Latest / The soulnotskin Podcast with Jen SluMac / Susan Cottrell - God’s Love for LGBTQ+ People

Transcript

Susan Cottrell - God’s Love for LGBTQ+ People · The soulnotskin Podcast with Jen SluMac

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I went to the main um leader that I was friends with and really liked.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: We'd connected in other areas and I said, uh my child has come out.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: And uh bisexual, as first it was bisexual.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I I don't know what to do about this, you know, what to think.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: And her first words to me were, it's a sin and you can't accept it.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, that that's not an answer from Jesus.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's not the Holy Spirit speaking.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's something's wrong with that answer.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: And there was not any, oh my gosh, how are you doing?
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: How's your child doing?
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know, what do you think about it?
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: There was none of that.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: It was just it's a sin and you can't accept it, which I know now is a fear response.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's holding on to a belief system that turns out people, it's it's pretty fragile if they can be tripped up by somebody coming out.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_04: Welcome to the Soul Knot Skin Podcast, a virtual living room, a safe, welcoming place to land where you can share and share stories straight from the heart.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_04: I'm your host, Jen Slumack, or as my students like to call me, Miss Jen.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_04: We talk about the real human experience, the hard stuff, the wonderful stuff, and the messy everyday growth that shapes who we become.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_04: Real stories, real people, real insight, becoming who we are.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_04: Settle in and let's dive into today's episode.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_04: Hi there and welcome to another episode.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_04: We have an incredible guest today.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_04: I'm so happy to share her with my audience.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_04: Um, Susan and I met a while ago.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_04: I'll tell you about that in a minute.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_04: First, let me tell you who she is.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_04: Susan Cotrell has this fierce, loving, don't mess with me mom vibe.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_04: She's an international speaker whose TEDx talk has more than 5 million views.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_04: She's affectionately known as our favorite affirming matriarch.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_04: She's a prominent voice for the LGBTQ community and expresses her authentic love for them and their families and helps, especially in areas of faith.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_04: And that's the truth.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_04: That's been part of my experience with Susan too.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_04: She spent 20 plus years in the non-affirming evangelical church, has a Master of Arts and Theological Studies, and has a top-ranked Freed Hearts podcast with millions of followers and five critically acclaimed books about love, faith, and empowering the LGBTQ community and their families.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_04: And she sees love as the healing foundation of family, faith, and community.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_04: She and her husband Rob have been married for nearly 40 years.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_04: And they still like each other.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_04: They do.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_04: I've seen it.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_04: 40 years, and they have five children, including two transgender sons and five grandchildren.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_04: Susan, I am so happy to have you here today.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so happy to be here.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: I was looking so forward to doing this with you.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_04: Um, I did my best to sort of brag about you, but would you go ahead and tell us from your own words a little who you are?
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: Well, uh, I am a mother of five, and we were going merrily along in the church, more or less.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, the the cracks were beginning beginning to show.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: But then two of our kids came out one after the other as queer and or, you know, whatever word.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, let me mess that.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: I mess it up.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_04: Well, no, you know what, Susan, it's okay to stumble there because I think what the audience may not realize, or maybe they do, including the people in the LGBT community, is that when you are an advocate and a leader in this space, it's very challenging to know which words to use because different different terminology lands differently with different people.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_04: I prefer the term queer, I think it's just easier.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_04: Um, but that's very offensive to some people.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_04: And so um I think that was a heartfelt stumble and that we can keep it in.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, okay.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_04: Because it shows that you care.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yes.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and it's a learning curve to learn all the the names and the pronouns and the all the different words.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's and you do learn it because you care.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: And if you don't learn it, it's probably because you I mean, I feel like if I can't put forth the effort to do what my children need from me, then I'm not really hearing them.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: So, all right.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: So our two of our kids came out, and um I knew in that very moment we'd never fit in the church again, and they would never they would never come.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: And and it just it occurred to me that something was really wrong with this picture, even if the church didn't agree, there's something wrong that we would be now um treated differently, seen differently.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so I began this journey to understand what's going on, why is this such a big deal?
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: Why is the church so uh you know adamant about this?
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: And it's been a huge journey of discovery.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: Go ahead.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_04: Didn't you um so this was an evangelical church, and didn't you go to your friends at church seeking support around uh this new understanding of your children?
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, but what kind of advice were you given?
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I went to the main um leader that I was friends with and really liked.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: We'd connected in other areas, and I said, uh my child has come out.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: And uh bisexual, as first it was bisexual.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know what to do about this, you know, what to think.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: And her first words to me were, it's a sin and you can't accept it.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, that that's not an answer from Jesus.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's not the Holy Spirit speaking.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's something's wrong with that answer.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: And there was not any, oh my gosh, how are you doing?
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: How's your child doing?
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know, what do you think about there was none of that?
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: It was just it's a sin and you can't accept it, which I know now is a fear response.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's holding on to um a belief system that turns out people, it's it's pretty fragile if they can be tripped up by somebody coming out as gay or transgender or something.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I didn't know that then.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: I just knew it was a bad answer.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so I went to another friend, another leader that I respected and really enjoyed, and she said the same thing.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, where are they getting this?
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: What's the manual about this?
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then um somebody close to us outed my child to my sister, who then called me and gave me the same exact spiel and added in parts about, you know, don't let the devil get a foothold.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, you've got to be strong, you know, all this stuff.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and I thought this is this is not a humane response.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: There yeah, go ahead.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_04: Well, no, and thank you for sharing all of that, and also thank you for pointing out the fear response, because I think that uh folks hold dearly to their tradition of faith and to the values that they were raised with.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_04: And for a very long time in a lot of people's lives, to be fair, um, this whole issue was not on the table.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_04: It just wasn't in people it wasn't on people's radar when they were growing up, and and so it's all new, right?
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_04: And um what's always struck what's always struck me is what is the practical outcome of you following that guidance?
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_04: Like what happens if you tell your child it's a sin and I can't accept it?
