Former Muslim and Oxford PhD: Why Your Education Failed You

0:00I have a full ride from Yale for trumpet, which means I know exactly what a man can learn by using his hands, things that he'll never learn on the screen. I also have four sons, so I'm constantly thinking about what to offer them, and the culture gives him the same options that I myself walked, finish high school, go to college, and hopefully get a job. So we spend 18 years forming our sons into young men, and then hand them to a system that can't actually tell them what they're for or how to thrive in life. Our guest today shows us that contempt for working with your hands and the fullness of your body isn't just modern, it's actually pagan, and Christ answered this for 30 years at the work bench. Dr. Jacob Among, Oxford PhD and former Muslim convert, has found out a college where young men earn a degree, they also leave skilled with the trade, and they graduate debt free. So today we have this incredible conversation where we talk about what society is getting wrong about raising men, what we're actually building into our sons, and the one thing that you can do

1:01with your son this weekend, to help them start growing into a better man and thriving in life. I tell you what, we love coming out with these episodes every single week, and I hope that you do as well. I want to ask you to hit that like and subscribe button, it's going to help us out a lot. It helps the channel reach more men, it helps these audio podcasts reach more men. In addition, I want to hear from you if you have show ideas, things you would like us to discuss, people you'd like us to interview, send them to us at podcast at CatholicGentlemen.com, or leave that note in the comments section. So we'll be reviewing those and we will be coming out with better and better episodes just for you. So be sure to hit that like and subscribe button, now onto the show. Well, our guest today's story stretches from the walls of Jerusalem to the halls of Oxford, he's crossed continents and he's actually crossed creeds to get here today. His story reads like an epic adventure and we're excited to have Dr. Jacob Amam with us. Jacob, welcome to the show. Thanks. Glad to be welcomed. Yeah. It's so great. So we'd like to start out talking about like,

2:06what is your driving mission in life right now? What's what's keeping you motivated and moving forward? Oh man, I think something that everybody can kind of relate to listening to this is that I want to see the face of Christ more clearly. I want to love him in the Blessed Sacrament. I want to love him in my family. I want to love him in my friends and so we're trying to do that in a way that's unique and personal, which is I think what the church teaches us and how we are supposed to love him that it is not just a one size fits all mode. There's some of that we call it the liturgy. Glory to God for that. But each one of us has as a particular apostolate to meet and to to fetch out. And so we're trying to do some unique things here in New Hyo Valley personally, but but I think it's the same general charge that that all Catholics have. What a great answer. I'm just going to pause and tell our listeners. I did not prepare him for that. I was expecting

3:08something like, oh, you know, helping young men become men and you know, it's something along those lines. So so Jacob, thanks for thanks for that truth to get us started out. And so I want to back up a little bit and I want to talk and hear briefly about your story being kind of raised Islam in the in then becoming Catholic, but also, you know, your time at Oxford and shifting to United States of America to to Stephenville. It's quite a quite a story and quite a journey. And I'd love for you just to kind of give us give us the map of how that all came into existence in your life. Well, my mom is actually from Michigan, she's from East Lansing area. Oh wow. When she was in college, she went over on a study abroad and to Jerusalem of all places. And that's where she met and married my dad. Now his family had been in the Holy Land for about 1200 years. So they were localists and found a good place to settle. They met at the at a hotel working in the kitchen.

4:11My mom, you know, was was having fun, you know, playing around with her major in hotel management. And my dad was was more or less doing the same. He didn't speak much English at the time, but they they met. They eventually fell in love and then they married and stayed there for for some time before ultimately moving to the United States. My dad was a Palestinian Muslim. And so finding that there was really a barrier and a ceiling on what you could do for your career in the Israel occupied zone was extremely limiting and kind of staggering for a guy that had high ambition and meeting in American, marrying in American, having the opportunity to move to America was something that he took advantage of. And so they moved to the States. He goes to Michigan State, you know, nearby my mom's family finishes undergrad in about 18 months. Holy smokes was that quick.

5:14And then he goes off to Michigan, gets his MBA, starts working for some companies, ultimately settles at Microsoft, becomes a partner there. And so they, they, you know, threw a circuitous route in many over a decade of marriage before having a kid. They landed in Seattle and that's where I was, I was raised. So it was, it was, it was more of an adventure for them than it really was for me. But see, but during this time, you know, there's, there's so many competing convictions of their paradigm that they're facing. And my mom was born into a Catholic family that ultimately left the faith when she was 11 years old, ironically, as a family story is told to me over a human AVT, which has irony because they had already had eight kids. She's going, you know, you're there. Grady committed. Grandma was 33 though. And so there is, and I don't think, again, the way that

6:21it's been told, perhaps I haven't gotten the clearest answer from the family, but it was mainly not the document or the conviction itself or the, the, the teaching itself, I mean to say. But rather, that there was two voices of being spoken and heard, you know, one from the Magisterium, one from the local priest and all of a sudden there's contention that they didn't know how the reconciled two teaching voices of the church supposedly that seemed to contradict itself in terms of having, you know, I'm an awfully untruth, as it were. And so that that ultimately was was the off ramp for my family, my mom's side, again, as it's as I understand it. And then on my dad's side, you know, they had relocated as far as we can tell, 1200 years ago, to Jerusalem is to be a part of the new cult and the, in the new dominant force political player in the world, Islam. And so my

