[00:00:06] Speaker A: Hi, my name is Caddy Malone, and.
[00:00:08] Speaker B: 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 darnil, this is definitely the podcast for you.
Hi, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Little Flock podcast.
[00:00:36] Speaker A: Hi, everyone.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: We are back, Caddy.
[00:00:39] Speaker A: We are.
[00:00:40] Speaker B: And there are some strange noises in the background today, so you'll just have to forgive those. If you hear anything, the heat pump has to be on because it's a balmy.
[00:00:49] Speaker A: It's decided to be winter in Christchurch.
[00:00:51] Speaker B: Yeah, it's supposed to be autumn, right? Yeah, we're still, we're in the wrong season. And so it's really cold. The heat pumps on, and then there are helicopters and planes and all sorts of other things flying around outside.
[00:01:01] Speaker A: So it's because we're in a thriving metropolis. Brennan, three sets of traffic lights in ringing right now.
[00:01:06] Speaker B: Thriving apocalypse. Well, that sounds funny. I'm not sure what's going on, but it ain't sounding too flash. If you're new here, welcome aboard. Just a couple of quick things. We'll get them all out of the way really, really quickly. Please share and subscribe. If you've been listening for a while and you're not a subscriber to the podcast, please subscribe. Please share with your friends. Let them know. Give us a rating that all helps the show. If you're on a podcast platform that allows you to actually give us a rating, we'd love you to give us a few stars or a comment if you can do that. If you want to support our work, there are two ways to do that. Patreon.com leftfootmedia the link is in today's show notes. And if you become a five dollar monthly patron, then you get an exclusive patrons only episode of a podcast called the Dispatches, which I put out every single day of the week, Monday to Friday. And we talk about current affairs and news and a lot of issues, actually, and even stuff that the mainstream media doesn't cover. So we cover.
[00:01:59] Speaker A: That's royal way you're talking about.
[00:02:00] Speaker B: Yeah, that's me. But basically, yeah, even like a lot of pro life news and things like that, you just won't hear in other places. So a lot of people who are tuning in say they find it really, really helpful and it helps them navigate the madness of the culture. So if that might be something you're interested in. Hey, go and become a $5 patron. Or you can go to lifenet.org dot NZ and if you're in New Zealand and you become a donor to the Lifenet Charitable trust. Oh, stumbled over that one. It's gonna call it a chust. It's a trust with a t, not a ch.
[00:02:30] Speaker A: That's what the youths are calling it.
[00:02:32] Speaker B: Yeah, well, so if you wanna go to lifenet.org dot NZ and there's a donate button there. And if you're in New Zealand, you get to claim it back on your tax each year. So that's lovely. You do this in our house, don't you?
[00:02:44] Speaker A: I certainly do.
[00:02:44] Speaker B: Tax guru. Man, I am not really. Wow. An accountancy guru.
[00:02:48] Speaker A: Not even that.
[00:02:49] Speaker B: Wow. Come on, you're underselling yourself here. I don't know what I'm doing. So if anyone can balance the books that are a guru in my books that I can't balance. Okay. And last but not least, send us your questions. We're gonna be answering a question today that was sent in just a week or so back, actually, by someone about a current state of affairs and christian schools. So the little flockpodcast.org or lifenet.org dot nz. So both of those links are in the show notes and either one of those at the top of the page, you will see a special link about sending your questions into the little flock podcast.
[00:03:25] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:03:26] Speaker B: So, yeah, that's us, Katie. That was record time, wasn't it?
[00:03:29] Speaker A: I reckon that's probably the best you've ever done it.
[00:03:31] Speaker B: We blitzed it. So we've got some stuff to talk about today. First of all, we had a big milestone, you and I. Last week, we did 20 years married.
[00:03:41] Speaker A: I was gonna say we went out for lunch.
[00:03:45] Speaker B: That was also a big milestone. Cause it's like, yeah, man, we should go on more dates. Really.
[00:03:50] Speaker A: We're terrible at dating.
[00:03:52] Speaker B: We are the.
[00:03:53] Speaker A: Even when we were dating that we weren't really that good at dating.
[00:03:55] Speaker B: I have this theory, and it's sort of proving true a little bit, that the experts, the consummate experts, are also not very good often at following their own advice. Cause we'd tell couples, you know, make time for each time, make time for.
[00:04:07] Speaker A: Dating, date your wife.
[00:04:08] Speaker B: And we're sort of a bit shocking at that. But that's the break I wish we.
[00:04:12] Speaker A: Would actually have to make time. And we're not God, so.
[00:04:15] Speaker B: Oh, that's a good one. That's a good excuse.
[00:04:17] Speaker A: Where do we get time?
[00:04:19] Speaker B: Who am I? God? I can't create time out of thin air.
[00:04:22] Speaker A: Very short on time. Back to my neck in our present life.
[00:04:25] Speaker B: Yeah. So. But we did. We went out. That was also a milestone. We went out for a lunch date. It was hilarious. It kind of turned into a work meeting. A little bit. A little bit. Not a lot, but, yeah. Our 20 year wedding anniversary last week.
[00:04:39] Speaker A: Amazing.
[00:04:40] Speaker B: Did you. I want to talk about this, because did you ever in your life think, wow, one day I'll be sitting there celebrating 20 years of marriage?
[00:04:49] Speaker A: I figured if I got married, it was going to be for a long time.
[00:04:52] Speaker B: I just never thought. It's funny that it felt like once you hit that milestone, it's like, wow, this is actually quite a big milestone. But in the lead up, it didn't. It just sort of didn't register with me. But once we hit it, it was like, wow, that's actually. That's two full decades.
[00:05:10] Speaker A: Yeah.
I think when you think about all the stuff we went through before we hit one full decade, and I know probably everybody who's been married 20 years could say, oh, you know, you went through heaps of stuff, but when you think about the earthquakes and job situations and stuff, we went through quite a lot.
[00:05:24] Speaker B: Yeah. So what did we have? We had an earthquake first.
[00:05:27] Speaker A: We had three babies in under three months.
[00:05:30] Speaker B: Well, no, even before we got there, we had. We just assumed we'd start having babies, and we didn't. That was like. And that was. There was a period there. Aye, we were. For a good solid year or so. And we're just over, actually. We sort of start to think maybe we're not going to have perfect fertility. That was kind of freaky and scary.
And then we had three babies in quick succession. We went from one, two, three with the twins second time around, which was quite amazing. People often say to me, what was that like? And I say, well, I just didn't. It wasn't a thing. It was like. Because we never knew, like, the luxury of only having two kids.
[00:06:08] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:09] Speaker B: We literally just went from, okay, now we're gonna have to have two car seats and two. Well, wasn't two car seats three car seats?
[00:06:17] Speaker A: Do you not remember Lucy in the middle of the back of the fashion wagon?
[00:06:19] Speaker B: Yeah, but what I mean is. But what I mean is, with the new babies, it was like two cars, a double stroller. It was just. I don't know. It was just. Yeah, we literally went from one to three, and we never really knew what it was like, but so we went quickly to three kids, then we had the earthquake.
[00:06:33] Speaker A: You forgot the twins had meningitis.
[00:06:35] Speaker B: That's right, the twins had meningitis, which they thought might have been bacterial. Praise God. It was viral. And they were really worried. And we ended up in hospital with them for a week. It was a week in total, wasn't it? And it was. That was pretty freaky. That was. Man, that wasn't a great moment. And then we had the earthquake, and then we ended up in high court because of the insurance company didn't want to pay for the insurance policy which we had with them. It was just crazy. Strangely enough, as soon as we got to the high court, very quickly, they settled, but they weren't going to pay it. Initially, it was quite astounding, and that was years. Years of fighting and madness. I remember sitting in the driveway, right? Remember in the old Toyota Lucida Van we had, and you were in tears and you were like, are we ever going to get out of this? And it just felt like maybe we weren't going to get out of this. And we had no house. And, gosh, it was awful.
And then I was working for a ministry and there were big internal problems, and that created massive sort of emotional and psychological upheaval and, you know, big questions about employment and how we're going to pay the mortgage and all that kind of stuff.
[00:07:43] Speaker A: Because the mortgage on the house we couldn't live in.
[00:07:46] Speaker B: Yeah, we couldn't live in. It was kind of madness.
[00:07:48] Speaker A: When you hang back, you think, gosh, 20 years only by the grace of God, we're still here.
[00:07:53] Speaker B: Yeah, well, and it really is even, because I've been in full time ministry for almost exactly 20 years now. It will be this October, I think it's 20 years this October. And so it's just almost as long as we've been married, I've been in full time ministry. And I think, realistically, one or two slightly different circumstances, or ironically, the earthquake hadn't happened, I don't think I'd be in ministry now.
I think there would have been a whole other set of events that would have actually just pushed me right out of that because it just would have tipped me over the edge. So it was actually kind of a grace. It's funny how God works even in the midst of what it seems like an awful situation. But in saying that, as well, you like every. What we kept saying to people who were outside of the city, and particularly those who'd never experienced the earthquake, they'd say, oh, my gosh, that's awful what you're going through. And we're like, yeah, but there's people who've had it way worse.
[00:08:42] Speaker A: Yeah, that's right.
[00:08:43] Speaker B: That was just the thing. You were like, you always had that perspective. So, yeah, it was crazy. And then that first ten years of just figuring out marriage, I think the first five probably the most challenging. You reckon?
[00:08:56] Speaker A: Maybe. I don't know. I think kind of once we started having kids, you get a bit of a different perspective on, you know, that changed each other and the level of support you can give each other. We brought Lucy home from the hospital, and a week later, it was our third wedding anniversary. You know, like, that's right.
[00:09:10] Speaker B: Yeah, it was. And the demands used, the demands changed. Cause it is like, I think. I reckon it's not. Blokes in particular can actually coast. I look back on this now, I realize, no, hey, that's a bit too cynical.
[00:09:25] Speaker A: Sorry.
[00:09:26] Speaker B: Edit, delete. Where's the dump button? No, that's staying in. You know, us, we don't edit out too much. All Katie's swearing, we get rid of that. And smoking cigarettes and drinking in the corner, getting angry in a pot. No, she doesn't do any of that. But, yeah, men can coast. And I realized this after we started having kids, because the obligations, and it takes a while, I think, for your ordinary bloke to actually get his head around what that means. The obligations do increase. And I look back now and I realized, wow, without children even being in a marriage, a committed, faithful marriage, that's not just, the demands are not quite enough to really pull you out of yourself, even then. It's funny, you need that. I realized as a man how much I needed to be a father. And there's a great tragedy in that, of course, for fathers who, or men who want to be dads and because of infertility can't experience or because of bad relationship situations. That's a great tragedy to me because I really understand how important that was. But, yeah, the first. Yeah, I don't know. It's funny, I look back and I don't. You know, people say, oh, the first two years are the hardest, or the first five, or the first ten. I don't know if I have a.
[00:10:35] Speaker A: What was the hardest? Yeah, I think it's the first one, really, the first year, probably finding our way around each other and living in the same house for the first time.
[00:10:43] Speaker B: Yeah. And two strong world personalities.
[00:10:45] Speaker A: People who eat your chips when you're out of the house.
[00:10:47] Speaker B: That was a. Oh, my gosh, Katie had a bag of twisties and I ate a bag of twisties because I'm watching.
[00:10:52] Speaker A: I can't even look at a bag of twisties anymore without having pussycat.
[00:10:54] Speaker B: Oh, it is still talked about to this day, the great twisties. I mean, it was twisty gate.
[00:11:01] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:11:03] Speaker B: And to be fair, I thought, oh, I actually felt a bit guilty afterwards, but I always intended to replace them. I thought, I'll just go and get another bag of twisties. It's not the end of the world. But it was. That was my bag of twisties. It was so funny.
[00:11:16] Speaker A: They were there when I wanted them.
[00:11:18] Speaker B: Yeah, that's exactly it. And then I thought, oh, I felt a bit stink. So I thought, I'll take the rubbish of the twisty rubbish right out to the outside. Rubbish friend. And then Katie went and looked because you're like, where's my twisty? And then he went and checked outside. You're like, you should hide this evidence. This crime is getting worse. Oh, man. That was a funny moment. There are a few of them.
[00:11:37] Speaker A: It wasn't funny in the moment.
[00:11:38] Speaker B: No, no. But what's hilarious is we were fighting over bag of twisties.
[00:11:42] Speaker A: That is way more important thing to fight over now.
[00:11:44] Speaker B: Yeah. That is the dumbest thing ever. This young couple who got upset about a bag of twisties.
[00:11:49] Speaker A: And it's what the twisties represent, Brendan.
[00:11:52] Speaker B: Little yellow, cheesy bundles of goodness.
