When the tears, you cry. Live from the Pathway Studios in Johnston proper, you are Live from the Path. How's everybody doing tonight? Welcome. I got four guys in the room. I say, how's everybody doing? I get four guys that stare back at me. We were waiting for you to finish your livefromthepath.org. I thought maybe from now on you were going to take 20 minutes to say things, so I figured we'd hold out. I'm still cleaning up over here, so we're getting ready to do the show. And Mike goes, oh, he's going to change out a couple light bulbs in here. So I'm here kind of playing around, and all of a sudden this light bulb explodes everywhere. I mean, there's glass, there's shards of glass flying around. It's a travesty. There's this, so the glass on the outside light bulb broke. And then the bulb itself is still inside kind of glowing and festering around. Like in a movie. Yeah, it's very much like a movie. That's very cool. Yeah. 100% of that story is true. It's terrible.

It exploded in here. I thought there was poisonous gas coming out, but apparently it's not. Is it one of those squiggly bulbs? It is a squiggly. But the squiggly part didn't break. That was the kicker. Isn't that the stuff that kills you? Yeah, but you have to break the squiggly part, the CFL part. Don't you have to call in the government to come clean up and stuff? No. No. That's bestest people? Uh-uh. No. There's some bulbs. Mercury. They're mercury ones. Yeah. Yeah. Never mind. It's inside of the squigglies, remember? We didn't break the squiggly part.

Yeah. Interesting. Anyway, you're listening to Live From The Path. My name is Ben Foose. Thanks for being here. We've got a cool show for you today. We're going to do a little bit of Dear Live From The Path. That's where we get a… Someone has written into Dear Abby. Mistakenly, that is not where to go for advice. Oh, no. You've come to the right place if you're looking for advice. We're much more solid. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So… And by the way, we'll take advice requests from the chat. If you've got something going on, I'm here for you. Dan's not here for you. I'm here for you. And I can help you out.

I have a sign. Troy might be here for you. I just want to say happy birthday, guys, because I'll probably forget later. Yeah. Thanks. Happy birthday. Happy birthday. 42 now? Actually, I think the running deal at work is… It's generally assumed that I'm 37. Really? Yeah. Yeah. I've got to start keeping myself better or something. That certainly speaks part of me. Man. Anyway, so we'll do a little bit of Dear Live from the Path. And Mike Damascus is here. He can't keep from getting himself into trouble. So we're going to talk about… See what Mike's up to. Rebel rouser.

Yeah. He's rousting folks. Troy's back in the studio today. Roused. Howdy. Troy. Yeah. What's up? How are things going? Pretty good. Okay. So tell me about this sandwich. Troy's had an interaction. He's gotten himself into… In fact, you two are in the trouble corner. Both of you can't keep yourselves from getting into trouble. Troy, what have you done with yourself in this giant sandwich? I actually got on the Food Channel a couple weeks ago. We were recording for a show called Outrageous Foods. It's a new show on. It was at the B&B Deli on the South Side, 6th and Hartford. They asked me if I wanted to eat a sandwich on national television.

How did they come across? Yeah, I was going to say, who are they? Oh, let's call Troy. No, the B&B Deli, I live like a mile away from them, and Anne and I go there all the time. Okay. We had gone the Friday before, like the Friday before, and I went, ate sandwiches, all the different stuff. Went in the back and said, hey guys, you know, I love coming here. It's a lot of fun to do. It's a lot of fun just being here all together. And they said to me, oh, yeah, blah, blah, blah. And for some reason, I started talking about all the food challenges I've done, eating 56 pieces of pizza in a single sitting, blah, blah, blah, a bunch of different stuff. Wait, what? Wait, what? Yeah. You kind of breezed over that. Say that again. I've eaten 56 pieces of pizza in one sitting. How many pieces come to a pie? Eight.

Now, this is Felix Nosker's pizza? No, CeCe's. Oh, CeCe's. That doesn't count. That's like CeCe's. No, and I understand that. I'm not saying I ate. No, no, wait a minute. There's got to be more than eight to a piece of CeCe's pizza. It's 12 then. 12. Because one, two, three. What's the place that does little square ones? Domino's. Okay, anyway, you ate a lot of pizza. Four and a half pizzas. A lot of pizza. Sorry, I'm distracting. I've eaten gigantic burgers, gigantic burritos, and they said to me, well, hey, do you want to be the first customer to try this sandwich? It's called the Colossus, and it's going to be, I mean, we want to put it in the food channel, so I had already eaten, and they gave me a fourth of this sandwich, and

I ate it and said it was one of the most delicious sandwiches I've ever had in my entire life, and I wasn't lying. It really was. So what was on this sandwich? It's four of their signature sandwiches combined. What it is is they have the Dad's Killer, which is just a regular cold meat sandwich with different stuff on it, the Zach's Killer, which is another cold meat sandwich with meats on it, stuff like that, the Quadzilla Burger, which is four two-thirds pounds patties into one burger, and then their extra jumbo tenderloin, which is about a pound. Wow. And they combined it all into a sandwich about that tall. Sweetness. And called it the Colossus. Oh, sure. I love it. So they gave me, they asked me for my number, my name, and they said, if we get on the Food Network, we want to call you, and we want you to be the one who eats it on the TV show. Okay. That Monday, I got a call from them saying, hey, and this is from the network saying, hey, we heard that you like the sandwich. We want you on the TV show to eat it. And I said, okay.

So a week went by, Sunday came around, and I ended up eating a gigantic sandwich on the Food Network. But I didn't eat the whole thing. Was there like a super excited food guy walking around? You'd be like, come on, man, you can do it, and that kind of thing? It was actually a crowd of about 10, 15 people behind me that were kind of rooting me on, and it was really cool. I mean, it was a lot of fun to just kind of get my own, I mean, a taste of, not to be ironic saying taste, but a taste of production and stuff like that. Fame, fortune. Yeah, it was really cool. It was my 15 minutes of fame. Yeah. And it hasn't come yet. Yeah, when does this thing air? Yeah. It airs in May. So you can stretch out that 15 minutes for like a couple months. A couple months, yeah. Facebook fame, too. So if you were to make a sandwich that was a killer sandwich, the Troy killer sandwich. The Troy killer.

What would it be? Probably have to be just an old French bun or kind of like a French roll with just a bunch of Italian meats on there, a lot of cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, and red wine vinaigrette. Like big, big sandwich. Just to go on the light side. Just to go on the light side. Take it a little easy. A vinaigrette to make it a little bit easy, but I'm talking provolone cheese, mozzarella cheese. What makes something an Italian meat? They got a fool with it to Italianize it? What do they do to it? I don't know what it makes an Italian meat. Why are you talking to me? Am I a dog? Take away its paper. Is it like a vinegar thing? You just said I'd put Italian meats on there. I don't know what the difference is. Okay, when you think of Italian meats, what do you think of? Oh, like salami?

Salami. Pepperoni. The ham. Spicy, spicy ham. Yeah, those kind of things. You think of Italian meats. Like on a pizza. Roasty beefy. Italian sausage. Okay, I'm with that one. I got you on Italian sausage. That's what I mean by Italian meats. I don't understand what the Italians are doing to this thing to turn it into their own personal thing of meat. Let's say that if I just took butter and put it on chicken, can I call it Mike Chicken from now on, if I just put butter on stuff, it's mine? If you want to patent it and make it into a national thing, sure. Huh. I say we start something. Okay, I'm with you. We're going to Michaelize this. What is the deal?

I'm a very popular person. Obviously. I'm 19 and I'm 19. Come on, Hollywood. Let's pull it together. I got to go. He's on chat now. We're working. We're good. I'm doing technical stuff right here. Well, so, Damasus, let me ask you this question. If we haven't met, this is Mike Damasus. He's in the Trouble Corner with Troy. I wish he made Trouble Hats. Yeah. What did we do to get in the Trouble Corner? I don't know. You failed to eat the sandwich. Oh, come on. Now, Troy, see, that's great. You're going to be on national TV and everything, but Mike hit the front page of the papers. Yeah, I brought it in.

Nice. I might have sucked it up with a vacuum. I'll look for it while you talk to me. All right. So, have you ever gluttoned yourself on some kind of food binge? Oh, yeah. You mean today? Yeah. Like, have you ever been dared to eat something that you've eaten? Yeah. I'm going to need some more details. What was the crux of this food dare? Well, I don't know. I mean, any time you're together with friends or whatever, I mean, for me, it's, you know… Okay, the last time I went to Who Hot with another couple. I love Who Hot. Oh, my goodness. It's heaven. There's nothing… It's heaven. I mean, there's nothing like the day after you've binged on Who Hot. And you feel it?

It's, like, warm. Yes. Usually when you're in the bathroom. The garlic, you can, like… Yeah. You're like, oh, that's garlic. It's bad. Why did I do this? Eating away at the insides. Who Hot's awesome. The last four out of five shows were pretty solid. And I don't know what's going on here. There are two things where, during and afterwards, I think to myself, if heaven's anything like this, it's awesome. And one of them is Who Hot. I love Who Hot. I do like the Who Hot. Mike, have you ever done a food dare? I don't think so. I don't even like eating. I find it annoying most of the time. See, if you ate more, you'd look more like me.

Yeah. If you ate a lot more, you'd look a lot more like me. Maybe you and Michelle Obama should go in on a campaign together and get people eating out there. I don't know. Dan's got to wear more shirts or show off his arms. Has anybody in the chat ever done a food dare? I'm trying to think if there was something that was old or… I snorted habanero candy. I don't even know what that is. That's kind of a food dare. Of course you did. I snorted habanero candy. It was one of the worst… It's candy with habanero peppers. Why? That's like the really hot stuff, right? That's one of the hot… What kind of candy is that? It's like from Thailand? No, it was actually Columbus Junction, Iowa. I mean, probably for him.

Yeah. I didn't think he liked the word. Probably imported from somewhere. No, it was like Mexican habanero candy when I started it. What child would eat habanero candy? I don't know. It was a horrible decision. I don't really want to recollect it anymore. Yeah. Like doing a line of habanero candy. Doing a line. That's just… Did you use a dollar bill? Yeah. World at 100? It's dirty candy, kids. Don't do it. All right, that's… Wow. So that's gross. From the chat, a cat's glaucoma eye. What?

They took it out and then the doctor tried to pay me to eat it? How much? 200 bucks. Well, I don't know. I probably would have done it. 200 bucks. I'm sorry? I would have done it. I don't know. The sinews and the innards of the eye seem like it would be a tough crunch. Did you have to just put it in there and roll it about a bit or did you have to take a chomp of it? I couldn't. I don't think I could buy it. I think I could like… Rubbery? I think I could like chew on it like the end of a… Oh, you know, you get like rubber caps on stuff and you chew on them for a while. I could probably chew on it but not break it. I think it would squirt open. Isn't there squirt? Wait, I suppose there's no liquid in there. It's got a muscle, isn't it?

Yeah. All right. It'd be like chewing on a shoe. We got to get off this course. Yeah. Back to habanero candy. You guys get to talk about your garlic wind and we can't talk about a cat's eye? Well, it's not wind. It's much more substantial than wind. Here's some of that you got kicked cereal that somebody blew up their nose. That sounds like a nasty flavor of Pam. Let's go to nowhere. Your guys' line of mores lie. Wow. Well, as long as we're not talking about eye ones. You get to enjoy it two days in a row. That's all there is to it. Oh, my God. That's why the guy at the front of the hoo-ha doesn't look very happy. Quit doing that to my rest of the area. I saw that garlic wind come out of there. I'm sick of it.

You're welcome. I know you enjoyed it now. That's terrible. All right. No other food dare. Wait, what was the other food dare? Kick cereal. Joel blew out of his nose. Oh, that's grody. What? I don't know. I can't think of any other food dares. I don't think I've… All the ones that I've done have to do is pertain to something, eating something extremely spicy. Yeah. Actually, no, I remember. Mike, do you remember when we were in junior high, some kid had me eat a pepper? And like… I can't… I shouldn't agree to dares like this. Like, I'm not the guy who can pull off a dare like that. Yeah.

Like… Eating just a pepper? Oh, I… Well, not like a green pepper, but it was like a jalapeno. It was something that was relatively mild, unless you're me, with my pen. I think it was those crushed red peppers you put on the pizza. It was not the… All he had to do was put it on his tongue, and then… I found him lying in the fetal position underneath the dishwasher. I welled up… I mean, I had tears in my eyes. I drank like three free milks from the lunch lady who had pity on me. I had already closed the shop. I had pulled that one off, too. I'm not going to lie. All the hot stuff that I've done, I'm not going to say, oh, yeah, I sat there and took it like a man. No, I literally cried half the time. I don't like the hot peppers, though. I had to eat four habanero peppers that this guy brought from his mom's garden. He was like, hey, man, you want to try these? And I was like, 15.

