Transcript for:
Exploring Anglican Spirituality and Tradition

welcome to the sacramental lists a podcast where the ancient Christian faith is brought to bear on issues prevalent in modern culture we're your hosts I'm father Hayden Butler and I'm father kraton mline and sadly today we're missing father uh Wes uh Walker because he is he is superintending a uh a plumbing issue at his new home uh so we wish him well in that and God speed in the repairs to the pipes um and we'll miss him in our conversation today but today we have the privilege of a conversation with the Reverend Dr Greg Peters uh father Peters is a professor of medieval and spiritual theology at the Tory Honors College at Biola University my alma mater the Servants of Christ research professor of monastic studies and aesthetical theology at nashoda house Seminary and a visiting scholar at the Von hugle Institute at the at St Edmund's college at the University of Cambridge father Peters is the author of a lengthy list of books and articles including uh the monkhood of all believers the monastic Foundation of Christian spirituality Thomas Aus his life and spirituality and most recently the book we are here to discuss today Anglican spirituality and introduction father Peters has been a priest in the Anglican Church of North America and the reformed Episcopal church since 2009 and serves as the dor of the Anglican Church of the Epiphany in lamara California as a member of the acna Roman Catholic dialogue and the aca's monastic communities task task force father Peters holds Advanced degrees from St John's College School of Theology and Dallas Theological Seminary as well as a PhD from St Michael's College at the University of Toronto and a doctorate in monastics studies from the pontifical athum of St anel at the University of Rome making him the Reverend Dr Dr Peters who we're glad to have lastly as a personal note father Peters was one of my professors as an undergrad at Tor and led me through one of the best courses in Dante that I have ever taken he is a returning guest to the sacrist podcast father Peters it is a pleasure to have you with us here today thanks for joining us great yeah thank you both it's wonderful to be here so today we would like to discuss your recent book Anglican spirituality and introduction published last year by Whi and stock Publishers through Cascade books and in particular we'd like to explore your approach to writing a book that is at once an introduction uh accessible to a broad audience and also one that's rigorous enough to begin directing the aspiring toward a lifegiving rule of prayer uh along the way too I definitely have questions about your uh engagement with Herbert and Dunn as well so we'll get to that but to start uh I I'd like to begin by asking about your motivation for the project of this book uh what influences from your ministry scholarship and teaching career contributed toward your interest in writing the book in the first place yeah thanks um so the the actual Genesis of the book is twofold one is just the as a parish priest I was like you know it wouldn't it be great if I had a a book that I could give to parishioners that that explained mostly that what the prayer book is supposed to be doing is guiding you in your rule of life right you pray the Daily Office you attend the Eucharist you adopt private devotional practices and that is the sum uh of what it means to be Anglican and not because that's a low bar but of course it's a quite High bar um and so I found I found myself saying these things verbally to people thinking oh I should write this book I should write a book I should write a book and then you know life teaching uh Ministry and I never wrote the book uh until uh my Bishop contacted me and he did form it in as a question um but when it's your Bishop asking you kind of feel like there might only be one answer to the to the question and it was will you uh do the teachings that are uh CED um and on Anglican spirituality uh so I said yes mostly because the bishop was asking but also because I had already been thinking about uh a book and so um I started um I wrote I wrote the text for those three talks uh so first of all it was three talks and I thought well that's perfect Daily Office Eucharist private devotion um so I I wrote those three talks while uh spending a month in uh in Cambridge as part of my appointment there and I gave those talks uh I guess two and a half years ago at senid um in Dallas and then had the this word count that wasn't you know normal length book uh which would be like 990,000 words you know so but I had about 23,000 Words which is good solid text and so I thought to myself who would be interested in publishing such a book and without going into the rabbit hole of uh publishing these days I thought to myself you know this is a perfect kind of a thing for Cascade um mostly because it's short uh it'll always be available that's their uh you know their way is a is a way of keeping things available in print uh so I contacted my editor there and he thought it was a great idea if I could get it to 30,000 words and so I did uh but but again it was it was really so so the the original Genesis was I'm delivering these talks to a room of priests and spouses uh you know it may be some aspirant and postulant to holy orders um so I was presuming a bit of a learned audience to some degree uh but also I always try to write with uh kind of the non-sp specialist in mind um and so that was that was the main Genesis of the book was like okay the bishop has asked they said yes this is the original audience and um I then I thought I I I did hit a pretty good level at the book that I thought it I didn't have to do a lot of work I felt like toning things down actually I didn't tone anything down uh for the print version of the book I I also believe you know that it's one of our jobs as Parish priests and theologians in the church is to help our people uh you know like don't be afraid of the words teach them what the words are and then let them use those words themselves yeah so yeah so I guess an Episcopal uh Genesis to the book in many ways and Bishop Sutton wrote the uh the forward and so in part because again the book Li in his request kind of most immediately that's that's wonderful it's the p a pastoral occasion for writing the book is is is is always I think it's always a good start with theology um so as you were as you were bringing it from your CED talks into the into book form um and how the opportunity to you know take uh you know to take more time with these things and um and and kind of revisit them and expand on them um you you know a number of of of striking features occurred to me as I was reading the book um one of which being your engagement with the kind of poetical tradition which we'll touch on here in a bit uh another one is is is sort of your your I could see the the different threads of your scholarship and Ministry and personal interest kind of like kesing in this book and in medieval studies aesthetical theology all these different things um so so what what uh what stood out to you as a kind of opportunity in being able to um say more being invited to say more about something that you you had said um you know bit a lot of substantial things about already um what occurred to you in the opportunity to say more to a bigger audience so trying to root it in a bigger uh tradition I mean I still think that's a challenge for uh lots of anglicans and folks that come into the Anglican Church is like really rooting it in the larger tradition uh and so for me that's primarily uh the monastic tradition if you you know that's that's my willhouse in many ways but I also think that's makes the most sense right the prayer book is a product of the monastic tradition in many ways um the church the church has always looked to her monks and nuns for guidance in this area and so the opportunity really became like you know pastorally in a in a moment if a if a parisher sitting across from you and wondering how to use the prayer book you know you really are being fairly pragmatic at that point you know here here's where the lectionary is at here's how you you know here's here's where you find the clect you know if it's a saint's day here's where you find those collects and you know it's very pragmatic but this was an opportunity to think bigger than I'm not wasn't training people on how to use the prayer book or how to you know be to use the rule of Life by using the prayer book it was an opportunity to talk about the contents of the prayer book the origins of the offices and the Eucharist and those kinds of things in the larger tradition so that was the the real opportunity I saw and I I really wanted to help anglicans see that we've come out of the best of what's come before us and um you know not every moment of Christian monastic history is is the best you know but but there is a lot of good there that that you know that the prayer book retains that the Architects and their wisdom particularly Grandma retained so that was a great opportunity was just to think like you know how do I take this out of the immediate pastoral con pastoral context of here's how you know what page literally you should be on for the office or the Eucharist and think about it you know how does all this situate itself um acrosser tradition so I think a good example of that in the book would be