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we've dealt now in our our work, which we'll get to, but with countless families who did follow their advice and think it and it leads to estrangement, it leads to the child's self-hatred, and in one case I'm thinking of especially her child ended up dying because of uh the changes in him from having been basically and and basically rejected.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: This part of him was rejected, and his family was as loving as you can be and still not embrace this boy's queerness.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: I say boy, they're we're talking about adults, they're adults, young adults.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but he they were as loving as could be, but said, You can't be gay, it's not God doesn't like it, and all of this stuff that he was then in a in a cataclysmic situation and did everything he could.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the thing these um LGVTQ people do everything that's asked of them.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: They've been through Exodus International, which is now shut down because it didn't work.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: Thank God.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, but all kinds of therapy and reparative therapy, which is not reparative and it's not therapy, um, and all of these things that they've been through to try to become straight.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: But the families, the pastors over them have not been through these rigors at all.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: They haven't looked into it to this depth.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: They just keep saying it's a sin and you can't accept it.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's that's unjust.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: That is really unjust.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: Do you hear what I'm saying?
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_04: What you yeah, what I I you know I agree with you.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_04: Um you're absolutely right about uh the impact on a young person who has discovered their sexuality to be different than what we would call the norm.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_04: The impact of having uh being told that that's a sin and that that's um you know unacceptable.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_04: Uh things like don't let the devil get the foothold.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_04: Here's the thing about sin, right?
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_04: It covers all of us.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_04: It it in in the story of Christianity, right?
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_04: Sin is humanity's nature.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_04: And sin is, in my understanding, anything that we put before our relationship with God.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_04: Anything.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_04: There's a large range of things that we do that we uh care more about than our relationship with God.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_04: And it took me a lot of delving into the faith of my youth.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_04: And my father's a retired Presbyterian minister.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_04: And so it took me a lot of digging back into the roots of these things and getting to know Jesus, which took forever because I had to find a safe place to do it.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and I had several of those encounters that were horrible.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_04: Um, but the point being, it's not different than anything else.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_04: It becomes the opinion of people out of fear.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_04: And sometimes what I've discovered too, Susan, is that it's fear.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_04: The pastor is afraid uh that this is going to reflect poorly on my church.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_04: The parents are afraid that this is gonna say something about me.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and it's not about the queer child, but I assure you the suicide rate is far higher with folks who identify as LGBTQ.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_04: I certainly made several attempts on my own life growing up.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_04: So so alcoholism consumed me.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_04: Right?
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and so the very small piece that you've brought up so far is so deep and nuanced.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, yes, and rarely investigated.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_04: What were you gonna say?
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I want to hasten to say, to add to what you're saying, to say, yes, all of us, you know, make mistakes, do things, whatever.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: But being gay, we have we have found in our own um, you know, deep exploration of theology is not that is not a sin.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: Being queer, being transgender, all those pieces of LGBTQ are not a sin.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: One, you know, young woman was talking to her father saying, Yes, dad, I do sin, but being queer is not that.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: And and because, and and that's that's deeper in the conversation.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: And there may be a lot of listeners here who right now think that is a sin.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: So, to your point, what about all the other things?
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's not a sin.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: Because here's the thing about sin.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like, it's often compared to alcoholism or drug addiction.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: You wouldn't enable your child to be an alcoholic, would you?
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, well, here's the thing about that.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: If you're an alcoholic, you can quit.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: If you're gay, you cannot quit.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: You can only deny it and go back in the closet.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: But we have 60-year-olds who come out because the closet did not make it go away.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: Next, um, if you do quit, your life gets better for everyone, including you.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: Quit drinking.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: Quit drinking, yes.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: Quit drinking.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, that's right.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: If you're gay and you quit, which really means going back in the closet, life doesn't get better for you.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: It might be easier for those around you because now they don't have to deal with this question.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: They really have not looked into, or they wouldn't be where they are.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: But but for you, you're now driven to the closet.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: Now you're driven to, as you said, deeper depression, self-hatred, uh, harmful behavior, suicide ideation.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: All of these things come from not being at peace with who you are.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: We we know that from a mental health standpoint.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so to drive somebody into that to say, no, you're not gay, you're not really gay, you're not transgender.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's just a popular thing that you've you've hooked on to.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: Listen, uh, it's very popular.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, in in our little group, in our following, I know a lot of transgender people, and I never once thought, maybe I'm transgender.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: I am not.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's not something you decide to be.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_04: It doesn't rub off on you.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_04: It doesn't matter.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, we have a lot more left-handed people now than when they were punishing you severely for being left-handed.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: Is that because there are more of them?
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: No, it's because they can be safe being left-handed.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: They just were closeted back then.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: So even if it appears that there are a lot more LGBTQ people, it's only because that we've made forward motion in safety to come out, which right now feels like that's you know, still in flux and a big battle right now.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: But to drive people to the pause, that's not the answer.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_04: Absolutely.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_04: What I was gonna say is uh just a sort of also mention, um, we talk about the church and uh it being unaccepting of uh LGBTQ and um you know the harm that it does.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_04: And and one of the things that I like to do work on with the community of the podcast is church hurt in general, but that tends to land a lot in the gay community also.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_04: Um, but I do want to clarify, I grew up, uh my parents were together till I was nine, and up until that time, I was a PK, a preacher's kid, right, and went to church.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_04: And um I don't recall anybody damning homosexuals, right?
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_04: I don't recall anybody um saying negative things, but there was silence, there was no representation, right?
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_04: And so at nine, while in hindsight, I know I had crushes on girls.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_04: I didn't know at the time I wasn't a sexual being yet.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_04: Right, sure.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_04: But the thing is that even in the silence, right, um, we fill in the blanks.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_04: And that's not necessarily abuse from the church or abuse from the parents, you know, and we all, gay or straight, we all have different things in our lives that there was silence on growing up that we filled in the blanks that harm us, right?
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_04: But we're talking about um in particular, like the very clear guidance that you got from the people in your church.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_04: Um and and there are some things later in my life that were pretty hard to handle, yes, coming from the mouths of the people who are supposed to love me most.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_04: It was their fear, yes, it was their fear.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_04: It wasn't a lack of love for me, it was their fear, but it still lands.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_04: And it still cripples my sense of self-love.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: Well, any parent, you know, most parents don't actively set out to harm their child, but their wounds end up harming their child.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's just parenting truths.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_03: Sure.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so the church was not actively harming most of them.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: But uh I remember the 70s and what's his name?
