Have you ever wondered how the ancient wisdom of Orthodox saints can be woven into the fabric of our hectic modern lives? That's what we unravel with Timothy from Orthodox Wisdom, a pioneer in bringing the richness of spiritual tradition to the digital age. Peeling back the curtain on his creative process, Timothy shares the meticulous care taken in selecting and sharing theological works that resonate with both Orthodox believers and seekers. Reflect to how he strikes a delicate balance, offering digestible and engaging content that connects deeply with our contemporary issues, from raising children in a consumerist society to navigating spiritual motherhood.
Navigating the spiritual journey can often lead us into controversial terrain, and this episode doesn't shy away from those profound topics. With a discerning eye and a heart tuned to the varied maturity of his audience, Timothy discusses how he approaches subjects like carnal warfare and ecumenism within Orthodoxy. The conversation takes a turn to the subtle art of storytelling in the context of saintly lives, exploring how Timothy paints their historic tales with reverence, while avoiding prescribing their extraordinary faith measures as direct guidance for our own paths.
On a more practical note, Timothy pulls back the curtain on the world of Orthodox podcasting, revealing his resourcefulness in using simple tools to produce spiritually nourishing content. The journey of his podcast, amplified through a $60 microphone and a makeshift home studio, exemplifies the dedication behind Orthodox Wisdom. As we bid farewell, our mutual appreciation for the labor of faith is palpable, leaving listeners with a sense of gratitude and encouragement for their own spiritual voyages. Join us for an episode that not only educates but also inspires, as we walk alongside Timothy through the landscape of Orthodox spirituality.
Visit our You Tube Page: https://www.youtube.com/@cloudofwitnessesradio/videos
Thank you for journeying w/ the Saints with us!
Have you ever wondered how the ancient wisdom of Orthodox saints can be woven into the fabric of our hectic modern lives? That's what we unravel with Timothy from Orthodox Wisdom, a pioneer in bringing the richness of spiritual tradition to the digital age. Peeling back the curtain on his creative process, Timothy shares the meticulous care taken in selecting and sharing theological works that resonate with both Orthodox believers and seekers. Reflect to how he strikes a delicate balance, offering digestible and engaging content that connects deeply with our contemporary issues, from raising children in a consumerist society to navigating spiritual motherhood.
Navigating the spiritual journey can often lead us into controversial terrain, and this episode doesn't shy away from those profound topics. With a discerning eye and a heart tuned to the varied maturity of his audience, Timothy discusses how he approaches subjects like carnal warfare and ecumenism within Orthodoxy. The conversation takes a turn to the subtle art of storytelling in the context of saintly lives, exploring how Timothy paints their historic tales with reverence, while avoiding prescribing their extraordinary faith measures as direct guidance for our own paths.
On a more practical note, Timothy pulls back the curtain on the world of Orthodox podcasting, revealing his resourcefulness in using simple tools to produce spiritually nourishing content. The journey of his podcast, amplified through a $60 microphone and a makeshift home studio, exemplifies the dedication behind Orthodox Wisdom. As we bid farewell, our mutual appreciation for the labor of faith is palpable, leaving listeners with a sense of gratitude and encouragement for their own spiritual voyages. Join us for an episode that not only educates but also inspires, as we walk alongside Timothy through the landscape of Orthodox spirituality.
Visit our You Tube Page: https://www.youtube.com/@cloudofwitnessesradio/videos
Thank you for journeying w/ the Saints with us!
Because it can be so easy to get into the doom scrolling, to get into the prophecies, to get into the end times which are, you know, they have their place.
Speaker 2:Hi, this is.
Speaker 1:Jeremy. Hi, this is Nick. This is Cloud of Witnesses Thinking like the Saints.
Speaker 2:You guys. We are very blessed. Today we have Orthodox Wisdoms Timothy joining us on the program. We're very excited to have him with us. Timothy, how are you doing? I'm well, thank God, how are you? I'm doing fantastic. Thanks to the God, christ is born.
Speaker 1:Glorify.
Speaker 2:Amen, amen. We're recording this so our listeners will know this is what just a couple of days here after Christmas. This is December 27th and it's a very festive time of the year to be getting together, and so we're very, even more grateful to Timothy for taking time out of his very busy schedule. You might hear a child crying in the background. Timothy has devoted some of his family time to our podcast today, so we're very very thankful.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much yeah.
Speaker 3:Oh, thank God. Yeah, she's not usually making any noise at this time of night, but here we are, yeah.
Speaker 2:It's because dad decided to record a podcast. Exactly.
Speaker 1:That's what happens, right, murphy's Law, it's Murphy's Law.
Speaker 2:You have your job to do, she has hers, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly yeah.
Speaker 2:So, timothy, as we jump into this conversation, we believe when Nick and I talked about bringing you on and the prospect of it, we saw immediately that our goals seem to be almost identical in what we want to do Clout of Witnesses, journey with the saints. We take the lives of the saints and we try to bring them to life in these radio drama style retellings of these lives of the saints, because the point is we want their lives, their stories, to really tell themselves, their wisdom, their faith to be put in the focal point, as opposed to our vision. You're doing something very similar. Can you tell us a little bit about what Orthodox Wisdom podcast is, what you do, what your goal is, etc.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Well, first of all, I love what you guys are doing and I agree there's very much a similar mindset from what I can tell you know, just from an outsider looking on. But I love what you guys are doing. I've listened to a few of the lives of saints. It's enjoyable, it's riveting, it's great. It's great, that's exciting.
