[00:00:06] Speaker A: Hi. My name is Katie Malone.
[00:00:07] Speaker B: And I'm Brendan, the husband.
[00:00:09] Speaker A: And you're listening to The Little Flock, the podcast that offers practical insights about living a counterculture of goodness, truth, and beauty in a world of increasingly hostile secularism and indifference.
[00:00:19] Speaker B: So if you're looking to learn from two imperfect followers of Christ about how to live like the wheat amongst the darnell, this is definitely the podcast for you.
Hi, everybody. Welcome along to this month's episode of The Little Flock. It is great to be back with you, katie, you'd agree with that?
[00:00:39] Speaker A: Yes, absolutely.
[00:00:40] Speaker B: We should start by saying we've got a bit of a COVID ward at our house today. We have got one patient so far in our family who has gone down with the dreaded lurgi. So far, no one else? No, but they're all home. Because we've got here in New Zealand.
[00:00:55] Speaker A: We'Re all doing home learning. How much do we love home learning, everybody?
[00:01:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
Not so much learning going on. A lot of screaming, a lot of fighting, a lot of angst, a lot.
[00:01:05] Speaker A: Of tears, a lot of camping under the armchairs in the lounge.
[00:01:08] Speaker B: Yeah. Which is actually a good wholesome pursuit.
[00:01:10] Speaker A: We turned off the device, but what.
[00:01:11] Speaker B: It means is if you hear noise in the background, then that's what's going on. So please don't panic. Nothing weird is going on.
Just a couple of quick admin things, as per usual, to get out of the way before we jump into the topics of conversation and your questions for today. First of all, if you're new here, welcome aboard. It's great to have you with us. Why not hit that little subscribe or Follow button on whatever platform you're listening on right now? If you've tuned into a couple of episodes and you're enjoying them, please give us a rating on whatever platform you're listening on. All of that really, really helps the show. If you want to support The Little Flock, you can do that in one of two ways. One is you can do that at Foot Media, and you can contribute as much or as little as you would like each month on an ongoing basis to ensure that these episodes keep getting made. Or, if you live in New Zealand, you can support the LifeNet Charitable Trust. That's our charitable trust. And if you do that, become a donor to the LifeNet Charitable Trust, then you get a donation receipt and you can claim back your donations on your tax at the end of each year as well. Last but not least, we obviously answer your questions on this show, but in order to answer your questions, you need to send those questions to us. And so the quickest and easiest way to actually do that is if you go to Lifenet.org NZ. That's LifeNet. Lafenet.org O-R-G NZ. And at the very top of that website, you will see a banner. A clickable banner. Like a little well, not a little, a large button across the top of the screen. And you can click on that. And that takes you to a Google form, and you can send us your questions or topics you'd like us to discuss. And all of that is totally anonymous, by the way, so we don't mention names or any major identifying factors. So please be as frank and open and as honest as you want to. That's the whole point of this show and the questions that you send into us. Katie, first of all, let's jump straight in by talking about we were sort of a little bit late to this party, but it was Valentine's Day last month.
[00:03:11] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:03:15] Speaker B: I didn't buy you anything.
[00:03:16] Speaker A: That's okay.
Don't get into that.
[00:03:19] Speaker B: Yeah, that's what I was going to ask. It's funny how some people write into it a it's like Valentine's Day in our house, though. It's just another day.
[00:03:27] Speaker A: I heard that. No, I might have this wrong because once again, it's a month ago, but men spend an average of $260 on their Valentine.
I was like, we don't even spend that on birthday present 260. They obviously don't love each other enough, babe.
[00:03:41] Speaker B: Either that or they're in some serious trouble and they're constantly making a mess.
[00:03:46] Speaker A: Who has $260? I do remember on the day thinking that I had bought petrol and meat and I'd kind of cut dumb a bit by the time I paid for those two.
[00:03:54] Speaker B: Yeah, but what does $260 get you? It's a lot of potatoes, but I don't think they're very wholesome Valentine's Day gift, chocolates and a bunch of flowers, box of chocolates. Yeah, that's probably now they're $260. You buy your Valentine a tank of gas in New Zealand. That'd be a pretty solid gold right there.
[00:04:13] Speaker A: I love pickle.
[00:04:14] Speaker B: Be interesting to hear your thoughts about that team. But for in our house, we're not cynics, are we? We're just like, well, you love your spouse. You do it every day. It feels to me I don't know about you, babe, but it feels kind of weird to me to turn this one day into this weird.
I don't want to say fetishized because I know some of our listeners are like, commercialized Valentine's Day.
[00:04:37] Speaker A: Commercialized?
[00:04:38] Speaker B: Yeah, commercialized. Perhaps a better word. Not fetishized because you should be fixated on loving the other. But it is kind of interesting. It's like this one day year, but then I know the soppy romantics out there, they're going to say, I love it, I love it. Can't get enough of it. So each to their own. But in our place, not a big deal. We try and do Valentine's every day. No, that's stupid.
[00:04:58] Speaker A: No, we don't.
[00:04:59] Speaker B: No one does that. No one. Is that angelic and saintly. Okay, another topic that I thought just there's a couple of quick fire things that came up since we last since we were last together, since we had our last gathering was over our holiday break. We went away for a holiday break with some other families. Highly recommend doing that. Do you reckon it's good families that we know, and we were the first.
[00:05:22] Speaker A: Night was terrible, but the rest of.
[00:05:24] Speaker B: It was first night so terrible because.
[00:05:26] Speaker A: It was 27 degrees in the bunk.
[00:05:28] Speaker B: Room, everybody was talking and we weren't.
[00:05:30] Speaker A: Asleep to a midnight.
[00:05:31] Speaker B: Yeah. All our kids were all contemplated going.
[00:05:32] Speaker A: To sleep in the car.
[00:05:34] Speaker B: Yeah, that would have been worse at that temperature. A whole family was together in one bunk room and we didn't have a bonding.
[00:05:40] Speaker A: Family bonding.
[00:05:40] Speaker B: Yeah, something forced family bonding. That's the word for it.
But yeah. Anyway, we highly recommend going away on holidays with other families. Gosh, that was great. It was really cool seeing the kids all play together. But one of the topics of conversation that came up briefly during one of the I guess I think it was one of the evenings, we're all sitting around, the kids had all disappeared on their bike riding gang. They all took their bikes with them, hooning around the campground.
But the question was about men and women and timekeeping, and I thought that'd be an interesting flying topic to a flyover.
[00:06:14] Speaker A: I wish I could have been there for that conversation, but I was up in the bunk room trying to get the youngest to go to sleep.
[00:06:18] Speaker B: Do you reckon men or women are worse at timekeeping? Does it depend? Or are we just both really bad and we always transfer onto the other and blame them when we're both just as bad at not turning up when we should, like, getting ready?
[00:06:31] Speaker A: I think it depends on the person. I don't think it's a gender thing, necessarily, because my dad's pretty Swiss. About timekeeping.
[00:06:39] Speaker B: Yeah, he's not even Swiss, but I think he also has a very analytical male sort of approach to things as well. But your mom's not, is she? Bit more laid back?
[00:06:48] Speaker A: No, not really. They're both pretty good.
[00:06:50] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:06:51] Speaker A: I was thinking family of origin thing. I don't know.
[00:06:53] Speaker B: Well, it was an interesting conversation in the tent that night. Well, sitting around sorry, around under the gazebo.
And the interesting thing was about the blokes are going, oh, yeah, wives sitting in the car, that kind of stuff.
And the women are going, yeah, but what about this? And this? And they could list off their own examples of where the men hadn't done it. I had this theory that basically, quite commonly, both parties are actually bad at timekeeping, but just in different circumstances, and I think it all depends on priority. That's my theory. So if you're a bloke and you got an event that you're prioritized, you're going to be in that car first. Get out now, kids. Come on, come on. And you're going to be sitting there waiting. And if your wife is not as committed to that event, she's going to be taking a bit longer or if your wife's got the priority, she's going to be like, Where are you? And as a Bloke, you're like, I'm getting there.
[00:07:47] Speaker A: I do find often that your 2 minutes is like actually 10 minutes in the real world.
[00:07:51] Speaker B: Well, I think vice versa. Because one thing I've noticed with you is this. So I'll say, I get stuck in the like, when we're heading out the door to church, I do full safety warden mode, right? Shut down all the internets, make sure that there's nothing, no lights on, all the doors are locked, right? I do that. And often that puts me way over the time thing. I find that often when you're out, like doing a little trip or an errand, you say, I'll be back by eleven. I'll go a bit late. I'll be back in 10 minutes, and it's like half an hour later. But I think it's different times. It's different. And I really do think the challenge for all of us probably is to ask, am I loving in my prioritization? Right?
Is it like, oh, I don't really care about this.
[00:08:34] Speaker A: I'm going to get up, cooking dinner, and she says, dinner is actually really on the table. That's when you come to the table, not yeah.
[00:08:40] Speaker B: So you say, look, 06:00 P.m. Dinner time. And husband rolls in at ten past and goes, but also understanding, chill out.
[00:08:48] Speaker A: That if 06:00 P.m. Sinner time, you need to start winding up whatever you're doing. We had this conversation the other night when you came out and said, I'm just going to have a bit of a bit of a box. And I was like, that's fine, but dinners?
[00:08:58] Speaker B: Well, no, I didn't say I'm going to have a bit of a box. I box each day. I said, Is it okay if I.
