] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely, man.
[00:15:08] Speaker B: One thing I found is I found a really good app that I'd recommend.
It's called amen. It's from the Augustine Institute in the States. And look, if you're not a Catholic, it's still really valuable. One of the things I'd recommend getting it for is every day in the Catholic Church, there's a cycle of reading. So every day, if you were to go to church, you would hear over a three year period, you would have heard almost all of the Bible read if you'd followed that. And so this app has the daily readings, which normally starts with there's three readings, normally one from the Old Testament, one from the Psalms, and then a gospel reading.
You get those three readings read to you, and then there's these four or five key reflective questions about reflecting on those scriptures and then how you can apply them and what's God saying to you today. And I found that, like making that a priority for me every day. To do that, usually towards the start of the day or at the very start, has been so helpful. It gives me the right footing.
Rather than being dragged along through the maelstrom by the storm itself, I'm trying to wrestle with it. I'm not being thrown around battered and having the people's elbow on my face from COVID every day.
So that's really important. What about for us? I think one thing that we've probably been a bit more cautious about, really, has been our kids, or a bit more considered, I'd say, is that in moments of crisis and I don't know, maybe the earthquake gave us this instinct. But children get traumatized absolutely. By how their parents react often.
[00:16:41] Speaker A: Parents and grandparents. Yeah. People that they're close to. Yeah. Yes. The friends at school, for the older girls, it's definitely made a difference who they've been around. Yeah.
[00:16:51] Speaker B: And it's not that we had a conversation. I think we just knew instinctively, and I've seen this in our family life, the way we just both of us will take the lead when our kids start to have a little COVID, whether it's a little you can see they start to get concerned by they're asking questions, will this happen to us? Will we get locked down?
[00:17:11] Speaker A: To be fair, they've been pretty good lately. And when we went into that last lockdown in August, that was so quick. I did wait.
I think I probably waited until we maybe just about to have dinner before we told the twins, because we sort of knew their reaction might be more stressed out. Whereas with Lucy, you can say to her, look, this is happening, and we're just not going to tell you sisters just yet. And then she's quite good at kind of stabilizing them as well. Alan nathaniel couldn't care less. He's like, wicked. More time for Lego. Got lots of Lego to do.
[00:17:41] Speaker B: That's good.
[00:17:42] Speaker A: Hoping to catch up on that.
[00:17:44] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think, too, we just that particularly when we're in the lockdown phase of this, we couldn't go to school. It was like, oh, well, we're not going to stick them on devices and try and make them act as if.
[00:17:55] Speaker A: They'Re in a school so hard. That's crazy laptops.
Yeah. I think I was definitely more relaxed about school this time around, and they don't seem to have been any worse off.
Yeah, we're fortunate the older girls are good at self management.
[00:18:10] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:18:11] Speaker A: With Nathaniel, it was very hit and miss, the old schooling.
[00:18:14] Speaker B: But I think, too, this is that thing about I think we live in this culture now where there's like a false dichotomy around the whole thing of stoicism. And we hear a lot of talk today about unhealthy Stoicism, particularly around men, right. They keep their feelings to themselves and they don't cry. And sure, there can be an unhealthy where basically you repress, you lock your emotions away and you don't wrestle, you're just hiding away. But in actual fact, Stoicism is important, like for our kids. They can't see Mum and dad freaking out every night.
[00:18:48] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:18:49] Speaker B: And then we go, oh, why are our kids so traumatized? It's because you're acting like blooming goons every two year olds. Yeah, you're acting like two year olds.
[00:18:55] Speaker A: I did have one moment of being a two year old, if you remember.
[00:18:57] Speaker B: In the last well, I didn't want.
[00:18:59] Speaker A: To say the rubbish bin was it's.
[00:19:02] Speaker B: Been replaced, and that's normal. I think that's the beauty of this, is, like, I think people think they got to be perfect, but those blow up, they're like pressure valves, as long as they happen in healthy ways. Well, that was healthy. Nobody got injured.
The rubbish bin was it the wall or the outdoors or whatever it was. But the thing was that we realized, and this is where I think, I mean, I don't know how single parents are doing. I'm in huge admiration for people absolutely. Man in that situation. But one of us might be off kilter, the other one's normally not. And that helps.
[00:19:45] Speaker A: One of you can stay calm and cope with the fallout or whatever, then. Yeah, definitely helps.
[00:19:50] Speaker B: That's a good thing. And I think it flows out of that from so family is then the extended family.
I think we're really blessed.
[00:19:59] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:20:00] Speaker B: Because we haven't got any cray cray situations where people are like, well, you're not coming to Christmas dinner unless you've had five booster shots. We just got no one like that. But we know people who've been caught up in those situations where now they're being pushed out of family life because of a vaccine. And that's crazy.
That's right out of that, then wider community. I think you've got to fight for that unity, too, in a time like this.
[00:20:27] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:20:28] Speaker B: It was kind of easier before the vaccine came, because it was all about.
[00:20:33] Speaker A: All in us together kind of thing. Yeah.
[00:20:36] Speaker B: And the only real difference probably was people who were some people who didn't want to acknowledge COVID as being real. They tried to make out it was just a common cold, but that was pretty minor.
[00:20:46] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:20:47] Speaker B: But now it's like, have you had the treatment?
And it becomes this big it's awkward.
[00:20:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:20:54] Speaker B: How have you found that?
[00:20:57] Speaker A: Not too bad yet. I'm apprehensive for December. Yeah.
In our community, it's been people are generally pretty good, pretty respectful of others choices.
[00:21:10] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think, too, we have got a good community like that. People have said, well, look, it just shouldn't be an issue, but you've got to fight for that. And I think that's one of the challenges, is how do we avoid the shallowness of the situation?
Because there's so much you talk about social media before.
[00:21:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:30] Speaker B: If you're not careful, you drown in that.
[00:21:31] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:21:33] Speaker B: That affects your ability to navigate this well. Right.
[00:21:36] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:36] Speaker B: So I guess the advice we'd give is try and go deep. What does that look like?
Turn off your social media a bit more. Do stuff as a family that's not constantly looking at the news.
[00:21:48] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we don't even have the news on. We just know two of our kids in particular, don't react well to the catastrophization that the media seems to have bought into in a big way. And I mean, the news when I was a kid, my parents always big news people. When I was a kid, it was all very fact horn. This is what happened and this is what he said and this is what she said, and now it's just completely not even I don't even know, because I don't watch it, but it seems to be from what I read, it's pretty over the top most of the.
