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Everybody Else is a podcast about the invisible people who make life happen. What began as conversations with behind-the-scenes builders in the music industry has grown into a broader exploration of how people think, work, and carry responsibility across industries and across disciplines. Hosted by Wes Luttrell, the show centers on thoughtful dialogue with creatives, leaders, and operators whose work often goes unseen but shapes the world we live in. New episodes streaming every Tuesday.
speaker-0 (00:01.292)
This is the Everybody Else Podcast.
speaker-1 (00:10.39)
Most of the authors of the human story are unnamed. Invisible contributors to the greatest story ever written. So who are the invisible people writing our chapter today? Because behind every great city, industry, movement, and way of thinking are people who dedicate their entire lives to work that'll go virtually unnoticed. Work that builds on where we've been, shapes where we are, and points us towards where we're going.
There are those in the spotlight, and then there's everybody else.
speaker-0 (00:55.854)
was born in the mid-50s and I was born in a little town called Alton, Illinois, which is over on the Mississippi River. And we lived there until I was 11. And then we moved to Evansville. And so that's kind of a big break in my life and the way things changed. Because when I went to school growing up over there, there were nuns. I think there was one lay teacher in the school. The rest of it was all nuns. We went to church every day. The only day of the week I didn't go to mass was Saturday.
because it wasn't school. And that was good. It was kind of idyllic. Yeah, it's about 45, 50,000. It was a place where Illinois's first riverboat, gambling boat was in Alton. And it was just, I mean, it was, I don't know.
speaker-1 (01:27.598)
Mm-hmm.
speaker-1 (01:35.297)
small town.
speaker-0 (01:51.98)
I look on it as like Ozzie and Harriet or Leave It to Beaver kind of life. mean, everybody I knew was Catholic. So I didn't really realize that there was a whole bunch of other people, even our neighbors were all Catholic. We had school uniforms. We marched in line. mean, the nuns were very regimental. We moved to Evansville and there was
just one nun was the principal at Holy Redeemer and no uniforms and I don't think we went to mass every day. So was just, it was a big change.
speaker-1 (02:30.646)
Was Alton a happy place?
speaker-0 (02:32.886)
It was, yeah, pretty much it was for us growing up. My dad and mom were older when they got married. They were in their 30s. yeah, Alton was. We moved to Evansville because my dad was in the hospital over here. so we ended up moving. My mom had a job working for Catholic Charities here in Evansville. She was working at Catholic Charities in St. Louis.
speaker-1 (03:02.06)
Your dad was in the hospital because he was sick or he worked in the hospital.
speaker-0 (03:05.292)
No, he was sick. He was sick. My dad was too fond of Jen.
And that really got in the way for him. think, you know, not being married until you're in your early 30s back then, you you tended to develop a whole lifestyle by the time you're 30. And, you know, some habits are hard to break, even though, you know, everything else seemed good. So we moved here in 66. My dad died the end of that year. And my mom was left with...
Five kids from 12 to five. And Holy Redeemer was a good place for us. They were a very good community, you know, considering they didn't know us from Adam.
speaker-1 (04:01.87)
Do you remember about that time any other men coming into your life who would become sort of father figures?
speaker-0 (04:11.342)
Yeah, lots of them. I really got into Boy Scouts because I was just about 11 when we moved here. Joined the troop. All of our Scout Masters were World War II guys. Wow. Yeah. And so, you we marched everywhere. You had uniform inspections. You know, we went camping every month, one weekend a month. Went to summer camp every year.
So yeah, they provided a lot of adult male role model for me. they were all really, I mean, they were gruff, but they were good men.
speaker-1 (04:53.78)
It's interesting to think about you growing up in a time, I think about this generationally a lot, how people talk about my generation or millennials, how we're lazy and don't like to do stuff. But you think about, we didn't grow up with veterans leading things or marching us around our nuns. There was one nun who was sort of hard on kids at Holy Cross, but not in the way that
the whole thing was sort of regimen like that. So I think it's interesting to consider that just from early on, you're around these people who are structured and serious.
speaker-0 (05:34.894)
Yeah, think that's one of the big things about, you know, I listen to people talk about, you know, life without religion, you know, spiritual and not religious or, you know, and that's the one thing about being Catholic and being in the Scouts or being on sports teams. I you got to have order in your life or it ain't going to work. You will never be the best that you can be.