7:25family comes in at a, at a high point in Jerusalem history for the Islamic faith and ultimately become clerics. So my, my dad, my dad's grandfather was the imam of Al-Aqsa mosque in the dome of the rock. His father was the moofty of Jerusalem. So, you know, close to saying like the bishop or the archbishop of Jerusalem as the Islamic equivalent. And, and then ultimately with some of the political turmoil that was happening at that time, his grandfather was ousted from his position, died not afterwards. And my grandfather was then left trying to fetch a new career outside of the clerical class. And so he actually founded the first local travel agency in the Holy Land. And it was tremendously successful in doing so. But of course, the changing tides of the political scene there didn't allow for success to last very long. 48 came, the war 60, the skirmish was 67 as well. These things collapse

8:32the business. And it ultimately expanded the vision, the horizon for my father to choose a new new career. But not just a career, but also kind of seeing the changing religious landscape of his hometown as well. You know, not as, not as much as an integral part of the religious fabric of Jerusalem. There is some room for becoming liberal, lapsed nominal, which were things that he was certainly flirting with while still in the Middle East, but certainly coming into the American environment in which, you know, man in rules and in a way that it does not in the Middle East. And in fact, where you find laws against speculation and usury on the Islamic books, those are the backbone of our own economy here in the States. When you were born, were they still, was he still

9:38practicing the Islamic faith? No, no, they were, they were married for 14 years before I came along. And they were, and he was also, you know, at that point, well entrenched into the financial system of the States. I mean, finance was his industry. That's what he was doing at Microsoft. And so that was already something that had not only constrived away his devotion, what little there was, I would say beforehand, but really began to give him something pretty massive to consider. And so that was something that was a defining feature of my dad's conviction from my perspective, growing up was where was he going to land? Yeah. Like whose side was he going to land on? You know, was it going to be the American liberalism or was it going to be Palestine's Islam? So did your, did your mom and dad ever convert back or did your mom revert or did your dad ever

10:40convert to Catholicism? Yes, and yes. Oh, my goodness. I said, God. So my mom, my dad was to skip a few stories here. My, my mom ultimately, I became an evangelical Christian, which was, you know, a bit of a shift. And she was, was very devout in that evangelical faith. And I ultimately in high school asked to be baptized and by the local Protestant church and was my dad, it was, became sick enough too long after that. He had lung cancer. He died. But two and a half weeks prior to, to dying, he asked to be baptized. Wow. And so he was, he was actually given tremendous grace. And I don't, I don't say this flippantly at all is that I think that, you know, after his death, his, his, his own prayers and appeals,

11:44certainly was one of the fastest Catholic, was one of the prime catalysts in me coming into the, to the church, because it wasn't, isn't much longer after he died that I, that I asked to be a catacumain, ironically, first for the orthodox before, before the Catholics and then concurrently for a while. But, but no doubt that, that he had a powerful, I think, you know, role in, in that from heaven, or along the way, who knows how time works, you know, after death. And then, and then, for my mom, she came back into the faith, you know, right, right around the time that, that I was converting so that we have found beautiful unity in our family. So what, what a, I mean, I know we're, I'm interested, what attracted you from, you know, having this background and then becoming the Evangelical Christian baptize, did you say it? 14, 15, 15, what a, and when was it that you converted

12:45to Catholicism and why? Well, I converted when I was 20 years old, I believe, I was 21, I can't recall. Now, I had been convicted that I was a sinner for a time. And I, and I also was convicted that I actually wasn't alone in that. That though, those are good convictions. Yeah. But the question happens about what was next, right? Because somebody can be convicted of that and make, make some pretty wretched decisions as a result of that. And I was at least given, given some help in thinking that the world wasn't really supposed to be this way. And that there was a standard and that there was an ideal that someone wanted and that I was convicted that that was God and that he did exist and that he did want us to live differently. But I also didn't really have a great answer for why he put up with us,

13:53why he was so patient. And looking over my father's God, I wasn't convinced that a law would actually even have the patience for humanity to come back to him that there was, there seemed to be a philosophical misstep that that Islam made in this regard is that you don't have, I mean, the only explanation for the only thing that we know in the world of that sort of long suffering patience is parents, right? That there is the there is like fraternal love is not that patient, but maternal love is and paternal love is. And that is something away in which the and refuses to describe Allah. And but of course, that is precisely how our Lord Jesus Christ describes God as his father

15:00right that he is his son that we then enter into his sonship, you know, principally through the sacraments right? And that that is that all of a sudden is itself not just a beautiful system, it is, but it's a logically consistent one as well. And that was really what got me to to seek to be a Christian first. And then it was, you know, the classic thing that every single Protestant who converts the Catholicism suffers is how do we know that this is true? There's a massive epistemological problem here that I that the sacred scriptures is not a self revealing book and that there needs to be unity in the source of our convictions. And so that's what ultimately led me to be enraptured by tradition, but of course tradition must be living in active protected and hierarchical. And thus