[00:09:04] Speaker A: Oh, yes, that's true. I'm not telling you off. I'm just saying it was interesting that.
[00:09:07] Speaker B: We had a little no, I feel told offended, and now the audience is embarrassed because you've told me off in front of them. Stop it.
[00:09:15] Speaker A: Somebody needs to witness this.
[00:09:16] Speaker B: You always do this. No, that's not true.
[00:09:19] Speaker A: I just said, for future reference, be awesome if we could start your box at like 515.
[00:09:26] Speaker B: Now, come on, admit that for future reference is a powerhouse of a female statement.
[00:09:31] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:09:32] Speaker B: For future reference, starting from tomorrow. Well, basically that's the equivalent in our house of saying, right, you're on notice, written notice now. Okay? So that take it seriously, Blokes, if you hear that for future reference, okay, before we get into the questions and before we talk about our moment of goodness, truth or beauty and scripture reflections and stuff like that, I just wanted to discuss an article that I stumbled across a couple of weeks ago, actually. It was back in the end of February and I thought it would be worthy of our conversation because it raises some interesting, if not challenging issues. So let me read it to you. The headline is, I refused my sister's dying wish to adopt her three young kids. Now she's furious at me.
So obviously a fraught family moment and a very serious one. Kate. And so the name has been changed here, by the way. Kate had drifted away from her older sister of six years after she left home at age 18. So I'm not sure which one of them left home first, but it doesn't really matter. They drifted away from each other. But one day, the 25 year old received a phone call out of the blue from her 31 year old sister. She had catastrophic news after being diagnosed with brain stem glioma, which is obviously a very serious brain cancer, and it was large and untreatable due to its location. My sister has three kids, a newborn, a two year old, and a six year old. She asked me to take them once she dies. It was a request that Kate was not expecting. Faced with just months to live, kate's sister was also dealt the news that Kate wouldn't adopt her children. So she said no. Kate opened up about the reasons behind her decision. She and her husband both have cystic fibrosis and no kids of their own. Her ex husband, so this is her sister's ex husband wants nothing to do with the kids, since she had cheated on him for years with many men and they aren't his. She doesn't know who the dad is. So obviously extremely tragic situation, I think, particularly for the kids in this very, very messy situation.
She also pointed out that she suffers from severe OCD, so that's her sister, or Kate, who suffers from the OCD with her own health issues and relationship status. Kate told her sister she couldn't adopt her children when she dies. She wrote out a list of why. And here's what she said. Since we are both child free, it would be unfair to ask my husband to make this kind of sacrifice. We both agreed to no kids when we got married. To change something like that generally means a divorce. I'm an atheist. My sister wants me to raise them religious and to, quote unquote, know God and take them to church. I live in a different country where English is not the primary language. I can't teach a six year old a new language when they don't know English well. A six year age gap meant we didn't really grow up together and the memories I do have. She was always awful to me, like, cynical. And after she moved out at 18, we haven't talked once besides my parents funeral. I don't even know her kids, let alone her. Kate's sister did not take the decision well, hiding out at her reasoning behind the stance. She cried and called me awful, but it's my life, and ultimately I get to be selfish with it. A child isn't an 18 year commitment. It's lifelong and one I've decided not to take. She said she cheated with multiple different men and lost her husband. I don't think it's my job to swoop in and save her from consequences of her own actions. I don't feel like I owe her anything.
Friends of hers whom I have met, I've never met, have been reaching out to me and calling me at all hours to leave. Nasty voicemails saying I need to step up as a sister, but I just feel like she's trying to use me as her ticket out.
As her ticket out to dying and not feeling guilty. Well, you can't really get a ticket out of dying, can you? And not feeling guilty, maybe, is what she really means there. Katie, what did you think when you read this? Because man, I think I read this before you, actually. Yeah.
[00:13:35] Speaker A: Okay.
I really feel for the children, obviously, in the situation, I think that the sister, the younger sister who is asked to take the kids does have some legitimate reasons not to.
I possibly think the children would not be very well looked after.
[00:13:56] Speaker B: Yeah, well, that's the thing, right? There's two sides to this, isn't there? She's got what, health issues?
[00:14:01] Speaker A: So she talks about fibrosis is a lifelong disease.
[00:14:05] Speaker B: Well, it's life shortening quite considerably, and her husband has it. I don't know if it's improved, actually.
[00:14:11] Speaker A: But I know treatments have improved, but it's still in and out of hospital.
[00:14:14] Speaker B: Well, about four or five years ago, I think, the average life expectancy in the US and I'm assuming that's where the family was from, maybe, I don't know. But in the US, it was 47 years of age, which is not that's young, but it may have improved slightly. But that's the average life expectancy. And I think that's particularly if you don't get a successful lung transplant and lung transplants are not easy to come, easy to come by. So there's that. There's the OCD, and she doesn't really know her sister.
[00:14:48] Speaker A: No, that's right. They've been estranged for, what, 13 years?
[00:14:51] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:14:52] Speaker A: No, not that long.
[00:14:54] Speaker B: No, it would have been it's less than that, I think. She hasn't she left home at six. They saw it 18 she saw at the parents funeral, was it 25?
[00:15:01] Speaker A: So exactly a relationship, is it?
[00:15:02] Speaker B: No.
[00:15:03] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:15:05] Speaker B: So what a mess.
[00:15:06] Speaker A: Yeah. Ultimately, it comes down to bad lifestyle choices on the sisters, on the one with the kids side, obviously, but then the kids shouldn't suffer because of that. No, but I don't think that giving them to the other sister is going to ease their suffering.
[00:15:24] Speaker B: No. Yeah. I'm not sure that she's necessarily the ideal candidate person.
[00:15:29] Speaker A: Yeah. But it's sad that the sister with the kids doesn't have anybody else she can call on that's.
[00:15:33] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:34] Speaker A: That speaks to her lifestyle, maybe.
[00:15:36] Speaker B: Well, yeah, that's true. Or the other thing I'm very cautious of in these situations is we don't know there's two sides to every story.
And let's assume that it's the worst case scenario where she has committed adultery and had the kids that way. But it's quite conceivable also that the sister has some very serious issues of her own. She's left home at Young and never looked back. That that speaks to maybe something in that family home that was seriously dysfunctional in her own family home. And that's why she left at 18 and never ever because she didn't see her sister so clearly, she never came back into her life.
[00:16:10] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:16:10] Speaker B: And we don't know what that is. It could be abuse, it could be anything.
But certainly it sounds quite dysfunctional and so it's hard to know what's underpinning the dying sister's.
[00:16:21] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:16:22] Speaker B: Bad behaviors. They are bad behaviors. We should call them out for that.
And also we want to be cautious about we've only heard one side of the story. But for me, I'm torn on this because I see two sides. I agree. I don't think that she's ready to or in a place to adopt if she's being legitimate about her health issues. They do sound serious. Like the OCD she's got is very serious. Like putting children into a home with someone who struggles with even like she talks about how to shut doors.
[00:16:49] Speaker A: It sounds like it might not be very well under control.
[00:16:51] Speaker B: Dripping water really drives her insane. Stuff like that. I mean, children are a challenge. I also think that bringing children into a home after they are much older in years, I think if you get a child as a young baby, you journey with it. But to transplant an older child into a home, there's a lot more challenges you have to grapple with. And it sounds like already they're on the back foot. However, some of the issues she gave there I just think are not valid at all on the flip side. So some are valid, but the big one that really stuck out to me is since we are both child free, it would be unfair to ask my husband to make this kind of sacrifice. We both agreed to no kids when we got married.
[00:17:33] Speaker A: I would assume that's because of the cystic fibrosis, because you didn't want to pass it on.
[00:17:37] Speaker B: Yeah, possibly.
But to change something like that generally means a divorce. And I would say if that well, I think your marriage is in real trouble if that's the case.
[00:17:48] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:17:48] Speaker B: I mean, let's be honest about this. We live in a culture that's not very honest about these things. We like to sort of play with safe spaces and helicopter parenting and all that kind of stuff. But we need to be honest about this. If you're actually honestly saying that introducing children into a marriage would destroy the marriage, then there's something wrong here that needs addressing.
When she says that generally means divorce, that does sound like a bit of a cop out. It's not like, oh, he's told me he divorced me. It's like I'm sort of giving a reason of my own that I've come up with the interesting point, too, about I'm an atheist, and I think that's a really interesting one. The reason I wanted to talk about this article really was because for us, we've prepared for this eventuality.
I guess our encouragement is for other parents out there to do the same, is make sure that you've got a will and it's up to date and that you've actually considered if both of you died or if you're parenting alone, by the way, good on you. That's very heroic. But if you're parenting alone and your children and you were to die or both, you were to die in an accident, who would have guardianship? Who would adopt the children? So the first thing is we did was we talked to the people.
So we sat down, katie and I sat down together.
[00:19:00] Speaker A: Do you want five more children? And they went, Absolutely.
[00:19:03] Speaker B: Yeah. So that was a yes.
We sat down together and actually we talked about it, prayed about it. Who do we think would be good? And that we would have comfort in knowing that our children were in and so they're within our own family.
[00:19:16] Speaker A: We had talked about it with parents. My parents, for instance, had some good advice, which was that if anything happened to us, they would definitely be there for our kids, but they felt that it was better for someone of our own generation to do the bulk, like to be raising them.
[00:19:32] Speaker B: Yeah, we absolutely agree with that, because the demands of raising children are quite.