[00:22:14] Speaker B: Time, and it's propaganda.
[00:22:17] Speaker A: Often even my parents have decided to turn off the radio. They'd listen to the one news bulletin and then they just like, we don't need to listen to all these people have an opinion about everything, which is a big deal for them.
[00:22:28] Speaker B: Yeah, that's awesome.
[00:22:29] Speaker A: I've definitely noticed a difference in their demeanor and their peace and their ability to kind of cope with the whole thing, and they actually have started having their own thoughts about it, which is awesome.
[00:22:40] Speaker B: Yeah. That's amazing. Because, funny, I noticed for myself once I tuned out of the 01:00 P.m., it's like a drug. Come on, give me my 01:00 P.m..
[00:22:49] Speaker A: There's never really anything new to report, is there? I mean, here's your numbers.
[00:22:53] Speaker B: No, they don't talk about the things that actually they're not doing they should be. They talk up what they have done as if it was the most amazing thing ever. And then it's maybe just a little bit of a carrot here or there. In a week's time, we will tell you one minor change that will be happening.
[00:23:09] Speaker A: And it's like, don't miss next week's episode.
[00:23:11] Speaker B: Yeah. Same time, same bat channel. And you tune in and you're like, oh, my gosh, this is quite addictive, but it's just not helping. And you fixate on it, I found, as soon as I got out of that, and someone said to me the other day that, oh, did you hear the 01:00 P.m.? And I was like, oh, no, I've stopped listening weeks ago. And what I would do is I would just maybe if it was major, like someone contacted me, or what I would do is I might just later on in the day, when I got a bit of spare time, I flick through the newspaper, one of the news sources yeah. And see, what about a miss? And I found it so liberating because all of a sudden you realize you were in a state of fear the whole time. When you get in there. Once you break that, it's like, oh, there's so much normal life still happening.
[00:23:56] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:23:59] Speaker B: Man. So there you go. That's the pandemic. That's the pandemic in a nutshell for us, I guess. Yeah. What would you say to someone maybe who's struggling with it, who's not quite whether they're in a family, husband, wife, single person.
[00:24:13] Speaker A: Yeah. If you're a single person, you need to find yourself some people to start with. Get some people.
Yeah, definitely. Get off social media. Don't read the news all the time.
And try and distract yourself. Like, get a good book. I've recently started watching Downton Abbey again. I thought it would be too depressing because, you know, Spanish flu. But it's great because it takes me out of my reality.
[00:24:37] Speaker B: Yeah, that's good.
[00:24:38] Speaker A: And you can just kind of chill.
[00:24:41] Speaker B: Chillin'with my Downton Abbey my cup of.
[00:24:44] Speaker A: Tea in my Downton Abbey cup of.
[00:24:46] Speaker B: Tea in a scone and the good. That's a good point. Eh? It's just try to live a life. All this talk about new normal, it's like, no, I don't have to have your new normal. I can have my own new normal. Downton Abbey is my new normal.
[00:25:02] Speaker A: And I think focusing on being present. Being present in the moment that you're given.
[00:25:07] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a good point, because so much of this is freaking out about what will happen, what will the announcement be? What's the next step? Are we all going to get Blooming mega Delta variant?
[00:25:19] Speaker A: Everything's about the future, and especially like, we know that our government is looking to overseas to see what's happening in the winter they're going into.
And I think it's easy for us to see what's happening overseas and think we know the whole story when we're not actually there.
So you just have to take it as it comes, really.
[00:25:40] Speaker B: That's good advice. Sage advice.
[00:25:42] Speaker A: Do my best.
[00:25:44] Speaker B: Listeners. Can you see why I married this woman now? She's a wires lady.
What did they say in the book of Proverbs about a good woman is hard to find. Hard to find. Yeah. So there you go. And I found the best one.
[00:25:58] Speaker A: Husband points for you.
[00:26:00] Speaker B: Everyone side together.
How many husband points is that?
[00:26:03] Speaker A: Ten.
[00:26:04] Speaker B: Yeah. So that puts me now at negative 50, doesn't it?
[00:26:06] Speaker A: Well, yeah. I'm not going to tell you what you're up. Really? And the score chart, the points chart.
[00:26:13] Speaker B: Secret. It's always a secret.
[00:26:14] Speaker A: Never be revealed.
[00:26:16] Speaker B: Yeah. It doesn't work the way you think it does.
[00:26:18] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:26:19] Speaker B: It's not one point.
Ten good things might get you one point. Or today it might be 20 good things get you half a point.
Righty ho. With that in mind, and that little musical intro you can hear in the background right now means that it's time for our monthly moment of Goodness, Truth or Beauty. So I will start with you, my dear wife.
[00:26:56] Speaker A: I get to go first.
[00:26:57] Speaker B: Yeah. What's your moment of goodness, truth or beauty?
[00:27:00] Speaker A: I had to think about this one and I didn't necessarily want to make it COVID related, but one of the didn't get COVID. Didn't get COVID. That was good, true and beautiful.
One of the things that happened this month, which was quite sad, was that one of the teachers at our local school, at our children's school, Alana's teacher, in fact, had to leave because of the vaccine mandate. And I know a lot of teachers around the country have left and it's sort of been a bit awkward and there's been no proper farewells and no acknowledgement and maybe some anger and, I don't know, bad feeling around that whole situation, but I just wanted to acknowledge how well handled it was. At our local primary, the principal did a great job. He acknowledged her decision that it was hard. He respected that she had made her that choice and gave her the dignity that she deserved for the way she had handled herself as well. And the kids all did a socially distanced hucker for her and there were speeches and gifts and it was just really. Well handled and really beautiful to see the community come together even in such a hard moment, in such a sad moment that even personally affected us without being our daughter's teacher.
Yeah, just seeing that love that was there and that respect for her.
[00:28:15] Speaker B: Yeah, that was amazing. Actually, that's a good point, because I think for me, seeing her reaction, too, was actually quite a beautiful thing. Like, she could have been really angry. She has been treated unjustly, not by the school, but by the system, and she has been treated unjustly, but there was no anger, there's no recrimination.
It was just so calm and it was such a beautiful acceptance, if you like, on her part, that she actually role modeled. It sort of made the losing her as a teacher for our kids even harder because it's like, man, this is what you want your children to know. Not somebody's throwing chairs around the classroom, smashing windows.
