Order of Man - A Primer on Biblical Masculinity

00:00:00.000 Today, we tackle a conversation we've never had on this podcast, biblical masculinity,

00:00:04.380 as you men are well aware, order of man is a non-religious movement, but that doesn't mean

00:00:09.200 that we can't, or even shouldn't look at all available paths to the type of men that we have

00:00:13.380 a desire to be. And I can think of no better guest to have this type of conversation than Bishop

00:00:18.780 Robert Barron, auxiliary Bishop of the archdiocese of Los Angeles. During our conversation,

00:00:24.340 we talk about David as an example of biblical masculinity, individual sovereignty versus

00:00:29.680 God's sovereignty, literal and figurative interpretations of the Bible, Jesus Christ

00:00:34.700 as a fighter, and choosing to live the commandments. You're a man of action. You live life to the

00:00:40.120 fullest. Embrace your fears and boldly chart your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back

00:00:45.660 up one more time, every time. You are not easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong.

00:00:52.940 This is your life. This is who you are. This is who you will become at the end of the day.

00:00:58.340 And after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.

00:01:02.960 Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Mickler, and I am the host and the founder

00:01:07.240 of the podcast and the movement Order of Man. I want to welcome you here. If you are new to the

00:01:12.380 show, want to let you know this is a podcast about becoming a better man. That is it. So everything

00:01:17.700 that we do from the podcast and our social media posts and blogs and videos and events that we run,

00:01:24.320 everything, everything that we're doing is all designed to give you the tools, the conversations,

00:01:29.020 the resources, the guidance, the framework to becoming a better, more capable husband,

00:01:33.840 father, community leader, business owner, any facet of life in which you show up. So I'm honored that

00:01:40.160 you're here. Glad that you're here each and every week, the podcast and the download numbers and

00:01:44.640 social media accounts continue to grow. The numbers are great, but more important than the numbers guys

00:01:49.980 is what they represent, which is you as a man. Again, whether it's a father or a husband, you as

00:01:55.560 a, an employee or owner of your business or a leader or a coach in the community. It's the fact

00:02:01.420 that each of the numbers of downloads and social media views and everything else represent one other

00:02:07.200 man who will go on to serve his family and his community and his business and everything else

00:02:11.740 more effectively. So I got a very interesting one lined up for you today. I do ask that before we get

00:02:17.980 into the conversation. If you are listening to this, that you keep an open mind. I know this is

00:02:22.080 going to be controversial. I know that I'm going to have a lot of emails from people who don't

00:02:26.040 necessarily agree with, with the conversation today, but you know what? This is good. This is

00:02:30.280 important that we have these types of conversations and that we keep an open mind and learn new things

00:02:35.260 that maybe we haven't considered before. So I'm going to get to that in a very quick minute here,

00:02:39.260 but before I do, let me introduce my show sponsors. I always say show sponsors and friends because

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00:03:52.980 denim or the rash guards or geese, use the code order or DER at checkout. And you'll get a discount

00:03:59.020 on your order again, origin, main.com use the code order. All right, guys, let's get into the

00:04:04.260 conversation with my guest. Uh, I've been looking forward to introducing you to him for some time.

00:04:08.380 Now, his name is Bishop Robert Barron. He currently serves as the auxiliary Bishop to the Archdiocese of

00:04:14.420 Los Angeles. Uh, he's also the founder of word on fire Catholic ministries. Uh, he's been asked to

00:04:19.600 speak at Facebook, Google, uh, Amazon on the subject of religion. He's discussed and debated with

00:04:25.440 Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro. And he also serves as a religious correspondent for NBC Fox news and

00:04:32.800 CNN. Now, in addition to all that, if that wasn't enough, he reaches nearly 2 million people on his

00:04:39.080 social media accounts and over 350,000 people receive his daily email reflections. So obviously,

00:04:45.280 uh, the man is very, very influential. And during our discussion today, I think you're going to hear

00:04:50.920 exactly why enjoy Bishop Barron. Thanks for joining us on the order of man podcast.

00:04:57.280 You are quite welcome. I'm delighted to be with you. Yeah, I am too. Uh, this is frankly a

00:05:01.960 conversation in the past five years that I have not broached on the podcast for, uh, uh, deliberate

00:05:09.440 reasons, but I'm, I've always been impressed with your level-headed approach and your, uh, you seem like

00:05:14.760 a reasonable man. And I think this is a great time to have this conversation and you're the perfect one to

00:05:19.020 have it with. Well, I appreciate that. Thanks. Yeah, you bet. Uh, I really want to talk about

00:05:24.580 and center this conversation around the idea of biblical masculinity. Obviously our show is

00:05:29.380 catered towards and, and, and talks with men about being men and how to be men. And I'd like to, uh,

00:05:35.660 explore where, uh, your thought process is on where masculinity comes from and even look into the

00:05:41.980 Bible as examples of biblical masculinity and how we as men can step into that as well, or at least

00:05:47.320 considerate, I should say. Yeah, good. Uh, is there, uh, is there a place that you feel like we could

00:05:53.180 start as far as how the Bible or God defines masculinity? Well, you know, the Bible tends to present

00:05:59.600 things more concretely and less abstractly. So you're not going to find philosophical discussions.

00:06:04.780 You're going to see narrative presentations. So the Bible, I think, lays out to us, um, narrative

00:06:10.420 accounts of great men and how these men, um, you know, achieve their masculinity in relation to God.

00:06:18.420 So I'd begin with those, with the great narratives, maybe especially David, who in so many ways is kind

00:06:25.380 of an archetypal figure in the Bible, but I think is a model of, um, of masculinity in the biblical

00:06:31.120 sense. So I do narrative more than sort of abstract philosophical accounts.

00:06:35.540 I actually think that makes more sense. And I'm sure that more men resonate with it being a narrative

00:06:40.740 because that's how we bond anyways, through story, right? The Bible is a collection of stories that

00:06:45.940 we can extract lessons from. I guess I'm curious as to when it comes to these stories, like how do you

00:06:53.360 determine what you should take as literal interpretation or figurative interpretation of

00:06:59.340 some of the stories and lessons in the Bible? Yeah, there's no easy univocal answer to that question.