[00:19:37] Speaker A: Intense, obviously, and they wanted to have that grandparent role as opposed to taking on a parent role.
[00:19:42] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think just the pressure and challenge of that is too much. Also, the faith aspect was important. That was one of the key things for us, was obviously good people who've got good character. That's what you got to look for, I think, is character. And one way you judge that, of course, is to look at their own family home and their own parenting. Are they good moral parents, or is their home life an absolute disaster? I think that's important. Look to their actions. Look to character is a fruitful thing, and if you've got character, it's fruitful in a good way. If you've got a lack of character, it produces bad fruit, so keep an eye on that. But also, the faith thing was important to us. We wanted to be clear that they were going to be raised and cared for in such a way that the faith would not be neglected or in this case, would openly be rejected by someone.
[00:20:29] Speaker A: That's an interesting one, isn't it? Because my older brother, he lives in the Middle East, and he rang me a couple of years ago and they were updating their wills and he said, can we put you down as guardians for our two children? And now him and his wife aren't practicing any religion. But in that conversation was the understanding that if anything, if the worst did happen and the kids were to come and live with us, that he acknowledged that that would be now a part of their growing experience, and he didn't have an issue with that.
[00:20:59] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:20:59] Speaker A: So it's funny. That sort of the flip side is a bit different, isn't it?
[00:21:02] Speaker B: I think, too, there's probably a trust and a sense of I think in some ways, it would definitely be easier to go that way.
Going the other way, though, I think would be a challenge because I think to live faith and have it nurtured in your children, to me, that's the most important role as parents, really, apart from the obvious things like building character in our kids is preparing them for an eternity in heaven. That's what I believe. I really believe that, and I think that's the ultimate test.
And then I think character and anything will flow out of that good character. So I think going into an atheist home for me would be that wouldn't work. But coming the other way and having your children exposed to good moral parenting, I think probably most people would be comfortable. They'd say, yeah, those people are good people.
Again, that really, really matters. One thing just to finish with that really stuck out to me is I think maybe if we go back 100 years or so, this just wouldn't have even been an issue. So first of all, I think the fact that she took it into the public sphere is if you've got a family beef of any kind, I would say keep it off social media. Keep it off social media, keep it out of the public sphere. Don't allow your family struggles and griefs and divisions to become tabloid fodder. I really strongly advise that. But secondly, I think maybe 100 years ago, I don't know if people would even be having this conversation, you get that sense, certainly, of my reading of history, is that there was a much stronger familial bond and a much stronger understanding of the obligations of that. And now not always. Did that work out? Well?
[00:22:36] Speaker A: No, that's right.
[00:22:37] Speaker B: But there was this understanding, well, blood is thicker than water, and your sister, your brother, whoever dies, you take on the responsibility. It was just never a question like this. It's interesting. In the modern age, we have these conversations.
[00:22:51] Speaker A: Yeah, that's right.
[00:22:53] Speaker B: Because one thing that really stuck out to me is that final line where she said, Where is it?
I don't think it's my job to sweep in and save her. Sorry. I don't feel like I owe her anything.
That's a very foreign concept 100 years ago, because family was everything. Even now, I was reading a book about this recently. She was fascinating, where a lot of people talk about, like, I'm thinking here of men who say, well, what meaning do I find in my career and my work?
And you go back 100 years ago and they would have said that. What are you even saying? That doesn't make any sense. Your meaning and your work and your career is to actually work like a dad is to work for your children, put food on the table. That was the meaning. It wasn't does I do I find this fulfilling? It was like, that's irrelevant. But she also says here, it's my life, and if I hear, is it ultimately I get to be selfish with it. And I was like, well, yeah, you have that free will, but in actual fact, that's not a good or moral compass bearing at all to say, well, if I want to, I'll be selfish and say that. It's interesting how times have shifted.
[00:24:04] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:24:04] Speaker B: And I think for the worse. I don't know. I think not always did those family obligation situations, maybe where kids went to an uncle who was a bit alcoholic.
[00:24:14] Speaker A: Or lemony snicker or something.
[00:24:15] Speaker B: Yeah. Lemony snicket. But at the same time, there was a sense of family and obligation that.
[00:24:23] Speaker A: Actually has been lost above everything else.
[00:24:25] Speaker B: Yeah. And it really does matter.
I imagine it would have gone god, family, work. Well, we're not even work. I think it would have been community, maybe, or something like that, or tribe, I don't know. So there you go. Gosh. Difficult situation, man. And I guess the only thing we could do is put that all into God's hands, say, Lord, please be with that family, and may your grace be with those children miracles. Yeah. Amen.
So that little musical interlude means that it's time for our moment of goodness, truth or beauty and scripture reflection for the month. So, Katie, do you want to start with your moment of goodness? I'll let you go first.
[00:25:21] Speaker A: Ladies before gentlemen, I had to think quite hard about this, but it doesn't actually happen this month, so I hope that's okay. So when we went on our camping trip up north with all of our.
[00:25:32] Speaker B: Mates the famous camping trip.
[00:25:34] Speaker A: The famous camping trip.
[00:25:35] Speaker B: You might have heard about it.
[00:25:35] Speaker A: We were talking about it spontaneously. We went on this camping trip because we weren't meant to be going anywhere.
[00:25:39] Speaker B: Well, we should tell that story, right? Because we were like, we weren't going anywhere. I did husbandly duties and did major renovations of the house that were not finished yet. That's not my fault. That is not my fault. We are waiting on another tradesman, and at the moment, it's hard to get them. I blame COVID hashtag omicron. But it was overdue work, too, I should say. But, yeah, renovating the lounge. And I basically found myself with a lot of downtime, and so I started filling up the hole with that's not.
[00:26:13] Speaker A: Like you at all.
[00:26:14] Speaker B: And I just. Hit a wall and Katie realized. And so we said, well, let's get away. And we were going to just go away together, just the kids, local holiday home. And then we realized, you know what, our friends of ours, a whole lot of families, were all in thought, well, excuse me, why don't I try and email and see if the campground, which is really busy and fully booked this time of year, maybe has something available for us. And we were a bit limited in our options. We needed a cabin, basically for the family to make it work.
I emailed and the lady came back and said, look, yeah, it's normally we are fully booked up, I'll check for you. But look, just be aware that this is crazy busy. She literally came back about two or 3 hours later, half a day later maybe. And she said, you won't believe this, but we've had a family who have just canceled a cabin and it was the perfect size, cost and everything. And basically we got more of a holiday and a more fulfilling holiday for a longer period of time than we would if we just tried to book a holiday home somewhere. Locals.
[00:27:12] Speaker A: It was great.
[00:27:13] Speaker B: God is good.
[00:27:14] Speaker A: So while we're on this spontaneous, miraculous camping trip, we took the kids up to see the Globe Worms, which is up quite a bit of a steep.
[00:27:25] Speaker B: Hill for little Legs, the famous Globe.
[00:27:27] Speaker A: And we had our enthusiastic tour leader, one of our friends decided we should leave half an hour before the sun even started coming down. And so we had all these kids tramping through the bush and they were all like, we can't see anything because it's not dark enough.
[00:27:41] Speaker B: Strange that you can't see glow worms in the bright light of day.
[00:27:46] Speaker A: But what amazed me, what was so beautiful, was the glow worms were beautiful. Once the sun actually went down and it was dark, but we had to wait for about, what, 20 minutes, and we had I think I counted 18 kids, but I might have missed some all waiting in complete silence in the middle of the bush for 20 minutes. I've never heard 18 children be that quiet before in my life. And then when we walked back through the glow worms, they were all just amazed. And I just thought they'd been moaning the whole way there because we promised them glow worms and there was nothing. And then they had to wait, which they did really well. And then just their wonder at that, at what they saw on the walk back. So beautiful. It was just like we need to have eyes like that for God's creation and for the work he's doing in our lives. Even when you can't see it until it's dark.
[00:28:35] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a good point. There's a lot of metaphor in that.
[00:28:37] Speaker A: I know I do metaphor well.
[00:28:39] Speaker B: And also well, it's only the darkness, really, that drew out the light, isn't it?
[00:28:42] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:28:43] Speaker B: Oh, that's deep.
[00:28:44] Speaker A: Biblical deep.
[00:28:48] Speaker B: I should write a book. It's only the darkness that draws out the light.
[00:28:52] Speaker A: That's that one word.
[00:28:53] Speaker B: I haven't got anything more than a title.
I know it'll be about suffering. The other thing is that cultivating us as parents, cultivating and living in that moment of joy by watching our children be joyful.
Yeah, there's something about that. As parents, we're often too busy and gosh, that's a good one.
My moment of goodness, truth and all beauty is, I think it's all three, actually, is actually a couple of paintings. It was only going to be one, but then I stumbled across another one, which I really like as well. And I thought, well, it'd be appropriate to talk about.
The first one is called Christ in the Desert or Christ in the Wilderness. It's a painting from 1872 by a Russian artist, Ivan Kramskoi. It might be Kramskoi, I'm not sure.
I don't speak the lingua franca of the Russian people even saying that's wrong, isn't it?
But yeah, it's a painting that reflects the temptation of Christ in the desert. I really love this. Google it. Christ in the Desert or Christ in the Wilderness by Ivan Cramscoy. That's Kramskoi. And what I love about this is just the look in Christ's face. And there's such a sort of a beautiful serenity to all of it. But I've got it up in front of us now so my lovely wife can see it as well. But you just see the humanity and the suffering of Christ there. I don't know why, but it's a beautiful painting. You've really got to see this thing. It's just phenomenal, the detail in it and how beautiful it looks in this desert landscape. It looks like could be dusk or dawn.
