 If we were put into a very dark room, if our senses were all becoming very unreliable, we don't know what we're doing. We basically don't know who we are. There are these dark, fearful, terrifying things which are trying to seize us and doing their very best to confuse us. Love the bird there bringing us in. Welcome in. You're in the club. Congratulations. Welcome to the club here. 10 books, book club, book of the year club, I should say. My name is Tim Hill, joining us. Jack Morgan there on the bottom from the What Is Truth podcast and Jordan Burke up here in the top of your screen as well from Do The Harder Thing podcast. Really appreciate you guys being here with us. Really appreciate you being with us as well. If you're wondering how exactly you join the club where you already have, by the way, you're in on this live stream. We're going to discuss the 2023 Tam book of the year, Meditations on Death. Going to give away a free copy of the book here today for those of you who are participating. And if you are jumping on this live stream with us, we'd love to hear your thoughts at any point. Like for instance, Janet has already said she's looking forward to this webinar. Well, great to have you in, Janet. Looking forward to discussing this book specifically Memento Mori and what that means in the context of this book and then in the context of just thinking about death in our everyday life. But before we get into that specifically, let's get into our guests here today. Jack, why don't we start with you? Jack Morgan from the What Is Truth podcast. Jack, appreciate you being here with us. So why don't you just briefly maybe introduce yourself and give us your general impressions of Meditations on Death, man. Yeah, that's a great question. Honestly, I don't think that I've ever had to introduce myself. So this is going to be a first for all of us. Let me try and remember my death while I do this intro. So anyways, I am, as he said, Jack, Jack Morgan. I am originally from Alabama, actually, where Jordan resides as well, not to spoil Jordan's intro, but I moved to New York City in the fall of 2021 to join a missionary teaching group called Seaton Teaching Fellows, where I just served as a missionary catechist for a year. I continued working for them as a recruitment associate. I kind of winding back a little bit two years prior to that I had converted to the Catholic faith. And when I converted, I thought everybody in the world needs to become Catholic. So I decided to launch the What Is Truth podcast in my spare time I sold my Xbox and my PlayStation. I don't know why I had two of them. And then I bought a microphone from Best Buy with the used money. So yeah, that's kind of how I got here today. The What Is Truth podcast kind of gained some traction. And yeah, I've been very fortunate to work alongside 10 books for about a year now, not like actually employed by all, but the promoting sort of the books that you'll put out that are wonderful. And yeah, that's kind of who I am in a brief introduction. As far as my first overall thoughts on the book, one is that this topic seems to be a something that God really wants me to think about. I think that he obviously wants all of us to think about this, but I was reflecting on this before the show started. And I was thinking about how every time I come to this topic, even though a lot of the material you'll read on remembering your death will include visions of hell and sort of imagery that will kind of bring to mind kind of a deathly fear. I despite that, I've always felt strangely consoled by meditating on my death. I have a skull here, not trying to like bring out props or anything, but I have a skull here that I will like look at sometimes just like stare at and I'll like realize like, I'm going to be this one day. Like my ancestors may be able to like dig up my skull and my like, you know, skeleton one day. And so I'm going to leave my body, hopefully to return to it to the resurrection of the just, but I will leave my body one day and that is what I will become. And for some reason, that's very consoling for me because I think that it brings a sense of clarity about who I am as a creature and about, you know, the fact that one day I will stand and give an account, not just to the creator of the universe, but to all other creatures about how I lived my life and whether I lived it in a way that is becoming of the dignity of being made in the image of God. If I, so to say, was a child of my father in heaven, or if I was a child of my father who is the devil, depending on which side I end up on there. And so I have really been drawn to the topic every time I get a chance to be exposed to material by the great saints because I mean Jordan's read probably way more Saint books than I have just by, you know, the line of work that he's in and him being a little bit, being Catholic a little bit longer than I have. But every one of the saints just talks about their death like all the time. So they talk about meditating on their death. So it's definitely something that is clearly a part of God's plan for each and every single one of us. And so whenever Tan sent me this book and announced it was going to be the book of the year, I was super excited. One, because it's a book that it's not like you all are just like rehashing some old material. This is a Latin book that that if somebody can read Latin, not me, they had access to it, but the English speaking audience that did not know Latin, which is kind of a tragic occurrence in modern day Roman Reikethalsism. I mean, in order to be Latin Catholic, I've been told by an Orthodox guy who said that I feel like you can't be a Catholic if you're if you don't know Latin, at least like a Latin right Catholic. And so unfortunately, we don't know a lot of Latin in the Roman right anymore. But I'm really appreciative that this was translated into English. And I don't want to get too much into it because it might ruin some of the the rest of the discussion. But I think the first chapter is probably my favorite. And it this book will grab you right right away and just start really, really giving you stuff to chew on, like really chew on. I mean, I was on a subway when I opened it up for the first time. And I was like, wow, I kind of want to just keep riding on the subway and thinking about this instead of getting off and going to whatever meaningless thing that I'm actually going to. So yeah, I really enjoyed the book. As I sit here just outside of Charlotte, North Carolina with the book, the idea of you sitting on a subway in New York City cracking this thing open for the first time is fantastic. One quick question for you, Jack, before we get to Jordan, not an actual human skull, right? This was the the plastic. