A Word from Our Outpost: A Podcast for Catholic Missionary Disciples

Are we taking time to be leisurely? Are we free to study the true, good, and beautiful? Are we liberated enough to spend time on the liberal arts? Or are we stuck in a consumer culture that pushes a sterile curiosity? All this and more on this episode!

Joseph referenced a book by Paul Griffiths, called Intellectual Appetite. We recommend it! https://www.cuapress.org/9780813216867/intellectual-appetite/

And we referenced Josef Pieper's Leisure: The Basis of Culture-- also highly recommended! https://ignatius.com/leisure-lbcp/

As always,

• check out our work, and join our email list, at https://ouroutpost.org/
• catch our other podcast, Love Your Marriage, by clicking here: https://ouroutpost.org/podcasts/
• see what we have upcoming in terms of events here: https://ouroutpost.org/events/
• send us an email at [email protected]
• and please rate, review, and share!
• If you're a Catholic husband, feel free to sign up for some time to chat with Joseph! https://bookme.name/ouroutpost/45-minutes-with-joseph

The dating world has gotten...messy? Awful? Confusing? Heart-breaking?

And it doesn't have to be that way. We (Joseph and Crystal) have been teaching Catholic young adults (that weird category of over-18-and-under-40-but-what-we-really-mean-is-unmarried-Catholics) how to date for many years, and now we want to offer our formation to you! We've seen happier, holier marriages as a result, but most of all, we've seen men and women have more peace, clarity, and freedom in their discernment!

Go to formation.ouroutpost.org and sign up (either $10 a month or $100 for the year) to receive training in how to date like a Catholic. We'll be guiding you through six-ish months of formation, with community Zoom calls, videos, articles, links to a private podcast playlist, and more. The Catholic Church teaches that there's this whole field of formation for the sacrament of matrimony, this proximate preparation for the sacrament, and we'd like to offer as much of that formation as we are able!

If you'd like to get emails about it, and hear more, and get a 2-page unpacking of the virtue of chastity that Joseph wrote for you, go here: https://dating.ouroutpost.org/ and sign up for the email list!

And here is the survey link! https://forms.gle/rmftaYHPQmakKZ3r9

As always,

• check out our work, and join our email list, at https://ouroutpost.org/
• catch our other podcast, Love Your Marriage, by clicking here: https://ouroutpost.org/podcasts/
• see what we have upcoming in terms of events here: https://ouroutpost.org/events/
• send us an email at [email protected]
• and please rate, review, and share!
• If you're a Catholic husband, feel free to sign up for some time to chat with Joseph! https://bookme.name/ouroutpost/45-minutes-with-joseph

We're hopefully just days away from moving into our new house, so please excuse the repeated episode! We think it's still good and applicable!

The original description:

"I'd like to think I'm a good listener. In fact, let me tell you a story about me being a great listener...rather than actually listen to you." It's an oft-experienced phenomenon-- we start to think maybe genuine sharing of selves is about to happen, and then out of nowhere, we throw up a roadblock to real intimacy.

It's good to know about these roadblocks, and why they hinder real, meaningful conversations, so we share three of them. We referenced another pretty heavily in the third part of the vulnerability series, and that one is the giving of advice (when not asked for).

They're not always bad, and sometimes even good, but when we habitually turn a conversation into a storytime, or start praising someone evaluatively, or start reassuring them, we're thoughtlessly turning conversations into discussions about ourselves, our opinions, and our convictions, rather than giving the other a chance to share their side.

If you'd like to hear about more of them, let us know, or check out where we got them from: We're pulling from a book called People Skills, by Robert Bolton: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003BFXAS0/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i0

It's a good book. It's not perfect, but it's ok.