There's a red sunset or sunrise happening in the background. And I'm pretty sure it's dusk, though sunset. And to me, it just speaks so clearly to the coming cross as well.
And, yeah, there's Christ. He's barefoot, he's sitting there in prayer. But there's sort of this sense of just, yeah, you've got to see it. Google it. It's such a beautiful painting. And we're in the season of Lent now, as that's that's that's a big part of that. And the other painting actually was by a guy called Anatoly Schumkin, and I don't know his ethnicity. I'm going to guess you like your Eastern European. Eastern European, though. Possibly Russian. And it's another painting of Christ. This time it's called echehomo. And it's absolutely beautiful. It's just what do they call that? I think they call it an oil color or oil water. There's not watercolors.
[00:31:33] Speaker A: We know lots about art.
[00:31:34] Speaker B: Yeah, it's an oil color. Oil paint, oil color. But it's so beautiful. It's Christ. He's bound. He's got the crown of thorns, his head is bowed. It's obviously the Passion of Christ, but.
[00:31:44] Speaker A: It'S just isn't that Pilate who says that Ed J. Homo here is the man.
[00:31:48] Speaker B: Yeah, but it's just so beautiful. The red scarlet draped across his shoulders and yeah, it's just the imagery. But also this particular painting, it's the brushstrokes that are so vivid and strong. You can see it in this painting. So, yeah, for me, that's my two the paintings. So go and spend some time, I suppose we both ended up talking about reflective moments, didn't we, this time? Things that you reflect on and you're drawn deeper into. Okay, so scripture reflection for the month, then. Speaking of reflecting, that was a very good segue, if I do say so myself. Katie, what's your no, you go first, darling. Okay, well, I will go first then, for the record.
I will go first then for future reference. Sorry, for future reference, mine is Psalm 51. What was yours?
[00:32:45] Speaker A: Yeah, I went to put mine in and I thought you I was like, Did I already put that in there? That's not fair.
[00:32:50] Speaker B: So yours was Psalm 51 as well?
[00:32:52] Speaker A: Mine was a very particular verse in Psalm 50.
[00:32:54] Speaker B: Okay. So that we'll come to that in just a second. So this is absolutely this is beautiful. We both independently came to the exact same scripture reflection for the month. So we'll say that is the hand of God at work in our lives and also the fact that we're both obviously very holy people. No, thanks.
But Psalm 51, I'll tell you why. For me, obviously, it's Lent, the season of Lent, the Christian season of Lent, the 40 days and 40 nights, excluding Sundays. For those who mathematicians who do the count say, hey, there's more than 40 days here. They don't include Sundays. They're the day of the resurrection, celebrating the resurrection. So there's 40 days and 40 nights of Lent in the build up to Easter, the most important celebration in the sort of the life of the church. It's beautiful, beautiful time. And Ash Wednesday, the reading on Ash Wednesday or the psalm on Ash Wednesday that we kick things off with, which starts for those who don't know, Ash Wednesday starts, lend is Psalm 51. Create in me a clean heart, O God, renew a right spirit within me. Beautiful. Absolutely. One of my favorite lifelong favorite psalms of all, keith Green put it to music, wrote a beautiful version of it. He's not the only one, but I think his version is just my favorite.
But for me, Psalm 51 is just such a powerful psalm, not just because of the actual text, the prose, the prayer in the psalm, but it's also the history and the backstory, and it's King David. This psalm is written after King David commits some very serious acts of evil. So first of all, he is supposed to go to war. The scripture tells us it's the time of year when kings go to war. And David stayed home, so he wasn't actually doing what he was supposed to do well. So this is important. So he's not fulfilling what is his obligation and his calling to a state in life. He's neglected it. And then he falls into son, into sin immediately after that. So the very next verse is he's on his rooftop and he spies Bathsheba, bathing, and he is overcome with lust. And he says, I want that woman for myself. So he sleeps with her. So he's committed an act of adultery. She's married. He's committed an act of adultery with her.
Her husband Uriah is a soldier, a faithful servant in David's army. And Bathsheba ends up pregnant Uriah. So David tries to hide his son. He now knows, oh, she's pregnant. Uriah's been away fighting. The maths is not going to add up here. There's going to be a problem. He tries to cover up his sin. He gets into a state of desperation. He says, okay, what I'll do is and he tells the commander of his armies, put Uriah and his men up the front in the next battle. And then what I want you to do is I want you to withdraw. And they'll be outnumbered and surrounded and he will be killed. And sure enough, that's exactly what happened. So now you've got adultery and he's committed murder.
And then the prophet Nathan comes to him and tells him the story about a man in his kingdom who has taken something from his neighbor, a lesser, more vulnerable neighbor that doesn't belong to him. And so King David gets really, really angry about this and says, how dare he? Who is this man? Tell me more about this man. Tell me who this is, and I'll make sure that this evil deed is put right. And Nathan just looks at him and says, it's you, it's you. That's what you've done with Bathsheba and Uriah and the evil that you've perpetrated. And in that moment, something astounding happens if you think about the Old Testament and the lineage of kings and everything else, is that King David repents. He repents. And this psalm is written out of that state of repentance after those evil actions. And we know in the scriptures that King David is referred to as the most righteous of all the kings, which is interesting because you look at his deeds and there was some real evil there. But what it points to, to me is that his righteousness is found in not his sin, but the fact he's willing to repent of his sin and turn back to God. And that is very, very powerful. Very powerful. It's basically, I think it's a reflection of his humility. And for me, it's such a hopeful psalm as well, because it speaks to that calling in all of us. And the hope that no matter what your past is, repentance and turning to God really does bring about. What does the scripture say as far as east is from the west, I will throw your sin from me. If you're truly repentant and that God does want to restore and to give us a legacy and a lineage, despite whatever history or sins we might have, some whatever sins you're grappling with man repent, take them to God and keep doing that on a daily basis. So, yeah, that's me.
[00:37:32] Speaker A: That's why I chose my homily. Won't be quite sorry. Bit of a history lesson for me. It's these two verses which is a psalm that's been with me for a long time, actually. So it's verse 18 and 19. For you do not desire sacrifice or I would give it a burnt offering. You would not accept my sacrifice. O God is a contrite spirit, a contrite, humbled heart, o God, you will not scorn. And it's important for me, I think, firstly, obviously, because of the Lenten tone, but I think throughout my life, like, just remembering that sacrifice in itself is not a bad thing, it's a good thing to make sacrifices. And obviously in here they're referring to temple sacrifices and that kind of thing, and the burnt offering is part of that as well. But in our own lives, we make sacrifices that we make them with those with the intentions of our heart.
I get a lot of people during Lent and I'm always saying to people, it's not a holy diet. You don't go, okay, well, I'm going to give up all this bad food for Lent and then I'll lose lots of weight and I'll look amazing, because that's completely not the point.
[00:38:39] Speaker B: Yeah, that's great point.
[00:38:41] Speaker A: And a friend I said that, too, said, yeah, and the people that do that often don't lose any weight at all.
[00:38:45] Speaker B: Yeah, it's not a health kick because it's not Jesus.
[00:38:47] Speaker A: Yeah, that's right.
[00:38:49] Speaker B: It's the detox juicing diet with Jesus.
[00:38:51] Speaker A: No, it's not.
Yeah. Just to be reminded that if we are going to offer sacrifices, to do them with the right intention in our hearts. And sometimes the sacrifices we think God wants turn out not to be the ones that are necessary for us. Like, a friend of mine was in hospital a couple of Lents ago, and she said, oh, so awful that I can't do the sacrifice I had planned to do for Lent because I'm stuck in here and it's really frustrating. And I just said to her, look, sometimes we have to lean into the suffering we've been given and that's the sacrifice God wants is for us to take that on ourselves and to offer that to Him with a humble heart.
[00:39:34] Speaker B: That's very good. And it's funny, I think I know a lot of reading, a lot of spiritual readings and stuff. And there's a sense from those who really have spent their lives in past eras getting close to God, who talk about the importance of actually a little sacrifice done well and faithfully is just so much more important than some big, massive thing that we sort of try and turn lent into an absolute purge.
[00:40:01] Speaker A: No virtue signaling sacrifices.
[00:40:03] Speaker B: Yeah. Whereas it was just that one little purge that you continue to do faithfully and often that's the hardest, too.
[00:40:09] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:40:10] Speaker B: Gosh. In some ways, it's interesting, isn't it? If you think about Lent as a time of I'm going to get healthy, I don't know if there's much of a sacrifice in that, because you're kind of doing something you want to do, whereas a sacrifice is to actually fast from something that you enjoy or that you want to do. And the sacrifice is found in really having to say, no. I am sacrificing this as a moment of reminding me of the cross and sort of drawing me back to who Christ is.
So there you go. That was our moment of goodness, truth and beauty for the month and our scripture reflections. So let's jump into our listener questions now. We've got a couple Katie and some interesting issues here. Let's start with some parenting related ones. There's a double question here. I've now split it into two, but as a two parter, if you like. So let's read this question. How do I explain to my teenager that God loves us and is real when they think, how could there be a God with so much suffering in the world? And then part two, what to say when said teenager argues, what's the point of anything if God already knows what we're going to do? I e. God created Adam and Eve, but knew that Eve would eat the apple and that sin would enter the world through Adam and Eve and ruin his plan. So there's two parts there. Let's start with the first part. How do I explain to my teenager that God loves us and is real when they think, how could there be a God with so much suffering in the world? It's a big one, right?
