I have the book, Unshakeable, which I can hold up with one hand, because I can't use the other arm,

because I have shoulder surgery.

I'm my name's Father Mike Schmitz, and this is Essentially Presents.

So, I have a book, not just I own a book, like I wrote a book.

It's called Unshakeable, building a life of virtue in a world of chaos.

You know, there's an inscription.

They always ask, hey, would you want to put a dedication to this? So I did.

And it's to my mom and dad who built a life of virtue in a world of chaos. And someone asked me about that. They said, what's some of the best things or some of the greatest things your parents taught you? If they're the ones who built a life of virtue in a world of chaos, what is some of the greatest things they ever taught you? That's a struggle because they taught me so many things. I'm going to share two. I want to share the thing about my mom and the other things about my mom too. And then my dad had this rigorous honesty thing, but also there's faith and so I'm not sure what I'm not sure what to how about three? Three with maybe a little bonus one. My mom, she was a nurse, trained nurse and worked as a nurse, helped my dad through medical school, and then she became a stay-at-home mom. She would get up before all the rest of us and start making breakfast, and then she packed our lunches and then made our suppers and stuff. And she just so consistently did that. It was one of those situations where I remember, I remember identifying my mom's love with her making food. I didn't realize that not everyone, not every mom did that. Not every mom, you know, made breakfast for their kids. And I just, I took it for granted a lot. But then, fast forward, when I was ordained and I was invited over to people's houses and they'd say, oh, we're going to serve such and such kind of food. In my head, I'd be thinking, ah, that's just, I hate that kind of food. And then I go there,

and it would taste so good. And the more and more I had meals at other people's houses, I realized, oh my gosh, my mom's a bad cook. She's a cook all the time for us, and she wasn't very good. And then, a couple of years ago, a number of years ago now, my sisters, my two older sisters,

they were like, oh yeah, mom hates to cook.

Wait, wait, what?

One, my sisters, my two older sisters,

they were like, oh yeah, mom hates to cook. Wait, wait, what? One, my mom cooked for us all the time. Number two, she wasn't good at it. Number three, she didn't actually even like it. And the fourth thing is, I had no idea. I had no idea, ate that she was bad because I just, you know, my mom. Of course I would love your mom's cooking. I had no idea she didn't like doing it. She just did it. And here's one of the most incredible things. Again, this building a life of virtue in a world of chaos is about love. Love so often, this is just, it hit me after she passed away. So often love is just showing up. Not showing up perfectly, not showing up as the star,

not showing up as the expert chef. But to be able to love is a vastly greater talent, skill,

ability than to run a marathon or to cook well. And that's what my mom did. I don't care. I don't care that she wasn't a great. I mean, there was a lot of food that were like, oh, this is really good, mom, we like this. It wasn't like it was awful, but she loved really, really well. Number two. My dad, he and I had a conversation, and he reminded me of this. I was interacting with some people like when it came to Newman and it came to like, you know, the diocese and we're trying to build a Newman Center and a church and and I said, you know, in some of these conversations I left out this kind of critical detail and I just had to have a conversation where I included the whole thing. Because I thought the detail would be embarrassing like that.

I thought the people who know more than me would say, Father Mike, why would you ever do that kind of thing? I don't know, I just said yes to this person and invited me to do such and such. I thought they would think it was foolish and so I had just not shared it, you know, because how we do. lie, I just didn't share all the details. And then I did. And then I was like, you know, I have to, I have to say all the details. So I said all the details. And I told my dad this story. And he said, oh, yeah. I said, we call that rigorous honesty. And I was like, oh. And he said, yeah, yeah. He said, at one point, you know, you can realize you're dancing around the thing that

needs to be said.

But when it needs to be said, it needs to be said.

And so if there's something my dad taught me, my mom taught me, love is, sometimes love is

just showing up.

My dad taught me rigorous honesty, rigorous honesty, just to tell the whole truth. If you can tell

the whole truth, just tell the whole truth, regardless of if it embarrasses you, regardless of

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