What God Wants From Men: How to Build True Masculinity | Met. Jonah & Adam Lane Smith

Welcome back to I Wish You New. It is wonderful to see you again. I am your host, Adam Lane Smith, the Attachement Specialist. Today is an incredible episode. I've been looking forward to this to a large extent. We've had a number of conversations on this podcast before about masculinity, about manhood, about families, about all of those wonderful pieces, and I consider those wonderful pieces to start. Today is the mature version of that conversation, to really find the fullness of masculinity, of manhood, and of family. We really need to go back to the oldest teachings that we have, and that happens to be the faith. Today I'm having a very special guest. This is the retired primate of the Orthodox Church in America, director of St. Herman's Church, Abbott of the St. Demetrius Monastery, under the Russian Orthodox Church outside of Russia, his Eminence Metropolitan Jonah. Your Eminence, it is wonderful to speak to you today. I'm humbled by this conversation. It is a great joy, I die as well. I am struck by the religious imagery all around us. This is fundamentally probably one of the most holy rooms I think I've ever been in in my life. This is incredible. How does one accumulate this many icons? I have to ask. Well, it helps having been the primate of a church, because many of them were gifts. Also sitting in front of our relics, where there's hundreds of relics of saints from the first century on. People ask, "Where is the early church?" It's right here. It's everybody from St. Ignatius of Antioch to apostles to martyrs across the centuries, basically from every century. They even saw the innocence that were slaughtered under Herod over there, rather relic, which is unbelievable. The Orthodox Church has a very, very deep memory. Because who are they? They're all our forebears. It's essentially one family over the course of centuries and centuries without a brick, or that our church was never re-founded by anyone, and everything else came from us. I am hoping that memory can help us today. Well, I think it will, actually. The tradition has a lot to say about masculinity and about what it means to have a family, what it means to be the husband of a family, what it means to be a man. That's something that is missing badly today. I saw a young man with a t-shirt the other day that said, "All of my role models went to prison," and then there was Paul, Peter, Jesus. He listed all of them, and that's funny, but it is something that we are lacking today. Most young men didn't have a role model growing up that they could emulate. Most of them, even their fathers weren't terrible, but their fathers were scared. They were exhausted. They were just barely surviving. Sometimes their father was absent or just beaten down by the world or following teachings that were not helpful. So there's a lot of young men today, and I really want to dig into your brain on this. There's a lot of young men today that don't even have a working model of a man. It's simply a large boy in a bigger suit, is what I have found. You have been, I can't even put words to it. You have been foundational for so many men for the formation of them. Can you help us understand what are you seeing in young men today? What's missing? It's hard to encapsulate it. There's so much missing. A lot of it comes from that lack of a mature male role model. The family structure is destroyed, and even so many families, they don't even eat together. They're living in the same house and sharing the same food, I suppose. But they're on their phones, their other devices. They're not communicating with one another. So it's precisely that kind of communication that is so critical to the development of a child, and it's to be able to talk with others outside of their own age group. Do you think men are just missing those role models and just don't know what to do or do you think that's been taken away from us? That's a good question. I think to some degree, they're taken away from us. They've been usurped in some cases. Of course, it depends on the particular family and the particular dynamic there. If you have a mother who's a very strong feminist, that's going to create one thing. If you have a mother who's a very humble-pious woman, that's going to create another entire dynamic. I think the mother who's a humble-pious woman is probably going to create a stronger family than the woman who's a strong feminist who's totally preoccupied with her own agendas. Absolutely. And living in pride and fear, let alone. I think that's a terrible thing. I think that one thing I've talked about quite a bit, and it seems to ring true, is it's very hard to have pious women who are strong and safe enough to stand on their own until you have pious men who are there giving them the ability to live that way. I'm struck by how much that's been removed from our society, and I don't think that's by accident. The first thing they did was make it so that men don't even have much seemingly much of a purpose anymore. What is the purpose of a man? Among other things, it's providing a safe context for his family, for his wife and for his children, and to provide for them and to be there for them, to be present to them, and to nurture them in a masculine way, just as the mother nurtures in a feminine way. There needs to be that mutuality, there needs to be that common activity. Children need both a father and a mother, but they also need safety. They also need acceptance. They also need to be loved first and