In this episode Catholic speakers Jackie and Bobby Angel join Trent to talk about living under the “lockdown conditions” in Southern California and how to live out the Faith in these hard times.
Welcome to The Counsel of Trent podcast, a production of Catholic Answers.
Trent Horn:
It’s life under lockdown here at The Counsel of Trent podcast. A lot of us in California are under lockdown, maybe you are too. By the time you’re listening to this, I think… I’m pretty sure by the time this airs during the next few days, there won’t be mass celebrated probably anywhere here in the United States. I’ve seen people online slowly blacking out the different dioceses in our country where mass is not being celebrated and it’s like the darkness is encroaching on our nation, but we have the light, we have the light of Christ. We have two wonderful lights that are joining us today here for the show to commiserate and for all of us to put our heads together and see how we can live out life under lockdown, under pandemics, under all kinds of things that the devil may throw at us, as a wise woman once said, I will survive, you will survive, we will survive.
This is The Counsel of Trent podcast. I am your host, Catholic Answers apologist and speaker Trent Horn. My guests today are Jackie and Bobby Angel. Jackie is a singer, songwriter was signed with spirit and song back in 2006 released two albums your Kingdom is Glorious and Divine Comedy. She’s traveled to 40 States and five continents, that traveling has come to an end though right now, which we’ll talk about here on the show. She is married to Bobby Angel, together they are the Angels, which I alluded to earlier yesterday, what a wonderful thing to be. Bobby is a teacher, he’s a campus minister and theology teacher at an all boys Catholic high school and they are with us to talk about life under lockdown. Bobby and Jackie, welcome to The Counsel of Trent podcast.
Jackie Angel:
Hello.
Bobby Angel:
Thanks for having us.
Jackie Angel:
We are social distancing just if people, you know, we are at least six feet away.
Trent Horn:
I was telling Bobby when he came in, I want to build an apparatus like a large hula hoop, imagine a large hula hoop that is 12 feet in diameter with suspenders that I wear over my shoulders.
Jackie Angel:
Somebody did that. Did you not see the picture of that guy?
Trent Horn:
Oh, someone’s done it.
Jackie Angel:
They had the hoop thing, some people… he was on the way to the grocery store. He literally had the hula hoop thing with the suspenders thing and so people wouldn’t get within his space.
Trent Horn:
Because here’s the thing, any-
Bobby Angel:
He didn’t patent it fast enough, Trent.
Trent Horn:
Right. Any idea that anybody thinks of someone else’s thought of it, like to make a parody song my Corona, come on, somebody did that in 10 minutes.
Jackie Angel:
I was singing that the other day actually to my family.
Trent Horn:
Totally.
Jackie Angel:
My Corona.
Trent Horn:
I mean anyone can get a parody out like that. So what we are going to talk about now, you got here early because there’s nobody on the roads. Usually getting here from Anaheim to San Diego can be kind of bad.
Jackie Angel:
Can take two hours. This took an hour and a half. It was smooth sailing and it was raining too, so it was amazing.
Trent Horn:
All right. So let’s… on my previous episode on Tuesday we talked about COVID-19, the debate about closing mass. Today, what I want to talk about is just for families and people who are listening what they’re going through right now especially because for me there’s two things that make me anxious about this. One is that stupid little virus as I referred to it in the last… yesterday’s episode, getting sick or getting other people sick. But honestly the thing that gives me more anxiety sometimes are other people panicking, it’s the panic and I feel like one thing that’s making people panic is that you can’t spell pandemic without panic. Think about it. When someone says, we’re experiencing a pandemic right now, did he say panic? Because its panic is built right into the very word. So I think… I don’t know what you guys think, but that it’s the other people freaking out that makes me and Laura and other people more anxious.
Jackie Angel:
Yup. Last Thursday when everything started closing, it was like everyone was like okay, NBA is done, no March madness. I told Bobby, I said, go fill up the car with some gas, make sure you have full tank and I was like could you go shopping today? And Bobby wasn’t anxious until he went to the store.
Trent Horn:
What happened at the store?
Bobby Angel:
Thursday the 12th, March 12th D day, it felt like it all… it was the day that broke the camel’s back because that was the day you started hearing about the sports announcements being canceled, NBA, the NHL, Disney shutting down and we had school that day, but then the rumors were starting to fly and the students were talking about us and we had an emergency meeting of the teachers after school where it’s kind of like strongly heads up like hey, I think we’re shutting down. And it just felt like Whoa, this thing went for America at least, this thing went from zero to, or like 10 miles an hour to like 80.
Trent Horn:
Like that.
Bobby Angel:
Very quickly and so, and then Jackie sends me this text that says, go fill up your car with gas. I’m like really? And that… but that’s what I… that gave me a little bit of urgency like uh-oh.
Trent Horn:
So between the two of you, Jackie you’re the one who gets more concerned and prepped and Bobby you’re more than one who is like it’ll be fine.
Jackie Angel:
No, it’s just I’m the one that’s on Twitter, he’s not.
Trent Horn:
Okay.