I was like, sure. Why not? So I ate all four of them and just sat there. Did you say it just like that? Yeah, I'm 15, man. Leave me alone. Late bloomer. All right. Okay. I understand. Sure. Sure. I just got a note from Tim Johnson telling me he's going to be praying for my soul. If I'm not out by midnight, they're going to send a very spiritual St. Bernard to go looking for me. You know, Tim Johnson, I have the following… I don't get it. He knows I'm on the show. Here's what I think. We ought to come up with a really big food dairy and have you come and do it live on the path. And you'll have more viewers on YouTube, on our YouTube channel, than you'll get from

the Food Network. So I'm going to be another 15 minutes of fame? Wait a minute. So you're attempting to… No, it'll be eternal fame. You're attempting to… Solicit my dare? Yes. Yeah, you're going to have him do something outrageous for our small, huge Jesus show. For Jesus. In comparison to the Food Network nationally broadcast television show. For Jesus. Okay. It's for Jesus. It's for Jesus. If you agree to this, I'm going to think Leslie, you'll be honest with me. I think this is a huge mistake. I think it'd be kind of funny. Okay. All right. Let's be where you want. I guess I got a, I don't know, a used tire that we can start out with.

I don't even know where to go from here. Get one of those glaucoma cat eyes. Oh. I wonder if they give those away if you ask for it. Hey, do you guys by chance have any? I wonder if they put you on a list. I got a friend that's a vet. Really? No, yeah. Oh, please don't call him. I bet if you walk in there, they put you on a list as soon as you say, hey. Works at Creature Comforts and Ankeny. Do you have any glaucoma eyes? That's a nice name. Yeah, you know, anybody came in and asked me that, I think I'd probably take the picture. Like, just so I know it when I see them later on. Warning, the man looking for glaucoma eye. What if he was missing an eye? What if he came in and he had one eye gone and he came in looking for an extra dog eye? Hey, do you have eyes by chance? You're kind of looking for one? A fresh one?

I would give a man a dog's eye if he really wanted it. Especially if it was one of them coyote looking eyes that were, I don't know, kind of look like it's got a story behind it. I would definitely give it a dog. It's got a story behind it. You ever looking into the eyes of a coyote? Even if it did, how would you know that the story was there? You ever looked into a coyote's eye? No, I've never looked into a coyote's eye. You'll see the world, brother. I bet so. Am I going to have to go searching for a coyote's now to learn my way in the world? If you promise not to eat them, then I guess you can go talk to them. What does that mean? Obviously, you're willing to eat just about anything. What if it's a hot, spicy coyote? Who's to say he's safe? Might be kind of delicious. Hot sauce coyote. You want to listen to Live from the Path? I hope you're not hungry after that. You need to rethink your palate.

That sounds interesting to you. Cat's eyes, jalapenos, things of that nature. So we're in studio with Mike DeMastis. Mike, thanks for being in. Mike has recently been featured in the Des Moines Register. And actually, you caught a ride on the Chicago Tribune who picked up the story. I noticed that as well. About a prayer before the State House. So maybe if you could just tell us a little bit about how you came to do it. And then we'll talk a little bit about the substance and kind of what happened afterwards. Sure. I was asked by Representative Kim Pearson to lead one of the prayers. Haven't you done that? No. They don't really like me. Okay. I thought you had done it. Thanks for bringing up that painful. I've been kicked out of the Capitol, but I have not been asked to pray. That's right. They asked you to leave. That's me to leave.

But I was asked by Representative Kim Pearson. She actually did not end up sponsoring me. Representative Glenn Massey did. Both of them happen to be personal friends. We know them through the homeschool community. My wife and I homeschool. But anyways, that's how that all came about. That I was asked to do that. Okay. So what's the general process with praying at the State House? How much time do they give you? Well, apparently there are guidelines, and those were not shown or made clear to me at all, as evidenced by the fact that when I showed up, I was not wearing the proper attire. I was wearing slacks and a sweater and a button-up shirt. And when I got up to the sergeant at arms, he said, you're not coming in here. And I said, oh, he says, you need a jacket and a tie. And I said, okay, cool. I didn't know that. And so they went and found me a tie and a jacket. And that's the first inclination that I had even had, that there were any rules or guidelines or anything. Right.

Isn't it odd that that's important to them and the things they got mad at aren't important, like life and stuff like that? Right. We don't care if you kill babies, but boy, you better have a tie on. Well, you know, it's funny. I remember, and I don't know. So my wife asked me to stop doing it, so I obeyed. But the comments on the Des Moines Register article were really funny. But one of the guys said, well, you know, if he didn't even know what the dress code was, he's probably one of those preachers that go to those churches where they dress up and they don't even have a respect for themselves and they wear jeans and stuff to church. And he's going on this big, long diatribe about what kind of preacher I am. And it was kind of weird. Did he have you pegged pretty well? What? Did he have you pegged, though? Oh, absolutely. But I don't know. But like I said, there were guidelines and they're supposed to be made public to the pastor of the day that gives the prayer. Yeah. Okay.

And I did not know what they were. But you're only supposed to be up there and pray for a minute and a half to two minutes max. Yeah. And they don't want you to go over that. They don't want you to really give any remarks before or after. They want you to just go up, pray, and get out of there. That's kind of the thing they ask you to do. They don't want you to make controversial remarks. They don't want you to, you know, point out any particular legislator. They want you to just… And forgive Senator Kennedy. I pray for Greg. Who's stealing money. Those are all part of the guidelines. That means it's happened before. By the way, what's really important to note is they are called guidelines. And we all know exactly what that means from Pirates of the Caribbean. They're not a specific thing. They're not like a written law in stone or anything. They're guidelines. And they're just loosely, you know, tied together to try to have some formalcy or whatever. But it's not like it's like I broke law or I broke, you know, some ethical code or whatever.

I did not. It's just, you know, I didn't even know they existed. Right. Yeah, yeah. Well, so here, let me read real quick what Mike's prayer was at the State House. And then we can kind of talk a little bit about what's happened after that point. So the prayer was, Heavenly Father, I pray to you on this day on behalf of this body of statesmen and women. I ask that they would have the courage to promote and advocate policies that are consistent with what our forefathers fought and died for. I ask that this body would govern in a humble manner and will not succumb to flattery or be bought by favors or bribery. I ask that this body would seek to improve our state and not simply gain a political advantage. I ask that they would not seek out public opinion polls, but only and always seek out what is right and true. I ask forgiveness, God, on behalf of those who have no voice, the unborn. May this body have the courage to rescue those being led away to death. I ask for honor to be held by this body for the institution of marriage. I ask most of all, Father, that these men and women will not fear how men will respond to the truth, but instead that they will fear how you, O God, will respond if we continue to compromise the truth. I ask this prayer in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Amen. So what happened afterwards? As I walked off the stage, I saw Representative Pearson standing towards the back wall, and she was kind of waving at me to come to where she was.

And so I walked over to her, and she hugged me. She was crying, and she said, Do you have any idea what we were just caucusing about before we convened this session? I said, No. And she said, Well, we were all back in the back room debating this bill that we're trying to get through on life. And she said, Your words were so timely and so needed right now, because a lot of these guys just came out of that caucus, and they heard your prayer. And so I'm hoping that the Holy Spirit will convict them. And so I felt like, Wow, that's really cool, you know? Yep. And I left. There was a couple people outside the doors that shook my hand. My family was there because it was kind of an honor to be able to be there and all that. But, you know, I didn't think a whole lot of it. The only clue that I had at that day and that moment that maybe people thought, you know, wow, was that one of my buddies in my church, Kyle Phillips, he works in the Secretary of State's office. He said, Hey, I want you guys to see our office here in the Capitol building. So we went from there to go see the office in the Capitol building. And the Secretary of State's chief counsel was in there, and he introduced me to him. I don't remember his name. So he's a lawyer, a legal guy. And he goes, Hey, you're the guy that just prayed.

Yeah. He goes, I've got to be honest with you. I've been here for over eight years, and I've never heard a prayer like that one. And I thought, That's kind of sad. Okay. And that kind of was the only, at that point, the only clue that I had that anybody even listened. I mean, I didn't really think a whole lot of it. They're probably pulling their thumbs. If they don't believe, why would they care? Right. If they don't believe in God, I mean, you know. But anyway, so I, you know, didn't think a whole lot more. And then the next day is when I got a phone call from Jason Clayworth or Justin Clayworth, the Des Moines Register reporter, who, in my opinion, just going to be blunt with you, I believe is the guy that started the controversy with this. I think that he was looking for a story. I think it was a slow news week. And I think that he, you know, he went and asked some people after I prayed what they thought. And I think that's kind of how this thing started going, just to be honest with you. Yeah. It doesn't sound like you went in there with this intention that I'm going to show them, you know, boy, this is my chance to really influence the law and make a name for myself or anything like that.

I mean, it just sounds like a… Oh, and I, you know, I honestly still to this day, I don't understand why what I said was any bit controversial. But, you know, as one of my elders in my church said, well, you know, in our church, we would just yawn and say amen. And we wouldn't think a whole lot of it. But the reality is you were speaking to a large body of thieves. And, you know, you spoke about life, you spoke about marriage, you spoke about pride, you spoke about money, and you did all of it in the name of Jesus. And so you made people that are not centered on who he is very upset and uncomfortable with that. But I don't think even that happened maybe as much as the register reporter maybe contrived some of that or got that going. You know what I mean? I think he's the guy that maybe started that. So I liked it. Cool. Good. It was awesome, man. I'm not a big paper reader. Yeah, fair enough. I hadn't heard of money yet, so… This in the Des Moines… Register. Wait, when did they start that? How long is that been to start?

I dumped them about 20 years ago, I think. I mean, you know, why would I give them money? Because they don't agree with anything really of faith. And so that doesn't surprise me, you know, and I could see… Man, there's a dude who's just trying to get famous and, oh, now I'm in the Chicago paper, you know, and, oh, no, somebody else picked it up and fucked me up talking about it. You know, look what I did. I didn't. Honestly, I didn't know about the Chicago Tribune thing. I did see KCCI.com picked it up. Yeah. You know, but… You're famous. Yeah. Before you leave, I'd like to have you autograph my arm. Both for me. No thanks. So if you'd have known the guidelines, would you have done it any different? No. It's awesome. No. No.

Because I don't, you know, if they can invite a full two years before I went in there and did that, a Muslim to get up and say what he said before that body of legislators. I don't feel any qualms about what I did. I, you know, here's the thing. The register reporter asked me, and this wasn't in the article, but he asked me, how would you feel about a Muslim praying in the name of Muhammad? And I said, well, here, let me ask you, was our country founded on the principles of Islam or the principles of Judeo-Christianity? I said, what I did and what I prayed was completely in line with our historical foundations. A Muslim cannot do that, you know? Why is that relevant? Why is that relevant to the guidelines that the body has? Well, I think his point is, is that, you know, well, if I'm going in there and I'm praying in the name of Jesus, well, then we've got to be able to have the Wiccan come in there and pray in the name of Oak Tree, you know, and whatever. You know what I mean? We've got to be able to open it up to all religions and all things. And I say we got to stay, we have to stay consistent with who our state and our nation was founded by and what principles they were founded upon. I didn't do anything inconsistent with that. I'm in complete line with our historical lineage. I'm not out of sync with that.

But a Wiccan, a Muslim, you know, a Buddhist, a Hindu, they can't come in there and have standing. They can't. I'm not sure I understand this line of thinking. I mean, from a governmental perspective, the freedom in which our country allows, which allows us to be able to do, for example, I can pray however I want to pray and the government has no right to tell me what to do. Sure. So how does the historical relevance of the founding of the nation tie into the freedom under which government and society is conducted today? Well, I think the big issue for me is that the whole separation of, you know, church and state, that line that gets thrown out there or whatever. The issue isn't that we have to protect, you know, the state from the church. It was established so that the church will be protected from the government. Agreed. Never vice versa. And so, you know, our connection to our history and who we are as a people has always been Judeo-Christian. Nothing else, ever. But it doesn't mean that we're oppressive to or, you know, have no room for those of other faith traditions. It's just that the tradition of a body of legislatures, which, by the way, every single state has their own convening sessions led by a prayer. Every session does of every state, all 50 states, even our federal government does it.

