Sword&Spade

Jason Craig
  • 5.0 (15)
  • Self-Improvement

The Sword&Spade podcast is about...

  1. 3d ago

    The Virtue Men Have Stopped Practicing w/ Daniel Padrnos of Supra Dinner Society

    Daniel Padrnos—co-founder of Supra Dinner Society and trained Tamada based in Seattle—joins Jason to explore the Georgian Supra: an ancient tradition of ritual feasting and toasting shaped by 1,700 years of Christian civilization in the Republic of Georgia. Daniel makes the case that hospitality is a distinctly masculine act and that the table your family already sits around is more powerful than you think. In This Episode, We Cover: What the Georgian Supra is—its origins, its structure, and the role of the Tamada as the host who sees every person at the table and draws out the best in themWhy ritual and shared etiquette don't constrain authentic encounter—they're the very conditions that make it possibleHow to give a good toast: what Daniel has learned from hundreds of Supras and from Georgian masters of the traditionThe toast as a theological act: what Josef Pieper's philosophy of affirmation reveals about why men raise a glassHow to bring the Supra into your home, your men's group, and your family table—and why it may recover a virtue men have abandonedChapters: 00:00: Introduction01:47: The Tamada and the Marekipe03:57: "The Guest Is a Gift from God"06:16: Ritual as the Condition for Real Connection11:11: Inside a Supra: Themes, Structure, and Flow15:08: How to Give a Good Toast17:58: The Toast as Elevation and Affirmation27:20: Masculine Hospitality and the Tamada as Head40:20: Brotherhood, Family Supras, and Training Tamadas44:21: Leadership Means Pouring OutResources Mentioned: Supra Dinner SocietyFraternusJOIN 2500+ MEN READING SERIOUS, YET ACCESSIBLE ESSAYS ON VIRTUE, CULTURE, AND LIVING WELL: https://fraternus.org/sword-and-spade/ Produced by Saint Kolbe Studios.

    51 min

  2. Jun 18

    You're Living in Your Head. Here's How to Get Back. w/ James Taylor Foreman

    James Taylor Foreman is a writer, the voice behind The Metaphor on Substack, and a contributor to Sword & Spade magazine. In this conversation with Jason Craig, James traces his journey from being born Catholic, through years as an atheist, and back to the Catholic Church — and the more personal story underneath: a recurring dream, a two-week wedding, and a move back to Louisiana to finish the house his father left incomplete. In This Episode, We Cover: How reading Aquinas, Augustine, and Athanasius made James's conversion to Catholicism intellectually inevitable and what both Protestants and materialists have in common when they skip everything between Aristotle and KantThe two-week wedding, the relocation to Louisiana, and why time pressure sometimes produces more beauty than years of planning ever couldWalker Percy, Louisiana Catholic culture, and the tragedy of a people who possessed one of the richest Catholic inheritances in America and nearly let it rot from the insideAbstraction as the defining spiritual disorder of modernity — what it is, why it fuels everything from addiction to political outrage, and why embodiment is the only real remedyRight relationship with technology: why the tools that "disappear" are more dangerous than the ones we can see, and what it means to be a faithful steward rather than a tool yourselfChapters: 00:00: Introduction and James's Background 06:02: From Louisiana Catholic to Teenage Atheist 08:40: A Slow Conversion, the Presbyterian Church, and the Church Fathers 14:45: Meeting Riley and the Two-Week Wedding 21:56: Finishing His Father's House in Louisiana 27:28: Walker Percy, St. Francisville, and Louisiana 34:58: What We Squandered: Retention, the Dance Hall, and Louisiana Catholic Culture 42:20: Walker Percy and the Problem of Despair 43:43: Abstraction, Embodiment, and Escaping Yourself 54:14: Right Relationship with Technology: The Tools That DisappearResources Mentioned: The Metaphor by James Taylor ForemanLost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book by Walker PercyMorning Offering with Fr. Brad DoyleJOIN 2500+ MEN READING SERIOUS, YET ACCESSIBLE ESSAYS ON VIRTUE, CULTURE, AND LIVING WELL: https://fraternus.org/sword-and-spade/ Produced by Saint Kolbe Studios

