0:00

Because it can be so easy to get into the doom

0:02

scrolling , to get into the prophecies

0:04

, to get into the end times which are , you

0:06

know , they have their place .

0:14

Hi , this is .

0:14

Jeremy . Hi , this is Nick . This

0:17

is Cloud of Witnesses Thinking like

0:19

the Saints .

0:20

You guys . We are very blessed . Today we have

0:22

Orthodox Wisdoms Timothy

0:25

joining us on the program

0:27

. We're very excited to have him with us . Timothy , how

0:29

are you doing ? I'm well , thank

0:31

God , how are you ? I'm doing fantastic

0:34

. Thanks to the God , christ is born .

0:35

Glorify .

0:37

Amen , amen . We're recording

0:39

this so our listeners will know this

0:41

is what just a couple of days here after

0:45

Christmas . This is

0:47

December 27th and it's

0:49

a very festive time of the

0:51

year to be getting together , and

0:53

so we're very , even more grateful to

0:55

Timothy for taking time out of his very

0:57

busy schedule . You might

0:59

hear a child crying in the background . Timothy

1:02

has devoted some of his family

1:04

time to our podcast today , so we're very very thankful .

1:06

Thank you so much yeah .

1:08

Oh , thank God . Yeah , she's not

1:10

usually making any noise at this time

1:12

of night , but here we are , yeah .

1:16

It's because dad decided to record a podcast . Exactly

1:18

.

1:19

That's what happens , right , murphy's

1:21

Law , it's Murphy's Law .

1:23

You have your job to do , she has hers , yeah

1:26

.

1:26

Yeah , exactly yeah .

1:28

So , timothy , as we jump

1:30

into this conversation , we

1:34

believe

1:36

when Nick and I talked about bringing you on

1:38

and the prospect of it , we

1:40

saw immediately that our

1:43

goals seem to be

1:45

almost identical in what we want to do

1:47

Clout of Witnesses , journey with the saints

1:50

. We take the lives of the saints and we try

1:53

to bring them to life in these radio

1:55

drama style retellings of

1:57

these lives of the saints , because the

2:00

point is we want their lives

2:02

, their stories , to

2:04

really tell themselves , their

2:07

wisdom , their faith to be

2:09

put in the focal point , as

2:11

opposed to our vision . You're

2:13

doing something very similar . Can

2:15

you tell us a little bit about what Orthodox Wisdom

2:17

podcast is , what you do , what

2:19

your goal is , etc .

2:21

Yeah , Well , first of all , I love what you guys are

2:23

doing and I agree there's very much a

2:25

similar mindset from what I can tell you

2:27

know , just from an outsider looking on . But

2:31

I love what you guys are doing . I've listened to

2:33

a few of the lives of saints . It's

2:36

enjoyable , it's riveting , it's

2:39

great . It's great , that's exciting .

2:40

Thank you , thank you , thank you .

2:42

So , like you said , yeah , I am also just trying

2:44

to put the lives and the writings of

2:47

the saints in front

2:49

of us and make them more easily accessible

2:51

to everyone , and

2:53

you know , most of us have very

2:55

busy lives and I'm no different

2:57

. And so , about

3:01

almost six years ago now , I

3:04

very simply started to record

3:07

, you know , little short like paragraph

3:09

or quotes of saints , and

3:11

because I wanted to have those

3:13

to listen to while I did chores or

3:16

while I drove my car to work

3:18

, right , and at the time

3:20

, most of what I could find

3:22

was was like full length audio

3:24

books , maybe on

3:26

like a website called Libreboxorg

3:28

, oh yeah , or

3:31

there's like an Orthodox audiobooks

3:34

organization

3:36

that sells them , but

3:39

I couldn't find like shorter stuff or

3:41

things from like more recent saints

3:44

. You know , maybe it existed , but I couldn't find

3:46

it . And so I started very simply doing it for myself . And

3:51

then , shortly after , I started to think well

3:53

, maybe other people want this right

3:55

, and so

3:58

I started out real simple , very

4:01

well , completely free and

4:03

cheap equipment . I didn't really have a vision for how to

4:05

make it . I have a vision for how to go

4:07

about it from the beginning to the way I do now

4:10

, but I just

4:12

want to hear the writings

4:14

and the lives of the saints more regularly

4:16

, and so I

4:19

started doing that with texts that I thought would be

4:21

valuable to people , and I've continued

4:23

to learn and refine my

4:25

approach over time , and I've grown

4:27

a lot in the process as well , and

4:29

so it seems like it's , of

4:31

course , helpful for for me and others and

4:34

why not ? It's the lives and writings of the holy

4:36

ones .

4:37

Absolutely yeah .

4:38

Thank God , and I want to personally thank

4:40

you for the work that you've done , because

4:42

it's it's put so much good

4:44

content in places that really

4:47

, really need it , and I

4:49

wanted to ask you so you started around

4:51

six years ago From

4:54

a from , I guess , a

4:56

creator standpoint . Six

4:58

years ago , what did

5:01

the whole landscape of like YouTube

5:04

, or online orthodoxy , to put it simply

5:06

, like , what did that look like ? Was there anyone

5:08

doing this as you were doing

5:10

it ?

5:12

You like , like recording the lives and writings of the saints .

5:15

Yeah , stuff like that , or even just putting

5:19

anything about the lives of the saints . You

5:21

know was that , was that even on the radar on YouTube six years ago ? Was

5:24

there orthodox ?

5:25

Was there orthodox YouTube yet ?

5:28

Yeah , exactly .

5:31

I have a feeling there was to some

5:33

degree , but again , I mean

5:36

, I was , I was looking for that and

5:38

I didn't really find what I was looking for

5:40

. Yeah , I found the full length audio books . I

5:43

remember listening to some of them , like the 50

5:46

homilies by Saint Macarius of

5:48

Egypt . I'm really seeing that you

5:50

know very thoroughly . Yeah

5:53

, of course there's

5:56

. There's priests and bishops doing

5:58

things . I think you know , like Father Spirit on Bailey was doing

6:00

what he was doing back then . Right , oh , wow , I

6:05

think . Yeah , like on YouTube , not just on

6:08

ancient faith radio of course ancient faith radio is

6:10

big then and and others . But

6:12

yeah , I think I own it's hard to

6:14

remember you know about six years ago

6:16

exactly what the landscape was , but

6:21

it was quite different . A lot of the popular orthodox

6:24

YouTubers today . Right , we're not

6:26

, we're not doing much of anything back then . Yeah , amazing

6:31

.

6:32

You were kind of at that , that that nascent

6:34

juncture , and it's so fascinating

6:36

to think about you doing it that far back

6:39

. I think , if I saw it correctly , you're something like 300

6:41

videos deep at this stage . Yeah

6:45

, and you know what a beautiful thing

6:47

to kind of reiterate Nick's , you

6:50

know , gratitude towards you . To

6:52

my mind , you're creating a library , a

6:54

literal audio library of these people . You know , literal audio library

6:57

of these amazing quotes

7:00

and you know sermons , homilies

7:02

, etc . Things that you're pulling from to

7:05

share with the world . Like you said , for busy people

7:07

who don't read much anymore , nick

7:09

and I have this conversation a lot . Actually , you

7:12

know , people seem to be listening more

7:14

and more because they're doing their busy days

7:16

, they're commuting , etc . And

7:19

the audio kind

7:21

of library to my mind seems

7:23

to be more and more important and I think

7:25

bringing orthodox content to

7:27

the world that way is a really is a tremendous

7:30

service . And

7:33

you know , on that point , what I want

7:35

to kind of ask you about is how

7:37

do you choose what you're doing

7:39

next , do you ? I know you mentioned

7:41

you started off kind of just because it's what you wanted for yourself

7:44

, but now that you're pretty well established

7:46

and you've got a very large following

7:48

and a lot of people are benefiting

7:50

from your content . Has this changed

7:53

at all how you approach your podcast ? Can

7:55

you talk to us about that ?

