November 1, 2024 • 16 mins
Today on the Smarticle, Brandon and Larry announce their upcoming hiatus and reflect on the three-year journey of the podcast. We discuss the evolution of the show, which aims to provide a concise alternative to long podcasts, and our future ambitions. The conversation shifts to a discussion on politics, faith, and the importance of listening and understanding diverse perspectives rooted in love and compassion. The episode concludes with expressions of gratitude to our loyal listeners and a hopeful note on returning in a new format.
00:00 Introduction and Announcement
01:02 Reflecting on the Journey
01:44 Hiatus and Future Plans
02:11 God Talk Friday
2:17 Politics and Religion
06:01 Progressive Ideologies and Challenges
13:00 The Third Way and Final Thoughts
15:31 Gratitude and Farewell
#hiatus #finalshow #grace #listening #god #trust #cac #fatherrohr #richardrohr #centerforactionandcontemplation #spiritual #faith #godtok #faithtalk #realfaith #smarticlepodcast #podcast #smarticle @dailymeditations @Smarticleshow @BDDoble @larryolson threads.net/@smarticleshow @brand.dobes The Center for Action and Contemplation The Smarticle Podcast
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:16):
Okay, Brandon, are we going toannounce that this is the second
to the last ever Smarticle podcast?
Now we're going to wait to last toannounce that we're going to just
do our last Smarticle podcast.
No, I think that this isour hiatus show, Larry.
How's that?
Is that better for you?
No, this is all right.
So we're going to do one and thenwe're going to talk about it.
There's no point to it.
Let's, this is a God Talk Friday.
(00:37):
It fits that we would call thehiatus on a God Talk Friday.
The 15 people that follow us that listenwill be like, Oh, and then they'll
move on to some other better podcast.
My mom's not.
She could only find one podcast,so this is it for her for podcast.
Okay.
We're You know what that is?
You're basically firing my mom.
That's what you're doing.
(00:58):
But I'm not firing you.
And I want that on recordthat I'm not firing you.
We started this podcast three yearsago with the idea that we wanted
to offer a zag to everybody's zigor zig to everybody's zag that we
hear all these podcasts are twohours long, people drone on forever.
There's seven.
8 million podcasts, actually 7or 8 million podcasts, literally
(01:20):
7 or 8 million podcasts.
We decided we wantedto do 15 minutes a day.
We've done almost 800 shows, multipleTikTok shows, all this stuff.
And we're, here we are three years inand we're still at pretty much the same
audience we had when we first started.
And that's fine.
That's success.
I think that it has beenan incredible journey.
(01:44):
I'm glad that we're going to take ahiatus because we are not quitting.
I'm not firing Larry.
We're going to be back.
You're thinking about firing me.
You're thinking.
I'm always thinking about firing you.
That's a guaranteed thing.
So we're recording this.
Larry got a new fancy jobwith the sheriff's department
that works him all day long.
So we're going to haveto take stock of things.
Can I go with my original idea ofjust you coughing for 15 minutes?
(02:06):
You didn't hear me cough because Imuted myself, but I have a bad cold.
Just cough.
It's good.
It's a good week.
All right.
Let's do the God talk and thenwe'll close it out at the end.
What do you think?
Okay.
I suppose we're goingto do it one last time.
Our friends at the Center for Action andContemplation are going through a series
called the Politics Rooted in God's Love.
Brandon, before we get tothat, let's do five seconds of
silence for the last time ever.
(02:29):
Five seconds of silence brought toyou by Brandon Doval and Smarticle.
Brandon, that might be the lastfive seconds in silence I ever have.
I think in your life, it probablywill be the last five seconds.
I do want to reiterate thatwe will be having our five
seconds or different things.
(02:50):
Maybe in the new show, wewon't need five seconds.
I don't know.
Maybe it'll be something different.
We will come back as Smarticle.
We just will probably come back ina different format because we're
like radio all around the country.
It's just changing.
You got to change your form.
You know what we're doing?
