S2E10 Dreaming of Dumplings: Nostalgia

Matt and Dan close out the season by steaming up a conversation on nostalgia. They start with food (of course) and how something as simple as a bowl of congee or a forgotten jar of Lao Gan Ma can open the floodgates of memory. But nostalgia isn’t just about taste - it’s about longing for a home, a church, a culture that might never have existed the way we remember it. From there, they stir-fry their way through questions of identity: Why do so many of us romanticize worlds we’ve never actually known - including “golden age” Catholicism filtered through incense and Instagram filters? They also tackle the Catholic nostalgia industrial complex—that sense that the Church was somehow “more real” when everyone spoke Latin and the incense was thicker than hotpot steam. Matt and Dan ask what happens when we crave spiritual authenticity the way our aunties crave imported soy sauce: maybe we start worshiping the memory instead of the mystery. Drawing inspiration from a fourth-century monastic text, the Asians explore how nostalgia can paralyse the soul. When we misremember the past, we risk rejecting God’s presence in the messy, beautiful now. Because maybe holiness isn’t in chasing the lost imperial banquet – it’s in finding grace in the leftover dumplings we have today.Evagrius of Pontus: Eight Logismoi