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Who thinks that they can subdue Leviathan? Strength resides in its neck; dismay goes before it. It is without fear. It looks down on all who are haughty; it is king over all who are proud. These words inspired PJ Wehry to create Chasing Leviathan. Chasing Leviathan was born out of two ideals: that truth is worth pursuing but will never be subjugated, and the discipline of listening is one of the most important habits anyone can develop. Every episode is a dialogue, a journey into the depths of a meaningful question explored through the lens of personal experience or professional expertise.
PJ Wehry (00:04.12)
Hello and welcome to Chasing the Viaduct. I'm your host, PJ Weary, and I'm here today with Dr. Nathaniel Addition. And we're going to talk about his book, Joseph Pieper, on the spiritual life, creation, contemplation, and human flourishing. Dr. Addition, wonderful to have you on today.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (00:20.778)
It's, I'm honored to be here and you can just call me Nate.
PJ Wehry (00:24.536)
So Nate, why this book?
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (00:28.686)
Yeah, so there's a bit of a story behind this. I did my doctoral work in England at the University of Durham. And the research I was doing was a reception history, really, what is called eudaimonia, or what is happiness. I was tracing it from Aristotle through St. Thomas into the early modern period and thinking about it in the early modern period in relation to how English Puritanism adopted
that you die in his tradition, but with regards to work and their theology of vocation. And while I was working on this, a dear colleague of mine, wonderful scholar of Thomas Aquinas, that guy named Ben Despain, he's at Austrian Catholic University now, he dropped this book on my desk by Joseph Pieper called, A Happiness and Contemplation, and just said, have you seen this?
And just, you know, I'd had no idea who this person was and picked it up and started reading it and immediately devoured the whole book, almost in a sitting. I remember it took me just a few hours, which is something about people we can talk about later. just how engaging and easy, easily accessible. And I, I remember, so working on early modern receptions of Eudaimonia, but here I am reading a 20th century German.
So almost, and I remember at one point being like, I gotta stop this. I gotta put this away and go back to my dissertation. And I was reading a bunch of his work. And this was the beginning of another fascination of mine, which is like 20th century receptions of Thomas, Saint Thomas. So I was just attracted to him almost instantly in this little book, Concompletion.
PJ Wehry (02:03.286)
Hahaha
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (02:25.006)
happiness and contemplation. And so when I had the opportunity to come back to him after the dissertation, when I was a postdoc at the University of Notre Dame, I jumped at the opportunity. And one of the things that was so attractive about him while I doing my first postdoctoral fellowship at Notre Dame was that project was looking at the relationship between science, the development of virtues,
And so it's really a lot of science and theology and me not being a scientist at all. What Peeper allowed was to look at this intersection of virtue development and work, which is interesting. Theology of work and virtue ethics both have this sort of concurrent trajectory in fields, but sort of without really engaging each other too much. But Peeper, you know, was doing this back in the 1930s and 40s.
50s was thinking about this relationship between leisure and labor and virtues. And so he was an interesting way of talking about the liberal arts, about talking about what it is to rest and to work well, while at same time considering issues of virtue ethics and human flourishing altogether. And so this book really came out of my time at Notre Dame, doing my postdoc there.
There's one chapter that really focuses on the university. What is the university? Where has it gone horribly wrong since the 1980s, really sort of focus using Pieper's understanding of what is university? What is the liberal arts? What are universities supposed to train us to do? So there's a little bit of that overlap from the postdoc in the book. But yeah, Pieper is amazing.
He just talks about so many different things. And he, this may sound obnoxious, but he sort of repeats himself a lot throughout his career, but he always repeats himself with respect to different topics. And so in some ways, if you can pull these strands together, you can take a certain way of him reading Thomas, but see how he applies it in different sorts of situations with regards to what is philosophy or what is.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (04:46.158)
leisure or what is natural philosophy, natural theology. And so he's a super fascinating figure when you start to pull on these strands and see how they relate. So ultimately, I say this in the introduction to the book, Pieper is an incredibly succinct and accessible author. takes
ancient and medieval philosophical concepts puts them in conversation with contemporary figures of his time, the, you know, Sartre, the existentialists, engaging Nietzsche and Kant and Heidegger, but he does it in such a way that's very accessible. And I think it's telling that I was just meeting with a parishioner recently who, she is a finance major at Notre Dame.
And in one of her finance classes, her teacher is having her read paper. These are bases of culture.
And I think that that's really telling that it's about how accessible people can be for all kinds of people. So that's why he's so fascinating. He's so accessible. And he just a whole slew of topics. And he's just so engaging, spiritually engaging. felt, I felt even reading him as a philosopher, academic philosopher, being so spiritually enlightened.
throughout the process, which we can talk more when we get into the themes of the book. So that's why, Peeber, mean, genuinely, I wanted to do the book because I had really started to develop quite a love affair with this man and what he was saying and wonderful bouncing off points for thinking through all kinds of matters with regards to economics and theology and philosophy and tradition. I don't get to talk about it much in this book, but he has a wonderful...
PJ Wehry (06:22.775)
Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (06:48.714)
engagement with a theology and philosophy of tradition which connects with Congar and other great 20th century Thomists and Catholic philosophers and theologians. But yeah, so that's that's why Peeper. just yeah fell in love with him.
PJ Wehry (07:01.653)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. and it sounds like, know, you talked about the repetitive thing, but it also sounds like you're making, it sounds like it could be a negative thing. But what I love about it is how short he is. Right. You talked about reading it in one sitting. It's like how many people can talk that. And it's not, there's always, there's always something new, in just about every chapter. Like he has these short little chapters.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (07:11.18)
Yeah.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (07:17.804)
Yes. Yeah.
