city of the state to execute and deliver to the demands of the regular people, private sector, as well as the businesses. And the first and the most important thing which DMK did when they came to power was to remove rural positions based on hereditary and caste. And again, the elitization of bureaucracy. So for example, I also run this thing called Dravida Professional Forum, which was founded by the Honorable Minister for Finance P.T.A. Palliwell-Thyagarajan. So we had the senior ex-bureaucrat, Mr. Narayan, who was in charge for setting up midday meals in India. He came and spoke to us. And he was saying that one of his junior officers, who had actually implemented midday meals along with him, was hired by World Bank. And it was a fire assignment. They want to do the same thing, improve the capacity like in Tamil Nadu, in West Bengal and states like Odisha in the 90s. And he tried hard for five years and failed. And Narayan says, the reason was ethos. The officials were not in sync with the demand of the population. So in Tamil Nadu, what they did was they were able to link the bureaucracy with social justice through reservation and also via de-elitization. So by which what I mean is people from all walks of life were brought into bureaucracy. If you will now look at chief engineers of Tamil Nadu of every department, they represent every caste in the state. Or if you go to the northern state, most of the officials you would see from very few elite caste. So because of that, they had empathy. So because of the empathy, they were able to understand the needs of people belonging to their caste. And because of this people are also easily able to walk to a Thalu office or block office or basically even to collector's office and demand their rights. And another most important thing was the organization structure. So when DMK had an organization from district secretaries, who was equivalent to a collector and then village panjaited. So because of these, these people kind of worked in parallel to the bureaucracy. So sometimes they work in, they work to fulfill the aspiration of their constituents. So there's also this study by Mr. Wain, I think he made a study around India. And he also spoke to people and he was very curious why they had to create institutes like IITs and IMs. IITs and IMs for a country like India, which probably takes about 0.5 or 0.1% of students. Why should they spend so much money? Because those money could have been spent on primary education. And then he says in his study that because all the decision makers belong to the top most community, the Brahmin community, they were not able to understand the aspirations of the broader segment of Indians as a whole. And that's the only reason why instead of spending on primary education, huge amount of money was setting up of these institutions. And also there's another interesting book by Mr. Vivek Shri was on delivering public services in Tamil Nadu where he travels across India and says that Tamil Nadu and Kerala are two unique states when it comes to delivery of public services. And he says the same reason of how the empathy among the officials is the reason. The third point would be the role of justice party. So Justice created his manifesto in 1927. And so the first and other things they did in the manifesto was to ban schools that did not accept students from lower caste, remove revoke permits for bus licenses for buses that refused to take people belonging to inferior caste. And then also for the first time in India, they had the industrial policy. So no state had industrial policy unless until justice party came and introduced the same. So what industrialization did was it helped in rapid urbanization. So what rapid urbanization did was move people to urban areas. So village is the place where all the caste hierarchies are really hard or really strong. So because people kind of move to urban areas that also helped in the direction of caste hierarchies. So even now if you look both DMK and ADMK have throughout time worked to fulfill the policy party manifesto. Look, DMK played a major role in promoting MSMEs. We are starting SIPCOT, SIPCO and also ADMK under MGR expanded the medium he started by the justice party. So then another misnomer I wanted to talk about is freebies. So I think the term doesn't exist. So there have been a lot of criticism saying both DMK and ADMK are squandering the public money by giving freebies. I think it's not a freebie, it's not a term. So recently a leader announced 4000 rupees to each person who needs it. And again there were articles written which said all these are freebies. But these are not freebies. These are given to people in need. These are given to people who make less than $5 a day or $4 a day or $3 a day. So it's basically simple economics. You put money in hands of people who don't have it. The economy goes. The economy will definitely grow. And also they said no, no, no, trickle down economy will work. So they should focus only on the industries. In a stratified society like India, trickle down economy will definitely not work unless you can unify and make them unitary. In fact, even in a comparatively unitary society, that is the US, trickle down economics has not worked from 1980s until now. Inequality has grown really big. So again, another criticism which was made, even now it is being made is giving free color TVs, which was seen as blatant corruption. But research paper published by Oxford University Press clearly says that giving color TV along with access to cable TV empowered women the most. They compared the study with, compared Tamil Nadu city in Brazil as well as Kenya. They say when women started watching TVs more they were able to get the aspiration of women in the cities. They refused being beaten up by the husbands more. They kind of also wanted to put women children in school. So enrollment women's children increased drastically. So going to the future of the movement, I would say future of the movement will now depend on how DMK performs because DMK means only party and how to be managing resources. And there are also other constraints which we did not have earlier, which we did not have earlier, such as we have a really strong BJP government. And they want to create one state, one language and one culture and every day we see new policies that's coming and that's kind of fitting fatalism. So as Vijay Bhaskam mentioned, GSTs have completely stopped states autonomy to tax goods. And again, we are dependent on the central government for money. So if the relationships are not good, the money is not going to come. Already state finances are really bad shape. I think it's 5.7 lakhs crores plus about another 3.3 lakhs with about 9 lakh crores are dead, which is I would say about 100 billion euros. So that's the another problem. Plus, we have interference in education such as NEET. So for example, the reason why Tamil Nadu has one of the best healthcare system is because we didn't have a controlled exam. It was through a simple 12th exam and also 12th board was easier. So it was equal for everyone. So because of that and also there was reservation across cast lines and also reservation for students studying in government schools and students from rural area. Because of this, we had doctors from every region and this enabled spatial distribution of doctors. In fact, even Norway is struggling to find doctors in the remote regions of Norway. So in Tamil Nadu that wasn't a problem because of the C entrance exams are definitely beneficial to the elites. And in poor country like India are definitely going to pay with the rich.  So poor means lower caste. So which means, which means there's not going to be spatial distribution of doctors. In fact, I studied in Sianspo. So the elite French school where most of the French students who want to be presidents, they go and study. So even Sianspo last year canceled the entrance exam saying it only promotes elites to join. So only elites get into the public service. So if it's the same for a country which is so low in any index and has a very high per capita GDP. So for India, then entrance exams are definitely discriminatory. So now we don't have the relaxation even with the national education policy. There's a lot of interference in education. Another thing that's going to hinder our policies is increase in growth via private sector companies. So now growth is proper, we have private sector companies. So we can't provide affirmative action. And so there's again some caste might be left out. And another example of touching government institutions or universities in Tamil Nadu is the central government wanted to take Anna University and make it into an institute of eminence. So these things are definitely going to make things very difficult for DMK and also to take the movement very forward. So other things that the movement can work is to make it more inclusive for women. If you hear Mr. Varnier speak, he spoke about how there are very less women within the DMK. So that could be one aspect and second aspect is also youth. If you look at number of MLAs with less than age of 45 minimum. So these are the two things which a party should focus on and also to cater to the aspirations of these categories. So I would like to conclude by saying whatever India tries to do, it can achieve growth only by trying to make every community grow. That's to by providing equitable growth. So the only way or only way possible for all of India to grow is the TN model. So whatever the structural reforms we make until we make sure that money is not concentrated on the hands of the few, we will not be able to grow. So with this, I would like to end. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you for your overview of, you know, Yeah, okay. Yeah, I mean, we've had, we've, you know, you've given this, this big long kind of picture as to where the DMK proposes to move. Obviously there are areas where mobilization would get possibly stronger in the coming years, given the way the political dialogue is moving to attract the youth in climate justice, ecological justice and those kind of newer areas of intervention. And also you talked about how women's participation can be increased through new technologies, possibly access to technologies. So it's really, you know, you're bringing back the whole point of increase access and expand areas of access, and therefore engage with a more inclusive dialogue. You also obviously shown this, you know, the long term, very unique Tamil Nadu's position of building this kind of caste solidarity, that is not just about individual casts, but to question constantly the elitism within the caste movement and how the lower caste groups have, have mobilized along those lines. I think that's that's another area that can then strengthen some, some new environmental movements or new areas of the economy. And with that I want to highlight a particular question that has been raised by Professor Barbara Harris White from Oxford University, where she talks about waste economy, and how modernity means waste and waste is the fastest growing economic sector, though you wouldn't know because there are no data, as she says, but waste is regarded as a tech engineering sector with HGs, NGOs added to the sambhar but it's a caste problem. The upper caste who act as those entitled to throw waste. It is a huge sector still dominated by SCs and STs, and local tax evasion staffs municipalities of the finance needed to deal with waste so you have rampant privatization and contractualization in which the conditions of work and the incomes of those who