And I think it's a natural thing for people to fight that. know, because everybody wants to be in charge of themselves and the old saying, you can be anything you want to be, which is, as far as I'm concerned, a lie because there's all sorts of things you don't want your kids to grow up to be. I think order is really important.
speaker-1 (06:27.278)
What do remember about the church during the 1960s? And I mean sort of the bigger church. What was the Catholic church like in the 60s?
speaker-0 (06:36.974)
Well, you know, in the early 60s before Vatican II, I mean, I was a little kid, so the church was your pastor and the associate priests and the nuns, because the nuns were there all the time. I think they would leave for like a month in the summertime and go back to their convent just to renew their relationships with their sisters. that was the church.
And it was really ordered. mean, Saturday afternoons from noon to four o'clock, there was always two priests in the boxes at church. And that's when families went to confession. Because there wasn't a Saturday mass back then. wasn't a Saturday night vigil mass.
speaker-1 (07:28.206)
Was it a very, would you call it cold or warm or just ordered?
speaker-0 (07:35.79)
I don't know. I always felt comfortable in it. I never felt like we were being coerced to do things. It was just, you know, because that's what the family did. That's what everybody else's family did. You know, we didn't have a dad and a mom and three kids going to church on Sunday every year or every week is...
is more of an anomaly nowadays, but I mean, that was just the way everybody was. The divorce rate back then was about 10%. They brought in no fault divorce in the 60s, I think it was, to where you didn't even have to say a reason to get a divorce. You could just say you wanted a divorce. I think that really was part of what spiked, you know, because now what, 50 % of marriages ended up in divorce.
speaker-1 (08:31.746)
I wouldn't be surprised if that number is higher today.
speaker-0 (08:34.582)
I wouldn't either. And how many people just don't even go through the process of getting married, you know, again, because they feel like for some reason it's going to entrap them in some way.
speaker-1 (08:46.702)
which is interesting because I used to have that idea. And I would say that, I think I was just telling somebody this earlier this week, oh, I was telling a young seminary who I was having coffee with who's part of our St. Boniface, he's an intern there. And I said, getting married to my wife was the single best decision that I've ever made. So I would say that
And I'm reading a book by Napoleon Hill and he says that you're the single most important partnership you'll ever make or you'll ever engage in as your spouse, as your marriage. And I think that's true, but I think that you're right. It's a fear of commitment. It's a fear of actually committing, going for it, being something.
speaker-0 (09:17.461)
my gosh. Good old stuff.
speaker-0 (09:39.51)
Yeah, because we're always with it. FOMO. We fear we're going to miss out on something if we go ahead and get married.
speaker-1 (09:48.014)
Which is funny because you are, you're actually missing out on something. Missing out on like, what, the full picture here.
speaker-0 (09:55.822)
you're out on the relationship you can have with another person and the other the children that come from that too. Just I mean that that alone to me is I mean I wish we'd had more kids but I love everybody else's kids. Yeah. You know I mean I have as much fun at the end of mass watching all those little kids walk out as probably the parents do so. Yeah. Yeah me and my wife we
We met at the Fall Festival, and we met a little bit before the Fall Festival that particular day, but so that was October the 8th, and then we got married the following May.
speaker-1 (10:35.34)
How old were you?
speaker-0 (10:36.91)
I just got out of the Navy, and so I was 21 and she was 19. And I look at 19 year olds now and I'm like, whew.
speaker-1 (10:47.576)
Mm-hmm.
speaker-0 (10:48.48)
in any way. I think that's probably like you said, that's probably the biggest, the best decision I ever made. I hope she feels that way. So.
speaker-1 (10:59.694)
We can't speak on her behalf. How did you spend your 20s? What did you do in your 20s?
speaker-0 (11:09.354)
I went to USI, graduated from there with a degree in psychology and sociology and a minor in social work. I never did any of that, although it's all been really useful in life. I went through a lot of jobs. think at one point, I think by the time I was 25, I think I worked about 17 or 18 jobs. Because I would just, I'd get frustrated with who I was working with or what we were working doing. And I was like, I can do better and would just.
go find another job. That worked good for me because my wife's a school teacher and she'd been a school teacher for 44 years. we could afford for me to be that way.
