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1 on 1 with John David Graham · Gil I Am

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: What if everybody is this Gil? And this is one
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: on one with Gil Gillery And today I am on
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: with mister John David Graham. We met each other online
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: on one of these podcasts formats a couple of days ago,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: and I've decided that this guy has a story that
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: I want to hear. This is John. Can you introduce
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: yourself and let us know who you are and why
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: we need to hear this story.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: Very glad to be here, Gil, very glad. In fact,
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: I have found that in this current put it on
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: the social climate, there seems to be so much anger
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: and frustration, particularly among middle class, not working class men,
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: white men. They feel like life has passed them by
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: and they have no reason, no and they're angry. And
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: what I have found is that in my own life,
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: since we can't see me here, I'm out to explain
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: that I'm seventy six years old, and i have made
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: a lot of mistakes in my life, and I've had
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: a lot of I've had a last count about eight
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: career detours until I found my niche when I was
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: late in life at fifty three years old. And this
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: is where a lot of men go through their midlife crisis.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: And I had been through so many detours that I
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: determined with my wife that maybe we could make a
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: difference by instead of getting angry at people getting angry
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: at our mistakes, but maybe we could reach out and
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: help people who were struggling like we were. So what
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: we did was we took our house, it was an
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: old house that we were renovating, and converted it into
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  Speaker 2: a shelter, and we started taking in and helping and
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: trying to direct the people we were seeing in the
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: streets who were coming to our door asking for help.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: And one thing led to another and another, and before
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: you know it, we had a whole separate house as
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: a shelter, and then that grew into another house, and
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  Speaker 2: over the last twenty four years, this corporation is nonprofit
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  Speaker 2: company we started called Good Samaritan Home has helped nearly
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  Speaker 2: twenty five hundred men and women. And here's the kick.
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  Speaker 2: These are people coming back from prison who are double homeless.
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  Speaker 2: They're homeless in the fact that they're felons, they've committed
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: some crime, and they're coming back without a job and
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: without a place to stay, and often without family. So we,
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  Speaker 2: in effect, we have become their landing zone. To help
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: them get back on their feet. And it's not only
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: helped them, I guarantee you it's helped me because I
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: have found that my life has taken on what I
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: see to be real purpose in helping other people rather
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: than simply trying to get a bigger house or a
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: bigger car. In fact, when I look at television, I
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: see all these young, handsome, hard bodies on TV. Or
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  Speaker 2: if I look at the Internet and Facebook and I
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: see all this the world seems to be much much
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: younger than me, and most people my age look at
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  Speaker 2: it and say, my life is over. But the truth is,
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: I feel like my life has really only begun. And
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: I'm seventy six going on thirty six. That's how I feel.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: And it's all because we've turned it around. Instead of
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: moaning and being angry, we're trying to make a difference.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: Does that make any sense?
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: Go? That makes a lot of sense to me, mister John,
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  Speaker 1: because I'm a Christian. I love the title of your nonprofit,
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  Speaker 1: the Good Samaritan Home. How much has Christianity played into
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: the formation of your nonprofit and into what you're doing
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  Speaker 1: to help these felon.
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  Speaker 2: Now here's where it gets really stiffy. At one point
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  Speaker 2: in my life and one of my many failed careers,
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  Speaker 2: I was a minister in a small several small churches,
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  Speaker 2: rural churches, thinking that I could make a difference as
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  Speaker 2: a teaching pastor. But what I found was that the
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  Speaker 2: churches can be very political and they like to grow inward.
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  Speaker 2: I call it everybody's welcome to come as long as
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  Speaker 2: they look and act just like us. We don't want
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  Speaker 2: different people and so, and we definitely don't want those poor,
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  Speaker 2: dirty people from the street. And so, because of my
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  Speaker 2: work in the street, I was let go, I'm being
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: polite here as a pastor. And that's when we decided
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  Speaker 2: to start Good Samaritan Home on our own. We determined
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  Speaker 2: to be the church in the street. So our faith
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  Speaker 2: was the basis for what we were doing. But we
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  Speaker 2: don't take our faith verbally into the streets. We take
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  Speaker 2: it physically. So instead of saying to somebody, are you saved,
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  Speaker 2: we say are you hungry? Are you cold?
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  Speaker 1: And yeah.
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  Speaker 2: We find that they hear that language so much better
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  Speaker 2: than speaking my church language.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. And you know, my wife and I are trying
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  Speaker 1: to do as much as we can, but I have
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  Speaker 1: to confess that I struggle a lot with helping people
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  Speaker 1: in need because and that's that's the burden I carry
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  Speaker 1: is because I would love to be at the point
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  Speaker 1: where you are, where I don't judge it harshly. You know,
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  Speaker 1: it might be a forty a fifty year old man.
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  Speaker 1: And then my burden is that I judge them based
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  Speaker 1: on they need some sort of help throughout their life,
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  Speaker 1: and they've never they've never made their lot in life better,
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  Speaker 1: and they get dependent on the help. And so how
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  Speaker 1: do you do you struggle at all the way I do,
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  Speaker 1: and how do you get past it?
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  Speaker 2: There's there's a phrase in the Bible. It says we
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  Speaker 2: need to be as wise as serpents and gentle as doves,
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  Speaker 2: and and so the church goes back and forth between being, uh,
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  Speaker 2: the wisest serpent, where you're you're critical and and the
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  Speaker 2: gentle as doves, where you're you're you're too easy going.
