Podcasts about easterners

This is episode 219 — a new Governor has sailed into Table Bay. Sir Philip Edmond Wodehouse, born in 1811, eldest child of Edmond Wodehouse who married his first cousin Lucy, daughter of Philip Wodehouse, uncle Philip to Sir Philip Edmond. How very Victorian. Queen Victoria herself, who married her first cousin Prince Albert—did allow and even encourage cousin marriage, particularly among royalty and the upper classes to consolidate power, property, and lineage. But it also increased the risk of birth defects by 2 percent, and if both parents carry a recessive gene mutation, their child has a 25 percent chance of expressing the disorder. Scientists have a well-worn phrase for this — its called inbreeding. Wodehouse junior entered the Ceylon Civil Service in 1828, and was installed as superintendent of British Honduras between 1851 to 1854. From there he sailed to British Guiana where he served as Governor between 1854 to 1861 — before heading to the Cape in 1862. It's illuminating to touch on Sir Philip Wodehouse's disastrous time in British Guiana. Two years after he took office in the South American country, the Angel Gabriel riots broke out. His implacable opponent was John Sayers Orr, whose nom de guerre was the Angel Gabriel, was half Scottish, half African. Edinburgh's Caledonian Newspaper of the time reported that his mother Mary Ann Orr was a respectable coloured woman and married to a respectable Scot — John Orr senior. Young John Sayer Orr was rabidly anti-papal, hated the Pope and had an anti-Catholic obsession. He took to the Guianese streets with bullhorn in hand, whereupon the distant Glasgow Herald noted he spoke “rampant anti-papist froth and lies..” Between 1850 and 1851 he popped up in Boston, then New York, Bath in Maine, and Manchester in New Hampshire. In 1854 he was hustled off by police in Boston. Apart from the usual racial insults levelled at him, the Boston police report says he had more impudence than brains .. “…who with a three cornered hat and a cockade on his head, and old brass horn .. took advantage of the political excitement .. travelled around the city …tooting his horn … collecting crowds in the streets, delivering what he called his political lectures and passing around the hat for contributions…” Sounds like a modern political influencer, the bullhorn, the disinformation, the extreme rhetoric, not to mention his hat which is literally crowd sourcing. He was arrested at least 20 times for what was called his international harangues tour — where he'd shout confusing messages like “Scorn be those who rob us of our rights — purgatory for popery and the Pope — Freedom to man be he black or white — Rule Britannia…!!” Bizarrely, the resonances to today's crazy politics continued, Orr was associated with the fantastically named Know Nothing Party in America. Wait to hear about this bunch, you'll recognise bits of modern USA. Members of the movement were required to say "I know nothing" whenever they were asked about its specifics by outsiders, and that providing the group with its colloquial name. Before you wonder aloud what relevance all this has, let me quickly point out that the so-called Know Nothing Party had 43 representatives in Congress at the height of its power in the late 1850s. In 1855 this strange 19th Century character pitched up in British Guiana, and Sir Philip Wodehouse had his work cut out. Soon Orr was up to his old tricks, walking about with his bull horn, carrying a flag and a British imperial badge, followed by a group of …. Well .. followers. They were not repeating they Knew Nothing, but attacking the British establishment. We'll also hear about the Angel Gabriel riots. By 1862 Wodehouse who survived a public stoning in Guiana, had arrived in the Cape as Governor. Here he was to face the implacable enemies - the Westerners and the Easterners. Two parts of the Cape that did not get along.

This is episode 219 — a new Governor has sailed into Table Bay. Sir Philip Edmond Wodehouse, born in 1811, eldest child of Edmond Wodehouse who married his first cousin Lucy, daughter of Philip Wodehouse, uncle Philip to Sir Philip Edmond. How very Victorian. Queen Victoria herself, who married her first cousin Prince Albert—did allow and even encourage cousin marriage, particularly among royalty and the upper classes to consolidate power, property, and lineage. But it also increased the risk of birth defects by 2 percent, and if both parents carry a recessive gene mutation, their child has a 25 percent chance of expressing the disorder. Scientists have a well-worn phrase for this — its called inbreeding. Wodehouse junior entered the Ceylon Civil Service in 1828, and was installed as superintendent of British Honduras between 1851 to 1854. From there he sailed to British Guiana where he served as Governor between 1854 to 1861 — before heading to the Cape in 1862. It's illuminating to touch on Sir Philip Wodehouse's disastrous time in British Guiana. Two years after he took office in the South American country, the Angel Gabriel riots broke out. His implacable opponent was John Sayers Orr, whose nom de guerre was the Angel Gabriel, was half Scottish, half African. Edinburgh's Caledonian Newspaper of the time reported that his mother Mary Ann Orr was a respectable coloured woman and married to a respectable Scot — John Orr senior. Young John Sayer Orr was rabidly anti-papal, hated the Pope and had an anti-Catholic obsession. He took to the Guianese streets with bullhorn in hand, whereupon the distant Glasgow Herald noted he spoke “rampant anti-papist froth and lies..” Between 1850 and 1851 he popped up in Boston, then New York, Bath in Maine, and Manchester in New Hampshire. In 1854 he was hustled off by police in Boston. Apart from the usual racial insults levelled at him, the Boston police report says he had more impudence than brains .. “…who with a three cornered hat and a cockade on his head, and old brass horn .. took advantage of the political excitement .. travelled around the city …tooting his horn … collecting crowds in the streets, delivering what he called his political lectures and passing around the hat for contributions…” Sounds like a modern political influencer, the bullhorn, the disinformation, the extreme rhetoric, not to mention his hat which is literally crowd sourcing. He was arrested at least 20 times for what was called his international harangues tour — where he'd shout confusing messages like “Scorn be those who rob us of our rights — purgatory for popery and the Pope — Freedom to man be he black or white — Rule Britannia…!!” Bizarrely, the resonances to today's crazy politics continued, Orr was associated with the fantastically named Know Nothing Party in America. Wait to hear about this bunch, you'll recognise bits of modern USA. Members of the movement were required to say "I know nothing" whenever they were asked about its specifics by outsiders, and that providing the group with its colloquial name. Before you wonder aloud what relevance all this has, let me quickly point out that the so-called Know Nothing Party had 43 representatives in Congress at the height of its power in the late 1850s. In 1855 this strange 19th Century character pitched up in British Guiana, and Sir Philip Wodehouse had his work cut out. Soon Orr was up to his old tricks, walking about with his bull horn, carrying a flag and a British imperial badge, followed by a group of …. Well .. followers. They were not repeating they Knew Nothing, but attacking the British establishment. We'll also hear about the Angel Gabriel riots. By 1862 Wodehouse who survived a public stoning in Guiana, had arrived in the Cape as Governor. Here he was to face the implacable enemies - the Westerners and the Easterners. Two parts of the Cape that did not get along.

Easterners were desperate to get to the California gold fields. Questionable ships were put into service. The Drake Passage and the Strait of Magellan could be treacherous. Boredom, crowded quarters, storms and the poor food and water were tolerated as they passengers had visions of striking it rich. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Easterners wanted stories and pictures of the old west, but cameras were heavy and difficult to use. William Jackson took thousands of pictures, most important, of Yellowstone. Soloman Butcher took pictures of the pioneers. Albert Bierstadt's paintings were in museums. Frederic Remington and Charles M. Russell became the most famous painters and sculptors of the west, because of detail and they focused on the people and their way of life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode delves into the history of the Teton Valley, focusing on early settlers, dude ranches, and the eventual creation of Grand Teton National Park. Highlights include transforming harsh, isolated land into thriving dude ranches by pioneers like Struthers Burt and Louis Joy, the romanticized Western experience sought by Easterners, and the rise of commercial developments that threatened the region's authenticity. The ranchers that opposed federal control eventually became the new National Park's biggest champions.   Hosted by Jason Epperson Written by Lizzie Tesch   Use code PARKS30 for $30 off of a $500 or more booking at www.rvshare.com.    

Seek God's Grace and Mercy   (audio)   David Eells 9/4/24   Exo 34:6 And Jehovah passed by before him [Moses], and proclaimed, Jehovah, Jehovah, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abundant in lovingkindness and truth; 7 keeping lovingkindness for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin; and that will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, upon the third and upon the fourth generation.   Lovingkindness means “kindness, favor, grace, mercy, pity…”   Multitudes of people have received warnings from the Lord in dreams, visions and prophetic Words of great judgments of devastations and disasters that were to come on America and the whole world. But God's people have prayed for His mercy crying out to the Lord and He has heard their prayers. Many times God's people prayed for His namesake asking for His mercy and grace.   We know God can change or delay what He speaks to us as a warning through prophets, dreams, visions, or His Spirit. Judgments in the Word are unchangeable except by repentance and faith.   God gave us an example of this in the book of Jonah. Jonah cried and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown (Jon 3:4). God told Jonah to preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee (Jon 3:2), so he did. He was not a false prophet. God spared Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, because they repented. This angered Jonah because Assyria was the mortal enemy of Israel and the prophets had already been prophesying that Assyria would conquer rebellious Israel. He wanted them to be destroyed for what he perceived was Israel's sake. Jonah knew that if he preached to Nineveh and they repented, God would not destroy them, so he fled.   Jon 4:1 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. 2 And he prayed unto the Lord, and said, I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I hasted to flee unto Tarshish; for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and abundant in lovingkindness, and repentest thee of the evil. God spared Nineveh around 752 B.C. so that Assyria could conquer the northern ten tribes of Israel around 720 B.C. and then Judah around 701 B.C. Nineveh ultimately did fall around 612 B.C. God knew before He threatened Nineveh that He was going to spare them for the purpose of using them to chasten Israel.   Daniel prayed and interceded for God's people when he understood the timing of the end of the desolations and captivity of Jerusalem.  Dan 9:3 And I set my face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. 4 And I prayed unto Jehovah my God, and made confession, and said, Oh, Lord, the great and dreadful God, who keepeth covenant and lovingkindness with them that love him and keep his commandments, 5 we have sinned, and have dealt perversely, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even turning aside from thy precepts and from thine ordinances; 6 neither have we hearkened unto thy servants the prophets, that spake in thy name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land.   7 O Lord, righteousness belongeth unto thee, but unto us confusion of face, as at this day; … because of their trespass that they have trespassed against thee. 9 To the Lord our God belong mercies and forgiveness; for we have rebelled against him; 10 neither have we obeyed the voice of Jehovah our God, to walk in his laws, which he set before us by his servants the prophets.   11 Yea, all Israel have transgressed thy law, even turning aside, that they should not obey thy voice: therefore hath the curse been poured out upon us, and the oath that is written in the law of Moses the servant of God; for we have sinned against him. 13 As it is written in the law of Moses, all this evil is come upon us: yet have we not entreated the favor of Jehovah our God, that we should turn from our iniquities, and have discernment in thy truth. 14 Therefore hath Jehovah watched over the evil, and brought it upon us; for Jehovah our God is righteous in all his works which he doeth, ...   15 And now, O Lord our God, that hast brought thy people forth out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and hast gotten thee renown, as at this day; we have sinned, we have done wickedly. 16 O Lord, according to all thy righteousness, let thine anger and thy wrath, I pray thee, be turned away from thy city Jerusalem, thy holy mountain; … 17 Now therefore, O our God, hearken unto the prayer of thy servant, and to his supplications, and cause thy face to shine upon thy sanctuary that is desolate, for the Lord's sake. 18 O my God, incline thine ear, and hear; open thine eyes, and behold our desolations, and the city which is called by thy name: for we do not present our supplications before thee for our righteousnesses, but for thy great mercies' sake. 19 O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive; O Lord, hearken and do; defer not, for thine own sake, O my God, because thy city and thy people are called by thy name.  “You have not because you ask not.” Let's go to Jer 18:1 The word which came to Jeremiah from Jehovah, saying, 2 Arise, and go down to the potter's house, and there I will cause thee to hear my words. 3 Then I went down to the potter's house, and, behold, he was making a work on the wheels. 4 And when the vessel that he made of the clay was marred in the hand of the potter, he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.   5 Then the word of Jehovah came to me, saying, 6 O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith Jehovah. Behold, as the clay in the potter's hand, so are ye in my hand, O house of Israel. 7 At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up and to break down and to destroy it; 8 if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them.   9 And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it; 10 if they do that which is evil in my sight, that they obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them. 11 Now therefore, speak to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, Thus saith Jehovah: Behold, I frame evil against you, and devise a device against you: return ye now everyone from his evil way, and amend your ways and your doings.   Psa 89:14 Righteousness and justice are the foundation of thy throne: Lovingkindness and truth go before thy face.   Joe 2:12 Yet even now, saith Jehovah, turn ye unto me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning: 13 and rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto Jehovah your God; for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abundant in lovingkindness, and repenteth him of the evil. 14 Who knoweth whether he will not turn and repent, and leave a blessing behind him, even a meal-offering and a drink-offering unto Jehovah your God?   Isa 55:6 Seek ye Jehovah while he may be found; call ye upon him while he is near: 7 let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return unto Jehovah, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.  Eze 33:11 Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord Jehovah, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?   Jer 9:23 Thus saith Jehovah, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches; 24 but let him that glorieth glory in this, that he hath understanding, and knoweth me, that I am Jehovah who exerciseth lovingkindness, justice, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith Jehovah.   Psa 84:11 For Jehovah God is a sun and a shield: Jehovah will give grace and glory; No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.  Mic 7:18-20 Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth over the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? he retaineth not his anger forever, because he delighteth in lovingkindness. 19 He will again have compassion upon us; he will tread our iniquities under foot; and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. 20 Thou wilt perform the truth to Jacob, and the lovingkindness to Abraham, which thou hast sworn unto our fathers from the days of old.   Zec 8:21-22 and the inhabitants of one city shall go to another, saying, Let us go speedily to entreat the favor of Jehovah, and to seek Jehovah of hosts: I will go also. 22 Yea, many peoples and strong nations shall come to seek Jehovah of hosts in Jerusalem, and to entreat the favor of Jehovah.  Favor is grace.  Mal 1:9 And now, I pray you, entreat the favor of God, that he may be gracious unto us:   Psa 98:1-3 Oh sing unto Jehovah a new song; For he hath done marvelous things: His right hand, and his holy arm, hath wrought salvation for him. 2 Jehovah hath made known his salvation: His righteousness hath he openly showed in the sight of the nations. 3 He hath remembered his lovingkindness and his faithfulness toward the house of Israel: All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God. (The Lord has certainly brought salvation to the earth by lessoning the judgments, the plagues, taking down the DS, and minimizing the damage of the coming earthquakes across this land.)   Psa 69:13 But as for me, my prayer is unto thee, O Jehovah, in an acceptable time: O God, in the abundance of thy lovingkindness, Answer me in the truth of thy salvation. Psa 33:5 He loveth righteousness and justice: The earth is full of the lovingkindness of Jehovah.  Psa 107:8 Oh that men would praise Jehovah for his lovingkindness, And for his wonderful works to the children of men!  Joh 1:17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.   Heb 4:16 Let us therefore draw near with boldness unto the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy, and may find grace to help us in time of need. 2Jn 1:3 Grace, mercy, peace shall be with us, from God the Father, and from Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love.       God's Grace and Mercy is Here: “JUST ONE ROAR of the LION”   by S. Jha (David's notes in red)   I saw this vision on the 22nd of August 2006. (Remember this is an older vision before these things that are happening now which are turning many things around. Destructive sinful Babylon DS is feeling the wrath of the roar.)   I saw a Lion. I walked with Him to a very high Rock. The Lion then climbed the Rock, and stood on the very top of this high Rock. I stood below, looking up at Him. He let out a LOUD ROAR. And EVERYTHING in the atmosphere / universe changed.   In a flash, I had a 360-degree vision, and what I am about to relate happened in a flash, but I spent the whole of the 22nd of August, just waiting on God to see in ‘slow motion', what I had seen in a speedy flash, and understand what I had seen.   I was told that my mind could not grasp the vastness of the changes I saw in the Vision. So I stayed at home, and did not take up any duties but spent the whole day, off and on, every few hours just re-visiting this vision and seeing it unfurl in more detail, now at a speed that I could cope with. I don´t think I have ever seen such a lengthy vision, condensed into a 360-degree vision flash before.   Frame by frame this is what I saw: I saw Empires fall, and wars begin. (The DS / Khazarian Mafia which has invaded most countries is falling fast. They are also making covert war to stop this. But God is using their weapons on them.)   I saw that where previously, formulas and general understanding were proven, it did not work anymore, where there were people and places overflowing with money one moment, the next morning the moneyed had nothing. (An economic system designed to favor the rich and criminal is crumbling and a new economic system is now being put in place that cuts out the criminals. A redistribution of the wealth is happening. As I have shared in the past, a reversal of fortunes is upon us.)   I saw many ‘proven' thoughts, and ways now nullified. I saw that the balance was tipped in favor of the East. I saw Angels who had been working in the North and Northwest, recalled and sent East.   I saw children snatched out of the hands of some of the parents. (As these demonic entities have been doing for years... stealing the children, but now it is known and children are being freed from these satanists.)   Fresh food stopped in the western area and was diverted to the East. The fertile became barren and the barren became fertile. All this, from Just One Roar of the Lion. (The DS has been destroying our ability to make food through GMO, weather warfare and poisoning from the air, water, and food. Destroying granaries and silos, etc. but this is coming to an end.)   I saw 3 long lines of writing in the sky. It read: Lost, Lost, Lost. But below it I saw the word: Gain, gain, gain...... where this line ended I could not see, as it just continued on, endlessly.  (Their loss is our gain.) I saw that the East gained money, food, etc. (With the GCR the value of the Eastern poorer nations currency has come up to US standards. And the food of the Gospel is going East. Easterners are receiving Christ and the gospel extremely fast.) The losses were loss of power, prestige, money, position.   I saw: Where a soldier stood to load his gun, to shoot, even the last single bullet he had was taken away. (Trump has stopped many endless wars of the DS.) Where a soldier stood ready for packing his gun, where truce had been declared, divine bullets loaded his gun, and led him to shoot.  (Divine bullets are not physical but spiritual to the casting down of Satan and his angels.) In the Universe, expected cosmic events were diverted and unexpected ones were brought forth. Deserts bloomed, greenery was made barren. Light that had focused on the West, now moved East. (People who are saturated with the gospel light and done nothing with it are losing it. The greatest revivals are happening in the East. Whole nations are being taken over. And westerners have been receiving the spirits from the East.)   This was so sudden that it was like saying... “One morning I woke up, and all was changed”. (Amos 3:8) The lion hath roared, who will not fear? The Lord God hath spoken, who can but prophesy? The Lion has Roared. (We have been prophesying these things and they are happening.)   Dark clouds disintegrated from one place and gathered in another. Whilst there was a West to East exchange on a large level, on individual levels there were changes too. Everything, everything, everything, was changing. All this from, Just One Roar of the Lion. (A reversal of fortunes.)   Just that One Roar, and things from here, were flying there and vice versa. People/Nations, who had got used to a way of life/of thinking, were in for either a shock or a surprise.   CHANGE, CHANGE, CHANGE, CHANGE, CHANGE, CHANGE, CHANGE.   The hungry were fed, and the fed went hungry. (The GCR is redistributing the wealth but not as the Communist overlords have wished.) All opposites were happening. Many homeless were housed, and many of those with homes became homeless. (Those who are receiving the wealth, including many Christians, are humanitarians.) Light became dark and dark became light. Whatever the present situation, the opposite was happening. Many rich became poor and many of the poor became rich.   All this, from Just One Roar of the Lion. Clouds that were meaning to rain, suddenly disintegrated and it rained elsewhere, where least expected.   People were in puzzlement. They said to themselves, “but I thought....” No, nothing would be as ‘I thought.' Many were saying, “But it always worked this way”. Now no more. For those who said, “It´s never worked for me,” they were surprised to know that it will now. (Grace for many things will be taken from the reprobates and given to those hungry for God.)   Heralds blew trumpets, proclaiming, “End of empire! End of empire!” Anyone who had been a specialist, a monopolist, the kingpin in any area of his life/business, now that would begin to end. Nations that had empires or aspirations building towards it, would now see the beginning of the end of those empires. (The DS empires are crumbling; their economy which favored the rich, the Satanists, and criminals are falling.)   Nothing was the same. Everything, everything had changed. Just One Roar Of The Lion. And He Has Roared.   Empty pockets were filled, the filled emptied. (The new economic system will favor the needy who will see this as a move of God.) Strategic changes were taking place. Whatever had worked like clockwork would not work now. People of peace were making war, and warring nations calmed down. (Trump has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for stopping wars and making peace. But its God!)   For the warring nations it was like the wind was taken out of their sails. Just as Egypt, Persia, Babylon (DS), Rome, Britain etc. were all once superpowers, and empires, but their reign and era ended, so now any ‘super power' or aspirations thereof, was being diffused. Nations that were looked up to were now beginning to be looked down upon and vice versa.   Balance of power and favor had shifted East. Angels in the West held Gold Books. One book was titled “Most Wanted”, the other, “Most Favored”. ‘The Most Wanted' Book had living photographs of the most evil people, the traitors etc. Each one was dealt with and disposed. (As is happening now; they are being hunted down as they once did to the poor and helpless; even the children. The stars are all falling because of their reprobation. Hollywood is dying.)   The Most Favored, in the other gold Book with living photographs, were some of those, who had lived through most desolate conditions, such were lifted up. (All that is related here, remember, was happening all at once. (And so it is)) In the midst of all this, I heard the Angels sing, “Glory, Glory, Glory.”  (And they by the hand of God are making this happen.)1 Time was sped up in some places, in others, it was slowed down. Wild beasts (A parable of wicked men in Ecclesiastes.) were all crouching in fear, afraid. I saw the milk inside of cows curdle. Just One Roar Of the Lion.   I saw Eagles, fitted with miniature bells. The bells were so minute, it was hard to believe that if they rang any could hear. Eagles did not speak, they just carried the bells that were fitted to their beaks. People were to ‘read' the sounds. (Sound is a discernment that is not seen; it must be translated by the hearer.) (I thought how “eagles” represent the “overcomers/man-childs”)   Wheresoever the Eagles flew, to some the ringing of the bells was as a very high, deafening pitch. I was not allowed to hear this high pitch sound, but it was revealed to me, that it was an unbearable/deafening high pitch sound. (To the flesh it will mean death.)   But there were others who heard the same bells, which the Eagles had attached to their beaks, and to these the sound transmitted was different. It was sheer music. (The spirit man will love the sound for it is life to him.) I heard this. These people had their hands lifted high and they were happily sighing and exclaiming, “Finally!” (The spirit man will discern life and deliverance.)   I saw Angels collect gold crowns from those in the North, and they dipped the crowns in a smoky place (the kind of smoke one sees with dry ice), and when the crowns emerged from the smoke, they looked exactly the same, but now they were silver. (The beast almost always came from the north against the people. The rich have ruled over the world with a heavy hand. Their wealth shall be distributed.)   No matter in which direction I looked all had changed. It seemed that the very nature of nature changed.   Volcanoes that were dormant, the ashes were removed, and a new fire was lit in them. It seemed that certain species suddenly became extinct.    Reams of paper fell from the sky; paper and pens were sent down, for Chroniclers and Historians, for it was going to be a busy time for them. (This could be rewriting of false history as it really happened. The declass will reveal what really happened making null and void all the past administrations' works. Also many will pass on the Word and testimonies.) Nothing of all creation was left untouched, at Just One Roar of The Lion.   Outside, the earth looked still, but within were rapid-fire changes. Quick, sudden, some were devastating, others surprisingly favorable, but this favor was mostly for the East. (Poor countries will share in the stolen wealth.)  I saw what looked like a flight-path that normally airlines describe on their brochures, as routes of flights/destinations. For prophets, their flight-paths were moved from here to there, as if randomly, but it was not random, it was the Plan of God for prophets. Prophets will be suddenly moved, and see things from a new vantage point. (This has happened. We once saw the DS plan to devastate Christianity and now everything is changing through prayer.)     I saw some people become tar (Frozen blackness), whilst others became fountains of water. Just One Roar Of The Lion. (As Isaiah said the Curl shall be known for what he is. Isa 32:2-8 And a man shall be as a hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest, as streams of water in a dry place, as the shade of a great rock in a weary land. 3 And the eyes of them that see shall not be dim, and the ears of them that hear shall hearken. 4 And the heart of the rash shall understand knowledge, and the tongue of the stammerers shall be ready to speak plainly.   5 The fool shall be no more called noble, nor the churl said to be bountiful. (The faction in the Church and government are turning this way) 6 For the fool will speak folly, and his heart will work iniquity, to practice profaneness, and to utter error against Jehovah, to make empty the soul of the hungry, and to cause the drink of the thirsty to fail. 7 And the instruments of the churl are evil: he deviseth wicked devices to destroy the meek with lying words, even when the needy speaketh right. 8 But the noble deviseth noble things; and in noble things shall he continue.   Many changes took place in the Universe. On earth, snows of old melted, and water in unlikely places froze. It is no ordinary thing, when the Lion Roars.  Those dressed warm in the winter, had their clothes taken away, they were left naked. But the naked street-dweller was clothed. There was a divine transfer of wealth, knowledge, and understanding. (It is happening)   People who'd talked and talked for years, had their mouths taped. (Fake MSM)  But, as in Ezekiel 24:2, those that had been mute for a season now spoke. (God will anoint the humble with grace.)   As the vision progressed, I heard the Lord say, “My People have no roof over their head. I Am their Roof.” I was flown speedily over building after building, and as we flew, I heard the Lord say “Not Mine, not Mine, not Mine, not Mine, not Mine, not Mine, not Mine.” Now I was despairing. What then was God's? (The buildings of the apostates will be proven not to be part of his Kingdom.)   Then I was shown people in the fields, with instruments. They had no roof over their heads. These were God's own. (Discipleship will not be found in the dead Churches but in highways and byways.)   The buildings we flew over were demolished by an elephant's trunk and many T.V. Studios had a fire underneath them. (MSM replaced as is happening now.) Apparently these buildings had been re-built on the same grounds where prior buildings had been condemned and burnt. These new buildings had been built on the foundations of charred remains and ashes. (Buildings of apostates will have no protection. Their judgments will be for a foundation of understanding and fearing God.)   I saw oil poured out from the sky, in two separate ways. One fell over people who gladly received it over them and laughed in the ‘oil- rain'. On the other hand, for others, the oil-rain caused to be set aflame all that was below. (God's anointing will rain down as the latter rain but will bring anointed judgment with it.)   All that was up to the present became obsolete, and new technology, the secrets of which were hidden in nature, appeared. (These new technologies hidden by the elite who thrived on oil wars will be released as President Trump has said. The oil economy is on its way out.)   Science made simple but profound discoveries. I saw Scientists have a ‘Eureka' moment. For many who were researching, studying, looking for, the ‘thing', it was right there before their very noses. Once they saw it they slapped their foreheads, lamenting, “Silly me!” Follies of science were exposed. The simplicity of the discoveries to come were mind-boggling.   Just One Roar Of The Lion. The very nature of nature seemed to be changing. It was as unbelievable as Isa 11:6-8, the wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid;...   In some places, I saw an overabundance of wheat, which flowed into the sea, as it was so plentiful. But in other places I saw land, which was once green, and was now parched land where nothing grew. I saw beautiful blooms on cactus/desert plants.   He who understands these changes will prepare. The Earth was in a global eclipse. One half had light; the other half was in darkness. (This is a spiritual picture of the sheep and the goats.) It seemed that plates were shifted/removed from the earth. (Foundations of many will change.) There were people who raged against God. “We´ll do what we have to, let Him do what He Wants to”, they were saying.   Trees trembled. They knew that their time to be cut had come. To many, prophets and counselors were restored, but from others, the prophets and counselors departed. Sadly, those from whom they departed noticed it not. (Prophets and counsellors that had no eternal effect for good are not missed.)   Focus/emphasis of the Church, and the world, due to the presence of new circumstances, changed.   All this, by Just One Roar Of The Lion. (When He roars again in mid tribulation, Revelation 13, the Church will be tested.)     God's Grace and Mercy is Here: David's Of The Hour & A Changing Of The Guard  Hi Cee / 444Prophecynews.com  https://youtu.be/7kxldb3PBe0?si=ChkrSWFFg4vu541J  David's Of The Hour  Thus says the Lord, “I am raising up my Davids in this hour. I have been preparing them, steadying them, rooting them in Me.  They are like steel. No, they are like titanium. They will not only use the slingshot effectively, but these that I am raising up, will also cut off the heads of Goliath in the Land. Sharply and decisively. They are indestructible, unaware of the fray around them.  They do what they are supposed to do. Nothing can stop them. Many consider them violent. They care not what people think of them. They only do what their Father asks them to do.  They are fearless. They are lightning rods in the Hand of the Lord. They are a prized possession. They cannot be stopped. They devour all that is in their path. Woe to those that try and oppose them. Those that oppose them are annihilated without mercy.  They are hated with the most perfect hatred. They are hated for their single-minded devotion to the Lord. But they are steadfast. They are not moved.  Who can withstand their assault? They trample upon their enemies. They are successful in all they have been called to do. They are given the Spirit without limits. Who can stand before them? Who can oppose them? They are victorious and mighty.  They have been prepared for the hour at hand. They are deadly in their accuracy. Tremble in the presence of the Holy ones. Tremble in the presence of the Lord.  Does not His word come to pass as it is written? All that has been written will come to pass. Look and see the Holy ones who stand on the mountain of the Lord. They are coming. The Davids of the hour.”      A Changing Of The Guard  “I am doing a changing of the guard,” says the Lord. “I have thrown down the gauntlet. No more will those who stand in My pulpits offer up strange fire unto Me. No longer will they speak with polluted lips, representing Me, speaking My Holy Words any longer, as I am removing them.   I am cutting them down and replacing them with a new generation. These are My people I am putting into positions of authority. MY AUTHORITY.  My servants have been prepared in the dark and lonely places. The have been through the refining and purging fire of My dealings. They serve Me with their whole heart.   These are My Davids and their only desire is to serve Me alone. These are the ones I am placing in My positions of authority. I have spoken,” says the Lord.   “These are the ones who stand and say, ‘Who will defy the armies of the LIVING GOD?” These are My representatives. Their lives are not their own.   The others are play-actors who pretend to be My servants, but they are not. These I will remove. Many will not make it through My purging fire. They will be cut down and their disciples also who follow after them.  Consider carefully the Word of the Lord. No longer will a man stand in MY HOUSE and speak MY HOLY WORDS and say, ‘thus and thus', and it will not be from My lips. I will cut them down.   You will see with your eyes, that I AM is among you in your midst. Then My church WILL KNOW that I mean business. That I AM Who I say I AM.   I have held My patience, but now is the time for My sword to be wielded throughout the land.  I have put the two-edged sword in My servants' hands, and they will wield it with great accuracy, as I AM in them, and they shall do exploits. Because they KNOW ME. They that KNOW their God, they shall do exploits.   And so they shall. For him who has ears to hear, hear the Word of the Lord. My servants hear, and they obey.”  

TRANSLATION MENU: LOOK UPPER RIGHT BELOW THE SOCIAL MEDIA ICONS. IT OFFERS EVERY LANGUAGE AVAILABLE AROUND THE WORLD! ALSO, SOCIAL MEDIA AND PRINT ICONS ARE AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS POST! Pictured above: Jeff on the left hosts uber-cool Bruce Lerro, who fascinates the fans with the politics of psychology, explaining it simply and clearly...

