271 – Father Medard Laz of Ft. Lauderdale, A Retired Catholic Priest, Serial Social Entrepreneur & Author Of Nine Books

Transcript:

Tom Couch: [00:00:00] Special thanks to Horizon Therapeutics for sponsoring the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast, working tirelessly to research, develop, and bring forward medicines for people living with rare and rheumatic diseases. Discover more about Horizon Therapeutics’ mission at HorizonTherapeutics.com.

Medard Laz: I published an old Ann Landers thing about somebody who was an alcoholic and they thought that drinking would do this for it, but it did just the opposite. So there was about 15 or 20 things. And so I put that down there. And I was blown away. One of my readers, I had no idea who this is. He emailed me and said, I just want to thank you that it’s been one year of sobriety and that I read your Treat a year ago, and it so touched me, it changed my life. I haven’t had a drink in a year.

Tom Couch: That’s our guest this week, Father Medard Laz, a retired Catholic priest for the Archdiocese of Chicago, [00:01:00] founding pastor of Holy Family Church in Inverness, Illinois, the author of many books and a serious serial social entrepreneur. His achievements are many; so many in fact, that we’re presenting his conversation with David Hirsch in two parts. In this first installment, we’ll hear about his home life growing up and the beginnings of a spiritual journey to help those in need. That’s all on this Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast. Say hello now to the host of the Dad to Dad Podcast and founder of the Special Fathers Network, David Hirsch.

David Hirsch: Hi, and thanks for listening to the Dad to Dad Podcast, fathers mentoring fathers of children with special needs, presented by the Special Fathers Network.

Medard Laz: The Special Fathers Network is a dad to dad mentoring program for fathers raising children with special needs. Through our personalized matching process, new fathers with special needs children connect with mentor fathers in a similar situation. It’s a great way for dads to support dads. To find [00:02:00] out more, go to 21stCenturyDads.org.

David Hirsch: And if you’re a dad looking for help or would like to offer help, we’d be honored to have you join our closed Facebook group. Please go to Facebook.com, groups, and search “dad to dad.”

Tom Couch: So let’s hear part one of this conversation between Father Medard Laz and David Hirsch.

David Hirsch: I’m thrilled to be talking today with my longtime friend, Father Medard Laz of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, a retired Catholic priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago, founding pastor at Holy Family Church in Inverness, Illinois, the author of nine books, who is also a serial social entrepreneur who started a series of not-for-profit organizations, including Rainbows for All Children, Angels in Action, Hearts for Humanity, Treats for the Soul, and Joyful Again! Med, thank you for taking the time to do a podcast interview for the Special Fathers Network.

Medard Laz: Wonderful.

David Hirsch: Let’s start with some background. Where did you grow up? Tell me [00:03:00] something about your family.

Medard Laz: I grew up in Chicago on the near north side. Was the youngest of three; I had two older brothers, they’re both deceased now. Hillary was ten years older than I and Tom was nine years older than I, and a mom and a dad. We had a nice house on the north side of Chicago. They bought it just as I was being born in 1943 for $1,300.

David Hirsch: Oh my gosh.

Medard Laz: And they sold it about 20 years later for $13,000 and then moved to a suburb of Chicago.

David Hirsch: Yeah you’re reminding me there’s a lot of time that’s gone by since you were born in 1943 and the price of everything being so modest. Everything’s relative. But sorry to hear about your brothers predeceasing you, but they were a little bit older. And my recollection was that both of your brothers went into the priesthood.

Medard Laz: Correct. They both went into the priesthood. Back then kids were raised pretty [00:04:00] strictly at home, a lot of discipline. So for my two older brothers, I think it was a natural progression for them going to the seminary back then. It was pretty strict, very disciplinary. And so they probably felt right at home. And for reasons not to marry, neither one of them ever got married in their life, but the older brother Hillary, he was a priest for about oh, 12 years. And the ravages of the Vietnamese war is what he said shook his faith to the point where he needed to step back and take a good look at his relationship with God and all. He said so many times young men in the early and worst days of Vietnam would go off to war to save the world and all the mother would get back are some body parts. That was tough. Sometimes night after night, having a mother cry all over him. He’d come home from the funeral parlor just soaked with her tears. And trying to work that out, he said, hey, I don’t know if this life is for me. [00:05:00] Not so much that he didn’t want to console or help, but I think it was just a difficult situation.