As always,

• check out our work, and join our email list, at https://ouroutpost.org/
• catch our other podcast, Love Your Marriage, by clicking here: https://ouroutpost.org/podcasts/
• see what we have upcoming in terms of events here: https://ouroutpost.org/events/
• send us an email at [email protected]
• and please rate, review, and share!
• If you're a Catholic husband, feel free to sign up for some time to chat with Joseph! https://bookme.name/ouroutpost/45-minutes-with-joseph

Recording an episode with a newborn is slightly trickier than we remembered from last time, so fortunately Joseph's brother Jacob was coming through town, and stopped to record an episode with Joseph!

We use as a launching point two paragraphs from Plato's Phaedrus, reproduced here, including the bit that the title of this episode alludes to at the end of the quote:

"At the Egyptian city of Naucratis, there was a famous old god, whose name was Theuth; the bird which is called the Ibis is sacred to him, and he was the inventor of many arts, such as arithmetic and calculation and geometry and astronomy and draughts and dice, but his great discovery was the use of letters. Now in those days the god Thamus was the king of the whole country of Egypt; and he dwelt in that great city of Upper Egypt which the Hellenes call Egyptian Thebes, and the god himself is called by them Ammon. To him came Theuth and showed his inventions, desiring that the other Egyptians might be allowed to have the benefit of them; he enumerated them, and Thamus enquired about their several uses, and praised some of them and censured others, as he approved or disapproved of them. It would take a long time to repeat all that Thamus said to Theuth in praise or blame of the various arts. But when they came to letters, This, said Theuth, will make the Egyptians wiser and give them better memories; it is a specific both for the memory and for the wit. Thamus replied: O most ingenious Theuth, the parent or inventor of an art is not always the best judge of the utility or inutility of his own inventions to the users of them. And in this instance, you who are the father of letters, from a paternal love of your own children have been led to attribute to them a quality which they cannot have; for this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality."

With that as the launching point, you can imagine that our discussion was quite lively. I imagine that were you to use this passage as a launching point, your discussions would be lively as well!

Feel free to rate, review, share, and subscribe to this podcast. In so doing, you may be aiding in the reclamation of wonder and conversation in our world.

As always,

• check out our work, and join our email list, at https://ouroutpost.org/
• catch our other podcast, Love Your Marriage, by clicking here: https://ouroutpost.org/podcasts/
• see what we have upcoming in terms of events here: https://ouroutpost.org/events/
• send us an email at [email protected]
• and please rate, review, and share!
• If you're a Catholic husband, feel free to sign up for some time to chat with Joseph! https://bookme.name/ouroutpost/45-minutes-with-joseph

We're delighted to be joined by Andy Hickman, whose approach to work and organization somehow, and we're not sure how, contains elements that appeal to both Joseph and Crystal, who have...very different approaches to work and organization.

Andy Hickman is the Founder of hēl, a ground breaking art form for clarifying thoughts, healing emotions, and regenerating creativity.

After losing his mind in a neurotic breakdown at age 17, Andy found the four specific behaviors that create overwhelm, foster apathy, and sterilize playfulness. These four negative behaviors each have a positive counterpart. Instead of overwhelm, they create clarity and presence of mind. Instead of fostering apathy, they reenergize you by reconnecting you with your core self and desires. Instead of sterilizing your playfulness, they animate and organize your creative faculties. These four core positive behaviors form a simple and practical ecosystem that unlocks your personal development and transforms your life. This ecosystem, called hēl, is the organic and natural alternative to overly complex and stressful productivity systems. It is designed to be used in both your personal and professional life. It is the rare and middle way between the path of control and the path of chaos. Find out more here: https://hel.co/

As always,

• check out our work, and join our email list, at https://ouroutpost.org/
• catch our other podcast, Love Your Marriage, by clicking here: https://ouroutpost.org/podcasts/
• see what we have upcoming in terms of events here: https://ouroutpost.org/events/
• send us an email at [email protected]
• and please rate, review, and share!
• If you're a Catholic husband, feel free to sign up for some time to chat with Joseph! https://bookme.name/ouroutpost/45-minutes-with-joseph