This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on June 10. It dropped for free subscribers on June 17. To receive future pods as soon as they're live, and to support independent ski journalism, please consider an upgrade to a paid subscription. You can also subscribe to the free tier below:WhoBelinda Trembath, Vice President & Chief Operating Officer of Whistler Blackcomb, British ColumbiaRecorded onJune 3, 2024About Whistler BlackcombClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Vail Resorts (majority owners; Nippon Cable owns a 25 percent stake in Whistler Blackcomb)Located in: Whistler, British ColumbiaYear founded: 1966Pass affiliations:* Epic Pass: unlimited* Epic Local Pass: 10 holiday-restricted days, shared with Vail Mountain and Beaver CreekClosest neighboring ski areas: Grouse Mountain (1:26), Cypress (1:30), Mt. Seymour (1:50) – travel times vary based upon weather conditions, time of day, and time of yearBase elevation: 2,214 feet (675 meters)Summit elevation: 7,497 feet (2,284 meters)Vertical drop: 5,283 feet (1,609 meters)Skiable Acres: 8,171Average annual snowfall: 408 inches (1,036 centimeters)Trail count: 276 (20% easiest, 50% more difficult, 30% most difficult)Lift count: A lot (1 28-passenger gondola, 3 10-passenger gondolas, 1 8-passenger gondola, 1 8-passenger pulse gondola, 8 high-speed quads, 4 six-packs, 1 eight-pack, 3 triples, 2 T-bars, 7 carpets – view Lift Blog's inventory of Whistler Blackcomb's lift fleet) – inventory includes upgrade of Jersey Cream Express from a quad to a six-pack for the 2024-25 ski season.Why I interviewed herHistorical records claim that when Lewis and Clark voyaged west in 1804, they were seeking “the most direct and practicable water communication across this continent, for the purposes of commerce.” But they were actually looking for Whistler Blackcomb.Or at least I think they were. What other reason is there to go west but to seek out these fabulous mountains, rising side by side and a mile* into the sky, where Pacific blow-off splinters into summit blizzards and packed humanity animates the village below?There is nothing else like Whistler in North America. It is our most complete, and our greatest, ski resort. Where else does one encounter this collision of terrain, vertical, panorama, variety, and walkable life, interconnected with audacious aerial lifts and charged by a pilgrim-like massing of skiers from every piece and part of the world? Europe and nowhere else. Except for here.Other North American ski resorts offer some of these things, and some of them offer better versions of them than Whistler. But none of them has all of them, and those that have versions of each fail to combine them all so fluidly. There is no better snow than Alta-Snowbird snow, but there is no substantive walkable village. There is no better lift than Jackson's tram, but the inbounds terrain lacks scale and the town is miles away. There is no better energy than Palisades Tahoe energy, but the Pony Express is still carrying news of its existence out of California.Once you've skied Whistler – or, more precisely, absorbed it and been absorbed by it – every other ski area becomes Not Whistler. The place lingers. You carry it around. Place it into every ski conversation. “Have you been to Whistler?” If not, you try to describe it. But it can't be done. “Just go,” you say, and that's as close as most of us can come to grabbing the raw power of the place.*Or 1.6 Canadian Miles (sometimes referred to as “kilometers”).What we talked aboutWhy skier visits dropped at Whistler-Blackcomb this past winter; the new Fitzsimmons eight-passenger express and what it took to modify a lift that had originally been intended for Park City; why skiers can often walk onto that lift with little to no wait; this summer's Jersey Cream lift upgrade; why Jersey Cream didn't require as many modifications as Fitzsimmons even though it was also meant for Park City; the complexity of installing a mid-mountain lift; why WB had to cancel 2024 summer skiing and what that means for future summer seasons; could we see a gondola serving the glacier instead?; Vail's Australian trio of Mt. Hotham, Perisher, and Falls Creek; Whistler's wild weather; the distinct identities of Blackcomb and Whistler; what WB means to Vail Resorts; WB's Olympic legacy; Whistler's surprisingly low base elevation and what that means for the visitor; WB's relationship with local First Nations; priorities for future lift upgrades and potential changes to the Whistler gondola, Seventh Heaven, Whistler T-bar, Franz's, Garbanzo; discussing proposed additional lifts in Symphony Bowl and elsewhere on Whistler; potential expansion into a fourth portal; potential new or upgraded lifts sketched out in Blackcomb Mountain's masterplan; why WB de-commissioned the Hortsman T-Bar; missing the Wizard-to-Solar-Coaster access that the Blackcomb Gondola replaced; WB's amazing self-managing lift mazes; My Epic App direct-to-lift access is coming to Whistler; employee housing; why Whistler's season pass costs more than an Epic Pass; and Edge cards.   Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewFour new major lifts in three years; the cancellation of summer skiing; “materially lower” skier visits at Whistler this past winter, as reported by Vail Resorts – all good topics, all enough to justify a check-in. Oh and the fact that Whistler Blackcomb is the largest ski area in the Western Hemisphere, the crown jewel in Vail's sprawling portfolio, the single most important ski area on the continent.And why is that? What makes this place so special? The answer lies only partly in its bigness. Whistler is vast. Whistler is thrilling. Whistler is everything you hope a ski area will be when you plan your winter vacation. But most important of all is that Whistler is proof.Proof that such a place can exist in North America. U.S. America is stuck in a development cycle that typically goes like this:* Ski area proposes a new expansion/base area development/chairlift/snowmaking upgrade.* A small group of locals picks up the pitchforks because Think of the Raccoons/this will gut the character of our bucolic community of car-dependent sprawl/this will disrupt one very specific thing that is part of my personal routine that heavens me I just can't give up.* Said group files a lawsuit/formal objection/some other bureaucratic obstacle, halting the project.* Resort justifies the project/adapts it to meet locals' concerns/makes additional concessions in the form of land swaps, operational adjustments, infrastructure placement, and the like.* Group insists upon maximalist stance of Do Nothing.* Resort makes additional adjustments.* Group is Still Mad* Cycle repeats for years* Either nothing ever gets done, or the project is built 10 to 15 years after its reveal and at considerable extra expense in the form of studies, legal fees, rising materials and labor costs, and expensive and elaborate modifications to accommodate one very specific thing, like you can't operate the lift from May 1 to April 20 because that would disrupt the seahorse migration between the North and South Poles.In BC, they do things differently. I've covered this extensively, in podcast conversations with the leaders of Sun Peaks, Red Mountain, and Panorama. The civic and bureaucratic structures are designed to promote and encourage targeted, smart development, leading to ever-expanding ski areas, human-scaled and walkable base area infrastructure, and plenty of slopeside or slope-adjacent accommodations.I won't exhaust that narrative again here. I bring it up only to say this: Whistler has done all of these things at a baffling scale. A large, vibrant, car-free pedestrian village where people live and work. A gargantuan lift across an unbridgeable valley. Constant infrastructure upgrades. Reliable mass transit. These things can be done. Whistler is proof.That BC sits directly atop Washington State, where ski areas have to spend 15 years proving that installing a stop sign won't undermine the 17-year cicada hatching cycle, is instructive. Whistler couldn't exist 80 miles south. Maybe the ski area, but never the village. And why not? Such communities, so concentrated, require a small footprint in comparison to the sprawl of a typical development of single-family homes. Whistler's pedestrian base village occupies an area around a half mile long and less than a quarter mile wide. And yet, because it is a walkable, mixed-use space, it cuts down reliance on driving, enlivens the ski area, and energizes the soul. It is proof that human-built spaces, properly conceived, can create something worthwhile in what, 50 years ago, was raw wilderness, even if they replace a small part of the natural world.A note from Whistler on First NationsTrembath and I discuss Whistler's relationship with First Nations extensively, but her team sent me some follow-up information to clarify their role in the mountain's development:Belinda didn't really have time to dive into a very important piece of the First Nations involvement in the operational side of things:* There was significant engagement with First Nations as a part of developing the masterplans.* Their involvement and support were critical to the approval of the masterplans and to ensuring that all parties and their respective communities will benefit from the next 60 years of operation.* This includes the economic prosperity of First Nations – both the Squamish and Líl̓wat Nations will participate in operational success as partners.* To ensure this, the Province of British Columbia, the Resort Municipality of Whistler, Whistler Blackcomb and the Squamish and Líl̓wat Nations are engaged in agreements on how to work together in the future.* These agreements, known as the Umbrella Agreement, run concurrently with the Master Development Agreements and masterplans, providing a road map for our relationship with First Nations over the next 60 years of operations and development. * Key requirements include Revenue Sharing, Real Estate Development, Employment, Contracting & Recreational Opportunities, Marketing and Tourism and Employee Housing. There is an Implementation Committee, which oversees the execution of the agreement. * This is a landmark agreement and the only one of its kind within the mountain resort industry.What we got wrongI mentioned that “I'd never seen anything like” the lift mazes at Whistler, but that's not quite accurate. Vail Resorts deploys similar setups throughout its western portfolio. What I hadn't seen before is such choreographed and consistent navigation of these mazes by the skiers themselves. To watch a 500-person liftline squeeze itself into one loading ramp with no personnel direction or signage, and to watch nearly every chair lift off fully loaded, is to believe, at least for seven to nine minutes, in humanity as a worthwhile ongoing experiment.I said that Edge Cards were available for up to six days of skiing. They're actually available in two-, five-, or 10-day versions. If you're not familiar with Edge cards, it's because they're only available to residents of Canada and Washington State.Whistler officials clarified the mountain's spring skiing dates, which Trembath said started on May 14. The actual dates were April 15 to May 20.Why you should ski Whistler BlackcombYou know that thing you do where you step outside and you can breathe as though you didn't just remove your space helmet on the surface of Mars? You can do that at Whistler too. The village base elevation is 2,214 feet. For comparison's sake: Salt Lake City's airport sits at 4,227 feet; Denver's is at 5,434. It only goes up from there. The first chairlifts sit at 6,800 feet in Park City; 8,100 at Snowbird; 8,120 at Vail; 8,530 at Alta; 8,750 at Brighton; 9,000 at Winter Park; 9,280 at Keystone; 9,600 at Breckenridge; 9,712 at Copper Mountain; and an incredible 10,780 feet at Arapahoe Basin. Taos sits at 9,200 feet. Telluride at 8,750. Adaptation can be brutal when parachuting in from sea level, or some nominal inland elevation above it, as most of us do. At 8,500 feet, I get winded searching my hotel room for a power outlet, let alone skiing, until my body adjusts to the thinner air. That Whistler requires no such reconfiguration of your atomic structure to do things like blink and speak is one of the more underrated features of the place.Another underrated feature: Whistler Blackcomb is a fantastic family mountain. While Whistler is a flip-doodle factory of Stoke Brahs every bit the equal of Snowbird or Jackson Hole, it is not Snowbird or Jackson Hole. Which is to say, the place offers beginner runs that are more than across-the-fall line cat tracks and 300-vertical-foot beginner pods. While it's not promoted like the celebrated Peak-to-Creek route, a green trail (or sequence of them), runs nearly 5,000 uninterrupted vertical feet from Whistler's summit to the base village. In fact, with the exception of Blackcomb's Glacier Express, every one of the ski area's 16 chairlifts (even the fearsome Peak Express), and five gondolas offers a beginner route that you can ski all the way back to the base. Yes, some of them shuffle into narrow cat tracks for stretches, but mostly these are wide, approachable trails, endless and effortless, built, it seems, for ski-family safaris of the confidence-building sort.Those are maybe the things you're not thinking of. The skiing:Most skiers start with one of the three out-of-base village gondolas, but the new Fitz eight-seater rarely has a line. Start there:That's mostly a transit lift. At the top, head up the Garbanzo quad, where you can start to understand the scale of the thing:You're still not quite to the goods. But to get a sense of the mountain, ski down to Big Red:This will take you to Whistler's main upper-mountain portal, Roundhouse. From Whistler, you can see Blackcomb strafing the sky:From Roundhouse, it's a short ski down to the Peak Express:Depending upon your route down, you may end up back at Big Red. Ride back up to Roundhouse, then meander from Emerald to Harmony to Symphony lifts. For a moment on the way down Symphony, it feels like Euroski:Just about everyone sticks to the narrow groomers:But there are plenty of bumps and trees and wide-open bowls:Nice as this terrain is, the Peak 2 Peak Gondola summons you from all over the mountain:Whoosh. To Blackcomb in an instant, crossing the valley, 1,427 feet to the bottom, and out at Blackcomb's upper-mountain base, Rendezvous. Down to Glacier Express, and up a rolling fantasyland of infinite freeride terrain:And at the top it's like damn.From here, you can transfer to the Showcase T-bar if it's open. If not, climb Spanky's Ladder, and, Kaboom out on the other side:Ride Crystal Ridge or Excelerator back up, and run a lap through bowls and glades:Then ski back down to the village, ride Jersey Cream back to Rendezvous to connect to the spectacular 7th Heaven lift, or ride the gondy back over to Whistler to repeat the whole cycle. And that's just a sampling. I'm no Whistler expert - just go have fun and get lost in the whole thing.Podcast NotesOn the Lost Lifts of Park CityIt's slightly weird and enormously hilarious that the Fitzsimmons eight-seater that Whistler installed last summer and the Jersey Cream sixer that Blackcomb will drop on the mountain this year were originally intended for Park City. As I wrote in 2022:Last September, Vail Resorts announced what was likely the largest set of single-season lift upgrades in the history of the world: $315-plus million on 19 lifts (later increased to 21 lifts) across 14 ski areas. Two of those lifts would land in Park City: a D-line eight-pack would replace the Silverlode six, and a six-pack would replace the Eagle and Eaglet triples. Two more lifts in a town with 62 of them (Park City sits right next door to Deer Valley). Surely this would be another routine project for the world's largest ski area operator.It wasn't. In June, four local residents – Clive Bush, Angela Moschetta, Deborah Rentfrow, and Mark Stemler – successfully appealed the Park City Planning Commission's previous approval of the lift projects.“The upgrades were appealed on the basis that the proposed eight-place and six-place chairs were not consistent with the 1998 development agreement that governs the resort,” SAM wrote at the time. “The planning commission also cited the need for a more thorough review of the resort's comfortable carrying capacity calculations and parking mitigation plan, finding PCM's proposed paid parking plan at the Mountain Village insufficient.”So instead of rising on the mountain, the lifts spent the summer, in pieces, in the parking lot. Vail admitted defeat, at least temporarily. “We are considering our options and next steps based on today's disappointing decision—but one thing is clear—we will not be able to move forward with these two lift upgrades for the 22-23 winter season,” Park City Mountain Resort Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Deirdra Walsh said in response to the decision.One of the options Vail apparently considered was trucking the lifts to friendlier locales. Last Wednesday, as part of its year-end earnings release, Vail announced that the two lifts would be moved to Whistler and installed in time for the 2023-24 ski season. The eight-pack will replace the 1,129-vertical-foot Fitzsimmons high-speed quad on Whistler, giving the mountain 18 seats (!) out of the village (the lift runs alongside the 10-passenger Whistler Village Gondola). The six-pack will replace the Jersey Cream high-speed quad on Blackcomb, a midmountain lift with a 1,230-foot vertical rise.The whole episode is still one of the dumber things I'm aware of. There are like 80 lifts in Park City and two more (replacements, not all-new lines), apparently would have knocked the planet off its axis and sent us caterwauling into the sun. It's enough to make you un-see all the human goodness in Whistler's magical lift queues. More here.On Fitzsimmons 8's complex lineAmong the challenges of re-engineering the Fitzsimmons 8 for Whistler was the fact that the lift had to pass under the Whistler Village Gondola:Trembath and I talk a little about Fitz's download capability. Team Whistler sent over some additional information following our chat, indicating that the winter download capacity is four riders per chair (part of the original lift design, when it was meant for Park City). Summer download, for bike park operations, is limited to one passenger (a lower capacity than the original design).On Whistler's bike parkI'm not Bike Park Bro, though I could probably be talked into it fairly easily if I didn't already spend half the year wandering around the country in search of novel snowsportskiing operations. I do, however, ride my bike around NYC just about every day from May through October-ish, which in many ways resembles the giant jungle gyms that are downhill mountain bike parks, just with fewer jumps and a higher probability of decapitation by box truck.Anyway Whistler supposedly has the best bike park this side of Neptune, and we talk about it a bit, and so I'll include the trailmap even though I'd have a better chance of translating ancient Aramaic runes etched into a cave wall than I would of explaining exactly what's happening here:On Jersey Cream “not looking like much” on the trailmapBecause Whistler's online trailmap is shrunken to fit the same rectangular container that every ski map fills in the Webosphere, it fails to convey the scale of the operation (the paper version, which you can acquire if you slip a bag of gold bars and a map to the Lost City of Atlantis to a clerk at the guest services desk, is aptly called a “mountain atlas” and better captures the breadth of the place). The Jersey Cream lift and pod, for example, presents on the trailmap as an inconsequential connector lift between the Glacier Express and Rendezous station, where three other lifts convene. But this is a 1,230-vertical-foot, 4,647-foot-long machine that could, were you to hack it from the earth and transport it into the wilderness, be a fairly substantial ski area on its own. For context, 1,200 vertical feet is roughly the rise of Eldora or Monarch, or, for Easterners, Cranmore or Black Mountain.On the Whistler and Blackcomb masterplansUnlike the U.S. American Forest Service, which often fails to post ski area master development plans on their useless 1990s vintage websites, the British Columbia authorities have neatly organized all of their province's masterplans on one webpage. Whistler and Blackcomb mountains each file separate plans, last updated in 2013. That predates Vail Resorts' acquisition by three years, and Trembath and I discuss how closely (or not), these plans align with the company's current thinking around the resort.Whistler Mountain:Blackcomb Mountain:On Vail's Australian ski areasTrembath, at different points, oversaw all three of Vail Resorts' Australian ski areas. Though much of that tenure predated Vail's acquisitions (of Hotham and Falls Creek in 2019), she ran Perisher (purchased in 2015), for a year before leaping to the captain's chair at Whistler. Trembath provides a terrific breakdown of each of the three ski areas, and they look like a lot of fun:Perisher:Falls Creek:Hotham:On Sugar Bowl ParallelsTrembath's story follows a similar trajectory to that of Bridget Legnavsky, whose decades-long career in New Zealand included running a pair of that country's largest ski resorts. She then moved to North America to run a large ski area – in her case, Sugar Bowl near Lake Tahoe's North Shore. She appeared on the podcast in March.On Merlin EntertainmentI was unfamiliar with Merlin Entertainment, the former owner of Falls Creek and Hotham. The company is enormous, and owns Legoland Parks, Madame Tussauds, and dozens of other familiar brands.On Whistler and Blackcomb as formerly separate ski areasLike Park City (formerly Park City and Canyons) and Palisades Tahoe (formerly Alpine Meadows and Squaw Valley), Whistler and Blackcomb were once separate ski areas. Here's the stoke version of the mountains' joint history (“You were either a Whistler skier, or you were a Blackcomb skier”):On First Nations' language on lifts and the Gondola Gallery projectAs Whistler builds new lifts, the resort tags the lift terminals with names in English and First Nations languages. From Pique Magazine at the opening of the Fitzsimmons eight-pack last December:Whistler Mountain has a brand-new chairlift ready to ferry keen skiers and snowboarders up to mid-mountain, with the rebuilt Fitzsimmons Express opening to guests early on Dec. 12. …“Importantly, this project could not have happened without the guidance and counsel of the First Nations partners,” said Trembath.“It's so important to us that their culture continues to be represented across these mountains in everything we do.”In keeping with those sentiments, the new Fitzsimmons Express is emblazoned with First Nations names alongside its English name: In the Squamish language, it is known as Sk_wexwnách, for Valley Creek, and in the Lil'wat language, it is known as Tsíqten, which means Fish Spear.New chairlifts are given First Nations names at Whistler Blackcomb as they are installed and opened.Here's Fitzsimmons:And Big Red, a sixer installed two years ago:Whistler also commissioned First Nations artists to wrap two cabins on the Peak 2 Peak Gondola. From Daily Hive:The Peak 2 Peak gondola, which connects Whistler and Blackcomb mountains, is showing off artwork created by First Nations artists, which can be seen by mountain-goers at BC's premiere ski resort.Vail Resorts commissioned local Indigenous artists to redesign two gondola cabins. Levi Nelson of Lil'wat Nation put his stamp on one with “Red,” while Chief Janice George and Buddy Joseph of Squamish Nation have created “Wings of Thunder.” …“Red is a sacred colour within Indigenous culture, representing the lifeblood of the people and our connection to the Earth,” said Nelson, an artist who excels at contemporary Indigenous art. “These shapes come from and are inspired by my ancestors. To be inside the gondola, looking out through an ovoid or through the Ancestral Eye, maybe you can imagine what it's like to experience my territory and see home through my eyes.”“It's more than just the techniques of weaving. It's about ways of being and seeing the world. Passing on information that's meaningful. We've done weavings on murals, buildings, reviving something that was put away all those decades ago now,” said Chief Janice George and Buddy Joseph.“The significance of the Thunderbird being on the gondola is that it brings the energy back on the mountain and watching over all of us.”A pic:On Native American issues in the U.S.I referenced conflicts between U.S. ski resorts and Native Americans, without providing specifics. The Forest Service cited objections from Native American communities, among other factors, in recommending a “no action” alternative to Lutsen Mountains' planned expansion last year. The Washoe tribe has attempted to “reclaim” land that Diamond Peak operates on. The most prominent dispute, however, has been a decades-long standoff between Arizona Snowbowl and indigenous tribes. Per The Guardian in 2022:The Arizona Snowbowl resort, which occupies 777 acres (314 hectares) on the mountain's slope, has attracted skiers during the winter and spring for nearly a century. But its popularity has boomed in recent years thanks to growing populations in Phoenix, a three hour's drive away, and neighbouring Flagstaff. During peak ski season, the resort draws upwards of 3,000 visitors a day.More than a dozen Indigenous nations who hold the mountain sacred have fought Snowbowl's existence since the 1930s. These include the Pueblo of Acoma, Fort McDowell Yavapai; Havasupai; Hopi; Hualapai; Navajo; San Carlos Apache; San Juan Southern Paiute; Tonto Apache; White Mountain Apache; Yavapai Apache, Yavapai Prescott, and Pueblo of Zuni. They say the resort's presence has disrupted the environment and their spiritual connection to the mountain, and that its use of treated sewage effluent to make snow is akin to baptizing a baby with wastewater.Now, a proposed $60m expansion of Snowbowl's facilities has brought simmering tensions to a boil.The US Forest Service, the agency that manages the national forest land on which Snowbowl is built, is weighing a 15-year expansion proposal that would bulk up operations, increase visitation and add new summer recreational facilities such as mountain biking trails, a zip line and outdoor concerts. A coalition of tribes, meanwhile, is resisting in unprecedented ways.The battle is emblematic of a vast cultural divide in the American west over public lands and how they should be managed. On one side are mostly financially well-off white people who recreate in national forests and parks; on the other are Indigenous Americans dispossessed from those lands who are struggling to protect their sacred sites.“Nuva'tukya'ovi is our Mount Sinai. Why can't the forest service understand that?,” asks Preston.On the tight load at the 7th Heaven liftYikes:Honestly it's pretty organized and the wait isn't that long, but this is very popular terrain and the trails could handle a higher-capacity lift (nearly everyone skis the Green Line trail or one of the blue groomers off this lift, leaving hundreds of acres of off-piste untouched; it's pretty glorious).On Wizard and Solar CoasterEvery local I spoke with in Whistler grumped about the Blackcomb Gondola, which replaced the Wizard and Solar Coaster high-speed quads in 2018. While the 10-passenger gondy substantively follows the same lines, it fails to provide the same mid-mountain fast-lap firepower that Solar Coaster once delivered. Both because removing your skis after each lap is a drag, and because many skiers ride the gondola up to Rendezvous, leaving fewer free mid-mountain seats than the empty quad chairs once provided. Here's a before-and-after:On Whistler's season passWhistler's season pass, which is good at Whistler Blackcomb and only Whistler Blackcomb, strangely costs more ($1,047 U.S.) than a full Epic Pass ($1,004 U.S.), which also provides unlimited access to Whistler and Vail's other 41 ski areas. It's weird. Trembath explains.The Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing year-round. Join us.The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 42/100 in 2024, and number 542 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

“Westerners like to conquer mountains. Easterners like to contemplate them. As for me, I like to taste them” - Santoka Taneda   Henry brings us a highly entertaining poetry hour as we follow the the lives and words of two Buddhist poets; Miyazawa Kenji trying to help the masses one annoyed farmer at a time, and Santoka Kenji picking himself up from a life of tragedy to drink himself into a sutra steeped stupor. What does it take to live a free life, an honest life, and/or a helpful life? Does the world want to be changed or be accepted as it is? Is just being your self ultimately being selfish? Find out here!