foremost, actually. It's that love that's when it's real is what develops a healthy person. Nurturing is not a word I get to hear very often with men. In fact, online, if you use nurturing, certain groups of men will laugh at you and will say, "Oh, look at this guy, he's teaching the most weak form of masculine, there is." But you lead the strongest form of masculine there is, and you're using nurturing very, very usefully there. But you're also saying nurturing from a masculine perspective. That is not something that our audience has probably ever heard before. What does it look like for a man to nurture somebody? Well, I think what it is is to spend time with them and to devote oneself to seeing that they turn into, that they mature into a strong, healthy men, or strong, healthy women who are able to live in the society as completely, and utterly messed up as it is, and navigate their way to create a family that is going to be strong, nurturing, and faithful. Okay. Can I give an example maybe of what I've done with my son? And I tell me if that's a masculine nurturing. Maybe a few days ago, my oldest son, he's 10. He came to me and he asked me, "Dad, what does it mean to kill and cold blood?" And of course, my first question was, "Where did you hear this? He's been reading. He's been reading books. He's been reading fiction." And he said, "What does cold blood mean?" And I had to very carefully explain crimes of passion, hot blood, versus very calculated crimes and evil. And I had to guide him through that conversation. It was actually a wonderful experience for both of us. I got to tell him you understand sin, you understand the sacraments, you understand all of these things. Where have you had hot blood, right? And have you ever done these things where you were more calculating and some men do? And that was, it led to some wonderful teaching moments, I think, between the two of us. Would that be a form of masculine nurturing? Sure, it's also a matter of bonding. And that bond, especially with a father, is very, very critically important, both for boys and for girls, but in different ways. I think of all three of my daughters jumping on my back, pulling my ears and wrestling with me, because they want me to wrestle with them. That's a good form of it. We know actually the research shows that just one metric of healthy father, daughter bonding, but if a daughter has a father that she can wrestle with, her rates of promiscuity go absolutely low, like vastly low. And then her relational satisfaction for life goes up quite a lot, not just the wrestling itself, as you understand, but the relationship that leads to play with a father. We know that the rates actually encourage fathers being in some ways, dare I say, not more important than mother and every area, but for long term character and mental health, fathers seem to play a much larger role than mothers do. Well, there's especially a unique role with a father and a daughter that just as a mother can't fulfill a father's role with a son, neither can she fulfill a father's role with a daughter. So it's critical to have both parents engaged and committed to bringing the children to maturity, to fullness of their potential. I'll never forget going through graduate school, becoming a therapist in California. And we're reading our family systems book, the defining text on how psychology is supposed to approach families. And mothers had not only mentions throughout the entire book, but they had their own chapter devoted to mothers and motherhood. And fatherhood was barely mentioned throughout the entire text. There was two thirds of a page at one point that was fatherhood, and that's it. And I brought that up and asked our teachers, why is this the case? And they just, they couldn't even articulate. They just stared at me and said, why do you think it's a problem? Do you think that our society, no, not even do you think our society has a problem with fatherlessness? We do. How much of the problems in our society do you think stemmed from either weak or absent or just not knowing fathers? Well, I think there's a tremendous, tremendous effect of fathers being absent, fathers being. And whether that is physically absent, emotionally absent, spiritually absent, and just literally not interacting with their families. And that's disastrous for everyone else, when they're trying to build a real family and to grow these children to maturity. Because they need his modeling, they need his input, and they need his just way of being. Quite often during these conversations, they often, at this point, skew into lecturing young men for just not stepping up and a sort of approach of men just need to do better. And that's not where we will go here today. What I'd like to talk to you more about is where are we failing men or where are we failing to incentivize men to do this? Because I think that men want to do this. They want to be fathers. I think they crave it. I think it's foundational to our existence to be a father biologically or spiritually, a spiritual father. But that fatherhood, I think, is built into us. Where are we punishing them for wanting it? Or where are we disincentivizing them, do you think? I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I mean, obviously, there's been so much focus on women over the past 50 years, which is I'm not saying it's entirely bad. There's been a need to focus on the role and position of women, but not to the exclusion of men. There's been this great campaign against patriarchy and all of these things. Well, patriarchy, when