7:56

Oh , certainly , yeah , it has changed . It

7:59

has changed . I

8:01

mean myself as an orthodox Christian

8:03

. I've changed right , and so

8:05

some of the things that I find not

8:07

only like oh , I'm finding new to me and

8:09

I think , man , this is excellent , people need

8:12

to hear this . You

8:14

know , I might record something I had

8:16

read , or I'd come across and read part of

8:18

and think , oh well , it's from St

8:20

John Chrysostom , like one I just did recently

8:22

. Like , well , I don't need to read

8:24

the whole thing to make sure it's good enough .

8:28

Yeah , exactly Right .

8:33

Or I want to say good enough , like oh , I'm judging a

8:35

saint , but like clear

8:38

and clear

8:41

enough and it's going to reach people in a way

8:43

that they're going to really take something away from it , Something

8:46

like that . Right , I could record certain things

8:48

that are , of course , really important

8:50

, but not everything I've noticed

8:53

is easy to

8:55

listen to . Yes , right , like

8:57

a text like St

8:59

Maximus is the ambiguous right

9:01

, or some of his questions to

9:04

Thalassius , or

9:06

from Thalassius , I think it is . Those

9:10

are great and really important in orthodox

9:12

theology , but some of that's

9:14

really difficult just for me to read , let

9:16

alone try to listen to .

9:17

Sure , so well multitasking

9:20

.

9:21

Yeah , yeah , exactly . Driving

9:23

or doing something at your who

9:26

knows what chores , of course , are another

9:28

easy one to do this with .

9:31

You know , Timothy , can we riff on that a little

9:33

bit , Because I think that's a very interesting concept

9:35

. We lately , at Cloud Witnesses

9:38

, we started a new series regarding

9:42

the screw tape letters and we're very excited

9:44

about it . In essence , for

9:46

the audience who hasn't heard it yet , it's

9:49

a rebirth , if you will

9:51

, of screw tape addressing

9:54

issues of today , et cetera , and obviously

9:56

from an orthodox perspective , which

9:59

we love , kind of not

10:01

necessarily going right out in front without

10:03

right away , because screw tape is

10:05

such a loved , beloved figure

10:08

in Protestant circles , but

10:11

the conversation has come up right away

10:13

and that is exactly what you just said , and that

10:15

is you know . Look , you can have

10:17

a screw tape session that's

10:19

25 , 30 minutes long

10:22

, but is it really ? Do you

10:24

need all of that ? Is that all going to be very

10:26

listenable ? Or rather , can you find

10:28

five minutes ? Almost like a homily is

10:30

approached . What's the meat of it , what's

10:33

the kernel that you

10:35

can actually access easily

10:38

while you're putting dishes in the dishwasher

10:40

or driving down the road ?

10:42

Exactly , exactly , and I've noticed over time

10:44

. Not only is it really important

10:47

to me to have a variety of different

10:50

types of topics , we're addressing different

10:52

periods from the church

10:55

history , saints of different time

10:57

periods , also different

10:59

lengths of recordings . I've

11:02

found for me and I think

11:04

my audience the analytics

11:06

and feedback I've gotten have proven

11:08

this out kind of the sweet spot for

11:11

me in terms of length is maybe 10

11:14

to 20 minutes or 15 to 20

11:16

minutes . Sometimes

11:19

I'll go about an hour . I

11:22

think the longest one I have is an hour .

11:24

I've seen years , a couple of 45 minutes and

11:26

a little longer than that as well .

11:30

And I know the majority of people who listen to

11:32

the beginning are not going to get to the end . That's just

11:34

how things are . We all get distracted

11:38

or we may come back to it a month later

11:40

. We see it again and we're like , oh yeah

11:43

, I left off at 15 minutes , let me

11:45

keep going . But

11:47

some things just are that long . It's

11:49

one complete text or even

11:52

multiple texts , but it's all the same idea

11:55

and it's like the totality of what this saint said

11:57

on this topic . So I want

11:59

to put it all together . Other times it

12:01

might be even three minutes of

12:05

something , but it's so critical I feel

12:07

it's been

12:09

quoted and commemorated

12:11

by many saints . It's

12:14

like , ok , I don't care if it's only three

12:16

minutes and some people are going to see it and think , well

12:18

, that's not long enough for me to take the time and

12:20

listen to , even if I get the

12:23

title across their eyes

12:25

and they see it again

12:27

. Maybe they come to my channel a week later because

12:29

I put a new video out that will see the old one

12:31

. I know that that can

12:33

help drive home different principles

12:36

of orthodoxy . Amen , but

12:38

I try to have a diversity for some

12:40

of those reasons .

12:42

I saw recently the one

12:44

, I loved it , the one on what was that Toys

12:47

? Toys and

12:49

the upbringing of upbringing of children

12:51

that was so relevant for being

12:53

written , I think in the 80s .

12:56

By a mother .

12:57

Wow , I mean that it felt like

12:59

it could have been written yesterday .

13:02

I mean , I didn't hear that one . I'd like to hear what

13:04

was the the oh ?

13:06

man , I don't even know where to begin with that one

13:08

. It was like a what would you say ? Like a cross

13:10

section between looking at marketing

13:13

and exploiting children

13:15

and lower base fallen

13:18

desires , you know , and

13:20

exploiting the children's desires for

13:22

capital gain , etc , etc

13:25

, and how parents need to be vigilant , and

13:27

it goes on . But I was like wow , I

13:29

mean for this monk , a larian , to

13:31

have said this , you know , back in the 80s . I

13:34

mean it's more , it's just even

13:36

more relevant today

13:38

for us .

13:40

But yeah , yeah

13:42

, I of course found it pretty relevant , I

13:46

thought at the very least . You know , it's going to be very thought provoking

13:48

for people . Some

13:51

people are going to be like this is out of this is out of date , this

13:54

is like this is antiquated

13:57

and fundamentalist or whatever , and

14:00

other people are going to see what I saw

14:02

is a lot of gems in there and

14:05

even if we can nitpick some of the details

14:07

, you know which I think you know , which is for this text

14:09

and others , the trajectory was

14:12

certainly in the right , the right direction , and

14:14

so that's one

14:16

of the . It's interesting you bring that up because it

14:19

gets to . Another thing about my approach

14:21

is I've I've

14:23

tried to be very careful To

14:26

stick to what the saints and

14:28

those uncannonized saints

14:30

who are venerated elders and righteous

14:33

ones who are venerated widely

14:35

, right , I've tried to be

14:37

pretty much only

14:39

recording from their writings , right . Occasionally

14:43

I will step outside of that , and

14:46

this was one of those examples where I don't actually know who this monk

14:48

Halarian is . I I

14:51

could guess . I I thought

14:53

, oh , is this Metropolitan

14:55

Halarian of Rokor who reposed last year

14:57

? But he will . He was already a bishop

15:00

in 89 . So it wasn't this , it

15:02

wasn't that Halarian . I

15:05

don't know who it was , but I felt like

15:07

I don't know many texts that talk

15:09

directly about children

15:11

and parents and toys and

15:14

Christmas and all that together

15:16

in a way . That was , I

15:18

thought , pretty edifying . So when I

15:20

found it I thought , well , this

15:22

is great timing to write the beginning of the summer

15:24

. So I'm going to go ahead and go for

15:27

it . But 99

15:29

percent of what I record is from those who

15:31

have been deemed most trustworthy

15:34

by the whole church .

