Become Who You Are
What’s the meaning and purpose of my life? What is my true identity? Why were we created male and female? How do I find happiness, joy and peace? How do I find love that lasts, forever? These are the timeless questions of the human heart. Join Jack Rigert and his guests for lively insights, reading the signs of our times through the lens of Catholic Teaching and the insights of Saint John Paul ll to guide us.
Saint Catherine of Siena said "Become who you are and you would set the world on fire".
Become Who You Are
#561 Theo McManigal from Covenant Eyes--Breaking Free From Pornography, The Drug Of Our Time
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What if the battle for purity and love could transform your life? As the Catholic Church Outreach Specialist at Covenant Eyes, Theo brings with him a profound story of faith and resilience. He opens up about his personal trials, from his time in the seminary to the unbearable loss of his son to childhood cancer.
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Welcome to the Become who you Are podcast, a production of the John Paul II Renewal Center. I'm Jack Rigg, your host. Hey, thanks for joining me today.
Speaker 1:St Catherine of Siena said that if you become who you are, that you would literally set the world on fire. And St Athanasius, an early church father and a doctor of the church, said the son of God became man so that we might become God. You know I make a wild guess at this, but I bet you, most of us, are a bit disconnected from this divine life that these saints are pointing us to. Yet Saint John Paul II said there's an echo of the story of this divine life that we're created for, inscribed in each human heart, in your human heart. And if you put on the proper lens if I put on the proper lens we can get in touch with this echo within us in such a way that we have that aha moment. See, that's the genus of St John Paul II's theology of the body. It connects our lived experience of life to the gospel in such a way that our life takes on a whole new meaning and helps us answer those big questions that our whole culture is so confused about today meaning and helps us answer those big questions that our whole culture is so confused about today.
Speaker 1:Who am I? What's my purpose? Why were we created male and female? How do I find happiness here on earth? How do I find love that satisfies forever? Hey, glad you're with me, I'll be. I'm excited. I'm excited and grateful to be with Theo McManigle, theo's with Covenant Eyes. He's got quite a journey himself. You know, life takes some strange twists with us, right? Not all good, but in this battle, john Paul would say, the battlefield of the heart, between love and lust, between all that's good, true and beautiful and everything that wants to take that down. And then we have our personal lives to deal with. So glad to have Theo on, theo, excited to have you on today, excited to meet you, excited to talk about Covenant Eyes and really help us get over this or at least deal with these, this pornographic culture that we're in right now jack, it's great to be with you.
Speaker 1:My friend, thanks for having me on, yeah so tell us, tell us a little bit about you, a little bit about your, your, your background, how you got involved in covenant eyes and also do I know that you know, you, you, you. You lost the sun, and if you want to go there, you know that you lost a son, and if you want to go there, sometimes it's these painful things that get us deeper into our faith. It kind of puts things in perspective, don't they? What's important in our lives? Give us a little bit about your background.
Speaker 2:All right. Well, I live in Chicago with my family and I am the third four boys and all our names start with T Tim, tom, theo and Troy and my dad's Tim. So my mom's Karen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but once they start with the T's, you can't end anymore. Right, you got to keep you got to finish it off, Otherwise one one, one, one, one son feels left out, huh.
Speaker 2:That's right and that we did.
Speaker 2:And that we did so I currently work as the director of or, excuse me, the Catholic Church Outreach Specialist at Covenant Eyes. Before that, I went to seminary for a number of years for the Archdiocese of Chicago. I worked in a parish for a year as the director of lifelong faith formation and education education as well as communications and I taught high school for three years. I taught high school theology, really enjoyed it, and but now I work in this position at Covenant Eyes. I live in Chicago with my wife, my three-year-old daughter and, as you mentioned, we had a son and unfortunately he passed away from cancer. He passed away from a, a it was called a rhabdoid tumor, which is a very rare and aggressive form of childhood cancer. It was, it was brutal and that was just this year, and you know, we're so sorry, we're so sorry for
Speaker 1:that, thank you, and it doesn't I don't think it gets much rougher than that.
Speaker 2:No, it doesn't and we're coming around this time of advent, coming into christmas, that it was about a year ago around this time that he was in the hospital. We were waiting what's going on, and then we figured out what was going on. But still, you know, time really changes when you have a tragedy like that. But it only was December, january, into February. February 11th is when he passed so very long couple of months there, praying, hoping, you know, hoping God would do a miracle. But it definitely can test your faith and your trust in God.
Speaker 2:But I mean, at that point you have two choices. You can, you know, try to choose to believe he doesn't exist, or you can choose to believe that he is good, that your sense that a kind of evil has just occurred is justified, and yet somehow he knows what he's doing when he chooses not to answer certain prayers. I've chosen the latter and you know we keep going on, my wife and I. I are doing, but as well as you can be doing, under the circumstances, we were able to not only keep our marriage together but be even closer if that were even possible, and that's a testament.
Speaker 1:That's a testament to faith theo, you know, because, as you alluded to just now, that doesn't always happen. When you have a tragedy like that, it can definitely pull families apart, can it?
Speaker 2:it's one of the top strains on a marriage leads to separation in plenty of cases. So I'm not for us, though, and I'm very, very grateful, and so that and that shows that it really it really doesn't have to. You know, maybe couples get concerned that, oh, we don't grieve the same or whatever. I can, I can understand the tension it can put on a marriage, but it doesn't have to, and and really what you do if you decide to separate is you're you're, you're making the tragedy worse.
Speaker 1:The person has to be yeah, now it's going to be a little bit of a transition, but the other thing we're talking about today is pornography. Pornography also has a way of dividing and separating, and I speak to so many young people, theo, young people that have gotten married and pornography was not an issue for them. They were looking at pornography, or at least one of them was. When they got married, they didn't think it was going to be a big deal, a big issue. A lot of times when I'm speaking to women, it was after she got pregnant and she expected her husband now to be more tender, to understand that she's going through these changes, but because of these pornography addictions and problems, he didn't. And it really tugs at a woman's heart, even a woman that has quasi-accepted the culture and pornography.