speaker-1 (11:51.616)
She had the stability for you too.
speaker-0 (11:54.316)
Yeah. I went back to trade school and got a degree in electronics and worked at Barnes TV for like nine years. Not anymore. We sold televisions and repaired televisions and which there's none of that anymore.
speaker-1 (12:05.664)
TV.
speaker-1 (12:14.19)
Yeah, people don't repair TV. You just get a new one.
speaker-0 (12:15.502)
When I look at what a 65 inch at Costco is like $4.99 and I'm like and that's in 20, $26 or 500 bucks in 1988 dollars you get a floor model console television and you'd have two people haul in because picture tubes were so heavy.
But the bottom started falling out of that when we first, in early 90s, you saw a company called Highland come in, which was a big superstore. And then you saw more and more of that. so Barnes couldn't compete on the price of televisions and they stayed, they stayed in repair business up until, I don't know, sometime around 2000, 2005, somewhere in there.
speaker-1 (13:07.47)
What was it about electronics that you liked?
speaker-0 (13:12.522)
order. made sense. know,
And I like fixing things. I've always been into doing things with my hands. After I got done at Barnes, I went screen printing for a couple years with a friend of mine. I saw a computerized embroidery machine, an industrial-sized one, going at a trade show. And I thought, I can do that. So like in 95 or 96, I bought a machine and started working out of my garage.
Did that for 25 years. kept getting bigger, so I kept moving to bigger spaces. But mostly, mostly I did work for companies like Centos, sporting goods companies, things like that.
speaker-1 (14:01.08)
You were doing like uniforms and stuff?
speaker-0 (14:03.906)
Yeah, like left chest things on shirts or backs on jackets, did a lot of hats, that kind of stuff.
speaker-1 (14:09.582)
Was it just you or did you have other people, employees?
speaker-0 (14:12.142)
At one point I had three employees and I had eight machines. COVID hit in 2020 and I just, I was out for a week. I tried working for a week, but I was too sick. And so I took another week off and when I came back, I just looked at it all and said, I'm done. Finished up the work I had and closed down and just went to being a deacon full time.
speaker-1 (14:38.432)
You were already a deacon at the time.
speaker-0 (14:40.59)
I was a formation for being a deacon was four years back then. So that started in 2013. And yeah, I ran a business through formation, ran a business, you know, for the first three or four years of being a deacon. I didn't do nearly as much back then as I do now. But our parish had a couple other deacons at the time, but they've all aged out or passed on.
speaker-1 (15:09.87)
Do you remember, was there a time when you were a younger man that your faith became more serious or more personal to you to where it set you on a path to become a deacon?
speaker-0 (15:24.126)
I think my faith life's always been a part of my life, especially after my dad died. I ended up going to Latin school for the last two years it was open, which is where the Catholic Center is. It was a high school.
speaker-1 (15:41.614)
What is it called?
speaker-0 (15:42.798)
called, it was called Magister Noster Latin School. so if you go back into like the fifties and early sixties and before like Father Will, he went to high school up in Minard. had a high school. then like in the, it was either in the late fifties, early sixties, somewhere in there, they decided they didn't want to do that anymore. And so the diocese, the main diocese that fed into St. Minard,
speaker-1 (15:59.851)
I
speaker-0 (16:12.97)
opened up their own Latin schools. So there was one in Louisville, there was one in Indianapolis, and there was one in Evansville, and they were just high school seminaries. Father Dilger was the rector of the one here when I went there. And I still have a lot of friends. There was only 13 of us in that class, so I still have friends. We see each other at Christmas every other year or so. Deacon Dave.
was in my class. He's the one who ran the Boniface before Father John came. Father Ron Kryline was in my class, Father Frank Renner.
speaker-1 (16:55.118)
So you, from early on, it wasn't like a stretch that you were going to make some giant pivot and become a deacon at some point. seems like...
speaker-0 (17:05.714)
It was probably always in the back of my mind. Heck, I remember when we were little kids, we used to play mass. I mean, that was not an odd thing for Catholic boys. mean, you know, there were kids who had a little altar in their house, and vestments, and all nine yards. And like I said, it wasn't an odd kind of a thing like it would be now, if you see that. It was just a lot more common. you know, being altar boys, you started that when you were...