[00:41:46] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:41:48] Speaker B: I think this is something I've been very aware of with our own children and making sure right from a young age that I've talked about this issue of suffering, and we've seen it. We've had friends close to our family or their friends dads or our friends who've died of cancer. They've seen some suffering, and the question invariably sort of arises, well, we prayed, did God not want to heal that person? What was going on? I think this is one of the great challenges, is grappling with the issue of suffering. For me here's, where I land. One is that perhaps we have an overly sentimentalized and false modern vision of who God is. And we tend to think of him like some sort of spiritual Santa Claus, the almost prosperity version of God, where he just wants nothing bad and he'll save us every time we ask. And his plan is basically orientated towards my, as in Brendan Malone, my personal wants and desires and well being and like what I consider to be well being, when in actual fact that's traditionally Christians would have understood that's a very terribly flawed, I think and shallow view of who God is and how he works in the world. So that's number one challenge is that and what we see through Christ is that Christ is the Messiah who journeys with us on that suffering. And the cross is really the only thing I think that makes sense of suffering, by the way, because what the cross and what grief about suffering is, is a recognition that it's not meant to be this way. So without a God, grieving is actually stupid and pointless. Like if you suffer a loss and you're grieving, you are grieving something that has been lost and your grief is a very clear statement of it shouldn't be this way, or it shouldn't have happened, or something bad has. Happened here and there is a good which should have actually was an alternative that could have and should have happened and would have been better if it did happen. But if there's no God, that's not true. There is no better, there is no good, there is no point in grieving that because that implies that it could have been some other way, when in actual fact, nah, it's just blind matter in motion, it's just things happening and too bad. You just happen to be the latest chain in that sort of uncontrolled loop of sort of line of causality and where a bad thing happened, it all.
[00:43:57] Speaker A: Starts to feel a bit futile and hopeless.
[00:43:59] Speaker B: Yeah, and it is. Whereas Christianity is the only one that says, no, your grief makes sense. The reason you are grieving is because instinctively you're right to grieve because there is something that has been lost here, because sin entered the world through the fall of Adam and Eve and that sin brings with it death and suffering and other issues that we have to grapple with. And your grief is a reflection of that truth that God's original plan was. It wasn't meant to be this way. So Christianity is the only thing that really makes sense of that. The atheism and the lack of belief in God is just awful. When you think about the denialistic, fatalistic just be like, you might as well just end it now, like staring into a black hole. It's that it's horrible. And the best you can sort of hope for is maybe some I don't know, some transitional sort of passing meaning that you happen to build, well, let's have a family barbecues on Fridays and hopefully we'll get some ultimately meaningless meaning out of it. We'll get a sentimental feeling out of it and I'll cling to that, but it doesn't have any greater significance or meaning. It's pretty bleak really.
Secondly is the question of suffering is that I think something's important, and I've tried to explain this to our kids, is that God is always working for the ultimate good and that not all goods are equal. There is a priority of goods. And so one of the goods that God has given to us is free will. And the reason we need the good of free will in our lives as human beings is because you can't love without it.
If we were compelled to love God, like, we had no choice and we just god was there and everything was rosy and he prevented us from doing anything that would harm ourselves. Ultimately that would mean we would have to be in relationship. He'd have to force us into relationship because that would be for our ultimate good, eternity in heaven with Him, there would be no choice, therefore there would be no love on our part. We couldn't freely choose to love. In order to freely choose to love, though, we need to have free will. In order to have free will, there needs to be the possibility of sin and evil in the world. So we could choose evil or we could choose bad decisions. Like say, a couple of hundred years ago, when people are settling in Christchurch here, they choose to settle in a location which is earthquake prone, and then successive generations build on that. And then all of a sudden one day was it when the February earthquake happened here in Christchurch? Bang. It was devastating and 200 people were killed because of a whole line of decisions. But at what point do you think God should intervene and stop someone's free will? And what does that mean for our ability to actually have free will and God's respect for our human dignity is so total, absolutely creates us truly free so that we can truly love Him. Now, that means suffering is a byproduct of that. So what's happening is when you see suffering in the world, I think it doesn't make it easier, doesn't go, oh, well, no big deal, it's hard still. But what it does is there's an important truth here that there's a greater good, that is the good of free will. For the sake of our ability and our capacity to love and to protect that God has to willow suffering in the world. I'm not saying that's necessarily easy to grapple with, but yeah.
[00:47:02] Speaker A: You got any thoughts on that?
Also, the question says, how do I explain to my teenager that God loves us? I think there's less explaining needed and just more demonstrating. Like love is something that you see modeled and you experience, and that if you love them as a parent, there won't be so much explanation needed. Does that make sense? I wake up every day and I choose to love my teenager. Even if she's woken up and she's in a terrible mood, I choose to love her and she needs to see that model so she in turn can choose to love herself and love other people.
[00:47:39] Speaker B: Yeah, and I think also that's pointing to God as well, because you explained in the process. The reason I love you and I sacrifice and make these sacrifices is because I love God. He tells me to love this way. And there's something about that that teenagers take away from, I think, and go, well, there was a model here, because you hear on the flip side, if you got a bad parent who spends all their time talking about Christianity and how awesome God is, but they're a terrible parent. I've heard so many stories like that where kids or older people say, my dad was in this ministry or My mum was this and that, and they always talked about Christianity, but they treated us really badly. That will do more damage, I think, to a child's belief, because they see the hypocrisy of it. They see that, whereas and on the flip side, if you live it out, there's a good there that I think is building something.
[00:48:26] Speaker A: And I think also with regards to the suffering, it's possible that this teenager has had particular suffering in their own life or has friends who have had like obviously there's great suffering in the world we see with Ukraine and everything. At the moment, there's suffering going on in the wider world. But if this teenager has friends or in their family has had a particular suffering, that for them to understand that our job is not to fight against that suffering. Our job sometimes is just to be there in it. You talk about our friend whose husband passed away from cancer last year and we have friends going through marriage troubles or whatever. We can't always fix everything. I think that's very human thing to want to be able to fix things or to want to say just the right thing to make this better. But sometimes our job is just to be there in it, and that's where love is being in that moment.
[00:49:14] Speaker B: And it's also too, I think, the fact that suffering is so important for character build more and more. We're now seeing this people from all suffering. Yeah, we've lived through a period and we are living through a period where we try and shelter and this cult of safety ism and stopping any suffering and even small sufferings and helicopter parenting and all that kind of stuff. Honestly, I look at my own life, it's only the moments of suffering and hardship where character has grown. And it's almost like this is a little pointer to the fact that maybe God knows something we don't know, that suffering isn't actually sort of perhaps there's something essential about it to us in the state that we now. Find ourselves in the state of fallen humanity and that suffering is actually essential to that and that without it, we would be living in some sort of dystopian. We all imagine without it, we'd be living in utopia, but maybe we'd be living in a dystopian hedonistic hellscape where we'd just treat each other badly. There'd be people without any character. Do you know what I mean? I think it's good to start thinking and getting our kids thinking perhaps a bit more deeply about how we even, I guess, think about suffering.
But hopefully some of the stuff we've said is maybe helpful to that. The second part of the question is what do you say when that same teenager argues, what's the point of anything if God already knows what we're going to do? I god created Adam and Eve. Some people I don't know why, but for me, I just don't get hung up on it. The fact that God exists outside of time, so we're stuck by chronological time. So a decision that we're going to make in five years time is not known to us right now, but it is known to God because he sits outside of chronological time and every moment is present to Him. And so even though he knows exactly what we might choose yes, that's what.
[00:50:53] Speaker A: I was trying to say.
[00:50:53] Speaker B: Yeah. That doesn't mean he's forced us.
[00:50:56] Speaker A: No, it doesn't mean he's gone like, okay, A is going to happen, and then B is going to happen, c is going to happen, because that's not how he works.
[00:51:03] Speaker B: Yeah, that would be the case, not domino's. Yeah. And it would be the case if he was sitting in sort of lineal chronological time with us predestination around here. Yeah. So if he was sitting in chronological time with us and he knew that, then that would mean he would be bound by it. And of course, then a hand would be forced. But a great way of thinking about it. I don't know if this might or might not help others, but we have time and chronology in our lives as a line starts at point A, ends at point Z, and we just move along that line. You can't go backwards, you can't skip forwards, but when for me, this is just a metaphor. I'm trying to make it theological or great philosophical point of this, but I think I imagine God looking at our lives as almost like one of those weird sort of fisheye lens circles. You see everything, and so he right now knows everything, and we don't we have yet to experience it because we haven't got to that point and it hasn't unfolded for us. But the reason he knows is because his view and his he is all knowing, all good, all supreme, because he sits outside of time, and he sits outside of all of those things that we are bound by. And I don't know what, but I don't know why that may be or may not be helpful, but I think also the other thing is the permissive and the active will of God.
So God wills some things actively, and then, of course, God permits other things.
[00:52:31] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:52:34] Speaker B: He says, okay, well, you see this often in scriptures, the most common judgment of God i. Think we were talking about this the other day. The most common God judgment of God is when he says, okay, I will give you over to your choices, your desires. It's a phrase you read several times in scripture. So this idea of, okay, well, I permit this, this is your free will and action like with David in this.