um talking about the illuminative nature of baptism so that when we read the scriptures you know that Sacrament which you know is preceding that moment of my reading of the scriptures is is having its intended effect as I read the scripture uh in that moment so I mean I'm always thinking historically theologically and so that was also part of it too was just trying to you know and and Hayden as you said I'm you know my my personal you know you can recognize some of those personal things I mean been my student and knowing each other uh but but also I think like I hope it that doesn't mean idiosyncratic I hope it what it what it did was really created a a quilt of these things into a whole cloth and to be able to show how this is like yeah there are these I mean all of this is coming into play when I pick up that prayer book and start praying the office or following in Eucharist or you know when I'm when I'm choosing to fast um you know that I'm I'm doing that you know for reasons that aren't just fasting is writing good though it is those things uh but you know fasting is connected to just a bigger element of what it means to be a a Christian but in particular an Anglican Christian obviously oh that's right yeah well so we we've sort of already kind of talked about these um but from the kind of outset of the book you talk a lot about Martin Thorton and I know Hayden and Wes and I have talked about Martin Thorton almost ad nauseum in the past and you know there a lot to talk about there um but he talks about that sort of three-fold rule of prayer um and that that's something very important to your book and so if you could help our listeners sort of understand what that three-fold rule of prayer is in some kind of more specifics but also why it's significant to the praying life of the Christian why it's something we should do yeah exactly so yeah and I you know I'm I'm tipping my hat not just to Thorton but I think that is the prayer book you know the prayer book itself like Thorton just saw what was in the prayer book and kind of made it explicit and and popularized it if you will uh but so first uh the three-fold rule is the daily office is the first thing right I mean Christians from the start have been you know pray that's that's what we're commanded to do it's what the first Christians did we know that the acts The Acts of the Apostles record what did they do well they did what they always did they went to the temple and they said their prayers because that's how they had been catechized and informed uh so the daily office and again like prayer is you know prayer is everything from you know I need to to pray for this thing right now in this moment to the more formal forms of prayer but again it's an Anglican spirituality book so as anglicans we have been admonished incourage and there's an expectation I think to pray the daily office so at least morning uh in evening prayer and of course the history of the Daily Office structurally goes back to the earliest centuries of the church right again that extension of what the apostles themselves we're doing after Pentecost um so but but Daily Office it's not just prayer for prayer sake because again the whole thing is a rule so it's prayer to regulate our life to rule our life to orient our Direction properly each day um and then that that Daily Office that immersion every day in scripture uh and in uh the the the lurgical calendar uh in the prayers that are provided for us that is all um an adjacent to but Preparatory for at least minimally the weekly you know reception of the Holy Eucharist and again it's like important to see these things these are connected things they're not you know well there's a daily office and there's the Eucharist I could do one you know I could do the other it's like well that's unfortunately that's how a lot of people think about it but they're they're meant they're yolked together naturally that's the the seamlessness of a monastic rule from which all rules maybe D derived to some extent from scripture of course but like is that these things are related to one another so the second part of the rule would be you go to the Eucharist I would say as often as possible um both by what your parish is able to provide and also your schedule U but at least weekly Sunday uh Eucharist and then um you know different words for you know maybe um I think private devotion might be one of the words that thoron uses um but it's though that that's the moment where you get to say to yourself how am I kind of hardwired as a person and what would be good for me uh to add into my uh my rule of life and again like the thing that I will follow again that's what the rule means but again not these aren't in addition to again we want to keep all that that together it's a three-fold rule of office it's not a rule of office with three isolated elements it's a three-fold connected elements and so you know we need to make decisions about like will I fast before the Eucharist you know can I from a health standpoint should I um and but again not just for the sake of doing it but for preparation for reception uh of of the body and blood of Christ and so those are the three parts and I I just take it for granted that I mean anglicans it's like this is this is what you do it's kind of like the moment you say I will choose to express my Christian faith in an Anglican manner it's like great here's a three-fold rule of office let's talk about it um and not just talk about it as in some attracted academic sense but in the sense that this is what you will do right it's just the final thing I'll say to that point is I am inspired by the monastic context here which again our prayer book derives from you don't you don't go join a benedicted monastery and then say okay now Abbot but I got a couple of problems with these chapters over here you know this is we're getting up a little too early here in the summer you know like let's uh change that up no you you give yourself to the rule and then it becomes the primary place of formation for you and so those are the three three-fold parts and then again it's meant to it's meant to be an all in it's it's a life and it's now structuring our life as Anglican Christians I like that idea because it really is sort of the the idea is you are converting to something right like you are being converted by something you're becoming a Christian you're embodying a tradition you're you're living that tradition and when we look at someone like Thorton talking about this kind of three-fold rule this is the tradition that you embody right um this is this is sort of the way you live and breathe um your your Christian faith and I really I love the idea of of keeping all those connected and making it an integrated whole um I wrote a this taking me back but I I wrote a a a paper back in seminary about the Daily Office in relationship to the Eucharist um and then using some Old Testament sort of parallels and I think of the priests offering morning and evening sacrifice prayers with the people at the gates of the temple uh that's directly connected to their Priestly sacrificial office um and the same is true in the church uh we as Christians are offering and being given it's this sort of Eucharistic cycle and that includes the Daily Office it includes our private devotions fasting spiritual disciplines um so that's that's one thing that stuck out to me that I that I think is super important and I and maybe not always emphasized um I either from clergy to Le or conversations amongst the Le it's not it's not always something um at least in in my experience that I've that I've heard a lot of of people talking about to our detriment yeah I think exactly I think an element of what you just said makes a lot of sense which is that like the daily office is my offering to God uh right I think of even uh the psalm you know may our prayers where I like in since like the evening sacrifice right um so there is this sense of where like the daily office is my offering of myself to God um I mean the Eucharist is too of course but uh but the daily office is like that it's again the emphases on on daily and of course we know that maybe maybe not I shouldn't assume that but like office English office comes from a fitum which actually means Duty it's the daily Duty um you know it's a it's it's unfortunate that it's come over that way into English because you know like I'm sitting in my office and I I think when people say Daily Office they you have to catechize them to say oh and what office means there is Duty it's what you do but again like creating a seamless hole I mean that that's the goal of of all of this is that you know from from waking to sleeping uh from one Sunday to the next my life is a ruled uh life you know I think a lot of man astics maybe don't really know what day of the week it is most of the time uh because Tuesday doesn't look all that different from Thursday which doesn't look all that different from Saturday and maybe on Sunday it's a little different because they can sleep in a little bit that's my experience with Sundays at monasteries they you know pray this on your own so everyone gets a little extra sleep but otherwise you know and I thought think to myself like what would it look like for us as Christians in our daily lives to kind of be lost in like what day is again because I'm just doing the offices and doing my thing that the