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, Jerry Falwell, uh feeding poison into the churches.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: He actively turned people against the LGBTQ community and the whole moral majority, you know, and the response to that was the moral majority is neither, because it was it was spoon feeding fear into the churches, into the whole community.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember that I was young, but I remember it.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so it was a real thing.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we know that churches do the best they can, usually.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but they're but when the construct is men in power who are used to wielding their authority and not used to really questioning things, then it makes it toxic, like a dad who's authoritarian and won't listen to the kids or the wife, even, about things that are wrong.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so it it's really been problematic.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of it is neglect, but a lot of it is um kind of learned responses of the churches.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: And those things don't just disappear when you have been taught this fear or even hatred uh toward a community.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't disappear.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: It it just kind of continues and you forget the source, but it's still there.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_04: So well, and that's really important, I think, what you just pointed out, and I think it just sort of builds on um my own understanding now.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_04: It took me till I was about, you know, mid-30s, maybe early 40s to really understand uh number one.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_04: It it started with doing my own work uh in my 20s, and it got to the point where I started looking at my childhood and realizing um, you know, I had a hard time sort of uh reconciling the amount of love I received alongside the traumatic events that I endured.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_04: You know, I had a really hard time.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_04: And what I finally came to is um I was a little person in a house run by two people who were hurting.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, yes, they were hurting, they were also successful, they were also uh very much loving, but they were hurting.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, and and that impacts a little one.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, sure.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_04: And so I always want to be really careful about blaming, yes, like you just said, because people we are a mess.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_04: Whether I'm a parent or a child or queer or straight or minister or not, people are a mess.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_04: It's the nature of humanity.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, beings are a mess.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_04: Um, the real challenge.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_04: Challenge in my perspective, or in my experience, the real challenge was coming to a real clear understanding that my problem was with the messy people that identify as Christian that are in a church.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_04: And my my issue was not coming from or mind to worry about with God, God's self.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_04: When I when I healed just enough to realize that I didn't like people can be wrong.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_04: They don't know me.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_04: They haven't walked in my shoes.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_04: I know that I love.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_04: I know that I love God.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_04: I know that God loves me.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_04: I know that when I've been able to navigate and heal from some of the wounds that come from my identity, then I've been able to bear wonderful fruit.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: And yes.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: And the church has inherited a lot of beliefs.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: It does pass on beliefs it's inherited over decades and centuries, you know.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it um and we are messy.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but also we're beautiful and we're profound and we bear the image of God.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: We are a hologram of God.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: And part of the deconstruction that happened for us, and as we went through this, and we thought, okay, I'm I'm interrupting myself here to say, when you find out that the church, and we did do this, find out the church is wrong about LGBTQ people, you which seems have has become such a foundational piece, it seems, then suddenly we're saying, what else are they wrong about?
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's where deconstruction happens, because the church has built a construct inside of us as we go there every week, and now we have to deconstruct and re-look at all the pieces.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: But one of the other foundational pieces they teach is that we are fallen, broken humanity, that that has that um identity has basically overtaken this image of God that we are.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: And it it took some searching, and I'm talking about through prayers and tears, and you know, God, show me to discover I did go to seminary for this because it was so important to me to really find out what's going on.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: And we had started, we had just started Freedhearts when the door opened.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'd say, God, open the door for seminary for me.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I went there, and boy, was that a big ride to see all the things I'd been taught that were um traditions of men, as Jesus called them, rather than really inherent in the book, in the Bible, or even in the early Christians' belief system.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: So, yes, there was a lot of deconstruction that happened.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: I really began to see how much uh this fallen brokenness, it's not in the Bible the way it's been taught.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's not there.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but the image of God is there.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: And it's no wonder if you tell people for centuries that they're worms and lowly, you know, pieces of trash, which much of that rhetoric came from Jonathan Edwards in the you know hundreds of years ago, uh, especially Sinners in the hands of an angry god preached, you know, sermon that he did that became a fire and brimstone teaching in the church for a long time.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: It I mean, it's still present, that feel of us as broken and wounded, and and and as human beings, we are that, but our identity is the image of God.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's the that's the the stamp that stamped us out was the image of God.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: And and that has been totally overtaken with this idea of a fall.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: Have I lost us?
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_04: No, no, not at all.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_04: No, I I I love that.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_04: You know, it's interesting uh because oh boy, you brought up so much.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_04: Um, it's interesting because at certain points in my own journey, um I would I would journal.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_04: I journaled my whole life.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_04: It was, I think the blank page is what saved me from all of this, if I'm honest.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_04: Um, but I I remember writing this one entry and just said, you know, whether we're dealing with homophobia or racism or, you know, all of the things that separate us or keep people who are already hurting stuck.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_04: Why don't we let God be God?
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_04: That's the why don't we that's right, why don't we our job as modeled by Jesus is to love the marginalized and welcome them in.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_04: Period.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_04: Period.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_04: Hard stop.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_04: That's right.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_04: Love and welcome.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_04: And you know what?
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_04: If being gay or transgender or something like that, or something that God wanted to be different, then once welcomed in, once having a relationship with God, all of that would get cleared up.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_04: They don't get that far, but those who do, like like me now, finally, 35 years later, and making that journey into the faith of my youth, yeah, I don't know that I can call myself a Christian.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_04: It just still makes it still very cringe to me.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, yes.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_04: But I'm certainly uh interested in learning more about the faith, right?
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_04: And um, and that's healing me.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_04: That's there's some healing going on there.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_04: Whatever our faith was, if we were um told that God didn't love us, right?
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_04: When we do get there, guess what?
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_04: I'm still married to a woman and I still love her and I still want to be with her.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: And God hasn't told you differently.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_04: God has never left me.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_04: God has never, God knows who I am and what I am, right?
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_04: Uh doing and thinking, sometimes more clearly than I do.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_04: And it's always been that way.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_04: The journey for me is how often am I connecting with God's pure vision of me as a creation from from God and working to share my gifts with the world.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_04: Because you said we're a hologram.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_04: We are made in the image of, and I think that each person on this planet was born to express a part of God.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, a million percent.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: And let me let me clarify when I said they don't get that far.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: What I meant was into that full acceptance in a lot of churches, they they often have to leave the church because the church doesn't just embrace them and let God do whatever God wants to do, because there's this fear, I think, that God's not gonna speak up enough.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: The pure-hearted people like you who keep searching, who often have to leave their church and even you know quit their families because it's too uh hard.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: They're not being loved for who they are.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: But when they do pursue God, they find that God is just ravenously in love with them and and has no issues with that, you know, and these are people who never asked for this, didn't ever make a decision to be gay or transgender or any of those things.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: They they, in fact, if they had a faith background, they begged God to change them.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: God did not see fit, yes, did not see fit to change them.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe that's not God's agenda.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's the church's agenda to change them.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's it's uncomfortable and it's and it's different, and uh they've been made to be afraid of it.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: But um God can communicate whatever's needed, but when people represent God, you know, or claim to, then it makes it very hard for for people like you, people in this community, to find what God really does think about them.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: People in this position have done more work than those who are telling them they're wrong have ever done in this area.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know?