And so I think that's an important distinction to make is that doesn't mean there's no point just because God knows the future, it doesn't mean there's no point in that either.
I mean, even if I knew the future, you know what I mean, it wouldn't suddenly make it pointless.
[00:53:14] Speaker A: No, that's right.
[00:53:15] Speaker B: Do you know what I mean? It would actually in many ways, I think it would infuse it with a greater sort of poignant sea and gravity and seriousness, but also specifically the issue of Adam and Eve. Well, Adam and Eve, this is the thing, god doesn't create Adam and Eve because he's trying to achieve his own end out of it. Do you know what I mean? He does it out of love and so he knows there's a fall coming, but he still does it anyway. That's profound.
Whereas if it was purely utilitarian for God, like he was looking for a particular outcome, he wouldn't have done it. It was a waste of time. But he's not but what God is doing is God is creating out of love and for love.
And what that means is that free will and that, you know what I mean? That's quite profound when you think about so what you see with Adam and Eve too, is that God okay that this event happens where they sin and sin enters the world. But then what does God do? He doesn't stop an even better yeah. And many of the great theologians have argued that the cross is often the 8th day of creation and everything else is the cross and the resurrection is even more powerful than what came to, I think. It's not like if you think like a utilitarian well, God didn't get a good outcome, did he? With Adam and Eve, then that's the wrong way to think about it. Instead, I think to think about it as but he actually did. God loved, he willed those people into existence through love. He willed humanity into all of humanity into existence through that loving act he kept loving.
That's the thing there hopefully that sort of helps. But I think if you can find.
[00:55:08] Speaker A: Any teenage appropriate books on salvation history or anything like that, that might help.
[00:55:15] Speaker B: C. S. Lewis could be good too, if they're a bit older. He's got some good sort of stuff in the yeah, yeah. Scott Hahn's, another one that could be really helpful. Next question. So we'll come down to even reading.
[00:55:28] Speaker A: The Narnia books from the beginning.
[00:55:29] Speaker B: Yeah, I was going to say that.
[00:55:30] Speaker A: Actually this is one adult I've read those and I still see new stuff in them.
[00:55:34] Speaker B: Yeah. So this is one thing, and maybe future episode we'll talk about this. But this is why I highly recommend in your home, if you've got younger kids, start now with good children's, fictional literature and good virtue filled classic movies and stuff like that. Sit around and watch them together, read them to your kids and start actually filling up their tank with virtue and good sound philosophy. Now that's in fictionalized literature form, or is in a fictional tale, but is actually teaching them profoundly important goodness, truth and beauty. And then when they're a bit older, then you move into reading C. S. Lewis's philosophy work. And there's already a base for here's one we've come down from the heights of theological discussion and please forgive us anything you've just heard from us that is rubbish. That's on us. All glory goes to God for all the good that you've just heard.
And please God, anything that was not true or heretical, let it just be forgotten right now. Okay, so next question is what age as a Christian is a suitable age to start dating?
[00:56:42] Speaker A: Brendan used to say 35.
[00:56:44] Speaker B: You were for my kids.
[00:56:45] Speaker A: Now 40, although I don't really want to pay for them for long and.
[00:56:51] Speaker B: I still want to improve.
[00:56:52] Speaker A: No inheritance. Sorry guys, you lived here for too.
[00:56:54] Speaker B: Long, I don't think at our house we don't have an age.
[00:56:58] Speaker A: We don't have an age anymore, apparently. Update people. No age.
[00:57:00] Speaker B: No, I thought we talked about that.
[00:57:03] Speaker A: 14 is too young.
[00:57:04] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I said there is I should say that. Yeah, dad, I'm being just like the ancient Israelites and like Mary and I'm dating at twelve. No, you're not. No, you're not.
But there are ages that we think are too young, but there isn't a magical age. It's not like, wow, now I've turned 16, or Now I'm 18, or now I'm 25. I'm ready for out there.
I used to do I'm telling you, I've known people in their who are not ready for dating. I'm serious. Christian people who just had their lives are a mess, and if they were to bring someone else into that, it would be an absolute disaster.
There's not like a magical age. Here's the thing though, that I think one thing that we've got is the idea of saying wait till your high school study is over.
And I think there's a couple of reasons for that. One is high school is obviously important time of learning. Secondly, I think it's also again, this is not a concrete rule and people might have different approaches, but there's also a sense in which the big thing for us is really, are you ready to get married?
And if you're not, like, you couldn't be engaged in a year or so.
What are you dating for?
[00:58:20] Speaker A: Yeah. Are you ready to discern? Marriage, I think, is important. That's the purpose of dating.
[00:58:25] Speaker B: Yeah. If you're 14, you're not ready for marriage, right?
[00:58:27] Speaker A: Yeah. You're not even ready to discern marriage because you haven't discerned subjects you're taking next year.
[00:58:33] Speaker B: Now, hear us out. That doesn't mean first guy you date or first girl you date that's your wife or your husband. That's not what we mean at all. No. Dating is still a thing.
[00:58:41] Speaker A: Dating is part of the discernment process.
[00:58:43] Speaker B: But we live in a culture that has absolutely messed this up. Just be honest about this. And the reason our culture has messed it up is because it bought into some very bad ideologies of the sexual revolution. And sadly, even those ideologies have tainted within Christendom some of our ideas and our thinking, and it's not good. And so dating has now become this. I mean, even if you leave aside the serious problems of promiscuity and lack of commitment and stuff like that, dating has now become just like almost like a non contact sport or a contact non contact sport where it's just people flying around dating whoever. There's no real sense to anything more meaningful than just my self gratification.
And so the question is what's the purpose? Yeah, what is the purpose? And I would argue that if you're called by God to and so what we talk a lot about with our kids is we don't even have so much conversation about dating. We talk a lot about vocation, though. We keep talking about that discerning, and maybe God's going to call you to be a priest or a nun, and maybe God's going to call you to be a missionary. Or we talk in those terms, and then I think that gives them a sense of, okay, I'm supposed to be discerning. What I'm supposed to be doing with my life here. And if God's calling me to marriage and I'm in a position where I could be married, then dating makes sense.
I think that's what you've got to think of. Rather than, am I 16:00? A.m. I 18, do I have a job? Those things, they're factors in it. But I think the bigger question is, well, what is the point of dating? Are you ready for marriage? And I think we've got to recover that sense of dating is not because otherwise, what are you doing?
The sort of weird, non committal romantic involvement in another person's life for five years, but with no end in sight, no deeper meaning to it. It's like, well, then really what you've got is just two people who are I'm not saying there's not moments of goodness in that, but they're sort of just leaning on each other for their own emotional gratification or nurture gratification or physical pleasure gratification.
Our lives are ordered towards love, and they're supposed to be ordered self giving. Yeah. And self giving.
[01:00:58] Speaker A: I think also, if you've got a teenager who's potentially wanting to date someone specific, that's a conversation to have with them about learning to be friends with that person, that's really important. I think being able to build friendships with the opposite sex, like a healthy friendship at that age. And maybe that's something where you as a family, get to know that person better and you take it very, very slowly. And like Brennan says, there's nothing wrong with dating as long as you're discerning in it. And that can mean this might not be the person you marry, but you're going to learn a lot about yourself and a lot about the person you might want to marry in the future. And I can certainly think of at least one relationship before we were married where it taught me a lot about what I would want from marriage and what I would want in a good.
[01:01:48] Speaker B: Way that I can.
[01:01:50] Speaker A: Look back and say that relationship was worth it because I learned so much from it how I want to be treated and how I should treat another person in a marriage.
[01:02:00] Speaker B: Yeah, I think maybe this is a future episode, might have another conversation about this is really what does dating mean for someone who's serious about their Christianity as a Christian? Yeah. What does that mean? Because I tell you what, it does not line up in a lot of ways with what we see.
[01:02:14] Speaker A: It does not mean Tinder no or any of those other ones.
[01:02:18] Speaker B: There's things that do line up, like going to nice restaurants and hanging out together and going to movies, but then there's a whole other culture and everything else that's very different and I think needs to be something that we need to consider. So in many ways, it's almost like the bigger question is what am I dating for? Rather than what's the age? That's important, but what am I dating for? And then also, well, what does dating look like? So, yeah, maybe we'll talk about that in a future episode. Here's a challenging one. A couple more questions to finish.
Yeah, gosh. I don't know about you, babe, but I found this one challenging. So here's the question. Discovering your partner. So this person has discovered that their partner is neurodiverse, and you're neurotypical. So neurodiverse means what?
[01:03:05] Speaker A: Somebody who might be on the autism spectrum? I don't know if you're not even allowed to say that anymore.
[01:03:09] Speaker B: Yeah, okay. So someone who their neurology, their thinking, their vision of the world and why they express themselves is not what, as she's referring here, to the terms. The other term is neurotypical. So what you would ordinarily see in most people so after 16 years of marriage, this has been discovered. Communication, empathy and regulation of emotions and heated discussions is so much harder than when it's two neurotypical people. So two people who don't grapple with those issues, who are together and they have conflict and emotions that spring up and stuff like that. So how does one continue in a marriage when the other interprets the world so differently? And you doubt your own sanity at times. Wow.
[01:03:53] Speaker A: I think one finds a very good therapist.