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  Speaker 2: And I think we have to be both. So, uh,
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  Speaker 2: it's accountability. Now there's a trick here. Dealing with people
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  Speaker 2: off the street, just straight homeless is actually much harder
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  Speaker 2: because there's not the accountability. But the work we do
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: is primarily with the adult parole authority. We take people
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: who are under a felony supervision. We're not a parle officer,
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: but we are. We are supporting agency. We try to
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  Speaker 2: help them the rehabilitation part, but there's accountability with the
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  Speaker 2: PO and so if we have a curfew that we enforce,
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  Speaker 2: we have a housekeeping responsibility we enforce. In other words,
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  Speaker 2: you're not here to live large on my dime. You're
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: here to try to move on, and you're given a
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: certain amount of limited time and if you need more time,
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  Speaker 2: we will help you. But if you're just going to
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: sit and sulk, then I will give you the minimum
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: time and say thank you for what you've done, time
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  Speaker 2: to move on. So you have to balance. So just
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: helping people off the street, just giving out money for
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: example or food is nice, but it doesn't change anything thing. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: that's right. So that's why when I see Christmas stories
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  Speaker 2: where somebody going around passing out ten dollar bills or something,
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  Speaker 2: it makes a good story, but it doesn't do a
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  Speaker 2: damn thing to help people.
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  Speaker 1: Well, you know, I'm from Lafayette, Louisiana, so here. So
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  Speaker 1: my wife and I opened up a thrift store last
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  Speaker 1: June or last July. But no no, I'm sorry. December
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: of twenty twenty three, got to get confused. So we
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: opened up a thrift store December of twenty twenty three
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  Speaker 1: and really inexpensive things. And then over the course of
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: the first couple of months, we got to this organization
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  Speaker 1: they're called the hub Hub, and I found out more
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: about them. So they would donate clothing to us and
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: we would sell it to the general public for like
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  Speaker 1: three dollars a T shirt, five dollars for their jeans.
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  Speaker 1: But the point that I'm trying to make is they're
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  Speaker 1: the Hubbub has a system in place that I think
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  Speaker 1: we could all learn from. And here's how it works.
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  Speaker 1: They have donated items for people in need. But the
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: only way you get those items so they have canned goods, food, clothing, dishware,
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  Speaker 1: platewar pots. The only way you get those items is
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  Speaker 1: you either attend classes and you get points for those
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  Speaker 1: classes that you attend. So if you're homeless, you go
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: to these workshops and you learn these and then if
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  Speaker 1: you're an underprivileged person, if you bring your check for
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  Speaker 1: the week of two hundred dollars they will give you.
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  Speaker 1: They'll allow you to take two hundred dollars worth of
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  Speaker 1: items for free, and that system. When I learned about it,
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  Speaker 1: I just felt like we as a nation, instead of
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  Speaker 1: just giving things out, we can learn from that system.
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  Speaker 1: How would you? What do you think about that?
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  Speaker 2: But it's a lot more work because it's so much
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  Speaker 2: easier just to have a lineup, drive through and give
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  Speaker 2: away things because you feel good people get what they want.
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  Speaker 2: But there's no change. There's actually the greatest problem is
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  Speaker 2: there's no interaction. You don't talk to one another when
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  Speaker 2: you just give something away. But when you get involved,
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  Speaker 2: it sounds like the hub is build in a degree
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  Speaker 2: of I want to call it enforced, but there's a
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  Speaker 2: mandatory involvement where you instead of giving somebody money at
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  Speaker 2: the corner in front of McDonald's, if you were to
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  Speaker 2: take them in and buy lunch and talk to them
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  Speaker 2: for half an hour, maybe maybe that's much more valuable
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  Speaker 2: than a hamburger just listening.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think it's along the principles teach a
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  Speaker 1: man a fish more than right giving giving handouts because
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  Speaker 1: I feel like giving handouts deals a sense of dependency.
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  Speaker 1: You know.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, we call it building into my budget. So if
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  Speaker 2: somebody is with us and they can stay for a month,
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  Speaker 2: two months, three months, and they're working, so they build
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  Speaker 2: into their budget no rent. And so what we what
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  Speaker 2: we did to help that is you take somebody who's
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: on Social Security and they make nine hundred dollars a
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  Speaker 2: month and they're seventy five years old, Well, they can't
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: afford a seven hundred dollars apartment. So we have an
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  Speaker 2: extra program where we have affordable housing in a boarding
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  Speaker 2: house arrangement where they have a room, a private room
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  Speaker 2: and a shared house and they'll pay a fraction of that.
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  Speaker 2: So if they're if they're social Security is nine hundred dollars,
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  Speaker 2: they may pay three hundred dollars in their rent. That
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: includes utility, but it allows. What we're doing is we're
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  Speaker 2: building in budgeting and getting to know people through this
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  Speaker 2: money management, and there's where the change comes is and
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  Speaker 2: they may stay with us like Jimmy. Jimmy stayed for
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  Speaker 2: fourteen years with us until he died. He was eighty
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  Speaker 2: one when he died, and he said, this is the
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  Speaker 2: only home I ever had.
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  Speaker 1: So so it's a one home set up and how many.
