Sunday Service - Peace Under Pressure | Sunday Service 3

0:00 Hello and welcome to Sunday service with the brand.

0:05 Then there's that bit of music.

0:08 It's always the same.

0:10 There's a formula.

0:12 Yeah.

0:12 Thanks for thanks for joining us today for Sunday

0:14 service with the brands where me and Laura

0:16 talk about our journey in faith and the challenges

0:21 even that come with the vocabulary around Christianity.

0:25 Even within our marriage, we see Christ and Christianity differently.

0:30 And we appreciate you joining us this Sunday for our ongoing journey.

0:36 And also for the first time, Laura,

0:38 there's been some pretty nice comments and stuff, huh?

0:40 Oh, there's been some great comments.

0:42 This is my cue to read some.

0:44 You can do actually what whatever you want.

0:48 Well, I've prepared.

0:49 Have you?

0:50 Yes.

0:51 I'm going to start with this as an opener.

0:56 by somebody called at WeelFam.

1:00 I've never seen Russell be as quiet and let

1:03 someone else talk as much as he does with Laura.

1:07 It's quite a beautiful thing.

1:09 How do you feel about that?

1:11 I suppose what I find in that is I've detected the insult of like that.

1:15 Why don't you talk less more generally?

1:18 But I I do also appreciate at Wickl's compliment.

1:22 Yeah, that was a that was there.

1:24 I've got three pages here that were sent

1:26 to us and they were all really really kind.

1:29 I'll read another one.

1:31 I hope these Sunday meetings bring many

1:33 non-believers close to Christ and that resonate

1:36 that or that's actually I know that was

1:39 something that resonated was that we're asking some questions.

1:42 I'm asking questions, you're reading, we're having discussion,

1:45 and a couple of people I know that are not

1:47 necessarily real churchgoers or haven't really found their flow with faith.

1:53 They've commented on feeling like they are welcome in this.

1:59 Well, good.

1:59 That's fantastic.

2:00 cuz I'm thinking about some of the most spiritual people I know like Sandy Pan

2:04 and Anu who are followers of Krishna or my friend Nikki who's a a gay woman

2:12 and I know that part of what I want

2:16 to emulate in Christ is his position of absolute love.

2:21 Even though he says, "I've not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill the law,"

2:28 he's still number one

2:30 priority is the demonstration of God's power being somehow founded in love.

2:36 It's been an interesting week for you and me.

2:38 And when we were talking about the show,

2:39 you said that you wanted to talk about our trips to the hospital, for example.

2:43 Oh, but we haven't prayed.

2:44 Should we pray first?

2:45 Yes, let's pray because then we're ready.

2:48 God, thanks for letting us have this uh opportunity to speak

2:51 with one another and with whoever ultimately ends up watching this.

2:55 Thanks that people are finding this beneficial.

2:57 And Lord, we ask that you would guide us so

2:59 that we do nothing to dishonor the name of your son Jesus.

3:04 And that people watching this feel the opposite

3:06 of what they may feel when interfacing with the culture,

3:09 which is an attempt to make religious the purely human and therefore the fallen.

3:14 that they would feel loved and accepted and appreciated

3:18 and that there is a home within your church

3:21 and a home within themselves waiting to be

3:23 discovered in the divine bright light of your resurrection.

3:26 In Jesus name we pray.

3:27 Amen.

3:28 Amen.

3:29 Um funny enough, I just want to bring something to the four.

3:33 Um it it's relevant and it's about

3:36 the awareness of God and actually um I'm really

3:40 as you know because you're married to me

3:42 and I don't stop I haven't stopped talking about it.

3:44 I'm very tired today.

3:47 I haven't had very much sleep because our son wasn't very well in the night.

3:51 Um and we've had a big week because we went to hospital with him.

3:56 He has a syndrome called de George syndrome and he has a um a heart

4:01 condition called tetrology of fow and so we do have to go to the hospital

4:05 every six months anyway but this was a much bigger sort of a bigger thing

4:09 and there were a lot of tests so we're meeting a lot of doctors it

4:11 was a fantastic trip um we can go into it in more detail maybe

4:14 but just about the thankfulness and the gratitude

4:16 that you find when you're in a place

4:18 like that but this is the the point I'm really tired and when I'm tired

4:23 I I zone out a bit I'm daydreaming a little bit like I feel like I'm like

4:28 don't daydream in this.

4:30 I'm like um I I feel like I used to get this a lot more when

4:34 I was younger where I used to go like oh I feel like I'm in a dream.

4:37 Like I haven't had that for like a long time.

4:39 Everything feels very real.

4:41 But like sometimes I do feel that sense of like we're in a dream.

4:44 I guess it could be extreme tiredness that I'm feeling like a feeling

4:48 almost of but you know when um people say you know uh like bring

4:53 awareness to God and that you should always sort of be aware I wonder

4:58 if we're all living like that anyway and then in order to bring awareness

5:02 to God and your actions and think you actually need to be do you

5:05 need to be in a state of deep relaxation and almost meditative in order

5:09 to receive or do you think um I'm what I'm trying to say

5:14 is sometimes I wonder for people who have a really deep connection with God,

5:17 I wonder if it feels like a dream or if it feels very real.

5:20 I know that's quite a broad question,

5:21 but I'm only saying it because I'm feeling sort of like that that feeling

5:26 of sort of tired wooziness and like

5:29 you could say anything or anything could happen.

5:32 And actually that's sort of what you're meant

5:34 to like the sort of feeling of like letting go,

5:38 letting God and that anything can h like

5:40 that's a sort of a godly thing, isn't it?

5:43 As an addict, I think a lot and deeply about altered states

5:47 and being in a state of connection with God says in uh Matthew,

5:52 seek thee first the kingdom of God and his righteousness

5:56 and all this will be granted to you.

5:57 How I try and practice that when I'm mindful

6:00 and present enough to is before you open your mouth,

6:03 are you connected with God or in this moment are you pursuing something else?

6:06 Do you have some other motivation?

6:08 Anyone that's had chemical dependency issues knows

6:12 that in order to achieve a state

6:14 of connection or peace or anes or sometimes even anesthesia, you'll do anything.

6:20 The devoutness of the addict is something that I'm very interested in.

6:23 Now, like what you're describing is a sort of testing I think as well, Laura.

6:26 I was obviously in that hospital with you.

6:28 So I know how tiring it is to go to successive appointments which

6:32 are a blessing to attend in any event because they were addressing neurology,

6:36 psychology, immunology, the boy's cardiology, digestive system.

6:41 Like there was so much going on in those appointments.

6:43 And when you're in a children's hospital,

6:45 um let us know in the comments and chat what experience you have with that.

6:48 It's a sort of a blissful experience where the sorrow of your own child's

6:53 condition is quickly matched by gratitude

6:57 that there are all these people that care,

6:58 all these other parents, parents that aren't so blessed as you,

7:01 parents that have lost children.

7:02 And on this trip to the hospital,

7:04 I saw the unfolding uh diaper changing bay in a bathroom and notice, oh no,

7:10 it's like five or six foot long because of adult kids

7:13 having to have diapers or bigger kids having to have diapers changed.

