It’s a really nice day. Sad not to be like going out and eating outside or inviting people over but sacrifices we make sense. It’s also really sad to not be able to go to church and do things like that. Really fun. But there will be other Easterners when it’s safer and better to do things like I met my husband just join the Chan you know how I feel about that. Can you keep people out of this. You know if they can even do maybe it’s too it is really pretty out that I could. I saw on Twitter that some people have snow today. Nice kitchen. Thank you very much. Matt one of the points of contention in our marriage is that I hate are extremely tiny galley kitchen and mats always like it’s a nice kitchen. So right now he’s quite successfully trolling me on that front. Yeah I know it’s spring so I’m in the white Maxi dress white Maxi dress gang at this point and you guessed it going to be like that even I’m in my house I would love to go on true and on I would really like to go on true and on and testing. And I have anything to add the thing that they haven’t got to it is they would like me I would like to go very much it is pulling the platform left the democratic platform not substantially. I don’t know. I wish it were. I wish I wish that it were. I’m not big on Cadbury eggs because you kind of bite in there. There’s just like a whole I mean I know people like that fondant but it’s just not it’s not me. I guess it’s too sweet and I didn’t. I don’t think of myself as being someone who complains about things being too sweet. Do you think Biden has a shot at taking Texas. Not really surprised knowing Texas like Trump quite a favorite day of bowling league. I do like Good Friday a lot. How do we abandon the two party system. I don’t know it’s a good question. I mean you know a lot of it has to do with ballot access and that’s really hard. My Amish. Yes it’s next question. Man ever thought about running for office in some capacity. I think Matt would be a fantastic candidate for office. I think he should run but I I think it would be very difficult to talk him into doing it. I think he likes being a behind the scenes operative. He did hold many student offices for example and participated otherwise in politics and in his time as a student activist. Do I believe in aliens. I wish there were aliens. I think that would be extremely cool. It’s Christian polling and it’s still a thing. It is still a thing. Failed to hold power for getting friends party entity. Thank you very much. I hope you guys are all having a blessed Good Friday as well. It’s kind of a difficult day for a lot of reasons. Next step for the American left. I don’t know I mean I think the American left’s you know there are lots of kind of down ballot and local races to focus on. I think that makes sense. You know there are a lot of candidates running in municipal offices and in state races and so forth. Could use less support and I think that’s where the left is going to be. For the time being age 24 is Green Knight film can’t wait. I look like and a single one. Well I am a but I’m a married one. What is the best thing about being a. I don’t know. I mean I guess sense of purpose and you know it’s lovely. It’s wonderful. I’m fond of it is it’s kind of a luxury. I mean I know that’s a little crazy. It’s difficult and it’s challenging. And at times kind of harrowing but also really nice. Weitz is thinking last summer when I would go to bed would sleep with my baby next to me and I always looked forward to going to bed with her next to me. The spirit luxuries which child is my favorite I love both my children very much. They’re very different. How involved are you in the new opinion series the America we need. I’m not involved in that very exciting new project on inequality but you should read should you get, whether it’s nice to see people put too much pressure on AMC to be perfect. Yeah I mean that happens with figureheads leaders of movements. Does Matt play video games. Matt he used to. He I remember the first time I saw Matt. I walked into our debate classroom in high school and he had his head directly down on a desk not on his arms or on his jacket or a hoodie or anything but he had his head flat on the desk and I assume this was like a troubled genius thing for a long time. Like he knows what a rebel. It’s what a troubled and brooding young man. So when I started dating him. He admitted that in fact, he had simply played Madden all summer in a very comfortable gaming chair and had lost next strength and therefore found it very painful to hold his head up when he came right back from school and therefore his head was straight down on his desk. Why more death rate in USA than any other country. I don’t know. Hi hi de rate in the United States. The area is taking measures a little bit on the elite side. How to stay optimistic. I wouldn’t stay optimistic. I’m