    1h 10m

  3. Jun 11

    What Your Sons Need From You w/ Devin Schadt of The Fathers of St. Joseph

    Devin Schadt, founder and executive director of Fathers of St. Joseph, joins Jason Craig to trace the wounds men carry into marriage, the spirituality of St. Joseph, and what it actually means to be a son of God the Father. Drawing on his own story—a difficult childhood, a broken early fatherhood, and a daughter's life-threatening premature birth that cracked everything open—Devin unpacks why men chase the world's validation, what it costs them, and how God the Father offers something far better. This is an hour for any man still trying to earn what he can only receive. In This Episode, We Cover: How to recognize the Six P's of the world's path (prestige, prominence, power, profit, possessions, pleasure) and stop letting worldly validation drive your identity as a husband and fatherWhy the wounds from your own father don't have to define your fatherhood—and what it looks like when a man finally lets God the Father inThe one thing every son needs his father to initiate—and how to make sure your boys aren't still searching for it at 40The difference between servile faith and filial faith, and why moving from slave to son is the hinge point of a man's entire spiritual lifeThe Four P's of God's testing (pain, personal poverty, patience, perseverance) and how to stop running from suffering and start letting it make you the father your family needsChapters: 00:00: Introduction03:00: Twenty Years His Own Boss—Then a Desperate Prayer Changed Everything08:27: The Danger of Counting Your Fruit11:31: The Six P's: Seeking Validation in the Wrong Places13:48: Jesus in the Desert: Identity, Not Performance21:52: What Devin's Father Gave—and Couldn't Give26:38: The Father's Job: Choosing His Son33:32: The One Thing: Relationship with God the Father44:37: Servile Faith vs. Filial Faith55:34: The Four P's: Pain, Poverty, Patience, PerseveranceResources Mentioned: Fathers of St. JosephFraternusJOIN 2500+ MEN READING SERIOUS, YET ACCESSIBLE ESSAYS ON VIRTUE, CULTURE, AND LIVING WELL: https://fraternus.org/sword-and-spade/ Produced by Saint Kolbe Studios.

    1h 4m

  4. Jun 4

    The Moral Case for Hunting: Why the Hunter Cares More for Creation Than Any Activist w/ Sebastian Morello

    In a world engineered to keep men indoors and inside their heads, philosopher and author Sebastian Morello—student of the late Roger Scruton and author of The Woodland Philosophy—argues that the path back to reality, to genuine culture, and to God runs through the wild. Drawing on a life of fox hunting, deer stalking, and spearfishing, Sebastian makes the moral and philosophical case that the huntsman is not a relic but a model. He is one of the few men left who still lives in right relation with the created order. If you've ever suspected that something essential has been lost in modernity and that the fix won't come from a screen, this conversation is for you. In This Episode, We Cover: How Sebastian came under the mentorship of Roger Scruton—and why that relationship changed his philosophy, his faith, and his life outdoorsWhy hunters and small farmers develop a deeper moral bond with animals than any Disney-fied conservationist ever couldThe difference between a mechanistic and an organicist worldview—and why it explains everything wrong with modern politics, land management, and cultureWhy recovering Catholic culture requires men to first recover their bodies, their places, and their patient relation to the landPractical advice for the man who wants to become a huntsman and why no amount of YouTube videos can replace a real mentorChapters: 00:00: Introduction07:19: Meeting Roger Scruton and the meaning of mentorship12:13: Why hunt? The philosopher's question18:55: Modernity's disease—ideology, atomism, and lost reality26:07: The hunter's moral relation with his quarry33:27: Conservation and the attack on rural England47:49: Organicist vs. mechanistic—two visions of the world59:19: Recovering culture—becoming bodies again01:08:15: Why mentorship cannot be replaced01:15:41: Brotherhood forged through the huntResources Mentioned: The Woodland Philosophy by Sebastian MorelloOn Hunting by Roger ScrutonPersons: The Difference Between Someone and Something by Robert SpaemannFraternusJOIN 2500+ MEN READING SERIOUS, YET ACCESSIBLE ESSAYS ON VIRTUE, CULTURE, AND LIVING WELL: https://fraternus.org/sword-and-spade/ Produced by Saint Kolbe Studios.