God's called me to um and there's something beautiful about that in having that holistic structure placed on our life but but again making sure that we understand these are all you know it's the it's it's the cohesiveness of it as a me I hate to use the word system because you know that can be misinterpreted but um system sounds like a like a business practices or something like that but it is that Allin system and I offer myself every day and then at the Eucharist the priest is offering the well we've offered the offering in the form of the elements to uh to God and the priest who then offers them to God on our behalf while we offer ourselves and so it's it's I mean it's it's beautiful and I mean again I'm talking to the crowd here probably with your audience as well but like in preaching to the choir proverbially is just like who who wouldn't sign up for this you know I mean like this is isn't isn't it great that we have a whole whole system with some individuality in there and the private devotion part like I can in fact think about the kinds of things that I need to add to my spiritual life in addition to these things um yeah so it's it's uh it's the best of both worlds structure that's venerable in the tradition with space for me to say hey this is how father Greg Peter ticks um he needs to you know confession needs to be this regular for me but maybe for a pisher it's slightly different and that's okay because of their own need to discern their private devotional lives in that way it's it's that attentiveness in your book to the the the relationship between the three parts of the threefold rule that I that I think you know helps to elaborate on something that needed to be elaborated on from like let's say Christian proficiency from Thorton which is he gives you know very good treatments of the individual parts of it and then he unites them in a kind of theological observation that they are you know sort of they're they're analogist to a trinitarian kind of um a trinitarian belief and profession but then I you know I think I think there is a there's a little bit of there's a gap there in the way he then moves on to spiritual disciplines and aestheticism and then moves on to a sense of evangelism and Mission which is what I one of the things I really appreciated about the structure of your book was that these things not only belong together not not only do they constantly Aid each other but then also they are foundational to this thing that ought to be the organic fruit of a life that is formed this way um and so it's it's it's it helps it to address I think a pastoral question that often arises when people are being initiated into this rule of Life maybe you could speak to which is um very often at least in Southern California where people are tending to come in into my church uh they're coming either from a kind of broad um spiritual you know kind of a spirituality that is I'm going I need to find resources wherever I can find them to help a you know butress a sense of this interior life I sense I have um and it's somewhat therapeutic somewhat psychological somewhat New Age somewhat all these things that's one group and then another group is coming in from having already been um you know somewhat catechized into into the Christian faith U but are coming in from Traditions that um exhorted them to daily reading of the Scriptures Daily Prayer things like this but not but not in a way that had a particular shape to it leaving them exclusively to their own idiosyncratic devices and um you know and and so as the rule of life gives us this you know Wonderful balance of the you know the objective and the subjective the speculative and the affective um you know I'm curious as to your experience of as a parish priest and and and and a scholar you know you you you know how have you seen this actually meet the ground in the lives of parishioners how have you seen it draw them from what they were maybe already inclined to run in the direction of uh and how have you seen it transform them yeah that's a great question I mean so um oh I should just a caveat real quick before I answer that question I should also say that the chapter on mission was an extension because then I got asked by my Bishop uh and in a clericus meeting to say hey elaborate on angan spirituality for Mission so I I should also make sure Bishop Sutton gets credit for even that part of the of the text as well um but anyway so yeah I I think father Hayden you're right like so when when we have all kinds of different people and I'm in Southern California with you and you know and so we have all these different people coming in and you know some of them have a real strong sense I should be praying and reading my Bible but it's been fairly ad hoc and unstructured um and then other people like you say they they have these uh scratches they're trying to itch but you know what they what they may choose to scratch that it can be sometimes a bit odd um you know and a bit self- serving and not necess wrong but just maybe not not not well placed or thought out so what I've noticed mostly in my context is um I don't think they know it but um and I know I use the language I also use in the book of subjective and objective so I think a lot of pressers come in really what they're saying is I am kind of exhausted by the subjective nature of my of my spiritual life up until this point meaning I am trying to conjure feelings and experiences and results even uh that somehow then validate the action itself um so without being completely critical of the non-anglican tradition you know like um if you if you go to a kind of a somewhat typical Evangelical Church uh you know with with some praise singing and then you know a sermon if you don't if you're not moved by the songs or if you don't kind of find yourself nodding in agreement with the sermon imagine you you know might think like well what was that like was that a you know a good service you know or something like that and then you take that into your spiritual life right and you're you're you're constantly trying to feel like you've like you've got a relationship with Christ or something like that in a particular way so one of the things I always say to people is like well the good news about England is is we just it's objective um like the Lord is going to to show up he's going to condescend to through the bread and the wine to present himself to us as the body and blood of Christ whether or not you feel like it or not and to be honest you can pray the daily office and you don't no one's expecting you to have a particular feeling about it there's just something good about the daily discipline of doing this thing and then you know what the feelings all of a sudden don't they they'll that you'll realize they don't really matter anymore right you're not validating the action itself the action you you'll just there's something you know like our spirit will testify in some implicit sense that this is good and right and so I've just kind of without even saying that out loud to new parishioners I just kind of assume that's where they're coming from and then I say let me give you you know this prayer book and uh teach you how to use it and then um you know encourage them to to do it support them that as best I can um and then um you know assure them that that doing it as a discipline uh the objective realities that God has promised that he will do like when when you Faithfully just read the word of God again not not not for knowledge sake or to try to unlock a secret to it or not let me read a commentary you know but just like give yourself over to the reading of the word of God God is going to do work through his word uh just by your faithfulness to the reading and praying of it so um I think that's the main thing that it bears fruit is because it really is meeting a need um that I think people can't quite name and sometimes I explicitly name it and sometimes I just don't name it I mean pastorally I just kind of make a decision about where the person might be at but then like I know that if they give themselves to this there's going to be a sense of where they're like yeah you know I really wasn't jazzing you know I wasn't really feeling up to it yesterday but I just just prayed the office because it's what I do and um and then like you know they'll oftentimes say and just like I know the Lord meets me there and he did again and takes takes that subjective out of them where they're having to give it its validity and it just becomes valid so I think that's the main thing that I see about the beauty of the three-fold rule is it it it's not just given a structure um again it's not just a system but it it does the work it intends to do um when you just Faithfully do it and by Faithfully there that's again that's just doing it uh that's not doing it with a you don't have to Fain Joy or Fain you know like you know sometimes you're just you're just in the middle of second Samuel in the daily office and you're like all right another king that's a terrible human being and you're just like giving yourself over to just reading God's word and trusting that he's doing his work behind the scenes which he is of course uh yeah and I think that bears a lot fruit yeah it would it seems like it would it would free us from you know what we're from the like constraints of only what we're already inclined to do right yeah it's like so