Dave's been throwing parties. Three in four days. Confirmation sponsor for a friend's son, family and friends over the next night, and then — because the universe has a sense of humor — some local gentleman decided to remodel Dave's brick mailbox. With his truck. At speed. Bricks were found over a hundred feet away. The guy left his license plate behind, which Dave is now holding like a man who accidentally picked up evidence and doesn't know what to do with it. The driver's fine. Well — he's in jail. But he's alive. Dave wants him to know that God's mercy is always ready and present, even for the man who turned a brand-new brick mailbox into gravel.
Meanwhile, Adam got a new plum tree. Planted a maple. He's getting oaks for the pig pen so they'll drop acorns someday. One of his chickens died in a water barrel trap that nobody designed on purpose — the lid flipped, the chicken couldn't get out. Farm life. And then the real news: baby Mary is doing better. Haylee got to hold her. Adam held her for over three hours — only his second time since she was born in February. Three months of NICU, and the man finally got to just sit with his daughter. Praise God. Keep those prayers coming.
Also — Adam's turning 40 on June 2nd. And Lady Pamela is due with their next baby on June 4th. They floated the idea of recording an episode in the delivery room. Pamela has not been consulted.
This week we're sipping 13th Colony Distilleries Southern Rye Whiskey, French Oak Finish, Small Batch — 47.5% ABV. Platinum award-winning. Silky texture with hints of rye, apricot, and brown sugar. The rye's there but it doesn't overpower — still has a lot of bourbon elements to it. About forty bucks. That's a great buy.
Then the conversation turns to something Adam's son Jude sparked. Jude — Adam's second oldest — just finished reading the entire Bible, Genesis through Revelation, straight through. Now he's reading the Council of Trent Catechism. He's a kid. Nobody told him to do this. He just had good books lying around the house and picked them up. That's the whole point.
The virtue of study — studiositas — isn't what school taught us it was. It's not cramming. It's not memorizing facts to dump after the test. Aquinas calls it a habit of the mind ordered towards truth. Classical education at its best doesn't fill your head — it forms the way you think. The more you read rightly, the more you can arrive at correct conclusions through a sound process, not just recall. Study leads to contemplation. Contemplation is rest in truth. And it's not about finishing the book. If you're reading to check the box, you've already lost the plot. Sit with it. Let yourself be carried. The intellectual life doesn't compete with the family — it serves the family.
From there, Adam and Dave go back and forth on the books that actually formed them. Adam leads with Joseph Pieper's In Tune with the World — a short, devastating argument for why festivity dies when we strip the divine out of celebration. Dave counters with The Soul of the Apostolate — the book that reordered his understanding of what has to come first before any ministry means anything. Adam brings John Senior's The Restoration of Christian Culture — hard opinions, harder truths, and a quote worth sitting with: the virtue of study requires a canon, a body of great works proven across time. Without tradition to guide what's worth studying, you're just chasing novelty.
Dave goes deep on Fr. Timothy Gallagher's The Discernment of Spirits — a practical walkthrough of St. Ignatius's rules that shed light on the stages of the spiritual life and how the enemy shifts tactics as you grow. Adam responds with Raymond Arroyo's biography of Mother Angelica — a story of suffering, faithfulness, and a woman who said yes without knowing where it would lead. Dave makes a case for the Psalms — Psalm 51, the De Profundis in Latin, and the realization that there's a psalm for every moment of a man's life, and he'd been skimming past them for years.
Adam goes deep cut: Fr. Paul Murray's Aquinas at Prayer — a book that reoriented his understanding of St. Thomas from pure intellect to contemplative soul. Dave brings Divine Mercy in My Soul by St. Faustina — hundreds of pages of our Lord's words on mercy that are sometimes scandalously generous. Adam throws in Simon Sinek's Start with Why as the non-Catholic book that changed how he thought about business, marriage, and fatherhood. Both men land on fiction that haunts them — Adam with Sigrid Undset's Kristin Lavransdatter, Dave with Candice Millard's Hero of the Empire on young Churchill. They touch on Lencioni's Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Gone with the Wind, the bishop chapters of Les Misérables, Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death, and close with John Senior's Thousand Good Books — the canon itself, the list that connects it all.