[00:11:55] Speaker A: People are probably like, what, as twisties? Well, anybody overseas wondering what twisties are?
[00:12:00] Speaker B: Yeah. Okay, so that. What cheese. What do they call them over there?
[00:12:03] Speaker A: A flavoured corn snack?
[00:12:04] Speaker B: Flavoured cheese, flavored corn snack.
[00:12:06] Speaker A: Nobody else has twisties, though. That's.
[00:12:07] Speaker B: No, no, they're a great snack, but yeah, they are a memory in our house. They have psychological trauma associated with post twisties very often, to be fair, post twisty syndrome. So, yeah, it's pretty interesting, those first. The first year was really the year.
[00:12:25] Speaker A: Yeah. A lot of people have said that to me. They found the first year pretty rough.
[00:12:28] Speaker B: Yeah, it's funny that.
[00:12:29] Speaker A: So if you're out there and you've only been married a little while and it's not been very easy, don't panic.
[00:12:34] Speaker B: No, no, I was going to say that too. Don't panic. You just. You've actually got to white knuckle it. That's what I learned as well. Sometimes you just gotta even last night we were talking about a little incident that happened in our family home and some stuff we've been going through lately. And you do have to white knuckle it. I think sometimes it's not.
Yeah, it's funny. The modern mythology is, and I suspect probably our forebears would have been a lot more realistic about this. Yeah. Just find a woman, get married, you know, have kids, and just sort of get on with it. You know, you'll go down the pub and she'll be with her mates just talking about how he doesn't do enough around the home, and you'll be in the pub complaining about stuff, but you just. You go home to each other and love each other and get on with it anyway. Now, I'm not saying that you should be wandering around town complaining about your.
[00:13:16] Speaker A: Spouse, but going out for drinks.
[00:13:17] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. But you sort of get the point that we're very sort of grounded in that they just got on with it. They weren't going anywhere else. And I think the modern expectation is probably largely media driven, is that you will find that perfect Prince Charming or that perfect beautiful queen and you'll get married and it'll be sunshine, roses, romantic every day. Yeah. And if it's not, oh, my gosh, something major has gone wrong.
[00:13:38] Speaker A: If you don't have sparks every moment, then should you even be together? Kind of thing.
[00:13:42] Speaker B: Have you, have there been any other learnings that you've. From 20 years of marriage? The things that you go, wow, I think differently now, or I've learned stuff, or, you know, you were advising a young couple.
[00:13:57] Speaker A: I don't think it's necessarily something I've learned. I think it's just that old.
We say it all the time, you know, love is a choice. Love is a decision. And I think that's just more and more true every time. Every day. Yeah. With the things we go through.
[00:14:09] Speaker B: So you get to 20 years, right? One step at a time, one core, hold at a time. You just keep climbing, you just. And there'll be more to come.
[00:14:19] Speaker A: We were talking about this the other day, you know, the grace is sufficient for the day. You just. You're married today. You just keep going.
[00:14:24] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a great way to think about it.
[00:14:27] Speaker A: I was talking to a friend at work who's been married a little bit longer, and she said, oh, it was really nice to see your anniversary posts. And she said, what I feel now for my husband is just that I am more certain, you know, I just know that neither of us is going anywhere. And what a blessing, you know, like.
[00:14:46] Speaker B: It'S crazy, isn't it? Imagine living with that threat. And a lot of people do. Sadly, the modern liberal mindset is, well, if we're both happy, then it's meant to be. And if we're not, then it's not meant to be. And I don't mean both. I mean, just could be. Just one person says, well, I'm not happy. Or even worse, is changes in life. Like, we're experiencing that now with our kids, our own personal lives. We're getting older.
Who we are mean to tell them that we're young. We're hit with it.
[00:15:15] Speaker A: We're always using.
[00:15:15] Speaker B: We're into the top ticks. You know, we're always on that. And the grams of insta or whatever it is that these kids are on, you know? So. Yeah, but you do, and you change. It's funny that. Eh? But if you're like. I look back now and I realize we have changed heaps, but we went through it together.
[00:15:33] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:15:34] Speaker B: And so you just. It's.
[00:15:36] Speaker A: It's William Shakespeare. Love is not love which alters when alteration finds.
[00:15:41] Speaker B: I thought you were gonna say you.
[00:15:42] Speaker A: Don'T stop loving just because someone changes. Right?
[00:15:45] Speaker B: Yeah, that's true.
[00:15:46] Speaker A: Love shouldn't change just because a person changes.
[00:15:48] Speaker B: Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war, is what I thought you meant.
[00:15:51] Speaker A: Is that your favorite one?
[00:15:52] Speaker B: I do. I mean, come on. That is great. That is great.
Rage. Rage against the dying of the light. That's Shakespeare.
[00:15:58] Speaker A: That's not Shakespeare.
[00:15:58] Speaker B: No, that's. What's his name? The poet?
[00:16:00] Speaker A: I can't remember. But it's not american poet.
[00:16:02] Speaker B: I can't remember his name. That's terrible. Put your comments in the comments section and win a prize. Where are you from?
[00:16:06] Speaker A: Tell us who wrote that poem.
[00:16:08] Speaker B: I know it, too. Oh, my gosh.
[00:16:09] Speaker A: Anyway, charge of the Light brigade.
[00:16:13] Speaker B: Anyway, so we'll come back to that. Some other episode. We'll figure it out. We'll google it. If we were youthful, we'd have Google attached to our brain, and we'd just be like, google.
[00:16:20] Speaker A: Google lens.
[00:16:21] Speaker B: Google. Look at our phone. Phone, Siri. Tell me.
So, yeah, it's funny. And now, of course, with children, and they're becoming like. They become like milestones. The teenagers now have this whole different thing that you've got to.
You and your spouse have got to go with them on that journey. It's like. It's kind of weird because you start in this position where it's just you, and then it's just you and another person, and then it's you and the babies, but they have to go with you. And now they get to a stage where they're actually charting their own. You have to go with them.
[00:16:50] Speaker A: It's like, oh, man, they can't drive yet.
[00:16:52] Speaker B: Yeah, there is that. I got a message this morning of driving around. Can we have another driving lesson this week, dad? Oh, I love it.
[00:17:00] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:00] Speaker B: But, yeah, it's like there's very polite, those kind of messages. Some of the other.
[00:17:04] Speaker A: She's going to regret that, though, because we're going to be like, drive, your sister's here.
[00:17:08] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right. That's right. She doesn't see what's really going.
Hey, yeah, yeah, Lucy, it's morning this week. Yeah. So it's kind of crazy, eh?
That's just a whole big other journey. But 20 years. 20 years and it's.
You're right. I think that great insight you just shared before about you don't actually get married for a lifetime, even though you do get married for a lifetime, you need to actually get married for today and every day. And that's. And then that means you realize it's not about my perfect dream or my perfect, idealised division of marriage, it is about what's happening.
[00:17:44] Speaker A: Yeah. Because you don't know what tomorrow's got in store. I mean, we're blessed with children in the end, but that may not have happened. You know, you can't plan that. So.
[00:17:52] Speaker B: No, it's quite. Yeah, it is quite astounding. So, 20 years, Katie. Happy anniversary.
[00:17:58] Speaker A: Thanks.
[00:17:59] Speaker B: And I hope you enjoyed your free lunch that we got out of. Yeah, we had. We had lunch together and we bought each other gifts, so that was a very. I got a very, very special gift, actually, from Katie. A silver pewter. Pewter. Sorry, traditional, silver coloured, of course, pewter for those who are familiar with the world of antiques and antiquity and. Yeah, pewter. A little dram goblin.
[00:18:27] Speaker A: It's called a quake.
[00:18:28] Speaker B: Yeah, a quake. And it's a traditional celtic. Scottish. Scots probably stole it from the Irish, but it is Scottish.
This little dram cup, it's like a little goblet, small in size. It's not even like the height of a goblet, but it's got these two beautiful celtic knot handles either side. And traditionally, the spouses would have shared a dram of whisky together at their wedding. At their wedding. So we were a bit late for that, but, you know, we'll use that soon. And Katie finally got her birthday watch, which was overture from a couple of years ago, and a clattering, which is something she'd wanted for a while. So, yeah, it was quite. Irish and Scottish came together, so. Yeah, man, amazing. 20 years. Happy 20 years. You can do it, folks. Just keep fighting. That's all I'd say. If you're having a rough day today.
Yeah, don't fight. If you're having a rough day in your marriage, just, you know, keep talking, keep white knuckling it, keep praying, keep focused. And yeah, it is definitely, I think, much better to fight your way through to a better situation than to quit and walk away. It might feel easier to do that. But a lot of people in the data, apparently, the research I've read is they actually go, oh, if I had my time over, I'd remarry that person, which is very interesting. They regret. They go on to regret their divorce. Now, this is abuse.
[00:19:47] Speaker A: People generally, I would give some advice, is that you actually sit with each other in those hard times.
[00:19:53] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:19:53] Speaker A: You know, like the temptation is to run away sometimes, but actually, sometimes it's just about sitting next to that person and just being there in that time and not actually necessarily solving any problems or fixing anything but the fact that you're just there.
[00:20:08] Speaker B: Yeah, I've been going through a few things lately, and that's been something valuable, I think. And even just being present with the family is just, you know, there's something about that. Right. That presence. It does. I think isolation can happen in lots of ways, and.
But we think we maybe tend to overcompensate. We're like, if there's lots of talking, there's lots of stuff, lots of activity happening, lots of people, somehow that's a tonic for isolation. But in actual fact, just presence is often all it takes, you know, just being there to witness and be party to what's going on. So, yeah, let's move on then, Katie, and let's talk about a couple of things that have happened lately.
We had this article about decentering men, and it was quite funny. We had a little discussion before we came on. Not another one of these articles, but it kind of seemed relevant to talk about. I'm not going to talk about the article too much, but there's a few things that have gone on lately. So. Harrison Butka, I think that's how you say it. His name. Maybe it's butkey. He is that NFL player who gave that.
[00:21:08] Speaker A: Everybody in America knows how to say his name.
[00:21:10] Speaker B: Everyone knows how to say his name.
[00:21:11] Speaker A: Who is this guy?
[00:21:12] Speaker B: He gave that commencement speech at Benedictine College. I think it's a college, isn't it? The catholic college. And unsurprisingly, he just enunciated a whole lot of catholic truth. And even your average, I think, your average Orthodox Protestant Christian would also say, yeah, but, you know, might not agree with everything, but, yeah. So, pretty good to me. Look, it needed a bit of polish in places, that's for sure. Here's a bit of exuberance and all the rest of it, but generally, pretty good speech. But Holy Moly, talk about a pylon.
[00:21:42] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:43] Speaker B: And so there was that. And one of the big things he got in trouble for was actually not even correct. People claimed that he said a woman's highest calling is basically in the home and that she shouldn't be in the academic world. That's not what he said at all. I mean, you and I, there's a.
[00:21:56] Speaker A: Lot of people just listening to soundbites and not actually the context of the.
[00:21:59] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:22:00] Speaker A: Which isn't even that long. So come on, people. It doesn't have to be three minutes long. You can listen to something that's 20 minutes. I challenge you. So I listened to the whole thing, and there were definitely bits where I was like, meh, not sure I'm 100% behind you on that one.
[00:22:12] Speaker B: It could have been more polished around it.
[00:22:13] Speaker A: I did see someone, a mutual acquaintance of ours, who commented, and I agree with what she said, that, yes, some stuff that he said was a bit out there for some. Like, not everybody's gonna agree with everything.
[00:22:25] Speaker B: No.
[00:22:25] Speaker A: But he is young and passionate, and I see a lot of us, 2015, years ago, the way he delivered it, I'm like, you know, with wisdom and maturity and growing up a bit, probably he would temper some of those, the way he delivered some of those opinions, and that's fine. Everybody has to grow up. Like, don't make such a big deal about it.
[00:22:45] Speaker B: But it was like. Cause you were first to say to me, these people haven't actually listened to what he said. And that was the thing that was most shocking for me. There was two things that were shocking for me about it, but I'm not.
[00:22:56] Speaker A: Shocked by that because people are useless at listening to a whole thing.
[00:22:58] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:22:59] Speaker A: Terrible.
[00:23:00] Speaker B: So one thing for me, though, is I expect people outside of Christianity to pile on and go, I'm a liberal, and how dare he? And I love my abortion. Cause he talked about that. Of course I love my abortion, and I love my premarital sex. And he's awful, and he's just a. He doesn't understand. And, you know, all that kind of stuff, I expect that that's normal. But when you've got Christians, and particularly, it was Catholics, actually. Cause a lot of other Christians seem to be quite okay. With what he's saying, funnily enough. But these, when you've got these Catholics in particular piling on, and I'm like, well, hold on a minute, a, you clearly haven't listened to what he's actually said, a lot of you, because you're saying things that aren't true about the man. You have literally just heard someone else.