PJ Wehry (07:29.633)
So you come away with lots of new things to think about. Even if you disagree with them, I feel like I've always progressed in the subject just by reading what is like, I just reread in tune with the world and it was 90 pages. And you're like, it's like, how many, how many professional philosophers do you know could write 90 pages and it would be engaging and you'd feel like you actually learned something.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (07:33.933)
Yeah.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (07:41.91)
Yeah. Yeah.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (07:53.012)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's so accessible and it's short and it really, it really is just a great primer for all kinds of other things. Like if you really, his guide to St. Thomas is consistently pointed to, even now, it's, you know, the history is, it's out of, it's out of date a little bit, right? There's been a lot of research done on the historical Thomas and, but it's still pointed to.
as a great starting place to go to, along with Gilles Seon and not Congor, Chinu. yeah, he's still, I mean, there's lots of philosophers who have said that Pieper did for them what Hume did for Kant, right? Just sort of awakened them. And his book,
PJ Wehry (08:44.897)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yes.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (08:50.114)
Peeper's little book, super influential, The Silence of St. Thomas, where he makes this very compelling case that sometimes when reading a historical figure, the thing that they say the least about often is the linchpin in their logic for all kinds of things. And so they're saying the silence of St. Thomas is the doctrine of creation. And Peeper picks up on that. Creation becomes so influential in his own thinking.
Arguably, you could say that creation is the silence of Joseph Pieper. But all these books, super accessible and Pieper's ubiquitous throughout Thomas studies in the 20th century. You'd find it very difficult to find a book on Thomas in 20th century that doesn't at some point, at least in a footnote say,
referencing referencing Joseph Cooper. Yet almost no secondary literature on him and his thought and the way that all these things sort of interconnect. And so that was another big gap I saw is there's a few things there was an edited volume who was very good. Bernard Schumacher wrote a book on and but very much focusing on the continental philosophical piece. So he was looking at a of the Heideggerian kind of themes, Sartian themes.
Whereas my book draws a lot on the Platonic, specifically his reading of Plato and Thomas drawing those things together. Because I think that ultimately the three figures that Pieper goes to the most throughout his entire career are Plato, St. Thomas Aquinas, and Goethe. Those are the three sort of linchpins on which a lot of his philosophy hang.
And he uses those three linchpins a lot to engage the Habels and the Heidegger's and the Sarts and the continental philosophers of his age. And so in that way, but yeah, he's kind of everywhere.
PJ Wehry (11:01.377)
So I love that. It's a great answer. think we've answered why Joseph Pieper. how, and you've answered this a little bit, but how is your, you you mentioned kind of the focus of your book. It's not on tradition. It's on the spiritual life. And you kind of tie together what you call what's possibly his silence, creation, contemplation, human flourishing. What are those, are those kind of like three strands you kind of draw together through his writings?
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (11:08.13)
Yeah.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (11:15.692)
Yeah. Yeah.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (11:27.298)
Yeah, so I think one could make a good case that creation also plays this massive role in keepers thought. But another one is this connection between creation and fulfillment, human flourishing and contemplation, which you really centralizes as being very important for the moral spiritual life. These three
are not the same, but they connect in a very, very, very important way. And so you can, like I said earlier, like you can take these themes and he talks about them in very similar ways, but then applies them in different ways to different situations. So in one instance, you can get Leisure, The Basis of Culture or The Philosophical Act. Those are two shorter books that are connected, usually sold together in one volume.
where he's addressing what is philosophy and connecting philosophy with literature and with leisure and all these different topics. And then go all the way to his book on what is love. He has a book on love that focuses, it's very platonic focus, but it looks at all the different kinds of loves. And you see those same themes coming together, but the focus this time is on
eros or agape or whatever love he's particularly looking at. So yeah, in that way, he just enlivened so many things by making all of these connections, these within the philosophical tradition. And like I said, for me, when writing the book, I found myself
without totally noticing it, going on walks more, going outside and just taking in creation more. I found myself putting down the book or putting away the Netflix and just kind of being in myself more. I picked up an old hobby of mine which was painting, because that's a way that he talks about how
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (13:50.894)
one can engage with the created order in such a to contemplate it. And so I found myself doing these things and realized, my gosh, Peeper is really at the heart of this transitioning from being busy, always feeling like I need to be on top of the next literature that's coming out, or the article, or that next thing, but transitioning to other kinds of things. He also reaffirmed in me
PJ Wehry (14:05.793)
Hmm.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (14:20.896)
Love for liturgy. Liturgy is another means through which contemplation takes place. Eucharist is a central place for when Jesus can come through the created order and have interaction and contact.
PJ Wehry (14:43.177)
And I just read in tune with the world. And so as you talk about his conception of time, one right in the middle of it is him talking about the goodness of creation is essential to truly having this, time beyond time, this sacred time. And I do feel, and it feels like a very trenchant critique of our society to talk about how
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (14:46.413)
Yeah.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (14:56.204)
Yeah. Yeah.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (15:01.197)
Yeah, absolutely.
PJ Wehry (15:09.263)
All we have is work and we have vacation and vacation is just not work. Instead of having time to rest time and time for joy. And so, and how that's a communal thing, but it's also a gift. so, that's, and that's, know, he obviously ties that to creation that the gift of goodness, which of course speaks exactly to what you're talking about.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (15:11.358)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (15:20.855)
Yes.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (15:25.742)
Mm-hmm.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (15:29.603)
Yeah.
PJ Wehry (15:34.369)
painting, about all these sorts of things, and even to liturgy, as he talks about the reoccurring Sunday, the festival of what, like the Lord's Day is a festival. How can you? Yes.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (15:35.662)
Mm-hmm.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (15:41.891)
Yep.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (15:45.324)
Yeah, yeah, it's a feast day, yeah, where we feast and we have leisure and it's the appropriate time to do that. yeah, that's why I think Liturgy, even though his push is for creation, why Liturgy stands so much at the center of that.
PJ Wehry (16:04.291)
can you talk a little bit more about this conception of time, even like there's the festival side of it, sacred time, and then there's leisure and you referenced it early on. I want to make sure we get back to, want to talk about what went wrong in the university in the eighties, but that's kind of, but I mean, that's kind of, that's what, that's what leisure is about, right? Which with the fact that the first time I saw the title of that, was
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (16:21.332)
sure, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (16:27.478)
Yeah.