probably eight. And back in the Latin mass days, you had a bunch of training to go through before you could actually step out on the altar and serve. So when Latin school closed, I went to Memorial my senior year because it was on the way to work for my mom. Most of the people from Rex Monday that I knew ended up going to modern day.
speaker-1 (17:58.124)
Yeah, because there at one point was three Catholic high schools. Those are the three.
speaker-0 (18:02.22)
Ivy Tech is on First Avenue is Rex Monday. Yeah. But you can hardly see it anymore. They built so much around that building. Yeah.
speaker-1 (18:11.886)
Did you guys, did anybody have to pay tuition to go to memorial at the time?
speaker-0 (18:17.14)
was tuition. there was tuition.
Fortunately for my mom, you know, she sent all her kids to Catholic school, at least to high school, and they had a sliding scale thing where you paid so much for the first one. I think by the time you got past three, you weren't paying anymore. So I don't know exactly how that works nowadays, but.
speaker-1 (18:41.912)
probably a little different with all the voucher stuff. Father Nunning was telling me about how it all started out with parishes paying for all school costs. But then as schools grew and as more schools came around that there became tuition. And then after tuition and parishes couldn't cover the cost, there became things like capital campaigns, endowments.
speaker-0 (18:55.645)
And it might have been.
speaker-1 (19:11.598)
These are the things that start coming along that now are very common.
speaker-0 (19:15.95)
I think back then too, they always talk about how it was so much cheaper because of the nuns. back then, I don't know when it started, probably in the 60s or 70s, where they started licensing teachers. And so they put minimum qualifications and they started licensing schools too. So if you wanted your Catholic school to be licensed as a school, you had to have licensed teachers. Well, a of those nuns...
I mean, they learned how to be a second grade teacher from another nun who was a second grade teacher. But most of never went to college. And that, course, did save a lot of money. But then you can see how the schools would be a lot less expensive and how they've gotten more expensive because there's, so, more more state mandates. Some of them are good. Some of them are not.
speaker-1 (20:11.278)
cost the largest line item is the staff.
speaker-0 (20:18.082)
benefits.
speaker-1 (20:19.918)
What do you remember about going back to the 60s, the change to Vatican II?
speaker-0 (20:28.191)
So when we left, when we were in Alton, it was still faced the altar. was no...
speaker-1 (20:35.246)
So the priest was.
speaker-0 (20:37.07)
Like Latin Mass, they didn't, I mean, they instituted the change somewhere around 65, 66, 67, depending on where you lived and the diocese that you lived in and what that bishop thought about what was going on and how fast he wanted stuff implemented. so, but when we got Holy Redeemer, they already had the altar turned, they had, you know, the table altar. We all sit around.
speaker-1 (20:38.733)
Yeah, okay.
speaker-0 (21:07.662)
And that was kind of new for us. Another thing was when we left over in Alton, confirmation didn't happen until seventh grade. When we got here, confirmation was in third grade. And so the three oldest of us all got confirmed because there was a five, a seven, six, and a five fifth grades. And so we all ended up getting confirmed with the third graders.
in the spring after we got here.
speaker-1 (21:41.538)
Do you remember when the church changed to Vatican II? Was there resistance amongst congregations? Were people resistant to the change or were they murmuring?
speaker-0 (21:52.578)
Sure, I'm sure there's lots of resistance. I shoot, just change pastors and you're going to get resistance from people. you start changing the way that people worship. yeah, I would imagine that they had a lot of people come and go during that time.
speaker-1 (22:13.262)
Do you remember why they changed to Vatican II? What was the intention?
speaker-0 (22:18.231)
gee, gosh, I bet you could talk about that with an expert for years. I think.
speaker-0 (22:28.312)
I don't know why, but the church always seems to be chasing modernity. You know, we're supposed to be fighting it in the late 1800s. Pope Pius, think was Pope Pius X talked about how that was, that was going to hurt the church. You know, this constant rush to keep up with the modern. I think that was part of it. I think part of it too is, you know, we have this idea that once things get to a certain age, they're not nearly as
They're not nearly as relative anymore. They're not nearly as valuable. I mean, we see that with people, right? And I think the church thought that it was losing a lot of people to other denominations. And I'm sure the 60s and 70s and 80s were like the rise of the non-denominational churches.
