Think Small (#567) — http://thegodjourney.com/2017/01/27/think-small-567/

Outside the box of religious obligation lies a road less traveled into the heart of the father's affection, slinging freedom all over the place. This is the God, Jesus, the God, Jesus, the God. Well, this is Aaron. You and I are traipsing around Israel together. Israel? Israel? Israel. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Have you ever been to Jordan? No, this is my first trip to Jordan. Down in Petra. That's gonna be cool. You know, I'm excited to see Petra. I've seen enough TV specials on it. I kind of know what's there. I can't imagine being on Mount Horam, where Moses died. I know. That's gonna be weird. I know, but I have a sense of expectation for this time to just go like, of all the things that I'm doing, this is not where I should be in terms of- You shouldn't be going to Israel right now. In terms of man's expectations of what I should be busy about, and I'll go like, yeah, but you know what, when we made this decision, it seemed like the right one. But here again, we're talking about something not everybody gets to go on. But they could. They could? Yeah. Someone said that the other day, you guys' lives just really, you know, so jealous of, you know, we get to go watch movies during the day, and we get to go- They're just the good parts. They are. They are. And it was a long time getting here. They forget that digging dog poo on the side of the hill. Yeah, baby. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got another story about Bodie. Oh, you do? I don't know that it fits here. Bodie's the big Saint Bernard at the Cummings household. Yes. He's- I don't know that it fits here, but it certainly fits with what happened on the hill. Oh, you're just going to tease. I am going to tease. It might fit. I don't know. Maybe this fits. This I got two years ago. Two years ago. Over a few years ago. Yeah, see, I keep email. You do. It may come up. She said, this is from a young lady. Why am I so blessed now with people who love me and a safe place to stay? Along with an amazing job this summer with awesome bosses. Why are so many others struggling while I'm not? Or maybe why do I have things others do not? Also, people talk about seasons of blessings. Does this mean this season will end? And can I be honest and say, I don't want this season to end? Is that wrong? No. I don't know that there's an answer. No, there's not an answer. Because there's- I don't know. The reason I say that I don't know that there's an answer is I don't think there's an answer that doesn't leave potentially a wrong expectation in somebody else. The one thing I'm very, very aware of is the foolishness of comparison. Yes. And the stupidity of expectation. That goes in there too. Just enjoy what your life is at the moment. Because I know I got an email from this person about a year ago. This is two years ago. And it wasn't as rosy. Everything crashed. Pain, hurt. It went on for months. And I just- that's why I read this. Because you know what? And it's not seasons like, I'm going to give you three months of really good stuff and then I'm going to torment you for another three and then we're going to come back in. It's not- life has ebb and flow in it. And there are times when things just are lovely and I think it's where God just says, you know, Wayne needs a break. So let's just go to a place that's just full and, you know, the green pastures and still waters. I love that when it happens. But I don't- as much as I would love to camp there. And I don't think it's God saying, oh good, now we're going to have some real trouble time. The world is full of trouble. It's going to come. Yeah, we get that one promised. And you don't have to fear it. You don't have to, oh no. What's that line in the shack that's stupid like, you're expecting a pain-free world, Mac? Well, there isn't one. Geez. Just slap me upside down. That's- I tell you, that's 90% of my email. People are disillusioned with God because their life is- you know, I lost their job, their wife's leaving them, accusing them of dishonest things. And they're like, what's wrong with me? Why is God picking on me? And he says, no, no, no, life. There are seasons like this. Yes, you get into seasons where it just seems like everything's flowing and wonderful. And then seasons will come when it seems like everything's off the rails and you can't fix it. You know, and there may be some very tangible explanations for why certain wonderful things are going wonderfully. It's not as if- it's not as if what we do and what we sew does not have ramifications. Both sides, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I look at- there's times where I'm going like, oh, why is this happening right now? And it's like, I can look back and go like, well, yeah, did you dropped a few bad seeds along the way? And yes, you did ask for forgiveness. And yes, you repented. But that didn't stop. Some of those things that were put in motion that you're just going like, you know what? And part of that, it can be some of