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, definitely not a human skull, definitely not a human skull. That is a good qualification considering the fact that I mentioned my place of work that I thank you for qualifying. Yes, completely. It's I bought this mea culpa off Amazon. I normally do not buy off Amazon. I try and avoid it. But yeah, there's like 18 bucks on Amazon. So it was like the cheapest skull I could find. And it's like really good. So a good combination for sure. So Jack's joining us in New York. Let's go all the way down to the bottom, I guess, of the Southeast anyway. And that's where Jordan joins us from. I just was before we hopped on here talking about at the end of I 85 is Montgomery Jordan, the host of do the harder thing podcast really appreciate you hopping on with us, man. Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and then your general thoughts about meditations on death as well. Yeah, it's great to be here. Yeah, like Jack, I don't tend to introduce myself so trying to think of exactly what to say in a concise and interesting manner is a little bit difficult. So on the fly, converted to Catholicism in high school, but I never owned it. And what that what ended up happening was very quickly, I would say I fell away from the faith at one point I was going fell completely away, basically apostatized. I was going to a non denominational parish, which was horrific. And basically one day I remember sitting in there and felt the call of in my heart. I remember hearing I heard it, but it was a call of my heart. It was I miss the Eucharist. And I was like, where did that come from? So of course, you know, kind of I traveled down this pathway and reconciled with everything that I had done because I've done a lot of bad and leaving the church aside, I've done a little bad and and came back with a deep fervor because I was granted so much grace and felt really, really, really could feel the grace. And it's like rocket fuel. And I've been on fire ever since started to do the harder thing, primarily to help guys overcome pornography addiction. And then since since then, the way that God tends to work, he starts you in one place. And then he says, okay, cool, you did this. That's awesome. I want you to go over here. And so now I would say the majority of my work, if not all of it focuses on spiritual warfare, helping people I call it lifting the veil off the battlefield, helping to be aware of what's going on different ways to fight back. And that's where the thing in this book, it fits with that in a couple of different ways, not just realizing what's going on. But in terms of what I do in terms of spiritual warfare, it's kind of what Jack alluded to, like, where are you going to go? You know, I asked my there, you basically are going to stand before Jesus, you're going to hear one of two things, right? You're either going to hear, well done, my good and faithful servant, or depart from me. I never knew you. And if that doesn't make someone shake in their boots, I'd being in Alabama, we have boots, right? I don't know what will. And I think about that often. And I was I was really intrigued when this came out. Because, as Jack also mentioned, there's a lot of writings from Saints and a lot of them mentioned death. And they mentioned what you have to do in order to attain union with God. But I haven't necessarily seen any particular text that covers meditation on death in this way. So it was very intriguing. And I read it in about, I don't know, 30 minutes and an aberration. And I was just flipping pages. I mean, it was once you start, it kind of sucks you in. And I really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed it. Yeah. So if you haven't seen the book, Jordan is a fast reader, I'm assuming, but it is not a massive tome of any sort. It is relatively small. And I was surprised, guys. I mean, Thomas the Kempus lived what 500 years ago, or something like that, but just the relatability of the book. And I guess we need to give the translator for Father Robert Nixon a bunch of credit for that, for sure. Just how relatable he made it and how easy it is to turn those pages like you mentioned, Jordan. So as we continue on, why don't we narrow our focus just a little bit? And certainly this is not any sort of morose conversation where the focus is only on the dying part of death. It is much broader than that and much more meaningful, I think that's that's the point of having this book of the year club. So we can all kind of kind of talk that out together, if you will. But wanted to narrow our focus today specifically on the idea of Memento Mori and in our tan podcast on this book on meditations on death with tan publisher Connor Gallagher and the translator, like I mentioned, Father Robert Nixon, who we heard his voice there in the trailer as we began, they touched on this specifically. So I wanted to start with that portion of the podcast and then we'll go from there. Here's Father Robert Nixon and Connor Gallagher talking specifically about Memento Mori. A lot of Catholic artwork of Saint Jerome, you know, working on his writings and he always had the skull on his desk or he's holding a skull talking to it. Memento Mori, remember that you will die. Yeah. A kind