Prediction: Podcasts Will Go The Way of MySpace

I half-heartedly started the Rogan/Tucker Carlson interview (conversation? Idk what you call it these days) during a lull in my day. About half an hour in to the three-hour long thing, around the mark where Tucker is going full-redpill and equating UFOs with spiritual beings, I had an epiphany--

no one cares. 

Whether its Chris Williamson or Lex Fridman in the secular world at large cross breeding with various off-the-beaten-path internet personalities (Brett Weinstein, Elon Musk, Peter Attia, etc), or Matt Fradd or Kennedy Hall or Trent Horn or Taylor Marshall in the church world, these 30 minute to 3 hour dialogues have, I think, have been around for a bit but have (imo) peaked in popularity as a medium and are now simply trying to keep the hamster wheel spinning with the long-form talkitytalk gone stale. Talking ad nauseum. Peak leisure. 

I think there's some roots here when you start tugging on the stalks. Maybe it is that I don't trust anything these days--not the government, not the hierarchy, and not even the alt-talking heads pontificating for the algorithm or doing their conservative peacock version of virtue signaling. Lots of mentors, but not many teachers. Save one, of course:

Silence

Silence does not seek an audience. It does not charge a subscription fee and does not have negative side effects. Silence makes its home in the castle of humility and awe. Silence concentrates its lifeforce in potent tinctures. It wastes nothing and holds the DNA of truth in its marrow. It is only unsettling because it is a foreigner to us. It has everything to teach us and assigns no textbook. Anyone is free to audit its class.

But instead, we continue to insist that "the truth" is in these podcasts, which we play as white noise or background music. We get mentally greased up on the fact that this "truth" is suppressed in the mainstream, and so we enjoy a kind of Gnostic Delight in listening to this secret Spotify knowledge. Or maybe it's just the cringey banter that we are most comfortable with, back and forth for twenty minutes before talking about anything of substance. We squander the supreme gift of leisure to sit, be bored, daydream, and think for ourselves.

Not that there aren't things to learn from these exchanges. But I think their usefulness is waning. For one thing, our collective attention span has been highjacked by this kind of passive flacid listening over the active work of reading, not unlike the way we can't read maps anymore because the muscles in our brain have atrophied with the advent of GPS. When it's conversations for the sake of conversations with the circuit of internet personalities cycling through to feed the algorithm to pay the mortgage--well, maybe it's just my opinion but I think we're all getting--tired. Tired of the talking. Tired of the "dialogue." Tired of Professional Amateurs (TM).  Tired of the scrolling. Tired of the static. Tired of being fed.

I do miss the purer days of mySpace and early 2000 Facebook, though it had its day and that day has passed. I wouldn't be surprised if the quasi-novel podcast phenomenon sunsetted in the same way...with people just getting tired of it, when we look back and think, "man, I wasted a lot of time listening to people....talk with each other." 

Until, of course, something else comes in to hijack its place. 

When You Don't Feel The Love

Since Easter, I have been going through the motions in my faith life. Sunday Mass, daily morning offering, weekly holy hour, monthly Confession. But I feel like I'm on autopilot. I feel nothing. The truth of the matter is, I am suffering from the consequences of the sin of indifference. It doesn't seem like it should be, but I'm pretty sure this is a deadly sin. For why else would the Lord vomit the lukewarm from his mouth, and say "I wish you were either hot or cold" (Rev 3:16)?

As a largely emotional person, I recognize the danger in being beholden to one's emotional flux. This is where I think left-brained people have a slight advantage by shelving how they "feel" about something and just doing it--either by force of habit or simple logic. 

The Devil is wily, and has certainly been working on me lately by a thousand cuts. I've been feeling burnt out, out of step with the Catholic "scene," having little to draw from for writing, feeling neglected, cynical, distracted, worldly, and a host of other little things that make it easy to snip away at the hair-like roots holding the spiritual dunes together and erosion at bay. It reminds me of a story of the late Fr. Benedict Groeschel, who 

fostered a paternal love for priests, men worn out by the ministry, men fallen on hard times, addicted to alcohol or other vices, and then the most despised of all: priests who had abused. In a Church where the ministry of priests is taken for granted and many are forgotten, left to their work, not cared for, Fr Benedict was one who reached out to them to rebuild and restore what had crumbled through years of neglect, fatigue and loneliness. He said that often when burnt-out priests arrived to speak to him, or those who were considering leaving the ministry, the first question he asked them was: "When did you stop praying?" Inevitably all of them had abandoned prayer, and Fr Benedict's first piece of advice was to begin praying again. No priest can live without prayer, no priest can work without prayer, no priest can be a priest without prayer. 