Speaker 1:Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 3:So, like you said, yeah, I am also just trying to put the lives and the writings of the saints in front of us and make them more easily accessible to everyone, and you know, most of us have very busy lives and I'm no different. And so, about almost six years ago now, I very simply started to record, you know, little short like paragraph or quotes of saints, and because I wanted to have those to listen to while I did chores or while I drove my car to work, right, and at the time, most of what I could find was was like full length audio books, maybe on like a website called Libreboxorg, oh yeah, or there's like an Orthodox audiobooks organization that sells them, but I couldn't find like shorter stuff or things from like more recent saints. You know, maybe it existed, but I couldn't find it. And so I started very simply doing it for myself.
Speaker 3:And then, shortly after, I started to think well, maybe other people want this right, and so I started out real simple, very well, completely free and cheap equipment. I didn't really have a vision for how to make it. I have a vision for how to go about it from the beginning to the way I do now, but I just want to hear the writings and the lives of the saints more regularly, and so I started doing that with texts that I thought would be valuable to people, and I've continued to learn and refine my approach over time, and I've grown a lot in the process as well, and so it seems like it's, of course, helpful for for me and others and why not? It's the lives and writings of the holy ones.
Speaker 2:Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 1:Thank God, and I want to personally thank you for the work that you've done, because it's it's put so much good content in places that really, really need it, and I wanted to ask you so you started around six years ago From a from, I guess, a creator standpoint. Six years ago, what did the whole landscape of like YouTube, or online orthodoxy, to put it simply, like, what did that look like? Was there anyone doing this as you were doing it?
Speaker 3:You like, like recording the lives and writings of the saints.
Speaker 1:Yeah, stuff like that, or even just putting anything about the lives of the saints. You know was that, was that even on the radar on YouTube six years ago? Was there orthodox?
Speaker 2:Was there orthodox YouTube yet?
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3:I have a feeling there was to some degree, but again, I mean, I was, I was looking for that and I didn't really find what I was looking for. Yeah, I found the full length audio books. I remember listening to some of them, like the 50 homilies by Saint Macarius of Egypt. I'm really seeing that you know very thoroughly. Yeah, of course there's. There's priests and bishops doing things. I think you know, like Father Spirit on Bailey was doing what he was doing back then. Right, oh, wow, I think. Yeah, like on YouTube, not just on ancient faith radio of course ancient faith radio is big then and and others. But yeah, I think I own it's hard to remember you know about six years ago exactly what the landscape was, but it was quite different. A lot of the popular orthodox YouTubers today. Right, we're not, we're not doing much of anything back then. Yeah, amazing.
Speaker 2:You were kind of at that, that that nascent juncture, and it's so fascinating to think about you doing it that far back. I think, if I saw it correctly, you're something like 300 videos deep at this stage. Yeah, and you know what a beautiful thing to kind of reiterate Nick's, you know, gratitude towards you. To my mind, you're creating a library, a literal audio library of these people. You know, literal audio library of these amazing quotes and you know sermons, homilies, etc. Things that you're pulling from to share with the world.
Speaker 2:Like you said, for busy people who don't read much anymore, nick and I have this conversation a lot. Actually, you know, people seem to be listening more and more because they're doing their busy days, they're commuting, etc. And the audio kind of library to my mind seems to be more and more important and I think bringing orthodox content to the world that way is a really is a tremendous service. And you know, on that point, what I want to kind of ask you about is how do you choose what you're doing next, do you? I know you mentioned you started off kind of just because it's what you wanted for yourself, but now that you're pretty well established and you've got a very large following and a lot of people are benefiting from your content. Has this changed at all how you approach your podcast? Can you talk to us about that?
Speaker 3:Oh, certainly, yeah, it has changed. It has changed. I mean myself as an orthodox Christian. I've changed right, and so some of the things that I find not only like oh, I'm finding new to me and I think, man, this is excellent, people need to hear this. You know, I might record something I had read, or I'd come across and read part of and think, oh well, it's from St John Chrysostom, like one I just did recently. Like, well, I don't need to read the whole thing to make sure it's good enough.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly Right.
Speaker 3:Or I want to say good enough, like oh, I'm judging a saint, but like clear and clear enough and it's going to reach people in a way that they're going to really take something away from it, Something like that. Right, I could record certain things that are, of course, really important, but not everything I've noticed is easy to listen to. Yes, right, like a text like St Maximus is the ambiguous right, or some of his questions to Thalassius, or from Thalassius, I think it is. Those are great and really important in orthodox theology, but some of that's really difficult just for me to read, let alone try to listen to.
Speaker 1:Sure, so well multitasking.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, exactly. Driving or doing something at your who knows what chores, of course, are another easy one to do this with.
Speaker 2:You know, Timothy, can we riff on that a little bit, Because I think that's a very interesting concept. We lately, at Cloud Witnesses, we started a new series regarding the screw tape letters and we're very excited about it. In essence, for the audience who hasn't heard it yet, it's a rebirth, if you will, of screw tape addressing issues of today, et cetera, and obviously from an orthodox perspective, which we love, kind of not necessarily going right out in front without right away, because screw tape is such a loved, beloved figure in Protestant circles, but the conversation has come up right away and that is exactly what you just said, and that is you know. Look, you can have a screw tape session that's 25, 30 minutes long, but is it really? Do you need all of that? Is that all going to be very listenable? Or rather, can you find five minutes? Almost like a homily is approached. What's the meat of it, what's the kernel that you can actually access easily while you're putting dishes in the dishwasher or driving down the road?
Speaker 3:Exactly, exactly, and I've noticed over time. Not only is it really important to me to have a variety of different types of topics, we're addressing different periods from the church history, saints of different time periods, also different lengths of recordings. I've found for me and I think my audience the analytics and feedback I've gotten have proven this out kind of the sweet spot for me in terms of length is maybe 10 to 20 minutes or 15 to 20 minutes. Sometimes I'll go about an hour. I think the longest one I have is an hour.