And then my other brother, Tom, who was about a year younger than he, nine years older than myself, he had I think some emotional issues to deal with from the time he was ordained. He really was wondering, was he worthy of the calling as such and did he have a calling? So after really trying for a number of years he left and both never married and the like. They moved to California and continued life out there.

David Hirsch: Thanks for sharing in particular about your older brother, Hillary. What comes to mind, what you were describing about consoling the families that have loved ones who served in Vietnam. That era, the individuals that made it back, in many cases, had a lot of what we would have referred to then as some baggage, right? Just from the raw experience of seeing people die and questioning the whole experience. And then with the parents, the loved [00:06:00] ones, who lost their sons in the Vietnam War, the equivalent of the PTSD. If you didn’t actually experience the war firsthand the family members were going through this high level of trauma. And it seems like the collateral damage, the families and then individuals like your brother who were totally emotionally involved or committed to these families, there’s further casualties, a ripple effect of casualties, if you will.

So I appreciate you sharing that about your brother serving, and then it wasn’t a lifelong pursuit like it has been for you. And did I remember in a prior conversation that your mom died at your relatively early age?

Medard Laz: Yeah, I was a senior in high school and she was a very healthy woman, just 52 years old. And one of her kidneys failed and she went into the hospital, had that kidney removed, and then the other one started to shut down. And that was in the early days of dialysis back in 1961. And so a [00:07:00] dialysis machine they said was the size of a box car. And so to move her from the west side of Chicago down to the south side where they had such a huge dialysis machine was just too rough. Her condition was bad. It was probably easily the greatest life-changing moment for me. I had this fabulously energetic wonderful, loving mom. She really held the family together. And to have her vibrant and alive and two weeks later, dad come home from the hospital and say mom died today. That just blew me away, in terms of losing my mom. And so there I was graduating and probably of 250 or more high school kids graduating, I felt I had the mark of Cain on me. Everybody else has got a mom here, sitting with them and taking pictures, and I don’t. That was extremely traumatic.

And I think, David since we’re going to be talking, I think that really marked the future of my life – losing my mom at a [00:08:00] pivotal time. About two months after she died, our class had our trip to Washington and then New York. So this was, of course, the first time on a plane. And those weren’t jets back then, in 1961. And for me, I just wondered maybe it would be better for this plane to crash so I could be with my mom. She’s only been gone for a couple of months.

And then when I started the seminary, just a couple of months later, and right across the fence about a block away is my mother’s grave. So she dies in February and I start the seminary, I leave home in September. And my dad is wailing and crying every night, you hear his tears all summer long cause he just lost his 52 year old wife. I leave him, I go to the seminary, and we couldn’t come home, we had to stay there. So I’m leaving home, and then I’m walking around the seminary grounds, practically seeing my mother’s grave over the fence, and I’m [00:09:00] saying, I wonder if her body is cold. Has she begun to disintegrate, her body and stuff like that. And so it was by far the most traumatic time in my life, high school, first year college and losing your mother. And by far, she’s been the only woman in my life. And by far, she’s been the greatest loss of my life by far.

David Hirsch: Yeah thanks for sharing in such an authentic and insightful way. And if your relationship with your mom was similar to the relationship I shared with my mom, who lived to age 83 – so I had her around a much longer period of time than you – it’s the closest I think I’ll ever experience in this world to unconditional love. It’s a palpable experience and I’m sorry for your loss and at such an early age, but like you were saying, maybe there was some foreshadowing there for the life that you would live and the things that would be important to you [00:10:00] decades down the road.

So going back to your family for a moment, I’m curious to know what did your dad do for a living?

Medard Laz: Dad was a railroad engineer on the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and the Pacific for over 50 years. And I think that, as with lots of people of that era, he came out of the Depression. There he was married to my mom back in the mid 1930s and the Depression hit. You had to live through it to understand what it was. So here’s a man and a woman, my mom and dad in their mid to late twenties with two little boys, my two brothers, and absolutely no income, no savings, no work. Everything went down the drain.