[00:23:41] Speaker A: And I was paraphrasing, who probably got.
[00:23:42] Speaker B: It from someone else, who got it from someone else. Like the social media, bushwire, telegraph was nuts.
[00:23:47] Speaker A: Yeah. If you're gonna comment on something, listen to it like, or read a transcript or, you know, but don't, don't comment on comments. On comments.
[00:23:55] Speaker B: And here we are. I don't want to talk about the substance of what he had to say. We've sort of briefly touched on it. Your feelings on her, but more I wanted to talk about the other thing, too, was people. It was clear everyone felt they had to comment. And I know here we are talking about it, but I want to talk, or we're trying to talk more around the reaction rather than the actual substance of the speech. But everyone felt they had to give their opinion about his speech. And even people are kind of surprised by your ordinary, everyday sort of. I guess people in christian ministries who don't really even touch on that stuff felt they had to give their comments publicly.
But why do you need to comment on this?
[00:24:33] Speaker A: If you think it's that bad, then why are you drawing more attention to it?
[00:24:36] Speaker B: It was so weird. It was like clearly people felt compelled. It was a great object lesson for me and something I talk about a lot publicly regarding social media is that it actually makes you reactive. And people just reacted. There was the animal brain kicked in, nothing more. That's what social media does to you. It drags you down to the level of an animal brain and nothing more. And you just react.
[00:24:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:57] Speaker B: And people just felt they had to react. I have to say something. They have to tell it. But why can you pray instead? Can you contemplate it in your head? Can you talk offline and have a conversation with people? That's what Katie and I did. We just talked offline about it.
[00:25:08] Speaker A: It's interesting because I had, someone at church had sent me something on it, and then I had a very brief conversation with her yesterday and she said, you know, cause he's this famous NFL player, I was like, didn't have a clue that he was famous and know anything about the guy.
Apparently people want to cancel him. Like they want him cut off. The Chiefs.
[00:25:25] Speaker B: Now the change.org potential.
[00:25:26] Speaker A: But also on the flip side of that, his Chiefs jumper is now the most sold out number.
Obviously, some people agree.
[00:25:34] Speaker B: The market has spoken.
Yeah.
[00:25:37] Speaker A: So he's not going to get kicked off because he makes money now.
[00:25:40] Speaker B: Well, the thing too was, I'm like, hold on, guys. If you're consistent, I can respect this. So if you're someone who's consistently saying these NFL players who abuse their wives and girlfriends, who are using drugs, who doing all these awful things to women, and you're critiquing them constantly, and then you also say, I've got a problem with what this guy said. I might disagree with you about this particular issue, but I have respect. You've been consistent. But like one commentator said, this is the issue that people feel an NFL player should be cancelled for.
[00:26:10] Speaker A: Is this the hell you.
[00:26:11] Speaker B: Not the abuse, the terrible, atrocious behaviours, the excessive drug and alcohol consumption.
What's his name?
[00:26:19] Speaker A: Travis Kelsey.
[00:26:20] Speaker B: Travis Kelsey, who did a skit for his podcast where he does a fake commencement speech and he just chugs a beer. No, no, that's not a problem. No, no, no. Encouraging drinking on campus. No, no. But this guy, when he says, my wife found her highest calling in marriage and family and he's honouring his wife quite clearly, it's like, oh, my gosh, you people are just, this is kind.
[00:26:40] Speaker A: Of, I think it's because it came in the context of, oh, well done for getting a degree, ladies. Now gone. It kind of came across like, go and have a family because that's the best thing you can do. And I was like, well, he's not wrong, it's just the delivery.
[00:26:51] Speaker B: Yeah. But also, I don't, I think that's where I think polish matters because he really didn't say that either. He just said, don't ever. The sense, it's interesting how people take different perceptions from it. My perception was the sense was, don't denigrate motherhood and think it's lesser.
[00:27:07] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:27:08] Speaker B: And that everyone knows if they're honest, that is a problem. Even liberals who are like, yeah, you can be a mum. And the president, they know that you shouldn't have to do both, that they know the problem really is you've still got to be the president to be valuable as a woman. It's not enough. Just.
And, yeah, it was just crazy. So everyone feeling that they needed to react and then also was the sort of the weird sort of contradiction because it's like, okay, if you're a liberal, if you're just a political liberal or a liberal Catholic, then liberalism is just. We all just agree to disagree and get on with it.
But it's like, no, this man must be punished and he must be sent. Well, if you're a liberal Christian, just go away and be liberal. He said something.
[00:27:49] Speaker A: You just get yourself on YouTube, have your own platform, say your stuff.
[00:27:53] Speaker B: It's just so weird. So the reaction to me was the weird bit of it. I'm not surprised by it. I'm not surprised some people found what he said shocking or controversial. It's just. The reaction was just.
[00:28:03] Speaker A: But I think it's because it's a football player using his platform to say things that people don't like.
[00:28:07] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, that's what it is.
[00:28:08] Speaker A: Right?
[00:28:08] Speaker B: Here's what he really did. He challenged the ideological regime. And you don't do that without paying the price. And that's the reality. He showed great courage in that regard.
[00:28:18] Speaker A: It's the equivalent of that guy. What's his name? Israel. What's his name?
[00:28:21] Speaker B: Folau.
[00:28:22] Speaker A: Folau, yeah. Is it not the same sort of thing?
[00:28:24] Speaker B: Yeah. You don't. There are certain third rails you are not allowed to touch. And if you touch them, they will come for you. And he touched a whole lot.
[00:28:32] Speaker A: Good work.
[00:28:33] Speaker B: I think he means good work, Harrison.
[00:28:34] Speaker A: Actually quite good.
[00:28:35] Speaker B: Yeah, he did.
[00:28:36] Speaker A: He just.
[00:28:37] Speaker B: And everyone, if they're honest, they know. They know that what he's saying here. Here's the funny thing. I know beautiful, celibate catholic nuns who have been nuns for decades, who would go, that man got it right. You know, they would not be offended at all. They would say, yeah, that's exactly it. We agree. And so I think everyone instinctively knows that it is true that you're. Unless there's something not right with you that marriage and family life is. It's the goal, it's the aim. It's the. It is the sort of primary good that you should be trying to achieve, not simply a career. Now, these things are great. There's nothing wrong with those. And that's. I think that was the mistake people always make. It's like there's a false dichotomy that sort of springs up and it's. Yeah, they just couldn't accept that, you know, we should. It's like as soon as you acknowledge that, you sort of. You're starting to accept that maybe there's a problem with the way our culture's structured. Cause it doesn't really favor woman. Even though it says, yeah, be the president and be a mum. The culture doesn't favor that. No, it wants you to be the president. It doesn't really want you to be the mum.
[00:29:45] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:29:45] Speaker B: And it's like, if you want to, that's great. And, you know, but you should also be a president, you know, it's like, why? You know? And it's same for a dad, you know, like, why does he have to be a superstar performer in the world of careerism? Why can't he just be a really good grocery store worker who earns a good wage and is a dad and loves his kids and earns money to feed his family stuff? Why can't he be then? You know, it's like. It's the same sort of problem, I think. So, yeah. There was. That happened, and then we had this article about decentering men. But then also. So this article basically is about women. We won't go into all the gory details, but there's a group of women who are sort of saying, look, we are decentering. Well, decenter men, they call it.
[00:30:27] Speaker A: It's a new name for feminism. Right?
[00:30:29] Speaker B: Yeah. Yes.
[00:30:29] Speaker A: It's just like.
[00:30:30] Speaker B: It's misandry. Men suck. Well, I should be fair. Some of it's misandry. Quite clearly. We hate men. We don't want anything to do with them. But I suspect a lot more of it is actually broken. Women who have been wounded by bad men.
[00:30:45] Speaker A: Yeah, true.
[00:30:46] Speaker B: And bad experiences. And so they just. It's like someone who has. The comparison I thought of was, I tried the gym and it's too hard. So exercise sucks. And it's like, no, you maybe just haven't found the right exercise yet. And you gotta fight hard to find the right one. You know, like, it's. And there's something that. But instead, sadly, they've been. It's not just men, but also the culture in general has probably betrayed them. And so they now think there's all. Men are bad.
[00:31:13] Speaker A: No man is worth it.
[00:31:14] Speaker B: Yeah. Nothing. And no contextualizing the way they maybe have lived their lives being sold a lie. You know, be a career woman until you're 40, then you'll settle down and it's like, you get to 40 and you're like, I can't find a man to settle down with. And so men must be bad. And. And there's no men out there. And that is a problem.
[00:31:31] Speaker A: Yes, that's an issue, but that's a cultural.
[00:31:34] Speaker B: A culture and crisis that has abandoned the concept of marriage and family life as being important. So why would people prioritise it? Yeah, why would there be men around? Why would there be women around? Do you know what I mean? Those who've prioritized it, like us, we went and got married. Those who didn't, prioritise it. And look, I know in some cases we've got friends in this very demographic. I can think of two good friends straight away who would have loved to have gotten married, but they just. There wasn't a bloke there. And unfortunately, that's part of the cultural problem that we're living in now. Neither of those two women have got cynical about it, though, interestingly enough, they're not like this. I'm decentering men and then obviously bad behaving men who clearly have just said, okay, the culture's told me that I can be a predator and get away with it. I can satisfy myself and I can use woman. And we've told women, hey, you're empowered, you know, if you're a girl boss of sex, you get what you want. And all these men, predatory males are going, yeah, you should definitely just use men and not hang around. That's definitely what that's gonna be good for you.
[00:32:32] Speaker A: Ideal. Thanks.
[00:32:32] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And it'll give you power. And these men are going, yes, empower yourself on me. It's like, man, this is crazy. And they've become victims of, oh, I think, predatory males who are happy to take advantage of that because related to that as well. In the last week or two, we've had this whole man versus bear thing and it's the same sort of question. If you came across a bear in the forest, would you rather come across a beer or a man?
[00:32:58] Speaker A: If you're alone in the forest, opens up a whole lot of questions. Like, why are you stupid enough to be alone in the forest to start with? Like man or woman. Or woman.
[00:33:08] Speaker B: That is a western thing, though, right now. Like people going to really dangerous parts of the world.
[00:33:13] Speaker A: Oh, really? There's a thing.
[00:33:14] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. There's been a spade of these awful incidents of either crimes committed against them or even killings of white men and women, liberal white young men and women who like, oh, we're backpacking through Taliban whole territory and it's like, oh, yeah, those guys. Yeah, people are so racist. We're cycling through Taliban country. It's actually, they're beautiful people and then literally a week later they're killed by brutal warlords or something.
[00:33:39] Speaker A: And you're like, it's not even a twist in the narrative, it's no predictable.
[00:33:43] Speaker B: So there is a certain look special.
[00:33:44] Speaker A: You'd be like, I saw that coming?
[00:33:45] Speaker B: Yeah, I saw that coming. Gosh. Yeah. Really? I did not see that coming. So. Yeah. But there's this whole thing of the claim was, it's safer to be around.
[00:33:57] Speaker A: A bear than a man alone in the forest.
[00:34:01] Speaker B: As I said in the podcast the dispatches last week, I think only people who live in a city who've never encountered a bear or know nothing about bears in forests would say that kind of thing. It's just crazy. But interestingly, our daughters picked up on it, and one of my girls said to me yesterday, dad, it's this whole idea that all men are evil. And that's what they saw from it. That's what they, straight away they saw the rhetorical sleight of hand. But again, it's a reflection, I think, of probably a lot of women who've been victims of a bad cultural situation that has enabled predatory men.
[00:34:32] Speaker A: Yeah. One of the good parts of this article was the therapist who talks about, you know, just being, you know, she's a bit dismissive of this whole thing. She does not keen on a return to 1970s feminism, and she says, I'm just trying to raise my sons to be good men, and that half of her clients are men who are trying to be good men.
[00:34:53] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:34:55] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:34:56] Speaker B: It's a funny thing, eh? Like, over the weekend, I committed a great mortal sin as a man, and I watched the Barbie movie, and literally.
[00:35:05] Speaker A: Every woman in the house was like.
[00:35:06] Speaker B: Watching, what are you doing?
[00:35:07] Speaker A: Even Eleanor came down. Hey. She's like, why are you watching Barbie?
[00:35:11] Speaker B: Eleanor, our youngest daughter, she's in bed. She comes down. Cause word.