Jackie Angel:
So I know what’s on Twitter, so I’m seeing all that and I have friends who are texting me who are like we have friends who work for the government so this is what… the problem is I have a lot of people texting me hey, we have friends who work in the Pentagon who are saying within the next blah blah, so I’m getting all the info, he’s just at school and it’s funny because I’m homeschooling mom. So I’m at home but… and I’m fine until I go on social media, and when I was going on Twitter and Facebook, I’m like oh, this is making me anxious. And then getting certain texts from friends from the outside world because again, we’ve been in containment our whole lives because we’re homeschooled.
Trent Horn:
I have a friend who works at the Pentagon who his name is Daryl, he works at the Starbucks there, but he knows stuff.
Bobby Angel:
He knows.
Jackie Angel:
But I had multiple people texting me like my… not even the same friends, different friends. So I told Bobby, I said hey, go get some gas, can you go to the store? And so he… you went to Walmart?
Bobby Angel:
I went to Walmart and that’s… and it wasn’t crazy in there, but there were a lot of people for 2:00 PM and sure enough tuna is all gone.
Jackie Angel:
The whole canned goods section [crosstalk 00:06:00].
Bobby Angel:
Canned goods are ravaged. I didn’t even attempt to look at the toilet paper situation.
Jackie Angel:
You went to baby, we needed baby wipes.
Bobby Angel:
Oh yeah. Their baby wipes were all gone.
Jackie Angel:
All gone.
Bobby Angel:
So it’s eerie when you see these empty shelves and you feel people just agitation and –
Trent Horn:
I was… so, I was at target the other night, just getting little items here or there because we’d stocked up already a while ago, but I just went to just get little items and also out of a perverse sense of wondering what it’s like. So I went and the way I could summarize the attitude, it was… I decided to go late at night, so I went at 8:00 PM because I didn’t want to deal with crowds. So it was not very crowded, but the way I could describe it is there was a palpable sense of dread. It was quiet and an eerie kind of quiet of just people shuffling, trying to take in that like… because when I went… when I’ve been to stores now fortunately some stockpiles are coming back, but the big things out were toilet paper, paper towels, canned goods, bread, eggs, frozen meats. There are a few things that always stick around though, nobody wants chickpea pasta. You cannot give that away for free.
Bobby Angel:
Cauliflower.
Trent Horn:
Cauliflower. Oh, here’s a canned food that always shows up, diced tomatoes. Nobody… or canned whole tomatoes. No, people would rather die than eat a tomato in a can.
Jackie Angel:
Hey, I make salsa though from that, fresh salsa. Like restaurant style salsa, so those people are missing out man.
Trent Horn:
Yeah. I mean I saw salsa, I think the chips were cleared, but so that’s what I was-
Bobby Angel:
But it is this again, this thing we can’t see, this enemy we can’t see and anyone who coughs is suddenly suspect.
Trent Horn:
Yeah. It’s like we’re looking at everybody like it’s invasion of the body snatchers. Like are you one of them?
Bobby Angel:
Do you have it?
Trent Horn:
Yeah. So then we’re keeping our distance from people and then that’s not the attitude we share, we should be prudent, but we should also care about other people and I think what’s nice is this is a good time for us to be able to show love to other people in charity, other people who are probably having difficulties at least we’ll talk about difficulties under lockdown here in a sec, but just even finding stuff. I just feel so bad for people, like in Oregon there are people calling 911 because they’re out of toilet paper.
Jackie Angel:
Oh my God, I thought of formula, baby formula. I have friends who I was like Oh my gosh, if you can’t breastfeed, you’re using formula and people are stockpiling that. I was like that is… that would be so crazy to not be able to find that.
Trent Horn:
So that’s why I think it’d be helpful, especially for churches or homeschool co-ops, or things like that to do a central server, a Google doc where you can write down hey, is anybody in need? I could really use wipes, or I could really use and if you’re listening it might be a good idea for people to do. I’ve noticed now just today, stores seem to be doing a little better on inventory, target had wipes today. So I mean it’s toilet paper that we may not see for a long time, but-
Jackie Angel:
As if this is like an explosive diarrhea virus.
Trent Horn:
That’s the weird thing. Everyone’s like what do I do? I better get toilet paper.
Jackie Angel:
I just don’t understand.
Trent Horn:
I love the meme. Back in my day we had enough toilet paper to throw it in people’s trees just to play jokes on them, and now it’d be like what a waste.
Bobby Angel:
What a wasteful generation.
Jackie Angel:
I also don’t understand, we have a family of five and we don’t go through a big thing of toilet paper in a month, we don’t go through a whole thing of toilet paper, so thankfully we got them before everybody was. But we might be in trouble in a month.
Trent Horn:
Well, here’s what happened with us. So among Laura and I, and as our listeners know to past episodes, I am a quasi prepper. I don’t have a bunker, but I’ve done previous episodes of the podcast on how to survive disasters, so how to deal with wildfires, earthquakes, floods, unrest and so I’ve had emergency supplies for things. I remember telling Laura, she’s like why do you need these supplies? Why do you need other giant things of toilet paper? I said well, there could be a disaster, I said there could be social unrest and people could flood the store, she’s like that’s not going to happen. And now Laura is like the worst thing about this Trent is that all the crazy preppers now think that they’re right about everything and we have to just yield to them.