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: And our job is to believe their lived experience.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_04: And well, that's the thing, right?
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_04: Like, can we just believe each other's experience?
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_04: Why do I want to why do I want to debate or correct your experience?
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 31:56
  unknown: Right.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_04: That doesn't make any sense to me.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 31:59
  unknown: Right.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_04: You know, and I and I and I absorbed people's disgust or concern.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: So once our our two kids came out and I had this dilemma, I had to find out what my faith really was made of and what what God really thought about this.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I did.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: And here's something that I've that was a profound turning point for me.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: Because oh, okay, I started just people would reach out to me.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: I I started going public with support for this community, and people would reach out to me, and I would just love, they'd say things like, you know, I came out to my mom and she's she won't stop crying, or my dad wants to, you know, he's trying to tell me I can't be gay or whatever it is.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I would just love these people, and and because I know how to do that, I know how to love what I don't know how to make them not be gay, and I don't think I should, but I know how to love them, and I did that.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: And people just came out of the woodwork, and I thought, if my two kids who had stories of people being, you know, just rejected for their sexuality and their identity, um, if though there are tons of kids out there who are hurting, then there are tons of parents out there who are hurting.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: And who are who are terrified.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so I began to to really uh I created freed hearts to speak.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: We had a blog post a blog that went viral.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: We just kept communicating, and people just found us, and it grew and grew and grew.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: And now we have online support groups for moms, one for dads.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and people just keep finding us because we're supposed to love each other and not get truncated in this whole uh you know, correcting each other thing.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's not our job.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: It was never given to us as our job.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's to love each other well.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_04: And aren't there enough things in this world outside of who somebody is loving that need to be really correct?
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_04: Given the attention?
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, like we should be a desire to correct.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_00: We should be there's enough.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: There's enough.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_00: We can stop human trafficking, we can stop the prison, you know.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: We there are so many areas we could actually make a difference if we wanted to.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_00: But if the priority is keeping things, keeping the status quo, because it is comfortable to have this list of of do's and don'ts from the church.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_00: And it's even if it's not right, it at least is comfortable.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so, um, yeah, go ahead.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_04: No, I just I hear you.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_04: It's it's a comfort zone, right?
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_04: It's a comfort zone.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_04: And God is not Christian.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus wasn't Christian, he was Jewish from the very beginning in the Garden of Eden.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there were two trees, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, with their to-do lists of do this and don't do that.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_00: And there was a tree of life, and we were always meant to eat from the tree of life, which is through relationship, not rules and regulations.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_00: We have really lost our way.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: I think Christianity is facing a real crisis in understanding what they're meant to be here for, because you know, Jesus was asked, What do I do to be faithful?
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, Love God and love others.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: Love your neighbor, which means help your neighbor.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: And the guy said, Well, who's my neighbor?
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_00: Because why did he say that?
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because he didn't really want to help people he didn't like.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus said, Well, let me tell you.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: And he told the story of the good Samaritan with the guy beaten by the side of the road.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody knows who he is in the story.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_00: But this out two religious people walk by, go to the other side of the street, so they don't have to deal with him, which is what their job is supposed to be, but they avoid him.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_00: But then this Samaritan who was hated by the Jews, that whole culture was he's the one that's the good neighbor.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_00: He's the one that is doing what God asked him to do.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, just if we focused on that, it would take us where we need to be in our in our faith journey.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_04: So tell us uh about some of the journey that you and Rob went through, Rob, your husband went through with Freed Hearts, because it's been you established it in 2013, is that right?
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_04: What did you find in um what areas was their need?
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_04: What needs did you find that surfaced?
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_04: Uh you said the parent groups, the support groups.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and the LGBTQ people who came to us to understand.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_00: And we we honestly get emails constantly that say we're saving lives because we're helping LGBTQ people see that there's nothing wrong with them, that they are created in God's image, gay, transgender, lesbian, they're in God's image, and they don't need to change anything.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and we help families because a lot of the families really want permission to embrace their children.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_00: They absolutely love their children, but they've been told that they're in sin if they embrace their children.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: And right, you know, one boy who was told you're going to hell, and his mother was told, if you support him, you're going to hell.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_00: Who are you to say such a thing?
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_00: Who are you?
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: And and the mom said, Well, I'll be, I'll be, I'll go.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going with him.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but hell is a whole different topic that we also deconstructed.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_00: But a pastor is never meant to have that kind of power over people to terrify them.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway, we really help families back down from their fear to give them permission to love well, to show them that loving their children means letting their children be as they are and just loving them, not telling them they have to be different.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's not their job.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when they were three, they needed to keep them out of the street and and brush their teeth.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_00: But uh it they were never meant to tell them about their sexuality in this way.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's not theirs, it's their child's.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_00: So um we've we've really, and and the more you deconstruct, like the more you deconstruct.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, and people are afraid of that, and I don't blame them.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_00: That when you first say, if I'm wrong about this, if the church has been wrong about this, what else are we wrong about?
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_00: Is very scary.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_00: And you've got this rubber band ball, and you you keep taking off rubber bands, and you're afraid that the center is hollow and you will have nothing, and where where will your faith your faith be?
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember explicitly feeling that way.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_00: But um, but you find that, yeah, when you get to the middle, you find all that is, you find God who is all there that is, and then nothingness is where God is.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_00: And it it can sound very scary to someone who's you know, because we were in that.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_00: We knew all the rules of the church.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_00: And you look and say, Am I did I do all that for nothing?
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_00: Is all of this wrong?
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_00: But but the Holy Spirit was so clear.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I wanted to tell you this turning point that happened for us when um when I kept saying, Don't let a, you know, don't let me lead anybody astray, as we did the first stuff, and I would I would post things on our blog at that point, and I would say, God, don't let me lead anybody astray.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I kept saying that.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't that a curious thing to be concerned about as the primary concern?
