What If Everything Is More Complicated Than You Think?
Nathan (00:01)
Hello and welcome to Thinking Out Loud. I'm your co-host, Nathan Renttenhaus.
Cameron (00:04)
And I'm your co host, Cameron McAllister.
Nathan (00:06)
Cameron, I want to return to a topic single causation. I think we've hinted at this or batted around, or maybe actually done specific podcast on this over the over the years. But this is probably one of the elements that causes the most confusion, I think, in our world, which is when we try to say, overly definitively, this happened and this was the reason for it. now, sometimes there there are very, very clear cause and effect.
it's there's a very tight link there. But a lot of things in our lives happen in in far more nuanced ways. And the reason that it's important that we get this right is that you could take this everything almost anything that you see in the news. Let's do straight of horror moose right now or something, and you say this is the one reason that this is the way that it is. or this happened because this person said this, or this happened because of this, or this happened because of this worldview.
Cameron (00:45)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan (01:06)
Those doubtless are are one of the elements or one of the factors there. But what's your what's your phrase you've been using about history killing certainty?
Cameron (01:16)
Yeah, is it history is the place where certainty goes to die.
Nathan (01:20)
and and so what I want you to help me with is is how we don't become cynical as we explore this topic that I want to lay out here. Because the thing of it is is you go you remember the with the withdrawal from Afghanistan, and you know, so it's kinda some Tr Trump had sort of started lining up, then it was a disaster under Biden and you had people falling off planes, and I mean it was just and everybody was very quick to say, This is the reason that this happened this way. And I went back and read a couple books on the
Cameron (01:34)
Mm, yep.
Nathan (01:50)
Russia USSR, Russia and American history in Afghanistan and the work of the CIA and the different intelligence agencies of the multinational organizations that were basically fighting a proxy war in there before the US was even, you know, boots on the ground in Afghanistan. And when you just go back and read the development of the history that leads up to some of these moments, you recognize my goodness, there are thousands and thousands of people and decisions and cultures and subcultures and it's a
overwhelming butterfly effect that leads up to any moment, essentially. and so yeah, you can you can point real blame on people for bad decisions. And so I'm not justifying anybody's actions specifically in in in that example, but to recognize the depth of the complexity of how humans are embedded in reality in relationship to each other and to geography.
Cameron (02:20)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Okay.
Nathan (02:47)
What
can what what do you what can we say?
Cameron (02:50)
Well, this is first of all, I would say that when you look into history and you look at you're gonna find, yeah, myriad factors. So you what this first and foremost ought to be is a council of humility, not of despair. I think it's it's so a naive there are two there are two broad broadly speaking, there are more, but there are two I'm gonna give you two broadly naive responses to the study of history.
One is we can know historical facts with scientific accuracy. And you could read certain I mean, certain people still think like this, but so if if you read cer certain I don't know, I mean more modern, you know, early modern historians, they wrote with a very high degree of certainty. So Edward Gibb Edward Gibbon, you know, in the history and the of of the fall of the you know, of the Roman Empire, wrote with a I mean, very elegant, gr wonderful writer, fabulous writer. There's reason we still read him today.
Nathan (03:26)
Mm-hmm.
Cameron (03:49)
But wrote with a very, very high degree of certainty on precisely what happened and what precisely led to ultimately to the fall of the Roman Empire. Spoiler alert, he he doesn't have a very sympathetic portrayal of Christians. But so on the one hand, you get you have this cer this kind of scientific certainty. We can know with a kind of scientific accuracy what happened. But on the other hand, here's this is an I'm gonna say I'm saying this is an equ equally naive response. You can respond with despair and say, well,
really, there are myriad factors. So many there's no way a human finite mind can can take account of all of it. So therefore, our hands we we throw up our hands, I'm reminded
Nathan (04:31)
And and I think
that's the moment we're closer to living into right now.
Cameron (04:34)
Yeah. And
say we c well, we we can't really know anything with with any real degree of certainty. So I we should just adopt an attitude of severe you know, severe or or radical skepticism. Anytime I use the phrase I throw up my hands, I I think of a poem by Aaron Bells, who is fabulous. He says, I threw up my hands in disgust. Why had I eaten my hands? Anyway, but that's neither here nor there. But
So the the r an attitude of radical skepticism. But on the other hand, so I wanna draw in a parallel. It and then we don't have to pursue this at all. I just I I just think it's a a s a salient, helpful example here. If you look at and it's one kind of history, if you look at the history of the hard sciences, I was just talking to you about this, Nathan. So you can you can pref you can de they're very deconstructible.
