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CTP (20260127 S3EJanSpecial8) Steve Rotermund Walk Right Ministries BTS/SP video
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00:00Hello, welcome to another episode of Firstitutionalist Podcast.
00:06I am your host, Joseph M. Leonard.
00:10That's L-E-N-A-R-D, it's the French, it's not, it's Leonard without an O.
00:17Thank you for tuning in, as Graham Norton used to say, on his show.
00:24Let's get on with the show!
00:26Hello! Hello, everybody! I just wanted to let you know this brief intro.
00:33I'm going to double up two a week for the rest of January to get caught up on a few interviews I've recorded lately.
00:44They're kind of piling up. They're going a little too far in the future.
00:49I don't want to keep people waiting that long, so for the rest of January, I'll do two.
00:54A, during the week, rather than one mid-week drop on Wednesday.
01:00So, Tuesday and Thursday, the rest of January.
01:03Anyway, let's, let's get some guests on, as Graham Norton currently says.
01:09And I'm borrowing.
01:10Joining me today is Steve Rottermund.
01:14And, as I, when I reached out to him, I said to him, wow, all I needed to see was devoted father of seven.
01:26That was enough for me.
01:27Gotta have this guy.
01:29I have a sister.
01:31My mother was an only child.
01:35My father was one of three kids.
01:38So, further back, yeah, in the woodpile, bigger families.
01:43At one time, on the Sylvain-Italian side, there was 12 siblings.
01:51But that ain't the norm these days.
01:54So, but before we get into that, let's do the, you know, let's back this garbage truck up, right?
02:01Beep, beep.
02:03The usual ditty, where were you born and raised?
02:06Where are you now?
02:07Some significant places you may have been between, that sort of stuff.
02:13Hey, first of all, thanks for having me on the show.
02:15And you're always an interesting person.
02:17I started listening to the podcast, and now I'm actually hooked.
02:20So, thanks for having me on.
02:23Just love your charisma and your personality.
02:25But I was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri.
02:29Oh, the state of misery.
02:32I mean, Missouri.
02:33You're right, yeah.
02:35You never passed the lame pun.
02:37Sorry, go ahead.
02:38No, I was born and raised there most of my life.
02:42When I was in my late 20s, I ended up moving to Columbus, Ohio.
02:50And business took me that way.
02:52So, still stayed in the Midwest.
02:55And then.
02:55Yeah, not far from me up in Detroit.
02:58Yeah.
02:58Yeah.
02:58Been to Columbus a few times.
03:01Anyway, I interrupted again.
03:02No, no.
03:03And a bunch of life happened in Columbus, Ohio.
03:08Walked through the pits of hell.
03:10And then I'm now currently living a peaceful life in Corpus Christi, Texas.
03:16So, I am a beach nut.
03:18Always been a beach nut.
03:20And, you know, I always wanted to be in the beach.
03:23I thought it would be Florida.
03:25But God sent me to Corpus Christi.
03:27So, here we are today.
03:29Are you a surfer?
03:30Surf's up, dude?
03:31Are you?
03:32Do I look like a surfer?
03:34For those viewing behind-the-scenes video versus audio only or reading in the transcript.
03:43Yeah.
03:44No, he doesn't look like the atypical, like, from Point Break movie surfer, dude.
03:50He, like me, has got the hairdo or lack of hair of up top going on there.
03:57Mine came out due to cancer.
04:00And, you know, I'm saving a ton on shampoo and conditioner.
04:04I bet you are too, right?
04:06Oh, I love it.
04:06It's so easy to maintain.
04:08Didn't know why I didn't shave it sooner.
04:10But, no, I just love the beach.
04:14I just love the ocean.
04:14It's just a place where I'm at peace.
04:19And, quite honestly, I'm getting older.
04:21I can't do cold anymore.
04:22I just can't do it.
04:23Yeah.
04:24Oh, God.
04:25I'm born and raised in the Detroit area.
04:28And, well, I hate the cold, especially now I'm on disability with a myriad of health issues.
04:34I don't do well on the cold.
04:36But, you know, born and raised here, family, friends, everything.
04:40I choose to stay.