PJ Wehry (16:32.235)
completely thrown. And I think for most people, the idea that leisure is tied to education, you know, it's like, that word has lost a lot of currency, I think, in our culture.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (16:37.527)
Yeah.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (16:43.958)
No, yeah, absolutely. mean, you have a lot of questions in there. So let's go to the, yeah, yeah. Yeah, the university piece. I mean, just the etymology, Peter points out that the word school, scole, is leisure, has that piece to it. And that.
PJ Wehry (16:49.363)
Yeah, that's to let you run with it. Yeah, however you want to take that.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (17:13.73)
The university is the place or has been thought of for most of its existence as a place of university, where it's our job as students to be open to and learning from all the disciplines. And that's why we think about the Leonardo Da Vinci's and all these people who just considered Renaissance people. But in reality, they were just doing what they were sort of trained to do in that.
I mean, I don't know if I don't know enough about Leonardo whether or not he went to university but that's he's a he's a great kind of archetype for thinking about the the kinds of things that university students were expected they would know Aristotle's physics while knowing the ethics while knowing all these different other fields and you know, even reading st. Thomas Peeper points out that no voice was cut off from his
PJ Wehry (17:47.799)
Yeah.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (18:15.36)
reading and from his ability to think about a particular theological or philosophical topic. So he was perfectly happy going to Mimenides and he was perfectly happy going to Averroes and Avesiana and drawing upon them, while at same time drawing upon Pseudo-Dionysius and Augustine and scripture. All of these were fair game. Of course, Aristotle too and Aristotle's physics, because that was the science of the day. So we can even, people would say
We have a perfect example of this in Thomas himself, specifically in the Sunni theologia where he's not taking, he's not dealing with the hard people or the ones who don't agree with him. He's not setting up straw men arguments. He's giving the best form of the argument and then dealing with that from people that he ultimately has disagreements with. And so.
The university is a place to learn all of these things, not just to prepare for a career, which is a lot of what has happened since the 1980s. I think it's 1984 in the United States with the Bay Dole Act, which allowed patents for discoveries within universities to go back to the university.
to the university itself. And so a lot of money was put towards the sciences because they would get the most money for their return if something was created in the context of university. Whereas humanities don't create things in the same way, right? They don't create a product to be used and consumed. Rather, the exercise is supposed to change us as people in the process.
And so there's a massive shift. It was before that, but I think that that was really a major turning point for the way that the American university. And there's similar instances in the UK. think a parliamentarian named Clark made a similar sort of appeal to parliament saying university is a place where we prepare for labor, not for leisure or something like that. so yeah, that's...
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (20:33.734)
major shift in what the tradition of the university has been and Pieper takes it head-on and just says we've missed the boat. We totally missed the boat with regards to what the university is supposed to do. He has a tiny little book on the university which is a great read and again ties in all of these themes from St. Thomas to Plato and yeah so it's great little read. Fantastic to disagree with if you want to but...
PJ Wehry (20:49.257)
Always. Yeah.
PJ Wehry (21:02.252)
Yeah
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (21:02.422)
It's very insightful. Yeah.
PJ Wehry (21:04.897)
Yeah, I just talked to, well, not just, but several months back talked to Dr. Mark Roach about the like liberal arts and their use. And I think, so you mentioned that specific law passed to send patents back to universities. And it's interesting, he took kind of the opposite approach and talked about the cultural shift and how in surveys,
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (21:13.271)
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (21:26.285)
Yeah.
PJ Wehry (21:34.53)
for a long time, people went to become a better person or to become a responsible citizen, to become educated. And then I think it was around the same time, and it certainly has changed in the last 10 years, it's skyrocketed. go, commonly when you poll people, it has become, I'm here to get a job, that's why I go to college. And so of course, and then of course you get...
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (21:37.038)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, interesting. Yes.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (21:45.784)
Mm-hmm.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (21:55.651)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
PJ Wehry (22:04.671)
On the one hand, you get people making fun of college because like you go to college, you get a job and you don't get one. You're like, why are you going for like liberal arts? And it's like, and that people are doing it because they love it, but that's not, that's not a good reason to go to college either. Like you can, you can love the liberal arts and, and not spend $80,000 to do that. There has to be a different reason.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (22:11.298)
Yeah, yeah.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (22:20.472)
Yeah, I mean...
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (22:27.118)
Yeah, absolutely. you can go to, you can find it completely.
wonderful career that you find all the flourishing that you would ever want from a job by going to a vocational school becoming a mechanic and working with your hands or or doing something else without having to take on the loans of an American University But yeah, and I think I think that there's something to be said for The fact that we don't have the sort of ability to think
PJ Wehry (22:44.139)
Yeah, right.
PJ Wehry (22:51.84)
Yeah
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (23:04.246)
in a civil way anymore.
PJ Wehry (23:09.143)
Yeah, civil just means political.
PJ Wehry (23:18.103)
Did you lose me?
PJ Wehry (23:23.319)
Hello? Yep, I can hear you.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (23:23.576)
Can hear me? Yeah, I can hear you. You're just, your picture's... There it is, okay. Let me start over. Let me start over again, I do think it's interesting that our ability to debate, to think alongside of others who disagree with us, our ability to have basic knowledge of the purpose
PJ Wehry (23:29.649)
no worries. It'll show up fine on the recording. Yeah. Go ahead.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (23:53.482)
and good of government entities, of understanding the common good, our ability to think about these sorts of things in public spaces has diminished pretty significantly, least from what I can tell from the news and so on. Like we just don't have these skills anymore, which were the kinds of skills one would learn by reading, writing and thinking well, and learning those things, which I just don't think we have anymore. And to another...
great Piperian point is what this eventually does is it leads to a kind of totalitarianism where
work, to use his phrase, is at the center of our lives and we can never find our identity outside of what we can consume or produce or what is useful. And people would say that this is completely backwards. But I mean, even think of it in terms of this is where I take Peter as a historical figure and just kind of push him into our contemporary context a little bit in a constructive way is
Any society that prevents us from the ability to have human flourishing through contemplation is an unjust society. For example, if someone has to work three jobs in order to make ends meet, but doesn't have time to play with their kids, to appreciate a film or to do these kinds of things, which should enliven our spirits, make us more human.
then that's an unjust and humiliating society. And so there's a case here even for say healthcare of providing healthcare for people, maybe for 20 hour week jobs, maybe for everyone, know, like so that that doesn't have to be consideration of working 40 hours in order to have the space not to worry about
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (26:00.29)
doctor's bills and those sorts of things. But then also getting paid a living wage so that we have the space to have civic engagement and those kinds of things. by flipping the narrative and saying, no, we become human in the good society through civic engagement and the arts and these other things, rather than finding our identity in strictly in a certain
market economy, then that sets the conditions for a flourishing society way more than just our GDP or how much that we can buy and sell. it reminds me of something, reminds me of an instance right after 9-11 when George Bush said the best way of dealing with the atrocities of 9-11 was to keep shopping.