00:07:04.500 It's a question that's been asked as long as the Bible has been around. I'm sure. And I think the

00:07:08.280 first thing is to be attentive to genre. So the Bible is a collection of books of different genre and

00:07:14.460 for different audiences written by different authors for different purposes. And, you know,

00:07:19.140 the Bible would contain everything from legend and saga and tall tale to history to epistolary

00:07:25.640 literature, like the letters of Paul, gospel, apocalypse, song, and they're all different in

00:07:31.960 literary style and intention. So attending to that, I think, is key to, you know, the question of,

00:07:37.980 is it literal or is it figurative? Depends. And sometimes within a given book, you'll go back

00:07:44.300 and forth between various genre. So I know that people always want, on both kind of the left and

00:07:49.620 the right, they want a univocal answer. You know, it's all history, it's all mythology or whatever.

00:07:54.860 Well, it's really kind of an amalgam of all those things, which is why as a Catholic, I would say

00:07:59.680 you've got to read the Bible within the church, meaning within the great interpretive tradition

00:08:05.320 of the church going back thousands of years during to the present day. And the church kind of teaches

00:08:11.120 us how best to appropriate these stories. But in a way, like for our purposes today, it probably

00:08:16.860 wouldn't matter all that much. You know, so if you take the narrative of David, I mean, how much of the

00:08:21.780 David story is what we call factual history? You know, I'd say there's a fair amount of it. And then

00:08:26.980 is a lot of it elaboration, theological development? Yeah, sure. And that we can have

00:08:34.340 that discussion, but probably for our purposes, just to look at the narratives themselves and see

00:08:38.860 what they communicate to us. That's probably a better way to go.

00:08:43.420 I think it makes sense. I hate to discount it this way, but some stories don't really matter

00:08:49.040 whether or not they're literal or true or whatever it may be. And again, I'm not trying to discount any of

00:08:54.080 it, but for the context of what we're discussing, the lesson can be extracted all the same.

00:08:59.860 Right. And it's a good point you're making, though, because see, the Bible, it matters very

00:09:03.820 much in our tradition that there's an historical ground that God really spoke to real human beings

00:09:10.640 in history. Now, we have, of course, theological elaboration and all that sort of thing. You don't

00:09:16.240 have journalistic reportage in the Bible typically, or what we call today history in the contemporary

00:09:23.200 sense of the term. Nevertheless, that God really addressed a people, Israel, in time and in their

00:09:29.720 history, that matters. And so you can't go to the other extreme and just say, oh, it's all kind of

00:09:35.060 mythic, you know, imagination. It matters very much that the Bible is historical. But then we can't go to

00:09:43.160 the opposite extreme and say, okay, therefore, it's all just straightforward journalistic reportage.

00:09:48.500 It's an amalgam of all that. Yeah, I think there is a trend in society to assume that in a lot of

00:09:54.820 ways, nothing matters or history doesn't matter. And to take things very lightly and very casually

00:10:02.540 when there are some things, whether we're talking about the Bible or any other facet of life, that

00:10:07.560 there's some places where we ought to exhibit some level of reverence and respect for that thing and

00:10:13.220 the seriousness of what it is we're talking about. Yeah, quite right. Quite right. What characteristics

00:10:18.440 or features with David do you feel stand out and is representative of biblical masculinity?

00:10:26.260 Oh, there's got you so much. You know, first of all, David is one of the only characters in the

00:10:31.320 Bible for whom we have a whole arc. You know what I'm saying? We have an account of David as a very

00:10:37.440 young kid. And then we follow the arc of his life all the way till he's a very old man. And that's

00:10:44.180 extremely rare in the Bible. You'd have that sort of narrative completion. But look at, gosh, many

00:10:49.860 points along that narrative arc we could focus on. Look how he emerges. We first hear about David

00:10:56.360 as a shepherd who's willing even to take on the attack of a bear, of a wild animal, to protect his

00:11:03.940 flock. So even as a little kid, David is humble. So, you know, when the prophet Samuel comes to anoint

00:11:12.620 one of the sons of Jesse, and they bring all these seven impressive sons before the prophet, and he

00:11:18.480 goes, no, this is not the one. This is not the one. And then, do you have any other sons? And well,

00:11:25.400 there's little, you know, David out. He's tending the sheep. You couldn't possibly mean him. And of course,

00:11:31.040 that's the one whom God wants. First lesson there is humility. When David is humble before the Lord,

00:11:40.080 the Lord can accomplish enormous things through him. Watch now as his career unfolds. At key moments,

00:11:48.340 the properly functioning David listens to the Lord, abides by his word, waits for his command,

00:11:57.480 asks, Lord, what should I do? Well, that's the humility that began as the little kid tending the

00:12:04.660 sheep, and it endures throughout his life. Now, turn it around. When does David go bad? And it's

00:12:11.640 perfectly consistent in that story. He goes bad whenever he stops listening to the Lord. And when

00:12:19.720 he says, it's my idea, it's my plan, it's I'm gonna do what I want. Best example is the famous incident

00:12:26.360 with Bathsheba. David's up on the roof of his house, you know. That time of year, mind you,

00:12:35.320 the Bible says, when kings go on campaign. And David was always on campaign. David always was ready

00:12:41.520 to engage the enemy. But this time, he's at home, on the roof, and it says, taking a long siesta.

00:12:50.080 Well, there's David now, who's refusing his task, and never once listens to the Lord. In fact,

00:12:59.280 from that height, he assumes a kind of God-like perspective. Now he looks out over his city,

00:13:05.200 he sees the object of his desire, Bathsheba. He makes these staccato, barking commands and gets

00:13:11.520 her to come. David is not listening to God. He's acting like God. And that's when his identity kind

00:13:20.520 of unravels. So that's the first thing I noticed about David, is that he's a humble man. But then

00:13:26.200 also go back to that first scene. The first thing we learn about him is a little kid. He's a fighter.

00:13:32.240 Later, David engages this animal who's threatening the flock. He's a little kid of extraordinary

00:13:40.380 courage, and a willingness to defend what's good, and what God has given him to defend.

00:13:49.560 That too, now, we can trace all the way from that opening scene, all the way through the arc of his

00:13:53.880 life. David, like all the great kings of Israel, is a warrior. And he's willing to defend the boundaries

00:14:01.360 of what God gave him, but also to expand. So it was to bring God's kingdom to a wider and wider

00:14:07.180 audience. So that courageous willingness to engage, that's a major part of, I think,

00:14:15.160 masculinity in the biblical vision. And again, look at the Bathsheba. When they're meant to go on

00:14:23.020 campaign, that's when David is at home having a siesta. So the refusal to engage, the refusal to

00:14:29.720 protect, that becomes a source of trouble. Yeah, that's really interesting. I know we talk quite

00:14:36.000 a bit about initiative and recognizing problems and challenges, and then having a willingness to

00:14:41.960 address them. But also, I see in David and other figures in the Bible, not only a willingness, but

00:14:48.180 also the capacity, the capability to protect, to do what is necessary as well. It can't just be

00:14:55.140 a willingness. It has to be supported with the ability to defend or protect or go into battle

00:15:03.220 or whatever it is that that figure is doing. Yeah, and here's another interesting connection.