of a common practice, I think, well, amongst the great saints is they really did things to remind themselves that the end was near of that. And I think it puts everything in so much perspective. Often we can get ourselves enmeshed in things which seem to matter so much, you know, but when we put it in the context of the fact that we're going to, you know, we're not going to be here forever. We think, well, does it really matter so much? You know, what are the ultimate things? What really matters in the context of of the inevitability of death and everything that lies beyond it? So again, that's just part of a much more wide ranging conversation that Connor and Father Robert had when he came to visit from Australia several months ago here, just outside of Charlotte and Tanne Headquarters. Catherine just hit us up, said great timing for the publication of this book. Our great Austin Institute for Marriage and Family has been sponsoring a book club this semester, The Lost Art of Dying. And Jack, since you showed off your skull, why don't you lead us off here with the idea of Minto Mori and the concept to me really is trying to marry the two things, right? How you avoid obsessing about death and only being anxious about it or doing it in a negative way or thinking about it kind of like we just heard Connor and Father Robert talking about, where it can guide you and like you were speaking about earlier, almost be a comfort for you in life. Yeah. Well, one, I forgot the woman's name who just commented, but that's a great book, The Lost Art of Dying. I haven't read through all of it, but I know the author has a lot of stuff online on YouTube. Good Catholic woman. And it just deals with kind of how our culture has lost the art of dying well. We send people into hospitals instead of into our homes to die. So we send our relatives away to die, which is very inhumane thing. So definitely check that book out if you want to learn more about just death itself and how to die well. But I'm sure Jordan will be able to hit on this in a second because what you're saying about the sort of balancing it out, I'm sure that Jordan comes across people all the time who are very anxious or very, I guess, neurotic that get really obsessed with demons or like get really afraid of spiritual, random, demonic activity. And so there's always like the two extremes either people like get way too obsessed with something like obsessing over like thinking about death to the point where it produces like anxiety, or they go to the opposite extreme where they just don't think about it all. So that's kind of how, you know, Satan works as he wants to either get people to obsess with demons, or he wants people to believe that they don't exist. And I would say there's a very similar attitude when it comes to death, which makes sense. And so, yeah, I think that for me, this kind of the whole idea of Memento Mori being a source of comfort started whenever I heard about a practice that monks do in certain parts of Christendom. And that is that they take a bunch of wood, and they make their own tombs. So they can make the casket that they will use for their burial. And they will think about their death while they're doing that. And I mean, first thing to be warned of, you're supposed to do this under the direction of a spiritual director or spiritual father. So don't go out there and try and build your tomb right now unless you talk to a priest and like pray about that a lot, because it can be spiritually dangerous. But just that idea really struck me because I don't think about my death a lot. Like I genuinely don't. And even after reading this book, like I still struggle. I mean, I'm sure we all struggle to think about our death. I think that's kind of part and parcel of the fact that we are sick with sin. And so we, in our sickness with sin, we like to go beyond our limits as a creature. And part of going beyond your limits as a creature is, you know, neglecting the fact that you will die. So I really do a poor job of thinking about my death typically. And so whenever I was reading this book, I was very comforted by the fact that, you know, I will die. And that death isn't the end, but it is a passage into what can be transfigured life. And that passage depends upon how I act within this life. And so if I avoid my death, if I avoid thinking about and meditating upon my death, then I am sentencing myself to end up on the wrong side of that judgment. I am avoiding the reality that my every single one of my actions will be put in front of the light. I remember one time Father Ripperger that I think like two years ago I was listening to a podcast he did. I think maybe one of my friends like turned him on in the background. He was talking about how at the last judgment, every single one of the things that we've ever done, every single thought we've had, everything, every action of ours, every movement of our heart, every inclination of our soul will be put on display in front of the entire universe so that God can give justification for all of the evil that he allowed as well as for all of the good which he did. And so we'll all see everything with the sort of clarity. But I remember that the spirit of God kind of implanted upon me that idea that like I would die and that everybody would see my actions. And so I remember just hearing those words from Father Ripperger like I would notice like a week later whenever there was a moment for me to like tell a white lie or like maybe like do something that I know I shouldn't be doing. And I realized that like oh crap like one day everybody's gonna see that. So it's not like I'm escaping. It's not like I'm being sly. And that like led me to really act differently. And I think that's kind of what I get a lot out of this book whenever it touches on the topic of remembering your death is that you are going to have to give an account for everything which you've ever done. And that occurs at the moment of death. So really remembering our death gives us a