September 13, 2025 • 19 mins
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Michael Berry Show. Welcome to the Weekend podcast. You
may or may not be consuming. I like to use
work consuming. It's more of the technical data term, the
industry term. You might be consuming this podcast on the weekend,
or you might be consuming it two three weeks later.
I get the funniest stories from people. Hey, I know
I'm talking about something you haven't talked about in a while,
(00:22):
but I'm driving cross country and I loaded all your
podcasts and I'm listening to them, and you were talking
about X, and I wanted to tell you that you
should consider why. And it's always funny because it's something
I haven't thought about. Doing as much radio as we
do is creating as much content as we do. I
have a tendency when I walk out of the studio
to do a hard reset, and I wipe the hard
(00:45):
drive of my brain free. I know that sounds dumb,
but I have to because otherwise it will torture me
all day and night and I couldn't keep doing what
I'm doing. We all have weird things, you know. I
always enjoy hearing the behind the scenes of you know,
what singers do before they go on stage, or what
athletes do before they or you know, if a guy's
(01:08):
are weld or how do you deal with that extreme heat?
And the little life hacks and preparations and quirks that
we all have. I like to share a lot of
ours because I was always interested in it before I
was in it myself, and I know that some of
you enjoy hearing that kind of stuff as well. This
week's podcast is Lorraine Murphy. She's an associate professor of
(01:32):
English at Hillsdale College. And let me take a moment
to say a couple of things. Hillsdale College does amazing work,
amazing and I think it is as important as content
as anything anybody is putting out in this country today.
(01:55):
And the reason is everybody wants to rank. You know,
is this show better than this? They don't need to
be better. Is the cavalry?
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Is the cavalry more important than the artillery? Is the
artillery more important than the general? Is the Is the
spitfire more important than the or the looftwaft or the
whatever plane we're flying more important than the guys on
the ground. Well, they're all different, and they're all necessary,
(02:27):
and and and the naval ships as well. So the
point is we need a little of something. But you know,
we've got some really good guys out there that are
doing what I do, really good guys, guys that I
admire what they do behind the microphone, and I like
them as people off the air. We've got some of those,
(02:50):
and I feel like we can always stand to have more.
And we got to reload because you know, each of
us is getting older by the day. But what we
need more of is people who can teach to adults
who may not have paid attention during school when you
(03:10):
were learning about the Constitution, when you were learning about
civic duty and our civic system, and our legacy and
heritage and Anglo American jurisprudence, all of these things are
very important fundamentals to developing your theories and your opinions
(03:32):
and your mindset and sort of your own personal doctrine.
In most people start in their thirties or later, many
much later, understanding, Hey, I'm interested in what's going on
in this country, and I realize things are all wrong.
I don't know why, but I have a bad feeling
about it. And they may never have looked at the Constitution,
(03:52):
they may never have looked at the amendments to them
they may never have looked at the body of political
and legal and cultural work that got us to this point. Well,
there are people who would say that person needs to
sit down and shut up and not have an opinion. No,
that's not how this works. No, those are the people
we need to engage. I can't tell you the wisdom
(04:15):
I get from listeners, many of whom never went to college.
They went straight into military, straight to welding school, straight
to working for a construction company, or driving trucks or
doing any number of other things. And they may not
be able to quote me which amendment it is that
(04:36):
you're right against self incrimination is ensured. But they understand
why it's important and fundamental to a legal system. And
they have wisdom because they've developed that wisdom solving problems
in their field and whatever that may be welding, plumbing, electrical.
They may have gone through five fields. They may have
(04:59):
served time in prison, they may have had three divorces.
They may have had a family where where she took
the kids and they didn't get to see them, and
they had to deal with grief, frustration and disappointment and
hurt and anger without smashing the wall or a human
being and without becoming an addict. And we have people
who've been addicts, and they will always be an addict,
(05:21):
but they've dealt with it, they've come out of it.
There is wisdom in the mass. The whole is greater
than the sum of the parts. And it's true. We
don't just need lawyers and politicians to be writing our
laws and casting our votes. We need people from every
aspect of life. And yeah, that means Susie homemaker too.
(05:44):
That means mommy who's may she may never get out
of her nightgown all day long because she's nursing babies
and getting them off to school and getting lunches out.
And guess what, we need her perspective in that process too.
And I think Hillsdale does a great job of being
the university for the everyman, which was in large part
what Russia did. Anyway, she's at Hillsdale College. Support Hillsdale College.