certainly not optimistic. I think that the better question is how to continue living productively and happily while not being optimistic. I don’t know if any of you are the Lord of the Rings maybe but Gilad Arielle the elf queen has this lovely statement about how many years we have fought the long defeat and I think that’s generally how I try to approach things. There are victories in that periodically but I don’t know. I don’t know if it’s a good idea to especially hang your ability to live a happy and productive and fulfilled life on the expectation of short and medium term victories on the left or even on the side of what is morally good and right because that can be pretty disappointing. Good Friday is Good Friday is a day of mourning in a lot of ways and it’s just kind of a day that embodies the real difficulties and contradictions in Christianity that are meaningful and that give us strength. And those are that it’s a religion of great hope and faith. And at the same time religion of sacrifice quite a bit more. So a good day to kind of contemplate this those things in tension and also in conjunction with one another I do love Dorothy Day I do think the stock exchange should be closed on Good Friday thoughts on sleep training it’s difficult. It’s very hard and it’s very different kid to kid they’re all different in the way that they will or won’t sleep train. My favorite Easter Sunday dish I love deviled eggs I make deviled eggs myself all the time and I love making them out of colored Easter eggs I love the movie a man for all seasons I think that’s a great Thomas More wonderful movie great play it’s one I watched me make it a lot growing up actually I do read poetry and reading quite a bit of Mary Oliver lately I’m also a big fan of what’s the best thing someone can do to improve their writing. I don’t know the answer to that question if I did I would do it. My I guess my best tip to try to improve your writing is to read lots and lots of writers that you read and read and read and read the orb is a mapping. Right now you might hear some safari sounds when she wakes up. My favorite bird. I love dress. They’re beautiful tips on naming babies. I think when you go to name babies you know both parents should get to lay like some ground rules and then you find something within those that fit. So Matt had a one syllable rule but within that he didn’t have strong preferences. He didn’t have some weird suggestions. He likes the name fern and when he first came up with that I was like no Yeah we’re definitely not naming a poor child fern. Now I actually think it’s kind of cute. It grew on me but that’s how we did it. You know he would have this kind of basic ground rules. And I think both parents should have veto power because sometimes it just strikes you in a gut way we like to have more children. I think so. That would be wonderful. Now that I do have a favorite tree watch religious order in the church in this pond. I mean I like the Dominicans quite a bit older preachers my confessors a Dominican. I also like the Jesuits quite a bit like the Franciscans. There’s much to love right there is there’s so much to love in all the different religious orders, and their special personalities and terrorism. I have a piece coming out on some Dominican Friar sexual the house plants the house plants are dead. They died. They’re gone. It’s very sad. Yeah I I love the house plants. But after Claire was born I did not keep up with them well I know it’s very sad. Sorry fell by the wayside. I regret it maybe I’ll get some more of this spring there. It’s like a peace Lily at least. Favorite right wing thinker. Well I like Ross at the times read him quite a bit. Boss Ross it’s very interesting arguments. If the cost was zero what I send my kids to Catholic school would depend on the school. A lot of questions about the marijuana happening here. Well, if the story is out of yeast and you want to make bread you can always try making sourdough starter which is what everyone’s doing right now. Essentially use of wild yeast that’s floating around your place and try to seed starter that way. Bees are better than wasps. Spitzer pollinators are very important. Love cornbread big corn and bread. Fan Shoshana from girls. I don’t think that’s a good thing. But at least she got to hang out with driving. I love chocolate chip cookies. I have very strong views on chocolate chip cookies. I don’t like crispy ones except right around the edges. So my recipe, that I’ve messed with for years and years for chocolate chip cookies is very, very specific and it’s baked at a low temperature for a longer period of time and has this very specific composition of brown sugar at a weight that keeps them soft and chewy and almost kind of like fudge textured in the middle, which is what I prefer instead of crispy. I love whataburger big time. I’ve