deal with waste has nose dived dramatically in recent times. So the informal economy is now essential to Tamil Nadu's urban and increasingly rural cleanliness. So if Tamil Nadu's politics still stands for social justice, why don't you lead India and clean up waste. I think it also ties up with organizing decent work conditions, recycling issues, as well as the youth politics that we were talking about, and new areas in which this can be tied with entrepreneurship technology, as well as growth in some form. So that's that's one point that probably ties up with your manifesto of where DMK could move. And there's also some other points that I think the whole issue of education we've already discussed what what NEP is trying to do and what difficulties therefore NEP can pose for the DMK. I think the other questions we've more or less touched, I can't see anything else at the moment in the question panel. So if there's Dharan Dharan you have to leave perhaps the question is quite general. And I think anybody who in the panel, Professor Vijay Bhaskar if you want to say anything on waste economy, or Andrew if you want to say anything. Prabhu if you have any points to add to already what Dharan Dharan has said, then we can just wrap up the session from there on. Anyone from the panel? I don't have anything to say except I'm in agreement with Dharan Dharan saying that waste economics are definitely tied to past segmentation of the labour market and with this by large extent of investment. But my only thing is it has always been the case. It would be difficult for me to make the case that these things have got worse than now. That may not be quite except the fact that the intensity of the amount of waste generation, the amount of labour that is kind of involved in cleaning up this has probably increased. But apart from the fact that has been a contractualization happening of workers within sanitation departments of rural bodies, even when they were there, there was a large amount of informal waste because operating simultaneously. Do we see any shift in Dalit enterprise around waste economy?  But they're all small scale. The thing about capital, it is driven by caste. We know access to capital has been suffused with caste all along. So what is kind of visible is this more immediate kind of relationship between caste and capital at the local level, at the retail level, not just about Dalit human and backward caste and the kind of alliance between political elites and etc and so on. But what is interesting is seldom do these businesses become big. Very rarely, except for this very small phase in the post-1990s where you had a business group like GMR, GBK and IVRCL from Andhra Pradesh, moving from the domain of provincial accumulation to relatively pan-Indian kind of accumulation. You don't find any businesses actually kind of competing with this established big business groups. And established big business groups are all, again, relatively, not relatively, they're all upper caste or in traditional North Indian communities. So this thing, this capitalist, it's not just labor, but capital is also, you know, simply conditioned by caste and extent to which people from lower caste, capital from lower caste can actually become bigger pan-Indians seems to be very, very difficult and much more so in the current phase. Sure. Yeah, I think overall we have, you know, we've kind of raised this whole point of, you know, why BJP is also still not quite performing in the well in the states, what are its own obstacles. And we can see that, you know, the DMK has capitalized on some points, its manifesto obviously tries to, you know, rope in as many differences as possible, but also create that kind of an inclusive agenda within its very progressive manifesto to tide over all these various divisions. But on the other hand, the central government is also trying to through its say new education policy or to remove affirmative actions or through its own measures. There is this drive, there's a social narrative that, you know, less of state intervention in determining property relations in cutting back on dictating social norms, etc. But there is that thing that, you know, the state is unable to control these things. So that kind of will always remain the challenge and that will always remain the struggle for states, I feel. And apart from that, BJP has its own kind of top level poor state performance because of its own limitations of local leadership, or its poor performance of the economy and particularly in the pandemic context, you know, the difference between state management and the central management of the disputes around who manages the vaccine, the vaccine nationalism itself is showing these kind of fractures and divisions quite clearly now. And within, within all this, you know, how would we situate any overarching debate that is now nationally, many people are talking about, is this a failed state say the center is a failed state how would the states then respond to anything. This is a failed state but some people are sort of saying, could be this potential failed state. So this image does it actually help or does it actually fuel the state center relations in a different direction, you know, given the kind of larger structure, and particularly with Tamil Nadu where the emphasis is on Dravidian ideology in this whole grassroots movement that it's that that is quite strong there, and it tries to, you know, build on that and move forward. So, on the one hand there is a strong grassroots movement on the other hand there is that kind of top down measures that are constantly coming and I think that's where the challenge would be for DMK to tide over so if there are any final comments from the panel. These are my thoughts that I've seen from the discussion. Yeah, I would bring two things together so I kind of really interested in the state cabinet and what strikes me is really interesting is that I'm not sure that MK Stalin stands above the cabinet in quite the way that his father did. And I don't think that's necessarily problematic and I just mentioned something that MSS Panyan wrote about six years ago when she talked about Miranda Modi and the politics of decisionism that a lot of people superficially very attracted to Modi's business and I think what we know six years on is, you can be decisive and frankly talk complete nonsense, and it's not helpful and you, you have to evolve a kind of plural style of politics, in which, you know, you devolve delegate other, you know, cabinet colleagues to your very, very able civil servants and so on and this is the problem with the center is that Modi just doesn't trust people around him and expertise and so on and I think that's part of the problem, you know, where we're at it's not. It's as true of the economy as it is of the response to COVID so plural politics it doesn't look very attractive and people can mock it is kind of policy drift and all the rest of it but but actually, I think India in many ways is a very mature state and then politically very mature and sadly in the last six years have rolled back from that I think and I think Tom that is interesting because still there's a sense in which this kind of pluralism is there so it's not perfect by any means but it is, you know, it's, it's how politics works, you know it's complicated and it's messy. Yeah, we have one or one or two minutes left for anyone or two statements from all of you.  Certainly, I mean having lived through it, you know, I can attest to it.  As far as the center state tradition is concerned. I think the attempt of the BJP is to, you know, deal with each and every state individually and try to avoid the formation of an opposition from that would necessarily come from regional formations. And what we've seen over the past few months it's more and more, you know, regional parties or regionalist parties talking to one another and expressing themselves in concert and basically planting the seed of a future opposition front. And so the more the BJP, the government pushes, you know, on the button of, you know, centralism and unionized real decisions and and championing on, you know, stays prerogative and so forth, the more it's going to push all those party leaders together. And the fact that you don't have immensely towering figures, you know, is actually conducive to building, you know, coalition that I would hope to at least be a little bit functioning was been seen in the past. And so, so the next few months are going to be really interesting. Everything is going to focus is going to turn on UP. So everything is going to be, you know, about that, but I would really urge everyone to keep looking at what's happening in the state that just went to the pool. Yeah, yeah, I think I think I want to tell the audience that, you know, we're going to keep this kind of conversation rolling, bring more comparative examples and, you know, look at more specific questions of leadership. The last question is obviously quite big and broad and so diverse and the interesting thing from this panel is that, you know, there isn't, there isn't that that understanding which is quite holistic about cast but also how it connects specifically to electoral performances, leadership questions, ability to create consensus around certain groups within the cast, and also the practice of elitism and questioning elitism from within. So a lot of these issues came up very well. So if you have another line to add and then we wrap up with Vijay Bhaskar and then finish this. I just wanted to say I think like there has been two themes like which I feel kind of been repeated and like that was in my mind was like one is health and education inequalities and other support inclusion. And like so far obviously like it has been like only five weeks like since the new government has come into place and there was a lot of expectations. And I'm hoping like once the COVID situation is like better I'm like looking forward to see more of like the clarification of their stand and this being justified. Thank you. Vijay Bhaskar there is a point about anti intellectualism. You know whether that is that that is going to be the trend or you feel you don't want to answer that and leave it for another time. Yes. I think the point is about prevailing and growing anti intellectualism in both Dravidian and central parties. There isn't a fine distinction here but I think anti intellectualism is is a trend in in other parts of this world it's a kind of a global question perhaps as well. I don't know I was thinking that recently especially if you look at the looks of elections I think there are write-ups in the newspapers that work out a series of victory. So I don't know. Another thing I mean definitely lessons into the case I don't think that's good. But having said that yeah I mean as I mean as states always have they always been looked at the political support I don't know. So the point about the center state relation right now is is to kind of keep watching and looking at more comparative prospects here. And of course the pandemic and the response is going to shape quite a lot as to how we look at reconstruction, as well as leadership questions, and we look forward to more sessions like this. On that note, I want to thank Professor Villa busker for being with us, Andrew about to stay this long, and also Dr very near to be with us for agenda and as well. Thank you also for your participation and being here. I think our other speakers have now left, and I want to wrap this up, and a very good evening to all of you. Thank you again. Bye. Excellent. Thank you so much.