Speaker 1:There's something really evil going on, theo. What's going on with pornography in general? Can you speak to that in general? I mean, it's pervasive. Right now, when we're speaking to young men, it's very seldom that we find one that and I'm talking about young men from, say, 16 up into their 20s and even into their 30s that have not struggled with pornography. What's going on, theo?
Speaker 2:First, all that, that, that sort of you know, that statement you made about some people's experiences where maybe the do I understand it right the husband kind of is able to kick it, or maybe he doesn't have a huge issue, but then after childbirth then he kind of falls into it.
Speaker 1:Well, or or he brought it into the marriage and she didn't really see an issue with it. I mean mean, you're right, that could work like that too, but often they're bringing pornography even into the marriage, don't really see a big problem with it.
Speaker 1:Sometimes, you know, it may not be on the forefront, you know, but it's something that she knows that he's doing and she expects marriage to take it away. You know that everything gets better. You know we'll be married and he'll fall in love with me and he won't need pornography anymore. And what really brings it out is again, maybe having a child, or being pregnant with a child, expecting a man to look at them both differently. You know, the mother with the baby and because of these addictions you know this is still she starts to sense this intimacy is not a life-giving, loving intimacy, but being used. Even being pregnant, I mean it changes. Her emotions are changing and he's not staying up with it. He's not even seeing what she's going through. You know, because of this screen of pornography.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, thank you for elaborating on that. So just to get to the question, what is going on with pornography? Pornography is really the new drug of our time. It is. It's more addictive than crack cocaine. They say it really. It's more addictive than crack cocaine. They say it really.
Speaker 2:You know it changes the pathways of your brain and there's a number of understandable reasons why it's able to be that, especially in our time, today. First of all, it hijacks our primal desire for sex, sexual pleasure, procreation, love. It hijacks that those are good desires. Pleasure, procreation, love hijacks that those are good desires. Those are desires we were created for and and most of us are created to fulfill. Some of us are created to forego them. Those are called to be celibate, but most of us are created to fulfill those.
Speaker 2:But so it hijacks those. It hijacks those in a way that is easier, right. You don't have to be in relationship. You don't have to, just to speak from a man's perspective. You don't have to make the woman happy, you don't have to do all the other work that comes with a relationship, with a marriage. You can just have the sexual pleasure right there. And not only is that, you know, inclined to be addictive because it taps into, like I said, the primal energies of our life and love. But the means these days by which that happens now are themselves addictive Cell phones, the internet, we all have computers in our pockets. Whereas one time you had to go to the store, and probably in a weird part of town or out of town, and maybe get like a magazine or something, you had to put in time, effort and money to obtain pornography, and now you really have to put in time, effort and money to protect yourself from it and to protect your kids from it, and it's really.
Speaker 2:it is a force in itself, both as far as being evil, but literally in these, on the internet, in technology, it is now, in its own way, a force that is looking for people.
Speaker 1:So you know, are you saying, theo, are you saying that not only is it again to your words, this primal urge, you know the sexual urge, this draw that's so beautiful, you know created to be beautiful from femininity to masculinity, but are you saying that technology itself is addictive and you're putting kind of these two things together? You know how many people that I know are staring at their phones. You know, I mean amazing, I catch my wife doing it all day on. You know Facebook and social media and I say, honey, you know your eyes are going to come out of your head if you keep looking at this stuff, right, and so we have that issue too. Huh, so yeah, this is a powerful thing.
Speaker 1:I would think, Theo, look, I get the attraction, you know, between a man and a woman, et cetera, et cetera. But what I don't see is and I get what you're saying about, you know you're looking at these screens. It's easier than even finding a woman. You don't have to please a woman. But isn't there something innate in us that says I want a real woman in my life, a real relationship in my life, and yet they almost forego that. You know to get into this weird place. You know where you're just looking at images of two people having sex, and then I guess, masturbation and self-pleasure all becomes part of this right, and so you just get caught up in this cycle you can't get out of somehow.
Speaker 2:Well, the desire for an actual, for a spouse, a real person. That's the innate desire in us. But this becomes a replacement, because once the brain kind of realizes that I could get the same pleasure in sometimes ways that are more intense or with variety, right at my, like I said, the computer that's in my pocket, with right at my, you know, like I said, the computer that's in my pocket Anytime I want, that can be a desire that increases and that can make our desire for an actual spouse decrease. Wow, you know, I mean, it's kind of like it's the sin and disorder leading to further sin and disorder and changing us right. It changes in a way we are formed by what we do, so it kind of changes who we are yeah, you know that's an interesting point.
Speaker 1:You know, john paul, and I think I I think this fits you know, he would talk about self-determination a lot and he would say through my acts either good or evil I become a sense, in some sense, the creator of myself. And you know, when you really dwell on that, when you start to go down these rabbit holes let's hear pornography here, but there's a lot of other things you can do drugs, alcohol, infidelity, I mean all these things. When you make those choices, you actually start to become those choices and over time, something happens to the body. Like you said, the brain is actually being rewired, but something's happening to the human heart too, isn't it? So these are powerful forces and over a small amount of time I've become that person that's lustful. Now, instead of being a self-giving person, I become very selfish, and I think that's innate in us already, right? We're always fighting selfishness anyways.
Speaker 2:That's at the core of pornography. Right, we can look at so many effects of pornography. The increased age of first exposure is nine years old. It's highly addictive, it can cause problems like erectile dysfunction, it can mess with marriages, but the core of the evil of pornography and I got this from Matt Fradd is that it is intrinsically evil because you are taking people who are meant to be loved and using them for your own satisfaction. That is the core of the intrinsically evil nature of pornography.