it's abusive, is awful. But patriarchy, when it works well, is wonderful. Tell me more. Well, because when it works well, what do you have? You have leadership, you have masculine leadership, which is part of what it's about, which is decisive, which is rational, and which is loving, first and foremost, and is striving to enable each person that husband, that father is responsible for, to achieve their ultimate potential. Their ultimate potential. It sounds like servant leadership. It's servant leadership. So the only form of patriarchy, which is true, valid, and loving, would come from a servant leadership mentality? Right. Exactly. You know, that's ultimately what we have in the church, you know, I tell, we get a lot of young men who come through our parish, this church is a place where we are unashamedly patriarchal and hierarchical, and this is a place where you can let your masculinity thrive. One thing that I learned, I grew up in a, in a very watered down non-denominational sort of hippie mega church out in California, I'm Catholic now, and one thing that initially was very abrasive to me was, why should I let some old guy tell me how to live my life? Why should I have a priest who can order me around and tell me what to do? What about bishops and all this stuff? Why should I let them tell me what to do? And as I have really found more about the faith, it is an immense comfort to have somebody who actually is incentivized to care about my spiritual well-being that I can go to with the questions I have and get answers. And if I am off somewhere, that they tell me I'm off somewhere and that I need to, I need to get corrected in those areas, it's, it is a comfort to know that I am not left to my own devices to try to decipher 2,000 years of theology. In that regard, I have found patriarchal love and safety to be phenomenal, but I can understand that the majority of people I speak do aren't really afraid of patriarchy, they're afraid of abuse, which is really what it is. What stops a group? I should ask, what is it that prevents a good, proper structure of patriarchy from going into the abuse of territories? Selfishness is the cause of it. Selfishness is really according to the Father's Maximus the Confessor, the source of all sin. Selfishness, self-serving, self, whatever. Back to a sort of pride that I deserve pleasure. It's all pride, it's all ego. Pride and ego. So we have to eliminate that completely before a system can realistically be loving and safe and protected in that way. And in a family, I have found a father of six kids, I'm not perfect, so I do actually need somebody that oversees me. And my wife seems to find that very, very comforting that if, if I ever was off really in bad territory, she could go to our priest, and our priest would come and put the thumb on me pretty quick, he comes over for dinners, he knows where I live, he can find me if he had to. And there's a good reason why he's called the Father. There's a good reason he's called the Father. And because the role of the priest is to love his people. And that's really what the role of patriarchy is. It's you love those to whom God is entrusted to you. And that's why patriarchy is the ultimate model. And that's why God is the ultimate father because of his absolute and unconditional love. Can men take on that kind of responsibility without other men supporting them? Because a lot of men don't have friends, they don't have brothers, they don't have anybody. Well, this is another critical element. One of the greatest effects of this whole, of the degradation of this culture is the destruction of male friendship. Female friendship seems a little more intact. Male friendship, they're terrified of being accused of being homosexual, they don't know how to bond with other people. They're afraid of any kind of intimacy. And then they have the idea that their spouse is the one whom they could dump all of their problems on. And the wife too, has the same idea. So all he does is come home and complain and gripe and groan. And maybe these are real issues and she does the same thing. So kind of a relationship is that, it's toxic and that will poison a marriage. I have the blessing to live in Russia for a while back 30 years ago. And one of the things that I saw there was functional male friendship and it's incredible. But you know, we had the same thing in this culture up through World War II. What does a functioning male friendship, what does it look like? Well, with the Russians, they have two words, two or three words. One is a tsunami, which is somebody you know, an acquaintance, a parietal buddy. But then there's Drug, which means the other me. And it's a friendship that is lifelong, it's a friendship that is committed, and that is one that you can completely expose all of your inner pain to your friend. Drug. A real Drug. I'm going to remember that. And that's a, it's an incredibly beautiful thing. It is. And you make, you make a friend like that, and he's there for life. And women need to have the same thing. Yes. Exactly the same thing. So you know, they can. they can go and gripe, you know, the partners can go and gripe to all of their to their to their friends. And then just be kind and loving to their spouse and look at the real business of the family of what it means to raise the children and to and what do they need to help bring them to maturity. The business of the family, I love the phrasing there. One thing that people I love me or hate me for this, but I teach that a family essentially is almost a business structure. You