15:36

Well , you know , one similar to that that

15:39

comes to mind is you have one

15:41

on the spiritual life of motherhood

15:44

, one of your recent episodes , father Paisios

15:46

, and it's really , really good . And

15:50

you mentioned I don't think you use the word controversial

15:52

, but I think you use the word kind of stimulating

15:54

or kind of , like

15:56

you know , get people thinking . And I've noticed a number of your

15:59

topics . You

16:02

certainly don't shy away from some

16:04

pretty heavy topics , and

16:07

if you could talk to us about what that's been like in terms of

16:09

because I know , when we originally talked about

16:11

doing this podcast with you , timothy , we talked

16:13

about evangelism and the Internet . Right , it's

16:17

something that your podcast is involved in , it's something our podcast

16:20

is involved in , you know , by God's grace , can

16:22

you talk to us about that ? You know what

16:24

is it like ? What kind of feedback are you getting ? What

16:28

are some of the questions that are being posed

16:30

to you and how are you addressing those when it

16:32

comes to some of these more kind of weighty and

16:34

really maybe some pious opinion is involved in some of these . What

16:41

are your thoughts on that ?

16:42

Yeah , well , there are definitely times

16:45

where I come across a text that seems , of

16:48

course , challenging , you know

16:50

, controversial , I mean , sometimes I don't even

16:52

know what that really means . You know like

16:54

, oh , because people disagree , it's just automatically controversial

16:57

. But

17:00

things that are challenging , that are not talked about

17:02

enough in my opinion . Maybe

17:04

things like that , you know some

17:06

of them . I'll say I'll ask my spiritual father what

17:09

do you think of this text ? Do

17:12

you think this is fruitful to share with such a wide

17:14

and diverse audience ? Because

17:17

I imagine more than half of my audience is

17:19

probably Orthodox . But

17:23

I know a sizable portion is not based

17:25

on what I've gathered from my own channels , feedback

17:29

and engagement , but even like I work closely

17:31

with Father Peter Hears and Orthodox Ethos and

17:35

I've seen our analytics and at least from what I've

17:37

gathered , based on a poll , you

17:41

know it's sort of like a , you

17:43

know a little bit of a , you know it's

17:45

just a poll , it's not

17:48

the most scientific thing or

17:50

most accurate thing , but it maybe

17:53

even over half or close to half are

17:55

not Orthodox . Wow , they might be Catechumans

17:58

or inquirers , but

18:00

they're not Orthodox yet , and

18:03

so that's really stuck with me since

18:05

I saw that .

18:05

It's pretty amazing .

18:06

Yeah , and so I assume it's similar for

18:09

my channel . So I have

18:11

texts like even one I did recently called

18:13

um Carnal Warfare , elder

18:16

Fram of Arizona and St Joseph the

18:18

Hezikast . It's a

18:21

section from St Joseph's life written

18:23

by Elder Fram and teachings

18:26

from Elder Fram himself , and

18:29

there's some real challenging stuff in there . Stuff you're

18:31

like well , if I try to imitate

18:33

this exact thing the saint did , that

18:36

may not be the most fruitful thing for me , yeah

18:39

Right , but but

18:41

it's part of our literature , it's part of our holy

18:43

tradition . And you

18:46

know I went back and forth on that . I asked my spiritual

18:48

father and ultimately , you know , I

18:51

decided , we decided to put

18:53

it out , but

18:56

I did put a very I tried to put

18:58

it like a note , both in the description

19:00

and pinned like the pinned

19:02

comment , trying to simply

19:05

say , like , not every detail , the life

19:07

of a saint is best for us to

19:09

imitate . If we're

19:11

so inclined to try to imitate St Joseph

19:14

, who to fight the Carnal

19:16

Warfare , to fight the temptation with lust

19:18

that he was experiencing , he

19:21

would hit himself on the shin with a cane

19:23

, hard

19:25

, hard . That's

19:28

not something I've done , that's not something

19:30

even the experienced spiritual fathers

19:33

that I know would readily suggest

19:35

to anybody . So I

19:37

just said , if you're so inclined to

19:39

try and do this , do not do

19:41

this on your own . Go and seek

19:44

the guidance of an experienced

19:46

spiritual father . And I feel like that term

19:48

will cover like Either that could be

19:50

your parish priest could be your spiritual

19:52

father . You don't have . You know , if you

19:55

just have a priest you don't have spiritual father , or it's not

19:57

the same person , or it's different person , whatever . But

20:01

those are some difficult things

20:03

that I I struck . You know , I'm like how

20:06

do I , how do I go about

20:08

, you know , trying to address a topic

20:10

that seems under addressed , like

20:12

the fight against lust , seeing

20:14

it in fornication and all that

20:16

trying to like Trying

20:19

to help right , trying to help people with the lives

20:21

of the same writings of the saints . Other

20:23

topics , you know , are perennially

20:26

controversial , like ecumenism

20:29

and Well

20:32

, I haven't really done anything on like transhumanism

20:34

, because there's not really much written by saints

20:36

on that topic . Yeah , right , because

20:38

it's such a new new . Yeah

20:40

, yeah , yeah at

20:43

least people who you know , have

20:45

had the test of time at the polls

20:48

in the churches . Yeah , but

20:50

, but

20:53

, yeah , you know , I know that . Oh

20:55

, the other thing I wanted to say to wrap

20:57

up , to answer your question about evangelism I

21:01

really believe that sharing

21:05

, sharing , I

21:07

don't want to , I don't want to put pearls was before

21:09

swine , so to speak . Right

21:11

, of course , you know , people

21:13

outside the church are not , they're not pigs

21:15

, right , but but the the analogy

21:17

that they're not , they're not ready for all

21:20

of the spiritual wisdom and

21:22

experience that the church has , has

21:24

Handed down . I

21:27

don't think I'm ready for it all . So

21:29

, how much more those are not initiated

21:31

into the church ? Yeah , so

21:35

, but , but at the

21:37

same time , I think , if

21:40

we shy away too much from the controversial

21:44

and difficult things

21:46

, we're not really um

21:48

, what is what does the apostle say

21:50

? Sharing

21:54

, like the whole testimony of god , like

21:56

the fullness of the testimony of god . I

21:58

forget that , I'm forgetting the scripture right now , but

22:01

, um , I

22:03

think there's really something to keep in mind with that

22:05

, because people are drawn , especially , I think

22:07

our generation you guys

22:09

seem like you're similar age as I am our

22:12

generation is , is hungry for truth

22:14

, is hungry for , um

22:16

the fullness of what is authentic

22:19

and real .

22:20

Yes , transcendence .

22:22

Yes , yes and and it

22:24

doesn't want things whitewashed and

22:26

coated over , right and

22:28

uh , that can get carried away . We can get carried

22:30

away with that good desire , but

22:33

generally I think it's a good thing . So I try to say

22:35

, okay , even if we don't , we can't

22:37

all fully grasp this , fully Appropriate

22:40

it for our own lives in a fruitful way , I

22:43

think we just we need to get it out there . We need to , we

22:45

need to plant seeds with some

22:48

of these things the saints teach , and

22:51

and let god and trust god

22:53

and pray to god that you'll , he will help us with

22:55

all that . So , I try to

22:57

do . I try to do a wide variety of things

22:59

. Yeah , of course , I have my own bias . Yeah

23:02

, I have my own bias .