16:02move from Orthodox, Catechese to Catholic. Wow. You know, I'm grateful for all of that, what a blessing. And and I would like to shift right now. And I'd like to talk a little bit about Islam as we were discussing in show prep. And so there is a large contingency of a certain temperament of man that has been shifted and shifting over to Islam in recent years. You know, I use Andrew Tate as as kind of a prime example where he comes out and says that, you know, Islam is the only faith that hasn't gone soft. And so that's that's his motivation. And he's brought just, you know, who knows how many with him to that when you were looking from the inside out. I know maybe, you know, not not fully committed or anything like that that you've just expressed. But do you, did you see any of that within the faith, anything that was compelling to just

17:04masculinity in general? I want to invite you to join us inside of Catholic gentleman plus. This is our exclusive membership just for men. We have well over a thousand like-minded men in their priest religious seminarians as well as just a lot of lay men that are getting together to understand what it means to be a man today. We have over 33 unique sessions dedicated to the struggles the deeper understanding to our lives as men in its relationship with God, the world, and other people. It is really an incredible platform that we have loved bringing to all of the men. In addition, we came out with this Lenten series of Father Kendrae, and we've got a whole other set of series plan just for men inside of Catholic gentleman plus. So it's great way to support us. I'd love to see you in there. Head over to Catholicjettelmanplus.com or click that link in the show notes. Join us inside. God bless. Well, I sure, I suppose there's, you know, but the things that come to mind and that are like real demands of prayer and real demands of fasting. There is something militaristic in its order

18:11and that those demands are something that you cannot fight with. You're either obeying them or you're breaking them and there's none of this middle ground of gray where you can kind of self-justify for not following. I mean, it's like making up your own, you know, Lenten fasting is just like, I mean, how many people lie to themselves about how committed they actually are, right? I mean, you look at somebody that's moving back and forth and you say, you're a whoos, you know, you commit to something, right? But there's, in Islam, everything's defined for you. Like, you're not making up a standard for yourself, right? It's outside of yourself. And that is of course appealing. It's like, no, there's part of why I think men today are so, so defeated is because there's not even a standard for them to follow. It's not as if they're even missing a standard that they are, no doubt.

19:15But they don't even know what that standard to measure, engage themselves by. In Islam, there is one. Yes. And there's no doubt about that. But also, the thing is an extremely soft religion. So here, I don't know, entertain, I know his name, I know that he is like obsessed with working out and like, you know, I've heard the convictions or heard the allegations against him. But I've never listened to him. I don't know what he is. I mean, just anybody that works out that much and has that much, you know, I'm session about what their own body is just like, you're a feminine. I mean, I'm sorry. That's, that's right. That's great. Yeah. It's like that is, you know, so I just think that anybody that's saying anything about being soft, who like spends that much time focusing on vanity is just like, who's going to listen to you, man. It's like, it's like an overweight person telling you what a great diet, you know, is just like, give me a break. I mean, really, you know, we all have this struggle, but don't pretend to be a source of authority, you know, here. And for him, I mean, he's certainly,

20:21certainly not one. Yeah. To sorry, if those are too hot of takes, but I think that, no, that's great. Yeah, they're great. When you, when you look at, you know, the, you know, what are, what are the real demands of, of masculine and e? It's that you are out in front, that you are leading the charge and that you're not doing it out of pride and ambition. That is soft, because it's easy to be proud and it's easy to be ambitious, right? But you, it's not easy to be self giving. It's not easy to have true and genuine fraternal devotion. That's hard. That's demanding. And that's just not what you find when you have a religion that is based that is grown in aggression instead of a personal persuasion. And I don't mean retortical, but in terms of the virtues of character, of the evidence of God breeding into the life of man.

21:29This is great. This is great. I love how you, in a sense, paradoxically twisted in the right where untwisted the lie that working out all the time, focusing on the externals, you know, how we pose, how we posture, how we're imaged to the world or our image to the world, how that's all a feminine. That's soft. Whereas the internal life, the prayer life, the relationship with our Lord, and to be like you said, personally persuaded by that self giving love of Christ and to live in that self giving love and defeating ambition pride, that's the real man. And I love how it's like inside out rather than outside in. And I think that in a way, I'm not, I'm not here to be an expert on Islam versus Christianity, but it does seem it's more outside in, you know, it's the demands that are put on a person from the outside. And the hope is that you get this reward, at least for men, but then Christianity is from the inside out. Yeah, I think some people can look at

22:32as the Asgatana and the eternal reward and that can be their motivation, but for Christianity, it's like a relationship. And that their relationship is God, the Father, the Son dwelling in us. And we have relationship with the one who lives in us. And like you said, that long suffering patience for God, how much longer must I endure you? How much longer must I remain with you? And yet he remains with us always, as he says for low, I'm with you always, he lives in us. So I love how you've really untwisted that for us in a way. And I think that it's hard for guys to get that. Don't you think? I mean, it's hard for guys when we're constantly looking at clothing advertisements, car advertisements, whatever it is telling us if we have this, this is going to make us a man basically appealing to that kind of gut instinct. So anyway, I just, I just want to applaud you for your take on this and how you articulate, I think, is really powerful. And your position in having an understanding of the Islam religion and having