Not the worst thing anybody did was that was beautiful. For me, my moment of Goodness, Truth, or Beauty this month was actually a book that I read by a guy called Roderick Strange. He's actually a Catholic priest from England, but it's a great book about Cardinal John Henry Newman, called John Henry Newman a Mind Alive. And it was just such a beautiful biography about his life. Very important thinker if you haven't read anything about him, I'd recommend that book.
But, yeah, a man who started out in his younger years as a Calvinist and then an Evangelical Anglican, and then he was one of the founding fathers of the Oxford movement with an Anglicanism to try and restore a bit more high church stuff to it. And then eventually he realized, well, I'm on this journey and there's only one direction that I'm headed in, and that's Catholicism. And so he converts to Catholicism, becomes a Catholic, and then eventually is made a cardinal later in life. And, yes, a beautiful poet as well. And just this book, it was just great, just great the way it was written and about his life and about his spiritual thought and his theology and his poetry. And there was a lot more to the man than I imagined. It was just sometimes you find a book that's really I don't know, it's not just a book and it's not just words on a page, and it's not just a story or an account of something.
There was something really beautiful in the telling of the story. This is not just a guy writing a dry sort of historical account of a man. It's the fact that Roderick Strange was so influenced by Newman that effectively his story is interwoven. And it was so beautiful the way it was told and the way it was presented. So, yeah, that was my moment of goodness, Truth or beauty for the month. What about scripture reflection? Do you have something from the Scriptures that really hit you this month, more.
[00:31:04] Speaker A: Than one, so I won't read them all. But one of the things, because I was having quite a hard I had quite a hard, COVID related weekend last weekend, was everything was just a bit much. And one of the things that really struck me as I was doing my readings of the day, was the Psalms lately have been all praise based. Have you noticed that?
[00:31:23] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:31:24] Speaker A: So it made me think, we have all these worries and concerns going on and of course, as Christians, our first instinct is to pray what should be to pray and to go to God. But often we go to God and we say, why me? What's happening? Why is this awful thing happening? Why don't you take it away?
Whereas I think what those Psalms said to me was that our first instinct should be to praise God in all circumstances, and we praise first, then we petition and then we make decisions in that order and not any other. So, yeah, that's where I've been with that.
[00:31:59] Speaker B: That's awesome. In fact, it's funny, even there's a particular type of prayer, it's in the Psalms a lot, actually, a Jewish style of prayer. And you see Jesus doing this on the cross when he cries out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And often, as a bunch of whiteies living in the Western world, we hear that we, you know, a ticky or atheist, they're going, look, see, even he didn't believe God at the end. And it's like, no, in actual fact, I used to think that until I understood what he was actually doing there. And what he's doing is he's quoting directly from the Psalms and it's a particular psalm and it's a particular style of Jewish prayer where they start with this lamentation, but then they always end it by declaring that psalm always ends. And everyone who heard Him on the cross would have known what he was doing there.
That psalm ends with this declaration of trust in God and that this praise that God will save me at the moment I'm in this difficult situation, but I have trust in God. And the Psalms are really good in a moment, like they say.
[00:32:57] Speaker A: Absolutely. And I think also, it made me think, we don't praise God for the things he does for us. I mean, we do, we should also but first and foremost, we praise Him because he is God.
[00:33:07] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:33:07] Speaker A: So above all things, he's not just somebody who hands out chocolates to one and sardines to another.
Yeah. We praise him just because he is.
[00:33:18] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a great point, whether in season, out of season, no matter how tough it is, and we're so conditioned today, right, to think, wow, I will thank you if you do a good thing for me. But it's like, yeah, that's not who God is and that's not who we are. We owe Him everything, every existence, the fact that you breathe right now.
[00:33:36] Speaker A: That's right. I read something the other day that said we are all two minutes from dying, but every breath resets the clock.
[00:33:43] Speaker B: Wow. Yeah, it's pretty harsh. Christmas cards. Merry Christmas.
Happy birthday.
[00:33:50] Speaker A: You could be dead in two minutes.
Don't forget to breathe.
[00:33:55] Speaker B: Chopin. Our Christmas cards. Life is meaningless. Merry Christmas.
Yeah. Gosh. That is true, though. That is so true. When we live in a world that sort of, and particularly now, this crisis has highlighted that we've forgotten that truth. Death is the ever present uninvited guest knocking at the door.
[00:34:12] Speaker A: It's not when we die, but when we stop dying.
Oh, she's so deep.
[00:34:17] Speaker B: Oh, so deep.
[00:34:19] Speaker A: So deep.
[00:34:19] Speaker B: So profound.
That was actually quite good. That was good. Say it again.
[00:34:24] Speaker A: It's not when we die, but when we stop dying.
[00:34:27] Speaker B: That's good. That is good, eh? Yeah, man, that's true.
[00:34:30] Speaker A: Bit depressing.
[00:34:31] Speaker B: Happy birthday. Put that on your cake.
[00:34:35] Speaker A: You'd love it.
[00:34:35] Speaker B: None of the candles are lit. They're going to go out one day. You'll be snuffed out like those candles.
Okay. For me, one thessalonians chapter five, verses 16 to 18. And yeah, for me, you sort of hear this one around a bit, but it's funny, it's just really sunk in. I'm hearing it now. It's part of this sort of daily scriptural reflection app that I'm using, and they always end with this, actually. And so I'm hearing it on a daily basis, and it's so much contained in let me read it to you. Rejoice. Always pray without ceasing. Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. So rejoice always. That's hard enough. You mean always? You mean sometimes always? Not always without ceasing. So pray without ceasing. It's like okay. Yeah. Give thanks in all circumstances. So all circumstances, there's something to be thankful. And you're like, okay, this is hard. And then the real sort of the biman sardine to the side of the face moment is when it says, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. It's like, oh, it's not just a thing I should do. This is what God actually wants.
I don't know. It really hit me for some reason. I've heard that so many times, but it just hit me these past few weeks how important that is.
And I guess being in a crisis, nothing like being a crisis to sort of sharpen that, because it's easy when things are easy, to say, oh, yeah, I should totally pray, totally reflect on God and his great love and mercy. And then when you're getting pummeled, it's like, oh, man, this is really difficult.
[00:36:18] Speaker A: I think important to remember, though, in that circumstance that just because you're getting pummeled doesn't mean you haven't been praying enough. I think we can sometimes flip it on its head a wee bit and think, it must be my fault, I haven't been holy enough or pious enough, and so bad things are happening.