23:04

Uh , it's inevitable , but I really try to put

23:06

a variety of things Out there

23:08

and that that's much appreciated

23:11

because it can be so easy to get into the

23:13

doom scrolling , to get into the prophecies

23:16

, to get into the end times , which are , you

23:18

know , they have their place , but

23:20

, right , it would be misleading

23:22

for anyone to get sucked into

23:24

Just that part of orthodox

23:27

orthodoxy or just that part of Christianity

23:29

, or just , you know , or even just have that

23:31

divorced from Christianity and all they're doing is

23:33

, you know , doom scrolling or whatever

23:35

that is . You know , but we

23:37

, we've experienced the same thing with our podcast

23:40

in the sense that , okay , how do you deal with some

23:42

of these topics Young maidens

23:44

being martyred , you know , and brutal

23:46

, brutally mutilated

23:48

at times ? Right , like , how can we Stay

23:51

true to the story in a tasteful

23:53

way that shows people the gravity

23:56

? But , you know , because we don't want to whitewash

23:58

it , right , like the one of the reasons

24:00

why so many ? Yeah , exactly

24:02

, you know , or else you start getting

24:04

into not to bash on , you know

24:06

, protestants , but you start getting

24:08

into that kind of happy Jesus movie feeling

24:11

where , like , everything's just to feel good , you know

24:13

, but trying to find that balance

24:15

is is , um , we're still in

24:17

the learning curve of a lot of things in our

24:19

own journey .

24:20

Absolutely . And you . I have a question for you guys

24:22

because maybe you covered it in one of

24:24

your . Your video was , but With

24:28

the , with the , if you take a live of a saint's

24:30

and you are , you're figuring it out All your whole

24:32

cast and who's going to do which parts , and all

24:34

this . Are you like

24:36

I don't know what's the term

24:38

Creative license ? Right

24:41

? You taking some creative license at times because

24:43

you just talked about like these , these , the

24:45

murder of these , these maidens ? Right

24:47

, it's right , it may be written in a way

24:49

where you think , well , is

24:52

the , is the audience that I have at the moment

24:54

and hope to have in the future ? Is this gonna

24:56

be Exactly what's best for them

24:58

? And right it is

25:00

. I imagine that's a tough question to

25:02

answer . Was that kind of ? How

25:05

do you guys go about that ?

25:07

it is Nick . Do you mind if I take a stab at that

25:09

? Yeah , go for it and then that you Take

25:12

it from there , please do . Yeah , absolutely

25:14

, timothy . This is something we have done with a lot

25:16

and I think we're

25:19

really trying to approach it really . I think , kind of how you explained

25:21

your approach

25:24

when you mentioned the , you know St

25:26

Joseph Hitting

25:28

his ankles , you know the idea is

25:30

not , hey , everybody , if

25:33

you're struggling with lust , try this

25:35

like that . You know , I want to be

25:37

clear . We're not saying that we're not in position

25:39

to say that . As you said , go talk

25:42

to your spiritual father . You know , get

25:44

guidance on this , not from cloud of witnesses

25:46

. You know radio . I'll just say that right now

25:48

. You know right . But For

25:51

what we're trying to do is to , for example

25:53

, to tell the story of Saint Fibronia . You

25:56

know who did who does ? You know a sacred

25:58

martyr she gets martyred for

26:00

, for wanting

26:02

to maintain her chastity , etc . We

26:06

are not saying to everybody

26:08

hey , yeah , you know , like Saint Fibronia , you

26:10

should flee your , you know your

26:12

engagement , flee your family

26:15

, go live in the monastery , and

26:17

you know . But

26:19

what are we saying ? Well , we're

26:21

not saying anything other than this

26:24

actually happened in the life of the church

26:26

. Saint Fibronia is a faithful

26:28

Christian woman , who who

26:30

lived this life , and here's her life . And

26:33

and in what edification that

26:35

gives to you , timothy , what it gives

26:38

to someone else in your parish or

26:40

someone across the world who's in a different place

26:42

dealing with this , maybe even watching that

26:44

episode 10 years from now . You know

26:46

who knows ? Our

26:49

hope and prayer is that , if we're faithful to the

26:51

story , god

26:53

can work through that truth , as

26:55

he's worked through the lives of the Saints Absolutely

26:57

.

26:58

Yeah , I totally agree . That's been my approach

27:00

as well , yeah .

27:01

Yeah , amen , yeah , when

27:04

it comes to like this , specific details

27:06

, like some accounts of

27:08

some saints , it's

27:10

, it'll go into detail . You

27:12

know their entire life . You know from childhood

27:14

on up to you . Know the

27:17

nitty-gritty , painful details of their martyrdom

27:19

. Other ones , you know they might have a lot of information

27:22

about their monastic life and very little about their martyrdom

27:24

or whatever . So at times we

27:26

do have to take , you

27:28

know , some creative license in the sense

27:31

of connecting those dots right

27:33

In finding those highlights

27:35

. But whatever we do , we're always

27:38

trying to be faithful to the story and not over

27:40

embellishing . You know right

27:42

those ways . And it's actually a very

27:44

interesting topic that we also

27:46

had with Blanking

27:49

on her name oh , yelena , the

27:51

director of man

27:54

of God man of God .

27:55

Well , you spoke with her wonderful yeah , yeah

27:57

we had .

27:57

We were blessed to speak with her , timothy . Go on

28:00

, nick , she was a little yeah and

28:02

we had the same Question .

28:04

You know , I think , someone from our cast . We actually

28:06

had her on for just a private

28:08

meeting . We had actually met her long story

28:10

and we watched the movie and then we had

28:13

a meeting with her Q&A

28:15

type session and someone asked her like so

28:17

how did , how did we know

28:19

? Or how did you know what ? Exactly

28:21

? The paralytic , you know , at that one scene

28:24

, at the very end spoiler alert

28:26

, you know when he's she

28:28

asked , this person

28:30

asked , you know , how did you know what

28:32

this person said ? And it's

28:34

like well , this isn't written down , but

28:36

you could imagine in this scenario

28:39

what this person would have done , you know . So it's

28:41

that kind of connecting certain dots and other

28:43

things . We have specific quotes , oftentimes

28:46

famous quotes . You know , like St Herman

28:48

, from this day , from this hour , from this

28:50

very minute , let us strive to love God above all

28:52

. Like okay , that we can definitely highlight

28:55

as like this is a St Herman , you know

28:57

. So it's kind of a . It's

28:59

kind of a mixed bag of storytelling . Sometimes

29:02

you have primary sources , sometimes secondary

29:04

sources . So it's actually a very

29:06

fun Process to take part

29:08

in . It's a lot of work , but it's a . It's an extremely

29:11

fun and edifying process from

29:13

start to finish . Yeah , man , you know

29:15

.

29:16

Timothy , you mentioned that you've learned

29:18

so much over the course of these past six years Of

29:21

you doing your podcast . I can only

29:23

imagine how much you've learned , because

29:25

you know we're only At what Nick

29:27

enters of the lives of the Saints at maybe 20

29:29

episodes or so in something like that

29:31

, and we've learned so much Just

29:34

from that process . You know the writing of the

29:36

script and the research and all of that

29:38

, and then the you know the actual production of it . You

29:43

do something that I think is really

29:45

awesome you

29:47

pin a comment on some of your videos

29:49

and you provide Orthodox

29:52

resources . I noticed

29:54

it on . I'm trying to think which episode

29:56

it was , but it was dealing

29:58

with orthodoxy and addiction and if

30:01

you're , if you have issues with drunkenness , check

30:03

out this link . Can you talk to us about

30:05

that ? I think that is another way

30:07

. It seems to me that you are saying hey

30:09

look , you know this is not Timothy speaking

30:11

, but here's some more great orthodox resources

30:14

for you to go to .