23:34this deep interior love for Jesus Christ really gives you a certain sense of authority to speak to this. So thank you. Let me say one other positive thing about Islam because you've got a strong man, you know, the other side here is I'll never forget this is a really powerful moment for me. Is after my conversion to Catholicism that a good friend of mine, a genuine friend of mine, was kind of shaking his head at me and of Christianity saying, I don't understand why you don't think that God cares about your life. And it was just kind of a staggering thing for a Christian here, right? And so I asked him what he meant. And he said, well, I can Islam, we have laws that define like every aspect of our life, right? You know, like a law cares about how you walk down the street. And you know, for Christianity, it's like you can almost do whatever. And something that you said about, you know, the outside and versus inside out is that

24:36the movement between the two is actually, you know, is something that we have to think about carefully. Because outside in, sure, that's true. If you're really into your faith as a modern Catholic, you're going to be reading theology and you're thinking about principles and convictions, or you do devotional materials or whatever. And if you're a devout Muslim today, you're studying law, right? And you say, okay, law outside in. Yeah, okay, that makes that makes good sense. But it's not as if Catholicism is anti law. I know. I mean, it's like, so we, we sure we have inside out, but we also have outside in, right? I mean, this is, I mean, that's what every baptism of an infant is. It's someone else's will being handed over in place of your own, right? It's that I don't get my kids a choice of how they're, how they're raised is that, ultimately, I'm walking them into the life of the church, right? And that this is hoped by her laws that we might do something

25:39first. Hopefully, please God out of obedience and docileity before it turns into a deep and inviting love. But hopefully it turns into that, right? I mean, that's what we work for us as parents is that that the free choice of the child might truly be made for Christ. And so, and so I think that there's, you know, another of their reasons, like why are people not moving towards Christianity today? I know many are, but what, but what about, you know, what's what's being left out of this equation is that there actually are these real demands on our life and that so many people today just have say that Christianity is just that internal, and you said internal moving out, they don't get to that out. And they don't also have that out moving in as well, is that Christianity is not just some area fairy idea. It's not merely a creed that you must adhere to. It is the kingdom of God that we actually in dwell, that we work for, that we live

26:47within, and that that is concrete, it's actual, and it's real. And then as soon as we forget this, then we have portrayed Christianity in its core. Yeah, and we've just had this, we're like Protestant conviction that it's purely that conviction. Right. So yeah, that's beautiful. So basically, if you're looking at it in a tomestic way or a Aristotelian way, you know, virtue being in the middle, Catholicism is the great both-hand. It's rule and relationship. It's law and love. Where Protestantism, you know, far, far liberal, I guess, left Protestantism is God's just love, no law. And then Islam is God is a God of law and submission, you must surrender to that law, and that's how you're, you know, in good standing, whereas Catholicism, that's where the hard work is done, because you have to figure out how this law is leading me to love and how it's a demonstration of love and how

27:49love actually leads me to fulfill the law and how that love actually allows me to have a relationship. So rules are at the service of the relationship, well, the relationship allows me to fulfill the rules better and more effectively so that I can live in that kingdom. So I think that like what you're saying is so powerful to me and so beautiful because it highlights the great both-hand of God and the great both-hand of Catholicism. And I believe answering tape, and this is what's so beautiful about how you open this up about your mission. My mission is to see the face of Christ. My mission is to love Jesus in the Eucharist, in my family, in my marriage, in my friends, and what real man doesn't talk like that. And yet you hear so few men talk about love. This is a difficulty, because men think when you mention the word of love, you're now a feminine and weak. But what you have done is you flip the whole thing on your head because you've proved to us hands down that to love at the service in a sense of the relationship but the law, that is the most difficult

28:51thing to do. That is where the real man is forged. So thanks be to God. I love it. I'm going to close you, Christ. Yeah. So Jacob, let's before jumping into raising men and all this great work you're doing at St. Joseph the Worker College there. I want to actually zero in on this. Okay. So we've got a brother whose brother is shifting towards Islam because he's struggling with his own sobriety. He's struggling with his own addictions and he sees this law alone as appealing. Or you have a father and he sees his son doing that. How would you counsel them within this framing? Oh, that's a great question. I think that the real considerations that I would have

29:52is purely at a personal level. There's not an abstract way of talking about that. Because if the guy is struggling with sobriety and he's looking at T-total or something, that's going to seem tremendously appealing. But also he has to be realistic that not everybody is struggling with sobriety. And so they have a blanket solution for everyone is actually not directly understanding what is at stake here for him. And he's actually just made everyone else into his own image and likeness. And that's a quite an egocentric thing to do. So you just can't make that mistake. But also there's probably a million other aspects to talk about at a personal level. And so I'll excuse myself as art. It was all right from commenting on it more definitively than that. Well, I like that though. I like the phrasing of the fact that just because what you're

30:54struggling with is solved within this religion, we need to get down to the truth of that reality. And is this a situation of just you? And I like how you framed that. It's then wanting everybody to change to the way that you want to see life and you want to live your life and you are struggling in life and what a distinction that's important to bring down. And as everything we've been talking about here, it's all going to go down to relationship. It's going to go down to the father that's actually spending time with his son. And generally if it's gotten to this point, then something was lacking prior to that. But again, this is just hypothetical. So I appreciate though that one little switch there. So yeah, let's move on. Let's talk about what you're doing at St. Joseph the worker. I know that you've written that God put the mind in the hands of the same on the same body for a reason. And that to divide them is a false dichotomy. I'd love for you to just dig into that and talk to us about what you mean. Great. Well, just over those that don't know a couple of years ago, we