    1h 22m

  5. May 28

    Why a Father's Invisible Library Is His Most Important Inheritance w/ Dr. Jason Baxter

    The men who shaped you left you something—a set of stories, images, and convictions you draw on long after they're gone. Dr. Jason Baxter, Dante scholar and author of The Medieval Mind of C.S. Lewis and Why Literature Still Matters, joins Jason Craig to make the case that literature is the hidden architecture of masculine formation—and that fathers who neglect it are leaving their sons with less than they think. This is a conversation for every father who wants to give his children more than rules. In This Episode, We Cover: Why a father alone is never enough—and how the men who surrounded Dr. Baxter as a boy shaped him in ways his own father couldn'tWhat an all-boys classroom reveals about how young men actually learn, compete, and form brotherhood—and what co-education quietly costs themHow fathers can take an active role in courtship culture, not as enforcers but as patrons who set the stage for their daughters and the men around themWhy the "invisible library" a man builds through literature is the very thing he'll reach for when a friend's marriage is falling apart and platitudes won't doHow the medieval integration of beauty, ethics, science, and poetry offers a richer model of formation than any list of commandments—and what that means for how we raise our sonsChapters: 00:00: Introduction03:49: Introducing Dr. Jason Baxter06:55: The Men Who Made Him18:52: Boys, Girls, and the Classroom27:06: Fathers, Courtship, and the Dating Market36:41: Why Literature Still Matters48:27: The Medieval Mind: Integration vs. Fragmentation01:02:08: Marriage as the School of Manhood01:09:46: Forming the Imagination at Home01:13:29: The Invisible LibraryResources Mentioned: A Beginner's Guide to Dante's Divine Comedy by Jason M. BaxterThe Medieval Mind of C.S. Lewis by Jason M. BaxterWhy Literature Still Matters by Jason M. BaxterThe Crisis of Narration by Byung-Chul HanJasonMBaxter.comJOIN 2500+ MEN READING SERIOUS, YET ACCESSIBLE ESSAYS ON VIRTUE, CULTURE, AND LIVING WELL: https://fraternus.org/sword-and-spade/ Produced by Saint Kolbe Studios

    1h 17m

  6. May 21

    The Christian Imagination: The Imago Dei in the Age of AI with Stephen Crotts

    Jason Craig sits down with Stephen Crotts—illustrator of Malcolm Guite's Galahad and the Grail—to talk about what it means to be a maker in an age of AI slop, why creativity is a duty rooted in the Imago Dei, and how recovering a sense of place is essential to being human.  In This Episode, We Cover: Why AI can never bear the Imago Dei—and what that means for human art and expressionThe difference between dominion and domination, and how a Christian view of creation shapes an artist's workHow building a home culture of making—music, art, and craft—forms children and familiesThe ancient process of woodcut printmaking and why embodied craft matters in a disembodied ageWhy art belongs in its proper context and what we lose when it's pulled from worship into the museumChapters: 00:00 Introduction02:23 AI and the Image of God04:00 Growing up in a creative family08:30 Dominion vs. domination: a Christian view of creation16:30 Building a culture of music and making at home24:15 The woodcut printmaking process27:40 "It's not expression if it's not made by humans"34:10 Art at its highest is devotional38:40 What it means for art to have meaning45:08 Finding local stories and images to focus onResources Mentioned: Galahad and the Grail by Malcolm Guite, illustrated by Stephen CrottsStephen Crotts' website"A British Eucharistic Odyssey: Galahad and the Grail Reviewed" by Theo HowardJOIN 2500+ MEN READING SERIOUS, YET ACCESSIBLE ESSAYS ON VIRTUE, CULTURE, AND LIVING WELL: https://fraternus.org/sword-and-spade/ Produced by Saint Kolbe Studios.