Speaker 2:And when you do that, yes, you become somebody who looks at people differently, who looks at women differently, who looks at yourself differently. And you know the pleasure of sexuality is meant to be a bonding force. It is ordered toward the permanence of man and wife. Right Now, you're bonding with the technology, you're bonding with pornography, you're bonding with fantasy and you are being wrapped up in yourself Instead of doing what sexuality was meant to do, which was to take us out of ourselves and to help us make ourselves as a gift to another. So you're right, yes, but by our actions, good or evil, we become what we do. Of course, of course John Paul II is right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, isn't that evil. We become what we do? Of course, of course, john paul ii is right. Yeah, isn't it amazing. You know, look at. I just quote one more thing, because he got this.
Speaker 1:You know, he, he looks back at scripture and you wonder when, in in the sermon of the mount, you know, in matthew 5, jesus himself says you've heard it said that you should not commit adultery. But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. So, jesus, way before you know pornography, of course they had their issues there too, right? I mean, you know these sexual issues and stuff. We know all that. Right, it's well known in the Roman days people weren't perfect. Huh, well-known in the Roman days. People weren't perfect in the Roman Empire, but in Jesus' time. But isn't that something? How he strikes right to the heart. He knows that we're a body and a soul. When our heart gets twisted and distorted, this plays out in our lives. So what happens to me as a young man, theo, in, is it? Or how? How long does it take for your brain to start to get rewired? Do you have any idea on on the stats, on that kind of stuff?
Speaker 2:just to clarify the question. You mean in recovery wise. No, I mean just to be once you really addicted.
Speaker 1:You know yeah you had mentioned and you know I had talked about it before on other podcasts these neural pathways of the brain actually start to get changed. Like a drug addict you brought up right and you know I mean, are these things that happen? Do those kind of things happen fairly quickly, theo, or is it? You know, I mean, can I get caught up in this pretty quickly? What's the timetable? Does anybody know on this, or is that a personal kind of a?
Speaker 2:it might vary from person to person. I don't know that. I won't speak to something that's not necessarily my expertise. I'm not necessarily the expert on the neuroplasticity of it all. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I can tell you from personal experience that all it takes is all it can take sometimes is just one exposure to become hooked. I mean this is part of my, you know. I mean I was 17 when I first kind of came across this stuff on accident, by the way, and you know I'd hear kids talk about it at school. I thought you know, I'd never get into that. And then accidentally I came across it and no, no, it was changed that day.
Speaker 1:Can you describe what you know what? What is accident Because this is I. No, no, it was changed that day. Can you describe what you know what? What is accident because this? I hear this all the time. In fact, every young guy that that I I've I've worked with, and I work with a number of them that have porn addictions, and they all came across it accidentally and it's easy to do. Today. You know what would happen.
Speaker 1:The old, just to give our audience a little bit of an example, there's a young guy that heard something about anal sex at school and he's looking it up on his phone. What is that? Gets shown images of pornography, gets pulled into those images and boom away you go. So you're exactly right. What was it for you when you first get caught in? What was that initial image? Because I could tell you, story after story of guys, that I met a 43-year-old guy, Theo, the other day at a men's group and he heard me talking to a bunch of young guys about pornography and the beauty of authentic love, et cetera, et cetera. And he comes over and he says Jack, when I was four years old I was shown an image of a woman. He says I'm 43. Today that image still pops into my brain. It's powerful, Theo isn't it.
Speaker 2:It is. I was watching TV and there was some movies and the title was blocked and I didn't know that that would be pornography. But I went to see well, so what's this movie? And when I turned it on I saw it took a little bit of time, but it became clear that it was a pornographic film. And that's what happened.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. And so you go back out of curiosity. What is the pull? Initially, do you think, to young and unfortunately I was going to say young men, but unfortunately there's some young women, no small amount of them actually that are getting drawn into this too.
Speaker 2:True. That's why I'll take a second to say that Covenant Eyes is very aware of this being a growing problem for women as well. That's why maybe some of your listeners know about our STRIVE program for men, it's a 21-day video course. We have gone on to create a similar kind of course for women called Arise 21 Days of Videos, completely free, community, and yes, it helps the women struggler with this. You're asking what made me go back to it. Yeah, I mean, you know you see this the first time, right?
Speaker 1:And then you say, okay, wow, is it? Is it just like you know what? What is that? Is it curiosity or is it something that really changes? I'm trying to get down to you know what's taken over. You know, and maybe it's impossible to know, maybe it's all those things that we're talking about. You know it's twisting and distortion of our sexuality. It's an evil force. You know Genesis 3, when the serpent came in Theo into the garden at the tree, the first thing they do is put loincloths on. You know, we know, after sin happened, something happened. And they didn't put those loincloths over their eyes, right, they put it over their sexual private parts, right. So we know that something happened there. When we threw God out, something happened to the human heart. We didn't look at each other, you know, with this beautiful innocence anymore. Something already twisted. So this is, this is an old story, brother, isn't it? This? We, we didn't make this up yesterday.
Speaker 2:I mean there really is a draw. I mean that's what happened. From the fall right there's concupiscence. It's a draw toward that which we know isn't good for us, and it didn't take me long to realize, like, oh wait of thing, I probably shouldn't be doing it yet. There was something that drew me back to it and that was just on tv and it hooked me for years. Eventually it became the internet and it was just before I was about to get married. I had a relapse for a time and then I decided to come forward to my fiance about it and I saw how much that that had hurt her and I said to myself I I can't do this anymore, never again. And to this day, over three years of being married later, I can say I've held to that.
Speaker 2:I have not looked again and I have not fallen into that sin again and I can tell you that life is so much better when you are able to set it aside from your life. I realize there, you know, we've we've both have heard the stories of, you know, getting brought into the marriage, of marriage not fixing the problem. What happened for me was a grace and this says a lot more about both God and my wife than it does about me but I have been able to hold to that and I'm super grateful. But I mean, yeah, it really is a draw, you know, and it can do a lot of things. And I'm sure, at various points in my life I've had different reasons for going back to it, whether it was stress, whether it was procrastination on schoolwork, whether it was the desire for love and intimacy that I just knew I could channel in this other way, whatever it was. But yeah, so I mean that's got, we got to help however we can right, yeah, so let's, let's, let's, dig into that help a little bit.