04:42I prefer living in Vegas, though people don't understand that desert gets really cold at night, too.
04:53So, yeah, the lame pun thing, right?
05:00Life's a beach, right?
05:03It is.
05:05It can either be a beach or a bitch, right?
05:08I can understand wanting to choose the beach instead.
05:14But, anyway, yeah, seven kids.
05:19Let's just jump right in on that.
05:22Sure.
05:23You know, and I'll start off by saying I am a blended family.
05:28But I've always wanted a big family.
05:31My dream was always to have...
05:34So, not all are biologically yours.
05:37By blended, you mean, yes.
05:39So, yeah.
05:39So, I had two boys.
05:43And then I had a third boy when I was 40 years old.
05:47And I went through, like I said, I went through some issues.
05:51If you want to talk about those, I ended up getting a divorce.
05:54Of course, my ex-wife was an addict and I had codependency.
05:59So, it was just 13 years of just chaos there.
06:02But when I got healed and started dating again and, you know, I wanted to find somebody that loved kids as well.
06:11And Sarah, my wife now, she had two boys and a girl.
06:16So, when our kids all were just getting along wonderfully when we were dating, it was like he was just meant to be.
06:25And we just had laughter.
06:27Kids were like best friends when we went on vacation.
06:30That reminds me of the movie with Sandler and Drew Barrymore blended, right?
06:36Exactly.
06:36And just the way my OCD brain works, you mentioned your wife's name now is Sarah.
06:42So, now the rest of the day, I'm going to have hollow notes, Sarah, smile, smile with me, Sarah, in my head.
06:52It's funny.
06:53I play that for her all the time.
06:55So, but, you know, we couldn't go around having the Brady Bunch, you know, I'm dating myself, couldn't go around having the Brady Bunch jokes.
07:05So, we wanted a child together.
07:07So, we had one child together.
07:10Seven's a perfect number.
07:11Now, people can't say, oh, well, you're the Brady Bunch.
07:13No, because now we have seven kids, not six.
07:14Well, seven sometimes, speaking of Vegas, seven isn't always a good number, right?
07:20But, yeah, that's a whole other show.
07:23Well, sometimes with kids, it isn't either.
07:25But here we are.
07:28Yeah.
07:29Oh, I think back again in the family on mom's side, 12 kids.
07:37And it used to be then, you know, the houses structurally were fairly big, but the rooms inside were generally small.
07:48And two bathrooms at most with 12 kids.
07:53It's like, oh, my God.
07:55Talk about trying to herd cats when you're trying to get everybody ready to go somewhere.
08:00Yes?
08:01Yes.
08:02Sometimes two cars to go places.
08:05You know.
08:07You need your own bus.
08:08The heck with the minivan.
08:10You need literally a bus.
08:11Building rooms in the basement and then saying, the heck with this and just putting up blankets and cornering it off.
08:18Yeah.
08:19Yeah.
08:19Speaking of being dated, right?
08:21Partridge family, right?
08:22You need a Partridge family bus.
08:24You need a Rotterman bus.
08:27Yes.
08:28When we went on vacation, we'd rent the van.
08:30We were one of those people that had the church van on vacation.
08:34But you know what?
08:35It was a great part of my life.
08:38It was great.
08:38Now, my youngest now is seven.
08:41He still lives at home.
08:43And then my 15-year-old lives at home.
08:47A 17-year-old lives at home.
08:49And my 20-year-old daughter is getting ready to move out, in fact, this weekend.
08:54So, you know, we're slowly getting rid of him.
08:58But, you know.
09:00You mean that in a loving, compassionate fashion, right?
09:03Do you mean that?
09:03You know.
09:05But Sundays are our big thing.
09:07Sundays are our family day.
09:08Sundays are meal days.
09:09And, you know, the hope is the kids stay around here and end up wanting to just have grandkids here.
09:18And every weekend is just nothing but just family time.
09:22You want the emptiness in one way and then the other way you want to keep them.
09:28You want them to find their own way in life but not lose touch and root in the family.
09:37And so, the obvious question is the dichotomy of the age range you're dealing with.
09:48I got to ask about that.