They were fine in their own worlds. They both managed a fairly good-sized grocery store, National T. My dad was the manager, and then he opened up a new store across the [00:11:00] street. And they said we’re gonna merge the two stores together, and you’re gonna work for the new manager across the street. And that was my mother!

So my dad was a chauvinist of the first caliber. And so, I’m not working for a woman. So he marries her. [both laugh] So that’s how they met and how they married. He married the woman across the street and boom, I don’t think that they were married for a few months and the depths of the Depression.

And so my grandfather who had his great successes… my dad’s dad was a successful entrepreneur. He had a coal business and he had a milk business. He built apartment buildings. His Achilles heel was his drinking problem. And so he drank one away and then he’d start another business and work hard.

All of my grandparents came from Poland, with little or no education. Absolutely, positively, no income. Nobody, there were no jobs. My dad used to say, you had to be there to see how many men were jumping off the high rises on LaSalle Street.[00:12:00] Like what we saw with 9/11 in New York. He says that was what was happening on LaSalle Street.

And so where did they go? They go on out to a little cornfield outside of Chicago, northwest. And the shack that they lived in with my two older brothers is as poor as I’ve seen in Haiti. But hey, you had a few chickens. You could raise beans. You’re just in a survival mode. My dad I think could have been a tremendously successful man in the sense of he had a fabulous personality, hard worker. Good man. I think emotionally, psychologically all of that affected him. When I was born into the family nine and ten years after my brothers, it being such a dysfunctional family certainly, today I think Dad would be categorized as bipolar.

Boy when he was playing baseball with us kids, when he was happy and a great mood, there wasn’t a better father in the world, but something clicked. He didn’t [00:13:00] drink. He didn’t run around. He was a dutiful, faithful husband and father. But boy, when he lost his glasses or his keys, all hell broke loose in the house, maybe for days, and he wouldn’t say that he was sorry. That was the hurtful thing.

David Hirsch: Yeah, thanks for sharing. It’s palpable to have you recall your parents challenging upbringing. And you mentioned baseball in passing, about your dad playing baseball with you and your brothers, but did I remember that he was a very accomplished baseball player himself?

Medard Laz: He was. Again, over a hundred years ago, baseball and major sports were nothing like they are today. And my dad… and I hope I’m just not glorifying because he was my father. But he had reflexes that were second to none. Since my grandfather, his dad, had a coal business, he had muscles. He lived to be 84, he still had muscles [00:14:00] like you couldn’t believe and a physique at 84 because of his childhood, throwing around those 50, 80 pound sacks of coal. His father had a coal business. And so he had shoulders and arms that were like Charlie Atlas or Schwarzenegger. And so the Yankees wanted him to try out to be a catcher. And again, I know it’s my dad, but he probably would have been a notable, famous catcher for the Yankees because he could throw the ball, he could hit it a mile, and he had reflexes and eyes that were second to none.

So the Yankees wanted to give him a tryout, but his father wouldn’t let him do it. He said, I don’t want you fooling around with baseball. There’s no money in it. And you go back to the 1920s, there wasn’t any money in baseball. I don’t think the players were making, I bet they weren’t making $100 a game. I really do.

David Hirsch: Yeah. Thanks for sharing. Very interesting. You graduate from the seminary and I’m wondering where did you [00:15:00] think your career was going to take you from that point?

Medard Laz: I think, David, when we all look at our lives it’s so conditioned on what you had or didn’t have growing up. So my dad would, being that railroad engineer, and I’m sure if it weren’t for the Depression, he could have been extremely successful in anything that he tried because he was sharp, intelligent very popular in so many ways. On the railroad, he would come home and he would just largely complain about the guys that he was working with, the boring job that he was doing.