Right. There is, first of all, there's there is the entanglement of the hard sciences initially with alchemy and sorcery in the beginning, and eventually that we moved out of that. So you could you could run it through those ideological or historical salad treaders, and you could say, well, we think of the hard sciences as this bastion of objective truth and rationality, but it turns out they're thoroughly irrational through and through. Some of the key practitioners of science were also
Involved in the occult and believed in fairies. Now, all that might it so b by the way, that is true. Okay. But does it follow from that then that, well, the hard sciences are invalidated? Well, that's manifestly insane. You have penicillin, you've got a microscope, you have I mean, so both are true. The hard sciences are here, established, they have a tangled history like anything else, but they also work. And so we also can know
With a reasonable degree of certainty about historical events that took place. Now, let me bring in one other big insight here from Sword and Kierkegaard and add a little theological dimension to it from Father John Bear, and then throw it over to you, Nathan, because I think this is also Kierkegaard famously said, Life is understood, is lived forwards, but understood backwards. John Bear took that insight in his one of his early books on on Christ, and he applied it to the disciples.
And to to draw a very sound conclusion from the scriptural data, they didn't we always talk about how the disciples didn't get it. But what was the big thing that they didn't get at first? They didn't understand who Jesus was. They did now there were there was a prophetic utterance from from Peter. You know, flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, Peter. But Peter still there's ample evidence that he didn't.
grasp the full implications of his prophetic utterance. And also, by the way, scripture is filled filled with examples of prophetic utterances that exceed the capacities and indeed the lives of the people who utter them. So, but afterwards, in hindsight, with the power of the Holy Spirit, we would say as Christians, the disciples begin to understand this momentous thing that happened to them in their interaction with Jesus Jesus Christ. So something
Nathan (07:41)
Mm. Yeah.
Cameron (07:45)
To a much lesser degree, that is true of our experience as human beings in general. And it's certainly true of events that took place that we come to recognize in hindsight were momentous and reshape the world as we know it in important ways. Can we know them exhaustively and comprehensively? No, but we don't need to. We know a lot about the Second World War and the First World War War World War. We know a lot about, you know.
Caesar Augustus, we know a lot about pick your event. So but we've pieced it together in hindsight.
Nathan (08:21)
Well, you know, one of the reasons we know that this is a complex topic is because it took Tolstoy many, many pages to write War and Peace which is the which is the yeah the the the multi multi page read, let's say, on how history works. And and I mean in to a certain degree, he's trying to write a fictional account of the Napoleonic invasion of Russia that is more accurate than the historical accounts. Because because
Cameron (08:29)
Yeah. Yep.
And
he he kind of achieved it, I think, in in to a significant degree, wouldn't you say?
Nathan (08:51)
Yeah, and it's interesting,
like if you read in the epilogue, there were people who fought in the battles who said, Yeah, your version of it is closer to the truth. So think of, for example, we might tell ourselves, you have two two great generals, they go to war and we look at the battlefield like a chessboard, and the then the one general says, Okay, pawn to D four and you you know, click it up into that square. And Tolstoy's point is, well, you know, the general has an idea, but we're in the eighteen hundreds here or late seventeen hundreds.
The the order is given. The guy with the order, his horse falls and breaks a leg. The order doesn't arrive. The unit that was supposed to capture the hill gets lost in the fog. One of the guys, you know, has frostbit feet because a previous commander forgot to order the shoes that came from the like when you get so he ends up saying, you know, there are a billion reasons that France ended up marching on Moscow. And to to try to figure out all of those reasons is so exhaustive.
That we have to
Cameron (09:51)
You could be trying to play God if you do that.
Nathan (09:53)
We well, we basically just have to say, Well, Napoleon was a great man.
Cameron (09:57)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan (09:58)
And he's like, that is so simplistic of an explanation. And he's like, obviously he thought Napoleon was a goober and a buffoon. But he he said, we have to fall back on the simplistic description in order not to lose our minds. But to act like I mean, he has that whole thing of like, you know, why does an apple fall from a tree?
Cameron (10:10)
Yeah.