Easterners needed someone they could trust to tell them what they could expect in the West. New York Times journalist Horace Greeley was the expert. His famous words, “Go West, young man, go West” inspired many to leave their homes for the vast unknown. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Guest Bios Show Transcript https://youtu.be/kfW97erZjYA What do you do when the man you looked up to as your spiritual hero is exposed as a fraud? How do you recover from the disillusionment and betrayal? And how do you find hope when your world is turned upside down? On this edition of The Roys Report, you're about to hear a highlight session from this year's Restore Conference featuring Carson Weitnauer, a former director with Ravi Zacharias International Ministries. Ravi Zacharias had a huge impact on Carson when he was coming of age. When Carson was hired by Ravi's ministry, he thought he had found his dream job. But then in 2020, the dream became a nightmare as more and more evidence showed that Ravi Zacharias was not the man he purported to be. He was not a model Christian leader and sterling apologist, but a serial sexual predator, who lied and manipulated to cover his tracks. The revelations rocked Carson's world—and especially his faith. And in this incredibly raw and vulnerable talk, Carson doesn't sugar-coat anything. He tells of his journey from believing the exposés about Ravi were just Satanic attacks—to realizing that his own leaders, people he looked up to, were lying to him. He tells of the excruciating betrayal, pain, and depression he experienced. He talks about almost losing his faith and feeling like God had abandoned him. But he also talks about hope and hanging on, even when life seems bleak. Guests Carson Weitnauer Carson Weitnauer is an author, speaker, and the founder of Uncommon Pursuit, a Christian apologetics ministry. He formerly served on-staff at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries and resigned to advocate for survivors. He has coauthored multiple books. Learn more at uncommonpursuit.net Show Transcript SPEAKERS CARSON WEITNAUER, JULIE ROYS JULIE ROYS 00:02 What do you do when the man you looked up to as your spiritual hero is exposed as a fraud? How do you recover from the disillusionment and betrayal? And how do you find hope when your world is turned upside down? Welcome to The Roys Report—a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I'm Julie Roys. And what you're about to hear is the second of 11 talks from this year's Restore Conference. Speaking is Carson Weitnauer, a former director with Ravi Zacharias International Ministries. And as you'll hear, Ravi Zacharias had a huge impact on Carson when he coming of age—and internalizing his faith. So, in 2013, when Carson was hired by Ravi's ministry, he thought he had found his dream job. But then in 2020, the dream became a nightmare as more and more evidence showed that Ravi was not the man he purported to be. He was not a model Christian leader and sterling apologist, but a serial sexual predator, who lied and manipulated to cover his tracks. The revelations rocked Carson's world—and especially his faith. And in this incredibly raw and vulnerable talk, Carson doesn't sugar-coat anything. He tells of his journey from believing the exposés about Ravi were just Satanic attacks—to realizing that his own leaders, people he looked up to—were lying to him. He tells of the excruciating betrayal, pain, and depression he experienced. He talks about almost losing his faith—and feeling like God had abandoned him. But he also talks about hope and hanging on, even when life seems bleak. If you've ever experienced betrayal trauma or church hurt, I think you're going to resonate deeply with Carson's journey.  Here's Carson Weitnauer, a former director with Ravi Zacharias International Ministries—and someone I've come to know as a man of integrity and courage.     JULIE ROYS 04:02 Hi, I'm Julie Roys, founder of The Roys Report and the RESTORE conference, and you're about to see a video from RESTORE 2023. Though a lot of conferences charge for videos like these, we've decided to make them available for free. We've done that because we don't want anybody to miss out on this valuable content for lack of finances. But of course these do cost us money to shoot and to edit. So if you're able we'd really appreciate it if you consider donating to The Roys Report, so we can continue this important service. To do so just go to JulieRoys.com/donate.  Also, I hope you'll make plans to join us at the next RESTORE conference which we'll be announcing soon. As great as these videos are they pale in comparison to being there in person. As one speaker commented, “this year RESTORE is more of a restorative community than it is a conference.” And every year that community just grows deeper and richer. And so I hope you'll be able to join us at the next RESTORE. Be watching for that. And in the meantime, I hope you're blessed and encouraged by this video. CARSON WEITNAUER 05:11 Julie Roys is a liar. It was September 21st, 2020, and I felt nauseous and disoriented. As I thought about all of the crazy things she was saying. I was at the beach with my family. We were trying to recover COVID. But it had been a hard year because Ravi Zacharias had died. He had very suddenly and unexpectedly passed away from cancer, and I don't cry, but in May at his funeral, I had wept that Ravi was no longer with us. And I was angry that God had taken him so soon. The Vice President (Mike Pence) was there. He said, “In Ravi Zacharias, God gave us the greatest Christian apologist of the century. He was the CS Lewis of our day.” And tributes in that spirit poured in from all around the world. Christian media, social media was flooded with praise for Ravi Zacharias. And our ministry was trying to figure out what we would do without our founder our inspiration or leader or guide. But at the beach a few months later, I felt tense and tight. And I was trying to get my bearings because I was scrolling on my phone through these articles Julie had written. Julie claimed to be an investigative journalist. But responsible leaders at RCIM had explained the truth. She was a clickbait journalist. She would dig up dirt on people so she could get her 15 minutes of fame by, you know, scandal mongering. And now she was stooping to a new low in the aftermath of Ravi's funeral. She was claiming that Ravi Zacharias had taken advantage of Lori Anne Thompson. 07:49 And Julie had documented a lot of facts about the situation I had never heard. So I read her articles. And I tried to do a critical reading of them, I tried to ignore all of her negative biased commentary. I just wanted to pay attention to the facts that she had primary documentation for. And every evening, after I got my kids to bed, I would open up my computer and open up a Google spreadsheet, and I would put everything that Ravi and RZIM had told me in one column, and I would put everything that Julie was documenting in another column. And I got 287 rows of discrepancies. And I just kept comparing Julie's articles with everything I had learned for three years since 2017 and 2018. I'd scoured the internet for information for three years to get information on Lori Anne Thompson. I had talked to many of RZIM's leaders, I debated what was being claimed with my colleagues. For every good point that was raised, RZIM's leaders had a good answer.Lori Anne had schemed with some friends to leak emails to embarrass Ravi. And they made it look like Ravi had done something really wrong. But our leaders had the whole context of the entire email chain. And they explained that the whole chain of emails had been selectively and manipulatively distorted and taken out of context to make Ravi look guilty when he wasn't. 09:30 Ravi and a senior leader who were both Easterners explained how they read these emails from an Eastern point of view. And they said if you think Ravi is guilty of something, that's because you're reading this as a Westerner. We had earnestly prayed for God to protect our ministry in this time from satanic attacks. And it felt like God had put a veil of protection, a dome of protection over our headquarters, and our ministry and our events. And these satanic attacks had been thwarted by the power of prayer. And it hadn't been my job to investigate these claims. But there were people of outstanding integrity and leadership, Christian leaders of major organizations. And it was their job to look into this. And so there were two independent external investigations. Ravi's denomination was a highly respected denomination. And when claims like this came up, they did a proper investigation to ensure that none of their pastors did anything like this. And they had found that Ravi was innocent. 10:44 Ravi's publisher would not publish a book by an author who did this kind of thing. They wanted all of their authors to not only have good teaching but good lives. The publisher had a responsibility to investigate. They investigated, they found that Ravi was innocent. RZIM was a multimillion nearly $40 million a year organization, in the 30s of millions, and our board was comprised of extremely qualified Christian leaders. And when a claim like this came up, the board had a responsibility. They investigated. Our senior leaders were best selling authors and powerful speakers and well educated. They had a responsibility. So our speakers our senior leaders had investigated. So I was looking at four separate investigations by Ravi's denomination, his publisher, his board, and the senior leaders. And all four investigations concluded that Ravi was innocent, and that Lori Anne and her scheming husband had tried to extort Ravi out of $5 million dollars. It was a blackmail attempt. 12:03 So what made more sense? A self promoting journalist, desperate for clicks and attention was passing on lies because she always believed survivors? Or multiple investigations by the most trustworthy people had gotten it wrong? And so I wavered. 12:25 I had first met Ravi, when I was in high school. I was struggling with my Christian faith, do I believe this or not? And I'd read Ravi's book can man live without God, and it really helped me. And so there were some connections, and I got to go to a dinner around Christmas time where Ravi was speaking. And afterwards, it was arranged for me and Ravi to talk with each other. And I could not believe it. Ravi spoke to world leaders. And now he was going to talk to me. And he explained, keep in touch Carson, I'd like to keep in touch with you. So on the way home, I told my mom, I would love to work for Ravi Zacharias one day. 13:03 I studied at Rhodes College in Memphis, studying philosophy. And so I asked Ravi, I wrote him a letter and asked him to give me some advice on my future career. I studied abroad at St. Catherine's college at Oxford. And while I was there, I visited the RZIM offices. It was a chance to meet the people that Ravi had hired and trained and spoke with. I then went into campus ministry for 10 years, seven of those years, I had the joy of serving students at Harvard College. We faced difficult intellectual and cultural questions. And so we often went and said, What is Ravi say about this? What resources does RZIM have to help us navigate this conversation with gentleness with respect, with biblical fidelity with intellectual clarity? So in 2013, when I was hired to work for Ravi Zacharias, it was a dream job. I felt like God had orchestrated all the details of my life and worked it out for me to work for Ravi. During the seven years that I worked there, I got to start with the US speaking team, leading them. And then I transitioned to starting and growing an online community called RZIM Connect. And we had hundreds of thousands of people visit this community and learn how to have good conversations about faith and get answers to their questions. I had respected Ravi and RZIM for over 20 years. I'd worked at RZIM for seven and RZIM was not just a job, it was a joy. It was my identity, my community, my sense of purpose, my faith, my spirituality. So I was a real mess on the beach. And then came to more bombshells. 14:58 Both Christianity Today and World Magazine reported that massage therapists who worked at Ravi's spa alleged that Ravi was guilty of awful, horrendous sexual misconduct. And as I read those articles, my heart sank as I thought about what those women had endured. World Magazine also reported that the tax documents Julie had were accurate and that the Thompson's had given away nearly $200,000 one year to different Christian charities. And so I just asked myself, “Are the Thompsons greedy extortionists or exceptionally generous Christians?” “Are all of the journalists self promotional hacks, or courageous truth tellers?” And I was reluctantly but totally convinced. And I felt that I had a responsibility to take action. Because for years, I had shut down people who thought Lori Anne Thompson was telling the truth. And I had defended Ravi. And now I needed to speak up for his victims. And I had been helped by RZIM so much, I had to do whatever I could to help the ministry do what was right. 16:16 And I just trusted that Ravi Zacharias International Ministries was nothing like Ravi Zacharias. I mean, he was a fraud. He was abusive, a bully a liar. But my friends, my mentors, the people I worked with day in and day out, we'd been on road trips together, we'd done ministry together, these people were solid, they were people of integrity, I could count on them to be truth finders and truth tellers and advocates for the vulnerable. So it was October 1st, 2020. And RZIM's board had already put out two statements, fake news, these are false. We've already looked into it, nothing to this. And they also said truth is the foundation of what we do. And I had to ask myself, is truth, the foundation of what we do? Are you just saying that so people will believe what you're saying? 17:20 And then we had a global town hall meeting because the ministry launched a investigation and they knew staff had questions. And one of the ideas on official motto was no questions off limits. And so I had a few questions. And I wanted to know if we have this investigation going on, but Lori Anne and her family are subjected to a nondisclosure agreement, how can the investigation include them? They can't disclose. And the family wasn't willing to release them from that. So would RZIM provide cover to the Thompsons were they to violate this agreement? If there was financial penalties or legal costs, couldn't we make sure that they could participate? And the response was wonderful. It sounded very gentle and respectful. “We're totally committed to the truth here. We want them to participate. The NDA won't be a problem. We're definitely going to include them in this investigation.” It sounded awesome. And then I thought about it. And they hadn't made any concrete promises of unwinding the NDA or providing a legal defense for the Thompson. So they were just empty promises. And then the hammer fell. There was a private follow-up conversation with our general counsel. And he explained that I had been out of line and inappropriate and should not have asked those questions. And I still have flashbacks to that conversation. And I will freeze up and just feel feel so helpless. And then I will remember that I don't have to be afraid of him anymore. And I will take a deep breath and relax my muscles. And I will try and go back into my day. One day out of nowhere, the Chief Financial Officer sent me and my line manager an email. I guess she'd gotten wind of what I was doing, talking to staff about the situation, advocating for the women. And she wrote to me, “while I agree that we should remain transparent with the truth, I don't think repeating potential lies, or passing on judgment, or qualities we want to embody at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, Carson.” She said she value transparency and truth. But her threat was not idle. Staff had been fired for asking questions that fall. I had thought Julie was a liar. And now one of RZIM's senior leaders was saying that maybe I was a liar too. Throughout the fall of 2020, I heard many heartbreaking stories of my friends being bullied. 20:19 At one point, the human resources director sent out an email saying, “We want to make sure there's someone to receive staff complaints. So we've appointed an ombudsperson.” And that sounded awesome! There's going to be an ombudsperson to advocate for staff. And I was shocked to see the name. The new ombudsperson had a nickname:The Enforcer. She had a track record of bullying staff. So I wrote to the HR director and said, “This person has a track record of bullying staff. You can't have her be the ombudsperson.” And they ignored my email. The ombudsperson stayed in her role. And I had to ask myself, why did they want a bully to receive complaints of bullying? If they cared about staff mistreatment, why did they appoint the Enforcer to this role? 21:09 And as information began to circulate around the ministry, I started to learn about some pretty big lies. Ravi had always said that for that nondisclosure agreement, no money changed hands. But in 2017, our senior leaders had read an email where they had learned that Ravi Zacharias had paid $250,000 for that NDA. And so for years they had known Ravi was lying. And they never corrected the record about a $250,000 payment. And the four investigations I had trusted, they consisted of asking Ravi if he did it, taking him at his word when he said he didn't, and closing the investigation. 21:58 RZIM's president asked us not to publicly comment on the investigation because they were so committed to the integrity of it and to finding the truth, they didn't want anyone to comment about it, so it could run its course. But then, at the end of October, there was a major fundraising weekend called Founders. They would raise millions of dollars in one weekend. And all of the people speaking there, they basically said, “Ravi is a hero, and we want you to make a major gift this year in honor of his legacy.” In November, there was a global apologetics conference. Pastors and churches were trusting us to help them with the big questions of the day. And to a global audience, our speakers share their favorite memories of Ravi and how Ravi had mentored them. They encourage participants to imitate Ravi's example. And I realized that our President's request for silence wasn't about the integrity of the investigation. It was about silencing anyone who believed that Ravi had abused women. It was about protecting Ravi's reputation. And his reputation and our ministry's reputation. 23:03 I had gone to prayer meetings four days a week, and the weekly chapel one day a week, for years. And at the prayer meetings, there were again prayers for God to protect our ministry from the satanic attacks. And I realized now that they were praying against me and what I was doing. And that really complicated my prayer life. By December, I was so discouraged and worn out and wrung out and exhausted. I talked to anyone I could about this issue and been pretty discouraged. When I showed up to our staff Christmas party, I was hoping, look, this is a classic, we laugh, we have fun, the spirit of Christmas. This could be a good moment of connection and recovery. And then came the Christmas Devotional. It came from our chief cultural officer who was a board member. It was Ravi's widow. There's a verse in the Bible that says, the apostle Paul says, “Follow me as I follow Christ.” And her Christmas Devotional was, “Everyone here, follow Ravi's example, the way he followed Christ.” And it was a home run. People liked the message. They thought it was a great Christmas Devotional. And at that point, I knew RZIM was not interested in finding the truth. And they weren't interested in the victims. They didn't believe there were victims. It was about loyalty to Ravi over everything else. And I felt that darkness was closing in around me and I ran out of hope. 24:42 RZIM said they valued truth, and they kept telling lies. They said they valued respect, but they bullied us. They said they valued integrity, and they acted hypocritically. They use the name of Jesus to get money, and they didn't use the money to follow Jesus. In September of 2020, I lost my confidence in Ravi. By December of 2020, I lost my confidence in RZIM. And in January of 2021, I resigned. And I had to wonder if I would lose my confidence in God. 24:42 I was a wreck. I was unemployed. I didn't feel good. I found my family finances changed. I was directionless. What do I do with my life now? I was isolated. I lost all my friends from work pretty much. I was disillusioned. My childhood hero was a liar and a bully and a sexual predator. I was recovering. I was trying to find words to explain all the pain I was feeling. I was trying to understand what spiritual abuse was, how to respond to bullying. I didn't know how to describe what I was experiencing. I was frustrated and angry. I poured my heart into this online community and it had to be shut down and then deleted. All gone. I was ashamed that I'd given seven years of my life to this ministry that would be always associated with scandal. 26:26 And I was so confused. Why would God bring me to work for a sexual predator and a corrupt ministry? I felt so rejected. And hopeless. I just felt like my whole body was covered in pain. One of my first attempts to recover didn't go very well. I went on a retreat by myself. I got an Airbnb in the Great Smoky Mountains. It was beautiful. You know, since childhood my my Bible had been a source of life. But for three months it had been poisoned. And so I didn't really want to read the Bible. And I'd usually loved praying to God. It just felt like dust in my mouth. I had graduated from seminary, but I had never had any training for this. I finally just opened up this journal I brought. And as I started to write, I wrote these incredibly bloody and raw and angry, just super intense prayers to God. Like some pages were just one word of anger at God. And I felt so troubled by what I had said to God, I threw the journal away. 28:01 Slowly, over time, I started to find a few things that helped. After I would drop off my kids at school, I would go to the gym. And instead of feeling weak, I would start to feel strong. And then I would go to the dry sauna. I would just sit in there as long as I could. And it just felt like the heat was taking all the pain out of my body. That's a really good time. I kept talking with a counselor, and he helped give me language helped me express my emotions and start to understand what had happened. I shared my story with friends at church,. And I told them the same story 100 times and they listened and listened and listened and listened and listened to me. I got to know Lori Anne Thompson. I found she was a source of healing in my life. That she would be my friend and forgive me and give me wisdom and care to help me find my way forward. Ruth Malhotra is here. And she has been a steadfast friend and has helped me navigate so many complex things about this. My mom is here for this talk. And she's been amazing. I leaned on my wife for support. I could not in any way have made the decisions I had made, except that she decided to be completely there for me. And it's been years of her, offering me unconditional love and support as I figured things out again. 29:40 I had to rethink all of my beliefs. I read books on theology and church history trying to evaluate if this still made sense to me. And I got really, really honest with God. And I stopped having any pious prayers. It was unfiltered, direct expression of how I felt with God, exactly how I felt about him. I told him, what was on my heart. And even though I was yelling at God, I continued to sense that God was with me, and that God loved me. And I started to pray the Psalms, and I would tweak them as needed. And it was amazing to me that the Psalms were so visceral and real. They blame God for a lot of things. And God heard those prayers and said, I'm going to put these in my Bible. So people can pray them for the rest of time. And I realized that Jesus and the prophets had already spoken the words I needed to say to the leaders at RZIM. And to Ravi Zacharias. I had tested Ravi. He was a disappointment. I had tested RZIM. They were a disappointment. And then I tested God with my very worst. And I found that he could handle it. 31:16 One thing I didn't know is that the road to recovery goes up and down a lot. Sometimes you cannot make progress. Sometimes you don't know if you are making progress. Sometimes you thought you have made progress and you have not–you have regressed. At one point in the spring of 2021 My family went back to the beach for another chance to recover. And I got an email from RZIM saying they wanted to give me severance, which sounded like a real moment of repentance and hope. But I read the separation agreement and my heart sank. It was a nondisclosure agreement. I sent it to four lawyers to make sure I understood this correctly. All four said that's a nondisclosure agreement. 32:05 Boz Tchividjian helped me fight it. And for two months, we were dealing with RZIM's corporate attorney. I lost sleep. And I felt stressed out. And I could hardly think straight, that an organization with millions of dollars in the bank was trying to take the one thing I had left: my voice. 32:28 And if you think that's an unfair characterization, consider that RZIM has never done anything to help Lori Anne Thompson with her NDA. To this day. It's embarrassing. And I got hit from other angles that really confused me and threw me for a loop. I reached out to my whole network and people reached out to me. Mentors, respected Christian leaders, people who wrote books and talked about integrity and Christian leadership. And they had heard my heart ache. They had cared for me. They had prayed with me. They had told me they hoped I would get better. They were there for me. And then they endorsed the books of RZIM's leaders. They did events with RZIM's leaders. And I couldn't understand why they would help relaunch the ministry of people who had bullied me. I reached out I said, “Can I update you? They have not done anything to get right with me or a lot of other people. They don't have the Christian character and integrity you're always saying is so essential.” They said, “Why haven't you forgiven them?” 33:45 Some of them just refused to talk to me. They just never responded to the message. And again and again, I realized that for many Christian leaders, accountability is for anyone who gets in my way. It's never for my friend who's done something wrong. 34:09 And I didn't know that I would have flashbacks. I thought the past was the past. I didn't know that I would be at my desk trying to do work and be unable to do anything for hours because I couldn't stop thinking about a conversation I'd had with someone at RZIM. I didn't know it would keep taking days of my life. 34:29 I would log into Facebook. And Facebook would be like, here's a happy memory of you and Ravi Zacharias. I would hear a new story about RZIM's corruption. And there are so many stories that are not public. So up and down, up and down, up and down. There were times I was in so much pain, I didn't know if I would ever get better. I didn't know if it was possible to get better. I could not see a light at the end of my tunnel. And then I wouldn't get a little bit better. But something would happen. And I would go back down into that pain again. So then, when I was better, I didn't know if I would stay better. It felt so fragile. How long does this last for? When will something catch me off guard and knock me back down into the pit. 35:34 And if you feel like there is no light at the end of your tunnel, and if you wonder if you will never get better, I just wanted to say, I hear you. And then it's okay to not be okay. That was one of the main things I just kept saying to myself, it is okay, in light of what I've been through, to not be okay. 36:03 And over time, I had to accept that Ravi and RZIM had damaged me. And for a long time, I just denied that and resisted that and hated that. It felt so unfair and wrong, that they had changed who I was. And I didn't like what they had done to me. And the kind of person that they had shaped me to be through their hurt. And I felt so helpless. I mean, how do you change the past? How do you undo all the horrible things they did? You can't. I didn't know what to do with that. I didn't want to face that reality. 36:50 But at some point, I gained the strength to choose who I want it to be. I will never justify what happened. I'll never spiritualize it. All of the lies and bullying and spiritual abuse were totally wrong. But that doesn't mean I can't choose a better future for myself. 37:13 So I'm now awakened to the pain of survivors. I'm excited about that. That's a good thing God's done in me. When I see evangelical corruption, I'm not afraid to challenge it. Sometimes people say to me, Carson, are you worried that if you keep calling out all of these big name leaders for corruption is going to limit your future. And I say if it limits my future, that's not a future I want to be a part of. 37:51 I once thought Julie was a liar. And now I can call her a friend. I hit rock bottom. I might go there again sometime in the future. But I'm here today sharing with you a story of hope. I enrolled in the Doctorate of ministry programs so I can learn how to build a healthy Christian culture. Some Christian leaders decided to investigate what happened. And they published a report holding RZIM's leaders accountable. It's sad how many ignore their report. But it's great that they did that. 38:30 My former line manager at RCM reached out to make amends and over and over again, he made really sacrificial choices for my benefit. And that rebuild trust that he kept doing sacrificial things to repair our relationship. I started Uncommon Pursuit. And we're creating resources to help people grow in their Christian faith. And I read the Bible with more sensitivity to God's heart for many years, thanks to some good mentors, I had always had known for many years that God cares about the vulnerable. The orphan, the widow, the immigrant and the poor. God hates injustice. God hates racism. God hates sexism. God hates all forms of oppression. But it had shifted from being something that I could do exegetically to something I felt in my gut as I turned the pages of Scripture. 39:34 And I have developed a way more honest relationship with God. I don't pray pious prayers anymore. What I feel that's what I tell God about. And I know he can handle it. When the truth becomes a lie, when a good reputation is used to lure people in and abuse them, when the minister turns out to be a monster, it's okay not be okay. 40:05 I am not here today with any answers or advice. All I have is the story of how God has been able to handle all of my pain and helped me to start to heal. And how with God's help, this pain has helped me to choose a better version of myself. I am convinced that if we can maintain the courage to be honest with God, and with each other, about all of our reasonable and righteous disillusionment, that we will also find our way to hope. Thank you guys for the chance to share with you today. JULIE ROYS:  41:02 Well again, that was Carson Weitnauer, speaking at Restore 2023. And what a very special and moving talk that was. And I hope if you're in a place of disillusionment or discouragement today, that this talk encouraged you. Next week, we'll be releasing a fitting sequel to Carson's talk. That's a talk by Lori Anne Thompson on trauma recovery and empowerment. And this was the most raw and real talk I think I've ever heard. My husband cried during this talk. And he's a math teacher, so he's not really given to shows of emotion. But wow, Lori's talk is just so powerful—and helpful for anyone who's experienced severe trauma. So, you'll definitely want to be watching for that. Also, I want to mention that the videos of these talks are all available at my YouTube channel. A lot of conferences charge for their videos. But we've decided to make ours available for free because we don't want anyone to miss out on this valuable content because of lack of finances. But as you can imagine, these videos do cost us to shoot and edit. So, if you appreciate this content and you're able to pitch in, would you please donate to The Roys Report so we can continue this important service? To do so, just go to JulieRoys.com/Donate.  And when you give a gift of $30 or more this month, we'll send you a copy of Scot McKnight and Laura Barringer's latest book: Pivot: The Priorities, Practices, and Powers that Can Transform Your Church into a Tov Culture. So again, just go to JulieRoys.comDonate. Also, just a quick reminder to subscribe to The Roys Report on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. That way, you'll never miss an episode! And while you're at it, I'd really appreciate it if you'd help us spread the word about the podcast by leaving a review. And then, please share the podcast on social media so more people can hear about this great content. Again, thanks for joining me today! Hope you were blessed and encouraged!    Read more

What do you think of these differences? TRANSCRIPTS: https://betaindonesian.blogspot.com/2023/05/podcast-43-why-does-spoken-indonesian.html BOOK AN ONLINE LESSON: ITALKI: https://www.italki.com/teacher/11905720/indonesian PREPLY https://preply.com/en/tutor/2181674/ YOUTUBE CHANNEL: https://youtube.com/channel/UCv8iZCgtcvILKZUN2MlFZAw CONTACT ME: TELEGRAM: https://t.me/BetID_Official GMAIL: betid0404@gmail.com Music by podcast.co

Hello and Welcome to a new episode of the Monday Mile Podcast, this week's guests are joining me in central London for a little stroll ahead of a very big race this upcoming weekend.  It's the London Marathon, and today I am joined by Scott Mitchell, the husband of the late Dame Barbara Windsor and former Easterners actress Tanya Franks who are two of the pivotal "members" of Babs' Army. We link up on a beautiful sunny day in central London and discuss the  incredible work both Tanya and Scott have done in the fight against dementia, and of course their incredible running feats .  We chat about the highs of Marathon running, the training, and the  Babs' Army squad, as well as the mission they are on to raise £50,000 as they cross that finish line on the 23rd of April. Both Tanya and Scott share personal experiences with the disease, and expand on what it is, and how it has affected them both - Scott as a devoted husband and carer and the pressures associated with that, and Tanya talks about her experience sadly with her stepfather.  Tanya speaks openly about her mission to prevent the disease and shares some of the preventative steps that can be made to put a hold on the number 1 killer in the UK.  Aimee will be probing for answers from the full spectrum of routines; the early birds who have finely tuned Monday mornings, to the late risers who struggle to get up before 11am. How do elite athletes find the motivation to kick start their week come rain or shine? How do celebrities deliver no matter what the time of day? What knowledge can they pass on? Each episode drops on a Monday morning as a bitesize piece of content and weekly dose of motivation - right when you need it. Aimee will meet each of her guests for a walk and a chat and over the course of the mile she will find out how they cope on a Monday morning - their idiosyncrasies, breakfast routines, alarm noises - and how, when they need to, find the motivation to kick-on through the week. Sharing some of Britain's greatest athletes, entrepreneurs, doctors, authors and broadcasters ' secrets on self-motivation, candid thoughts on what they struggle with and a sideways look at some of their more unusual morning habits. Head over to IG to watch the visuals of our episode and what we get up to on our Monday Mile. https://www.instagram.com/aimee_fuller/ Filmed by Jon Moy.

This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on April 7. It dropped for free subscribers on April 10. To receive future pods as soon as they're live, and to support independent ski journalism, please consider an upgrade to a paid subscription. You can also subscribe for free below:WhoJody Churich, Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Breckenridge, ColoradoRecorded onMarch 27, 2023About BreckenridgeClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: Vail ResortsLocated in: Breckenridge, ColoradoYear founded: 1961Pass affiliations: Unlimited on Epic Pass, Epic Local Pass; limited access on Summit Value Pass (holiday blackouts), Keystone Plus Pass (unlimited access after April 1), Tahoe Local Pass (5 days shared with Vail, Beaver Creek, Keystone, Crested Butte, Park City)Closest neighboring ski areas: Frisco Adventure Park (15 minutes), Copper Mountain (25 minutes), Keystone (25 minutes), Arapahoe Basin (30 minutes), Loveland (38 minutes), Ski Cooper (1 hour, 5 minutes) – travel times can vary considerably pending traffic and weatherBase elevation: 9,600 feetSummit elevation: 12,998 feetVertical drop: 3,398 feetSkiable Acres: 2,908Average annual snowfall: 350 inchesTrail count: 187Lift count: 35 (1 gondola, 5 six-packs, 7 high-speed quads, 1 triple, 6 doubles, 3 platters, 1 T-bar, 11 carpets) – Breckenridge plans to replace 5-Chair, a 1970 Riblet double, with a high-speed quad this summer.Why I interviewed herThe audacity of it all. Many ski areas reach. Breck soars. Above the town, above the Pacific Ocean-sized parking lots, above the twisty-road condos and mansions, above the frantic base areas and trail-cut high-alpine - there lie the bowls, sweeping one after the next, southeast to northwest, across the range. Chairlifts, improbably, magnificently, will take you there. Or most of the way, at least. Kensho Superchair – a six-pack, rolls up to 12,302 feet, to the doorstep of Peak 6 – it's a short hike to the tippy top, at 12,573 feet. But Kensho is holding Imperial Superchair's beer, as that monster climbs to 12,840, just 158 feet shy of the 12,998-foot summit of Peak 8.Why don't they go all the way to the summit? Why do you think? Listen to the podcast to get the answer, or go there for yourself and see how those wild winds hit you at the top – or close enough to the top – of America.The Brobots have plenty to say about Breck, Texas North, Intermediate Mountain. A-Basin is where the Summit County steeps live, don't you know? There's some truth to that, but it's a narrative fed by bravado and outdated information. Breck's high-alpine chairs – Imperial in 2005 and Kensho in 2013 – have trenched easy access to vast realms of gut-punching terrain. Beat your chest all you will – the only way out is straight down.Breck is one of the most complete resorts in America, is my point here. And that didn't happen by accident. Since Vail took ownership of the joint in 1997, the company has deliberately, steadily, almost constantly improved it. Sixteen new lifts, including the inbound 5-Chair upgrade (Breck will swap out a 53-year-old Riblet double for a new high-speed quad this summer); massive expansions onto Peaks 6 and 7; steady snowmaking and parking upgrades. If you want to understand Vail's long-term intentions for its other 40 ski areas, look to the evolution of this, one of its original four resorts, over decades of always-better incremental upgrades.Of course, plenty of people know that. Maybe too many. Breck is often – always? – America's busiest resort by pure skier visits. It's easy to access, easy to like, mostly – I said mostly Peak 10, E, 6 chairs – easy to ski if you stay below treeline. The town is the town, one of the great après hubs of North American skiing, thrumming, vibrant, a scene. Don't go unless you want some company.So what becomes of a place like Breck in a 21st century filled with existential questions about what lift-served skiing has become and what it is destined to be? How does a high-alpine but extremely accessible mountain adapt to its parent company's insistence on dropping it onto the budget version of its ultra-affordable Epic Pass? Can the super-modern lifts that these pass sales fuel fix the liftlines that spoil the experience without overloading the trails in a way that spoils the experience? How can a town of 5,000 residents accommodate a daily influx of 17,000-ish skiers without compromising its bucolic essence that drew those visitors to begin with? And to what extent do even our highest ski areas need to fortify themselves against the worst outcomes of a changing climate with ever-more-aggressive snowmaking?Every ski resort-blessed mountain town in the West is grappling with this same set of questions, but Breck, I-70 adjacent and Vail Resorts-bound, is perhaps the most high-profile among them. And where the town and the resort succeed or fail, they inform where our other icons will go. It's a fascinating story, and we're still in the book's early chapters.What we talked aboutUnseasonable Colorado snow and cold; Breck's strong 2022-23 ski season; how late the season could go and what could be available to ski; that California ski life; thoughts on Tahoe's big season; Sierra-at-Tahoe's fire recovery; Alpine Meadows in the pre-Powdr Corp ‘90s; why Alpine Meadows eventually dropped its snowboarding ban and what happened when it did; the early days of terrain parks; reaction when Powdr suddenly sold Alpine; how tiny Boreal and Soda Springs compete in a Tahoe market bursting with mega-resorts; the rise of Woodward; Vail's ongoing efforts to promote women; leaving Powdr for Vail; Breck magic; four giant ski resorts, mere miles apart, but all distinct; the largest employee housing bed base in Vail Resorts portfolio; an assist with childcare; how a ski resort prepares for and responds to on-mountain fatalities; Breck's “better not bigger” masterplan; nudging guests toward underutilized terrain; big plans for Peaks 8 and 9; upgrades on Freedom Superchair, Rip's Ride, and 5-Chair; how a gondola could change Peak 9; a mid-mountain learning center; prioritizing upgrades for Peak 9's 50-plus-year-old Riblet lifts; why Horseshoe T-bar is an unlikely candidate for an upgrade; why Kensho and Imperial Superchair don't go to the very top of Breckenridge; the Peak 8 Super Connect chair detachment in December; how the resort determined that the chairlift was safe to run again; massive snowmaking upgrades and how these sync with Vail Resorts' environmental goals; why Breck is only available on the top-tier Epic Day Pass, but is unlimited on the Epic Local Pass; and why Breck has remained on the Epic Local Pass.Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewLate last year, Breck updated its masterplan, as all ski areas operating on U.S. Forest Service land are obliged to do every decade (or so, as it actually ends up working out). Themed “bigger, not better,” the masterplan amounted to a modernization blueprint to maximize the resort's existing footprint with modern lifts and selective trail- and glade-cutting:Breckenridge's goal is to tame its wild peaks. “The structuring vision for the next 10 years at [Breckenridge] is ‘Better not Bigger,'” the master plan states. Noting that the resort's “significant congestion … can diminish the guest experience,” Breck says that its “goal is not to increase overall skier and rider visits on or around peak days, but rather to concentrate on improving the guest experience and better managing visitation.” To accomplish this, the resort hopes to both better move skiers out of its base areas with more and better lifts, and to keep many of them on the upper mountains with a combination of better chairs and a subtly re-imagined trail network.Here's the overview:And a more granular look at what would and would not change in the mountain's massive lift network:The full article is worth a read, as I went peak-by-peak and broke down the proposed changes to each, including upgrades to the snowmaking footprint :So, what better time to discuss America's most vibrant ski resort than at the moment when the folks running it just outlined their vision for the far future? Breck will be an important test case of the extent to which a high-profile flagship can climate-proof and crowd-proof itself in an era of climate uncertainty and megapass maximalism. If Breck can thrive without breaking itself and everything around it – including the town at its base, the county it sits in, and the big road that leads up from the flats – then 21st century skiing will follow, adapt, adjust.Questions I wish I'd askedChurich and I briefly discussed a skier death at Breckenridge from a few weeks ago. Per the Aspen Times:An Illinois man clearing snow from his chairlift seat with the safety restraint up fell out and died at Breckenridge Ski Resort a week ago, the local sheriff's office reported.John Perucco, 60, of Elgin, Illinois, was pronounced dead March 17 at St. Anthony's Summit Hospital in Frisco after the fall, the Summit County Coroner's Office said in an email. He was reportedly wearing a helmet when he fell from the lift.He had not yet reached Tower 1 of Zendo Chair when he fell 25 feet and landed on a hard-packed, groomed trail below, according to the Summit County Sheriff's Office. The department was reportedly notified around 11:20 a.m. of a death at the emergency room.What I would have liked to explore a bit more was the issue of the raised safety bar. This is something I've thought a lot about lately. In New England and New York, all of the lifts have safety bars, and most skiers use them most of the time. Their use is required by law in several states, including Vermont, New York, and Massachusetts – patrollers and lift attendants often aggressively pressure skiers who don't lower them. If you load a lift with strangers and you're not prepared, you're liable to be conked in the head by a down-coming bar – Easterners' etiquette around this is abysmal, as it's polite to at least call out, “coming down.”In the Midwest and the West, bar use is much spottier. Forget the Midwest, where modern lifts are rare and most of the old ones have not been retrofit with bars. But skiing's money is in the West, where most major lifts at most major resorts have been upgraded to detachables, which all have bars. I get a lot of passive-aggressive irritation when I lower the bar (with warning, of course), particularly in Utah and Colorado. This has always puzzled me. What's the resistance? I'm aware of the NSAA research casting doubt on the efficacy of bar use – I'm skeptical, as there is no way to tell how many accidents have been prevented by a lowered bar.Anyway, there is a cultural resistance to chairlift bar usage in the western United States that, as far as I can tell, is unique to the world's major ski cultures. Vail, for its part, retrofits all of its inherited chairlifts with safety bars. So does Alterra. Vail requires its employees to use them at all times. Alterra allows each mountain to set its own policies (Palisades Tahoe and Solitude, for example, require bar use for employees).I want to dig into this more, to understand both why this resistance exists and why it persists, despite the proliferation of modern chairlifts. It's a bigger story than can be explored in a single anecdote, and hopefully it's one I can write about more this offseason. Will this resistance fade, as once-ubiquitous helmet resistance has? Or is this skiing's version of a cultural wedge issue, set to divide the tourists from the locals in an escalating game of Who Belongs Here?What I got wrong* I said that 10 of Vail Resorts' 41 ski areas were currently led by women. The correct number, at the time of recording, was nine out of 41. Here's a complete list (several of Vail's ski areas share a regional general manager: Boston Mills, Brandywine, and Alpine Valley in Ohio; Jack Frost and Big Boulder in Pennsylvania; and Seven Springs, Hidden Valley, and Laurel in Pennsylvania). With yesterday's news that Beaver Creek COO Nadia Guerriero would move up to VP/COO of the Rockies Region (replacing Bill Rock, who was promoted to head of Vail's Mountain Division), that number is now eight, I suppose. But who knows how Vail will stir up its mountain leadership team over the summer.* I also named off all the large ski areas around Lake Tahoe, to give context to Churich's challenge running tiny Soda Springs and Boreal in that realm of monsters. The only thousand-plus-footer I missed in that riff is Homewood, but here's a complete list of Tahoe-region ski areas. It really is amazing how these smaller spots exist (and seem to thrive), alongside some of the nation's largest and most-developed resorts:* Churich and I also discussed what I referred to as “Vail's new app” for the 2023-24 ski season. Its official name will be the My Epic app, and it should be a considerable upgrade from Epic Mix. The app will be your Epic Pass (no more RFID card unless you still want one), and will feature interactive trailmaps, real-time liftline wait times, operational updates, blackout date info on your pass, weather updates, resort charge, and more.Why you should ski BreckenridgeBecause you kind of have to. Trying to navigate life as a U.S. American skier without skiing Breck is kind of like trying to go through life without hearing a Taylor Swift song. It's there whether you want it or not. Even if you're in the habit of driving past to hit the Eagle County resorts, or you prefer A-Basin or Copper, or you avoid the I-70 corridor altogether, eventually your cousin or your boys from college or your aunt Phyllis is going to plan a spring break trip or a bachelor party or a family Christmas get-together at Breck, and you're going to go.And you're going to like it. This is not the busiest ski area in America by accident. It's a damn good ski mountain, even if it has more people and fewer steeps and less snow than some of its high-profile ski-biz peers. Yes, liftlines at Peaks 8 and 9 can test your patience at key times. And, yes, the intermediate superhighways can accumulate interstate-esque traffic. But it only takes a little creativity to find quiet glades off Peak 10 and 6-Chair and E-Chair, and tucked between the groomers off every other peak. As with any big western resort, you can follow the crowds or you can follow your skis. The kind of day you have once you stand up and push off the top of the lift is entirely up to you.Podcast NotesI've hosted several other Colorado-based Vail Resorts leaders on the podcast over the past year. While Bill Rock and Nadia Guerriero have recently moved positions, these conversations are largely still relevant:The Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing all year long. Join us.The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 32/100 in 2023, and number 418 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. Want to send feedback? Reply to this email and I will answer (unless you sound insane, or, more likely, I just get busy). You can also email skiing@substack.com. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