[01:03:56] Speaker B: Yeah, I think you have to. Right. It's interesting that there's so much in this question for me, one is the pre marriage part of it. It's like, to me that this question really does raise the issue of, okay, this is why it's important to really give yourself good time through dating and then through marriage preparation to really talk through and work through the issues.
I remember once when we were back when we were dating, we were courting, and I remember we were sitting one evening out on the hills overlooking Christchurch, beautiful vista, and you said to me, and it still stuck with me and probably one of the most important questions you've ever asked.
[01:04:38] Speaker A: Never.
[01:04:40] Speaker B: There's a lot of important questions she has asked, but you said to me, we were freshies, we were new in our dating. It was all very infatuation. And this handsome, good looking man that you're with, you couldn't help yourself. But you said to me, and vice versa, you said, can you name my faults? Do you see faults in me? Can you name my faults? Can you name any? That was a huge weaknesses.
[01:05:06] Speaker A: It was a job interviewing you.
[01:05:07] Speaker B: Well, it was weaknesses, but what it was was, I want to know that this guy is not just infatuated and is seeing the real me and all of that that goes along with it, and it's not cloud cookie land. And I thought, My gosh, because my first instinct was it's a drip.
[01:05:23] Speaker A: I've got to say, there's no weaknesses.
[01:05:25] Speaker B: Yeah. I was like, wow. And also, it got me thinking, though it's a good question to ask right before you're married, because it got me thinking, okay, well, what are the weaknesses? Have I just been overinflating this perfect goddess of a woman? She's just God's perfect little angel.
[01:05:44] Speaker A: I think especially because we lived in different cities and it's easy to imagine the person differently when you're not with.
[01:05:49] Speaker B: You don't see them interacting with their friends as much. You don't see them interacting with their family. We were a long distance communication.
[01:05:54] Speaker A: We had to communicate by email.
[01:05:57] Speaker B: Which is another great thing, by the way, that helped our relationship a lot and built a strong friendship.
But that question was so important, and I think it seems to me that the danger is often with marriage, is that we can rush in and not recognize some things that might be little flags or so this is always going.
[01:06:15] Speaker A: To be stuff you don't see.
[01:06:17] Speaker B: Yeah. And I'm not saying that in this case that this person has done anything wrong, not at all. But the interesting thing is this is why it is important, I think, to have good guidance through your marriage prep and to have mentoring around you so that perhaps other people might pick up on things that you're not seeing. So maybe someone might have spotted for this couple, hey, I just noticed that the way your fiance or fiance deals or speaks about this issue is just there's some little flags there or you know what I mean? So there's something good about that sort of mentoring to help. Now, again, I'm not casting aspersions on this couple, and I'm not saying they did anything wrong. I mean, it's the reality of life. Life happens. We got to stop. We've come through this woman COVID era where it's like people now I'm seeing online articles of people saying, I felt so guilty about getting COVID.
[01:07:05] Speaker A: It's like, for Pete's sake, Lucy apologized to me this morning. I'm sorry I got COVID. And I was like, I'm glad to get it.
[01:07:11] Speaker B: Yeah, it's like it is a respiratory virus. It travels around. People get it. That's what life is. Get on with it. Stop making such a big deal out of these things. But the thing is that life happens. So they've discovered now they're in the situation. So now the here and the now what do you do? So you say, get a good therapist.
[01:07:26] Speaker A: I think a therapist would really help, especially when in those moments where you're struggling to communicate because you think so differently. But I think any two people think differently. We think differently, and we have differences of opinion over how to run a rapid engine and test. But for example, to give a recent.
[01:07:44] Speaker B: Example yes, but I was right, for example, in that example carry on.
[01:07:50] Speaker A: You can both be right.
[01:07:51] Speaker B: I love you dear, but I think.
[01:07:53] Speaker A: Yeah, if you've got someone who's yeah. I don't really like the term neurodiverse. My own mother has recently decided she's a little bit neurodiverse, but also she's one who says I think she is of the opinion that everybody's a little bit on their spectrum, for want of a better word.
[01:08:11] Speaker B: And you shift, too.
[01:08:12] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:08:13] Speaker B: As you mature, and both of you will start to develop. And this is why I think it's important to stay together as much as possible and to sort of build your family unit on togetherness, because as you grow and you age and do different stages of life and say menopause is one for females, midlife crisis for men, all those kind of things. People do undergo even changes of career kind of thing, psychological changes and personality things.
[01:08:35] Speaker A: And it's interesting it hasn't been discovered until after 16 years of marriage. So it'd be interesting to know what the actual like, if there's an actual diagnosis that might change things.
[01:08:44] Speaker B: But I think I don't know. I mean, there's neither detail here. Maybe if I'm understanding this correctly, you can have these situations arise with head injuries or something like that, but I didn't get that sense. I got the sense it was something.
[01:08:57] Speaker A: They'Ve but maybe look at it as an opportunity. Your eyes are open now. You can actually understand better why your partner reacts so differently to you in different situations. And if you can learn more about that diagnosis and really enter in to that, you might find better ways to have those discussions and regulate those emotions and whatever it is you need to do because you can actually like it's given you a door to understanding, right?
[01:09:24] Speaker B: Yeah. Into deepening.
[01:09:25] Speaker A: But a therapist would really help in that situation, one that understands that diagnosis.
[01:09:29] Speaker B: Here's the thing.
It's interesting, isn't it? I guess the temptation is to see it as a moment of loss, but maybe it's a moment to love more fully as well in this challenge. No, I'm not saying it's necessarily easy. No, I'm going to assume I mean I'm going to assume there's not a sudden injury that's actually caused the neurodiversity to arise or an illness or something that's caused it. I'm assuming it's something.
What's interesting about that is that if you've just discovered that after 16 years, could that mean that you've been able to navigate for 16 years relatively successfully, you're still together. Do you know what I mean?
Maybe don't fixate on the diagnosis. Go back and look and think, okay, we've had 16 years, what worked and what didn't and start from that point of view. I think you're right about you need counseling and support, professional help. I really think maybe counseling is not the right word, but I think you need experts and professionals to come into the situation because to me there's two things here that stick out to me. One is communication is really a code ultimately between two people that you've got to crack.
Now Blokes are a little bit different because I think when you get the male female thing going on, it really does for both parties. It's a code you got to crack. And then all your individual personalities as well and your life histories and stuff are all part of that code. So I had to crack a code and it took me a few years to crack this code that my wife.
[01:10:58] Speaker A: I'm going to change it now doesn't.
[01:11:01] Speaker B: Like to have the discussion in the moment of intense discussion or heated argument saying she doesn't want to finish the argument then and there. I did. That was my family. She had to crack the code that I wanted to finish these issues and put a bow on them and then and there I had to crack the code for her that she needed time to go away and have space and then come back. And once you crack that code, you realize it doesn't make it perfect and doesn't make you immune to problems. But what it means is your communication starts to get a little bit more easier because, you know, if I want to communicate well, I have to follow certain rules. And so I think to me it seems that a neurodiverse person is going to have a code, if you like, that needs to be understood and the professionals will help you to do that.
[01:11:43] Speaker A: I think even if it's one person going to therapy by themselves to have greater understanding, I don't think it necessarily needs to be both together. That's obviously great if it happens.
[01:11:53] Speaker B: And I think what the experts will do is they'll also give you practical tips.
I'm assuming the diagnosis has a bit more specifics than just neurodiverse. I'm assuming there are some traits or specifics of it that are mentioned and you're going to have experts are going to say, here's how it would be best to handle this situation. And for both of you, for both parties.
I guess the challenges for the person who is neurodiverse is maybe like for a neurotypical person, you would say, okay, here's some communication tools I'm going to use. But if you have certain types of neurodiversity, you might not even grasp why those tools would be important. So there could be a bit more challenging there.
The other thing I would say is this is respite is really important. So what it might mean is that you get the tools you need a and also figure out ways that maybe you and your spouse, you have an agreement where maybe you get to have a little break. You go away once every six or seven weeks for a weekend away with the girls or with the boys, or you get to do hunting trips, or you get to do whatever it is. So you actually get respite and you give yourself a bit of space. And I think that allows us to all marriages need that kind of stuff to give you a sense of to recognize see the wood for the trees, to recognize the good in the other person, to recognize the profound gift you have in your marriage and what it means to be without and also to give yourself space and rest. Because if it's going to be a bit more demanding to communicate and fight for your relationship, then you do need to take a rest from the front lines and get yourself rested. You can't constantly be on the front lines all the time, but yeah, I think yeah, definitely. We're both in agreement here.
Speak to experts if you're not sure where to start. I would imagine that probably Googling neurodiverse support networks or citizens of Vice Bureau.
[01:13:46] Speaker A: If that's still there's. Also New Zealand Association of Christian Counselors. They might better point you in the right direction as well.
[01:13:52] Speaker B: Yeah, very good. I imagine that they will have seen stuff like this over their time. So be well worth doing.
[01:13:59] Speaker A: Yeah. And don't feel bad for asking for.
[01:14:03] Speaker B: It'S. Just, look, it is what it is. We often have this idea of the perfect marriage and the perfect family doesn't exist. It's a struggle. It's a battle for all of us. That's the thing about family life, though. It's the fight worth having, though. It's the fight with living and dying for every day. It really is. But you got to go back into that every day and all of its imperfect messiness. It's the thing worth doing. Last question for the episode. How do you talk to your pre pubescent son about sexuality? Do you know of good resources? Well, yes, we do, actually. Do you want to answer this one?