7:16 like that you're given so many insights when you're in that environment.

7:19 But now for us, because of everything that's going on in our lives legally,

7:26 you notice that in the online world,

7:27 bits of information are cherrypicked and selected.

7:29 Certain stories are amplified, other stories are denied.

7:32 And in this kind of clip and clickbait economy, various things can be pulled.

7:36 And like I I felt because what happened with our boy

7:39 and what happened with me legally happened literally simultaneously

7:44 like they unfolded like some perfect days apart like we

7:47 were in the hospital while all that was going on.

7:49 It's always I've seen these two things in tandem

7:53 and like see then I don't know whether

7:55 we should mention the name of the hospital because

7:56 you know that journalists or whatever might call

7:59 the hospital go do you really think it's right

8:03 Russell Brand be able to like you know and then I

8:08 also feel wow I'm aware that it's sympathetic for parents to talk

8:12 about their children's medical conditions

8:14 and any whenever we meet children parents

8:16 of children that have been through heart operations or any medical challenges.

8:20 There's a a sense of kinship.

8:22 Yeah, there is.

8:23 There is.

8:23 Mhm.

8:24 I was just talking to someone today and they

8:26 have a very similar somebody I see quite regularly,

8:30 but they their son also had a heart

8:32 surgery uh open heart surgery like our son did.

8:36 And uh actually what it is is when you meet somebody,

8:40 you know that you understand,

8:42 you know that you understand the feeling of the intensive care

8:45 and the feeling of handing the baby over and all of that stuff.

8:48 Um, but I really am also aware of it like, oh my gosh,

8:51 I hope people don't think this is just my ident

8:52 like I just I'm like always talking about it

8:55 or that it's like I overly identify with having

8:58 a child that's got complex health needs or something like that.

9:01 But then when you do meet someone,

9:02 they really get I think that person can really

9:04 get the the full picture and how tiring actually being

9:08 in a hospital is as well as a blessing how

9:10 kind of draining it can be and as an experience.

9:13 Um, and actually this brings me to this point.

9:17 Also, I'm distracted by that music.

9:18 I'm distracted by the music.

9:19 Do you want me to do something about it?

9:20 Is our jurisdiction?

9:22 No, it's

9:24 it's not.

9:24 It's far away traveling on the winds.

9:27 That's the music on the bridge.

9:28 That's the whispering on the winds.

9:29 Well, I can't go.

9:30 That's beyond my control, is it?

9:31 It's not It's not It's nothing to do with us.

9:33 We can't That's simply life itself unfolding.

9:37 Exly.

9:37 That's just life.

9:38 That literally is life.

9:40 Um, there's a few things I wanted to say.

9:42 one is like that you know I think any mother or father is going to identify

9:45 with their children like you like that's not

9:47 a problem to have an to identify with that.

9:49 I think anything when it becomes a token in your life,

9:52 when it becomes kind of dead.

9:53 And actually, funny enough,

9:54 that's one of the things that I've chosen to to read from here.

9:58 Um, but before we get into um reading a bit of that book, Yeah.

10:03 I wanted to remember last week we were talking about I

10:06 can't remember what circumstances we were talking about Tim K in

10:10 but with Tim K is of course as many of you told us in the comments

10:13 is Timothy Kella the theologian and pass did you want to read some of that

10:19 I could read the daily read today.

10:21 Yeah, I think it'd be nice to read it.

10:22 Should we read?

10:23 Wouldn't it be good if there was some sort

10:24 of embedded message in there that really felt pertinent?

10:27 And if there isn't by Jo, I'll make Yeah.

10:29 Okay.

10:29 So, this is um Timothy Keller and Kathy Keller, husband and wife,

10:32 year of daily devotions, the meaning of marriage, a couple's devotional.

10:36 And uh yes, this was commented uh a lot

10:39 of people commented saying you're talking about Timothy Keller.

10:41 Anyway, it's May.

10:42 So, we were saying Tim K last week.

10:44 I can't remember if it was Tim Keys.

10:46 I was thinking of all sorts of people.

10:48 It's not Tim K.

10:48 Not a British poet.

10:49 Um May 8th, May 9th, May 10th.

10:53 It's May.

10:55 Um anyway, it is May.

10:58 Uh spirit generated selflessness.

11:02 Selflessness is taking your mind off yourself and realizing

11:06 that in Christ your needs are going to be met.

11:09 That you don't look at your spouse as your savior.

11:12 And when you do that, you will discover sometimes an immediate

11:16 sense of liberation of waking up from a troubling dream.

11:20 It's funny, I was talking about dream state.

11:22 You see how small-minded you were being,

11:25 how small the issue is in light of the grand scheme of things.

11:29 Those who stop concentrating how on how unhappy

11:32 they are find that their happiness is growing.

11:36 Two concepts of happiness.

11:38 The Greek word

11:40 glad you

11:44 udonia looks like ud udemonia udemonia udemonia literally good spirit is

11:50 usually translated as happiness but scholars tell us it would

11:54 be better to translate it as flourishing because the ancients

11:58 conceived of happiness in a different way than we do.

12:01 Happiness was not seen as doing anything you wanted,

12:04 but as conforming your life to the nature of reality.

12:08 Just as a trout is only happy when it is in water rather than in air,

12:13 or a robin is only happy when it is in air and not underwater.

12:18 The happiness of marriage only comes to us as we serve.

12:21 In a review of the final Marvel movie, well, you like those movies, don't you?

12:26 Do you?

12:26 Avengers Endgame.

12:29 One of the screenwriters said that the ability

12:31 to sacrifice for duty is the real heroism,

12:34 not the superpowers.

12:36 Then it says reflection.

12:38 What superpower would you most like to have?

12:41 What sacrifices do you most need to make to be a hero in your marriage?

12:46 And thought for prayer is think of the ways

12:48 that difficulties in your marriage have led to greater happiness.

12:52 Then thank God for them.

12:54 That's pretty good.

12:55 Yeah.

12:56 Firstly, thanks for turning to me to interpret

12:57 Greek when I've got a British state school education.

13:01 I do not speak Greek.

13:02 You you were recently reading a book on the Greek.

13:05 I stopped reading that.

13:06 It was too difficult,

13:08 but I reckon it was pronounced I reckon it was pronounced udemonia.

13:11 And I do that idea, Laura,

13:14 do you think that when you fix your eyes

13:17 on Christ like there's it in Hebrews where it

13:20 says fixing his sight on the glory of heaven

13:24 is willing to endure this light and momentary troubles.

13:27 It's like the the idea that

13:30 whether it's in our marriage and the challenges we've had

13:32 in our marriage or our life outside of it and I suppose all

13:34 of our life is compounded within our marriage due to the nature

13:37 of that covenant that we're sort of bonded together in marriage.

13:40 you I've discovered that for example my selfishness and my thoughts

13:45 that I should be able to live a lifestyle that's

13:47 outside of the custom of marriage like that had to die

13:50 for me and it's a good thing that that died.

13:53 So that's an example.