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  Speaker 2: People actually, well we started off in our house, of course,
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  Speaker 2: but that was just because we didn't have any money
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  Speaker 2: or space or anything, and it's not wise to ever
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  Speaker 2: do that. But now we have nineteen houses with ten staff.
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  Speaker 2: And here's what makes it unique. The Department of Correction
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  Speaker 2: had these people coming from prison, and it costs one
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  Speaker 2: hundred and nine dollars a day to house one person
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  Speaker 2: in prison. So if you have fifty thousand people times
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: one hundred and nine dollars a day, three hundred sixty
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  Speaker 2: five days a year, tremendous money. So with us, they
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: pay us a fraction of that to house. Right now,
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  Speaker 2: on any given day, we have eighty men or women
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  Speaker 2: in our nineteen houses, and they pay us a per
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  Speaker 2: diem to keep somebody out of jail so that they
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: can because they're already free. But if they're homeless, they'll
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: likely commit another crime. So when they're with us, they can,
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  Speaker 2: they can get a job, they can pay their taxes,
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  Speaker 2: they can pay child support, they can they can stay
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  Speaker 2: out of jail, so instead of being tax burdens their taxpayers.
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  Speaker 2: I like to say it's something the Republicans and the
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: Democrats can agree on because everybody wins, so that's incredible.
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  Speaker 2: We get we get a per diem, which is much
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  Speaker 2: much cheaper than the cost of the taxpayers for prison.
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  Speaker 2: But we have working people instead of people sitting in
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  Speaker 2: jail doing nothing. So an Audi, it's unique.
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  Speaker 1: Now all these people are on parole.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, all of our people who come to us are
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  Speaker 2: on parole because that is the oversight needed.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, And it's not their supervision. Is there twenty four
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  Speaker 1: hour supervision.
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  Speaker 2: At the home well, not supervision because technically they're not
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: required to be there. It's not a halfway house. It's
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: a place. It's a place where somebody says, I have
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  Speaker 2: nowhere to go. But we monitor it. We monitor it
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  Speaker 2: in that it's locked at night, not locked in, but
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: we lock it so somebody can't come in in the
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: middle of the night.
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  Speaker 1: That they have bench marks that they must need to
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  Speaker 1: maintain their status.
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  Speaker 2: In your home well, benchmarks in that we ask you
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  Speaker 2: to number one, make your bed because I feel that
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: made bed in the morning is a first step in
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: staying out of jail because it says I did something
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: right today. Yeah, and uh, and then you if it
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: shows respect for your roommate, but also it shows respect
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: for yourself well, particularly the drugs. When I see somebody's
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: behavior change radically, I'm almost certain that there's been a
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: change in their drug issues. So I look at housekeeping
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: as a sign of what goes on in your head.
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  Speaker 2: And so we don't monitor in like like a jail
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: would monitor. We simply have a bed check at night,
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: and then we come back during the day to check
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: the house. But it's independent housing. It's it's a boarding house.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, look, you've mentioned a couple of things that
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: really interest me in this whole conversation. The first thing
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: that you that just really sparked my interest with how
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: you and I'm gonna phrasing because I don't want to
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: misquote you, so I'll allowed you to respond. But you
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: said that something along the lines of white men are.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: H are.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: And I let me let me and I don't want
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: to put miss misquote you, but I'm gonna tell you
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: what I think you said, which is what I feel.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: This is what I feel. Let me know if you're
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: on board with this. I feel that white men, conservative Christian, conservative,
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: constitutional white men, gun carrying white men are being demonized
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: and ultimately are being pushed down the ladder socially by
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: this liberal agenda. And it seemed as though what you
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: had said was similar to what I see by my
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: statement that I just made am I far off.
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: JD. Vance wrote his memoir Hillbiliology, and he came from
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: Appalachia and I did through my roots are back in
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: the in the Pennsylvania Mountains and steel mills in Pittsburgh,
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: and we were in that working class couldominantly white. Uh
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: well there was actually it wasn't white. It was black
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: and white. A lot of Eastern Europeans were working in
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: the mills. But in the seventies, in the eighties, the
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: mills disappeared and all the jobs that were in Pittsburgh,
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: and then the auto factories in Ohio and Detroit disappeared.
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: And so what these working class men found was that
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: the jobs are gone. And they were high school educated
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: and normally had been middle class, but now they found
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: themselves pushed down into the working lower class. And they
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: were angry, and they blamed the policies. Even though the
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: Democrats had been pro union, pro workingmen, the Democrats seemed
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: to switch and became pro all these seemingly Harvard type
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: of programs that the working class white man didn't recognize,
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: and they became angry with it. David Brooks, who writes
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: for The New York Times said that there was an
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: educational looseness that says that we somehow know what's better
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: for you, and we look down on you, working class
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: white men. And I think that's where the anger came from.
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: And we used to be in the sixties you could
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: disagree on policy. Richard Nixon and John Kennedy could disagree
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: on how to carry out a policy, but they could
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: agree on the fact they could respect one another as
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: trying to do their best. But today we're so angry.
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: We say, if you don't agree with me, you're the enemy,
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: and you take that done into the word the voters.
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: The voters are just expressing that anger. So maybe I
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: think that's why my book and my podcasts have been
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: so well accepted, is that we're talking about second chances
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: and do overs, that your life is not forever locked
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: into the fact you lost the job last year. You
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: can start over. And I'm a living example of it.