Speaker 2:I've seen years, a couple of 45 minutes and a little longer than that as well.
Speaker 3:And I know the majority of people who listen to the beginning are not going to get to the end. That's just how things are. We all get distracted or we may come back to it a month later. We see it again and we're like, oh yeah, I left off at 15 minutes, let me keep going. But some things just are that long.
Speaker 3:It's one complete text or even multiple texts, but it's all the same idea and it's like the totality of what this saint said on this topic. So I want to put it all together. Other times it might be even three minutes of something, but it's so critical I feel it's been quoted and commemorated by many saints. It's like, ok, I don't care if it's only three minutes and some people are going to see it and think, well, that's not long enough for me to take the time and listen to, even if I get the title across their eyes and they see it again. Maybe they come to my channel a week later because I put a new video out that will see the old one. I know that that can help drive home different principles of orthodoxy. Amen, but I try to have a diversity for some of those reasons.
Speaker 1:I saw recently the one, I loved it, the one on what was that Toys? Toys and the upbringing of upbringing of children that was so relevant for being written, I think in the 80s.
Speaker 3:By a mother.
Speaker 1:Wow, I mean that it felt like it could have been written yesterday.
Speaker 2:I mean, I didn't hear that one. I'd like to hear what was the the oh?
Speaker 1:man, I don't even know where to begin with that one. It was like a what would you say? Like a cross section between looking at marketing and exploiting children and lower base fallen desires, you know, and exploiting the children's desires for capital gain, etc, etc, and how parents need to be vigilant, and it goes on. But I was like wow, I mean for this monk, a larian, to have said this, you know, back in the 80s. I mean it's more, it's just even more relevant today for us.
Speaker 3:But yeah, yeah, I of course found it pretty relevant, I thought at the very least. You know, it's going to be very thought provoking for people. Some people are going to be like this is out of this is out of date, this is like this is antiquated and fundamentalist or whatever, and other people are going to see what I saw is a lot of gems in there and even if we can nitpick some of the details, you know which I think you know, which is for this text and others, the trajectory was certainly in the right, the right direction, and so that's one of the. It's interesting you bring that up because it gets to.
Speaker 3:Another thing about my approach is I've I've tried to be very careful To stick to what the saints and those uncannonized saints who are venerated elders and righteous ones who are venerated widely, right, I've tried to be pretty much only recording from their writings, right. Occasionally I will step outside of that, and this was one of those examples where I don't actually know who this monk Halarian is. I I could guess. I I thought, oh, is this Metropolitan Halarian of Rokor who reposed last year? But he will. He was already a bishop in 89. So it wasn't this, it wasn't that Halarian. I don't know who it was, but I felt like I don't know many texts that talk directly about children and parents and toys and Christmas and all that together in a way. That was, I thought, pretty edifying. So when I found it I thought, well, this is great timing to write the beginning of the summer. So I'm going to go ahead and go for it. But 99 percent of what I record is from those who have been deemed most trustworthy by the whole church.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, one similar to that that comes to mind is you have one on the spiritual life of motherhood, one of your recent episodes, father Paisios, and it's really, really good. And you mentioned I don't think you use the word controversial, but I think you use the word kind of stimulating or kind of, like you know, get people thinking. And I've noticed a number of your topics. You certainly don't shy away from some pretty heavy topics, and if you could talk to us about what that's been like in terms of because I know, when we originally talked about doing this podcast with you, timothy, we talked about evangelism and the Internet.
Speaker 2:Right, it's something that your podcast is involved in, it's something our podcast is involved in, you know, by God's grace, can you talk to us about that? You know what is it like? What kind of feedback are you getting? What are some of the questions that are being posed to you and how are you addressing those when it comes to some of these more kind of weighty and really maybe some pious opinion is involved in some of these. What are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, there are definitely times where I come across a text that seems, of course, challenging, you know, controversial, I mean, sometimes I don't even know what that really means. You know like, oh, because people disagree, it's just automatically controversial. But things that are challenging, that are not talked about enough in my opinion. Maybe things like that, you know some of them.
Speaker 3:I'll say I'll ask my spiritual father what do you think of this text? Do you think this is fruitful to share with such a wide and diverse audience? Because I imagine more than half of my audience is probably Orthodox. But I know a sizable portion is not based on what I've gathered from my own channels, feedback and engagement, but even like I work closely with Father Peter Hears and Orthodox Ethos and I've seen our analytics and at least from what I've gathered, based on a poll, you know it's sort of like a, you know a little bit of a, you know it's just a poll, it's not the most scientific thing or most accurate thing, but it maybe even over half or close to half are not Orthodox. Wow, they might be Catechumans or inquirers, but they're not Orthodox yet, and so that's really stuck with me since I saw that.
Speaker 1:It's pretty amazing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and so I assume it's similar for my channel. So I have texts like even one I did recently called um Carnal Warfare, elder Fram of Arizona and St Joseph the Hezikast. It's a section from St Joseph's life written by Elder Fram and teachings from Elder Fram himself, and there's some real challenging stuff in there. Stuff you're like well, if I try to imitate this exact thing the saint did, that may not be the most fruitful thing for me, yeah Right, but but it's part of our literature, it's part of our holy tradition. And you know I went back and forth on that.
Speaker 3:I asked my spiritual father and ultimately, you know, I decided, we decided to put it out, but I did put a very I tried to put it like a note, both in the description and pinned like the pinned comment, trying to simply say, like, not every detail, the life of a saint is best for us to imitate. If we're so inclined to try to imitate St Joseph, who to fight the Carnal Warfare, to fight the temptation with lust that he was experiencing, he would hit himself on the shin with a cane, hard, hard. That's not something I've done, that's not something even the experienced spiritual fathers that I know would readily suggest to anybody. So I just said, if you're so inclined to try and do this, do not do this on your own. Go and seek the guidance of an experienced spiritual father. And I feel like that term will cover like Either that could be your parish priest could be your spiritual father. You don't have. You know, if you just have a priest you don't have spiritual father, or it's not the same person, or it's different person, whatever.