“The years, of which I have spoken to you, when I pursued the inner images, were the most important time of my life. Everything else is to be derived from this. It began at that time, and the later details hardly matter anymore. My entire life consisted in elaborating what had burst forth from the unconscious and flooded me like an enigmatic stream and threatened to break me. That was the stuff and material for more than only one life. Everything later was merely the outer classification, the scientific elaboration, and the integration into life. But the numinous beginning, which contained everything, was then.”   ― C.G. Jung, preface for The Red Book: Liber Novus   James Hillman: I was reading about this practice that the ancient Egyptians had of opening the mouth of the dead. It was a ritual and I think we don't do that with our hands. But opening the Red Book seems to be opening the mouth of the dead.   Sonu Shamdasani: It takes blood. That's what it takes. The work is Jung's `Book of the Dead.' His descent into the underworld, in which there's an attempt to find the way of relating to the dead. He comes to the realization that unless we come to terms with the dead we simply cannot live, and that our life is dependent on finding answers to their unanswered questions. Lament for the Dead, Psychology after Jung's Red Book (2013) Pg. 1     Begun in 1914, Swiss psychologist Carl Jung's The Red Book lay dormant for almost 100 years before its eventual publication. Opinions are divided on whether Jung would have published the book if he had lived longer. He did send drafts to publishers early in life but seemed in no hurry to publish the book despite his advancing age. Regardless, it was of enormous importance to the psychologist, being shown to only a few confidants and family members. More importantly, the process of writing The Red Book was one of the most formative periods of Jung's life. In the time that Jung worked on the book he came into direct experience with the forces of the deep mind and collective unconscious. For the remainder of his career he would use the experience to build concepts and theories about the unconscious and repressed parts of the human mind.  In the broadest sense, Jungian psychology has two goals.    Integrate and understand the deepest and most repressed parts of the the human mind    and    Don't let them eat you alive in the process.    Jungian psychology is about excavating the most repressed parts of self and learning to hold them so that we can know exactly who and what we are. Jung called this process individuation. Jungian psychology is not, and should not be understood as, an attempt to create a religion. It was an attempt to build a psychological container for the forces of the unconscious. While not a religion, it served a similar function as a religion. Jungian psychology serves as both a protective buffer and a lens to understand and clarify the self. Jung described his psychology as a bridge to religion. His hope was that it could help psychology understand the functions of the human need for religion, mythology and the transcendental. Jung hoped that his psychology could make religion occupy a healthier, more mindful place in our culture by making the function of religion within humanity more conscious.    Jung did not dislike religion. He viewed it as problematic when the symbols of religion became concretized and people took them literally. Jungian psychology itself has roots in Hindu religious traditions. Jung often recommended that patients of lapsed faith return to their religions of origin. He has case studies encouraging patients to resume Christian or Muslim religious practices as a source of healing and integration. Jung did have a caveat though. He recommended that patients return to their traditions with an open mind. Instead of viewing the religious traditions and prescriptive lists of rules or literal truths he asked patients to view them as metaphors for self discovery and processes for introspection. Jung saw no reason to make religious patients question their faith. He did see the need for patients who had abandoned religion to re-examine its purpose and function.    The process of writing The Red Book was itself a religious experience for Jung. He realized after his falling out from Freud, that his own religious tradition and the available psychological framework was not enough to help him contain the raw and wuthering forces of his own unconscious that were assailing him at the time. Some scholars believe Jung was partially psychotic while writing The Red Book, others claim he was in a state of partial dissociation or simply use Jung's term “active imagination”.    The psychotic is drowning while the artist is swimming. The waters both inhabit, however, are the same. Written in a similar voice to the King James Bible, The Red Book has a religious and transcendent quality. It is written on vellum in heavy calligraphy with gorgeous hand illuminated script. Jung took inspiration for mystical and alchemical texts for its full page illustrations.   It is easier to define The Red Book by what it is not than by what it is. According to Jung, it is not a work of art. It is not a scholarly psychological endeavor. It is also not an attempt to create a religion. It was an attempt for Jung to heal himself in a time of pain and save himself from madness by giving voice to the forces underneath his partial psychotic episode. The Red Book was a kind of container to help Jung witness the forces of the deep unconscious. In the same way, religion and Jungian psychology are containers for the ancient unconscious forces in the vast ocean under the human psyche.     Lament of the Dead, Psychology after Carl Jung's The Red Book is a dialogue between ex Jungian analyst James Hillman and Jungian scholar Sonu Shamdasani about the implications the Red Book has for Jungian psychology. Like the Red Book it was controversial when it was released.    James Hillman was an early protege of Jung who later became a loud critic of parts of Jung's psychology. Hillman wanted to create an “archetypal” psychology that would allow patients to directly experience and not merely analyze the psyche. His new psychology never really came together coherently and he never found the technique to validate his instinct. Hillman had been out of the Jungian fold for almost 30 years before he returned as a self appointed expert advisor during the publication of The Red Book. Hillman's interest in The Red Book was enough to make him swallow his pride, and many previous statements, to join the Jungians once again. It is likely that the archetypal psychology he was trying to create is what The Red Book itself was describing.    Sonu Shamdasani is not a psychologist but a scholar of the history of psychology. His insights have the detachment of the theoretical where Hillman's are more felt and more intuitive but also more personal. One gets the sense in the book that Hillman is marveling painfully at an experience that he had been hungry for for a long time. The Red Book seems to help him clarify the disorganized blueprints of his stillborn psychological model. While there is a pain in Hillman's words there is also a peace that was rare to hear from such a flamboyant and unsettled psychologist.    Sonu Shamdasani is the perfect living dialogue partner for Hillman to have in the talks that make up Lament. Shamdasani has one of the best BS detectors of maybe any Jungian save David Tacey. Shamdasani has deftly avoided the fads, misappropriations and superficialization that have plagued the Jungian school for decades. As editor of the Red Book he knows more about the history and assembly of the text than any person save for Jung. Not only is he also one of the foremost living experts on Jung, but as a scholar he does not threaten the famously egotistical Hillman as a competing interpreting psychologist. The skin that Shamdasani has in this game is as an academic while Hillman gets to play the prophet and hero of the new psychology they describe without threat or competition.    Presumedly these talks were recorded as research for a collaborative book to be co authored by the two friends and the death of Hillman in 2011 made the publication as a dialogue in 2013 a necessity. If that is not the case the format of a dialogue makes little sense. If that is the case it gives the book itself an almost mystical quality and elevates the conversation more to the spirit of a philosophical dialogue.    We are only able to hear these men talk to each other and not to us. There is a deep reverberation between the resonant implications these men are seeing The Red Book have for modern psychology. However, they do not explain their insights to the reader and their understandings can only be glimpsed intuitively. Like the briefcase in the film Pulp Fiction the audience sees the object through its indirect effect on the characters. We see the foggy outlines of the ethics that these men hope will guide modern psychology but we are not quite able to see it as they see it. We have only an approximation through the context of their lives and their interpretation of Jung's private diary. This enriches a text that is ultimately about the limitations of understanding.   One of the biggest criticisms of the book when it was published was that the terms the speaker used are never defined and thus the book's thesis is never objectivised or clarified. While this is true if you are an English professor, the mystic and the therapist in me see these limitations as the book's strengths. The philosophical dialectic turns the conversation into an extended metaphor that indirectly supports the themes of the text. The medium enriches the message. Much like a socratic dialogue or a film script the the authors act more as characters and archetypes than essayists. The prophet and the scholar describe their function and limitations as gatekeepers of the spiritual experience.    Reading the Lament, much like reading The Red Book, one gets the sense that one is witnessing a private but important moment in time. It is a moment that is not our moment and is only partially comprehensible to anyone but the author(s). Normally that would be a weakness but here it becomes a strength. Where normally the reader feels that a book is for them, here we feel that we are eavesdropping through a keyhole or from a phone line downstairs. The effect is superficially frustrating but also gives Lament a subtle quality to its spirituality that The Red Book lacks.     Many of the obvious elements for a discussion of the enormous Red Book are completely ignored in the dialogue. Hillman and Shamdasani's main takeaway is that The Red Book is about “the dead”. What they mean by “the dead” is never explained directly. This was a major sticking point for other reviewers, but I think their point works better undefined. They talk about the dead as a numinous term. Perhaps they are speaking about the reality of death itself. Perhaps about the dead of history. Perhaps they are describing the impenetrable veil we can see others enter but never see past ourselves. Maybe the concept contains all of these elements. Hillman, who was 82 at the time of having the conversations in Lament, may have been using The Red Book and his dialogue with Shamdasani to come to terms with his feelings about his own impending death.    Perhaps it is undefined because these men are feeling something or intuitively, seeing something that the living lack the intellectual language for. It is not that the authors do not know what they are talking about. They know, but they are not able to completely say it.  Hillman was such an infuriatingly intuitive person that his biggest downfall in his other books is that he often felt truths that he could not articulate. Instead he retreated into arguing the merits of his credentials and background or into intellectual archival of his opinions on philosophers and artists. In other works this led to a didactic and self righteous tone that his writing is largely worse for. In Lament Hillman is forced to talk off the cuff and that limitation puts him at his best as a thinker.    In his review of Lament, David Tacey has made the very good point that Jung abandoned the direction that The Red Book was taking him in. Jung saw it as a dead end for experiential psychology and retreated back into analytical inventorying of “archetypes”. On the publication of The Red Book, Jungians celebrate the book as the “culmination” of Jungian thought when instead it was merely a part of its origins. The Red Book represents a proto-Jungian psychology as Jung attempted to discover techniques for integration. Hillman and Shamdasani probe the psychology's origins for hints of its future in Lament.   HIllman and Shamdasani's thesis is partially a question about ethics and partially a question about cosmology. Are there any universal directions for living and behaving that Jungian psychology compels us towards (ethics)? Is there an external worldview that the, notoriously phenomenological, nature of Jungian psychology might imply (cosmology)? These are the major questions Hillman and Shamdasani confront in Lament.Their answer is not an answer as much as it is a question for the psychologists of the future.    Their conclusion is that “the dead'' of our families, society, and human history foist their unlived life upon us. It is up to us, and our therapists, to help us deal with the burden of “the dead”. It is not us that live, but the dead that live through us. Hillman quotes W.H. Auden several times:   We are lived through powers that we pretend to understand.  - W.H. Auden   A major tenant of Jungian psychology is that adult children struggle under the unlived life of the parent. The Jungian analyst helps the patient acknowledge and integrate all of the forces of the psyche that the parent ran from, so they are not passed down to future generations. A passive implication of the ethics and the cosmology laid out in Lament, is that to have a future we must reckon with not only the unlived life of the parent but also the unlived life of all the dead.    It is our job as the living to answer the questions and face the contradictions our humanity posits in order to discover what we really are. The half truths and outright lies from the past masquerade as tradition for traditions sake, literalized religion, and unconscious tribal identity must be overthrown. The weight of the dead of history can remain immovable if we try to merely discard it but drowns us if we cling to it too tightly. We need to use our history and traditions to give us a container to reckon with the future. The container must remain flexible if we are to grow into our humanity as a society and an aware people.    If you find yourself saying “Yes, but what does “the dead” mean!”  Then this book is not for you. If you find yourself confused but humbled by this thesis then perhaps it is. Instead of a further explanation of the ethical and cosmological future for psychology that his book posits I will give you a tangible example about how its message was liberatory for me.    Hillman introduces the concepts of the book with his explanation of Jung's reaction to the theologian and missionary Albert Schweitzer. Jung hated Schweitzer.  He hated him because he had descended into Africa and “gone native”. In Jung's mind Schweitzer had “refused the call”  to do anything  and “brought nothing home”. Surely the Africans that were fed and clothed felt they had been benefited! Was Jung's ethics informed by racism, cluelessness, arrogance or some other unknown myopism? A clue might be found in Jung's reaction to modern art exploring the unconscious or in his relationship with Hinduism. Jung took the broad strokes of his psychology from the fundamentals of the brahman/atman and dharma/moksha dichotomies of Hinduism. Jung also despised the practice of eastern mysticism practices by westerners but admired it in Easterners. Why? His psychology stole something theoretical that his ethics disallowed in direct practice.    Jung's views on contemporary (modern) artists of his time were similar. He did not want to look at depictions of the raw elements of the unconscious. In his mind discarding all the lessons of classicism was a “cop out”.  He viewed artists that descended into the abstract with no path back or acknowledgement of the history that gave them that path as failures. He wanted artists to make the descent into the subjective world and return with a torch of it's fire but not be consumed by it blaze. Depicting the direct experience of the unconscious was the mark of a failed artist to Jung. To Jung the destination was the point, not the journey. The only thing that mattered is what you were able to bring back from the world of the dead. He had managed to contain these things in The Red Book, why couldn't they? The Red Book was Jung's golden bough.    Jung took steps to keep the art in The Red Book both outside of the modernist tradition and beyond the historical tradition. The Red Book uses a partially medieval format but Jung both celebrates and overcomes the constraints of his chosen style. The Red Book was not modern or historical, it was Jung's experience of both. In Lament, Hillman describes this as the ethics that should inform modern psychology. Life should become ones own but part of ones self ownership is that we take responsibility for driving a tradition forward not a slave to repeating it.   Oddly enough the idea of descent and return will already be familiar to many Americans through the work of Joseph Campbell. Campbell took the same ethics of descent and return to the unconscious as the model of his “monomyth” model of storytelling. This briefly influenced psychology and comparative religion in the US and had major impact on screenwriters to this day. Campbells ethics are the same as Jung's. If one becomes stuck on the monomyth wheel, or the journey of the descent and return, one is no longer the protagonist and becomes an antagonist.  Campbell, and American post jungians in general were not alway great attributing influences and credit where it was due.    Jung was suspicious of the new age theosophists and psychadelic psychonauts that became enamored with the structure of the unconscious for the unconscious sake. Where Lament shines is when Hillman explains the ethics behind Jung's thinking. Jung lightly implied this ethics but was, as Hillman points out, probably not entirely conscious of it. One of Lament's biggest strengths and weaknesses is that it sees through the misappropriations of Jungian psychology over the last hundred years. Both of the dialogue's figures know the man of Jung so well that they do not need to address how he was misperceived by the public. They also know the limitations of the knowable.    This is another lesson that is discussed in Lament. Can modern psychology know what it can't know? That is my biggest complaint with the profession as it currently exists. Modern psychology seems content to retreat into research and objectivism. The medical, corporate, credentialist and academic restructuring of psychology in the nineteen eighties certainly furthered that problem. Jung did not believe that the descent into the unconscious without any hope of return was a path forward for psychology. This is why he abandoned the path The Red Book led him down. Can psychology let go of the objective and the researchable enough to embrace the limits of the knowable? Can we come to terms with limitations enough to heal an ego inflated world that sees no limits to growth?   I don't know but I sincerely hope so.    I said that I would provide a tangible example of the application of this book in it's review,  so here it is:   I have always been enamored with James Hillman. He was by all accounts a brilliant analyst. He also was an incredibly intelligent person. That intellect did not save him. Hillman ended his career as a crank and a failure in my mind. In this book you see Hillman contemplate that failure. You also see Hillman attempt to redeem himself as he glimpses the unglimpseable. He sees something in the Red Book that he allows to clarify his earlier attempt to revision psychology.    Hillman's attempt to reinvent Jungian psychology as archetypal psychology was wildly derided. Largely, because it never found any language or technique for application and practice. Hillman himself admitted that he did not know how to practice archetypal psychology. It's easy to laugh at somebody who claims to have reinvented psychology and can't even tell you what you do with their revolutionary invention.   However, I will admit that I think Hillman was right. He knew that he was but he didnt know how he was right. It is a mark of arrogance to see yourself as correct without evidence. Hillman was often arrogant but I think here he was not. Many Jungian analysts would leave the Jungian institutes through the 70, 80s and 90s to start somatic and experiential psychology that used Jung as a map but the connection between the body and the brain as a technique. These models made room for a direct experience in psychology that Jungian analysis does not often do. It added an element that Jung himself had practiced in the writing of The Red Book. Hillman never found this technique but he was correct about the path he saw forward for psychology. He knew what was missing.    I started Taproot Therapy Collective because I felt a calling to dig up the Jungian techniques of my parent's generation and reify them. I saw those as the most viable map towards the future of psychology, even though American psychology had largely forgotten them. I also saw them devoid of a practical technique or application for a world where years of analysis cost more than most trauma patients will make in a lifetime. I feel that experiential and brain based medicine techniques like brainspotting are the future of the profession.    Pathways like brainspotting, sensorimotor therapy, somatic experiencing, neurostimulation, ketamine, psilocybin or any technique that allows the direct experience of the subcortical brain is the path forward to treat trauma. These things will be at odds with the medicalized, corporate, and credentialized nature of healthcare. I knew that this would be a poorly understood path that few people, even the well intentioned, could see. I would never have found it if I had refused the call of “the dead”.    Lament is relevant because none of those realizations is somewhere that I ever would have gotten without the tradition that I am standing on top of. I am as, Isaac Newton said, standing on the shoulders of giants. Except Isaac Newton didn't invent that phrase. It was associated with him but he was standing on the tradition of the dead to utter a phrase first recorded in the medieval period. The author of its origin is unknown because they are, well, dead. They have no one to give their eulogy.    The ethics and the cosmology of Lament, is that our lives are meant to be a eulogy for our dead. Lament, makes every honest eulogy in history become an ethics and by extension a cosmology. Read Pericles eulogy from the Peloponesian war in Thucydides. How much of these lessons are still unlearned? I would feel disingenuous in my career unless I tell you who those giants are that I stand on. They are David Tacey, John Beebe, Sonu Shamdasani, Carl Jung, Fritz Perls, Karen Horney, and Hal Stone. Many others also.   I would never have heard the voice of James Hillman inside myself unless I had learned to listen to the dead from his voice beyond the grave. It would have been easy for me to merely critize his failures instead of seeing them as incomplete truths. Hillman died with many things incomplete, as we all inevitably will. Lament helped me clarify the voices that I was hearing in the profession. Lament of the Dead is a fascinating read not because it tells us exactly what to do with the dead, or even what they are. Lament is fascinating because it helps us to see a mindful path forward between innovation and tradition.    The contents of the collective unconscious cannot be contained by one individual. Just as Jungian psychology is meant to be a container to help an individual integrate the forces of the collective unconscious, attention to the unlived life of the historical dead can be a kind of container for culture. Similarly to Jungian psychology the container is not meant to be literalized or turned into a prison. It is a lens and a buffer to protect us until we are ready and allow us to see ourselves more clearly once we are. Our project is to go further in the journey of knowing ourselves where our ancestors failed to. Our mindful life is the product of the unlived life of the dead; it is the work of our life that is their lament.   

The Southeast has lost about 99% of its native grasslands. When Brittney Viers started working as a biologist on northern bobwhite quail conservation, she realized being a botanist would was critical to revelaing the bird's relationship to its habitat. Brittany works for Quail Forever, which strives to preserve remnant grassland habitat and restore degraded habitat for quail in Tennessee. Plus: Making biologists talk to landowners, the North America Grasslands Act, ticks-on-baby problems, and mountain "balds." 3:00 Botany, biology + grasslands 6:00 Studying bird health by studying plant/grassland health 8:00 Quail Forever 11:00 Coordinating regional conservation partnership programs for grassland health (ecosystem-level conservation = doesn't give a hoot about state lines) 13:00 Northern bobwhites in the East: Challenges with successional environments, lack of escape cover, thermal cover for the winter... habitat is paramount 16:00 Invasive species and herbicide use 17:00 Predators are not the main reason for quail decline 19:00 "Quail" to Westerners vs. Easterners 21:00 When biologists are REQUIRED to do landowner workshops... and the power of grassroots outreach (pssst... it can happen over a tailgate) 25:00 Hosting quail habitat workshops in places where land management is working 26:00 North America Grasslands Act 27:00 Southeastern grasslands... not the same as the tall-grass prairie of the Midwest 28:00 Many grassland birds are struggling 30:00 Grasslands in the Southeast have declined by 99% 34:00 It's hard being a grassland specialist in an area with dwindling grasslands -- they're fountains of biodiversity 36:00 There's something special about grasslands for the human soul 37:00 "Balds" - mysterious open areas on the tops of mountains 39:00 Southern grasslands -- rhododendron to cacti (they can vary greatly in makeup) 42:00 Woody encroachment: The timbered look isn't natural in a lot of parts of the Southeast 44:00 The absence of fire on the landscape 46:00 Blackbelt Prairie in Mississippi 52:00 Blueberry hunting with babies, then de-ticking your baby in the car 54:00 Listeners... a special Artemis announcement! #nospoilersintheshownotes 56:00 Artemis Program Manager job... share it with the best people in your sphere!

Join us as Ashley tells the story of The Stanley Hotel. The Stanley Hotel is a 140-room Colonial Revival hotel in Estes Park, Colorado, United States, about five miles from the entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park. It was built by Freelan Oscar Stanley of Stanley Steamer fame and opened on July 4, 1909, as a resort for upper-class Easterners and a health retreat for sufferers of pulmonary tuberculosis. The hotel and its surrounding structures are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Today, the hotel includes a restaurant, spa, and bed-and-breakfast; with panoramic views of Lake Estes, the Rockies, and Long's Peak.The Stanley Hotel inspired the Overlook Hotel in Stephen King's 1977 bestselling novel The Shining. Source: Outtherecolorado.com Social Media: facebook.com/thecreepshowchronicles instagram.com/thecreepshowchronicles twitter.com/TheCreepshow1

Western skiers and snowboarders rave about their deep pow and amazing steeps. Easterners are all about the grit and grind that comes from being able to ski and ride in the brutal cold and all conditions. Midwesterners, well their a breed unto their own, too busy skiing and snowboarding to chat about the nuances of their geography. Join us on this fun-filled episode with Greg Fisher the GM at Wisconsin's tallest peak, Granite Peak. From PBRs, to Spotted Cows and cheese Curds, you'll come to find that Midwest skiing has a unique culture that is well worth exploring. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/beyondtheapres/message

This is a continuation of the series on Jin Li's book Cultural Foundations of Learning, East and West. In this episode, we will see the emotional side of learning, with a Western focus on interest, curiosity, and enquiry juxtaposed against an Eastern focus on dedication, conviction, and commitment. This also leads to a different conceptualisation of time within the sphere of learning, which leads to concepts like success and failure make less sense in a Chinese cultural context. Since the process of learning never ends (or, at least, is considered to be very long), one cannot that one has reached "success" or "failure" at any stage, as things could always get better (through application and virtue) or worse (through becoming slack and irresponsible). Westerners, in contrast, have a much shorter-term and piecemeal view, seeing motivation as dependent on the nature of the material (empirically shown to not be important to Easterners), and viewing learning problems as requiring technical solutions (rather than heart- and character-based solutions proposed by the East). This is also reflected in (Western) psychology research, with emphases on achievement motivation, intrinsic motivation, and self-esteem, none of which have much currency or empirical validity, or for that matter make any sense, in an East Asian context. Enjoy the episode.

Equalization disparity is one the biggest Conservative dog whistles in Canada. This federal transfer program is a complex one that often pits Westerners against Easterners, but many don't actually understand it. In this episode of Chicks and Balances, Sam demystifies equalization by diving into its purpose, its misconceptions, its flaws and what can be done to make it fairer!

Dave Morrow mustered out of the Military in May 1866. He drifted into Hays City, Kansas, where he lived for several years. David Morrow might be considered typical of many Easterners who came to the Kansas buffalo range about 1870. Dave quickly gained a reputation as an excellent shot and first-class hunter. Dave Morrow was known as "Prairie Dog Dave" in Dodge City. He had many roles in western law enforcement and served with Bat Masterson and Wyatt Earp. This is the story written by Mike King and narrated by Brad Smalley about how Dave Morrow got his moniker of Prarie Dog Dave. The story of Dave Morrow is an excerpt from Buffalo Days, now available on Amazon. 

EASTERN CHRISTIANITY IN SYRIA AND PALESTINE AND EUROPEAN CULTURAL DIPLOMACY (1860-1948): A CONNECTED HISTORY A Christian ‘Oriental question’ or an ‘Orient belonging only to Easterners’? In this webinar, the panellists will discuss European cultural diplomacy in Ottoman and Mandate Syria and Palestine, how it impacted the cultural identification of indigenous Christians, and the variety of Christian Arab agendas towards such policies, relying predominantly on unpublished sources. They will present some of the conceptual and archival challenges, and link the study of the micro-scale level of everyday cultural and religious life to the macro-narratives of global change affecting Christian communities, in a connected perspective. ____________________ With: Karène Sanchez Summerer Konstantinos Papastathis Lora Gerd Dimitrios M. Kontogeorgis For more information about the speakers visit https://cbrl.ac.uk/event/eastern-christianity-in-syria/

Fecko and his guests, Emeka and Ugo, linked up to discuss what it really feels like to live and survive in Lagos as an Igbo person. It was an insightful conversation, as they also touched on the challenges faced by Easterners in the South West and some possible effects should a secession occur. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/survivingeko/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/survivingeko/support

How did Easterners understand beauty? and why does Restored Christianity have some symbols that are considered pagan?

    “IF I WANTED TO BOAST, I WOULD BE NO FOOL IN DOING SO, BECAUSE I WOULD BE TELLING THE TRUTH. BUT I WON’T DO IT, BECAUSE I DON’T WANT ANYONE TO GIVE ME CREDIT BEYOND WHAT THEY CAN SEE IN MY LIFE OR HEAR IN MY MESSAGE, EVEN THOUGH I HAVE RECEIVED SUCH WONDERFUL REVELATIONS FROM GOD. SO TO KEEP ME FROM BECOMING PROUD, I WAS GIVEN A THORN IN MY FLESH, A MESSENGER FROM SATAN TO TORMENT ME AND KEEP ME FROM BECOMING PROUD. THREE DIFFERENT TIMES I BEGGED THE LORD TO TAKE IT AWAY. EACH TIME HE SAID, ‘MY GRACE IS ALL YOU NEED. MY POWER WORKS BEST IN WEAKNESS.’ SO NOW I AM GLAD TO BOAST ABOUT MY WEAKNESSES, SO THAT THE POWER OF CHRIST CAN WORK THROUGH ME. THAT’S WHY I TAKE PLEASURE IN MY WEAKNESSES, AND IN THE INSULTS, HARDSHIPS, PERSECUTIONS, AND TROUBLES THAT I SUFFER FOR CHRIST. FOR WHEN I AM WEAK, THEN I AM MADE STRONG” 2 CORINTHIANS 12:6-10   I CAN WORK WITH THAT   “…BECAUSE OF MIDIAN, THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL MADE FOR THEMSELVES HIDEOUTS IN THE MOUNTAINS—CAVES AND FORTS. WHEN ISRAEL PLANTED ITS CROPS, MIDIAN AND AMALEK, THE EASTERNERS, WOULD INVADE THEM, CAMP IN THEIR FIELDS, AND DESTROY THEIR CROPS ALL THE WAY DOWN TO GAZA. THEY LEFT NOTHING FOR THEM TO LIVE ON, NEITHER SHEEP NOR OX NOR DONKEY. BRINGING THEIR CATTLE AND TENTS, THEY CAME IN AND TOOK OVER, LIKE AN INVASION OF LOCUSTS. AND THEIR CAMELS—PAST COUNTING! THEY MARCHED IN AND DEVASTATED THE COUNTRY. THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL, REDUCED TO GRINDING POVERTY BY MIDIAN, CRIED OUT TO GOD FOR HELP.”   “ONE DAY THE ANGEL OF GOD CAME AND SAT DOWN UNDER THE OAK IN OPHRAH THAT BELONGED TO JOASH THE ABIEZRITE, WHOSE SON GIDEON WAS THRESHING WHEAT IN THE WINEPRESS, OUT OF SIGHT OF THE MIDIANITES. THE ANGEL OF GOD APPEARED TO HIM AND SAID, “ GOD IS WITH YOU, O MIGHTY WARRIOR!”GIDEON REPLIED, “WITH ME, MY MASTER?...”   DOUBT   “IF GOD IS WITH US, WHY HAS ALL THIS HAPPENED TO US? WHERE ARE ALL THE MIRACLE-WONDERS OUR PARENTS AND GRANDPARENTS TOLD US ABOUT, TELLING US, ‘DIDN’T GOD DELIVER US FROM EGYPT?’ THE FACT IS, GOD HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH US—HE HAS TURNED US OVER TO MIDIAN.”” JUDGES     ANGER   “THEN THE LORD TURNED TO HIM AND SAID, ‘GO WITH THE STRENGTH YOU HAVE, AND RESCUE ISRAEL FROM THE MIDIANITES. I AM SENDING YOU!’” – JUDGES 6:14 NLT     AUTHENTICITY IS AN EXPRESSWAY TO THE PRESENCE OF GOD   “THE LORD IS CLOSE TO ALL WHO CALL ON HIM, YES, TO ALL WHO CALL ON HIM IN TRUTH” PSALMS 145:18 NLT   “GIDEON SAID TO HIM, ‘ME, MY MASTER? HOW AND WITH WHAT COULD I EVER SAVE ISRAEL? LOOK AT ME. MY CLAN’S THE WEAKEST IN MANASSEH AND IM THE RUNT OF THE LITTER.” “GOD SAID TO HIM, ‘I’LL BE WITH YOU. BELIEVE ME, YOU’LL DEFEAT MIDIAN AS ONE MAN.” JUDGES 6:16 MSG JUDGES 6:15 MSG   DO NOT BE AFRAID OR DISCOURAGED, FOR THE LORD WILL PERSONALLY GO AHEAD OF YOU. HE WILL BE WITH YOU; HE WILL NEITHER FAIL YOU NOR ABANDON YOU.” DEUTERONOMY “GOD SAID TO GIDEON, “YOU HAVE TOO LARGE AN ARMY WITH YOU…” JUDGES 7:2 MSG   “…MY POWER WORKS BEST IN WEAKNESS…” 2 CORINTHIANS 12:9   GOD CAN’T BLESS WHO YOU PRETEND TO BE   “THEN HE SAID TO THEM, “YOU LIKE TO APPEAR RIGHTEOUS IN PUBLIC, BUT GOD KNOWS YOUR HEARTS. WHAT THIS WORLD HONORS IS DETESTABLE IN THE SIGHT OF GOD.”   BE HONEST WITH WHERE YOU’RE AT   “BEHOLD, YOU DELIGHT IN TRUTH IN THE INWARD BEING…” PSALM 51:6 ESV   SURRENDER IT TO GOD   “…“GOD OPPOSES THE PROUD BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE.” SO HUMBLE YOURSELVES UNDER THE MIGHTY POWER OF GOD, AND AT THE RIGHT TIME HE WILL LIFT YOU UP IN HONOR. GIVE ALL YOUR WORRIES AND CARES TO GOD, FOR HE CARES ABOUT YOU.”     KNOW WHO YOU ARE THROUGH HIM   THE ANGEL OF GOD APPEARED TO HIM AND SAID, “ GOD IS WITH YOU, O MIGHTY WARRIOR!   “WE HAVE BECOME HIS POETRY, A RE-CREATED PEOPLE THAT WILL FULFILL THE DESTINY HE HAS GIVEN EACH OF US, FOR WE ARE JOINED TO JESUS, THE ANOINTED ONE. EVEN BEFORE WE WERE BORN, GOD PLANNED IN ADVANCE OUR DESTINY AND THE GOOD WORKS WE WOULD DO TO FULFILL IT!”     CLAIM YOUR VICTORY     “FOR THE LORD YOUR GOD IS THE ONE WHO GOES WITH YOU TO FIGHT FOR YOU AGAINST YOUR ENEMIES TO GIVE YOU VICTORY.’”

This is Roald Tweet on Rock Island. Even today, Easterners view the Midwest as far better ground in which to plant corn than culture. They would almost certainly have held out little hope that Edward Spencer would make something of himself in this world. Edward was the first child born in Stephenson—the town that later became Rock Island.

This is Roald Tweet on Rock Island. I beg to differ with The New Yorker magazine. In their first issue in 1926, they announced that they were not writing for "the little old lady from Dubuque [Iowa]." Easterners passing through Rock Island still sometimes wonder if we have electric lights or indoor plumbing.

Was the East-West split never meant to go away, or did an uneven exchange of influences stop the European unification many had so hoped for? Some seem to forever carry the East with them, while others substitute the colloquial ‘end of history' with shallow concepts for political gain. Easterners are tired of the perpetual post-Communist stigma, while Westerners suggest the promised land wasn't quite so promising in the first place. Curators Ferenc Laczó and Luka Lisjak Gabrijelčič discuss the new Eurozine anthology. You can order the book here: https://tinyurl.com/yymveh7c Subscribe to Eurozine's newsletter: https://www.eurozine.com/newsletter/

In this podcast, we will explore why Easterners and Westerners think differently. There is an outdated assumption, based on Western biases, that there is one universal way of thinking. But modern research suggests nothing could be further from the truth. Actually, the differences in thinking are why Westerners tend to misinterpret Eastern spirituality, leading to new age oversensationalized interpretations of the philosophies of Taoism, Hinduism and Buddhism. We will uncover these differences and why different cognitive styles developed in the first place affecting our worldview.

Tonight we read the 19th letter of the Saint to the young Anastasia and the beginning of the 20th. Theophan finally comes to the point of describing for her the seed of inner confusion that we experience as human beings, our ancestral sin. We struggle with a disordered state, a disease, that has become deeply rooted within us and given rise to the worst of destructive forces - the passions. It is not natural! In other words,  God has not created us in this fashion. Our forebearers took a path that led them away from God and, as it were, casts the gifts that He had bestowed upon them back in His face. They treated God not as benevolent and loving but as an obstacle to their happiness. The loss was immeasurable. Theophan wants Anastasia to have as her deepest conviction the fact that  this disorderliness is not what God intended. She must fight against the view that there is no hope for a cure, that there is no hope for the dignity of the humanity to be restored. This must be our fight as well. The passions destroyed our consciousness of self and freedom. In the face of this we must make our one goal in life to abide in God in every way and to rejoice in Him alone. --- Text of chat during the group: 00:47:43 Mary Schott: Is it not "natural" because the loss of preternatural gifts? 00:52:24 Eric Williams: If you want to read a saint who doesn't make *anything* sound easy, I highly recommend Ephraim the Syrian. :) 00:59:46 Fr. John (Ivan) Chirovsky: I think that "loss of preternatural gifts" is a western term or concept. Generally speaking Eastern Christian authors speak or write from the point of view that sin makes us sub-natural whereas holiness is natural to the human condition. One has to translate in the back of one's mind ... in the west the term "supernatural" is used where Easterners use "natural", and the western "natural" is "sub-natural" in the East. 01:08:45 Joe and Larissa Tristano: Fr John, agreed, amartyia, Greek for sin means to “miss the mark” - the passions are birth defects of the soul 01:08:53 Fr. John (Ivan) Chirovsky: ...and so, in the East, a "sub-natural" human being is thus "sub-human" or "inhumane", and the holy person is "natural" and "human". 01:09:10 Joe and Larissa Tristano: Yes! Christ being THE Human! 01:09:19 Fr. John (Ivan) Chirovsky: exactly!!! 01:15:09 carolnypaver: Holy gifts to holy people…. 01:21:18 Mary McLeod: Thanks everyone!  

Continuing on with our readings from philosophybasics.com, here we start to learn about Western Philosophy and the influences of science, religion, mathematics, and politics on it.  I like this quote from the website:"Very broadly speaking, according to some commentators, Western society strives to find and prove "the truth", while Eastern society accepts the truth as given and is more interested in finding the balance. Westerners put more stock in individual rights; Easterners in social responsibility."Enjoy - Jeff

One nation under ground.

In this Latter Day Radio podcast, Martin Tanner and GM Jarrard look back at the sweep of Church history from 1844 to 1847 and examine the events that led up to the great western flight of the Saints of the Latter-days to the Great Basin. As we study Church history, the challenge is to walk in the worn-out boots of our pioneer ancestors…to somehow put their challenges, their pain and their triumphs into perspective. It is all too easy to be guilty of the bias of “presentism,” which Webster defines as “an attitude toward the past dominated by present-day attitudes and experiences.” Yet on the other hand, we also can overly romanticize their experiences– sometimes it's difficult to pick which path to follow. But, on occasion, we get a glimpse of how they viewed their situation, as illustrated by this colorful quote from Brigham Young: “We have been thrown like a stone from a sling, and we have lodged in the godly place where He wants His people to gather…If the Lord should say by His revelation this is the spot, the Saints would be satisfied even if it was a barren rock.” To some Europeans and Easterners accustomed to verdant hills, wooded coves and fruited plains, the Great Basin did appear as a barren rock. But, in fulfillment of prophecy, within 10 years or so, the desert had blossomed as a rose. What a trip it would be! Since we don't have a time-traveling Delorean, you'll have to settle for Martin and Greg regaling their childhoods walking across the Plains…or at least pretending that they did. Got a comment or question? Drop us an e-mail at studio@latterdayradio.com. We'll respond.

Three creators of the mythology of the Wild West are buried at the Laurel Hills: Henry Deringer, inventor of the pocket pistol and father of concealed carry; Owen Wister, who wrote the first definitive Western novel "The Virginian"; and John Batterson Stetson, the man who invented the hat that defines the Old West.  This podcast include interviews with two of Laurel Hill Cemtery's volunteer guides. 