what we do. Part of it, it's just the wrong decisions of other people. Guess what? Effect me too. Yeah. Part of the stupid decisions we've made. Part of it's stupid decisions other people make around me. Yeah. And I do think part of it is just welcome to life on a fallen planet that does not yet experience the full consummation of the age. Yeah. But Christianity has oftentimes done a lot of promising about God's blessing and, you know, quote a scripture and believe it and God will make it happen. And we'll have the expectation that if things are good with God, my life's going to be comfortable and at ease. I would say the majority of people have been steeped in that. And they get killed when trouble comes. Yeah. They just get killed and they're not ready for it. Instead of just saying, you know what? Live in the day inside what God's doing. Some of those days will be filled with joy and ease and fun. Some of those days going to be filled with bone crushing pain. And that's just, he's still there regardless. See, that is the other key because I think at the end of the day, Psalm 23, that shepherd guy is walking me through the green pastures. Yeah. We're laying beside still waters. We're also going through the shadow of the village and you're going like, oh my goodness, you know the coolest thing? They're all with the shepherd. Yeah. And I look at that and I'm going like, if that's the one thing I can anchor into, I can do this. Yeah. If I recognize one, I'm not alone. He is with me. And regardless of whether it's a moment of blessing or a moment of, oh no, he's with me. And the best way through this is keeping communication tabs open and reaching out my hands and say, help. Yes. And trusting that God is good and that God loves and the evil happening to me is not of God's construction. God's the redeemer in that story. Yeah. And some of that redeeming, sometimes yes. I mean, gee, to get my heart put back together, I had to have some pretty invasive surgery by a doctor who was working for my good, but at great pain in my heart in the process. And that's just part of, I think, we want these simplistic answers that God's just good all the time, which means my life is perfect. And if I really follow God, no, my husband's not going to leave me or I'm not going to be abused or I'm not going to, and you know what? The world has broken the Senate and God will navigate you through it. And there's still joy, enjoy it when you have it. When it moves on, move on with him. You know, we've talked about this, I think in numerous times, numerous places, but one of the things that I keep bumping up against that's in people that I think is one of the most unhelpful things is the way they interpret, you know, God is in control is they end up with a fatalistic kind of interpretation that is, is God is micromanaging every last little element and he's in control. And even though it's all rotten and awful, somehow this is God at work in my, and you're just going like, I'd back up a little bit. All of those little things may not have anything to do with what God is doing. Is God in control? Yeah, but it doesn't seem on this planet like he exerts that the way people interpret that. We've been told for a long time, so Calvin was here, you know, everything happens for a purpose and nothing happens that God doesn't allow or orchestrate. And it puts people in weird headspace. It does. How did God allow my child to be killed in a tragic accident? My husband to get cancer, lose my job. We've talked about that a ton because I find that whole idea of God, and that's what sovereignty is. Sovereignty is he controls everything. Instead of no sovereignty is God's going to win all this culture back to himself. God is going to bring us and his redemption into our world, and we can be part of that or not. That's our choice. But that he gets to win at the end of the day. But in the short term, as Peter said, we don't yet see all things subject to him. We will. And I do go, why is it so difficult? Because to me, the fruit of finally seeing that as opposed to the other way is so liberating because then God is not this maniacal jerk that's doing things that seem very inconsistent with his character. Absolutely. And I'm going like, I think we end up putting the personality of the devil on God because of this super fatalist, super sovereignty, I think wrong interpretation that tries to micromanage every last little thing is ordained by God. I'm going like, I don't, he's not the author of my sin. I am. Yeah. I did that. I chose. God didn't make me. Right. He didn't want me. He invited. And I'm sure even though I might have missed it, there was a doorway of escape in that moment of a temptation that he promised was there. But that didn't mean I saw it. Yeah, I might not have been looking for it. Might have seen it. Didn't take it. Might have done that too. But we're delightfully in a process where God's transform is. That's what I love about this journey as opposed to the achievement of perfection as the goal of every day, just being in the process with him. Let