Speaker 3:But those are some difficult things that I I struck. You know, I'm like how do I, how do I go about, you know, trying to address a topic that seems under addressed, like the fight against lust, seeing it in fornication and all that trying to like Trying to help right, trying to help people with the lives of the same writings of the saints. Other topics, you know, are perennially controversial, like ecumenism and Well, I haven't really done anything on like transhumanism, because there's not really much written by saints on that topic. Yeah, right, because it's such a new new.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah at least people who you know, have had the test of time at the polls in the churches. Yeah, but, but, yeah, you know, I know that. Oh, the other thing I wanted to say to wrap up, to answer your question about evangelism I really believe that sharing, sharing, I don't want to, I don't want to put pearls was before swine, so to speak. Right, of course, you know, people outside the church are not, they're not pigs, right, but but the the analogy that they're not, they're not ready for all of the spiritual wisdom and experience that the church has, has Handed down.
Speaker 3:I don't think I'm ready for it all. So, how much more those are not initiated into the church? Yeah, so, but, but at the same time, I think, if we shy away too much from the controversial and difficult things, we're not really um, what is what does the apostle say? Sharing, like the whole testimony of god, like the fullness of the testimony of god. I forget that, I'm forgetting the scripture right now, but, um, I think there's really something to keep in mind with that, because people are drawn, especially, I think our generation you guys seem like you're similar age as I am our generation is, is hungry for truth, is hungry for, um the fullness of what is authentic and real.
Speaker 2:Yes, transcendence.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes and and it doesn't want things whitewashed and coated over, right and uh, that can get carried away. We can get carried away with that good desire, but generally I think it's a good thing. So I try to say, okay, even if we don't, we can't all fully grasp this, fully Appropriate it for our own lives in a fruitful way, I think we just we need to get it out there. We need to, we need to plant seeds with some of these things the saints teach, and and let god and trust god and pray to god that you'll, he will help us with all that.
Speaker 3:So, I try to do. I try to do a wide variety of things. Yeah, of course, I have my own bias. Yeah, I have my own bias.
Speaker 1:Uh, it's inevitable, but I really try to put a variety of things Out there and that that's much appreciated because it can be so easy to get into the doom scrolling, to get into the prophecies, to get into the end times, which are, you know, they have their place, but, right, it would be misleading for anyone to get sucked into Just that part of orthodox orthodoxy or just that part of Christianity, or just, you know, or even just have that divorced from Christianity and all they're doing is, you know, doom scrolling or whatever that is.
Speaker 1:You know, but we, we've experienced the same thing with our podcast in the sense that, okay, how do you deal with some of these topics Young maidens being martyred, you know, and brutal, brutally mutilated at times? Right, like, how can we Stay true to the story in a tasteful way that shows people the gravity? But, you know, because we don't want to whitewash it, right, like the one of the reasons why so many? Yeah, exactly, you know, or else you start getting into not to bash on, you know, protestants, but you start getting into that kind of happy Jesus movie feeling where, like, everything's just to feel good, you know, but trying to find that balance is is, um, we're still in the learning curve of a lot of things in our own journey.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. And you. I have a question for you guys because maybe you covered it in one of your. Your video was, but With the, with the, if you take a live of a saint's and you are, you're figuring it out All your whole cast and who's going to do which parts, and all this. Are you like I don't know what's the term Creative license? Right? You taking some creative license at times because you just talked about like these, these, the murder of these, these maidens? Right, it's right, it may be written in a way where you think, well, is the, is the audience that I have at the moment and hope to have in the future? Is this gonna be Exactly what's best for them? And right it is. I imagine that's a tough question to answer. Was that kind of? How do you guys go about that?
Speaker 2:it is Nick. Do you mind if I take a stab at that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, go for it and then that you Take it from there, please do. Yeah, absolutely, timothy. This is something we have done with a lot and I think we're really trying to approach it really. I think, kind of how you explained your approach when you mentioned the, you know St Joseph Hitting his ankles, you know the idea is not, hey, everybody, if you're struggling with lust, try this like that. You know, I want to be clear.
Speaker 2:We're not saying that we're not in position to say that. As you said, go talk to your spiritual father. You know, get guidance on this, not from cloud of witnesses. You know radio. I'll just say that right now. You know right. But For what we're trying to do is to, for example, to tell the story of Saint Fibronia. You know who did who does? You know a sacred martyr she gets martyred for, for wanting to maintain her chastity, etc. We are not saying to everybody hey, yeah, you know, like Saint Fibronia, you should flee your, you know your engagement, flee your family, go live in the monastery, and you know. But what are we saying? Well, we're not saying anything other than this actually happened in the life of the church. Saint Fibronia is a faithful Christian woman, who who lived this life, and here's her life.
Speaker 2:And and in what edification that gives to you, timothy, what it gives to someone else in your parish or someone across the world who's in a different place dealing with this, maybe even watching that episode 10 years from now. You know who knows? Our hope and prayer is that, if we're faithful to the story, god can work through that truth, as he's worked through the lives of the Saints Absolutely.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I totally agree. That's been my approach as well, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, amen, yeah, when it comes to like this, specific details, like some accounts of some saints, it's, it'll go into detail. You know their entire life. You know from childhood on up to you. Know the nitty-gritty, painful details of their martyrdom. Other ones, you know they might have a lot of information about their monastic life and very little about their martyrdom or whatever. So at times we do have to take, you know, some creative license in the sense of connecting those dots right In finding those highlights. But whatever we do, we're always trying to be faithful to the story and not over embellishing. You know right those ways. And it's actually a very interesting topic that we also had with Blanking on her name oh, yelena, the director of man of God man of God.