sense of clarity and direction about where we want our life to go. And so it allows for us in the midst of this kind of nihilistic society and this seemingly I mean you know I mean even in the author of Plesiastes was saying vanity vanity all his vanity. But then at the end of that book he says if you remember your sins like you won't sin again. If you remember your death you will not sin. And so I think that just the idea of remembering death gives a clarity that really should give us consolation. And we can touch on that a little bit more as we go on but I want to give Jordan some time to speak here. Absolutely as Sarah weighs in from Wisconsin and Mary from Louisiana and Mary says she adds her family has been closely affected by death this past year. Our consolation she says has been knowing the beauty of the holy death and the importance of praying for the dead. And Jordan I think that's kind of what I was trying to allude to earlier how not not to be morose or always depressed about the idea of death but the idea of meditating on it helping us in life is the tricky balance. Yeah you know you're talking about something that's been in the history and tradition of the church for since its beginning. I mean let's just talk about the death of Jesus on the cross. I mean that death was necessary for everything that we're talking about now for salvation. That's the very easy and like low hanging fruit so to speak not to diminish the sacrifice of course but in the context of the conversation. It is integral to the faith you know Jack or they mentioned I think in the video and I think Jack mentioned as well Saint Jerome with the images of the skulls. It's I'm primarily carmelite and spirituality and if you look at carmelite art there's skulls everywhere. If you look at pictures I think Teresa I think there's one of either Teresa of Abla somebody it's a carmelite nun and she's praying on her knees and farm her bed and there's a crucifix on the wall and there's a skull at the bottom of the crucifix and if I remember tradition correctly they the skulls in that case like I also have a plastic skull that I actually sold for my dad but that sits in my prairie area and I have a skull for the our father beat on my rosary. You know this was common and what we're doing now was just saying hey this isn't something to fear this is something that you need to be aware of and it's a tool to help you in your spiritual life that was Jack mentioned you know it helps stay away from sin and it's important to think too you know well why are we talking this seems so morose well it's because the world has made you believe that unfortunately the world's constantly pushing off death whether it's you know oh I'll sleep when I'm dead and what does that imply but death will come at some point and I'm just going to rest it's a not taking it seriously and b pushing it off and into the you know back of your mind that you don't think about it you know how often do you wake up number one and give praise and think okay what happens if I die today where am I going to stand going back to what I said initially well done my good and faithful servant or depart from me I never knew you you know so those are these are the factors that we're talking about and it sounds intense but I think it I think it only sounds intense because this tradition and this meditation and this understanding has really unfortunately been stripped away from our day in and day out although like I said it's important to know that it was it was the daily tradition and in practice of those who came before us and we lived really holy lives so yeah no I think it's just important to note that if you're if you're ignoring death you know if you if you're not paying attention to where you where you're going to end up you're aimless and to steal the line from my dad and he says if you're aiming for purgatory you have a hell of a backup plan so right so this is your your time now on earth is the opportunity to pursue virtue excuse me and hopefully attain you know that unity with divine unity with God's will and join him in the beautiful vision good stuff there Jordan for sure Sarah way in and saying in the secular individualized world it's easy for us to think that everything we do only affects us but I think there's peace in knowing that everyone is affected by everything we do it should shape the way we act and you kind of touched on that a little bit earlier Jack you also mentioned that the first chapter of meditations on death was your favorite you want to elaborate on that yeah I think that the reason why it was my favorite was it introduced an idea to me that I had never thought about before and that is what the state of my soul and my body will be around the time of my death and how that will affect my ability to repent because I think that one I just I think about this kind of often is like would I if I was confronted with death would I be able to like go to my martyrdom like I would like to think that I would but like would I and so I have thought about like kind of that before but I was thinking about like oh like you know because of the what the book says it talks of Thomas talks about how you know you are actually much weaker when you're about to die so that your will is not as easily resolved to do what is right and and God I mean God willing this doesn't happen to us but some people end up becoming even weaker and and in the curse in God or end up at least like you know get more complaining about the fact that they're about to die than accepting about the fact that like oh I'm about to meet my judge like I should ask for mercy etc and so I think that that was very profound for me to just like sit there like I as soon as I read that portion I just like stop reading the book for a while I just like kept like thinking about that and reading those words and thinking like wow what will my reaction be whenever that hour confronts me and and I don't want to wait now until then to try and repent but that I want to