00:15:08.700 So David is one of the great prototypes of Christ, now from a Christian perspective. So we look back

00:15:15.300 in the Old Testament and see anticipations of Jesus. Jesus is the new David, or he's the son of David

00:15:22.960 in the New Testament. And Jesus is absolutely a fighter. Watch how he engages those who are

00:15:30.860 opposed to him. But the interesting thing is, Jesus does not battle with the weapons of the world.

00:15:36.080 And this is a very important part of the trajectory of the whole Bible. We're not honoring in Jesus just,

00:15:41.660 you know, one more earthly or worldly warrior among others. But his great battle is on the cross.

00:15:49.200 Jesus on the cross taking on the enemies of Israel, but not engaging them violently, but engaging them

00:15:56.880 precisely through nonviolence and engaging them with the forgiving love and mercy of God, which does,

00:16:05.400 in a very serious way, outmaneuver the powers of the world. Here's an interesting connection,

00:16:11.260 again, with David in mind. Michelangelo's famous sculpture, right, of the naked David. So going out to

00:16:18.800 meet Goliath, but completely undefended, that's the point. Remember, in the account in the Bible,

00:16:25.340 Goliath, we hear about every bit of armament he has on, in great detail, his spear and his sword and

00:16:31.460 his armament and his shield and his shield-bearer. He's like an image of worldly power. David meets him,

00:16:39.280 armed with only the slingshot. Michelangelo emphasized that with the nakedness of David.

00:16:44.980 But see, the Christian looking at that also sees the anticipation of Jesus, who, naked on the cross,

00:16:53.300 defenseless on the cross, engages the powers of the world in the most effective way. And so it's a very

00:16:59.960 interesting thing about, yes, a warrior, yes, someone willing to defend, but if we look at the

00:17:06.160 whole trajectory of the Bible, it's not in the worldly way, but in this far stranger and more

00:17:14.160 efficacious way of engaging through nonviolence. So anyway, that's, if you want to get the whole

00:17:20.460 picture of that trajectory, I would do that from David all the way to Jesus.

00:17:24.280 Yeah. You know, does that nakedness of David, do you think that's representative of even a level of

00:17:31.040 innocence? I mean, we've been taught and instructed to be childlike in a lot of ways, right? To put

00:17:37.440 away a lot of childish behavior, but childish innocence in a lot of ways as well.

00:17:42.000 No, that's precisely right. Because look, David is in anticipation of Jesus, but also go back

00:17:48.180 before David. He's a kind of recapitulation of Adam. And there's a whole biblical development of

00:17:54.400 that theme. But Adam before the fall is naked because of, as you say correctly, his innocence.

00:18:01.120 What's that motif in the New Testament when the disciples, after the resurrection of Jesus,

00:18:07.440 there they are in the boat, and it says that Peter is gymnos, that's the Greek term, which means naked.

00:18:13.960 A gymnasium, right? It's a place where you would exercise and so on.

00:18:18.400 So he's gymnos, he's nude. And then he throws on clothes, right, before he goes to see Jesus.

00:18:25.160 And that's meant to call our minds all the way back to Adam, who was naked in the presence of

00:18:31.440 the Lord until he sinned, and then he had to cover himself in shame. So Peter, who knew that he had

00:18:36.600 denied the Lord, now has to cover himself before he meets the Lord again, you know? So you're right,

00:18:41.960 that theme of innocence is interesting. And Michelangelo gets that in the nudity of David,

00:18:47.460 but also the nakedness of Jesus on the cross, is the act by which our innocence is restored.

00:18:54.100 All that's there, I think.

00:18:55.400 How do we manifest that innocence in a way, and tap into that, without obviously taking our clothes

00:19:02.700 off, because that would be highly inappropriate, right? So how do we then, in our own lives,

00:19:08.220 manifest that innocence, but also the opposite side of that is to be like you said, with Jesus Christ

00:19:14.260 being a fighter, David being a fighter. So it seems like there's a dichotomy that would be hard to

00:19:18.480 balance.

00:19:19.740 Yeah, it's the innocence comes from obedience in the Bible. So when Adam is obedient, and

00:19:25.000 obedere just means to listen, right, when he listens to the voice of the Lord, then he walks in easy

00:19:31.960 fellowship with God in the garden. When he refuses to listen, and he becomes his own Lord, so that's the

00:19:38.400 grasping of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, that's what that means, is he makes himself

00:19:43.100 the criterion of good and evil. When that happens, his innocence is lost, shame occurs, he disintegrates

00:19:51.280 on the inside, and then disintegration follows on the outside. Now read Genesis 3 through 12,

00:19:57.700 you've got Cain and Abel, you've got the Noah's Ark, you've got the Tower of Babel,

00:20:01.160 all these stories of the disintegration of the human community, that follows from the primal

00:20:08.040 disintegration of Adam, which comes from disobedience. That's the way the Bible, I think,

00:20:13.940 unfolds it. Genesis 12 is the call of Abraham, right? There's the beginning of God's rescue

00:20:20.360 operation, and it says, Abraham listened to the voice of the Lord. So there's the key. Do you listen

00:20:27.460 to your own ego or to a higher voice? Now, go forward from Abraham all the way to David? What

00:20:34.340 do you have? Same thing. When David listens, Lord, what should I do? Lord, tell me, do I go out against

00:20:39.300 the Philistines? Lord, where do I go? He flourishes. And the kingdom of Israel expands during that time.

00:20:46.480 When David refuses to listen, he loses his innocence, he disintegrates, the kingdom disintegrates.

