Adam took the family on his parents' annual vacation this week, and Grandpa rented four jet skis. With a house full of kids, four turned out to be exactly the right number. Adam threw Luke off the back four times, which he's counting as a win. But the real event was the card game. If you've never played spoons with the Minihan family, know this going in: it ends in blood. Sheetrock has been broken. Tables have taken damage. Adam came home with a scratch, a bruise, and a loss he's still sore about. His sister Kaylin was his rival, so he spent the whole game yanking the spoons to the far end of the table just to make her fly for one. Then Grandpa broke out the karaoke machine after the kids went down, and Adam lassoed Lady Haylee into a duet of "Jackson." Every man should have a go-to karaoke song ready for when the moment finds him. Adam jokes, God help him, is "My Heart Will Go On."
Dave, by his own admission, has no fun stories. He spent the weekend working himself to the bone, finished cutting his wheat, and pulled a good harvest. Adam brought up while his family was away, something got into the coop. A fox or a coyote, most likely, because a raccoon doesn't kill a dozen birds. They lost the four new chicks and the brooding hens. Chicken math giveth, and this week it took away.
The pour is 1792 Full Proof, a single-barrel store pick from Broken Arrow Wine and Spirits, a Catholic-owned shop. It's barrel strength and it drinks hot. Jim, keeper of the yummy scale, gave it a 5.99 out of 6, then shrugged and told the guys to be indifferent to it. Which, as it happens, is the whole show.
Because tonight the topic is holy indifference, and Adam frames it first through ordering your day. Reading Sertillanges' The Intellectual Life, he lands on a hard truth: you are not at the mercy of your mood, and the man who waits until he feels like it never starts. Order gets carried out precisely when you don't feel like it, because the hierarchy of what matters doesn't shift with how you feel. Decide what a good day looks like before the day begins. Get your three to five things done no matter what the highs and lows throw at you. Kill the second alarm. Don't become a slave to the pillow. Small time used faithfully beats big time used erratically. And guard your silence, because a scattered mind can't go deep, and the first place you feel the noise is in adoration.
Then the turn. Holy indifference isn't apathy. It's the opposite. It's a hyper-preference, wanting the will of God so completely that you stop caring whether He sends riches or poverty, health or sickness, a long life or a short one. St. Ignatius calls it indifference to all created things. St. Francis de Sales sharpens it: the resigned man accepts God's will but still quietly prefers his own, while the indifferent man has let go of the preference itself. Wax in the hand. Clay in the potter's grip. Dave brings it home with the night a car stopped short in front of him and he thought, what if I'd just died? His first panic was, who takes care of my family? And the answer he heard was, do you think you're the one who takes care of them? Have they not always been Mine first? Protect, provide, establish, and then hold it all loosely. You can't abandon yourself to a God you don't trust, so build the faith that lets you trust Him. Raise your glass.
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Sponsor: The Amen app (from the Augustine Institute)
The Amen app is the free Catholic prayer app the guys use to prep the family for Sunday, listening to the Sunday Gospel on the way to Holy Mass. Since 2021 it's had over 950,000 downloads, and the guys want to push it past a million. No paywall, no subscription trap, no upfront cost. It even has Divine Mercy in My Soul and True Devotion to Mary on it, free. Download the Amen app right now.
Sponsor: Select International Tours: selectinternationaltours.com
When Adam and Dave decided to lead their first pilgrimage, one name kept coming up: Select International Tours. Having used them, the guys can vouch for it. They're the best. Wherever in the world you want to go, Select has a tour ready. Whether you want to lead a pilgrimage or attend one, head to selectinternationaltours.com and see everything they offer. You won't regret it.