are here husband and wife to raise the next five generations and to make sure the wealth is transitioned properly, the spiritual teachings, all of the inheritance is handed down correctly. And it is a business and it has to run like a business and you you really can't do that if it's all just based on how you feel about each other moment to moment. Where do men learn the emotional discipline to be able to carry that? Because most men today are either taught to completely swallow their feelings and not feel anything, which doesn't work, or they're taught to completely collapse into their feelings and embrace everything and cry out, which also isn't going to work. Is there a third way? And if so, where do men learn it? Well, this is where the acidic teaching of the church comes in. People believe their thoughts. But what is the thought? Yes, it's nothing. It's usually a delusion. Yeah, feelings or thoughts. You know, in the calm, you get all sorts of but you can't you can't base and you take, in other words, is taking yourself way too seriously. And part of the part of the problem is this preoccupation with my own individual thoughts and feelings and what I want and is my agenda being resolved. In other words, it's all selfishness, egotism and narcissism. And our society is is rife with this. I think I saw some research recently that's suggested we are the most individualistic society that has ever existed in the history of humanity. And it's toxic. It is killing us. How bad is that really for us though? We've destroyed all the values. All the fundamental values by the rejection of faith, by the materialism, by the individualism, by all the socialist values. So called that are being promulgated in our society. And this is evil. Much of it is evil because it is fundamentally destructive of human life. And especially the loss of faith and the important position of the church. And I mean, just you just turn on the internet and you can see video after video after video of why are questioning why did the have the churches imploded? I can tell you why. It's because they've completely adopted political values instead of the values of the faith. They're completely secularized. They've given up. And so people gave up on them to their credit quite frankly, so that they can come back to where it's intact. But we have to be we have to be aware that it's not just these institutional values. It's the it's how each person within the community takes them accepts them or as often happens rejects them. And so and it's not a matter of the church telling people what they have to believe all of this kind of stuff. I mean, yes, there is there's aspect of that in the you know, in certain, certain quarters. But in the Orthodox world, you're not told you have to believe anything, but everybody believes the same thing. If you want to be Orthodox, you enter in. You don't the church does not change to accommodate you. You change to accommodate to you change your life to conform to the church. That's a big thing. That's the exact opposite of what has happened across the spectrum in Western religion. And that's the element of patriarchy really is to come to you and say, I have the truth and I want to share it with you. If you're willing to receive the truth, we're not changing the truth for you. The truth can't change exactly. You mentioned evil. And there's a lot of people watching the show that are just waking up to the realization that evil exists. That's something that's been removed from our society for a long time. There's the old saying that the best trick the devil ever pulled was convincing you he doesn't exist. So then you won't be on guard against him at all. And there are a lot of people today, interestingly, I encounter a lot of people who say, I'm coming back to the faith because I have seen so much evil that it's convinced me God must exist too. And that's a fascinating sort of perspective. A lot of people are waking up to the just unbelievable abominations that are being conducted upon basic, cute, everyday humans. Now, we know that the absolute last line of defense in a home is a father. And you mentioned protecting, providing. That's a father's role to protect against evil. Many fathers are not doing that. Many fathers don't know how to do that. And even thinking about doing that brings up all kinds of stifling characterizations of fathers who go overboard with with weird arbitrary rules. What is a correct way to protect your family against evil in the modern society? That's a good smart way for a father to do that. If he's just beginning and he doesn't know what to do, but he doesn't want to go overboard on or underboard. Well, I think the basic thing is stick close to the church, go to services, go to confession, go to communion, and say your prayers. I mean, that's the kind of most basic part of the Christian life. And learn what it means to be a Christian. What is, how have Christians lived over the past two millennia? Because at least with orthodoxy, it's the same vision. It's the same theology. It's the same morality. It's the same struggle. It's the same, same asceticism. And the asceticism is really critical. One of the things that is dropped out of most of Western religion is asceticism. Or there's their extreme exaggerated forms of it, which are sick. Can you tell us more about asceticism for people that are just learning about that for the first time? asceticism is a basic scriptural value for Christians. It's learning how to deny yourself unless you deny yourself daily and take up your cross and