It is not just priests that cannot live without prayer, but lay disciples like you and I who can admittedly take the work of prayer for granted...until you let it fall by the wayside and realize how far you have the potential to drift without it. And admittedly, it's not just that one stops praying one day...just as one drifts from their spouse a little bit at a time, day after day, until they find themselves in a bed far from their own. Divorce lawyer James Sexton related an insightful little story on Rogan to illustrate this point:

The problem is these little disconnections. This woman, my client, we were sitting outside the courtroom...late thirties, very attractive. And I said to her, "Was there a moment when you realized the marriage was over?" And she said "Yes," 

"There was this granola I liked, and they only sold it at a particular grocery store. And I liked to put it in my yogurt. Whenever I'd be running low on it, I'd just open the thing and a new bag would be there. And it made me feel so loved. I didn't have to ask, he didn't want credit for it. He would just do this thing...and it would always make me smile. 

"And one day, the granola ran out. And I thought that's weird, maybe he didn't see it. So I left the bag in there, because I thought at some point I figured he would notice.  And he didn't notice. So I took the bag out. And I waited. And he didn't get a new bag. And I thought, "Okay, this thing's going down..."

We all have these little 'canaries in the cage' in our marriages, our friendships, our work, and yes, our spiritual lives. They start slowly and innocuously but create little divots in the turf that over time create an indentation deep enough to get your car stuck in the mud. 

For me, it's usually my daily rosary that falls by the wayside. Missing one day turns into two or three per week, which is curiously when other sins and temptations start to sneak under the fence, ones that wouldn't have bothered or tempted me otherwise. Then it becomes easier for the Devil to discharge the demons of sloth, acedia, and hatred of all spiritual things. All because, little by little, I dropped my defenses of prayer which kept them at bay.

The thing is, I know the response I would give--either to myself or a close friend--were he to say "I just don't feel the love anymore," or "I just don't love him/her anymore." The response?:

"So? Who cares? Get back to work."

The work, of course, is the work of love. We show love by our devotion, not our emotion. And, sadly, many of us in the spiritual life fail the tests that the Lord subjects us to to test our faith: when we don't feel the love of the Lord, when He has hidden himself from us (Is 45:15), we lose our incentive and impetus to pray, adore, and sacrifice. We feel like the fool who says, "there is no God" because we do not feel His presence (Ps 14:1). And yet, you made a vow....you're not going anywhere son. 

What we really need to do is get our butts in the chapel pew, double down, and give God the time even when it feels completely wasted. If you're being tested, it's not the time to dial back off the gas. The thing is, we usually realize how much we've taken our loves for granted too late. In a marriage that depends on two fallible people, that can lead to rifts difficult to repair. With the Lord, however, we are only one confession away from healing. We are the ones that veer off into the night--the Lord is a constant (Heb 13:8) waiting for us to return. 

Continue your prayer routine, even when you have seemingly nothing to give, when everything is dry and seems meaningless.  Quit making shallow excuses. Your tinder offering is a worthy oblation because it's divorced from what you "get out of it." When you don't feel the love, stay the course, double down on the work, and keep your butt in the marriage and the pew.

An Observable Proof of the Fewness of the Saved

 

“Enter ye in at the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat. How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life: and few there are that find it!" 

(Mt 7:13-14)

If Sensus Fidelium videos are any kind of litmus, I find traditional Catholics generally amenable to the idea of the "fewness of the saved." You have websites like this one devoted entirely to the idea, and a plethora of historical quotes from the saints on the topic, such as St. Louis de Montfort's sobering observation: "The number of the elect is so small — so small — that, were we to know how small it is, we would faint away with grief: one here and there, scattered up and down the world." 