[00:36:35] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a good point.
It's funny, there's almost like an arrogance to that, too, as if absolutely. It is a sign of despair, really. It's like it depends on me, not God.
And you forget what God's actually doing and what he's leading you through, and yeah. You start to think it's all about you.
Yeah. And there's a certain hubris. That's a good word, isn't it? Hubris. Huberus. Put that on your birthday cake. Happy birthday, you huberstic clown. I'm not sure if huberistic is. I'm pretty sure, isn't it? Well, it is now these days, man. It seems you can add anything to the dictionary they're making up. Blemish. Yeah, it's crazy. Words that are not like the word literally has now been changed in some dictionaries, apparently, because people have been literally using it the wrong way to mean the exact opposite. That's a sign of our times, isn't it? That's a good point. A, we should pray, but bad things.
[00:37:32] Speaker A: Don'T happen because we haven't done it right. Just pray.
[00:37:36] Speaker B: And here's the reality of it. Like, go and read the Book of Job, man. Bad things will still happen even when you do pray. And it's a sort of superficial, childish faith that sort of says, well, if good things are happening, then God must like me, and if bad things are happening, then he's either abandoned me or he's not real. I think that's, yeah, we need a bit more of the old what do you call the I was going to say the desert fathers, but just the fathers of the church in general, who just I think they had a more sort of holistic approach to everything.
Not, I'm special and you're special.
Yeah, god's special. And that's it. Suck it up, buttercup.
That was our moment of goodness, truth and beauty for the month and our scriptural reflections. The only thing left to do, Katie, which is the moment that everyone has been waiting for. Drum roll, please.
Is our listener questions. And we've got three that we wanted to tackle today that have been sent into us. Don't forget, there's a link in the show notes. If you want to send in your questions or topics you'd like us to discuss, then please use that link. That Google form, it's totally anonymous. We don't read out names or anything like that. We don't know who you are, in fact. And so just send in your questions, no matter how crazy you think they are, just anything at all. Our focus, really here is what nuggets of wisdom have we learned the hard way? Because we don't have heaps. But what we've got? What can we do to share with people to help them live a cultural goodness, truth and beauty in their lives, with Christ at the center of that?
So whatever way we can, we'll do our best. So the first question we have is this, Katie. What do you do when one spouse wants another child but I guess it says the other doesn't. So it's a bit of a know, what do you do to say you want a child but your spouse doesn't? Or your spouse wants the child but you don't? What do you do when one spouse wants another child but the other spouse doesn't? What would you say?
[00:39:44] Speaker A: Obviously there's a conversation to be had, I would say that needs to be discussed, probably.
[00:39:50] Speaker B: And keep discussing it.
[00:39:52] Speaker A: Right, yeah, absolutely.
[00:39:54] Speaker B: And what the circumstances are that might prevent that.
[00:39:57] Speaker A: Yes. Because I think reasons for not having another.
[00:39:59] Speaker B: Yeah. And this is such a fraud issue, right, in a lot of ways. But I think the natural footing is, and certainly within Christianity is the natural footing is that children are a gift and that they are a beautiful fruitful multiplication of God's presence here on earth in a really profound incarnated way. New bodies, new human souls and incarnated souls. And that's a beautiful thing. So the natural footing is that they should be part of married life.
It's a huge burden and a huge cross for those who can't have children. That must be so tough. We experienced a sort of minor temporary blip, maybe we'll talk about in a future episode. And early on in our marriage around that that was gosh, that was even that was challenging. But we know people who've been in this for some years now and it must be so hard. But putting aside that cross, the natural footing should be children are part of marriage, they're not an add on. And in a culture that doesn't do that can be hard. And then that creates all these complications when that's right. These conversations or these issues, I think.
[00:41:02] Speaker A: It'S about discussing, for instance, what one spouse's reasons are for wanting another child and the other one's reasons are for not and trying to find an understanding there. I know as a woman there can sometimes be a desire for pregnancy, but not necessarily that's interesting. It's not sort of attached to the.
[00:41:26] Speaker B: Babies abuse, the nine months of being pregnant.
[00:41:29] Speaker A: Such a gift that time. And yeah, I can understand someone wanting to say I'm not actually done having that experience yet.
[00:41:36] Speaker B: See, that's something that wouldn't even my tiny pea sized male brain is like.
[00:41:40] Speaker A: I might be unique in that because and I'm not saying pregnancy has been a walk in the park or easy or anything, I've certainly been more fortunate than others. But there is a beauty in that. And that you're co creating with God within your body. And sometimes we have a desire to not stop doing that, necessarily.
[00:41:56] Speaker B: Wow, that's a good point. Because that's the key, right.
If someone came to me and said, look, this is our situation, I'd say, well, probably the first thing you want to say is, why do you want to get to the bottom of what's the difference in opinion? Like you said, why is it?
One thing I think that can happen is that I've seen this in our friends is that the mother gets left carrying the baby literally so often she's overworked. And then perhaps even in Christian homes, there's a tendency not to be honest about that struggle. It's like, oh, I'm a bad mother if I don't accept I can't keep up with this burden. But I don't tell anyone because that will mean I'm failing or I'm a bad mother, and I've got all these sort of motherly Christian motherly duties, and so we're not so honest. And then you got Blokes who are just like, yeah, it's just another baby because they're not pulling their weight, they're not helping out.
The wife is left literally carrying the child. And so if it's going that way, so it's the husband who wants the child that Bloke needs to figure out real quickly, well, what are you not doing, son?
[00:43:04] Speaker A: Why is she not keen on another baby?
[00:43:06] Speaker B: Yeah, what's going on here? And quite commonly, it's because you're not pulling your weight. So basically, she's expected to have the children, plus you the extra child. In a sense, I had to learn that even in our marriage, and I wasn't a particularly selfish person, I don't think. But I discovered once we got married that I actually was a lot more selfish than I realized. I was a lot more lazy than I realized. I was a lot more myopic and focused on me.
And as I said, I actually don't think I was a particularly bad example of someone like that, but I had all these things I didn't realize. And then when we had kids, it was like, wow, I'm still even more selfish.
[00:43:47] Speaker A: I think that's natural as well for men, because you're often going out to work or whatever, often your time is more your own than your wives, is when she kind of ends up yeah, that's true with the kids. Yeah.