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: I've started over so many times I have to remind
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: myself who I am.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: But yeah, going back to what you were saying about
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: the you know, I feel like people have been disenfranchised,
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: especially conservative Christy conservative men, and I feel that the
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: American way had stretched so far across the world that
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: what we're seeing now is the American Way, which is
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: in my opinion, the greatest system to ever grace God's Earth,
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: is correcting itself. The world is correcting itself to have
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: these woke liberal politicians that are being run out of
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: office all across the world. And I feel that the
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: election of Donald Trump is a referendum on the American Way,
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: which spread across the world, is the right way, which
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: I continue that to a healthy democracy, capitalism and patriotism,
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: and I can't.
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: Go ahead.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: I feel that this this election was a course correct
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: him across the world. And the beauty of this for
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: conservatives is the Democrats aren't learning from this at all.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: They are not understanding why Donald Trump one, why Trudeaux
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: is resigning, why the French guy is resigning. They don't
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: understand that that woke policy and shoving the one percent
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: of your population down the ninety nine percent throat and
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: forcing them to adhere to their desires and wants. They're
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: refusing to recognize that. So that's a great thing for conservatism,
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: but that's a death there for liberalists.
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: And I would have to agree with much of what
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: you're saying about the world seems to go in cycles
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: of left and right, and we get in eighteen seventies
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: and then in the nineteen twenties, and then now coming back,
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: we're moving back between very liberal and very what I
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: call authoritarians. Strange, and this reminds me a great deal
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: of the nineteen twenties, where the world itself, government after government,
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: seems to be looking for a strong leader. And I've
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: got to be very careful because I try not to
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: get into politics specifically. But my biggest, my biggest concern,
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: my biggest concern is with the anger that we're feeling
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: on the right and on the left, and we're talking
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: past one another. Because the church should be the salve,
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: we should be the way to find a common ground
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: where we can we can disagree but yet still agree
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: on our basic principles. But when we name call and
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: I see it on MSNBC, I see it on CNN,
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: I see it on Fox, we're calling one another names
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: instead of trying to say, how can I hear your
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: position so I can understand you? And that's why I
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: may disagree vehemently with mister Biden or mister Trump, but
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: I try to find a way to at least hear
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: them without making them less than human. And quite frank
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: we saw that in the South where people were not
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: black or white. We use derogatory terms to belittle and dehumanize,
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: and once you do that, then you don't have to
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: respect them, and the next step is you can lynch
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: them because they're not one of us.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: And I'll tell you what I have a hard time with,
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: mister John, is that My problem is I have a
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: hard time with anyone. I have a hard time with
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: the loss and the other disregard for Christianity. It seems
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: us though we're going backwards spiritually, and that's what the
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: read being to a lot of this, and it's hard
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: for me. I don't judge. I'm not gonna judge people
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: too harshly, but I have no choice. When I hear
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: Christian people going against Bible principles and having no morals
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: at all, so the morality of life has just left
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: them and there's no adherence to Christian principles, I just
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: have a hard time acknowledging by now have a hard
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: time not judging because that's just we're going backwards.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: I understand what you're saying because I'm old enough and
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: had lived through enough changes where I remember when something
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: set it seems so benign. Now is birth control was
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: so controversial that when or Loretta Lynne had a song
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: about the pill, it was on country stations because the
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: pill was seen as an amoral advo issue. And now
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: we're talking about abortion as if it's just something so
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: simple as a choice, And I keep asking a choice
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: to do what. So I come down very very clearly
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: on that issue that it's still a choice to take
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: a human life. But but I have to deal if
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: I start bombing clinics that I'm just as guilty, And
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: if I start hating those people who have had abortions,
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: then I'm just as guilty. As Jesus said, if you
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: hate with your heart, you've killed somebody as just as
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: if you've killed them physically.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: As skill.
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: Let me ask you this question, what okay? What is
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: the church best at? What do we do best?
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: It's okay? So the first thing that I want to
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: say is that I I typically don't use the word
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: church typically the word Christians typically use the word a
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: Christian or Christianity. So I'm hoping that I hope that
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: we're using we're the same different terms but speaking about
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: the same thing.
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, actually it is I used to say, meaning the
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: church community, because we're not getting into the denominations or theology.
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: But it's the the The Apostles and their descendants were
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: the Church, the people of God. And when they were
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: they were a minority, and they were running and hiding
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: for fear of the Romans, who were the most powerful
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: government in the history of the world. And they were
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: persecuted and prosecuted. They were they were literally uh laws
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: were written to to not just deny them, but to
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: denigrate them and kill them. But today, because the Christians
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: were known by how they loved one another, and today
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: we name our children after those Christians who were persecuted,
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: and we name our dogs after Roman emperors. So that
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: tells me, That tells me that love does win. But
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: the Zelots wanted to overthrow the Roman government, and the
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: zealous were the political force that was Barabbas. But Jesus said, no,
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: put down your sword, Peter, and he willingly allowed himself
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: to be executed because love always wins. Doctor King's the
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: best example of that. He knew going to Memphis how
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: dangerous it was, but he knew that his theology of love. Force.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: Sole force is the only way to win with the
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: issue of civil rights. It's not with anger at anger
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: or violence with my island. And I think the Black
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: Church in nineteen sixty was probably the best example of
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: what the church can do to change the world if
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: they do it like John Lewis did and always call
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: one another brother in their heart. Yeah, yeah, and his thing.