follow after me. You're not worthy of me, the Lord said. What is self-denial? It means learning how to say no to yourself. That's very basic. You want the extra scoop of ice cream, say no to yourself. You're lusting after this car that, you know, you think you have to have. It's only $100,000 above your budget. And say, wait a second, what am I doing? Why am I doing this? No, I'm not going to think about that. You want to tell somebody off. You say no. You want to be unkind. Catch yourself and keep your mouth shut. It's all this very basic daily practice of bringing ourselves under control. And real asceticism means self-control. It's one of that great list of virtues that St. Paul has in Galatians, which are basically the description of a mature Christian life. I was just going to ask you to use the word mature. Can a man call himself a man until he's cultivated that kind of discipline? No. So that discipline is in many ways one of the thresholds you must cross over before you can be called a man. You have to have yourself under control. That means that means your body and under control, your mind under control, your thoughts under control, your spiritual life under control. Can a man do that without a spiritual life? No. Just fundamentally that's what's that's what spiritual discipline does. But spiritual discipline is much more than that because it's a relationship. It's not just it's not just going through the the forms of you know prayer and fasting. Okay, prayer and fasting are important. Very important. But it's why do you do it in order to open yourself up to God so that you can. And this is a very important thing in Orthodox spirituality. Most of the spiritual life is not only about learning to control your mind and learning to control yourself. But it's also about learning to be watchful, to maintain the awareness of the presence of God. You have a very interesting thing that I have learned from your work and from conversation with you just briefly before this concept of the news. This is something that has been lost in the Western tradition. And when I rediscovered it, learning with you, it was. I was overjoyed to finally have a word for it. But then it brought up a little bit of grief for me that it's something that we don't have in the Western world. Can you describe the news to people out here a little bit so they can start to hear it? Well, the word "news" in Greece in Greek and it's a common word used in the New Testament means essentially the spiritual aspect of the soul. We have a orthodoxy as following the Greek tradition, has a very different paradigm than Western Christianity. We never had a gustan. A gustan wasn't even translated for the first 1500 years of our church's life. And we never went through the whole philosophical development that was keyed off by the discovery of Aristotle around the 10th century. Now, the Byzantine certainly had Aristotle. Every Byzantine kid and the upper classes, of course, only were educated. But every kid who went to school in Constantinople would have learned Plato and Aristotle and all of the Greek classics. But there was always a caveat. They were told, "These parts we can use, these parts we can't, they're pagan." And we reject what we reject this. And we can use these for what they're worth. So it was an edited version meant for Christians. Corrected. Corrected. And because I mean, certain Platonism is not Christian. There's not much you can do with some of his ideas or Aristotle either. But that is what it took over Western thought from the 10th century onwards. And it's still dealing with it. In the Eastern Church, it was a much more integrated development over the course of the centuries. The Western Church had, you know, was in crisis Western society was in crisis from the year 500 to about 1200. The Eastern, the East was instead a thriving empire, both were the Roman Empire. Yes. But it was thriving in the East. And under barbarian done, my people, barbarian denomination in the West, which created all sorts of strange problems. So also the Greek language was very important because that's what the scriptures were written in. Now, you can also make the argument that there were there were probably written down in Aramaic, which is what Jesus actually spoke. And certain books, Matthew and probably Hebrews and others, maybe even John were written in Aramaic initially. But and book of Revelation, parts that were probably were Aramaic. But it finally got transferred into a, into a commonly agreed, well, version that we, which is what we have now, and which is the only authorized version of the scriptures in orthodoxy. If you really want the, I mean, we don't have the churches never authorized any translation as being ultimately correct. It's only the original. So, so in order to really to study the scriptures deeply, you have to learn. And in doing that, you find that there's all sorts of things that have been left out like the news, like the news. It get translated as mind. Yes. Well, in according to the, to the Eastern fathers, there are two different aspects of the mind. There's the noetic aspect of the mind. But then there's the rational aspect of the mind. As latest Thomas Aquinas in the 1270, or their abouts, he called it the new razzio superior as opposed to razzio inferior, the rational mind. But then it just disappeared after him. One big thing that brought me joy with the news coming back with this conversation is so many men today are so hyper rational. And they say, I shouldn't have these feelings. I should be happy. I should just