[00:44:00] Speaker B: But I think you've got to get to the bottom. I think the key question to ask in that situation, if that's you who's listening, is Why? What is it that's actually causing the difference in the approach here? And it's a matter of trying to figure out whether that's something that's resolvable in the Immediacy. I guess if it's not so it's not like, I feel overworked, or we don't have enough money now. Things that may be, oh, well, I'll take an extra job, or I'll help out more, or whatever it might be, then I guess what would be required is I think you have to have a grace and a prayerful grace. So if you're the person who's carrying perhaps the burden of that, because don't forget, it'd probably go the other way too. So if you're thinking, I'd love to have another child and the other person is for whatever reason, that's maybe it's not legitimate, they're just I don't know, maybe some sort of hard heartedness about it or their own wounding as a child.
Yeah, then they probably too I think most people would probably have a burden that even if they don't tell you that, they would feel, oh, man, I really hope that she or he understands my feeling. And then the other person's thinking, oh, man, this is really hard. But I don't want to pressure the other person. That's why you got to keep having the conversation, I think.
[00:45:22] Speaker A: Absolutely. Yeah.
[00:45:24] Speaker B: It's not something you do once.
[00:45:26] Speaker A: Well, I think also we would counsel that the church doesn't prescribe a perfect number of children no. And that every family, every couple is different on what they can manage, and every circumstance is different. You might not manage it this year, but next year maybe it's different. And it's something to pray through together as well, that you actually are both open to what God wants to do. And always remembering that in every circumstance because I think maybe there could be a surprise pregnancy. And just remembering that every baby is a blessing no matter how they come about. Every child is a blessing in every circumstance.
[00:46:05] Speaker B: Good point. Yeah, that's true. Keep having the conversation. You've got to figure out, well, what the issue is, really, and what's going on here. And I think that's why we've counseled people premarriage. And one of the things we'd always say to them is, you need to be before you even get married. This is a conversation you need to have, is understanding your approaches to these big questions about, well, what is your ideal family size? What does it mean to have family to you? Because often people don't talk about this, and then they get into marriage and they go, oh, we're really different on this.
I think you've got to keep without any obligation, in a sense. So there's no, well, we're having this conversation because I want an outcome. It's just the conversation is kept alive so that it doesn't ever fester into a yeah.
[00:46:54] Speaker A: And I think it doesn't need to be like it's not something you decide overnight if you're on different pages about it.
Thankfully, the Lord has designed us with fertility every month, more or less, depending how old you are. This is a conversation that can take time and that one month might be different to the next.
[00:47:13] Speaker B: Yeah, that's so true.
As you say, there's no perfect family size. There is no preordained family size. There just isn't. And that's a trap too, because that could be one of the reasons someone might have in their mind. This is why we say to couples before they get married, talk about it. Because someone might say, well, I think four children is a great family. And someone is thinking, well, I think eight. And they've got this for some reason, eight is the number they think is the right number for whatever reason. And this feels holy to me and it might be as simple as someone having to let go.
[00:47:49] Speaker A: Yeah. And we know couples that have discerned having less children than they initially thought and couples that have discerned having more and I think it's just a matter of doing that together and remembering that your family is your family, you and God that figure that out.
[00:48:03] Speaker B: Yeah. And one thing we'd counsel is I mean, our Catholic tradition is so clear on this about the obligation, the requirement to be open to life. So we don't use contraception for that reason. We use natural family planning which allows us to cooperate with God's natural inbuilt design. There's periods of infertility in the female cycle but even when we are utilizing that, the sexual act between us still remains open to the possibility of new life. We're not doing anything to try and shut the act down, each individual act and so that's really important and that's the pivotal thing, remain open to life.
But then of course, there are circumstances under which it would just absolutely not be good or prudent to just sort of let's just throw the dice and see what happens. Someone is in a serious health crisis or there's a financial crisis or whatever, it might be mental health issues. There could be lots of there are.
[00:49:01] Speaker A: So many different reasons.
[00:49:03] Speaker B: So yeah, give each other grace. Next question is what about differences of opinion regarding sex and intercourse? And I was thinking about this question, thinking, well, that sort of could go either way but I'm assuming this is an issue of desire and frequency, is what I was assuming but as I was looking at the question I realized, well, it might be more than that. It might be well, I like it when it gets really passionate and someone else is like, well, I don't very vanilla for me. But as I was reading I was realized that could be actually a few things thrown in here but yeah, it's.
[00:49:41] Speaker A: Hard to know exactly, but I assumed.
[00:49:42] Speaker B: Initially it was maybe was it? But probably some of them are similar, it's crossover. So what would you say someone again.
[00:49:47] Speaker A: It'S just conversation, isn't it, that openness.
[00:49:50] Speaker B: And you got to be honest about.
[00:49:52] Speaker A: It and these topics can be really hard to be open about. I'm sure early in our marriage it was probably something that we probably struggle more to be open about it than we do now, I guess.
[00:50:01] Speaker B: Yeah, it's almost a bit we hadn't.
[00:50:04] Speaker A: Lived with other people before, the whole bit.
[00:50:06] Speaker B: Yeah. We hadn't lived with people in any sort of intimate relationship, we've been flatting and other things and stuff like that but it is a little bit embarrassing in some senses.
It's a conversation you grow into as you know the other person more, you feel more confident and safe around them.
[00:50:30] Speaker A: And then that vulnerability, isn't it, people can find very difficult to yeah.
[00:50:35] Speaker B: And if you've had bad experiences, too.
That's a challenge.
Here's the thing. One thing I think that happens is that I would want to know again what is actually driving the difference here?
What is it? So you got one spouse who says, well, I want to have sexual intercourse every night, and I think that's what it should be. And the other one says, oh, I.
[00:51:02] Speaker A: Don'T have lots of headaches.
[00:51:04] Speaker B: Yeah.
So the question is why? What's going? Because one of the possibilities here is that and this is a trap, I think, for modern Christian marriages we've all got to watch out for, is that we are sitting in a culture, we are stewing in a culture. Of the sexual revolution, which was an abject failure. And it's built on a whole lot of ideological lies about the human person and about sexuality that are really bad for us. But we are so even Christians are sitting in this, and now we've bought into a lot of these bad ideas. So one of the bad ideas is if you have a sexual desire, you should satisfy that desire and that there's something unnatural or abnormal about not satisfying the desire. Or I read an article the other day in the paper, a sexless marriage, and I was like, well, what does that really even mean? Because surely elderly people must get to a point where the sexual act might even become impossible. Or someone's got a health issue.