Of course, like many Calvinists and their view of the Elect who are predeterminately saved, Catholics who hold that few are saved may generally count themselves among those on the path to salvation. For why would a good Presbyterian bother attending church every Sunday if he was helplessly reprobate? Similarly, a Catholic who espouses the fewness of the saved: a) recognizes he is on the right path, and at the very least will be saved by the fires of purgatory, or b) if he thinks he is indeed damned by his way of life, at least he has the integrity to support the correct soteriology.

Then, of course, we have theologians and other figures on the other end of the spectrum (including the holy pontiff) who hold the optimistic hope that hell will be empty. This is a tenuous wager, since it does not seem to have the support of scripture, tradition, or the spiritual insight of the saints. It seems in the same line of thinking as the justifications for adultery through divorce and remarriage: our Lord was very clear in Scripture regarding this teaching, but we don't like the answer so we do theological acrobats to try to justify one more to our liking. Thus we take comfort in this life by way of these justifications, but may wake up one day on the other side of eternity in a less settled state of mind by minimizing the words of our Lord and listening instead to men.

All that being said, if I had to wager with my own spiritual currency, I am more apt to believe the words of the Lord in Matthew 7:13-14: the way to hell is wide, and many meet their fate by way of that path, says the Lord. Those who find the true path to life are few. This would seem to support the idea of the "fewness of the saved," sober as that "pessimistic" soteriological view is. 

And here is why I would wager, through general observation, that we underestimate our own sinfulness, and overestimate the number of the saved when in fact it is the opposite: we are much more sinful in the Lord's eyes than we ourselves see, and much more apt to be traversing through life on the wide path that leads to destruction.

Take any worldly event--be that a presential Trump rally, or a Taylor Swift concert, or free Rita's water ice, or the launch of the latest iPhone 20--and you will generally see sizable queues, packed stadiums, and/or a lot of "buzz" around the event. Parking lots may be jammed, admission prices may be gouging, and seating limited. 

Now, visit your local Adoration chapel where the King of the Universe sits on His glorious throne, in quiet repose, waiting for people to come and give due worship. There is no admission cost, no parking issues, no onerous travel requirements, no barriers to entry, no fighting for room in the pew. 

And yet when you enter, you will generally not find a packed house or limited seating--in fact, you may be the only person there. And this would track pretty similarly no matter where you were in the country, what town or church: the proportion of people outside that adoration chapel to those inside of it, I would wager, would track pretty closely the proportion of the damned to those who will find themselves in the heavenly court at death.

What does this say about us and our priorities? Well, for one thing it shows that "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God" (Rom 3:23) because we have failed to live out the first and most fundamental Commandment, which is to love the Lord thy God with all one's heart and soul and strength and mind. (Lk 10:27). For if one truly believes that the Lord God is present in one of these chapels, what horse or guard could keep the ardent man from adoring his savior? No, the fact is, we are not ardent, and have put other priorities (idols) on the altar of our hearts, violating this most fundamental Commandment. And thus have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

We pay nothing for the ticket to Heaven, and yet it costs us everything. Were we able to truly see, and not through a glass darkly (1 Cor 13:12), we would lament every wasted opportunity to fall at our knees in worship and adoration in this life when we prioritized the most trivial of trifles over a private audience with the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords...and then only too late. The fact that when we do make time to be with Him in the flesh that there are so few there kneeling with us is, I think, reasonable proof that Hell will not, in fact, be empty as some wish to believe. That we do not, in fact, love God with our whole heart, soul, strength, and mind means we, too, are in need of purification after death assuming we fall asleep in His friendship and not cast out as one He never knew. That love can grow weary, grow cold over time and need periodic renewal. Similarly, even when we have found the narrow way that leads to life, we sometimes get sidetracked and detoured by temptation--to shortcuts, easier routes, wider ways--and need to be brought back in line by grace. 

Rather than lead us to despair, this general observable "proof" of the fewness of the saved should encourage us to keep vigilant, taunt, sober and awake. Take the words of St. Leonard of Port Maurice to heart:

"Brothers, I want to send all of you away comforted today. So if you ask me my sentiment on the number of those who are saved, here it is: Whether there are many or few that are saved, I say that whoever wants to be saved, will be saved; and that no one can be damned if he does not want to be. And if it is true that few are saved, it is because there are few who live well.