They have a pastor that comes in and leads the opening convening sessions of House and Senate with a prayer. And so, that has historically, traditionally, always been done by someone connected to the Christian faith. And your point is that you didn't do anything radical or out of the ordinary or like, wow, that's never been done. Like, an Islam prayer would be completely radical to our history. By the way, two years ago, when the Muslim got up and prayed in our state house, the last line of his prayer was, give us victory over the non-believers, which is me and you. Basically, he stood up before them and said… And everybody in that room. Yeah. We want to conquer you. You know, that was his prayer before our own state legislature. That's nuts. That's nuts. Talk about radical. And what they got was Achao Abdul-Samad, the very next day, stood up before them and explained, well, that's not what you heard. He heard what he meant was and tried to explain it away. And then everybody gave him a standing ovation. But that's exactly what he said. Yeah. I don't know. I don't seem to follow that.

I don't seem to follow the connection. Like, in a free society, what is the relevance of tradition? Like, the equivalence, I find, is the tradition in the Catholic Church. Saying, well, that's what we've always… These traditions that we've established that are not relevant to our standing principles, but it's what we've always done, and that makes it consistent and correct. Like, how is that not the same line of thinking? Well, tradition isn't bad. When you do tradition simply without an understanding of why you do it, then it's useless. It's meaningless. It's not void. It's not, you know, empty of meaning. The tradition is, is that the nation is a, historically, it's a Christian, founded upon Christian principles. I won't say, I won't go be so bold as to say America's a Christian nation, because it's not. Nor do I think probably has it ever been, because not every person in America bows their knee to Jesus. Right. You know, but I do believe that it is out of sync with who we are as a people, representative of who we are as a nation, to have a Muslim pray before our state house legislature. You know, it's not out of sync to have a Christian pastor stand up and pray a prayer in the name of Christ. But how can it be out of sync with us as a people, if as a people we know for certain that we are, like, I think I'm comfortable saying that we're not a Christian nation. I mean, I think I'm agreeing with that by our actions. We are not an actively following, Christ-following nation by a majority. So, you know, how is that representative of us as a people when it, in effect, is not representative?

When it does not represent us as a people. Yeah. I guess I'm not understanding your question. Well, you're saying that the Judeo-Christian, a Christian prayer or a Christian faith is representative of us as a people, but it's not. We're not a Christian people. Well, I beg to differ because I guess you can only look at who we were founded upon or what we were founded upon and what were the founders' intentions upon who we would be and what would guide us as a nation, what would be our center, our moral center. Where is all that drawn from? You know, today, no matter how we want to look at it, no, I don't disagree that we're not, you know, this isn't a Christian nation. But the only link we have is to our past, you know, and who our past is, is that we were founded upon these principles, which are holistically Judeo-Christian principles. I guess the nation that we have is governed by the Constitution that was provided us, and it expressly pulls that away, pulls that, you know, forcing you to believe in a certain God or a certain line of religion, like for the protection of the religion. And I guess what I'm asking is what we're leaning on tradition where, frankly, if someone else of a different faith were to make the same argument as to their tradition, things that they do that we should accept, like I don't have to accept them as valid in my life. But I don't know how, as a freestanding society, you can restrict that against something else just because we're saying that's what someone's intentions were. I don't disagree that the intentions of the founding fathers were based upon a Christian worldview. But that Christian worldview does not exist within our Constitution, does not exist within our state bylaws. You know, so how can we be governed by the intention of someone that's been dead for 300 years and tie how we behave as a people when it comes to this particular action based upon that? Well, again, I think the only thing that we have is that you can't – here's the problem, I think. To say that a Muslim has the same standing as a pastor does two things. One is this – the Muslim is out of sync with our history. The Christian pastor is not. So there's that. I mean, with our past – I don't know why that matters, though.

I'm missing that part. I don't know why it matters. Well, I think that the tie is to our past. I'm not saying that it's not a belief. But what I am saying is all faith systems don't have equal standing. Even take away the past and the history, they're not equal. Before who? Before God. Agreed. Before the Bible. How about before the government? Before the government – Before the institution that runs our country are all faith systems equal. That is where we have to tie it back to our founding because our government was founded with certain traditions and certain principles, certain intents by those who started it all, that those longstanding histories and traditions are something that we've carried. And to say that they're empty and they're void, they have no meaning, I just think that's not true. I mean, why do we put our hand over our heart when we stand and look at a flag? You know what I mean? That's a tradition. What's the point of that? You know what I mean? I mean, it's just a tradition, but it has value, inherent value. Well, I think value is probably an eye of the beholder on that one.

I mean, we sing the Star Spangled Banner for all sporting groups and most people are just waiting for it to get over so the sporting thing will start. Like, I mean, it's repetitive. It doesn't matter, though, even if a lot of people or maybe, you know, we could say most people, even if they don't, you know, respect it in the way maybe that it probably deserves to be respected, it doesn't mean that it takes away the value of what's being done. I don't know that I agree with that. The only reason I say that is because, I mean, value is, like, inherently the definition of value is what someone else is willing to give you on its behalf. Like, a dollar is only worth a dollar if everyone else agrees that it's worth a dollar. You know, and the Star Spangled Banner is only as important as the weight that the people who use it give it. Otherwise, it's just a song. And this is where I would say the value of the traditions have to be found in their historical roots. And for one, their connection definitely to our Constitution is really important. Our Constitution is not an Islamic document. Its roots are inherently Judeo-Christian. A lot of people say the Constitution is godless. It is not. The Constitution is very much a god-filled document. I wouldn't go so far as to say inspired, but I believe its connections to Judeo-Christianity can be argued a lot stronger than any other faith tradition that is out there. Well, I mean, I think you can certainly look at it and find it to be god-consistent. Absolutely. I mean, it's not god-leased. Right. So, okay, so I guess maybe what I'm – maybe my broader question is this.

Here's the deal. I can't find – there's nothing in that prayer to disagree with. You know what I'm saying? I mean, that is – there is absolutely nothing to disagree with. Maybe my question is, is what is the relevance of a group prayer like that to begin with? You had mentioned that all 50 states and federal government have this, right? What is being accomplished by that type of opening prayer to begin with? I think going back to the traditionals and the founding fathers, it was an acknowledgment that God is in control and we're not. I mean, really, that's what it boiled down to. But based upon the guidelines that I – because I read them. I went and checked the guidelines that the Statehouse has about it. Prayer doesn't – you can't even contain that. I mean, it's a pretty – what I would look at, based upon the types of things that I would pray for, I find those guidelines be fairly restrictive. I wonder when those guidelines were written. I mean, did it say – I mean, I don't know. 1776? I mean, was it like in the last 40 years when all of a sudden people – Well, it seems to me like you only have one of two choices when you go in there, right? Like you whitewash a prayer and just take it as an honor to be there and you say a generalized everybody except for prayer or you go in there John the Baptist style and start slaying people. Well, here's the deal. Okay, but with prayer. Did I go in and slay people?

Probably a good majority of them. Probably some. But here's the deal. When you're praying, you're not talking to the legislators. You're not talking to the people in that room. You're talking to God, the creator of the universe. If that was going to be your prayer, you don't necessarily have to do that on the state capitol. You know, I can pray like that at my house without anybody hearing it with a heartfelt prayer. Like I don't need to go in there and – you know what I'm saying? Right, right. Like a prayer is a prayer no matter where I do it and because you know that you have a wide-sweeping – you know, an audience of obviously mixed company. I don't know how else to put it. But you know what I'm saying? Like the fact that maybe Mike's prayer didn't change between his house and the legislature, that's – I suppose that's probably a good thing, right? Like you pray the same thing at home as you would on the legislature. Yeah, you're asking Mike to pray. That's why he prays. That's what I would pray. That's my prayer. You look at – I mean just in the biblical scene, God is over all government. Okay, whether they acknowledge him or not, whether they're Hindu, whether they're Muslim, whether they're – whatever they are, God is the God who is above. He forms governments.

He's the one who makes them rise and fall. You look back in the Old Testament and read the stories of Daniel being carried off in the Babylonians and stuff. And some of that stuff messed up with prayer and government. You know, he got thrown into the lion's den because he just had the audacity to pray. They don't even know what he prayed. He just prayed, you know. And when it all was said and done, you know, he didn't get eaten by the lions and Darius is like, whoa, wow. Wasn't that Darius at that point? I can't remember. There were three different kings. I think it was Darius then. Like each time something happened that the king who did not believe in God suddenly acknowledged God. You know, it was like, well, this is the one true God, you know. And I think that's our job as believers is to represent that God, whether the people believe him or not or like what we say or whatever. I mean, I don't know that I would have done anything different because I – you weren't there talking to them. You might have been talking about things that they're talking about and, you know. Well, so let's put you in a different position than Mike because Mike was not given the guidelines. I mean, even if you – and you said you wouldn't have done anything differently. But let's – I mean, they give you the guidelines, Dan, and it says this is – we want you to pray a generic prayer. If you know you're not going to do that, why would you even accept to show up? I'd have to see the guidelines. I mean, I'm just a little – in a very smaller way.

I've been involved with Kiwanis for like years. I was in Atlantic. I was in Kiwanis. And part of the thing is we pray every time before a meeting. And one guy there just got irate because I would pray in the name of Jesus. I'm like, well, then don't ask me to pray because every time I pray, I'm going to pray in the name of Jesus. And that gets them upset. That was actually my first thought when I read the Register article is like I could have told you that's what Mike Damascus would have said. Well, yeah. Don't ask the Christian to pray. I do not ask – and that kind of was my thought though is like if you don't want a guy with a Christian faith base going in there and praying, don't ask him. Don't ask the – because, I mean, what do you expect him to say? Doesn't that make him a phony if he goes in and suddenly changes his prayer that he would be praying? I don't know, but you leave some of the more stinging points out. It's still a Christian prayer. You know, I mean it's maybe not as controlled to the audience, specifically to the audience. But Rui said that it doesn't – I mean it's not necessarily for them anyway. Here's the deal. I mean is it – are you likely to convert somebody through frankly a prayer that's going to piss them off? You know what I'm saying? Like is it for them? Well, it boils down to the fact, I mean, if you think about it, you're not the one converting them at all.

God is. Right. You have no power over that. Whatever you say, you could go up on the stage and say, all right, rub-a-dub-dub, thank God for the grub. God has the power to go, okay, you're going to believe now. You know what? You are going to turn to me. I'm going to show myself to you. If I walked up there and said, Yankee Doodle, God could say, okay, you're going to convert now. You know what? You believe in me now. Well, so I guess is it – would it have been less to do a pale prayer? Well, I want to go back to what you asked, you know, what's the point? What are these things accomplishing? It reminds me of the age-old discussion in the dorm room, you know, about, you know, well, if God knows what I'm going to say before I pray, why do I even need to pray? Yeah, I mean, you know, I'm going to be, you know, more spiritual and not pray for my food before I eat because, you know, God already knows. And I'm totally in sync with him. I just think that's so dumb because I think ultimately what they are doing – and it's like one of the last vestiges of acknowledgement in the public arena that there is somebody up there that we're looking to for guidance and wisdom and discernment and help and leading and all of that stuff. And so, you know, I for one – that's how I went into this with, you know, I'm going into a really unique arena. And I realized it was a non-Christian arena, but I realized this is the one time they stop and they pause. And even if it's just, hey, everybody's getting through it and a lot of people are just checking email while it's being done or whatever, this is the one time they pause to say, if you're up there, give us some help. And I just thought, hey, I'm going to take advantage of that moment, you know, and try to sync these guys up to that.

And I just think that that's really cool, that that's something that they still do. You know, they still hold on. They're unwilling to – I mean, you know, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, you know, what, two years ago said that schools cannot say under God anymore in the pledge, you know, out there in California. That was – they found that to be, you know, totally out of line with our Constitution. That is so stupid, you know, that we would have a group of judges so completely removed from the will of the people of the United States, you know, that they would actually make a ruling that they think makes sense like that. But anyways. Well, you know, I guess on that particular piece, I would say I'm not sure how relevant the will of the people is. I mean, to the extent that we have a constitution, the will of the people has been very, very wrong in the past. And so, like, just because people will it doesn't make it an appropriate, you know, way to form your country. I mean, we've had numerous struggles as a country where the popular will of the people was completely wrong and ungodly. Absolutely. Right. So beyond that, I guess – that was something I was really thinking about this week is about, you know, what – it extends even beyond the government. They do it at graduations. I mean, there's prayers everywhere. I've prayed all kinds of civic places, the chamber, annual dinners, you know, there's a prayer. And it's like you're praying for a bunch of people who are out there cheating and stealing and not all of them. Did you pray for those directly when you did the chamber prayer? And, Lord, cut off the hands of those who are cheating. No, I didn't. Why not? I wasn't – I don't know.