urge on my soul to repentance now because I know that that I'm at least strong I mean whenever I get sick I start acting like a baby so like I can only imagine that whenever I'm about to die that like I will be insufferable so like I need to work on transforming my will right now so that I can can have a you know a happy death as we pray for a lot in the church as opposed to what would be like a quintessential like grumpy figure I don't I don't know like the grumpy the the the door for whatever like his his death just like mad so yeah that's kind of what like really stuck out to me in in that chapter that has really kind of transformed the way that I think about my death and I don't know about you guys but it's the way that it's written to kind of going into the first person and really being descriptive about it made it easy for me Jordan to put myself in those shoes kind of like Jack was talking about yeah that was a really unique aspect of this book that I've as I mentioned I haven't read a ton of books I haven't really seen anything that goes this deep on on particularly on death and it was very fascinating I really appreciated how he walked through and I don't believe it's the first chapter but how he walked through basically okay what if this happens how are you this might be how you respond this might be how you act and he basically gives out that meditation for you to walk along with and it was very easy for me to put myself in that place but it was particularly helpful I think because in the first chapter he kind of describes the reality of what happens when we are on when we're got I mean I don't know what would be better if you I don't know if it'd be better if you just went and you didn't know or if you saw it coming you know I don't know I think that's a kind of for debate but if you get to that point and you see it coming and you're on the death bed like Jackson how are you gonna respond and he and he gives you this Thomas gives you this warning he's like are you aware do you know he says at one point at the point of death a multitude of demons will appear before you ready to seize upon your departed soul and he gives him more descriptions and this is echoed if someone hears that and they think well that seems kind of crazy this is echoed by Teresa of Avila this is echoed by St. Jim McAfgani this is echoed by all these other saints who have experienced these different things and can tell you firsthand no this is what happens are you going to be prepared to fight I think it was Teresa of Avila who actually wrote for those who are on their death bed to hide the scissors or something along those lines because it is intense but on to not make it so gross but on a happier note you know understanding and walking through this meditation what's the what's the ideal end goal the ideal end goal is to be embraced in that beauty and that peace and knowing you can stand before God and he can show all of your dirt to everybody and you can say thank you Lord I'm free thank you and have him embrace you and like it's making me emotional not thinking about it but that's the beauty of it so if you have the understanding of the battle you have the understanding of why you're fighting and why you have to engage in that battle and I think Thomas just does a great job of walking you through in that meditation kind of okay this is something this may not be how it happens but this very well could be and this is what you need to be prepared for Catherine weighs in and says athletes have a saying that we don't rise to the challenge rather we sink to the level of our training or habitual actions kind of what you were talking about a little bit jack and it reminds me of in athletics as well if you do end up relying you know it's all about what what you've done to prepare right what you've done to get there so you can just be free in the moment and you don't have to think and the whole thing and and as it as you were talking about that George to me that seems to be I think a big hurdle for a lot of people is that I think they can recognize that it would be great to get through I think there is a bit of a mental block a lot of times a fear of pushing through that barrier jack would you agree with that the barrier of really meditating on death and seeing it on the other side of things as opposed to just all the the negative that might be included in the the unknown yeah I mean if we want to get a little bit more like philosophical on on like you know I guess I mean this is kind of highly theoretical but when I when I think about it like to not remember your death is is hell like it's it's literally like a hellish existence because typically when you're not remembering your death you're not remembering that you're finite you're not remembering that you're going to stand before a loving god but also be be stand in comparison to christ and see whether or not you you it lived up and whether or not you became his you know adopted brother and adopted son of the father and so if we live in such a way that we are not thinking about our death typically whenever we don't think about our death I sent a lot more and I'm sure that you all can attest to that too you you sent a lot more you are less you're more careless about your actions you just behave in such a way that is unbecoming of of being a human and being made in the image of God so you're in a way living a hellish existence I mean I'm pretty sure that maybe Dostoevsky or somebody along the lines of some sort of Russian author maybe a Russian saint said like like hell is anywhere for those who don't love God and and I think that loving God as we've seen in the lives of the saints at least in in some degree has a direct correlation to us like remembering our death and and I think that the saints wouldn't be like you know trying to look at death as like oh this horrible thing but they because they've experienced deeper union with God through mystical encounter through through prayer through the tradition traditions of