00:20:53.140 That's, I mean, of permanent value, that spiritual insight, it seems to me. And that's the key to our

00:21:01.180 innocence is obedience to a higher voice. Now, if you want, that's a real man. A real man is someone

00:21:10.220 who listens not to his own ego and prerogatives, but who stubbornly and steadily abides by the law of

00:21:18.940 the Lord. Keeping himself integral and his family around him integral and the society around his

00:21:26.040 family integral. That's key to a biblical vision, I think. Yeah, I'm actually really glad we're

00:21:32.100 talking about this because I thought a lot about what I wanted to discuss with you, and I listened

00:21:36.080 to some podcasts and things like that. And one of the last ones that you did was talking about

00:21:40.680 choosing to keep the commandments. And what's really interesting is I talk with a lot of guys who have

00:21:47.680 a very difficult time. So let me give you a little bit of context here. About a year and a half or so

00:21:53.400 ago, I wrote a book called Sovereignty. And in the book itself, I talk about a man's responsibility to

00:22:01.100 be sovereign over himself, to take individual and personal responsibility. And it was funny because

00:22:07.980 I was met with quite a few thoughts about what people see as a confliction between individual

00:22:16.060 responsibility, sovereignty, whatever you may want to call it, and then being accountable to God's

00:22:22.980 sovereignty. Now I've never seen that. It's not hard for me to make that connection. Like I, I am

00:22:29.480 accountable to God. That's my belief. And also I have a personal responsibility, but it seems to me

00:22:35.260 that there's a lot of men who can't quite seem to make the connection live to and for God. And also

00:22:42.280 I'm responsible for myself and my family and my direct obligations.

00:22:49.200 Yeah. But one follows right from the other. You know, the key to everything in a biblical vision,

00:22:54.620 it's for men and women too, but the key to everything is acknowledging the sovereignty of God.

00:23:00.040 God is referred to in the Bible as the Lord. It's very important, isn't it? The lordliness of God.

00:23:05.540 God is king. God is the Lord of my life. In a Christian perspective, when I speak of the lordship

00:23:12.680 of Jesus, Jesus Christ is Lord of my life, that means he commands every aspect of my life.

00:23:18.280 He's not someone that I entertain from time to time. You know, I find kind of mildly interesting.

00:23:24.240 Oh, sure. A lot of spiritual teachers and Jesus is one of them. And no, no, no. If you say he's the

00:23:29.460 Lord of your life, that means he commands your mind. He commands your will. He commands your body.

00:23:34.440 He commands your sexuality. He commands your family. He commands everything. He's the Lord of

00:23:39.260 you. But see, from that lordship, so let's say a man acknowledging that, that gives him

00:23:45.980 the proper sovereignty, if you want, over himself and over his family. That's where it comes from.

00:23:52.460 If a man is having sovereignty over his family based on his own ego, God help his family. That's

00:23:57.540 going to be a, that's a parody of what the Bible is talking about. But rather, a man who,

00:24:01.640 like David at his best, listens to the Lord, obeyedire, obeys the Lord, that gives him a proper

00:24:08.400 sovereignty over his family. And then he'll govern his family well. And here's an interesting thing.

00:24:14.700 Family. We have a very kind of sentimentalized or secularized understanding of family values.

00:24:20.460 Look at the Bible, though, about the family. What's the whole purpose of a family? It's to be a little

00:24:26.460 society in which everybody learns his or her mission. Because what life's all about is accepting

00:24:34.000 our mission from God. God's got a mission for everybody. What's the father's job in a family,

00:24:39.020 the mother's too, I'd say, the two of them acting together, help their children discern their mission.

00:24:44.460 When fathers and mothers begin saying, no, no, my children are means by which I'm going to accomplish

00:24:49.580 certain ends, right? I'm going to live my life through my kids, or I'm going to manipulate,

00:24:54.400 fall apart. Rather, the father, under obedience to God, finding his mission, now is to help his

00:25:03.580 children find their mission, and finally to let them go. Examples abound, actually, in the Bible.

00:25:11.480 Think of Jesus, the 12-year-old Jesus in the temple. So he moves away from his mother and father.

00:25:20.180 He goes to the temple. There he spends his time in the house of his father. When Mary and Joseph come,

00:25:26.080 and, you know, how could you have done this to us? Didn't you know I was to be in the house of my

00:25:31.280 father? In other words, his whole life was about the discovery of this great mission of his.

00:25:36.500 It wasn't about being part of some other plan, some other set of desires. It was to be

00:25:44.460 in the house of his father, you know? So a good father helps his children discern their mission,

00:25:52.720 and that's a father under the sovereignty of God. I think where a lot of men get hung up is they feel

00:26:00.960 like they're not as in control, and I guess that's actually probably true, but they don't have as much

00:26:07.980 power because they've subjected themselves to a higher power in this case, and in their minds,

00:26:15.240 they view that as an inferior position. Well, it is an inferior position, and we shouldn't be

00:26:22.020 clinging to false forms of power. In other words, if I'm claiming power over and against God,

00:26:26.200 then I'm in the stance of Lucifer or Adam after the fall. Authentic power comes precisely from a

00:26:33.800 surrender to God. Now, here's the key. The God of the Bible is not the God of Greek and Roman

00:26:40.100 mythology. That is to say, someone who's in competition with us, who has a rivalry with us,

00:26:46.120 so the more power God gets, the less I have. On the contrary, in the Bible, what God wants is for

00:26:52.720 us to be fully alive. Therefore, the more I surrender to God, the more I become myself. God

00:26:59.660 wants my flourishing more than I do. See, we sinners, part of the way to define sin is that we don't

00:27:07.700 even know what we want anymore. We don't know what real flourishing is. God does, and so when I surrender

00:27:14.240 to God, I find true power. I find true flourishing. And so if you see it as a rivalry, then you're not

00:27:21.980 seeing it right. And if you're clinging to false power, which is, say, over and against God, you've

00:27:28.460 got to give up that game. That's going to lead to disaster in you and around you. No, no, no.

00:27:34.020 Subjection to God is a manly thing to do. And now we're getting closer to the heart of the matter,

00:27:40.060 maybe. The most manly thing you can do is subject yourself to God. And that will unleash what is best in

00:27:47.960 you, in your mind, in your will, in your powers, and it'll be the best for your family.

00:27:53.120 Worst thing you can do is cling to phony, worldly power, which is egotistical and opposed to God.

00:28:01.800 Men, specifically fathers, I just need to interject here for just a very quick minute.

00:28:06.120 We are coming down to the wire on closing down registration for our legacy experience,

00:28:10.320 and I want you and your son to be there. Check your calendars because it's going to be held June

00:28:15.240 11th through the 14th. Again, June 11th through the 14th, 2020 this year on my property here in

00:28:21.160 Maine. This is an experience unlike any other, and it's designed to be a three and a half days of

00:28:27.620 extensive physical and intellectual competition and camaraderie between you and 19 other fathers

00:28:34.000 and sons. We've created an event that will quite literally transform the relationship that you and

00:28:39.300 your boy have together. And ultimately we want to give you the tools and the resources and framework

00:28:43.520 for you to usher your boy into manhood in a world that seems to be increasingly dismissive

00:28:49.760 of it. If you're even the least bit interested, then head to order of man.com slash legacy,

00:28:55.820 order of man.com slash legacy. You can watch a very quick video of our last event and then learn more

00:29:01.000 about what the weekend entails, but you got to do it quickly because we have three spots remaining.