We're going for the wacky drivetime show to like classic rock.
That's what we're doing.
We're changing formats.
You're a radio guy, Larry.
(03:11):
Doesn't that stuff happen?
Is there a chance wecome back as a game show?
Oh my God.
That'd be great.
How would we do a game showwith just the two of us?
Like fancy prizes, streaming game show.
I'd love that.
Someone hire us to do that.
Yeah, it'd be great.
We did that once before.
It was super fun.
We could do it.
Hey, Sparkles, what was the triviacompany we used to work for?
(03:31):
Sporkle.
Can we work for them again?
I don't think so.
Why not?
Remember, they didn't like you.
Oh, they thought youwere a little bit edgy.
Is that when you fired me right then?
Yeah.
COVID fired us right then.
Oh, I didn't fire you.
COVID fired.
And then you went to work withsomebody else and then they
fired you and you came back.
(03:52):
Remember that?
And now you're fired.
I never fired you.
No.
No, we're ready.
We're coming back.
Bigger and better than ever.
When God takes me home, Brandon,I'm standing at the Priory
Gates at that end final time.
How many times do you thinkyou'll have actually fired me?
Will the number get to five?
Sir Chinchilla fired me five times.
Can we talk about what you read?
Before we go on, we have used.
(04:12):
Hundreds of articles from theCenter for Action and Contemplation.
It is an incredible organization ofpeople that actually want to understand
the deeper mysteries of the world, theuniverse, life, God, all that stuff.
We're not going to stop readingour articles from the Center for
Action and Contemplation personally.
We hope that you don't either.
So we are doing one last articleand Larry chose it because it's
(04:35):
all about politics, I guess.
Oh, wow.
That's right.
A week from today.
Yeah.
Yeah.
A week from today we've got the election,it's been a hard year in the Doble House.
24 has been a hard year and I'mready to turn the page on it.
Maybe this is all partof turning the page.
Starting something fresh and new.
Okay, here's your smidge.
Our temptation is to begin withpolitics and then try to figure
(04:56):
out How religion can fit in it.
We start with the accepted parametersof political bait and whether we
find ourselves on the left or theright, we use religion, justify
and bolster our existing comments.
But what if we make the inwardjourney, our starting point?
What if we recognize that our engagementin politics should be rooted in our
participation in the Trinitarian flowof God's love, then everything changes.
(05:21):
We are no longer guided by constraint,by what we think is politically
possible, but are compelledby what we know is most real.
At the heart of all creation,the mutual love with the Trinity
overflows to embrace all life.
We are invited to participate inthis transforming power of this love.
There we discover the ground of ourbeing, centering all our life and action.
(05:44):
Okay, take us home, Brandon.
Right before you fire me, take us home.
Funny, we had three articles we were goingto do today, and then we talked about
it, and we're like, what are we doing?
You told me we're done.
I thought we were goingon forever, but go on.
The article you sent was fromthe free press and I loved it.
And it was about how theprogressive left had failed.
So if Trump gets reelected, I don'tknow how that's even possible, but
(06:06):
that it's because of these X, Y, and Z.
And I was juxtaposing it to this articleand thinking about what they're saying
is that if people follow this idea oftruly centering themselves and saying,
I'm not going to try to win, I'm notgoing to try to win the political fight.
I'm not going to try to get my way,but I'm just going to sit and listen.
(06:28):
We wouldn't be in this mess.
Now, I know that's absolutelypolyamorous and it'll never happen
because most people don't want to dothe hard work that it takes to do that.
But I was struck by this article about howwhen we just stop trying to be right, when
we just try to listen to other people,it's amazing what can happen out of that.
(06:49):
It's funny you talk about that otherarticle because It's very pertinent
to my life here in San Francisco.
And I think it's very pertinent to thispost today because I love, love, love
progressive people, like progressivepeople want the world and think the world
should be a better place than it is.
They want no more gas powered cars.
They want no more death penalty.
They want no more prisons.
(07:10):
They want no more homeless, likeeverything, how the world, and I believe
like how God wants it to be right.