30:16

Yeah , it's something I haven't done For

30:19

very long . I had that kind of approach

30:22

to try to make sure I do that each time , but

30:24

I'm more in the habit now . Yeah

30:29

, I , you know , I've learned of learned

30:31

a fair amount of Things

30:33

about , like , what resources are out there , who's

30:35

doing what , and so if I

30:37

know something , I'm trying to think more like , okay

30:41

, if two thousand people

30:43

are gonna listen to this and

30:45

you know a good portion

30:47

are gonna look in the description or look at

30:49

the first pin comment or something , how

30:52

can I point them to ? Just

30:55

some basic ways of like going

30:57

going deeper , whether it's read

30:59

the full text yourself that I'm reading

31:01

my , what I recorded , go read the full

31:04

text , one

31:06

I try to put every time now as what's

31:10

called orthodoxy in America . I

31:13

saw that and From

31:15

what I can , what I've seen , it's pretty accurate

31:18

. It's a pretty accurate directory in

31:20

America for all orthodox parishes

31:22

and monasteries . Well , so

31:24

If someone doesn't have a

31:26

parish yet , they may , they

31:28

should go find one and

31:32

they should go visit the monasteries near to near

31:34

them as well , even if

31:36

it's a ways away . That it's super

31:38

important as an orthodox Christian to

31:40

have some contact with monasteries

31:42

. So , but

31:44

the other one recently . I was . I

31:47

was grateful when it came to my mind because

31:49

it's St John Chrysostom and his

31:51

, this homily to People

31:54

preparing for baptism during lent Right

31:57

, and he's preparing them not

31:59

just for the baptism and the chrysmaean

32:01

and Eucharist , but he's preparing

32:04

them for the fight and the whole experience

32:06

. After after , like

32:08

yeah , yeah , and , and not to

32:10

me , I was like this text is

32:12

excellent because the first few

32:14

years of me being orthodox , I

32:17

was not prepared at all to feast . I , I

32:21

was focused on the fast . I've been

32:23

, you know , trying to trying to be obedient

32:25

to the fast and struggle , and Then

32:28

the feast comes and I had no bearings

32:31

anymore . I was , I was like I

32:33

, I just wasn't

32:35

prepared at all , which tells me I wasn't

32:37

fasting properly because I was focused

32:40

too much on foods . I foods to avoid

32:42

and not purifying my heart . By

32:44

God's grace . But

32:46

this text is super important . So St

32:49

John Chrysostom does say a fair amount about

32:51

drunkenness , both the kind that is

32:53

, you know , the physical kind from alcohol , but

32:56

also the spiritual and emotional kind

32:58

from being angry and being lustful

33:01

and such . But you

33:03

know , since it's an eat , since you know

33:05

, everyone knows somebody

33:07

and some of us , or to some degree

33:09

or another may be prone to drinking too much

33:11

. This resource was

33:13

both a prayer , a coughest

33:16

, the inexhaustible cup to

33:18

the theotokos , that

33:21

one's been known to help people with

33:23

addictions of various kinds . And then

33:27

I Think I'd seen it

33:29

a while back , but I saw

33:31

it again when I was researching the for

33:33

the a coughest that there's a ministry

33:35

. I think it's through

33:37

Rokor , but that's

33:40

just the jurisdiction that happens to be with it's

33:44

. It's called like the ministry of the exhaustful

33:47

cup or something , and it's for

33:49

people who are struggling with alcohol addiction

33:51

. So that's amazing . I don't know

33:53

everything about it , but I

33:56

would I'd rather point people in

33:58

that direction and

34:01

at least get them thinking like , okay

34:03

, I listen to this . Now what ? What

34:05

do I do with this ? Right , sometimes

34:08

it's obvious what I can do with it . I can say

34:10

the prayer more or whatever . But sometimes

34:12

you're like I need some , I need to find

34:14

somebody to help me with something . So

34:17

I've been trying to do that more and hopefully

34:19

it's helping .

34:20

I'll read it out . It's a great episode if we can plug

34:22

. Yeah , nick , and then it's all yours . What

34:25

we're talking about is , I believe , is it your

34:27

most recent episode ? Yeah , timothy

34:30

, it's a Saint John Christos

34:32

, them the fast-ended , but but

34:34

not piety , right , it's ?

34:36

it's a wonderful episode and I

34:38

recommend even if the fast is

34:40

over , let the piety remain . That's

34:42

awesome .

34:43

After you lift , after you're done listening to this , then

34:46

go listen to that episode . Yeah .

34:49

I'll reshare it when the old calendar

34:51

or traditional calendar Christmas

34:54

comes along on kind

34:56

of that , the topic of you know , things

34:58

that you've been doing that are new . I was actually wondering , like , do

35:00

you have With

35:02

this upcoming new year , do you have any projects

35:05

, aspirations , anything

35:07

new , new directions you want to go , or anything

35:09

projected into your future

35:12

that you're , that you're aspiring towards ?

35:16

I think it's mostly more the same . But

35:18

one thing I want

35:20

to do more if possible . I

35:24

know a few people who knew

35:27

Father Sarah from Rose . I

35:31

was able to do an interview with one of those men

35:33

, father Paul Baba , and

35:35

I posted that on Father Sarah

35:37

from Feast Day this year , september 2nd

35:40

, and it's just so beautiful

35:42

and so inspiring and just

35:44

wonderful . So I'd like to have

35:46

another conversation with him and

35:49

post that , but

35:52

I also I don't want to be

35:54

stray too far off of what

35:56

I've been doing . Right , maybe

35:59

I have an occasional

36:01

interview if there's a really good reason for it

36:03

, but

36:06

there's so many texts that I

36:08

could find to record . Oh

36:11

, I do want to say something about my approach , just

36:14

so it's clear to anyone

36:16

who's interested and you guys might be curious too . It's

36:18

like I've been asked a lot how do you pick

36:20

which texts you record in the

36:23

context of copyright ?

36:26

I was very curious about that .

36:27

Yeah , so it's

36:31

. There's no doubt that I I do push the envelope

36:33

a little bit , but

36:36

I really do try to

36:39

stick to things that are clearly

36:41

not copy written , which

36:44

there are some , some things that are not

36:46

in copyright at all . Stick

36:49

to things that are easily accessible

36:51

online on main , like

36:53

primary , like popular Orthodox

36:55

websites that have been there for a while . So

36:58

it's not as though I'm

37:00

, you know , getting like the secret scoop

37:02

on something or

37:08

like , okay , this is a long

37:10

book , I'm going to take a small chunk of

37:12

it and then I'll always plug

37:15

the book where you can buy it and

37:17

if it's at all available for sale , I'll

37:19

find a way to put the link for people to buy it . Nice

37:22

, if it's . If it's completely out of print and

37:25

I've gotten some idea from you know

37:27

, gotten some information one way or another , that there's

37:29

no plans for it to be back in print currently

37:31

Then I might , might plug

37:33

the link where I got it . It could be a PDF

37:35

or something else , but I really try to point

37:37

people to where they can buy the book . You

37:41

know , because most of what I've recorded , you know , I

37:43

either have the book where it's , you know , very

37:46

easy to access online and

37:48

it's it's not like I'm trying to steal anything

37:50

, some

37:53

things , some things I

37:55

you know because you read

37:57

in front of books it's like , no

37:59

, no portion of this can be reproduced

38:02

in any way . And they list like nine different ways

38:04

you can reproduce it . So

38:06

, technically speaking , according to the letter of the

38:08

law , you can't even

38:10

share a quote on on Facebook . Wow , I

38:14

mean technically , if I take it at face value

38:17

, right , yeah , and

38:20

and I you know I've

38:22

yet to have . Well , I think

38:24

one time I shared a text that

38:26

I asked for and got like

38:29

I asked them for it , received it , but

38:31

they weren't , they didn't understand my

38:33

, my initial request in order to be

38:35

able to share it on Orthodox wisdom , orthodox

38:37

wisdom . And

38:40

they , they basically said we didn't really think

38:43

you were going to do that . But

38:45

I confirmed with them that they were okay with me leaving

38:48

it up at that point . But if there's

38:50

ever a time where it's like , hey , you , you

38:52

didn't have a , what's

38:54

the word ?