31:58founded the college of St. Joseph the worker with cybaltaneously, which cybaltaneously trains students who are academically elite and intellectually advanced and training them up in the Catholic intellectual tradition to earn their bachelor's degrees. Okay, so far so normal. But also training them up into the skilled trades, carpentry, HVAC, electrical plumbing, traditional building methods as well. And because you get paid to train in the skilled trades, you graduate with certificate with your bachelor's degree and you know, as close to debt free or debt free as one could hope. So we are two years into this four year experiment so far, so good. We're watching everything like a hawk and we are just tremendously blessed by these unbelievable students that have

33:01re-relocated to the Ohio Valley from really across the country. So we're dazzled by them. The the you know, the decision to train these kids that really otherwise would be going to honors colleges in the skilled trades. Both cybaltaneously, the liberal arts and the manual arts is something that kind of boggles people's minds because they always make this dichotomy between the head and the hands and to say that you know, those who are there some people that are meant for college and others who are not and those should go into the trades. And we're trying to call the bluff on that divorce between the the mind and the manual and saying, no, God really did put these on the same body for a reason and that when the word became flesh, he spent most of the years of his life at a carpenter's bench that Christ's life reveals true humanity to us. It's always been the conviction of the church and that we just need to take it seriously again. So these are really not

34:04new ideas that we're coming up with at the college of St. Joseph's work or the very old ideas, the very Christian ideas and that in our post-Christian society, we are quite forgetful what we once did and we're trying to help be a bit of that memory. Yeah, spiritual amnesia, yeah. So yeah, I think John Paul II said in guarding the Redeemer that work itself has been redeemed by Christ and Carnot word who plowed the trade with Joseph in that workshop and Nazareth. So that's beautiful. So what were the trades again and also too, how did this come into existence? Maybe that's the first thing is how did it come into existence and how did you have find that you had this affinity towards this or this desire to even do this and then what are the trades that you are training these young men in? Yes. It's a fun story, you know, thinking back to little conversations, you don't know how much of an impact they're going to have on your life later down the road, but I was at lunch with a good

35:09friend of mine who's working in an admissions office at a college in the South and he's sharing with me, you know, the tuition rates and such that kids are coming and how much debt they're leaving. I mean, I'm going to step up to their eyeballs and debt and he's starting slowly to have these convictions that what he's selling to prospective students and their parents is not true and not good and I'm looking at him struggling with this and I'm in between my masters and my doctorate. I did, you know, both at Oxford, I was pretty confident I'd be able to find a job afterwards if I landed in this and was thinking at that time that I'd be landing back in the States. And so I was kind of trapped in his own guilt complex thinking goodness, I'm going to go off, I'm going to finish my doctorate, I'm going to get a job and I'm going to be just as guilt-ridden as my buddy because I'm going to be teaching these kids theology and they're going to have no

36:13job prospects after a $150,000 degree and that that was such a tragedy. I thought not only in and of itself but particularly because the universities are so beautiful. I mean that we today are good at saying that it is a ruined business model, that it's not worth it anymore, that it's a total scam and these are things that I don't disagree with largely generally speaking. However, we have to remember that colleges and universities were not built by pagans and then later adaptized and adopted by Christians. The first universities, the first colleges were founded by Catholics. Those are our institutions. They are unique to our heritage. They exist for a particular

37:14reason and that we in our modern age cannot say, oh well, non-Christians ruin them, let's give up on them now. Those are ours. We must reclaim them. That's what was the tragedy that I was thinking of at that time but there's a big question about how do you do it? Also at that time, I was living with a master carpenter and his family while I was working in the DC area and this guy was wonderful. He is wonderful but he just mocked me ruthlessly with my own hands. I had no idea of fixing anything. I remember him giving me instructions on how to help him one Saturday and I was like, I don't even know what those words mean. It was talking about a masculating. That was a masculating here. I had won all these international scholarships and stuff and was studying at the best university in the world and yet I had no idea what this guy was telling me. He was wonderful

38:18moment. He also took great mercy on having great mercy on me and he taught me how to do a thing or two. I started to think about the skilled trades in a new way and also started to fall in love with them in a personal way too. As I'm going through life thinking about these two friends of mine had said and taught me, I thought, well maybe there's a model where you can bring these two things together. If the skilled trades are really good enough for God, they're probably good enough for all the rest of us as well. Is there a way in which you can ensure that training in the liberal arts was accompanied by training in the skilled trades so as to avoid this massive debt problem? So I began the tinker with a business model and yes, the answer ultimately came. I think this actually could work where it was sustainable for the institution as well as the student. And so I started to pass this around my network a little bit quietly and it started to grow.