Word gets around the Malone household, they're all in bed. Word gets around. Dad's watching the Barbie movie downstairs, and next minute, Eleanor comes out to see me, and she goes, she looks at me. The look on her face was like, you can't really see my face. But she was like. She literally says she was flabbergasted, dad. I thought this was trash.
She says to me, what are you? I was like, oh, my gosh.
[00:35:39] Speaker A: You're like, it is. I'm just checking that it's trash. It's definitely trash.
[00:35:42] Speaker B: I'm checking it was trash.
And I got to the end of it. The message is basically like, they can't. Men and women can't be together.
It's not even so much that they. That there's a whole lot of misandry and anti male stuff. There's also a whole lot of misogyny, anti female stuff. The way they present these Barbie women are that they're such idiots. They get fooled by a gentile who says a few stupid things and they're like, oh, okay, let's embrace the patriarchy. They are really. It's just crazy. So it's both anti male and anti female. But I realized at the end what the biggest problem was. You couldn't have complementarity of men and women. They didn't end by saying, men and women need each other.
[00:36:19] Speaker A: And we complimented each other.
[00:36:21] Speaker B: No, no. We must live this separate life. And it's. Yeah, it's. Again, it's a reflection of that culture that is not really helping men or.
[00:36:31] Speaker A: Or woman. Well, that's pretty much what that article says, right? Like, yeah, the political differences between men and women are growing wider and.
[00:36:40] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:36:41] Speaker A: And essentially it says, without saying it, everybody's using each other.
[00:36:45] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, that's a pretty startling admission, right? Eh.
[00:36:48] Speaker A: It doesn't come out and say it in that way.
[00:36:50] Speaker B: No, but it's there.
[00:36:51] Speaker A: It does acknowledge it.
[00:36:52] Speaker B: The subtext is pretty clear. Yeah. There's this. And that's the funny thing is that Christianity has been warning about this objectification. When you go into a culture of sexual hedonism, then what happens? Objectification. Men objectify women, and now women objectify men. And then you throw in the technological factor as well, where, like Tinder. What is Tinder? It's. It's like, literally you're. It's like cattle trading.
[00:37:16] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:37:16] Speaker B: You're looking at image. Swipe, swipe, swipe. Oh, that's. That's a horse I might be interested in. You know, I'll go the other way. It is literally like that. It's insane.
[00:37:23] Speaker A: Terrible.
[00:37:23] Speaker B: Now, no discredit to anybody who might have met someone lovely on Tinder. And you're lucky, but you are the exception. That sort of proves the rule, unfortunately.
[00:37:31] Speaker A: But if you do want to meet someone and you're struggling and you're thinking online might be the way to go, there are loads of good christian dating apps out there. There are some really bad ones, too. Watch out. But we know someone who met her now husband. They're pregnant with their baby. They met online.
Beautiful relationship. So don't be put off the idea of it, but just be careful which ones you use. It's much people that say they're Christian.
Christian.
[00:37:58] Speaker B: The interesting thing I've seen, I've heard a lot of feedback from women who are beautiful ladies who deserve a good man in their life. Deserve. I suppose that sounds like we're entitled to it. But you know who would really, it would be a blessing if they had a good man in their lives. Unfortunately, sometimes these sites get populated by people who. Predatory? Well, yeah, or they haven't quite managed to make it in the real world so you can present a different culture online.
[00:38:21] Speaker A: Yeah, it's true.
[00:38:21] Speaker B: You're like, no, no, I'm, you know.
[00:38:23] Speaker A: You answer the profile questions the way you think people want.
[00:38:25] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And those 1st, 15 failed marriages, they were all other people's fault. They're not mine. And so they go to dating sites and, and particularly I think christian woman too, if that's you, be careful, be careful, because there is a vulnerability towards compassion that you have and the compassion is a good thing. It's important. It's a christ like virtue. But, you know, be gentle as doves cunning and serpent. So be aware that people sometimes will present on those sites to try and exploit that. So. Yeah, but, yeah, so it's all part of this sort of a culture. It feels to me like the collapse of this whole thing is accelerating, though.
[00:39:01] Speaker A: That'd be nice.
[00:39:02] Speaker B: Well, but the divides happening, the, and that's why what we do with our kids really matters. Helping them to. I was really blessed when our kids recognized what the problem was straight away with that whole man bear thing, that they just, they got it. And it was kind of encouraging. They're younger and clearly in their circle. They know men who are not predators. And that was the thing that for them was they were able to recognize it. Because I've been in situations speaking in high schools to young students, 16 and 17 year olds in christian high schools come up to me afterwards and say, oh, thank you. You've restored my faith that there actually are men out there who are capable of being good men. And I'm like, oh my gosh, you should not be this jaded at 16 years of age. You shouldn't be. Something's not right. So, yeah, funny old times, man. We've traversed a big mountain there, haven't we?
[00:39:49] Speaker A: Really have.
[00:39:50] Speaker B: We've gone all over the place. Moral of the story? Don't decenter. Here's my other theory. I shared this with you earlier. My other theory is maybe some of these women who don't really connect with men, maybe if they had faith in their lives, maybe there was another calling for them. Like the christian single vocation has been, sadly, has been forgotten by a lot of people, but it's still a really fundamental right from the very beginning of the church, it was a calling, the call to use the gift of your life, your singleness, your celibacy to give it back to the kingdom and to serve in other ways. And maybe some of these women actually had that vocation. But they don't recognize it because there's no active faith life. But the calling doesn't stop. God always had that plan. He always had that call. It's always there. Even if we just stop listening.
[00:40:30] Speaker A: Yeah, that's right.
[00:40:31] Speaker B: So maybe that's a fact. I don't know. Who knows? I'm not a psychiatrist.
Okay, so that little musical interlude, you know what that means, folks. If you're a regular listener, if you're new here, that means it's time for our moment of goodness. Truth or beauty? Katie, what was your moment of goodness?
[00:41:04] Speaker A: Always do that.
[00:41:05] Speaker B: Well, I'm gonna start with you. It's our 20 year wedding anniversary. Ladies before gentlemen.
[00:41:10] Speaker A: You've just thrown me off by putting up your moment.
[00:41:13] Speaker B: I'll hide it again. It's gone. There you go.
[00:41:16] Speaker A: So last week, Lucy and I, our eldest daughter, went to a couple of musicals together. We managed to get two in one week.
[00:41:22] Speaker B: I know. That was like, whoa.
[00:41:23] Speaker A: Seems a bit cheeky. Really.
Had a little joke about how we were going to, like, compare and contrast these two musicals because they were quite different. So we first went to see legally blonde. One of Lucy's best friends. Goes to a specific private school. An unnamed private school in Christchurch.
[00:41:40] Speaker B: Now, can I say, I didn't know you could do that. You just take any movie or Netflix thing and make it a musical.
[00:41:44] Speaker A: But that's what I said when you were watching Barbie. Surely this is coming as a musical? It's halfway there already.
[00:41:49] Speaker B: Absolutely. And it'll be awful on stage watching the misogyny.
[00:41:53] Speaker A: If you saw legally blonde, you might think Barbie would be better. Legally blonde. Very slick.
[00:41:58] Speaker B: Was it?
[00:41:58] Speaker A: Very slick. And, you know, this private school obviously has a bit of money to chuck at these things. It's known for its drama. And we go every year because we like to support her friend. And it's nice little outing.
[00:42:08] Speaker B: You can't beat a good old fashioned communal school play.
[00:42:11] Speaker A: Yeah, true. Although I wouldn't call this a play.
This was a production.
[00:42:15] Speaker B: Oh, it was quite.
[00:42:15] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Cause they've got their new theatre.
[00:42:18] Speaker B: That particular school. I'll just say unnamed school will not be named.
[00:42:21] Speaker A: Anybody in Christchurch is going. We know where it's going.
[00:42:23] Speaker B: St Voldemort's.
I. Years ago, I don't know if I've ever told you this years. A friend of mine was actually there, like a musical director. He was paid by them and I got a paid gig. He said to me, do you want a gig? Being the drummer for the school production? And so I got a paid gig drumming for the school production for that same particular production. I can't even remember. I don't even remember. He might have even written it. It was actually quite good. And I just turned up and they hired. They didn't even. They didn't have, I don't think, their own performing arts centre. Sorry, then. Or the theatre. They hired another bigger one, I think, from.
[00:43:03] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, it's quite new, the performing arts.
[00:43:04] Speaker B: And so. Yeah, I remember we were down in this orchestra pit in a proper theater. Yeah. Nice.
[00:43:11] Speaker A: Now that you've hijacked, I can't even remember.
[00:43:12] Speaker B: Sorry. But anyway, that was. Yeah, carry on.
[00:43:14] Speaker A: Anyway, the point was that Lucy and I managed to get to two musicals, and it was just nice to spend time and to have these, you know, two very different, but equally well rehearsed and performed musicals to enjoy together.
[00:43:28] Speaker B: That is love. I can't remember.
[00:43:30] Speaker A: It's nice hanging out with your daughter. Like, it's starting to move into that growing up relationship a little bit more. And it's quite.
[00:43:36] Speaker B: Didn't she say, too, oh, I wanted to give you a anniversary present, so she.
[00:43:42] Speaker A: No, it was my mother's day present.
[00:43:43] Speaker B: Oh, was it for 42nd street?
[00:43:45] Speaker A: Yep. So, yeah, we saw 42nd street on Friday night at our local theatre. And we happen to know lots of people involved with that, too. So it was quite cool to watch.
[00:43:52] Speaker B: You know, your. You know, your kids are getting big when they are now shouting, you buying.
[00:43:57] Speaker A: Your tickets to stuff.
[00:43:58] Speaker B: I'm gonna buy your mother's day present and we're gonna go out. That is lovely. I can't really imagine what legally blonde was living.
[00:44:06] Speaker A: If you've watched the movie. It's not.
[00:44:07] Speaker B: But there's no music in there.
[00:44:09] Speaker A: There's just the movie. With songs.
[00:44:10] Speaker B: With songs.
[00:44:10] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. And some of the songs were really good. Some of them were quite entertaining, but I'd pay to see it again.
[00:44:16] Speaker B: Legally blonde. Legally blonde? No, she's blonde and she's legal. Legally blond.
[00:44:21] Speaker A: Better than that.
[00:44:22] Speaker B: I just. I can't imagine it. Cause it's not really a thing that I would. But it shows you how now anything can be turned into a musical. Just about.
Oh, I can't wait till they're reading the Kellogg's cornflakes. Pick it. I watched a film, actually, funnily enough, on the weekend that was maybe not, sadly, for later on, it wasn't Barbie. And it was actually. It was actually kind of cool. Anyway, we'll come back to that. But it's about breakfast cereal, so.
[00:44:47] Speaker A: Yeah, that movie that's on Netflix.
[00:44:49] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's actually a question that might relate to. I just realized I won't spoiler alert it, so that's lovely, though. And it's kind of cool. It is communal. There's something about that same theater, local theater company did Les Mis a few years ago. Remember we went to that.
[00:45:05] Speaker A: Don't give me Salah on Les Mis. We'll be here all day.
[00:45:07] Speaker B: It was good, though. It was actually really good.
[00:45:10] Speaker A: If anybody ruined Les Mis, I'd have to hunt them down. Like, honestly, the kids all know that's mum's favourite.
[00:45:17] Speaker B: They would be lay miserable.
[00:45:18] Speaker A: Cause I am very particular and watching legally bomb, maybe realise that again that I love a musical with meaning, you know, like, we went to see Aladdin in Sydney a few years ago together and that was amazing. The special effects are awesome.
Obviously it's well performed because it's capital theatre, like, but it's still just Aladdin.
[00:45:37] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:45:38] Speaker A: But there's something to me about a musical that has, like, deeper with the.
[00:45:41] Speaker B: Flying carpet, though, to be fair.
[00:45:42] Speaker A: Yeah, the flying carpet. Like I said, special effects were great, but it's the meaning behind it. Like, I was really surprised how much I enjoyed Wicked and it's because wicked has, like, a really good redemptive storyline.
[00:45:52] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:45:53] Speaker A: You know?
[00:45:53] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So. Yeah, well, that was great. But there is something cool about that communal experience. If we don't do that. It's very local too, right? The local theater company or the local school. It's not like going to a big budget movie which is showing everywhere. You can only experience legally blonde in Christchurch at that school. You know what I mean? Like, there's something about that that's quite.
[00:46:14] Speaker A: It's the same. All the other schools musicals were on the same week or I would have hit them all up because somebody else doing footloose, somebody else doing anything goes. Guys, spread your musicals out a bit next year, please.
[00:46:23] Speaker B: Well, I wish too they'd get back to the classics.