    57 min

  7. May 14

    The Way Forward Is the Way Back: Rick Seigmund on Protecting Your Family, Homes, and Craft

    Rick Seigmund spent two decades on the front lines of federal law enforcement fighting human trafficking and online predation — and came home with a message most men aren't ready to hear. Now a woodworker, finish carpenter, and founder of the Family Readiness Project, Rick joins Jason to connect what might seem like two very different callings: building something permanent, and protecting something priceless.  In This Episode, We Cover: How an engaged, present father is the single greatest deterrent to online predators and groomersThe tactics of online predators operating through gaming platforms, and what fathers need to know about the openly Satanic 764 groupWhy building trust and honest communication with your sons before the storm is the only real family readiness that mattersThe "enshittification" of the American home, what reclaiming craft actually looks like, and why the way forward is the way backWhy historic wood windows outperform every modern replacement — and the class-action lawsuits that prove the industry liedChapters: 00:00: Introduction and Rick Seigmund's Background05:01: Why Historic Wood Windows Beat Modern Replacements11:08: Throwaway Homes and the Loss of Craft16:50: The Way Forward Is the Way Back24:00: Building Your Forever Home36:57: From Craftsman to Defender: The Full Man45:00: Law Enforcement, Human Trafficking, and the Birth of FRP47:10: The Engaged Father Is a Predator's Worst Nightmare01:04:52: Online Dangers: Gaming Platforms, Groomers, and the 764 Group01:12:09: Culture Is the Best DefenseResources Mentioned: Family Readiness ProjectBrent Hull — Historic PreservationEnshittification by Cory DoctorowJOIN 2500+ MEN READING SERIOUS, YET ACCESSIBLE ESSAYS ON VIRTUE, CULTURE, AND LIVING WELL: https://fraternus.org/sword-and-spade/ Produced by Saint Kolbe Studios

    1h 19m

  8. May 7

    You Believe in Myths: David Russell Mosley on Myth, Fatherhood, and Classical Education

    David Russell Mosley—convert, poet, and teacher —joins Jason Craig to discuss the cultural heritage of the Church, the importance of aesthetic choices, and what it means to be present as a father. They explore how classical education should prepare children not to live in the past, but to make new things worthy of the tradition they've inherited. In This Episode, We Cover: The "tweed-y pipe" aesthetic and why how we dress reflects what we aspire to beDavid's conversion journey from evangelical Christianity to Catholicism through beauty and liturgyWhy classical education isn't about romanticizing the medieval past but equipping students to create the futureThe critical importance of fatherly presence—being there to discuss, encourage, and walk alongside your childrenHow the father-son relationship mirrors the Trinitarian life and the doctrine of deificationChapters: 00:00: Introduction to David Russell Mosley01:16: Sword and Spade Magazine Explained03:41: The Tweed-y Pipe Aesthetic and Cultivating Taste08:59: David's Conversion to Christ and the Church29:50: The Doctrine of Deification and Becoming Little Christs42:50: Conversion to Catholicism in Nottingham49:22: Teaching at a Chesterton Academy in Spokane52:50: Understanding Myth as a Way of Engaging Truth01:07:35: Myth, Household, and the Domestic Church01:13:05: Fatherly Presence and the Filial Image Resources Mentioned: Mosley's Marginalia — David Russell Mosley's SubstackHow Catholic liturgy helped a father through family tragedyJOIN 2500+ MEN READING SERIOUS, YET ACCESSIBLE ESSAYS ON VIRTUE, CULTURE, AND LIVING WELL: https://fraternus.org/sword-and-spade Produced by Saint Kolbe Studios

    1h 18m
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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
15 Ratings

About

The Sword&Spade podcast is about...

Information

  • Creator
    Jason Craig
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    26
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Jason Craig

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