38:55

Authority authority authorization approval

38:58

authorization to do this .

39:01

We want you to take it down , like the publisher asking

39:03

you to do that . Right , then I'll

39:05

. Then I'll do that . I'm not going to , I'm

39:07

not going to hold on to it with white knuckles , right , yeah

39:09

, right yeah .

39:11

You know , timothy , I can speak to that a little bit

39:13

. It's kind of funny . Generally

39:18

, with copyright , you're not really going

39:20

to run into too much trouble , unless

39:23

you start making a lot of money on

39:25

that particular quote

39:27

, which I'm just going to go out on a limb . I

39:30

doubt you are , you know , and

39:32

I know that's not your intention the only things

39:35

.

39:35

Let me just yeah , I want to I appreciate you bringing that up

39:37

the only things I've monetized . Or that interview

39:40

with Father Paul Babo , which is original

39:42

content that I helped make . And

39:44

then , like there's like five

39:47

videos of texts

39:49

that are out of print and I've

39:51

been told I found out like there's no intention for them to

39:53

be reprinted , Like

39:55

no one's going to make money off of

39:58

those anymore , Right

40:00

? And then I try to make sure whatever money I'm getting from

40:03

YouTube , which is very little , goes

40:06

back into some Orthodox endeavor

40:09

.

40:10

Yes , Amen , I got to say before

40:12

I let Nick take . Take the next question here , if you want to , nick

40:14

. Father

40:17

Paul Baba is actually my

40:20

cousin's priest , my

40:22

cousin David , want to give him a shout out how you doing , dave , but

40:25

he goes to Father Paul Baba's parish

40:27

and he has had conversations with

40:30

Father Paul related to Father Seraphim

40:32

and he's come away from it

40:34

every single time just kind of like just

40:37

blown away by the

40:39

wisdom and beauty there . So

40:41

that's pretty exciting . You

40:44

have an episode and again

40:46

it was Father Seraphim Rose where you

40:48

discussed the royal path and

40:51

and talk a lot about this . You know what

40:54

the faith is , you know this

40:56

avoidance of the excess , you know

40:58

, but also avoiding lack

41:00

and you know the

41:02

kind of the middle ground between ecumenism

41:04

and you know reform , reform

41:06

and as he calls it . Can

41:09

we talk about that a little bit ? I think it's such an important

41:11

point for today

41:13

and I

41:15

actually didn't even . There's even that podcast

41:17

I love called the Royal Path . I'm sure

41:20

you're aware of their podcast . Yeah

41:22

, would you mind talking to us , timothy

41:24

, about you know your experience now and in terms

41:26

of what that

41:28

royal path is and you know Father

41:31

Seraphim Rose kind of kind of providing

41:33

guidance on that .

41:36

Yeah , the Royal Path . There's a lot that can

41:38

be said . Father Seraphim , I think , is

41:40

an excellent guide on a royal path

41:42

, especially for us Americans . He I mean

41:44

people who know his

41:47

life and can go read about his life

41:49

. He

41:53

was so far away from the church at one

41:55

point and then , when he found the

41:57

church , when he grasped

42:00

in his heart and his mind the

42:03

truth and the beauty of Christ and the Orthodoxy

42:05

, he did not search

42:07

any further , he

42:10

just went deeper and deeper and deeper into Orthodoxy

42:12

, into Christ , and

42:16

over that time he I mean some

42:18

of his , some of

42:20

the people who knew him said he had the gift of discernment

42:22

and he's

42:24

not known as a wonder worker like Saint John Maximovich

42:27

, for example . He's

42:29

known as a you know , a writer and a teacher

42:31

of the faith and someone who's got an

42:34

incredible story of repentance and conversion . But

42:38

he , he emphasized and

42:40

spoke at length about a lot

42:42

of the different traps that one

42:44

can fall into . I

42:47

know for myself he's

42:49

helped me immensely on avoiding

42:52

, because in some ways I can be tempted

42:54

to go too far to the right and other

42:56

times , in other ways , I'm tempted to go too far to the

42:58

left , right

43:01

, I might be more more to the right

43:03

on like oh , we need , we need

43:05

to avoid these heretics

43:07

or something Right and be be

43:10

a bit undiscerning at times with with

43:12

things along those lines and

43:14

then too far to the left with being

43:16

lazy , with just my own life

43:18

and eating too much or whatever . So

43:21

Father Serafum , in his life and his works , shows

43:23

the royal path really clearly . This

43:25

article that you referenced , that I recorded , it

43:28

was written in the context of a

43:30

controversy that was brewing and was kind

43:32

of coming to a head within Rokor at the time

43:35

, with Father Pantelaymon

43:37

and his spiritual

43:39

children and associates

43:42

His spiritual children , will say , in Boston

43:44

and elsewhere . And

43:47

he was concerned not just

43:49

for the more obvious , like things

43:52

that are lax , like Westernization

43:54

of of the Orthodox Church and not

43:57

sticking to the fast . You know

43:59

, like we just had finished a nativity

44:01

fast and in his time and in our

44:03

time we have people don't

44:05

even pay attention to it and somehow

44:08

they feel okay with that . You

44:10

know he would critique that rightly

44:12

and it's a more obvious critique . But

44:15

he could see at the same time , you

44:18

know , with stuff about fasting

44:20

being overly strict and

44:22

ended up , you know giving

44:24

room for the devil to , to entice one to judge

44:26

others . But

44:30

he even saw things that I find still

44:33

quite surprising or quite striking , and I think

44:35

most people find it quite striking Even

44:40

talks about how those

44:42

who are , who are super correct

44:44

is a phrase he uses a lot super correct

44:47

they're , they're pursuit

44:49

of purity and doctrine and practice

44:51

is essentially

44:54

, without always noticing it , divorce from

44:56

love and humility . Right

44:59

, and he even even even

45:02

perceives that in the days of anti

45:04

Christ , those

45:06

who have the perfect , pure doctrine

45:08

, who have kept all

45:10

the rules , so to speak , and are

45:13

really , really , you know , teaching

45:15

correctly , they're

45:18

more tempted to fall before

45:20

anti Christ because the spiritual power

45:23

needed to resist him is

45:25

not in , or may not I

45:27

don't want to put words in his mouth may

45:29

not be in those who are

45:32

super correct . Hyperdocs

45:34

, yeah , hyperdocs

45:36

, yeah , and it can look , it could be very

45:38

subtle , and Father Serafim was very discerning

45:40

on this , so he wrote a number . He

45:43

wrote on this article which is kind

45:45

of his , one of his main things , on the

45:47

specific , the royal path , a topic of

45:49

avoiding the extremes

45:51

, not just staying

45:53

in the middle . Right , because the

45:55

middle could look different , could

45:58

be different things at different times , different eras , right

46:02

, if , if you're , you've got someone

46:04

actually in the middle and someone way over on the left . The

46:07

middle of that is still too far to the left

46:09

, right , right , so

46:12

he understood that he spoke about

46:14

this in many ways and different times . But

46:21

, yeah , he's an excellent guide because he

46:23

covers so much and

46:25

he he he had so

46:28

much experience in his short 20

46:30

years as an Orthodox Christian . So I definitely

46:33

suggest everyone go read that article . If

46:36

they can get the book Letters from Father

46:38

Serafim , which is his correspondence with

46:40

Father Alexi Young , that

46:42

book will really really give people

46:44

a much deeper understanding of the royal

46:47

path , which is really just the narrow path that Christ

46:49

talks about . Amen , amen , it's the narrow

46:51

path , it's the one that leads to life .