In this video, you will see rare Yu-Gi-Oh! items, pack opening, and all the Yu-Gi-Tubers while I was at YCS Charlotte. What's up guys, I'm about to show you guys a ton of awesome videos that I took while I was at YCS Charlotte. It was a ton of fun. Thanks to everyone who came up and said hi. If you want to hear about my experience, go check it out on my other channel called Ruxen Live. I'm going to be talking about it a little bit more and a little bit more in depth. This is going to be some of the videos that I took while I was there. I'll be giving away this Cyber Strike Structure Deck. All you have to do is like this video, be subscribed, and let me know your favorite moment from all the clips that you're about to see. This is a wild of Gage's natural habitat. There he is, cry-gy. Yo, what's up Ruxen fans? I'm Chaotic Meatball. I just won a speed duel event and kicked the guys that beat him. So I avenged Ruxen's death. All this to say we're opening a speed duel tournament back. Yeah. Oh, okay. Pick that up in a second. Alright, Blue Eyes by Dragon. Blue Eyes by Dragon. Dark Magician Girl. Time Wizard. This is classic. How's it going over there, dude? You dropped the same time that you did, so not too good? Oh, you mean day two? Top 32? Yeah, yeah, definitely. I got beat because I couldn't find any monsters. What happens when you play Flunder? After starting 11-0, that's pretty rough, man. Right, yeah. Yeah, that's pretty rough.   This is my pickups. You know, I'm trying to reach Ruxen's level. Dude, you've already passed me there with this page. This is my pickups for the weekend. I spent about six racks. I had that 550K coming in right there. Man, no. Oh, yeah. Look at that. Yeah, guys, I'm letting Ruxen see if my conditions are the cards that I got ripped off or not, so let's see. Sam's picking up some fire right now. So you see the Ulti and Prince? Oh, yeah. That's pretty normal. Is this normal? Is this European, right? Yeah, this is your old Prince. So you're going to tell me if there were Prince. Top to top of my head? All right, I'll do my best. Okay, never mind. You see this? Page one. We saw that it was most of those. Cyber Dragon, baby. How much do you look at it? That's beautiful. Rux, how much do you look at it? Oh, my gosh, dude. You're going to hook me up with these people. We're on to this. You're going to grade any of these? Yeah, I do have them. Should I? If they're like nine quality on wood, yep, you need to grade that. 100%. Yeah, I mean, it might not get a 10, but it's still be worth it to grade for a nine. Because like the $100 right now is actually really fast. These are all mint. Yeah, we grade those too. These are all mint. Because these nines are crazy. If you get a 10 on one of these, you might make your 18K, though. And one heart? It'll be close. It'll be above 10,000. Above 10,000. About other set. Oh, my gosh. About other set, baby, look at that. This is like, I'll see you, though. Yeah, but that's still awesome. Those are really hard. Yeah, I just want to get these. Yeah. But yeah. So basically... You bought like four pages worth for 18K. 18 racks. I mean, that's a lot of good stuff, though. That's insane. It was nice? This guy's crazy. Let's go. We've got the Ruxin 34 here, opening his five Starlight packs. Starlight packs of battle cast. Let's see if we can do it. All right, all right. Here we go. This is how you do it. That's a weird one. Prepare for the Starlight. That's actually it. Let's go. Yep. Shell. Good start. Mastery birth. Maybe. Oh, I had those in my mind. Can we get something good? Can we get the jet dragon? Some of my side cards. Okay. It's a whiff. Dogmatica? I like dogmatica. Not that one, though. Not the one we want. Cool. You got plenty of time. Nothing to worry about here. Plenty of Starlights to be pulled. Let's go. What the f***? Nope. Not happening in that one. That's okay. We're just waiting for the big one. Yo, what's up? How you doing? Hi. How you doing? All right, all right. NBT's bringing us some luck, getting some of your pictures. You got some luck? Yeah, right here. What's with my voice? Oh! All right, this was like six bucks last time I pulled it, so that's not bad. Nice. That's going to make my 23 bucks back. Slowly, but surely. Let's go. Let's go. All right. Come on, baby. Secret rare time. We're just leaning up. Ultra Secret Starlight. That's how this goes. Let's do this. All right, the Ice Shade of Creation. Ultra. That's not very good. Okay, that's kind of bad. This is the one we've been waiting for. We did this for this moment. Right here. There you go. One more, baby. Come on. Starlight rare. Okay. All right. Two out of five, we'll take it. Not too bad. Not too bad. Are you filming or taking a picture? The line is on. It's just working. See, at least we have a boy friend for four. Dang, chicken tender's lit. We're headed to day two. Woo!  What's going on? It's the goat, Tom Bucks. He taught me how to troll people on master duel. And here he is in person. How'd it go today? Yeah, yeah. Oh man, I died on day two. Did you make it to second match or anything? Just the first match? I bricked. I bricked.  Yeah, a little bit. I made it to round four. So, I mean, you made it to round ten, so that's a little better. So, I appreciate it. I mean, round four, not very good. How did you do this? I played it on a lot of side events, man.  That is insane. 300 tickets for this Brothers of Legends starlight race. It was actually 250. We're not Brothers of Legends. What is it? It's the OCG? Yeah, it's Brothers of Legends. It was actually 250 tickets. Wow, only 250? Yeah, I asked again. Only 250? Only. That's crazy, dude. Congrats on that, man. Thank you. Speed duel. I've somehow lost a deck out. I think I lost a time. This is supposed to be fast. It doesn't make any sense. So, we're going to open the packs from this craziness. Let's see. I don't know if there's anything... I think parasite paranoid, maybe? That's what I heard. That's the rumor. So, there's only three cards for packs. This is going to be pretty good. Right? Surely. Oh, there's four cards. Nevermind. Slow start. Slow start. Oh, that guy's kind of sick. Yeah, spare. So far, no foil, though. So, that's not that problem. War Lion. Flatlock. I'm getting scammed. Just like in the tournament. I'm getting scammed. War Lion. Chain Slime. What are these cards, man? Like, isn't this set like two years old, too? Like, why are these the things that we're getting credit? That would be speed duel tournament pack, right? That would be awesome, actually. Energy drain. Two-time. I literally have not pulled anything. You're doing great. How many packs is this? Give me an A. Black Terror. Alright, okay. Nothing. Like, literally nothing. Waking the demon. That's at least part of that. Give us something amazing. I love waking the demon. I love speed duel. I love speed duel. It's so fun. It's so fun. Aw, that's a crazy fish. Literally not even a super. How is this possible? I'm just scammed with my packs. I got scammed with the ICS. Let's go. Not clickbaiting. Sure, it's literally not. I mean, how many packs? I was like 16 packs. You guys are fine. I'm sorry. Literally nothing. Let's be back then. Coils don't exist. This is like the original tournament pack. There he is after $15. $15. $6. Worth it. Every bit of this was worth it for the $6. Two more packs. Two more packs. What else do I have to do right here? This is going to be insane. This is going to be insane. I'm the deep. We got two foils. So I guess we didn't get scammed before. That was fun. Speed duel. Woohoo. What's up, boxing fans? We're opening some more speed duel. Don't put this on your channel. Look, he just said that he didn't want me to record. So that's why I'm recording. I don't know if I can get sued for this or something. Hopefully not. Over speed duel. I'm sending you a contract. I'm really not going to feel too good about this. Oh, yeah. You're going to pull something good. All right. Join the club. Join the club. Join the club of nothing. Of garbage. What do you mean? Super war lion is cool. That's true. It is cool. Ancient brain. Feel the pain. Ancient brain. Feel the pain. Do love me some patrician of darkness. Yeah. Playgrounds stink. Legacy of darkness. What is up with the ultra? Don. Don. Don. How's it going, dude? Ripping cards out of people's hands. Oh. Pretty sick. There's something about that card. Is that the only ultra in the set? Is that what's going on here? That feels like it. She's impossible to pull. Yeah. Whiff, whiff, whiff. Can you pull a super? Can you pull my amount of packs? Try it like double. Can I beat Roxxon at his own game? Probably, yes. Knowing me. Too bad they just made a secret rare. But that's still really good. Not bad. Not bad. I'll take it. Yeah. You're already crushing. You have like four packs. Two ulcerers. How's that even