That's that's absurd. That just feels absurd to me.
PJ Wehry (27:06.007)
Yeah. Uh, I think that's fair. I, it, this, this stat is a little bit old now. I remember reading an article about 10, 15 years ago that everyone who got cancer, a third of them went bankrupt. And I think that's a good, it's like, I feel that we have an absurd, like we we've approached absurd limits and this was 10, 15 years. I don't know what it is now. I can't imagine it's much better. Um,
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (27:23.468)
Yeah. Yeah. Wow.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (27:33.187)
Yeah.
PJ Wehry (27:35.448)
I'd be surprised, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if it's not worse. But it should, it seems to me that dealing with death should be, should be like a bigger consideration than dealing with your debt. Right? Like if like, and so I, I'm like, well, I, don't know. It's just, it's that one in particular is so strange to me that the biggest stress when you get cancer is how to pay for it.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (27:39.352)
Yeah.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (27:44.707)
Yes.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (27:49.248)
Mm-hmm. Ooh, good, good. I like that. I like that.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (28:01.112)
Yeah.
PJ Wehry (28:04.617)
And so I understand, there's a lot of moving parts. I've talked to a lot of people about on here about healthcare and there's a lot of moving parts. There's a lot of, a lot of villains people like to pull out and to be fair, there are a lot of villains, like in a lot of different sectors. So, but to, to look at that and to think, I don't know. I, I, I don't know what the, answer is there, but I do know that
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (28:19.608)
Yeah, yeah, that's right
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (28:28.769)
Mm-hmm.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (28:32.483)
Yeah.
PJ Wehry (28:34.217)
Really where we're looking at people, you talk about people should be able to spend time with their kids. There's also, and this is why we have emergency services for that. We, for the, the poor and the homeless, because people don't like it when people, and I hate to put it this bluntly, but, unfortunately gets measured in GDP, which is the frustrating thing, but it's like, the GDP goes down if we leave people dead on the streets. Right. And it's like, that's not.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (28:45.059)
Mm-hmm.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (28:51.832)
Mm-hmm.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (28:55.448)
Mm-hmm.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (29:01.272)
Yeah.
PJ Wehry (29:03.799)
I hate even putting it that way because it's absurd, but that's the point, right? The fact that it's like, you know what motivates us to take care of homeless people who are sick is that when people die on the street, then people stop shopping, right?
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (29:09.569)
Yeah.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (29:14.882)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (29:21.986)
mean, that's hard to hear. And totally something that we could read some economists saying. Yeah.
PJ Wehry (29:30.987)
Yes, I'm sure there people who have fought for that for the right reasons. Don't get me wrong. But I know there, I mean, I've heard those economists arguments, right? It's a natural, very American way of arguing for things.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (29:36.206)
Yeah.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (29:40.782)
Mm-hmm.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (29:45.43)
No, that's right. And this is not a Piper point. This is a, I'm stealing this from my favorite historian of the 20th century guy, Tony Judt. But I think it's, I think it is a Piperian point in some ways that we have lost the ability to think about things in certain terms. Like we don't think about a policy as is it good or is it right or is it just? Rather, we tend to think of things in terms of who's going to pay for it.
And so that's kind of what I think I'm talking about is the ability, like we don't, we haven't read the kinds of books in the context of university that give us the language to be able to say, have discussions of the good in political forums. and yeah, no, go ahead. Please.
PJ Wehry (30:34.551)
I think, go ahead.
So would love to hear, because I think this is what it leads up to, what is the link between contemplation and human flourishing? that, I mean, certainly contemplation is something, I've read a couple books on it and I'm still struggling with it. I think that's just a cultural blind spot.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (30:44.621)
Yeah.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (30:55.694)
Yeah, and I wouldn't blame anyone for reading a bunch of books on contemplation and walking away thinking that there's some sort of monk's life that is idealized. And that's just not Pieper's view. He's very clear that there's a place for that, for people withdrawing for prayer and that kind of thing, but that's not everyone. And that work is good. He gets often painted with this
Unfair reading that he thinks that work is bad. He doesn't think work is bad He actually makes the point that without work leisure is impossible Right, and he really goes after the sort of upper class of do nothings He says who just sit around and leisure all the time is like that's not leisure because you're nothing to contrast it with So work is essential work is so essential to what it means for us to act in the world So there's that piece but
What human flourished this connection between human flourishing and contemplation is that, and this is an idea he takes from Plato, Aristotle and from St. Thomas is that this is what we were created to do. It's the kinds of creatures that we are that we use language to talk about complex things and, and think really hard about things, not necessarily read about really hard things.
but to think about really hard things. But also, and this is, think, one of the most significant turning points in my own spiritual life and practices, which I glean from people, which is there's two different kinds of intellect. And there's the kind of intellect which is the reading of books, the learning of knowledge, the preparing for exams and learning that historical date so that you can regurgitate it on test. There's that kind of learning. And there's certainly a place for that.