13:55 That's an example.

13:55 And also we were just talking obviously about our son Herby.

13:59 And I would say that one of the great difficulties of of our not

14:04 only our marriage but our own person our own lives was

14:07 um when I was pregnant and we discovered that there that there

14:10 was going to be something uh you know complex going on with him.

14:14 It's hard to say wrong because there's nothing wrong with him.

14:17 you know, he's perfect to us, of course,

14:19 but um that brings would you say that brings

14:23 me nicely to this the reading um Russell

14:27 has written a book called How to Become a Christian in Seven Days.

14:31 May take 50 years of sin and serious bleep

14:35 ups to get started and it's a really beautiful book.

14:38 Um the fly on the back and actually I want to go right to that.

14:44 Why did you Why are there flies on a cross?

14:47 Because when the when I had this experience of Christ

14:51 coming to me that was in the sort of desperation

14:53 of the time we've described September 23 everything was

14:56 happening with our son everything that was happening in media

14:59 I was feeling in retrospect suicidal was sort of as close as I've

15:04 been to suicide even though that's something that um you know you know me

15:09 it's not it's not a neighborhood I've ever really moved out of.

15:12 No.

15:13 Yeah.

15:14 But like in there was a moment where I

15:16 felt in my viscerally I mean literally in my gut

15:20 the feeling of a cross impacting me

15:23 the image and feeling of a cross in my belly.

15:26 And from that moment I knew that Jesus was

15:28 real and up until that point I hadn't felt that.

15:32 And after that point I did feel

15:34 that and subsequent to it I began reading the Bible.

15:37 So the reason for that and the point of this whole

15:40 book I I later learned real recently after the cover had

15:43 done been done and I've probably heard it before that one

15:45 of the names of Satan Beelzeba is Lord of the flies.

15:49 Oh I didn't know that.

15:50 Yeah.

15:51 And I like that I suppose decay and death but Christ

15:55 in his sacrifice on the cross draws all sin into himself.

15:59 Pours it all into himself.

16:01 Takes it all on board.

16:02 So I sort of had that moment of what I call is called theophony.

16:08 A moment of encountering God was accompanied with kinetic psychedelia

16:12 like the image of the cross coming into my belly.

16:16 And from that moment to this moment I've been

16:18 learning about Christ and seeing how the the obstacles

16:24 to me accepting Jesus up until that point were

16:27 a bit like what we were saying about marriage just then.

16:29 They were problems I had that I needed to let go of.

16:32 One, I don't like the idea of believing

16:33 in something that you're kind of told to believe in.

16:35 Two, I want to be the most important person in my life

16:38 and I want to be some kind of manifestation in in God.

16:41 I don't want to surrender to the man Christ as well as the God Christ.

16:45 It exposed a lot in me.

16:48 A lot was undone and unraveled in that moment.

16:51 That's why it has that cover and to the point

16:53 that what I thought I'd read um reading Can I ask one more question?

16:57 when you say the thing which sounds it sounds like

16:59 and this isn't even a pun cuz it's the surname.

17:02 It sounds like branding of the cross on you, you know,

17:06 the branded like when a cat like a livestock or something is branded

17:10 and it's sort of it's almost like you were claimed by Christianity or something.

17:14 That seems like that seems like what's coming

17:16 to me because you're saying there was almost like

17:18 an an imprint used a word not imprint almost like

17:21 an embossed like you felt you really felt the cross.

17:24 You really felt it.

17:25 But can I ask you this because I think and I can personally

17:29 feel as well like oh my gosh I haven't had one of those moments.

17:31 I've had lots of moments where I'm like whoa is this it?

17:35 Is this it?

17:36 But like when you're saying it you just knew.

17:38 But do you think everybody and maybe

17:40 that this is something people could comment on?

17:42 Do you think in order to be like

17:44 fully almost fully give yourself over to the Lord?

17:47 Do you think you need to have something like that moment or do

17:49 you think it just depends on where you're at in your uh desperation?

17:54 Think of our friends like Jake.

17:56 Jake, our mate who we work with, he's grown up in a Christian home.

18:00 He said that he can remember giving his life to Christ when he was seven.

18:03 Think of someone like our beloved mate Dave.

18:06 Dave had a kind of epiphany theophony experience when he was 16,

18:11 17 years old at church.

18:12 Like me, he was in recovery from drugs.

18:15 Me, it took 23 years of recovery from drugs.

18:18 But uh I think it's different the same as with recovery actually.

18:22 There are obvious and clear correlatives about

18:25 between coming to Christ and getting into recovery.

18:29 For me and for anyone who does 12 steps,

18:31 it's a spiritual experience because addiction is already a spiritual experience.

18:36 you are worshiping a drug or a person or a chem a chemical

18:41 or an action and behavior because I think the world in and of itself if it

18:47 is just nature contains itself the atheistic

18:50 position it needs near continual defibrillation it

18:54 needs to be vivified it's just not

18:55 enough for someone who's looking for something spiritual

18:57 now think about what you say at the beginning of this you some feel

19:00 like you're partly in a dream because part of you is aware that this is

19:03 there's more to life than This not to say that the trees aren't beautiful

19:07 and human beings aren't beautiful and relationships aren't

19:09 beautiful but their beauty is coming from somewhere.

19:12 What is meaning and what endows meaning

19:15 in the same way that math is an indication

19:17 of some system that is uh universal and undeniable

19:21 and the fact that we all appreciate music.

19:23 We might appreciate different types of music but there's no one that says you

19:26 don't need to have um certain types of melody or certain types of notes.

19:30 everyone knows what music is is because there is meaning.

19:34 And I suppose what happened in that moment

19:36 is I went from feeling that I'm the center

19:39 of the world and I can pick and choose

19:40 what to believe in to oh wow I was created.

19:43 I was created and something collapsed and it

19:45 was it's been very very painful but very beautiful.

19:47 When you bring up the uh I don't know the parallel with drug with almost

19:52 like drug it makes me think immediately that you had a c Christ intervened.

19:56 He he had you had Christ intervention.

19:59 You never know how close you are to ending your own life

20:01 and and let us know anyone in the comments who's got experiences of that.

20:04 But one time I read a bunch of men's final words, text messages,

20:08 emails for something I was doing at a theater in the UK.

20:12 And what I was struck by was not the drama, but the mundanity of them.

20:15 Oh, you'll be better off without me.

20:17 Financial troubles.

20:18 D.

20:18 So you don't know how close you are.

20:20 The people that kill themselves are only

20:22 in a separate separate category after the fact.

20:24 Up until that fact, I think we're all potentially capable of it.

20:28 I can sort of feel it like it's a throbb and a hum of like this is too

20:31 much this is too much and all of these things

20:33 that are negative and destructive I think are

20:37 precipitous to transformation and indeed before I get to this like

20:41 well the thing I thought I wanted to read and and do

20:43 think I want to read from scripture is the conversion of Saul

20:46 of Tarsus better known of course by his new name St.

20:50 Paul who was the known prior

20:53 to his conversion as the great persecutor of Christians

20:56 said to be present at the um execution of the first Christian m St.