46:53

I'll have to check that one out . I actually haven't read

46:55

that one yet . I love his works and he

46:57

has had an amazing

47:00

impact on my life as well , so I'll have to check

47:02

that one out . It

47:05

seems like you know a

47:07

lot about what you're , what you've been

47:09

reading , obviously , so that's making me

47:11

wonder do you read a lot ? Or

47:14

, like , how do you find time to

47:16

read ? You know

47:18

, select , record

47:20

, post and do all that Like , how does all this

47:23

fit into your life ?

47:28

Well , finding time to read is more difficult than

47:30

it used to be , no doubt , which

47:32

is part of why my product , my output

47:34

, is less than it was

47:36

, at , say , like before I had children

47:38

, in

47:42

terms of actually reading texts . Some

47:45

of it is like I'm going

47:48

, I have got a topic in mind , I've

47:50

got a feast day in mind , I've

47:52

got a something that's coming up in

47:54

mind and I want to share something with people

47:56

to help address the topic

47:58

in a fruitful way . Right , so

48:01

I'll go hunt around the internet . I've

48:03

learned , you know , I think I've learned

48:05

where some of the best resources for

48:07

Orthodox writings are online

48:09

. Or I'll look through

48:11

the books I have and , you know , maybe there's

48:13

something in there that I forgot about . Or

48:16

I have people that I know who

48:19

also read , have read and do read a lot

48:21

, and are very knowledgeable about the faith , and I'll

48:23

ask them if they have something they're

48:26

aware of Nice . So it's not as though I'm

48:28

strictly doing it like

48:31

all on my own or I'm not

48:33

benefiting greatly by , you know , modern

48:36

technology . Sometimes

48:38

control F is a great help , yeah

48:41

, that's great , that's great .

48:43

You're becoming a great researcher today . That's

48:45

a huge skill .

48:47

Yeah , yeah . So

48:49

, but I will

48:52

. I mean , I've been Orthodox almost

48:55

coming up on nine years and

48:59

you know I listened to podcasts

49:01

, I listened to lectures on the faith

49:03

and I , you know , heard a lot

49:05

there of like saints that are quoted

49:07

and books that are referenced and all

49:10

that . So through all that , I've

49:12

, you know , learned what I've learned . Some

49:16

of it I'll . You know , it's just a variety

49:18

of things I may look like . I said I may

49:20

look for a specific text on a topic , or

49:23

, like this , st John Chrysostom that I posted yesterday

49:25

. Someone I

49:27

saw shared a quote with quote on that

49:30

, just I don't know five days ago and

49:33

I went and found where the quote was . I found the book

49:35

. There was a PDF online and

49:39

I I was like this is

49:41

awesome , this is exactly

49:43

what . I needed and what I

49:45

imagined some other people need , so I

49:47

found the time to record it . I try to

49:49

do one a week at this point . It's

49:53

difficult at times , but

49:55

I try to do one a week . Sometimes

49:57

I don't . I only have time to like put out

49:59

a short excerpt of something I'd

50:01

done in the past , which

50:05

is great .

50:05

That's a great concept as well , kind

50:07

of the evergreen , you know , taking

50:09

something that was this size and kind of

50:11

finding that kernel , you know , and sharing

50:14

that for a new audience , a new time . That's

50:17

great .

50:18

And that's . That's mostly what I can do . I don't have

50:20

time to sit record

50:23

and edit and make a thumbnail and

50:25

do all this stuff for long texts

50:27

, like a fullness of a long

50:29

text , even if it's fully available to me

50:31

, like not under copyright or it's widely

50:34

shared or whatever . So

50:36

, yeah , I'm looking for those , you know , 10

50:39

to 20 minute type of texts often

50:42

because they're digestible for most people

50:44

and they're what I can make

50:46

happen as well . Nice , that's awesome .

50:48

Do you mind , timothy ? I actually love this

50:50

kind of stuff . I hope our audience does as well . Can

50:53

we talk shop a little bit in

50:55

terms of you know what

50:57

gear are you using , you know kind of what's

50:59

your , what's your process , that type of thing

51:01

? Do you enjoy that kind of stuff ?

51:02

Oh yeah , I've got so much gear and

51:05

I've spent so much money on it all .

51:07

Load up Mercy .

51:10

It's really simple . I've kept it real .

51:12

You're being sarcastic .

51:15

When I started out , all

51:18

I used was my cell phone . Wow

51:20

, I was , which is not

51:22

a good idea because the microphone

51:24

in the phone is not very good and

51:28

it was an old , cheaper phone . And

51:30

then it dawned on me at one point

51:33

. I was like I can't , I can't keep

51:35

doing this regularly and using a

51:37

poor mic . And I started to

51:39

pick up as I would listen to things back myself

51:41

and like , oh , the S , the sound of the

51:43

S is really not good . Or

51:46

I got some plosives you guys probably

51:48

know what a plosive is , right

51:50

, yeah , yeah , like bass sound , right

51:52

In your with a P or

51:55

many other letter . Yeah

51:58

, I started to learn about that . And

52:01

at one point I think it was like about

52:04

four years ago yeah , four years ago I

52:06

went and bought a cheap

52:08

mic . It's like $60 . And it just

52:10

plugs right into your phone and

52:13

then it's got the dead cat , the like muff

52:15

, the big muffled cover over

52:17

the microphone , and that made

52:20

a world of difference , yeah

52:22

, and then I just set the

52:24

settings on the phone to be like

52:26

low gain or something . It's just very

52:29

simple and I , well , I think

52:31

this sounds a lot better and I at some

52:33

point had somebody else listen to it and they thought

52:35

they said , yeah , that sounds fine , sounds good

52:37

. So I've just been going with that for a while

52:39

. That's great , I think

52:41

. So I guess . To sum up the total

52:44

, the

52:46

total like money and things

52:48

I've purchased are the $60

52:50

mic and I

52:52

spend like I think

52:54

it's like $80 a year . I'm sure there's

52:57

a cheaper way , I just haven't found it yet $80

52:59

a year to upload

53:01

a website that'll take my MP3

53:04

to and

53:06

automatically convert it to MP4 for

53:08

YouTube , and it'll do that

53:10

. I spend the money so it doesn't have the like website

53:13

address embedded above

53:15

the thumbnail

53:18

, but that's about

53:20

it . I don't . I don't know much about the mics

53:22

and all that . That's great

53:24

, do you ?

53:25

edit it . Do you use a audio editor

53:27

or a program ? To kind

53:29

of cut stuff together and whatnot .

53:31

I do yeah , I don't read nearly as well

53:34

as the final product .