Nathan (10:20)
Is it because the fruit ripened and the stem weakened, desiccation from the wind, or a storm shook it, or a little boy stood under it and prayed for it, or an animal knocked it off, or a you can't just look at an apple on the ground and say, This is the reason that the apple fell. It could be a combination of factors, it could be factors that you don't even know. and so he's wallowing in that sense of
The stories we tell ourselves sometimes are s for survival, not for description.
Cameron (10:48)
Yeah, that's a theme that's come up on on the podcast before. Let's let's talk about why we we are prone to doing this just for a second. So Yeah. Why it's so appealing. Well, you we've named one of the appeals. I mean it's so a simplip a simpler explanation is always gonna have huge appeal. If you certainty is amazingly appealing, especially in times of of upheaval. But
Nathan (10:58)
Why we want the chessboard vision of of reality.
Cameron (11:18)
This goes back a long way, so I'm I think the poetic expression of it, the best poetic expression of it comes from Alexander Pope's essay on man. The most famous line in that in that poem is let me see, I want to make sure I say it correct maybe I I remember it. Yeah. Let me read this. Know then thyself, presume presume not God to scan the proper study of mankind as man.
Know then thyself, presume not God to scan, the proper study of mankind is man. Why that is so significant is what's there's a there are a const there's a constellation of assumptions behind that, those lines. What he's saying is, and Richard Rorty, years later, is gonna say it again. Richard Rorty, by the way, says, When people bring up metaphysics and theology and questions about how many.
Angels can dance on the you know, the head of a pen. What we should do is change the subject. That's an amazingly powerful statement, by the way. Instead of he don't even waste your breath on those arguments. And instead what what should we think of instead? Well, Richard Rorty, who is a a pragmatist, said, Well, I mean, we need to we just we should fixate on things that we need we I mean, get stuff done. We need to think about politics and get working solutions to our problems.
Nathan (12:24)
Yeah.
Cameron (12:44)
So that is, and that's what Pope is saying in more eloquent terms. He's saying, all right, the all of those deep, metaphysical, ponderous, navel gazing questions, let's bracket those because we're not God and we can't we can't think like God. So what we want to do is we want to focus on not on mysteries, but on problems. Problems that need solving. And for I don't know, for ever since those words were written, we have done that.
As a culture and as a society, we've we've really set ourselves to the task of of fixable problems. The problem is though, we tend to now we paint everything with that brush. And so when you're dealing with major events that are unfolding right now in our world, global conflicts, and we try to approach them with that same brush. well, you know, we can ha here here here's what here we can say with a high degree of certainty, here's what went wrong.
right now in the Middle East, and here's the problem with Ukraine and Russia and all of that. And we we make these definitive pronouncements. And yeah, 20 years from now, they're gonna look just like what they are, incredibly naive and category mistakes. But that's because we're we're we're trying to apply the wrong methodology. We're approaching everything, we're approaching the world and history and culture and everything like it's just one big vast
operating system or machine and we just need to figure out the right code or the right means of repair and then we'll get her all fixed. And that's just not true.
Nathan (14:17)
So all right, so so we g we can
continue down this framework of proving the point that our explanations are often overtly simplistic. Let's change directions a little bit here and talk about well, how then do you live meaningfully in light of this? Because I think you could make the false step to say, Okay, so basically I I can't I can't plot and plan and scheme and accurately come up with a a plan.
Cameron (14:36)
Mm.
Nathan (14:47)
For anything because it's also variable. And, you know, Tolstoy's one of his reflections on this is that, you know, it was it was a big deal when hu humans found out that the Earth wasn't the center of the universe. A little bit of a shocker, you know. But in in embracing that, then a whole set of cosmological principles came into play in an understanding of gravity and orbits, and and so there was actually a deeper principle.
That was more true and mathematically beautiful that was at play that we found through the disruption. So he's he's playing with that idea a little bit too of to say, a simplistic, you know, if if the equivalent is that the earth is the center of the universe or Napoleon was a great man, what if we took a what if we just assumed that Napoleon wasn't a great man and then we had to explain what happened? Is there a deeper set of principles or a more
complex understanding of humanity that actually shows us a more beautiful underlying so so does the does the simplistic explanation shortchange our understanding of something that's more beautiful? So the qu the question isn't doesn't does it make it worse or like it he he's saying that that the the complexity doesn't what's the word I'm looking for here when you when you take the
Cameron (15:57)
Mm.