him change in me. What he gets to change today. What I screw up, he's got to be bigger than and walk me into a different kind of life. You're a very intentional person. Yeah. There's nothing not intentional. I mean, people can listen and hear that. And if they didn't know the fullness of how you approach life, they might not see the very exacting sense of intentionality of going, I got to do that, got to do that, and got to do that. And you're not unprepared for moments in life, but you're not gripping them with the illusion. I used to not be well prepared. And I used to grip a lot. I love the transformation that's come. And I look back on the transformation going, I wasn't smart enough to choose that. Something else had to change inside that allowed me to live that way. Like we talked last week about when you're settled in who God is, then you're not grabbing for all the validation. If you just think, I'm going to stop grabbing for validation. You're probably not going to work. That alone is not going to work. I love the fact that the Bible's never asking me to just stop doing something. Stop doing the negatives. It's more inviting me to lay hold of the positives. Yeah, and as you do that, then you notice some of the negatives. I don't do that anymore. When did that change? I don't remember it changing. And it's not so much the fruit of self-effort. Right. It's the change of focus. And it's not just trying not to do those things and do something positive. It's inside that relationship with him as it grows. And your heart becomes more settled. And the fact that Father has this affection for me, and I get to be part of that with him, now what comes my way, not big enough to defeat me. It's not. You know, I think one of the biggest benefits I think I'm realizing more is it's making me a kinder, more generous person towards others. The more I relax into him, and the more I'm settled in his love and acceptance of me, without trying, the more generous I am towards other people who don't quite get it yet. Because I'm just going like, I remember, I used to want to try to be that. And I just would always fail because I was like, I don't like them. I hate what they're doing. And I'm too selfish to be unfit. I know. Yes, I get it. But I think as you allow God to be at work in that space, and you become a little more, you've become a lot more able to be honest with yourself because I'm not performing. And I'm not as insecure on what the outcome is going to be. I recognize his love for me is not going to change. That's not a, oh, bummer. I can't make him proud of me. No, no, it's already a lot more for you than you have any grasp of. You're not going to lose it. And as opposed to making me a spiritual couch potato, it actually is what produces life on the inside. That's the big difference. It is. And it's fraying. Why disturbing time last week? OK. Yeah. Man, I went and saw a movie with Sarah, not the shack, called Hidden Figures. You see it? I haven't. Yeah. People know mostly what it is. It's about a group of. I do know about it. Yeah. The trailer is pretty odd. This is not a plot giveaway, but two, three women, black women working for NASA back in the 60s, were the sharpest, some of the sharpest mathematical minds dealing with what was going on. And yet because they were black and because this was in the South, they were discriminated against. And it's all about even John Glenn, this was said earlier too, when John Glenn was going to make his first orbits around the Earth, he wanted them to pass on the calculus before he would get in the plane. Wow. Basecraft. Because there was some discrepancy as to which was the right figure. He said, we'll have her. His life was on the line. Yeah, his life was on her check it. But you know, as I watched it, and it was kind of a weird juxtaposition. Because I had just been up to Bakersfield a couple of days before. I was on a podcast called A Christian as a Muslim walking to a studio. Just sounds like the beginning of a joke, but it's not. It's actually a friend of mine who's in a studio with the Muslim Emir, which is like a, this is probably disrespectful to them, but he's an Emir, I don't know what an Emir was. He's like a prince or whatever. An Emir is kind of like a denominational official. He's over a bunch of mosques in a given region. And he's the only recognized Emir in America at this point. They haven't recognized others. So he's the only one. Recognized by where? By the Muslim Council. Not back in wherever, however they do that. Wherever that council is. Other people just haven't gotten to that status yet. And they're working that way. And they get in the studio, they're about 10 of these and asked me to come. And we talked about a couple. We talked about the shack and some of my writing for one session and then we did, and they should be up by now. We'll post links so you can go have a look if you want to listen to that. And they were video. So, you know, I got the face for radio. It was a video. So yeah, we sat there and had an amazing conversation with the two of them and this