(06:09):
We are big fans of Hillsdale College. They are not
a show sponsor. I wish they were. I hope one
day they will be. But she's talking about how great
literature points us toward God. She talks about how good
readers make good listeners. She talks about what kinds of
(06:31):
literature are the best at inspiring faith, and why it's
important to see that we're not always the main character
in our own stories. We're not always the star. Sometimes
the path we're on that we don't like is leading
(06:52):
us to the right destination, and sometimes the path we've
chosen is wrong, because while it might be dotted with
all sorts of satisfaction or great temptation, it's going to
put us in a bad place at the end. I'm
a big fan of C. S. Lewis and his writings.
(07:15):
There is great literature out there that you will both
enjoy reading and develop. I think sort of a Christian
moral construct to begin looking at your family, the concentric
(07:38):
circle outside of that, and go out and out and
out and give you a view of the world that
will reaffirm your base values, but give you some data
points and quotations to cite to make you understand. Hey,
I'm not the first person that's thought it doesn't seem
right for a man to cut off as Wiener. Not
(08:00):
the first person that thought it doesn't seem right to
expose children to sexual content at an early age. That
was being talked about long before we had computers or
cell phones. Anyway, that's too much introduction for the segment.
We do appreciate your support, and I do love to
(08:22):
hear from you. I enjoy on the weekends when I'm
less busy, when I get an email because I know
it's often from a podcast listener who is listening to
the podcast and hears me say hey, drop me an email.
Tell me who you are, where you live, what you
like about the show. Do you listen to podcast or
you listen on air? And if on air, what station?
Do you know? The call letters kt R H in
(08:44):
Houston or Kyko and Lubbock or wherever it at k
EX eleven ninety in Portland. In any case, I do
love to hear from you. You can buy our gear
while you're there. You can sign up for our daily blast.
We'll never ever share or sell your data. I square
to you, and there's a lot more to do there.
That's all at Michael Berryshow dot com. And with no
(09:04):
further ado. I think you're gonna like this one, and
you're gonna like this one. This is Lorraine Murphy, Associate
professor of English at Hillsdale College.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
I tend to think that great literature by definition, has
the potential to lead us to God because it's truthful,
because God is true and real, and great literature wants
to open us to reality. It has to have an
element of transcendence. It doesn't have to be allegorical, it
(09:34):
doesn't have to be a work of fantasy. But it
has to provoke reflection. What are the causes of these events,
What is the meaning of these events?
Speaker 3 (09:44):
What is the.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Design that might be discovered? It has to immerse us
in a story, but then take us beyond the story
into realms of reflection, of questioning, of wonder provoked by
the story. If a story encourages us to pay careful,
(10:06):
respectful attention to the world around us, that's going to
tend to cultivate a sense of reverence. But I think
we need more than that, and so I'll mention a
couple of ingredients that I think are essential for a
story to lead us to God. And the first is
a willingness to look at the darkness. We live in
(10:30):
a world where the creation is groaning. Sin is real,
death is real. We hurt one another, we hurt the creation.
All of these things are true. And any story that
tries to say if we know God everything is great.
Is not paying respectful attention to reality, I would argue,
(10:52):
so there has to be a kind of honesty about
the difficulties that we face within.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
Ourselves, around around us.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
But then the second ingredient of a story that will
lead us to God, or that might lead us to God,
is that there's also light. This kind of story will
will still find something in the human spirit, something in
the resilience of creation, something in the mystery of our
place in this world that can be affirmed and even celebrated.
(11:27):
The beautiful thing is that you can trust that kind
of hopeful insight when it comes against the backdrop of
a willingness to be honest and truthful about all that
is discouraging all that isn't hopeful.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
Now, the proportions may be very different.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
So in a comedy, for example, a comedy is perfectly
able to lead us to God. It may take a
brief glance at the darkness and the problems and then
focus on how resolution is achieved.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
A tragedy might reverse those.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Proportions and be very kind of devoted to the dark
side of things. But nevertheless, even in a tragedy, there
will be elements of light and truths that can be
affirmed will emerge out of that darkness.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
In most works of.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
Fiction, we have a hero or a heroine, a protagonist
who's at the center of the story, and this person,
the center of consciousness of the story, is usually trying
to exert control over his or her life. I'll give
an example from Charles Dickens. It's one of my favorite
opening lines in all of literature, and Dickens opens his
(12:40):
semi autobiographical novel David Copperfield with this line, whether I
shall turn out to be the hero of my own
life or whether that station will be held by anybody else?