Nathan (16:11)
It doesn't demythologize or it doesn't it doesn't make it less beautiful. It doesn't reduce it, but it actually shows a deeper level of complexity that's more beautiful. And he's going to link some divine providence in here of saying, ultimately humans aren't that great of thick. There might have to be s some hand behind the scenes here that makes the horse fall in the hole and the fog roll in at the time that George Washington is trying to cross the Delaware. You know, Tolstoy's not making that point. That's but
Cameron (16:18)
Mm.
Yeah.
Nathan (16:39)
I'm using that example of of saying it how can we practically live into saying, actually there's more beauty here and our lives actually mean more and each individual s decision that we make is actually way more significant than we originally thought.
Cameron (16:48)
Mm.
So not
Yeah, so stare into the face of history and not be disenchanted or not act like we're staring into an ab abyss.
Nathan (17:01)
Yeah. About the future. Yeah.
Or not feel like you don't actually have agency.
Cameron (17:08)
Well, I think a lot of people have whether I mean, usually what we a lot of what we get sucked into is is on an unwitting basis. A lot of us have unwittingly been sucked into the notion that we ought to be in control or at least exercise a very high degree of control in life. And that's another I mean, if you have illusions of control or anything like that.
History is the place where that goes to die as well, that aspiration. You have to recognize, I think, I'm trying to give a th a thoughtful answer here. So how can we see this and see it as as more beautiful? Well, it's possible to see it as more more beautiful. It's possible to see, you know, a universe where we are not at the center of the universe. Mind you, the center in the in the medieval conception was closer to hell, by the way.
Nathan (18:04)
Yeah.
Cameron (18:04)
It was the Empyrean, you know,
above, you know, that's where that's where God dwelled and the earth was was was kind of close to hell there. But the you have to you gotta come to a place where you can say humanity really is not at the center of everything. The good news is, Nathan, I think more people are getting there. It's that's been a hard sell.
Nathan (18:30)
Yeah, but
but but what they're doing with it is let's eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die.
Cameron (18:36)
Yes. So it's they're taking they're taking the we're not at the center of the universe as a council of despair. But instead if you see yourself as so yeah, you talked about I mean I I've mentioned I love Shakespeare's phrase, you know, life is, you know, for for many they feel it's it's a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
You know, and that you Faulkner wrote, of course, the his great book on meditation on that and time this is the sound and the fury. One of the characters in that book commits suicide because of that. Then I talked I've talked about Joan Didion who says we tell ourselves stories in order to live, not because there is a real story, but because it's a coping mechanism. Well, if Christianity is true, then we are part of a grand and cosmic drama. We're not at the center of it, but we're pretty dang important.
Nathan (19:13)
Mm-hmm.
Cameron (19:29)
We are so important that the Lord of all creation.
not only came to die for us, but became human and took on flesh. The d it I can't even begin to overstate the significance, the profound significance of that, the profound affirmation of the created order. And if you know anything about ancient thought, by the way, especially I mean we're talking about ancient Greek, ancient Western thought, but this is also true of the East.
There's often, and I think very understandably, a profound repudiation of the created order. You know, it is seen as as the as the you know the realm that's passing away. It's it's perishable. Or even, you know, think about, you know, a lot of people when they thought about the human body with its, you know, as especially as it ages, with its ailments and its, you know, the flesh was seen as something that, you know, we needed to overcome, get get past this. And even
Indeed, even your in your if we're talking about the East, your very self. The self is a kind of prison, and eventually you want to divest yourself of the illusion of the self so that you can merge with the great cosmic oneness. Now, do I believe that's true? I don't believe that's true, but I think it's very profound. It makes a lot of sense if you look at our earthbound existence. But here and here, Christianity is telling about telling us of God become.
flesh. I just want to illustrate how radical that is. Not just I mean the history of thought, but also if if that is a if that is an event, if that's an historic a historical event, well that profoundly reshapes our understanding of history, our place in it, and the story in which we find ourselves. And it fills everything, not only with me it's in with in it fills it with intrinsic meaning.