21:01 Steven if you know Jesus I suppose is not

21:04 a Christian m he's actually he's actually Christ so St.

21:08 Steven, right?

21:09 When um like Saul is there and on his way to Damascus, check this.

21:14 This from Acts uh chapter 9 verse1.

21:18 Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out

21:21 murderous threats against the Lord's disciples.

21:23 I love that.

21:23 It's like the essence of his life.

21:25 His breath is based on murdering the Lord's disciples.

21:28 He went to the high priest and asked him for letters to synagogues

21:31 in Damascus so that if he found any there who belonged to the way,

21:34 that's what they called early Christianity.

21:36 I kind of prefer that name because a lot of the things that I

21:38 don't like about Christianity if I may say I don't mean this offensively are

21:40 the words sin scripture a lot of it I saying about I don't know I

21:45 find hard let me know in the comments and chat what you think about that um

21:48 I don't like sanctify oh yeah sanctified when I said to you

21:51 like I'm being sanctified man you were like stop saying that stop saying that

21:57 perhaps I was just being more broadly annoying um listen he says so he

22:00 says it says of sort this is Luke right in in the book of acts

22:04 any who belong uh find any there in Damascus who belong to the way,

22:08 whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem.

22:11 As he neared Damascus on his journey,

22:14 suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him.

22:18 He fell to the ground and heard a voice, a voice say to him,

22:21 "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" "Who are you, Lord?" Saul asked.

22:28 "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting," he replied.

22:33 Now get up and go into the city and you will be told what you must do.

22:38 Now I like that it's light.

22:39 I like that it's dazzling light.

22:41 I like that it knocks him straight on his ass and off of his horse.

22:44 I love the Caravajio painting of this is sort of one

22:48 of them sort of dark background pool of the way that

22:53 you're often talking about this.

22:54 I've heard you actually this week talking about Caravajio.

22:57 I was talking about his picture of David holding up the head of Goliath.

23:01 I'm obsessed with Caravajio.

23:02 You are actually cuz he was a he was a kinky old genius.

23:06 He was

23:07 I don't know anything about it.

23:08 Sword fights.

23:08 I think he was he was up for seen the artwork.

23:10 He was up.

23:11 Let's leave it at that.

23:12 Okay, that's enough of that.

23:13 In his private life, he was up for a lot.

23:15 He took it there.

23:16 Right.

23:16 And he put all his darkness into his paintings and his depth.

23:20 Yeah, that's right.

23:20 In his depth of field.

23:21 And Francis Foropera was influenced for the sort

23:23 of light and design of the Godfather films famously.

23:26 So those pools of light and stuff like that.

23:28 Anyway, the reason I like this, as far as Saul's concerned,

23:30 he's on his way to Damascus to kill Christians.

23:34 And I like again after my conversation this week with Jeremiah Johnson,

23:38 the sort of theologian,

23:40 uh the idea of the resurrection of Christ being light-based.

23:44 Our friend Jerome Pubell always says that we have a light body within us.

23:48 A lot of people outside of Christian faith believe in this idea of light

23:51 and the event of the resurrection could be like a seen as a new beginning.

23:55 So yeah, I didn't have a flash of light.

23:57 I had something very fleshy, very in the belly, not in the mind.

24:02 Well, that's why I said it's like a branding because that's on the flesh.

24:05 It singes the flesh.

24:07 That's what I like that the image I had for you.

24:09 It wasn't like IT WAS ACTUALLY LIKE

24:14 IT WAS LIKE THAT.

24:15 And another carajio painting.

24:16 That's the anointing of St.

24:17 Matthew.

24:18 That's how he looks like he's taken it.

24:20 The finger of the Lord is pointing him out

24:21 while he's sat around with his tax collector buddies.

24:24 And St.

24:25 Matthew's like, "I don't need this, mate.

24:26 I don't need this." Trying to cover his face while Christ said, "No, that one.

24:30 Not you.

24:31 You now." And um yeah, I like that idea because of course one

24:36 of the things that's leveled as a result of I suppose

24:39 would I call it my public persona is that the Christianity

24:42 is some kind of game or scam or stick.

24:44 But what it feels like is the perfect culmination.

24:47 Yes.

24:48 evolution kind of um manifestation of everything that's gone before.

24:54 It's sort of perfectly led to that moment.

24:56 If I hadn't taken a bunch of LSD when I was a kid,

24:58 I wouldn't be able to do this.

24:59 If I hadn't looked into eastern mysticism, meditation, yoga,

25:02 like Jesus is there in plain sight all the while.

25:07 You could you could choose Jesus whenever you wanted.

25:10 But for some reason,

25:11 there was something about it I was like, I'm not having that.

25:13 I'm not having that.

25:13 I don't like this.

25:14 You know, it weren't for me.

25:16 Yeah.

25:16 Yeah.

25:17 Good.

25:17 That's interesting.

25:18 I like your gut punch branding idea.

25:20 But before I read this, did you Is there anything you want?

25:22 Well, actually, what I was going to say was

25:23 the reason I um I wanted Russell to read something

25:27 from I was going to choose something and then

25:30 actually I decided it would be better if he did.

25:32 So, I would actually like you to read whatever you've chosen to read.

25:36 Do you have any ideas?

25:37 Well, what I marked out was on page 39,

25:40 but you might have gone somewhere different.

25:42 No.

25:42 Fine.

25:43 But what is your bit?

25:44 Well, because I thought maybe we'd be talking about the hospital,

25:47 I did bring up because it was uh I I chose

25:51 this before I realized what the reading of the day was.

25:54 It was about the moment in the synographer moment,

25:59 but it's quite a difficult thing and I'm

26:01 not really totally sure we should read it.

26:03 But hold on.

26:04 Do we talk about pig pods before that?

26:07 I think there's never a better time to talk about pig pods than this.

26:11 Do you think that that's what everyone's waiting for?

26:12 or do you think we we wait until the end?

26:14 Do we keep you on a do we keep you on a cliff edge as to what a pig pod is?

26:20 Last week's reading was around the prodigal son

26:23 who of course famously as far as such

26:26 things are famous ate pig pods while it is living the end of his destitution

26:34 among the swine.

26:36 Now Laura, for reasons known only to you,

26:39 you researched the specific nature of this?

26:41 did because I needed to know.

26:43 Did anyone in the comments

26:44 say so much as a word?

26:46 Well, I didn't see, but I did see what it says on a quick search engine.

26:52 Carob pods, chocolaty and sweet, delicious and pulpy.

26:57 I'm not sure I like pulpy.

26:58 No.

26:59 And it says that mulch.

27:01 Uh, it says something.

27:03 I'll be honest with you, this is where the reading stopped.

27:06 Um, it says that some people think that John the Baptist

27:10 was eating these, but it says he was eating locusts.

27:14 So, some people think that it was actually

27:15 in the Bible it was actually these carob pods.

27:18 But I didn't actually further read that.

27:20 That could be for another lesson another Sunday because then

27:23 I was into a a whole different story and I thought,

27:26 God, okay, one step at a time.