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: I'm not a black man. I'm a white man. But
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: I learn every day from what the Black Church has done,
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: and many days I'm embarrassed by what the White Church
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: has not done. So I would like to. I would
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: like to. I had to remind myself of what doctor
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: King did and what he taught, because he was I
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: think he was as close to being the Church in
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: action as I've seen in spite of his own personal issues.
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: And that's right, exactly right. And I think I think
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: of Moses and his issues too. He was a convicted murderer.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And as you talk about doctor King, when I
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: was a young man, I started reading about him. I
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: started reading, well, okay, so at a little bit about me.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: In Louisiana, we have a population of Creoles, which on
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: Lolado's I am all my birth certificate. It says I'm colored,
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: which is black in Louisiana. But my skin tone, I
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: look like a white male, but I'm black, if that
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: makes sense. So that's Louisiana. There was a large population
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: of free people of color. So I was raised as
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: a black male, but didn't look in the typical black fashion.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: So I learned a lot about black history. And the
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: more I read about Martin Luther King, I just became
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: more and more confused how his public persona was so
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: different than what he was really doing in his personal life.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: Then I started reading about Malcolm X, and I started
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: to realize that when he came back from Mecca, how
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: he changed his whole attitude towards the white population and
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: realized that what white Muslims, black Muslims, brown Muslims, yellow Muslims,
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: and he started to love differently. But he led an
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: exemplary life, no womanizing, no drinking. Now this was after prison,
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: of course, But and I just you know, I fight
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: with how we stand today, where we generate one person
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: and we desecrate the memory of someone else. But when
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: you really read about them, the roles should be changed,
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: you know.
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: And that's why I mentioned John Lewis, because John Lewis
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: started off in the conservative church that you and I
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: came from, except that his experience was much close, probably
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: closer to yours in mind. And when he was in
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: Congress he was vilified by so many other politicians because
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: they treated him as a troublemaker and he used to
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: call it good trouble because he was trying to do
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: good whenever he would stir something up. But what he
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: said was that no matter what my opponent would say
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: to me, I would never treat him, in my mind,
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: with disrespect. He always called them brother and sister because
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: if he didn't do that, it would change him. So
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: and I believe my understanding is his personal life was
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: probably as close to what you and I are talking
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: about it should be in the church. And I don't
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: speak with authority, but I do believe that he did
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: live what he believed and doctor King, Doctor King had
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: feet of play. And so what I do is I
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: take his I take the best of his world and
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: say how do I learn from it without modeling the
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: worst of it? Yes, my wife will be My wife
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: will appreciate that one.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, look, you keep talking about the South, and
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: I'm a southern boy. By the grace of God, I'm
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: from Louisiana. We have a different way about it in
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: the South. So you keep mentioning in the South, where
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: are you from?
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: Well, I was born in Pittsburgh, and we grew up
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: with a mixture of working class Eastern European Hungarians, Pollox Italians.
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: You know, we had so many The kids I grew
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: went to school with had so many consonances in their
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: name that unless you're from Pittsburgh, you can't pronounce it because.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: It uh.
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: But I moved away, and I went through a series,
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: like I say, of careers. But now I my Good
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: Samaritan home is in Ohio. But I have a place
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: in Texas where I go and do my writing. So
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: I'm a citizen of two worlds. And uh and so
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: I uh. I would say between the two, Texas is
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: probably far more conservative, and which is ironic because the
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: majority of South Texas is Hispanic. So I'm in, I'm in.
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: I'm in a town now that's sixty five percent Hispanic.
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: I'm a minority and in technically San Antonio is more
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: liberal than the rest of Texas. But Texas itself is
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: very conservative.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's amazing because.
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: I could say I'm a little I'm a little embarrassed
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: sometimes with the politics in Texas because it can be
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: pretty reactionary. And yeah, the stories that LBJ got away with,
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: we don't even get into those stories.
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I think it's pretty amazing that we. I
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: on the day to the election this past presidential election,
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: I wrote, I made a post online that all conservative
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: should wake up today and think Hispanic and black male
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: Americans for this election because without them who you would
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: not have known how conservatism has crossed those barriers for
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: hard working men and how we share the same values
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: regardless of race. They tried to play it politically, but
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: it's not either you're a man who wakes up every
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: day has these certain values or you don't. And for
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: that large Hispanic population and black men to cross the
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: line was a big day for America.
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that did. I was taken aback by that because
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: many of the things that the Democrats usually espouse are
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: contrary to the family values and Hispanic community. And I
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: believe that that contributed to a lot of the transition there.
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: And I agree. And I'm not trying to take sides
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: because I go left and right of center depending on
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: certain issues, and I like to think of myself as
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: very conservative, but yet on many areas I can be
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: very liberal, not liberal in my moral issues, because I
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: guess I want I want to look at sexuality the
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: way that we look at climate. What does the science
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: have to offer, not the social and political writings of
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: somebody in New York or in Los Angeles, But I
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: want to know what science says. And when I'm in
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: the community, I rarely, very rarely will say the Bible
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: says because the Bible. Quoting the Bible in the street
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: doesn't resonate as well as it does in the church.