Not the meaning that you create. See, that's the pro we we yeah, I have meaning. I mean, it's so tragic to me, Nathan, to see, you know, I come across quotations all the time. You know, this is in Tara Isabella Burton's Strange Rights book, where she talks about she interviews people. Why do you practice this? You what what Kabbalah, whatever it is, your yoga. And they'll say, Well, this is how I make meaning out of my life. You know, it gives me peace. Well, I there's something deeply sad about that because the meaning you make is still just
very arbitrary in the end. It's not it what we actually want is real meaning, intrinsic meaning.
Nathan (22:01)
Yeah.
Th there's a sense in which it's like instead of having windows in my house, I'm going to put pictures on the wall of what I hope the world looks like on the other side of the wall.
Cameron (22:08)
Yes.
Yeah. Isn't that sad? That's a great picture, by the way. That's sad. That's deeply sad. And I I can feel that. I mean there's a sense today, a lot of people just feel in their bones see, this is part of what I think really characterizes modern our modern moment. There's a lot there's a lot of ink being spilled right now on the topic that we were never really disenchanted in the first place.
And I I mean a strong case can be made for that. I mean I I I think the emblematic book on this is Jason Josephson and Nanda Storm. Gosh, what a long name. His book, The Myth of Disenchantment. It's in the title. And and you know, he gives you a really good historical survey of all of the the entanglement of all of our most, you know, key modernist philosophers and scientists in the you know, the you know, occ the occult, all of that. But that doesn't change the fact that well, yeah, but something clearly momentous has happened in our
in our very perception of our being in the world. And I think what it is, Nathan, is that we think behind it all, w I think we have to live with the sneaking suspicion that behind behind all of our act frenzy of spiritual and otherwise activities, there's really nothing there. I mean, and this is Yeah.
Nathan (23:11)
Yeah. But but so but so see I
Yeah, except, except, except.
Let let me so th the the thing of it is that excites me is that we we know this just from like you don't have to read War and Peace to figure this out. Talk to anybody. okay, you can do this in two directions. So let's go forward. Cameron, what's the probability that you know exactly what you'll be doing three years from now?
Cameron (23:37)
Mm.
Zero. I mean maybe not zero, but pretty low. Yeah. Very low. Yeah.
Nathan (23:47)
I s I I consistently come up with like yeah, I yeah.
Nobody's gonna say that they that they've got that worked out. because you just Yeah, okay, but no no no but no no but none of my five year plans have ever worked out, none of my three year plans. that doesn't mean that they that they were bad. Often by pursuing something, I developed the skills and the resources and the connections and hopefully the character that provide
Cameron (23:58)
some people would. I've got a five year plan, Nathan.
Nathan (24:16)
that put me in the place for some unknown event that was going to happen in the so all of it mattered. So all of the daydreaming and the planning and the education and the it was all worthwhile. But when I look backward through my life, I can laugh and see how things were orchestrated and came to fruition that I had no real control over. This is kind of one of my grandfathers always used to, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So one of my grandpa's used to say to me, Nathan, get yourself ready and then let the Lord use you.
Cameron (24:17)
Well
See, that's backwards again. The backwards. Understanding it backwards. Yeah.
Nathan (24:46)
And and in that is this balance of per pursue the opportunities that you have, lean into the the things that you're passionate about, the quirks, the curiosities that you're made for, but recognize that you're not going to be the one who is the total master of the destiny or the reality in which you actualize those things.
Cameron (25:03)
Well, look.
We do things all the time that are planned. We save up for the car and get the car. We you and I both we went to college in graduate school. We did that. There were days that we were sick and didn't show up to class, didn't didn't see that one coming. But still, in other words, we make our way forward on faltering steps. So we are yeah, certainly don't hear me saying, throw out all of your planning 'cause that's presumptuous arrogance. no. I am saying
Let's temper our expectations a bit with regard to the nature of the world in which we find ourselves. Yes, make plans, but recognize that you're a finite creature within this world and that you don't exercise and yet and also by the way, Alexander Pope and all of that, it there there's a degree there's a high degree of truth in some of what he's saying. If you want to, you can't always be worrying about how many angels can dance on the head of the of a pin. Sometimes you gotta fix the hot water heater.
Nathan (25:45)
Mm-hmm.
Cameron (26:01)
So there are times where it's good to bracket and problem solve. What I'm saying is not that problem solving is bad, that pragmatism is even bad. It's not. If it's if it's used as a solution as if it's turned into a worldview, then you're it's gonna lead you to all sorts of it frustration and possibly even despair. If you use it well, then it's gonna serve you really well. You're gonna have a house with with less leaks. That's a good thing.