27:28 Pig pod by pig pod.

27:30 Pig le.

27:30 Yeah, we'll get through that by the way.

27:31 So, anyway, that we can clear that up.

27:33 We we can we can put a draw a line under pig pods.

27:36 That's done.

27:36 Now

27:37 pig pods resolved from last week.

27:40 But the question is raised of what John the Baptist

27:42 I think most people think locust honey out in the wilderness.

27:45 And why don't we ask this question?

27:46 Does any has anyone else heard that some people

27:49 think it may have been these pods these carrot pods?

27:52 Okay.

27:53 So look I want people to notice one thing.

27:55 I had a reading prepared.

27:56 My wife suggested another reading.

27:58 I immediately accepted what you proposed instead of my own instinct,

28:03 although it was around another moment around Herby's life.

28:05 Should let you know that this book is out this week and it is available.

28:09 If enough of you are interested,

28:11 I'm going to run a book study concurrent with the early weeks of the release.

28:16 So, please, if you want this book, How to Become Christian in 7 days,

28:20 click the link in the description and acquire your copy now.

28:23 And if enough of you are interested, I'll do a book study in addition,

28:26 like a book club.

28:27 A book club's better.

28:28 A book study seems a bit boring actually.

28:30 I'm sorry.

28:31 This is why I need your help with marketing like from

28:34 a book club.

28:36 There'll be a a punishing and difficult corating book started here.

28:41 Yeah.

28:41 Book club.

28:42 Um cuz what this book is about is attempting to describe

28:46 to you how I how c how Christ found me

28:52 even though I spent my whole life reflecting through a broken

28:56 lens on what God might be and how I might be saved.

29:00 And also I think the reason I thought that Russell could

29:03 read this bit is that it this was a great difficulty.

29:06 It says that in the Tim Keller book reflect on a great difficulty in your life.

29:11 We were faced with a great difficulty and we couldn't have imagined

29:16 then what love and dedication we would have had for this boy then

29:25 he pulled so much love out of us and yeah well actually the bit that

29:32 I yeah

29:33 the bit that I chose but then I've already said that me

29:36 obeying you was like look let me like I mean You can chop.

29:41 Why not sharpen sharp and change quickly?

29:44 Which bit?

29:44 Where did you think I should start?

29:45 I was actually quite liking the sort of where it goes from quite mundane,

29:49 quite kind of like normal, normal, normal, not normal.

29:54 All right.

29:54 So, listen.

29:55 I was just about to take my daughters out to the park.

29:57 This is um when we were in the synography scan at 26 weeks.

30:02 I was just about to take my daughters out to the park.

30:04 They were rattling and spiking around the room,

30:06 tearing off blue paper towels, trying to touch the gel on Laura's belly.

30:10 He had already blown up a rubber glove like

30:12 an udder and was now fresh out of ideas.

30:14 Did that?

30:15 Yeah, we did that the other day.

30:17 That's my go-to.

30:18 This scan was a formality.

30:19 The doctor's clinic as much inclined towards beauty is interventional medicine.

30:24 I once had some love handle fat frozen off in an anti-chamber there.

30:28 I'm pretty embarrassed about it, but there you are.

30:30 In the room adjacent to the beeps and blue

30:33 towels and five-fingered tiny Hindenburg was a merchandise

30:36 room in Aladdin's cave of senseless bbles made

30:40 to be adorned with images snatched from straightforward

30:43 scans mugs with radiant faces of golden

30:46 in utero angels cuddly little rabbits bearing a frame

30:50 to hold same key rings and plates and all

30:53 sorts of opportunistic trinkets ordained with grandma in mind.

30:57 landfill in waiting, but certainly a good way to stiff armor a rabid

31:01 nana who might otherwise demand actual access to your family.

31:05 This I mention only to say that the scan

31:07 was in my mind at least a hemmed in thing,

31:09 a theme park, a safe trot through the stations of pregnancy

31:13 with no inco need to confront the dreadful fragility of life.

31:17 I may as well have lit a or cracked open

31:19 a can as I sighed and sidled my way towards the door.

31:22 my bored daughters almost an excuse from for my own departure.

31:27 My hand and my eyes were on the handle when

31:29 the lady with the transducer almost hiccup my name Russell.

31:33 She didn't call me Mr.

31:34 Brown, but she may as well have done because the tone was unmistakable.

31:38 A certain tombra or cadence of some dark melody,

31:41 a reminder then for tunes to make sense.

31:44 At all, there must be some recipient, a partner.

31:48 For there to be meaning, there must be someone to perceive it.

31:51 I knew from this incursive word, downward turned,

31:55 halting but not faltering, that some new thread was being spun,

31:59 and I ushered forth the sisters out of the range of this new foe,

32:03 and soberly returned, this time, seated, not pacing.

32:07 The synographer pointed at a barely discernable thing,

32:10 but I wasn't looking at the monitor.

32:12 I wasn't even looking at her face or my wife's.

32:14 I was looking into the certain past from whence I'd been long primed.

32:18 I knew this day would come.

32:20 You see this movement here?

32:22 I couldn't.

32:23 This is blood exiting from I think she said the right ventricle chamber.

32:26 I think it was ventricle.

32:27 It was a school word.

32:28 A science word.

32:29 Not a good word.

32:29 Not a key ring word.

32:31 It should be coming out from here.

32:32 But I'm no longer in the room.

32:34 I'm in the new but familiar purgatorial gloom.

32:37 That spiraling imploding fold.

32:39 That twilight behind childhood curtains when there's still

32:42 the chuckling reququum of play on the street.

32:45 The hospital waiting rooms where unqualified relatives would

32:48 pat my shoulder while my mom adjusted a wig.

32:50 Dead dogs.

32:52 An unwelcome hand between my legs.

32:54 The sharp splat of ejaculate on the system.

32:57 The breach and tear of shielded time.

32:59 The unwelcome hand in no man's land.

33:02 In the land with no man.

33:04 I don't let her finish.

33:05 I tried to stab back at time.

33:07 Is this ever going to be nothing again?

33:09 is the question that I ask that that best summises all

33:14 that I want to convey to this woman who I blame.

33:17 No, that's that bit.

33:21 Yeah.

33:21 Well, what it was was that was the course change.

33:27 Yeah.

33:27 That's the end from that moment.

33:29 Any parent can you hold the host?

33:30 Of

33:31 course.

33:31 any any parent that's been in that situation

33:33 knows that once you've had that in a medical

33:37 appointment it's you know whether it's about you or I think worse if it's about

33:42 a child it's like but because where it

33:44 was cuz everyone knows and subsequently was openly

33:48 discussed 26 week like you know where where were we 26 weeks was it 26 weeks

33:53 yes it was 26 weeks cuz I had had

33:55 two scans and it hadn't been picked up before that

33:57 but we were offered like termination and stuff subsequently

34:00 and like almost as a matter of a matter of course

34:03 because of uh the complexity of a couple of things going on at the same time.