Speaker 1:so, with covenant eyes, for our audience again, if they don't know what that's going to do, so let's say, theo, that I'm dealing with a porn addiction and I'm looking for help, and so you know, know, this is your job now, brother, this is what you're bringing to the world. So you're actually visiting with parishes or, if parishes have questions on it, you're bringing some solutions with Covenant Eyes. So give us a little idea of someone that's maybe thinking that I need to reach out for help right now. What are the stages, steele, that I can do?
Speaker 2:you know, if I'm reaching out to say you guys at Covenant Eyes, Let me elaborate on two parts of that question, or let me speak to two parts of that question there.
Speaker 2:So, first of all, as far as my job as the Catholic Church Outreach Specialist goes, my role is basically this I will travel to various Catholic conferences and represent Covenant Eyes there, you know, set up a booth, advertise, talk to people per year for a four-year cycle, to incorporate the issue of pornography into the homily and to hand out electronically or hard copies of our booklets and our resources. It's largely ordered for parents to protect their kids, and then we have a year about our adult programs as well. We call it Safe Haven Sunday. Over 20 dioceses have participated at this point. So that's primarily the biggest chunk of my role, as well as letting dioceses and parishes know about our various free programs, like the STRIVE program I mentioned earlier, the ARISE program. We also have a program for married couples called Restored Vows. It's the story of I guess the man brought it into his marriage and came forward about it and this is how they worked it out.
Speaker 1:Okay, so back up on that one a little bit because, that could be really helpful with what we're doing right now. Definitely how does that work, Theo?
Speaker 2:It's a little different from the Strive and Arise program. It's a 14-day kind of video course. You receive emails, there's videos, there's readings. Day kind of video course. You receive emails, there's videos, there's readings.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's really for the couple to do individually, but, yes, this might be something you would share with people who come to you for sure so they do it individually, you said, as a couple, though, or individually separate, like a man and the man and the woman are on their own journey, or is it something they do? It was designed for.
Speaker 2:It was designed for the couple to work through this together, okay. However, if you get one part member of a married couple to come forward to you, it would still work, I think, for an individual who might want to either need some healing or a sense of how to move forward. Absolutely it could work for for one. But I just wanted to describe to you the core of my job there. So, safe Haven Sunday. As many dioceses in the United States as possible.
Speaker 2:As far as how someone can begin to get help, covenant Eyes is a great resource for this and it's unlike any other. For anyone listening who doesn't know how Covenant Eyes, the service, works, I'd like to describe that real quick, just at a very basic level. So if I have this issue and I say, jack, would you like to be my accountability partner? And, because it's hypothetical, you say, theo, of course I would, then I would download the service on all of my devices my phone, my tablet, my laptop, my computer, all of it and then, jack, you would be able to see everything I'm doing. The service would take regular screenshots of my devices and send you anyone you know frequent screenshots, especially those that are questionable, so we could agree to you getting a daily report or a weekly report, plus using the Victory app or a Victory account. That's kind of the means by which you can look at the activity anytime you want, and then we would have regular conversations about it, especially if it's reported that I'm looking up anything even questionable even questionable, it'll show you. And so now we have a means by which we can have a conversation. This is so important because pornography use leads to shame and secrecy, and yet the shame and the secrecy fuel further acting out.
Speaker 2:You got to break that cycle. If you're in that cycle, you got to break that cycle, and installing covenant eyes and having an accountability partner are two of the things you can do to begin to break that cycle, and you got to have both right. This is not merely a set it and forget it kind of software. It is meant to go hand in hand, whether you are an adult struggler who just wants to get this for yourself, or your parents who have teenagers or maybe pre-teenagers, and you need to start teaching them accountability in all areas of their life, especially the internet, so you might install it on all their devices and be the accountability partner yourself.
Speaker 2:This is meant to go hand in hand with regular conversations about and not just. Well, have you looked? But this is one element of living a good, happy, healthy and holy life. So you would want somebody you talk to about just life as a whole and your wellness and holiness, you know as an entire, as an entire piece. Just some someone you can talk about anything with really yeah, so, yeah, wait, wait there just for a second.
Speaker 1:So so we do a lot of parent kids kind of meetings and talks. So a lot of times parents will come up. You know, how old should my child be to get a phone or whatever? Let's put that question aside. But whether it's 16 or you know, hopefully it's not before that, but I see them running around at a much earlier ages, but let's say it was 16. So I got a phone.
Speaker 1:So I say as a parent then, okay, look it, you're going to have a phone now, but I'm going to install Covenant Eyes. I mean, is that something that a parent should be doing, theo? In other words, my child doesn't have a porn addiction that I know of. But is it a tool that I can use just as a parent to say, okay, I'm going to get you the phone, but you and I are going to be partners in this. You'll be able to see what I'm looking up. I'll be able to see. You know, we're going to keep an open book here and make sure that we're using the phones properly. I mean, is that something that parents would do? And, theo, before you answer that, let me just mention to our audience that we have partnered with Covenant Eyes to make this world a better place.
Speaker 1:If you're struggling with pornography or if you just need to learn more about screen time for your kids, et cetera, go to covenanteyescom. That's covenanteyescom. I'll put that in the show notes and put in the discount code capital J, capital P, the number two, jp, the number two and you'll get a discount. So take a look at some of the work that they're doing over there. If you have any questions, you can email them. I also have Theo's email in the show notes also, so check them out, get a discount and let's start making the world a better place, especially protecting our young people today, so that they don't get caught up in this morass, really, that wants to take their heart away, wants to rob them of their innocence and also of their moral imaginations. All right, theo, you remember the question a parent's going to buy a phone for their child, and do we install Covenant Eyes? That?