Speaker 3:Well, you spoke with her wonderful yeah, yeah we had.
Speaker 2:We were blessed to speak with her, timothy. Go on, nick, she was a little yeah and we had the same Question.
Speaker 1:You know, I think, someone from our cast. We actually had her on for just a private meeting. We had actually met her long story and we watched the movie and then we had a meeting with her Q&A type session and someone asked her like so how did, how did we know? Or how did you know what? Exactly? The paralytic, you know, at that one scene, at the very end spoiler alert, you know when he's she asked, this person asked, you know, how did you know what this person said? And it's like well, this isn't written down, but you could imagine in this scenario what this person would have done, you know.
Speaker 1:So it's that kind of connecting certain dots and other things. We have specific quotes, oftentimes famous quotes. You know, like St Herman, from this day, from this hour, from this very minute, let us strive to love God above all. Like okay, that we can definitely highlight as like this is a St Herman, you know. So it's kind of a. It's kind of a mixed bag of storytelling. Sometimes you have primary sources, sometimes secondary sources. So it's actually a very fun Process to take part in. It's a lot of work, but it's a. It's an extremely fun and edifying process from start to finish. Yeah, man, you know.
Speaker 2:Timothy, you mentioned that you've learned so much over the course of these past six years Of you doing your podcast. I can only imagine how much you've learned, because you know we're only At what Nick enters of the lives of the Saints at maybe 20 episodes or so in something like that, and we've learned so much Just from that process. You know the writing of the script and the research and all of that, and then the you know the actual production of it. You do something that I think is really awesome you pin a comment on some of your videos and you provide Orthodox resources. I noticed it on. I'm trying to think which episode it was, but it was dealing with orthodoxy and addiction and if you're, if you have issues with drunkenness, check out this link. Can you talk to us about that? I think that is another way. It seems to me that you are saying hey look, you know this is not Timothy speaking, but here's some more great orthodox resources for you to go to.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's something I haven't done For very long. I had that kind of approach to try to make sure I do that each time, but I'm more in the habit now. Yeah, I, you know, I've learned of learned a fair amount of Things about, like, what resources are out there, who's doing what, and so if I know something, I'm trying to think more like, okay, if two thousand people are gonna listen to this and you know a good portion are gonna look in the description or look at the first pin comment or something, how can I point them to? Just some basic ways of like going going deeper, whether it's read the full text yourself that I'm reading my, what I recorded, go read the full text, one I try to put every time now as what's called orthodoxy in America. I saw that and From what I can, what I've seen, it's pretty accurate. It's a pretty accurate directory in America for all orthodox parishes and monasteries. Well, so If someone doesn't have a parish yet, they may, they should go find one and they should go visit the monasteries near to near them as well, even if it's a ways away. That it's super important as an orthodox Christian to have some contact with monasteries.
Speaker 3:So, but the other one recently. I was. I was grateful when it came to my mind because it's St John Chrysostom and his, this homily to People preparing for baptism during lent Right, and he's preparing them not just for the baptism and the chrysmaean and Eucharist, but he's preparing them for the fight and the whole experience. After after, like yeah, yeah, and, and not to me, I was like this text is excellent because the first few years of me being orthodox, I was not prepared at all to feast. I, I was focused on the fast. I've been, you know, trying to trying to be obedient to the fast and struggle, and Then the feast comes and I had no bearings anymore. I was, I was like I, I just wasn't prepared at all, which tells me I wasn't fasting properly because I was focused too much on foods. I foods to avoid and not purifying my heart. By God's grace. But this text is super important. So St John Chrysostom does say a fair amount about drunkenness, both the kind that is, you know, the physical kind from alcohol, but also the spiritual and emotional kind from being angry and being lustful and such. But you know, since it's an eat, since you know, everyone knows somebody and some of us, or to some degree or another may be prone to drinking too much.
Speaker 3:This resource was both a prayer, a coughest, the inexhaustible cup to the theotokos, that one's been known to help people with addictions of various kinds. And then I Think I'd seen it a while back, but I saw it again when I was researching the for the a coughest that there's a ministry. I think it's through Rokor, but that's just the jurisdiction that happens to be with it's. It's called like the ministry of the exhaustful cup or something, and it's for people who are struggling with alcohol addiction. So that's amazing. I don't know everything about it, but I would I'd rather point people in that direction and at least get them thinking like, okay, I listen to this. Now what? What do I do with this? Right, sometimes it's obvious what I can do with it. I can say the prayer more or whatever. But sometimes you're like I need some, I need to find somebody to help me with something. So I've been trying to do that more and hopefully it's helping.
Speaker 2:I'll read it out. It's a great episode if we can plug. Yeah, nick, and then it's all yours. What we're talking about is, I believe, is it your most recent episode? Yeah, timothy, it's a Saint John Christos, them the fast-ended, but but not piety, right, it's?
Speaker 3:it's a wonderful episode and I recommend even if the fast is over, let the piety remain. That's awesome.
Speaker 2:After you lift, after you're done listening to this, then go listen to that episode. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I'll reshare it when the old calendar or traditional calendar Christmas comes along on kind of that, the topic of you know, things that you've been doing that are new. I was actually wondering, like, do you have With this upcoming new year, do you have any projects, aspirations, anything new, new directions you want to go, or anything projected into your future that you're, that you're aspiring towards?