Jackie Angel:
My dad is the kind of person, so my dad was a Green beret in the army and he’s the kind of guy that for Christmas always asks for these-
Bobby Angel:
Survival tools.
Jackie Angel:
Survival kits and books and tools.
Trent Horn:
Oh man.
Bobby Angel:
Books and rope.
Jackie Angel:
And we’re like, what are you doing it? But now you know, hey, he was right.
Trent Horn:
He was right.
Jackie Angel:
And I’m like, well now all the Californians are actually prepared if we have an earthquake, like a bigger earthquake, because I’m like what are you all thinking, the power’s going to go out from this virus, like the you know, but now Californians are actually prepared if we do have an earthquake.
Trent Horn:
If something actually happens. So, on our end what happened was by around the end of February, I was planning… so before I was going to Australia, I could see by the end of February this was serious, could get serious. So I told Laura look, I’m going to be in Australia for nearly two weeks, I want to make sure you’re taken care of before I get out of here, so let’s go to the store and get medicine in case you get sick or just supplies we had… I mean I already had, by the time… when I went that day, the only thing I couldn’t get was hand sanitizer. By that point it was gone, but I had extra for my emergency kits.
Jackie Angel:
That One dude had already bought the 17,000 bottles of them to sell an Amazon.
Trent Horn:
Matt Colvin, and you know what’s hard for me, my gut instinct is that was a bad thing. He should not do that, it’s depriving people of something they really need in a disaster. But the problem is I’ve read other studies on price gouging laws like when you have laws saying you can’t gouge people or charge more for something, but the problem is sometimes that disincentivizes people from taking risks to provide people things. So like let’s say you’re going to get a bunch of generators and drive into a area destroyed by a hurricane, you’re not going to do that if you could only sell the generator at its market cost, but that’s a separate debate to happen.
Bobby Angel:
Hero or villain.
Trent Horn:
Well, every… nearly everyone villain, libertarians hero. I mean that is never a debate to have. But so we couldn’t find that, but I had extra, but we were able to get other stuff and then she had that. She’s like I don’t think it’s a big deal, I’m like I’ll just wait and then when I come back from Australia, which is mid-March where you are with your school, then things started getting out of hand and so we managed to get groceries and things like that, but I remember, gosh what was it, it was like a week ago I went to Trader Joe’s just to get normal groceries in part of our run and I got there at 8:00 AM. I thought there might be a few people here, streams of people coming in, and I’m like, I’m just going to grab… I’m just going to get this pasta here so I don’t have to come back.
Bobby Angel:
It affects you.
Trent Horn:
Yeah. It gives you this anxiety, like I’m not going to panic, I’m going to, you know, everyone thinks, okay, I’m going to not be the greedy person who hoards to help everyone else then when you get there, you’re like they don’t have any more frozen Brussels sprouts, I got to get the last ones.
Bobby Angel:
You see the worst in humanity start to come out, but you also see the best.
Trent Horn:
You do.
Bobby Angel:
You see kindness and I think as Christians this is where we can also be attentive to our neighbors, our physical neighbors, our neighbors who may be older that are also confused and can’t get the supplies they need and to check in with one another.
Trent Horn:
Absolutely.
Bobby Angel:
We have other parent friends who have baby wipes and we don’t, or other supplies or again, parenting ideas of now these kids are home all day, which we’re used to, we quarantine all the time, with homeschooling-
Trent Horn:
That’s just what homeschooling is, homeschooling is just… homeschooling is where you just quarantine yourself from all of the social degenerates.
Jackie Angel:
From life.
Trent Horn:
It’s like, are you under lockdown? It’s like I’ve been under lockdown ever since MTV debut.
Jackie Angel:
It’s true. It’s true. So we are prepared. The home schoolers- we are prepared. But really it’s… for me, I wasn’t panicked until I started going on social media and then I’m like oh my gosh, this is kind of scary and-
Trent Horn:
And so maybe we need to take a break, a little from that too.
Jackie Angel:
And what’s funny is I’m home every day and I’m in my pajamas pretty much every day except for the two times a month I travel, but it’s funny, but now being told to stay at home, I’m like, I’m feeling more nervous and I’m like I stay home all the time, but now that I’m being told I have to stay here, it’s an interesting psychological thing.
Trent Horn:
But what I’ve appreciated is the time now to be able to spend with the kids and with Laura, getting more of that time together, it’s like there are a lot of silver linings for us to find like, okay, I get to have this time together with them and just not worry about other things and just be here in this moment. I sat down and I was thinking I had to get to the store and get this or that and I just sat with Matthew and I built his Legos, I’m like no, I don’t have to. I don’t get to do this if I’m in the office a bunch, I’m going to build this Lego car with him and maybe he’ll remember that and we’ll always remember when the coronavirus hit and we stayed home, built Legos together. So I think it is giving people some of these moments they don’t normally have or they don’t normally appreciate.
Jackie Angel:
Right.
Bobby Angel:
Yeah. And it’s, you know, some professions are still able to do from home, but a lot of people are suffering, a lot of people’s jobs are suddenly not there, or they’re not going to be there and so-
Trent Horn:
How has it affected you guys?