only got about 2. I like whatever attention what kind of music I like bad music. I mean that’s the thing I have great taste in music. I I’m always afraid of telling people the music I like. I had this experience with Matt where we were in the car and I was listening to Smashing Pumpkins and I was like really into it and grooving and Matt was like turn that off it’s awful. And that traumatized me. I accepted that it was awful and now I feel very embarrassed about my music taste. But yeah a bunch of 90s stuff like that I guess kind of pixies fan. There are a lot of shoegaze stuff that I like. I like slow dive quite a bit still. I do like whole quite a lot. And again feel like Matt on me. For that genre of music and that grunge shading into shoegaze stuff and now I’m a little bit embarrassed about it marriage tips. How I don’t know. I don’t know. I like being married a lot. I always thought that I would prefer that to dating and so forth and therefore married quite young. 23 when I got married and I married Matt who was my high school boyfriend. So I took a leap of faith that I wouldn’t like dating around. Just kind of skipped it. And Mary you know love grows and grows. I think you have to think of marriage as something that you committed to as an institution which in when experience about Texas beyond stereotype. Having never been I think that the landscapes of Texas are undersold as one of its great assets its unrivaled I think and natural beauty of course and a little bit biased, but go in the different seasons go to Central Texas go to hill country and then go down to Big Bend and see all the different aspects of it. You know Texas has these vastly different regions. There are plains and there are hills and then out west there is sort of Red Desert and mazes and these beautiful dry formations and then out east. There is Piney Woods shading into bayou as you get to the border with Louisiana down in the Gulf. There are beautiful beaches and and then you know just gorgeous gorgeous natural landscapes and the biggest blue sky you’ve ever seen. So I think you should give that a try. Mr. ever have doubts about your faith. No I don’t have doubts about the difficult. I mean it’s funny that you ask that. I have no problem believing that God exists and that all of the things that God says about himself and revelation tradition are true though things seem obviously and intuitively true to me the most difficult part I think is believing that God loves me. That’s the part that I struggle with. It’s not that he loves people generally I have an easy time believing that. But myths typically that can be very difficult feel like an exceptional person or an especially good person. How can god the Lord of the universe love something like me. That’s faith I guess. Take it on faith. I don’t know when I’m in lockdown. I hope not before it’s safe to do so perhaps when we have a vaccine. Have you ever been to India. Do I think coronavirus is our collective human conduct coming back on us. That’s certainly what the mad evils thought about the Black Death. I tend to think these things are more random than that. There have been plagues in every era of human existence. The way to think about rotavirus they think is the virus is just a little creature that’s doing its thing and we’re creatures that are doing our things and sometimes we get at cross purposes. And that’s unfortunate but it’s not because nature is punishing us or anything like that. It’s just natural. Other animals also die of nurses en masse at times and infections even trees become beset with illness and sometimes to extinction. And that’s unfortunate but no more that the dinosaurs were punished by their extinction. Will we be punished by ours when it happens. Right I don’t think so heckle debates. And it was formative. I have not read Caro’s brilliant series on LBJ kirkegaard. Yay Yeah. Tentative yay Kirkuk. I haven’t read the entire Corbett’s which is why it’s tentative. But what I’ve read I’ve liked vote by mail. Yes the thing about dinosaurs is that they were really evil. I mean they seem to have lived frightening lives in a lot of respects. I find it very hard to relate to the earth in the prehistoric period. I read once that when dinosaurs were around or at least during a certain phase of their lifetime there was no grass. Instead, the ground was generally covered with moss. And that struck me as terribly alien I think we did watch the Roosevelts docu series from PBS Matt watches nearly everything on PBS. What am I going to do the neo blatant solo guess soon. I hope one of these days I’ll get to all the solo cast that I would like to do. Would you say you’re someone who enjoys life. Yes tremendously. Before Trump had I ever heard anyone happy Good Friday before. Yes I had heard people say happy Good Friday. Quite a bit. I think people don’t really know what to