Speaker 3:I think it's mostly more the same. But one thing I want to do more if possible. I know a few people who knew Father Sarah from Rose. I was able to do an interview with one of those men, father Paul Baba, and I posted that on Father Sarah from Feast Day this year, september 2nd, and it's just so beautiful and so inspiring and just wonderful. So I'd like to have another conversation with him and post that, but I also I don't want to be stray too far off of what I've been doing. Right, maybe I have an occasional interview if there's a really good reason for it, but there's so many texts that I could find to record. Oh, I do want to say something about my approach, just so it's clear to anyone who's interested and you guys might be curious too. It's like I've been asked a lot how do you pick which texts you record in the context of copyright?
Speaker 2:I was very curious about that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it's. There's no doubt that I I do push the envelope a little bit, but I really do try to stick to things that are clearly not copy written, which there are some, some things that are not in copyright at all. Stick to things that are easily accessible online on main, like primary, like popular Orthodox websites that have been there for a while. So it's not as though I'm, you know, getting like the secret scoop on something or like, okay, this is a long book, I'm going to take a small chunk of it and then I'll always plug the book where you can buy it and if it's at all available for sale, I'll find a way to put the link for people to buy it. Nice, if it's. If it's completely out of print and I've gotten some idea from you know, gotten some information one way or another, that there's no plans for it to be back in print currently Then I might, might plug the link where I got it. It could be a PDF or something else, but I really try to point people to where they can buy the book. You know, because most of what I've recorded, you know, I either have the book where it's, you know, very easy to access online and it's it's not like I'm trying to steal anything, some things, some things I you know because you read in front of books it's like, no, no portion of this can be reproduced in any way. And they list like nine different ways you can reproduce it.
Speaker 3:So, technically speaking, according to the letter of the law, you can't even share a quote on on Facebook. Wow, I mean technically, if I take it at face value, right, yeah, and and I you know I've yet to have. Well, I think one time I shared a text that I asked for and got like I asked them for it, received it, but they weren't, they didn't understand my, my initial request in order to be able to share it on Orthodox wisdom, orthodox wisdom. And they, they basically said we didn't really think you were going to do that. But I confirmed with them that they were okay with me leaving it up at that point. But if there's ever a time where it's like, hey, you, you didn't have a, what's the word?
Speaker 2:Authority authority authorization approval authorization to do this.
Speaker 3:We want you to take it down, like the publisher asking you to do that. Right, then I'll. Then I'll do that. I'm not going to, I'm not going to hold on to it with white knuckles, right, yeah, right yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, timothy, I can speak to that a little bit. It's kind of funny. Generally, with copyright, you're not really going to run into too much trouble, unless you start making a lot of money on that particular quote, which I'm just going to go out on a limb. I doubt you are, you know, and I know that's not your intention the only things.
Speaker 3:Let me just yeah, I want to I appreciate you bringing that up the only things I've monetized. Or that interview with Father Paul Babo, which is original content that I helped make. And then, like there's like five videos of texts that are out of print and I've been told I found out like there's no intention for them to be reprinted, Like no one's going to make money off of those anymore, Right? And then I try to make sure whatever money I'm getting from YouTube, which is very little, goes back into some Orthodox endeavor.
Speaker 2:Yes, Amen, I got to say before I let Nick take. Take the next question here, if you want to, nick. Father Paul Baba is actually my cousin's priest, my cousin David, want to give him a shout out how you doing, dave, but he goes to Father Paul Baba's parish and he has had conversations with Father Paul related to Father Seraphim and he's come away from it every single time just kind of like just blown away by the wisdom and beauty there. So that's pretty exciting. You have an episode and again it was Father Seraphim Rose where you discussed the royal path and and talk a lot about this.
Speaker 2:You know what the faith is, you know this avoidance of the excess, you know, but also avoiding lack and you know the kind of the middle ground between ecumenism and you know reform, reform and as he calls it. Can we talk about that a little bit? I think it's such an important point for today and I actually didn't even. There's even that podcast I love called the Royal Path. I'm sure you're aware of their podcast. Yeah, would you mind talking to us, timothy, about you know your experience now and in terms of what that royal path is and you know Father Seraphim Rose kind of kind of providing guidance on that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the Royal Path. There's a lot that can be said. Father Seraphim, I think, is an excellent guide on a royal path, especially for us Americans. He I mean people who know his life and can go read about his life. He was so far away from the church at one point and then, when he found the church, when he grasped in his heart and his mind the truth and the beauty of Christ and the Orthodoxy, he did not search any further, he just went deeper and deeper and deeper into Orthodoxy, into Christ, and over that time he I mean some of his, some of the people who knew him said he had the gift of discernment and he's not known as a wonder worker like Saint John Maximovich, for example. He's known as a you know, a writer and a teacher of the faith and someone who's got an incredible story of repentance and conversion. But he, he emphasized and spoke at length about a lot of the different traps that one can fall into. I know for myself he's helped me immensely on avoiding, because in some ways I can be tempted to go too far to the right and other times, in other ways, I'm tempted to go too far to the left, right, I might be more more to the right on like oh, we need, we need to avoid these heretics or something Right and be be a bit undiscerning at times with with things along those lines and then too far to the left with being lazy, with just my own life and eating too much or whatever. So Father Serafum, in his life and his works, shows the royal path really clearly.
Speaker 3:This article that you referenced, that I recorded, it was written in the context of a controversy that was brewing and was kind of coming to a head within Rokor at the time, with Father Pantelaymon and his spiritual children and associates His spiritual children, will say, in Boston and elsewhere. And he was concerned not just for the more obvious, like things that are lax, like Westernization of of the Orthodox Church and not sticking to the fast. You know, like we just had finished a nativity fast and in his time and in our time we have people don't even pay attention to it and somehow they feel okay with that. You know he would critique that rightly and it's a more obvious critique. But he could see at the same time, you know, with stuff about fasting being overly strict and ended up, you know giving room for the devil to, to entice one to judge others. But he even saw things that I find still quite surprising or quite striking, and I think most people find it quite striking Even talks about how those who are, who are super correct is a phrase he uses a lot super correct they're, they're pursuit of purity and doctrine and practice is essentially, without always noticing it, divorce from love and humility.