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: So what I say is in the street, my faith
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: motivates me to help you get through this cold snap,
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: or my faith motivates me to help you get a job,
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: because that's the only Bible they hear. They don't hear
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: the diverse. Now in the church, that's a different story, yes,
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: But my role is in the street, so I speak
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: the language of the street, and so.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: You know that I always I always tell people, especially
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: so I met a young man at home Depot who
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: works there. Obviously gay homosexual, I don't know what the
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: politically correct term is, so I don't want to alienate anyone.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: But he was ultimately thought male, who do war makeup?
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: He had earrings black gentlemen. And I talked to him,
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: and I wanted to know more about him. And so
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: his question to me right off the bat was, you're
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: like this man's man. Why would you want to get
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: to know me? I'm the And I told him, I said,
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: I'm a This is how I explained it. I'm a Christian.
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: I don't have a I don't have a opinion on
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: the Bible or Christianity. I don't have an opinion the
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: Bible says this, So this is what I say. But
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: at the same time that I told him that, I said,
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: but I also know that everyone needs love, everyone has
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: love to give, and it's not my place to preach
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: to you or give you my opinion on your lifestyle.
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: I said, my opinion is you deserve love just like
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: anyone else, and you can give love just like anyone else.
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: And I know what the Bible says about homosexuality, but
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: I just don't know how to wrap my head around
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: accepting people of that ultimate lifestyle and not trying to
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: hurt them or harm, you know, like and he couldn't
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: understand that how this macho man was talking to him
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: about his sexuality, you know.
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: So it's that's a hard one for me. You treated
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: him with respect, even though you may have disagreed with
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: his lifestyle.
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's.
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: Probably the answer. That's probably the answer right there.
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: I think it is too because I know what the
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: Bible says and I know, but I also know that
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: I have relatives who were from birth. We knew that
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: they were different, and it's a hard thing for me
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: to wrap my head around where people say it's a choice, so.
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: Maybe we should approach it like Jesus did. I said,
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: We'll let God work that out in the end.
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: It's not that's how I feel, that's that's that's how
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: I feel, sir, That's how I feel. Uh yeah, that's
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: how I feel. I feel that exact way. And I
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: got him schedule for a for an Episode's amazing.
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: It sounds like you're doing it already. Yeah, amazing, you're
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: doing You're doing the work of the church.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: The first thing I told him was, look, I don't
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: mean to be uh to to hurt you or say
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: anything that might make you offended, but you've got the
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: best skin i've ever seen on a man. And he
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: busted out laughing, and the lady next to her busted
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: out laughing because I just had to tell him because
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: it was like, this dude was immaculate working at home depot,
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: and I'm like, whoa, do you know where? Do you
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: know where you're working?
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: The irony. The irony is that we in the white
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: community will take great pains to great pride in our whiteness,
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: but we're always trying to get our skin darker so
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: we can look more canned and to look to to
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: look more black. And I think that if we can
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: find both races to ultimately come together, we might resolve
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: some of these issues where we all look alike instead
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: of looking for differences.
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: Well, I think that I think it's going to be
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: hard for that. I think the truly enlightened, the truly
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: enlightened humans, like I'm assuming you because you seem so
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: similar to me, we can look past those differences. But
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: I think nature has something to say about ultimately about
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: birds of a feather, you know, blah blah blah. There's
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: a reason why this is all. I just don't believe
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: everybody has that sense of enlightenment or the ability. Not
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: that they're racist, it's just it's hard. It's hard, you know,
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: lions are with lions, Hyenas always with hyenas. Typically men
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: like to be around men, women like to be among women.
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: Typically white men like to be more. And it's not
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: that they make a conscious decision. I just believe that
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: human nature is actually nature's nature speaking, and in nature,
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: everything groups together by certain characteristics. And I think we
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: are members of the animal kingdom, and subconsciously the animal
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: kingdom is speaking to us. You know.
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: I think I agree to a degree with what you're saying.
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: Is that sometimes we define things as normal are simply
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: a new passing, passing face we're going through, and if
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: you disagree with the new normal, you're somehow called phobic.
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: In other words, can we have can we have a
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: rational discussion about gender differences, or can we have a
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: rational discussion about sexuality differences instead of pointing fingers?
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, your wife privilege?
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: That exactly right. And all I know is I know
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: is that I am a better person for being around
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: people who are different because they stretch me. I don't
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: have to agree with them, but I find myself, I
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: find myself growing at least in understanding. Yes, and I
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: think that's important. I think that's important.
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: It is, it is extremely important. In your bio, you
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: mentioned this beautiful wife of yours of forty seven years.
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you have to come here next week.
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, do you have some time to introduce us to
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: this wonderful creature. Let us know a little bit about her,
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: and why is this woman so wonderful?
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: Well, when I was going through one of my many
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: career changes, I was homeless. I was living in my truck,
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: and I, unfortunately I was educated enough to think I
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: was better than I was, but not educated enough to
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: actually be good enough for a good job. So I
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: ended up going from job to job, and I was homeless,
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: and I met my wife and she married me anyway,
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: even though many of her friends that don't do it,
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: and she stayed with me. We went through all these
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: career changes while we had a family, and we went
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: through four states, moving trying to find the best job
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: or the next job, and she stayed with me through
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: it all. And then when we started good some marton
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: home with there was no income in doing this in
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: the beginning, and we had strangers in our own house.