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I guess every time I did, I could, I know, I know God, I know the voice of the Holy Spirit, and I could just feel God smiling and sending someone else for me to love well, and that repeated itself any number of times.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_00: And finally, it hit me.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_00: We were never told not to lead people astray, we were told to love well, and that's exactly what I was doing, and it and it just I laughed and I cried, so to speak, to think of how much of our heart is wasted trying not to lead someone astray instead of loving well.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_00: The good Samaritan just loved that guy.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't know if he was gay or straight or poor or rich.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't just he just helped him.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_00: He knew he needed help and he helped him.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_00: And we're told to help the vulnerable.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_00: And um so anyway, that changed everything for me, that discovery.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_00: I feel responsible for what I say.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_00: But the point is to love people well and let them discover, trust them to discover their own thing.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_04: That's right.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_04: And that's what I was saying earlier.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_04: I think you just I think you just said it beautifully.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, that's what I was saying earlier when I said, when can we trust God to be God?
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, right.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_04: Our job is to love people so that they love themselves enough to feel worthy to seek.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_04: Because that's what people don't seem to understand.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_04: I have a I have a cousin and an aunt who I had a brief conversation with one time and then read one of the social posts, and they said the world is a mess.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_04: I'm paraphrasing, the world is a mess.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_04: I can't wait for everybody to accept Jesus into their hearts.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, yes.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_04: And I thought, what a beautiful sentiment.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_04: If the whole world were intended to be Christian, what a beautiful sentiment.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_04: I understand the goodness that that came from.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_04: Here's what I heard immediately, though.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_04: Respectfully, people's ability to feel good enough or safe enough to seek God has been buried beneath layers of self-loathing, uh, hypervigilance, yes, uh, uh fear of being hurt, yes, and and being told that God does not love them the way that they are.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_04: So for people to accept Jesus into their heart or to uh open to the idea of God loving them, we have to get ourselves out of the way from creating the conditions that stifle that desire or that ability to grow toward the light, so to speak.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_00: It is going toward the light.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_00: And the Bible never actually tells us to accept Jesus into our heart as our Savior.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_00: It it tells us to do the thing.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I'm doing these things, go and do likewise.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_00: He's loving people well, go and do likewise.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_00: And and what I thought you were going to say is if those who identify as Christians who have accepted Jesus into their heart were actually living consistent with what he taught us, the world would be clamoring.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_00: We we know that from stories in the New Testament.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_00: The world would be clamoring to get in.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_00: It would be a whole different thing.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_00: So, and Jesus said, People, the world will know your followers of me by your love.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's the marker of people who follow Jesus.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_00: Is it's meant to be, is that we love well.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so that question that God turned around for me in my seeking was all the more relevant.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_00: Am I loving well?
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_00: Forget about leading people astray.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_00: Am I loving well?
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's the only question to ask.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, some of these, some of the people we've dealt with, families will say, Well, I'm loving well by telling him he's he can't be gay, that God doesn't want him to be gay.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_00: They do, but that's a distortion, it's a it's a caricature of loving well, because they haven't really gone on the journey with them.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_00: The fear has closed down their their brain to be willing to hear what their son's story is, or their transgender daughter's son uh story is, to say, Oh, I didn't realize that.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_00: You tried all these things and they didn't, I didn't understand your lived experience.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what love does.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_00: It it accepts what is and it comes alongside somebody as they are.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_04: I kind of got a little giddy as as you were talking, because um, and I'm gonna put a trigger warning because I'm about to sing uh a Sunday school song, which is gonna probably be a painful part of this episode.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_04: But when I was a little girl, when my family was still intact and there was the original unit of my two brothers, myself, my mother, and my father, um, and I would go to Sunday school, and uh one of the songs that we always sang, I remember um Let us walk, let us walk with each other, let us walk side by side, let us walk with each other, let us walk side by side, and together we'll spread the news that God is in the land, and they'll know we are Christians by our love, by our love.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, they'll know we are Christians by our love.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that was beautiful, and you're right on this.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_04: In my heart, yes, it is, it is but it's but but but we have to define love.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_00: If we just walked along and we saw people hurting and we helped them, if we did the practical things, if we mowed the lawn of the person, well, there's so many things.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_00: If we fixed the unjust systems, Jesus really talked into the injustice in the world.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_00: He was I don't want to say the word radical because that's like a trigger word, but Jesus was kind of radical.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_00: He was, he had some things to say about the the greed and the unlovingness, and the people that he called out the most, the only people he got angry about, angry at, were religious leaders.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's important to note.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_00: So um, but if we did what he said to do, help the widow and orphan, which really he uses those words, but it means the vulnerable, those without money, without power, without status, without any means, um, if we help them, the world would be a different place.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_00: If we looked like Jesus, the world would be a different place.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, everybody would drop everything to join this move of loving the world.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_04: Gregory Boyle, one of my favorite guys, um, started Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles.
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_04: He says the strategy of Jesus is not centered in taking the right stand on issues, but rather in standing in the right place with the outcast and those relegated to the margins.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_00: 100%.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_00: 100%.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's all that's asked of us is to stand with people and help them who are in the margins.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_04: The the measure of your compassion lies not in your service of those on the margins, but in your willingness to see yourselves in kinship with them.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_04: Connected to them.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_04: And that is what you're talking about, that this is a relationship question.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what happened to us when our after our kids came out.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I knew gay people in college and in high school, so it it was not like this foreign thing, but I've been in the church for 20 years, the non-affirming church.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_00: But when our kids came out and we really immersed ourselves in this community, we're like, these are the most loving, generous, uh tender-hearted, kind people that you'd ever want to meet.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about the LGBTQ community.
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_00: They're they're beautiful people, and they've been hurt, yes, and and kicked and told God uh they're an abomination and God hates them.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry for the trigger words.
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um and it and it's all not true.
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_00: They're and they're still beautiful people that have been badly hurt.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_00: And when I first when I first heard God saying, This is your community, you're gonna be serving, and I was like, What?
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna lose all my friends.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_00: And God said this, which was I just think it's so silly now, but and God said, you know, um, this is the group you're gonna be serving.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_00: I I told somebody, I told her right away, and she said, You mean to help them not be gay?