Bobby Angel:
I mean, we’re again blessed in that the high school I work at, we’ve shifted to all online and so whether these students wanted online classes or not, here it is. So it’s kind of a good college prep of like here’s how for some of you it’s going to be, so now the disciplines on them to watch classes and for us who aren’t as tech savvy with the classroom materials to get tech savvy really quick and I feel for these students, seniors especially who all their stuff, graduation, grad night, spring sports are now either canceled or up in the air, who knows? We have a couple athletes who are going to get scouted, now they’re not going to be watched now and so their college prospects are up in the air.
Trent Horn:
Don’t worry, there’s not going to be sports anyways. There’s not going to be sports, there’s not going to be ESPN. So ESPN was bought by Disney and Disney stock has just tanked. It’s possible, I’ve heard talks that Apple might try to do a hostile takeover of Disney and then-
Jackie Angel:
How much?
Trent Horn:
Apple will own everything.
Jackie Angel:
Yeah, they will.
Trent Horn:
It’s a giant plan from the very beginning.
Bobby Angel:
Take my money.
Jackie Angel:
Oh my goodness.
Trent Horn:
Right.
Bobby Angel:
Take my money. I saw someone using a Roomba and then a broom still like-
Jackie Angel:
Like curling.
Bobby Angel:
Like Canadian curling for some kind of sport.
Trent Horn:
Invented that to pass the time. Here’s one that we did to pass the time because also you don’t want to be stir-crazy at home because you start to just go bananas if you’re stuck at home, but you want to go out, but you’re also supposed to practice social distancing, which people make fun of, but it’s important because people wonder why are we doing that? And the whole point is to do something called to flatten the curve and a lot people don’t know entirely what it is, but the idea is if this virus, which is more contagious than influenza and it affects, especially the elderly, it can be very severe for them. What health experts are saying is that it may be the case that just everybody, or almost everybody gets this, but the goal is for everyone to not get it at once.
It’s kind of like if you go to a football game, if everybody goes to the bathroom at once, it’s a disaster, but if we all go to the bathroom sequentially it’s fine, that’s the thing with this disease. So if we distance each other, hopefully people will get it sequentially and then it won’t overwhelm hospital beds [crosstalk 00:17:36] the healthcare system-
Bobby Angel:
A little too soon With the toilet papers situation we’re in.
Trent Horn:
Well, it works if you all go at once, toilet paper will be gone. But it’s like how do we go out without infecting others? So one that we came up with, we go on walks at abandoned college campuses.
Jackie Angel:
Oh, interesting.
Trent Horn:
So some of them are very pristine, they have manicured grounds, they have open green areas where you can play soccer and there’s nobody there. So the trick is to find those places and you could probably do it even at high schools that aren’t locked in necessarily, or if you want to go play at a sports field or something. I mean like I’m not going to go to the community park because that has always been a germ pool.
Jackie Angel:
Right. And again, that’s something, surfaces that have been touched by kids [crosstalk 00:18:20].
Trent Horn:
I mean that’s just whenever like.
Jackie Angel:
Even flu season, I don’t, I try to avoid those places.
Trent Horn:
The park.
Jackie Angel:
Yes.
Trent Horn:
It’s when you have kids, it’s when you’re like trying to survive this pandemic with children is like playing a video game version of this on extreme mode because like you go out with your kids, you’re like it’ll be fine and children, especially toddlers, oblivious to everything. I’m going to touch everything and hug everyone.
Bobby Angel:
I don’t know what that is, I’m going to lick it.
Trent Horn:
But you try to explain germs to them and it’s just such an abstract concept, if I can’t see it, it’s not real.
Jackie Angel:
Right. And I think people, because what you just said, people say maybe everyone’s going to have to get this at some point because I did, I Googled how does this thing end? How does it end because even if just one person has it, it could start all over again, but you’re kind of right just learning the problem with this virus is that it’s not like Ebola. Like Ebola People get it and immediately they’re like in bed, they’re down. So they’re not going out to bars, they’re not going out hanging out with friends.
Trent Horn:
Ebola is deadlier but it’s not as transmissible… transmittable.
Jackie Angel:
You could have it for a couple of weeks and be infecting everybody and you don’t know because they’re not having symptoms. So that’s kind of the thing about this and that’s why the social distancing makes sense and that some… the more infectious diseases, they hang in the air for longer periods of time, whereas this, that’s why the whole six feet thing, they’re like this thing go in the air and it drops around six feet when you talk and you’re talking and stuff, whereas other… there’s other like measles are highly infectious, that stuff will hang in the air for a long time.
Trent Horn:
Totally.
Jackie Angel:
So I think it’s just kind of learning, when you’re on social media and you’re just clicking articles all the time, you’re learning this is why we’re doing this, it’s not because… it’s not like Ebola, but its the problem is I could have it and not know for two weeks and every time I go out, you know, so a lot of people have been thinking well, I’m not going to get it, it’s like yeah, but you don’t know how many people you could be giving it to. So it’s really changing that whole mindset of it’s not oh, I’m not going to get, it’s like well, no, but you need to think that maybe you do have it.