00:29:05.820 And I'm going to send out an email this week. And I imagine we'll, we'll be done once that email

00:29:10.980 goes out. So if you are interested, you want to check it out, order of man.com slash legacy.

00:29:16.040 And I hope to see you there. All right, guys, back to the conversation with Bishop Barron.

00:29:21.180 Yeah, it's, it's, it's interesting because I see a lot of these men who, who have some of these

00:29:25.780 thoughts and to give a, maybe an analogy is, you know, these guys understand that waking up early,

00:29:33.920 for example, and then spending an hour in the gym under voluntary hardship and being disciplined

00:29:40.100 to do things that aren't always physically and mentally comfortable. That's challenging

00:29:44.480 as a, as a way to unlock the best version of themselves physically and mentally, I would say

00:29:51.700 as well. And I know we're mutual friends with the mind pump media guys, and I've listened to your

00:29:56.400 conversations with them, great guys. And they obviously talk a lot about this. So they see this

00:30:01.640 level of discipline towards, for example, physical fitness as being subjecting themselves to, to

00:30:07.480 participating in these activities, and then it will produce a, a better result, but they can't seem

00:30:12.820 to make that same correlation between subjecting themselves to the commandments or the word of God

00:30:18.300 or the gospel or, or certain principles of the gospel. No, that's exactly right. And it's exactly

00:30:24.540 the right comparison, seems to me. Along with the gym, how about a holy hour? Go back to David. Is

00:30:35.180 David a great warrior? Was David undoubtedly in the kind of physical shape he needed to be in to be a

00:30:41.740 warrior? Was Michelangelo correct in the way he depicts David as this, you know, sure, sure. But David

00:30:48.080 is also someone who took the time, and read the scripture on this, to listen to the Lord. May that

00:30:54.720 hour in the gym be met by another hour, I'll speak as a Catholic, before the Blessed Sacrament,

00:31:01.120 in the presence of Christ, asking for direction. I mean, I do that every day. I'm a morning guy,

00:31:08.560 so I wake up early and I go to my chapel, and I pray the prayers that I'm obliged to as a priest.

00:31:14.480 But at the heart of it, for me, typically is, Lord, what do you want me to do? What do you want me to do

00:31:21.680 today? Tell me. I have this, this, this, and that on my schedule. What do you want me to say? What do

00:31:27.360 you want me to do? That's a discipline, putting myself under a higher authority, subjecting myself

00:31:36.240 to a higher power. Good. That unleashes what's best in me. Unleashes, just as you say, exactly right,

00:31:45.600 that you're, when you enter into the discipline of the gym, it's meant to unleash what's best in you.

00:31:51.280 It's not a subjugation. It's a liberation. Soul listening to God.

00:31:57.680 What, so when you ask these types of questions, I've always been very curious, and of course, I have my

00:32:02.800 own experience. But when you ask these types of questions like, what should I do? How can I help?

00:32:08.800 Where should I go? What information do I need? And who do I need to visit with and talk with?

00:32:14.560 How do those answers manifest themselves to you? Well, in a way, I always know the answer already.

00:32:21.760 And it's because I've been brought up in the church. And the answer is, what's the path of love?

00:32:28.080 Love, which if you follow me, you know, I often talk about is not a feeling or an emotion,

00:32:32.960 because emotions come and go. We can't really control them. Love is willing the good of the other.

00:32:38.400 That's a nice, austere definition from my hero, St. Thomas Aquinas. To love is to will the good of the

00:32:45.360 other. So, Lord, what should I do? Well, what's the path of love that opens itself up for you today?

00:32:51.600 How can you best will the good of the other today? Now, the specifics of that, yeah, I find they tend to

00:32:59.680 manifest themselves. That's to say, God places in your path opportunities for love. And you say,

00:33:07.040 ah, okay, that was, that was really good. I was able in that context to will the good of the other.

00:33:13.440 The prayer I do at the end of the day often takes the form of what Ignatius of Loyola calls the

00:33:19.440 consciousness examine. It's an examination of yourself, really, in the course of the day.

00:33:26.400 And it'll often take the form of, okay, what were the opportunities for love

00:33:31.840 that you presented to me today, Lord, and how did I respond to them? And so I'm discerning both

00:33:37.360 what was good about my day and where I sinned. Sin is a failure to love. That's always what it is,

00:33:42.880 in some form. So that's how you do it. You always attend to that most fundamental question. What's the

00:33:50.400 path of love? Then you begin looking around. Okay, what's presenting itself to me?

00:33:55.760 God is a God of providence and of grace. That is to say, he's not a distant power,

00:34:00.800 uninterested in us, but is deeply interested in us. That's the Bible. Every page of the

00:34:06.640 Bible argues that. And so he's interested in drawing us into his life. And that means into

00:34:13.280 deeper love. So watch for the opportunities. I like that you're talking about looking for,

00:34:19.840 acknowledging these opportunities, and then taking action, right? Stepping into them. One of the

00:34:24.400 things I hear all the time is things like, well, if it was meant to be, or if it was God's will,

00:34:29.200 it would just happen. And I'm like, maybe the opportunity would be available, but you still

00:34:33.440 have to walk through that door. There's still some responsibility you have towards moving towards

00:34:39.840 loving others and serving him and serving those other people.

00:34:42.560 Yeah, God doesn't want puppets. I mean, what a dull world that would be. We're just, we're

00:34:47.440 automatons or robots doing, you know, we're just pre-programmed to do what God wants. God wants a

00:34:53.520 kind of romance and an adventure, which always involves freedom. So there's a proposition to my

00:34:59.600 freedom. God has the respect for my freedom and lures it to be sure. You know, so freedom is not like

00:35:06.080 sheer autonomy. Like I just wildly decide whatever I want to do. I'm always being lured in different

00:35:11.360 directions. My freedom is being engaged by this good or that good. And so God proposes to us all

00:35:17.200 the time. And that's a way to read your life. You know what I'm saying? Is if you say, okay,

00:35:22.560 I'm going to start my day by just looking for what God is proposing to me. So right now I'm talking to

00:35:28.800 you. And from a spiritual standpoint, it's like, okay, what's the opportunity here to will the good

00:35:35.600 of the other? How come, you know, through, I think it was through Jared Zimmer or Brandon Vaught or

00:35:41.360 people that knew you better, that this opportunity came to me and okay, I'll do that. And now I have

00:35:48.640 this privilege of talking to you and okay, what's the opportunity here for love? Lord, show me.