[00:51:57] Speaker A: That's right. Yeah.
[00:51:58] Speaker B: What if someone gets really unless marriage is it? It's just a marriage, isn't it?
[00:52:02] Speaker A: Yeah, that's right. We've said this before that the marriage makes the sex, not the sex doesn't make the marriage. You'll have good sex if you have a good marriage, not yeah, that's true. You can't save a marriage with yeah, no, you can't.
[00:52:15] Speaker B: If you think you can save a marriage with sex or if sex or.
[00:52:19] Speaker A: You'Re basing your marriage on yeah.
[00:52:20] Speaker B: If it's the only thing holding your marriage together, I'm sorry, you've got a big issue that needs addressing.
[00:52:24] Speaker A: And if it's the only thing that makes your marital relationship different from other relationships, then there's something weird going on there, too.
There's a lot more that goes into me and you being husband and wife than that. I mean, that's a good part of it.
[00:52:38] Speaker B: Well, there has to be, otherwise you haven't got a marriage.
[00:52:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:52:41] Speaker B: A marriage is not a sex license. That's the thing. I think one of the dangers we bought into the sexual revolution and then it sort of came into Christianity, and people think a marriage is like a sex license. You're not allowed to have sex until you got the license.
[00:52:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:52:52] Speaker B: It's not.
[00:52:53] Speaker A: But once you've got the license, you can do it, get it whenever you want. You'll get it, feel like it, whatever.
[00:52:57] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
[00:52:58] Speaker A: Whatever way you want it.
[00:52:59] Speaker B: And in actual fact, a marriage is a covenant between two persons about total self giving and love for the other before God.
[00:53:06] Speaker A: Sometimes total self giving looks like doing the dishes and putting the children to bed. Bingo.
[00:53:09] Speaker B: Yeah. And in fact, sex is a very small, tiny part of it. And so if you think that the sex you need the sex to save, now there's a problem. Of course there's extremes, right. The extreme is there's no sex at all and something's dysfunctional there. But if your marriage is dependent on the sex, I would humbly suggest to you that that's a completely reductionist and flawed vision of what marriage actually is, and you're in real trouble. You need to get onto that.
[00:53:31] Speaker A: That's not loving the whole person, is it?
[00:53:33] Speaker B: No. So one of the dangers people often talk about Sigmund Freud, but it's not really Sigmund Freud that we base a lot of this on. It's a guy called Herbert Marcusa who came after Freud. And Freud had this idea of what he called the sublimation of the sexual drive. And so the idea was this not every sexual desire should end in orgasm, so not every desire should end in a sexual act. And so he had this idea you sublimate it's a creative power, your sexual drive, and you can give that drive to lots of other non sexual activities. And that's very true. It's actually Freud, for all of his mistakes, I think that was something he got right. Mark Hughes, though, comes along after him and says marcus comes along after him and says, well, no, I believe in libidonous morality, the morality of lust. So you have a desire and it's a moral thing to satisfy, and we're stewing in that. So what all that means basically is that you want to try and figure out, okay, is this because I've got a bad idea about sex?
Yeah. The wrong idea about sex. And so I have a culturally conditioned, anthropologically flawed vision of sex in the human person. And I think I'm supposed to be having sex every night because I've been conditioned to act this way and it's actually not valid at all. And so I need to address it at that level. Another thing to think about is one way that will condition you is pornography. If you've had an issue or you've got an issue with pornography, you need to get that sorted because that will have shaped your view of what sex should be.
[00:55:00] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:55:01] Speaker B: And that's a factor. And again, that's a male centric problem generally, but there are exceptions to that. But generally sexual abuse. If you've been a victim of sexual abuse, often what happens is there's a distortion of the sexual gift in a person's life and that can manifest in ways that are not healthy. That's something to think about.
But you want to know why, what's the reason here?
It could be maybe a health issue too.
It could be mental health.
[00:55:27] Speaker A: It could be so many things can affect libido. I think it's really important to remember that. And that we're all built differently. People are going to have different libidos. And I think I would like to reassure anybody if it's in particular like a newlywed couple or in your first few years of marriage, that these conflict isn't the right word, but these kind of discrepancies are really common.
Like I said, we struggle to talk about these things, but it's coming to understand each other and what each other's requirements are and what each other's kind of how you see love, how you feel loved. And especially for women, that's really important. It's a real cliche, that whole thing about what is it? A woman needs to feel love to have to want to have sex. And a man needs to have sex to feel love, which I think is quite cliche, but certainly that you need to be serving each other in other ways first.
[00:56:23] Speaker B: And that will inform upon love languages too. What is your love language?
And I think that's so true.
Often it can be that's what that conversation even before you get married, so very important. You're right. We don't talk about this enough, and we don't talk about honestly about the often we sort of know the moral framework. Yeah, I'm supposed to have sex in marriage.
[00:56:45] Speaker A: Yeah. Chastity is really pushed, and we definitely support chastity before marriage, but it's remembering that once you get married, you can't just automatically turn that off sometimes, like often it's sort of in your because you've been for so long in your DNA yeah. Trying to chastel.
[00:57:00] Speaker B: But there's also a point there that well, marriage is not a sex license, but it is still a chastity license as well.
[00:57:05] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:57:06] Speaker B: So the chastity changes now you changes. It doesn't yeah, you're sexually intimate with a person was before you weren't that chastity before marriage is no sexual intimacy. After marriage, it involves sexual intimacy, but the chastity part must still remain. And that means I live and love this person in totality. It's not just me satisfying my desires. And so we often don't have the well, what does marital chastity look like?
[00:57:31] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:57:31] Speaker B: What things great conversation. Maybe that's another episode. But what things are actually morally good in a marital sexual relationship and what things are not acting in accordance with marital chastity? Because it's not anything goes again, you got to communicate about this. But also one thing I'd want to know is, well, when you talk about, say, if it's a frequency issue, what really is it? Because I think often we have a false idea in our mind, too.
[00:57:56] Speaker A: I think the media is so out there, isn't it? The media kind of makes out like everybody's doing it every night.
[00:58:01] Speaker B: Healthy marriage, morning, noon and night, five or six times a week. The truth is this, if I understand things correctly, in my conversations with Blokes and others and reading about it, in actual fact, most people who are happily married and have got kids that if they are having sexual intercourse together once or twice a month, that's a pretty good regular, normal frequency. And yeah, some people it's more than that.