Find Mike:https://www.summerlovevodka.com/https://www.instagram.com/summerlovevodka/Reach out to Bryon:https://www.instagram.com/calgary_living/www.TheHowardTeam.netBryon@thehowardteam.net403-589-0005 //////////////////SHOW NOTE0:05  Everyone, my name is Bryon Howard. I'm a Calgary realtor who has sold an average of a house a week since moving to this great city in 2003. And this is Calgary living. Calgary living, real estate and lifestyle. I'm interviewing Calgary's top performers as it relates to living and lifestyle in our great city. Thanks for tuning in.0:31  On today's podcast, I have Mike Stanfield.0:34  Mike's a fifth generation manufacturer in Canada.0:37  His company start distilling creates alcohol brands0:42  such as Summer Love. I first met Mike about 1985, the fall of 1985 when we played rugby and the Katie and dikes for Katie University, Mike was one of those great guys have0:54  fast sporty guy with super leadership skills0:59  later on like travelled most of our great country and researched where he wanted to land so in 2006 his pregnant wife and he chose Calgary when Mike was done working in the head hunting business with no skills other than the desire to make something, touch something and have it held in his hand, Mike launched Summer Love vodka. I hope you enjoyed this show as much1:25  as I enjoyed interviewing my1:33  well we have my old friend Mike Stanfield on the line. Mike, thank you so much for joining us on Calgary living real estate and lifestyle. You are my fifth interview. Well,1:48  maybe my seventh interview and really enjoying the show. Welcome to the episode. Mike. We are about to have a great conversation.1:56  My absolute pleasure. I think this is a great initiative that is underway. So thumbs up, man.2:02  Thanks so much, Mike. Mike, why don't you tell our listeners how we met?2:08  Do we really want to get into that? Not all the details, but all right. All right. Well, Brian and I went to Acadia University and played rugby together. And, boy, please don't judge us on that, that I think we've both had a few concussions along the way and that's for but down on the windy fields of Acadia University is where Brian and I first met. And we may not have had the best team in the world but we sure had a good time as a lot of time in the envel pub down and wolframalpha we remember quite fondly, right?2:43  Absolutely. And like I remember you providing quite a lot of leadership to our team. You and Brad what was Brad's last name? Brad Clark, right? I was thinking,2:54  Brad Clark that you're thinking of and he's a he's a neat guy. Brad moved to New Zealand where he's been running a number he's the CEO of a couple of initiatives down there and probably a big All Blacks fan I would think3:07  did his interest in love for rugby take them to New Zealand3:12  Do you know I don't know what what prompted him to go down there? So I'm guessing I'm guessing like a lot of us you know when you leave University and your young 20s probably grabbed a backpack and ended up down there. I remember he's a pretty good looking guy and so he probably had women chasing them around or something but I don't know for sure. Brad, if you're listening maybe call Brian and let you can you can give them the New Zealand update. Absolutely.3:39  So Mike, um, maybe what did I just may started with you is what3:43  most strikes you about living in Calgary.3:47  So I may jump the gun in your questions, but I moved to Calgary in 2006. And I had been here many times professionally, I've got family here. You know Not unlike yourself, I came out west as a young man. And what I always continue to love about Calgary is the energy the optimism, the can do spirit of people that they know they can dig in their heels and make a difference. I really admire that. I know it's taken a bit of a licking these days, but I know it's still there. And that's probably my first. That's probably my first sort of point of recognition and calibre.4:26  That's, that and that's what I'm hearing over and over again, about people and what brought you here you said in 2006, um, was it the economy at the time or family or work4:38  kind of a kind of a combo, and it's, so my wife and I took a year off and travelled around the world and just the year before we moved here, and I remember we got back. We were in BC at the time we get back and sort of said, you know, where, where do we go from here, do we? You know, do we go back to Vancouver. Because we had lived there previously, do we go to Calgary to go to Toronto? What have you, right? We're literally having a glass of wine kind of sorting out life. And Calgary one and and honestly, it was part it was a good part economic in that, you know, the business was just exploding at the time and there was opportunities galore. But relative to real estate, a lot of it had to do with real estate. We were just starting a family you know, Vancouver housing was already well out of control Even then, you know, at some point we'll probably circle back and talk about Vancouver. And because I would have never guessed that it were it was going to go on to where it is today. But so it was a cost of Housing and Economic Opportunity. Combined with I already knew though I hadn't lived here that that heartbeat in Calgary was was there and that that's always appealed to me for sure.5:57  Interesting. Um, I have never met Your wife I don't believe I have and where does she come from originally? And where do you come from? Originally I'm thinking New Brunswick.6:08  Not far off. I grew up in darkness Nova Scotia, right? Remember, I knew that if you're not in Nova Scotia, I usually say Halifax is because people aren't necessarily certain more that is but it's just the other side of the harbour. My wife is from Hamilton Hamilton, Ontario. Her name is Lee Stanfield. And so we're both both Easterners of a sort. And we both been out west or whole adult lives.6:37  Until that sounds interesting, you've travelled the world. And then you came to Calgary what month of 2006. I'm curious.6:44  Yeah, no problem. I'll tell you. It's pretty good story, especially on the real estate side. Yes. And I jumped ahead and tell the story. So please, yes, I decided we decided we're moving here. So my my brother lives here and as his family they live down to Lake Bonneville So I came in and stayed with my brother. They weren't in like bonavista at that time but that's where they live today but I stayed with them and we knew we were moving here so this was gonna I'm gonna say it was approximately early April and I already had a job lined up that it was coming to work and I was coming to work there on May the first so my mission I flew in for weekend to buy a house and the so so I arrived get off the plane went to his house. Next day I get out with the realtor that I was working with at that point of time. And I can't remember how I had been introduced to Chris but good guy, also a REMAX guy. And literally Ryan there were six houses for sale in Calgary that day, like I have that wrong, but I strongly maybe it was just six in the south, more six in the, you know within the constraints of what we're looking for, but there were some Six houses for sale. So yeah, we found one that was, it was to my liking and this guy's like Mike like, I gotta tell you, like, you know, it will use a good maritime expression, you know shit or get off the pot here. Anyway, we put an offer was accepted. I owned a home before I got back on the plane and8:21  how much over list price and was there any conditions that day in April?8:27  There were they just8:29  they accepted?8:31  Yeah, you know, the pretty straightforward conditions. I think we had a home inspection and I don't recall if we had conditional financing at the time I don't really recall but was a pretty straightforward, you know, there were really no challenges physically with the house. Whatever conditions may have been on it were satisfied quite easily. And so we owned a home and so we took possession on that home June. The first and And then my wife and my now very young daughter came along to join me in Calgary and we've been here ever since. So we have we've lived in a couple different homes along the way.9:12  That's terrific. It was interesting to me to hear the sort of the month that you came to Calgary and bought that house with possession June 1, because I remember in 2006, May of 2006 in particular, when our real estate values were going up $1,000 a day in Calgary was a giddy giddy time. It really9:31  was. I remember that vividly.9:35  You know, and there's there's sweet and sour to all that, but I think everybody listening remembers 2006 and, you know, probably as far as up into 2008, late 2008, and kind of frosty over like that for a long time. Yeah.9:50  Interesting. Very good. And9:52  so what is that?9:54  Well, I guess, you tell us a little bit about what you love most about Calgary. Just I think kind of ending with Do you know positive attitude? What is it that you don't like about Calgary?10:06  Well winter goes on a little longer than I care for Yeah, you know I think to be fair, I remember in the Maritimes really summer and you remember I think you repeat yeah guy but you remember summer really didn't start until late June kind of thing and it you know it's about the same here that's not that much different but yeah you know the winter the winter blues can get me down a little bit but so there's there's that. Let's not beat on that one because anybody can come up without one. And you know, struggling.10:39  Did you realise I actually just read it today and Richard White's blog that apparently we have 333 days of sunshine per year in Calgary. Did you know that?10:50  You know, I didn't know that. Specifically, you hear these sunshine figures from time to time. And that is really a plus is a footnote. I lived in Vancouver for about 12 or 13 years and then rains like the dickens there. But you know, sunshine wise I'd like to see the numbers between Halifax and Vancouver I better not much different Halifax is a pretty great place to So, look, I know a lot of you know, the true prairie folks don't care for Vancouver much because of that grey. I have to say it never really bugged me much. So I'm guessing Vancouver and Halifax are probably similar in sunshine. Yeah, yeah. A nice sunny day. Nobody's ever complained about a nice day outdoors here, right? It's11:32  always seems to me since moving here in 2003 that we have less of those sunny days. It seems like the weather has changed. And you know, I remember those sort of cold but dry winters that we had, you know, in the mid 2000s, for example, that I don't think they're quite as cold and dry and like There seems to be a little bit moisture. Have you noticed that sort of East Coast, terrible Grizzly days like that? I mean, they come in Calgary now.12:00  You know, I don't think I've got enough of a yardstick to measure by but I do remember that our first winter here, so 2006 going into 2007 it was so mild. It was a very gentle winter. And I remember my wife and I looking at other ones, that's it. Was that that bad? Like, I don't know what people are talking about.12:21  I think the year after was just horrid.12:24  But there's certainly been, you know, they all seem to take on a life of their own. I think my memory is probably we seem to have about four weeks of ungodly cold through the winter. The rest of it's not so bad, but those four weeks when you get into the, you know, the windy and minus teens and minus 20 is our good lord. Good advertisement for Hawaii, I think. Yes,12:51  Mike, I wanted to reach out nerves. Speak to you a little bit about well, getting into what you're doing today, but before that, I'd like to elect you to maybe talk to me a little bit about how the boom bust economy of Calgary may or may not affect you. And also, I'd like you to tie that in to some of your real estate decisions that you've made. And actually, I'm curious, I don't know for sure we've had this discussion. I don't know if you're still in the same house as your first house in 2006. Or not. Maybe you can bring in weave in a little bit of a story here.13:30  Yeah, you bet all. I'm a Rambler. So you know, if I, if I get off topic, remind me but, you know, first off your question was the boom bust nature of Calgary? That that's a frustrating thing to everybody. I mean, there's nobody on earth that that doesn't impact and I'm not alone in that. When I first came to Calgary, I was in the professional recruitment business. I worked for a group called David Allen recruiting which is a fantastic organisation. run by David out London and his son Jeff has taken over in the in the interim. And then that business is truly reflected in the boom bust you know, in the busy years that that place was just hopping and optimistic and people were grateful and when it slowed down boy it was the exact opposite of that. So I certainly felt at you know, I remember the days in Calgary, I was shocked when I moved here people go to lunch at 1130 in the morning back in 2006. Mostly because you couldn't get in anywhere so it was like a competition to go 15 minutes earlier than everybody else. You know, obviously good contrast that today where it's the extreme opposite, not an awful lot of restaurant tours and people that are there to entertain us have have gone under and this very difficult last couple of years. So you know that that I have felt this thing of that, as everybody has. Housing wise we we moved to we saw and we first moved here in 2006. Give me a bit of insight into this. My my brother who's a Suncor guy commuted back and forth on train and he said geez Mike, if you're going to work downtown you, you'd want to go on the train. It's just the easiest way to get back and forth. So he said, you want to live somewhere reasonably close to the train line. Right there literally bought the first house, the closest house to the train and it could, it was about 300 yards from the one of the train stations and it was a fabulous way to get back and forth. So that was that was great. Couple of years later, my wife and I were sort of suffering what I will call a bit of suburban blues. And that you know, we pulled into your pulled into your garage at night, your life was kind of inside and if you went out was to sort of a big box shopping strip type of thing and you know, I can't put my finger on this. Surely one thing, but Lee came home one day, this would have been late 2009 and said, Hey, I looked at our new house today. Let's let's go look at it. This was completely out of the blue. And so she brought me down must have been, you know, probably the next day, I'm guessing and we bought a house in the beltline. So we live on 13th Avenue and in the beltline, not far for the two old sandstone schools are the one of them's the CBE headquarters. The other one's called cannot school. So allegedly, we're the first family to buy standalone single house in the beltline in 35 years. I can't I can't prove that but I know that most of the standalone homes that are here are commercial zone commercially. So you know they might have a law firm or a financial firm or what have you in it, but we bought a we bought a single family home 1910 home It's gorgeous. Has stained glass throughout the original wood, the original carvings. squeaks like a demon when you walk up the stairs, that's for sure. But it's just, it's a beautiful place and we've we've touched it up, done a little bit of renovation work and it's been an absolutely fabulous place for us to live. So beltline would get a checkmark, very high for the walkability score. So that's true like I our second car. If it exploded tomorrow, we would never use it again. It's I think, I don't even think we put 5000 k on it last year. We walk everywhere. Lee works downtown. I host all of my meetings in the downtown area. The kids still both walk to school. It's it's been absolutely fantastic.17:45  Well, that is that is neat.17:48  Now now Oh, hold on a sec. So to come full circle. So the house we bought in 2006. There were six houses left in the market. Yeah, we bought this house in December. 2009 where it kind of felt like today out there, like, you know exactly, yeah, 2019 is good, like it's been longer. This whole recession and cut back has been longer and much more dreary. But I gotta tell you in 2009 that was the tail end of the financial crisis globally. And at ram stack the business, the oil business here and in Alberta. So 2009 was pretty sleepy and there were countless homes like it was, you know, the home we bought, I think had been on the market for the better part of the year at that point in time. So there were risks. You know, it was the opposite of what we saw in 2006. And did you effort to purchase your belt line home did you have to sell your your other home into your first home? We did sell the home I can't remember. I think we had some bridge financing for a month or two wallet. You know, I don't think it was conditional on it, but we were able to sell it quite easily. I think a lot to do honestly because of the location beside the train line. We were by I think it's Fish Creek look home sort of fit, you know, we're just on the south side of Fish Creek. Nice and it was a very convenient type of house from getting places on the train point of view so it sold pretty easily19:22  Did you lose money on that house?19:25  We did not. I don't think we made a heap of money either but we were above your above water above the timeline when we get out of there. And I think honestly, it's just good timing i think i think things really softened up the following spring where if I'm guessing and I am there you know, there's probably a lot more properties came on the market and probably the supply and demand really got wacky that spring.19:54  Interesting. So I'm and I'm just I'm pretending to be very nice. all about timing and stats and stuff. So my thoughts is if you were able to sell your house sort of roughly, maybe fall of 2009, or early 2010, down and South there, then and make money. You bought it just before things went really Nuts in May of 2006 or June, July, and things just went up and up and up and up. So you're just like on the cusp of,20:26  yeah, we win. Yeah, we're kind of on either edge of a wave there.20:30  Yeah. You're at the front end of that wave. Yes. Because I20:34  remember December 2005 is kind of in my memory and recollection is when it started to, you know, ramp up. When I was thinking as a realtor at the time, I was thinking about, how do I get into oil and gas like I need to get into this real estate business?20:49  Oh my god. Everybody was right. Who doesn't want eight weeks of holiday and 1000 layers of bonuses and all the rest. We were all pretty green with envy on the toilet. Gas crowd for sure. Yeah, right. I got I gotta share another story about this old house of ours and this is fate would have it. There's a there was a golf course in that community. I think it was called Sean Meadows or something like that. I can't remember21:18  Honey bees. Shaughnessy? Is it showing us the meadows. I, you know, may have been21:22  I can't remember. However, the golf course failed as an entity here. You know, whoever the company running at the golf course failed. It was not a municipal golf course. So basically the land sat there right unused. And a developer bought that land and became a very contentious issue because it was the you know, a zone to be Parkland or whatever the zoning is for golf courses, right. And the developer had to get a change to develop the land and it became an absolute war down in that area. Because you know, the people that had bought to live on a golf course, didn't want to not live on the golf course. Subsequently the citizens of that community lost that that battle and the property is currently under development. Anyway, we we we knew nothing about this at the time and so we I think we definitely dodged a bullet because the folks that live down there I've had quite a battle over this development and you know, live beside a quite a sizable construction site at the same time too. So I say that because it's guts real estate intrigues. All right. I'll share that for you.22:31  That's a that's let's actually contribute that not because you're lucky but because you're really smart. Right, Mike? I'll take what I can get smart but no, no, I really, really good story along the way for sure. No, absolutely. It's I appreciate you sharing that. And part of my you know, mission in this podcast is just to share, you know, these sort of lifestyle and real estate stories and sometimes We, you know, and as I interview people, you know, everyone has a real estate story. And some people have been like extremely lucky and some have been extremely unlucky. And we all try to put an angle on it. And especially well, that we were smart. We saw it all coming, actually. And I'm curious about now getting into what you're doing now. And actually your work in the recruitment. Were you seeing are you seeing working in recruitment? What I feel like is in oil and gas, they may start to experience a slide or a drop or slow down and then we in real estate see at when, like probably a year later, so they're ahead of us in terms of a curb or what's what's happening in terms of your profession and in recruitment at the time. Like would you have seen when when are you affected? I guess probably a lot sooner than what when we see like we probably see a23:58  Yeah, okay. Let me let me talk through that in a couple ways because I don't I don't know if there's a single answer but you know, Calgary certainly was attracting people from everywhere you know, during during that time right up to till 2008 people were you know immigrating to Canada internationally you probably know many people that that you know, fit this this image that you know, maybe the husband came from an international EPC type of environment, engineering procurement construction and you know, probably were on some type of visa to work in Canada or a you know, type of temporary permit or something like that. And then the family would follows a lot of people moved here internationally a lot of very talented people. And, and certainly a lot of people move from across Canada or, you know, if they're expat Canadians, maybe they're down in the States. So, people were coming from every direction to Calgary. So, there were a lot of really good candidates coming to the market at a time where the market was quite Hungry for them. So we're certainly, you know, increased activity and just about any metric you could imagine and that time very Curiously, you know, I even breed that people are still coming to Calgary, even in this this downturn.25:16  Oh, yeah. We're having a you. Currently we have more in migration then than outmigration by I think I just read this morning, like 2000 people in the past maybe 12 months, was in migration.25:28  Yeah, I'm in wasn't there. Were there like a year or two that that was not the case. It was sort of net migration outward for? Yes. I don't know which years but I think some of those years but, you know, it's curious that Rob was doing that. You know, it's not a job rich environment, but people continue to, to come here. So that's, that's an interesting one. Back to your question. I don't know if that answers it. You know, people are always searching for opportunities. opportunities everywhere, right there. You know, just as there are people looking to hear a lot of people that are well employed here often looking to move elsewhere, internationally or, you know, if they're from other parts of Canada, depending on where they are in their life cycle, maybe they're looking to take a young family back to where they're from or something to that and to that end, so there's there's always, there's always movement and in that market, but to be sure the recruiting market is driven by you just probably a similar dynamic and real estate, who you work for, as a recruiter, you're working for a company that is that has hired you to go find people that necessitates knowing a lot of candidates and knowing specific niche pools of candidates and where they are, but it's really driven by open jobs or demand for people. So that has, obviously, I remember vividly the company I worked for in September 2008. We had our highest revenue of all time for recruiting fees.27:04  And October, it was our lowest.27:09  And I think for the next six months, it will be really, really horrible. I'm guessing Brian, I think that price of oil went that summer to be 150 bucks. Right? And then I think come October it was well on its way down and I think in January bottomed out around 20 bucks 30 bucks. So, I mean, this this was this was the economy having a heart attack, right, like this was severe. And, and, and sudden and and it literally went from one extreme to the other overnight. And the the, the recruiting business can be like that, and there's been a number of those sort of, she was my same analogy. If it was a heart monitor in the hospital, there's been a lot of blips, right, you know, in the last sold 10 or 11. Yours has been a very Blippi kind of environment and in Calgary writes two good years and a bad one. You know, another good one and another bad one, that kind of thing. Yeah, you're very clearly the last few. The last two in particular. I'm not in that business any any longer. But I talked to my colleagues that are still in that business. And really, it's been, it's night and day.28:25  Let's get into the more interesting and more interesting work of Mike stanfill. Today. Like we met, I think, critical is it like I want to say it was like, four months ago, but it could have been four years or three. while ago when you were starting up in the distillery business. Let us28:45  take us28:46  when did that start? And how's it going? And what is it that you're doing today?28:50  Yes, very good. So, you know, I always joke around a little bit, what's a good maritime boy with no skills to do go out and start making booze that's that's the right thing. Do me I just but we're that started is you and I see each other from time to time I think we did see each other a couple of months ago. But this is Believe it or not, we're three and a half years into this, that we've had our infused vodkas on the shelf so that the company is star distilling. And we have a product called Summer Love vodka, which is three fruit infused flavours that are on the shelves in both stores and in Calgary. And we've had a really fun run at this and the business continues to grow sort of 50% plus a year, which is a very fun thing to say, in context of what you and I were just talking about, of the lousy business environment here the last couple of years. So we really, you know, we and I say we it's really my wife and I are partners in this business. So it's really my quote unquote day job, if you will, Lee is Lee has broad shoulders and can be can use to earn a living life while I invest all of our money in this venture. If you were standing beside me, I would probably get punched in the shoulder right about now but, but but we'll leave that one alone and right. Anybody runs their own business, you included knows the ups and downs of entrepreneurship. Anyway, so we started this. And so the reason so I was in the recruiting business for a long time. And this is very Calgary related I, you know, the, the up and down nature of it would drive people nuts. And, and I always I've always had an itch to kind of get into the making something tangible that you can hold in your hand, see it, touch it, in this case, taste that, etc. So I, I just have a wonderful wife and we were down in Disneyland. 2014 five years ago, and I had taken a job Within the recruiting firm that, you know, a year or two prior to that, that just wasn't really working out for me. It wasn't working out for the company either. And I just told her I said, Look, I'm, I'm so frustrated. I'm, you know, I don't even want to get out of bed and go to this. I'm grumpy all the time. I'm miserable to our kids and in a bad father, bad husband, bad boy, like, all the way around. And I think I reflexively said, you know, I'd like to quit. And she just looked at me in the eyes and said, Well, you know, quit then like, you know, do something, like don't just sit here and bellyache about it if you're if you're going to quit, quit and move on and, and she was very supportive of that. So I literally pulled the trigger on Canada Day of 2014. And I had a wonderful summer with the kids. We rented a little, little cottage Jodan bc on the shoe swap, and it was a lot of fun. So, the booze thing, how did that get started, so I don't know if you know this brand, but I'll tell you a little bit of background but we have a we have a family business called Star manufacturing that goes back to 1861. So I'm the fifth generation to use the star name and business and my day, so 1861 this was in Halifax right up till 2015 my father does or might have been 14 Africa 14 or 15. He, he legally dissolved the business, it did not exist anymore. The plant had closed down around 2000. And he had pension and benefits obligations to the employee base, some of which were, you know, third and fourth generation employee. So he oversaw the pensions and benefits requirements that that you know, for the men and women that work there, and I think that finally got put to rest at about that time and he dissolved the company and I'm The day he dissolved the company I bought it from him for a buck. So I sent him to you I sent him a US dollar in the mail so buck 40 so I it he was like what do you what are you talking about the device I just want I want to buy the name I want to buy the intellectual property I want to buy the history the stories and I just want to buy this thing like I want it so I bought that from him and so from that was born star my version of star so I'm the fifth generation well to take on the the star name and manufacturing in Canada. Obviously the venture with distilling is different than what they did on the east coast where they did some really cool stuff like they actually made hockey skates for 80 years like all the really nh all the early NHL star hockey skates.33:53  Of course being a manufacturing plant in in a naval harbour city during World War One and World War Two you You go on a war footing and you make what the Navy asks you so they, you know, there were secretive things that they made in the plan for those two wars. The second world war was all women working there. My dad, my grandfather and father's generation, it was much more industrial components, trains, bridges and you know, heavy foundry components that that type of things, spikes, bolts, specialty, especially the nuts and bolts, that type of thing for large construction, large scale construction, think railways, wars, buildings, etc. So building infrastructure across the country. And then to my day, so well, so we sat down and started star out here. It was at that same time that the, you know, the Alberta government changed some legislation and the same legislation that has prompted the boom and craft brewing. It's the same legislation that governs distilling of spirits or Or the making of beer, or for that matter, wine or me or, you know, any of the, you know, ciders, any of the wonderful things that are popping up at every neighbourhood in the city. So we started down that road and here we are three and a half years later, we've probably in about 200 shelves across Calgary or across Alberta. And, you know, we've been we've been, I will be mosta but we were very successful. We've, I think three times our products have been named the best flavour boxes and in Alberta, and Alberta and should Pat themselves on the back. We have a really, really, we probably have the most outstanding regulatory framework for the spirits business in North America. So it's a really good place to start a brewery, a distillery cider plant what happened like we really have a, we have the only competitive one in Canada by a mile. The rest of them are You know, crown corporations that have more protection built around them than Fort Knox. It's, it's, it's observed. Not unlike a lot of other things we Albertans might complain about, seem to have observed regulatory issues around them. But I'll steer clear of that one. So here we are, we're a few years in and I might my update is I am on the cusp of pulling the trigger to to start our project to build a distillery here in Calgary, wow. Or I should say, Lisa building and, and, you know, build it out that way I will be we will be building from scratch. So we outsource our production today to the only place I could find in 2015. that would that would take us on this decline because we just don't make much and it's down and it's down in Wisconsin. So that's so that's been really, really beneficial for us. But we're looking to to do Join the local the local movement and dig our heels in here and make it a go well, so stay tuned we'll have to talk maybe this time next year and give you an update.37:10  Well Part Two I'm looking forward to it already.37:12  Yeah. And so37:14  that I remember I haven't been following like into a terribly closely on sort of how your marketing but I remember you were having a lot of fun with the sort of the marketing of your it's called Summer Love right summer love bug it is. And,37:28  you know, it's been a lot of fun. We do a lot of you know, the large scale events that have been a lot of your listeners have been to whether it's the CO ops Great Escape show, or the Rocky Mountain wine and food show, you know, those kinds of things that are a lot of fun to attend. Taste of Calgary is an outdoor foodie experience kind of down by the riverfront why downtown Calgary. Lots of tastings in stores and restaurants and that kind of thing, but it's a it's a lot of fun, but I got to tell you if you want the recipe of making friends start giving away booze like i i don't i didn't invent that recipe but I tell you it works pretty well.38:08  That's great.38:10  Awesome. Mike, most recently, I mean, just in the past week or so, you sent me an invite to attend you know, what seemed like a  social like really a sort of promoting event promoting sustainable or interesting entrepreneurs or internet interesting entrepreneurship opportunities. I have you been in the past you know, since starting up Summer Love Have you been involved? Very much in the entrepreneurial community of Calgary and I don't know that that vibe share share a little bit with me on that I really know nothing about sort of I I sense that38:50  honestly Brian I, I didn't either and I learned more all the time. I have met a lot of entrepreneurs and in Calgary both in the You know, the beer and spirits, cider business as well as every other business under the sun. You know, small businesses is a major driver of, you know, that optimism and energy that I speak about in the city. And, you know, oil and gas certainly brings a lot of money into our economy. And I think, I think years ago, it used to be a little bit more entrepreneurial today. It strikes me that it's more driven by these enormous companies. You know, that don't fluctuate quite as much in you know, like sense. Some course fortunes go up and down, but they don't disappear. Same with cn, RL and the others. they've bought over the load at the International guys going down a tangent. Stop that Mike. Yeah, I've met a lot of people like that. And, you know, really, I have to confess I didn't, I didn't, I didn't have as good of or as strong of an understanding about the local movement when when we began the business, you know, For four years ago, I say forest because there was a lot of you know, it took a long time to figure out how to get to market you know and how to do all this so we've been in the market for three and a half years but it was a good 18 months before that have head scratching and to be fair, probably what I would call overthinking it, I was way overthinking it. But you know, you The further you get into this stuff, the more you see a really important shift happening for for everybody in our society, but the younger you are, the more prevalent that shift. It's not just environmental, or sensitivity to to environment, it's, you know, you get into understanding how your your food ingredients were grown, what how they get to Calgary, you know, there's just a lot more sensitivity to all those supply chain types of things around the food industry that for you and I at that age didn't exist like that or They're certainly weren't as prevalent, but it's very prevalent. And it gives me a lot of an enormous amount of pride to have have a business that's helping out other small businesses and in the city and buying goods and services from them and, you know, being able to interact with your customers. It's really cool. And, you know, for me personally, I get a lot of pride of doing that. And and, you know, I don't think there's I don't think we can have enough of that, I think you know, we've, we've got to support local we've got to support other Canadian businesses, we've got to get on board with being an innovative nation of doing things and not hoping that the answer is going to come from somewhere else, or or not being afraid to try and so there's as much fun as it is to be in this space and try harder and, and in our case, start this initiative with putting a distillery in Calgary You know, I'm proud of that, but you get as much good faith back the other way from from people looking for that in the community. I think there's, I think it's probably an equal and opposite reaction to globalisation in a way. Like I look at my, my dad's generation with this business, and they got absolutely crushed, you know, crushed by it by first regionalization. And then and then globalisation and right, you know, I'm the first one, I'm a free marketer, I'm the first one to say you gotta remain innovative, and you have to do all those good things and, and perhaps they stopped doing those things. But big, big it just crushed. And so the business doesn't exist there anymore, right? And the three or four generations of people that were employed, and all the good things that came out of that, that that business gone, right, like that's just gone, that's that's not returning there. And so I think particularly the You know, that the younger generation are more in tune with how important that is, even if they can't necessarily say it out loud, I think they just said a gut level understand that you've got to, you've got to have a viable, viable businesses in your community in your country to keep our lifestyle going and improving. You know, Canada has got a lot to offer, but you can only really offer when you're, you're in a position of strength. So so I'm going to say that that local initiative and that local movement, and it's very prevalent in the food and the coffee and you know, restaurants and, and and, you know, visible ownership, visible owners and Calgary, it's hugely important. And, and I'm proud to be moving in that direction with with our initiative even more.43:52  That's wonderful. And I think there's a little story there behind star manufacturing from 1861 to you know, that sort of stuff. Slow down or shut down in 2000 and then you know, the total shutdown, that there's got to be an interesting story around like globalisation. And as you mentioned it, that's where maybe that's another podcast44:12  you know, what it might be I you know it from, from a macro point of view, throw this out. So, they were really part of what you would call the second industrial revolution which which brought steam and electricity into into plants and plants all over the world looked very similar to what their plan would have been theirs was a water driven plant. So that you know, the electricity was produced from water in a turbine. And pretty simple from today's point of view, you know, you get a lot of belts and, you know, cogs and wheels turning and that's, that's what they built the business on. And that plant wouldn't look much different than any plant in New England or England itself or across Europe or, you know, into And anywhere else in the what we would call the development or the developed world. So that was that was the second industrial revolution and it kind of petered out. Around the turn of, you know, around the when railroads got started, so sort of late 1800s, like, let's say 1875 onwards. And since then we've kind of globalised it was slow. But the last half of it was pretty quick from maybe 1960 on, you know, the advent of Japanese manufacturing. And then obviously, from the 70s on the miracle that has been it been China.45:40  You know, I, I,45:43  our business and health effects will be no different from 10s of thousands of others where those jobs disappeared overnight, and they're in China today or Vietnam or wherever they are. And so, so now they call it the fourth industrial revolution, which is really Integrating, you know, you might, you might use it. People can Google that on their own, they can figure it out. But the fourth industrial revolution is, is what's currently underway. And, you know, you can read about the fifth one if you're sort of a nerd and into where these directions are going. But it's interesting and and, you know, I mean, I didn't do this as a fool's errand. I did it because I think we can be competitive price wise, I think we have a niche in the market. That's, that's advantageous for us not only to produce some candidate and selling candidate but to be able to sell internationally. I mean, you know, we are in this to win. And I'm, I'm really grateful that we have this top opportunity to do that. I, my dad's generation i don't i don't think they had that many opportunities were he was are certainly, you know, in retrospect, I guess You can go back and pull a rabbit out of a hat. But he didn't perceive that there was a lot of opportunity where he was. I perceive there's loads of opportunity now.47:09  Fascinating. Like, why or why not? Are you staying in Calgary?47:15  We are staying in Calgary. Despite the winter, if my wife was here, he might vote otherwise. You know what? So we've got two kids. They're 11 and 14, two daughters that are knee deep in schools and friends and sports and activities and all the things they do. We're not disrupting that their kids are here to go to school. we've, we've started this business and intend to grow the business so we're not going anywhere. We would you know, a friend of mine gave me some advice when I moved to Calgary. He said Mike, it's a guy named Paul warming of and he lives on a Vancouver Island today. So my calendar is a great place but you need to leave for two weeks every winter, two separate trips minimum You've got to get out of here and get to somewhere with sunshine and wants to make it through. So good advice. And I think if my wife were here, she would say, we've rarely lived up to that. But that was that was pretty good advice. But no, we're staying good place to build a business and raise kids and I still really like the energy and can do spirit of Calgary. It's it's a compliment to everybody that that hasn't been crushed out in the past decade with all the challenges we face and here in the age of gross misinformation,48:36  yes. might come in sort of coming to a bit of a conclusion on our show today. What advice would you give your younger self?48:45  start selling booze early?48:50  have more fun.48:53  A cheeky answer. I so much enjoy doing this. I really wish I had, but you can't go back and change What you did since your podcast is real estate oriented I'm maybe my advice would be to get in the game earlier. Good lord I lived in Whistler for a while I lived in Vancouver for a while. Live in Kelowna for a while like these are in my in laws live in the Okanagan and you know, I've seen what lakefront properties have done there over a generation you know, all of these communities I mentioned, the real estate market is been so buoyant and and it's crazy like I mean that Yeah, me over a 25 year perspective, those would have each of those communities would have been an absolute Grand Slam when from a real estate investment point of view. And Brian, I was oblivious to this I, I rented when I lived in Vancouver, I was a young guy in Whistler so clearly wasn't buying anything then but it wasn't even on my mind. So maybe advice to younger self would have been you know real estate like there's seems to be two ways on earth to to, you know, succeed financially and I don't for a second think there are other ways or other aspects of life that are just as important family and health and whatnot but real estate and and running your own business are the two avenues that anybody that's been financially successful is probably come from one of those two vendors. It's almost invariably one of those two, so I wish I had to pay more attention. I didn't know diddly about real estate. I still really don't. But50:42  in retrospect, I should have paid more attention.50:45  Nice. I think I hear a kitty cat.50:47  Yes, that's my cats a50:50  bluebird. Thanks for tuning in. What's your cat's50:53  name? Their name is50:55  z as in zebra but the kids couldn't pronounce the earlier in life so they call her D do so she's called the do so she is a wonderful cat but she's about 15 now and getting old sheets meals all forget night law. It is the worst. If anybody has solutions please let me know.51:18  You can find Mike's contact information in the show notes.51:22  Mike, are you social? How can people reach out to you? What are the channels people want to reach out more?51:29  Great question. All of our social media for the business is you know at summer love vodka. But surely if somebody just were to Google star distilling or Summer Love, vodka, they won't be able to find us all of our contact information is within within episode find it pretty easily.51:53  Mike, this has been fun. I really want to thank you for being a guest on our show. I'm sure our listeners listening They're gonna love this. And I think there's going to be a part two.52:04  Well, I've enjoyed this so thank you for having me on. This is number number five or whatever it is and best of luck getting to getting to 100 day I'm probably like everybody else I love listening upon saqqaq maniac dude, I'd love to do it. I listened to the podcast galore and I'm particularly when I get in the car for an hour to by myself. I love them. So well done my man.52:34  Yes. Well, thanks again. Mike. Look forward to sharing some summer love vodka with you and, you know,52:41  following the journey as you still locally.52:45  Yeah, lots of fun.52:48  Lots of fun. So we'll catch up again for sure and I'm really happy to be doing this and engaged in this these days and sometimes too much from Brian tell, we'll leave it at that, I guess and I will talk to you later on, but best of luck. Cheers. Thank you, Mike. Okay, bye bye.53:09  That's great, Mike. Thank you. So that just about wraps up today's podcast. I think I'll go get myself some summer love vodka. Thanks Mike for all you do, and bringing us a great a yet another great to spirit here in Alberta. If you have thoughts, questions, or suggestions on who should be on Calgary living real estate and lifestyle. I'd love to hear from you. You can find me on social Insta at Calgary underscore living. Or just google me Brian Howard. And of course that's a funny spelling Brian beat her ye o n. Thanks once again for tuning in.Mike Stanfield is a 5th generation manufacturer in Canada ~ his company, Starr Distilling,  creates alcohol brands such as Summer Love Vodka. Mike moved to Calgary in 2006 and bought one of 6 homes for sale in Calgary that day. Catch up with mike here: https://www.summerlovevodka.com/Find Bryon at www.TheHowardTeam.net 