But that is a fairy tale.
There are bad peoplethat need to go to jail.
Cities need to clear people off sidewalks.
I think progresses, I thinkMLK was a progressive, but
(07:31):
he actually still did stuff.
Or the crux of the other articles, Iget progressives have ruined the world.
I don't think Kamala Harrisis a progressive, by the way.
Yeah, I don't think so either, and Ithink that one of the problems they
had is the antithesis of what thisarticle is trying to say, which is
that what progressives do, and I knowthis because I worked in schools.
Schools are filled with theseprogressive people, filled with them.
(07:54):
So if you walk into any meeting,And you say, and they start talking
about some wacky idea about how we'regoing to, we should only use certain
pronouns and everyone has to have one.
And you say, I feel like that'sinteresting and I want people
to feel good about who they are,but that seems a little bit like,
that seems a little extreme.
People lose their minds.
(08:16):
The progressives lose their mind.
They're like, You are part of the problem.
You are the, you're a man.
You're, I'm like, well, I was just sayingthat I don't necessarily agree with that.
You cannot disagree with thembecause if you do, you're the
enemy and that's the problem.
What they've done is ultimatelythey've created an us versus them.
So if you're either all in or you're not,there was this great book that I read
(08:40):
back in the day called the Brothers K.
And there's this one, A section wherea college professor talks about extreme
ideologies, and he's like, it doesn'tmatter what your extreme ideology is.
Are you on the right?
Are you on the left?
Doesn't matter what ends up happeningis if when you take on these extreme
ideologies, say the progressive leftor the radical right, you've got to be
(09:00):
all in on it, because if you are evenin slightly conservative terms, you're
For instance, defunding the policehas always sounded like the stupidest
idea I've ever heard in my life.
I'm like, oh no, I wantpolice to show up at my house.
Police do a lot more thanjust arresting bad guys.
They're a vital partof a healthy community.
Does it mean that every police officerand every police force is good?
(09:22):
Of course not.
But throwing the baby outwith the bathwater is not the
answer and that's the problem.
The progressives want to throwthe baby out with the bathwater.
And so the reaction is fromthe right is, You know what,
America, love it or leave it.
We can't even have an honest discussionabout things like gas powered cars versus
EV cars because there are other sides.
(09:43):
Like, EV's great, but where are wegoing to get the power for that?
We have to have conversations thatare real, as opposed to conversations
that are far left or far right.
And that's what this article is saying.
It's like, sit down and listen.
To your heart, to God, to whatother people are saying, don't talk.
That's ironic coming from a personthat gets on a podcast and just
(10:04):
talks, but I'm over talking.
I'm done with it, quite frankly.
It's time to listen to see ifmaybe that can, because what
we've been doing isn't working.
So maybe it's time to startdoing something different.
Yeah, no, it's I'm a 5'10 whiteguy, so whatever happens in this
election is really not going toaffect me if Donald Trump wins.
I live in the, you know what I mean?
(10:25):
It's like, he's not going to come bombme, but he's going to deport a lot
of people, and there's going to bea lot of pain and sadness, and maybe
he lets Russia take over Ukraine,and It's going to be sad, but it's
really not going to affect my life.
It's not going to change that much.
It could, but you're right.
Ultimately, probablynot ultimately though.
He wants all the non whitepeople out, which is horrible.
(10:47):
That's not how I think God exists,but it's just going to make me sad.
And it's interesting too, becausethat article talked about that.
It said, look.
The immigration issue, theiranswer to it was just like, let
it all, let them all come in.
It's like, and that justfueled the other side.
You cannot just be all or nothing.
(11:07):
It cannot be like that.
It has to be, even Jesus, whenthe Pharisees would talk to him
and they'd say, what about this?
What about getting food on the Sabbath?
He always said, offeredan alternative view of it.
He said sometimes in this case,it's this, and sometimes it's this.
He never, in a sense, offered absolutes.
The only absolute he ever offered was.