34:08 that became to be to be honest with you that moment was goes back

34:12 to that moment again of like living in a dream and then that's reality

34:17 or or you know and then you have to work out gosh okay this is it is it this is

34:21 this new thing and actually what what comes over you

34:23 in in those scenarios is a sort of a grief

34:27 um as you learn there's like a grief over each bit of new information

34:31 and we I I I don't know now I definitely wasn't praying at the time.

34:38 So, I just don't know how I can even look back at that and think,

34:40 how did I get through that without prayer?

34:42 I'm sure I'm sure that there were prayers at points,

34:45 but not not in the way we pray now.

34:48 Um, and then could you read this bit?

34:50 I think you should read that bit before you do is it seemed to me

34:53 that like from that point on you were

34:55 certain like you were we're having this baby.

34:59 For me, it was instruction for me.

35:01 the the information of there's going to be challenges.

35:06 That was the instruction of you've got a job to do, right?

35:09 This is your time to do this job and your job

35:12 now is going to be caring for this little boy.

35:15 As well as obviously the other jobs that I have,

35:18 but the the the purpose or or a feeling of like there was no question for me.

35:24 It was like I knew in that room and I remember saying to you like I can do this.

35:30 I can do this.

35:31 And the reason I want you to read that is it's very easy when you're

35:34 now it all feels like it sort of is a blur and not in many ways.

35:39 But when you're in a situation where you have to get

35:42 checkups at milestones in the way that you do if

35:45 you have a child that has any sort of a syndrome

35:46 or anything like that, you uh and even the heart,

35:50 you know, the heart scans are every six months and or le every four months.

35:55 And um what it is is each time you have to go through a new

36:01 set of instructions and perhaps new course

36:03 change and really it's how you handle those.

36:06 And now thanks to thank thanks to Faith and Hope

36:09 and actually one thing I will comment on about Russell's book got

36:13 to go back to the the contents page is that each

36:17 of these chapters are sort of worked around the 12 steps aren't they?

36:24 uh the first day being the first day

36:26 or the first um section of the book honesty,

36:28 the second hope and the third faith and on and we can

36:33 go through these maybe some of the weeks that we're doing it here.

36:36 We could talk about some elements of that but anyway so

36:39 this this um is where I'm reading from now with what Russell chose.

36:45 Are you happy for me to go ahead here?

36:47 Yeah, that bit when I was going to read it, I marked it with that red cross.

36:51 Just keep reading and we'll see how it goes.

36:53 if you want.

36:53 But I just wanted to say

36:55 that the reason that it's like based on the 12 steps is I've been in 12

36:58 steps for 23 years and I even though you can't do it perfectly, I know it well.

37:03 I've been exposed to brilliant,

37:05 brilliant teachers cuz the 12 steps is fundamentally how do you move

37:08 from a life of attachment to a life of openness with God.

37:12 And how do you turn something as mysterious and potentially ethereal

37:15 as a word even the word spiritual into a spiritual program of action?

37:20 Now I like you can't be an authority on Christianity.

37:23 You can be a theologian and be a sort

37:24 of a a somewhat of a an authority on aspects of particular texts

37:31 or hermeneutics but you can't be because you actually talk about God

37:35 and before him he says again and again he has no favorites.

37:38 So like as a this is not like

37:40 a book where I'm saying I'm an expert on Christianity.

37:42 It's a kind of a raw explosion and a sort

37:45 of a joyful exploration as well as a kind of um well

37:49 personal epiphany that all the things I thought about there is

37:52 evil in this world and that evil is in a strange

37:54 position of power and control that there there is a mystery

37:58 within us that we're trying to unfold and engage with some

38:02 peculiar interface that we don't quite understand all these things

38:06 from that moment the branding in the belly as you called it

38:10 when I knew that Christ was real after I'd

38:12 read the Bible and continue to read the Bible.

38:15 It's not like oh well this doesn't make sense in conjunction with all

38:18 of the gnome chosky that I read or the Sacher or Nietze or Praapad or Yogananda.

38:25 It actually has brought it all to into a cross.

38:28 It's brought into this is the vertical axis that leads from the celestial

38:32 unknowable and ineffable into the earth and this is how to do relationships.

38:37 It's almost like the most basic symbol.

38:39 M so yes that's what that is about and merc on I wanted to say to you that

38:48 when we were going through the process

38:49 of Herby who's become this sort of golden light

38:52 and he's got like literally golden hair he's

38:53 a very golden sort of person like full of light and beauty and innocence and I

38:58 know children are generally and that's a wonderful thing

39:00 actually but he's um we've got other children

39:02 he's nicer than them do my babies my daughters are beautiful girls

39:06 um but what I mean to say is that Um

39:10 Saul is on his way to kill Christians breathing murderously.

39:15 On the way there there is a flash of light and it sounds like it's

39:20 kind of frightening destabilizing and breaks down

39:23 his understanding of what's real and what's a dream.

39:26 What is reality?

39:27 See the Christian perspective is that we are dead in sin.

39:30 While we're here we might as you might not might as well.

39:32 It's not an advocacy for it but it's similar to if

39:34 you were drinking vodka all day like you're living in this.

39:37 Oh, well then I'll get this product or I'll get

39:39 this thing or maybe I'll buy a yacht one day.

39:41 But you in a sense it's comparable at least that's what

39:44 I'm contesting in the book to if you were just drinking booze.

39:47 Yeah.

39:48 Like you're not living in reality is a kind of a dream.

39:50 Now that's not a sort of an uncommon.

39:52 It's almost a trit spiritual analysis.

39:54 The veil of mayor.

39:55 It's an illusion etc.

39:56 But I like the idea of tying it to Paul

39:59 that the person who's going to become the greatest apostle

40:03 up until that moment this guy is a nightmare.

40:06 He's an evil dark person.

40:10 And obviously I identify with that because I was so dedicated to flesh,

40:14 carnality, selfishness.

40:15 I still find many of those things challenging.

40:18 But God can do amazing things when you like and surprising things.

40:23 Well, that's it.

40:24 That's it.

40:25 is because you would we would never have dreamt that even

40:27 in that moment of you know and I remember the feeling and and everything

40:31 Russell described in that room of being given news and of course

40:35 there'll be people watching where the news has not been promising at all

40:38 and I know that at least at that point um at that point for us it wasn't

40:42 that promising because they couldn't tell us what would

40:44 happen um and my point there is that you say

40:48 this thing about well you you write that thing

40:51 about everything almost all of the traumas from your childhood

40:55 came to you in that moment because it for you

40:59 every you did this movement a minute ago like

41:02 a cross and that's how I feel when you're

41:05 reading the sort of list of all the things

41:07 your mom your mom having been through cancer the wig

41:10 in the hospital the abuse you you have experienced

41:13 as a child um you know the the thing

41:16 that all comes together in that moment and that's

41:20 like your that's really what's providing you with the ability

41:25 to cope with what you're given then and there.

41:28 That's that's your gift in a way in order that you're able to take it on.

41:33 And I know that you wouldn't have felt at the time.

41:34 I know it was a real it shook us.

41:36 It shook us hard and you took it, you know, badly in that room to to a degree.

41:42 You did not find that easy news to receive.