09:51Yeah.
09:51So, my oldest is 28.
09:55And then my second oldest is 26.
09:59Or, yeah, 26.
10:00And then her oldest is 21.
10:04And he's in the Air Force.
10:08And then her daughter's – no, he's 22.
10:10And then her daughter's 20.
10:11And then her son is 17.
10:18My son's 15.
10:19And then the son we had together is seven.
10:21So –
10:22The other thing I got to ask.
10:24Yeah.
10:24Did you hit the mega millions or did you tell them all, if you're going to college, you're on your own.
10:31You're paying for it yourself.
10:32They're all on their own.
10:34And, you know, they're doing okay.
10:39But, you know, we're – well, like, you know, the phone bill was like a mortgage payment.
10:45You know, they all have to have iPhones.
10:46They all have iPads, you know.
10:48And thank God the school hands out laptops these days or we'd be – I'd have a tent behind me living in a tent.
10:56But, you know, it's still – God provides.
11:01God provides.
11:02I mean, you know, going through the ups and downs of the economy and transitioning through presidencies, you know, we were able to just always provide and be provided for.
11:13Yeah.
11:13And I'm not rich by any means, but I'm rich with just the love of a family.
11:17On the inside, yeah.
11:19Yeah.
11:19You're not rich in bank account, but your life is very rich.
11:25And full disclosure, I was married, still wear my ring, divorce.
11:30Of course, my ex-wife and I never did get around to having kids.
11:34I always thought I'd have kids.
11:36Yeah.
11:36But it just never happened.
11:38But as a Christian show, I do say, you know, back 2,000 years ago when there weren't as many people on the planet,
11:48the self-perpetuation of the species meant a little more today, if that's the only thought of a meaning to life is hopping out kids,
12:01then I'm sorry, I think, then there's no real meaning to life.
12:08With or without kids, there's got to be more.
12:11Right.
12:14There's way more.
12:16I mean, you know, I'm a full believer we're meant to be love and light.
12:22And what better way to create disciples than with your own kids?
12:26That's where you start, right?
12:27It starts at home.
12:28And then you work your way outward from there.
12:30And back to college and hope the university professors don't totally destroy what you've raised.
12:37Hopefully, you know, the one son, you know, kind of teetered the line with a little bit more left than I'd like to go.
12:49But, you know, you got to love him in his mess, right?
12:55Well, what's the saying?
12:56If you're not a liberal when you're young, you've got no heart.
13:01And if you're not conservative when you're older, you've got no brain.
13:05Right.
13:07But, you know, you can't fix them or change them.
13:11You could just only influence and be love.
13:13That's all.
13:15That's right.
13:16And back to the right, you've got no heart.
13:19It's always kind of said tongue in cheek and a bit of a joke.
13:23But, I mean, the Bible itself says a wise man at his right hand, a fool at his left.
13:36Yep.
13:36That foretold 2,000 years ahead, our political paradigm today.
13:44It's, yeah, it's that wisdom meant a lot more than what we thought.
13:50Yeah, I mean, right.
13:52You may not have meant a whole lot at the time, but today you look at that and you thinkers versus emoters.
14:01Anyway, I didn't necessarily plan on getting into politics in this episode again.
14:13Seven kids, I got to talk to this guy.
14:16What were you thinking?
14:19Well, I wasn't thinking pro-recreate, but I just had hot wives.
14:29Yeah, you are a male.
14:38You do like women and you really like women based on, yeah, seven kids.
14:46But it's community.
14:48I don't think people understand today.
14:50Everybody's so self-centered and everybody's so it's about me, me, me and becoming at the top of the ladder and independent.
14:56And the Bible was never about that.
15:00It was always about community.
15:02It was always about being together, not necessarily just a big family.
15:05I just like community as far as family.
15:07But community is what makes things happen.
15:12And community is where people grow together and go out.
15:16And when you're out for yourself and you only think of yourself, then that's really, you're stepping on everybody to get where you want to be.
15:25There's no love and light there.
15:26Yeah.
15:27CTP three.
15:29I have now four books in the series that correlate with the show.
15:34Constitutionalist politics.