And what was ingrained in me growing up is, man, I don’t want a boring life. The last thing that I want to feel at the end of the day is say, oh man, was I bored today. And even though my brothers had left the priesthood, when I knew about it, the stories that they told, about their experiences and things like that, I still said, this is for [00:16:00] me. This is for me. It’s going to be exciting! And so I think the combination of factors growing up in a family that was not like other families that I heard about or knew about in the sense of there was just fighting morning, noon, and night, almost every day of the week. And even the holidays were tough too. Say my dad, his job and his life was frustrating. Here was a man with talent. Here was a man, his father was an entrepreneur and the like. So as I say, I think he was just frustrated that he wasn’t using his talents and this, that, the other thing. Man, I think when he grabbed onto that job, the railroad, switching cars in and around Chicago, oh, he felt fantastic. He had a paycheck. He could work overtime. He could get his family out of the city, as it was changing, and get them out to the suburbs.

And as I say moving into [00:17:00] priesthood what excited me was a number of things. I was ordained in 1969 up in Arlington Heights, Illinois. And so immediately people opened up their hearts and their lives to me. So man, almost every night of the week, I would be in a different family’s house that would have 5, 8, 10, 12 kids, and they’d make me like an older brother. And I really started to understand and know what a loving family was about that I didn’t have. Whatever I had then to experience in a parish, I just loved it. Love going to the hospitals. Oh, I just love going into the classrooms with the kids. And I wouldn’t often prepare anything. I just say, what have you been talking about lately? And I just take off from there and give them some of my experiences, this, that, the other thing. So I became a good listener. [00:18:00] Oh, there was hardly a night of the week on a weekend that I wasn’t in some of the parishioners homes, just learning and observing.

Then almost immediately after I was ordained, I got involved in Marriage Encounter, and that was just again a fantastic experience where we got into sharing feelings. And all of those things that my family was not, now I was starting to pick up on and learn in terms of a couple dialogue and sharing feelings. And so I just plunged into Marriage Encounter.

So I would do my parish work for, let’s say 45, 50, 60 hours a week. And people generally don’t have an idea what a priest or a minister does, or when you’re on call all the time, you can begin to imagine. And when you’re at a few services or a Sunday mass, and by the time that last person leaves after the last service, you’ve got enough “work” to do for the next month. My aunt [00:19:00] is in the hospital and nobody’s seen her. Would you go over? My son’s home from the army and he’s really having difficulty. You got any time this week to see him? And on and on and on and on and on. My dance card was full.

Tom Couch: We’ll be back with more of the conversation on the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast in just a few moments, but first, this quick message. Please help 21st Century Dads gather research on families raising children with special needs by having them complete the Special Fathers Network Early Intervention Parents Survey. A link to the survey can be found in the show notes. As a token of our appreciation, each person, mom or dad, who completes the survey will receive a Great Dad Coin. Thank you. Now, back to the conversation.

David Hirsch: If I can paraphrase at least part of what you said, you grew up in a dysfunctional family – not entirely, there’s a lot of dysfunction in every family. So I appreciate your openness and authenticity [00:20:00] about it. And it wasn’t until you were a young adult yourself in your 20s getting ordained and then learning by experience what these other families were all about and then coming to the realization, not as the young person in the household but as a young adult now, counseling others and learning firsthand about what these families were doing, right? And the relationship that the moms and the dads had and the loving, nurturing environment that they created for their kids. And it sounds like that at least from what you described as a little bit of an “a-ha” experience.

So obviously that’s informed you and the work that you’ve pursued beyond the priesthood. And I think this would be a good way to segue into the not-for-profit organizations that you’ve helped not only create but lead. And I’d like to spend at least a few minutes with each of them. And in no particular order, why don’t we start with Rainbows For All Children. So what’s the backstory? How did that come into existence?[00:21:00]

Medard Laz: So I was ordained about maybe six or seven years, and one day I was in a parish on the north side of Chicago. Five policemen independently of each other rang the doorbell and said they needed to talk. Their marriages were on thin ice. The wife wanted to leave. They wanted a divorce. You wouldn’t expect a policeman to be seeking help like that. That hey, I’m going to rough through this and why see a priest? But they did.