Trent Horn:
And especially people who are vulnerable, immunocompromised, the elderly. And I’ll tell you one thing I really don’t like hearing is when people say, well it just affects the elderly as if the “elderly” are this group of people we don’t have to care about, and it makes me think this, especially as Christians, we think about the 10 commandments. We think about the commitment to honor your father and mother. What’s funny is sometimes when we think of that commandment, we think of it as primarily applying to children, like little kids, like six and seven year olds doing what people our age tell them and while it does apply to them and of course, all the commandments apply in a certain form when someone reaches the age of reason, like thou shall not murder applies, don’t punch your brother in the head, a variant of it.
But the thing about the 10 commandments were not written for children, they were written for adults. Don’t commit adultery, don’t commit murder. So honor your father and mother it was primarily aimed at people our age, honoring our elderly parents, that was the primary concern and so when we just have this kind of attitude oh, it’s just the elderly I feel like it’s an offense against that commandment to not take it that seriously.
Jackie Angel:
And those of us who are in this, and that’s why you see even on Twitter, all of the gen Xers who have elderly like my parents. So Bobby and I, and you try… we’re like right at the kind of between the gen X and millennial, so there are ways-
Trent Horn:
We are the millexians.
Jackie Angel:
Yeah, there’s ways I don’t feel like a millennial because we didn’t, I didn’t have a phone till college.
Bobby Angel:
1984.
Jackie Angel:
Or 83.
Trent Horn:
Are you older than Bobby or younger?
Jackie Angel:
Oh, I’m the Cougar. I’m nine months older than Bobby, so it was 83.
Bobby Angel:
We were born in that space of time where we could grow up without phones, but then we were late high school college when they came out so we could adapt to technology.
Trent Horn:
Well, you’re almost there because I like to divide it. I feel like millennials are people, especially if 9/11 happened when you were in high school, I feel like that would be us here right now. We were in high school when that happened. We remember when high speed internet came. So if you can’t remember September 11th you’re gen Z, but if you were already full fledged adult when it happened, then you’re, you’re an X, you’re right, we’re right on the middle, so we’ve got parents who are entering into that age bracket.
Jackie Angel:
Well, my parents… I have my older siblings are gen Xers, so I have older parents, so my parents you know, someone was saying it’s for those of us who have elderly parents and we have kids.
Trent Horn:
Right, it’s like two things pulling at us for our attention.
Jackie Angel:
That we worry about how I’m eight months pregnant. So I’m also thinking like okay, I’ve got my parents to worry about, my kids, and kids aren’t as affected by this, but I’m thinking… and then I have my eight month pregnant body that I’m thinking, so it’s just… again, as a Christian it’s like okay, we’re trying not to panic and every time I go and preach anyways, I’m like you all listen, life is short, Memento mori. Bobby and I could again, every time I go somewhere I’m like, I could die in a plane crash on this way here, so I’m not afraid of death, but you’re right I’m ready to see Jesus face to face, I try to love God, my neighbor myself as much as I can every day, but it’s kind of the panic of other people that is freaking me out.
Trent Horn:
Is that affecting you in a similar way?
Bobby Angel:
Really only when I’ve gone out shopping. But again, it’s that like… if this life is all you think is, if your physical health is the end all be all then yeah, hoard and batten down the hatches and all this. And for the Christian, it’s not a call to be reckless, but it’s a call like now’s the time to serve and now is the time to think of other people and witness to plagues come and go and the church has been through a whole lot and this is when saints are made and.
Trent Horn:
Well yeah and I know a family who parted with the diapers that they were stockpiling to someone who’s going to give birth here in a month and so that family I was talking to them and they it was really hard to do, but because it was hard that’s more of a reason that I know God would want me to do that.
Bobby Angel:
Absolutely. And I would say this thing, the situation we’re in too flies in the face of what we usually do as humans and what we need to do in terms of like when a tragedy hits or a difficult time we want to go to church, we want to be in community, we want human touch and we’re told don’t go to church and you may not be able to anymore anyway, don’t be in community, stay physically apart and don’t be touching people flies in the face of what comforts us, really what we’re made for as humans.
Trent Horn:
So I think this gives us an opportunity to really reinvigorate our faith because you always say oh, we trust in God, we trust in God, but then it’s like I trust in God and Target, but then it’s like when Target’s not there, it’s like what am I going to do? Target was always in parentheses right after God and then it’s like no way, I really do trust in him and for me just the biggest thing, and I think any parent can relate to this is the sense… almost like a sense of guilt. It’s like I’m the parent my children should always be provided for and so you get that anxiety when you go to the store and you’re like Bobby imagine you walk in there, it’s like this primal feeling I’m the man, I’m going to kill this saber tooth tiger, i.e I’m going to get the frozen chicken strips in the freezer and if they’re not there, it’s like I failed on the hunt.
Bobby Angel:
But it’s a weird thing too if the thing I wanted isn’t there, I feel like I should grab something else just because it’s weird how it affects you.
Trent Horn:
Yeah. But that’s why I think if we have faith in God, God will provide for us and he’s provided for Christians in vastly worse situations than this, vastly worse situations. If you think about the plague of the 14th century, there were people from the bubonic plague versions of it that they would be fine in the morning and they’d be dead in the street in the afternoon. I mean it was just madness. And especially Christians living in impoverished ways, so maybe this is just a taste for us in the modern world of how to make these kinds of sacrifices to help others and you’re right, I’m especially feeling for people who are going to be feeling the financial crunch. I know for me and you as public speakers, I mean you’re still teaching Bobby, thankfully you can still teach online, but as speakers, our events are done, I’m not speaking for the next three months.