Speaker 2:is exactly what we should be recommending to parents with all kinds of devices. If you get all kinds of devices, if you get them a device, if you get them, you know a computer. If you get your kid a phone, if you get your kid an xbox I don't know if it works as well with xbox, but whatever kind of device, you should install covenant eyes on it before, okay, that device gets to your kid, because then you don't have to worry about like, oh, here's the device, but actually I need it back because I have to reinstall this. I need to install this software. It's just here you go, it's all set, ready to go. That's exactly what we should be doing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and yeah, maybe your kid doesn't have one, but you as a parent need to not be naive and see pornography again as a force that is out there actively seeking out your child, not just because it's of the devil, which it is, but because of like algorithms and and just how kind of technology works. You know there's covert advertising, there's just all kinds of kinds of stuff because, remember, not only is pornography the explicit, explicit depiction of sexual material, but it's also, it's also a way of seeing right, and our culture is so sexualized, you know. I mean you can drive by out on the street and see certain billboards advertising.
Speaker 1:Stop strip clubs, it's everywhere right.
Speaker 2:So, and, by the way, if your child is 16 and you haven't really had a serious conversation with them about this already, you probably need to do that yesterday.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, yeah, and you know what you mentioned, like now, when you, when you're doing a conversation again, I just want to make sure I hit on this point real quick.
Speaker 2:Okay, it's actually not a bad idea to say we're gonna all do this and it's cool to let your kids see what you're doing too, just because I think kids will learn more by words or example than words. And if you can present this to your child, as this is a force that's out to get all of us not in like a conspiracy way although that's fine, I agree that's just realized like hey, you know what?
Speaker 2:My son, my daughter, I'm a sinner too, and you and I also need accountability in my life as well, so let's share this. I don't see anything wrong with that.
Speaker 1:Well Covenant and I. That's the best approach right there, theo hey we're all in this together.
Speaker 1:I'm not looking at you as some weak person that's going to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah all you know. We can all be taken down by this stuff and I want to be part of this with you guys. I, I love that right. Does covenant eyes actually screen? When I say screen, maybe that's the wrong word does that? Will it actually keep me from going on other sites? In other words, if you and I are compatibility partners, I see what you're looking at, but will it actually stop some of this? Yes, okay, yes, we have filtering as well. Okay, because that's important, man, because a lot of these kids go on something and then it just you know how it works, right, we all know how it works just keeps coming back at us, man, okay, so it screens. It's going to help us screen. We know some stuff. You will still find its way in. We have compatibility partners that hopefully catch that and we're sharing that with one another.
Speaker 1:You know, when a parent speaks about pornography or something to a, to a child, that's not an easy thing for them to do. We have a program I don't even like to call it a program, it's just. It's a beautiful one night thing called love ed, theo, and it just brings parents and their children together when they're very young, between 9 and 11, and then before they go to high school, and dad with his son, mom with her, with with her daughter, and we talk about love ed. We don't call it sex that, we call it love ed. And I think this is the perfect compliment to what you're saying, because we have to fill those young people first with what love is, so that I'm not just saying, theo, don't look at porn or don't look at this or don't look at that. You know, then you're going to be just curious as a young guy, right? I mean, then I really want to look at it. So I got to fill you first, I got to tell you what love is, so that when you see this stuff because inevitably, like said, it's all over this over-sexualization of our culture you're going to have a place to start right. And then, because of that, we open up this conversation, we put covenant eyes on our phones and our devices and this becomes an ongoing conversation. Now, you know, not something we have to hide, because what you said is very important. You said secrecy and shame. That's what this is all about.
Speaker 1:And again, getting back to this biblical thing, theo, I'd like to get your comment on this. I mean, we talked about this, so what happened? Sin comes into the world. We have this dragging us down. We know this already. And what was it? It was shame. They put loincloths on because they were shamed the way they were looking at each other. And then what did they do? They were in secrecy. They hid from God right away. God went out and said where are you? Where are you? And they're hiding. So look at how powerful this evil is. All we gave it is this screen stuff that makes it like you said, theo, so easy to access, don't we?
Speaker 2:You know everything that God has created and everything we create as a result of that. It can be, and is meant to be, used for good. Technology has a lot of good parts to it. Yes, it does. But remember that original sin after we fell, it changed us. We kind of became what we did, as, as we were talking about earlier, and by doing the one thing God told them not to do, he gave them one prohibition and they did it.
Speaker 2:And now, after doing it, humans have an inherent attraction, or pull that, toward the things we're not supposed to be doing. It's kind of crazy and it defies reason, but of course it does, because sin is not reasonable. So, yes, of course, everything we've found, everything we've created, we found ways to use for good and we found ways to use for evil, and that's a part of us that isn't really going to go anywhere. I mean there's nothing new under the sun, as the Bible said. So I mean it's always something. We're going to have to battle, sin in all its forms.
Speaker 2:But that's what life is now right. It's not just battling sin, but it's pursuing goodness. It's pursuing God, and you were talking about the love ed. I think that's fantastic. Just real quick, I'd like to ask you because we're going to share this interview on our pages too Okay, what's maybe one piece of wisdom you try to impart to the parents as they're doing these conversations with their kids, right there in the gymnasium or in the gathering room, right Like you're walking them through a conversation? What's one important piece of wisdom you'd say when it comes to having these conversations?
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, what we do? First of all, nobody knows how to have them, theo, I mean. So this is a big problem. So so, as a parent, what we run into is like they were never handed it down. You know what I mean. Nobody really had a the talk with them, and if they do, it was very awkward my old man giving me the talk.