[01:14:36] Speaker A: Oh, this is Brendan's job.
[01:14:38] Speaker B: No, you talk to the boys, I.
[01:14:39] Speaker A: Talk to the girls.
[01:14:40] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a good question.
[01:14:41] Speaker A: We only have one boy.
[01:14:42] Speaker B: Yeah. And I haven't really had too much of a conversation with him. He's not quite ready. One thing I'd say is this be wary of any blanket approach. That's really important because there is a latency period in childhood sexuality and it's different for different children.
Childhood sexuality, sorry, that's all wrong. What I mean is with sexuality and development in a child, so there's a latency period where it's just not on their radar. They are not interested, they're not thinking about it. And in actual fact, in my experience, what I've seen is if you introduce it too early, you can actually do harm and do trauma and cause problems. So this is one of the myths of the sexual revolution, is the sexualized child. It came to us, actually, from a guy called Wilhelm Reich, who is often referred to as the Founding father. In fact, he's the guy who coined the phrase the sexual revolution. And what he meant by that was not that we will have a revolution in our thinking about sex, which is how we tend to think. That phrase means it's not what he meant at all. What he meant was he was a very committed Marxist, and he believed that the way to overthrow the capitalist bourgeoisie elite and to completely upend the world and change society to a socialist and a Marxist vision of reality would be by using sex as the revolutionary weapon. So the sexual revolution means we fight the revolution, the Marxist revolution, through sex. And it's important to recognize that he had some real deviancies, extremely serious deviancies, and I absolutely serious about this.
And in fact, they cost him his life in the end.
And he sexualized and was a big advocate of vile and repugnant sexualization of children. So be aware that we're swimming in that pond, unfortunately. So latency period does matter. There's a period where it's not on their radar. So be careful about any blanket approach that says, well, now that they're eight, you must do this. Well, not every eight year old is ready for that conversation. Some are even within a family. One eight year old, like, let's say his daughters. We got a few more daughters in our family. One eight year old daughter is ready for it. The other one was not ready till ten. You just be sensitive to that. Be aware of that. I think one thing that I'd really recommend is having a conversation about pornography early though. Yes, very early. And you can do that without introducing them to porn or arousing curiosity. There's a really good resource.
[01:17:03] Speaker A: Good pictures, bad pictures.
[01:17:04] Speaker B: Yeah. Good pictures, bad pictures. It's available from Focus on the Family in New Zealand. Overseas. It's available on Amazon as well.
And it's a storybook you read with your kids and it doesn't go into any gory details. But it not only does explain why porn is a problem, it's good Pictures versus bad pictures, but it also gives them a really good little acronym at the end that they can use what to do if they see pornography. So it gives them a tool and when they're exposed to it. So I would say that's really important. Really important. And you can do that. We did that with our kids five or six years of age.
[01:17:38] Speaker A: There's a junior version and the older kids version.
[01:17:41] Speaker B: Yeah. So definitely use that resource now. Sexuality itself, though. Well, first of all, it's puberty. It's the first hurdle and that's the challenge. I remember some interesting conversations with my father about stuff. He was pretty a farmer and it was sort of straight to the point up the guts, as they say, and no mucking around. But you might want to be a bit more nuanced about these things. I'd say be honest. Absolutely be honest. Ground. It always in virtue. So the reason we do certain things or we don't do certain things, if you're talking about sexual behavior, is there's always a bigger yes behind it and a why behind it. It's not just, no, don't do that. So talk about the call to self giving love. I think Theology of the body for teens is really great, but that's obviously this is pre pububescent here. We're talking about this person. But keep those in mind. Loving for life in New Zealand. If you're in New Zealand, loving for Life is a great you've you've gone through the mother daughter nights, eh? The puberty nights with our yeah, that's.
[01:18:41] Speaker A: Sort of year five and up. I have a resource I've used a little bit as well at home called as I Have Loved You. So I can't remember the name of the author at this point. But that follows a very similar path to loving for life. And it starts with, like, it talks about building true friendship and how we're made to be in communion with each other and that kind of thing. So it builds on so you could even just do a chapter of that as needed.
[01:19:06] Speaker B: Yeah.
I would say one thing to do is really school yourself up and Theology the Body would be a really great place to go, regardless of what your Christian denomination is. Go to theology the body and just Google Christopher West theology of the body or Jason Evert theology of the body. They've got good resources available. School yourself up so that you can actually transmit what you've already got in a. Clear on in your own life. I think that really does matter. And a big part of it, as Katie said, with that other resources, is giving them the why. And there's sort of a sense of there's a deeper philosophy to sexuality. It's not just, see, the sexual revolution has done so much reductionist damage to our vision of the human person and it's really that combined with the modern scientific era has really reduced sexuality, this sort of reductionist bodily function. It's like I have an urge, I react and it's all just grounded in bodies and nothing more. There's nothing greater, nothing sacred, nothing glorious about it, no sense of deeper meaning that can be found there. And so many people have had their lives shipwrecked on the rocks of that evil ideology. So help your kids to really get their head into that space.
Yeah. And how do you talk to them? Well, you've got to be honest.
So if they have questions, a don't put them off, but B don't assume either that they might want the full blood and guts.
[01:20:35] Speaker A: I've always just started with a very basic answer and then see if they need more, if they have more. Nathaniel's quite mechanically minded and scientifically minded, quite different to the girls.
[01:20:47] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a really good point.
Treat them as individuals, as the individuals they are. And don't assume that just because they've asked one question that they necessarily have a whole slew of it. I think things to be aware of too is just this is where friendships matter and who are their friends and how are they having conversations? Be aware of who they're hanging out with. I think peer group, I've come to see that now peer group really matters a lot.
[01:21:12] Speaker A: Yes. I remember when Lucy was maybe eleven, we'd had sort of the beginnings of the talk and she didn't know everything, but she knew some things and she said, oh, my friend came up to me today and she said, do you know everything there today but know about how babies are made?
[01:21:28] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:21:29] Speaker A: And I said, well, what did you say back to her? And she said, I just said I know everything I need to know for now. And I thought, Gee, that's really good. Wish I'd come up with that answer. But I think it's a good one to give your kids because they will get other kids that know everything in.
[01:21:43] Speaker B: Inverted quotes and where have they got that from?
[01:21:46] Speaker A: And they might say everything I need to know for now.
[01:21:49] Speaker B: So it might be some junk that.
[01:21:51] Speaker A: They'Ve got because otherwise they'll end up with some kids interpretation of what they were told by TV or the internet.
[01:21:56] Speaker B: And there's so much ideology out there now that people just don't question. And one thing I've noticed with our kids, which I'm really grateful for, even though it might be challenging for them at times, is at times they're kind of like the OD ones out a little bit. They're like, yeah, but why would you think that, Maddie? As one of our, like, the ideology of the day says, this is the thing to do. What's wrong with you? And in actual fact, they push against that because they know they've got a deeper sense of the human person and the vision for reality that's not just mired in this peer pressure ideology of the day.
That's us.
[01:22:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:22:30] Speaker B: Thanks again for tuning in before we say our final fond farewells. Bit of alliteration there to end the episode. You know, I just love I just love a bit of alliteration.
So, yes, don't forget, if you want to support this little venture, The Little Flock, then you can do that at Forward Slash Left Foot Media with as much as you'd like to contribute on a monthly basis. Or if you're in New Zealand, you can become a donor of our charity, the LifeNet Charitable Trust. You can find all the details for
[email protected] NZ. Just scroll down to the bottom of the homepage there and you'll see the banking out details. And if you're in New Zealand and you become a regular donor to the LifeNet Charitable Trust, then you can obviously receive your tax receipt at the end of each financial year. Don't forget to if you've got questions we want to hear from you. So go to lifenet.org NZ. The top of the page, you'll see a big banner button. Click on that, it'll take you to a Google form. It's totally anonymous, unless you want to use your name. But we don't imagine necessarily you want that, but there might be some reason why you do. Let us know that in your response. There's plenty of space for you to fill out your comments and questions, but send us that and send us your questions and topics that you'd like to talk about and we will get to those on a future episode. Katie, have you got any last words you'd like to say?
[01:23:46] Speaker A: No. Do you want me to have last words?
[01:23:49] Speaker B: Oh, that is so classic.
[01:23:50] Speaker A: For future reference, I think I will just point out that, yes, this did take half an hour longer than you.
[01:23:55] Speaker B: Told me it would for future reference.
Right, folks, we're going to go now and deal with the COVID ward isolation with the ICAV, the isolation ward. And we'll go and scrape the children.
[01:24:08] Speaker A: Off the ceiling and heard any noise, which is actually making me more.
[01:24:13] Speaker B: We'Ll go out there and they're defusing the cat or something, I don't know. So we'll go and figure it out. In the meantime, folks, thanks again for tuning into this month's episode of The Little Flock. Don't forget, live by goodness, truth and beauty, not by lies. And we will see you next month, same bat time, same bat channel on The Little Flock. See you later.
[01:24:31] Speaker A: See you.
The little flock is a joint production of the LifeNet Charitable Trust and Left Foot Media.
[01:24:44] Speaker B: If you enjoyed this show, then please help us to ensure that more of this great content keeps getting made by becoming a patron of the show at Forward slash Left Foot Media.
[01:24:56] Speaker A: Thanks for listening. See you next time on The Little Flock.
Sam.