[00:46:26] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:46:27] Speaker B: Because there's something about the classics they feel the need to either reinvent, like, sort of trite movie experiences as musicals or even sometimes just writing their own musicals. It's like, I know it costs money. I know it costs money. But that's the thing that's worth investing in in a school setting. It seems to me it gives your kids an experience of something like, hey, we're putting on something like, meaningful, something that's got a bit of tradition attached to it or, you know.
[00:46:53] Speaker A: Well, I mean, if you're trying to save money, I just like to highlight the fact that Shakespeare is in the public domain. So go for it.
[00:46:58] Speaker B: Well, exactly.
[00:46:59] Speaker A: He wrote some good stuff. You might have heard of him, Kurti.
[00:47:01] Speaker B: He was a white male.
[00:47:04] Speaker A: Was he though?
[00:47:05] Speaker B: Top of the oppressor hyper questions about that. Ok.
Or was he really. Yeah. Was he written by an african woman?
[00:47:11] Speaker A: You just believe in the metanarrative.
[00:47:13] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, that's right. Well, my moment of goodness, truth or beauty was actually something I read. I got myself a new Kindle. Cause I'm really trying to basically divest myself of this woman phone that I've got. It's become like a.
[00:47:28] Speaker A: You got a different screen to take away from the other screen.
[00:47:31] Speaker B: So I added another screen to my life.
No, it's, it's. I've done a few things. One of them I've actually should arrived soon. Actually, I've got a bit of a watch on the way. It's actually an analogue watch too. So I didn't just use your brain.
[00:47:46] Speaker A: To tell the time.
[00:47:46] Speaker B: Well, also I wanted to see the moment of time right now. Like, you know, the actual time, 02:00 I wanted to see that in the context of a twelve hour day. It's like, it's. And it reminds me it's not just about this moment, but. So I've got to watch something for. Well, it is. Yeah, it's funny. Yeah, I did think about. I seriously thought about it because I also saw these Casio watches when I was a kid. If adults had this particular type of Casio chronograph watch, I think they were called, it was like, wow, I want one of those when I'm a big boy, you know, like this. And now that I looked at, honestly, I saw the face of it. Cause they're selling them now. The tragedy is they're called a vintage watch. And I'm like, I'm not that old. I'm not that old, am I?
[00:48:25] Speaker A: But vintage is cool.
[00:48:27] Speaker B: I know that's cool.
[00:48:27] Speaker A: If you have vintage, then you're technically a youth.
[00:48:29] Speaker B: So they sold as a vintage. I saw the face of that watch. You know how some things from your childhood. The cat's just come back, has he? Oh yeah. Oh my gosh. You better open the door. The cat has arrived back in the middle of the podcast. Come on in, man. He's hilarious. Anyway, so if you hear the cat, that's the cat.
But yeah, it's. I saw the watch and I don't know if you've had this experience where you see something and it just brought back these very visceral memories of my childhood. Seeing that, the face of that watch, for me, it was like, whoa. I remember just a flood of childhood memories. But I chose to go the other way because I wanted to see time in a bigger context and not just be stuck in the digital. But anyway, so I was reading my kindle because then I can.
[00:49:14] Speaker A: There's a lot of build up to this moment.
[00:49:15] Speaker B: Yeah, I know.
[00:49:15] Speaker A: It better be good.
[00:49:16] Speaker B: You made a joke about screens and narrow, how it felt. I had to explain myself.
[00:49:19] Speaker A: So justified. Let me explain.
[00:49:21] Speaker B: And I've picked up the screen. I didn't even need it because I'm looking at an image here. But I'm reading a couple of books at the moment, and one of the books is, oh, that's the cat. Wants to get out again, does he?
[00:49:31] Speaker A: I don't know what he wants.
[00:49:32] Speaker B: He's hilarious.
[00:49:33] Speaker A: He's a man cat. Clearly.
[00:49:36] Speaker B: Misandry. Feline misandry. It's wet. He literally. Yeah, okay. Wander around. Where you go, you're out. No, he's half and half. This is hilarious, man. Okay, it's first time for everything, but I'm reading Pope Benedict XVI. Previous catholic pope, for those who maybe don't know. And he wrote a trilogy of books, a very excellent trilogy of christology books. So, you know theology of Christ and who Christ is called Jesus of Nazareth. And this particular one is looking at the gospel of John in great detail. And it's the cat has come back and is now scratching the carpet. This is.
[00:50:15] Speaker A: Go for it.
[00:50:16] Speaker B: Why not? Come on, iggy. Go for it.
So this is the first time for everything. But there's this beautiful quote. He's just talking. There's so much. It's such a rich book. If you want to read great theology and scriptural exposition, you should read these books. The Jesus of Nazareth series by Pope Benedict XVI. But anyway, this is this beautiful little paragraph. According to rabbinic theology, the idea of the covenant, the idea of establishing a holy people to be an interlacuta for God in union with him, is prior to the idea of the creation of the world and supplies its inner motive. So, in other words, the cosmos was created not that there might be manifold things in heaven and earth, but that there might be a space for the covenant, for the loving. Yes. Between God and his human respondent. Each year, the feast of atonement in the jewish tradition restores this harmony, this inner meaning of the world that is constantly disrupted by sin. And it therefore marks the high point of the jewish liturgical year. And that beautiful truth about the fact that the world was not just created, it wasn't created by accident. It wasn't created just for the sake of God, was like, wow, look at the amazing stuff I can do. It was created so that he would have a platform and a vehicle to actually be in relationship with us. That is just really profound. I mean, I know this, but it really. Just. Reading it again was just so beautiful. So beautiful and such an important reminder. I think we can forget that. Very easy.
[00:51:57] Speaker A: I think you need to read Perilandra by CS Lewis.
[00:52:01] Speaker B: That's what this is about, the cosmic trilogy. And it's such a beautiful orientation when you realize that, yeah, at the center of everything is a profound communion of self giving love, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Everything flows out of that, and everything is called back to that. And again, the reason why we have free will in the world, even though the fruit of that is suffering and evil, is because of the higher good of love. God desires for us to respond to that calling, and he respects the love that he has for us is so great that he respects our choices, even if we want to choose to reject him for all of eternity. That is so profound. And it's a real complete reshaping of how we tend to think about these things, I think, but a very important one. And, yeah, the beauty of it really, really struck me. I don't know why. It just. It's so important. I think we need to be constantly reminded of that fact. So those hippies who say, man, the universe is all about love, they're kind of right. Yeah.
[00:52:57] Speaker A: Yeah, halfway there.
[00:52:58] Speaker B: Yeah. The next few things out of their mouth are often terribly wrong, but they are actually kind of right about that fact, and they are stealing that from the christian vision of reality. Oh, that's the cat.
[00:53:11] Speaker A: Cat categories.
[00:53:12] Speaker B: Thank you, Iggy, for your agreement. So, we might open the door and let the cat out, but he'll want.
[00:53:15] Speaker A: To come back in.
[00:53:16] Speaker B: Well, he can just stay out for a bit. I think this is marital 101 in action. 20 years of marriage, doors open. Cat doesn't want to go out.
Maybe leave it partially. I am going to need a cat door a. I think we'll just leave it partially open. And if he wants to go, he can go. Otherwise, mate, you're going to have to book yourself a guest spot if you want to be on this podcast each week.
Yeah. So he's back in now. This is hilarious, man. Absolutely hilarious.
[00:53:42] Speaker A: Knocking over boxes. He's protesting.
[00:53:45] Speaker B: Maybe he's found a mouse. If he's found a mouse, I'm happy. Okay. So, Katie, what was your scriptural reflection for the month? Did you have to look this one up?
[00:53:53] Speaker A: Only because I wanted to get it right.
[00:53:55] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. We don't want to make up scripture.
[00:53:57] Speaker A: I like to give the reference.
[00:53:58] Speaker B: Thus Jesus.
[00:53:59] Speaker A: People that might want to reflect on.
[00:54:00] Speaker B: It themselves, thus Jesus said, buy whole foods only.
[00:54:02] Speaker A: What was baby cheeses?
[00:54:06] Speaker B: What was that great Babylon bee video we saw?
[00:54:09] Speaker A: Oh, the rich white Jesus.
[00:54:14] Speaker B: What must I do to be saved? Be less white.
[00:54:18] Speaker A: And he went away sad because he was very white.
He ruined it.
[00:54:22] Speaker B: Oh, so funny.
[00:54:23] Speaker A: So mine comes from the book of acts, acts 2035, where Saint Paul says, keep in mind the words of the Lord Jesus, who himself said, it is more blessed to give than to receive. Now, being a Christian, we hear this a lot, don't we?
[00:54:40] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:54:41] Speaker A: But it really made me think, especially because it was around the time of our wedding anniversary, that I read that, about how we model this to our children, being more blessed to give than to receive.
You know? You know me. You know, I like giving gifts that I've thought about. You know, I like. And I also find it really awkward to receive gifts.
[00:55:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:55:00] Speaker A: So it made me think about that and just how we model our giving and how giving is good, that everything we have in ourselves, like our own being, our own temperament, our own talents, is given to us by God and is therefore good, and we have a duty to give it to others.
[00:55:22] Speaker B: Yeah, that's true.
[00:55:24] Speaker A: And thinking about that in a family life, like, how do we show our children actually giving will make you happier.
[00:55:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:55:33] Speaker A: There's always a feeling that goes with it. And you can kind of never be outdone in the good.
[00:55:38] Speaker B: No.
[00:55:38] Speaker A: Do you know what I mean?
[00:55:39] Speaker B: It's how you find yourself. It's the very heart of the gospel. Right. If you want to find your life, you've got to lose it.
[00:55:43] Speaker A: Because Jesus says in the gospel, freely you have given, freely you have received, freely you must give. Like, it's actually a command.
[00:55:51] Speaker B: And the measure that you give, it will return to you. You don't give for that reason. That's the paradox. If you try and give for that reason, you're not actually giving.
[00:55:59] Speaker A: No.
[00:56:00] Speaker B: You're still trying to hoard.
[00:56:01] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:56:01] Speaker B: You know, I'll give you love in order to get to.
[00:56:04] Speaker A: Nothing we've been given is for us to keep in the christian life. And I think beautiful. And that comes back to the musical that Lucy took me to see, because she kept saying, oh, I want to do something for Mother's Day. And I kept saying, I'm not sure if I want to see it or not. I don't really know much about it. I don't know if I want to spend the money on it. And she said, I want to buy you tickets to go and see it. And I kept saying, no, no, no. And then I was in church and I was praying about it and I just felt God saying, like, let her do that for you, you know, let her give you that.
[00:56:27] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:56:27] Speaker A: And actually show her.
[00:56:29] Speaker B: Yeah. That's lovely.
[00:56:29] Speaker A: Yeah. Give her the opportunity to be a giver.
[00:56:32] Speaker B: That's awesome. That is good. It's a good lesson for our children, too, right? My scripture is one Peter, chapter five, verses eight to eleven. Be alert and of sober mind. This is almost two parts. This one, be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour, resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings. So, first of all was that this is. There's a couple of more verses to go. But the first part for me was the expectation that an actual fact, to be christian, to be part of the family of believers, the church, is to actually expect that suffering will be part of it. It's not to find this perfect utopian family of perfection and no suffering and everything's all sunshine and rose as an actual fact. It's hard.
So, yeah, and the devil is, funnily enough, it's interesting, resisting the devil is really quite clearly linked here to suffering.
Like, it's. I heard a saying once, the devil doesn't have red horns and a cape and glowing eyes. He looks like everything you've ever wanted. So he looks like comfort. He looks like. And there's something about that in this verse, I think, that's being alluded to here. But then it goes on to say this. And the grace. Sorry. And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ. After you have suffered a little while and doesn't put a time frame on it either, here will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast to him. Be the power forever and ever. Amen. And the second part for me was like, for just for people who might be going through something or struggling or whatever it is that, yeah, God is still at work.
There is. You know, there's a purpose to this. There is. There's character being built. There is shaping happening. There is the diamond being made through that pressure and intense heat and that suffering. We don't like. We all like to say things like that. Oh, yeah, I want to be that diamond made by the pressure and the heat. But what we really imagine is just a little pressure. Just, you know, like, you know, we don't want to get water blasted by the bloomin fire hose from the local Bloomin fire brigade. We just want a nice little tickle with the garden hose. Yeah, that's the kind of pressure I'm into. And, you know, nice, comfortable, on. Off suffering with a pillow. Yeah, yeah. Posture, pedic cross. But in actual fact, that's not what it is. But God is still at work and you just. Yeah, maybe if that's you, you're listening. I just. I mean, it resonated with me. And I'm sure there are others who might be experiencing their own challenges in life in general or moments of it, and maybe some people even listening who are really going through it. You know, God is good. He is still at work. He is still good. And as Christ promises in the Gospels, a, he is a good father. And a good father doesn't give his children bread. When stones. Sorry. When they ask for bread, he gives them bread. The problem we have is we often look at the bread and we go, oh, that's a stone. And he's like, no, that is actually what you need right now. That's the bread you need. So, yeah, it's. Yeah, God is good.