Muslim man. And then we went to a hotel afterwards and sat in the restaurant and talked even further. Had a great talk about. But the second one was all about my work with bridge builders, which I've not done in a long time. And most of our restaurant conversation was about that as well. How are we going to get together? How the, all the angst in our culture of all these different things. And so it had that whole bridge builders thing, which is how did the powered majority share power with the repressed minorities? That's kind of what bridge builders was. And I don't do a lot of it now because our culture isn't asking for common ground anymore. It's all about polarization. And as we sit here, we're three days away from the next inauguration. So we're taping and Donald Trump's gonna be our president. And I can't imagine a more polarizing figure in our world except his counterpart in the election. It was also a very polarizing person. And I hurt for our culture right now. I don't think anybody's talking about finding the common ground and building bridges between groups who see things differently. You sing things differently than me. It's cause you're just a jerk and an idiot. And it's just too bad you didn't get power. I've gotten said to you. And so I haven't done bridge builders for quite a while. And, but they want to talk about it. So we're talking about, and then I'm seeing this movie and here's what really hit me. I'm watching Hidden Figures. And there's, I never grew up in an environment that were white fountains colored drinking fountains or white bathrooms and colored bathrooms. They were in this movie and they're labeled that way. It's not terminology we use anymore. As I'm watching that movie, I'm thinking, you know what? Where would I have been back then in the 60s? Particularly as you sing these women ill treated and you're wanting the white folks around them to, would you recognize what stupid stuff you're doing? And I think back, man, but I have been on that side of things. And having just talked about the bridge builder stuff, it's all about sharing power. I come from the white, Western, Caucasian, European, Protestant, evangelical. I mean, I come from the majority base of the culture. And I don't think of myself as an oppressor, but when you look at it in that movie, it is. You're not intentionally being impressive. You're just taking advantage of what society gives you. But that's at the expense of other people and pre-civil rights days. Here's a question I was asking myself. And I just honestly read a book called The Underground Railroad, which is a Civil War book. And again, white folks helping slaves escape into the North at risk of their own lives. Some are being beheaded and hung from trees and all kinds of things. And as we walked out of the theater, I told Sarah, you know what? I've been, I think, on the wrong side of every major movement in my culture for the relief of oppression with groups that are oppressed. Didn't intend to be, would never think of myself as an oppressor. And I haven't gone all liberals. I don't think I've joined that whole movement. If I say, you know, going back to our culture, wherever a group that is marginalized has asked for society to stop repressing them, society is always resistant. And the bridge builder language is because it's about power. Nobody gives up power easily. No, they don't. If I invite you to the table, I have less voice at the table. I like my voice at the table, so I keep my voice at the table. But I told Sarah, you can go back to anything in our day, whether it's race, whether it's immigration, whether it's sexuality, sexual orientation. And I think I would have justified it. Particularly, let's look at this movie in the 60s and there's colored water fountains and there's white water fountains. Being the law and order guy I was raised to, I'd even find justification. Well, you know, it doesn't look right, but it is the law. We got to follow the law. If you don't like the law, change the law. However, I would find an excuse. It's really, it's uncovered some tender space in my heart. I don't know where it's going to land, honestly. I don't know that guy. I didn't meet you in your years of that. I've always known you as the guy who's frankly championing the underclass, the underdog, the minority voice. Honestly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no, no. But that's a different, that's a different me. You missed the other guy. I didn't grow up with him. Well, I'm sure I missed him too. I wouldn't have thought of myself as for repression but happened inadvertently just because of insensitivity and unaware, not a volitional choice to be a president. Active repression but in passive participation, are you saying? Not even passive, just not, I guess, speaking out. And I don't know what more you do. I mean, it's part of the problem when you look at what's so overwhelming in our culture and you take any of these things. Take illegal immigration in California. How do you wrap your head around? What's the fix for that? Everybody's exploiting