Speaker 3:Right, and he even even even perceives that in the days of anti Christ, those who have the perfect, pure doctrine, who have kept all the rules, so to speak, and are really, really, you know, teaching correctly, they're more tempted to fall before anti Christ because the spiritual power needed to resist him is not in, or may not I don't want to put words in his mouth may not be in those who are super correct.
Speaker 3:Hyperdocs, yeah, hyperdocs, yeah, and it can look, it could be very subtle, and Father Serafim was very discerning on this, so he wrote a number.
Speaker 3:He wrote on this article which is kind of his, one of his main things, on the specific, the royal path, a topic of avoiding the extremes, not just staying in the middle. Right, because the middle could look different, could be different things at different times, different eras, right, if, if you're, you've got someone actually in the middle and someone way over on the left. The middle of that is still too far to the left, right, right, so he understood that he spoke about this in many ways and different times. But, yeah, he's an excellent guide because he covers so much and he he he had so much experience in his short 20 years as an Orthodox Christian. So I definitely suggest everyone go read that article. If they can get the book Letters from Father Serafim, which is his correspondence with Father Alexi Young, that book will really really give people a much deeper understanding of the royal path, which is really just the narrow path that Christ talks about. Amen, amen, it's the narrow path, it's the one that leads to life.
Speaker 1:I'll have to check that one out. I actually haven't read that one yet. I love his works and he has had an amazing impact on my life as well, so I'll have to check that one out. It seems like you know a lot about what you're, what you've been reading, obviously, so that's making me wonder do you read a lot? Or, like, how do you find time to read? You know, select, record, post and do all that Like, how does all this fit into your life?
Speaker 3:Well, finding time to read is more difficult than it used to be, no doubt, which is part of why my product, my output, is less than it was, at, say, like before I had children, in terms of actually reading texts.
Speaker 3:Some of it is like I'm going, I have got a topic in mind, I've got a feast day in mind, I've got a something that's coming up in mind and I want to share something with people to help address the topic in a fruitful way. Right, so I'll go hunt around the internet. I've learned, you know, I think I've learned where some of the best resources for Orthodox writings are online. Or I'll look through the books I have and, you know, maybe there's something in there that I forgot about. Or I have people that I know who also read, have read and do read a lot, and are very knowledgeable about the faith, and I'll ask them if they have something they're aware of Nice. So it's not as though I'm strictly doing it like all on my own or I'm not benefiting greatly by, you know, modern technology. Sometimes control F is a great help, yeah, that's great, that's great.
Speaker 2:You're becoming a great researcher today. That's a huge skill.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. So, but I will. I mean, I've been Orthodox almost coming up on nine years and you know I listened to podcasts, I listened to lectures on the faith and I, you know, heard a lot there of like saints that are quoted and books that are referenced and all that. So through all that, I've, you know, learned what I've learned. Some of it I'll. You know, it's just a variety of things I may look like. I said I may look for a specific text on a topic, or, like this, st John Chrysostom that I posted yesterday. Someone I saw shared a quote with quote on that, just I don't know five days ago and I went and found where the quote was. I found the book. There was a PDF online and I I was like this is awesome, this is exactly what.
Speaker 3:I needed and what I imagined some other people need, so I found the time to record it. I try to do one a week at this point. It's difficult at times, but I try to do one a week. Sometimes I don't. I only have time to like put out a short excerpt of something I'd done in the past, which is great.
Speaker 2:That's a great concept as well, kind of the evergreen, you know, taking something that was this size and kind of finding that kernel, you know, and sharing that for a new audience, a new time. That's great.
Speaker 3:And that's. That's mostly what I can do. I don't have time to sit record and edit and make a thumbnail and do all this stuff for long texts, like a fullness of a long text, even if it's fully available to me, like not under copyright or it's widely shared or whatever. So, yeah, I'm looking for those, you know, 10 to 20 minute type of texts often because they're digestible for most people and they're what I can make happen as well. Nice, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:Do you mind, timothy? I actually love this kind of stuff. I hope our audience does as well. Can we talk shop a little bit in terms of you know what gear are you using, you know kind of what's your, what's your process, that type of thing? Do you enjoy that kind of stuff?
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, I've got so much gear and I've spent so much money on it all.
Speaker 2:Load up Mercy.
Speaker 3:It's really simple. I've kept it real.
Speaker 2:You're being sarcastic.
Speaker 3:When I started out, all I used was my cell phone. Wow, I was, which is not a good idea because the microphone in the phone is not very good and it was an old, cheaper phone. And then it dawned on me at one point. I was like I can't, I can't keep doing this regularly and using a poor mic. And I started to pick up as I would listen to things back myself and like, oh, the S, the sound of the S is really not good.
Speaker 3:Or I got some plosives you guys probably know what a plosive is, right, yeah, yeah, like bass sound, right In your with a P or many other letter. Yeah, I started to learn about that. And at one point I think it was like about four years ago yeah, four years ago I went and bought a cheap mic. It's like $60. And it just plugs right into your phone and then it's got the dead cat, the like muff, the big muffled cover over the microphone, and that made a world of difference, yeah, and then I just set the settings on the phone to be like low gain or something. It's just very simple and I, well, I think this sounds a lot better and I at some point had somebody else listen to it and they thought they said, yeah, that sounds fine, sounds good. So I've just been going with that for a while.