Jackie Angel:
Yeah and Bobby and I because of maternity leave, I was planning on taking maternity leave all of April because I’m due at the end of April. All of the April, all of may, all of June. So we had saved up, because no one pays you when you’re self employed, you have to save and so we had saved up for those three months and my events in March got canceled too, so I was like ooh, but I’m thinking if this goes past till July and this goes past till August I’m like okay, I’m like all right God, you’re going to provide, we’ll figure out and I’ve had some friends get really creative like hey, well let’s write a book, let’s do an online conference and people can donate if they want. So it’s… but I think about my friends who are the sole provider of their families and they’re speakers and everything is canceled because at least Bobby and I are… it’s half and half and he still teaches, but yeah, I think of all my friends who are the sole providers in their families.
Trent Horn:
It’s an unprecedented thing for people in the Catholic speaking community because it’s understandable sometimes a blizzard will cancel a conference you have somewhere, where you’ll get even a region of events might get canceled because of something, but I’ve never known for speakers where every event in the country and world is now done and you can’t do that anymore.
Jackie Angel:
And you don’t know how long-
Trent Horn:
How long it will be.
Jackie Angel:
That’s kind of the thing that is a little like oh gosh, yeah and you still have a mortgage to pay, you still have kids to feed, you still have all these things, health insurance and all that stuff.
Bobby Angel:
And we have parents in the school community I work at who work in the airline industry, or they own a restaurant, or they’re just like the government’s like you’re not allowed to open. It’s like well, so the longterm effects of are these families going to be able to afford Catholic education come next year.
Trent Horn:
Yeah. And that’s where we all are just going to have to be creative both in helping each other out and in finding ways to pursue these mutual goals that we have. So let’s talk then to round things out here to a close about living life under lockdown especially because we talked about our faith as giving us nourishment and sustenance during this time, but that’s hard when basically where it’s going to go, at least for the next few weeks if not longer, we won’t be able to go to mass. You won’t be able to… mass won’t be celebrated, some churches are still offering adoration, but a lot… some of them are even canceling confession and how have you guys been coping with the idea that church is closed basically?
Jackie Angel:
That’s crazy. I’m so glad that so many priests are live streaming mass, I’m really glad. Again, these are ways of being innovative and then there was another priest doing drive through confessions.
Trent Horn:
Yes. I saw that on ChurchPOP.
Jackie Angel:
Yeah. He was like six feet away. He’s like okay, one person in a car, you’re keeping your distance and you’re going to confess. So it’s like finding out these ways to be creative, so for us I love that even daily mass is being livestream now, it’s really strange.
Bobby Angel:
We have a 6PM prayer time for our family where we’ll do the divine mercy chaplet or the rosary and with toddlers it’s just… it’s chaos, but we do.
Jackie Angel:
They just do run around while we’re… Bobby and I try to pray, they’re like hey man, some of them are praying and then some of them are screaming.
Bobby Angel:
The redhead is doing a suplex in the middle of the divine mercy chaplet and.
Trent Horn:
What I’ve noticed with my boys who are five and soon to be three, what is helpful, I think with two and three year olds there’s this book series that Laura has purchased, I forget the author, but it says your two year old, your four year old, your three year old, it’s written a while ago and it summarizes what they are, their personality. So a four year old, your four year old, wild and wonderful. Your three-year-old is friend or enemy and so let’s see, two year old, your two year old is terrible or tender.
Jackie Angel:
And both, our two year old is terrible and tender.
Bobby Angel:
Depending on the minute.
Jackie Angel:
Depending on it. So we have a five and a half, a four year old and a two year old and-
Bobby Angel:
It’s interesting Trent is that they’re also going to be oblivious to this.
Trent Horn:
Yeah, I know.
Jackie Angel:
The little ones.
Trent Horn:
They just won’t remember.
Bobby Angel:
The little ones are like oh dad’s home again.
Jackie Angel:
Our kid thinks it’s Saturday now every day.
Trent Horn:
We can’t keep track. Laura was saying is it really Wednesday? I’m like, I don’t know what day it is anymore.
Jackie Angel:
I know. Well they’re like, it’s like a perpetually long weekend for these kids because Bobby’s home, oh it’s Saturday again, and I’m like, no-
Trent Horn:
It’s like children can’t read calendars and just measure it based on when parents are home.
Bobby Angel:
I know.
Trent Horn:
That’s their internal clock.
Jackie Angel:
So for some people I think some people have resorted to schedules because that helps the mind, just like oh my gosh okay, because again, even for me who is… I am home all the time now that there’s like this I don’t know if I’ll be traveling again for the next… I don’t know, so it seems like there’s no end in sight, I feel like I’m the kind of person that needs… I’m going to have a schedule. So for me, even during lent and I was, you know, some priests were like listen, you’re lenting things now because of this whole thing might have to be relaxed depending on what you were doing.
Bobby Angel:
We’re all giving up more than we expected for [crosstalk 00:31:51].