Speaker 1:I remember my son when he was in fifth grade. I knew I had to do something, I had to talk to him about something, but I didn't know how. And I asked him afterwards this is before I got into theology of the body and all this stuff and I said Jake, my son. I said, jake, you got any questions or comments? And he said, yeah, that was really awkward, dad, that was really awkward and we started laughing, but it did break the ice.
Speaker 1:So here's what I always tell parents and kids. I said we're going to start this conversation today, we're going to crack open some stuff, we're going to talk about love, we're going to talk about what's changing with our bodies, and so here's the thing you know, you have to put the biology and the theology together. I see so many, so many programs out there. They're chastity talks, right, but they don't tell me what's going on in my body. My body's changing, right. I'm becoming a man, I'm becoming a woman. What's going on with my body?
Speaker 1:The culture wants to even get in a twist and distort that today with all these gender ideologies. So what is it? It's speaking the truth to them and speaking the truth and love, and speaking about love and the truth. What we do, theo, just really quickly, is we have five acts, five short videos that we show and we have a book that goes along with it. The real power and here's getting down to the nut of your question the real power is that we open and create a bond with dad and his son, with mom and her daughter, so that they could speak about these issues. So there's no more shame and secrecy to your two points that you made earlier. I'm not ashamed of this. This is part of my nature. I'm growing to be a woman. I'm growing to be a man, to fall into love, right? And what does that mean? You know? And what does that mean?
Speaker 1:with family, love, friendship, love and then this future romance, love. So we do it really slowly through these five acts. It's really beautiful, but in between, it's really the bond that you have between you and your son, theo, between your wife and your daughter, and this goes out to all of us, right it's that bond that we create with each other so that we can sit around the table, and this is why I think Covenant Eyes is such a great compliment, because this just becomes part of the conversation. Now, hey, I saw what. You know. You know I'm looking at this, you're looking at this on our our thing. Hey, be really careful, son, you know I, you know I. I accidentally went on this, this thing, and and thank goodness we had a screen on there, because these images pop. Well, whatever, that is right, we're continuing to talk, or? Dad? You know, I had, I saw this at school today.
Speaker 1:What do you think about it? You know what the biggest thing, theo, is they hug at the end. I see this over and over. Here's a dad, maybe never really. You know, some dads are real huggy, right and kind of warm, and other dads they don't know how to act. You know, and kind of warm and other dads. They don't know how to act, you know. But by the time we're done with those, that that hour and a half there, they felt the closeness, a lot of tears, a lot of hugs, a lot, a lot of just something, some great movement of the heart, you know. So I know that's a wordy way of saying it, but we're creating a bond, we're just speaking the truth and and and it's it's a conversation that's going to continue, hopefully throughout a lifetime. Right, that we just get closer and closer together and we can deal with all these and talk about all these issues that we're bringing up here today, which are sensitive.
Speaker 2:Tom, one of the things that you said that stuck with me is just that you're creating or deepening the bond between mother and daughter, father and son. Man, you can't underestimate or overestimate, really, the importance of a good dad, just for our young men out there. Thankfully, my dad was somebody I could talk to about all this when it was going on. He was somebody I could talk to about all this when it was going on. He was somebody I could talk to about anything. He made that clear to me from a very young age and that's done wonders for me, so I couldn't be more grateful to him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so much I couldn't be more grateful, then, for what you're doing to help fathers and sons. Man, that's going to be so. That's so important for our culture, for our church. Yeah, can't say enough about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you, and that's the. That's the missing piece. So much because we see fathers who are also addicted to porn. We see, you know fathers and mothers that are looking at those screens too much. We see you know, you see people in restaurants where they're all looking at the screens. Something happens, theo, theo, when, and, and maybe this is the pinpoint of the question again, I, I made it, but you asked, you know what was one thing. That's what it is it's a conversation, it's it's putting those, those, those phones down.
Speaker 1:Like you said, these things can be good, right, look at if, if I didn't have the gps in this thing deal yeah right, I wouldn't go out my door anymore but, but with that said you have to put this down and I have to speak to you man to man, and and I, and, and I'd have to do that with my son and with my girls too right, as a father, and just speak to each other. One of the best things in my marriage deal was when I learned to put that stupid phone down and just listen to my wife. Sometimes she was just bantering about something and I'm thinking what is she talking about? I would have a tendency to look at my phone and just like distract myself, right, and I learned no, just put it down, listen, and I don't have to fix it, I don't have to, you know whatever. And over time I started to see the joy on her face, you know, just because she was bantering and somebody was listening, and she started to like me more. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:And when somebody likes you more, everything starts to flow. You know, when I say, like we loved each other, you know, but you start to like each other more. I'm kinder now, I'm paying attention. Now she's paying attention. Hey, you want something for dinner tonight all of a sudden. You know what I mean. So these are little things that happen and I think that's the same thing with a child, that if I can create that bond and we just open that dialogue. A lot of that takes place in prayer, though, too in grace. If you want to create that bond, pray together, man. That's the power. Is is in prayer, theo, isn't it?
Speaker 2:yeah, how about that? Wow, you know. Another thing we talked earlier about primal desires and primal maybe instincts, our brain again, I'm not an expert on this, but you know our brains have changed over time but like, not totally, and we're kind of always watching for things to happen right at one time. You know, when you can think back thousands of years ago, we didn't have phones, we maybe didn't have like civilization as it is today with buildings and everything you maybe lived out in the wild with other animals. You were kind of always watching and looking for things to happen. Well, we've kind of created a society where things don't always happen as rapidly in front of us, but when I pick this up and I refresh the newsfeed or, you know, keep searching the internet, that's a place where things might happen, right, so it's kind of tapped into. Oh, you know, I'm looking right, because my brain was kind of created to be on guard, on edge, watching, you know, and getting certain hormonal surges from when things do happen or when I accomplish things right Dopamine, like it was meant to be, you know, a, oh, that's a perfect example.