Speaker 3:That's great, I think. So I guess. To sum up the total, the total like money and things I've purchased are the $60 mic and I spend like I think it's like $80 a year. I'm sure there's a cheaper way, I just haven't found it yet $80 a year to upload a website that'll take my MP3 to and automatically convert it to MP4 for YouTube, and it'll do that. I spend the money so it doesn't have the like website address embedded above the thumbnail, but that's about it. I don't. I don't know much about the mics and all that.
Speaker 3:That's great, do you?
Speaker 2:edit it. Do you use a audio editor or a program? To kind of cut stuff together and whatnot.
Speaker 3:I do yeah, I don't read nearly as well as the final product.
Speaker 2:I was wondering, because I was like, yeah, either, he's just a fantastic reader, you know, because it's very clear, you do a great job on that. It's important.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I edited it in GarageBand. I know more like professional people who do audio books have a different way of like editing it as they read, but I just haven't like set up the equipment to do that. And the other thing is I like break down, set up and break down my studio. Each time I wait until my kids are asleep and maybe my wife's asleep too, and I set up here. I've got a blanket over the bookshelf that I set my cup in which has the phone in, and it's really simple. It's really simple. And sometimes I'll go in my car and I've set up a big blanket in there to muffle any feet of sound bouncing back off in my car. Yeah, but I've kept it simple and I don't have enough reason to change because I feel like it's working.
Speaker 2:It's working great. I feel like it's a gorilla podcasting that type of thing. That's just doing what works. I wish, timothy, that we had that. I don't want to call it a luxury, but we do ensemble pieces, as you know, and we've got numerous microphones involved, and so we've had to kind of go down a different road. We're moving away from simple. We started fairly simple three or four mics, a single board they were going into but we're starting to get to a point. Lord willing, as we continue to grow, we're going to try to up the game a little bit. So we'll see about that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I saw one of the behind the scenes videos and you had about a dozen people recording all in one living room. Is that right? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:It's amazing. It's been a real grassroots movement in our church that it's like we put one step forward and God's allowing us to walk on water with it all. Amen. It was neither Jeremy nor my Our will alone. It was us working synergetically with God, providing everything that we need and continuing to do that. But then also everyone at our church and kind of just in our San Diego region, different parishes around here pitching in and we couldn't be here without all of this coming together. It's actually really amazing, so very inspiring.
Speaker 3:From an outsider looking on, it does look really rewarding to do what you guys are doing. It is, it really is, yeah.
Speaker 1:It's amazing how you can first get a story right and maybe someone reads it and says, hey, check it out, this could be a great episode. Then someone else writes it up, or the same person writes it up and the next thing you know we got people in a living room and we're all setting it up in the same thing. We build up and we tear down our studio, which is, with the kind of gear we're doing is just like you want to tear your hair out after doing it a dozen times.
Speaker 1:So we're trying to get to a more sustainable type setup for something like us. But we definitely can share with you in that sense of the learning curve and trying to build on and trying to improve upon what already exists.
Speaker 2:Doing the best with what we've got.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and a lot of that, and a lot of that.
Speaker 3:I think there's something beautiful to that too. Right, I don't necessarily want my audio quality to be audio quality to be the absolute best it can be, because it would probably cost a lot of money. Right, I don't fault anybody for doing that, but personally I like that. I've gotten it to be pretty solid with a minimal amount of equipment and cost and I feel pretty good about about doing it that way. Amen, I see a need to change. I mean, I noticed, of course, the quality you guys have is far beyond what I have, but you've got, you've got multiple voices, you've got the set kind of the set kind of soundtrack, a variety of sounds, and you know music at times behind it. So all that, all that together. You know, I would, I would expect you guys to want the audio quality to be better than something like what I'm doing.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, Timothy, for I'll be totally honest with you, I'm surprised when you told me what you're doing, because it doesn't come off that way. It sounds great. It sounds great coming out of, coming out of my headphones, you know whatever speakers from YouTube. So, yeah, you could have fooled me. You could have told me you're working with a $500 microphone. I've been like cool.
Speaker 3:You know when I was joking at first. That's why you thought I was serious.
Speaker 2:I really did. I really did. I thought you had some kind of whole setup, you know. So that's great, that's, that's a testament, I think, also to God's grace, you know, and how he provides. This has been an absolute awesome conversation, timothy. You're you're just I don't know just a really great guy. I'm kind of hopeful that our paths can cross again in the future and maybe even meet in person sometime. You know, it sounds like you've got some great things going on. Would you mind telling our audience just kind of where can they find you? We're certainly going to link your, your stuff down below, but how would you like people to reach out to you to find you on the internet?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so of course, orthodoxism on YouTube and Spotify and, I think, some of the smaller podcasts as well, Apple Podcast as well, but the easiest way to well, and then in my social media outside of that is just Twitter, which it is what it is. You mean X? Yeah, I don't know if I'll ever get in the habit of calling it X, I know.
Speaker 2:I know, much to Elon Musk's chagrin. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3:So, but that's an easy way for people to message me if they want, or just the I think it's OrthodoxWisdom1 at gmailcom. You can find that the email address on the OrthodoxWisdom YouTube channel, so if people have questions or anything, they can reach out to me there. I'm not always the quickest at responding, but I do respond eventually, if not quickly, so that's how they can reach me and, god willing, by your prayers, I'll keep doing what I'm doing, amen.
Speaker 2:Amen, amen. So thank you for listening to the end. This has been Cloud of Witnesses Thinking Like the Saints. My name is Jeremy, I'm Nick and we've had Timothy from OrthodoxWisdom joining us today. Timothy, god bless you, god bless your family. We thank you and just we wish you continued success and being able to provide such a wonderful resource to the world. Thanks again.
Speaker 3:Thank you. God bless you guys too. Love the work you're doing, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2:Bye, bye.