00:35:55.200 And then I'm going to move on from this. I've got a kind of a busy day today and all kinds of other

00:36:00.740 opportunities will present themselves. So that's how you, you survey your life. Not like, as you

00:36:05.460 know, as they say, just, you know, one darn thing after another, but it's, um, one opportunity

00:36:11.700 for love after another. And how did I respond in freedom to those?

00:36:16.900 Yeah. And I found with opportunities like that as well, is that the, the more often we step into

00:36:22.100 those opportunities, the more that we are given right in the, and the less that we step into those

00:36:27.780 opportunities or reject those opportunities in one form or the other, it's that, that,

00:36:32.100 that window seems to me to begin to close a little bit until you expand and you're willing to walk

00:36:36.820 through more of those things. Quite right. And you know, there, you're very much onto the

00:36:42.100 theological anthropology of John Paul II. So John Paul II said that every time you make a choice,

00:36:47.940 a free choice, you're choosing to do a particular thing, but you're also in the broader sense,

00:36:54.020 choosing the person that you're becoming, right? So right now I'm talking to you. That was a

00:37:00.740 particular choice I made to be here in freedom, but I'm also, um, choosing the kind of character

00:37:08.580 that I'm becoming. And with each choice, that character is either strengthened or it's weakened,

00:37:15.540 right? And so if you steadily walk the path of sin, you're always walking the path of resistance to God,

00:37:23.060 of turning away from love, turning toward the ego. That's creating yourself in a very negative way.

00:37:30.180 You're, you're producing a negative self. On the contrary, a saint is someone who continually chooses

00:37:38.980 the path of love and that creates the person they become. So that's a very important thing. And you can

00:37:45.940 see in spiritual direction, what you do with someone is ask a question like that.

00:37:49.860 Uh, what kind of person are you becoming by the choices you're making? Um, God wants you fully

00:37:57.380 alive. There's a basic biblical principle. Gloria Dei homo vivens. The glory of God as a human being

00:38:03.220 alive, right? Um, all right. Are you becoming more alive or are you moving toward a death? Are you on the

00:38:11.300 wide path that leads to destruction? Are you on the narrow path that leads to life, to put it in Jesus' terms?

00:38:15.940 Um, okay. We better pay, start paying attention to that. Well, I just think there's a lot of people

00:38:21.540 who believe that these in, uh, seemingly insignificant tasks or actions or behaviors, or even thoughts,

00:38:27.860 uh, don't play a big part in the grand scheme of things. It seems to me that I've been this way too.

00:38:33.860 I'm not pointing fingers that, you know, this doesn't matter if I'm, if I'm, uh, don't show up fully,

00:38:39.860 or if I, you know, just steal a little bit or I'll tell this little white lie, like that doesn't matter,

00:38:44.500 but you start building up this trend of behaving that way. And that's, that's where it creates the

00:38:49.140 problem. Absolutely. And that, it has to back to Aristotle. I mean, if you have the stick and you

00:38:53.380 keep bending it this way a little bit, this way a little bit, a little bit, a little bit before you

00:38:57.060 know it, that stick is way out of, out of line, you know? And so yeah, each, each think of that

00:39:02.140 it's John Paul second, each moral act is like building a wall or something. It's building an

00:39:07.300 edifice. And with each negative act, I'm building this, this dysfunctional edifice that I'm living

00:39:12.020 in. Right. With each positive act that I will the good of the other, that I will the good of the

00:39:17.460 other. That's the great question to keep asking. Yeah. I like that. Another way to put that biblically

00:39:22.260 is that I listened to God. See, that's the, now bringing back to David, that I listened to God

00:39:26.900 because God is love as we hear. And so what God is always telling us is be like me. Walk the path that

00:39:34.660 I give you to walk. Um, that's in a way, all that matters. Yeah. That, that analogy,

00:39:39.700 I heard another analogy with, with the tree that you're talking about, the bending of the tree is,

00:39:43.700 if you take a sapling and you let that sapling grow, you put stakes in, right. And you, if you,

00:39:49.140 and you put the strings around the sapling and that lets it grow straight. And then once that tree,

00:39:53.380 that trunk becomes hard and strong and stiff enough to withstand the wind and everything else that it's

00:39:58.180 going to face, it's going to stay true. But if you let it bend without having those,

00:40:04.420 those stakes in the ground, it's still going to become rigid. It just might become rigid towards

00:40:09.220 something that isn't necessarily going to serve its best. The problem is, uh, we so valorize freedom

00:40:16.260 in our culture and there's, that's a whole story we could tell, but we valorize freedom in the modern

00:40:21.380 sense, which means self-determination. And again, nothing wrong with self-determination. I'm not against it,

00:40:26.500 but when we hyper-valorize that, we get twisted because the Bible's not fundamentally interested

00:40:33.540 in self-determination. The Bible's interested in listening to God. And, and I, my freedom's engaged.

00:40:39.460 I'm not becoming a puppet. I mean, God's engaging my freedom, but I become truly free the more I

00:40:46.740 subject myself to God, who wants my good more than I do. See, that's the, that's the paradox.

00:40:53.460 Mm-hmm. Um, but we so valorize, like I decide, even if, as you, to use your example, even if

00:41:00.260 I'm bending this tree in totally the wrong direction, well, by God, I chose it. Well,

00:41:05.300 so what? Right. Did you win because you chose it? Right. Yeah. So now I'm totally twisted out of

00:41:11.140 shape, but by God, I chose it. Um, how much better to say, no, I want to put my choice within the

00:41:17.780 greater context of God's choice for me, right? That I become the person God wants me to be now.

00:41:25.220 I'm really myself. That's the biblical vision. Yeah. Makes sense. You know, we've talked a lot

00:41:30.900 about, uh, God's will and his desire and how do we express and show love. And when I hear that

00:41:36.820 immediately, it comes to mind is service to other people. How do we serve other people? How do we draw

00:41:42.340 them closer to him? Where does, where does yourself individually loving yourself, taking care of

00:41:50.380 yourself, giving yourself time to work on you and maybe even to a degree being a little selfish

00:41:56.340 fall into play here? Yeah. No, there's room for it. Of course, because the old Latin, uh, adage,

00:42:02.180 name, O dad, quadron, hobbit. I mean, no one gives what he doesn't have. And so if life is all about

00:42:07.140 self gift, we got to have something to give. I mean, if you're, you're so negligent of yourself

00:42:11.380 that you, you finally have nothing to give. If someone is so physically debilitated that they

00:42:15.780 can't possibly even do the acts of, of charity, well, what's the point? Or if you're so psychologically

00:42:21.300 messed up that what you give is actually rotten fruit, well, that's no good. I mean, so, uh, under

00:42:27.860 that rubric, name, O dad, quadron, hobbit, I would say, yeah, you've got to attend to your physical

00:42:32.620 wellbeing and your psychological wellbeing. If you're going to be a capable vehicle of love,

00:42:38.620 that you have to have some integrity, you know? So no, I have no quarrel with that whatsoever.