(11:28):
Love God with all your heart andlove your neighbor as yourself.
That's the only absolute he ever offered.
Everything else was, hejust asked questions.
He's like, why do you think,what do you think we should do?
And when you say to somebody that's onthe the alt right, what should we do
with these families, these immigrants?
And if you get them to say somethingalong the lines we should send it back.
I'm like if you do, they'll die.
(11:49):
They're like that's, I don't wantthem to die, but it puts them.
If you say to the alt left, theprogressive left, Should we just allow
people to run freely in the country?
Because that's just gonna leadto crime and all this stuff.
They would say yeah, they shouldbe able to do whatever they want.
Then you look at that and saythat's not the answer either.
Do you see what I'm saying?
It's like, when you force that sideto actually voice the downside of
(12:12):
their opinion, the downside of theirargument, they may not, they may
say, whatever, I don't care if theyall die, or I don't care if the
white neighborhoods get destroyed.
And most Americans areright in the middle.
80 percent of Americans are centrist.
They're a little bitright, a little bit left.
And I think that if we use thatmodel of what you said at the
beginning, progressives want thethings that we want as Christians.
(12:36):
The problem is that they hit you overthe head with a sledgehammer to get it.
And that's just not theway human beings work.
I don't know what'sgonna happen with Trump.
I don't know what'sgonna happen with Kamala.
I am hopeful that Trump doesn't getelected, not because of that stuff, but
because I don't think he's a good person.
That's the reason whyI'm voting against him.
Not because of his, necessarilyhis policies, but I just
think he's a bad person.
That's where I stand on the wholepolitics of Christ type thing.
(13:00):
My favorite part of the Bible, myfavorite miracle, my favorite thing is
when the Pharisees are coming after Jesusfor healing that guy on the Sabbath.
Yeah.
And it's just like such, it's agreat story because you're like,
Jesus literally healed that guy.
Healed, did a miracle to save aperson's life and they're trying
(13:21):
to be like, what are you doing?
You're a bad guy andit's like, wait a minute.
No, he saved someone's life andyou were talking about Jesus
always has this third way.
Whenever I'm fighting with my wife or mykids are doing something wrong and I'm,
or I'm frustrated with the Trump guy.
It's a great reminder.
There's a third way to do something.
If you just take a moment, take a deepbreath and ask like the spirit to come.
(13:45):
I feel like there is athird way to do things.
There's not the right way, the left way.
God will give you a thirdoption to make something better.
And I feel like Jesusgives that example always.
It's funny.
I'm reading this book by Amy JillLevine called the misunderstood Jew.
It's called 'The misunderstoodJew: The Church and the
Scandal of the Jewish Jesus'.
(14:08):
And she's talking about it from theperspective of what a first century Jew
would have understood by what Jesus did.
And she makes this point overand over that the Pharisees were
actually really the good guys.
That those were us.
They were us.
They were saying, they weren't like madat Jesus for healing on the Sabbath.
They were saying, hey, we dothese things for a reason and
(14:28):
there's a practical reason for it.
And it's meaningful and it has context.
And Jesus was saying I understand whyyou do that, and I get all this, but
the truth is, there is a third way.
It's easy to vilify the Pharisees andthose people on the right, or those
people on the left, but at their core,I think many of them, not all of them,
(14:50):
but many of them actually want good.
And if we could somehow come togetherand say, Hey, we all want what's best.
We just don't agree on how to get thereand sit and listen to one another as
opposed to yell at each other, as opposedto storm the palisades or whatever,
then we can actually get something done.
And I think that's whatJesus was trying to do.
(15:11):
Apparently Larry is, once again, whoknows what's going on with Larry.
I'm here.
I am here.
God wants it to be over, Brandon.
He, God is mercifullyputting me out to pasture.
All right, Larry.
I would like to say, I think thatwe've said about all we could say.
We've said everything we have on our head.
And our minds and ourhearts and all that stuff.