possible? Oh my goodness. It was all worth it. It was all worth it. This was all worth speed duel. The whole thing was worth it for these two ulcerers. This is going to have the secret rare. That doesn't exist. There are more ulcers. It's going to be from like battles of chaos. Delicious rare. Collective rare crazy fish. Oh. Not bad. Not bad. We'll take those. We'll take those double ulcerers. All right. This is your time to shine. Wait. Show us what you pulled already. No, no. The good stuff. Come on. Okay. That's what it's about to happen right here. It's going to happen again. I've got a cryomancer. I've got a mask. I've got a genus controller, which I'm happy about. Okay. You said the good stuff. Show them that old drama. And two foils. Oh yeah. Where's the old drama, man? You said the good stuff. That's pretty good. There we go. That's what I'm talking about. Bad card in the set. Oh, and he's a token, but it's never going to be in here. All right. Let's go. It's only got a $2,000 token. Dual terminal. The vending machine. No kidding. All right. Okay. Got an evolution burst. I got a rare. Get a card. Come on, baby. Okay. All right. All right. You got another foil. Okay. Another foil. Wait. What is it? I thought the ice barrier card. It's so shiny. What is it? Yeah. One more shot. Come on, baby. If you pull a Trish, I want to play it. Why would he agree to that? That's how that works, right? Oh, we're in Yoku. It's dual links. Not bad. Not bad. I got Rux in here pulling some DT for me. Let's go. He gave me free money, so I'm just going to look out. I mean, I expected him to run, but he didn't. I didn't run because I like cards too much. That's fair. Shiny cardboard is life. There we go. My first card. One card. One dart. First shot. That's a good start. This is why I gave Rux and the money. Let's go. Second card. What is it? We're going to go two for two. The back of this one's kind of jacked. Oh, okay. This is the work. This is the work. We don't care. Yeah. It was a jump card. All right. Let's go to us. All right. All right. Oh, it's a super. Yeah. Pretty cool. Yeah. All right. Come on. Come on. Give us an ultraman. Riroku. Okay. Okay. Number five. Here's your card. The last one. What's an ultraman? A ghost dart. It's a ghost dart. It's a ghost dart. It's a ghost dart. Select the card. Here's your card. Here's my card. Here's my card. Go on and take it. Where's your card? Caribo, I mean. Caribo. Yeah. We'll take it. Three more credits. Three more credits. There's a little ding on the bottom. Oh. Oh, another super. All right. Okay. Okay. We're just getting warmed up right now. The synchro is a foreshadowing. Warmed up. This is it. Back to back foils. Oh. Oh. We came to the iceberg. That looks great. That is beautiful. One more. Okay. One more on this one. Come on. Ah. Magical arm shield. It's pretty sick. It's pretty sick. TP-8 ultra rare. Not that one, bud. Here it comes. Here's my card. Oh. Regular rare. Okay. Ally. Justice reverse break. That's the first regular rare. I mean, I mean, when the first card is a dark magician, I can take, I can deal with the rare too. Okay. We're going to start with the dark magician. Okay. We're going to start with the dark magician. Okay. We're going to start with the dark magician. Okay. Okay. We're going to start with the dark magician and with the ultra. Of course. The true of. The true of Vayne. I've never seen that card before. I have never heard of it. All right. Here we go. Is it Vayne though? Three to go. Three to go. Let's go. But it's an ultra. Back to back ultra. Let's go. Land justice unlimited. No. At this point, I can build an ally of justice deck. This is the last. All right. Come on. Give us red eyes or blue eyes. I would take either happily. What? Straight flush. That's us. You know. All right. Not bad for the vending machine though. Dark magician. Pretty good. We've got an ultra rare. Two super rare. Let's take that. Hi. Hi. What do you want me to say? How does it feel to be a two time champ? It feels pretty good because there's two different mats. How does it feel to have also lost to me? That was kind of funny. That's my claim to fame. I beat you, the two time champ. Now you got two more speed dual packs. You got three or two different mats. You got both of that. There's a Yu-Gi and Slyther and this Kaiba and Obelisk one. And then we got two tournament packs. We're going to pull something insane. We're going to pull Dark Magician. I'm down. I pulled it out of the DT over there. We're going to pull Dork Magician. Gear freed. I'm going to save it for the end. I like it. I like it. All right.  Come on, baby. Double ultra pack. Dark Magician girl. Yes. Gravekeeper style. That's a good one. That'll do it. That'll do it. The champ pulls something big. Let's go. How'd it go? Just waxing me with all these Edison decks. Do you want to show these real quick? All Edison. Yes. All Edison format. There's more in there. Literally just destroyed me in two different decks. You can guys can check my channel out. Let me write it down. Check out the channel. He's writing it on the box. This is the way to do it. Neck vamp six. Boom. Check him out. Edison format content. Plus a new standard format. Plus standard format. He's very color-coded. So go check him out. Even the shirt. It matches. Hey, Shawn. How did you get this in like 30 minutes?  And I spent way too much money. That was literally what happened. There was those moves specifically that got this. And like literally like it was like an hour. It was insane. It wasn't. I think it was like 45 minutes. And you got a three, a triple starlight lightning storm offer. And I turned it down. Turn it down because look at this.  Much, much more worth. Much more worth. Of course. Walking home with a Yu-Gi-Oh card. Just leave this homeless guy. I'm trying Yu-Gi-Oh card. Yeah. This card. That's no big deal. Not much to see there. Still blue eyes right there. I can get some scissors right there and it'll be perfect. We're here with Rusty, AKTCA Gaming. And a son. And L.O.B. Reprint Packs. That's a yes. That's a blue eyes. I think the last one looked at one of these. It was like an Exodia stuck inside of it. All right. Sounds good. Machine conversion factory. Oh, that's right. Because in the Reprint Packs, you could have the rare. Yeah. You can get both. Yeah. What do you think we're going to pull? Is that, is that a blue eyes? I can't tell. What cards you got? Okay. Yeah. He's pointing at it. I like it. This one looks promising. Drilling wizard. Tomasoul. Maybe. Fissure. Oh. All right. Savin' it up for later. Savin' it up for later. It's never geeky or dark old. Yeah. It's a rare, so it's easier. Easier to get those. It's a little bit more accessible. Fissure will take out that blue eyes. That's all you got. Yeah. If it's the only card. Another dud. Sorry, I was saving it for the last one. Maybe you're in your packs. Yeah, they're in mine. We don't get at least a super rare in these eight packs. We're just going to have to effort more. Oh my goodness. We're getting a super rare in these eight packs. There's no way. Because at that point it's like, you don't have light packs. You can't pass those along with somebody else. Exactly. Yeah. Metal. Nothing. All right, so it's on you. It's a slow start. Not looking too good, man. All right. So now, here we go. He gave me all the heavy packs on purpose. Literally on purpose. I hope so. All right, let's see this. It's kind of lame if there's nothing. Let's see what we got. Least fang. Oh, it's got to have flipped around. Sea drop. Oh, there it is. You called it. Vinsodium. The forbidden one. Is that what you were telling us? You know what Vinsodium is? Okay, you want to hold it? All right, all right. Oh, God, God, God, God, God. He got a little excited. All right, we got three more packs. He's like, I want to hold it. I want to crush it. What, what do you think? We're going to pull four pieces of Vinsodium in there? Okay. Like a misprint gun. Yeah. Let's do this. Just all of Vinsodium and Warrior. Oh, so it looks like they're in the front on these. Yeah, okay. Does that indicate any specific year? I think these got to be the 13ers and 17 versions. Then there's also just 10, which there's like a Euro version. Those can be after, I think. Two-Rot Dark Ruler, Fire Yaru. Oh, the Guardian. You definitely gave me all that. That's a fissure. Yeah, the sparks. Very powerful. Not really. Last pack. Last chance. I want to hold it. Two for seven is not bad for you, Gio. We got three for eight. That's really good. Are the four rates different? I know it like in originals, like one in 12 for ultra one. Yeah, they're the same. They're the same for this. Uh-oh, we lost the card. You got that. You got that. Tara. Oh, let's go. Good packs. Man, if we had built a deck, we would definitely... You can have this one. You can have Fusionist.