But there's another kind of intellect that is more divine, that can just look, can just look. And so he uses this metaphor of vision. He gets it from Aristotle and from Plato and from Thomas, but what vision means is not seeing necessarily, but it's hearing and tasting and experiencing. And so he would say that contemplation, earthly contemplation, when you make that distinction between like,
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (33:23.182)
the vizio de, vision of God in the next life. But earthly contemplation is an engagement with creation to where the divine itself presents itself to us in such a way that we can in some way become face to face with the divine through the looking at our baby, looking at our child and being overwhelmed by that. That's contemplation.
or being so thirsty that you take a drink and you're satisfied. That's contemplation. It's also...
any moment of just awe and spire, looking at the sunset. And so those are moments where the Divine comes out through the created order in such a way that we are literally, no, not literally, sorry, that's wrong, figuratively, analogically, seeing the face of God. Now, literally is wrong, but analogically seeing the face of God through this created order which God has created.
PJ Wehry (34:19.137)
Ha
PJ Wehry (34:24.287)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (34:32.792)
put God's goodness and beauty into that. So that's contemplation. And those are the moments when we, in some ways, are still fully human but become something more. Become, in some ways, almost divine because that's what the gods do. Or that's what God does. And so I say at the end of my book, I give some recommendations.
Peeper says is that, again using this metaphor, vision and blindness, he says our culture has become blind. And it's become blind through the very sophistry that Plato goes against in the Phaedrus and in other places against the sophists who want to give you a pseudo theology, they want to give you a pseudo philosophy, they're in it more for the making of money and for that kind of thing, rather than the wonder.
of Socrates, you know, sitting in a bathtub, you know, just wondering about the stars. And so that sense of wonder is really at the heart of that, of the desire to see beyond ourselves, to become beyond ourselves. But the ways to do this, the ways to stop the blindness that comes from advertising and slogans like, just do it, any, was thinking of a Coke commercial that was,
open happiness or something. But these are ridiculous. These are absurd things, absurd sophistries that we've been given through advertising. He's like, the only way to break out of this is to be through liturgy, being a part of the Eucharist and liturgy, the arts. You can go to a gallery and look at a painting, someone's expression of creation or some expression of something and
feel divine presence. You can become the painter yourself and as you're looking at the rose and then trying to recreate it, you're looking at the nuances of so much that you're getting into it. Music, listening to music, truly listening to music, not just like, you know, having something in background, but like putting on a piece of Mozart or John Coltrane and experiencing that music as a moment of contemplation. Poetry, writing poetry, but also reading poetry.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (36:57.774)
So the arts become this avenue through which we can abstract ourselves from the absurdities of advertising and commercialism and just do things for the sake of engaging with creation more. But that's why this creation piece is so important for him. And all this, I will say this, all this predicated on a certain way of thinking about the created order.
which is in my book, it's one of the most complex chapters. It's the second one on the doctrine of divine ideas and creation. It's a very abstract theological doctrine that's kind of gotten lost, but it's super important for Thomas and for Superdianesius, for Neoplaton, it's coming out of, yeah, Augustine's huge on it, So people are drawing upon that tradition, and this divine idea is as...
PJ Wehry (37:30.55)
Mm-hmm.
PJ Wehry (37:42.391)
Augustine? Yes, yeah, yeah, the device. Yes, yeah.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (37:53.208)
being central for God's creative act is really the theological philosophical foundation on which he can say all of his work with regards to leisure and contemplation, those things. So this is one of those instances where some of his early work, which is kind of more technical for him at least, on divine ideas, on creation becomes really applicable when you read a wonderful little book called Only the Lover Sings.
just a beautiful little 40 page book which is, talks about love and eros and desire and how it's connected to all these sorts of themes. And he doesn't mention divinity as there, but all of his theological and philosophical underpinning which he's gotten from the traditions is present there if you know already that he's sort of dedicated to that kind of Thomism and Neo-Blakeneism.
PJ Wehry (38:48.373)
Yeah, I. It was a little further. Yes, it's a great answer. Yeah.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (38:49.624)
So that's a long answer to what is human flourishing. like, but it really, think for me it's been so important to my own spiritual life. It's like, well sure, I can read the Bible and that's, everyone should do that as part of their Christian discipline, read the scriptures, but also recognize that God can communicate God's self through other means. And sometimes it's just sitting by a river and watching it go by and allowing yourself to sort of to just.
And in this way, there's a lot of overlaps between Pieper and specifically, he likes to talk about how he was really influenced by Hinduism and in some of his journeys to India. And he said, there's a lot of overlaps between concepts in Hinduism and what he's trying to communicate in this sort of contemplative vision. anyways, yeah, sorry, I nothing left to do.
PJ Wehry (39:39.576)
Yeah. No, it's a great answer. Yeah. No, no, it's great. there was something you said earlier. I loved this example he gave referencing GK Chesterton. Yeah. One. So you, see people are talking about the goodness of creation. as part of that are the goodness of the arts, which is an extension of creation, right? It's, it's, an extension of who man is, who is a creative being. And I just, I couldn't get over this example. It was so painful.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (39:49.687)
Uh-huh.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (39:54.796)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
PJ Wehry (40:08.503)
He references JK Hesterton talking about how New York Times is an amazing site if you can't read and talking about how beautiful advertising is if you don't know what that's talking about. It's like, If you watch an advertisement and you don't know that it's selling you something, you're like, wow, that was really nice. And of course, the hilarious thing is with a lot of advertisement,
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (40:19.086)
If you don't know what a saga.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (40:28.597)
Yeah, beautiful, right? Yeah, wow.
PJ Wehry (40:35.639)
Not always, but a lot of advertisement, you don't even know what they're advertising. They just try to make it look as cool as possible and then just tie that to the idea. Um, like what, is it? What is being a cowboy, uh, you know, have to do with cigarettes, right? Like the Marlboro man, like, you know, it's just like at the very end, right. It's like this rugged picture of, you know, a sunset has to do, you know, nothing like a sunset and a cigarette. It's like, wait, what do you think? What do those have to do with each other? Um, go ahead.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (40:36.056)
Yeah.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (40:44.942)
Yeah.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (40:51.296)
Yeah, sure, Yeah.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (41:01.165)
Yeah.