53:35

I was wondering , because I was like , yeah

53:37

, either , he's just a fantastic reader , you

53:39

know , because it's very clear

53:41

, you do a great job on that . It's important .

53:43

Yeah , I edited it in GarageBand . I

53:46

know more like professional people

53:50

who do audio books have a different way of

53:52

like editing it as they read

53:54

, but I just haven't like

53:56

set up the equipment to do that . And

53:58

the other thing is I like

54:00

break down , set up and break down my studio

54:03

. Each time I

54:06

wait until my kids are asleep and maybe my

54:08

wife's asleep too , and I

54:10

set up here . I've got a blanket

54:13

over the bookshelf that I

54:15

set my cup in which

54:17

has the phone in , and it's really

54:19

simple . It's really simple . And sometimes I'll

54:21

go in my car and I've set

54:23

up a big blanket in there to

54:26

muffle any feet of sound

54:28

bouncing back off in my car . Yeah

54:31

, but I've

54:34

kept it simple and I don't have enough reason

54:36

to change because I feel like it's working

54:38

.

54:39

It's working great . I feel like it's a gorilla

54:44

podcasting that type of thing . That's just

54:47

doing what works . I wish

54:49

, timothy , that we had that

54:51

. I don't want to call it a luxury

54:54

, but we do ensemble pieces

54:56

, as you know , and we've got numerous

54:58

microphones involved , and so we've had to kind

55:00

of go down a different road . We're

55:03

moving away from simple . We

55:05

started fairly simple three or four mics

55:08

, a single

55:10

board they were going into but we're

55:12

starting to get to a point . Lord

55:14

willing , as we continue to grow , we're

55:17

going to try to up the game a little

55:19

bit . So we'll see

55:21

about that .

55:22

Yeah , I saw one of the behind the scenes videos and

55:25

you had about a dozen people recording

55:27

all in one living room . Is that

55:29

right ? Yeah , yeah .

55:31

It's amazing . It's been a real grassroots

55:34

movement in our church that it's

55:36

like we put one step forward

55:38

and God's allowing us to walk on water

55:40

with it all . Amen . It

55:42

was neither Jeremy nor

55:45

my Our will

55:47

alone . It was us working

55:49

synergetically with God

55:51

, providing everything

55:53

that we need and continuing to

55:55

do that . But then also everyone at our

55:57

church and kind of just in our San

56:00

Diego region , different parishes around

56:02

here pitching in and

56:04

we couldn't be here without

56:07

all of this coming together . It's

56:10

actually really amazing , so very

56:12

inspiring .

56:15

From an outsider looking on , it does look really

56:17

rewarding to do what you guys are doing

56:20

. It is , it really is , yeah

56:22

.

56:22

It's amazing how you can first get a story

56:24

right and maybe someone reads it and says , hey , check

56:26

it out , this could be a great episode

56:28

. Then someone else writes it up , or

56:30

the same person writes it up and the next thing you know

56:33

we got people in

56:35

a living room and we're all setting it up in the

56:37

same thing . We build up and we

56:39

tear down our studio , which is , with

56:41

the kind of gear we're doing is just like you want

56:44

to tear your hair out after doing it a

56:46

dozen times . So we're trying

56:48

to get to a more sustainable

56:50

type setup for something like us

56:52

. But we definitely can

56:54

share with you in that sense of the

56:57

learning curve and trying to build on

57:00

and trying to improve

57:02

upon what already exists .

57:04

Doing the best with what we've got .

57:06

Yeah , and a lot of that , and a lot of that

57:08

.

57:08

I think there's something beautiful to that too . Right

57:11

, I don't necessarily want my

57:14

audio quality to

57:16

be audio quality to

57:19

be the absolute best it can be , because

57:21

it would probably cost a lot of money . Right , I

57:24

don't fault anybody for doing that , but

57:26

personally I like that . I've

57:28

gotten it to be pretty

57:30

solid with a minimal amount

57:32

of equipment and cost and

57:35

I feel pretty good about about doing it that way

57:37

. Amen , I see a need to

57:40

change . I mean , I noticed

57:42

, of course , the quality you guys

57:44

have is far beyond what I

57:46

have , but you've got , you've got multiple

57:48

voices , you've got the set kind of

57:51

the set kind of soundtrack , a

57:53

variety of sounds , and you

57:56

know music at times behind it . So

57:59

all that , all that together . You know , I

58:01

would , I would expect you guys

58:04

to want the audio quality

58:06

to be better than something like what

58:08

I'm doing .

58:09

Well , you know , Timothy , for

58:11

I'll be totally honest with you

58:13

, I'm surprised when

58:15

you told me what you're doing , because it

58:17

doesn't come off that way . It sounds great

58:20

. It sounds great coming out of , coming out

58:22

of my headphones , you know whatever speakers from

58:24

YouTube . So , yeah , you

58:26

could have fooled me . You could have told me you're working with

58:29

a $500 microphone . I've been like cool .

58:31

You know when I was joking at first . That's

58:33

why you thought I was serious .

58:34

I really did . I really did . I thought you had some

58:36

kind of whole setup , you know . So that's

58:39

great , that's , that's a testament

58:41

, I think , also to God's grace , you

58:43

know , and how he provides . This

58:47

has been an absolute awesome conversation

58:50

, timothy . You're you're just

58:52

I don't know just a really great guy . I'm

58:54

kind of hopeful that our paths can cross

58:56

again in the future and

58:59

maybe even meet in person sometime

59:01

. You know , it sounds like you've got some great

59:03

things going on . Would you mind telling

59:05

our audience just kind of where can

59:07

they find you ? We're certainly

59:10

going to link your , your stuff down

59:12

below , but how would you like people to reach

59:14

out to you to find you on the internet

59:16

?

59:17

Yeah , so of course , orthodoxism

59:20

on YouTube and Spotify and

59:22

, I think , some of the smaller podcasts

59:24

as well , Apple

59:27

Podcast as well , but

59:29

the easiest way to well

59:32

, and then in my social media outside of that

59:34

is just Twitter , which it

59:40

is what it is . You mean X ? Yeah , I

59:43

don't know if I'll ever get in the habit of calling it X , I

59:45

know .

59:46

I know , much to

59:49

Elon Musk's chagrin . Yeah

59:51

, exactly .

59:52

So , but that's an easy way for people to

59:54

message me if they want , or just the

59:57

I think it's OrthodoxWisdom1

59:59

at gmailcom . You can find that the

1:00:02

email address on the OrthodoxWisdom

1:00:04

YouTube channel , so if people have

1:00:06

questions or anything

1:00:09

, they can reach out to me there . I'm not always

1:00:11

the quickest at responding , but I do

1:00:15

respond eventually , if

1:00:17

not quickly , so that's how they

1:00:19

can reach me and

1:00:22

, god willing , by your prayers , I'll keep

1:00:24

doing what I'm doing , amen .

1:00:26

Amen , amen . So thank you

1:00:28

for listening to the end . This has been Cloud

1:00:30

of Witnesses Thinking Like the Saints . My

1:00:33

name is Jeremy , I'm Nick and

1:00:35

we've had Timothy from OrthodoxWisdom

1:00:37

joining us today . Timothy , god

1:00:40

bless you , god bless your family . We

1:00:42

thank you and just we wish you continued

1:00:44

success and being able

1:00:46

to provide such a wonderful resource

1:00:49

to the world . Thanks

1:00:51

again .

1:00:52

Thank you . God bless you guys too . Love the work you're doing

1:00:54

, thank you , thank you .

1:00:56

Bye , bye .