speaker-0 (23:28.322)
I don't know. I mean, it's like you go back and look in some of the documents and I don't think anywhere it says, hey, all you'll turn your alters around. think, or let's say everything in English. You know, that's one of the advantages of Latin was you could go to mass anywhere in the world and you didn't understand Latin with a Philippine accent. You didn't understand Latin with a French accent, but we all knew what was going on. And now if it's...
if they even toss a little Latin into the holy, holy, holy or the, you know, you toss a little bit of Latin in and there are people that are like, I don't like that.
speaker-1 (24:08.846)
You sang, we sang about the oil at the chrismas in a Latin song and that was really great. But probably there's something to, know, how are we, 500 people, 600 people, 700, how many people are there in a big choir and a big pipe organ singing that in a beautiful setting. What is it like to walk down the aisle at chrismas?
surrounded by your brothers, surrounded by all these people on Easter Holy Week.
speaker-0 (24:46.666)
And they're all turning around looking at you as you're walking up the aisle. Yes. I mean, you know, it's almost like you can understand why the Pope has a smile on his face all the time. You know, it's like, am I really somebody? Yeah. I got to say, I love the pageantry. mean, I was listening to a YouTube video of a Protestant who'd gone to Easter Vigil for the first time with a Catholic friend, invited him to come.
speaker-1 (24:50.702)
It's like homecoming.
speaker-0 (25:16.64)
and he was just blown away. He could not believe all the things that he recognized the symbolism of.
speaker-1 (25:25.654)
Yeah.
speaker-0 (25:26.606)
Went to a cousin of mine passed away a couple of weeks ago. He was a priest in Illinois. Me and my two of my brothers went to the funeral. And one of my brothers goes to a non-denominational church on Main Street and has been for like last 20 years. And you've been to a Catholic funeral. mean, that's a ceremony. there's lots of...
Lots of moving parts and a lot of, a lot of, and he was like, after it was over with, well, we got there early enough, so we had to sit to the rosary. That was, you guys do that? yeah, yeah, we do that. You'll remember the words. But after the funeral was over, he was like, so do that, do that for all priests when they have a funeral? I said, Paul, we do that for everybody if they have a funeral. Really?
Yeah? Yeah, our God is an awesome God.
speaker-1 (26:29.484)
You know, when it makes me tear up every time, even if I'm not that close to the person at a funeral when the priest, I guess everybody calls down upon the angels to come lift this person up. Because I think to myself, this has been going on forever, I can imagine, I would assume, that this connects us to all of our ancestors. This connects us to...
all of the souls that have moved beyond and to participate in that. And I think to myself,
really hope that this happens for me. I hope that this same sort of reverence, this same sort of moment occurs for me. And to me that sort of timelessness and that taking the time to do that, the more that I become faithful and do my best to be living out what I believe is true, the less fearful I become of death and more, I was just talking to my mom about
the idea of, you know, dying, going to purgatory, working my way to heaven. And I thought to myself, and I told my mom as I was talking to her, she was talking about how it makes her really nervous. She's really struggling with the idea that we all go to purgatory, not all of us, but go to purgatory first. And I said, as I was talking to her about it, I thought to myself,
It's just a process. It's the way it is. It's no different than being afraid to, if you're a mother who's pregnant, being afraid to give birth, it's a process. Of course there's feelings around it. Of course, I'm not saying like you just, you're dumb about it. But if you think like, if we go back to first principles and we say our God is a good God and that this is all part of a process, then it's part of the journey. And why would it be scary? Because
speaker-1 (28:32.792)
I maybe it's just a fear of the unknown that is ultimately the
speaker-0 (28:35.694)
I that's what it is for most people. I think it's just the fear of the unknown. And you know, it's funny because I go, I take communion and do home visits with a number of older people over the last couple of years. it's interesting the ones that, that, you know, get to that point and, you know, know that, you know, maybe not today, but probably tomorrow is going to be my day. And they're very peaceful about the whole thing. And then you'll have other people who are peaceful up until...
some point where I don't know if it's the reality really sinks into them or not. And they'll get, they'll start getting nervous. You know, it's like, you know, my thing with people is, Hey, you know, you've been on board this ship your whole life. You know, it doesn't sink. You just don't know where it goes after lights go out, but it doesn't sink, you know? And if purgatory is where we're supposed to go to begin with.