I think there's like, for me, there's a lot of overlap between what Pieper talks about in his, it's a book called Abusive Language. It's a longer title than that, but someone could go find it with Abusive Language. And what obviously later on, Alistair McIntyre is talking about in some of his most recent work with respect to advertising and sophistry and emotivism. So there's a really great paper to be done.
by someone, maybe me, connecting Pieper's discussion of sophistry and the abuse of language to McIntyre's arguments against emotivism and advertising and capitalism and so on. there's, Pieper does give a lot of, okay, there's theology and then there's pseudo-theology. And then there's arts and then there's pseudo-arts. There's poetry and there's pseudo-poetry. And he makes this distinction.
PJ Wehry (41:34.967)
You
PJ Wehry (42:01.195)
Pseudo festivals. I mean, I just read that one. Yeah, like that, that which is really scary him writing about. I mean, you're right. He's right in the 40s and 50s talking about like Nazi Germany and the way that they they called them festivals. And it was just the celebration of destruction, destruction, right? Anyway, sorry, continue, please.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (42:03.308)
Pseudo of Estrus. Yup, yup.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (42:13.902)
Yeah. Absolutely. Yes. Yeah. No, that's a, that's a perfect example. Um, cause it is like, can call, um, our contemporary practices of Christmas morning, festival. Well, what you've really done is you've sort of leaned into the more of the consumerist piece than you have the, the feast of the incarnation piece. Um, should you give it? Yeah. And the fact that
PJ Wehry (42:39.531)
the celebration of life. Yeah.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (42:44.206)
Jesus took on a flesh creation, right? That's what Christmas is, the feast is all about, but we've sort of wrapped it in this sort of commercialism thing. And these are the kinds of pseudo feasts that he's exactly talking about. And the Nazi example is such a spot on one for him, because like this is just the complete opposite of what
the festival, the feast is supposed to be. But yeah, that's a great example.
PJ Wehry (43:19.127)
Real quick and I wanted to you were talking about this earlier too when you're talking about looking at your child But and I think it ties in with the Nazi example as well. I mean the opposite Let me not like looking at your shot You gotta be careful that connection you draw there But I think the word that we hasn't been mentioned but has been flowing all through this is joy Now I feel you know, I go to a Presbyterian Church and of course we had the Westminster Catechism and it's like what is the chief end of man?
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (43:20.78)
Yeah.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (43:25.389)
Yeah.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (43:29.462)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (43:41.581)
Yeah.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (43:47.907)
Yes.
PJ Wehry (43:48.328)
glorify God and enjoy him forever, which is kind of ironic for Presbyterians because we're really particularly known for our joy. But that's what we're talking about, right? That enjoyment piece. there's a very long Christian tradition that we're talking about with contemplation, with leisure, all this stuff. What does it mean to really enjoy? Like to see the river, to paint,
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (43:50.903)
Enjoy it forever. Yeah.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (43:57.87)
Fair enough.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (44:03.704)
Yeah. Yeah.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (44:15.566)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
PJ Wehry (44:18.057)
and to really to love what you're painting, to see your child and really love them. Those are moments that we're talking about flourishing. We're talking about real joy. Can you talk a little bit about that connection? Yeah, sorry.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (44:22.402)
Yeah.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (44:29.038)
That's absolutely right. Yeah, and I'll talk about it by saying, by actually moving away from people and moving towards a contemporary psychologist named Mahalakshmi Chiksammihai, who wrote a really influential book called Flow. And I think what Chiksammihai and people are saying is actually really similar. In Flow, time ceases. We kind of come out of time. Like it's those moments where if you're musician and you're improvising and
and you're playing with someone else and you're like, my gosh, two hours has gone by. Like that's flow. If you're painting and you're looking to be like, my goodness, the sun has gone down in the amount of time that I've been doing this and these are these flow moments and how important that is for at least modern ideas of
happiness and joy, like Csikszentmihalyi says that without flow, like you can't get this flourishing happiness, joy. And I Pieper would say something very similar and in a very Piperian way by drawing on psychology to make that point. I'm doing what exactly what the university has hopefully taught me to do. But he said like,
to have those moments of abstraction, of to where time stands still. That's gonna be what human flourishing really in some ways boils down to. It's that awe, but it's also the coming out of ourselves in some way. And of course, Eucharist does this in a kind of different way. I talk about it a little bit in the book, this Eastern Christian.
idea called animesis, where in the Eucharist we come out of time and it's a very mystical understanding. festivals are moments of animesis as well, where we sort of come out of ourselves and that's why we can say we celebrate the Eucharist as a celebration. So that's connection. But joy, at least the way people
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (46:42.794)
makes this distinction between happiness and joy. He does this in happiness and contemplation. Happiness is sort of connected to the Eros, the desire to
get a hold of the thing that one is desiring. that like, I can have a desire for, if I'm thirsty, I have a desire to drink. Joy is not that. Joy is the moment that comes after it. It's the moment of satisfaction. It's the, that's joy. And so joy and happiness are not the same, but you can see why joy and enjoyment would be so important because it is
I've now taken hold of the thing desired. Now I can have joy in that thing as it is fulfilling me. So the contemplative practices, the desire, which he said would be innate for the flow, for those things that Shikseme is talking about, that's the Udai-Menea piece, the happiness piece, but the joy comes after. And so I don't know, I'm speculating, but I think the people would...
totally agree with that Westminster, was it Westminster Catechism, is that what you Yeah, yeah, I think you would have total agreement with that because the way he talks about joy is the sort of fulfillment of that, of God being the fulfillment of the desire, ultimate desire of our hearts. So yeah, I think people would have no problem with that phrasing of what it means to be human.
PJ Wehry (47:58.7)
Yeah, yeah, question number one. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
PJ Wehry (48:22.295)
I just wanted to ask a clarifying question. You were talking about flow and happiness and you talked about that abstraction.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (48:24.92)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
PJ Wehry (48:31.071)
I, that's that word surprised me. Why, why abstraction from.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (48:37.356)
Yeah, great question. There may be a better word, but what I'm trying to communicate is this.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (48:48.472)
brought up out of it. You're in time and as you're doing this activity, which is the playing of music or the painting or the writing of poetry or reading a poetry or looking at your beloved, the time stands still, it's brought up out of and time and space and these sorts of things have very little imposition on you in those moments.
So abstract might be the wrong word, but we are pulled up.