It never crossed my mind. Man up. I was thinking, God, this food really smells good. Thank you. I see. I see. I was there selfishly to eat. I think they're afraid to get rid of it. That's the only reason they still do it. Yeah. That would be my guess, yeah. I think they're absolutely afraid to abolish the prayer. I hope they are. They would. They would do it. But they're just afraid of their reaction. That's all. Because Dan and I would be sitting at the state house yelling. That's right. I guess the only thing I think of though – You'd be saying shame, shame, shame. Yeah.

If they've pared it back so much where like in eight years they haven't heard the same thing that's come out of Mike's mouth. That's disappointing to me. But I guess what I'm afraid of is that by even having a bunch of dudes come in there, they seem to be validating the appropriateness of such a shallow reach out to God. I mean I read – I listened to some of them that were on the register and posted a bunch. I saw that. I didn't hear them. Of course, they posted the ones that they felt to be most offensive of course. But like I mean I didn't find most of these – I mean they were just pale. I mean there wasn't anything of substance to them. And so I'm almost afraid that that gives the impression that that type of shallow relationship to I go about my business but keep an eye on us and whatever is almost acknowledging. What's the difference though? Let's say you ask a Christian preacher to come in and then they make a point of pointing out all your faults in a public arena. Are you gaining people for Christ that way? I would doubt it. I mean as an example that you publicly – Well, the problem is Troy's answer tends to cover all, like regardless of which side you fall on such a thing. If you say God will do what he wants, there's no arguing with that. I can say rub-a-dub-dub or you're a baby killer. Either way, the Lord's will be done. Well, but that's true and it's not. I mean the Lord installed you with free will and your free will guides you toward him and then he reveals himself to you. He doesn't just do it like that.

I mean that's why the free will is there. I mean you have to have some semblance of wanting to know Christ before Christ comes to you. You know what I'm saying? Maybe one of the reasons a lot of the prayers have been wimpy, if that's the case, is a lot of our churches have become wimpy. I mean a lot of churches don't even talk Bible anymore. They're trying to be happy and get a crowd. If we just don't talk about anything that makes anybody mad, well, let's talk about – Okay, so boil this down to me then. So between two things, if you have the opportunity to attempt, not necessarily to win or it's a definite, but attempt to witness to somebody on their level for Christ or proclaim what the Lord's word says and his glory, is there a choice between the two? Like for example, like everything in the prayer was dead on, biblically, dead on, exactly what the Lord has to say about it, exactly how he feels about it. But you know for a fact that when you attempt to witness to somebody, the direct affront is usually not a successful tactic. You know, people shut you down immediately. So is there a choice to be made either way? Well, Scripture would say, and I think if you look at the whole counsel of Scripture, there are times when certain things are appropriate. There are times when, you know, as Paul says, I became all things to all men that I might possibly win one, you know. And so there are times when you maybe soften the blow. There are times, as it says in Jude, that, you know, with the fear of the condemnation of hell, you know, some are won over to the Lord. And so there are times when it's just hellfire and brimstone, get some in, and, you know, the softer approach, get some in. And I don't know.

I mean, I kind of feel like there are also those times when it's like a prophetic moment. And not to get all grandiose, so don't hear that. But I feel like, you know, you look in the narrative of Scripture in the Old Testament and Elijah, how did he handle that moment when there's nobody else and he's surrounded by unbelievers? And what did he do? Well, how did he pray? You know, his prayer was, you know, pretty bold to the point and blunt. And probably as he said the words, you know, Ahab was just cringing and scoffing, thinking, you arrogant jerk, you know. And yet he prayed it. And look at how God responded in that kind of a prayer. And what I found as a result, you know, even in my prayer is that overwhelmingly, overwhelmingly, people were very encouraged by it. And, you know, I got on, I prayed the prayer, or I mean, the article appeared on Friday. Friday, Friday, all day, and Saturday, I received 14 different phone calls, not from one person in my church, mind you, but from other people in the community that just, and it blows my mind, that took the time to find out who I am, look up the church number, Google it, or, you know, find it somewhere. And they called me just to say, hey, I want you to know that really encourages me that there are people like you that did that. And that encouraged me that they took the time to try to encourage me. You know, I mean, it was just cool. Because there's a lot of people out there, I think, that want to hear people stand up and do something, you know. That's what's cool. And maybe there are a few Mary Machers from Coralville who will walk out and won't listen to the prayer, and then somehow she has a right to complain about the prayer, which I don't even think, how can she complain about something she didn't even hear?

She walked out before it even started? She walks out on every prayer. She doesn't stay in during the prayer, and yet she was somehow one of the people that was complaining. Oh, right. But how can you complain about something you didn't even hear? But anyways, that's why I believe Justin Clayworth, the author of the story, was the one that was contriving this whole thing, getting that going. And I believe that Mary Macher did make a complaint, but I think that it was simply because he asked her, and he showed her probably what I prayed and, you know what I mean, got it going. Yeah, yeah. As any good slimy reporter would. Somebody has to light the match. So I, you know, but the reality is, even in that state house, as evidenced by Kim Pearson, yes, she did, was a part of asking me to come. Yep. She was emotionally moved that day. She was encouraged because they are fighting the battle for life. And, you know, they didn't ask me to pray about this. Right. They didn't know what I was going to pray, you know, but it was encouraging to her. And the moment and the time, and she felt like it was timely. It was like a divine thing, you know, and that's cool. You know, that's all God. That's the Holy Spirit.

And so I think that he used it. But I hate talking about it because I feel so stupid arrogant about it because it's not – there's nothing to it. It's a flash in the pan thing, and next week nobody's going to even care about this. Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? And so I don't have any inklings that now I'm famous. You know, it's nothing like that. I just – I did what I do. You don't need a sandwich on the Food Network. That's for sure. You know, it's nothing. Maybe someday. Yours is way cooler. I'm sorry. I'm not trying to – I'm not trying to make your head down. I shouldn't have read what my sandwich is. Did you bless that giant sandwich you ate before you ate it? Did you pray before you ate it? Dude, I was so scared. I don't know. Like an – Sorry, Lord and Savior, I'm on TV.

I'm sorry. Oh, man. I don't think they would have let me go on them. What a disaster. I don't think they would have let me do it, in all honesty. Would you have put it on the line? Say, look, boys, I'm praying on the camera. Otherwise, I walk. Well, they could have cut it. You know what I'm saying? Lord God, I just pray that you will smite the gluttons. Lord – You could have made it fun, though, man. This is big. I need God's help. Let's pray. Dear Lord, let me eat this gigantic sandwich. You open your eyes and there's a giant God-sized bite missing. That's right. This is going to go up. That's out from him. So have you gotten much –

like you said, you had all these people call you positively. Anybody call them negatively or any letters or emails? No negativity personally. That I found. It's on the comment threads. Oh, those are a hoot. They are. Those are a hoot. My favorite one. I put it up on Facebook. My favorite one is the guy that said, I'm still trying to figure out if Mike Demastis is a self-absorbed idiot or a run-of-the-mill idiot. I love that. I think that's just very clever. I like that a lot. I tell you what. Because I'm a self-absorbed idiot. Those comment blogs are a disaster anyway. Moses could come down and write a piece and there would be 75% of the population naysaying. Well, Moses has been out of the game for so long. He's not really sure. He's not anyway relevant anymore. I mean, come on.

The guy's been out for thousands of years. We had an article a year ago, whenever that was, last summer when we did a roof for a family. And we raised the funds and re-roofed their house for them. And they had a little article in the newspaper about it. And people were commenting on that about how – just saying all kinds of mean stuff about the family. And it's like, seriously? I mean, here's a family who had legitimate need. There were medical issues. There were things. They just needed some help. And we're like, we'll help you. We'll love on you. And people were – My wife genuinely asked me. She just – that day she was like, please, please don't read it anymore. Please stop. Because I was reading them to her and it was making her upset. And she just asked me to stop. I thought it was funny. In all honesty, good for you. I mean, for letting it just kind of – just go water off a duck. I mean, just not letting it affect you at all.

I know myself and my personality, sometimes I let that kind of stuff get to me. And I just be like, I'm sorry. Well, what I know, having been in ministry for a long time, is that people are really brave when they're sitting in front of a computer screen. Yeah. But they are not that way. They are not that way when they're face-to-face. And that's the truth. Yeah. Because I would not be talked to in the manner that people wrote if they had the opportunity to sit down with me across a table like this. They wouldn't do that. They just would not. I was, by the way – and this is so weird – a year ago, March, I was in the paper on the front page with the same-sex marriage debate. Yeah. And they had this very nice pastor and me and, you know, how do you feel about the issue? And the one guy, you know, was like, I love homosexuals and literally – and then, you know, my stance was, you know, I just – well, the Bible teaches that it's sin and that, you know, and I don't hate homosexuals. I'm not against, you know, anybody per se in a sense of just being against them, but I just want to teach the clear truth of God's word. And I even – you know, the quote I think that they put me in there was that – something along the lines of, if the Bible is true, then we better act like it, live like it, preach it, and teach it that it is true. That's a pretty good quote. From that – from that – because my picture was on the front page plus, you know, the quotes and all that stuff. From that, we had a group of homosexual activists that threatened to sit in on our Easter Sunday service and protest and freaked us out as a church, just being blunt. We contacted the Des Moines Police Department. We had a person come and speak with myself and our leadership and just told us what – how to handle it, what to do.

These are the steps that you should take and, you know, and so it was really good because we felt really ready and we kind of had a plan and strategy. And we had a huge Easter Sunday and not one of them showed up. Nobody came, you know, from them. But we had like – and it was kind of funny because I had – some of my elders were ready to brawl. I mean, they were looking for a fight. It was like, we have permission to fight, you know. It was like they were excited to escort somebody out, you know, and hog time and carry them out. But I don't know. Nothing bad happened, but it's weird. It's not like a tradition I want to get into every March on the coin register. You can start taking that month off. Yeah. Sabbatical. Can you do this in March? Like, nope, sure can't actually. All booked. So would you do it again? Do what again? Like if they ask you to come back and pray again, you do it again? Yeah, absolutely. But I doubt that I will be invited back. It would be interesting, though.

Is there a prayer screener? No, there isn't. And that's the thing about the guidelines. You know, again, just to stress, they're guidelines. And they are not enforced. There is no prayer oversight committee. Well, that's kind of like jaywalking, though. Like, they don't usually enforce jaywalking. Well, I mean, they put it, but they're there for a reason. You can't, like, well, these are just suggestions from a guy. I mean, guidelines are our guidelines. I would assume they're there for a reason. They are guidelines, yeah. But it's, you know, it's not going to stop me from praying in the name of Jesus Christ. It's not going to stop me from getting up there and praying from my heart about, you know, whatever we're talking about. But, you know, that's just, that's it. I mean, but I'm not going to go in there and spit in the face of the guidelines, either. I mean, there is decorum. It's, you know, it's not like going and praying in Aunt Jemima's kitchen or something. I mean, it's a different, you know, thing. It's a really high honor, you know, to do that. So if I'm ever asked, I will pray, God, thank you for pastors like Mike Damascus,

who had the boldness to preach about and to pray about the slaughtering of unborn children. And then I'll make, I'll, I'll, I'll up you one. Thanks. That'd be great. Yeah. And I'll, I'll make sure your name's attached to it. Yeah, good luck picketing a mobile church. We'll just move. Find us if you can. We can set this thing up at half hour anywhere. Random parks anywhere. Maybe at your house. Keep it up, protester. We'll protest you. We're protesting your protest. We set up the stage in their driveway. They're just like, what is this? Well, you've been listening to Live from the Path. We've been talking with Pastor Mike Damascus at the Fort Des Moines Church of Christ. When does, when and where do you meet? We meet at the Fort Des Moines Church of Christ. Sorry, that's on the south side.

Yeah. I will help out with that. Sorry. It's at Southeast 3rd and Army Post. There we go. 10 a.m. Sunday morning. 10 a.m. You get one prayer to the legislature and he can't get you out of control. 10 a.m. Awesome. It's cool. We've been there a number of times. Yeah, you have. It's a good spot. It is. I think we got a pretty good relationship, our two churches. I like it. I would agree. I would agree. Matter of fact, I believe we're playing in a protest there. It's for Sunday. I was wondering if he got my emails.