I don't just resort to that constantly and try to hit that button and get that feeling again yeah yeah I mean you feel you feel like you know what we we're always going to be drawn to the things that we're drawn to I I've I've noticed over the years for example that when someone's feeling I don't know spiritually dry if we wanted to use that language that you know they'll say oh I I need to go on Retreat what they hardly ever say is I need more Eucharist I I need more office in my life you know I'm gonna add complain in there that's what I need right but but there is like there's a in other words they're they're it I mean they might the need is legitimate a retreat can maybe really meet that need but I but I bet they're also kind of just responding to a subjective uh desire if you will not a bad one but but least subjective I'm not saying all subjective things are bad but like you know what I mean and I think what the rule does is it helps you maybe think like yeah what is it I should revisit like you know I encourage people I think everyone should be in spiritual Direction um and then I think once a year you sit down with your or you go through your rule and kind of really determine a if you're keeping it well and B if you're not what what needs to change in the rule or how have you changed in the past year that might mean you should adapt your rule and then talk that out with your spiritual director and or or your Parish priest I mean either of those is a great option um and then like make that change because if you do feel like you know the retreat is what you need then just build it into the rule is part of your personal devotion and go on Retreat and you know pray the offices at a monastery or wherever you happen to make your retreat it's great but but again trying to get away from just um that purely subjective side of uh of the Christian you know I mean God has made us is thoughtful human beings but um sub subjective is not bad again but like but sometimes we just need something like the prayer book being objectively telling me like Fridays are fast days you should probably fast on a Friday like yep I don't like to fast but that's a good that's a good word to me and I will now do it yeah that's right it to the ret Retreats as as I think as you pointed out in a few of the writings I've read from you is retreats are sometimes indicative or they reveal you know that that assumption that they'll be a consoling therapeutic positive experience kind of like a kind of a spiritual spa day experience uh a lot of times they could also be the complete opposite it could be outright Warfare where you have that you kind of a more naked experience of your own sin and battling the devil yeah I mean there's like yeah you know the the uh the monks went out to the desert to meet the demon so you know be careful what you ask for when you enter into you know place that's really quiet and Silent yeah and so uh yeah again I'm not disparaging those things but I I think I found in my time in Anglican as a priest that like people tend to think differently about their spiritual life when they've given themselves over to uh you know the Anglican three-fold office and I think that's just like maybe that's not a scientific you know it's more just an observation uh but I think it's a it's a it's a valid one and again I think we you know we treat all lot are great things but but you your spiritual life is not you know you're not meant to uh you know again that we can use so many different images but you know spiritual life's the it's the marathon it's the long it's the long game and um you know these I think outside of anism there's a kind of a lot of you know outside of having like a prayer book that really structures it for you there's a lot of like I'm gonna Sprint yeah you know and then you're exhausted and wonder why you're exhausted then you're just looking around like where's the next Sprint you know because that's going to fix this Sprint and you're like nope just you know I love I love the prayer books kind of slow and steady you know just like like just guides my life and I just give myself over to it and you know this morning when I sat down to pray the daily office I didn't have to think what I was going to read I just lectionary told me and I and I did it and today's at least in our calendar the feast day of Fabian so I got to be reminded about a great third Century martyr Bishop of Rome martyr and so it's yeah beautiful stuff there's something really impactful and important about being regular in the spiritual life that we we do sort of miss out on uh in sort of modern Christianity we we've kind of lost a sense of that um that I think uh something like you know the this the three-fold rule of of prayer kind of kind of deals with is that you need something to be consistent and centered and uh like you said objective and then should the need arise you can do other things right like the Baseline is there you're receiving a balanced diet and occasionally you know you might for different reasons need more of this or less of that more of this less of that and you can you can adjust and kind of kind of deal with it um but it's it's that sort of regular rhythmic discipline um that grounds us and keeps us stable rather than just sort of hands up I that that way seems okay uh last time I tried going that way it worked all right I'll go that way again yeah can you kind of accidentally find your way into something good there sure um you're a trying and a lot of pastoral theology I think winds up kind of around are you trying that's a good place to start um yeah but we can kind of make it easier for ourselves if we're willing to put ourselves under Authority if we're willing to to say this is the thing this is the objective Baseline that I'm going to engage in and and sort of build from there yeah yeah and I think this is a I mean the point of a rule I mean I know people think of rules is limiting and they are uh by definition U but they're also very life-giving um you know and I and I think you know what you're describing father greaton is like that that state that um you know like the FDA recommends a 2,000 calorie diet I mean like what you're saying then you know then you can decide if you should have the cookie right but like but I think you're right I mean it creates a starting place to to move from U and that that's really again what the three-fold rule is it's it's not a it's not just a boundary it creates the the norm if you will right and we already have this in our Liv lives in many different ways you know like you know uh if you're a parish priest this is when you're going to this is when you have obligations if you're a parent this is you know your kids are going to like we all we have lots of starting places in our life and then we deviate from there in light of those kind of foundational things that are there and if you don't have something like a ruled life then the only option really is by definition an unruled life um and if we wanted to put it into different language I mean the difference might be something like chaos or order I mean that's your options right and not not and by chaos I just mean unordered right so a disordered life is chaotic and I think my own spiritual life before uh you know entering into anglicanism and eventually becoming a priest and all was I think could be very much you know this a personal story it was just a disordered chaotic spiritual life it was you know it was constantly I was I was solving problems not not trying to get healthy uh and and again this is this is the wisdom the Apostle Paul using you know uh exercise imagery and all to talk about the spiritual life you know I was I was waiting until I felt sick and then I would look for a cure as opposed to taking steps to try to stay healthy uh from the start and I think that's that's a good way to think about what the rule does and again I find the rule lifegiving because it orders and when you have an order thing you're able to move from order I think into just greater order um and uh but but also having that Baseline um you know if if you could never have high blood pressure if we didn't have a baseline of what blood pressure should be right you never have you know they'd never be able to tell you you're you know overweight if you didn't have kind of a standard weight for your frame and those kinds of things so again we recognize this in all kinds of ways implicitly and explicitly in our lives why wouldn't we in the spiritual life think well here's the here's the Baseline you know you're praying The Daily Office you're going to Eucharist as much as you can and you have these uh priv devotions that you've adopted not just subjectively but even with maybe someone else's voice speaking unto a spiritual director PRI good spiritual friend um and from there then you can you know I know parishioners oftentimes you you probably both have encouraged that you know encountered this rather but like oh no father Greg like I missed evening prayer twice this week like yep that happens yep you know and then they might even be more surprised when I look at him and say yeah it was three times this week for me you know like you know for whatever a reason I I also can sympathize with him at that moment and again that's not the you know we're not no one's keeping score at least they shouldn't be that's not the point of this but again what