[00:59:36] Speaker A: Amen.
[00:59:36] Speaker B: He's leading you through it.
Alrighty, Katie. So, with our moment of goodness, truth and beauty out of the way, let's jump into our three listener questions that we've had. And the first one is this. This was the one that was actually sent to us about a week or so ago. How do we. And it was speaking in the catholic context, but I've sort of broadened it a little bit because the principles are the same. How do we christian parents mitigate the more and more visible weakening of the. In this case, they're talking about catholic character, but there, I know that's happening in other christian schools as well. Catholic character or christian character? In our catholic schools, primary or secondary, the instances are so off the catholic virtue. So in other words, they're so far off the, you know, the authentically christian reservation that it is not only upsetting, but also dangerous as it compromises the safeguarding of our children mentally, spiritually and physically. We've tried speaking to the senior management and their school, obviously, about this issue, but we've been facing roadblocks, you know, how do you respond to. That's a big one. Can I say, first of all, too, you're absolutely right. Not a lot of people recognize that safeguarding thing. And it's becoming more and more apparent, particularly with some of these, like, gender and sexual ideology issues, that the harm that is being done to children by the affirmation model, by just saying, let's just throw this ideology at them, it's getting pretty serious and our secular culture's starting to recognise it now quite openly.
[01:01:10] Speaker A: Yeah, agreed.
[01:01:12] Speaker B: So how would you respond, Katie?
[01:01:14] Speaker A: Well, I'm assuming by senior management, they're talking about principal, deputy principal.
[01:01:18] Speaker B: Yeah. Possibly the board.
[01:01:19] Speaker A: I think possibly the board. But that would be. That was where I was kind of going with that. That actually, you probably need to go to them.
[01:01:26] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:01:27] Speaker A: Yeah. And to your. In terms of a catholic school, to your bishop's representative on the board.
[01:01:33] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:01:34] Speaker A: Because it's their job to uphold the catholic christian teaching. And in christian schools, I know our local christian school that our big girls attend, there are church representatives on the board, so that would be my first stopping place.
And maybe you've done that already, I'm not sure, but it's definitely a hard one. And I know that teachers and principals in catholic schools are not always going to stand by what we would like them to. We are fortunate with our local catholic school that they are fighting that battle, but it's hard because a lot of this stuff is coming down from the ministry.
[01:02:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:02:13] Speaker A: So, as well as being. Because they're not private, they're government funded, they have an obligation to take on board.
[01:02:22] Speaker B: They're under pressure.
[01:02:22] Speaker A: Yeah. They're under pressure to take on board what the ministry is advising, and the ministry is advising all sorts of wonky rubbish, all this crap. Excuse my language.
[01:02:30] Speaker B: Well, it is. I mean, we're talking about the well being of kids here and I don't mind getting a little bit tasty with my. A little bit navel, shall we say, with my sailor's language, because. Yeah, it makes me angry. You should, you know, Christ. Did you know, Christ said, you know, better a millstone around your neck than to lead little ones?
[01:02:50] Speaker A: I know they're walking a tightrope a lot of times and I think we have to appreciate that, that they're not always. If they. If they're good ones, if they're good teachers and good management, then they are walking tight.
[01:03:01] Speaker B: Can I also throw into the mix here? I'm kind of getting a little bit fed up with the Christmas is coming promises. They've been happening for decades now. Trust us. No, no, no. It's, you know, we're under pressure here, but we're doing. And it's, you know, we're going. It's going to all work out in the end, and it's actually just getting worse. And it's like, come on, guys, at some point you actually have to actually be. I had said that have to actually twice there, didn't I? You have to actually stand up, be prophetic, be accountable and say, you know what? We're just not going to do this. We're going to draw the line in the sand. And I think there is definitely a problem. And I think part of the factor, too, is that we haven't necessarily. This is something I noticed interestingly about some christian schools is, and I dare I say this, we chose to send our older kids, our older daughters anyway, to the local christian school, protestant christian school, because we felt it was actually a better christian environment than the local catholic girls options. And that's crazy. It shouldn't be crazy.
[01:04:02] Speaker A: And in terms of responding to parental concerns, the track record I've seen so far has been pretty good with them. Yeah. I think maybe because they have less people to please. They only have to please their church support.
[01:04:14] Speaker B: Yeah. So that's a fact. And that's what I was going to say, is that I think they're smaller communities. They tend to hold on and be more faithful. But I think also, clearly they really, there are people in charge who really believe, because if you didn't believe, you would just cave. That's the thing that worries me. All of the caving I see from within our own system points to a lack of belief, because I don't think you do like, how you act is informed by what you believe. You know, would you do this to our kids? No, we wouldn't do this to our kids because we believe what is good and what is true, and so we don't allow that.
[01:04:46] Speaker A: And I think we've been taught too much that tolerance is a virtue.
[01:04:51] Speaker B: It's not.
[01:04:52] Speaker A: And that we have to tolerate everybody. We have to love everybody. Absolutely. But that doesn't mean we have to let all this stuff into our schools. And you have a real problem with.
It's insidious. It starts with little things, like a friend of ours who works in a christian school and was told that she wasn't allowed to say daughters in a letter home to parents and had to say child instead.
[01:05:12] Speaker B: Yep.
[01:05:13] Speaker A: Because you might offend one person out of 400.
[01:05:16] Speaker B: Yeah. No, it's not good. And I think what we need to do is a couple of things. We need courage.
We need people to actually, I think, sadly, people, and they're good people, often who I really do, they do mean well. And they think when the culture, the liberal culture tells them the lie. Oh, you know, we just, you know, we all just want to get along. So we'll just agree to disagree and you just do what we've asked you to do and we'll be fine. They think that's what's actually going to be the outcome.
[01:05:42] Speaker A: It's not agree to disagree until you disagree with something they want you to agree with.
[01:05:46] Speaker B: Yeah. So what we actually want is we want you to give us the whole salami, one slice at a time. And a lot of people, sadly, aren't recognizing what's happening there. And they're not realizing they actually have to stick their ore in now and put their mark in the sand and actually make a stand. Otherwise they will, in a very short order, they will wake up and go, oh, actually, we've got nothing left to defend. Cause it's all gone. It's all collapsed. So there's that factor. There's the whole. Yeah. The issue around, even possibly in some settings, like perhaps there's more of a liberal bent, you know, more wealthy. Because one thing that there's a weakness around catholic education, I think, and that is the weaknesses. We talk about social, catholic social teaching a lot, but really they are seen quite clearly as semi private schooling. And there is a. There is a. Yeah. And there is definitely this whole thing of. Oh, yes. Well, my kids went to the catholic primary school or the catholic high school.
There's a certain reputational advantage. And of course, what does that mean?
It is not uncommon, therefore, to find people who don't care about the faith. They just like the reputational bonus and they actually want the school to shut up about all that unpopular stuff because quite frankly, I didn't send my kids here for that kind of carry on. I sent them here so that they would have a good school on their cv.
And I think that's a problem. It's got to be confronted. I mean, I don't know how else to say this because I know really good teachers who are doing amazing work. Those schools that we've said that we chose not to send our girls to. I know that there are good people working in those particular schools, but the system is, there's problems there that need to be addressed. And so we understand your struggle that's for sure. One thing I think we can do is, I do think, I know this is often either underrated or people just say it doesn't work, but I really do think it does matter. We need to get our people on the boards.
[01:07:42] Speaker A: Yes, absolutely.
[01:07:43] Speaker B: You need to. It's just that simple. And not just the proprietors reps.
I think it's kind of scandalous, actually, that we have proprietors reps. So in the catholic system, a proprietors rep is supposed to represent the interests of the bishop, and then you have other reps who don't, who are voted.
[01:07:57] Speaker A: Parent reps are voted on.
[01:07:58] Speaker B: Yeah, but the thing is how in a christian school can you have some reps who represent the interests of the pastoral leadership of the church and then other reps who don't have any obligation to that? I don't see how that makes any coherent sense to me. They should all represent the pastoral leadership of the church, not, you know, but anyway, that's a whole nother story. But there is merit. There really is merit at that local level. And people are getting into various different positions, not just the proprietors reps, but the general rep positions as well. You can have an influence, I think that actually matters a lot. And so I would say, yeah, I would encourage people do.
And I think there does come a point, I guess, Katie, at which you've got to say, maybe you fight with your feet. Yeah, you just, like I used to say to people, hang around, fight the fight, you know, if you're the only one. But now I'm like, well, no, the stakes are just too high now. And it's also just so demoralizing and draining. And I've seen it and I've experienced it. If you're not careful, you start to become cynical. Your whole family becomes cynical. It's better for you to leave and say, let's just, you know, shake the dust off our feet.
[01:09:08] Speaker A: It does depend on your children. I think there are kids that can hold their own. I know our daughters, not that we've chosen to send them there, but they could hold their own in that environment and stand up for their faith, which sometimes is a good thing for other kids, you know, like to see that, hey, there are Catholics out there that have these views and that still love everybody.
In terms of the board thing, bear in mind that board meetings are public. You are allowed to attend those and have your say. You do not have to be on the board to attend. I know they're boring, but if you've really got something to say, use that. Look at your.
On school docs. All of your board's policies will be on there. Yeah, use those. Because if they're not standing up for what their school policies are, yeah, they're in trouble.
[01:09:52] Speaker B: They should be.
[01:09:52] Speaker A: They should be doing that. And they actually have to review them and they need to inform you which ones they're reviewing when. And you can have a say on those. In terms of.
[01:09:59] Speaker B: Can I just say that's a really important point. A board is bound by policy documents in that way and that it's really important. Funnily enough, a lot of school boards don't realise this.
They actually are accountable, like legally, if things aren't.
[01:10:14] Speaker A: So if they're not following their own.
[01:10:16] Speaker B: Policy, well, just not follow us legal requirements and other things like safeguarding is a big one. You've mentioned safeguarding. That's a really good one to highlight here. And I think what you need to do is if you can put together a smart evidence brief and you can highlight, you realize that you guys are legally responsible and if someone feels that their child has been harmed, they could actually come and put that on you. And all of a sudden a lot of boards are like, oh, gosh, we didn't know that. We are actually the ones.
[01:10:42] Speaker A: Yeah. If you're elected to that position, you have a responsibility. And also in terms of the catholic schools, you should have a vicar for education in your diocese and you also have a bishop. Depending on which diocese you're in, most of them have bishops at the moment and those people should be informed. You may not get any response, but at least if you've informed them in writing of your concerns, those are on record.
[01:11:07] Speaker B: I gotta be honest with you though, too, and I think this is important to be real about this. You're probably gonna find yourself, if you go in thinking, oh, I'll take this to the bishop's office and I'll get action. Don't be surprised to walk away really sad that, because unfortunately, the state of things is there at the moment, is that we, we're not seeing the leadership we need. There's no other way to put it. There is no other way to put it. Need strong leadership on these issues. The leadership has been lacking and it doesn't actually benefit anyone to pretend otherwise. I've tried that. I've played that game myself for too long. No, it's just better to be honest about it. Be charitable, be loving, don't be a lunatic, don't. I'm here to burn the whole thing down and prove what a profit. I am. No, just go and charitably make a strong, compelling case. But as I said, there might come a time where you just have to say, well, you know, the catholic schooling system or the local christian school was actually not a genuine reflection of the face of Christ. Christ. Sorry. So I'm gonna. I just have to shake the dust off my feet and for the sake of our children, we'll go somewhere else. And it might well even be.
[01:12:11] Speaker A: I think it's difficult if you haven't got somewhere else to go to.
[01:12:13] Speaker B: Well, here's the thing. It might well even be, and I've known parents who've said this, we ended up in a state school where they had a christian principal. And the school was better in this regard because of that than it was to be in a christian school, quote unquote, where maybe there just wasn't a strong culture. They were just caving in all the wrong areas. So, look, it's a mixed bag. Some christian schools are great. Some catholic schools are doing okay. Some are not. You know, it's. There's good teachers, there's bad. It's just. It's a mess. There's a cultural problem, there's a leadership problem that has to be fixed from the top down. It is a bit of a mess, unfortunately. And I don't know, I mean, I'm not going to sugarcoat it. And. Yeah, you know, other christian schools, as I said, it can be quite different. We're sending our kids to a protestant christian school. And I think you write that local smaller thing is an advantage.