00:42:42.700 People, I, when I was rector of the seminary, I would tell the students, you know, keeping in shape

00:42:47.500 physically is, is not a luxury. It's a prerequisite for a priest because it's a tough life. It's a hard

00:42:54.060 life being a priest and, and you got to be fit enough to live it. Um, and then psychologically

00:43:00.060 well-adjusted. I mean, you got to do some really tough things as a priest. You're called upon to

00:43:05.980 go into some really tough situations. If you're a mess psychologically, you can't help anybody.

00:43:10.860 Right.

00:43:11.260 So no, no, there's, there's plenty of room for that. And that isn't, that isn't selfishness

00:43:15.020 in the, in the biblical sense. That's the kind of, I'd say legitimate self-care for the sake of love,

00:43:21.820 you know?

00:43:23.100 Yeah. I guess that's a good point is, is now you're, you're speaking of motive, right? If,

00:43:27.060 if your, if your desire to be in the gym, let's say for example, cause we've used that already is

00:43:32.420 to prop yourself up to get the accolades and the attention of others so that you can lift and

00:43:37.940 elevate yourself. And that's all that you're after. I would say that that motive is inferior to,

00:43:42.900 I want to be in the best physical shape so that if my wife and I are driving down the road and we

00:43:47.140 get in a car accident, I can lift the car hood off of her. Yeah. And that's a different motive,

00:43:51.300 probably a superior motive, I would say. Yeah. And nothing wrong with, with being healthy and being fit.

00:43:56.580 Sure. And being ready for life in the full sense. Sure. There's nothing wrong with that.

00:44:01.300 As you say, it can tip over into vanity or tip over into, you know, a certain self-absorption. But

00:44:07.140 I see where for the Bible, it's bringing everything in your life under the aegis of love.

00:44:14.740 You know, that's, that's what it means to say, Jesus Christ is Lord of my life. Everything in my

00:44:20.020 life is under the aegis of love, including my physical fitness and my psychological wellbeing.

00:44:24.580 Do you think men are or have a difficult time with

00:44:31.620 the expression of love or even just the word itself? Do you think that has become a problem

00:44:36.980 for a lot of men? Yes. And it's a limitation of our English language, you know, because famously in

00:44:42.500 Greek, you have three different words for, for love. And one designates more like erotic love,

00:44:47.540 another like friendship. And then the third one, agape is what I'm talking about. And that's when

00:44:53.140 you say God is love. That's the word you mean, which is the, is the willing, the good of the other.

00:44:58.740 And so, yeah, the trouble in English, even the word love has an almost automatically sentimental

00:45:04.740 sort of overtone to it. And yeah, I think men can get kind of maybe squirmy around the use of that

00:45:10.420 word. You know, classically, we use the word charity because caritas is the way Latin rendered

00:45:16.580 agape. But the trouble is charity for us tends to mean like, oh, I give money to a charity.

00:45:21.300 Right. And so there really isn't, that's a famous problem. C.S. Lewis addressed that in his book,

00:45:27.380 The Four Loves. There isn't a good English word that names exactly what we're talking about.

00:45:34.580 So stay with love, but de-sentimentalize it. Take it out of a purely emotional sort of context.

00:45:42.180 Put it in this austere, properly austere context of the will. It's an act of the will. And I think

00:45:47.700 that appeals to men. Will the good of the other, even when that costs you. And listen to Jesus.

00:45:54.340 It says, greater love, and the word there is agape, greater love hath no man than to give his life

00:46:00.500 for his friends. See, and that's the test, isn't it? Because that's not erotic love. That's not even

00:46:05.860 love of mere friendship. That's self-gift to the point of giving your whole life away.

00:46:12.820 That's what we're talking about. Right. That's the heart of the matter.

00:46:16.280 Yeah. And this makes sense. I mean, this is a, this is a phrase that, you know, even some of the

00:46:19.980 most hardened warriors use right in battle, like give your life, lay down your life for your fellow

00:46:24.700 man. Right. So I like that you're talking about context. And one of the things that really stands

00:46:29.500 out in our conversation for me is that it's not just about a verse in the Bible or the passage.

00:46:36.380 It's the context. It's where did that word originate? Like what did that word actually used to

00:46:43.340 mean? Or what was it originally? And I think that's something that, that a lot of us, myself

00:46:48.340 included, don't dive into as much as we could. And in a lot of ways, I think, you know, maybe it's,

00:46:53.340 maybe it's laziness, maybe it's busyness, maybe it's just taking things at face value. But I think

00:46:58.680 there's, there's a lot of, a lot to be said for diving deeper into the things that are important to

00:47:03.540 you and really figuring out the history of these things. No, no, quite right. And I'd say this about

00:47:09.520 the Bible goes back to our original question about interpretation. You never take a verse out of

00:47:15.420 the Bible and say, oh, it proves my case. You can prove anything from the Bible that way. You can

00:47:19.460 find whatever you want. You know, the famous, in the Psalm, the fool says in his heart, there's no

00:47:23.840 God. So you can pick out, there's no God from the Bible. Right. I'm an atheist. You can prove whatever

00:47:29.400 you want that way. It's better to attend to what I would call themes, patterns, and trajectories

00:47:36.120 within the Bible. That'll tell you not simply what's in the Bible, but what the Bible is really

00:47:41.960 teaching. So for example, the trajectory from Adam to Abraham to Moses to David to Christ,

00:47:49.680 that's an interesting trajectory to look at. The thematic connections between those figures,

00:47:55.120 that's interesting to look at. Not like just picking out a verse here and there. Sure. But the

00:48:01.180 themes, but the trouble is, in our culture, there's so much biblical illiteracy now. People

00:48:06.900 don't know the Bible the way they used to. I always find it intriguing. Read Abe Lincoln's

00:48:12.180 speeches from the 19th century. He's assuming everyone knows the Bible. He's referring to

00:48:16.720 it all the time. Sometimes explicitly, but often through an implicit reference like a rhythm

00:48:21.960 or a cadence or a phrase that he knew, oh, everyone knows. That's from the Bible. Now,

00:48:28.560 I mean, even some churchgoers often don't know the Bible that well. That's too bad.