Speaker 2:We talked earlier about how we were made to desire a spouse, a real spouse. Right, we were also made to desire real accomplishments from hard work. Yeah, but with these things they give us the same, like dopamine, surge, right, pornography or not, but that's a big one, which is why that can really affect your work ethic, and it did for me too. Now we change, right, our desires change. We desire the same outcome, the same effect, but we now have different means to get it and it takes a lot less work. That's not good for us. One of the things I think about this original sin thing a lot actually I think that partially came from, you know, my son passing away. I mean, I think about the garden and I think about its consequences a lot, but now also just with my work and I mean it's kind of the core of the problem of evil, right.
Speaker 2:The fact that is this is how we introduced it into society. Work wasn't a consequence of the problem of evil. Work was initially in the initial commandments right Till the earth, take care of it. You take care of the earth, it's going to take care of you and feed you. But somehow it's become associated with original sin because of the toil part. Right, god and his curses, you're going to work hard for the bread you eat, right. So there's kind of a sense in which we're looking for the easy way for things. We maybe didn't figure out how to do that for thousands of years, but now we have.
Speaker 1:It's interesting times, you know, john Paul would say to your point, john Paul would say, in a sense, every man, every woman stands before that tree of the knowledge of good and evil and has to decide. And it's true, you know, when you look back at the ancients, you said, you know, our brains develop over time. But even the ancients, you know, we look at the Greek philosophers. Hundreds of years before Jesus ever walked the earth, they were contemplating all this stuff already Plato, aristotle, socrates. You know we don't change as much as we think sometimes. You know, we're taking that ancient Greek, we're putting them here in our you know. I mean there would be a lot to learn from right that they would learn. They see the cars and the technology and all that stuff. But I'll tell you what you have to adapt right to that technology, how you're going to use it, how you're not going to use it. But after a few months those guys would settle in and start to figure it out. But the difference is they come from a deeper place a lot of times and they'd be able to put it in the context better you know, is this, you know, true, good and beautiful or is
Speaker 1:it, profaning beauty like pornography would do. John paul would say the opposite of of love is is not hatred, the opposite of love is lust, because love is the self-giving, self-pouring out of one person to another, and the opposite of that is taking and grasping. And so pornography is getting at the very root of who we are, in the Imago Dei, in the image and likeness of God. I mean, if there is an evil force out there, theo, and you wanted to take down a person, you're just going to get into that primal again, that primal essence of love. It's not just our bodies, right, or our brains, it's actual desire to love and be loved. And if you can twist and distort that man, you can really destroy a person. And I think that's what people need to understand that you can really destroy a person through pornography and a lot of these other addictions too, can't you?
Speaker 2:Yes, and I think there's another big reason why he would tap into our desire for love as a way to destroy us. We get our identity in ways from our relationships. Our relationships kind of precede our identity, right like I am a son, I'm husband, I'm a father I'm a friend, the, the reality of those relationships, you know, is what gives me those identities, right.
Speaker 2:So, yes, you know, if you can tap into somebody's love, if you can tap into relationships, you can really, you know, then distort their sense of their identity. That's the beautiful thing about our you know, the fact that we were made for God. Though, right, we can't become not sons and daughters of God, the Father, right. Even if a mother should forsake her child, god will not abandon us, right? No matter what we do, he won't forsake us as his children. We can abandon him, but he'll never abandon us, but in a big way. Our relationships precede our identity, so of course he's going to attack love. Our relationships precede our identity, so of course he's going to attack love, our relationships. That's the way to bring down people individually and then together.
Speaker 1:But that's what he does, right. That's the name Satan has he scatters?
Speaker 1:And I think what you know. As we wind down here, theo, we've just got a few minutes left I think it's so important for young men. When I'm speaking to young men and again this could be 16, 17 years old, you know and up when I'm saying that Is, I always tell them I said don't try to stuff these down. You know these desires to you know, when you see a woman coming down, you know the Costco aisle, you know, and you, ooh, she's beautiful. Right, don't try to stuff that down. You know God gave you those desires. You see that attraction, but right away, offer her up. Right, offer her up, in other words, that power, instead of selfishly taking it, say, jesus, thank you for the beauty of that woman. Look at, this is a battle, it's a battle of the heart. But if you can do that, the faster you can do that. Don't stuff it down, don't indulge it. We know we, we know that. You know, get in the pornography and all those things.
Speaker 1:I see these young guys, theo, in these cycles, right, they go from trying to be good and then they get really hungry, right, the starvation diet. I'm not going to think about that. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to go on the internet. But then a couple of days later, boom, right, they explode into this indulgence, right, and they get caught up in these cycles and it happens over and over.
Speaker 1:I said it's the third way. It's not stuffing it down, not indulging, it never works. It's opening those desires. Right, it's opening those desires. So now I see this woman, or I'm thinking about a computer, I'm opening my phone to look at pornography. I open that up and I give that power. I don't try to get rid of the power. I open that power to the merciful love of God, who untwists, undistorts it.
Speaker 1:A man doesn't want to lose his passions and desires. If you tell me, hey, jack, I'm going to take your passions and desires away, I said well, I'm not a man anymore. No, I want to purify those passions so I can become an authentic lover for my wife, my friends, all those things that you mentioned, all those relationships, right, this is how you know. This is what is exciting, instead of looking at look, we all have battles, brother, and this is probably one of the biggest battles we'll ever face, because it gets down to the core of who we are as men and women. First of all, in the image and likeness of God, to call to love one another. Again, this is a battle and I think the more we understand that, the more a man can rise up and say okay, I'm in a battle here. And how do I fight that battle?
Speaker 1:So quick, three things. Before you look at that phone in the morning, I always tell people just fall on your knees to kneel with our Blessed Mother and say just like she did at the Annunciation be it done to me according to your will, be it done to me according to your word. And I open up my heart to God first thing in the morning. And then I know the temptations will come, theo, and every temptation now becomes an invitation to prayer. I might be tempted all day and then I'm praying all day.