it left and right. No one's actually trying to come up with a policy or something in our culture that treats the problem for what it is and makes allowance for people that have been here for a long time that we have exploited in terms of labor and what else but refuse to give them status in our country. And again, you can retreat behind law and order. I was raised with that. It's- But what so, I think what's so complicated is that for those that have exploited and benefited, there are also others that have not they didn't experience the exploitation and the benefits of that, or at least not directly. They felt displaced by that. And so I look at all this, I'm like, I don't know of any simple solution. And I think when people stand back and they stop looking at the actual what is and they theorize about that, that's the kind of things you can bludgeon each other with because I'm like, we're not dealing with theory. We have to deal with what is. There's a whole bunch of people here that guess what? Whether you like it or not, whether legal or not, they are here. So what do we do now? How do we actually make a workable solution that is going to honor the reality of this family is intact here? Are we gonna just rip it apart? That's where I go like- But we don't have the political courage to have that conversation. No, I mean, I know- I wish we did. I know, when you look at conservatives and liberals and how they have their arguments and debates, and I'm sitting there going like, gosh, there's so many folks that I know that are liberal, that if I wanna argue policy, we're not gonna get anywhere because I don't have the same conclusions that they do. I don't, but what I do have, I have the same motivation of compassion. The conversation can start there. I can affirm and invalidate the intention as opposed to assuming the worst about them and just like, well, your policies are, I mean, that whole paper-tiger debate just goes nowhere, but I can find common ground in the fact that they're desiring to help people. They're desiring to somehow deal with this in a compassionate way. And so the challenge is, how do we create a dialogue where the real intent behind both hearts gets heard? And the question is, if the left is having this compassion, they don't see the right as having compassion. So there's no way to get from that. I accept that you guys have compassion. Well, why don't you? You guys have compassion? No, all the stuff that we all worked out. I know, that's why I just ended up going, that's where this is total theory in terms of how does that conversation get worked out because I think a lot of times people assume and believe the worst about each other. Yeah, and we're encouraged to. That's part of the political process that common ground is one thing, building bridges, finding consensus, looking for overwhelming consensus to solve some of these things, which is what I did in Bridge Builder Rooms. We're gonna negotiate to a solution. We're done tonight when 80 and 90% of us get on the same page. If we don't, 80 and 90% of us in the room would get on the same page, I don't get paid. That's how I did Bridge Builders, all over the country. And I would sit with rooms of people, half gay rights advocates, half conservative Christian pastors, and we'd work toward what can we do in the school district to build a policy of non-harassment for any reason in the district and what are we willing to work towards? And I was always amazed at what people were able to do when they would get in a room and say, what's fair for all of us? Not just what's fair for me, that's what I want, what's fair for all of us? That's where I'm just going like, our culture isn't approaching it from a, what's the solution for all of us? No. And if you don't, is it any wonder that we don't ever arrive at a workable solution? No, and this is where the parties have failed us most. The parties want to use these things as wedge issues for voters. They're not interested. I don't think- That's how they solidify their power and their clout and how they continue to peddle their influence. Yeah, Republicans that are interested in overturning Roe V. Wade, they're really not. Because if they do, they lose a whole wedge issue that gets them X amount of voters in every election without even working for them. They're not interested in solving a lot of these problems because they're wedge issues and they're valuable. And so I find that disturbing, but I came out of the movie with this in mind because I do sense the brokenness of our culture. We've talked about in this podcast. I hurt for it. I was part of a group of people that were trying to get common ground into the national dialogue and we made some great inroads in places. And then 24 hour news channels came out and it just totally sidetracked to this polarized. I don't disagree with you. I hate you. And I want to kill you and I want you out of America. I mean, that's where we ended up, unfortunately. But I read this right after the first year. I thought it was a great state. And it was an article, I think in