PJ Wehry (49:21.623)
I just wanted to understand. Yeah, I wasn't necessarily making a judgment on that. I was just trying to, it's the separation, it's not really detachment because yeah, because you're very much a part of the thing. Cut.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (49:24.983)
Yeah.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (49:30.242)
Separation, not detachment.
Yeah, that's great. It's not a detachment. It's because you're engaging with the stuff of the earth. Engage in abstraction. That's a great way of putting it.
PJ Wehry (49:43.145)
Engaged abstraction.
PJ Wehry (49:50.199)
That's interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll have to think on that one more. Thank you. That's helpful.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (49:55.372)
Yeah, well, Chick Semi-Hai's book Flow is really fascinating on this point. And I think it does exactly what people want to say, but from a more analytic psychological perspective, is saying, flow is going to be essential for what it means to experience human flourishing. People are going to say the exact same thing with regards to earthly human flourishing. That flow, to use Chick Semi-Hai's word, is really at the heart of what the Theoria and contemplation is.
But this also has connections with another big philosophical concept that Pieper doesn't quite talk about quite as much. You find it more in Hannah Art and some other philosophers of his time, which is Praxis and Poasis. And Praxis, he has a more nuanced definition of Praxis, which draws upon Aristotle that
It's not quite used this way anymore, but it is activity. It is doing something. So it's not the theory. It is doing something, but what praxis does is in doing the thing, the object of the thing that we're doing, does it become separated from us in the same way? The painting or the, the activity, the practice is changing us in the process. Whereas poesis is
We create the thing and it becomes something else. We can sell it, it goes away, it becomes something else. So there's a tight connection between praxis and theoria for people, because one can lead to the other. Praxis is what makes prudence possible, which is the highest of the virtues of the, well, highest of the moral virtues. It sort of overlaps. then in the Venn diagram, it's an intellectual virtue, but it's also a moral virtue. And it sits in that.
that place, but praxis makes prudence possible was just with regards to the virtue development without prudence, you don't get justice and you don't get courage and you don't get the other, the other virtues related to it. Oasis though is different. It's becoming a cog in the machine. It's just creating something and pushing it out. So there's these things are held closer in people than I think people give him credit for.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (52:22.667)
Theoria is not this like super high and lofty thing with everything else way down here. Actually these Praxis and Theoria are pretty close. Which opens up a whole box with regards to virtues. Yeah.
PJ Wehry (52:32.759)
Well, you find this. Yeah. Yeah. I want to be respectful of your time, but just as a, a passing, uh, when it comes to, uh, even with kids, uh, it's w we specialize, right? We feel this need to specialize. And I resonate so much with what you were talking about earlier with the university. It's, I had to say, this is a philosophy podcast to put it in a category because the algorithm wants that.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (52:38.646)
No, I'm having a blast. We can keep going.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (52:50.22)
Yes.
PJ Wehry (53:00.107)
but I very much don't market this as a philosophy podcast. It's a big questions podcast. have Sculptors on, I had the head of a hospital on, I think that episode went out today, right? And it's this whole idea of the universum, if I'm saying, I think I'm saying that right. And so.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (53:00.46)
Yeah, yeah.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (53:05.356)
Yeah. Yeah.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (53:10.466)
Yeah. Yeah.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (53:17.228)
Yeah. And people would say that is philosophy. That is philosophy. You are doing philosophy because you are doing the hospital administrator, because you are doing philosophy is not limited to the very analytic way that we are thinking about it today. It includes theology. Nothing is out of bounds. So if you have a psychologist on, you're still doing philosophy. though the box, which you're trying to insert yourself in,
is aptly named, your understanding of it is way bigger than that little tiny box. we, scientization, and I'm not anti-science by any stretch, but we tend to feel very comfortable putting things in boxes. I do, I'm a historian, I'm a philosopher, a theologian, but that's just not what, yeah, that's just not what the, what philosophy is for people. It's, look, if it's a,
PJ Wehry (54:06.263)
I don't talk about that. Yeah. Right.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (54:16.33)
a way of, if it's painting, great, that's philosophy too. If it's reading Derrida, that's philosophy too. It encompasses the whole of life. It's a way of life.
PJ Wehry (54:30.241)
Well, and that's what we see with kids is that they immediately, they will swim in and out of the theory and praxis and even poasis. Like they don't feel that need to specialize. that's kind of what I, like when you talk about, I do think especially, you know, Thomas can get a rap for having the theory be so high. And that's what you're trying to say with people is that for him, he, very much keeps it, so close, so close to home. Right. And it is, there is a,
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (54:37.791)
yes!
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (54:50.606)
Yeah.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (54:55.766)
Mm-hmm. Yes. Yeah, yeah.
PJ Wehry (54:59.991)
There is something I think children can show us there. There's a lot that children can't show us. I understand I've definitely heard people say, the wisdom of a child. like, well, obviously you don't spend that much time with kids. it's like, there's wisdom if you can now see it, right? You can watch a kid and you can learn from them, but the kid doesn't know the lesson they're teaching.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (55:03.148)
Yeah. Yeah.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (55:20.504)
Yeah. Yeah.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (55:26.136)
Yeah. No, that's, and actually there's a portion of my, the very end of the book, I actually have this whole section on play. Because I think play, this is actually a point that I think Gadamer gets better than Pieper, is that play seems to be the best analogy for contemplation that I can really come up with and think with. Think of, because sometime when children play,
PJ Wehry (55:34.443)
Hmm, yes.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (55:55.586)
They are doing it for the sake of doing it. There's no really any external motivations for doing it. And in doing that, they're learning about the world, they're learning about physics, they're learning about all of these different portions. They build the blocks and then knock them over. Or when they put the train pieces together like this, they're learning all these skills. I think Gadamer gets this right more than Pieper because he does say that play and theoria are closer together.
Now, of course, there's pseudo play, right? I think, you know, there's people who can play, I'm big baseball fan, there's people who can play baseball for the love of the game. And then there's people who play for the paycheck, right? Like that's not contemplation, that's not the theory when you're playing for the paycheck. But sometimes, I mean, you're playing with your friends and all of a sudden, yeah, the sun has gone down and...