00:48:33.960 Well, yeah, it is too bad. I mean, it's too bad when you consider this is something I believe,

00:48:38.180 and yet I don't fully understand everything about what it is I believe. Right? Yeah.

00:48:42.860 I'm going to choose to follow this thing that I'm not fully aware of.

00:48:45.700 Yeah. Yeah. That's a challenge to think. Well, I want to be respectful of your time. I know you've

00:48:51.240 got a hard stop because you've got an extremely busy day. Let me ask you a couple of different

00:48:55.140 questions as we cap things out here. The first one, what does it mean to be a man?

00:49:02.760 I would say, especially in light of what we were talking about, to be a man is to be someone who

00:49:07.400 listens to the voice of God. To be a man is someone who obeys the Lord, who has put his own

00:49:16.920 will and ego aside so as to abide by what God commands. And that's something pretty austere.

00:49:26.140 That's something pretty demanding. Read all the spiritual masters on that. The act and art of

00:49:32.700 putting your own ego aside, to assume humility before the Lord is to be a man. What follows

00:49:39.200 from that, and we'll now amplify it, is a willingness and capacity to protect what God

00:49:46.720 has given you to protect. Whether it's your family, whether it's your spouse, whether it's

00:49:51.080 your community, whether it's the church, like David, like Moses, like Abraham, you're called

00:49:58.380 upon to protect. A man is a fighter. Now, I want to emphasize, you know, given the biblical

00:50:04.600 trajectory, the importance of nonviolence. We're not talking about just becoming a worldly

00:50:10.380 warrior in the ordinary sense. Though sometimes, I think, in dire circumstances, someone is called

00:50:16.140 upon to engage in that kind of fighting. But a man is willing to fight to defend what's given

00:50:21.880 to him. Moreover, a man is someone who, like David, goes on the march. He's not content simply to defend,

00:50:29.140 but he wants to expand the borders of God's kingdom. I'll use New Testament language. That means the

00:50:35.520 kingdom of love and compassion and obedience to the Lord. A man goes on the march. David was the sweet

00:50:44.240 singer of the House of Israel, the King James Bible says. Well, you know what that is? That's someone who

00:50:49.080 can use speech in a very persuasive way, can articulate the ideals and the goals of whether

00:50:57.600 it's a family or a community or a society. I think a man is someone that does that. He's a sweet singer.

00:51:03.620 He's able to speak forth the ideals of the family. So maybe I'd use all those Davidic sort of qualities

00:51:11.360 to characterize what a man is. But the fundamental one, someone that sets his ego aside and listens to

00:51:17.240 God's voice. Yeah. Yeah. It's very powerful. I appreciate you sharing that. Well, what's the

00:51:21.320 best way to connect with you? You've got the podcast and you've got your courses and everything

00:51:26.060 else. Yeah. Wordonfire.org. Go on Word on Fire. And we have all the materials there. I'd encourage

00:51:33.580 people to join the Word on Fire Institute, which is now pretty strong and going very well. People who have

00:51:39.340 made more of a life commitment to follow some of these basic spiritual teachings and to become

00:51:46.100 themselves evangelizers. So I would say if you've gotten a little taste of what we've taught,

00:51:51.820 take the next step and enter into this community that is, there is going on the march if you want,

00:51:57.400 is to evangelize, is to say, I'm going to go on the march and not just benefit from this for myself,

00:52:03.420 but now I'm going to bring it out to others. So wordonfire.org and then join the Word on Fire

00:52:08.760 Institute. Those are two ways. Great. We'll sync it all up so the guys can find that and they can learn

00:52:13.360 more. Terrific. Yeah. I just want to tell you, I appreciate you. I've really respected you from a

00:52:17.500 distance and I'm honored to be able to have this conversation. And although we don't share exactly

00:52:21.520 the same faith, I've learned so much from you and inspired to draw closer to God and my relationship

00:52:28.060 with Him. So I want to tell you thank you for that. Ryan, God bless you for that. I appreciate it

00:52:33.000 very much. Yes. And thank you for taking some time. I know you're a busy man, but I think the guys are

00:52:36.980 getting a lot of value from this. And again, wanted to thank you for doing it. Terrific. God bless you.

00:52:41.500 Gentlemen, there you go. My conversation with Bishop Robert Barron. I hope that you enjoyed

00:52:46.700 that one as much as I enjoyed the conversation and the opportunity to sit down with him. I know

00:52:51.120 that this is going to be, as I said earlier, a bit controversial, but I hope that you're walking

00:52:56.320 away with a new perspective, some new thoughts, whether you agree with everything or not. I think

00:53:00.980 there's a lot to be taken away from this conversation and implemented into our lives. Again, whether you're

00:53:06.540 religious or non-religious, there's lessons about masculinity and how we can improve

00:53:11.260 in whatever capacity we have a desire to improve from all sorts of sources that maybe you've never

00:53:16.460 considered before. So if you enjoyed the podcast, please let me and Bishop Barron know. He shared his

00:53:21.920 social media profiles and everywhere else that he'd want you to go. So make sure you do that and check

00:53:25.460 it out. A very, very inspirational information that he's putting out on a daily basis, which I

00:53:30.580 subscribe to personally. And then also make sure you hit me up on the socials, specifically Instagram

00:53:35.040 and Twitter. That's where I'm doing most of my, my communication these days, both at Ryan

00:53:40.140 Mickler, M I C H L E R is my last name. And let me know what you thought about the show, good, bad,

00:53:46.400 or ugly or indifferent. Let me know what you thought about the show. Always curious and interested in

00:53:51.040 your feedback, because this is how I continue to improve the quality of the podcast and the caliber

00:53:57.220 of guests that I'm having on. The biggest thing is I just want to make sure it resonates with you

00:54:01.340 and that you're getting value from what we're doing here. That'll help us grow. And that most

00:54:05.500 importantly, it'll help us spread the mission of order of man, which is to reclaim and restore

00:54:09.620 masculinity. All right, guys, that's all I've got for you today. We'll be back tomorrow with Kip

00:54:13.980 Sorensen for the ask me anything. And then Friday for your Friday field notes, but until then go out

00:54:18.840 there, take action and become the man you are meant to be. Thank you for listening to the order of man

00:54:23.820 podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be.

00:54:28.580 We invite you to join the order at order of man.com.

Order of Man - March 10, 2020

A Primer on Biblical Masculinity ｜ BISHOP ROBERT BARRON

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