prayer of the church which Jordan's family has done such a great job you know popularizing more and more they they view death as this transfigured reality in which there's actually great comfort it's not something that we should fear and so I think that one for those who may struggle with meditating on their death I would suggest like getting within the lives of the saints and reading them going and checking out you know the the various publications that that tan books has from the saints I mean you've got some great works from Saint Francis to sales introduction to the devout life as a great introductory book for any Roman Catholic who's interested in the spiritual tradition of the Roman Catholic Church and I mean Jordan's family the Dan's got a lot of great stuff online to just introduce like bare minimum to the kind of uh yeah the the the mystical tradition of the church which I think really is what gives us solace and can make people look at death as a happy thing as a joyful thing um yeah I think those are kind of my my take on that part you see it similarly Jordan kind of a sometimes a barrier for being able to think about death in a positive way is that fear anxiety whatever negative emotions might be attached to death specifically yeah absolutely I mean I think in my estimation just looking at my own life and uh how I kind of handled and tackled that question over the years and having conversations with hundreds and thousands of people um I think too many people because again I did this as well they think of the final judgment and they focus on the word judgment what they don't realize is really two things that kind of are maybe two sides of the same coin possibly and that's a one side is we brought this upon ourselves so whatever judgment comes comes from our actions right but b they don't often think about the fact that this isn't just some benevolent god who is saying well you did this this this and this you're going to hell what about the fact that we know that he's a good loving god and maybe he's weeping over the loss of his children because we chose we chose that we chose to deny him we chose the other path I I don't I mean I would hope that some theologian or saint has written on this but my suspicion is this is a great day of sorrow even even for god in a way it's like these are my kids I I gave you every opportunity to turn to me I gave you every opportunity to join me but you chose the other path and I think if if we shift our focus and and I do believe that's why the saints when we read their conversations about death or the writings on death it's joyous right and sometimes it comes off as like well they just want to go be with god like I get it you know but it's also this love it's mirroring that love right they know how god loves them and they want to mirror that back and this is the other facet of death you know meditation's on death it's not just the end but dying to yourself every day and what is the motivation to die yourself every day it should be love so there's this like kind of beautiful cyclical relationship between these things that if we can just kind of shift our focus just slightly from this fear in this judgment and it is a judgment and you should be afraid and that's okay to be motivated by fear in the beginning but eventually if you want to live as the saints live and if you want to have a better ending then you should shift your focus from that fear and and obeying out of fear to obeying out of love and choosing virtue out of love. Little flower is the account way in end with a suggestion so reading suggestion of preparation for death by St. Alphonsus Ligori, Jack you were talking about some other good resources when thinking about this subject for sure and Catherine had mentioned earlier about athletes not rising to the challenge but falling to the level of preparation reminded me also of how athletes say you got to get comfortable being uncomfortable and that's how growth happens and I feel like in this topic that applies as well and I the more I speak about it with you guys the more I read about it with Thomas A. Kempis the the more I think settled might be the right word the more settled I feel about this entire topic and and maybe able to I find myself being able to see it maybe a little bit more clearly what about you Jack? Yeah no absolutely I mean I was going to bring this up as soon as she made that reference to the athletes Father David Abernathy for those of y'all who have never heard of him he's an eastern Catholic priest who is like one of the leading I guess like I guess people in the world on the the Desert Fathers and he has a podcast called Philakalia Ministries Really Holy Man and he was in one of his book clubs on the Ladder of Divine Ascent which is an ancient Egyptian text from around the year 500 to 600 AD and he was talking about in this group how you know people when they're you know an athlete's running or training for a marathon they not only just like run at a certain time of the day but they like drink water throughout the day in order to prepare for that run they wake up at a certain time they do certain things um and and so we have this meticulous attention to detail when we know we're preparing for an event in in this area of our life but like how few of us have this meticulous attention to detail in the spiritual life and and this is part of the spiritual life is the fact that we will die so whenever we can actually like look at our death and see it and recognize that it's going to happen then we can start to live our lives in such a way that we are prepared for it so like the fact that I remember my death by the grace of God for one moment may end up making me be a little kinder to the next person I encounter whenever I'm stressed out you know and so that enables me it's actually interesting me seeing my death clearly kind of humbles me as a creature and makes me uh more apt to act in a way that is virtuous to so there's something proper about it that that it actually