(15:31):
I'd like to say to those of youthat are listening, especially Pat
Olson, maybe Brendan Clare, a fewothers, Andrew Harris, others that
have been avid listeners to the show.
Thank you.
We're grateful.
Larry and I have had an unbelievableopportunity as two good friends to
get together thousands of miles apartand be able to chat with one another
once a week and talk about big issues.
(15:54):
I don't know what the future leads to.
No idea.
We were literally both gameshow, a game show, a game show.
Who knows game show we will be back withsmarticle, but it won't look like it
looks now, but we'll keep you posted.
We'll launch or we won't.
God will decide what's going tohappen to us, but we are grateful that
you took the time to listen to us.
Okay, Brandon, are we going toannounce that this is the second
to the last ever Smarticle podcast?
Now we're going to wait to last toannounce that we're going to just
do our last Smarticle podcast.
No, I think that this isour hiatus show, Larry.
How's that?
Is that better for you?
No, this is all right.
So we're going to do one and thenwe're going to talk about it.
There's no point to it.
Let's, this is a God Talk Friday.
(00:37):
It fits that we would call thehiatus on a God Talk Friday.
The 15 people that follow us that listenwill be like, Oh, and then they'll
move on to some other better podcast.
My mom's not.
She could only find one podcast,so this is it for her for podcast.
Okay.
We're You know what that is?
You're basically firing my mom.
That's what you're doing.
(00:58):
But I'm not firing you.
And I want that on recordthat I'm not firing you.
We started this podcast three yearsago with the idea that we wanted
to offer a zag to everybody's zigor zig to everybody's zag that we
hear all these podcasts are twohours long, people drone on forever.
There's seven.
8 million podcasts, actually 7or 8 million podcasts, literally
(01:20):
7 or 8 million podcasts.
We decided we wantedto do 15 minutes a day.
We've done almost 800 shows, multipleTikTok shows, all this stuff.
And we're, here we are three years inand we're still at pretty much the same
audience we had when we first started.
And that's fine.
That's success.
I think that it has beenan incredible journey.
(01:44):
I'm glad that we're going to take ahiatus because we are not quitting.
I'm not firing Larry.
We're going to be back.
You're thinking about firing me.
You're thinking.
I'm always thinking about firing you.
That's a guaranteed thing.
So we're recording this.
Larry got a new fancy jobwith the sheriff's department
that works him all day long.
So we're going to haveto take stock of things.
Can I go with my original idea ofjust you coughing for 15 minutes?
(02:06):
You didn't hear me cough because Imuted myself, but I have a bad cold.
Just cough.
It's good.
It's a good week.
All right.
Let's do the God talk and thenwe'll close it out at the end.
What do you think?
Okay.
I suppose we're goingto do it one last time.
Our friends at the Center for Action andContemplation are going through a series
called the Politics Rooted in God's Love.
Brandon, before we get tothat, let's do five seconds of
silence for the last time ever.
(02:29):
Five seconds of silence brought toyou by Brandon Doval and Smarticle.
Brandon, that might be the lastfive seconds in silence I ever have.
I think in your life, it probablywill be the last five seconds.
I do want to reiterate thatwe will be having our five
seconds or different things.
(02:50):
Maybe in the new show, wewon't need five seconds.
I don't know.
Maybe it'll be something different.
We will come back as Smarticle.
We just will probably come back ina different format because we're
like radio all around the country.
It's just changing.
You got to change your form.
You know what we're doing?
We're going for the wacky drivetime show to like classic rock.
That's what we're doing.
We're changing formats.
You're a radio guy, Larry.
(03:11):
Doesn't that stuff happen?
Is there a chance wecome back as a game show?
Oh my God.
That'd be great.
How would we do a game showwith just the two of us?
Like fancy prizes, streaming game show.
I'd love that.
Someone hire us to do that.
Yeah, it'd be great.
We did that once before.
It was super fun.
We could do it.
Hey, Sparkles, what was the triviacompany we used to work for?
(03:31):
Sporkle.
Can we work for them again?
I don't think so.
Why not?