the New York Times. Yeah, it was by Arthur Brooks. It began with this quote from Mother Teresa. If I look at the mass, I will never act. If I look at one, I will. And part of this column, just say I'll just read a little bit of it. It said, as we look out in 2017 from the radioactive rage of national politics to a constant stream of tragic world events, our problems seem large and intractable. To throw up your hands in the face of tragedy is a normal cognitive phenomenon that shows psychologists called psychic numbing. Paul Slavik of the University of Oregon shows in his research that when events are large and remote we become insensitive to them. For example, there was concern about but hardly an outpouring of support for Syrian refugees after a half a million people had died in the civil war. There isn't a solution, however, to psychic numbing. Think small. In the fundraising business, there's an old axiom. One is greater than one million. This isn't bad math. It is a reminder that when it comes to people and need one million as a statistic, while one is a story. The example above is Syria is a case in point. International philanthropic support increased only after a news photo spread around the world of a small boy dead on the beach. Yeah. It goes on, but I love that. I would love to fix the political problem. If someone invited me to ask me on the show, if you were invited by the Trump administration, you're back in a common ground thinking, would you do it? I'm going, I don't think I could turn it down. I would. I would go fight that fight again hoping to find it. But what I love coming away is it really isn't about how do we solve illegal immigration. It's finding the undocumented alien that you already know and helping them. See, I do. I think it is brought down to the love your neighbor thing. It is. I mean, should you love your nation? Yeah, but you know what, tangibly, I don't know exactly how to do that. All right. That's theoretical and then the ether. But loving my neighbor, the person around me, that's really what I do have a sphere of capacity for. Do exactly, do I know what to do? Well, stop theorizing and start understanding the story. Yeah. I love, somebody said sharing on Facebook is not social action. I just think that's fabulous. You've taken a position, you've shared a story and so now you've been politically active. I know, but doesn't it feel, I mean, it seems like our culture and the more that it talks and pontificates into that ether, it actually feels as though it has done something. And I do, it's like when Jesus says, because of the increase of lawlessness, the love of many will grow cold. I'm going like, that is the danger when you start looking at this big behemoth picture that I don't really control and I don't know what to do about. I can feel bad about it, but in that overwhelmingness, that's where it sort of invites us to step back and disengage. And it's like, wrong choice there, wrong choice. I do think think smaller is brilliant. He concluded the article this way, Arthur Brooks. As we head into 2017, maybe our problem is that we're thinking too big. This year, start with one, not one million. Yeah. I've always thought it was interesting wording when Jesus, the command he left us was to love one another. Yes. He didn't say love everybody. He just said love one, love the next one in front of you, love who's in front of you today. If we start, if a million people in America, which is about how many people listen to the podcast. Ha ha ha. If you imagine if one million people just started tomorrow loving what's in front of them and where they see injustice speak up. Yeah. Particularly if you're the power group that's part of the, but even that's hard. I look at that in the movie going, man, what engineer in here? This white, this black woman has to walk a half a mile to the restroom she can use because she's the only black woman in that building. So there's no colored restroom in there. So she got to walk a half a mile to go to the restroom and back and finally she gets yelled at. How can you be gone for 40 minutes? So I'm going to the bathroom, sir. Who takes 40 minutes in the bathroom? It's a half a mile away, sir. And no one in the room had stuck up for her. No one. And no one is now. Everybody's like, and then I love to come out to give away a little bit of the movie. Sorry, but Kevin Costner's character. He said, we all pee in the same color and it doesn't matter what restrooms we use. You know, something as small as that. But boy, when I think of how our culture, and you go back, Sarah and I talked about it. You go back to black, white. You go back to men, women. You go back to illegal immigration. You go back in California to brown, white. You go back to all those culture, society things that we've struggled with. And if you had sided with the oppressed group every time over the establishment group, you would have been right. Now I'm not saying, you know, it's fine common ground with the KKK. Are there some things in society legitimately marginalized? There is. And people will