These pages must show. And that's the challenge he sets
himself in this work is will David will narrator?
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Will he turn out to be the hero of his
own life? Will he star in his own story? And
you read that opening, and you think I'm cheering for him? Right?
You know? I want him to be the hero of
his own life.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Don't let anybody else take that spot away from him.
But of course, as we proceed through this long novel,
what we find is that David Copperfield is not able
to exert total control over other people and his surroundings,
and in fact, any story in which a character did
(13:31):
exert control.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
Wouldn't have a plot.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
It's not even a plot by Aristotle's definition, it's not interesting.
What we find instead is that David Copperfield, or any
other hero or heroin is fixed in a web of
reality that includes countless other people, countless events, countless mysterious
forces that he doesn't understand, and his story is shaped
(13:58):
by all of this, and not just by his own will.
He's a character, he's a creature. He's made by another.
And that's the insight that I think.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
We come to again and again when we.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Read great literature, is that, in fact, there are forces
at work in reality that are larger than the individual will,
and we realize that it's not me scripting my story.
I'm being scripted by another story. I'm used by another
for a story that is more beautiful than any story
that I could imagine. I think great literature takes us
(14:35):
again and again to this posture of humility and of
wonder and of reverence, and that sense of surrendering control
of the story. Shakespeare's Hamlet arrives at this insight, and
in Act five he has a revenge plot in mind,
but he ends up saying, I'm just going to drop
(14:57):
that because there's a special providence in the fall the sparrow.
People who love stories, who spend a lot of time reading,
spend a lot of time immersed in language. So this
is in some ways the most obvious and banal, and
yet yet I think, I think there's something profound in
(15:18):
this insight is that when we spend time with words,
we're exposed to the wonder of what words can do.
You know, words that are artfully arranged can give us
new perceptions, can expand our minds. I don't have to
leave my living room in order to travel to another world. Really,
(15:43):
well used words will open up other worlds. There's not
just escapism here, but there's a sense that a voice
is coming to me from Afar, and this voice understands
something about me.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
And about my world.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
It also calls me on to new knowledge.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
And new experiences.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
That is a really miraculous thing that word can accomplish. Now,
the ultimate miracle here is not that we can communicate
with one another through language, but that God communicates with us.
And Christ is famously the word made flesh. Christ comes
to us as the logos as the absolutely true word,
(16:31):
so that words can be true, and that words can.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
Lead us to truth. I mean, that's a fundamental Christian insight.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
And I won't say that just spending a lot of
time reading will give you that insight, But spending a
lot of time reading, especially reading good things, will, I
think give you a respect for what language can do.
And I do think that the most powerful stories say
something to us. You are understood, you are not alone.
(17:07):
But come look at this. Come move outside of yourself
into the experience of another person, into another plot, into
another story. A reader of great works will say, Oh,
there's so much I can hear, There's so much I
can learn. If I expose myself to the literary tradition,
I'm going to listen.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
I'm going to listen carefully. And if we.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Have a posture of humility and a posture of listening,
I think that's exactly the kind of disposition of mind
and heart and soul that God.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
Will speak into.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
And so I do believe that immersing ourselves in the
literary tradition and in great stories.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
Can lead us to God.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
If your life the Michael Berry Show in podcast, please
tell one friend, and if you're so inclined write a
nice review of our podcast. Comments, suggestions, questions, and interest
in being being a corporate sponsor and partner can be
communicated directly to the show at our email address, Michael
(18:07):
at Michael Berryshow dot com, or simply by clicking on
our website Michael Berryshow dot com. The Michael Berry Show
and Podcast is produced by Ramon Roeblis, the King of Ding.
Executive producer is Chad Knakanishi. Jim Mudd is the creative director.
(18:32):
Voices Jingles, Tomfoolery and Shenanigans are provided by Chance McLean.
Director of Research is Sandy Peterson. Emily Bull is our
assistant listener and superfan. Contributions are appreciated and often incorporated
into our production. Where possible, we give credit, where not,
(18:55):
we take all the credit for ourselves. God bless the
memory of Rush Limbaugh. Long live Elvis, be a simple
man like Leonard Skinnard told you, and God bless America. Finally,
if you know a veteran suffering from PTSD, call Camp
Hope at eight seven seven seven one seven PTSD and
(19:20):
a combat veteran will answer the phone to provide free counseling.