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, No, that's exactly what I'm saying.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's the first thing that came to mind, but internally my arms went out to protect this community from people like that, peep people thinking like that, and that would just that just has flattened them into these are people we need to change.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, it's it's been an amazing journey to connect with this community.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_00: I feel more connected to them than I don't know, any group.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_04: You know, um, thank you for you know lifting up the colorful, uh, creative, loving spirit of the queer community because that's been my experience too.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_04: People go straight to the parade and um, you know, we could talk about that's another show.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_04: Um, what I want to say here, based on what you've been talking about, Susan, first I want to say publicly, thank you so much for the work that you do.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_04: You're welcome, and as much as you're so critical.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_04: And I gotta tell you, I wish my mom would have had you in this organization and the support materials because my mom loved me so much.
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_04: She passed in February.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_04: For those listening that don't realize why I'm talking about her past tense.
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_04: Um, my beautiful mother died in February, and we went through hell about this.
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_04: And um, she loved me all the way through it, and her hurt came out at times too, because one of the things that I had to realize is when I came out of the closet, I killed her daughter.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_04: I killed the idea of her daughter.
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_04: When she had me, she thought frills and wedding and wear my wedding dress, right, and you know, do her hair and all this.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_04: I didn't like any of that stuff.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_04: But when when I came out of the closet, like it just it just killed all of her dreams of the idea of me.
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_04: And she had to grieve that.
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, she did.
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_04: And and she did.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_04: Um, but she also there were so many ch choices that she made that she told me about later that she did to keep me in the house because she was terrified that if I left, I would never either make it back or come back.
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, that's a founded fear that happens.
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_04: And um, I will tell you too, and I'm sharing this about my brothers, which I don't know that I've said publicly before, but it's my story to tell.
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, there was a time when uh I was in my last relationship and my son was younger, uh, that we went and we visited uh both of my brothers and their families.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_04: And uh about a year later or several months later, uh I talked to one of them and he was telling me about what him and his family were doing.
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_04: And I said, Man, I really wish that I lived closer so that I could just pop in for lunch.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_00: Oh no, I know what's coming.
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_04: And I was I was close to my brothers and and I heard his throat tighten.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_04: And I heard I heard all of the hurt take hold of him.
• 54:08
  unknown: Yeah.
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_04: And through the the tightened throat, he says, You know, Jen, I have to tell you, honestly, if you lived closer, I don't know if we'd see you any more than we do now.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_04: Because he was in Illinois and I'm in California, and I said, What?
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_04: What does that mean?
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_04: And he said, Uh we don't know how to explain your family to our children.
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_04: And then I went to call my other brother and got the same thing.
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_04: And essentially I was being told, go away.
• 54:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes, you were.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_00: You were exactly.
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_04: Years later, kids grew up.
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_04: One one of my brother's daughters brought her gay friends around and were her best little friends, were her little gay boy friends, and they both were exposed to this through whatever experiences they had.
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_04: And my younger brother, I asked him not too long ago, I said, What happened?
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_04: What changed?
• 55:07
  SPEAKER_04: And he said, We did.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_04: We grew up.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, wow.
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_04: And I think that's important because we are all growing up, and we aren't growing up at the same time.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_04: I've had my stepdad told me that my mom went to bat for me every single time when I was gone with her sisters, with her um with my brothers, and it and it it was killing her because she loved all of us equally.
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 55:39
  SPEAKER_00: I wish I'd been there too, and I hear that a lot from people.
• 55:43
  SPEAKER_00: She supported you because you were the one marginalized and you should have been supported.
• 55:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that's what you do is the one who's being hurt, you reach out to them, you reach out on their behalf, I mean.
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I I think that, I mean, that is my natural predisposition.
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I assume it's because I was bullied all through sixth grade.
• 56:03
  SPEAKER_00: Every day of sixth grade, I was bullied.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_00: And oh gosh, I hated it.
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_00: But it just developed in me such a heart or released in me such a heart for the marginalized that this is like, oh, you want to, you want to, you know, you want to hurt them, come through me.
• 56:21
  SPEAKER_00: And that's just how it needs to be.
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to say one more little thing.
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_00: You said that that was beautiful what you shared, just beautiful on every level.
• 56:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to say as an encouragement to parents out there, because you said that she had to grieve her daughter that she thought she had.
• 56:43
  SPEAKER_00: If if you're really uh like the more you grow and mature as a parent, the more you realize you have to grieve your expectations regularly.
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 56:58
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's a stark one that she thought you'd be straight and frilly, and you're gay and not so frilly.
• 57:05
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, you may parents may want the son to be the football player, but really he likes to play piano or all kinds of expectations we have.
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_00: And the sooner you can recognize that that is your expectation, it's not your child's expectation, it's yours, and surrender it, then the sooner you can release your child to be who they're really here to be.
• 57:32
  SPEAKER_00: Because they came, they have their own life to live, and it's not the one you have in mind.
• 57:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's like never the one you have in mind.
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_00: So that's just a heads up for people, for parents who have the ears to hear.
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_04: I love that.
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_04: Thank you for for saying that.
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_04: Um and I think this brings me back to our talk uh conversation a little bit earlier about the faith question.
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 58:00
  SPEAKER_04: Um, I've sort of come to this understanding uh that you know, we sort of come through our mothers, yes, but we are uh God's idea.
• 58:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes.
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_04: And uh as parents, we are not the owners of our children or the bosses of our children so much as we are the stewards of God's kids.
• 58:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yes.
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I love that your mother went to bat for you.
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm so glad that she did that for you.
• 58:35
  SPEAKER_00: She just knew it intuitively.
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_04: I'm sure she had her times.
• 58:38
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, I can't paint her an angel.
• 58:40
  SPEAKER_04: I'm sure she had her times because it's hard to be put in that position.
• 58:43
  SPEAKER_04: And she, like I said, loved her sisters and loved her her boys, and she she was put in a hard place, you know.
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_04: And she and I certainly had some sure some conflicting moments that were very painful, I think, for both of us.
• 58:57
  SPEAKER_00: The coming around in your brothers, was it both brothers maybe, um, happened because they went deeper, they deconstructed their fear around it.
• 59:08
  SPEAKER_00: They saw it more, you know, in their friends, kids' friends, and they they didn't they just set down their fear.
• 59:17
  SPEAKER_00: They were able to get to the bottom of that.
• 59:19
  SPEAKER_00: So that's another you know, word to the wise of anyone listening, that if you have an issue with an LGBTQ person over this, your fear is what deconstructing that will really help.
• 59:36
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, um you go to God to find out what your part is instead of telling the other person, because we kind of want to say, if you'll just get back in the closet, I will be happier.