always go, oh, what about that group? That's different for most of us. Should we be treated different in this society because we're black, because we're white, because we're gay, because we're whatever. And some would argue, yes. Let me ask you, what do you think about this thing, the fair act that it's sort of inviting and not inviting, it's sort of mandating in school that they need to sort of teach the LGBT history. You know, as they go through history, they got to highlight the LGBT individuals. Yeah. And they call it the fair act. Yeah, and they're actually outing some authors and whatever they didn't want to be known as gay when they were alive. Found out later they were, so now we're gonna out them because we need role models for that. What do you think of that? I get why they want to do it, to be honest. I get why they want to give role models to kids who are disproportionately suicidal. And I think California has been so stupid on all of this. I get that too. If you've got a good idea that you think's valuable, go win it in the court of public opinion and then really change. As opposed to imposing, a majority imposing it in a way that only exacerbates the discrimination they're wanting to solve. Yeah. Because now there's another group that feels repressed and pushed upon and they weren't part of a discussion. They're a part of understanding why. They didn't get a vote. They didn't get to discuss the fiat that was legislated. Yeah, that was the kid was shot out here in Oxnard. Remember we did a podcast about that, gosh. Eight years ago, something? He had rights from the state of California that they hadn't won for him in that classroom yet. They hadn't done the work to help the people in the classroom realize there's value to this. California always been, we're gonna force this on you guys because it's for your own good. Instead of, here's a good idea, can we work with this and invite people to build a common ground enough to take it into the classroom in a way that's not so polarizing. But California, I mean out here, we have a one-party government. It can do whatever it wants. And I've written to those people, when some of those laws, I was doing bridge builder work and I said, you make it a whole lot easier if you wouldn't just pass these laws in a legislature that you don't go into the local districts and help them embrace. You don't, and you don't provide any funds for it. And so now you've purchased rights for kids that they really don't have in the classroom and they'll suffer for it. You do it in the name, you think you've done a great thing because you've passed a law, you've done nothing. It's like they've made it worse. They have. And so I look at this, I'm going like. In many ways they have. Gosh, because we were talking about this around the dinner table and I was going like, you know what, kids who choose to be virgins get far more bullied than any of the other sexual identity or orientations. Those are the kids that actually get it the worst and get ostracized and made fun of. And I'm sitting there going like, nobody's making a law for them. And you're just going like, okay, if what we're talking about is bullying and we want to care for people, legislating issues is not the way to empower that out of the human heart. I'm going like, if you don't start first in terms of just the value of people, we're never going to get there. But our society, and I agree with you, except our society's never been able to do that. It hasn't even been able for the most part. I mean, California can do it because it's a one party system. Because the Republicans out here are so stupid. It's not because the Democrats are mean, it's just Republicans are too stupid to run anybody with half a brain who can make an argument for something valuable. So they run a has been actor as governor, which is just the last Republican was in power around here. And that was a bit of a joke. But most of these rights, whether it's civil rights, whatever, it's mostly been driven by court cases, which the powered majority always react against. The courts are making us do what isn't right to do. This shouldn't be, this should be legislated, but legislatures won't take it up. So courts have always been the place in our society where the minority, because legislatures is driven by majority power. The courts have been a place where minorities can get a hearing and saying, well, even though I can't get a legislature to vote for this, it is not fair to me that democracy is eating up my rights in the name of the majority. It's, you know, Benjamin Franklin's definition of a democracy, it's two wolves and a sheep going out to lunch voting on what to eat. And that a pure democracy is that it's not sustainable either, but has our society shown the courage to sit down and say we need a solution bigger than the polarity of our parties. Now I was a part of those in many, many school districts nationwide. I saw some amazing things happen when you put common people in a room and they worked to find the common ground. They did, I never didn't get paid