PJ Wehry (56:28.193)
Alright, right.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (56:52.786)
the lights turned on. Now it's time to go home, right? So play is a great analogy, I think, which Gadamer gets more right than Pieper does. And so I have a couple of pages at the end of the book saying this is a good way thinking about it. Pieper does talk about play some, think, in Tune of the World, yeah. And he's mostly positive on it, but he says it misses the...
PJ Wehry (57:12.215)
Yes, yes he does, yes.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (57:21.28)
marked for something that is to be done for its own good. It doesn't quite meet his standard, think, for Gadamer, like I said, I think it's more right than he could guess.
PJ Wehry (57:35.295)
Um, so kind of as we draw to a close here, I, uh, what I like to ask is besides reading your book, which obviously people should buy and read your book, right? My day job is digital marketing. like, I know this is the, this is the plug. Got to put it in. Um, but besides, yeah, besides reading, reading and buying your, I'm sorry, buying and reading your excellent book. Um, what
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (57:38.733)
Yeah.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (57:44.172)
Yeah. Yeah, please.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (57:49.708)
Sir, sir.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (57:57.784)
Yeah.
PJ Wehry (58:01.46)
would you recommend and you've given several practical examples, but what would you tell someone who's just listened to this podcast to either do or think about over the next week?
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (58:09.41)
Yeah, that's a great question. This has been well rehearsed in some ways because I'm a priest in a small parish, Episcopal parish in Northern Indiana. And so I get to apply some of these principles on fairly regular basis. And so I'll give you one example.
I have many parishioners, typically younger, who have left the evangelical church for one reason or another. And I had one case where this person was so traumatized by having the right reading of the Bible, like scripture was triggering for him. Like he just, he couldn't engage with it. But he's a musician. And I said,
Another way of engaging God... No, I'm not trying to tell people not to read scripture. I'm not trying to tell people if it's triggering, never to come back to it again. But for this particular person, if you want to have some connection with God and your musician, take an hour, put on some headphones, and just listen to Coltrane's Love Supreme. Just allow God to analogically love you through this beautiful thing. Or...
put on this other piece of music. Because sometimes sitting down and reading and studying is not life-giving. Sometimes it is, right? But it's a law of diminishing return for myself. When I first started studying, everything was a revelation. Everything was incredible. And then you start to learn more and more and more. And these moments of revelation when something you're reading is incredible come far less often.
So sometimes the law of diminishing return makes us want to or need to go somewhere else to get a divine experience. So please everyone don't take me as saying don't read scripture, but that there's beauty out there that God can speak through if you're willing to slow down. And so that might be my other...
PJ Wehry (01:00:19.713)
Yeah.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (01:00:33.088)
recommendation is slow down. Find hobbies and things that are life-giving and prioritize them. I mean, one of things I learned from people is that when we think about vacation and holiday, that we have it backwards. If we say, I need to go on a vacation so I can be a better worker. Right. I need to rest so can be rejuvenated so I can do my job well.
It's like that's completely backwards. Really, we should be working so that we can leisure well. And I think you can take that and say, I'm working my day job so that I can do the thing that really is life giving. And that can be anything from, work so that I Eucharist well on Sunday. I work so that I can paint well in the evenings. I work so that I can...
even work on my car, like if you're into engines and like work on my car, right? That we've totally misbalanced the work-life balance to prioritize the working and to deprioritize the hopping. So if I can, as we close, I'll just give an example of how this worked out in my own life just very recently, this past year actually. At the end of 2023,
My beloved grandfather died at 101. His family fled genocide in Armenia in the beginning of 20th century. And then September 19th of 23, massive ethnic cleansing of Armenians from Artsakh. And it was just a lot. And I was just taking on a lot mentally. There was a few cases in my church that were taking a lot of mental health. And so my doctors actually said, you got to take a break.
or you are in trouble. And so I took a mental health leave last, in Lent of 2024. People asked me what I was giving up for Lent. said, work. So I took off, Ash Wednesday was my, Sunday after Ash Wednesday was my last Sunday and I came back after Easter. And one of the things that was most helpful for me coming out of that time was renegotiating my life.
PJ Wehry (01:02:43.018)
Yeah.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (01:03:01.526)
and saying, I am a priest of a small parish in Northern Indiana, but my identity is one of writer and artist. I'm gonna be an artist who does priesting rather than a priest who does artsing, artistry or whatever. And it's totally revolutionized. Artsing? I'm like, yeah, let's just make up words. And it really has helped me create this prioritize.
PJ Wehry (01:03:19.435)
I like artsing. Artsing's good. Yeah, I like that. Yeah.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (01:03:31.394)
this balance in a better way to where I can like say, nope, I've reached my hour, unless there's an emergency, pastoral life, priest life, it's full of emergencies. But I'm gonna cut myself off at 5 p.m. and I'm gonna do this thing that gives me life to prioritize that because this is who I am, not the other thing. And that has been, for the past year, has just been revolutionary on my own mental health and has been so good for my own creative output.
in wonderful ways. So that's just a practical example from my own life that people are just taking kind of the Piberian concepts and putting them into my spiritual life that have been so incredibly helpful. Yeah, people like say like, I don't have time to read scripture. Like, I know I'm so busy. I don't have time. It's like, well, maybe if you consider yourself, I'm not saying this to be mean or judgy or anything, but like consider yourself a follower of Jesus first, who happens to be a worker. Then maybe like it just
PJ Wehry (01:04:13.899)
Yeah.
PJ Wehry (01:04:23.276)
Yeah.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (01:04:31.02)
Nothing massive has to change. It just changes the framing ever so slightly to say, no, I work to leisure well rather than the other way.
PJ Wehry (01:04:39.297)
Yeah, it's a beautiful answer on several levels. Thank you, Dr. Adishian. It's been wonderful having you on today.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (01:04:43.16)
Thanks.
Nathaniel A. Warne Adishian (01:04:48.096)
Man, it's such an honor being here and I love talking people and yeah, hope we get the chance to do this again sometime soon.