encourages us to virtue rather than then encouraging us to some sort of like fear it reminds me exactly kind of what you were saying there a little bit earlier Jordan about just just slightly shifting your perspective and that can make all the difference Laura asks what was the most influencing or moving part of the book Jack I feel like you touched on that a little earlier saying the beginning for you Jordan what about you you have an answer for Laura there yeah I would say it's tied you know either between the meditation or in the first chapter how we kind of described what happens in hell you know my a lot of my study is in demonology and angelology and it mirrored pretty exactly some of the books I've been going through but particularly understanding that you know whatever vice you are tempted to in this life if you succumb to that that is going to be the vice and the demon in hell that torments you and it torments you in a particular way I think he mentioned if you suffer with sloth there's demon that's going to make you work constantly and so that was a really interesting thing to keep in mind it's like oh okay this guy's gunning for me and then when you again you're shifting perspective when you put in a perspective with God's ultimate plan and his divine will if you're being tempted in that way God's permitting it so that you can choose the opposing virtue and become the person that you have that he's called you to be so it's just again it just is a reminder and a reiteration of all these different things that I've read over the years and it's impactful it's nice that it was something that was that impactful in such a small text Sarah Waysence as in my opinion it was the chapter about time wasted on earth and Patty agrees and Jack I see you shaking your head or nodding your head down yeah I think that I mean time and time again you get studies done by whatever a Pew research poll or whatever the new popular research industry is that says like people at the end of their death regret like you know not taking more chances or at least just like not living life in such a way that is I guess yeah they just people agonize over time that they wasted that they did use on something that I'm sure at the time they didn't think they were wasting time you know like who actually waste time like I mean we do but like who like sits there is like you know what I'm really just going to like not not like do something leisureful for a while or that probably just created a word but do something that is you know restorative but just somebody that's like yeah I'm gonna waste time like nobody categorizes it that way but we all do it you know it's kind like st. Thomas Aquinas saying that nobody ever chooses the evil thinking that it's like evil they choose it in some way thinking that it's a good like they they even if they may be misled or completely in delusion well obviously they're misled they think it's good for them in some photo capacity so yeah I think that yeah I think that it it's really significant to to make sure that we are doing the most with the time that we have in a way in which we can make sure that we do that is by remembering the fact that we have time and and and that's not saying we have a lot of time that's just saying that we are bound by time we're not gods you know we we are not little g gods is what I mean but we we are bound by time and you know we can partake in the life of God and live forever but we have to have a body and a soul a person made fit for that by the time that we you know transfigure and pass into the next life yeah regrets and it's typically in action as opposed to regretting the action that you take that's what what I kind of got from the yeah uh wasting of time what you're talking about there and Jordan back to your description of I mean the description in this book of hell is unlike anything I've ever come across in in my life just how vivid the imagery stuck with me especially the smell that just sticks with you and makes you makes the person in there as thomas akimpas describes it choking on their breath over and over again and then on the flip side of that too not to just stick to the negative there are there are a lot more pages in meditations on death on heaven I believe then on hell and just describing the beauty and um having that optimistic end of the spectrum as well was really part of what made me appreciate this book as much as I do Jordan no I totally agree I totally agree you and if anyone who's been listening closely they can tell I'm trying to say the hard thing and then put something a little bit lighter and more beautiful because if you focus on strictly the negative then yeah you're going to spin out of control it's like oh my gosh what am I going to do I don't want to end up here oh this sounds terrible it sounds terrible it's like okay yeah it is terrible that's the reality okay what are you going to do go do something to avoid it you know and in terms of talking about wasting time I love that chapter as well I don't know if jack so jack and I were in the same men's group I don't know if he remembers this but a couple months ago we had a younger guy join and we had a conversation that sparked about how you're spending your time and my argument was yeah there there is you should rest and there is leisure I mean that's part of it Sunday you're supposed to rest but in your activities could you not choose the more virtuous activity even in those right so that taking that wasting time a little bit a little bit deeper it's like okay yeah I can read a book but what are you reading right what what is it is a good true right holy that sort of a thing um it's I don't know this this all is death is just this one facet and it opens into such a large chasm of all these other little things that are involved so yeah I don't know if that answers the question but that's that's kind of what came to mind oh absolutely jack did the descriptions of heaven and hell stick with you from meditations on death as well yeah