say. And so even Christians know quite pious ones sometimes. We’ll see. Happy Friday. They want to acknowledge the occasion and give you that respect. But magnolia trees have to be pollinated by beetles because there were no bees when they first existed. That’s very fascinating and they’re quite beautiful. I love magnolia trees. I love magnolias in general. Pretty much anything with a magnolia print on it. Where of course I like florals in general this book on church history. Peter brown recently I think it was had a great book called through the eye of a needle on wealth in the church and I found that to be quite an accessible way into church history. Matt went by himself to Scandinavia but he had a lovely time. And I would love to go someday. There are many things I’d like to see. My favorite place in Texas. It’s a good question. I don’t know I mean it’s a place where I lived. And so you know the kind of things that people go to see I don’t think I really spent a lot at the Alamo and so forth. You know I like my hometown I like Sundance square in Fort Worth. I like walking around the bars all area in Fort Worth. I like Deep Ellum and Dallas. I just miss all of the places that were ordinary to me today study in college. I studied religion I studied at the University. I didn’t have a religion major which is just as well. But I went in two different majors English and sociology and focused on religion within those majors So I did a lot of religious literature and then I did the sociology of religion which essentially amounted to kind of track to major religion without it being possible favorite memories of Cambridge. Yeah so my favorite memory of Cambridge is that all winter it rained and rained and rained and rained and it was cold and it never got cold enough to snow or ice or do anything sort of scenic like that it just poured rain and seemed to get dark at like noon and was dark all the time and rainy all the time. And then one day in April I woke up and all of that rain had given rise to the most lush green grass and blooming roses and daisies and pansies and every tree and shrub and bush was in bloom. And this memorial garden to Princess Diana which was near where I lived was in bright bloom in the art of this college around the bend for me was in full bloom. And it was just beautiful. And I remember thinking to myself. So this is the English springtime of poetry right. This is what I’ve read about and done and Keats and it was just so romantic and so gorgeous I walked and walked for hours and hours and enjoyed it. From Europe with all due respect who are you. My name is Liz Bruning. I’m a writer for The New York Times. I vote on religion public morality and politics. I am quite far to the left for American politics. But for Europe I’m what you would know is like a normal Christian Social Democrat give a shout out to Texas Monthly and the Tribune. Yes all Texas publications that are working so hard to keep Texans not only updating them what’s going on right now. Virus but work hard around the clock to keep Texans updated on the news of the World and also to keep the really beautiful Texan literary tradition which is a very real and very rich and strong thing alive. I have my internal support. I love Texas Monthly I adore that publication I am a subscriber and there are several other Texas papers. Dallas Morning News Star Telegram which was my hometown paper in the Fort Worth Star Telegram. I lived in Arlington. The Houston Chronicle. And so on. I still follow I love them. Love Texas publications love Texas literature. Where are your parents lefties now. My parents are Trump guys. They have always been Republicans and my objective began. I love watching jack especially if I can get some people to play along with me. There is a left tradition in Texas. Absolutely and while Texas was heavily affected by the festival and so you did get quite a few people out of that who have a populist attending left politics to them and I don’t think that’s unheard of. My grandfather for instance was she grew up in the Dust Bowl. He was born in Childress Texas was deeply affected by the way the Dust Bowl impacted his family. They were itinerant farmers they moved around trying to grow their food. Then when he was 16, he joined the Air Force and wound up going to Korea and so forth and he was always an FDR Democrat. He never voted for Republicans he hated Reagan. He had a sort of anti-austerity politics. He wasn’t woke right. He was an older man from Texas who had lived a very rural life. But you know he was a he was a Democratic voter. He had that populist tradition. And so that does exist down there. How can we in Europe help the left in the USA don’t give up on us. I guess I keep reading our publications. My favorite period film. That’s a good question. I like Gary Linden quite a bit. He actually like quite a few period