So that planted a seed to get involved with the separated and divorced. So back in like 1975, ’76, there were little or no groups in the church reaching out to the divorced. And you go to a counselor, you get a divorce, that sort of thing. It was one of those hidden things. So I started getting involved with an organization called Beginning Experience. We were doing weekends and the like. I had read this article in the New York Times book review section that said[00:22:00] we’re gonna go from 1975 to the year 2000, and we’re gonna go from 30 some percent of kids living in single parent homes or step families to 55% kids living in single parent homes or stepfamilies. And the only stable environment in a child’s life is no longer the family because mom and dad are both working and kids are just getting moved around, shuffled around like a deck of cards. And the only stable environment is the school. And if we don’t do something in the schools, then we’re going to really regret it because we’ve lost generations of kids to separation and divorce.

And so as a result of that, one of the women that I met on our divorce work was Susie Yale. She married a little bit later so Susie Yale Marta. And so we started doing a Saturday for kids where they’d come and they’d break into small groups with a facilitator. As a result of that, oh, they just started to bloom. They [00:23:00] had somebody to talk to. They could share war stories and how one child is dealing with or overcoming or working something through.

And it wasn’t long after that that the two of us, Susie Yale and myself, we sat down and we just spent a few days throwing out ideas, writing them down on pieces of paper and throwing them on the table. Everything possible that a child could go through, with a divorce of an adult and step families. That whole experience. Mom’s crying her eyes out. She’s working three days a week. Dad’s got a girlfriend from work that he’s seeing, and what their weekend experience is.

It’s all based on the mantra, a teacher can’t teach if a student can’t learn. And so these kids are coming to school two, three, four, five days a week, and they’re not learning. The teacher could be up there presenting the most fantastic lesson, and the kid’s still hurting from mom crying all night, [00:24:00] or this crazy gal that his dad’s running around with. And they bring that to school, and it just overshadows their mind.

So we started three pilot schools 40 years ago. We worked on it a good six, seven years. We piloted three schools. It worked, and we started to put together workbooks for 1st and 2nd, 3rd and 4th, 5th and 6th, 7th and 8th. And so we came up with 14 lessons that the kids could talk about and work on. And it wasn’t long before Boy Scouts and Girl Scout troops were doing it, and down at some of the prisons.

This is again how these things come to be. If I wouldn’t have grown up in the family that I had grown up with, if those five policemen hadn’t rung that doorbell that day and got me involved in doing ministry to the adults, and then the adults saying what about the kids? And then moving on to if it wasn’t that little clip that I saw in the [00:25:00] book review in the New York Times about how we’ve let our kids down and not giving them the support that they needed, Rainbows wouldn’t be where it’s at today.

David Hirsch: Yeah what I hear you saying is that you can only connect the dots looking backwards, right? You could not have imagined doing something like you’ve just described, like planning on doing something. One thing leads to the next, and it’s this very circuitous route. And then when you look back… I don’t know if these statistics are accurate, but I took them from the Rainbows For All Children website. Now, across the United States, 16 countries, and impacting or touching 3 million youth around the world. Just remarkable. So thank you for sharing. Thank you for your leadership.

Let’s talk about Joyful Again! This is a support program for widows and widowers, from what I remember. What’s the backstory there?

Medard Laz: In the Catholic Church and other groups, it’s [00:26:00] all encompassing: a parish and priests and deacons and aggrievement ministry. They’ll go to the hospital, they’ll go to the home where a person is sick or dying, or possibly it’s a sudden death, an accident, a heart attack. So all that energy, all those resources are directed at be it the dying person, the family, the spouse, the kids, and that sort of a thing. But very rare that there’s ongoing support for spouses, for families, because they’re onto the next one.

And in the Catholic circle, traditionally for many decades, they had NAIM groups, named after the woman of Naim. But that was not fulfilling for an awful lot of people, because after people had been in a group for a number of years, it became pretty much of a social group. And so somebody who had just lost a husband or a wife after 30, 40, 50 years of marriage goes to a NAIM meeting, and they’re [00:27:00] talking about the summer picnic, or maybe a social dance coming up. A person goes once and that’s it, and they don’t even make it through the meeting. This isn’t for me. They’ve been widowed for 20, 30 years; I’ve been widowed for two, three months, and I’m hurting like heck inside.