You know, to me that's got to be a blessing that there's some way, because I do not know very many people when I see them die that I think that they're polished enough.
you know, for eternity. There's a really good book out there. You like C.S. Lewis? So he wrote a book called The Great Divorce. And The Great Divorce is about a number of things, but it's about a bus that runs between hell and heaven. And anybody can get on the bus, wherever, you can go wherever you want. But it talks about like what it's like when you get there and how.
You know, some people go, yeah, I want to go to heaven. They go to heaven and they find out they just don't fit. You know, like one of the images he uses is that you have to get used to walking on the grass. And for some people that's a real short process. For other people, the grass is killing their feet all the time. They're just not ready to be there to walk on the grass. Yeah, no, I'm, I mean,
speaker-0 (30:42.798)
I tell people don't aim for purgatory because you don't want to shoot too low. I think we're blessed that God wants us and He knows that we're not going to feel comfortable unless we are really ready to be there. And not very many people walk out of here being ready, I don't think.
speaker-1 (31:07.19)
What is it like to be a Deacon day to day in 2026? What do you do? What do you spend your time doing?
speaker-0 (31:14.156)
So see, think every deacon's ministry, I think, is different. Like one of the guys I went through formation with is the director of worship for the Diocese of Owensboro. Okay? I would not fit that job. Think of Deacon Dan up at modern day. I wouldn't fit that job either.
I think just takes a while to grow into it. think, you know, it depends on who your pastor is too, what it's going to be like. Cause you know, some pastors like to do some things and other things they don't like to do. And so you can fit into things they don't like to do. Other pastors love to do those things. So you just, I think the time period between father John and father Christopher, it took a while to kind of get used to the new regime. I mean,
It just takes a while to get used to, you know, not being under somebody else's foot. I mean, I don't want to be the center of attention. You know, I know other people who like the center of attention, but I just assume, you know, father be the center of attention. And that way if I'm making mistakes, nobody else knows, but him.
I like it. It's time consuming. It's energy consuming and emotional, emotions consuming.
speaker-1 (32:44.974)
What do you spend most of time doing as a deacon?
speaker-0 (32:49.134)
As a deacon, probably visiting the sick, I do spend time counseling. I have a couple of people that I do spiritual counseling with.
I spent a lot of my time, I think, just being a representative for St. Boniface. Because like I'm the chairman of the Sarah Club, which has been around, gosh, they were around when I was in Latin school. So I think they've been around since maybe the 40s. And their whole thing is supporting vocations. I'm on the board of Birthright, which is about doing what we can to have women not terminate pregnancies, do what we can to help them.
get through their pregnancy and we do clothing and diapers and counseling. I'm still involved with the Knights of Columbus at my council at Did Shepard, which I was helped start that in 2008.
speaker-0 (33:52.312)
just, I don't know, masses, funerals, preach occasionally.
speaker-1 (33:59.244)
You know, when you were saying earlier, like spent your twenties or before you were 30, you had all these jobs. I'm reading a book right now called range. And what he talks about is that, being a generalist versus it's, it's like being a generalist versus being a specialist and how, what, you know, just my sort of interpretation is that so many people will come out of.
school or come into adulthood and seek specialization and reap really quick benefits. But then sort of plateau in some sort of growth way, evolution way. then whereas generalists are maybe like late bloomers, but they try a bunch of different stuff and they gain a
sort of conceptual knowledge, like a general knowledge of a lot of different things that comes in handy as they grow older. And it's interesting to think about like your degrees backgrounds and your, even just your practical knowledge of how to fix things or tinker with things, how that has probably shaped your brand or your style of your role as a deacon.
speaker-0 (35:21.774)
think so. I think it has. I think I can relate to...