What is the use of knowing whether few or many are saved? Saint Peter says to us, "Strive by good works to make your election sure." When Saint Thomas Aquinas's sister asked him what she must do to go to heaven, he said, "You will be saved if you want to be." I say the same thing to you, and here is proof of my declaration. No one is damned unless he commits mortal sin: that is of faith. And no one commits mortal sin unless he wants to: that is an undeniable theological proposition. Therefore, no one goes to hell unless he wants to; the consequence is obvious. Does that not suffice to comfort you? Weep over past sins, make a good confession, sin no more in the future, and you will all be saved. Why torment yourself so? For it is certain that you have to commit mortal sin to go to hell, and that to commit mortal sin you must want to, and that consequently no one goes to hell unless he wants to. That is not just an opinion, it is an undeniable and very comforting truth; may God give you to understand it, and may He bless you. Amen.

Attaining Heaven has little to do with "earning" entrance and so much to do rather with the desire to enter. Remember St. Thomas' words: You will be saved if you want to be. And the Little Flower's confidence that "when we love, we can't go there" (ie, Purgatory). The question is, do you really want to be saved? Or do you prefer your trifles to the Kingdom?

When you look around in the chapel during times of worship and wonder where everyone else is, be reminded that the wide road is a well-advertised toll highway, and the path to life one that is not so obvious and generally requires the help of a local (the saints) to find with directions (scripture and tradition) and four wheel drive (virtue and the grace of final perseverance). You are in good company in that lonely pew wasting away the hours at the feet of the King, contributing nothing and needing everything. For if you spend enough time there learning how to love you will, eventually, find your way home.

Contraception in the Heat Of Summer: An Illustration

Our home was built in the 1950's, a two story, brick split level. I would take a home built fifty years ago over today's stick-and-plywood construction, since in general they were built to last. 

What's advantageous about our home is various thought-out little details that make good use of the natural environment in its orientation and layout that minimize energy costs. For one, the front of the house is oriented due-south with a huge south-facing bay window in the living room and two large south-facing skylights over the master bedroom. There is also a protruded roof overhand in the front of the house. In the winter time, the solar gain from this orientation allows over 10kw of heat into the home during the day when the sun is low in the sky. In the summer, we cover these windows and skylights to keep the heat out, and the roof overhang helps shield some of that sun as well since it is higher in the sky that time of year. Additionally, the lower level of our home is built half below-grade, so it stays a more-or-less constant temperature: cooler in summer and warmer in winter than the rest of the house due to the thermal mass of the surrounding earth. This is just low-tech, common sense stuff that sadly has been left by the wayside in modern cost-cutting construction.

What I have found that with these various details, when paid attention to and taken advantage of, is that we burned only one hundred gallons of oil this winter for heating, and we can avoid running our central AC most of the summer, except on the hottest of days (which is good, because it's almost thirty years old at this point and probably on its last legs). One thing we do to minimize the use of AC is utilizing a modified "whole house fan." The idea is that when the nighttime temps are lower than the inside temperature, you crack the windows on the ground floor (where it is cooler), and run a 4,000cfm fan in the upstairs bedroom that points out the window (usually these fans are in an attic, but because we our attic is a walkup rather than a hatch, this won't work). This creates a vacuum effect that exhausts hot air from the upstairs and draws the cool nighttime air up from the ground floor and throughout the house. Then  in the morning, when you get up, you shut the windows and seal in all that cooler air and keep the hot daytime air out. This works best in the shoulder seasons when it's not super humid and not sweltering at night. But combined with blocking the solar radiation at the windows from entering and heating the home, it can still work well in the summer to reduce, if not eliminate, your need for AC. I do have a window AC unit for our bedroom in those hottest parts of the summer when the whole house fan is less effective. 

Living this way (my wife is a real sport) requires a bit of a shift in how one thinks about and approaches the idea of comfort. Is the goal to live in an hermetically sealed environment at a constant 72 degrees using mechanical means? Can one tolerate a degree of slight discomfort at certain periods of the year? And why am I writing about all this eco-weenie stuff, and what does it have to do with birth control, as alluded to in the title of this post?