I didn't ever get a response. Please show it up, though. Mr. Damascus will not be putting up with your response. Kyle needs to be the strong arm, like the guy that talks on your behalf. Yeah. Because you only very rarely address the media personally. Mr. Damascus has the following things to say and he will not be taking any questions. Any questions. Yeah. One, you will wear a shirt and tie when addressing Mr. Damascus. You will follow the following guidelines. Shirt, jacket, and tie. These are not just suggestions. Before every phrase, you will say, dear Lord, if it's correct for you, Mr. Damascus, can I – All right. We are going to take a – we're going to take a quick break. Thank you, Mike, so much for coming in. I appreciate it. I had a feeling this was – that you probably weren't looking forward to, like, spending a bunch of time. I know you've run into it a lot this week. I thought – but I do think there are pretty good issues for even your Christ followers who, you know, looks at the way people are reacting and says, you know, I don't know. I don't know about this.

You know, how should I feel? Because sometimes I think we're able to get swept up in people's reaction. Well, I think – and I think it's – I'll just make it real quick here. But I think it's because, you know, people get burned by people that take a stand like Mike, you know, because what they do is they get, you know, way hot and fizzle, and then they take all the attention, and then they destroy it. They destroy the Lord's name, and they destroy the followers of Christ with just terrible, abhorrible behavior. You know what I'm saying? And so, you know, when someone actually stands up for Christ, you know, I think the Christian community tends to get behind them, and then they screw it up so bad. Like, what would be a good example? I can't think of one off the top of my head right now. But, you know, like televangelists for one, you know, people like that for the other. You know, like they're a beacon for Christian hope, and then they drop it. And so people are afraid to attach themselves to people that stand up for Christ because they think, oh, great, you know, what's this guy going to get us into? Well, that's why I believe if people would send me a vow of faith of a $1,000 pledge, and I would give them this gold eagle in response. That's right. Please talk to my representative. We accept credit cards. Please make the check out to Kyle on behalf of Mr. Demastus. You know, I tell you the thing that I think sticks in the back of my mind is I'm afraid. The only thing that I'm afraid, and maybe this is one of the things that I have that I need to continue to pray through, but I think I always have a concern that sometimes the discussion doesn't get framed correctly. Like when you say things, for example, and frankly I thought Mike put it real well in the prayer, but like when you say like slaughtering babies, that's – I would make a fool of myself.

But, you know, the thing about that is it's not that that's not happening. That is what's happening. But that's not the way – the people that tend to be behind, for example, in your abortion debate, they feel like they're doing the right thing. Like they have a vision of this. And frankly, I believe they're wrong, but sometimes when you categorize it like that – See, now you're going to get me going because I would take issue, and here's what – and particularly in the realm of the marriage debate that we're currently having, Christians have lost the debate on abortion, and here's why, because we let them define the terms, and terms are really important, and we're losing the debate currently, I believe, in the realm of marriage because all the time you're seeing terms like gay marriage and same-sex marriage being thrown out there, and those are made-up, fake terms that don't even exist, and yet we agree and say, you know, oh, yeah, that has the same standing as marriage. There's only marriage, and there's nothing else. And abortion, by the way, is a relatively new term in the English language, and it's a nice way of talking about murder. No, no, I get that. But what I'm saying is when you approach it like that, I think you have a small segment of people who are trying to drive that type of agenda. But I think you have a much larger segment of people that are catching the peripheral of that and seeing it in a way where they think that they are making a correct decision, a fair decision, an equal decision for people, and if you don't meet them on that level, they're not hearing your argument because on a base level they're saying, I don't agree that it's murdering babies. Right. So if that's all we're starting with, you're not talking on a level at which their misunderstanding started. You know what I'm saying? Like that, I think, is my concern is like if you blow over that and you don't understand where their misunderstanding came from, you're never going to get to a point where they understand the fallibility of that and can move on from it. Well, I believe that the word choices are critical. I believe that it's imperative that we keep the terms out there, at least keep people thinking about the terms. It's really important. Even, frankly, homosexuality.

And it sounds so nice to use terms like gay and alternative lifestyle or whatever, but what makes a homosexual a homosexual? There's one thing. It's a sex act. And we don't go down that road a lot. We don't mentally go down that road. But that's what it is. That's what it is. And that's, you know, for us to keep the debate being pushed on the envelope, in my opinion at least, the terms and the definitions, it's really imperative because our culture is so non-reasoning about things. They don't like to think through things. Well, but right on the other side of that, I mean, the definitions are a technical argument of which people will not generally engage you on. You understand? Like if you're making a technical argument about something, the only time that that's effective is a guy that's willing to talk with you on that definitive level, right? If they're not engaging you on that level, you're not making any progress by making that distinction. Well, the reality is, though, you know, for me, how can you even move forward in any discussion when you don't even have an understanding of, you know, if I say black is black and you say black is white, white, you know what I mean? You've got to have a defined, you know, level playing field of what we're talking about. Right. But I guess maybe if I can cast this in a broader term, if you if one hand is saying, hey, you're killing a baby and the other hand says it's a choice, right? Until you rectify where they're at, why the choice thing is not right, you're killing a baby is not going to make any progress. They're leading on the choice. Yes. But they're also the only group, the only, you know, I don't know, arena where even even the homosexual would be pro homosexual. But the abortionist is not going to say I'm pro abortion because even that would be almost offensive. They will say I'm pro choice. They deflect it at every level.

And they have so effectively defined the terms that for a person to even use the term murder is almost like you're inciting hate speech. And I think that that is it's a masterful way to to to keep people squelched to literally what Romans one says suppress the truth. Right. That's what they do. Right. But I think you're I think you're giving the broad base of that a little too much credit. I think you have a small group of people who are defining that discussion and you have the rest of people that are following because of how tempered they've made the discussion because of the changes in the definition, because of the way that they're that they're posing the argument. People are agreeing with them and they're the ones that are being like affected by that misleading argument. You maybe you recognize it and you say, I don't that's not the truth. Right. But they are being effective. And what I'm saying is, is that I don't think you're going to change the mind of the guy that is the one that's that's doing that intentionally. But I think you do have opportunity in the people who are being misled by by that particular type of tactic. And I think you don't ever reach those people if all you are are the killing baby talk. Right. Well, and I think that, you know, I guess I wouldn't say I wouldn't probably generally define it in terms of all I ever am is the killing baby talk. No, no, that wasn't my intention. But what I do, I think it's really in terms of my role as a as a minister. And I think Dan would be the in the same way as it's part of our part of our role is to help people reason, help people filter their reality through the prism of Scripture. Everything is defined and filtered through that Scripture. And so that's that's what's you know, that we were talking about it before, you know, what what gives you standing to say, you know, that you could even get up there in that statehouse and pray like that or whatever. And I was telling Dan, because for one, faith bleeds, it leaks into every area of my life. And it's not compartmentalized, not like the the people in that statehouse, you know, OK, this is the prayer time and let's get it over with real quick. You know, but the reality is, like you said, I'm a Christian minister and I'm going to go up and not be who I'm not. I'm going to go up and be very consistent with who I am all the time. And so, you know, that's our faith is not a thing that you can put into a space or a place. It's in every arena of our life. You know, it affects and touches everything.

And I don't know, I just think it's really this what you touched on just a second ago, I just think it's critical that we take back terms, we get back to the reality of what we're talking about, because I think we've lost sight of that in the realm of life in particular and in the realm of marriage right now. Those two debate arenas. It's pretty tough to to do that when really, for the most part, the media, you know, has they're the ones who really have caused the shift in the vocabulary because they support it and believe it. And they're intentional suppressors. That's what they do. Yeah. Yeah. Our voice is very small. I took one of the local media guys to task. And first off, it was through Twitter and then it ended up being on private messages through Facebook. And then I wrote about it on my blog and he got mad and he wrote about me and his blog, Dave Price, who did a story where he was talking about the debate on marriage at the statehouse. And he was saying this is how he phrased it. He said, Republicans are working hard to provide a narrow definition of marriage. And, oh, it just made me really mad. And I wrote him, I said, well, why didn't you write the Democrats are working hard to provide a broad definition of marriage? Why did you have to say it in the way that you said it? And he goes, well, because the current law states that marriage is open for not just male and female, but also for same sex genders. You know, marriage is for a broad definition now. So the Republicans are trying to get it back to a narrow definition. That's what they're doing. And that's what he kind of stood on that. And I just told him, I said, well, I said, no, no, no.

Marriage has always been marriage. Yeah. Even the current law says that. Right, right. So we had that debate. But that, to me, is an intentional act. He knew what he was doing. He understands what he's doing. He's crafting a viewpoint, you know, and that's, I don't know, you know. I'm just amazed that people put that much work into it. I never even thought of doing that. Like, the thing is, like, sometimes I find this bit hard to believe that everyone is behind some kind of massive conspiracy theory to squash things. Like, I just have a really hard time with it. Like, sometimes I think it's, like, 10% of the time when people bring it up, it could be accurate. People have a terrible time with NPR. They said NPR is just the worst leftist-leaning organization ever, blah, blah, blah. I listen to NPR every morning. I don't hear any of it. I have no idea what they're talking about. Every morning I listen to it. 7 to 9 o'clock, I don't hear any of it. I have no idea.

I don't listen to it and go, well, how dare you? And I'm a conservative guy. I don't hear it one bit. Sounds correct, eh, comrade? Well, I would just say, how did they treat Juan Williams? I don't even know who that guy is. He's a guy that Fox News has on all the time. His picture was on our screen two weeks ago. Juan Williams is a cool guy. I mean, I don't agree with him a lot. Now, why did you call him a cool guy? Why don't you just call everyone else maybe not as cool as Juan Williams? You're kind of framing this Juan Williams as an all-right fellow right off the bat. You're not even giving me a shot to make a decent representation of him. I'm sorry. Go ahead. You're a hero, Juan Williams. Go ahead. Juan Williams made a statement on a Fox News show. I think it was on Bill O'Reilly, maybe, or Greta of Ancestor, and I don't remember. But he made a statement on there where they were trying to push him into a corner, and I can't remember the exact whatever he said. But he was just saying, well, if you said that, then that would mean that I would be – and he said something.

It was a rhetorical thing. It was just – Oh, he said that if he's gotten on a plane – Yeah, if he's a Muslim, he's nervous. Yes. He's nervous. If he got on a plane, he's a Muslim. That was it. That's right. I'm sorry. Okay. And because he said that, and he was just honestly being confessional in the whole thing, they fired him. They axed him, and he was a regular contributor in NPR, and they – Doesn't that ruin the whole cast for you, Mike? I don't see what the problem is. It's a good business move. Well, here's the deal. You got 20 percent that are kind of liberal and 20 percent that are pretty conservative, and you got 60 percent in the middle, and both of the extremes are trying to communicate to the middle to pull them their way. And the liberal side has a much more concerted effort through a lot of the media, through the stuff you were talking about. They're very careful about using the vocabulary and their choice of words and all that education. All these things are really lined up.

Really? Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Are they thinking about getting it on late-night internet radio? Because, I mean – We're the new wave. I just don't – I don't understand. I don't see this at all. Well, it just seems to me that, like, you're sitting – like, let's say me and ex-Soviet Russia are in a war, and every time I see something just a little out of place, I'm going to go, Russia, they're after me. There's something. A Bush move. Probably a Russian. Look at it. Well, I think that – And that seems to me where you guys come from. You sit on one side and go, oh, it's the other side. Oh, he's coming after me like a playground battle. Here's what's really important for me. I read a book that just totally affected my political views big time, and it's by Buddy Hanson, and the name of the book is called The Christian Prince. It was recommended to me, by the way, by Steve Dace, and he said it was – no other book has influenced him more politically than this particular book.

And The Christian Prince says – one of the things he says in the book is that we've got to get away from Republican, Democrat, conservative, liberal. Christians get so caught up in that that they miss the debate. They miss really what's going on. There is God's law and man's law. There is God's ideas and man's ideas. And we've got to keep the debate in those terms. And when we get into the whole labeling and putting all that stuff on, we get confused and get mixed up because sometimes you get a Democrat who's pro-life. What do you do then? Whatever. And so you've got to keep focused on there are the ideals and law of God and there are the ideals and law of man. And really, frankly, those two things are the centerpiece of everything that we face. And so there really are people who work very, very diligently to make sure that things like what I said cannot be said. Things that what I prayed only get to be prayed in certain places and they should not be put out in the public arena. That's unfair. That's hate speech. That's inciting things. And so I think that that's what happens. And it's not so much of a conspiracy, although the Apostle Paul said these very things in Romans 1, verse 18. I just brought it up so I can make sure I wasn't misquoting. But he talks about that. That's the agenda of those who are wicked, those who would have the idea there is no God law. There's only man's laws, what we've created and what we've established.