I can relate to more people, I think, that way. And one thing about being a specialist is there's old thing about a jack of all trades and master of none. I think there's a lot of advantage to that. I've known a lot of people who are specialized over the last 30 or 40 years whose technology killed what their specialty was.
struggle as they may, they never get back to where they were.
speaker-1 (36:00.056)
they don't necessarily have the creative or like personal ability to reinvent themselves or to apply themselves in a new domain that would keep them. That's what everybody's freaking out about AI. But I think to myself, if you're creative and you're a generalist, you're stepping into a golden age because you can figure out what you're going to do with your heart or you can, I'm one of them, you know? But I think that people who are
highly specialized in a single domain that is something that can be easily automated, I'm sure they are freaking out. I can understand that. I don't know what to do about that, but I think that there is an advantage at certain times in society to be a generalist.
speaker-0 (36:49.868)
And it also keeps you out of a pity party, you know, because, okay, so that door closed, well, there's seven more doors you can go through, people want... You know, like for being a deacon, I mean, I thought about it for years, but it was only once the time crunch, you know, because you have to be ordained by the time you're 66, for the most part. And so the one...
in 2013 when I started formation, that was really my last shot to get through formation and still have time to, you know, be ordained before I was too old. So that's a, there's a caveat to that though, cause I mean, if you've got special skills, age is just a number. Cause we had a, we had a Filipino doctor in our, in our formation who
I bet he was 67 maybe or 67 and a half when he was ordained, but I speak a couple of languages and anybody that can represent a minority community in our diocese, you know, we need those people, you know, can help be the bridge between them and us.
speaker-1 (38:02.392)
What do you think from your vantage point when you look at the church today, what do you think is happening well or what do you think we're doing right? And then what do you think are some areas where we could change things up or improve?
speaker-0 (38:24.43)
think we gotta be doing something right, because I know the last couple of years, it seems like more of the people who come through RCIA, OCIA, I see actually stick around. You know, so I think we're not viewed by the non-churched people as just being a club that you want to join for some kind of reason, you know, but that there's actually, I think we emphasize more the life part of it, you know, that
that it's not just about learning all this stuff and magically you're a Catholic. It's a lifestyle. When people want to criticize and they'll call you a cult, it's like, thank you. Because we are a culture and cult is just a short word for culture. We are a culture. We are a culture that people can live their whole life 24-7, 365 inside that culture and still be able to deal with the world around them.
They just deal with it from a different point of view. You know, that the world don't revolve around me.
speaker-1 (39:30.219)
Yeah.
There's just a of freedom in that, by the way.
speaker-0 (39:34.392)
There is a lot of freedom. you know, I think people have to understand that freedom doesn't mean I can choose to do whatever I want to do. I think freedom means I can choose to do what I should do and what I ought to do.
Because I think a lot of people by society that they live in without any religion, they get forced into all sorts of things. My friends are all going this way and I want to keep my friends, so I'm going to go that way. And sometimes they go down some really dark roads.
speaker-1 (40:14.654)
Yep. What do you, when you think about your journey and you think about even the future, still relatively new to the Deaconhood if you're
speaker-0 (40:27.031)
Nine years in August.
speaker-1 (40:28.408)
Yeah, could, you know, still have perhaps a couple decades left.
speaker-0 (40:33.646)
Well, they ask you to turn in, just like priests, have to in your resignation when you're 75. That is... Most times, deacons will just change how much responsibility they have, but they'll stay and they'll keep doing it. It's, of course, up to the pastor as much as anything. But yeah, I got about four years left.
speaker-1 (40:40.184)
You don't really ever stop being a-
speaker-1 (41:01.454)
When you think about that, what do you think about, do you have any ambitions? Do you want to do anything else as a deacon or do anything else in this life?
speaker-0 (41:12.43)
I tell you what, and my wife have gotten into travel in the last couple years. We take two, three, four weeks and just take off driving in a direction. We have some plans, but I really enjoy doing that.
speaker-1 (41:28.12)
So you're saying after all these years you still like hanging out with your wife?
speaker-0 (41:31.34)
yeah, it'll be 49 years when we married in May. Yeah, we're still pretty good friends. We don't always get along about stuff. she's got a lot crankier as she's gotten older.
speaker-1 (41:47.02)
You know, my wife seems to get crankier when she's eight months pregnant. Eight and a half months pregnant. Yeah, and there's two kids.
speaker-0 (41:52.714)
And she's got kids to take care of too. And a job. And clients that are harping on her.
speaker-1 (42:02.882)
Yeah, she was on the phone last night. I got home from a parish council meeting a little after eight. She's still on the phone closing a deal, closed the deal and sold the house. Yeah. But she's, yeah, she is a lot better.
speaker-0 (42:17.359)
Yeah. Yeah. You while you're young. You a lot on your plate when you're young.