Jackie Angel:
So for me, prioritizing okay, I’m going to read scripture in the mornings and now that daily mass is being streamed I’m like you know what? I should probably… that’d be awesome to stream it as well.
Trent Horn:
Yeah. Just stream it and to let the kids be a part and I’ve noticed for the prayer activity I was going to say with my kids socially, the three year old can be friend or enemy. The five year old book, these books are by Louise Bates Ames, Louise Bates Ames, Your Five Year Old: Sunny and Serene, so with my five-year-old I give him a task during prayer time. I think if you give kids something to do then if they feel like they have nothing to do, they have no reason to behave and so you give them something to do it’s like oh, this is my job, and so his job is to hold up the icon over his head while we’re praying, he’s like I can hold this up pretty high, look at this right here, but then it gives that sense of purpose involved, so maybe if you’re doing mass at home live streamed, I mean you’re not celebrating mass, but the general structure of the Roman missal is pretty lax about well, I think I could let my five year old “serve” in this way during the mass, get more involved.
Jackie Angel:
Our five year old actually, we had a friend.
Bobby Angel:
Oh, this is great.
Jackie Angel:
We had a priest friend over saying mass… celebrating mass at our house and this was months ago.
Bobby Angel:
And he around the dinner table and we’re kneeling for the consecration, he raises the host and our five year old goes [inaudible 00:33:14].
Jackie Angel:
She vocally does the bells-
Bobby Angel:
And you’re seeing this moment and then father’s shoulders started shaking and I just started laughing and I’m like, Oh my gosh and she leans over, she’s like daddy, I did the bells sound, I’m like I know, and now you’re embarrassed, but also supremely proud they knew when the bells were supposed to be.
Trent Horn:
Yeah. They want to help. Like hey, we got no bells here, bells going.
Bobby Angel:
And she did it again for the cup and I just like, good, good.
Trent Horn:
Oh my gosh. Well, I love it and so I think now during this time, it’s just we have to look at and it’s almost providential to me and who knows I think we need to pray for this to end as soon as possible. What I’m praying for is that the obligation, you know, the bans on which are now a lot of times these churches are suspending mass because the state has said nobody can gather more than 25 people or 20 people.
Jackie Angel:
Well, in our county, Orange County said no public or private gatherings at all.
Trent Horn:
Yeah. Its just-
Jackie Angel:
Till March 31st and at least till then, and so it’s like oh, okay. Again, being creative and I think I’m really loving that people are being creative with how do we connect when we’re isolated, so I love that Coldplay and John Legend they did free concerts on Instagram live to let people in, you’re like okay, we’re going to do a concert. I have other friends leading praise and worship on Instagram live to let people kind of again feel like they’re there, people are doing Bible studies on zoom.
Bobby Angel:
It takes situations like this to really kind of wake you up and realize how much… how important community is, how important the sacraments are to not take it for granted.
Trent Horn:
Totally. And so that’s why I was thinking that it’s providential this happened during lent and if it ends before Holy week, then it’s like we were all basically sent into the desert for the end. We are literally like you want to go to the desert for lent? Here you go right now, like oh, I guess this is just kind of what it’s like.
Jackie Angel:
And I would say to married couples out there, if you have single friends to really be really intentional about reaching out to them, communicate with them, Skyping with them. I told my friend, I’m like hey, I’m willing to start words with friends again so that we can constantly be in… because again-
Bobby Angel:
And she destroys people.
Trent Horn:
Wait, what’s words with friends?
Jackie Angel:
It’s Like Scrabble, but online and Bobby has stopped playing with me.
Bobby Angel:
It almost really ruined our marriage, so we had to stop this game, but-
Trent Horn:
Look, I’m able to get 25 points with what? Divorce, those Vs really help.
Jackie Angel:
Oh my God.
Bobby Angel:
But I mean we have again, built in touch and if you have children, you can wrestle, you have the human interaction. But again, if you’re single, if you’re in that situation where it’s like how do I, how am I going to avoid temptation?
Jackie Angel:
You’re feeling really isolated.
Bobby Angel:
All I have is the internet.
Jackie Angel:
So I would say to any married couples listening or married people listening to really just think about your single friends and I even… I just found out yesterday that you can watch Netflix together and have-
Trent Horn:
What?
Jackie Angel:
A chat… Yeah, someone was saying on Chrome there’s an extension, it’s called Netflix something where you can like have a party and you can watch the same movie, or whatever TV show and they have a chat on the side. I was like I did not know that existed, so again, for my friends-
Trent Horn:
It’s called Netflix party.
Jackie Angel:
Yeah. Netflix party.
Trent Horn:
Chrome on Google you just search Netflix party, Google Chrome it’s an extension so you can… you watch the same thing together and then you can chat with one another.
Jackie Angel:
Yeah. So again, to have this, we have to be creative because when it comes to these times that maybe we are a little more panicked, we want to be with people, but when we’re told that we can’t be with our friends we have to find creative ways and so even a friend of mine she’s creating this online conference where it’s free and she asks a bunch of speakers hey, do you, will you guys… can I send out daily videos and people can donate if they can, if they want, but again, creative ways to bring people together to give people hope that when everyone else is feeling this panic and this isolation, we’re learning how to do this, we’re all in this together. Sorry, I bring out my high school musical one, two or three.