15:35Three here.
15:37Hubris.
15:37The sin of hubris.
15:39And me, me, me.
15:40I'm entitled.
15:41You owe me.
15:42The victim mentality.
15:44What do I get?
15:45And why didn't I get it yesterday?
15:46And in CTP four, I discussed Jesus revolution to hippies of the sixties and seventies.
15:55Those that weren't the Bill Ayers and Bernadine Doran going on to become domestic terrorists.
16:02Most of them eventually grew up and grew out of the me, me, me.
16:08There's got to be more than just me.
16:11And this shows all about biblical community.
16:15And indeed we're going through a Jesus revolution too, as I call it.
16:19Now, a lot of people, especially our young generation now are filling the churches more than the older people discovering, Hey, gotta be more to this than just me, me, me.
16:33Right.
16:35You see that a lot.
16:36I mean, uh, especially after, you know, unfortunately after Charlie Kirk, you're seeing a lot more people, um, enter into the church.
16:46And even after the pandemic, you know, always after a pandemic, you see church increase.
16:51And especially after this one, you see a lot of church increase because people have that same thought.
16:56You just said, there's gotta be more to this.
16:58I was just secluded and alone and I hated it and I need community.
17:03I need people.
17:04There has to be more out there than this.
17:06Yeah.
17:06And that's why people are searching human nature.
17:09And we, as humans are a sociable or meant to be sociable creature.
17:15And you either find faith in a legitimate religion or climate terrorism, as I call it, the cult of planet.
17:25Right.
17:26Uh, if you don't believe in something substantive, you'll fall for anything.
17:33Uh, the human need to belong to something.
17:37And you mentioned Kirk, right?
17:39Kirk, uh, in German church, uh, coincidence.
17:44I don't think so.
17:46That's God in working.
17:48Bad things can happen to good people and he turns them for good.
17:53Yes.
17:56It's funny.
17:57Cause I, I wrote a book called God's imperfect plan is perfect.
18:01And it's exactly that it's, you know, we, and we make bad choices to receive bad consequences all the time.
18:10Um, and I understand that, but when you're in a situation to where my mother abandoned me at the age of four, my father, off and on alcoholic that loved me.
18:25You could have had the victimhood mentality.
18:29Oh, woe is me.
18:30I'm, I'm entitled.
18:32I'm old.
18:33Oh, look at all this bad.
18:35I'm entitled to good now.
18:36And you overcame that self absorption to use your words.
18:42And indeed, right back to the Bible, we are all given free will.
18:47It's not all necessarily God's plan, but cause we have free will.
18:53People could choose evil, but often God will then do things to try to work that then for his good.
19:02But yes, free will.
19:04We're given that and we choose.
19:06We don't choose how people act towards us.
19:10And I go into that in the book of Kennedy project carpe diem, but we have the free will and the choice, how we react to others.
19:23Right.
19:23And everyone's entitled to a bad day.
19:26I'm not always nice, but Martin Luther King, junior content of character.
19:32We're all entitled to bad days.
19:33Maybe that first interaction didn't go so well.
19:37That's where grace and second chances come in.
19:41Right.
19:41But we choose to be good or bad most times and putting out good.
19:48So in good to get karma, getting good back or putting out bad.
19:54And why would you be surprised when so much negative comes your way then?
19:59Exactly.
19:59What I've learned with the kids, especially having seven kids is once I realized that to be light and love, I can't base my life off of circumstances because you're only as good as those circumstances are.
20:18So with the kids, it was like, you know, if I'm putting expectations on them to be this certain person and they don't meet that, then I'm a wreck, you know?
20:30So you can't base that love and light on somebody else to be something.
20:36And so now it's like, you know, in this ministry, I mean, now it's like, I just wake up to be love and light and I'll put expectations on people.
20:42I didn't have a great father.
20:44You know, he loved me the way he could.
20:46And he did a lot of great things.
20:47Don't get me wrong.
20:48But I don't sit on the phone every day waiting for him to go, you know what?
20:52I'm proud of you.
20:52I'm proud of what you did.
20:53All human, frail, flawed, and imperfect.