So today I'm out kind of scouting a Location An area I like to go to in the autumn It's a nice fall color. That's me five years ago It's hard to believe it's been five years since I started this writing its photography YouTube channel This was the first video just after leaving a 25-year career in photojournalism To pursue photography as an art form So today, I thought we'd look at some of the highlights of this journey Journey I've been on for five years This first video was about affinity photo is My Photoshop replacement Now I'm not gonna say it's better than Photoshop Or has every feature Photoshop has what I'm finding is for editing photos It has everything that I was using in Photoshop. It just does it in a different way Through the years, I've made quite a few videos showing how I use affinity photo These videos weren't meant to be tutorials just videos showing how I use the software to edit my images In hopes it would help other photographers decide if this software would suit their needs. I covered topics like how I use overlays how I sharpen my photos Coverated images to black and white How I added borders I Even showed how to add the Orton effect to your images I saw someone create this effect in Photoshop and figured affinity photo users might want to be able to do the same thing It's something I've never actually implemented into my photography. It just it just didn't fit what I'm doing But I figured I'd go ahead and pass along the information anyway And yes, after five years, I'm still using affinity photo So I have a confession to make I shoot JPEG That being said I shoot raw as well Good grief. I can do both Early on I was all digital Most of the color was some black and white starting to creep in The subject matter was mostly nature. I did some macro with extension tubes and hummingbirds utilizing my garden and Frogs and turtles out of the local pond They were looking for hummingbirds This right in the edge of law Subject that's cooperating, but I'm finally getting the frog shot. I want it. It's not like it's great art But it is good fun Check on this head get off here. So sorry. I didn't start shooting video till now the light was changing so fast and I Really couldn't find a composition last night or spot to shoot from so I just decided to come out and Wing it as you can see there's kind of a fog Missed on the lake and for about five minutes there was some light I'm trying to use this As you can see it. I'm trying to use this stick In the water here is kind of some foreground interest There's not a lot on this shoreline that's in the water that kind of helps Anchor that foreground a little bit But I've done some shots with just the reflections in the in the Mist With a little bit longer lens. So we're kind of mixed up this morning We've we've pulled every trick out of the bag week. I could think of to make this work I'll have something to show you I'm just not sure it's going to be something I'm really that proud of But that's that's part of the deal, you know gotta find myself in this big meadow Having a hard time figuring out where to point my camera I kind of like this line of Wine maple with the trees popping out Cross on the backside of this meadow Now I've shot it with a single frame And I've also tried a Little bit of a panorama But just keeping it horizontal and just shooting a couple frames that way Going from that from left to right And I'll probably decide I'm gonna get back to the office if Which one I'm going to use This could be another one of those cases where I'm just really attracted to the color and uh Not the composition, but we'll see Trying to make compositions out here. It's a bit of a challenge, but It's pretty cool Hopefully the wind has died down enough for you to hear me, but It did seem to die down quite a bit. So I'm gonna get a little bit of reflection in this uh This little tide pool here I really like how the rock sits Like it's almost like in an island I love the shape of this uh this tide pool And how the clouds are kind of playing This this could be my favorite shot of the day. So I'm still chasing autumn But the photo I'm making here Probably could be made anytime of the year. I noticed this stand of trees Last spring when I was at in the magic wilderness Doing some wild rhododendron photography And I'll I'll leave a link to that if you want to catch that one And I noticed this stand of moss covered trees And I at the time I didn't have really time to photograph it So today I'm kind of out looking for some autumn photos and I thought I'd go ahead and swing by here and See if I can't Make some images In this stand of trees probably going to be black and white Before I kind of head into the Colorful autumn scene picture taking mode That's what I've got going on here. This is kind of cool wedge Triangle shape pattern Of fern in the foreground With a nice vertical Moss covered tree element in the in the back Kind of makes kind of a That's kind of a cool graphic feel to it. I think it's going to be make a pretty cool black and white image Today we're out on the pacific crust trail And we've got my film camera I have a history on my channel of starting and stopping using film Over the last year My idea was to have a series using film On my channel It's called adventures in film But I haven't been able to keep up with that and I apologize for that I I tend to apologize quite a bit on my on my channel And that was finally the start of my adventures in film video series something that popped up more and more as time went on A new role of film a new adventure I'm looking forward to seeing what this role takes me A new role a new adventure A new role a new adventure Welcome to another adventures in film Today we've got t max 100 It'll for delta 100 It's time for another adventures in film Today we get delta 400 When the role is finished the adventure is over film photography started to be a regular feature on my youtube channel And I got hooked. I loved it I used multiple film formats. I started with an old pentax 645 It made some pretty good images After that camera went down a couple times I decided I needed to upgrade and go with something a little bit newer So I replaced that old camera with the pentax 645 in And that was a much better camera I have wanted this camera since it was announced back in I think 1997. This was my dream camera I was so excited when I got this Yesterday when it came in the mail I was like a little kid I was I've never been that excited about any of my digital cameras to me. They're like hammers. They're just tools But this this kind of takes me back Back when I really was passionate about photography and was excited about taking pictures And maybe that's why I needed this camera I highly recommend the pentax 645 system It's really a great medium format system to work with But a word of caution with the original 645 I had a lot of trouble with the plastic becoming brittle in the battery holder I went through a number of battery holders. So if you're going to Buy the original 645 camera be aware that that could be a potential problem After using medium format for a while I talked myself into going into large format I just wanted that bigger negative Since I was poor the only way I could finance that Large format gear was to sell off my medium format. And so that's what I did I shot four by five many years ago with color film And I thought it'd be kind of interesting to try it now with black and white Keeps me coming back to this piece of public land It's the diversity so much here It's this pretty small area, but you've got wetland marshes oak savanna stands evergreen trees It's it's just a great place to do landscape photography There's so much potential here It's also a great location to break in a new lens And after about a year I decided large format photography really wasn't working for me It didn't really work well with my shooting style So I went back to where I started I went back to 35 millimeter Loading the roll of film into a new camera is like coming home Back to where it all started The beginning of my photographic journey in the spirit of exploration in the spirit of discovery That's where it all started for me And it started with a roll of 35 millimeter film In early 2019 looking back at the images I made over the 2018 year I started to notice a trend all my favorite images were shot in black and white So that's when I went all in on black and white for my art First with digital and gradually adding more and more film Because I really liked the way film rendered black and white I was never a hundred percent film Before time I was a hundred percent black and white That's where my passion was in photography I found my shot. I thought this was a person Standing in the sand. I was way Way over there And I saw this sticking out of the sand I thought With these light with these shattered lines On the front and in front and back of the of the The old tree I thought there's my shot right there He's taking me almost an hour to get here And I'm quite happy with the composition. I just hope it turns out I'm shooting it with a 150 millimeter lens Slightly compressed got some cool lines through it You know with it with that nice anchor point in the center there I'm off to the side That tree might get a couple white angle shots now I think This is what I came for. I'm pretty happy But why black and white? Why was I so drawn to doing my photography in black and white? After a lot of psychoanalyzing myself I came to the conclusion that after doing thousands of documentary photography assignments through the years In color I had a hard time seeing the art in color Black and white just felt more like art to me. Black and white photography was my passion And to this day that still hasn't changed What has changed though is I can finally see the art in color photography It took a while, but I was able to bring color back And feel like I was making art when I was using color for my photography I love the layers And the texture But I'm not sure Not sure if this is enough to just make me stop him You know when you start commit to a shot it takes a while so Even in digital, but I I might make a few frames here this A little bit a little bit more into the sun than I'd like but I kind of like the layered effect we got some A light section right through the middle This is purely just light and shadow Super super minimalist And there might be something up here too This might be where we start making our first shots The trick is when you're shooting dunes is to be aware of your footprints I want to shoot from a further away and they work my way closer And as the closer I get there might be new shots that they show themselves But if I start close and move my way back then of course I'm shooting over my tracks And I'd rather not do that so I'm starting at the bottom of these dunes and I'm going to kind of work my way up And uh See what we can find But that's the first shot There's a lot of real subtle stuff out here. It which is kind of my my style photography If you get my photography Often you get the subtle you you can I'm often surprised when