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: She stayed with me because she shared that mission, that
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: idea of helping other broken people. So I would say
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: that she has been my best friend and we share
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: our not just our passion for one another, but we
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: have a shared vision. And the truth is our personalities
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: are totally different, but we lean on one another. I
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: think of us like two broken people. When you lean
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: on one another, then you can walk straight. And that's
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: what we've done. And the truth is that we've become
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: a model for our grandkids because they can see that
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: people can stay together in marriage and in this culture
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: and particular. We're divorces, and I'm not making a political statement,
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: but divorces is so common that it becomes the first
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: choice instead of the last choice. And divorce is very
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: hard on children. It's very hard on children. So I'm
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: fortunate that I've picked a woman who has been very,
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: very supportive, and I have supported her too. So she's Irish,
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: so I believe me, I've earned my pay with her.
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: That's awesome. That is awesome. So been married forty seven years.
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: How many children, sir?
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: We have two and we have four grandchildren, And yeah,
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: it's funny. Being grandparents is actually a whole lot of
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: fun because we're the good guys, and we're now Memo,
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: Mima and Pifa, and we don't have to be correcting
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: all the time. We just have to enjoy the kids
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: and them. So that's why I say I'm seventy six,
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: but I feel like I'm thirty six, because life is
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: so much more fun now because we get to enjoy
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: It's almost like the harvest. We get to enjoy the harvest.
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: That's exactly what it is. I was told a long
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: time ago, Dad, if you raise your kids, you can
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: spoil your grandkids. But if you spoil your kids, you
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: have to raise your grandkids. And that was a thing
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: that I was told a long time ago, and I
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: firmly believe that.
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's funny you should say that because in our houses,
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: one of the questions my wife always asks our residents
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: is where's your mother? Where's your father? Tell me about
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: your family, and they always come back to grandma. Because
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: in particularly in the black community, is I am, at
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: least in my corner of it is that the mothers
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: and fathers were still a cohesive unit a generation ago,
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: but when drugs entered in many communities, the father has
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: disappeared and many times the mothers disappeared and grandma was
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: left to raise this next generation. And so the role
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: of grandparents to pass on this sense of continuity is
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: so important.
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but we can talk about that too, because the
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: Lyndon Johnson instigated those policies that broke apart the black community,
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: you know, and he didn't intend on it, but he
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: pretty much intended on it because if he said he'd
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: get these policies across, we'll have these inwards voting for
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: us for the next fifty years. And he intentionally broke apart. They,
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: the Democrats, intentionally broke apart the family, the black family home.
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: They knew what they were doing. But that's another we
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: have to call together.
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: Well, you actually raise a good point because it's what
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: we call unintended consequences. And if I come to you
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: and I'm hungry and you give me a fish to eat,
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: you mean well, But unless I've learned how to face
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: from you, I'll never be able to feed myself.
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: And that's right.
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: There's that tension, that tension between when I here, I'll
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: give you the best example if you want to. It's
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: a joke, but it's true. There was a man drowning
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: and he was fifty feet off shore, and so the
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: the Democrats saw him out there, and he's true him
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: one hundred feet of rope and the man got so
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: tangled in it he drowned. And there was another man
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: right beside him, and the Republican threw him twelve feet
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: of rope, and he said the swim will do him good,
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: and he drowned too. The Democrats and Republicans we have
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: our own we mean well, but we sometimes use our
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: policies as weapons instead of using them as a way
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: to reach out and help somebody.
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's the weaponization that we see today in
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: many cases.
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: You know, Yes, it's become very flagrant right now, we
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: see it on cable news so much. It's it's become
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: it may have been normal, but we're seeing it every
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: day on the on the news in ways we hadn't
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: seen the generation ago. Yeah, that's it just comes back
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: to what can what can we do then, as the church,
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: Well we can do we can light a candle in
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: our corner of the world. When you helped that your
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: friend that you said it was loads of it or
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: home depot, home depot, Yeah, okay, what you did there
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: was light a candle and in the darkness you you
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: offered a smile, a conversation. That's what we can do.
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: We can light our corner of the world.
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, well the light in the doctor trucks all
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: everyone two weeks.
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: That's right, that's exactly exactly right. Yeah, you want to
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: go where you see light and the church by design
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: candy that light. If we would just remember our roots,
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: and so that's that's what I just try to remind
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: myself that I'm in the recycling business. I'm trying to
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: recycle broken people. Like our old house. We were modeled
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: one hundred and forty year old house to what I
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: felt it was supposed to be. And that's what we
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: do with these men. Through to their own choices or
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: for their family dysfunction, they have been broken and so
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: maybe we can help them be strong again. Maybe we try.
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: Well, that takes a strong presence, and it sounds as
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: though your your example is what's going to be the difference.
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: And then the support that your wife and you give
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: each other is another thing that they can you know,
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: that'll call some admiration on their part, and with admiration,
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: you mimic what you admire. So it all has a
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: downheled effect. So I've been reading your bio and they
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: said at sixty one, you finish your doctorate. Yeah, would
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: you like to tell us about that?
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: Well, I did my doctor in applied theology, and what
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: I found the history of the church was number one,
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: we used to have a sacred space we called worship
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: where we set aside and we remembered that we are
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: not God, because we have a tendency to think that
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: God is here to serve us. And so, but the
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: church would come into what we called sacred worship and
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: they would just stop and listen to God's speak through
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: the liturgy. But then the church would go out into
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: the street and take God's presence to those who needed
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: it most. And we call that discipleship or mentoring as
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: we call it now. And so what it did was
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: I realized that the church is not in the building.