films. Honestly I find them extremely watchable what’s going on with medically as medically. It’s a really smart guy and I like his work and you know perhaps a bit cantankerous on Twitter but such could also be said of my matte. You know someone’s asking about John Wick and love John Wick love all this. There’s so many good period films. That’s a really nice question. Well there are lots of periods. There’s lots of in some sense like the ice storm is a period film rights about the 1970s. And I loved that film as well. New slick interface is struggling. Crazy Yeah. And know it’s I clear I’m hearing the awe. I haven’t seen focus. You guys keep asking about Lucas. I hadn’t seen it. I’ve seen you asked about last riffle. The thing is article first reformed which was good. How do I keep my frustrations and anger in check. I think a lot of angry thoughts. But you know what’s the point and can. Can you bring her here. I think the orb is settling down to nap Scorsese’s silence. I loved loved quite a bit and it’s a difficult watch. It’s kind of spiritual torture porn in certain respects but a fantastic novel and fantastic. I would highly recommend it especially during try to Ingmar Bergman states really love it when we see a democratic socialist when a non deeply district state. I don’t know I wish I could give you an answer on that. I would certainly feel better if I felt like I knew who was next up post. Bernie I don’t. I don’t know. I wish I knew. Wish we had a really deep bench of people who wanted those roles but I’m not sure. Sure that we do. I wrote a book. What would it be about. I would like to write a book on evil at some point but that’s going to be way on down the line because I have my hands full with regular work in these kids. What makes me angry. I mean a lot of things make me angry. Oh have I read and stuff. Yes I love Lisbeth. Fantastic would I ever run for political office. Thank you. Capitol hill TV. Not I would never run for political office. I have been someone who has covered people who are running for political office. It’s very, very, very difficult and very taxing and hard on your relationships and very, very risky for your family and finances. I if invited untrue anon I will happily go on my passion you know beauty. I think that’s what I’m always trying to get at. And the stuff that I report out. That’s what I’m interested the way that it manifests and gets tangled. I’ve driven through West Virginia. I mean I wasn’t driving, but I was in the car going through West Virginia and I thought it was beautiful. How do my views diverge from my parents. When I was in high school debate and so I was doing a lot of reading on my own and was just sort of convinced as a high school debate. You focus on sort of current events topics. Kevin my friend Kevin Werner has entered the chat room actually Kevin it has just gotten engaged. Kevin’s going to be a white guy soon. If we could get some congrats. Kevin’s going in the chat. Hello from New Orleans. I don’t know person from New Orleans. If you knew that I got married in New Orleans. I love New Orleans. It’s one of most safest cities in the United States. I adore New Orleans. I would love to go back sometime soon. I always go to New Orleans and end up having like six meals a day. How do I come up with column ideas. I have a big I have a big running Google doc or a dump. Evergreen ideas. But in general, they come right off the news. Have I ever been to Rhode Island. Yes well I lived there for a little bit because I was at Brown for my PhD program. And so I spent some time there and I thought it was quite lovely. I mean, I have a great affection for New England especially those cities in New England that feel a little bit nautical like fishing towns. They’re exotic to me. Having grown up in North Texas it’s quite quaint and quite lovely. Very very inspiring. Have I ever been to Georgia. Yes I also lived in Georgia for a little while as a child. We lived in Marietta. And one thing I think is underappreciated about Georgia is in terms of its natural beauty it has these fantastic Piney forests and sort of like granite cliffs in these hillsides and sort of dark woods for miles and miles. It’s very, very romantic and much more appellation than I would have been led to believe. I thought that it would be sort of green and hilly and sort of treeless and maybe that’s because I had seen movies like midnight in the Garden of Good evil which perhaps was not even shot on location. But if it was it was shot in Savannah and that’s a very different landscape than where I was in Georgia. But beautiful beautiful beautiful landscapes. The last time I cried and why that’s a good question. Sometimes I’ll cry out of frustration or stress. I can’t remember when that was go dogs are you a bad leftist for wishing Boris Johnson well. I mean, you don’t want people to die because they’re