will return you to praying the office though after you've missed it those couple times is the fact that it's your ruled life it's the it's the Baseline that you return back to again that's great I'd like to to shift gears a bit um and and ask about one of another character to of your book that that stood out to me which was your engagement with the um the priest poets uh and particularly George Herbert and John Dunn um you in fact yeah you George Herbert features heavily in your chapter on the Holy Eucharist and then also and then John Dunn has it basically his own chapter as a case study on theological anthropology at the very end as an appendix um I I think that the you know it's it strikes me that priest poets uh especially in the Anglican tradition are have an are underexplored as a voice in the theological development of a tradition and um and you know again this this this resonates I think with the kind of mode of of the Tory college and the way it tends to put things in dialogue with each other that sometimes are are unnecessarily sequestered um but I would curious as to just if you would if you would share your thoughts on on you know your reasons for including them as theological voices um but by means of their poetry which you engage with and then also maybe speak a little more broadly about um what you see as the importance of including um you know the kind of the poetic tradition that runs you know oddly alongside you know aesthetical and Theological conversations throughout much of the church's history yeah yeah so I mean I'm as you know father Hayden I mean I'm a primary text you know that's my teaching is to read primary texts and translation and discuss them with students and that's my that's my personal theological and spiritual methodology is just to read primary text it doesn't mean I don't read secondary literature I read gobs of that but like you know I mean I'm but I would always I would I would never read a book about dun until you know I read a bunch of dun or if I really you know like uh recently I um you know was like a trahern or someone like that you know I mean it's not like I won't read about them but um I do think they're underrepresented but I but you know and I and I've been you know I'm not my training historically has not been in Anglican studies if you will right so I'm you know I'm kind of a novice in some way to all this but I've noticed something um is that like we have the Reformation obviously U or at least the 16th century and Church of England however you want to date it there it is and then uh pretty quickly you know you get you get a strong calvinistic strain in there and you know the Puritans and you know we can just look at the history we know what the history is and then you get the Caroline divines and then either part of that or adjacent to that you get a d and a Herbert for example um and then then we move into more of the Evangelical Awakening side through the Wesley and others and then we get you know the strong Ang Catholic return with the tractarians and you know it's in precise history but in Broad brushstrokes you know um and then I don't know the 20th century in many ways was kind of the the decade or the century of liberal anglicanism and I don't mean liberal there political or theological sense necessarily but the Charles Gore Ford influence um and so if we think about those kinds of things you know what I find with a lot of anglicans is they want to point to one of those and say that's anglicanism that's genuine anglicanism right there and that's an infu I mean yeah like you couldn't even do that in church history you know what I mean like you would never treat the develop all franciscans yeah that's right exactly so so I've kind of come to learn that like I'm not gonna operate like that um and so uh you know I've been reading Herbert and D for a long time um both out of preference and necessity and was I remember when it clipped for me that I realized that I was really reading theology um is what I was reading there and not just theology but some of the most beautiful theology about the Eucharist and priesthood um and you know just just in Dunn's case you know this this Brilliance of the human person uh you know one of my great one of the best examples there is I think you know on riding Westward you know Good Friday 1613 i' I've turned my back on the Lord you know like who who would do do such a thing it's like oh well the world was turning its back on the Lord as he hung on the cross I mean beautiful beautiful beautiful so um yeah so I I want I was intentional when I was writing the book to say like look I wanna I want to use these authors because I think they need to be our theological voices and sources um but also because and I'm kind of merging your questions together because I really do think so much of the aesthetical tradition in anglicanism is in our poetry yeah um I think we have over Reliance on you know just traditional dactic forms of theology which is always the case historically um but uh but in anglicanism in particular we have such a wealth of a poetic tradition that is so spoton in its Theology and its expression of lived reality aesthetical theology um so to me they just became I don't know how you can talk about Anglican spirituality without talking about Herbert and Don and there could have been you know Kar you know Elliott um you know so so many places we could go and I you know and I don't mean just like poets who were anglicans but you know poets who were really operating from their anglicanism if you will um and so I I wanted to kind of try to model using them as part of our theological tradition um but then also really to say like when it comes to our aesthetical theology so I mean poetry might be the the best language um I I don't know if I've said that in print I think I've said it verbally in some podcast context but I I I think there's an argument could be made that um and I think father Jonathan Canary just to give him a give him a shout out I don't know if you know father Jonathan but Christ Church Waco brazzo's fellow guy Baylor PhD he's actually said this out loud as well I think we both dis agree on this that aesthetical theology uh might be best always expressed in a poetic form um and so uh there is a sense where I think that might be true so that that's the for me the use of of um D and Herbert in particular in this book was to try to try to model that um really really strongly um and you know I I almost think of them as they serve as kind of a second tier formulary for Anglican theology almost UMC because I really do think they're they're not they're not being I syncratic theologically they're they're really just expressing what the prayer book says in its it its own beautiful poetry and Pros they you know I mean take take take Herbert on the priesthood I mean where are you going to get a better theology the priesthood apart from the prayer book then then I I mean I would actually again make that AR too I think Herbert has the most persuasive theology the priesthood in all of Anglican tradition um and but but a lot of people because it's poetry they shy away from it and I think that's to our to our loss and so yeah so it was it was intentional um but uh but for your listeners I would really encourage like uh if you're the kind of person that thinks I'm not good at poetry like well join the club neither am I but to get better at it I just took to you know you know years ago I started reading a poem a day um you know I actually made that a spiritual discipline um part of my private devotion I read a poem a day and I didn't fret about like did I understand it it wasn't about the comprehension it was just nothing else I had to learn how to read poetry um so yeah so it's it's a it's a really underutilized resource and would be great if anglicans could get back to it again you know good good ordination exam questions would be you know to an analyze Herbert's the prood or something like that yeah yeah that'd be rad but you're talking about you know even even steing into that that mode of of understanding in a kind of formational language right because that's often a critique that's leveled against prayer book you know spirituality which is gosh you know some of this language is unfamiliar um some of this language is you know some of these formulations are Arc um and it it it's not something I can immediately access and and yet you know it's like well okay but since since when was that the litmus test of something you ought to do yeah right right yeah poetry is the same way yeah exact understand some of it yeah well the amazing thing is is anglicans are probably like if if you haven't been spending a lot of time in poetry you know but I'm I'm guessing that's probably true of most people um you know like if you've been in England for any length of time you you actually probably have been fairly well formed to read poetry because of the prayer book um you know and again like the you know I don't want to go down the rabbit hole of accessibility of the prayer book and those kinds of things I mean you know to me these are non-starter questions or or observations just the sense of like yeah well if I if I choose to I don't know let me just pick one of my kind of favorite movies from the past couple years you know Dune um I tried I tried to read the book as a teenager and couldn't I mean I just couldn't do it I