39:22I did go back. I did get my doctorate. I did finish. And then as soon as I did, we kind of put this into overdrive and said, could we actually make this work? And the reasons for doing so continue to develop and I don't mean just practically things set up. I'd love to share that. Those are great parts of the story, but I think you feel philosophically as well. I started to learn that there wasn't just a life of Christ where the head and hands were brought into new glory and wonder. But this began to define the pattern and order of the Christian life. Here I'm not just thinking about St. Paul seeing his tent making as an integral part of his missionary activity. But also St. Benedict who set up the model of his monasteries revolving around the chapel where they prayed, the scriptarium and the library where they studied and the fields where they work and that

40:24that movement of prayer and study and work was the model of their life, but also the model of their sustainability as well. And the model by which they saw their full humanity developed. And this it of course carried over into into the middle ages where you find like the great educational theorist Hugh of St. Victor second to none really and truly saying that philosophy begins in the manual arts and St. Bonneventure the Seraphic doctor of the church saying pretty much the same thing that knowledge that illumination begins with these exterior lights. The study of artifacts, the creation of artifacts and for them it was really the same reason is that to be able to have content to contemplate then you must know the world in which you are placed. You must get to know it,

41:26bend it, break it, shape it, change it in order to know the world's potencies and thus also it's nature, but it must all be geared and oriented for wisdom and to have a real teleology towards it instead of just kind of this you know mechanistic tinkering. And so that's where you begin. Well goodness is that what we're doing today? I mean people are more and more obsessed with the digital. I mean we have less and less familiarity and less and less contact with the world, the physical world. And and because let me talk in kind of philosophical terms for a moment here because you only contemplate the form of a thing but you only also come to know a form in and through matter then you're going to be a pretty rubbish philosopher if you're not actually dealing with the world as well and that's what Hugh of St. Victor's point was. That's what St. Bonneventure's point was. I mean just

42:30you know it sounds like if they are just being carpenters or advocating for the manual arts because they want humility. No, it wasn't just that. It was for competency and to be able to really understand the world itself. So that is the deep conviction that there is an intellectual reason to love the skilled trades but of course there's also a reason to virtue that you never acquire the moral virtues from St. Thomas in the contemplative life. You do that in the active life that's where you're working that's where you're laboring that's where you're serving others and disposing your soul to doing that. And here this is not again just like a nostic exercise. This is a means by which you enable yourself to have a greater capacity towards self giving. That's what the skills are. Man that's outstanding. Well love about your story is that out of a personal deficiency where

43:31this master carpenter is just rubbing it in your face comes comes this personal solution yes but also a solution for the general populace. So the personal problem becomes a universal solution. So this is what Zades do. Saints rise up in their time in their age through a means of a personal dilemma, personal deficiency but then they start to see that that deficiency is in the people around them and the world around them and they bring what they're learning through Christ by means of their deficiency where they find fulfillment, they bring that fulfillment or that solution to the world around you and that's what you're doing there in Ohio. And I think it's kind of interesting when you look at the way we work as human beings, it's kind of like we we begin and then we move away from what we've began with because we think that it's too trite and too old and we've done it too much and now we want something off on guard but then we end up returning to it. Say like tradition or liturgy, you know we

44:32see this but also with the trades. It's very you know like what's it like so the majority of the world like 99% of the world worked with their hands worked with their legs worked with their and and then there was in the villages there was this scola time off you know and that's where that you sent your brighter children to your sons to university you know and so we we end up having this kind of dynamic where suddenly the universities are growing and and and people are wanting to get away from manual labor because they're finding that the intellectuals can maybe have a easier life and then now we're all so-called intellectuals that the manual labor we use is like with our thumbs you know tapping keys on a phone you know and and so but I love this um so from what I understand you have kind of like a threefold kind of tier and maybe I'm wrong on this but work as action leads to character which is self-gift and character self-gift ultimately leads

45:34you to the transcendent the the sumimbonum you know holiness and so like is that correct like the work as action is it leads to that character self-giving love which leads to our transcendent destiny absolutely you nailed it I mean it is to give it kind of in the in the short way that St. Thomas does is that in the active life you acquire the moral virtues and then you enjoy those moral virtues in the contemplative life so yes that's that's the nails it and but you know we talk about the active and contemplative a lot in the Catholic church and they're usually descriptions of the states of of of monks and nuns you know of how much they're praying and working and all this right whereas of course we're constantly you know as individuals as people were were in the active in the contemplative in the moving back and forth between the two in almost every moment and it's hard to call even the contemplative life not something actual but here's

46:34just to give you a kind of a really brief synopsis on the two is that they both have their same at the same end you know both are for the sake of communion both are for the sake of relationship in the active life there is something that is mediated so as to enhance that I build the kitchen or the the dining room table for the sake of the family to enjoy that communion with one another it's designed it's literally it's form it's shape is designed to enhance communion right in the contemplative life chiefly in prayer there is no nothing mediating that communion it is just enjoyed right is there right but they they work towards that same end the two and so there's there's no division there at all there is distinction but it's distinction more like husband and wife rather than right to different species you know marriage ultimately

47:36please God makes a man more masculine and it makes a woman more feminine so he doesn't become less a man while joining by uniting and becoming one flesh with his wife he's becoming quite the opposite more masculine right and I think the more that we've separated the active in the contemplative in our own lives the less that they are distinguished the less they are themselves and that is something that we're I think the Christian tradition has long seen and that we have really ignored that advice in the in the contemporary world and we we do well to return to it right so it's the great both and again you know there you go yeah so one of the things that I'm always desiring to do is you're very gifted at pointing out the contradictions within our our modern lives on both sides and so one of the things that we've just hit that you know hit the nail constantly and we're just constantly