yeah definitely and I always find it fascinating to to think about you know why so like why would there you know be a demon you know torturing you in this certain way and and why would God allow it but I remember like meditating upon just just the nature of hell you know it's somewhere where like there is a lack of everything that's good for the most part outside of your exit like people exist in hell so that's a good thing the fact that people exist but outside of existence pretty much everything there is is evil which means that it lacks a good and so you have everybody that in hell is probably beating up on each other the entire time and obviously we are not higher than the than the fallen angels so if we end up in hell then we're going to be subservient to them the the rest of our life and it's not like God sitting there just like extracting vengeance for for vengeance sake but it's just kind of the natural like consequence if you think about it like that's just the reality if if if you have along with a fallen angel said nope I don't love God and I don't want to love God I don't want to love others then you're going to be in an all-out war for the rest of your life as opposed to the bliss of heaven so I thought that was very good one thing I wanted to add on to something that Jordan was saying earlier about kind of transitioning from a more gloomy attitude about death to a more positive one is I've been reminded about the words that saint or not saint hopefully future saint but Pope Benedict the 16th said before his death and he was talking about how you know looking back on the course of his life like he has much reason for fear and trembling and I'm I'm sure that you know maybe those of us who followed his pontificate um closely at all like may have some inkling of what he's probably thinking about um but he said that like in the light of my death the joy of being a Christian um becomes even more clear because I'm not going to stand just before a judge but a judge that's my brother and it's my friend and that loves me and gave himself for me and so like the grace of being a Christian becomes all the more clear like whenever we uh you know consider death and so I think that that's definitely an angle that we should keep in mind is it's not only Christ like the one who loves us but I think that really that image of brother like who who here has like a brother that that or or sibling that wants to like see them like you know go to hell or to suffer um like God ultimately wants us to to choose the good uh that's why he created us and so I think that that can be a sort of grounding point for uh you know launching into meditations on death is the fact that you know Christ has already come and stripped death of all of his power you know he uh he already went into to Mordor and and burned the ring so um I I'm sorry I've been watching Lord of the Ring so I love the uh the references to the the harrowing of Hades um so yeah oh we've got a whole whole course a whole tan course on the Lord of the Rings and the Christian imagery and illusions I believe and and how it's woven in there by by Tolkien there uh Jack man really appreciate your time the What is Truth podcast Jordan you as well do the harder thing uh Jordan any final thoughts here as we wrap up this uh book of the year club meeting that we really appreciate you being on me uh I'm very thankful to be here this was a very edifying discussion and I would just encourage if people are on the fence to get it pray it read it you'll you'll be all right trust Jesus Jesus is Lord trusting God good final words from you for sure what about you Jack yeah just think about your death I mean you only have one chance to do it um only have one life to live so I think that this is a way in which to make that life more meaningful I think this book is so suitable for entry level you do not have to be a theologian or quote unquote the theologian I mean a theologians just want to truly praise but um you don't have to have like the IQ like a 160 IQ or whatever it may be to read this book it's incredible um so definitely get it think about it pray about it um and yeah could get closer to Christ that's the only way that uh we're going to have a happy death so Patty Laura Anitra we appreciate you expressing your gratitude joining us here on the live stream uh you mentioned get the book Jordan if you haven't already well we're gonna give away a free copy of the book Janet Ford is our winner today joining us on the live stream here not well done Janet we'll get that copy of meditations to death to you and if you would like to buy it just by checking out this book of the year club live stream there you can get a 25 discount just use the special discount code m o d 25 m o d 25 for a limited time only we'll end you to end with you today by the way check these guys out on instagram as well what is truth pod for jack and then jordan is do the underscore harder thing there where you can find him on instagram but we'll leave you with a part of our podcast you can go to spiritual masters podcast dot com to see the whole thing but another portion of that podcast that our tam publisher connor gallagher did with the translator of meditations on death father robert nixon really appreciate you guys being a part we'll have another book of the year club meeting and live stream next month as well but that will do it for now we'll let father nixon father robert take us out here everything that we're doing which we're aspiring to do you know you we think if i'm struggling about something if i'm anxious about something you know at the moment of death is it really going to matter all of that much and then the choice between between good action or or or wicked action or no action at all and which one are you going to prefer when you come to that final point so it's keeping the end always in mind and and i think he's quite right in saying that this is a universal remedy for all of our moral uncertainties and everything all of our temptations