[01:13:00] Speaker A: I mean, it's. And it's leadership from the top there as well. Yeah. And that could change in the future, I guess.
[01:13:05] Speaker B: They've been good.
[01:13:05] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:13:06] Speaker B: You know, and they're not perfect as well.
[01:13:08] Speaker A: No, that's.
[01:13:08] Speaker B: You've got to realize every school community is going to have its weaknesses because.
[01:13:11] Speaker A: It'S full of people that are different.
[01:13:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:13:13] Speaker A: You know, doesn't matter where you go.
[01:13:15] Speaker B: You'Ll never find one that is perfect. You just won't. But what you can do is find one that is probably better in the key areas than others. That's. That's what you need to be looking for. One thing I will say is, and we'll put a link to this document. The Ethos alliance here in New Zealand have published an excellent document which you might find really helpful. It's called students and social transition, a gender identity policy guide for New Zealand schools. And so it's written by two lawyers, a male and a female. I know them both. They're really top people and they're very astute, smart lawyers. What's so great about this document, and as I said, we'll post the link to it, is it goes through and it shows all of the various New Zealand legislation. It's written specifically with school boards in mind, the various New Zealand legislation. And it contrasts the current affirmation model, which is where a student turns up and says, on the gender issue, I identify as the opposite gender. And they go, okay, we'll affirm you. And the school just said, yeah, wear whatever uniform you want, change your name. Everyone has to comply versus what's called the watchful waiting model, which is, okay, the student expresses this, but we don't go affirming it. And we just are charitable and loving towards them as they work through their psychological struggle. Right. But we don't go affirming the psychological struggle as if it's real. And so they go through and they, first of all, they contrast the two models and show how the weight of evidence shows that for safeguarding and caring for young people, you definitely want the watchful weighting. Secondly, and this is the important. But it goes through all of the various board legal requirements and shows how that actually meets that. So this would be really good if you wanted to go to your board and say, this needs to change. Here is the evidence, here's the legal hat framework, here's how it can be done. And this document, as I said, we'll post the link. Definitely read it. Everyone take a look at it. Start sharing it with boards. It's. Yeah, it's an important document. Okay, question number two. What can we do if our young adult children lose their faith and how do we bring them back?
Wow.
[01:15:12] Speaker A: I mean, we need to preface any answers by saying we don't have young adult children yet.
Lucy's young adult, but it could be. It's not your responsibility to bring them back, is where I would start.
[01:15:24] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:15:24] Speaker A: It's Jesus job, right. The Holy Spirit.
[01:15:27] Speaker B: Holy Spirit. Does that work?
[01:15:28] Speaker A: Yeah. So you've got to put your trust in that to start with. Yeah.
I don't know. What would you say, brennan?
[01:15:35] Speaker B: It's right back. Alcohol.
It's right back on.
Eleanor does. She wanders around laughing.
She just laughs at you like that. What can we do? Well, first of all, don't be surprised if they go through these periods. It's not unusual to have children sort of push away at the edges. And I remember one of the hardest conversations I had with Lucy was, I think she was about 14 and she says, I don't know if I believe what you believe, dad. And there was a sense of, I was so gutted by it. Cause for me, it was like, oh, that's the one thing I want you to. Whatever else happens.
[01:16:11] Speaker A: Oh, you don't want to believe it just because you believe it.
[01:16:13] Speaker B: No, no, no. The one thing I was really desperately hoping was they leave home and they have that. Yeah. That strong embrace of the christian faith. But in that moment, I realized I can't actually force this. I can't control it.
[01:16:26] Speaker A: You strain them in the head with it.
[01:16:27] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's the work of the Holy Spirit. But there are things I can do to help this, and there are things that I can do which will be detrimental. And I realized in that moment, praise God, that there are things I can say right now that would be really detrimental. Like, I could go on a bit of a rant or try and, you know, really press the case, or I could actually give her a bit of space, but give her some practical guidance about how to navigate this. And that's, thankfully, praise God, that's the way I went. Because probably my irish instinct is to go, no, no, no, here's what you're wrong, but I didn't while you live under my roof. So, yeah, yeah. So I would say you can't. And look at Lucy now, a couple of years later. Her faith is just. It is clearly a fundamental part of her life.
In fact, one of our daughters, not Lucy, one of our other daughters said yesterday, came to me and said, aj, thank you, mum and dad, for raising us catholic.
We're really grateful that you've raised us and given us the christian faith. Now, that's a real. That's a grace, that's a blessing. You want to hear that kind of stuff. As parents, I know that as they get older, they'll probably go through moments of challenge and trial like we all do.
[01:17:36] Speaker A: Yeah. Think about yourself as a young adult. Where were you at and what were you questioning and what would have helped you in that moment and what would have made it worse?
[01:17:45] Speaker B: That's the key. So what am I grappling with here? Think about my own life and how I journeyed. I think also have and take encouragement and take hope. I've seen this, actually, for some reason. I've been exposed to a lot of different people's stories lately, and they have talked about there's been a consistent trend. I grew up in a christian household. I was doing the church thing. I was believing it. I did the youth group stuff and then I had a moment where I just, I don't know, I thought, oh, this is dumb, there's no God whatever. And I went and did atheism for a few years, but then I came back to it in my 20 year. When I was in my twenties, something happened that made me reevaluate. And what did they go back to? They went back to what they knew, because what they knew had given them something of grounding. So you just have to. There's comes a point where you just have to say, well, I trust that I've given them enough. Pray for them. That's absolutely essential. Pray for them. And I don't think you should ever be afraid of looking for and being aware of opportunities where you might be able to share. It could be a book, it could be a resource, it could be, hey, why don't you come with me to the pub and we'll have a chat? It could be, why don't we go to this event together? And it might be some visiting speaker and they might say, oh, mum and dad are naff, but they hear some speaker share their personal story of faith and that really, that testimony is the thing that cuts through for them. You just don't know. So I would say, yeah, you can't bring them back.
[01:19:16] Speaker A: No, but you can give the holy spirit lots of opportunities.
[01:19:18] Speaker B: No. Yeah, yeah. So you can ask the Holy Spirit to use you. You can actually do the practical work, as we always say in the catholic tradition, we say, grace builds on nature. So the more you do in the natural that you can do, you know, so don't be uncharitable, don't attack your child, don't propose bad ideas, you know, all that sort of stuff. But the more you do, the good stuff is the more of a platform you're building for the Holy Spirit to actually do the work that needs to be done. So, you know, God has no grandchildren, so we can't force that upon them. But, yeah, there's definitely things that you can do in regards to praying for them, actively thinking, okay, what is it that they're grappling with? Is it a specific thing? Is it a hurt they've got, you know, what is it? And then looking for ways to maybe address that and sometimes what that might mean. I've actually had this where people have contacted me and doesn't happen so much now that I'm a little bit older, but they would. It's not unusual. Yeah, not so, you know, cool anymore, but people would say, hey, look, my son's really struggling with this issue, is there any chance that you could just maybe get alongside them, take them out for a coffee and have a chat? Cause I really don't know what to say. And I know that they'll receive it better from someone in your position, you know? So it might be that as a parent, you say, well, maybe there's a really good christian person that they do respect who it would be better for them to have that conversation with. Yeah, there's no silver bullet.
[01:20:44] Speaker A: No, there isn't.
[01:20:46] Speaker B: And you just gotta keep trusting and praying. It may well be that they go through a big portion of their life before they come back, and you just got to keep trusting and praying.
[01:20:56] Speaker A: I think a parent's prayers are particularly powerful. All those peas and, you know, you and at least two of your brothers are only probably practicing the faith because of your mum's daily quiet intercession. And I think that's a beautiful testament to her faith and trust. But there was never kind of a forcing or a pushing or anything. She's always been very. She's outspoken in her own faith. But she's never been pushy on you?
[01:21:25] Speaker B: No.
[01:21:26] Speaker A: From what I know. I mean, you can correct me if I'm wrong.
[01:21:28] Speaker B: No, no, not at all.
[01:21:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:21:30] Speaker B: And, yeah, it's funny. Even I went through a phase of my own and my dad just.
He initially, he was really clearly heartbroken about it, but then he just leaned into it and trusted. And then I came out of that phase. It's just. You just. Yeah, I think that's.
Do the work. If you've got young kids and you're listening, you know, do the groundwork that you need to do there. I think that's important. Establish faith is something real. It's. It is, actually. I know people say, oh, don't buy to those traditions of man and you're all religious. If it's about routine. No, those routines actually matter. They do. I'm sorry. All of us. I mean, I don't know anybody who really does live that way.
[01:22:09] Speaker A: Even people without routine, you mean?
[01:22:11] Speaker B: Yeah, like, they go to church every Sunday at the same time. And the worships, even in that sort of setting, the worship structure has a structure. The Sunday school has a structure. You know, these are all traditions of man folks, and they are all routines and they matter. They do matter to us. So regular family prayer time matters. It's building a platform, trying to encourage reading of scripture and all that sort of stuff, and doing it as a family, particularly if they look at this and go, well, mum and dad don't really do this stuff, but they expect us to do this stuff that's not going to fly. And if you can get good peers around them that maybe can, you know, try and figure if there's a sneaky way you can get a young adult to get connected with other, you know, christian young adults that, that really could make all the difference in the world. So. Yeah. Tough situation to be in, though, you know, just keep praying. Number three, final question. What are some movies and tv shows that are good for adults, kids, families, etcetera? Not just church based, so, you know, not just another showing of Jesus of Nazareth, but wholesome stuff we can watch together?
[01:23:16] Speaker A: Did you put this question in there?
[01:23:20] Speaker B: And that's why I thought, I'm going to save that Jerry Seinfeld movie that I remember. Look, it's not perfect, I should say. So we'll start there, actually, because I did watch over the weekend, I watched unfrosted.
[01:23:30] Speaker A: Yes, that's what it's called.
[01:23:31] Speaker B: And unfrosted is a very rare phenomenon. Now. It is just a quirky comedy. It's set in the 1960s, my favorite kind, and it's just quirky. And this great cast of actors. I haven't seen that person in a while. And Jerry Seinfeld, if you know anything about Seinfeld, two of his big obsessions were breakfast cereal and Superman, and they appeared in the Seinfeld show over and over again. And this is about one of his. It's the first time he's been a movie director. He stars in the film, and it's the zany comedy about two breakfast cereal companies in a war, the marketing war of stars. Who's going to produce, it's Pop Tarts.
Who's going to produce the next big breakfast cereal? And it's Zadie. It's just they are treating it literally like a mission to the moon. They, in fact, they make that comparison. The problem, though, with the film is this one or two moments of humor which were just unnecessary, nothing really obscene, but they just crass, bawdy humor.
[01:24:29] Speaker A: They can't help themselves, eh, I know.
[01:24:31] Speaker B: And it's crazy because the movie, other than that, like Jim Gaffigan's great, and he plays the manager of one of the serial companies. Jerry Seinfeld is Jerry Seinfeld. Well, he's that old joke where he goes, what's up with airline peanuts? It's that guy. It's like, what's up with breakfast cereals? Why is the breakfast cereal department, is.
[01:24:51] Speaker A: That a joke, though? Do they do that?
[01:24:53] Speaker B: No, no, but he's the observer. He's almost the straight man who's observing these events happening as other quirky people around him are doing this stuff. And it works. It works really well. But as I said, there are one or two moments, and I wish they are smaller, but I wish they weren't in there. There's a silly joke about the genitals of one character. He wears pants that are too tight, and it's like, you didn't need that joke. There's a joke about JFK, and your kids might. Younger kids might miss it. The peppermint twins turn up to see him, and then next minute on the news, the Peppermint twins are both pregnant. And it's like, oh, you know, okay, come on, guys. So it was a bit frustrating. Cause the rest of it's actually good. There's a couple of young child actors who are hilariously funny, and it's like, honestly, watching a blimp in 1950s movie with, like, the little rascals or something, it's that kind of humor. And. Yeah, you don't see that anymore. No politics. No, it's quite amazing, actually.
[01:25:46] Speaker A: So Top Gun was good for that. The most recent top gun. Oh, yeah, for that. Like, no politics. No. Woke. Just literally, just tell us an adventure story.
[01:25:54] Speaker B: You know, like, well, it was even better because the movie is all about fatherhood.
[01:25:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:25:59] Speaker B: Remember, he gets off the plane at the end, and he says to Rooster, thank you for saving me. He's not just saying, thank you for saving me from these bad dudes who are not really the North Koreans, but we all know they are the North Koreans, the unbranded bad men. But it's also, you saved me as a man because you allowed me to be like a foster father to you when your dad died. So. Yeah, you're right. Those kind of movies are pretty rare. Right.