Author, historian and campaigner Lyn Julius promotes the culture, history and lives of Mizrahim, the Jews of the Middle East and North Africa. Mizrahi is the Hebrew word for Easterners - and their exodus from Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Tunisia, Yemen, Morocco, Lebanon, Iran and Algeria has perhaps been overlooked in the last century. After 3,000 years of vibrant Jewish life, interspersed with persecution and exile, the Mizrahim are all but erased from those countries. Most live in Israel now - but there's also a diaspora in the UK, France, Canada and the USA. So what can and should we learn from the sudden flight from their generational homes? Lyn's book "Uprooted: How 3,000 Years of Jewish Civilization in the Arab World Vanished Overnight" is the culmination of a decade of research. It's a story we mustn't ignore. This podcast also contains Hillel Neuer's famous "Where are your Jews?" audio by his kind personal permission. Jonny produces these podcasts for free. You can help support the show at https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_donations&business=BW4GZLQCCL29Y&item_name=Podcast+production+¤cy_code=GBP&source=url

Engineering professor and bestselling author Barbara Oakley, PhD, with neuroscientist Terrence Sejnowski, PhD, bring us a handbook for Learning How to Learn: How to Succeed in School Without Spending All your Time Studying. This guide is all you need to tackle your least favorite subject in school or take on that class you’ve been dreading. The authors, also co-instructors of the wildly popular online courses “A Mind for Numbers” and “Mindshift,” share techniques that train our brains to take on the hard stuff. Written for students from grade school to high school, Learning How to Learn breaks down the science of how our brains process and recall information and reveals how to make the most of our studying time. 00:15   Barbara Oakley, author of Learning How to Learn 00:30   Book aimed at the younger set but valuable for all ages 00:55   Oakley teaches the world’s most popular MOOC (massive open online course) 02:05   Shares her story of being a “lopsided learner” 02:30   Liked books but hated math; chalked it up to not having “the math gene” 03:20   Joins Army to study Russian at the Defense Language Institute 03:30   Becomes a Signal Core Officer with no experience in technology 04:50   Learns remedial algebra and eventually becomes a professor of electrical engineering 05:20   “It’s really possible to change your brain!” 06:20   Becoming proficient in video games can improve attention and focus 08:00   Video games (approved by FDA for older adults) improves metabolism 09:20   Small short-term memory improves creativity 11:20   Poor working memory forces us to simplify and compress information 12:45   Taking breaks from learning 13:15   Procrastination common worldwide 13:40   Having to learn something unpleasant activates pain center of the brain 14:00   Using the “Pomodoro” study technique to alternate learning with rewards 15:00   Learning modes: focus vs. diffuse 17:00   Learning new things keeps mind supple and open 17:55   Reading means we always have something to talk about, a way to find commonalities 18:20   Oakley lunches with Cormac McCarthy (Pulitzer author, genius, and true polymath) 19:20   Learning more gives us overlays for what we already know 19:55   Some anxiety accompanying test-taking can be helpful 20:25   Two reasons tests can cause anxiety 22:15   How to move material from the page to our brains (long-term memory) 22:35   The key to good test performance: active practice (recall from our own brains) 24:00   Oakley defines “active learning” 26:00   What’s the best kind of recall practice? 27:15   “Picture Walk”: paging through chapter subheadings & pictures to get a framework 29:30   Forty percent of our brain is visual 30:15   Westerners tend to struggle with math; Easterners tend to struggle with language 30:45   Practice using a variety of methods to build up neural circuits 31:35   Are there any shortcuts to practicing? 33:00   “Eat your frogs first,” a test-taking strategy for attacking hardest problems 36:50   Not getting enough sleep will negate all other efforts to learn 38:15   Sleeping allows brain cells to shrink and have toxins washed away 39:15   Recommendation: Coursera (100% online learning from the world’s best universities and companies); AKA: “MOOCs” – massive open online courses  BUY Learning How to Learn: How to Succeed in School Without Spending All Your Time Studying; A Guide for Kids and Teens For free online learning in almost any subject, check out Coursera. Connect with us! Facebook Instagram Twitter YouTube Website Special thanks… Music Credit Sound Editing Credit

CJ interviews Jason Gregory about his book "Effortless Living: Wu-Wei and the Spontaneous State of Natural Harmony". Jason and CJ discuss the merrits of nonaction and being in more of a Yin state. How do Westerners and now Easterners devalue and find useless that state of doing nothing? How can one balance both doing and being? What is "li" and what happens when we align our energy and efforts toward the Tao of Absolute?This show is broadcast live on Wednesday's 4PM ET on W4WN Radio – The Women 4 Women Network (www.w4wn.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (http://www.talk4radio.com/) on the Talk 4 Media Network (http://www.talk4media.com/).2

In this episode of Enlightenment Today I will explore the geography of mind. I will expose the myth that all people cognitively think the same. To do so I will study the history of how the mind of the East and West evolved differently. This will reveal why many Westerners and modern Easterners often misinterpret Eastern philosophy. This will give us greater understanding of the authentic teachings of the East.   Recommended Reading The Geography of Thought http://amzn.to/2z4GlW7

This week, the boys kick off the fated four with the elegant dancing bubble fox, Mizutsune! They talk Japan, dragons, kimonos and slip 'n' slides. Jay wasn't around for the pre-recording no armour hunt, so all three of the others managed to faint twice. Shambolic.

Unlike many books that I cover, this is one that I read recently and felt an urgent need to share its contents even before I got to the appropriate theme in a series of episodes. It hit me right where it hurts - in my fundamental assumptions about human nature. As I research the field of education and produce this podcast, I have been generally assuming that people are more or less the same everywhere in their fundamental modes of thinking and feeling. I presumed that the topic of motivation, for example, or that of cognitive biases, can be covered in a more or less general way. However, this book has had me realise that different people from different places think in very, very different ways... and that I (and the majority of my listeners) are among the people on the extreme end of a spectrum that runs from East to West. People in the East and West think differently from each other in fundamental ways. Consider the following: Which two of these three would you consider to form a natural group: monkey, cow, banana? Westerners almost always group the monkey with the cow, as they are both animals (categorisation focus). Easterners group the monkey with the banana (relationship focus). There are 24 pens. 18 are blue, 5 are green, and 1 is purple. You can have one. Which one would you like? Westerners tend to choose the purple pen (scarcity makes it seem more valuable, plus they like to feel unique). Easterners ask for a blue pen (they want to fit in). Which task would you be more motivated to do: one you choose yourself, or one that your mother chooses for you? Westerners prefer to choose their own (autonomy as a motivational driver); Easterner are more motivated when their mother chose the task (what the hell?!). I hope you can see that this totally changes how I have to think about things. I now have to contextualise not only everything I think about, but *everything I read*, since so many psychologists say things as if they were universal, but then they are overturned once you test these things on people from a different culture! This even includes apparently "universal" traits such as cognitive biases, with Easterners usually avoiding the Fundamental Attribution Error where Westerners almost universally fall for it; and the principle of scarcity, an idea with strong ties to economics that rarer things are considered more valuable, which seems to not always be followed by people from the East. Hopefully, you will find your mind broadened, and your assumptions annoyingly and uncomfortably challenged, just as mine were. Enjoy the episode. Music by podcastthemes.com.

In this episode Aron drops some knowledge on how Easterners can up their Western hunting game.  You can also check out Aron on the Gritty Bowmen at http://www.grittybowmen.com/ and the Kifaru packs at kifaru.net Dont forget to Click Subscribe for weekly updates on our channel! Follow us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/NaturalBornH... Follow us on Instagram @naturalbornhunter Use code "nbh20" at MTN Ops for a 20% discount on your purchase at http://getmtnops.com/ Looking for some nice glass? Check out Maven Optics @ http://mavenbuilt.com/  Be sure to use our promotion code "NBHgift" for a free gift with your purchase!

Jesus is Better “See Our Savior” Hebrews 2:5-9   Key Verse:  But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesue, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone (Hebrews 2:9).   1.  See Jesus in the cradle   a.  He is humble below angels   b.  He is high above angels   2.  See Jesus on the cross   a.  His grace is great   b.  His goal is global   3.  See Jesus with the crown   a.  Submit to him   b.  Share with him       It is great to have all of you here. Take your bibles please and lets open together to Hebrews.  Hebrews chapter 2 is where we are going to be.  Were going through a series titled Jesus is better.  That’s the theme of the book of Hebrews.  In fact, I think the word better appears in the book thirteen times.  Which is one for every chapter.  There are thirteen chapters and it just says over and over again, Jesus is better.  He is better.    And so today we are going to continue that series and I want to ask you a question before I start and it’s this.  What did Jesus look like? Have you ever wondered that? Well there have been those who have tired to portray what he looked like and I going to put on the screen here some pictures, some portraits of Jesus, the first two are drawn by a fellow named Walter Salmon and his portraits are among the most famous a in our culture that have ever been drawn. The first one is a picture of Jesus knocking at a door and I wonder if I made you remember seeing this picture at some point maybe in a Sunday school classroom or in your grandmother's Bible or something of the sort.  That’s a beautiful picture of Jesus and you may have noted before that when you look at that picture carefully the door does not have a knob on it and kind of the message of the portrait is that if Jesus is to come into your life and be your Savior and Lord you have to be the one who opens it up because the knobs not on the outside.  He doesn’t barge his way in, you invite them in, you receive him and so that's the idea of that picture its very well known. There’s another one even better known. Again painted by this fellow Walter Salmon and it's called the “Head of Christ,” and you see the pictures here. I remember this from when I was a boy and you look very closely and it's very interesting he got blue eyes almost like blonde hair.  It’s curious, Walter Salmon was himself from Norwegian descent it's almost as though he drew a picture of Jesus as he would be as if he were Scandinavian and I think that's the that's something that you observe across cultures and people portray Jesus, they often do in their image.   In fact, someone has said, they have quipped that in the beginning God created man and ever since then we've been returning the favor. We’re trying to create someone in our image and so I really doubt Jesus had blue eyes. As we know he was Jewish. He probably had deep Brown eyes. His skin was probably bronzed by the sun. If you how middle Easterners have that appearance and so for what ever its worth he depicted a picture of Jesus the best he thought.   There’s another one I’m going to put on the screen. This is really not painting but it is a portrait of sorts. Is actually on cloth and some of you may recognize this.  Its from a burial shroud and it was discovered many years ago and it's somewhat mysterious because you see on the shroud, the visage of a man and some believe that what we're looking at there, is actually the visage of Jesus. It is a bit mysterious how this shroud ends up and this is way before the days of any kind of electronic reproduction. In fact this is of a believe some believe it was carbon dated to the medieval period. Others would say goes right back to Christ. But in any case, somehow this picture of a man gets imprinted, in a manner of speaking, on this shroud. So could this be what Jesus looked like?   What does Jesus look like? Well I want to surprise you this morning. I'm going to show you a portrait of Jesus. I going to dare to say it is 100% accurate and it's found right here in Hebrews chapter 2. Now before I read the passage, I was reminded of a story I heard about a kindergarten teacher.  I know I some teachers here today of little kids. She had assigned the class to draw a picture of someone they love. And so, she was going up and down the aisles looking at the pictures the children were drawing. She went by this one little boy and she said, “Who is that you are drawing?” is my daddy.  She says, that’s beautiful. Encouraging him and she walked on a little while by a little girl and said, “Honey, who is that you are drawing?”  “Well this is a picture of my mama.”  Oh my, that’s, beautiful.  She came up to this one mischievous little boy and she couldn't quite make out what he was doing and so she said, “Johnny, whose portrait is that mature your drawing?” He said, “Well this Jesus.” the teacher said,  “Johnny, nobody knows what Jesus looks like.” he didn't look up, he didn’t hesitate, “they'll know it looks like when I'm finished.”  Well when I finish this message I hope that your going to say “I know what Jesus looks like.”   Alright, in honor of God's word let's stand up and read Hebrews chapter 2, verses five through nine, and verse nine the last going to be where we’re going to camp out. All right so let's get the running start there beginning with verse five. God's word says. Now it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come of which we are speaking it has been testified somewhere, what is man that you are mindful of him, or the son of man that you care for him. You made him, for a little while, lower than the angels. You have crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet. Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him, but we see him, who for a little while, was made lower than the angels. Namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death so that by the grace of God, he might taste death for everyone.   Now before we’re seated, look again there at verse nine, the very last words. He says, but we see him! We see him! You know you saw that movie avatar? I'm not backing its theology, but in the movie it says I see you.  All right.  We see him. He is portrayed for us here and I want us to ask the Lord to open our eyes and our hearts to see him. Lets pray. God, help us to see Jesus, in all of his glory and all of his beauty. In his humility, in his suffering, in his victory. Help us to see him. Help us once upon seeing him, to fall in love with him and to surrender our all to him. Do it Lord I pray, for Jesus sake, Amen.   Please be seated. The title of today's message is, see our Savior.  See him. I want you to see him. And here we find a portrait of him. Now, the follow along, I want to encourage you to turn to the back of your worship guide, you’ve got an outline of the morning's message and you can fill it in.  I think it will help you to pay attention and also at the head of that you'll see verse nine given to you there. That’s where were really going to focus, in verse nine.  Now the portrait that I'm going to present to you, I'm going to show it to you from three angles, all right?  Three features I'm going to highlight and here is the first.     If we’re going to see Jesus, our Savior, we got to see him first of all in the cradle. Now you wonder where I get the idea of Jesus in the manger Jesus in the cradle, from this verse. Notice how it begins verse nine. It says. “But we see him, but for a little while, was made lower than the Angels.” what is this referring to when it says Jesus was made lower than the angels? Well it’s speaking, of course, about his incarnation. His coming in flesh.   One of my friends told me that she'd been to the mall. She said she couldn't believe it, she went into Dillard’s and they already have the Christmas decorations out.  All right well this morning, were going to start hanging the Christmas decorations too, because we see him made a little lower than the Angels. That is, we see Jesus come to this Earth. Taking upon himself the form of a servant. Emptying himself of his glory. A Jesus that babe in Bethlehem. If you want to see Jesus, look in the cradle. And when you do you’re going to see two things. First of all, you see him humble, below the Angels. Philippians, Chapter 2 verse seven says that “Jesus emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.” this is what's talking about. He was made a little more than the Angels. He took on human flesh and lived among us, and for while, a little while, he was made lower than the angels. But then, just as quickly as you see that, I want to see him now high above Angels. Because this one, who for a little while was made lower than the angels is in reality, infinitely higher than the Angels, right. He is the one who created all angelic beings. And in fact, all of us and the world. He flung the stars into space; He hung the sun and the moon there to rule by day and by night, respectively. All that is made, he is the agent of it.  And he sustains it by the word of his power. This is what we learned in Hebrews chapter 1. And so, he is for a little while, humbled. Made lower than the angels.   But don't miss that babe in Bethlehem, is actually, the creator God, sovereign of all. Now where can you find a model of someone who would be high, yet humble themselves. It’s actually hard to find. But let me give you this illustration. A lot of you will remember Princess Di. She was from Great Britain and became engaged to be heir to the throne. She was beautiful. She was the quintessential Disney princess.  Really her wedding was storybook, a lot of you remember Princess Di. But I want to show you a picture Princess Di, as perhaps you’ve never seen her before.  In the year, 1997, Princess Di was on a tour of Africa and she happened to be in the country of Angola.  And there in Angola, there was a tremendous scourge, they had had internecine warfare, civil war of sorts, and it was brutal. One of the things that they had done, they had sown down the land, with land mines. A landmine, if you can picture this, is almost like a plate and a saucer, and it's filled with explosives and shrapnel, and they buried these landmines all across the countryside. And though the war had largely subsided, innocent boys and girls and men and women, would simply be walking across a field, they would accidentally step on one of those landmines and it would explode. It would blow them up. Perhaps a limb would be lost or their lives would be lost by the thousands. Princess Di, to her credit, was burdened about perhaps she decided that she would identify with the plight of the people, and to inspire the world community to do something to eradicate the world of mines. She actually got on those protective clothes and mask and she went out into the Angolan countryside, Of course, cameras clicking everywhere, to say to the world, let's put a stop to these mines.  Lets save lives. In way it pictures what Jesus did for us. Jesus that… if you think Diana was royalty, Jesus is the Prince of Heaven, and he came to earth with no protective gear. And on purpose, took the wrath of sin. The wrath of God against sin and he suffered and he took them blow so that we could be forgiven and be saved. And that's the story of Christmas. That’s what happened with the babe of Bethlehem. So see him first of all, there in the cradle.    That segues perfectly into the next aspect you need to see of this portrait. Not only seen in the cradle, see him on the cross. And you'll never know Jesus; you’ll never know what he looked like, who he was if you don’t see him on the cross. Now, if you look back to verse nine, which is our key verse, Ill show you where I take this. Verse nine. But we see him for a little while, was made lower than the angels that is Jesus, crown now with glory and honor because of the suffering of death. So that by the grace of God, he might taste death for everyone. Do you see him?   Do you see Jesus there on the cross? What do we see when we look at the cross? We see first of all, that his grace is great. His grace is great! The Bible says, so that by the grace of God, he might taste death for everyone. Jesus died on the cross, not because he had done anything wrong, in fact, complete contrary, he done nothing wrong. We are the ones who it done wrong. We’re the ones who sin, but he died on the cross to pay for the sins, the price of them, so that we need not, Folks, that what grace is.  Grace is us not getting what we deserve, but instead getting what we don't deserve. We deserve punishment. We deserve wrath. But we don't have to take it, because Jesus has already taken it for us. And now we get all of the goodness of God showered on us because of what Christ has done. By grace, he tasted death for every man.   Someone said it is an acrostic of grace, if you've never heard this you ought to jot it down on your notes. What is grace? G R A C E.   You know it?  Grace, God’s Riches At Christ's Expense! God's riches, what are they? His riches are forgiveness, reconciliation, forgiveness, peace, eternal life. All those riches come to us at Christ's expense. He paid for them. Again I say, it is grace, amazing Grace that pardons us. So look at the cross and see his great grace. But also, look there and see that his goal is global. What does it say? He tasted death for whom? For every man, every woman, every boy, every girl.  His goal is global. You see Christ no only died for LSU Tigers; he died from Mississippi State Bulldogs. Right? He not only died for Americans, he died for Europeans and Africans and middle Easterners.  He longs for everyone to be changed by his grace. And if you look at the cross, you see these things, these things so clearly. Revelation 5:9 tells us, it actually gives us a glimpse into heaven. “And they sang a new song, saying worthy are you, to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain and by your blood, you ransomed people for God, from every tribe, and language, and people, and nation. He is a global God. He is a global savior. And would embrace all of the peoples of the world.   Some of you know Kevin Bacon?  You know of him. He is a famous actor. He tells a story about his son. His son had gotten to an age; I think he was six years old at the time, where he could watch some of his daddy’s movies. And he was watching the movie, Footloose. And in one scene, his father, the character his father was playing, grabbed a hold of the rafters and swung and kind of with an acrobatic move and landed right on his feet. And his son was so impressed. He said, “Dad, how did you do that?” and Kevin said, “Aww son, I didn’t do that,” He said “that was my stunt double that did that.” And the little boy said, “what's a stunt double?”  “Well that’s that looks like me, is dressed up like me, but does things that I could never do.” the little boy, he accepted that.  He kept watching the movie and in another scene his daddy something else, or the character his daddy is playing does something else really spectacular and acrobatic and he said, “wow… You do that?” He said well son I didn’t do that that was my stunt double again… “ And he went on three or four more times through the movie, every time something really spectacular would happen, sure enough it would be the stunt double.  So finally the boy said, “well daddy, what’d you do?”  He said “I got all the credit, without doing anything.”  Now what's the point? We got stunt double. And I say that with all reverence. We got somebody that looked like us. That’s the cradle, see him there.  The God of Heaven come here to redeem.  And he looked like us.  And he dressed like us.  He learned our language, but he did for us, what we could never do for ourselves. The innocent one, the sinless one, died for our sins. More than that on the third day, he conquered death when he arose from the grave. He did for us what we could never do for ourselves.  And we get the credit.  We get the forgiveness. We get the redemption, based on what he did.      I’m telling you, here is what Jesus looks like. Look at the cradle. Look at the cross. And then finally look at the crown. Your going to see it here, in verse nine again, he says, “but we see him” do you see him?   We see him who for a little while, was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, now crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of god might taste death for every man. Do you see him there, crowned with glory and honor? He is crowned! He’s the king!   A lot of you know the show on television, the family feud; it's hosted now a guy named Steve Harvey.  Is it still playing? I’m not even sure but all of you know family feud. What they do is they have these series of questions that they've asked the public, and they’ll get a hundred respondents to each question. What they do is, they have a couple of guys, you know from each team and they hit the button to try to respond.  Right? And get the answers. So a couple of years ago the question was this, “when someone mentions the king, to whom might he or she be referring?” and people answered.  Who’s the king? Well, the answers included, two people said “The Burger King.” Y’all know McDonald's and Wendy's, you know, the Burger King. That’s who you’re talk when you say the king.  Three people said Martin Luther King, Jr. and maybe you thought of Martin Luther King, Jr. and you heard the king.  But you know what the number one answer was? 81 people the King, Elvis Presley.  There was one other answer given and it was the right answer, seven people said Jesus is the King.  I’m going to tell you something, Elvis is not king.  The burger king is not the king. Jerry Lawler is not the king, for some your wrestling boys.  Jesus is the king that is the right answer. He is crowned with glory and honor.   How then ought we to relate to him? We ought to to submit to him. You see, Philippians, I referred to it earlier.   He emptied himself and he took upon himself the form of a servant, and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross, therefore God has highly exalted him, and given them a name that is above every name, that the name of Jesus, every knee should bow and every tongue confess, Jesus Christ is Lord. If you have never before, definitively seen him, confessed him as Lord and bowed the knee of your will to him, I’m going to invite you to do that this day.    Submit to him and when you do, you're going to share with him in his glory. I love this and I want to see this, because I didn’t read it earlier but here's how this concludes. He says, but we see him, who for a while was made lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor, because he tasted death by the grace of god for every man. Then verse 10 says, for it was fitting that he would bring many sons to glory. No listen, we see Jesus crowned with glory. He is the glorious one, but did you know he is bringing with him many sons to glory. That is, those of us were redeemed. We actually get into that train of glory, and we become a part of his family. Were joint heirs with Christ as we saw last week? Well, do you know what Jesus looks like? You might think he has long blonde hair and blue eyes or you may think he’s like the shroud of Turin visage. We really don't know. But, we know his heart. We know what he has done for us.  Here’s a portrait that's 100% accurate. Look at him. See him. They’re in the manger. They’re on the cross.  Now crowned.  Follow Him.      Would you bow your heads please? I didn’t preach this, this morning, just for entertainment.  Just to occupy the time.  This message is preached so that you might make a response to god. If you’ve never before bowed your will, your knees, in effect, to Jesus and confessed him as Lord, would you do so now? Jesus, I do see you. I see you. I believe you came from heaven, to earth; you lived sinlessly. You died in my place. You arose from the dead, and Lord Jesus, the best I know how, I open up the door and I say come in. I want to give you my life. I want to follow you. I want to be a new creation, Lord by your grace, save me.  Save me Lord. And for those of you that know Christ as savior, you may just need to say to him Lord, I see you afresh this morning and I’m more in love with you now.  That I’ve seen you more clearly; Help me to follow you, to serve you. I ask it in Jesus’s name, Amen.