Remember, they didn't like you.
Oh, they thought youwere a little bit edgy.
Is that when you fired me right then?
Yeah.
COVID fired us right then.
Oh, I didn't fire you.
COVID fired.
And then you went to work withsomebody else and then they
fired you and you came back.
(03:52):
Remember that?
And now you're fired.
I never fired you.
No.
No, we're ready.
We're coming back.
Bigger and better than ever.
When God takes me home, Brandon,I'm standing at the Priory
Gates at that end final time.
How many times do you thinkyou'll have actually fired me?
Will the number get to five?
Sir Chinchilla fired me five times.
Can we talk about what you read?
Before we go on, we have used.
(04:12):
Hundreds of articles from theCenter for Action and Contemplation.
It is an incredible organization ofpeople that actually want to understand
the deeper mysteries of the world, theuniverse, life, God, all that stuff.
We're not going to stop readingour articles from the Center for
Action and Contemplation personally.
We hope that you don't either.
So we are doing one last articleand Larry chose it because it's
(04:35):
all about politics, I guess.
Oh, wow.
That's right.
A week from today.
Yeah.
Yeah.
A week from today we've got the election,it's been a hard year in the Doble House.
24 has been a hard year and I'mready to turn the page on it.
Maybe this is all partof turning the page.
Starting something fresh and new.
Okay, here's your smidge.
Our temptation is to begin withpolitics and then try to figure
(04:56):
out How religion can fit in it.
We start with the accepted parametersof political bait and whether we
find ourselves on the left or theright, we use religion, justify
and bolster our existing comments.
But what if we make the inwardjourney, our starting point?
What if we recognize that our engagementin politics should be rooted in our
participation in the Trinitarian flowof God's love, then everything changes.
(05:21):
We are no longer guided by constraint,by what we think is politically
possible, but are compelledby what we know is most real.
At the heart of all creation,the mutual love with the Trinity
overflows to embrace all life.
We are invited to participate inthis transforming power of this love.
There we discover the ground of ourbeing, centering all our life and action.
(05:44):
Okay, take us home, Brandon.
Right before you fire me, take us home.
Funny, we had three articles we were goingto do today, and then we talked about
it, and we're like, what are we doing?
You told me we're done.
I thought we were goingon forever, but go on.
The article you sent was fromthe free press and I loved it.
And it was about how theprogressive left had failed.
So if Trump gets reelected, I don'tknow how that's even possible, but
(06:06):
that it's because of these X, Y, and Z.
And I was juxtaposing it to this articleand thinking about what they're saying
is that if people follow this idea oftruly centering themselves and saying,
I'm not going to try to win, I'm notgoing to try to win the political fight.
I'm not going to try to get my way,but I'm just going to sit and listen.
(06:28):
We wouldn't be in this mess.
Now, I know that's absolutelypolyamorous and it'll never happen
because most people don't want to dothe hard work that it takes to do that.
But I was struck by this article about howwhen we just stop trying to be right, when
we just try to listen to other people,it's amazing what can happen out of that.
(06:49):
It's funny you talk about that otherarticle because It's very pertinent
to my life here in San Francisco.
And I think it's very pertinent to thispost today because I love, love, love
progressive people, like progressivepeople want the world and think the world
should be a better place than it is.
They want no more gas powered cars.
They want no more death penalty.
They want no more prisons.
(07:10):
They want no more homeless, likeeverything, how the world, and I believe
like how God wants it to be right.
But that is a fairy tale.
There are bad peoplethat need to go to jail.
Cities need to clear people off sidewalks.
I think progresses, I thinkMLK was a progressive, but
(07:31):
he actually still did stuff.
Or the crux of the other articles, Iget progressives have ruined the world.
I don't think Kamala Harrisis a progressive, by the way.
Yeah, I don't think so either, and Ithink that one of the problems they
had is the antithesis of what thisarticle is trying to say, which is
that what progressives do, and I knowthis because I worked in schools.
Schools are filled with theseprogressive people, filled with them.