48:40pounding this you know letting go of your smartphones and getting back out to work but let's talk for a moment about how you bridge the gap between those who are just see themselves as dumb they see themselves as somebody who doesn't have the academic life the intellectual life and so they are that I'm only as good of a plumber that's all I can do like how do you how do you shift that thinking from just manual labor is what I was called to do period to this higher level of thought and awareness of of what we're all called to do within our very own lives it's a great question so I mean let's just start off with what Christ calls his followers right because of disciples what does that mean students right we're commanded by Christ the love the Lord our God with all of our minds right that he himself it is the divine word that there is no escaping the intellectual life in Catholicism in in reality right if we're to be true humans which means Christians that we must

49:46be students and so there's no getting out of it but does that mean that everybody has to study at a higher level is like that's just like the craziest thing in the world to say yes to that which is what our society has done for the last few decades saying that everyone should go to college which is which is just profoundly stupid so we shouldn't do that and especially those who are huge I mean everybody should study the liberal arts but in such a formal setting I mean give me a break I mean that's that's that's for a very select few and so I would say that that doesn't then breathe or speak about someone's dignity at all it just shows you who what God has told you to do and what he's created you to do and who are you the question how God created you right so that is doesn't mean that you get out of studying but it also doesn't mean that you need to do something that the elites are telling you that you have to do I mean that's that's insane right so that's

50:47the first distinction that I would I would make in the process is that the college saying shows that the worker is not for everybody because I don't think colleges for everybody we should not be forcing everyone into college and in fact every there there should be a tiny percentage maybe I don't know what it is like what three five percent of society should be going and studying the humanities at that level I mean it's a very very small percentage but everybody should be studying at some level and so you don't get out of it you cannot self identify as dumb and get out of it Christ what you do that yeah that's hilarious yeah I think oh so the other question back to what trades are you raising these young men to learn here you know in the Ohio Valley it's stupid in bill right that's where you're at it is yeah we're in downtown stew in bill I love this town I'd love to yeah say more about it but always your question first yeah we trained students in

51:50carpentry in HVAC in electricity in plumbing and in traditional building method so that's the one that's least familiar to us so you think about the others you know you're heating and cooling you're running water in and out you're getting power to your house you actually have the structure of a house that's what carpentry HVAC electrical plumbing that's what those all are so where do you bring traditional building methods into play and here's something that is just kind of a shock to to most of us what we hear is that amidst all of our great technological advancement we are building worse and worse and worse homes you know we used to build houses that would last hundreds of years now the average lifespan of a house is 50 years you we firefighters they take keep better stats of this than anybody because their lives are literally on the line they was upon a time or in still do in legacy built houses have about 29 minutes to respond before a flash of event that's where the pressure builds up to the point where everything bursts in the flames

52:54unconventionally built houses as we do today it's about three to five minutes right there's actually real things you know is that because of the chemicals and all the things that we're using now large part yeah this is the next thing I was going to say is that we actually have sick house syndrome yeah something that doctors will actually diagnose because we we are using so many bad and unnatural artificial materials in our building methods they're constantly off-gassing and and really I mean this is like the what's happened in the last several years within the food industry where there's a lot of people waking up and saying oh my gosh we're poisoning ourselves you know that's happening too with with housing as well it's harder you know the questions of people ask about food is like man but I can't afford anything else are like more of a problem in housing I can't build anything else and so we're trying to keep alive the traditional building methods you know old mass masonry timber framing so that we might not just have them available

53:58but that they might inform all of our other building methods as well and that we can as a college start to do some research and figuring out what else we can do for people and so we're keeping this alive we're trying not to be ideological about it but we're also trying to figure out you know how not to ignore a problem man this is the future too this is the future I've been longing for something like this you know so I I was kind of like you I my dad didn't my dad was on the road six days a week he grew up on a farm you know and and unfortunately I had no connection with that kind of manual labor and so I just I grew up a feminine I I was very soft I was afraid of work and then it wasn't until I you know had my own home it was a 1914 home and had to start to fix that up that I started to engage work and then what I found was I actually loved it um and then maybe a little too much but and then I'm I'm also getting schooled by my son-in-law okay so he's

54:58like he's like half my age at least and he's he's always like making fun of me because I don't know how to use things and everything I'm always having to go to him but what I love about this whole thing is that if you look at the void that we have in all of us basically who've depended on contractors for our homes and for whatever we own this is empowering a whole new generation especially because we're pretty confident that things are gonna keep going the way they're going but truly I don't want to be apocalyptic but they're unsustainable of course and so at some point we're gonna be leaning on the guys that go to college of st Joseph the worker to actually rebuild society or people like that and so this is God is raising you up because I believe within a generation or so we're gonna actually have a massive necessity for guys like you and women of course but for guys like you guys um but one other thing I want to go back if this is all right what I've noticed too with manual labor is that that idea of contemplation for me it comes to the limitation of the flesh