probably could now but I just for whatever reason a teenager I couldn't do it and part of it was because you know he has to create a world and part of it is like I got to learn a world you know and the world has language of peoples that isn't normal but you know so watching the movies you know you you enter a world and you teach yourself a world I just say to people like we do that for our entertainment purposes all the time why wouldn't we do that for our worship lives like you know we did we had a new couple visit the parish yesterday a wonderful couple from Canada moved down here for grad school and I said you know first time they'd ever been to an Anglican Church you know and I said you know please come back it does get easier you know that's always right that every Parish priest has their elevator like please come back you know it'll it'll get easier when you get more familiar with it but yeah I think poetry is the same way like you can stand at a distance from it and talk about how hard it is or you can just like throw yourself into it and yeah will it be hard yeah I'm not saying it won't be hard but it'll become less hard over time for sure and then it just pays I mean the Dividends are huge with with the Anglican poetic tradition for sure it's wonderful I love I love that idea because I think poetry is so good at expressing Human Experience but also the intangibles of of mystery and theology like if if we can't be you know and this is true of theology we can't always be positive in theology we have to be apophatic sometimes we have to deal with the sort of negative aspect not in a negative sense but what something isn't right um because we're dealing with a mystery we're dealing with God we're dealing with these big questions um and you know father Hayden and father wz and some of our listeners will know that I have a particular love for a controversial medieval Theologian Meister eart um and some of what he's doing is the sort of poetry of prayer he's sort of getting into this space to talk about God and the only recourse he has is this poetic hyperbolic symbolic kind of language to get it a mystery he's he's just do mystical kind of Theology and that's one of the things that I love about Herbert in particular the way he sort of deals with some of these issues um is he's a as a well-formed and catechized Churchman he's he's he sees that connection immediately like what he's doing in in in a in a poem is U it's prayerful it's theological it's aesthetic it's Cal it's all those things and I just I love that connection yeah and I I I think I mean again I by the way Kudos I think Meister eart gets a bad rap in many in many ways so it it's not it's not easy reading but it it really can pay for itself if one works hard at it but I I think you're right I mean kind you know anglicanism is I we could overplay the the language of mystery well actually we could but there is a genuine sense where you can't because so much of the Christian faith is still in a mystery and is a mystery by by God's design um not by human limitation and I think that uh getting at that and I mean in many ways that that is the spiritual life I think to some to some extent right I mean it it remains a bit of a mystery I mean both in the sense that uh you know we we we change as people over the course of our lives and have to change disciplines and and and things that we do for our spiritual life I mean like you know all we we can't keep drinking the milk and you got to get on solid food and I'm hoping at some point in my really old years that you get to just have dessert for the rest of the time you know to extend that image out a little bit but but so much is a mystery and I and I think that we as anglicans should not just acknowledge that but um re really play to the the strengths of that I I have floated an idea with a publisher and this is no promise that said book will ever be written uh but the the appendix onone in theological anthropology was a bit of a you know you really can't do aeal theology without establishing a theological anthropology and then I realize you really can't even talk about Ang spirituality without some groundwork of theological anthropology um I I've said to a publisher like would you let me write a a book on a like an aesthetical theology book but only using the poetic tradition and they were open to it um so it' be an Anglican aesthetical theology but only the only primary text would be the Anglican poetic tradition um so we we'll because I think it's all there so but again we'll see we'll see if such book ever gets written but uh maybe a bishop will just ask me to write the book talk let's go well we could we could we could muster the the well what what audience we have we can muster it into like a letter writing campaign keep hounding you until you finish it yeah yeah because I would love to read that it'd be a little it'd be a selfish project for me because like gosh why wouldn't I want to do that yeah I'd only be a better Christian for it I think well so I mean as we as we sort of draw things to a close um I do think maybe turning towards the chapter on um maybe Mission would be worth doing um one of the the critiques of spiritual the ology you address is the tendency sort of towards individualism um but you write we go from um we go out from the Liturgy to love and serve the Lord in the world what do you see as being the relationship between uh aestheticism and Mission and how do each of those assist the other so I'm going to use uh the fifth century monastic Theologian John cashen uh maybe to this up a bit and I I I've talked about this I can't remember if it's in in the in the anate spirituality book but cashen writes in Latin but he's translating the the Greek desert tradition uh into Latin uh but he retains two Greek words um well retains the Greek word scopos and and then he he's got the word Telos so I guess you two there right so so he says uh a scopos or scopo in the plural you know are immediate ends that we're trying to accomplish through our decisions oretical decisions or our disciplines but there's the TS the the greater end right that's kind of how we normally think of Telos as the greater end right so that would be like you know Thomas aquinus is uh everything acts for a particular end right a tellos um so the thing is I mean I don't think you have to have one particular Telos you could have toy and so uh for cashion it's often pure of heart he picks up the gospel language which in the Greek tradition would just be apatha passionless but for him it's purity of heart but let's just kind of use this as a way to talk about aestheticism and Mission uh mission is the is the Telos all right that my my aestheticism is not self-serving for for Greg Peters it's for the church it's love of God and neighbor so already mission is built in to the to the great commandment right and so um so that's my tellos is actually love uh and again I'm not saying it's only love you I think you can have multip t multiple tooy and so but like's say love and I'm supposed to love my neighbor which to me is just the foundation of what it means to do mission is love um and then the relationship is my decisions aesthetically to pray the office to attend Eucharist to to fast to go to spiritual Direction all those things they do have immediate scope boy uh that I that I you know you know I'm trying to send less I'm trying to love you know uh my wife more I'm trying to love my kids more and those kinds of things right so I have I'm motivated in my private devotion for some more immediate ends but the greater end that I'm always keeping in mind is love of God and love of neighbor and so I don't think we can go out into the world to do the work the Lord has given us to do um unless we have formed ourselves aesthetically right um and so let me say it a slightly different way is what our aestheticism actually allows us to do is to say your will be done on Earth as it is in heaven and mean it and by that I mean uh Lord your will not my will so that means I'm giving my will over to the Lord to be used by him which we could use something language sacrifice we could use the language like every day it's a self-sacrifice of myself to the Lord for his will and the way we do that prepare ourselves for that is through esas right through aestheticism right aestheticism by Nature I think orients us away from the self uh in towards God and the things of God including his creation other people so the relationship to me is a seamless one um I I heard a bishop once uh talking about the need to be missional um and I was like I mean I be honest with you I don't think I had used that word maybe ever in my life um you know missional and so I um you know not to speak ill of a bishop I didn't like his framing of it whenever I don't like someone's framing of it of course it always you know then you think like well what what how would I say it or how would I think you know it should be said and so I just came to realize that like what what missional really means is is doing the things the Lord intends for us like and again I think loving God and and neighbor well but I'm not going to I'm not going to do that just because I'm told to do it uh you know you don't do it just because it's Commandments you have to train yourself forward and that's the asceticism of the Daily Office of the Eucharist of private devotion so that I can go and do