I once participated in a twenty-three-day wilderness program in the mountains of Colorado. If the purpose of this course was to expose students to dangerous lightning and half the world’s mosquitoes, it was fulfilled on the first day. What was in essence a forced march through hundreds of miles of backcountry culminated in a ritual known as “the solo,” where we were finally permitted to rest—alone, on the outskirts of a gorgeous alpine lake—for three days of fasting and contemplation. I had just turned sixteen, and this was my first taste of true solitude since exiting my mother’s womb. It proved a sufficient provocation. After a long nap and a glance at the icy waters of the lake, the promising young man I imagined myself to be was quickly cut down by loneliness and boredom. I filled the pages of my journal not with the insights of a budding naturalist, philosopher, or mystic but with a list of the foods on which I intended to gorge myself the instant I returned to civilization. Judging from the state of my consciousness at the time, millions of years of hominid evolution had produced nothing more transcendent than a craving for a cheeseburger and a chocolate milkshake. I found the experience of sitting undisturbed for three days amid pristine breezes and starlight, with nothing to do but contemplate the mystery of my existence, to be a source of perfect misery—for which I could see not so much as a glimmer of my own contribution. My letters home, in their plaintiveness and self-pity, rivaled any written at Shiloh or Gallipoli. So I was more than a little surprised when several members of our party, most of whom were a decade older than I, described their days and nights of solitude in positive, even transformational terms. I simply didn’t know what to make of their claims to happiness. How could someone’s happiness increase when all the material sources of pleasure and distraction had been removed? At that age, the nature of my own mind did not interest me—only my life did. And I was utterly oblivious to how different life would be if the quality of my mind were to change. Our minds are all we have. They are all we have ever had. And they are all we can offer others. This might not be obvious, especially when there are aspects of your life that seem in need of improvement—when your goals are unrealized, or you are struggling to find a career, or you have relationships that need repairing. But it’s the truth. Every experience you have ever had has been shaped by your mind. Every relationship is as good or as bad as it is because of the minds involved. If you are perpetually angry, depressed, confused, and unloving, or your attention is elsewhere, it won’t matter how successful you become or who is in your life—you won’t enjoy any of it. Most of us could easily compile a list of goals we want to achieve or personal problems that need to be solved. But what is the real significance of every item on such a list? Everything we want to accomplish—to paint the house, learn a new language, find a better job—is something that promises that, if done, it would allow us to finally relax and enjoy our lives in the present. Generally speaking, this is a false hope. I’m not denying the importance of achieving one’s goals, maintaining one’s health, or keeping one’s children clothed and fed—but most of us spend our time seeking happiness and security without acknowledging the underlying purpose of our search. Each of us is looking for a path back to the present: We are trying to find good enough reasons to be satisfied now. Acknowledging that this is the structure of the game we are playing allows us to play it differently. How we pay attention to the present moment largely determines the character of our experience and, therefore, the quality of our lives. Mystics and contemplatives have made this claim for ages—but a growing body of scientific research now bears it out. A few years after my first painful encounter with solitude, in the winter of 1987, I took the drug 3,4-methylenedioxy-N-methylamphetamine (MDMA), commonly known as Ecstasy, and my sense of the human mind’s potential shifted profoundly. Although MDMA would become ubiquitous at dance clubs and “raves” in the 1990s, at that time I didn’t know anyone of my generation who had tried it. One evening, a few months before my twentieth birthday, a close friend and I decided to take the drug. The setting of our experiment bore little resemblance to the conditions of Dionysian abandon under which MDMA is now often consumed. We were alone in a house, seated across from each other on opposite ends of a couch, and engaged in quiet conversation as the chemical worked its way into our heads. Unlike other drugs with which we were by then familiar (marijuana and alcohol), MDMA produced no feeling of distortion in our senses. Our minds seemed completely clear. In the midst of this ordinariness, however, I was suddenly struck by the knowledge that I loved my friend. This shouldn’t have surprised me—he was, after all, one of my best friends. However, at that age I was not in the habit of dwelling on how much I loved the men in my life. Now I could feel that I loved him, and this feeling had ethical implications that suddenly seemed as profound as they now sound pedestrian on the page: I wanted him to be happy. That conviction came crashing down with such force that something seemed to give way inside me. In fact, the insight appeared to restructure my mind. My capacity for envy, for instance—the sense of being diminished by the happiness or success of another person—seemed like a symptom of mental illness that had vanished without a trace. I could no more have felt envy at that moment than I could have wanted to poke out my own eyes. What did I care if my friend was better looking or a better athlete than I was? If I could have bestowed those gifts on him, I would have. Truly wanting him to be happy made his happiness my own. A certain euphoria was creeping into these reflections, perhaps, but the general feeling remained one of absolute sobriety—and of moral and emotional clarity unlike any I had ever known. It would not be too strong to say that I felt sane for the first time in my life. And yet the change in my consciousness seemed entirely straightforward. I was simply talking to my friend—about what, I don’t recall—and realized that I had ceased to be concerned about myself. I was no longer anxious, self-critical, guarded by irony, in competition, avoiding embarrassment, ruminating about the past and future, or making any other gesture of thought or attention that separated me from him. I was no longer watching myself through another person’s eyes. And then came the insight that irrevocably transformed my sense of how good human life could be. I was feeling boundless love for one of my best friends, and I suddenly realized that if a stranger had walked through the door at that moment, he or she would have been fully included in this love. Love was at bottom impersonal—and deeper than any personal history could justify. Indeed, a transactional form of love—I love you because…—now made no sense at all. The interesting thing about this final shift in perspective was that it was not driven by any change in the way I felt. I was not overwhelmed by a new feeling of love. The insight had more the character of a geometric proof: It was as if, having glimpsed the properties of one set of parallel lines, I suddenly understood what must be common to them all. The moment I could find a voice with which to speak, I discovered that this epiphany about the universality of love could be readily communicated. My friend got the point at once: All I had to do was ask him how he would feel in the presence of a total stranger at that moment, and the same door opened in his mind. It was simply obvious that love, compassion, and joy in the joy of others extended without limit. The experience was not of love growing but of its being no longer obscured. Love was—as advertised by mystics and crackpots through the ages—a state of being. How had we not seen this before? And how could we overlook it ever again? It would take me many years to put this experience into context. Until that moment, I had viewed organized religion as merely a monument to the ignorance and superstition of our ancestors. But I now knew that Jesus, the Buddha, Lao Tzu, and the other saints and sages of history had not all been epileptics, schizophrenics, or frauds. I still considered the world’s religions to be mere intellectual ruins, maintained at enormous economic and social cost, but I now understood that important psychological truths could be found in the rubble. Twenty percent of Americans describe themselves as “spiritual but not religious.” Although the claim seems to annoy believers and atheists equally, separating spirituality from religion is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. It is to assert two important truths simultaneously: Our world is dangerously riven by religious doctrines that all educated people should condemn, and yet there is more to understanding the human condition than science and secular culture generally admit. One purpose of this book is to give both these convictions intellectual and empirical support. Before going any further, I should address the animosity that many readers feel toward the term spiritual. Whenever I use the word, as in referring to meditation as a “spiritual practice,” I hear from fellow skeptics and atheists who think that I have committed a grievous error.The word spirit comes from the Latin spiritus, which is a translation of the Greek pneuma, meaning “breath.” Around the thirteenth century, the term became entangled with beliefs about immaterial souls, supernatural beings, ghosts, and so forth. It acquired other meanings as well: We speak of the spirit of a thing as its most essential principle or of certain volatile substances and liquors as spirits. Nevertheless, many nonbelievers now consider all things “spiritual” to be contaminated by medieval superstition. I do not share their semantic concerns.[1] Yes, to walk the aisles of any “spiritual” bookstore is to confront the yearning and credulity of our species by the yard, but there is no other term—apart from the even more problematic mystical or the more restrictive contemplative—with which to discuss the efforts people make, through meditation, psychedelics, or other means, to fully bring their minds into the present or to induce nonordinary states of consciousness. And no other word links this spectrum of experience to our ethical lives. Throughout this book, I discuss certain classically spiritual phenomena, concepts, and practices in the context of our modern understanding of the human mind—and I cannot do this while restricting myself to the terminology of ordinary experience. So I will use spiritual, mystical, contemplative, and transcendent without further apology. However, I will be precise in describing the experiences and methods that merit these terms. For many years, I have been a vocal critic of religion, and I won’t ride the same hobbyhorse here. I hope that I have been sufficiently energetic on this front that even my most skeptical readers will trust that my bullshit detector remains well calibrated as we advance over this new terrain. Perhaps the following assurance can suffice for the moment: Nothing in this book needs to be accepted on faith. Although my focus is on human subjectivity—I am, after all, talking about the nature of experience itself—all my assertions can be tested in the laboratory of your own life. In fact, my goal is to encourage you to do just that. Authors who attempt to build a bridge between science and spirituality tend to make one of two mistakes: Scientists generally start with an impoverished view of spiritual experience, assuming that it must be a grandiose way of describing ordinary states of mind—parental love, artistic inspiration, awe at the beauty of the night sky. In this vein, one finds Einstein’s amazement at the intelligibility of Nature’s laws described as though it were a kind of mystical insight. New Age thinkers usually enter the ditch on the other side of the road: They idealize altered states of consciousness and draw specious connections between subjective experience and the spookier theories at the frontiers of physics. Here we are told that the Buddha and other contemplatives anticipated modern cosmology or quantum mechanics and that by transcending the sense of self, a person can realize his identity with the One Mind that gave birth to the cosmos. In the end, we are left to choose between pseudo-spirituality and pseudo-science. Few scientists and philosophers have developed strong skills of introspection—in fact, most doubt that such abilities even exist. Conversely, many of the greatest contemplatives know nothing about science. But there is a connection between scientific fact and spiritual wisdom, and it is more direct than most people suppose. Although the insights we can have in meditation tell us nothing about the origins of the universe, they do confirm some well-established truths about the human mind: Our conventional sense of self is an illusion; positive emotions, such as compassion and patience, are teachable skills; and the way we think directly influences our experience of the world. There is now a large literature on the psychological benefits of meditation. Different techniques produce long-lasting changes in attention, emotion, cognition, and pain perception, and these correlate with both structural and functional changes in the brain. This field of research is quickly growing, as is our understanding of self-awareness and related mental phenomena. Given recent advances in neuroimaging technology, we no longer face a practical impediment to investigating spiritual insights in the context of science. Spirituality must be distinguished from religion—because people of every faith, and of none, have had the same sorts of spiritual experiences. While these states of mind are usually interpreted through the lens of one or another religious doctrine, we know that this is a mistake. Nothing that a Christian, a Muslim, and a Hindu can experience—self-transcending love, ecstasy, bliss, inner light—constitutes evidence in support of their traditional beliefs, because their beliefs are logically incompatible with one another. A deeper principle must be at work. That principle is the subject of this book: The feeling that we call “I” is an illusion. There is no discrete self or ego living like a Minotaur in the labyrinth of the brain. And the feeling that there is—the sense of being perched somewhere behind your eyes, looking out at a world that is separate from yourself—can be altered or entirely extinguished. Although such experiences of “self-transcendence” are generally thought about in religious terms, there is nothing, in principle, irrational about them. From both a scientific and a philosophical point of view, they represent a clearer understanding of the way things are. Deepening that understanding, and repeatedly cutting through the illusion of the self, is what is meant by “spirituality” in the context of this book. Confusion and suffering may be our birthright, but wisdom and happiness are available. The landscape of human experience includes deeply transformative insights about the nature of one’s own consciousness, and yet it is obvious that these psychological states must be understood in the context of neuroscience, psychology, and related fields. I am often asked what will replace organized religion. The answer, I believe, is nothing and everything. Nothing need replace its ludicrous and divisive doctrines—such as the idea that Jesus will return to earth and hurl unbelievers into a lake of fire, or that death in defense of Islam is the highest good. These are terrifying and debasing fictions. But what about love, compassion, moral goodness, and self-transcendence? Many people still imagine that religion is the true repository of these virtues. To change this, we must talk about the full range of human experience in a way that is as free of dogma as the best science already is. This book is by turns a seeker’s memoir, an introduction to the brain, a manual of contemplative instruction, and a philosophical unraveling of what most people consider to be the center of their inner lives: the feeling of self we call “I.” I have not set out to describe all the traditional approaches to spirituality and to weigh their strengths and weaknesses. Rather, my goal is to pluck the diamond from the dunghill of esoteric religion. There is a diamond there, and I have devoted a fair amount of my life to contemplating it, but getting it in hand requires that we remain true to the deepest principles of scientific skepticism and make no obeisance to tradition. Where I do discuss specific teachings, such as those of Buddhism or Advaita Vedanta, it isn’t my purpose to provide anything like a comprehensive account. Readers who are loyal to any one spiritual tradition or who specialize in the academic study of religion, may view my approach as the quintessence of arrogance. I consider it, rather, a symptom of impatience. There is barely time enough in a book—or in a life—to get to the point. Just as a modern treatise on weaponry would omit the casting of spells and would very likely ignore the slingshot and the boomerang, I will focus on what I consider the most promising lines of spiritual inquiry. My hope is that my personal experience will help readers to see the nature of their own minds in a new light. A rational approach to spirituality seems to be what is missing from secularism and from the lives of most of the people I meet. The purpose of this book is to offer readers a clear view of the problem, along with some tools to help them solve it for themselves. THE SEARCH FOR HAPPINESS One day, you will find yourself outside this world which is like a mother’s womb. You will leave this earth to enter, while you are yet in the body, a vast expanse, and know that the words, “God’s earth is vast,” name this region from which the saints have come. Jalal-ud-Din Rumi I share the concern, expressed by many atheists, that the terms spiritual and mystical are often used to make claims not merely about the quality of certain experiences but about reality at large. Far too often, these words are invoked in support of religious beliefs that are morally and intellectually grotesque. Consequently, many of my fellow atheists consider all talk of spirituality to be a sign of mental illness, conscious imposture, or self-deception. This is a problem, because millions of people have had experiences for which spiritual and mystical seem the only terms available. Many of the beliefs people form on the basis of these experiences are false. But the fact that most atheists will view a statement like Rumi’s above as a symptom of the man’s derangement grants a kernel of truth to the rantings of even our least rational opponents. The human mind does, in fact, contain vast expanses that few of us ever discover. And there is something degraded and degrading about many of our habits of attention as we shop, gossip, argue, and ruminate our way to the grave. Perhaps I should speak only for myself here: It seems to me that I spend much of my waking life in a neurotic trance. My experiences in meditation suggest, however, that an alternative exists. It is possible to stand free of the juggernaut of self, if only for moments at a time. Most cultures have produced men and women who have found that certain deliberate uses of attention—meditation, yoga, prayer—can transform their perception of the world. Their efforts generally begin with the realization that even in the best of circumstances, happiness is elusive. We seek pleasant sights, sounds, tastes, sensations, and moods. We satisfy our intellectual curiosity. We surround ourselves with friends and loved ones. We become connoisseurs of art, music, or food. But our pleasures are, by their very nature, fleeting. If we enjoy some great professional success, our feelings of accomplishment remain vivid and intoxicating for an hour, or perhaps a day, but then they subside. And the search goes on. The effort required to keep boredom and other unpleasantness at bay must continue, moment to moment. Ceaseless change is an unreliable basis for lasting fulfillment. Realizing this, many people begin to wonder whether a deeper source of well-being exists. Is there a form of happiness beyond the mere repetition of pleasure and avoidance of pain? Is there a happiness that does not depend upon having one’s favorite foods available, or friends and loved ones within arm’s reach, or good books to read, or something to look forward to on the weekend? Is it possible to be happy before anything happens, before one’s desires are gratified, in spite of life’s difficulties, in the very midst of physical pain, old age, disease, and death? We are all, in some sense, living our answer to this question—and most of us are living as though the answer were “no.” No, nothing is more profound than repeating one’s pleasures and avoiding one’s pains; nothing is more profound than seeking satisfaction—sensory, emotional, and intellectual—moment after moment. Just keep your foot on the gas until you run out of road. Certain people, however, come to suspect that human existence might encompass more than this. Many of them are led to suspect this by religion—by the claims of the Buddha or Jesus or some other celebrated figure. And such people often begin to practice various disciplines of attention as a means of examining their experience closely enough to see whether a deeper source of well-being exists. They may even sequester themselves in caves or monasteries for months or years at a time to facilitate this process. Why would a person do this? No doubt there are many motives for retreating from the world, and some of them are psychologically unhealthy. In its wisest form, however, the exercise amounts to a very simple experiment. Here is its logic: If there exists a source of psychological well-being that does not depend upon merely gratifying one’s desires, then it should be present even when all the usual sources of pleasure have been removed. Such happiness should be available to a person who has declined to marry her high school sweetheart, renounced her career and material possessions, and gone off to a cave or some other spot that is inhospitable to ordinary aspirations. One clue to how daunting most people would find such a project is the fact that solitary confinement—which is essentially what we are talking about—is considered a punishment inside a maximum-security prison. Even when forced to live among murderers and rapists, most people still prefer the company of others to spending any significant amount of time alone in a room. And yet contemplatives in many traditions claim to experience extraordinary depths of psychological well-being while living in isolation for vast stretches of time. How should we interpret this? Either the contemplative literature is a catalogue of religious delusion, psychopathology, and deliberate fraud, or people have been having liberating insights under the name of “spirituality” and “mysticism” for millennia. Unlike many atheists, I have spent much of my life seeking experiences of the kind that gave rise to the world’s religions. Despite the painful results of my first few days alone in the mountains of Colorado, I later studied with a wide range of monks, lamas, yogis, and other contemplatives, some of whom had lived for decades in seclusion doing nothing but meditating. In the process, I spent two years on silent retreat myself (in increments of one week to three months), practicing various techniques of meditation for twelve to eighteen hours a day. I can attest that when one goes into silence and meditates for weeks or months at a time, doing nothing else—not speaking, reading, or writing, just making a moment-to-moment effort to observe the contents of consciousness—one has experiences that are generally unavailable to people who have not undertaken a similar practice. I believe that such states of mind have a lot to say about the nature of consciousness and the possibilities of human well-being. Leaving aside the metaphysics, mythology, and sectarian dogma, what contemplatives throughout history have discovered is that there is an alternative to being continuously spellbound by the conversation we are having with ourselves; there is an alternative to simply identifying with the next thought that pops into consciousness. And glimpsing this alternative dispels the conventional illusion of the self. Most traditions of spirituality also suggest a connection between self-transcendence and living ethically. Not all good feelings have an ethical valence, and pathological forms of ecstasy surely exist. I have no doubt, for instance, that many suicide bombers feel extraordinarily good just before they detonate themselves in a crowd. But there are also forms of mental pleasure that are intrinsically ethical. As I indicated earlier, for some states of consciousness, a phrase like “boundless love” does not seem overblown. It is decidedly inconvenient for the forces of reason and secularism that if someone wakes up tomorrow feeling boundless love for all sentient beings, the only people likely to acknowledge the legitimacy of his experience will be representatives of one or another Iron Age religion or New Age cult. Most of us are far wiser than we may appear to be. We know how to keep our relationships in order, to use our time well, to improve our health, to lose weight, to learn valuable skills, and to solve many other riddles of existence. But following even the straight and open path to happiness is hard. If your best friend were to ask how she could live a better life, you would probably find many useful things to say, and yet you might not live that way yourself. On one level, wisdom is nothing more profound than an ability to follow one’s own advice. However, there are deeper insights to be had about the nature of our minds. Unfortunately, they have been discussed entirely in the context of religion and, therefore, have been shrouded in fallacy and superstition for all of human history. The problem of finding happiness in this world arrives with our first breath—and our needs and desires seem to multiply by the hour. To spend any time in the presence of a young child is to witness a mind ceaselessly buffeted by joy and sorrow. As we grow older, our laughter and tears become less gratuitous, perhaps, but the same process of change continues: One roiling complex of thought and emotion is followed by the next, like waves in the ocean. Seeking, finding, maintaining, and safeguarding our well-being is the great project to which we all are devoted, whether or not we choose to think in these terms. This is not to say that we want mere pleasure or the easiest possible life. Many things require extraordinary effort to accomplish, and some of us learn to enjoy the struggle. Any athlete knows that certain kinds of pain can be exquisitely pleasurable. The burn of lifting weights, for instance, would be excruciating if it were a symptom of terminal illness. But because it is associated with health and fitness, most people find it enjoyable. Here we see that cognition and emotion are not separate. The way we think about experience can completely determine how we feel about it. And we always face tensions and trade-offs. In some moments we crave excitement and in others rest. We might love the taste of wine and chocolate, but rarely for breakfast. Whatever the context, our minds are perpetually moving—generally toward pleasure (or its imagined source) and away from pain. I am not the first person to have noticed this. Our struggle to navigate the space of possible pains and pleasures produces most of human culture. Medical science attempts to prolong our health and to reduce the suffering associated with illness, aging, and death. All forms of media cater to our thirst for information and entertainment. Political and economic institutions seek to ensure our peaceful collaboration with one another—and the police or the military is summoned when they fail. Beyond ensuring our survival, civilization is a vast machine invented by the human mind to regulate its states. We are ever in the process of creating and repairing a world that our minds want to be in. And wherever we look, we see the evidence of our successes and our failures. Unfortunately, failure enjoys a natural advantage. Wrong answers to any problem outnumber right ones by a wide margin, and it seems that it will always be easier to break things than to fix them. Despite the beauty of our world and the scope of human accomplishment, it is hard not to worry that the forces of chaos will triumph—not merely in the end but in every moment. Our pleasures, however refined or easily acquired, are by their very nature fleeting. They begin to subside the instant they arise, only to be replaced by fresh desires or feelings of discomfort. You can’t get enough of your favorite meal until, in the next moment, you find you are so stuffed as to nearly require the attention of a surgeon—and yet, by some quirk of physics, you still have room for dessert. The pleasure of dessert lasts a few seconds, and then the lingering taste in your mouth must be banished by a drink of water. The warmth of the sun feels wonderful on your skin, but soon it becomes too much of a good thing. A move to the shade brings immediate relief, but after a minute or two, the breeze is just a little too cold. Do you have a sweater in the car? Let’s take a look. Yes, there it is. You’re warm now, but you notice that your sweater has seen better days. Does it make you look carefree or disheveled? Perhaps it is time to go shopping for something new. And so it goes. We seem to do little more than lurch between wanting and not wanting. Thus, the question naturally arises: Is there more to life than this? Might it be possible to feel much better (in every sense of better) than one tends to feel? Is it possible to find lasting fulfillment despite the inevitability of change? Spiritual life begins with a suspicion that the answer to such questions could well be “yes.” And a true spiritual practitioner is someone who has discovered that it is possible to be at ease in the world for no reason, if only for a few moments at a time, and that such ease is synonymous with transcending the apparent boundaries of the self. Those who have never tasted such peace of mind might view these assertions as highly suspect. Nevertheless, it is a fact that a condition of selfless well-being is there to be glimpsed in each moment. Of course, I’m not claiming to have experienced all such states, but I meet many people who appear to have experienced none of them—and these people often profess to have no interest in spiritual life. This is not surprising. The phenomenon of self-transcendence is generally sought and interpreted in a religious context, and it is precisely the sort of experience that tends to increase a person’s faith. How many Christians, having once felt their hearts grow as wide as the world, will decide to ditch Christianity and proclaim their atheism? Not many, I suspect. How many people who have never felt anything of the kind become atheists? I don’t know, but there is little doubt that these mental states act as a kind of filter: The faithful count them in support of ancient dogma, and their absence gives nonbelievers further reason to reject religion. This is a difficult problem for me to address in the context of a book, because many readers will have no idea what I’m talking about when I describe certain spiritual experiences and might assume that the assertions I’m making must be accepted on faith. Religious readers present a different challenge: They may think they know exactly what I’m describing, but only insofar as it aligns with one or another religious doctrine. It seems to me that both these attitudes present impressive obstacles to understanding spirituality in the way that I intend. I can only hope that, whatever your background, you will approach the exercises presented in this book with an open mind. RELIGION, EAST AND WEST We are often encouraged to believe that all religions are the same: All teach the same ethical principles; all urge their followers to contemplate the same divine reality; all are equally wise, compassionate, and true within their sphere—or equally divisive and false, depending on one’s view. No serious adherents of any faith can believe these things, because most religions make claims about reality that are mutually incompatible. Exceptions to this rule exist, but they provide little relief from what is essentially a zero-sum contest of all against all. The polytheism of Hinduism allows it to digest parts of many other faiths: If Christians insist that Jesus Christ is the son of God, for instance, Hindus can make him yet another avatar of Vishnu without losing any sleep. But this spirit of inclusiveness points in one direction only, and even it has its limits. Hindus are committed to specific metaphysical ideas—the law of karma and rebirth, a multiplicity of gods—that almost every other major religion decries. It is impossible for any faith, no matter how elastic, to fully honor the truth claims of another. Devout Jews, Christians, and Muslims believe that theirs is the one true and complete revelation—because that is what their holy books say of themselves. Only secularists and New Age dabblers can mistake the modern tactic of “interfaith dialogue” for an underlying unity of all religions. I have long argued that confusion about the unity of religions is an artifact of language. Religion is a term like sports: Some sports are peaceful but spectacularly dangerous (“free solo” rock climbing); some are safer but synonymous with violence (mixed martial arts); and some entail little more risk of injury than standing in the shower (bowling). To speak of sports as a generic activity makes it impossible to discuss what athletes actually do or the physical attributes required to do it. What do all sports have in common apart from breathing? Not much. The term religion is hardly more useful. The same could be said of spirituality. The esoteric doctrines found within every religious tradition are not all derived from the same insights. Nor are they equally empirical, logical, parsimonious, or wise. They don’t always point to the same underlying reality—and when they do, they don’t do it equally well. Nor are all these teachings equally suited for export beyond the cultures that first conceived them. Making distinctions of this kind, however, is deeply unfashionable in intellectual circles. In my experience, people do not want to hear that Islam supports violence in a way that Jainism doesn’t, or that Buddhism offers a truly sophisticated, empirical approach to understanding the human mind, whereas Christianity presents an almost perfect impediment to such understanding. In many circles, to make invidious comparisons of this kind is to stand convicted of bigotry. In one sense, all religions and spiritual practices must address the same reality—because people of all faiths have glimpsed many of the same truths. Any view of consciousness and the cosmos that is available to the human mind can, in principle, be appreciated by anyone. It is not surprising, therefore, that individual Jews, Christians, Muslims, and Buddhists have given voice to some of the same insights and intuitions. This merely indicates that human cognition and emotion run deeper than religion. (But we knew that, didn’t we?) It does not suggest that all religions understand our spiritual possibilities equally well. One way of missing this point is to declare that all spiritual teachings are inflections of the same “Perennial Philosophy.” The writer Aldous Huxley brought this idea into prominence by publishing an anthology by that title. Here is how he justified the idea: Philosophia perennis—the phrase was coined by Leibniz; but the thing—the metaphysic that recognizes a divine Reality substantial to the world of things and lives and minds; the psychology that finds in the soul something similar to, or even identical with, divine Reality; the ethic that places man’s final end in the knowledge of the immanent and transcendent Ground of all being—the thing is immemorial and universal. Rudiments of the Perennial Philosophy may be found among the traditionary lore of primitive peoples in every region of the world, and in its fully developed forms it has a place in every one of the higher religions. A version of this Highest Common Factor in all preceding and subsequent theologies was first committed to writing more than twenty-five centuries ago, and since that time the inexhaustible theme has been treated again and again, from the standpoint of every religious tradition and in all the principal languages of Asia and Europe.[2] Although Huxley was being reasonably cautious in his wording, this notion of a “highest common factor” uniting all religions begins to break apart the moment one presses for details. For instance, the Abrahamic religions are incorrigibly dualistic and faith-based: In Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, the human soul is conceived as genuinely separate from the divine reality of God. The appropriate attitude for a creature that finds itself in this circumstance is some combination of terror, shame, and awe. In the best case, notions of God’s love and grace provide some relief—but the central message of these faiths is that each of us is separate from, and in relationship to, a divine authority who will punish anyone who harbors the slightest doubt about His supremacy. The Eastern tradition presents a very different picture of reality. And its highest teachings—found within the various schools of Buddhism and the nominally Hindu tradition of Advaita Vedanta—explicitly transcend dualism. By their lights, consciousness itself is identical to the very reality that one might otherwise mistake for God. While these teachings make metaphysical claims that any serious student of science should find incredible, they center on a range of experiences that the doctrines of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam rule out-of-bounds. Of course, it is true that specific Jewish, Christian, and Muslim mystics have had experiences similar to those that motivate Buddhism and Advaita, but these contemplative insights are not exemplary of their faith. Rather, they are anomalies that Western mystics have always struggled to understand and to honor, often at considerable personal risk. Given their proper weight, these experiences produce heterodoxies for which Jews, Christians, and Muslims have been regularly exiled or killed. Like Huxley, anyone determined to find a happy synthesis among spiritual traditions will notice that the Christian mystic Meister Eckhart (ca. 1260–ca. 1327) often sounded very much like a Buddhist: “The knower and the known are one. Simple people imagine that they should see God, as if He stood there and they here. This is not so. God and I, we are one in knowledge.” But he also sounded like a man bound to be excommunicated by his church—as he was. Had Eckhart lived a little longer, it seems certain that he would have been dragged into the street and burned alive for these expansive ideas. That is a telling difference between Christianity and Buddhism. In the same vein, it is misleading to hold up the Sufi mystic Al-Hallaj (858–922) as a representative of Islam. He was a Muslim, yes, but he suffered the most grisly death imaginable at the hands of his coreligionists for presuming to be one with God. Both Eckhart and Al-Hallaj gave voice to an experience of self-transcendence that any human being can, in principle, enjoy. However, their views were not consistent with the central teachings of their faiths. The Indian tradition is comparatively free of problems of this kind. Although the teachings of Buddhism and Advaita are embedded in more or less conventional religions, they contain empirical insights about the nature of consciousness that do not depend upon faith. One can practice most techniques of Buddhist meditation or the method of self-inquiry of Advaita and experience the advertised changes in one’s consciousness without ever believing in the law of karma or in the miracles attributed to Indian mystics. To get started as a Christian, however, one must first accept a dozen implausible things about the life of Jesus and the origins of the Bible—and the same can be said, minus a few unimportant details, about Judaism and Islam. If one should happen to discover that the sense of being an individual soul is an illusion, one will be guilty of blasphemy everywhere west of the Indus. There is no question that many religious disciplines can produce interesting experiences in suitable minds. It should be clear, however, that engaging a faith-based (and probably delusional) practice, whatever its effects, isn’t the same as investigating the nature of one’s mind absent any doctrinal assumptions. Statements of this kind may seem starkly antagonistic toward Abrahamic religions, but they are nonetheless true: One can speak about Buddhism shorn of its miracles and irrational assumptions. The same cannot be said of Christianity or Islam.[3] Western engagement with Eastern spirituality dates back at least as far as Alexander’s campaign in India, where the young conqueror and his pet philosophers encountered naked ascetics whom they called “gymnosophists.” It is often said that the thinking of these yogis greatly influenced the philosopher Pyrrho, the father of Greek skepticism. This seems a credible claim, because Pyrrho’s teachings had much in common with Buddhism. But his contemplative insights and methods never became part of any system of thought in the West. Serious study of Eastern thought by outsiders did not begin until the late eighteenth century. The first translation of a Sanskrit text into a Western language appears to have been Sir Charles Wilkins’s rendering of the Bhagavad Gita, a cornerstone text of Hinduism, in 1785. The Buddhist canon would not attract the attention of Western scholars for another hundred years.[4] The conversation between East and West started in earnest, albeit inauspiciously, with the birth of the Theosophical Society, that golem of spiritual hunger and self-deception brought into this world almost single-handedly by the incomparable Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky in 1875. Everything about Blavatsky seemed to defy earthly logic: She was an enormously fat woman who was said to have wandered alone and undetected for seven years in the mountains of Tibet. She was also thought to have survived shipwrecks, gunshot wounds, and sword fights. Even less persuasively, she claimed to be in psychic contact with members of the “Great White Brotherhood” of ascended masters—a collection of immortals responsible for the evolution and maintenance of the entire cosmos. Their leader hailed from the planet Venus but lived in the mythical kingdom of Shambhala, which Blavatsky placed somewhere in the vicinity of the Gobi Desert. With the suspiciously bureaucratic name “the Lord of the World,” he supervised the work of other adepts, including the Buddha, Maitreya, Maha Chohan, and one Koot Hoomi, who appears to have had nothing better to do on behalf of the cosmos than to impart its secrets to Blavatsky. [5] It is always surprising when a person attracts legions of followers and builds a large organization on their largesse while peddling penny-arcade mythology of this kind. But perhaps this was less remarkable in a time when even the best-educated people were still struggling to come to terms with electricity, evolution, and the existence of other planets. We can easily forget how suddenly the world had shrunk and the cosmos expanded as the nineteenth century came to a close. The geographical barriers between distant cultures had been stripped away by trade and conquest (one could now order a gin and tonic almost everywhere on earth), and yet the reality of unseen forces and alien worlds was a daily focus of the most careful scientific research. Inevitably, cross-cultural and scientific discoveries were mingled in the popular imagination with religious dogma and traditional occultism. In fact, this had been happening at the highest level of human thought for more than a century: It is always instructive to recall that the father of modern physics, Isaac Newton, squandered a considerable portion of his genius on the study of theology, biblical prophecy, and alchemy. The inability to distinguish the strange but true from the merely strange was common enough in Blavatsky’s time—as it is in our own. Blavatsky’s contemporary Joseph Smith, a libidinous con man and crackpot, was able to found a new religion on the claim that he had unearthed the final revelations of God in the hallowed precincts of Manchester, New York, written in “reformed Egyptian” on golden plates. He decoded this text with the aid of magical “seer stones,” which, whether by magic or not, allowed Smith to produce an English version of God’s Word that was an embarrassing pastiche of plagiarisms from the Bible and silly lies about Jesus’s life in America. And yet the resulting edifice of nonsense and taboo survives to this day. A more modern cult, Scientology, leverages human credulity to an even greater degree: Adherents believe that human beings are possessed by the souls of extraterrestrials who were condemned to planet Earth 75 million years ago by the galactic overlord Xenu. How was their exile accomplished? The old-fashioned way: These aliens were shuttled by the billions to our humble planet aboard a spacecraft that resembled a DC-8. They were then imprisoned in a volcano and blasted to bits with hydrogen bombs. Their souls survived, however, and disentangling them from our own can be the work of a lifetime. It is also expensive.[6] Despite the imponderables in her philosophy, Blavatsky was among the first people to announce in Western circles that there was such a thing as the “wisdom of the East.” This wisdom began to trickle westward once Swami Vivekananda introduced the teachings of Vedanta at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893. Again, Buddhism lagged behind: A few Western monks living on the island of Sri Lanka were beginning to translate the Pali Canon, which remains the most authoritative record of the teachings of the historical Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama. However, the practice of Buddhist meditation wouldn’t actually be taught in the West for another half century. It is easy enough to find fault with romantic ideas about Eastern wisdom, and a tradition of such criticism sprang up almost the instant the first Western seeker sat cross-legged and attempted to meditate. In the late 1950s, the author and journalist Arthur Koestler traveled to India and Japan in search of wisdom and summarized his pilgrimage thus: “I started my journey in sackcloth and ashes, and came back rather proud of being a European.”[7] In The Lotus and the Robot, Koestler gives some of his reasons for being less than awed by his journey to the East. Consider, for example, the ancient discipline of hatha yoga. While now generally viewed as a system of physical exercises designed to increase a person’s strength and flexibility, in its traditional context hatha yoga is part of a larger effort to manipulate “subtle” features of the body unknown to anatomists. No doubt much of this subtlety corresponds to experiences that yogis actually have—but many of the beliefs formed on the basis of these experiences are patently absurd, and certain of the associated practices are both silly and injurious. Koestler reports that the aspiring yogi is traditionally encouraged to lengthen his tongue—even going so far as to cut the frenulum (the membrane that anchors the tongue to the floor of the mouth) and stretch the soft palate. What is the purpose of these modifications? They enable our hero to insert his tongue into his nasopharynx, thereby blocking the flow of air through the nostrils. His anatomy thus improved, a yogi can then imbibe subtle liquors believed to emanate directly from his brain. These substances—imagined, by recourse to further subtleties, to be connected to the retention of semen—are said to confer not only spiritual wisdom but immortality. This technique of drinking mucus is known as khechari mudra, and it is thought to be one of the crowning achievements of yoga. I’m more than happy to score a point for Koestler here. Needless to say, no defense of such practices will be found in this book. Criticism of Eastern wisdom can seem especially pertinent when coming from Easterners themselves. There is indeed something preposterous about well-educated Westerners racing East in search of spiritual enlightenment while Easterners make the opposite pilgrimage seeking education and economic opportunities. I have a friend whose own adventures may have marked a high point in this global comedy. He made his first trip to India immediately after graduating from college, having already acquired several yogic affectations: He had the requisite beads and long hair, but he was also in the habit of writing the name of the Hindu god Ram in Devanagari script over and over in a journal. On the flight to the motherland, he had the good fortune to be seated next to an Indian businessman. This weary traveler thought he had witnessed every species of human folly—until he caught sight of my friend’s scribbling. The spectacle of a Western-born Stanford graduate, of working age, holding degrees in both economics and history, devoting himself to the graphomaniacal worship of an imaginary deity in a language he could neither read nor understand was more than this man could abide in a confined space at 30,000 feet. After a testy exchange, the two travelers could only stare at each other in mutual incomprehension and pity—and they had ten hours yet to fly. There really are two sides to such a conversation, but I concede that only one of them can be made to look ridiculous. We can also grant that Eastern wisdom has not produced societies or political institutions that are any better than their Western counterparts; in fact, one could argue that India has survived as the world’s largest democracy only because of institutions that were built under British rule. Nor has the East led the world in scientific discovery. Nevertheless, there is something to the notion of uniquely Eastern wisdom, and most of it has been concentrated in or derived from the tradition of Buddhism. Buddhism has been of special interest to Western scientists for reasons already hinted at. It isn’t primarily a faith-based religion, and its central teachings are entirely empirical. Despite the superstitions that many Buddhists cherish, the doctrine has a practical and logical core that does not require any unwarranted assumptions. Many Westerners have recognized this and have been relieved to find a spiritual alternative to faith-based worship. It is no accident that most of the scientific research now done on meditation focuses primarily on Buddhist techniques. Another reason for Buddhism’s prominence among scientists has been the intellectual engagement of one of its most visible representatives: Tenzin Gyatso, the fourteenth Dalai Lama. Of course, the Dalai Lama is not without his critics. My late friend Christopher Hitchens meted out justice to “his holiness” on several occasions. He also castigated Western students of Buddhism for the “widely and lazily held belief that ‘Oriental’ religion is different from other faiths: less dogmatic, more contemplative, more . . . Transcendental,” and for the “blissful, thoughtless exceptionalism” with which Buddhism is regarded by many.[8] Hitch did have a point. In his capacity as the head of one of the four branches of Tibetan Buddhism and as the former leader of the Tibetan government in exile, the Dalai Lama has made some questionable claims and formed some embarrassing alliances. Although his engagement with science is far-reaching and surely sincere, the man is not above consulting an astrologer or “oracle” when making important decisions. I will have something to say in this book about many of the things that might have justified Hitch’s opprobrium, but the general thrust of his commentary here was all wrong. Several Eastern traditions are exceptionally empirical and exceptionally wise, and therefore merit the exceptionalism claimed by their adherents. Buddhism in particular possesses a literature on the nature of the mind that has no peer in Western religion or Western science. Some of these teachings are cluttered with metaphysical assumptions that should provoke our doubts, but many aren’t. And when engaged as a set of hypotheses by which to investigate the mind and deepen one’s ethical life, Buddhism can be an entirely rational enterprise. Unlike the doctrines of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, the teachings of Buddhism are not considered by their adherents to be the product of infallible revelation. They are, rather, empirical instructions: If you do X, you will experience Y. Although many Buddhists have a superstitious and cultic attachment to the historical Buddha, the teachings of Buddhism present him as an ordinary human being who succeeded in understanding the nature of his own mind. Buddha means “awakened one”—and Siddhartha Gautama was merely a man who woke up from the dream of being a separate self. Compare this with the Christian view of Jesus, who is imagined to be the son of the creator of the universe. This is a very different proposition, and it renders Christianity, no matter how fully divested of metaphysical baggage, all but irrelevant to a scientific discussion about the human condition. The teachings of Buddhism, and of Eastern spirituality generally, focus on the primacy of the mind. There are dangers in this way of viewing the world, to be sure. Focusing on training the mind to the exclusion of all else can lead to political quietism and hive-like conformity. The fact that your mind is all you have and that it is possible to be at peace even in difficult circumstances can become an argument for ignoring obvious societal problems. But it is not a compelling one. The world is in desperate need of improvement—in global terms, freedom and prosperity remain the exception—and yet this doesn’t mean we need to be miserable while we work for the common good. In fact, the teachings of Buddhism emphasize a connection between ethical and spiritual life. Making progress in one domain lays a foundation for progress in the other. One can, for instance, spend long periods of time in contemplative solitude for the purpose of becoming a better person in the world—having better relationships, being more honest and compassionate and, therefore, more helpful to one’s fellow human beings. Being wisely selfish and being selfless can amount to very much the same thing. There are centuries of anecdotal testimony on this point—and, as we will see, the scientific study of the mind has begun to bear it out. There is now little question that how one uses one’s attention, moment to moment, largely determines what kind of person one becomes. Our minds—and lives—are largely shaped by how we use them. Although the experience of self-transcendence is, in principle, available to everyone, this possibility is only weakly attested to in the religious and philosophical literature of the West. Only Buddhists and students of Advaita Vedanta (which appears to have been heavily influenced by Buddhism) have been absolutely clear in asserting that spiritual life consists in overcoming the illusion of the self by paying close attention to our experience in the present moment.[9] As I wrote in my first book, The End of Faith, the disparity between Eastern and Western spirituality resembles that found between Eastern and Western medicine—with the arrow of embarrassment pointing in the opposite direction. Humanity did not understand the biology of cancer, develop antibiotics and vaccines, or sequence the human genome under an Eastern sun. Consequently, real medicine is almost entirely a product of Western science. Insofar as specific techniques of Eastern medicine actually work, they must conform, whether by design or by happenstance, to the principles of biology as we have come to know them in the West. This is not to say that Western medicine is complete. In a few decades, many of our current practices will seem barbaric. One need only ponder the list of side effects that accompany most medications to appreciate that these are terribly blunt instruments. Nevertheless, most of our knowledge about the human body—and about the physical universe generally—emerged in the West. The rest is instinct, folklore, bewilderment, and untimely death. An honest comparison of spiritual traditions, Eastern and Western, proves equally invidious. As manuals for contemplative understanding, the Bible and the Koran are worse than useless. Whatever wisdom can be found in their pages is never best found there, and it is subverted, time and again, by ancient savagery and superstition. Again, one must deploy the necessary caveats: I am not saying that most Buddhists or Hindus have been sophisticated contemplatives. Their traditions have spawned many of the same pathologies we see elsewhere among the faithful: dogmatism, anti-intellectualism, tribalism, otherworldliness. However, the empirical difference between the central teachings of Buddhism and Advaita and those of Western monotheism is difficult to overstate. One can traverse the Eastern paths simply by becoming interested in the nature of one’s own mind—especially in the immediate causes of psychological suffering—and by paying closer attention to one’s experience in every present moment. There is, in truth, nothing one need believe. The teachings of Buddhism and Advaita are best viewed as lab manuals and explorers’ logs detailing the results of empirical research on the nature of human consciousness. Nearly every geographical or linguistic barrier to the free exchange of ideas has now fallen away. It seems to me, therefore, that educated people no longer have a right to any form of spiritual provincialism. The truths of Eastern spirituality are now no more Eastern than the truths of Western science are Western. We are merely talking about human consciousness and its possible states. My purpose in writing this book is to encourage you to investigate certain contemplative insights for yourself, without accepting the metaphysical ideas that they inspired in ignorant and isolated peoples of the past. A final word of caution: Nothing I say here is intended as a denial of the fact that psychological well-being requires a healthy “sense of self”—with all the capacities that this vague phrase implies. Children need to become autonomous, confident, and self-aware in order to form healthy relationships. And they must acquire a host of other cognitive, emotional, and interpersonal skills in the process of becoming sane and productive adults. Which is to say that there is a time and a place for everything—unless, of course, there isn’t. No doubt there are psychological conditions, such as schizophrenia, for which practices of the sort I recommend in this book might be inappropriate. Some people find the experience of an extended, silent retreat psychologically destabilizing.[10] Again, an analogy to physical training seems apropos: Not everyone is suited to running a six-minute mile or bench-pressing his own body weight. But many quite ordinary people are capable of these feats, and there are better and worse ways to accomplish them. What is more, the same principles of fitness generally apply even to people whose abilities are limited by illness or injury. So I want to make it clear that the instructions in this book are intended for readers who are adults (more or less) and free from any psychological or medical conditions that could be exacerbated by meditation or other techniques of sustained introspection. If paying attention to your breath, to bodily sensations, to the flow of thoughts, or to the nature of consciousness itself seems likely to cause you clinically significant anguish, please check with a psychologist or a psychiatrist before engaging in the practices I describe. MINDFULNESS It is always now. This might sound trite, but it is the truth. It’s not quite true as a matter of neurology, because our minds are built upon layers of inputs whose timing we know must be different. [11] But it is true as a matter of conscious experience. The reality of your life is always now. And to realize this, we will see, is liberating. In fact, I think there is nothing more important to understand if you want to be happy in this world. But we spend most of our lives forgetting this truth—overlooking it, fleeing it, repudiating it. And the horror is that we succeed. We manage to avoid being happy while struggling to become happy, fulfilling one desire after the next, banishing our fears, grasping at pleasure, recoiling from pain—and thinking, interminably, about how best to keep the whole works up and running. As a consequence, we spend our lives being far less content than we might otherwise be. We often fail to appreciate what we have until we have lost it. We crave experiences, objects, relationships, only to grow bored with them. And yet the craving persists. I speak from experience, of course. As a remedy for this predicament, many spiritual teachings ask us to entertain unfounded ideas about the nature of reality—or at the very least to develop a fondness for the iconography and rituals of one or another religion. But not all paths traverse the same rough ground. There are methods of meditation that do not require any artifice or unwarranted assumptions at all. For beginners, I usually recommend a technique called vipassana (Pali for “insight”), which comes from the oldest tradition of Buddhism, the Theravada. One of the advantages of vipassana is that it can be taught in an entirely secular way. Experts in this practice generally acquire their training in a Buddhist context, and most retreat centers in the United States and Europe teach its associated Buddhist philosophy. Nevertheless, this method of introspection can be brought into any secular or scientific context without embarrassment. (The same cannot be said for the practice of chanting to Lord Krishna while banging a drum.) That is why vipassana is now being widely studied and adopted by psychologists and neuroscientists. The quality of mind cultivated in vipassana is almost always referred to as “mindfulness,” and the literature on its psychological benefits is now substantial. There is nothing spooky about mindfulness. It is simply a state of clear, nonjudgmental, and undistracted attention to the contents of consciousness, whether pleasant or unpleasant. Cultivating this quality of mind has been shown to reduce pain, anxiety, and depression; improve cognitive function; and even produce changes in gray matter density in regions of the brain related to learning and memory, emotional regulation, and self-awareness.[12] We will look more closely at the neurophysiology of mindfulness in a later chapter. Mindfulness is a translation of the Pali word sati. The term has several meanings in the Buddhist literature, but for our purposes the most important is “clear awareness.”