Well, it got me thinking about how we approach what we see as "problems" in our lives. In the summer, in the Northeast where I live, that "problem" is how to stay cool inside when it's blazing hot outside. For the vast majority of people, the "solution" is the tap the thermostat and blast their central air. Since I'm not normal, I like the approach we take that isn't so artificial/mechanical and divorced from the seasons, and which also conditions our bodies for cold and heat tolerance so that we are more adaptable and less...well, soft.

It also occurred to me that this approach we take mimicks how we approach the "problem" (although it's not really a problem, of course) of the regulation of births. As Catholics, we live by the teachings of Christ as revealed to us through Scripture, the Magisterium, and the Natural Law. One must understand the Natural Law to make sense of WHY the Church condemns the use of artificial contraception as mortally sinful. This is not rocket science and does not require a degree in Philosophy or Theology, but simply that we are to use our faculties for their intended purpose. The intended purpose of the female reproductive cycle is to give rise to life. But we reverse this in the modern world by seeing pregnancy as the "problem", that something went wrong and haywire. This is in large part due to the acceptance and mainstreaming of artificial contraception which takes a healthy reproductive system and renders it infertile. 

Now, life is a great gift and blessing, but that does not mean the Church expects people to maximize the number of births in their lifetimes. She respects the judicious employment of our faculty of reason and free-will within the confines of the moral law, so that the discernment of the the number of children a couple has rests with them. Now, one can argue that this "planning" is itself contra to the will of God--that to be truly aligned with the divine will one cedes any and all control of how many children they have to God and let the chips fall where they will. Perhaps it is for the sake of human weakness in this way that the Church allows this concession of the moral means of the regulation of births by way of Natural Family Planning (NFP). That is debatable depending on which circles you run in. Nevertheless, a couple can always morally choose when to engage and when to abstain in the act of sexual intimacy so as to achieve the end of either avoiding or achieving pregnancy. What they cannot do is separate the means and the ends--that is, to have sexual intimacy without openness to life--through artificial means or coitus interruptus--in a way that is morally justifiable. 

This approach to the regulation of births by "natural" (basal body temperature monitoring, observing cervical fluid, cervix position, etc) means certainly takes a shift in mindset away from the modern mentality of '100% control-on-demand' in popping a pill or slipping on a condom. Because as any Catholic couple knows, NFP, while largely effective, is not foolproof in terms of preventing pregnancy. You have to think and communicate, adjust your behavior around your cycles, and work in tandem with the natural rhythms of the wife's body. You also have to accept that you are not 100% in control here. Kind of like when you have to crack the windows at night and turn on the upstairs fan, remember to shut it off in the morning and shut the windows, and deal with some slight discomfort when it gets a little warm. When one employs artificial contraception, you don't think about this stuff, you just take your pill every day and get your IUD implanted like setting your thermostat to 72 and not thinking about it. What is also disconcerting is that many grown women on the pill do not even know how their natural cycles work, or have any cogent understanding of their reproductive biology as a result.

The naturalist Wendell Berry, although not a Christian, wrote about how artificial contraception is out of step with the natural environment. From the Public Discourse:

In The Art of the Commonplace, Wendell Berry states that “birth control is a serious matter, both culturally and biologically,” but what is really “horrifying is not that we are relying so exclusively on a technology of birth control that is still experimental, but that we are using it casually, in utter cultural nakedness, unceremoniously, without sufficient understanding, and as a substitute for cultural solutions . . . and to promote these means without cultural insight.” In other words, a serious matter requiring careful deliberation and sound judgment has been handled carelessly and thoughtlessly—we have been forgetful.

Berry continues by noting that such thoughtless neglect is made possible, and subsequently exploited, by specialists; in this case the separation of sexuality from fertility has resulted in two groups of specialists, “the sexual clinicians and the pornographers, both of whom subsist on the increasing possibility of sex between people who neither know nor care about each other.” Both groups separate sexuality from fertility in the name of freedom and “thrive in a profound cultural rift” where sex is free “from thought, responsibility, and the issue of quality.”