[00:58:23] Speaker A: Obviously, normal is different for everybody, right?
[00:58:24] Speaker B: Yeah. So often we got this preconceived judgment. So if you're sitting there going, oh, well, it's only once or twice a month, don't panic if it's like, well, this person just doesn't want it's been months and months and months, there's something.
[00:58:40] Speaker A: There deeper things to go on.
[00:58:41] Speaker B: There's a conversation that needs to be had and you might discover that in your spouse there is a hidden wound. Maybe it is a sexual abuse wound that's been reopened because this can happen. People become sexually active and the wound is reactivated. Again, you need to know, you need to get on top of and that's where that conversation is so important.
[00:58:58] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:58:59] Speaker B: But yeah, Blokes, if you're out there, I would say, look, one thing that we've got to do is we got to get over ourselves, too. There's that tendency. I'm serious. I'm really serious about this, this idea of, well, there should be this amount of sex and if not, somehow she's not satisfying my needs and no, grow up. Grow up. Seriously. You're a man. You're a married man now. Love your wife, give yourself to her totally. Like Christ would on the cross. Total death to self. It's not, well, what's she going to do for me to make me feel good? And Blokes, you got to really got to fight that. Because it's part of our DNA, where we're sort of weather guys who stand at the gate and fight the barbarians, but because we've got all this testosterone coursing through our bodies. The flip side of that is we're like, right, I want some sex now as well. And you've got to keep that side of it in check. It's like you wouldn't go to excess with your testosterone in other areas, eh?
[00:59:52] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:59:52] Speaker B: Yeah. I'm going to go and smash my neighbor because he doesn't mow his lawn, right. I'm going to have a fight with him. That's a problem. Well, I want sex all the time because I've got testosterone. Sorry. It's the same problem. It's an excess that needs to be addressed. Right. And so our final question for this episode is this why do Christian groups have clicks? And how do we change this when people are just comfortable in the click that they're in, or I guess the click, depending on what side of the tracks that you come from. But people who form groups and little clicks and closed or more I wouldn't say closed, but more closed groups, friendship groups and things like that, why do they have them in Christian circles? And how do we change this? How would you respond to that?
[01:00:33] Speaker A: My first answer would be that that's not unique to Christian churches or churches in general.
It's just normal for people to gravitate to people that they are similar to them, that they get on well with. In fact, in my experience, I would say I'm only friends with some people because we've been at church together and I maybe not would not have been friends with those people had it not been for that shared faith experience.
[01:01:01] Speaker B: Here's the thing. Clicks are actually not unnatural.
It seems like the question there's a little bit of and I don't know whether the person intended it this way or not, but that I've fallen into this trap of sort of thinking that somehow the natural position is to be in a Christian community where you're in relationship with everyone. Well, if it's only 20 people in your church, that of course you can and that's natural. But if it's 100 or 200 people, in actual fact, we know that you can't form meaningful community with many more than sort of 60 to 100 people because you can't relate enough with that many above that. So in actual fact, smaller groups are normal. They're the norm. We're just conditioned to think global. In actual fact, we should be thinking more small. So clicks are actually natural formations and often they are just like minded people, so they come together. Because you like Downton Abbey. I like Downton Abbey.
[01:01:52] Speaker A: So many friends. That like Downton Abbey.
That's what I call it.
[01:01:56] Speaker B: It can't stay there, it can't stay in that superficial place, but they're not an unnatural thing. That's right. I guess the danger, though, is when they become closed. That's the problem. So if you're in a group where you've closed yourself off to others or you deliberately shuffle away from that difficult person yeah. That's a problem, right?
[01:02:16] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely. Yeah. When it's not Christian behavior, is it? Yeah, it's not charitable.
[01:02:20] Speaker B: I would say to the person who's asked this question because it might be that you're struggling to break into a click you feel on the outside and unlock. I feel for you. I've been in that situation. I think one thing I'd say, those who are in groups who have clicks or even church communities or whatever, always fight like mad to be open, to be welcoming. Yeah. And especially the more challenging people.
It's easy to be welcoming to the people who are comfortable and safe.
Like the person who walks into your church who clearly is loaded up with facial tats and quite clearly looks like they may still well be in a gang. It's a lot more uncomfortable, but that's what we should be doing, treat everyone equally.
And the more difficult people in your church, you're like, oh, it's just so hard because this person's just a personality I don't get on with. No, we'll learn to because that's what authentic community is. It's not just a group of people you like.
But then if you're on the outside, I would say this give yourself time to break into a click.
[01:03:18] Speaker A: Yeah. It takes time and it takes getting to know people, doesn't it? And you may find that you need to be a bit brave and step out of your comfort zone. One thing that our church has done. We've been running Alpha now for a couple of years, and I think that's an amazing way to meet even people that you see every week at church, but to actually get to know them but better in a small group basis, you have a meal with them, which is a very casual, easy way to kind of get to know people over a meal, especially if you're a bit more shy or introverted. And I was just talking to our parish priest the other day and he said, we've run it.
I'm going to get this wrong, but maybe four or five times now, 30% of the people are now coming in from outside of our church, which is amazing. But that's real bravery to come into a community who already all, or a lot of them all know each other established. They have in jokes, they have backstories and that kind of stuff. I mean, that can make it seem more intimidating and more clicky.
[01:04:16] Speaker B: Yeah. They've got a character arc and you're not even part of the plot.
[01:04:20] Speaker A: Yeah. You're like fourth episode of Downton.
Who's this new person?
[01:04:27] Speaker B: It's good. And I think you're right. You got to give yourself time. I think suffering is often a good I think suffering breaks and forms healthy down the barriers.
[01:04:36] Speaker A: Clicks.
[01:04:37] Speaker B: It breaks through when you journey and suffer with people. I think you got to work hard, too, to break in sometimes, like you say, I think we often think, well, okay, I stood there and no one spoke to me, but you've actually got to work. Yes. You got to go beyond that both ways and you have one week where you're not quite and especially if you're an introvert, because you lean that way, right?
[01:04:57] Speaker A: I do lean that way, yeah. And it actually takes me quite an effort to some of my friends are going to laugh at this. It takes me quite an effort to reach out to other people.
But I have beautiful story of a friend who's been going through a really hard time in her marriage. She's got two we kids and just over the last few months, just from us, persisting as a group. Persisting, like, come to this thing, stay for the sausage afterwards, we'll help you watch the kids, we'll do whatever we can. And she's really coming out of herself and it's so beautiful to see.