someone gets what I'm trying to do with the photograph Because it it can be on the vague side. Sometimes it can be a bit subtle But there are some people once in a while that Know exactly what I was trying to do whether it's successful or not And uh Those are the people that probably subscribed to my channel So you can tell there's not a whole lot of them All right, let's uh, let's move up I still think I'm gonna I can work in this area here So I'm gonna do some more shooting here, but I need to recompose Black and white photography was my passion and to this day that still hasn't changed What has changed though is I can finally see the art in color photography It took a while, but I was able to bring color back And I feel like I was making art when I chose to use color to make my images A large part of what I do is still grounded in black and white But now I mix in color When the opportunity arises Over the last five years I've learned a lot about myself as a photographer and an artist I think I've found my voice I think I finally have a good idea on what I'm trying to articulate with my images I may not always be successful at that But at least now I have a good idea where I want to go As far as this channel goes it's been clear to me for a while that these videos will never be anything more Than a way to share my photos, but that's why I started this channel five years ago And I've grown to accept that that's all it's meant to be My trailer says it best come along as I try to become the best black and white photographer I can be In hopes to inspire and educate This is my journey. This is right in the edge but today We found a shot. We found something


Now I want to just show you so you know like this morning Deacon Harold was talking about the anchor and and I don't know if you know I have an anchor that I wear on my wrist that I had custom made and Inscribed in on the part that goes up Coming down. It says Magnificat and across the bottom. It says fiat Because I believe in my life. There is not a greater witness or example for us to follow than the Blessed Mother in terms of How we receive the Holy Spirit She received it without question without reservation without hesitation When the angel of the Lord said the Holy Spirit's gonna overpower you he's gonna overshadow you He's gonna come upon you and you'll be the coming mother of God her only responses Let it be done unto me according to thy word and those words are not resignation Those words mean let it happen. I'm ready for this I think so many times we read it with the wrong context like she's like, okay If this is God the way it's gotta be okay. Who am I to argue with God? No, she's like let it happen to me I want this to happen to me This is why when she says her Magnificat my soul rejoices in God my Savior for he has looked upon my lolliness and done great things for me And that's why people will call me blessed In the same way people will call us blessed if we let the Lord do great things for us. Amen. Alrighty then Anyone from Chicago area I Have great. I have a cousin that lives in Chicago. I'm very close to her.  It had this layer of hardened sticky stinky Waste on it constantly and when the fire broke out on the side that was closest to the lake, Michigan The the river itself caught on fire. That's how it spread from one side of the river to the other The river was on fire and that's why it was so devastating and and and it was full of disease Between the 80 in the 1880s at least 10,000 people in the city of Chicago died from cholera and typhoid fever in 1885 14 years after the great Chicago fire nearly 100,000 people had died from illnesses carried by this diseased river and They were actually talking about what would it take to just shut the city down and move somewhere else It was that bad But then the Army Corps of Engineers got together and thought well Let's try something This is you know the the Chicago River flows down from the north and it used to like curve and then go through the rest of the city and What they did though is they built a series of locks and canals and Caused water from Lake Michigan to flow into the river and Then they built a canal 27 miles long that connected the Chicago River I think to the Displanes River and that was down into the Mississippi and what it was able to do is all this fresh water instead of Instead of all the diseased water going out into Lake Michigan and polluting the the city's drinking water Water was coming in a fresh water was coming in and just washing all this filth away And after you know it they moved more earth Building that canal than they did building the Panama Canal It was one of the greatest feats of engineering up to that point and it saved the ship the city of Chicago That's amazing and when I when I first read this story, I thought of the passage from Ezekiel in chapter 47 where God is with Ezekiel and he says to him son of man. Have you seen this? And he says he's looking at this water flowing out of the temple because out of this temple is this flow of water and This is what God said to Ezekiel said this water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into Ereba And when it enters the stagnant waters of the sea the water will become fresh And wherever this river goes every little every living creature which swarms will live and There will be very many fish For this water it goes there that the waters of the sea may become fresh That is what baptism is God looks at our souls and it could look like the Chicago River full of disease and and muck and grime And he says like I want to wash you clean I want to I want a fresh flow of the Holy Spirit to come into your life because wherever the Holy Spirit touches things It's made alive Life thrives when the Holy Spirit's flowing in our lives the life of God So we have this term baptism in the Holy Spirit and I want to experience I want to kind of explain what that means because oftentimes people can get very confused as to what we mean when we say Baptism the Holy Spirit so I want to be really clear that first and foremost that baptism in the Holy Spirit is an experience that that has been given to the church to release and Strengthen the effects of baptism and confirmation. It is baptism that makes us a child of God But how many of us have lived so many years of our lives totally unaware that we're children of God Do you wake up in the morning go? Oh my gosh?  He's king of the universe And because of that I have joy in my heart. I See so many Catholics Who have no idea who they are in Christ? No idea that they've been adopted by the king of the universe and as such are heirs to his kingdom They live like spiritual orphans Not knowing who they are This is the great sickness that has plagued our world people trying to find their identity in things that are passing People are trying everything to find happiness and fulfillment And they're buying into every lie that the world can conceive Saying if I just do this or this or this the next thing I'll find happiness and they never do And so the world for many people is just a hamster will and they're running as fast as they can and the world keeps holding up This and say come on you can catch this you'll be happy so they run faster, but they're not moving anywhere They're not getting anywhere. They're burning themselves out. They're they're overwork. They're stressed out and Maybe Even in your own life you're feeling this way like I'm just trying to find something and I'm working so hard at it And I've never really been happy in my life But this grace of baptism the Holy Spirit can get us off this hamster wheel Off this fruitless pursuit of pleasure as a way of fulfilling us and into the arms of God where we know his love and his Relationship to us as father and we know ourselves knew as child of God and The term baptism in the Holy Spirit. It's a biblical term It's in the Bible and this experience has been affirmed by our popes throughout the history of the church but let's start with what it says in The Bible so Jesus in speaking in Luke chapter 12 verse 49 he says I came to cast fire on the earth And I wish it was already kindled like he he came to set things on fire and The most vivid image of that is the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit comes down and rests on them like tongues of fire That's the fulfillment of Jesus's desire. It is God's desire that each one of us get baptized with this baptism in the Holy Spirit He says to that his Apostles in Acts chapter 1 He says the promise of the Father about which you heard me speak is Coming do not depart Jerusalem but wait for this promise for John baptized with water But in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit This is Jesus saying wait until you're baptized in the Holy Spirit He goes on to say you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem throughout Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth I'd imagine the Apostles were like wait what? I mean we like the whole earth Like everywhere Like you're calling us to be foreign missionaries. Wait, what is a foreign missionary? Does anyone even know what that is Jesus give us a manual We're gonna need money Jesus. Give us money Jesus will need a place to meet give us a church building.   That's all that Jesus gave them Because that's all they needed and when they had that they had everything they needed for the church to be born St. John the 23rd said renew your wonders in our time. Oh Lord us through a new Pentecost He said that at the beginning of Vatican 2 like we want the fruit of this whole endeavor to be a new Pentecost upon the church Pentecost a spirit of receptivity that should have been the spirit of Vatican 2 That's not where we ended up Unfortunately, but that's what was prayed for St. John Paul the great said the institutional and charismatic aspects are Coessential to the church's constitution like it's like two lungs. We have the sacramental hierarchal Portion of our church given to us by Jesus established by Christ, but then we have the charismatic side Willed by the Holy Spirit and both are like lungs in the human body both need to be functioning for us to be fully healthy as a church We need to be breathing deeply of the sacramental life of the church. We need to be breathing deeply of the Holy Spirit and together There's completion. There's fullness St. John Paul the great goes on to say it is from this providential rediscovery of the church's charismatic dimension that before and after the council a remarkable pattern of growth has been established for ecclesial movements and new communities The charismatic movement as it were as it was called through the 70s and into the 80s And I think even and the 80s it started to break out of what we called the charismatic renewal and invade every part of our church I love how St. John Paul the great referred to this. He didn't say this is something new Something just made up in recent. He said it was a providential rediscovery Like we were getting back to the roots of something that the church had for centuries, but lost If you read some of the writings of the