Speaker 1:Can you imagine if you're praying all day because you're tempted all day? I'm opening, opening, opening. And then the third thing I'll go and love the next person. You see, Just love, get up from your knees, and just the next. I don't care if it's the cashier at the 7-Eleven, or maybe it's your wife, you know, maybe whoever Just love them Learn right away, boom, to love them. You do those things every day and do those religiously and then pray all day like that with temptations, it'll change your heart, my friend. It's going to change those neural pathways back in your brain.
Speaker 2:Well, and changing the heart is so important. You mentioned earlier that it was Jesus himself who talked about the possibility of looking at a woman with lust. That means that this problem of pornography, though it fuels lust, it also came from lust, right. It is inherent to it can come from the heart, right. Jesus said evil comes from the heart. You know, you can use somebody without looking at pornography, without even engaging in a sexual act with them.
Speaker 1:You can use that.
Speaker 2:You can look at that person and use that person, even in your own heart and in your own mind, and one of the things.
Speaker 2:I'll tell you, as you get clean from pornography, as you set it aside, it brings great peace. It brings great freedom to not live with secrets anymore. But then you realize, you know, as you grow in holiness, as you try to move towards God, god begins to show you other things right. And then you realize like oh, now I got to learn to take captive of my thoughts. And you know, my pastor, my mentor, father Thomas Loya, at Annunciation Byzantine Catholic Church in Fort Glenn.
Speaker 1:He's a big theology of the body guy.
Speaker 2:He talks a lot about this thing called the sacramental worldview. Right, and we have to shape how we see the Catholic faith is a way of seeing and, you know, eventually you have to not just, you know lock down your devices and make sure that you protect exteriorly what you're seeing. That's important. But then you have to be, you know, allow god to form you and form your vision so that you see reality as god made it, you see the dignity of the human person in front of you. You know, and that's actually where the name Covenant Eyes comes from.
Speaker 2:It comes from Job, where he said I've made a covenant with my eyes I will not look upon a virgin. That's where we take that. That was before pornography. The goal of this, ultimately, is to help people see the way God wants us to see Right, to see really him in everything in creation, in our fellow humans. That's the point of all of this. You know, eradicating pornography is important to your holiness, but it is a means to an end, ultimately, of being closer with God and being with him forever.
Speaker 1:Wow, theo, that was beautiful. You know just one more. You know scripture. Just one more scripture passage is from the Song of Songs. So this erotic love poetry. And it just reminded me when you say you look at every person as a beloved child of God, including the woman that you're attracted to. But in the Song of Songs I'm just going off the top of my head here, but, but it said you know, you've ravished my heart, my, my sister, my bride. You've ravished my heart with one glance of your eyes, my sister, my bride. And he calls her sister. The man who's in love right, who's so attracted to this woman, calls her sister before bride.
Speaker 1:And john paul pointed out because we have a common heritage. You know that, that that we have a common heritage, that we have a common father. First, we're all beloved children of God. Being able to see what he's saying, I see you as my sister, I see you as a beloved child of God, I see you as someone I should love. Only then, in that attitude, am I able, am I responsible enough, am I privileged enough to call you my bride, to ask you to marry me. It's really beautiful. And you wonder, why is erotic love poetry in the middle of the Bible, right, because it gave actually the saints and the mystics the vocabulary to speak about how they felt about God. So you see, we shouldn't stuff those passions and desires down, theo, should we? We should open those up to the merciful love of God. Let them purify them so you're exactly right so that I can be free to walk around the cabin of this world and see you and other people in a different light. It's possible, but it's a battle, my friend. It's a battle for sure.
Speaker 2:I want to ask you one more question before we close, about something you said earlier, you talked about husbands and wives praying together. I'm learning a lot from this conversation and benefit. What's one or two tips you might have, especially as we come into Advent Christmas, for ways husbands and wives can do that? And yes, I am paying attention for my own self too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, think about this. It's so awkward for some people that haven't prayed before. So certainly before you have a meal together. But instead of just saying grace, I would just throw out, as a man who's trying to get used to this, it's just saying you know, honey, let's say grace before we have dinner. Maybe the kids are there, maybe they're not at the table, but I'll say just, you know, first of all, god, I want to thank you for my wife and name her and just, and then pray and you start doing those little things like that deal.
Speaker 1:It's amazing how the grace will come into your life and how you'll touch that heart of your spouse, you know. And then, before you know it, you'll say, before you go to, you know, to bed, maybe, honey, let's just say a quick prayer together. You know, it just becomes part of who you are. It's amazing power, man. It's amazing power when you start to. You know, have holy water around the house.
Speaker 1:You know, once, once in a while, I actually bless my wife and say, hey, honey, my wife is a Methodist. She has no idea what I'm doing half the time, but she knows that I care about her. You know what I mean and our relationship wasn't always like that, it was really prayer, and starting to pray for her quietly myself. And then I was given the grace to be able to start to verbalize that in small ways, and now I'll reach out and I'll grab her hand before grace and then say a prayer, and so all these little things still will lead you. And it's not brain surgery, but we just start that way. But, yeah, I start with my own prayer first. Hey God, give me the courage, the wisdom to know when, how you know, and then things will open up, and it's a beautiful thing when that happens, you know.
Speaker 2:Amazing Jack. Thank you for sharing that wisdom with us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, hey, theo, your pleasure. Where should they reach out to Covenant Eyes? Where do they find out more about all this? If they have any questions for you, is there a place they can contact you?
Speaker 2:You can contact us. If you go to the Covenant Eyes website, there'll be a bar on top saying why am I here, and if you go to help my church, you can schedule a meeting with the church team. Jack, you're also welcome to put my email in the show notes. Hey, theo.
Speaker 1:God bless you. Keep up the good work, my friend.
Speaker 2:God bless you, jack. Keep up the good work as well, and thanks for a great conversation today. Thanks for having me on I really appreciate it.