wrong. I don’t think being wrong about politics should be a death penalty event. So no I don’t think that’s my favorite Western state aside from Texas. Let’s see on the west coast I’d love California. I also like Las Vegas. I mean, it’s not a place where I would want to live. But you know it’s certainly it’s certainly fun to visit. I’ve been to Las Vegas. And in fact, when I was last in Vegas with Matt he was studying for the bar exam. So I always remember that because I would try to get him to go do things with me and he was like no I’m studying for the bar. He was just in a hotel room studying for the bar exam. When I go on. Joe right. Joe Rogan’s punk ass. Yeah sure. I would love to go into his biggest pet peeve when you call someone who you have a really bad connection. And like it’s not a critical phone call if they’re not telling you that your parent said heart attack or something but the connection is really bad. But they insist on still having a phone call instead of texting you or something like that that drives me nuts. I hate listening to it and not getting anything but you know let you get off the phone and they won’t agree to let you get on the phone. That’s terrible. Livestream seven liturgy I’ll probably just be putting some lines. Yeah that’s what I’ll be doing. What did I mean when I wrote that hope is a thorn in the side of doubt. Not a thing with feathers. I mean that hope is troubling a lot of people talk about hope as this thing that’s consoling or soothing. But I find it troubling because it’s very easy to be despairing and to be nihilistic. I mean it’s painful but it is a certain thing and it’s something that you can fully commit yourself to and hold on to but hope disrupts that and so hope can be very disruptive for that reason, instead of soothing it can be painful and difficult. That’s what I meant by how do we solve the problems and wish I knew the answer to that question. David Foster Wallace canceled million he seems to have been a complicated troubled individual. I don’t know. I don’t know if that should be a cancer level offense or what that should mean but that’s true. He was all of those things have I met Matt Stoller in person many, many times. Yes Matt still was lucky. I was at his wedding. He is great and I very much respect him. Good friend good guy person with a lot of integrity and principles. Three books that influence my religious formation. Well I guess since confessions and City of God would be a couple. I was reading a lot of like William Blake not that he would have agreed with my religious trajectory but certainly an important figure from the standpoint of sort of lovely mysticism Yeah we have. Also I have to I should think that we have some amazing folks coming up next week. If you would like to tune back in and get to know our New York Times columnists we have Michelle Cottle coming up Monday. Jamelle Buoy my colleague coming up on Tuesday. Kara Swisher Wednesday and Jennifer Finney Boylan. Coming up next Thursday and then Farhad Manjoo coming up Friday. So lots of opportunities to get to know my complex. The hardest part of my job I mean you know reporting is very time consuming and it’s a huge commitment and it can be quite difficult in terms of hear a lot of really hard stories and you develop close relationships with people and numb and then you can’t always help them. Which is really tough I saw the light house I thought it was wonderful. It was amazing. I loved it. I do work remote for the New York Times. Yes I don’t know if I would play anyone pickup basketball. I think I’d be pretty easy to dominate seeing as I’m four foot 11. I have quite a lot of editorial freedom in driving me on assignments. I’ve been very, very pleased with that very fortunate. Someone asked me earlier if I feel lucky and I do and being asked to non Ivy Leaguers have a chance to write for something like The New York Times I didn’t go to an Ivy League college. So yes I think so. Matt has written for the New York Times a few times and he went to the University of Oklahoma. So I think he you know I think that’s quite possible. Yes for sure. Yeah I mean equal pay. Someone asked do you feel like kept to code switch as a believer working in the mainstream. Yeah I mean, I think everybody you know who kind of speaks to two different or three or four or five whatever different constituencies has to find a way to talk to people that makes them feel listened to and respected and and heard but but still sort of gets the point across. Gary wills fan what is my riding routine. How long does each article take. Not long. I write very quickly. And there’s no routine because all the pieces are so different. But you know in general you you get the reporting down and then you work out of there. So we are at 45 minutes. I think that’s all the time we have for today. Thank you very much for shooting.