41:45 But all of that stuff coming in, boom, boom,

41:48 is what makes you able to be the father that you are to Herby.

41:52 In a way, we had opposite.

41:53 I like this rain.

41:54 It's lovely.

41:54 I don't know how this is going to play havoc on the mic.

41:56 I think it's going to sound very beautiful and atmospheric

41:59 and it's a cleansing rain.

42:01 It's a cleansing rain.

42:02 Yeah.

42:02 And also it's d whoever was playing that music that I never really

42:05 let go of the idea that I might somehow be able to control,

42:08 they have been controlled by the rain.

42:11 Can I tell you something though?

42:12 Um, one of the songs they were playing was a song from Dirty Dancing.

42:16 Was it?

42:16 Yeah.

42:16 And just before I came on, just before we came, I pressed record,

42:21 I said, "Russell, does my hair look too much like Baby from Dirty Dancing?"

42:28 Which Dirty Dances?

42:29 Not a good one.

42:30 Like when she's sort of when it's been dried from the rain,

42:34 but it I mean, she looks great in the whole

42:36 I'm talking about the song, not the haircut.

42:38 I've not like memorized scenes from Dirty Dancing

42:42 so effectively that I know all of what's her name?

42:45 Jennifer Gray.

42:46 Yes.

42:46 Yes.

42:46 Yes.

42:47 I'm only just remembering her name.

42:48 No.

42:48 Wow.

42:49 The story of the rain.

42:50 The cleansing rain.

42:51 Oh my.

42:52 Is this going to be possible?

42:54 Okay.

42:54 All right.

42:55 What song?

42:56 What bit dancing?

42:57 Um, it was uh I heard it was a bluesy song.

43:01 So, what bit is that in day dancing?

43:03 Well, it's it's Patrick and

43:07 it's the cloth over the lamp for those of you that know.

43:09 It's the cloth over the lamp.

43:10 So, is that the sex scene?

43:12 It's Yes.

43:13 Which spit?

43:15 I mean, it's the whole It's

43:17 Imagine you're talking to someone who's not sitting dirty dancing.

43:20 Is it the bit where they're dancing on the log?

43:21 Is it when she's holding the watermelon?

43:23 Patrick is in his

43:26 sweet little studio apartment, the cabin, and she come She comes to the door.

43:33 Yeah.

43:32 She comes inside.

43:35 H she had an argument with her dad.

43:36 Yes.

43:37 I mean, she's running running from it.

43:38 That's a whole another thing.

43:39 We're not.

43:40 But let's not analyze Dirty Dancing right now

43:42 because we could do a whole episode on that.

43:45 You did do that when the only condition of watching

43:47 Dirty Dancing was that Russell could analyze every bit.

43:50 That's what we did.

43:52 I've seen it a million times.

43:53 But you loved it, didn't you?

43:55 Anyway, the fact is because you could enjoy the analysis.

43:58 Anyway, the point is the song that was playing was that song

44:01 and then there's the lamp and that's the bit where you know all the

44:05 Is it hungry eyes?

44:07 No, it's not hungry eyes.

44:12 the record player when he's putting the music on.

44:14 They're not dancing.

44:14 They're going to have sex.

44:15 Yes.

44:15 But we don't see it.

44:16 So, it's very it's, you know, it's just a little bit of derroing.

44:20 Is that the word?

44:21 And the light is dimmed to show that they have tasteful sex.

44:24 There's a Yeah.

44:25 Anyway, I can see it's really mobilized you to remember that.

44:28 Well, because you know Patrick sees one of the great great You prefer him to me.

44:35 You refer him to me.

44:37 Patrick sees was one of the great pin-ups of my youth.

44:42 Yeah, I'm many people's youth.

44:43 Look, what I would say before you How on earth did we read this after that?

44:46 Before you started objectifying Don't worry,

44:49 you've got someone who can do links.

44:51 Before you started objectifying Patrick sees,

44:54 I was about to say that you and I had very different reactions to that moment.

44:58 M I retreated into sort of a resistance like

45:01 to the moment of learning that Herby would have a heart condition

45:05 and I knew oh no this is going to be

45:07 you're going to have a child with health complications and I

45:10 remember saying I'm not even one of them kids

45:11 with tubes up its nose and wires and I'm not going

45:14 to Great Orman Street or that was my I had

45:17 a real visceral reaction whereas you it seemed like immediately embraced it.

45:22 I immediately rejected it.

45:24 I rejected and it felt so heavy and so wrong and so punishing and so

45:29 angry about it and then it it sort of almost feels like a blasphemy doesn't it

45:33 cuz it feels like how can you say and I don't even like to say

45:36 the word like he's sick or he's ill or try and find words that sound good

45:40 wrong with him because that like I said

45:42 there's nothing wrong with him in our eyes.

45:46 No, you do.

45:46 That's I agree.

45:47 So, but you I remember that when you I guess

45:50 you were counseling me in one of my, you know,

45:53 like one of my sort of tightroppe walks over the easy way out.

45:58 Oh, yeah.

45:58 The old suicide talks.

46:01 Like you said, um like carrying a child and not knowing whether he would be born

46:07 breathing or not had meant that you'd had

46:09 to reach into a different kind of faith.

46:12 So even though I sometimes feel

46:13 that in this I'm the one that's reading the Bible

46:17 and I'm the one that's explicitly Christian

46:19 and I'm the one with this very verbal

46:23 obsession with Christ and with spirituality devoutness,

46:27 you know, it's you that practices it.

46:31 Thank you.

46:34 Thanks.

46:34 Now you can uh Thank you.

46:35 I'm going to read this and I'm going to try

46:37 and read right into the mic cuz the it's really raining.

46:41 When you have a baby with a heart condition,

46:43 you have to take them for regular checks.

46:45 We were generally taking him to the famous

46:47 and much beloved Great Orman Street Hospital for Children,

46:51 a kind of saintly and adored national institution.

46:54 The cool kids call it Gosh.

46:56 So that's what I'll be doing from here on in.

46:59 When I was informed that our child had complications,

47:02 my immediate response was, "I'm not going to Great Orman Street.

47:06 I'm not having a baby with tubes up its

47:08 nose." By the time we first arrived arrived at Gosh,

47:11 I had already been changed by the strange

47:14 sad disappointments that accompany complications in utterro.

47:18 The moral challenges,

47:20 the confrontation with unassessed prejudice and lazy presumption.

47:24 EMTT Fox says that many of us have not re-examined our view

47:28 of God since infancy and unconsciously are relying on shallow and vague data.

47:34 Viewing God understandably when you consider the titles and pronouns

47:38 as well as the culture at the inception of the hermeneutics.

47:43 What does that mean?

47:45 Set of contained knowledge systems.

47:48 A father, a patriarch, a kind of powerful human.

47:52 As Fox observes, whatever God is, he is not human.

47:57 He is not a he.

47:58 Plainly the creator of all reality,

48:01 a tiny subset of which is observe of which is observable reality,

48:06 a yet smaller subset is sensory reality accessible to humans

48:11 and smaller still yet within his creation is language.