And this picked up in terms of Joyful Again! I took 28 people’s stories of what their marriages were like, losing a spouse, the death situation, and I combined it into four characters. Fictional, but yet true to life. It was a compilation of 28 stories. Two men, two women, two who had really good marriages, two who had lousy marriages, two who lost their spouses quickly, two who had a difficulty with lengthy deaths and all the things in between. So I combined that into four characters. And so they tell their story. And we spent almost two years filming. So we did it all with stills and [00:28:00] extremely effectively. So we were able to use some very effective photography. So it was all photographs.

And so then we started doing weekends in around Chicago and we probably had 25 or 30,000 people in the last 40 years with Joyful Again! 10 years ago, we put it on video. And so they tell their story, and then after the story, you go and write to a few questions in terms of what that talk was based upon. Stages of grief in terms of where are you at, how are you stuck, at a particular talk. So there’s seven talks, and the first day there would be four talks shown and on the second day there would be three talks. After a talk, you go and do some journaling, and then you get together with a group of, say, five people with a trained facilitator who guides you through.

And again, the beauty of all of that, everybody’s at a different place. Somebody who’s been a widower for a year can help somebody in a group who’s been a [00:29:00] widower for 20 years. What this person has been able to work through in 12 months, they haven’t been able to do it in 20 years. And so it’s not just sharing their stories about what they’re going through, their grief. When you’re talking about a grief process, everybody’s at different stages. So you put five, six people together and share on a feeling level. And then all of a sudden, wow, everybody gets unstuck. Kids, neighbors, can’t understand what you’re going through. And they just try, oh I’m sorry. And they don’t know what to say. Whereas boy, when you get a group of four or five, six widowed together dealing with particular issue or topic, sharing feelings, nobody’s shy. They know what to say. And so then after that sharing, then back to another topic.

Again, all the things that you go through in three, four, five, or more [00:30:00] years, let’s talk about them. And let’s deal with it so that life will go on. Not so much that, hey, I’m gonna find a new relationship and get married again. No, no, no, no. In the sense of that understanding, that I’m talking and the people in the group understand who I am and what I’m going through, and vice versa, and we can help each other.

David Hirsch: Yeah I love what you’re saying, and if I can again paraphrase… You’ve created a safe environment for people who are grieving to come together to not only go through a curriculum like you’ve described, but to learn from one another, this peer-to-peer learning that I think you were describing. And did I hear you correctly when you said there were seven talks? Four on the first day, three on the second. Is it like a weekend retreat? Is that sort of the concept?

Medard Laz: Yeah, it has started and you know up to this point with 40 years… Here’s a list of the topics. [00:31:00] The first day is Masks and Feelings, Stages of Grief, God Loves Me, and Forgiveness. And then the second day is a thank you that you share with your departed spouse, a real thank you for all the life that you lived together. And then there’s New Horizons and Changes in Life as such. And after 40 years, we’re working on putting this online so that the person doesn’t even have to leave their home. They can make this two-day right in their own living room or bedroom. They watch the talk, then they take 20 minutes, half hour to do some journaling. Then we break them up on Zoom into small sharing groups. And we’ll be launching that hopefully within the next year.

David Hirsch: I love it. Thank you for sharing. So let’s switch gears and talk about Treats for the Soul. And I understand that this is more of a blogging type of experience where you’re sharing thoughts, daily [00:32:00] treats, weekly treats, and weekly messages. So what’s the backstory for creating this, and who’s the consumer? Who’s the user?

Medard Laz: Okay, so the Treats for the Soul… just many ways that got me going. First of all, I thought of doing this for the last 20 years in the sense of, without patting myself too much on the back, you get some of your homilies and things like that. People will come up and say, oh that was great. Oh, you really touched me with that one. And how do you get that message around? Again, when smartphones and computers… And I said geez, put the written talk online, or do a podcast with your homily, go on YouTube and record it.

And the thing that I think so many people are saying today in terms of when it comes to faith or religion, I want to grow spiritually. Alright? I want to grow spiritually. Did that homily, did that story, did that parable, did that help me to grow spiritually? And then along with that, am I being drawn closer to Christ for those who are [00:33:00] Christian? Do I see Christ as pretty much a historical figure, or is He a companion in my life? Somebody that I can talk to, somebody that I can cry with, somebody that I can laugh with.