As Catholics, we are not Luddites--we utilize and celebrate technological advancements when they are in accordance with the moral law. Air conditioning is one of those that is; artificial contraception is not. It can be argued that AC made residing in desert environments like Las Vegas and Phoenix possible, and made us all more comfortable; it can also be argued that the Pill made commonplace abortion, infidelity, promiscuity, and a greater proportion of women in the workforce. These are arguably not good things, but as moderns we are so far removed from being in tune with both our natural environment and our bodies that we can "afford" to not pay attention to these things and can gloss over them as the inevitable cost of comfort and control--our modern day golden calves. 

Down The Road: Strategic Charitable Giving Utilizing QCDs

My wife and I are doing some early retirement planning this week. Essentially we are getting our plan together for leaving the workforce in the next five and fifteen years, respectively and mapping out what that is going to look like. 

As I have written about before on this blog, I consider work a privilege I am grateful to have as a man, and I for the most part enjoy my job so I am in no urgent rush to jump ship. I had a 'mini sabbatical' for a month or two in between jobs in my twenties and realized in taking that time to get a taste of "mini-retirement" that I actually enjoy and appreciate the structure and meaning work provides. On top of that, I have various incentives to stay for the long haul which can be utilized at age 59. My wife, however, is in a physically demanding job (albeit, part time) and probably has five years left in her to be able to continue doing it.

Of course we know God laughs at future plans; at the same time we also see the admonition for prudent foresight and preparation for times of want in Proverbs 13:4, 7-8:

A sluggard’s appetite is never filled,

    but the desires of the diligent are fully satisfied.

One person pretends to be rich, yet has nothing;

    another pretends to be poor, yet has great wealth.

A person’s riches may ransom their life,

    but the poor cannot respond to threatening rebukes.

Part of that foresight for us as a couple is evaluating what we value and how we can move our lives closer in alignment to those values. One of those values is hospitality--we try to make a point to open our home to others as a welcoming place of refuge, fellowship, and comfort; another is service--we don't want to just indulge our wants, but make ourselves instruments of God's purposes to accomplish His will. In doing so, we made the decision years ago to make every effort to pay off all our debts and frontload as much of our paycheck into savings (including retirement) so that we can take full advantage of the value of time as it relates to compounding interest (what Albert Einstein called the "Eighth Wonder of the World"). We did this by making sacrifices and living frugally early, in addition to various good fortunes, privileges and windfalls that we banked rather than spent, so that we are (hopefully) in a position later in life to step out of the workforce and live off our savings in retirement and pass on money to our children.

However we see the frightful warning in Luke's gospel  (Lk 12:16-21) of the "retired man" with his giant grain barns who has more than he knows what to do with yet hoards it for himself:

And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. 17 He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’

“Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’

“But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’

“This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”

What was the wealthy man's end goal? To take it easy, enjoy life, and be merry. I.e., live it up in his "golden years."

Now, there is nothing wrong with enjoying life, even the finer things in life, in old age. As Christ makes clear, the problem lies in storing up "things for themselves" who are not rich toward God. What does it mean to be rich toward God? Mercy and charity go hand in hand, since mercy seeks to alleviate burden and charity can be the means by which one does that monetarily. If Christ is in the needy, we serve God when we both tithe to the Church, and to those in need as well. 

The thought of sitting back and making my life's purpose to enjoy material things and indulge my whims and senses ad nauseum is not appealing to me (or my wife) in the slightest. We don't talk enough about having a "philosophy of money" in the Church, I think to our detriment. Money (like the internet, or technology, etc) is a tool that holds the potential for evil purposes and self-indulgence, but can also be utilized for greater purposes; it shouldn't be taboo, or an overly emotional topic either. And God promises to multiply the dividends for the cheerful giver as well (2 Cor:9-6-7). We have witnessed this first hand in our life--that the more we give away to serve His purposes and His people, the more he lavishes upon us. It's crazy, actually. It's like a kind of "spiritual compounding interest." 

The funny thing is, as my wife and I have discussed together, we are in want of nothing; in other words, there is nothing more that you could add to our lives in terms of increasing the happiness factor or value of the quality of our lives. We have exercised and trained the muscle of frugality (not cheapness, mind you, they are different) for so long that it doesn't take much to give us pleasure. We are trying to raise our kids with the same mindset, since there is nothing more off putting than spoiled children. And so, we have no desire for second homes, boats or nice cars, or lavish vacations. Just simple pleasures that are within the reach of many middle-class people, as well as the gift of the one thing you cannot buy: time.