The Michael Berry Show. Welcome to the Weekend podcast. You
may or may not be consuming. I like to use
work consuming. It's more of the technical data term, the
industry term. You might be consuming this podcast on the weekend,
or you might be consuming it two three weeks later.
I get the funniest stories from people. Hey, I know
I'm talking about something you haven't talked about in a while,
(00:22):
but I'm driving cross country and I loaded all your
podcasts and I'm listening to them, and you were talking
about X, and I wanted to tell you that you
should consider why. And it's always funny because it's something
I haven't thought about. Doing as much radio as we
do is creating as much content as we do. I
have a tendency when I walk out of the studio
to do a hard reset, and I wipe the hard
(00:45):
drive of my brain free. I know that sounds dumb,
but I have to because otherwise it will torture me
all day and night and I couldn't keep doing what
I'm doing. We all have weird things, you know. I
always enjoy hearing the behind the scenes of you know,
what singers do before they go on stage, or what
athletes do before they or you know, if a guy's
(01:08):
are weld or how do you deal with that extreme heat?
And the little life hacks and preparations and quirks that
we all have. I like to share a lot of
ours because I was always interested in it before I
was in it myself, and I know that some of
you enjoy hearing that kind of stuff as well. This
week's podcast is Lorraine Murphy. She's an associate professor of
(01:32):
English at Hillsdale College. And let me take a moment
to say a couple of things. Hillsdale College does amazing work,
amazing and I think it is as important as content
as anything anybody is putting out in this country today.
(01:55):
And the reason is everybody wants to rank. You know,
is this show better than this? They don't need to
be better. Is the cavalry?
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Is the cavalry more important than the artillery? Is the
artillery more important than the general? Is the Is the
spitfire more important than the or the looftwaft or the
whatever plane we're flying more important than the guys on
the ground. Well, they're all different, and they're all necessary,
(02:27):
and and and the naval ships as well. So the
point is we need a little of something. But you know,
we've got some really good guys out there that are
doing what I do, really good guys, guys that I
admire what they do behind the microphone, and I like
them as people off the air. We've got some of those,
(02:50):
and I feel like we can always stand to have more.
And we got to reload because you know, each of
us is getting older by the day. But what we
need more of is people who can teach to adults
who may not have paid attention during school when you
(03:10):
were learning about the Constitution, when you were learning about
civic duty and our civic system, and our legacy and
heritage and Anglo American jurisprudence, all of these things are
very important fundamentals to developing your theories and your opinions
(03:32):
and your mindset and sort of your own personal doctrine.
In most people start in their thirties or later, many
much later, understanding, Hey, I'm interested in what's going on
in this country, and I realize things are all wrong.
I don't know why, but I have a bad feeling
about it. And they may never have looked at the Constitution,
(03:52):
they may never have looked at the amendments to them
they may never have looked at the body of political
and legal and cultural work that got us to this point. Well,
there are people who would say that person needs to
sit down and shut up and not have an opinion. No,
that's not how this works. No, those are the people
we need to engage. I can't tell you the wisdom
(04:15):
I get from listeners, many of whom never went to college.
They went straight into military, straight to welding school, straight
to working for a construction company, or driving trucks or
doing any number of other things. And they may not
be able to quote me which amendment it is that
(04:36):
you're right against self incrimination is ensured. But they understand
why it's important and fundamental to a legal system. And
they have wisdom because they've developed that wisdom solving problems
in their field and whatever that may be welding, plumbing, electrical.
They may have gone through five fields. They may have
(04:59):
served time in prison, they may have had three divorces.
They may have had a family where where she took
the kids and they didn't get to see them, and
they had to deal with grief, frustration and disappointment and
hurt and anger without smashing the wall or a human
being and without becoming an addict. And we have people
who've been addicts, and they will always be an addict,
(05:21):
but they've dealt with it, they've come out of it.
There is wisdom in the mass. The whole is greater
than the sum of the parts. And it's true. We
don't just need lawyers and politicians to be writing our
laws and casting our votes. We need people from every
aspect of life. And yeah, that means Susie homemaker too.
(05:44):
That means mommy who's may she may never get out
of her nightgown all day long because she's nursing babies
and getting them off to school and getting lunches out.
And guess what, we need her perspective in that process too.
And I think Hillsdale does a great job of being
the university for the everyman, which was in large part
what Russia did. Anyway, she's at Hillsdale College. Support Hillsdale College.