church fathers, they will talk about like how they went to say their prayers And they would be chanting in latin and at different times in the church history And then they're they're they're chanting in latin would cease and they would start chanting in tongues And this would go on for an hour Where they were still chanting but they're all chanting in tongues Like there have been different times in our church's history where this grace has been poured out But I believe right now even more so today because it is so necessary The world has gotten so broken and so dark and so evil that if we don't Completely surrender to this holy spirit. Not only are we not going to make it The church is going to suffer. We need to be the people who can turn it around It is not what I do not accept the fact that is we're in a situation where it's the last person out the door Shut the lights off Now we've contracted and we shrink but this was prophesied by pope benedict the 16th back in the 70s He said the church will become smaller In leaner and we'll stop worrying about how much money we have and how much how much How many buildings we have and we'll start relying on the power of god again And that's when the church will regain its spiritual dominance in the sense that Our legacy will be reborn When we stop Relying on being accepted and loved by the world Chesterton said the world is changed by the saints who most Contradict the modern times And in a time where people have Disregarded truth redefined the love to the fact to the point where it doesn't mean anything anymore Those who stand up cling to christ and say I stand with the way the truth in the life. Jesus christ will change the culture Or die Trying Because there is nothing like the blood of martyrs to fertilize the growth of the church Because a lot of that happened in the early church as well And what makes us think That we should have comfortable Casual catholicism in our lives when the world is going to hell in a hand basket But we're not going to be the people that god needs us to be without the holy spirit This grace this power from on high needs to be rushing through every fiber of our being Animating every part of our soul and we should not stop pursuing the holy spirit until he's consumed everything And set everything on fire. Jesus says I came to cast fire on the earth. I wish that it was already ablaze He wants you on fire Pope Benedict the 16th said in effect Jesus's whole mission was aimed at giving the spirit of god to men and baptizing them in the bath of regeneration The bath of a new life This baptism in the holy spirit. He went on to say this and this is 2008. This is pope benedict He said today I would like to extend the invitation to all let us rediscover dear brothers and sisters the beauty of being baptized in the holy spirit Let us recover awareness of our baptism and our confirmation Endless sources of grace Pope francism said self said you the charismatic renewal have received a great gift from the lord Your movement's birth was willed by the holy spirit to be a current of grace in the church and for the church And what is the first gift of the holy spirit? It's the gift of himself So our popes have been affirming our church has been affirming the scriptures affirm that Baptism the holy spirit is an experience that's been given to the church to release and strengthen the baptism The effects of baptism and confirmation Is it necessary for some people? It's not because you've been raised cat You've been walking in the spirit without needing to have it reborn in your life or released in your life A lot of saints from a very young age We're moving in the power of the holy spirit, but there's been a lot Who started off very badly in their lives and ended up very well because they prayed for this release of this grace For some of us it is necessary to awaken this grace. It's a late dormant like the chocolate syrup at the bottom of your Glass it needs to be stirred up. It's in there. It just hasn't been released When you look at what the catechism says about the fruit of confirmation It says it is evident from its celebration This is article 1302 in the catechism says it is Evident from its celebration that the effect of the sacrament of confirmation Is a special outpouring of the holy spirit as once granted to the apostles on the day of pentecost Now think of your confirmation ceremony didn't look anything like the day of pentecost Where people speaking in tongues were tongues of fire coming down where people overjoyed and expressing their gratitude and praising god out loud For this great gift they received No, we all sat there like good little boys and girls with our hands folded the bishop either slapped us or Touched us or did whatever he did and then we waited for grandma to give us a card with five bucks in it And we considered that our diploma from catholicism Because we didn't know there was more Because we got sacramentalized but not evangelized But we were because we were told about the holy spirit but not told how to experience the holy spirit And why it was so essential that we did that And so so many people After years of living this bland purposeless powerless Catholicism said why am I even bothering I'm leaving And you know what they did they went up to the local mega church where they talk about the holy spirit Where they talk about jesus and they pray in such a way that it stirs them up in their life And they say I found what I was looking for that the church never had and it was ours from the very beginning and we lost Our birthright. We lost our inheritance. We did not pass on this great gift somewhere along the line. We blew it But the charismatic renewal is reviving it and we need to be bringing this grace of the holy spirit to every parish in the country Every parish in the country people need to be invited to experience this new life in jesus christ and we need to be praying that it happens This is how we're going to win back Even if our church has become so small that there's five people in it, but those five people really believe are sold out That's going to be the seed that starts the rebuilding Jesus says every branch of mind that bears no fruit. I prune He's been pruning his church brothers and sisters. This is not satan winning This is christ pruning his bride and getting ready for new growth And what he's asking is who's going to stand with me filled with the power of my spirit to move forward in joy and victory And stop surrendering to fear and doubt and despondency and depression because it's not going to be easy It's going to cost me something. I don't know. I just want to be comfortable Has god ever met you in your comfort zone? I'll tell you the answer right now. No because he doesn't do that. He always expects us to step out of our comfort zone He always expects us to step out of our comfort zone, but when we do we meet him there So this is what it says. This is what it says in the next paragraph after I said about the The catechism is talking about what happened on the day of pentecost. He goes from this fact Confirmation brings an increase in deepening of baptismal grace. It roots us more deeply in in divine affiliation which makes us cry abba father It unites us more firmly to christ. It increases the gifts of the holy spirit in us It renders our bond with the church more perfect It gives a special strength of the holy spirit to spread and defend the faith by word and action As true witnesses of christ to confess the name of christ boldly and never be ashamed of the cross wow Seems like what the church just needs is an overdose of the holy spirit But the good news brothers and sisters we can't overdose on the holy spirit We can only receive But we can only receive to the capacity that we're open. We can only receive to the capacity that we're empty St. Mother Teresa said god can only fill that which is empty And if you're so full of yourself guess what you're never going to be full of the spirit ever You got to let go of yourself You've got to do what the saints said we have to do we have to unite ourselves in christ's death And die to ourselves so that we can be united with him in his new life this new life of the holy spirit There was a time in my life when i was convinced That i was filled with god and you know why i was convinced of that because i had carved out this small space in my life And said god you can have that space and he filled it And because he was filling every space in my life that i gave him i thought he was filling my life and i was so wrong I had so much more to let go of so much more to surrender so much more to open to him And when i and it's been a continual journey You don't get baptized in the holy spirit check the box and move on. It's an ongoing experience as god invades deeper into who you are It's like god has conquered the world, but has he conquered your heart? Well, he can't conquer your heart. You can only surrender your heart Hearts are the only thing that god doesn't conquer Hearts have to be surrendered god does not invade and take over He occupies as you surrender He occupies as you surrender I said in the first session roman's 5 5 god's love has been poured into our hearts through the holy spirit has been given to us If there's no space in your heart, there's no room for jesus. There's no place for that love to go st. louis demontford Wrote in his most wonderful book true devotion to mary he said men He's quoting st. tom. He was meant to say st. Thomas make a vow at their baptism to renounce the devil and all his works St. Augustine taught that this is the greatest and most indispensable of all vows Yet who has really kept this great vow? Who has been truly faithful to the promises of holy baptism? Have not all christians been unfaithful to the promises made to jesus and their baptism? Where does this use universal disobedience? Come from except from our forgetfulness of the promises and obligations of holy baptism And from the fact that hardly anyone Ratifies for themselves the contract they made with god by those who stood as their sponsors Pump the brakes That's it the nutshell We have to ratify the promises personally that our sponsors made for us at the moment of our baptism We have to step it while you said well, I I I did that I do that every easter. I we renew our baptismal promises Do we or do we just repeat those words? Are we really desirous of what our baptism provides us? I mean right now 85% of the young people confirmed this year will now be participating in their church in seven. They'll be gone Only 20% of catholic adults practice their faith on a regular basis only 30% of catholics believe in the real presence of jesus and the eucharist Brothers and sisters these statistics should scare the hell out of us and say whatever we think we're doing as a church We're doing it wrong Or we're doing it with the wrong power Are we trying to sustain the body the mystical body of christ with the mere human effort? Or are we going to let the holy spirit? renew the bride Revive the bride The reason why we need to respond to this why we need to ask for this grace