56:05and humiliations and I find that that's in a sweat just sweating and getting all of that out that limitation the humiliation and just the pure sweat of which is almost like symbolic and deeply connected to getting out all that evil that we've been repressing you know and are in our so anyway I don't know what you think about that if that's a reality that these guys are experiencing where it kind of merges the both end of mind and you know the mental and the manual labor but um what do you what do you think of that is that ridiculous or oh not at all yeah no I mean just to give you some quick you know it hits on on that to defend your claim our provost he's taught it four or five different institutions in the past and he says that our students are by far the best the most intellectually engaged most dynamic in their thought and there's no doubt that we are attracting a pretty high caliber of of student I mean it really high caliber of student but also they have

57:06the context to be able to to think um we're more sharply I would say um to actually engage in a more penetrating manner be for the reasons that you just said but let's think about the seeologically for a second as well when God made the garden and placed man in it he told them of course you know any of the trees right so there's abundance in the garden but then he also says tell them to till and to keep and so there is the gift of work that God gives Adam right and when he when he falls when he sins when Adam sins what does God do he now says it's by the sweater your brow that you will eat your bread that there is now that gift of work is now being detached from the world of abundance not saying that things are scarce I mean anybody that plants that tomato bush knows that you're never gonna have a better ROI than that right right so so the

58:07scarcity narrative is wrong too but of course you have he has to work for his food now so in other words God's putting him in the context in which now what he once received as gift that being Adam what one's Adam once received as gift now he has to receive as law so there's back to the conversation of external interior right that that is that is not God just punishing Adam we call it the curse yeah it is a curse but it's actually more of a gift like now he places him in the context where he can't get out of forming the moral virtues which of course or what ultimately what we say is what's enjoyed in the contemplative life well that's where the intellectual virtues are it's like if you want to have a great intellect you have to have great morals if where you're gonna get your morals from it's by working yeah so there there you go I think that that's that is your argument that is what you were just saying and and it's right there in sacred scripture right what I love about this is the idea that okay so Adam was called the self-gift then he did not

59:12give himself in protection of Eve before the serpent and then through his work he has to learn self-gift and that's where the gift if you will is it's in the redemption of work to learn how to be self-giving and I love the idea that to truly be self-giving in our work is not just a mental game it demands the body being involved with the mind I love that and and what I recognize too is some of the most giving guys I know are super handy I mean these guys are coming by you know like when we got at our house man there was a group of them that were over here with their inside the house wheel barrels you know setting up ramps as we're destroying walls and the blue is a dust storm that these guys just come out and they love it and but they're being a gift they're using their body as a gift and and and they're happy that's what I find too is is these guys are happiest when they're doing that absolutely and and it is you know extremely intellectually engaging as

1:00:14well I mean let me just give you a couple quick examples you know on our team we have multiple tradesmen master tradesmen with their master's degrees we have some of them with their doctorates in fact I mean one guy has his PhD biochemistry for a lead he's co-school right and and when I asked him you know during his interview like why why on earth did you leave the lab I mean it's not like he didn't have a job right I mean he said he did he was working at a university lab and he's like I asked him why did you switch over the carpentry and his answer was this I wanted a more intellectually stimulating career that's great I love that so so this is there's also just you know these lies about the about the skilled trades as well because we have for so long had in our mind the manual labor of those on Ford's assembly line where they're just screwing in the same screw you know thousand times a day right mine and there is no thought there is no contemplation in

1:01:18that I mean at best you get a good daydream and about something else right yeah but in the skilled trades that's just not the case I mean they the design the troubleshooting I mean it is a constant puzzle all day long you leave your work you know not only with a sore body but with a fried brain as well and that that is just the reality of the work itself and it's said that people are so distance from it today that they don't actually know that that's true well I appreciate that and I just can't wait to go back to my desk job thanks Jacob Jacob I love it before we get onto our putting on the new man which is our weekly challenge that we like to give man where can individuals learn more about the colleges St. Joseph the worker as well as you I know you're you're appearing on a lot of different locations and sorry different you know YouTube channels and everything just real blessing passed along to us well forget me the colleges St. Joseph the worker colleges

1:02:20St. Joseph dot com is is a place to go one thing that I might point out to people which is pretty fun we have persuaded the free mason's of our town to sell us their temple right now right in downtown St. Joseph this is a fun story it's a dilapidated rust belt town I miss all these buildings that are vacant and boarded up you know the free mason's actually have continued to use use their their building it's on the fourth side of our what's becoming our collegiate quad in our town square and they've agreed to sell us this building so go take a look also at college of st. Joseph dot com slash reclaim and they get a little bit more of that story as well I love that that's so great yeah wow what a blessing it has been so Jacob I actually want to put you on the spot I want you to challenge our listeners to do something in the next week or two weeks to better their lives based on what we're talking about like what would that challenge be so that they can actually

1:03:20put on the new man and and become a better person oh easy you know try and spend 30 minutes reading every day and then go and find something small to build start with the bird house if I'm really unimpressive yeah I should have rephrased that if you were like me very unimpressive oh Jacob what a blessing I'm really appreciate you joining us we could talk for another couple hours in fact will have to I want to I want more of your hot takes I want more of your your your flipping of the common notions and accepted uh ways of life and and I'm just really grateful for you and you can certainly count on my prayers so thank you for joining us today god bless you guys thanks for the time awesome and as we end each of our episodes be a man be a saint