settle for the life I have. And the piece of the news really brings back in is no you, you know that there's a different way of living. You know that there's a different state of being. You know, there's a, there's a manhood that you could be attaining and that you're being called to even, you're built for. And I think if we can bring that back and really help men understand that it is normal to have that desire to be a father, to be a spiritual father, biological father, whatever it is, to be that form of manhood. There is nothing shameful or, or delusional there that actually this is the greatest thing that you can begin to do, especially for those you love. Actually, the real meaning of news is that it is the spiritual aspect of the soul that is impassable. Whereas, whereas the rational soul is animal, is part of our physical nature. And it matures with the body and it decays with the body. The news is implanted at the moment of conception and is in a sense the divine aspect of the soul. It's according to the father's certain fathers anyway. It's of end, it's of the same nature as the angels, so that the human being is a composite being of both physical and earthly and noetic and jealous. And that's, and that's one of the things that elevates man because at the core of that of the soul, the core of the news is the image of God. So if a man can learn to embrace this aspect of himself, he can be a unified man. Instead of feeling like he has to fight against his mechanical behaviors, his desires, and then he has to constantly keep himself in check somehow alone all the time. This really is the piece that brings him to the fullness of manhood and allows him to be the servant to others that he wants to be because he has that inborn sense of goodness. Right, and that's very important. Now the West, starting with Augustine, went off on a very different route, because of the doctrine of original sin, which was based on a mis-translation of the text of Romans. You have this idea of transmitted guilt, and that everybody is born guilty of original sin. What that turns into, and how it's been turned into, in other places, is that in further development over the course of centuries, is that the image of God was extinguished in the human persons, and that all of humanity is a mass of demnata, all are condemned to hell. So it's this very, very dark and negative attitude towards the human soul, but it's that soul that is the very core of our being. We absolutely reject that. We have for hundreds of years. It's not like this is a new theology to us. And we maintain that, and this is very, very important for self-understanding. The core of your soul is that image of God, which is pure potential. The Eastern tradition does not think in terms of static states, either damned or you're saved, and say you're a little prayer, and you go from damned to saved, and that's it. It's all process. And you can go and which means you have to work out your salvation. The same Paul says means you can lose your salvation. I think the older I get, the more difficult I think that is. But it's a, what it is, it's a, it's a dynamic process. And all of life is a dynamic process. And, and the static state thing, it doesn't work. It just makes no sense. So a lot of men need to really stop looking at themselves as a finished product and continuously look at themselves that they are cultivating and being cultivates. Exactly. But more than that, because of, because the image of God is intact and cannot be damaged, doesn't matter how deformed somebody is. No, it doesn't matter how mentally challenged. I don't know what kind of politically correct language to use. How dumb they may be, it doesn't, it doesn't matter. Because the full potential of that person is still their whole and perfect and beautiful. And that is at the core of each person. That's the essence of what human nature is. And its potential is, is, is eschatological. It's to become like Christ when he comes again. That's the goal. And not simply, not simply to go to heaven. What's that? Right. But it's to be transformed. It's to be deified. And, and it's to be, and it's to be resurrected in glory. So that, so that it's fulfilled that the real essence and process of salvation is theosis. So that, as God became man, so that man might become God, he became what we are, that we might become what he is, and as he is. And, you know, and he, he condescended to our loneliness and to the very depths, literally, that he might raise us up. This answers the question that a lot of people ask of, what's in it for men? If they step forward and start leading and protecting and doing, I hear that a lot. What's in it for men? And what you're saying is ultimately the absolute fulfillment of their very essential being, that this is our path. Well, what it means is there's no room for self hatred. That's true, because you hate God. Right. Right. There's no necessity for guilt. Guilt is shown to be what it is, sin, a state of sin. Because what are you doing when you're guilty? You're just going round and round and round in your old, in your own head. And you actually run and round your own ego, accusing yourself, right? That's a state of sin, missing the mark. There's no room for shame. Yes, we do bad things, OK? We confess them, we get rid of them, we make amends. It's an entirely positive attitude towards a human person, and the Augustinian model just didn't affect Roman Catholic theology, keeping people changed and in self hatred and in self-loathing and in guilt and in shame. It's no wonder that people