• 59:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's really what we're saying to them.
• 59:52
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of saying, okay, this is what is, and love is to accept what is, okay, God, I need your help.
• 1:00:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm short of love that extends this far.
• 1:00:04
  SPEAKER_00: Will you give me, will you fill me with love for this person that I'm having a hard time understanding?
• 1:00:11
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, it's it is a journey to be sure.
• 1:00:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I have a lot of compassion.
• 1:00:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I, you know, when we're taught that we're supposed to keep our family from doing bad things, we we are taught that in the church.
• 1:00:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's a lot of uh behavior management, you know, sin management.
• 1:00:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh then, you know, it it makes us into a distortion that is not just loving the way we're we're meant to love.
• 1:00:45
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 1:00:45
  SPEAKER_04: So be on a journey with each other, you know, be on a journey that is full of love.
• 1:00:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and find out because I know this community, I know this community is here as a service to the world to say, are you going to love?
• 1:01:01
  SPEAKER_00: Are you going to learn to love me?
• 1:01:04
  SPEAKER_00: That even though you've been taught that I'm really bad, really wrong, whatever.
• 1:01:10
  SPEAKER_00: And and the church uh would would benefit so much by embracing this community as their opportunity from God to learn to love well.
• 1:01:25
  SPEAKER_00: The whole thing would be different.
• 1:01:26
  SPEAKER_00: The whole thing would be different.
• 1:01:29
  SPEAKER_04: Agreed.
• 1:01:30
  SPEAKER_04: Let's meet people as individuals and let's leave uh the big ideas that are offensive to us, leave them alone.
• 1:01:38
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:01:39
  SPEAKER_04: Just just live live our lives, do our own work to look at ourselves and see see what's going on inside of ourselves and um align with a loving God that is, you know, modeling uh love your neighbor type thing, if you identify as Christian.
• 1:01:56
  SPEAKER_04: And um, and let's just love each other individually, because like I said before, as a parent, if you teach your children uh about healthy relationships by having a healthy relationship, then they will have healthier relationships.
• 1:02:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's right.
• 1:02:10
  SPEAKER_04: If you have these conversations with your children, straight or gay, um, they're going to have healthier relationships.
• 1:02:17
  SPEAKER_04: There is there is dysfunctional relationships all over the world, and and we've got to stop relegating them to sexuality or gender identities like um just stop.
• 1:02:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:02:31
  SPEAKER_04: Just stop.
• 1:02:33
  SPEAKER_04: Exactly.
• 1:02:33
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, you know, exactly.
• 1:02:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:02:35
  SPEAKER_04: Check check in with yourself, write a list of what you're afraid of and why you're afraid of it.
• 1:02:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:02:42
  SPEAKER_04: And take it to God.
• 1:02:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_04: And do your work.
• 1:02:46
  SPEAKER_00: Do your work.
• 1:02:47
  SPEAKER_04: And then and and then try to get this vision of open your heart beyond that which you believe is true.
• 1:02:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 1:02:56
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible has passages that have been pulled out of context, used wrongly, but used against the LGBTQ community.
• 1:03:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm talking six out of out of 30,000 passages.
• 1:03:13
  SPEAKER_00: But there are some 300 that tell us to help the poor.
• 1:03:20
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe we need to put things in perspective.
• 1:03:26
  SPEAKER_00: There are dozens that talk about oppression of the poor and and power used to oppress.
• 1:03:36
  SPEAKER_00: So there are a lot more, as you said very early in this conversation, there are a lot more things to be concerned about.
• 1:03:42
  SPEAKER_00: Why don't you just let gay people be the way they are?
• 1:03:46
  SPEAKER_00: Let trans people be who they are.
• 1:03:48
  SPEAKER_00: And remember those words to treat others as you want to be treated.
• 1:03:52
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus said it, but it also every major religion says treat others the way you want to be treated and don't treat them as you don't want to be treated.
• 1:04:02
  SPEAKER_00: Would you want to be treated the way LGBTQ people are treated?
• 1:04:08
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 1:04:09
  SPEAKER_00: The answer is no.
• 1:04:11
  SPEAKER_00: Then don't treat them that way.
• 1:04:13
  SPEAKER_00: Would you want to be treated by the society in total the way poor people are treated?
• 1:04:20
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, you wouldn't?
• 1:04:22
  SPEAKER_00: Then maybe we should change that.
• 1:04:25
  SPEAKER_00: Would you want to be treated the way black people are treated or brown people are treated?
• 1:04:29
  SPEAKER_00: You would not, guaranteed.
• 1:04:31
  SPEAKER_00: So let's focus on those areas.
• 1:04:37
  SPEAKER_04: I agree 100%.
• 1:04:39
  SPEAKER_04: And I think the real disconnect there is we all struggle with prejudice and bias based on where we were brought up.
• 1:04:45
  SPEAKER_04: But all of that said, it doesn't mean that we have to be less successful in our own lives, that our work has to be less lucrative, that we can't aim for the stars and build a business and be successful and love our children.
• 1:04:59
  SPEAKER_04: What it's asking is that we make room for everybody who's alive.
• 1:05:03
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that's right.
• 1:05:04
  SPEAKER_04: Um the but the but the disconnect there, Susan, I think the big disconnect, whether it's uh dealing with gay or trans people, or whether it's dealing with poor people, um, whether it's dealing with people who don't speak the language as a primary language, or black folks, or whomever it is that have been othered, right?
• 1:05:23
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 1:05:24
  SPEAKER_04: The thing is, is that I don't know that the people realize the harm being caused.
• 1:05:32
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 1:05:32
  SPEAKER_04: I think a lot of times they think it's because the other is not trying hard enough, I agree, is not smart enough, is broken or perverted, but um there's so much humanity to be recognized and so much depth of uh God's image in folks sitting in prison, folks sitting on the street homeless, folks in the LGBT community, and you know, also in the communities that we don't call marginalized.
• 1:06:03
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're one of those who's very good at business and you've got a lot of money, find places that you just described that need support and help them that are uh bringing about change loving in a in a profound way.
• 1:06:21
  SPEAKER_00: Because that is needed too.
• 1:06:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they need to be supported to be able to do those things.
• 1:06:27
  SPEAKER_04: My goodness, Susan, nobody would know by listening to this podcast how much you and I laugh when we talk.
• 1:06:35
  SPEAKER_04: You know?