They end where they always end: with Plato. They're halfway through the Republic in their great books group. David sits on the dumb couch. He knows he sits on the dumb couch. He's fine with it.
Raise your glass.
TOPICS COVERED
Dave's brick mailbox obliterated by a truck — bricks found 100 feet away, driver in jail, license plate left behind
Three parties in four days at Porter Prairie: confirmation, family gathering, and involuntary demolition
Dave building a grain cradle for his scythe for the upcoming grain harvest
Adam's new plum tree, maple tree, and oak trees planned for the pig pen
The chicken that died in a water barrel trap nobody designed on purpose
Baby Mary update — doing better, Adam held her for three hours, Haylee held her too
Adam turning 40 on June 2nd and Lady Pamela due June 4th
Bourbon of the week: 13th Colony Distilleries Southern Rye Whiskey, French Oak Finish, 47.5% ABV
Jude Minihan reading the entire Bible and now the Council of Trent Catechism — and nobody told him to
Why having good books lying around the house matters more than assigned reading
The virtue of studiositas — Aquinas on study as a habit of the mind ordered towards truth
Study isn't cramming — it's forming the way we think, not filling our heads
Why finishing the book isn't the point — sit with it, let yourself be carried
The intellectual life doesn't compete with family — it serves the family
Joseph Pieper's In Tune with the World — why festivity dies without the divine
The Soul of the Apostolate — what has to come first before any ministry matters
John Senior's The Restoration of Christian Culture — hard opinions and the necessity of a canon
Fr. Timothy Gallagher's The Discernment of Spirits — St. Ignatius's rules made practical
Raymond Arroyo's biography of Mother Angelica — suffering, faithfulness, and saying yes
The Psalms as treasure — Psalm 51, the De Profundis in Latin, and why Dave had been skimming past them
Fr. Paul Murray's Aquinas at Prayer — reorienting Aquinas from intellect to contemplative
St. Faustina's Divine Mercy in My Soul — mercy so generous it's almost scandalous
Simon Sinek's Start with Why — a non-Catholic book that changed everything
Sigrid Undset's Kristin Lavransdatter — fiction that haunts you because it doesn't read like fiction
Candice Millard's Hero of the Empire — young Churchill before the cigar and the brandy
Patrick Lencioni's Five Dysfunctions of a Team — why hard conversations are acts of charity
Gone with the Wind — Rhett Butler as a man whose virtues take a lifetime to find
The bishop chapters of Les Misérables — Hugo's best character, written by a man who wasn't even a fan of the Church
Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death — prophetic in 1985, terrifying now
John Senior's Thousand Good Books — the canon that connects all the great works
The Count of Monte Cristo as a commentary on Dante's Inferno
Plato's dialogues — the Republic, Euthyphro, the Symposium, and why you need a great books group
Adam sits on the dumb couch at great books night and he's fine with it
REFERENCED IN THIS EPISODE
Books & Writings:
In Tune with the World: A Theory on Festivity by Joseph Pieper
Leisure, the Basis of Culture by Joseph Pieper (mentioned)
The Intellectual Life by A.G. Sertillanges
The Soul of the Apostolate (Dave's pick)
The Restoration of Christian Culture by John Senior
The Death of Christian Culture by John Senior (mentioned)
The Discernment of Spirits by Fr. Timothy Gallagher (based on St. Ignatius's rules)
Mother Angelica: The Remarkable Story of a Nun, Her Nerve, and a Network by Raymond Arroyo
Aquinas at Prayer by Fr. Paul Murray, O.P.
Divine Mercy in My Soul by St. Maria Faustina
Start with Why by Simon Sinek
Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Hero of the Empire: The Boer War, a Daring Escape, and the Making of Winston Churchill by Candice Millard
Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman (1985)
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (mentioned)
When Adam and Dave decided to lead their first pilgrimage, the same name kept coming up: Select International Tours. Having used them, they can tell you it's deserved. Whether you're looking to lead a pilgrimage or attend one, head to selectinternationaltours.com and see what they've got. You won't regret it.