48:15 It's hardly surprising that language is an insufficient tool.

48:18 But along with music, math, and art,

48:21 and the best example of any of those three include elements of the other two,

48:25 it's the best we've got.

48:27 I didn't know the casual unthinking vehements

48:33 vehements with which I rejected the idea of a child with an illness,

48:37 deficiency, or disease until I pondered it.

48:39 And when I did, I felt like I could not accommodate it.

48:43 I felt too weak and broken,

48:45 too attached to shallow perfection or at least normalness to imagine

48:49 myself as the parent of a child that wasn't normal.

48:52 Sufficiently, superficially normal at least to grant me

48:57 and my family inclusion into the vast invisible clans of homogeneity.

49:04 Homogeneity homogeneity normaless.

49:06 My wife steered me into a new perspective on these pervasive assumptions

49:11 when she told me that seven months into her pregnancy with our son,

49:14 she'd had a mundane exchange in a coffee shop line with any woman who's

49:19 had a baby with which with any woman who's had a baby will be familiar.

49:24 Ah, you're expecting this question is a gamble in quite another way.

49:28 We all know that.

49:29 What are you having?

49:30 Do you know?

49:32 No, we're going to wait till it's born.

49:34 Yeah.

49:34 Well, it doesn't matter, does it?

49:36 as long as it's healthy.

49:37 To which she replied, that's me.

49:40 Well, what if it's not healthy, which we already knew it wasn't.

49:45 Now, because I know him, it feels rude to call him it.

49:48 And because I know what joy he has brought us,

49:51 it feels wrong to conjure up the complexity that existed

49:54 until he collapsed it into the simplicity of love,

49:58 which, by the way, is exactly what it's like to come to know Jesus.

50:04 That's a perfect ending.

50:05 Yeah, because what what you I really like what you

50:08 say there about how as as you come to know Jesus,

50:12 it's like coming to know Herby in his form.

50:19 Yeah.

50:17 As he is on it once it's not

50:22 Yeah, it's it's moving and I remember that moment very well.

50:26 Are you okay or is it you bothered by the rain?

50:28 Well, it's quite hard.

50:30 I like it.

50:31 Yeah, but you like that that it's a sort

50:33 of chaotic rain whereas I'm feeling sort of over over stimulated you'd say.

50:38 Um All right.

50:39 Should we should we close?

50:40 Yeah, we'll close.

50:41 I'll just finish because I think what we've

50:43 been talking about I'm getting cramp in my neck.

50:45 Me too.

50:45 How are you, Charlie horse?

50:49 Um I just want to read right they just wrap up this part of Acts by saying

50:57 that after Saul has that vision the men

51:00 that are with him are aware that something has happened

51:03 but they don't they just see the light.

51:05 What is it?

51:05 They says the men traveling with Saul stood there speechless.

51:07 They heard the sound but didn't see anyone.

51:10 Saul got up from the ground but when he

51:11 opened his eyes he could he could see nothing.

51:14 So they led him by the hand into Damascus.

51:17 For three days he was blind and did not eat or drink anything.

51:22 In Damascus there was a disciple called Annias.

51:25 And what I suppose here like I suppose what happens here is that Annias

51:30 who's waiting in Damascus had gets told by God this guy Saul's coming.

51:34 Annias is that guy.

51:36 I hate him.

51:37 He's a monster.

51:38 He's a wrongan.

51:39 He's a bad egg.

51:40 Well, God is working both sides of the game is what I'm saying.

51:44 And what I'm suppose I'm pointing to is something you said at the beginning,

51:48 Laura, that we didn't really know would

51:49 be thematically consistent or helpful is that

51:56 that sense that we have that there's another reality.

51:59 We kind of glimpse it.

52:00 It's yogaandanda who says when he sees his guru's eyes that his eyes remind him.

52:06 He like he loves his guru very much.

52:09 These eyes remind him of his mother's eyes and the guru says you

52:13 thought they were your mother's eyes

52:15 or you thought those were your mother's eyes.

52:17 Our teacher Gavin Debeca reminds us of that often that all

52:22 things that are beautiful are reflections and the well when I

52:29 was pretty young I heard all desire is the inappropriate substitute

52:33 to the for the desire to be at one with God.

52:35 M so when something comes into your life like that means

52:39 you're going to spend a lot of time in a children's

52:40 hospital or you're going to spend time in law

52:42 courts or you're going to spend time anywhere that you

52:44 may consider to be unfavorable remember that your perception of reality

52:49 is likely heavily informed by the cultures vocabulary the cultures

52:54 metrics and measurements and we can be participants in a you

52:59 know a truly um transcendent glorious reality with God.

53:05 What do you think about that?

53:06 That's a perfect way to close.

53:07 You're tired, darling.

53:09 Oh, yeah.

53:09 And the old me.

53:10 Yes.

53:11 The Charlie horse and the tiredness has got me there.

53:13 So, he's coming at you bodily and mentally.

53:15 Yeah.

53:15 I'm just very very tired, but that's

53:17 close out with a prayer or do you want to talk?

53:19 No, you you you can close us out with prayer.

53:20 Is that a hand to hold?

53:23 Yeah.

53:24 Okay, that's a hand to hold.

53:25 Hey Lord, thank you for being with us.

53:27 Thank you for that pummeling rain.

53:29 Thanks for the peripheral tunes.

53:31 Thanks for the reminder that the most beautiful things in our life

53:34 often come wrapped up in ways that we wouldn't have had them presented.

53:39 Lord, we pray for the people participating in this.

53:41 We pray for the growth of your kingdom.

53:44 We pray for the skills, the ability to do what you would have us do.

53:48 We pray for the strength to face what we must face.

53:51 And we pray for those that are watching this in earnest and suffering.

53:55 We pray as you instruct for our enemies.

53:57 And Lord, we know that you will work all things to good.

54:00 that we are a new creation in you,

54:02 that we do not conform any longer to the patterns of this world.

54:05 And Noah began building his ark long before it was raining and carried

54:10 out his duty in a deluge that still reigns upon this earth.

54:14 The oceans, as Herman Melville says, are still Noah's flood.

54:18 The big bang is still happening.

54:20 The resurrection is still happening.

54:21 And you, Jesus Christ, are alive today.

54:23 And we pray in your name.

54:24 Amen.

54:25 Amen.

54:26 Thank you.

54:27 A rainy Sunday service.

54:29 Thank you for joining us for Sunday service.

54:31 Let us know in the comments and chats what you'd like to do.

54:32 And if you want to join me for a book study,

54:35 uh there's a link in the description for you to get my book

54:38 upon which I worked very hard that's dedicated to obviously Jesus Christ,

54:42 but also our beloved dog bear.

54:44 It's weird to dedicate a book to a a dog that's not even a living dog.

54:48 I mean, he couldn't read when he was alive, but it it means a great deal.

54:53 I've dedicated to you before.

54:55 Yeah.

54:55 Oh, yeah.

54:55 I don't need another book.

54:56 I'm all good.

54:56 It's the last thing you need.

54:57 Yeah.

54:58 Oh.

54:59 Bye then, Michelle.