to be poured out in our lives is because The sacraments are not magic There's two parts to every sacrament. There's what we call opus operantum. That's god's part That means every time you go to a sacrament even if the priest is in mortal sin Because he's been ordained and he gives you that eucharist jesus is president of the eucharist. It's not dependent upon The holiness of the priest It's not dependent upon you god makes that if he changes that bread and wine into his body and blood and there's grace there for everybody But there's the second part of every sacrament whether it be confession communion confirmation Or baptism that's our part the opus operantis The part where we are in the proper state of receptivity Those include freedom from mortal sin Hearts and minds attuned and desirous of what god has for us in those sacraments and a will Desirous of that grace And I can tell you that for the first 18 years of my life I went to the sacraments on a regular basis and none of that was true I didn't want what god I didn't know Our own ignorance Our own negligence Our own sinfulness Can prevent the grace of our baptism when we come into a lived reality But what is the opus operantis when it comes to our baptism? What is missing what haven't we done to receive the fullness of the grace of our baptism? First it's faith to believe Faith is not a feeling you do not have to say well I feel like a child of god today to be a child of god today It's a fact And it requires a will to say I want what's in there because oftentimes you don't get what's Behind the door until you step through the doorway Faith is stepping through the doorway Imagine there's a door and behind that door is everything that you need to be a saint And you're standing outside and say okay god I want it You need to take a step of faith into that doorway and all of a sudden you realize I have access to it now I've stepped into it. I've said yes I've made that step of faith. It's receptivity God my heart is open. How do you open your heart to god? That's such a great question, huh? How do I know I'm really open to god? How do I know if I'm really wanting what god wants from you in my life? I think I've prayed that prayer, but I'm not sure If you are sincerely saying you want what god wants in your life today And you pray this prayer Jesus. I want what you want for me. I give you my heart You've done it Your mind and your will Are greater than your feelings It's only in the last five years that we've decided that feelings are the arbiter of truth The thing that we serve above all things which has just led to moral chaos And divisive hatred in our world Because if I have if I say anything that upsets you or hurts your feelings You're personally attacked and triggered and you come after me like how dare you throw truth in my face? That triggers me and like we can't even have a Like our ability to communicate on the fundamental truths that define us Because we've met feelings the most important thing but our deeper than our feelings is our will And our will is is the gatekeeper. I mean our our our will is the gate keep gate keep I can say this our will is the gatekeeper for our hearts And when you say I open my heart to god your heart opens to god And god will come in and sometimes it'll feel amazing. Sometimes you'll feel nothing Sometimes you feel his love and it's overwhelming and tears come sometimes you pray and you open your heart to god You feel nothing, but we don't move because there's feelings we move because there's truth We're moving in faith So with every sacrament In our total desire for all that god wants to give us and our surrender to that That's what happens And i'll share it just real briefly before we go into prayer For me, I was 18 years old when I went on a retreat Put on by net ministries net stands for national evangelization team. It's this wonderful ministry out of saint paul minnesota They travel around the country. They do retreats in parishes and just about every state they there's now net ireland There's net canada. There's net australia You know, they're spreading across the globe and they're going to be spreading even more and their message is simple come to jesus christ Make him the lord of your life And I went on one of the retreats in high school and it was so profound I didn't give my life to the lord on that retreat, but I wanted what these people had So I found myself right after I graduated from high school in 1983 traveling to minnesota for a week-long camp And I got there a day early Because my mom was going to visit her parents who lived in wisconsin. They dropped me off in minnesota and she Went back and so I got up to the camp a day early and the team of young adults that was putting the retreat on They were going to have some time of prayer They said john, do you want to join us for prayer? And I was like, I mean no I mean like I mean like that's what I wanted to say, but how you know like catholic guilt is a real thing Right like oh, yeah, I'm up here for a week long retreat and you're going to pray and the first thing I'm going to do is say No, because I wanted to go fishing there was like this beautiful lake And I was determined to go get some fishing in before the the camp started, but they're like, hey, we're going to pray You want to join us? I'm like sure So we I'm like, where are we going to go pray? I'm like, oh no We're just going to go over the under this beautiful tree and we're just going to take some time to pray I'm like, okay, so I'm standing there somebody breaks out a guitar They start jamming on this guitar singing a praise and worship song and I'm like, wow This is what it sounds like when people actually sing church songs because like I grew up in a parish Where the only spiritual manifestation where people were able to sing without moving their lips It's amazing like every like we were just like We sound like the teacher from charlie brown Nobody sang and like these people would not just sing and they were singing loudly and I'm like, oh wow They really like to sing and then they start like putting their hands in the air and I'm like, you have a question What is that?  Am I missing something?  So I'm and I was like What are you doing? That's so weird and then they got to the end of the song and the worship leader didn't stop He just started strumming the guitar and and shouting out praise praised you lord Jesus Christ brings up magnify you and they're like going for it and I'm like, oh man Where the heck am I now? We're not in Kansas anymore. Toto. This is weird. This is weird and then The dude two people down for me I don't know what was going on But the only I can only assume that he had just bought a car and had lots of regret because he was going like I should have bought a honda. I should have bought a honda. I should have bought a honda I should have bought a honda and I was like, whoa And like the other guy lost his cat and this girl was like going here kitty kitty kitty kitty Oh here kitty kitty kitty And this other guy's like see my new bowtie. See my new bowtie. Like what are you boy?  I could be hitchhiking home. I could be home in two days Let's do this. You know like every part of me wanted to just like get the heck out of there because it was weird But then You know like I was like, I'm not gonna look But I peeked and there was across from the circle One young lady and I have to admit she was very beautiful in many ways But what attracted to me me to her in that moment was she was there like this The big radiant smile on her face going I love you Jesus I love you Jesus And I realized that age 18 I'd managed to go through all my years of faith formation and received all my sacraments And never had I once in my life said those four words in that order and meant it And that's when I said god Whatever she wants or whatever she has I want that I want to be able to tell people I love you. I want to be able to tell you I love you I don't have that power. I don't know your love. I don't know what she has This is a mystery to me, but if this is if all the other stuff they're doing Gets me to that place I'm open But it wasn't until three nights later that I went into the confessional Because like all throughout the retreat I kept feeling like I was bound like I just couldn't get there And when I stepped into the confession when I confessed my sins And when the priest prayed the prayer of absolution over me, and I mean I've confessed everything I'd only gone to confession one other time in my life and that was my first confession And I had broken a number of moral sins Some of them had to do a purity Some of them had to do a stealing line. I mean like it was it was I mean I was your typical high schooler But as I confessed these sins the the wake was getting lighter and lighter and when the priest prayed the prayer of absolution It was like being in The classic medical show where the paddles are put on the chest and like Because all of a sudden my heart was alive And I knew I was loved by god and something that wasn't there was there The new life of christ was revealed to me like a snapshot boom And it's not like every problem in my life was worked out and I never had sin anymore And I never had but it was like god is there and he is love And he's worth everything and I was stunned I walked and did my penance and then I just said a prayer like god No matter what you ask of me. I will say yes In the next morning The guy who founded net ministries came up and he says hey, I was praying last night and I think god Would want you to consider being a missionary with net in august I think Is that I had I'd been accepted at college.  I was going to go to undergrad. I was going to be pre-med. I was going to go to go to medical school I was going to be a doctor I didn't have a big house fancy car hot wife everything I did get the hot wife by the way but Everything else changed and in that moment. I said okay god if this is what you want. I'm in And that's what started my life And I don't I could share for another hour everything that god's done But I just can't because I want you to experience it for yourself I want us to turn our hearts now to receive that for you an awakening whatever god wants to do in you For it to just us to be able to collectively go before god say whatever you want god I'm open And break those three beautiful words that have been given to us by the church come holy spirit and what we're going to do is John paul's going to lead us in a song and we're just going to ask the holy spirit to come and guide us And after a few minutes of just being in the presence of god I'm going to lead us in a prayer To give our lives to jesus christ Once again a complete surrender to god because it's jesus who will baptize you in the holy spirit not me You don't you're not going to baptize yourself in the holy spirit Jesus is the one who baptizes us in the holy spirit. We're going to pray jesus come baptize me with your holy spirit Completely flood my life with your grace And after we give ourselves to jesus, we're going to come back and give ourselves completely to the holy spirit