And they work hard to suppress the truth that God, all law, comes from him. So do we believe in free speech for all or only free speech for God? Things that you agree with. I mean, that's what I'm asking. Is the freedom of speech only covered with things you agree? When we say it's tradition, we tend to mean it's a tradition I agree with, and that's why it's important. Because, I mean, there's traditions that were traditions that have come and gone because people don't agree with them anymore because they were ridiculous. Right. So as much as I believe that you have the right to stand up and say there is a God, do I believe in the same right for a guy to talk just as loud on the other side of the building and say there ain't? Or do I try to squelch it because I think it's bad for the prosperity of the world? But if you squelch him, do you continue to – how does that not open you up to also being squelched once you start denying the freedom of God? Right. I mean, you have to accept the same retaliation, right? The same give and take. Like, I fully expect that someone does not believe in God, and I fully expect that he's going to hold a conference to say he doesn't believe in God. Well, let's look at history. Two years ago, a Muslim stood up and prayed in the name of Muhammad before the state legislature. What occurred was a standing ovation before that body. One week ago, today, I prayed before the state legislature, and what occurred was I was on the front page with the title of the article, Do Capital Prayers Cross the Line? Well, but what would you expect from an unbelieving body? I mean, is there – From a mostly contrived reporter attempting to trump up the story?

Well, I guess my question is, like, that shouldn't – that's not surprising. Like, that shouldn't be surprising. How do we expect people that don't follow Christ to react when Christ is proclaimed? That is what they're going to do. That's the most natural thing for them to do. Right. So, I mean, these aren't surprises to me. I also don't look at it, and I don't say – I guess I don't take offense to it. I'm not – I mean, I think they're wrong, but I'm not surprised. I wish they followed Jesus, but I tell you what, I mean – But we still do our job of continuing to proclaim truth, and they can accept it or not, and get on with their life, and we'll get on with our life. Like, we keep sowing the seed, and – Is there – I guess maybe my longstanding question, then, is there – by – if you attempt to squelch, for example, the freedom of people to believe wrongly, do you not invite the potential that you can also be squelched in what do you find to be your – I don't know who's squelching that, though. Well, for example, if you say that the prayer that happens before the legislative body has to be a Christian prayer. That's not squelching other prayer. That just says, in this body, this is what we're going to have. Well, but they could – That doesn't mean they can't go out in the hallway and do a – Why can't you go out in the hallway? I could.

So why can't they say the Muslim prays, you go in the hallway? Yeah. That's not what the rules are. Well, I guess – But they – The rules are set by the body. The body decided to change the rules. I guess what I'm saying is like, D.A. Daniel. I think a lot of my bigger concerns when we come to like some of the political debates don't have to do with what the government is allowing other people to do. It's what that implies that they have the ability to do to me and my ability to worship, right? My largest overall concern – For example, let's say that I'm in agreement with the Bible about God's position on homosexuality, right? So the biggest concern I have about things like gay marriage is the impact that could have on forcing you to perform a gay marriage ceremony. You lose the right because it's equal under the law to say, I will not perform this because I do not believe in it. That, to me, is a larger concern than the government recognizing what is sin. The government does not – doesn't have control of that anyway, right? If God defines marriage, the government does not, that they allow somebody to enter into some sort of government agreement. It doesn't do anything. But it's not just a protection status in terms of worrying about what happens to pastors and churches. By the way, most church insurance companies and whatnot are advising councils to have a statement about marriage to put that into your policy, which I think is really weird because they see oncoming legislation – or litigation, I should say. But think about floral shops, little mom-and-pop Christians that own a floral shop,

and they have a homosexual couple that comes in, and they're going to have a wedding, and they want to buy – they want this floral shop to do all of their flowers for the wedding, and they refuse on – well, you know, we just can't support that. I think that's hypocritical and wrong. I agree. What, have they got a sign that says anybody that has a premarital sex, we're not going to give them flowers? Anybody that's a liar, a cheater, a thief? They're choosing one sin and amplifying it. Well, I guess, you know, my thing would be in the arena of, you know, no shirt, no shoes, no service, why is it wrong for a business owner to make the decisions of who they're going to serve? As long as they are not discriminating against somebody based upon their race or, you know – Religion? Or even their religion. You know, like say they would single out a person because they're Muslim or something like that. Or Christian. Or, you know, or Christian even, yeah. But if a person has a serious, significant issue of feeling like I'm going to be condoning, I'm putting my personal stamp of approval on what you people are doing by, you know, by having this service provided for you. Why is it that it's a seal of approval on what they're condoning when it's a gay marriage but not if – Listen, I'm not saying it is. I'm just saying that that's maybe how they feel in their conscience. It's wrong of us to not be in support of that.

Well, what does the guy at the grocery store do? He sees a gay guy walk in and go, I'm sorry, I can't sue you to groceries because your lifestyle is apparent to the Lord and I won't have it? I mean, a business owner should be able to serve who they want and who they don't want. The government shouldn't even be involved. I mean, whether it's – even if they don't want to do Christians, well, then I'll go somewhere else. I mean – But that's not what happens. The problem is they refuse service to someone and then they sue them and then they win, which is stupid. Well, when it comes down to segregation, I mean, segregation in the South, I mean, obviously there were white shops that said, you know what, you're African-American, you're a black person. I'm not going to serve you. It's my business. I have the right to say no to you. Even if they did, was it right? I mean, was it – I mean, that's one of the biggest controversies in our nation's history was our segregation that we had. We had slaves. We had slaves because they were black. White people thought that they were better. And because they owned the land meant that they had the right to tell these people no. No, that's absolutely wrong. One of the problems right now in our – what the federal government, I think, has done in passing legislation last year with the hate crimes laws that they've passed is that they have said now if a 90-year-old woman is brutally attacked and beaten in some back alley by some thug

and then you have, say, a 21-year-old homosexual male who is beaten because he's homosexual in a back alley, that his – what happened to him is somehow worse and the punishment will be more severe to those who perpetrated that act upon him than the person that beat up the grandma. It's already wrong to beat up anybody. That's wrong, period. But now we're going into thinking about what people are thinking. You know, we've got to – what were you thinking when you beat them up? You know what I mean? And it's almost very Orwellian, and it's scary where we're headed as a culture because we're judging intentions and thoughts and motives of people, not just the act itself. You know, the person was beat up. You know, okay, well, who beat them up? They did. Okay, well, let's put them in jail, you know, and that's what you're supposed to do. But we're – our culture is really screwed up right now. We're a mess, and it's because we have no understanding, going way back to where we started, of our foundations, where we were started as a country, what we were founded upon as a country. We've left all that. We've removed God from the public square, and now we have no understanding of what's right and what's wrong. Well, I would argue the absence of God is irrelevant to the tradition, like where our country started. The absence of God causes this problem regardless of whether it has been your tradition as a country or not. It doesn't matter so much how our country was founded.

If we're not following godly principles, you're not going to get a godly result. Right, the country could have been founded on pagan worship, and if the Lord showed up and it was a God-following nation, it would be fine. Yeah. It's a toughie. It's a toughie. Dan, it's a toughie. It's a toughie. I mean, in principle, it's not a toughie. But I think – but like – In practice. Well, I guess – you know what? I think the more I'm in my Bible, the more that I realize it's that long because it spends a lot of time trying to make fine distinctions. I mean, you have – it's not all faith. It's not all works. Why is this Bible so long? Like, it's trying to get – I feel like I've been reading it forever. If it could be carved out in – we're going to, as a people, as a culture, we have trouble making distinctions. We paint with broad brushes, we get in trouble. If we say it's all faith, we fail in our works. If we say it's just work, we fail in our – we're obviously not having faith if we believe that it's what our work buys us into heaven.

We can't show – if we show love – think we're showing love for God just by saying it but don't do anything, you know, we don't obey. It's the same thing. Like, there's – constantly the major themes of the Bible are balanced between these things that we tend to run with in either direction. All right. We need to take a break. We've hogtied Mr. Demastus, his time longer than I intended to. Mike, thank you very much for being here. I really appreciate it. Absolutely. You are listening to – oh, man, I got rid of my stuff to go check out that Romans verse that Mike did and now I'm going to – hold on a minute. Did I quote a Romans? Not you. Oh. I wish it had been me. That sounds real scriptural. Mike, keep talking. Anyway, quote a Romans. I always wish I could do it. The Bible – it's so long. There's just not enough pictures. I actually thought about this week. I was trying to decide if I'm avoiding reading the books of Solomon because I don't want to be able to know the answers to secular Solomon because I currently don't know them because I've never read the book.

I've just read most of the New Testament, some interspecies of the Old Testament, and I kept thinking, well, this is the week. I'm going to read it. And I think I don't want to know the answer to secular Solomon because my buffoonery is a positive laugh for everyone. Buffoonery. I'm terrible at that game. Terrible. There are people who will read one chapter of Proverbs a week and – I mean a day. Excuse me. I thought that sounded funny. Then every month you're reading through it because there's like 31 chapters and depending on the month. It's a thought. And then it's just – just because there's so many little tidbits in there that – I'm going to boost it back up. There you go. I'm going to try to do this. All right. You're listening to Live from the Path. Please enjoy the following submission by Live from the Path artist Vance Lambert for the new Folgers jingle. You're listening to Live from the Path on livefromthepath.org. I thought that was pretty cool. What did you guys think? Huh?

You guys checked that out? I thought that was pretty cool. I think you – I don't know if you can vote. I think you might be able to go to Folgers.com and vote for it, improve it. I don't know. I don't know about that. Sorry. Everybody else has left the room. I'm kind of just hanging out on my own. What is that going on there? I think it was Saturday. Yeah, I don't know. Thanks, man. Anyway, you're listening to Live from the Path. You can catch us during the week by going to livefromthepath.org. The show for that week will be posted on the front. And you can also get access to the podcast. The YouTube channel is out there that has clips from all our previous bands and some short clips from the show. I'm trying to think of what else is available there. We have Tales from the Path. Hold on a second. We about ready to do some Dear Live from the Path?

Yeah, yeah, I think so. Okay. Always ready. So, boy, I tell you what, and I've listened to this because I was editing it for our – oh, man. I was editing it for our Praise 940 show, which got pushed back a week, by the way. So, like, if you – I'm sorry. I don't know if I got to everybody after we kind of sent the notification out with the newsletter. We will be on Praise 940 next Sunday at 5 p.m. And then – oh, voting begins in 24 days. For what's that for? For the Folgers. For the Folgers thing for Vance. Got to get on that. Anyway, we'll be on Praise 940 at 5 o'clock next Sunday. And then from there, we'll be on the first Sunday of every month going forward. And we have an hour show, and I kind of – you know, I've got to put a bunch of stuff together, chop some stuff out of it, kind of get the best of, if that is applicable to our organization. Indeed it is. So, I'm not going to be there. Well, they're not so worst of it. They're not so worst of. Yeah. They're not so bad.

It passed. It sounds so much like this. I think it's pretty cool, though. Really? That's awesome. I mean, it's just an extra little open door. I saw it, and I was like, woo-hoo! Yeah, I was really excited. And here's the deal. So, we got – it's kind of sponsored by J.C. Walker and the folks at Moving Iowa. And you can go to there at movingiowa.org. And J.C.'s a real estate agent. He actually sold us our house. And then Luke Landis and Penny Carroll are also – Luke does mortgages, and Penny's a real estate agent as well. But J.C. kind of said, hey, look, you know, I got this slot. Would you want to put some of your stuff in there? I thought, wow. That was like out of the blue. Yeah. Yes, it is. Well, it wasn't totally out of the blue. I was – I kept harassing that poor guy.

I was harassing him to try to get some equipment because we didn't know what type of equipment we'd have in this joint. You didn't go to his house and pray. Lord, would you just provide an open door for us to be on 940 and make it really loud? But anyway, so, you know, whatever. They're not asking for me to shill or anything. But I really do appreciate they're giving us a spot of which I – you know, it's kind of how we got into this thing. I don't think had someone not said something, it's not like we would have come up with this on our own that, hey, let's do an internet radio show of some kind. Right. You know, and so coming from there and without that, we wouldn't have been able to come here. And without that kind of thing, we wouldn't – I don't think I would have thought of, you know, maybe let's be on Praise 940. Yeah. Ripple effect. Yeah. It's a pretty cool thing. I'm pretty excited. But anyway, you can go to – oh, so I was cutting the show for this and putting the stuff together. And I tell you, my favorite quote of all time, and I laugh – I don't laugh at a ton of stuff. But every time Dan says, Mike and Ben, make fun of the way I dress, they say I look like a couch. I laugh out loud every time. And I – that is the opening of our broadcast. It is.