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: It's in the That's where the church is absolutely most effective.
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: Because even my little light looks like a lighthouse when
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: I get into the street where all you see is darkness.
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: So what it did was it taught me that the
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: church has the potential if we would just live up
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: to it. Instead of focusing in on ourselves and trying
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: to what I call phil the fuse with more people
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: like us. Should we should go out to people who
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: are not like us. That's where we're needed.
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's amazing. But I also saw that at seventy
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: five published your debut novel, Running as Fast as I Can,
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: which is a fiction, large story of our relationship through
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: all the good in bath Home. Can you tell us
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: about that?
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: Well, I always wanted to write a book, but I
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: never had anything to say until I was sixty five
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: when I sat down finally to write. Not my story,
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: but it's modeled on the things I'd seen and done.
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: But it's basically a story of second chances. Sake of
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: Forrest Gump. He was born with a limp, with bad legs,
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: and he had to learn how to run, and he
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: went through all these events in history. While he learned,
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: he looked for love, He looked looked for Jenny what
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: he did and my character, Daniel Robinson was brought up
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: in an abusive, difficult family life and he spent his
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: life making a lot of mistakes. Going through the sixties
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: and the seventies. He was in San Francisco, he was
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: during the hippie invasion, he was at Kent State during
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: the student demonstrations, he was in Detroit riots. So it's
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: a Forrest Gump story through history. But in the end, Daniel,
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: in spite of his flaws, finds low. But like life, uh,
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: there's a there's a there are costs that we have
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: to pay, and sometimes we make mistakes that are very painful.
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: But it's a story of hope. And what I what
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: I want to do with that story is present the
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: good Samaritan story, but in a way that readers will
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: actually enjoy the story and read it. I think think
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: of it like Titanic. If I were to say to you,
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: we're going to go on a cruise and we're gonna
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: we're gonna have this movie about lifeboat safety, you would
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: never never fit through an hour and a half of
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: lifeboat safety. But if I showed you, if I showed
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: you Jack and Rose on the Titanic, I guarantee you
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: the first question you'll ask is where are the lifeboats?
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: Because they had found If they had lifeboats, Jack and
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: Rose could have lived happily ever after. So that's what
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: Daniel Robinson's story is. It's it's a lifeboat story that
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: people actually read and that's what I'm learning. People are
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: saying I couldn't put it down. I turned every page
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: because I couldn't wait for the next chapter. And it
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: it's called running as fast as I Can. And the
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: idea is that some of us are running fast, but
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: we can't catch up because we were so far behind
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: at birth. But as long as we keep running, as
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: long as we keep trying, there's hope. And that's the
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: message I'm taking to people. There's hope.
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: That's awesome. So now, mister renaissance man, can you tell
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: us a little bit about nineteen twenty three the television
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: series and how that worked out for you and how
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: can we see you in the series.
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: That's funny, I forgot I put that in there. What
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: happened was I was sitting here and I was sitting
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: here in Texas. I'm movie star, I guarantee you. But
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: there was an ad in the paper that says that
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: the Harrison Ford's television series Yellowstone spinoff called nineteen twenty
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: three was looking for extras and they were going to
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: just just walk the street in San Antonio and they'll
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: film me for a scene. So I sent my name in,
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: sent my picture in and they said, wow, I wore
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: my cowboy hat at the time. They said, you fit
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: right in. We're going to hire you. And so I
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: went up to Austin got fitted for the scene to
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: look like a nineteen twenty three cowboy in the show.
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: And then they cut my scene after all that effort.
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: So I went for all of it. But here's the
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: best part. They sent me a check for thirty five
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: dollars and thirty two cents for my day as a
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: as you can call it after So I never did
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: get it on. But here's the best part. I tried.
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: I did something out of my comfort zone, and that's
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: the lesson. That's why I put that in there, because
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: if we don't try, we'll never succeed, will never change.
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: So I technically can call myself an actor, but I
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: never made it on screen, so Harrison Ford has nothing
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: to worry about. I won't steal it.
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: Well, I know that you are flying out. Do you
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: have anything else that we can talk about that you
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: feel or ude necessary to the story of John David
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: Graham that we haven't covered?
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: Can I recommend I'm doing all these podcasts, I wrote
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: the book, and I'm doing this to generate conversations about
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: second chances. So if your listeners would simply go to
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: John David Graham dot com. That's my web page, and
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: then you could you could link to the book and
• 58:01
  Speaker 2: you could you could you could download three or four
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: free three chapters if you want. But and they could
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: also link the Good Samaritan Home. But you can reach
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: me through my website if you have any questions. I'd
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: be glad to converse because I want to see people
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: take a chance to do something different, to get out
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: of their box and to forgive themselves and move on.
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: Because life is not a sprint. You don't run and quit.
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: You keep running, keep running, And that's what I want
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: to recommend. That's what all these stories are about. Just
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: keep trying.
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: Yes, sir, that is amazing. Well, mister John, I really
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: do appreciate your telling, sir. And what I would like
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: to do is invite you back. If there's anything that
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: you would like to talk about, I would love to
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: have you back.
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: I'm I'm working. I won't say what it is right now.
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: I'm working on a sequel idea that might be very
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: radical for the book. So when I get started on that,
• 59:07
  Speaker 2: I may have some real stories for you, how'd that
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: sound That sounds fantastic,