20:56No one on this planet but Jesus has walked this planet is perfect for all, right?
21:02It's like I go into the book of Kennedy Project Carpe Diem again.
21:08The song Meatloaf, Life is a Lemon and I Want My Money Back.
21:14Either that attitude or there's lemons make lemonade with it, right?
21:20It's attitude.
21:20Yeah, and I have a great relationship with my father now because I don't put any expectation on him.
21:27And if you could do that with everybody and just wake up to love everybody, then life's so much easier than being wrecked for four days because somebody did something wrong.
21:35Yeah, I literally, we're recording today, Wednesday, November the 19th.
21:42Not sure when this will air, but we're recording Wednesday, November the 19th.
21:48Dick Cheney's funeral.
21:50Of course, all over the news.
21:52So literally at thefortsnews.com wrote a piece entitled,
21:58Can We Please, for at least a few minutes, show some caring and compassion for fellow humans?
22:05Like him, love him, indifferent.
22:08I don't care.
22:09It's not about Cheney.
22:10Can we be compassionate?
22:13A family lost a family member.
22:16Friends lost a friend.
22:18Can we at least say thoughts and prayers to them?
22:22Nothing.
22:23Yeah, and I would say this about someone from the left.
22:26Also, can we put aside the hate and rancor and division for one damn minute and be human?
22:37Don't think you're going to see that too often.
22:39No.
22:40Oh, I can't wait for the hate mail to start pouring in on my social media today.
22:44And it's just, it's sad.
22:47It's, you know, it's so easy to fix, but so hard to fix.
22:53Yeah, other, also, the Book of Kennedy Project, Carpe Diem, I'm not trying to turn it into this all about me and my books,
23:05but I also have a short story, A Lasting Legacy, two of books in my Life and Living series.
23:12Indeed, are we at least trying to put out good and niceness?
23:19Or, in the Book of Kennedy, I've used the term, and I put it in there, mass holes.
23:26The masses of asses, always miserable, always negative, always, they want to share nothing but misery.
23:37They're miserable, they want you, or are we at least trying to share smiles and niceties?
23:46Yeah.
23:46How difficult is that?
23:50This fallen world is so bad, can't we, really, I hate to quote Rodney King, because he was a major mass hole and a criminal,
23:59and, you know, he brought upon, I'm sorry, he brought upon the beating if he wouldn't have tried to resist arrest,
24:06but can't we all just get along?
24:08I mean, that statement in itself stands alone aside from the moron it came from.
24:15Right, and you just, it always brings me to the story when Jesus cast out the demons, sent them into the pigs,
24:24and they jumped off into the lake.
24:27And everybody was, instead of joyous for the miracle he just provided for free in this man,
24:33they were, like, freaked out and were like, hey, you need to leave here.
24:38You need to get out of here.
24:40So what did he do?
24:41He left.
24:43And that's what you have to do with people that are just full of hatred sometimes.
24:47You just, they just don't want it, and you can fight as much as you want.
24:50But only God can change them.
24:52You can't.
24:53And sometimes you just have to leave.
24:55I have a show on that.
24:56Just leave them and not fight them.
24:58Yeah, memes and memes too, right?
25:01Plant seeds, the smile, the facts here and there for those who won't deal in them,
25:09and let God water and fertilize them.
25:13Only God can really change hearts and minds.
25:16It's our job to try to help, but it's God's place to really show them the light
25:23if they're able to be shown it or not, right?
25:27Don't lose our place and God's place in this world.
25:33And indeed, oh, I forgot what I was going to say where I was going.
25:40But, yeah, oh, the four kinds of love from the Bible I go into in the Book of Kennedy, right?
25:50Agape, filia, eros, and story, right?
25:56Some people make it hard to want to love them.
26:00And it's like the ex-wife.
26:02Love her to death still.
26:04Couldn't be under the same roof with her anymore, right?
26:07Some people make it hard to love them.
26:11It's best to just say, I'll love you from afar.
26:14Go over there.
26:18Not let hate come in.
26:21Love's still there, but go over there, please.
26:25Anyway, thank you, Steve Ruderman, for coming on.
26:34I enjoyed our chat.