(07:54):
So if you walk into any meeting,And you say, and they start talking
about some wacky idea about how we'regoing to, we should only use certain
pronouns and everyone has to have one.
And you say, I feel like that'sinteresting and I want people
to feel good about who they are,but that seems a little bit like,
that seems a little extreme.
People lose their minds.
(08:16):
The progressives lose their mind.
They're like, You are part of the problem.
You are the, you're a man.
You're, I'm like, well, I was just sayingthat I don't necessarily agree with that.
You cannot disagree with thembecause if you do, you're the
enemy and that's the problem.
What they've done is ultimatelythey've created an us versus them.
So if you're either all in or you're not,there was this great book that I read
(08:40):
back in the day called the Brothers K.
And there's this one, A section wherea college professor talks about extreme
ideologies, and he's like, it doesn'tmatter what your extreme ideology is.
Are you on the right?
Are you on the left?
Doesn't matter what ends up happeningis if when you take on these extreme
ideologies, say the progressive leftor the radical right, you've got to be
(09:00):
all in on it, because if you are evenin slightly conservative terms, you're
For instance, defunding the policehas always sounded like the stupidest
idea I've ever heard in my life.
I'm like, oh no, I wantpolice to show up at my house.
Police do a lot more thanjust arresting bad guys.
They're a vital partof a healthy community.
Does it mean that every police officerand every police force is good?
(09:22):
Of course not.
But throwing the baby outwith the bathwater is not the
answer and that's the problem.
The progressives want to throwthe baby out with the bathwater.
And so the reaction is fromthe right is, You know what,
America, love it or leave it.
We can't even have an honest discussionabout things like gas powered cars versus
EV cars because there are other sides.
(09:43):
Like, EV's great, but where are wegoing to get the power for that?
We have to have conversations thatare real, as opposed to conversations
that are far left or far right.
And that's what this article is saying.
It's like, sit down and listen.
To your heart, to God, to whatother people are saying, don't talk.
That's ironic coming from a personthat gets on a podcast and just
(10:04):
talks, but I'm over talking.
I'm done with it, quite frankly.
It's time to listen to see ifmaybe that can, because what
we've been doing isn't working.
So maybe it's time to startdoing something different.
Yeah, no, it's I'm a 5'10 whiteguy, so whatever happens in this
election is really not going toaffect me if Donald Trump wins.
I live in the, you know what I mean?
(10:25):
It's like, he's not going to come bombme, but he's going to deport a lot
of people, and there's going to bea lot of pain and sadness, and maybe
he lets Russia take over Ukraine,and It's going to be sad, but it's
really not going to affect my life.
It's not going to change that much.
It could, but you're right.
Ultimately, probablynot ultimately though.
He wants all the non whitepeople out, which is horrible.
(10:47):
That's not how I think God exists,but it's just going to make me sad.
And it's interesting too, becausethat article talked about that.
It said, look.
The immigration issue, theiranswer to it was just like, let
it all, let them all come in.
It's like, and that justfueled the other side.
You cannot just be all or nothing.
(11:07):
It cannot be like that.
It has to be, even Jesus, whenthe Pharisees would talk to him
and they'd say, what about this?
What about getting food on the Sabbath?
He always said, offeredan alternative view of it.
He said sometimes in this case,it's this, and sometimes it's this.
He never, in a sense, offered absolutes.
The only absolute he ever offered was.
(11:28):
Love God with all your heart andlove your neighbor as yourself.
That's the only absolute he ever offered.
Everything else was, hejust asked questions.
He's like, why do you think,what do you think we should do?
And when you say to somebody that's onthe the alt right, what should we do
with these families, these immigrants?
And if you get them to say somethingalong the lines we should send it back.
I'm like if you do, they'll die.
(11:49):
They're like that's, I don't wantthem to die, but it puts them.
If you say to the alt left, theprogressive left, Should we just allow
people to run freely in the country?
Because that's just gonna leadto crime and all this stuff.
They would say yeah, they shouldbe able to do whatever they want.