Trent Horn:
Well, you are a professional singer, so I’m not going to try to join in, it would sound like Peter Brady trying to join in together.
Jackie Angel:
To be creative about how on social media we get together and we help each other out through this and give each other encouragement and hope and it seems a little bleak.
Bobby Angel:
Yeah. And I would temper it all with like people are dying, they really are. I think it’s easy to focus on my what… how am I inconvenienced and things that I can’t do or but I mean there are people-
Trent Horn:
Especially in Italy, thousands of cases.
Bobby Angel:
Legit.
Trent Horn:
And it could be like that here, we have in… the modern age, it’s funny we have so much, but one thing that gets taken away from us is time, because we have so much it feels like we never have enough time to do anything and now this disaster has kind of given us all time back and we can use it for spending time with people, but also spending time in prayer for those who are sick, for the repose of the souls of those who have died and the same time I’ve seen for evangelism, people having conversations now with friends and with family members who have been far away from the faith, who are facing their own mortality and they’re willing to have those conversations again and that is a blessing in the midst of these trials for us to consider.
So keep all that together, keep us in your prayers, we’ll keep you all in our prayers. Just a heads up everyone before we officially close everything out. The next few episodes that will air I think next week we have an episode on the perpetual virginity of Mary, I’ve got tomorrow should be a nice lighthearted free for all Friday, so on the podcast I do free for all Friday and that’s whatever, you never know a topic you’ll get. I’m pretty sure tomorrow’s episode, I am 90% sure is how to talk to babies. So it’s about cognitive psychology involving children. So we have a lot of episodes coming up, but just know I recorded them before I went to Australia, so that’s why the tone may be a tad different.
Jackie Angel:
Lighter.
Trent Horn:
The tone is lighter because they were recorded pre pandemic.
Bobby Angel:
This guy is so disrespectful.
Trent Horn:
Which is this guy, why he’s talking about talking to babies, there’s a pandemic happening. So this far as you know that the next… in fact I was going to have an interview with my good friend David Bates, the co-host of Pints With Jack on CS Lewis, I’m going move that to Easter week. I just felt it was important to talk about this now. So for our listeners just so you know, the next three weeks, next three to four weeks, we’ll have great content, but it was prerecorded, so I’m probably not going to mention the pandemic and maybe that’s good to keep it off people’s minds a little bit. Guys, any last thoughts?
Jackie Angel:
Yeah, I would just say stay hopeful and remember that always our goal is heaven. Our goal is having, our goal is to be with Jesus in heaven, so no matter… again, we’re not guaranteed 90 years on earth, I would say and that brings hope, that brings hope that there’s such beauty in what we were made for, that our purpose really is to be with God in heaven and so don’t… do not fear and if you are feeling that anxiety or fear to step away from social media, to step away and to find out other ways to connect with people-
Bobby Angel:
There’s so many good [inaudible 00:40:38] right now between Catholic Answers, Ascension, Word on Fire-
Trent Horn:
Word on Fire is doing daily Mass, I think.
Bobby Angel:
We can use the internet for bad things, we can also use it for really Holy things. So use again the time we have because now again, I’ve been putting something off writing a book or being creative in some way now, it’s like now I’m quarantine, so I got all this time and turn the ache, turn the restlessness to prayer to let God meet you in that.
Trent Horn:
And where can people learn about more your resources because I know you have videos on ascension, people can watch while they’re quarantined and other great resources. So where can people learn more about your ministries?
Jackie Angel:
So we’re still coming out with weekly videos.
Bobby Angel:
On YouTube, if you go to YouTube Ascension presents.
Jackie Angel:
And Jackie and Bobby, so weekly, Tuesdays our stuff comes out. We also have a couple books out so Pray, Decide and Don’t Worry is one of them, you can do this.
Trent Horn:
Hey, perfect, look at that.
Jackie Angel:
Hey, during this time of discernment, this time of quarantine, you can learn how to discern. So we have a book about discernment and if you are quarantine with your spouse, we have a book called Forever, Catholic Devotional for your Marriage so you can actually learn how to talk to each other again.
Bobby Angel:
Hey, there’s this woman on the couch next to me, she’s been here this whole time.
Trent Horn:
I’m going to type something to her on Netflix party and see what she’s thinking.
Jackie Angel:
So yeah, and Jackieandbobby.com is our website, but we’re on social. I’m on Twitter, Jackie Francois and then we’re both on Instagram, but yours is it Bob Angel or Bobby Angel?
Bobby Angel:
Bobby.angel, I can only handle one social platform at a time.
Trent Horn:
I have not been able to brave Instagram yet. I think I have a blank Instagram page that may be filled up at some point, but for now we’ve got a lot on our plates-
Jackie Angel:
That’s right.
Bobby Angel:
So thank you for having us Trent, please stay eight feet from me at all times.
Jackie Angel:
We will bow our way out of this.
Trent Horn:
I love it, I love it because every time I bow I want to say Domo arigato Mr. Roboto, thank you for coming in today. Thank you guys so much for being here. Thank you all for listening, hope you enjoyed this, be sure to go visit Jackie and Bobby’s website, Jackieandbobby.com. Thank you guys and I hope you all have a very blessed day.
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