anywhere I went. I got an 80 or 90% majority everywhere I went. And they did the hard work to make that happen. What doesn't work is bringing somebody into that discussion who makes their money off the fight. Yeah. See, we couldn't have advocacy groups. They would ask me, gonna have a group if you have a local person representing it, fine. If you're bringing in the executive director of Planned Parenthood or the Christian Coalition, no. Because they've got money in the fight. And that's pretty much the problem we have now. Everybody's got money in the fight. On both sides, left and right. I think the only way this is ever going to functionally work is in the local bean patch. It's in the between neighbor and neighbor where they have a vested interest to find peace and a workable solution. When you start doing it from advocacy group to advocacy group, the whole value system is, wait a minute, I'm gonna make a stand on principle. And it's like, okay, let me know how that works out for you or anybody because chances are there will be no solution doing that. Right now, there won't be. But we're gonna, I love this, love one another. Find out the next, if you know, and undocumented aliens that are here. And my law and order thing was I used to believe that. Go back, if they wanna apply to come here. It's a Donald Trump thing. 25 years ago, I believed that. I would have, I've been a rabbit in my support for that. I'm not now. I have friends who are here illegally. And they're here illegally because, but they've been here, they're here illegally because it was dangerous to stay where they were. They're here illegally, but they've been here for 20 years. You can't make a, you've used them for 20 years. You can't make a place for them in society, Republicans. No, they can't. They don't wanna screen law and order to maintain the oppression while they're paying them under-sized wages. Yeah, but as a contractor guy, that destroyed the whole construction business. And so you end up going like, okay, wait a minute. This is not working in well. It's working for a few who are benefiting from it. It's not working for the ones who are being oppressed by it. Yeah, the contractors that will hire undocumented workers versus the ones that gotta pay real living wages. Yeah, there's impact. And you go, okay, so there's gotta be a way that you can find a way forward. And I do think that's where I'm going like, your neighborhood thinks small and love one for another. That is tangible. That stuff makes sense. That's where I think the true solutions are going to be found. I mean, my entertainment attorney is pushing this story on me. He says, you've got to do a movie on this. He's talking about this lady, Miss Evelyn, down on the border that where they're being just completely overrun by the immigration. And she's a widow, her husband died, and they're being completely overrun. And it's all the story of how she's simply loving up on these people, helping them learn the language, helping them assimilate into what's going on, finding them genuine employment. And she's just kind of loving up on the people. And I'm going like, I said, why do you want to do that? He said, and all I was saying, I don't know where my entertainment attorney is in terms of his passionate beliefs. It's even sad that you have an entertainment attorney, but I get it. I know. But he said, this to me is what is the best of Christianity. That's what he is seeing in the story. Oh my gosh, yeah. And that's why he says, you've got to do a movie on it. And I'm going like, I just want to know the way that that's your passion. Yeah. Yeah. Love one another. I mean, everything that Mother Teresa ended up doing was out of that. You love one. You'll have another one to love. You have another one to love. Pretty soon you've got lots of people to love. Find a way to love that. Speak out where you, whatever place you have to speak out for injustice, speak for it. But I just, it's been kind of a wonderful thing for me to be in a different space that looks beyond. But I think at the end of the day for us, and this is why I don't think we ever want to wrestle with for the entrenched powered group, it always means they have to give up something. They have to give up their financial experience to make a wider, generous culture. But that's what we don't want to do. We want to, and that's where we hold on to privilege, even though I hate the whole white privilege discussion as it happens, but there is an element of privilege that we don't even recognize. Just being good stewards of what we have. And we like to think that if anybody else from whatever race, whatever worked as hard as we did, they could have the same things. And not realize that no, there's some injustices that underlie our culture that really make that impossible. Some people can get past it. Most people cannot without some greater help. And will we find fairness, something larger to work for? I hope we do. I hope so. Thank you for traveling with us today on The God Journey. 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