On The Road To Perfection

Being Who We Are Supposed To Be is something you hear in our episodes all the time. Make no mistake about it, we are not experts at it in practice - but we are a lot better than we used to be because we are purposeful in our pursuit of being perfect in it - hence being on the road to perfection! Because of our ups and downs, we can share what being who we are supposed to be is and how to put it into practice - and how to recover when we fail at it. In this episode, we share what it means to be who you are supposed to be, and how to get to being that!

We are not perfect. We strive for perfection, on the road to Perfection. As a couple, Beth and Kristofer work hard to be who we are supposed to be every day. Sometimes we fail, and sometimes we fail spectacularly! There is less likelihood if the couple discerns together, as one, and there is greater opportunity and possibility of forgiveness, reconciliation, and being better and doing better moving forward. Discerning as a couple starts with some basic rules, one of which we talked about when we opened this series with the episode The No Always Wins. As we begin this episode, we talk about Deaconate Formation as a good model to start with concerning that critical tool.

When you are in the Will of God, you will feel a profound sense of discernment's peace and freedom. And that is the key to knowing if you have discerned rightly. In this episode, we wrap up individual discernment by discussing the key indicators that tell you that you are on the right track - that you are being and doing as God has ordained. It's a terrific sense of accomplishment, regardless of what you are called to be or do - even when you discern something that hurts to discern. With a grand example involving Santa Claus, we jump in and get to that peace and freedom idea.

Who and what speaks for God? In this episode about Discernment - Being Open to God's Messengers - we share an in-depth example of one of many episodes in our family's life that speaks clearly to the idea that God speaks to us through many messengers. The idea of being who we are supposed to be is key to noticing these messengers and being open to them working for God's purpose in our lives; oftentimes inadvertently and unknowingly. But God does not shout, nor does He deny that which He has ordained - so the message has to get to us somehow. It gets to us through God's messengers.

Discernment - listening to God - is different than listening for Him that we discussed in the last episode. As we continue this discussion on discernment, listening to God seems to be an obvious step. But is it? And how should we actually do that? That's what we talk about, and it is vital to understand the difference - and how to practice them in their proper context. So, with a lot of laughs and example, we get into it.

Discernment - listening for God being a necessary part of it, is not hard or difficult, and we hope this episode helps you hear that. In our second episode of the series based on our Parish Mission on Family and Discerning, we talk about this significant step in the discernment process. We must say, "Speak Lord, for your servant is listening," and we need to mean it - and do it. God is constantly waiting for us to listen "for" Him before we can listen "to" Him. Here's how.

This entire series is an abridged version of the parish mission we give on discernment. Discernment - What It Is and Isn't - is a discussion we all need to have with ourselves, and each other. We aren't talking about what to make for dinner or wear to work. This is about our being and our doing according to God's Plane. The foundation to that is being who we are supposed to be, and discerning who that is requires figuring out what our primary vocation is. This episode we dive into discernment for the first in a series of walk and talks about discernment.

In Holy Matrimony - Marriage - there has to be a couple of rules. "The No Always Wins" is a major foundation of our marriage, and we think it is helpful for everyone else, too. Decision-making in a marriage, no matter how simple or significant the decision is that needs to be made, is ALWAYS a two-person proposition. So, what happens when both spouses do NOT agree? You guessed it: The no always wins.

Answering another listener’s question, we tackle having and creating balance in our busy lives. Balance in pursuing perfection is a difficult prospect. As the year begins, we explore "How do I have balance in my life between family and providing for my family?": Work/Life balance, as it has been called. How do we do that, pursue and attain balance? Well, we talk about that, first by defining balance in the context of the listener who asked us the question, and then we tackle it from the idea of Catholicism and God Himself giving us clues as to how to have balance. As opposed to a Work/Family balance, we need to have a God/Life balance.

Acting on a question from a listener, sibling rivalry is our focus, particularly rivalry for parents' attention and rivalry between siblings.

We dive into this sometimes confusing and dismissed time of the liturgical calendar by exploring how life is Advent. Life is a series of endings, and to have endings, we must have beginnings. Our traditions pepper this discussion, along with the big things in our life and your life, and we offer some sanity to the confusing schedule of Masses you may be dealing with going into the Fourth Week of Advent, Christmas Eve, and Christmas Day.

Controversial out of the gate - but honest as always! - we jump right into trust between parents and their children by talking about a BIG reason parents need to rebuild trust with their kids. This is not a marriage counseling session, but we talk straight-up about divorce from personal experience before we get into the meat of the matter, and this was a question a listener asked. Of course, there are many reasons for having to rebuild trust with our children, and there are great ways to build trust with our children. It's a packed episode, so jump down off the curb and walk with us!

Answering a question from a listener, we chat about building trust with our spouse, and rebuilding trust with our spouse, no matter the circumstance. Seriously - no broken trust is too broken, and we discuss that. We acknowledge difficulty in various situations, but get to the core pretty quickly. We share our deepest breach that we recovered from - yep, that one - and explore in-depth how you can recover, too. We give two very specific practices that will start working for you immediately!

We cover the facts in the first thirty seconds, making this the easiest and fastest podcast listen one might every have. We are consuming flesh and blood, soul and divinity when we receive the Eucharist; and we thought it important to discuss that and proclaim it.

Asking the dead to pray for us can be a bit discomforting. It can seem blasphemous, useless, or silly superstition. But asking the dead to pray for us makes absolute perfect sense when we consider the belief that "we are all one body" and that body does not have separate, disparate parts that exist away from each other.

Walking in the Catholic Faith is an important part of Being Perfect and Being On The Road To perfection. In this episode, we focus on that walk, and what it means. How do we start walking in the Catholic Faith? How do we keep doing it, and encourage others to do it? Are we all walking the same path?

We are called to be perfect, as we discussed last week. So, what does being on the road to perfection look like? If Jesus was "finished" and his ministry was "completed," as it means when He said, "It is done," by saying, "It is perfected" just before He died on the Cross, He must have walked a road to perfection. And so must we. In this episode we discuss that concept, in terms of what we are doing and how we respond to the call for our life. It's a simple concept, and a difficult task, but we have the example of Our Lord which, from the proper perspective, is not an impossible example to follow and exemplify.

Being Perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect is a daunting idea! Starting from the beginning, when we first launched the podcast, we talk about Jesus' use of the word "perfect" in Matthew 5:48, its Greek etymology, and His use of the same word only one other place in His ministry - when He is dying on the Cross. Being Perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect is to be who we are supposed to be, just as God is Who He is supposed to be. So how do we BE perfect? Glad you asked. The answer is here!

God's time is not our time. Well, duh! In this episode that is short on time - possibly our shortest episode ever - we discuss the intricacies of life complicated by our concept of timing and how our own blindness to the Plan of The Lord makes us impatient as He works for our good with His Goodness, Beauty, and Truth. When we do not think God is responding to our prayers, it does not mean He isn't involved and not doing things. When we are kids, we try to get God to do things, to fit him into our expectations. Do we still do that as adults? When we are non-believers, does some of that lack of faith come from not getting, having, or experiencing what we think should be happening?

1 Timothy 6:10 is our source for this topic (not Proverbs, as we erroneously say!). We discuss the love of money in the context of the Mass reading recently about the rich young man asking Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life. We look at the idea of a camel fitting through the eye of a needle more easily than a rich person might enter heaven, and explore what that actually means. Does God hate rich people? No. Does the Church tell us not to be rich? No. What if we are rich - does this story apply to us? Well, we are, and that depends...