[01:05:26] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:05:26] Speaker A: That's awesome that she's feeling more comfortable.
Continue.
[01:05:30] Speaker B: And that's amazing, eh? Because her personality is very much that sort of introverted.
[01:05:36] Speaker A: She's been hurt in the past.
Yeah.
[01:05:39] Speaker B: And you got to remember that. So I think and sometimes, too, you do have to be honest with yourself and say, well, why am I struggling to break into these groups? Maybe it's because I'm doing something that's a little abrasive. It could just be that I'm fight more self awareness. Yeah. You're trying either maybe trying too hard or you're doing things that are maybe just a little bit abrasive around people. And this might be a moment where you go, maybe I need to be careful about that. Because you can I think it is it's a challenge to think about, I.
[01:06:12] Speaker A: Think also discernment as well, and asking the Lord to help you in that moment. You want to make sure that the click you're trying to break into is not the right click, not superficial.
What are your reasons for wanting to be on the inside of that group? Is it a good group?
[01:06:29] Speaker B: You're a 30 year old mum and you're like, I want to join the Silver Foxes ladies group in the church. And they're like, we don't really totally not in the same situation.
[01:06:38] Speaker A: Have you got your own teeth? You can't come in.
[01:06:40] Speaker B: Yeah, and it's not they'rejecting it's just it's not a fit that sort of works necessarily that well.
[01:06:46] Speaker A: Yeah. I think it still sounds a little bit like what advice we give to Lucy, who's 14 going on 15. Be judicious in who you choose to spend your time with.
[01:06:56] Speaker B: Good point.
[01:06:56] Speaker A: Yeah. Make sure the people the Lord wants to bless you with through and I.
[01:07:00] Speaker B: Think to recognize that actually, in actual fact, despite the movies and the hype, there isn't like a super duper sort of magic way of making a million friends. And that's actually not normal.
[01:07:14] Speaker A: You don't need a million.
[01:07:15] Speaker B: No, you can't. And most people actually only have one or two really close friends and then maybe a slightly outer circle. They don't have tons and tons of really close wow. You're my best friend in the whole world, Timmy. That's just not normal for lots of people to have lots of people in that category. So don't think again, preconceived notion of what you think you should have. It might not be correct. The notion might not be right.
Well, there you go, folks.
Hopefully that's helpful. And we love those questions. There's so many more already sitting in the I was going to say the spreadsheet, the form, they're all sitting there waiting to be answered. So Katie loves a good spreadsheet. She really does. In fact, we have a household spreadsheet.
[01:08:00] Speaker A: More than one multiplier the Christmas present spreadsheet the other day, and he was like, what? He tried to skip children and I was like, we start at one and we go through to five, and that's how we have that conversation.
[01:08:10] Speaker B: Man, that's hilarious.
Everyone's in the spreadsheet.
[01:08:14] Speaker A: Oh, you're not in the spreadsheet yet, darling.
[01:08:16] Speaker B: I'm pretty easy. Bottle of whiskey.
[01:08:18] Speaker A: See how many points you get up.
[01:08:19] Speaker B: To if you're listening, if you ever want to buy me a Christmas present bottle of whiskey.
So, yeah, hopefully you found that engaging. There's plenty more questions already sitting there. As I said, we're going to do another episode. We're going to have a Christmas themed episode, probably because some people have actually asked us a Christmasy related question. So if you can think of other questions that are Christmas related, you want to send us chuck them in? We'll chuck them into the mix. But, yeah, we'll do another episode before the end of this year. So in December, in a few weeks time, there'll be another episode of The Little Flock. It's been great to be with you, as I always like to sign off and say, well, before I do that, let me just we'll do the admin, shall we?
[01:09:01] Speaker A: We should do the admin.
[01:09:02] Speaker B: Yes, we should do the admin. Another thing I love, there's a link. She does. You love admin? I'm addicted. Give me another shot. Give me another spreadsheet.
[01:09:11] Speaker A: And I've got myself an admin.
[01:09:12] Speaker B: Click another shot of administration. We all get together and we look at spreadsheets.
[01:09:17] Speaker A: We can talk about Excel.
[01:09:18] Speaker B: Great. How many times do you multiply b three by x nine. Okay, this has gone right.
[01:09:25] Speaker A: I know nothing about spreadsheets.
[01:09:28] Speaker B: Maybe that's the next question for a future episode.
[01:09:31] Speaker A: Too boring.
[01:09:31] Speaker B: How does one construct an authentic spreadsheet? Okay, all right, so this has gone way off track. Let's wrap this bad boy up in the Show Notes. There's a link for you to get to that form where you can send in your questions and your topics. Please do we really want to know those things so we can respond and engage with you on those issues? Don't forget, please subscribe.
If you haven't already done that, hit the subscribe or the little follow button that's in front of you, and that way you'll be updated every time. But this is a monthly podcast, so once a month we publish an episode, and that way you'll be updated immediately as soon as we publish an episode. And last but not least, don't forget, if you want to support this ministry, this work that we're involved in, and you want to do your little bit to help, every little bit helps. Patreon.com left Foot media. There is a link in the Show Notes, and you can contribute as much or as little as you'd like to each month to help ensure that these episodes keep getting made. Or alternatively, if you want to just leave a one off tip in the tip jar, then you can do that. There's a link for that as well in the Show Notes. Do you want to say anything before we wrap up this bad boy?
What you couldn't see their listeners was that in silence was Katie vigorously shaking her head and giving me a funny.
[01:10:42] Speaker A: I refuse to do anything that was on camera. Yeah, podcast. Yes.
[01:10:45] Speaker B: Good.
[01:10:46] Speaker A: Maintain invisibility at all times.
[01:10:47] Speaker B: Yeah, it's so funny. Deadly. Look into my eyes with head shaking. No, but anyway, well, we'll see you next month. And as I always like to sign off don't forget live by goodness, truth and beauty, not by lies. And we will see you next time on The Little Flock. Thanks for tuning in.
[01:11:04] Speaker A: See you then.
The little flock is a joint production of the LifeNet Charitable Trust and Left Foot Media.
[01:11:18] Speaker B: If you enjoyed this show then please help us to ensure that more of this great content keeps getting made by becoming a patron of the show at Slash Left Foot Media.
[01:11:29] Speaker A: Thanks for listening. See you next time on The Little Flock.