• 1:06:36
  SPEAKER_04: We're so fun and this was a very serious conversation.
• 1:06:40
  SPEAKER_04: But there's so much to talk about though.
• 1:06:43
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, there's so much to talk about.
• 1:06:45
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:06:46
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:06:46
  SPEAKER_04: I used to think, oh, people are going to tell me I'm wrong or I'm stupid.
• 1:06:50
  SPEAKER_04: Listen, I'm not looking for your approval anymore.
• 1:06:54
  SPEAKER_04: Saying that I am right.
• 1:06:56
  SPEAKER_04: I am not saying that this is the way of things.
• 1:06:59
  SPEAKER_04: I am sharing my perspective and my experience.
• 1:07:02
  SPEAKER_04: I'm putting it into the ether for others to consider.
• 1:07:07
  SPEAKER_04: And what it does out there in the world is not up to me.
• 1:07:12
  SPEAKER_04: That's up to God.
• 1:07:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:07:14
  SPEAKER_04: The the the dissonance that it may uh reconcile in people, the uh comfort that it might disturb.
• 1:07:22
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, those are all the things, those are all the things that that precede, in my experience, growth.
• 1:07:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, a hundred percent.
• 1:07:31
  SPEAKER_00: I agree.
• 1:07:32
  SPEAKER_04: We're just at different parts of our journey.
• 1:07:34
  SPEAKER_04: Stop sticking pins in people.
• 1:07:36
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 1:07:38
  SPEAKER_00: Physician heal yourself.
• 1:07:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like there's a lot for us to to look at before we look at other people.
• 1:07:45
  SPEAKER_00: I so appreciate your your the just the whole conversation.
• 1:07:49
  SPEAKER_00: So great.
• 1:07:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:07:51
  SPEAKER_00: You're very insightful and full of love and life.
• 1:07:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's a joy.
• 1:07:58
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Susan.
• 1:08:00
  SPEAKER_04: That means a lot.
• 1:08:01
  SPEAKER_00: We love our children and we fight for our children and we defend our children and we learn and grow and we help people understand what this is all about.
• 1:08:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it it's a a big journey, but the world is growing and in their understanding.
• 1:08:20
  SPEAKER_00: And um we're helping protect the marginalized.
• 1:08:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, right now transgender people are are under serious attack.
• 1:08:30
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, we're pushing back and trying to raise visibility.
• 1:08:35
  SPEAKER_00: The laws are meant to erase them from public spaces, and we are pushing back and saying no, people are transgender.
• 1:08:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's how it is.
• 1:08:46
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, it's a it's um about awareness and understanding and not letting things, you know, letting people get away with hurting this community.
• 1:09:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's what it's about.
• 1:09:03
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for that.
• 1:09:04
  SPEAKER_04: So Susan, before we um before we end here, I I know you've got some things going on.
• 1:09:11
  SPEAKER_04: Tell us about what you're working on now.
• 1:09:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm actually just about to publish my memoir, which is uh the story of coming through a lot of trauma and finding my core of strength and healing, all the healing you talked about.
• 1:09:32
  SPEAKER_00: I I've had to really go through and seeing the fallout of the so anyway, it's my story in in a profound like application to other people too.
• 1:09:44
  SPEAKER_00: I think uh it'll be very a very good read.
• 1:09:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I will do a podcast episode about it, yeah.
• 1:09:54
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:09:55
  SPEAKER_04: I'd love to have you on again specifically to to lift that up, to lift that effort up.
• 1:10:00
  SPEAKER_04: I think, and I and I want folks to know that, you know, um Susan's challenges with life uh did not begin when she came out to the church friends uh about her children.
• 1:10:11
  SPEAKER_04: Um this is a woman who was brought to the end of herself and needed to grab on to God to survive very early.
• 1:10:20
  SPEAKER_00: I lost both parents and three brothers by the time I was 24 that all died.
• 1:10:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so there was a lot, a lot of trauma and breaking and being flattened and rising up again.
• 1:10:34
  SPEAKER_00: So, and that's only a third of the book.
• 1:10:37
  SPEAKER_00: There's yeah, all the healing and all the other stuff comes in, you know, the second two-thirds.
• 1:10:42
  SPEAKER_04: But what a light you are in the world and what a beacon of hope you have been for families.
• 1:10:48
  SPEAKER_04: And when I was uh during COVID is when I believe I met you.
• 1:10:52
  SPEAKER_04: Is that right?
• 1:10:52
  SPEAKER_04: Or was you?
• 1:10:53
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, that's it was a little earlier than that.
• 1:10:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:10:56
  SPEAKER_04: A little earlier than that.
• 1:10:58
  SPEAKER_04: I came across uh your site or your TEDx talk or something, and I reached out to you, and I was in the middle of uh some of the hardest reconstruction, deconstruction stuff of my life.
• 1:11:11
  SPEAKER_04: And seeing your TED talk about at the end, I think you ended with, and I chose my child.
• 1:11:17
  SPEAKER_04: And I was like, who is this woman?
• 1:11:20
  SPEAKER_04: And uh so I called you and reached out, and we just started talking about some of the common ground that we had in doing this healing work in the world.
• 1:11:30
  SPEAKER_04: And uh and we have agreed that coming back together five years, six years later, we've both grown so much and been through so much.
• 1:11:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, right?
• 1:11:38
  SPEAKER_00: That uh Yes, divine timing, that's right.
• 1:11:41
  SPEAKER_04: A whole new way of walking alongside each other as sisters in this world.
• 1:11:45
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 1:11:45
  SPEAKER_04: I love it.
• 1:11:46
  SPEAKER_04: Love you.
• 1:11:48
  SPEAKER_04: Love you.
• 1:11:50
  SPEAKER_04: If this conversation sparked something for you, or if you want to dive deeper, head over to soulnotskid.com and take a look around.
• 1:11:58
  SPEAKER_04: Grab a copy of the book, Soul Knot Skin, free resources, or get on the wait list for our next workshop.
• 1:12:04
  SPEAKER_04: I hope you'll pull up a chair next time to hang out with us again.
• 1:12:08
  SPEAKER_04: We're figuring out this world and ourselves at the same exact time, growing as we listen to the stories of others.
• 1:12:16
  SPEAKER_04: Let's keep getting to know each other.
• 1:12:18
  SPEAKER_04: After all, we are in this together.
• 1:12:20
  SPEAKER_04: See you next time.