Welcome everyone to the Word on Fire Show. So glad you could join us today. Thank you for all our listeners. I wish you guys could be down here in the studio with us today in Santa Barbara. It's a beautiful day as always. I'm here with the man in black Bishop Baron Bishop. How you doing?

Hey Joe, great being with you. I'm doing good. Great being with you as well Bishop. Now what are you busy with the confirmations? What's going on with you? You got weddings? It's wedding season?

Last much weddings, but as a Bishop you do tons of confirmations. So I've got about 40 in a two month period. So like last weekend I hit five, you know, one on Friday, two Saturday, two Sunday. Got one tonight. And then I've got four more of this coming weekend. So they're great. I like confirmations, but you do a lot at one time. And so you get sort of sick of your own homily. That's part of the problem.

But now they're great joy. And to address kids that age are like 15, 16 years old out here. And such an important time and to bring something of the gospel to them. You know, I enjoy doing that.

But the season will be over in about a month, the confirmation season. You'll get some of your life back then. Yeah, what's left between all the traveling and everything. But during this time, basically I can't travel anywhere. You're pretty much on full time alert for confirmations.

I don't imagine you've had much time to check out any movies recently. Well, you know, it's harder this season because the weekend is totally taken up. Yeah, so on all the confirmations are Friday Saturday Sunday. So my usual if I see a movie, it's usually on a Friday or Saturday evening if I can. But during this season, it's tough. Yeah.

Well, last week we talked a lot about the Cohen Brothers films and it was a big head. Yeah, it was a big hit. And so I thought this week, you know, there's so many great movies that they've made.

We take another episode and do it kind of a part two of the Cohen Brothers and their spiritually alert films. So today let's start with a serious man. That movie I hadn't seen until you recommended it. Yeah, it's so good. I mean, all their movies are watchable. But that one, I think is such really clear religious motifs.

We mentioned, I think last time that the Cohen Brothers having common with Bob Dylan, they're both Jews from Minnesota. And the Cohen Brothers use Bob Dylan a lot in their movies, most famously in Big Lebowski. But this movie is set, the serious man in Minnesota in the Jewish community there. So the same kind of world that Bob Dylan, the Cohen Brothers came of Asian.

And it's about this man, Lauren Scopnik, who's a math professor, right? But it's kind of a modern retelling of the story of Job because he's a good man, a serious man, religiously serious man whose life just begins to unravel in every possible way.

Marriage collapses. He's up for 10 year, but there's someone who's trying to undermine his 10 year bid. There's a student who got a failing grade and now is trying to bribe him.

And when that doesn't work, he accuses him. So it's like from every angle, he's being just assaulted and he wonders, what is going on here? What is God up to? And the movie unfolds as his life kind of unraveling. And then he's trying to find wisdom from his own Jewish tradition.

And so he visits, he tries to see the the chief rabbi, but he's out of town. So he gets the young, just out of school, the young rabbi, who's very charming sort of figure, naive, and a spiritual naive. And he basically tells him, you know, Larry, look at the parking lot. God is everywhere. God's in the parking lot. Look at the parking lot, Larry. So here's a man whose life is unraveling. And this bourgeois is telling him God's in the parking lot.

Well, here's a typical cone brothers. It's funny. Yes, kind of ludicrous, what an immature thing to say. On the other hand, is there something right about it? Yeah, it seems to me. Where's God everywhere? God's even in very ordinary things in places like parking lots. Is there a spiritual wisdom that he's taking in from this kind of goofy kid? Yeah, yeah, even as we laugh at it.

Well, his life continues to unravel. So he goes now to the rabbi. He was originally trying to see this older, like a middle aged man. And he tells him the story of the Goi's teeth. And this is a wonderful, it's wonderfully told about a Jewish dentist, right? And to the dentist comes this non-Jewish man, a Gentile. And the dentist takes a, you know, what he called a mold of his teeth, right? And as he's making the

bridge, he notices on the inside back of his lower teeth are these clearly written Hebrew letters that say, help me save me. Right. And so he's like, what in the world? How could this, first of all, it's on the inside back? How would anyone carve that even if they wanted to? Right. And the guy's not Jewish. Right. He's a goi. So he wouldn't even know Hebrew.

And there they are. It's not, you know, just an accident. And he's a middle aged man. It's like some heavy metal dude that would have weird body altercations. So he just wonders, what is this all about? And he searches out the meaning of it, you know, in Hebrew, every letter corresponds to a number. So he figures out the numbers. And it's actually seven numbers. So maybe it's a phone number. So he calls the phone number. And it's just this local grocery store. And he finds, you know, the red robin, I think it's called. And so he searches and asks, what is this?

And he says, and asks, we finally comes to the same rabbi, right? That Larry is seeking advice from. And the rabbi says like, I don't know. But, you know, help me save me. Does it mean be kind to others? Yeah. Yeah. Couldn't hurt. Right. And with that, the guy is liberated. But that he's like, all right. I get it. And he starts sleeping again returns to life and everything's fine. And so Larry goes, is that that's the meaning of the story? And he was like, yeah.

Again, we laugh because borderline miracle happened. Right. And that's all you get from it. Right. So we laugh the same way we left at the kid. But is there something right in that too that is the ultimate purpose of all religious writing? Something like, yeah, help people be kind to people. You know, so the spiritual wisdom in there. Well, finally, the ancient rabbi. So we have a young rabbi middle age rabbi and now an ancient rabbi. Right.

And he's the venerable wisdom figure in the tradition. And to me, the funniest scenes when poor Larry is wits and life unraveling in every possible way is seeking an appointment with him. And he goes there and there's the the secretary. You know, no, he can't see you. Please, please check. Could you please check it so that very slowly she gets up from walks down this long corridor. And he can see what's going on. And she speaks to the rabbi.

Then very slowly walks back down the long right. And then says, he can't see you. He's busy. And Larry goes, he doesn't look busy. You know, thinking. Yeah, he's thinking. Right. So, but anyway, what's cool about that rabbi Larry doesn't seem, but Larry Sun does because Larry Sun's getting bar mitzvah. Right. And the bar mitzvah boys all see this ancient rabbi. You know, well, they had confiscated the bar mitzvah boys.

And then he's just a little transistor radio. And on the transistor, he had the the Jefferson airplane, you know, that you got to find somebody to love. You better find somebody to love, you know, that song.

...