Then you look at that and saythat's not the answer either.
Do you see what I'm saying?
It's like, when you force that sideto actually voice the downside of
(12:12):
their opinion, the downside of theirargument, they may not, they may
say, whatever, I don't care if theyall die, or I don't care if the
white neighborhoods get destroyed.
And most Americans areright in the middle.
80 percent of Americans are centrist.
They're a little bitright, a little bit left.
And I think that if we use thatmodel of what you said at the
beginning, progressives want thethings that we want as Christians.
(12:36):
The problem is that they hit you overthe head with a sledgehammer to get it.
And that's just not theway human beings work.
I don't know what'sgonna happen with Trump.
I don't know what'sgonna happen with Kamala.
I am hopeful that Trump doesn't getelected, not because of that stuff, but
because I don't think he's a good person.
That's the reason whyI'm voting against him.
Not because of his, necessarilyhis policies, but I just
think he's a bad person.
That's where I stand on the wholepolitics of Christ type thing.
(13:00):
My favorite part of the Bible, myfavorite miracle, my favorite thing is
when the Pharisees are coming after Jesusfor healing that guy on the Sabbath.
Yeah.
And it's just like such, it's agreat story because you're like,
Jesus literally healed that guy.
Healed, did a miracle to save aperson's life and they're trying
(13:21):
to be like, what are you doing?
You're a bad guy andit's like, wait a minute.
No, he saved someone's life andyou were talking about Jesus
always has this third way.
Whenever I'm fighting with my wife or mykids are doing something wrong and I'm,
or I'm frustrated with the Trump guy.
It's a great reminder.
There's a third way to do something.
If you just take a moment, take a deepbreath and ask like the spirit to come.
(13:45):
I feel like there is athird way to do things.
There's not the right way, the left way.
God will give you a thirdoption to make something better.
And I feel like Jesusgives that example always.
It's funny.
I'm reading this book by Amy JillLevine called the misunderstood Jew.
It's called 'The misunderstoodJew: The Church and the
Scandal of the Jewish Jesus'.
(14:08):
And she's talking about it from theperspective of what a first century Jew
would have understood by what Jesus did.
And she makes this point overand over that the Pharisees were
actually really the good guys.
That those were us.
They were us.
They were saying, they weren't like madat Jesus for healing on the Sabbath.
They were saying, hey, we dothese things for a reason and
(14:28):
there's a practical reason for it.
And it's meaningful and it has context.
And Jesus was saying I understand whyyou do that, and I get all this, but
the truth is, there is a third way.
It's easy to vilify the Pharisees andthose people on the right, or those
people on the left, but at their core,I think many of them, not all of them,
(14:50):
but many of them actually want good.
And if we could somehow come togetherand say, Hey, we all want what's best.
We just don't agree on how to get thereand sit and listen to one another as
opposed to yell at each other, as opposedto storm the palisades or whatever,
then we can actually get something done.
And I think that's whatJesus was trying to do.
(15:11):
Apparently Larry is, once again, whoknows what's going on with Larry.
I'm here.
I am here.
God wants it to be over, Brandon.
He, God is mercifullyputting me out to pasture.
All right, Larry.
I would like to say, I think thatwe've said about all we could say.
We've said everything we have on our head.
And our minds and ourhearts and all that stuff.
(15:31):
I'd like to say to those of youthat are listening, especially Pat
Olson, maybe Brendan Clare, a fewothers, Andrew Harris, others that
have been avid listeners to the show.
Thank you.
We're grateful.
Larry and I have had an unbelievableopportunity as two good friends to
get together thousands of miles apartand be able to chat with one another
once a week and talk about big issues.
(15:54):
I don't know what the future leads to.
No idea.
We were literally both gameshow, a game show, a game show.
Who knows game show we will be back withsmarticle, but it won't look like it
looks now, but we'll keep you posted.
We'll launch or we won't.
God will decide what's going tohappen to us, but we are grateful that
you took the time to listen to us.
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