26:36If people want to reach out, do you have a website?
26:40I do.
26:40It's walkrightministries.com.
26:43I remember that from the emails, walkrightministries.
26:50Yep.
26:50I'm writing it down so I don't forget.
26:53We'll add it in on the scroll and post video for those things behind the screens.
26:59And another joke.
27:01I can never pass the length.
27:04Ministries.
27:04I don't have a ministry.
27:06I have a largestry.
27:08I like it.
27:13I like it.
27:14You can borrow.
27:16Yeah.
27:16You can borrow.
27:17You can borrow.
27:17You can borrow 101.
27:18Yeah.
27:18Yeah.
27:18You can borrow that.
27:19Just remember where you heard it.
27:22Yeah.
27:22No, I appreciate you plugging in.
27:24Thank you for having me on.
27:26And those that are interested, I hope people get unstuck.
27:31Yeah.
27:32All right.
27:32Take care.
27:33God bless.
27:34Love you all.
27:34God bless you.
27:35Love the conversation.
27:38Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
27:40Hold on.
27:41Here's another of those tack-on, add-on segments, right?
27:47I want to apologize in a way.
27:52When I invite guests on, it is not a pretense.
27:59Or I don't sit around plotting, oh, I can have this guest on, and I know that then I will have 12 opportunities to sneak in references regarding my books.
28:13I apologize for all the mentions about my books, but they came up because Steve and I were on the same page.
28:35Yeah, writing books, yeah, writing books, pun intended, in that case, right?
28:44And Steve said things that triggered me in a good way.
28:50Not the leftist emotional hysterical snowflake kind of stuff.
28:55Oh, I'm so offended.
28:57I'm upset.
28:58Oh, I'm going to throw a tantrum.
29:00Now, right, triggered as in thought, as in, ooh, ooh, what you just said.
29:08I agree with so much.
29:10And indeed, in this book or that book or whatever book, I'm mentioning what's in there by way of not just, ooh, great, another chance to throw in one of my book titles again.
29:27No, no, no, the point being is, yes, agree.
29:33I keep trying to talk about it all the time, not just on this show, but indeed in my books and indeed, right, right, loving someone from the four types of love, as I mentioned.
29:47And indeed, some people make it hard to want to love them.
29:51And as Christians, we sure don't want to hate.
29:54We want to love even our enemies, right?
29:56But loving someone doesn't necessarily mean being able to put up with them all the time, right?
30:06I love you to death, but from afar, you know?
30:11I love you from afar.
30:14So I just wanted to tack this on.
30:18I don't plot and plan every episode.
30:21Oh, ooh, how can I sneak more references to my books in these episodes?
30:26No, not the point, not the intention.
30:30And I apologize that sometimes some of these episodes kind of go that way.
30:36But the point being is, yes, me, the guest, you, a lot of times have these similar thoughts.
30:46And I'm just trying to express them either on this show and or via, yes, my writings.
30:57And I'm eager to share them, not from a sense of hubris.
31:02Oh, yeah, ooh, whatever.
31:05You said it.
31:06I said it better and blah, blah, blah, blah.
31:09No, no, no, no, no, no, not the point, not what I'm trying to do there.
31:16But it's a way of complimenting the guest in a way.
31:24And, oh, I'm so glad you've gone there.
31:27I've gone there in this book or that book and this quote from it or that quote.
31:34Absolutely.
31:36We are on, again, pun intended, the same page.
31:40All right.
31:41Anyway, apologies.
31:44Just, you know, my intent, I don't like to be misread.
31:50Ooh, there's another writing pun, huh?
31:52Oh, I felt it necessary to tack this on.
31:58Thank you all.
31:59Take care.
32:00God bless.
32:01Love you all.
32:02Like and subscribe to Christitutionalist Politics Podcast and share episodes.
32:10We need your help.
32:11Thank you for having tuned into another Christitutionalist Podcast show.
32:18I really appreciate that you stopped by.
32:22Again, please like, share, subscribe.
32:26We need you to help spread the Christitutionalist movement.
32:31Thank you again.
32:33Take care.
32:34God bless.
32:35Love you all.
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