Nathan (26:02)
Yeah.
Mm. Yeah.
So y so you can have plans and moral responsibility and still live a life that honors and glorifies God for the way in which things work out because you know
Cameron (26:36)
Look,
if you're a pastor and you you you have a church or whatever, you have to do you have to do the budget. There's nothing presumptuous about that. But are there gonna be things that you that that surpr are there will there will there be surprises? Well of course. But you still should do the budget. Yeah.
Nathan (26:51)
Yeah. But but I'm saying this well, I'm saying to live Christianly
though is to recognize that most of the surprises aren't bad. Most of the secrets aren't evil. That there's a lot of good that you can't see from where you are. Somebody was asking me some questions the other day. Yeah, but but it but we have experiences in life of somebody was asking me a question about what they should do the other day, and we were walking and I and I pointed to a mountain and I said, The question that you're asking me
Cameron (26:59)
But that's
That's a confession of faith, but yes, yeah.
Nathan (27:17)
Is like saying, what path should I choose to go down the other side of that mountain? I said, first we need to hike, you'd have to hike to the top of that mountain and look at the paths, and then you would be able to choose. You can't answer the questions that you're trying to ask from the location that you're currently in. And so sometimes we just have to live a little bit and have the experiences and get to the next point before we have the vista that allows us to even make the decision that we think we want. So that this is not
Cameron (27:34)
Mm.
Nathan (27:46)
I'm just saying our human experience bears out to us. And and the takeaway from that, I think, is you start praying, our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us a day or daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. Like it's it's not a hyper specific.
S so somehow I'm saying it's it's it's broader and more beautiful and less hyper specific. And the I mean, I can even think of, you know what, the the the character of of my life is so different because there was once a young lady who gave a guy who on a bicycle a ride during a rainstorm.
And they ended up getting married and they're my in laws. Y like y you can't say, well, the you know, who the president was in that year was the most important thing
Yeah.
Cameron (28:45)
You know, have you ever heard you've
heard the joke, you know so and so had a toothache and then so and so tripped over a banana peel. One thing led to another and Hitler invaded Poland. I mean
Nathan (28:56)
Right.
Cameron (29:01)
We're calling for yeah, humility here, not not despair.
Nathan (29:01)
But I I I but I don't think I'm doing a good job of
explaining. I d I don't know that we've quite and so we'll maybe we'll leave this to the listener to work out, is to 'cause b because it it feels like a very a a knife's edge ridge here where you could go either way to say, why not paint pity pric p paint pretty pictures on my wall and eat the food I like and die rather than open the wind open the door and go outside and then and so I think some of us will
Cameron (29:09)
Mm.
Nathan (29:30)
There's a defining th something in our lives that'll say, No, I'm going to go out and feel the wind in my face. And sometimes that'll be cold and obnoxious and sometimes that'll be a pleasant breeze, but I'm going to live
With an understanding that this is all meaningful and and is part of something, rather than just throw up my hands and and sit back. And I and I don't I don't know that I can rationally and logically get myself to the meaningful pure pure naturalism does not allow me to get to a vision of my life being meaningful. And a and a concrete understanding of naturalistic reductionistic scient scientism doesn't help me get there. being honest about
Causation in history doesn't allow me to get there. So there is, I will confess, an act of faith, but I don't think it's misplaced in saying that the actions and the choices and the movements of our lives are deeply meaningful and are part of what it is that God is working out in in the world. And since he's the one doing the doing, he gets the credit for it. But we also get a sense of delight in participating in the goodness that God creates along the way.
Cameron (30:22)
Mm-hmm.
Think on these things. It's a topic probably to which we'll return because it's just so significant. But in the meantime, here's a reminder: you've been listening to Thinking Out Loud, a podcast where we think out loud about current events and historical events, because life is understood forwards, live forwards, understood backwards. And Christian hope, of course. If you like what we're doing, like it, share it, subscribe it, shout it from the root rooftops, get a megaphone and tell your neighbor about it. Hey, you've
Got to listen to this podcast. It'll change your life. Okay, maybe I'm overselling it a bit. Also, if you'd like to support us financially, you can do that by going to www.toltogether.com.