But as far as stuff that you could watch together, what did you. Could you think of anything?
[01:26:27] Speaker A: You've got two there. Yeah, yeah, I have mine kind of bounces off there. We talked about Star Trek last night.
[01:26:32] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, true Star Trek things. We could watch something about Star Trek.
[01:26:36] Speaker A: I'm a tricky from way back, so.
[01:26:37] Speaker B: You know, I don't know what we. I took my kids last year on a bit of a, you know, regular sort of watching of the old school captain Kirk, James T. Kirk, you know, and they. They actually enjoyed it.
[01:26:52] Speaker A: Eh.
[01:26:53] Speaker B: It actually, I don't know. I look at this and I think, well, they find this a bit naff. Cause it's, you know, it's not.
[01:26:57] Speaker A: Special effects are not very special. But doors, remember they were, though, back in the day, the doors that magically opened. You were like, how are they doing that?
[01:27:05] Speaker B: This is magic. But the doors. Because I used to wander around as a kid, you know, going, captain on the bridge.
But they actually. It turns out you tell a good story.
[01:27:14] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:27:15] Speaker B: And kids kind of like it.
[01:27:16] Speaker A: And good versus evil.
[01:27:17] Speaker B: Yep.
[01:27:17] Speaker A: You know the lizard man fight.
[01:27:19] Speaker B: I can't remember the name of the alien, but the lizard alien fight, that was hilarious. They loved that. They thought, because, I mean, that was quite obviously a man in a lizard suit. And they had a chuckle, but they still enjoyed that.
[01:27:31] Speaker A: If you're not Sci-Fi people, one of our good friends, her favourite genre of movie is the american sports team. That makes it.
[01:27:37] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. That is a good.
[01:27:38] Speaker A: I agree with. So your champions, your mighty ducks, to be fair, haven't watched them in a while, so there might be some stuff in there. I can't remember anything, but I made our kids watch Marty ducks once and they thought it was weird. I didn't get anywhere with that.
[01:27:51] Speaker B: Gotta be maybe a little bit older, too.
[01:27:53] Speaker A: Hawk used to be one of my favourite movies when I was a kid. Yeah, it's good versus evil.
[01:27:58] Speaker B: Yeah. I think in that regard we are. Marshall is a great one. I remember the Titans was a classic that probably kicked off that whole new era of heroic sports team films.
[01:28:09] Speaker A: There's something about them, though. A. Well, there is underdog fighting back and pulling together as a team and all of those. The bobsled people.
[01:28:18] Speaker B: Yeah. What's.
[01:28:18] Speaker A: That's got some tiny bit of language in it. Jamaicans.
[01:28:22] Speaker B: Cool runnings.
[01:28:22] Speaker A: Cool runnings. I was my choice one weekend and everybody was like, ooh, neff. But they also loved it.
[01:28:29] Speaker B: They all quote it. Yeah. And they wander around doing their fake jamaican accents and stuff. Yeah. So that is a good one. The sports movies. You're right. There was a whole slew of them. Why I like we are, Marshall, is cause it's a true story about a school football team and they had a plane crash. Remember that? The A list team and some of the B list team died and so they had to reconstruct a team from the ground up. And it's not your typical one. It's not. It's not like they suddenly had a miracle winning streak.
[01:28:54] Speaker A: Yeah, we just got.
[01:28:55] Speaker B: They just survived.
[01:28:56] Speaker A: Just magically got good.
[01:28:57] Speaker B: Yeah. No, they just survived the season. It was actually about them coming together and stuff. Another one like that, I don't know if I'd call it a kids film, actually, just as I was saying that. Was that Ben Affleck one where. Ben Affleck. Yeah. I was gonna say. I'm confusing him with Ben Stiller. Ben Affleck, he's the coach of a basketball team and it's a catholic high school in the States, but he's also an alcoholic. And he's like. He's a guy who was great and could have been great, but he struggles with his own demons. And the funny thing is they actually have to let him go. That's the thing.
It's not a cheesy, sort of prototypical, like, yeah, he sorted his life out and it was all perfect. No, he still struggles with his addiction and he owns his own moral failings, but he still did what he could for the team. It was something about that film, but, yeah, those kinds of films. That's a good one.
[01:29:47] Speaker A: The astronaut, we were talking about that recently. That kind of is about a man who builds a rocket in his backyard. But I remember we had quite a lot of conversations after we watched it about the nobility of that human endeavour.
And I think probably something we need to watch with Nathaniel, actually.
[01:30:02] Speaker B: Yeah, it's funny. One thing we learned too recently was, you've got to be careful.
Sorry. That Ben Affleck movie is called the way back. That's the one where he's the coach. He's struggling with his own demons. But, yeah, you've got to be careful. We discovered. We said, let's watch the castle, that great australian comedy film, because we remember it as we remember the funny bit.
[01:30:24] Speaker A: Straight to the pool room.
[01:30:25] Speaker B: Yeah. And we thought, this is funny. And we always quote this film and our kids are like, where's that from, dad? And we forgot how much Australia. We forgot about the thing, this bloomin australian f words where the printer doesn't work. And we're like, oh. And we were so far into it at that stage, and the kids just crashed.
[01:30:42] Speaker A: They were a bit invested in the story by that point.
[01:30:44] Speaker B: And they were like, damn, they didn't mind. So naughty.
[01:30:45] Speaker A: There's a lot of f words in there.
[01:30:46] Speaker B: Yeah. And we were like, oh, no, no. And thankfully it ended pretty quickly. But, yeah, just be careful. IMDb is really handy.
[01:30:55] Speaker A: Yes, the parent guide.
[01:30:56] Speaker B: IMDb on their website. Go to IMDb, any movie at all, and just check the parent guide. And honestly, it's hilarious, some of them, because they would turn f words. There were five cuss words. They're really, really specific. One person in the film showed a little bit too much ankle. So if you're offended by ankle, you won't like the scene. It's really like that kind of level of detail, but it's great. I found that more helpful than probably anything else because you're really clear. Okay, so for example, no sex in this movie. No f words, but it has strong scenes, disturbing scenes from a concentration camp. And you're like, okay, my kids are old enough to see that. And it doesn't have the other stuff. Yeah. I will take a risk on this film because it doesn't have the stuff. I don't want them to be exposed to the f words and the everything else. Do you know what I mean? So it's a really helpful guide. A couple of things that I think that are still pretty safe is the Lord of the Rings trilogy. We watch that regularly with our kids. We just watched it recently, depending on.
[01:31:53] Speaker A: The age of your kids, because some of them might be terrified at the Ringwraith.
[01:31:56] Speaker B: Yes, that's right. There are some. I was terrified of the ring race.
[01:31:59] Speaker A: When I was 18.
[01:31:59] Speaker B: For younger kids, it's a little bit woohoo. Mister Bean.
[01:32:03] Speaker A: Mister Bean's great. Although with a caveat. Sometimes there's a bit of bottom.
[01:32:06] Speaker B: Well, it is. Yeah, it's bloomin the english humour.
[01:32:09] Speaker A: He does like to get nudie when he.
[01:32:11] Speaker B: Well, it's the english humor too.
[01:32:13] Speaker A: But Eleanor just loves Mister Bean.
[01:32:15] Speaker B: Mister Bean is funny. There's only really one. It's the art class, isn't it?
[01:32:19] Speaker A: Oh, he goes to the pool, I think, in the art class.
[01:32:21] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. He loses his togs in the pool. But you don't see his bum, though, do you? Do you? Oh my gosh. How innocent I am. I didn't even notice. But yeah, Mister Bean is, I would say, generally pretty safe.
[01:32:34] Speaker A: And man versus bee, also Ronak. Conservative.
[01:32:37] Speaker B: That was great, actually.
[01:32:37] Speaker A: It's quite good conversation for virtue. And how do you deal with frustration and.
[01:32:42] Speaker B: Yeah, so it's sort of. Yeah, there's stuff out there, but it is a matter of.
And I get it. Look, I get it. There are some. Someone recommended something to me recently, actually. They said to me, have you seen.
And I downloaded the app as a result. Angel Studios. So Angel Studios, they made the chosen.
[01:33:05] Speaker A: And that Francisca Bruni movie.
[01:33:07] Speaker B: Yeah. And insidious.
But Angel Studios apparently have got a great series, a kids cartoon series. And this person said to me, if you're. What did they say? If your kids like Bluey, this is gonna say.
[01:33:19] Speaker A: I was actually gonna say Bluey, which probably you thought of already, but Bluey's going.
[01:33:23] Speaker B: Apparently they're inserting stuff into Bluey, the latest episodes. They're going a bit ideological, but it has been up until now a pretty safe.
[01:33:30] Speaker A: There are teenagers that will happily watch Bluey and have a good life and they pretend not to be happy about it.
[01:33:34] Speaker B: Yeah. I think, funnily enough, I've actually realized that some of that old school stuff that just. The slapstick, the safe.
[01:33:41] Speaker A: Mister Popper's penguins.
[01:33:43] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:33:43] Speaker A: Remember how much our kids love that one.
[01:33:44] Speaker B: Yeah.
And kids of any age will sit there initially like, no, it hasn't got Billy. I can't believe you're making me watch.
[01:33:52] Speaker A: Billie Eilish, Taylor Swift.
[01:33:53] Speaker B: Taylor Swift or whoever it is that's the cool person at the moment. It's not cool enough. And then they'll sit there pretending to see the way and then within five minutes they're cracking up laughing and they actually had a good time. So sometimes you sort of got to get them through it. But, yeah, look, I think the big thing is use IMDb as a tool. Definitely. We've given you some suggestions, maybe our listeners, if you want to send us others, send them to us. We will happily recommend them. So give us your review. Put them in that feedback question, comment section on the website. I'll share those links with you in just a moment. And we will share them in a future episode so that, you know, if, you know, if you've had good ideas or good experiences with the films that actually work or tv series, particularly tv series. I think tv. Our girls, like Anne of Green Gables, not the boys, didn't really know the old school one. There was.
[01:34:42] Speaker A: There was dog on your m with an e. Yeah.
[01:34:44] Speaker B: The new one, they went a bit weird. But the old school one, there are some old school series out there that still. When we were growing up, they. Unfortunately, some of them have not aged well. They just. They don't appeal at all. And they're like. But then some of them, I guess if you can sell it as a corny family. Sit down.
[01:35:03] Speaker A: Yep.
[01:35:03] Speaker B: You know, watch. Then maybe that might get is what.
[01:35:05] Speaker A: You have to do sometimes. Like when you made them all watch Robin Hood and they were like, why is this guy singing?
That was her favorite part of the movie in the end.
[01:35:13] Speaker B: That was a bad. It was not family movie night.
Watch the old classic. Dad had to watch Disney Robin Hood and. Oh, gosh.
[01:35:23] Speaker A: So, yeah, it wasn't very diverse.
That was probably the best thing you can say.
[01:35:27] Speaker B: I don't think even the non white characters were played by white people wearing makeup shall we say? So? Yeah, it's got a trigger warning at the front. I think Disney put trigger warnings on everything there. This film contains scenes of blackface or partial olive skin face, yellow face. I mean, I don't know if it's quite that bad, but you know what I mean, it was an old school, so. Yeah, but yeah, there's stuff out there, Katie. I think that's all we really want to say. A pretty solid episode. We have said plenty, haven't we? Thank you folks for your questions again, don't forget, you can send them via the Little flockpodcast.org or lifenet.org dot nz. The link are in. The links for both of those actually are in today's show notes and so you can go there. At the top of the page there is a link to click on to send us your questions. And you can do that totally anonymously. We're not going to share any of your other details if you don't want to. So you don't even have to leave your name. Just send us your question or your movie, your tv suggestions. Also, don't forget, if you want to support our work patreon.com leftfootmedia. You can become a five dollar monthly patron there, or you can also go to left, I was going to say left foot media again, but no, you can go to Lifenet. Too many else lifenet.org dot nz and if you want to, you can become a regular donor to the life net charitable trust. And if you do that, you live in New Zealand, then you will get a tax receipt at the end of the year that you can use on your tax return. Katie, anything exciting? You're decentering yourself from this podcast right now.
About to go and have lunch. Yeah, yeah, it is lunch o'clock, folks. Thanks so much for tuning in. We will see you next episode. Don't forget. In the meantime, live by goodness, truth and beauty, not by lies. And we'll see you next time on the little flock.
[01:37:10] Speaker A: See you then.
The little flock is a joint production of the Lifenet charitable trust and left foot media.
[01:37:24] 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
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Leftfootmedia thanks for listening.
[01:37:36] Speaker A: See you next time on the little flock.