Now, God can throw all kinds of curveballs, so it's important to defer to and follow His will in all things as it comes. But in learning more about our retirement options and the nuts and bolts implications of having a degree of saved wealth later in life, we realized that at some point, the power of compounding interest will be like rolling a small snowball down a mountain as it picks up speed and snow, so that at the bottom it kind of "gets away from you" and is a huge snow boulder. What that means in terms of finances is that your accumulated savings/investment interest begins to outpace your spending needs. So the question then becomes, what do you do with all that accumulated wealth, since you obviously can't bring it with you when you die?

Well, as I've said before, have all the babies. I also think it's good to help your children in their life if you are able, and also leave an inheritance to them to give them a leg up in life. Same goes for helping one's parents as needed, in fulfillment of the 4th Commandment. The Old Testament clearly extols this idea of inheritance to one's heirs, and is one of the benefits of staying married as well. I think it's best to find a balance between the "Die With Zero" philosophy and the miserliness of saving everything, which is what my wife and I plan to do. Between pension income, delayed Social Security, and various taxable accounts, it is very possible for us to live comfortably without touching our retirement accounts. Which means they have the potential to exponentially grow and develop a "problem" later on (albeit, a good problem to have, but a problem none the less) when it comes to taking Required Minimum Distributions in one's early seventies. This is money the government makes you withdraw, whether you want to or not, from tax-deferred 401k and traditional IRA accounts so they can get their tax money from it to fund their debt and incompetence.

One thing I have found in common among all wealthy people, is that they will do everything they can to minimize their tax liability. There are shady and immoral ways of doing this which many avow themselves of; but there are also legal and strategic ways of doing so that minimize the taxes you pay to the government. I am all in favor of not feeding the glut of government spending and minimizing taxes where at all possible (which I guess makes me a fiscal, as well as a social conversative?). And one way to do this later in life if you are charitably inclined is to make use of Qualified Charitable Contributions (QCDs). 

At age 70.5, the IRS specifies that you can give up to $100,000 per year ($200,000 per couple) to qualified 501c3's from your tax deferred retirement savings; this is more effective than itemizing or simply writing checks from your already taxed income because you don't pay the tax on those distributions, and the charity gets a bigger share than they would have otherwise. If you need to take RMDs as well, those can be used as QCDs. You can read more about how to take advantage of this IRS allowance here.

So, that is part of our "money is a tool" strategy later in life--that we keep our spending modest and leave my wife's 403b account alone to grow from age 55 to 70.5, and then draw that down to close to zero over our lifetimes so that we limit our own tax liability (less money to the government), and fund charities that we value. This would include:

• One's local parish, of course
• Your local St Vincent de Paul Society
• The underground church in China
• Traditional monasteries and religious orders
• Organizations that foster Truth, Beauty, and Goodness, such as the Catholic Art Institute
• World Villages for Children, which my friend Kevin Wells is involved in and who do great work for exploited children
• The Laboure Society to help those with religious vocations pay off their school loans
• Perhaps scholarships for innovative new trade schools (like St. Joseph the Worker)

I'm sure there are many more worthy organizations, hopefully with low overhead and who get the money where it needs to go to do the most good. Of course, as a family we continue to make our weekly offerings to our local parish and help families we know as needed when circumstances arise. But the most "bang for the buck" in terms of very pragmatic, strategic, tax-advantaged giving can come from utilizing these QCDs later in life, in case you weren't aware of them (which is why I am writing this very boring post). 

As a family, we don't want to see money as evil in and of itself, and maintain a kind of detachment from it; everything belongs to God, and we are, and want to simply be, good stewards of what He has given us. Money can be a means for self-indulgence or a tool to achieve good in the world and serve those in need, fostering charity in ourselves and the alleviation of suffering in others. All things for the glory of God, and our finances are no exception.

How about you? What are some other charities that do good with low overhead and are effective at fulfilling their stated mission? Feel free to comment below.