On Praise 940. Do you have it all put together? I'm so glad no one ever commented saying that I dress like a couch. All right, Mike. We're ready? Not from our – dear lie from the path. My husband and I moved into our first home two years ago. A few months after that, our lives got even better with the addition of our son. After living here for a while, we noticed that the neighbors behind us have a large window in their shower. And they tend to take a lot of nighttime showers. I'm sure you can see where this is heading. For a long time, we chose to ignore it. But my motherly instincts are getting the better of me now. I can't help thinking of the day when my son is old enough to realize what he's seeing. My husband and I have been debating whether to tell our neighbors we can see them showering. Sometimes they get pretty carried away in there. Oh, no. Oh, wow. Should I tell them we can see everything? And if so, how do I go about it without causing them to be embarrassed, ashamed, or angry? Oh, man. Okay.

That's really awkward. So me and the wife have been looking at a house, right? We're looking at picking up a house. And the first thing I saw when I walked into the bathroom was that there was a window by the tub. And I thought, oh, well, we're going to have to put some kind of glazing on there to keep it so it's… Yeah. And it faces a field. A field. And I thought, well, whatever. My wife's naughty bits belong to me. You know, not the field and whoever, what guy seems to be driving by it. We're glazing the window. Yeah. You know? So first of all, these people that think that their neighbors are not aware of the giant opening window in their bathroom, that's a load of crap. There's no way someone does not look at a giant window with some kind of open shower action and not go, oh, my. I should cover this up with something. They know what's there. I can't imagine. Yeah. I can't imagine not thinking…

If you can see out, they can see in. Yeah. There's no way that they know what's there. It's kind of how a window works, isn't it? Yeah. Here's the bonus part, though. Here's the part that I love. So they said my husband and I moved into our first home two years ago. Two years ago. A few months after that, they had a son. So, you know, what if the kid's like one and a half? So now she's like, well, when my son gets old enough, I'm afraid of what he might realize what's going on. We'll call that age 12, 13. Yeah. So by the time they get there, these people are going to be old and wrinkly. I'm pretty sure he's going to know better. He's going to go, ew. And he will close the window himself. I'm fairly certain a 12-year-old doesn't care. No. If they're old and wrinkly. I don't know.

It's been a while since I've been 12. Oh, wow. It hasn't been a while since I was 12. I don't know. I refuse to come. That's the barry question. Should I tell them we can see everything? And if so, how do I go about it without causing them to be embarrassed, ashamed, or angry? I don't know. I suppose it really depends on how well you know these people. You know what I'm saying? Like, have you been to barbecues in the house, or is it like you get mad at them when their dog walks into your yard or something? I don't know. I mean, I agree with you. You have to have a relationship. Well, because, I mean, like, if I saw, I don't know, like, if it's someone I knew, I'd say, hey, man, I can see your business. Here's what I would do. If you really can't handle the awkward face-to-face thing, I would take a photo and mail a letter and say, by the way, here's what the entire neighborhood sees. Anonymous. Thought you might want to know. From my house? Anonymity.

You look like a bird. You could go just in a grass. Turn the flash off. Go in the grass. We don't want to get caught doing it. Now you're in the trouble. That's true. That's all you need to know is you go out to take the picture, and you get arrested for snapping pictures of naked people. The picture was kind of a last-second thought. I guess I should have thought that through better. Well, wait a minute. You can check out more on my website for $12.95. Actually, okay, so this was the wrong line of thinking. Just take it when they're not in there. Oh, yeah. Just take it when they're not in the shower. It's a good thing somebody's running this boat. By the way, I know there's other things that happen in there. It's like the three little pigs. First, Dan takes the picture and gets arrested. I'm like, well, don't worry, Dan. I'll take care of this for you.

And then I take the picture and get arrested. And then the smart pig Ben shows up and waits until they're not naked in the shower. That's a good idea. Solidly done. Okay, so would you like to hear Abby's advice? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Write your neighbors a polite note telling them that there's a clear view into their shower when their lights are on at night. Explain that before your son was born this was not of concern to you. But now that you have a small child, you would appreciate it if they would work with you on a solution to this problem. They may not be aware they've been putting on an X-rated show. Who's not aware of that? I'm pretty sure they're aware of it. If I'm in a shower next to this thing, like, I'm obviously going to know what's going on. Their neighbors have a large window in their shower. There is no way you don't know what's there. If I go into the bathroom of anyone I know's house and I've never been there in my entire life, the first thing I notice is there's a window. Yeah. Like, literally, I kid you not, I went over to Ann's mom's house the first time I ever went over. I walk in the bathroom, there's a window. I'm like, oh, man, I don't like windows of bathrooms. Oh, no.

I wasn't thinking, like, hmm, I wonder what that is. You put the toilet paper on the other side of the window, and then you've got to waddle over to get it? Who does that? Well, how do you do it? Crawl? I don't know that I, I don't think I've ever been somewhere where they placed the toilet paper on the other side of an open window inside the bathroom. You never know how the placement is. Here's what I'm saying. I don't think I've ever been naked or half-naked anywhere where I was not cognizant of any windows that were in the room, regardless of the reason that I was naked. I don't know. I don't understand. I love the last tidbit. That was nice. Regardless of the reason, I was naked. I could be there for any reason. I know very well what people are seeing what they're not seeing. So wait, I guess I don't understand. Give me her advice again. There were a couple of things that struck me, but maybe I need to hear it again. Write your neighbors a polite note telling them that there is a clear view into their shower when their lights are on at night. Explain that before your son was born. This was not a concern to you.

Okay, stop right there. Yeah, I thought that was a little odd. Stop right there. We kind of enjoyed it before the son was born. Hey, before our son was here, we were liking it. That kind of helped our son get born. Really, why would you even mention that? What are you trying to keep them from thinking by saying, we're all cool. We're thinking about putting our own window in. It's just my kids. It's just my kids. You understand? Otherwise, I'll write part. Yeah. You want to do what you got to do in the shower, in my lawn, or whatever? I'm cool with it. Yeah, it's just my kids, man. They're really dragging. I got to tone it off. You know what kids are. They're corruptible by that kind of thing. They're sponges.

Not me, by the way. By the way, nice tattoo. We named our son after you. I like that butterfly. Boy, you know what? Okay, that's terrible advice. Continue with the rest of it. Explain that before your son was born. It's not a concern to you. But now that you have a small child, you would appreciate it if they would work with you on a solution to this problem. That also seems a little too diplomatic. Like, let's negotiate you not showing your nudity and rampant sexual business into my house. Why don't you just lean your head out the widow and say, hey, Tony, cover up your bum. It's hanging in the breeze over here. There is! We all see it over here, man. I mean, okay, you can't walk down the street naked. There's laws about that. What are the laws if you're in your house and there's a window? Like you're in the Popemobile. I mean, that's still the same thing, isn't it?

Right. If people in glass houses have to hold it. But I mean, you can. Like, if there's a flasher in their house, they'd get in just as much trouble if they're like at the bus stop. Yeah, because it doesn't matter if you're on your property or not. People are still seeing it. Yeah. Well, if you were peeping Tom, could you sue somebody? I'd think. No. That's different. If you're going to their window. No, I'm not saying you're peeping Tom. You might have just been like, oh, I wonder what that house. Oh, jeez, what is that? Oh, I decided I was going to peep into their window driving by. Yeah, that's the story I would tell if I was a peeping Tom. You're driving past looking at houses. You're just like, oh, that's a really nice house. Don't mind the telescope. Look at that window.

And look inside of that window. You're going to need a good lawyer, Engeldinger. Yeah, you're really going to. I apologize that I don't have the freedom to be driving and look around the world. I've got these photos on my telescope. I'm going to put blinders on. Just walking around looking at the architecture. In this 1980s suburb. I really enjoy the old Victorian style of the home. And I looked at the glass window and saw the man. Frank Lloyd all around. There's nothing that gets me going like government built 1980s condos. I'm going to be down. Oh, boy. I wouldn't have used the phrase Frank Lloyd all right if there were more than 15 people in the chat. But since it's 15 or under, I'll say what I want. Franklin all right. Okay, ready? The joke is Frank Lloyd all right, not Franklin all right. That doesn't make any sense. It's not funny if it's Franklin all right.

I laughed at it even after I said it. Obviously, it's got some nittles to it. Laughing at your own jitters. Continue. Let's see. Dear Abby, I recently attended a play with my mother and daughter. We were looking forward to an evening together. After we were seated, a young girl and her mother came up and sat directly behind us. The girl was sick and she coughed. Hacked, really. Throughout the entire performance. Not only was it disturbing, but the coughing was so loud we missed a lot of the dialogue. Those tickets were not cheap and we did not enjoy the play as much as we could have. What would have been the proper way to handle that situation? Troy? Now, hold on. Before you answer, think in reality. Like Damasus says, everyone's got something to say behind a computer screen. In reality, what would you do? Paint the picture again. So a mom and her daughter and her mom come in. Grandma, mom, daughter.

They go in to see a play. Expensive play. Annie on Broadway, we'll call it. They go in to see Warbucks and they sit down. 80 bucks a piece? We'll say $100. Gelato in between acts? Yeah, there's a gelato. Definitely. Free gelato. That's how much the ticket was. Okay. So anyway, here come two homeless looking ladies. One daughter, one mom come in. They're smoking back there. Or they're coughing at the least. So they're causing a big ruckus. You can't hear anything. Now they're very upset. What do you do? What did they do? They didn't actually say what they did.

What would you have done? I think you could do one of two things. Okay. I think you could take a stand for yourself. Be polite to the person and then ask them to either cover their mouth or leave because they are coughing so much and causing a disturbance. Obviously, not just you. If she's saying that this woman is hacking. Yeah. You're in a concert theater. You're not just talking to the person in front of you. There's a lot of people who are going to hear you. So, I mean, that's just plain and simple. Yeah. What does the ticket buy you, though? Yes. The ticket did buy you. Like if I got to go load up on the hoo-ha and I buy a ticket to a theater, I go and do whatever I want? That doesn't seem right. That's why I'm saying that's option A. That's one.

Yeah. I think that's what I would do. I would try and be polite to them and say, I'm sorry. I'm trying to enjoy this. We paid the exact same amount and you are not helping me with my experience. You're coughing right on to me. Can you do something to silence it or leave for a while or get a drink of water? I drove all the way from Massachusetts for this show. I spent every last dollar I had and I got sick on the way. Well, maybe you should have decided not to be sick. I should have decided not to be sick. Yes. Yes. She has typhus. That's why she's there. She's on the outs. This is her final wish. Was that in it? Was that in the way? Did you care before you started spouting off at the mouth at her? You're really somebody else. No.

If you hear what I said, I said, be polite about it. Don't say, you know what, lady? I'm sick of your crap. Stuck coughing in my face or get out or this is getting physical. And I would say, turn around and watch the plate. I'll cough in the back of your hip. Ma'am, I'm sorry. It's just you're very audible with your coughs. Or option B, you can ask to be seated in a different place. If it's a full house. Did it say it was a full house? Are you making assumptions to the scenario? That's why the tickets were so expensive. The gelato was also an assumption as well. They didn't say in their letter. It also didn't say the lady was homeless. Actually, she didn't say. That's very true. She didn't say. I quoted them saying hacking. What row she was in or anything. Well, so I guess.

Does it matter? No. If you're in the front row, you man. I would go. I would. Maybe this is the biggest like pansy thing to do, but I would go tell somebody else. I would go find somebody that works there and say, hey, look. Hey, dude. Did you notice that? She's coughing. Not like another like. Like a buddy. Like you're getting a coup going. Like you and the gang of fellas are going to come up and say. Are you getting sick of this like I am, man? Pick your questions on your nerves. It would be pretty obvious if I left and they came back down. And then like two minutes later, some guy comes back in and goes, oh, ma'am. Excuse me, myth. It's like, hmm, I wonder who tattled on me. But I have taffas. You know, I would probably just sit there and secretly wish they would leave but wouldn't

do anything about it, to be honest. I'd sit there and think, I just up on Murk is. You'd really do that if you paid $100 for Annie on Broadway when you get a gelato halfway through? Because I know they did too. Yeah. I mean. I would totally put up with it until my wife said I shouldn't put up with it anymore. I would wait until. I use the wife as a tipping point. If she's had enough, now I've had enough. But still. What if you're a single bachelor like me and I don't have that? Well, who am I to say you need to leave? What kind of swinging bachelor are you having? Maybe I need to leave. I said single, not swinging. Well, now, hold on. Okay, all right. Hold on a bit. Hold on. Let's get back to Dan's point.