can't stand up. And then the backlash movements and the backlash to nominations where there's no embarrassment and absolutely no responsibility whatsoever, everyone is happy and do whatever you feel like. And that's also not the proper embracing, masculine virtue either. Right. Because the thing is, what is that aspect of maturity is you take responsibility. You take responsibility for yourself. You take responsibility for your acts. You take responsibility for others without shame. Without shame. When I started a business, my very good friend, Andre, told me something very important. He said, you have a team now. You don't have the luxury of being ashamed or afraid or even tired anymore because you have people relying on you. You need to get up and do your job. And that's ultimately what is being called for with masculinity is to set the self aside and know that you ultimately will absolutely get something wonderful at the end of it. That's not in question. But ultimately, it is stopping this endless game of shame, of fear, embarrassment, and then really embracing self-denial to a proper extent. And what is that? All that what we're dealing with is the old man versus the new man in the St. Paul puts it. The old man is the ego. The self that we create, God does not create our ego. We create our ego. It's how we want to be understood. How we want to be seen. How we hope that we hope we can pull off projecting an image of other people, all of that kind of stuff. Most of it's false. Most of it's a lie, and so it's hollow, and it's fragile. And then all of our passions and all of our sins and all of this stuff, that's the ego. Who wants to live in that? It doesn't go anywhere good. No, it doesn't go anywhere good. But what is our task to purify the ego? To purify it through the news? To bring it into synergy with the news. In the synergy. And synergy is an essential word, essential concept in St. Paul and also in Orthodox theology. What is the relationship between husband and wife? Synergy. Synergy. What is the relationship with an monastery? Synergy. Synergy. Everything. It's absolute mutual cooperation. Absolute mutual cooperation. I think that's the element that's missing from so many families today. Companies, marriages. I think the concept, even, that we can work together. And that we can set aside the ego and the fear and the sadness and the desires. And that we can actually work together in a way that benefits us both instead of either one of us being taken for granted. That's something that's missing for so many people. I think that that's something we need to really, really bring home today. Do you have any last message for the men or the women who are listening about masculinity, manhood, patriarchy, any of these pieces? Any last piece you want to leave them with as they think about it today? I think the most important thing is to know that you can do it. But this is possible. If you ask him, God will give you the grace. Because the whole point of human maturation into is the fulfillment of that potential, which is implanted immovably and unchangeably in our heart, in our news. The heart is the news and the heart is the same, that that potential grows by synergy with God. But doing the will of God, hearing the will of God and do it. And if you don't like it, too bad, do it anyway. Because what does, and you see this is the asceticism. What does it mean if I like something or don't like something? Nothing. Nothing. So do it. So do it. You know, if somebody is panhandling for money on the corner and say, "Oh, well, who's that person?" So what do we do? We judge them and we condemn them and all that. So reach into your pocket and give them $1 or $5 or whatever, you know? Deny yourself. Get into a habit of self-denial and love the people that are around you. it's not unsafe. That's a very key point. Yeah, and and what where is that feeling of of danger? It's all it's all it's all fears in your in your in your ego. This has been a wonderful conversation. Thank you. I would love a hundred more of these conversations and thankfully you have a lot of resources where I can find you and other people can as well. Could you please let them know where is best for them to find you? Well, they're they're kind of scattered in various places. Saint John DC, STJOHN DC has a lot of my classes historically. And then there's the St. Herman Orthodox Church website. That's St. Herman of staff in Stafford, Virginia. But that should be fairly accessible. We're working on a site which combined puts it all together. But there's a lot of stuff over the past 10 years, 15 years. What's the name of your YouTube channel that you have? Well, it's St. John DC. St. John DC on YouTube or St. Herman. Yeah, that's wonderful. Okay, we'll have all those linked in the show notes and the description below as well. So people can click right on them and get straight to them. Thank you. Here I am. It's been a wonderful conversation. I look forward to many more. Well, I look forward to it as well. And it's very simulating these, you know, because these are these are questions that have to deal with every day. For everybody who's watching, I'd love to hear from you in the comments. Let us know. What's the number one thing you took from this episode here today? Was it the formation of manhood? Was it the news like it was for me in many pieces? What really stood out to you? I'd love to hear from you. And even what element might you want to start using in your life or even in your marriage? Let us know, and we'll see you on the next episode.