these things missionally in a way that's not about me but truly about me loving God in my neighbor and that's because I've I've given up myself I've sacrificed myself uh to the greater Goods of God um he can use me in that mission and that's the whole point he is going to uh but it's not it's not me at that point it's it's me surrendered fully to God um so I think there's just a natural uh maybe maybe mission is like just the way we talk about interior exterior you know how do I how do I take that interior interior spiritual life that I have with God and how do I manifest that in an exterior manner that that's that's Mission isn't it I mean you know like yeah you know he sends me out from from the office from the Eucharist from my private devotions to to do all the works that he's given us to do um uh yeah so I think it's just a natural Coral are and you know when when when when Bishop Sutton asked me to to do the clericus which was to add the missional piece I first I thought is there I mean I mean I is there a connection and it didn't take me long to think like oh yeah the connection's not just there it's it's natural it's it's it's you know two sides to the same coin you can't have one without the other uh so another way to say that you'd have to work really hard I think to observe the three-fold daily office and then not be missional I think I think you'd have to actually really work hard to like no I'm gonna make sure that doesn't bleed out uh into the into the life of the church in the world seems like if we we look on the other side of that coin toward the direction of aestheticism too there's uh there's sometimes the impulse with in a broader Christian conversation um to pursue you know maybe more kind of stereotypical modes of mission of evangelism local or Global or Mission work um as it's sometimes talked about you know short-term Mission long-term missions um without that formation though or the minimum of formation um that you you know you'll just kind of just go do the thing and like you know the Lord will be with you and you know and go out and do it you know and go out and you know spread the word or and the things and those those being good aspir ations it seems that there is that the bridge is that asceticism it's it's okay that's great but how are you to be prepared for that how are you to with understand you know all the Temptations and you know desolations that come about through long-term commitment to these projects um so looking at it from that ex that side U you know can you maybe speak to those who have a a kind of a you know a an aspiration to you know be of service evangelistically or you know in service or even activism um what you know from a practical perspective as a parish priest you how would you advise that person who has that strong aspiration but maybe to the point where they kind of want to skip over the the the format stage well that's a great question I mean first of all like I'm always skeptical not skeptical I shouldn't say that I should I should pick a word that's maybe more positive sounding I'm always uh um mildly concerned when uh someone's not not I mean overly zealous maybe in a way that feels a little place because you know part of my concern is always like are we do are you know what what's the motivation here right is it a self-serving motivation or a truly a Godly motivation of the Lord moment to go out and do that mission um so I I would just simply you know when I do this with maybe aspirins to holy orders or something like that if I I don't think it's quite time to really start Discerning quite yet I'll say hey you know what let's spend the next six months uh really having conversations about your faithfulness to the office and your spiritual life and um you know your spiritual disciplines describe those for me talk to me about those things and I try to that's basically I'm I'm waiting to see if there's evidence of just submitting themselves to the to the small things before the thought that maybe they should be entrusted with the bigger things but I because again but for me it's just because I don't think I mean there could be a kind of unored mission missional missional uh but I think there it's it's motivated you know by it's it's it's uh it could be self- serving uh you know misguided I think the best kind of missional work the church can do is when it grows out of her worship life her um you know when her people are just Faithfully praying the office going to you Grace personal devotion I think will will naturally be missional um and it'll Li so that that's how I would handle it pastorally is like I last thing you want to do is squash someone's enthusiasm you just want to make sure that enthusiasm you know has got the proper it's flowing in the proper channels and rooted in you know uh Godly benevolence and a and a real sense of service and love of neighbor not just you know someone uh getting overly zealous about something so yeah I mean I again like you know we don't the job of the parish priest isn't to keep score and and this is like if we could come back full circle maybe the Thorton for a moment you know at first when I read so I read dorton for the first time before I was an Anglican actually a good number of years before I was an Anglican you know so so maybe he had he probably had an influence on me becoming anglian but I first for years I thought he's really right about this Remnant theology I'm a little more skeptical now of uh Thorton's Remnant theology um so just a quick summary of that for folks who don't know it is you know basically I I don't think he uses percentage but in your Parish you'll have a remnant of people that are the ones that will be faithful to the office faithful to Eucharist private devotion then you'll have a lot that aren't he's coming from a church you know a state Church context so I get it but um but I I don't I think this is for all Christians and I mean I don't think Thorton said otherwise but like I try to work hard as a parish priest not to think like here's my Remnant you know um so I I I I just think again to go back to something father Kon said that the office the Eucharist private devotion is just that's the Baseline so for anyone that's you know zealously wanting to go out and win the world for Christ I don't want to Tamper that down but I do want to make sure that it's formed by that Baseline returns to that Baseline uh because you we we know the person's going to burn bright burn out uh and the only thing that can sustain that kind of long-term work is uh is the Lord through uh the the the three-fold office ultimately but I also maybe if it's okay I could also say like the other way to say this would be to form it as a critique you know would be to say like I also have a concern that a lot of anglicans could think faithfulness to the three-fold office is the fullness you know that is the paroma of the Anglican faith and they they don't they don't see past the the proverbial Four Walls of the Parish Church and I think that's a fair criticism and maybe more than a criticism maybe it would it would be proven um to be more right than wrong um so we want to be careful that we don't you know like oh it's all about the office and the Eucharist and that's the Pinnacle I mean it there that is true in many ways but you know it there is you know at least in our tradition you know the post communion prayer sending us out to do that work that we've just kind of been equipped to do by the the work of God in US is like so yeah so I I want to think of it both ways I want I have a similar conversation with the the Zealot if you will the P Zealot and the best sense of the word but also with the least likely person in my Parish to be missional I would say you know the the three-fold rule is forming you for that work though and if you're not doing that work you know I I don't think it's a failure on the rules part to form you I would think it's probably at that point someone's resistance to wanting to love their neighbor and again because I just think like Mission at the end of the day is really just it's it's that part of the Great commandment to just love our neighbor as ourselves so yeah so I mean again like I have I would have concerns both directions in my Parish with the overly zealous but also the underly zealous I'd be like wait a second let's reain you in a little bit but you are way too passive about this Mission you know this missional which I think is an essential feature of the church for sure it seems like it draws it back to where you begin with the the kind of that first step into the daily offices which do exactly what you just said which is we're going to spend some time here you know being steeped in the scriptures in a systematic way we're going to spend some time engaging with the prayers of the church as they have been prayed through centuries and then after we've done that we'll then turn we will then you know we will then turn our gaze outward we'll start petitioning you know four causes in the world giving thanks for the things we've experienced drawing the whole of life into the into those prayers just like the Eucharist sends us forth you know to walk in all the good works he has set before us um there there is that if we'll just follow the logic of it it it it it tends to push us out in that direction anyway if we if we'll just let it yeah there is this kind of set of you know the the