(06:09):
We are big fans of Hillsdale College. They are not
a show sponsor. I wish they were. I hope one
day they will be. But she's talking about how great
literature points us toward God. She talks about how good
readers make good listeners. She talks about what kinds of
(06:31):
literature are the best at inspiring faith, and why it's
important to see that we're not always the main character
in our own stories. We're not always the star. Sometimes
the path we're on that we don't like is leading
(06:52):
us to the right destination, and sometimes the path we've
chosen is wrong, because while it might be dotted with
all sorts of satisfaction or great temptation, it's going to
put us in a bad place at the end. I'm
a big fan of C. S. Lewis and his writings.
(07:15):
There is great literature out there that you will both
enjoy reading and develop. I think sort of a Christian
moral construct to begin looking at your family, the concentric
(07:38):
circle outside of that, and go out and out and
out and give you a view of the world that
will reaffirm your base values, but give you some data
points and quotations to cite to make you understand. Hey,
I'm not the first person that's thought it doesn't seem
right for a man to cut off as Wiener. Not
(08:00):
the first person that thought it doesn't seem right to
expose children to sexual content at an early age. That
was being talked about long before we had computers or
cell phones. Anyway, that's too much introduction for the segment.
We do appreciate your support, and I do love to
(08:22):
hear from you. I enjoy on the weekends when I'm
less busy, when I get an email because I know
it's often from a podcast listener who is listening to
the podcast and hears me say hey, drop me an email.
Tell me who you are, where you live, what you
like about the show. Do you listen to podcast or
you listen on air? And if on air, what station?
Do you know? The call letters kt R H in
(08:44):
Houston or Kyko and Lubbock or wherever it at k
EX eleven ninety in Portland. In any case, I do
love to hear from you. You can buy our gear
while you're there. You can sign up for our daily blast.
We'll never ever share or sell your data. I square
to you, and there's a lot more to do there.
That's all at Michael Berryshow dot com. And with no
(09:04):
further ado. I think you're gonna like this one, and
you're gonna like this one. This is Lorraine Murphy, Associate
professor of English at Hillsdale College.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
I tend to think that great literature by definition, has
the potential to lead us to God because it's truthful,
because God is true and real, and great literature wants
to open us to reality. It has to have an
element of transcendence. It doesn't have to be allegorical, it
(09:34):
doesn't have to be a work of fantasy. But it
has to provoke reflection. What are the causes of these events,
What is the meaning of these events?
Speaker 3 (09:44):
What is the.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Design that might be discovered? It has to immerse us
in a story, but then take us beyond the story
into realms of reflection, of questioning, of wonder provoked by
the story. If a story encourages us to pay careful,
(10:06):
respectful attention to the world around us, that's going to
tend to cultivate a sense of reverence. But I think
we need more than that, and so I'll mention a
couple of ingredients that I think are essential for a
story to lead us to God. And the first is
a willingness to look at the darkness. We live in
(10:30):
a world where the creation is groaning. Sin is real,
death is real. We hurt one another, we hurt the creation.
All of these things are true. And any story that
tries to say if we know God everything is great.
Is not paying respectful attention to reality, I would argue,
(10:52):
so there has to be a kind of honesty about
the difficulties that we face within.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
Ourselves, around around us.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
But then the second ingredient of a story that will
lead us to God, or that might lead us to God,
is that there's also light. This kind of story will
will still find something in the human spirit, something in
the resilience of creation, something in the mystery of our
place in this world that can be affirmed and even celebrated.
(11:27):
The beautiful thing is that you can trust that kind
of hopeful insight when it comes against the backdrop of
a willingness to be honest and truthful about all that
is discouraging all that isn't hopeful.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
Now, the proportions may be very different.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
So in a comedy, for example, a comedy is perfectly
able to lead us to God. It may take a
brief glance at the darkness and the problems and then
focus on how resolution is achieved.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
A tragedy might reverse those.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Proportions and be very kind of devoted to the dark
side of things. But nevertheless, even in a tragedy, there
will be elements of light and truths that can be
affirmed will emerge out of that darkness.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
In most works of.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
Fiction, we have a hero or a heroine, a protagonist
who's at the center of the story, and this person,
the center of consciousness of the story, is usually trying
to exert control over his or her life. I'll give
an example from Charles Dickens. It's one of my favorite
opening lines in all of literature, and Dickens opens his
(12:40):
semi autobiographical novel David Copperfield with this line, whether I
shall turn out to be the hero of my own
life or whether that station will be held by anybody else?