Dan says, who am I to say that they're to leave? Let's say they take out. They're doing an armpit fart. Or an air horn. Yeah, yeah. That's a whole different thing. Yeah. Yeah, that's how I clap. That's how I clap. I love it with my belly. So, I mean, like, because it's a natural – this is going to go down the wrong path. But because it's a natural body function, is it perfectly fine to be as loud as you want? Well, like, if it's a cough, they can't help it. I mean, I might hand them a cough drop. You know, like, hey, this might help. An industrial-sized one? I always have a supply. Dan, typhus is a bacterial disease. Well, how do I know they have that? I just said they did. Why are we making assumptions again about the gelato and the typhus and the homeless people who wouldn't be able to afford a $100 Broadway ticket?

That's all they could afford. It's her dying wish because she has typhus. You want to play this game or what, Igelinger? That's just, like, back in the days when we lived, like, in a free country and people could smoke next to me. I figured, okay, if they want to smoke next to me, you know, they don't have to leave. If I don't like it, I should probably leave because I'll go somewhere else that doesn't have to leave. It's very similar to when someone's giving a prayer at the Senate. I guess so. So it's the rude guy that gets to run the culture. 50 rude people could clear out a theater of 2,000. I was not being rude. No, no, no, hold on. I'm talking about what Dan said. Because, actually, I get your point, really. That guy is free to smoke. I'm free to not smoke. If he's smoking, I can't deprive him of what he does. I don't want to bother him. I should leave, right? Iowa can.

But that's also saying that, like, you've got a theater full of 3,000 people. 50 rude people that are going to call through the whole thing can scatter the lot. Seems like you should toss the 50. Yeah. Majority rules. Okay, what about church? Someone comes in and they're just being obnoxious. They're talking really loud. Their baby's crying. Something happening. I try not to, Dan. We've talked about this all the time. I try not to. I'm sorry. Brandon is just in one. Womp. I've got to have us. Sorry I went to who? I couldn't help it. Get your garlic wind out of here. Like, the rudest thing, especially in a church setting where you're hoping they find Jesus or something.

But, you know, you just kind of hope they have the decency to leave. Yeah. You know, but they don't always. Some people don't think about it. Or they're all thinking, oh, they're about ready to stop, you know, and it keeps going on for five minutes. For about five minutes, they're getting ready to stop. I would have someone approach them and say, we have a nursery. Or we have water available outside. And that's what I'm saying. I'll never come back to this unfriendly church. We have a nursery. Take your sickness in with the kids? We have a nursery over on a carpeted floor. I think the nursery comment was more for the kid and then the water was more for the cough. Oh, sorry. Yeah. I thought you were like, we have a nursery. As soon as they get outside, they're sick. We have a nursery. The two-armed guys haul them outside.

We need to get our children's immunity up. So go ahead and take a vitamin E. Go in the nursery real quick. Like, get some air with this. You know what irritates me is when I see people checking their phone messages during the church. I can't stand that. I know. People do that. Like, but their secret is, and usually I see it because I sit in a way back, you know, so I get to see the back row and they'll kind of tip over. Are they all teens? I've gone to this church for almost 10 years. And I know that I've done everything we're all saying right now. So I apologize to the… The phone and the wind both? Oh, I've done the wind. I mean, if we're… I used to go to the nursery. Guys, if we're going to be honest here, which I try and be honest with you guys, but I'm an engledinger, and we all know what that means. They got the wind?

Garlic wind. We go to who had a lot. We got the wind. Tell them, Swayze. No, but I checked my phone, so I can't really talk in this situation. What could be so important you got to check your phone during the Lord's service? I was like 14, and I thought every text message from a girl was the most important thing on the planet, okay? That's fair. Thank you. That's fair. I checked mine. Not during the church service, but I will pick it up. There's only one phone call I'll take during the church service, and if it's the wife, I'll take that. Because that means that there's something that has happened that she's not going to be there. That's the only phone call. I stored a Jesus in my phone with no numbers on it that way in case he wants to get a hold of me. It will come up. I will know to answer.

I didn't want to put God in a box, so I just left the numbers blank. I don't know his number. He's going to know mine. Wouldn't that be the deal if he called, but you said, I don't recognize the number. Decided not to get it. So I thought, well, I don't want to be putting that position. Just saved Jesus in there. That's awesome. Hey, Ben, I tried to call, man. Hey, man. It was like 80 years ago. Why didn't you answer my phone call, man? What were you so busy doing that you couldn't? First, you took the handle off your door. So I tried to knock on it. You were listening to me. I've got to do this open it. I've been out in this garden forever. It's getting cold out here. These hostas are growing unruly. All I brought was a robe. Some guy wrote a cool song, but he put me permanently in this garden by myself.

I walked through the garden alone. What did Ann say about the situation? Unless the house was sold out, you should have spoken to an usher or the theater manager and asked to be seated elsewhere. And if you were concerned about catching something, you should have asked to exchange the tickets for another performance and left. If it's real obnoxious, I would do that. But what if you're from Massachusetts? Yeah, what if you took a drive in, man? Come on. But who drives in? Come on, Abby. I'd also want a free motel. Not everybody can jet set left and right from the left from the east coast to the right coast. Really? If you're going to see Annie, you deserve to lose some cash. You really shouldn't be driving to go see Annie. You should wait until your local theater of kids puts it on, and then you can go see the exact same show you're going to see on Broadway. You know what? I'm sorry. Excuse people for trying to live a cultured life, all right?

A cultured life. You barbarian. If you want to have a cultured life, don't go see Annie. What do you suggest, Tortillas Pizza Rolls, man? Do I state once that I'm the cultured guy? Well, obviously, you know what culture is not. Yeah, go to an art museum. That's all I know. That's stereotypically cultural. Have you ever been to an art museum? Yes, I have. What did you think? I liked it. It was very artsy. Looks like a bunch of people threw up under the wall. Like that thing downtown you walk around? It's just like, really? Actually, that crazy-looking rabbit sitting out there. Oh, my gosh. I love that rabbit. That thing freaks me out. Yeah, but it totally reminds me of Donnie Dark.

Think of what we could have done with that money. They got a bunch of iron sitting in a yard with boobs and stuff, and it's like, really? You could have given us that cash. We could have used it for something good. Did you see that praying mantis they put in Altoona? No. They put, like, a big metal praying mantis in Altoona. I saw it leaving Waukee. That would freak me out. On a trailer. I was out working and doing something. Do you know where it's at in Altoona? No, no, no. No, I'm trying to tell a story. My apologies. This is important. So, anyway, I get in my car, right? And I close the door, and all of a sudden, I don't see the trailer. I just see this giant mantis come rolling by, and I thought, this is why I don't come to the side of town. Like, I feel comfortable on the east side when you can see a good beer run or some kind of traffic accident or graffiti.

You know, I come to the west side, and what do I see? A 13-foot praying mantis missing all its innards. It's just a skeleton. And I thought, this is the devil mantis. I got no business here. I got to get out of here. And then I see the trailer come by, and I'm, it's relieved. I'm like, oh, well, someone's just transporting it. It can't move on its own yet until it gets to be stronger. It just ate at his husband. Right now, they're putting it to where it needs to go. Pat says it's behind the Hy-Vee. Yeah, I think it is behind the Hy-Vee. Well, they've been doing a lot of work back there. That's creepy. Yeah, not for long. Thank you, Pat. In the garden with a praying mantis statue. You put it in a garden somewhere. Why would you want that? I don't know. Why would you want a gigantic umbrella?

Now, here's the deal. See, I say things like that, but I would never think of that crazy rabbit, but I do love it. I look at that rabbit, and I think, you wily galoot. Let's get together on this deal. Only you would look at that thing and think that. He's the show. I mean, he's sitting on something. He's looking. He's sitting like a human. He's all the show. I mean, he's kind of like a ratty-looking rabbit. I mean, he looks like he might jump off and do anything, like scat for a while, or run around and jog and stuff. So he's a jazzy, jazzy metal rabbit. He's whatever he wants to be, is what he is. He's a self-empowered homeless rabbit. It's guzzy. I totally think it looks like Donnie Darko. It creeps me out. Because he got the taphous. You know it's a form of rickets? What? It's from the same bacteria, rickettsia.

I got the rickets. Is this thing on? You got the rickets? Rickets is a vitamin D deficiency, is it not? Except unless you got the bacteria with the taphous. With the taphous. Typho rickets. That's it. All right, what do you got? You got another one? Yeah, one more. Here we go. Oh, we got four minutes. You got to get moving. Oh, the rabbit. The rabbit is downtown in the sculpture garden. Yeah. Right next to, it's in between the library and the Better Homes and Gardens place. Okay, ready? Oh, man. Meredith Publishing. I sucked this one up in the vacuum.

Might be hard to read. Every year for the last six years, I've hosted a family gathering at my home. Each and every year, my cousin's wife, Jody, does everything possible to ensure that we all know that she's upset about something. She'll sit the family on my couch as far removed from the family as possible, grumbling under her breath to her husband. Jody never says more than four words to me, the hostess, the entire time, none of which are, thank you. Then she feigns food poisoning. No one else gets sick. Every year? Every year. This has been going on longer than the six years I've hosted the event. My question is, would it be tactless of me to ask my cousin to leave his wife home next year? I'm not the only family member who is disgusted with Jody's behavior, and I think we'd all have a better time if she wasn't there. Would that be wrong of me? Honestly, I think you should request that she host something and see how much better she does. She says no. Next.

Out. Wow. She doesn't like people. I'd kick them both out. I wouldn't invite the husband either. I'd tell the husband. Is he the brother? Cousin. Oh, he's a cousin. Who cares? Yeah, I gotta… Don't invite him. I think they're out, dude. You know what, if you don't have enough good sense to know that your wife is a pill at the party, you're not doing anybody any favors. You ain't going. Stop being a Buzz Killington. Yeah. You know, and maybe this is terrible to say, but I do think if you have a Buzzkill wife or irritating and crappy children, it's your job to not drag everybody else down. Take your situation and get it out of here. You think you could take a blind eye towards your own kids?

Like, you think, I mean, you think it's possible that people who have irritating kids don't know it? They're like, yeah, these kids are awesome. Oh, yeah. I know people like that. Yeah. Really? Absolutely. Like, do you think they do it on purpose or do they just… They just assume it's everybody else's fault or the other kids' fault. Yeah. My kids aren't annoying. Oh, man. Boy, at the first sight of my kids being annoying, like, I… Oh, man. I try to snag them and drag them out. I can't imagine what my dad and mom did at, like, family events. They might have been the… My kids aren't annoying kind of parents. We're sick. We can't come tonight. Yeah.

They probably were like, you know what, Trey and Troy, they're good boys. They're good friends. And then in all actuality, we're not. We're terrible. We're horrible. You're an awful person. Yeah. I'm obnoxious. We were… I know. We were, like, ultra-sensitive. Like, I mean, if our child, like, looked left and they should have looked right, we're like, okay, you're out, you know? Yeah. You're gone. Next. You're gone. Next. You're not coming next time. Yeah, but some parents, they just kind of let them go wild and… I can't stand that because the problem is that I end up getting upset at the child first off and I think, I'm upset at this kid.

Why am I so mad at this little man? It's not his fault. You know? And then I can't ever shake it. And then from now, every time I see that kid, I'm like… And I can't ever get past the fact that I'm just like a small child. Yeah. And so, it always makes me mad when people don't take care of their unruly kids because then I end up not liking the kid. And it's not fair. It's not fair. You're a mean person. You are a mean person. You want the truth? You got it. Wrap it up. I never asked. You want a praying mantis in your yard? Keep up your attitude. I have millions. Millions to spare. All right.

You've been listening to Live from the Path. Thanks so much for being with us here tonight. Thanks, Troy, for coming in. Absolutely. Much appreciated. Always good to see you, Troy. And next week… I'm not sure. What's going on next week? Save it on Sunday next week? No. No, we did… Save it on Sunday. We'll be back in studio, not next week, but the week after. Really? Yep. They're coming back. And, yeah, I don't know. I don't know what's going on. I might be. Troy Engelinger might be back in the studio. Actually, we'll probably have…

We'll be doing some… I really hope to get a Tales from the Path ready. And then we will be doing some non-biblical signs. It's been about three or four weeks on Non-Biblical Signs of the Apocalypse. We're going to hit some of those. And, anyway, you can catch us during the week at livefromthepath.org. Make sure you check out the Praise 940 show on Sunday. And it'll be rip-roaring. It'll be sweet. And we will see you next week.