proverbial Pebble you know and then the Rings but like the daily office which is preparation and and adjacent you know for daily for the for Holy Eucharist which is primarily the people of God gathered there and then again I think the the post communion prayer is interesting that's the one that really frames it as going going out in the world right so it there is this bit of a like you know the Lord and I know the day of the office is ideally prayed in community so I'm not saying it's individualistic but like but often it is prayed individually but you know it's this kind of sense of where like God forms forms sends there's that pattern to it and uh in the daily office I think the Daily Office the Eucharist that's all again it's it's natural to go out a mission but those things are also what equip us for that for that mission it' be foolish to try to do it any other way yeah yeah well to you know conclude our very rich conversation for which we're really thankful yet again um uh I'd like to draw us to a segment that uh we all enjoy and our and our listeners do as well which is what are what are you into lately and I'll have father kraton go first to give the the the schema for it um but just something you you're you've been into lately whether um you know just hobby hobby wise or reading or um thinking about father kraton what have you what are you lately this is good it's a busy season so I'm like trying to in moments of business be into certain things um between Parish Ministry and having a kid and maybe moving we're we're not we're we're in the process of trying to to sell our house and buy another one so um I'm trying to have hobbies and things outside of those right now um but most of it most of the time what it ends up being is like reading and thinking about things um so two things that I've been reading one is a book called pathogenesis The History of the World and eight plagues um and it's a weird sort of off-the-wall kind of thing to pick up and read um but I occasionally need things that are like history or something that's not theology or philosophy to kind of relax and enjoy um which sounds like a weird thing to enjoy or relax while reading a book about plagues but it um it's a really interesting it's a really interesting book um principally kind of focused on the sociological uh and historical uh experience of plagues in human history and it and it goes all the way up to covid so shocking wow um the other is uh more specific to to sort of my background and academic interest um it's an essay by uh Jean Luis uh cren called the wounded word phenomenology of prayer um and that has been kind of taking up a lot of my brain space lately um in a really good way and I've been having some really good conversations um with some friends who are um also in the kind of philosophical theology World um about it and and sort of getting into this idea of the combat that takes place in the human person um the kind of violence almost that's done when God sees us for who we really are we simultaneously want him to see us for who we really are but we also don't want him to see us for who we really are uh and so there there's a sense of um of of pain conflict something in the in the human person um when we open ourselves up in prayer that I think is a really interesting Avenue to to kind of pursue and to think about um so that's that's kind of what I've been into um in all the free time I have father Peters what have you been into lately um well having just finished the first week of the spring semester so part of it just being back with students but uh yeah so like Father gr was saying I'm I mean I spend a lot of time reading um so I'm reading I just finished a book called conversations with oesi um which is a really interesting uh book I'm forgetting his first name but Patterson is the last name and um just about uh it's that quite like Dusty's come back from the dead but sort of uh so it's a fictional take on a series of conversations between a you know a university professor Professor uh in dfki so really interesting I finished it um just recently and so uh that's one of my things I've been reading and really enjoying another book that I'm reading is George Gyver uh all Christians are monks um and so this will be a plug it's for a book review for The Living Church and so so that'll show up eventually in the Living Church but yeah so just an interesting uh again kind of the title would suggest an argument like I've made in the month could have all believe but um not I'm not far enough into the book to know if that's quite what he's doing yet um you know he's part of the community of the Resurrection uh in in England and so he he's a monastic himself uh so that's kind of two theology things I've been uh reading but my current fiction reading uh has been unset Christen Lavin's daughter uh if you've read that um you know so I just finished the first volume uh and starting on the second so she's uh yeah so I'm really enjoying that it had been recommended to me multiple times and I'm a little always hesitant to read a 900 page novel just because of the time commitment but I mean I read all the time but that's that's usually stretched out over for my fiction reading which is more my fun uh my fun reading um so that's uh that's what I've been doing for some of my uh reading life and then um just another thing I've been doing uh is my wife and I uh uh we like to do little home projects and so so we're kind of in the middle of a little home project of uh doing a little ripping out of some shelving that had been put on the back of our house near the area where my wife you know that's where they hurt so I say her because she's she's the out she she barbecue she smoke she griddles on the Blackstone that's just that literally that's what she loves to do and she needed some more prep space but didn't like what was there so we're just doing a little Home Project to try to give her that space that she needs so that I can keep eating really good food yeah I had to give some example that wasn't about reading so that you know people realize I I I do know how to use these things for other than well rounded turning Pages yeah oh that's great um in m in my world lately uh you know coming out of the holidays uh we a couple of projects ongoing one is in terms of reading I've been reading through again a couple of um books by Kurt Thompson who explores the kind of relationship between um spirituality and Neuroscience which has been an interesting um revisit to some of his earlier works his more kind of foundational works and then he's got a couple new ones that I'm interested to explore in light of those rereads on um the kind of Neuroscience of desire and what's actually happening in the in the brain and the body um when we experience desire so um that's that's been uh Illuminating um as a part of a larger um interest uh uh in the theology the body um and so that that's been a new component of it that I've been working through and it's yeah fascinating stuff um to to be exposed to uh in terms of outside of thought life um I we we have this homeschool Co-op at St Matthews and uh one of the weeks of the month um I'll come in and do a baking lesson with the kids and uh I mean we've been cooking our way through um a a cookbook based on the lurgical calendar and uh and doing things that customarily and traditionally are are made during different feast days and seasons of the church year and um and one that was a bit out of one one we just had for Epiphany was uh a a recipe attributed to St Hildegard um in her physics actually called the cookies of joy uh I think is the trans how it translates out and uh they're they're very spicy and kind of like a lot of warm spices and they're designed for like midwinter when you're you know you're you know you're all messed up from the darkness and the cold and so uh and so it's just like just kind of and they were they were very bright and warm and uh and they were very easy to make and the kids really enjoyed getting to put like a million different spices in there at the same time and learn about all that so that's that's been a fun project uh month to month is getting to spend time with uh a fun group of kids and and doing you know doing something that's very much out of my head uh so I've been enjoying that that's cool so well uh father Peters I just want to thank you again for joining us today and for all your wisdom we appreciate you um being in dialogue with us now for another time um and being a select group part of a select group of people who are repeat guests on the sacramental list podcast thank you for your time today yeah it's been great thank you for giving me the opportunity appreciate it yeah and to our listeners thank you for joining us today as well we encourage you to follow us on Facebook or Twitter to like And subscribe uh on YouTube and to leave us a rating and review on iTunes if you would and as always please consider joining the communion of patreon saints for a scant $5 a month uh father Peters would you uh do us the kindness of giving us your blessing and closing absolutely I'd be happy to the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and Minds in the knowledge and love of God and of his son Jesus Christ the Lord in the blessing of God almighty the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit be with us always and remain with us forever amen amen