And I didn’t just limit my work with Treats for the Soul onto one day a week. I said let me fill in the other six days. I don’t do it so much anymore, David, but let’s say 15 years ago, 10 years ago, I’d hear about a particular website or things like that. And I go on and the last time there was any posting was let’s say a year ago. The last time somebody posted was six months ago. And I’m saying to myself geez, everybody is saying how great this website is. I don’t need to go back to it. They haven’t posted in six months. Somebody had a bright idea. They’re gonna do this podcast. They’re gonna do this website. They’re gonna start a blog. Over five years ago, I started Treats for the Soul and doggone it…[00:34:00] I’ve been in the hospital with open heart surgery four years ago, I broke my femur a couple of years ago, I’ve had a hip replaced, and I haven’t missed one day that I haven’t posted on Treats for the Soul.

About three hours ago, I was sitting in the dentist chair and the dental hygienist says, I read your Treats for the Soul yesterday. And she said, man, that really hit the nail on the head. She said it was just what we were talking about in our family. So basically, I’m a storyteller. So I tell a little story. And then have a little bit of a reflection, a line or two of reflection on that. And then I have a faith or a God quote at the end of it. And I paste them on Facebook every day, both the written text and then I record it verbally, so there’s a podcast. Some people listen to a podcast. And then the little God quote at the [00:35:00] end.

And I always hoped that I would have more and more people watching it. But man, I’ve got some really faithful followers. One guy, I published an old Ann Landers thing about somebody who was an alcoholic and they thought that drinking would do this for it, but it did just the opposite. So there was about 15 or 20 things. And so I put that down there. And I was blown away. One of my readers, I had no idea who this is. He emailed me and said, I just want to thank you that it’s been one year of sobriety. That I read your Treat a year ago and it so touched me that it changed my life. I haven’t had a drink in a year and he says, just please keep them coming. And I’ll of course every so often republish that, figuring that there are others out there that could benefit from it.

And day to day it’s a whole variety of different things. I look at faith, I use poetry, I use stories, I use all kinds of things [00:36:00] every day. And it really centers on this spiritual growth. I read an article recently I think in this month’s September’s Atlantic Magazine by David Brooks. “Why are people so mean today?” is the title of that. And quite honestly, again, I’m patting myself on the back, but when I finished in terms of what do people need to consider, look at, reflect today and do, I just said to myself after I read David Brooks’s article in the Atlantic I said I work on that 365 days a year. So anybody who’d like, treatsforthesoul.org.

David Hirsch: Thanks for sharing, Mad. I’m inspired by your commitment. You’ve been doing this for a handful of years, and you haven’t let the open heart surgery, the broken femur, or the hip replacement be obstacles or excuses for not posting on a daily basis. It takes a high level of experience…

Medard Laz: When I broke the femur, there I was in the hospital. And every day I was sitting with my laptop and I’d send it off to my IT [00:37:00] guy and he’d post. And those were absolutely the very best of all, because man, that perspective from the hospital during COVID over the Thanksgiving and holiday weekends, oh man, I never had better thoughts to share than at that time, David.

David Hirsch: It sounds like you might’ve been a little bit closer to God at that point in time. [both laugh]

Medard Laz: I think so.

Tom Couch: And that concludes the first part of David Hirsch’s conversation with Father Medard Laz. Check in next week when we hear Father Laz talk about more of his work and his books. That’s on next week’s Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast.

David Hirsch: And if you’re a dad looking for help or would like to offer help, we would be honored to have you join our closed Facebook group. Please go to Facebook.com, groups, and search “dad to dad.” Lastly, we’re always looking to share interesting stories. If you’d like to share your story or know of a compelling story, [00:38:00] please send an email to David@21stCenturyDads.org.

Tom Couch: The Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast was produced by me, Tom Couch.

Thanks again to Horizon Therapeutics, who believe that science and compassion must work together to transform lives. That’s why they work tirelessly to research, develop, and bring forward medicines for people living with rare and rheumatic diseases. Discover more about Horizon Therapeutics at HorizonTherapeutics. com