These pages must show. And that's the challenge he sets
himself in this work is will David will narrator?
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Will he turn out to be the hero of his
own life? Will he star in his own story? And
you read that opening, and you think I'm cheering for him? Right?
You know? I want him to be the hero of
his own life.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Don't let anybody else take that spot away from him.
But of course, as we proceed through this long novel,
what we find is that David Copperfield is not able
to exert total control over other people and his surroundings,
and in fact, any story in which a character did
(13:31):
exert control.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
Wouldn't have a plot.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
It's not even a plot by Aristotle's definition, it's not interesting.
What we find instead is that David Copperfield, or any
other hero or heroin is fixed in a web of
reality that includes countless other people, countless events, countless mysterious
forces that he doesn't understand, and his story is shaped
(13:58):
by all of this, and not just by his own will.
He's a character, he's a creature. He's made by another.
And that's the insight that I think.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
We come to again and again when we.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Read great literature, is that, in fact, there are forces
at work in reality that are larger than the individual will,
and we realize that it's not me scripting my story.
I'm being scripted by another story. I'm used by another
for a story that is more beautiful than any story
that I could imagine. I think great literature takes us
(14:35):
again and again to this posture of humility and of
wonder and of reverence, and that sense of surrendering control
of the story. Shakespeare's Hamlet arrives at this insight, and
in Act five he has a revenge plot in mind,
but he ends up saying, I'm just going to drop
(14:57):
that because there's a special providence in the fall the sparrow.
People who love stories, who spend a lot of time reading,
spend a lot of time immersed in language. So this
is in some ways the most obvious and banal, and
yet yet I think, I think there's something profound in
(15:18):
this insight is that when we spend time with words,
we're exposed to the wonder of what words can do.
You know, words that are artfully arranged can give us
new perceptions, can expand our minds. I don't have to
leave my living room in order to travel to another world. Really,
(15:43):
well used words will open up other worlds. There's not
just escapism here, but there's a sense that a voice
is coming to me from Afar, and this voice understands
something about me.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
And about my world.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
It also calls me on to new knowledge.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
And new experiences.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
That is a really miraculous thing that word can accomplish. Now,
the ultimate miracle here is not that we can communicate
with one another through language, but that God communicates with us.
And Christ is famously the word made flesh. Christ comes
to us as the logos as the absolutely true word,
(16:31):
so that words can be true, and that words can.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
Lead us to truth. I mean, that's a fundamental Christian insight.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
And I won't say that just spending a lot of
time reading will give you that insight, But spending a
lot of time reading, especially reading good things, will, I
think give you a respect for what language can do.
And I do think that the most powerful stories say
something to us. You are understood, you are not alone.
(17:07):
But come look at this. Come move outside of yourself
into the experience of another person, into another plot, into
another story. A reader of great works will say, Oh,
there's so much I can hear, There's so much I
can learn. If I expose myself to the literary tradition,
I'm going to listen.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
I'm going to listen carefully. And if we.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Have a posture of humility and a posture of listening,
I think that's exactly the kind of disposition of mind
and heart and soul that God.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
Will speak into.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
And so I do believe that immersing ourselves in the
literary tradition and in great stories.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
Can lead us to God.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
If your life the Michael Berry Show in podcast, please
tell one friend, and if you're so inclined write a
nice review of our podcast. Comments, suggestions, questions, and interest
in being being a corporate sponsor and partner can be
communicated directly to the show at our email address, Michael
(18:07):
at Michael Berryshow dot com, or simply by clicking on
our website Michael Berryshow dot com. The Michael Berry Show
and Podcast is produced by Ramon Roeblis, the King of Ding.
Executive producer is Chad Knakanishi. Jim Mudd is the creative director.
(18:32):
Voices Jingles, Tomfoolery and Shenanigans are provided by Chance McLean.
Director of Research is Sandy Peterson. Emily Bull is our
assistant listener and superfan. Contributions are appreciated and often incorporated
into our production. Where possible, we give credit, where not,
(18:55):
we take all the credit for ourselves. God bless the
memory of Rush Limbaugh. Long live Elvis, be a simple
man like Leonard Skinnard told you, and God bless America. Finally,
if you know a veteran suffering from PTSD, call Camp
Hope at eight seven seven seven one seven PTSD and
(19:20):
a combat veteran will answer the phone to provide free counseling.
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