If Edith Sheffer‘s excellent Burned Bridge: How East and West Germans Made the Iron Curtain (Oxford UP, 2011) has a single lesson, it's that dividing a country is not as easy as you might think. You don't just draw a line and tell people that it's now the “border,” for in order for borders to be borders, they have to be seen as such. Sheffer shows that for quite a number of years after 1945, the Germans in Neustadt and Sonneberg–closely situated towns in, respectively, the American and Soviet zones of occupation–didn't really know whether the border was a border and, if so, what kind of border it was or should be. “It”–whatever it was–was shifting, lawless, contested, resented, profitable, and sometimes deadly. The Grenze at Burned Bridge was really a kind of anarchical region dividing people who were in no way different from one another but who were compelled to behave as if they were by two occupying powers. The degree to which they were so compelled differed and this made all the difference in the end (the end being 1990, the year of reunification). Years of Nazi propaganda had taught Germans to fear Communist Russians. So when the Soviets arrived in Sonneberg and began to rape and pillage, their fears were realized and they fled. When Soviets (with the help of East German Communists) imposed Stalinism and all that went with it, their fears were doubled and they fled. And when Soviet order reduced once prosperous Sonneberg to a mere economic shadow of Wirtschaftwunder-era Neustadt, their fears were tripled and they fled. For the Soviets and their East German toadies, this “defection” was embarrassing, so they made what was an ill-defined, porous border zone into a militarized, nearly sealed wall. For anyone familiar with Soviet border policy in the 1930s, what they did in Germany is not surprising. What is surprising (at least to me) is the Americans' and Neustadters' response to the influx of Easterners, namely, something between ambivalence and hostility. The former wanted order on the border and the latter wanted security from the Eastern “mob.” Both took active measures to keep the Ossis out, all the while issuing pronouncements about the necessity of Wiedervereinigung. The Soviets are responsible for the division of Germany, but, as Edith shows, they had help.

If Edith Sheffer‘s excellent Burned Bridge: How East and West Germans Made the Iron Curtain (Oxford UP, 2011) has a single lesson, it’s that dividing a country is not as easy as you might think. You don’t just draw a line and tell people that it’s now the “border,” for in order for borders to be borders, they have to be seen as such. Sheffer shows that for quite a number of years after 1945, the Germans in Neustadt and Sonneberg–closely situated towns in, respectively, the American and Soviet zones of occupation–didn’t really know whether the border was a border and, if so, what kind of border it was or should be. “It”–whatever it was–was shifting, lawless, contested, resented, profitable, and sometimes deadly. The Grenze at Burned Bridge was really a kind of anarchical region dividing people who were in no way different from one another but who were compelled to behave as if they were by two occupying powers. The degree to which they were so compelled differed and this made all the difference in the end (the end being 1990, the year of reunification). Years of Nazi propaganda had taught Germans to fear Communist Russians. So when the Soviets arrived in Sonneberg and began to rape and pillage, their fears were realized and they fled. When Soviets (with the help of East German Communists) imposed Stalinism and all that went with it, their fears were doubled and they fled. And when Soviet order reduced once prosperous Sonneberg to a mere economic shadow of Wirtschaftwunder-era Neustadt, their fears were tripled and they fled. For the Soviets and their East German toadies, this “defection” was embarrassing, so they made what was an ill-defined, porous border zone into a militarized, nearly sealed wall. For anyone familiar with Soviet border policy in the 1930s, what they did in Germany is not surprising. What is surprising (at least to me) is the Americans’ and Neustadters’ response to the influx of Easterners, namely, something between ambivalence and hostility. The former wanted order on the border and the latter wanted security from the Eastern “mob.” Both took active measures to keep the Ossis out, all the while issuing pronouncements about the necessity of Wiedervereinigung. The Soviets are responsible for the division of Germany, but, as Edith shows, they had help. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If Edith Sheffer‘s excellent Burned Bridge: How East and West Germans Made the Iron Curtain (Oxford UP, 2011) has a single lesson, it’s that dividing a country is not as easy as you might think. You don’t just draw a line and tell people that it’s now the “border,” for in order for borders to be borders, they have to be seen as such. Sheffer shows that for quite a number of years after 1945, the Germans in Neustadt and Sonneberg–closely situated towns in, respectively, the American and Soviet zones of occupation–didn’t really know whether the border was a border and, if so, what kind of border it was or should be. “It”–whatever it was–was shifting, lawless, contested, resented, profitable, and sometimes deadly. The Grenze at Burned Bridge was really a kind of anarchical region dividing people who were in no way different from one another but who were compelled to behave as if they were by two occupying powers. The degree to which they were so compelled differed and this made all the difference in the end (the end being 1990, the year of reunification). Years of Nazi propaganda had taught Germans to fear Communist Russians. So when the Soviets arrived in Sonneberg and began to rape and pillage, their fears were realized and they fled. When Soviets (with the help of East German Communists) imposed Stalinism and all that went with it, their fears were doubled and they fled. And when Soviet order reduced once prosperous Sonneberg to a mere economic shadow of Wirtschaftwunder-era Neustadt, their fears were tripled and they fled. For the Soviets and their East German toadies, this “defection” was embarrassing, so they made what was an ill-defined, porous border zone into a militarized, nearly sealed wall. For anyone familiar with Soviet border policy in the 1930s, what they did in Germany is not surprising. What is surprising (at least to me) is the Americans’ and Neustadters’ response to the influx of Easterners, namely, something between ambivalence and hostility. The former wanted order on the border and the latter wanted security from the Eastern “mob.” Both took active measures to keep the Ossis out, all the while issuing pronouncements about the necessity of Wiedervereinigung. The Soviets are responsible for the division of Germany, but, as Edith shows, they had help. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If Edith Sheffer‘s excellent Burned Bridge: How East and West Germans Made the Iron Curtain (Oxford UP, 2011) has a single lesson, it’s that dividing a country is not as easy as you might think. You don’t just draw a line and tell people that it’s now the “border,” for in order for borders to be borders, they have to be seen as such. Sheffer shows that for quite a number of years after 1945, the Germans in Neustadt and Sonneberg–closely situated towns in, respectively, the American and Soviet zones of occupation–didn’t really know whether the border was a border and, if so, what kind of border it was or should be. “It”–whatever it was–was shifting, lawless, contested, resented, profitable, and sometimes deadly. The Grenze at Burned Bridge was really a kind of anarchical region dividing people who were in no way different from one another but who were compelled to behave as if they were by two occupying powers. The degree to which they were so compelled differed and this made all the difference in the end (the end being 1990, the year of reunification). Years of Nazi propaganda had taught Germans to fear Communist Russians. So when the Soviets arrived in Sonneberg and began to rape and pillage, their fears were realized and they fled. When Soviets (with the help of East German Communists) imposed Stalinism and all that went with it, their fears were doubled and they fled. And when Soviet order reduced once prosperous Sonneberg to a mere economic shadow of Wirtschaftwunder-era Neustadt, their fears were tripled and they fled. For the Soviets and their East German toadies, this “defection” was embarrassing, so they made what was an ill-defined, porous border zone into a militarized, nearly sealed wall. For anyone familiar with Soviet border policy in the 1930s, what they did in Germany is not surprising. What is surprising (at least to me) is the Americans’ and Neustadters’ response to the influx of Easterners, namely, something between ambivalence and hostility. The former wanted order on the border and the latter wanted security from the Eastern “mob.” Both took active measures to keep the Ossis out, all the while issuing pronouncements about the necessity of Wiedervereinigung. The Soviets are responsible for the division of Germany, but, as Edith shows, they had help. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If Edith Sheffer‘s excellent Burned Bridge: How East and West Germans Made the Iron Curtain (Oxford UP, 2011) has a single lesson, it’s that dividing a country is not as easy as you might think. You don’t just draw a line and tell people that it’s now the “border,” for in order for borders to be borders, they have to be seen as such. Sheffer shows that for quite a number of years after 1945, the Germans in Neustadt and Sonneberg–closely situated towns in, respectively, the American and Soviet zones of occupation–didn’t really know whether the border was a border and, if so, what kind of border it was or should be. “It”–whatever it was–was shifting, lawless, contested, resented, profitable, and sometimes deadly. The Grenze at Burned Bridge was really a kind of anarchical region dividing people who were in no way different from one another but who were compelled to behave as if they were by two occupying powers. The degree to which they were so compelled differed and this made all the difference in the end (the end being 1990, the year of reunification). Years of Nazi propaganda had taught Germans to fear Communist Russians. So when the Soviets arrived in Sonneberg and began to rape and pillage, their fears were realized and they fled. When Soviets (with the help of East German Communists) imposed Stalinism and all that went with it, their fears were doubled and they fled. And when Soviet order reduced once prosperous Sonneberg to a mere economic shadow of Wirtschaftwunder-era Neustadt, their fears were tripled and they fled. For the Soviets and their East German toadies, this “defection” was embarrassing, so they made what was an ill-defined, porous border zone into a militarized, nearly sealed wall. For anyone familiar with Soviet border policy in the 1930s, what they did in Germany is not surprising. What is surprising (at least to me) is the Americans’ and Neustadters’ response to the influx of Easterners, namely, something between ambivalence and hostility. The former wanted order on the border and the latter wanted security from the Eastern “mob.” Both took active measures to keep the Ossis out, all the while issuing pronouncements about the necessity of Wiedervereinigung. The Soviets are responsible for the division of Germany, but, as Edith shows, they had help. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sun, Feb 21 2010 Mister Ron's Basement #1599 SUNDAY SALAD offers a Stanley Huntley tale from 1882 revealing exactly how western railroad conductors handle pushy Easterners. It's called 'The Conductor and the Tourist.' Time: approx five and a half minutes The Mister Ron's Basement Full Catalog can be found at: http://ronevry.com/Mister_Rons_Full_Catalog.html The Stanley Huntley and Spoopendyke Catalog of Stories is at: http://ronevry.com/Spoopendyke_Stories.html  *John Kelly of The Washington Post has written a lively piece about the Basement. You can read it here.  *There is a nifty interview with Mister Ron in issue #59 of iProng Magazine (soon to be renamed 'Beatweek') which can be downloaded as a free pdf file here.  Help Keep Mister Ron's Basement alive! Donate One Dollar: http://ronevry.com/Mister_Ron_Donate.html A hint to new listeners - you can use the catalogs to find stories by specific authors, or just type their name in the keyword search field. To find some of the best stories in the Basement, simply click here!   -- By the way, if you haven't noticed, you can get the episode by either clicking on the word 'POD' on top of this section, or on the filename on the bottom where it says 'Direct Download' or by clicking on the Victrola picture, or by subscribing in iTunes.     When in iTunes, please click on 'Subscribe' button. It's Free! Thank you. 

This week's episode is titled, “Contra Munda”In our last episode we noted how the Emperor Constantine hoped Christianity would be a unifying influence in the far-flung & troubled Roman Empire. But as soon as he & his co-emperor Licinius passed the Edict of Milan granting religious tolerance to all the Empire's subject, the doctrinal & theological debates that had been in place for years began to surface.When the Church was being hammered by persecution prior to Constantine, Christians had a more imminent threat to deal with. But now that persecution was lifted, secondary issues moved to the foreground.As we saw at the conclusion of the last episode, the Donatists of North Africa asked the Emperor to mediate their dispute with their non-Donatist adversaries. At the Council at Arles, the Donatists lost the debate over whether or not lapsed church leaders could be reinstalled. When they refused to capitulate, Constantine sent troops to Carthage, the lead church in N Africa, to enforce his will. For the first time, the power of the State was used to enforce Church policy on other Christians.An interesting aside from the Council of Arles was the presence of 3 bishops from Britain. This gives us an idea how far the Gospel had penetrated by the beginning of the 4th C.But the Donatist Controversy wasn't the only or near the largest debate that would engulf the Church at that time. The biggest doctrinal challenge facing the Church was how to understand the person of Jesus Christ. A pastor of a church near Alexandria, Egypt named Arius became the champion for a position which said Jesus was human but not God.As we embark on this chapter in Church History, let me begin by saying it was in these early years, as church leaders wrestled with the identity of Christ and His relation to man & God, that the theological groundwork was laid for what we hold today as Orthodoxy. It took many years & several Councils before the Church Fathers worked out the right wording that captures the essence of what we now call orthodox doctrine. Getting there was no easy trip. The journey was fraught with great trouble, distress, and at times, bloodshed. It began with a debate over the nature of Christ; was He God, man, or both? If both, how are we to understand Him; did He have 2 natures or 1 hybrid nature that merged the 2? And if Jesus is God, then how do we describe God as one, yet being both Father & Son? Oh – and don't forget the Holy Spirit? How are we going to describe all this without saying something about God that's untrue?I warn you that as we carry all this into the 5th & 6th Cs, especially the discussions over how to understand the nature of Christ, we're going to see some church leaders acting in a decidedly non-Christian manner. One of the Church Councils called to settle this matter ended up in a bloody riot! So hang on because we have some fun stuff ahead.For now, realize what we're looking at in this era of our review is a big deal and will frame the course of Church life over the next nearly 300 years.How do I explain the debate as it emerged in the challenge Arius presented?Well, because of their pagan background, many people didn't believe God experienced emotions as humans experience them. Yet it's clear from the Gospels Jesus did experience such emotions. Therefore, logic seemed to dictate Jesus could not have been divine, because if He was, then God experienced human emotions. Arius' solution was that Jesus was God's first & greatest creation. Denying that Jesus was eternal, he said, “Once, the Son did not exist.” Arius wanted to get his ideas into the public mind quickly so he set his doctrine to catchy little tunes & soon, many were singing his songs.Arius' position was popular among the common people who found the Christian doctrines of the Incarnation & the Trinity difficult. How could there be 1 God eternally manifest as 3 persons? Arius' description of Jesus as a kind of divine hero beneath the 1 God fit more easily into their pagan background so they adopted his theology. While Arius' teaching spread rapidly among his pagan neighbors, those with a keener awareness of the Bible opposed his aberrant views. They composed their own chorus that today is known as the Gloria Patri – “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end.”Alexander, the bishop of Alexandria, so Arius' spiritual overseer, led the opposition to Arius and called together a group of Church leaders in 320. They reviewed Arius' theology and declared it heretical.  When Arius refused to back down, they excommunicated him. Arius then went to the Empire's Eastern capital at Nicomedia & asked for the support of his friend, the bishop of the church there, a guy named Eusebius.  Not the church historian Eusebius who lived at the same time.The 2 most influential churches of the East were set in opposition to each other, Nicomedia, the political headquarters & Alexandria, the intellectual center. Because Arius had Eusebius' backing he felt emboldened to return to Alexandria. When he did, there was rioting in the streets. But then, if you know anything about ancient Alexandria, rioting was a favored past-time. They rioted like we go to a ball game; it was public sport.As the Arian Controversy spread, Emperor Constantine realized if he didn't take action, instead of the Church providing much needed unity for the Empire, it would become one of the major sources of turmoil & unrest. In 325 he called Church leaders far & wide to attend a special council at the city of Nicea in modern Turkey, at his expense. Some 300 bishops managed to make it, enough to make the Council of Nicea a remarkable representation of the whole church.  Many of those who attended bore the scars & marks of the Diocletian persecution. When they met, they found a throne set for the Emperor in the midst of the hall. He sat arrayed in richly jeweled robes befitting more an Eastern monarch than an Emperor of Rome.Constantine assumed the Arian Controversy was merely a sematic debate; a petty brueha over words & that a meeting of the minds of Christians leaders was all that was needed to settle the dispute. Yeah, let's just get every together in one place and talk it out man to man, face to face. Surely they'll reach a compromise, right?  à So, he commenced the council with a little pep talk about the importance of their task, then turned it over to them. The depth of his naivete was quickly revealed.The account of the finding of the Council reveals that while the doctrinal issue raised by Arius was quickly resolved, it was how Arius was handled by Bishop Alexander that became the main point of debate.Arianism was declared heretical. The Council affirmed both the deity & humanity of Jesus as the Son of God. Constantine urged his friend, Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea, the famous historian, to put forward his creed, his statement of faith as something the entire council could endorse as their united statement. But the Council didn't find Eusebius sufficiently clear on his belief in the deity of Jesus and went instead with a creed offered by the Bishop of the Spanish city of Cordova, a man named Hosius, another favorite of the Emperor's. Still, the Council dithered, & Constantine, with an empire to run, grew impatient & pressed the bishops to endorse what today we know as the Nicean Creed, the accepted standard of Roman & Eastern Churches.I quote the Nicean Creed in full …We believe in one God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, …Then comes the lines the Council wrote to specifically deal with the Arian error –True God of True God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father (remember that phrase; it'll be important later) by whom all things were made; who for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, and was made man, and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was buried, and the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father. And he shall come again with glory to judge both the living and the dead, whose kingdom shall have no end.And we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, who spoke by the prophets. And we believe in only one holy, universal and apostolic Church. We acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins. And we look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.Only 2 of the 300 bishops present refused to sign the Creed. Along with Arius, they were exiled. Constantine assumed the Arian Controversy had been dealt with, so the Church would settle down and help him unite the realm. To mark the dawn of a new & glorious day of Church & State cooperation, Constantine held a huge banquet before the bishops headed home.What a sight, these men bearing the scars of the previous emperor's persecution, now the emperor's celebrated guests, eating at his sumptuous table, reclining on his own couch! Guarded by his bodyguard. One man, missing an eye put out by Diocletian, was given special honor; Constantine even kissed the eyeless cheek!But in the years that followed, some of those bishops were banished from their posts when they took umbrage at this or that imperial decision. A hierarchy grew up around Constantine, self-appointed advisors to the Emperor on the state of the Church. If they didn't like a certain fellow, they accused him of some offense, and the newly anointed enemy was exiled with his replacement being someone more amenable to the accuser. And just as often as a bishop ran afoul of Imperial favor & was banished, just that quick he could be called back when Constantine replaced one set of advisors with another. The role of Church leader became a kind of musical chairs. In today, out tomorrow, back the day after, but keep your bags packed at all times.An example of this is the career of Athanasius.Athanasius was a young advisor to Bishop Alexander of Alexandria who led the opposition to Arius. Athanasius was a short & dark-skinned deacon his enemies referred to as the Black Dwarf.  As a young man, he spent hours with his heroes, the monks in the wilderness outside Alexandria. The word monk means “alone” & they took their name from the isolation they pursued. Athanasius took it on himself to make sure they had food & supplies as they devoted themselves to God by literally fleeing the world.Athanasius had a keen mind & lived a highly-disciplined life. Even at a young age his brilliance was respected and when Alexander made the trip to Nicaea for the famous Council, he took Athanasius with him. Not long after returning from Nicaea, Alexander fell ill & asked Athanasius to replace him. But Athanasius wanted to serve, not lead. So he fled to his desert friends, the monks. They convinced him of his calling to lead the Church & he returned to Alexandrian as Bishop. He was 33.Constantine was loath to undo the findings of the Council of Nicaea, but he also knew the Arian position was still popular among many f the common folk. He thought it best that Arius be allowed to return to Alexandria as a member of the Church. Thinking that now that Alexander, the man who'd led the opposition was out of the way, Athanasius would knuckle under to Imperial authority and consent to Arius' return. He couldn't have been more wrong.Athanasius locked horns with the Emperor & refused to budge, even when Constantine threatened to banish him.  They battled for 5 yrs when finally the Emperor had enough & found Athanasius guilty of treason. In the 40 yrs Athanasius was bishop, he was banished & recalled 5 times as the winds of fortune & imperial favor shifted in the palace. At one point, he was so thoroughly out of political good will every one of his supporters deserted him.  It was during this period he wrote & spoke of his devotion & unwavering loyalty to Jesus as the King above all earthly kings, saying that nothing could weaken his resolve to love & serve God, even if it meant, “Athanasius contra munda” = Athanasius against the world.Remember just a moment ago when reading the Nicaean Creed, I mentioned to note the phrase that Jesus was of one substance with the Father. Not long after the Nicaean Council, a group of Church leaders decided to soften the Nicaean position & bring it a little toward the Arian view. They said Jesus wasn't the SAME substance as the Father but was a SIMILAR substance. In Greek, it's the difference of one letter' between homo-ousios – same substance & the new terminology they advocated – homoi-ousios – similar substance.As we'd expect, Athanasius led the classic Nicean interpretation of homo-ousios against the Quasi-Arians and their statement of homoi-ousios. While this may seem an insignificant difference to many of us, it proved to be of monumental importance. If the door was opened in even a small way to begin thinking of Jesus as somehow different in essence from the Father, it wouldn't be long before His deity would be jettisoned entirely. Then we wouldn't be following the Jesus of the Bible; the real Jesus of history. Athanasius' lonely & steadfast determination to hold fast to what the Bible said about God, rather than go along with the politically-minded doctrine-massagers of his day is one of the most important & heroic moments, not just in Church history, but in all history. This was one of those moments when it seems truth hung by a thread; a thread only as think as the letter “i”.We end this episode with this . . .One of Constantine's most important contributions to history was the relocation of his capital to Byzantium from the decayed husk of the once great but now worn-out & tired city of Rome. Byzantium was located at the geographical crossroads for the ancient world and it's a wonder no one had recognized its strategic brilliance before this.  It sits a the narrow neck of the Bosporus, linking E & W & controls the flow of maritime trade between the Black & Mediterranean Seas. Located not far from Diocletian's Eastern capital at Nicomedia it meant an easy relocation of the capital. Constantine decided to turn the hundreds year old village into a bright shining new center of civilization and made a good start on the project before his death in 337. Because it was the Eastern capital, it also became a major center & headquarters of the Church, which would eventually vie with Rome for bragging rights over which church ruled the Christian world.At Constantine's death it was as if a message was sent to the frontiers it was time for Rome's enemies to push her borders backwards.  In Central Asia, the Huns pressed westward on the Goths, who in turn pressed in on Rome's Eastern Frontier. Another group known as the Visigoths eventually made it all the way to Rome in 410 & sacked the city. Their leader was Alaric, who'd been influenced by Arianism.Over the next years, other Easterners made their way across Europe, bringing more ruin. Each successive wave was like another slap to the face of once great Rome which by that time was little more than a punch-drunk & washed up has-been. The Franks, Alans, Vandals & Ostrogoths all took a turn knocking the Romans about.The Vandals, who began their campaign of terror & pillage in the steppes of Asia, crossed the Rhine, plowed a deep furrow S into Spain, took ship to cross the Straits of Gibraltar & landed in N Africa where they heard fabulous wealth awaited. Furious that the riches they dreamed of weren't there, they went on a rampage of destruction that's bequeathed their name “Vandal” to later generations as meaning someone out to wreck wanton & pointless ruination.One of the cities they laid siege to in N Africa was Hippo, where a Bishop named Augustine served as pastor. Augustine became one of the most important theologians of church history. He died during the siege by the Vandals. When they finally conquered & destroyed the city, the Vandals so respected Augustine they took pains to preserve his church & the extensive library he'd accumulated.Augustine of Hippo is a towering influence in church history and one that we'll return to in a future episode.

Episode 55 – The Crusades, Part 2As Bruce Shelly aptly states in in his excellent book Church History in Plain Language, for the past 700 years Christians have tried to forget the Crusades, though neither Jews nor Muslims will let them. Modern Christians want to dismiss that era of Church History as the insane bigotry of the illiterate and superstitious. But to do so is to show our own kind of bigotry, one neglectful of the historical context of the European Middle Ages.The Crusaders were human beings, who like us, had mixed motives often in conflict. The word crusade means to “take up the cross,” hopefully after the example of Christ. That's why on the way to the Holy Land crusaders wore the cross on their chest. On their return home they wore it on their back. [1]In rallying the European nobility to join the First Crusade, Pope Urban II promised them forgiveness of past sins. Most of them held a deep reverence for the land Jesus had walked. That devotion was captured later by Shakespeare when he has King Henry IV say:We are impressed and engag'd to fight … To chase those pagans in those holy fields, Over whose acres walked those blessed feet, Which fourteen hundred years ago were nail'd, For our advantage on the bitter cross.For Urban and later popes, the Crusades were a Holy War. Augustine, whose theology shaped the Medieval Church, laid down the principles of a “just war.”  He said that it must be conducted by the State; its broad purpose was to uphold an endangered justice, which meant more narrowly that it must be defensive to protect life and property. In conducting such a just war there must be respect for noncombatants, hostages, and prisoners. And while all this may have been in the mind of Pope Urban and other church leaders when they called the First Crusade, those ideals didn't make it past the boundary of Europe. Once the Crusaders arrived in the East, the difficulties of their passage conspired to justify in their minds the wholesale pillaging of the innocent. Even those who'd originally taken up the Crusader cross with noble intent, didn't want to be left out of acquiring treasure once the looting began. After all, everyone else is doing it?As we return to our narrative of the First Crusade, let's recap …What triggered the Crusade was a request for assistance from Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos. Alexios worried about the advances of the Muslim Seljuk Turks, who'd reached as far west as Nicaea, a suburb of Constantinople. In March 1095, Alexios sent envoys to the Council of Piacenza to ask Pope Urban II for aid against the Turks. Urban's reply was positive. It's likely he hoped to heal the Great Schism of 40 yrs before that had sundered Western and Eastern churches.In the Summer of 1095, Urban turned to his homeland of France to recruit for the campaign. His journey ended at the Council of Clermont in November, where he gave an impassioned sermon to a large audience of French nobles and clergy, detailing the atrocities committed against pilgrims and Christians living in the East by the Muslims.Malcolm Gladwell wrote a bestseller in 2000 called The Tipping Point. The Pope's speech was one of those, an epic tipping point that sent history in a new direction. Urban understood what he proposed as an act so expensive, long, and arduous that it amounted to a form of penance capable of discharging all sins for those who went crusading. And he understood how his audience's minds worked. Coming from a noble house himself and having worked his way up through the ranks of the monastery and Church, he understood the puzzle that lay at the heart of popular religious sentiment. People were keenly aware of their sinfulness and sought to expunge it by embarking on a pilgrimage, or if that wasn't possible, to endow a monk or nun so they could live a life of sequestered holiness on their behalf. But their unavoidable immersion in the world meant it was impossible to perform all of the time-consuming penances which could keep pace with their ever-increasing catalog of sin. Urban saw that he could cut the Gordian knot by prescribing a Crusade. Here at last was a way for men given to violence, one of the most grievous of their misdeeds, to USE it as an act of penance. Overnight, those who were the most in need of penance became the very ones most likely to be the cause of the Crusade's success.While there are different versions of Urban's sermon, they all name the same basic elements. The Pope talked about the need to end the violence the European knights continued among themselves, the need to help the Eastern Christians in their contest with Islam, and making the pathways of pilgrims to Jerusalem safe again.  He proposed to do this by waging a new kind of war, an armed pilgrimage that would lead to great spiritual and earthly rewards, in which sins would be remitted and anyone who died in the contest would bypass purgatory and enter immediately into heaven's bliss.The Pope's speech at Clermont didn't specifically mention liberating Jerusalem; the goal at first was just to help Constantinople and clear the roads to Jerusalem.  But Urban's later message as he travelled thru Europe raising support for the Crusade, did include the idea of liberating the Holy City.While Urban's speech seemed impromptu, it was in fact well-planned.  He'd discussed launching a crusade with two of southern France's most important leaders who gave enthusiastic support. One of them was at Clermont, the first to take up the cause. During what was left of 1095 and into 96, Pope Urban spread the message throughout France and urged the clergy to preach in their own regions and churches throughout Europe.Despite this planning, the response to call for the Crusade was a surprise. Instead of urging people to JOIN the campaign, bishops had to dissuade certain people from joining.  Women, monks, and the infirm were forbidden, though many protested their exclusion. Some did more than protest; the defied officials and made plans to go anyway. When Pope Urban originally conceived the crusade, he envisioned the knights and nobility leading out trained armies. It was a surprise when thousands of peasants took up the cause.What was the bishop to say to these peasants when they indicated their intent to go? “You can't. You have to stay and tend your fields and herds.” When the peasants asked why, the bishops had no good answer, so they formed companies and set off. The clergy was forced to give grudging permission. They gathered local groups of peasants and had them take a vow of devotion to the Holy Cause, setting as their destination, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem.Alongside the enthusiasm of the peasants, Urban courted the nobility of Europe, especially in France, to lead the Crusade. Knights from both northern and southern France, Flanders, Germany, and Italy were divided into four armies. Sadly, they often saw themselves in competition with each other rather than united in a common cause. They vied for prominence in bringing glory to God; oh, and of course, the loot that went along with it.While it was the scion of the noble houses that led a few of the armies, the bulk of the knights were lesser sons of the nobility whose only route to wealth lay in conquest. The eldest brother was set to inherit the family name and estate. So hundreds of these younger sons saw the Crusades as a way to make a name for themselves and carve out their own domain in newly acquired lands. If they didn't return to Europe laden with treasure, they hoped to settle down on land they'd won with the sword.One of the many sad results of the spin-up for the First Crusade was the persecution of Jews in Northern France and the Rhineland. Anti-Semitism bubbled beneath the surface of this region for generations. It spilled over now as peasants and commoners mobilized to remove the infidels form the Holy Land. Some began to question why a trip to the Middle East was needed when there were Christ-haters living right at hand. So Jews were attacked, their homes burned, businesses sacked.As we saw in our last episode, the peasants formed into bands and rampaged their way across Europe to Constantinople. They lacked the discipline and supplies of the knights so they foraged their way East like Sherman on his march to the Sea during the American Civil war. Though we don't know the numbers, thousands of these peasant crusaders were killed along the way as armed defenders came out to oppose their trek across their lands.When they finally arrived in Constantinople, they were hurriedly escorted across the Bosporus in August of 1096. At that point they split into two groups. One tried to recapture Nicaea but failed when the Turks surrounded and wiped them out. The other group was ambushed and massacred in October.This phase of the First Crusade is called The People's Crusade because it was made up of btwn 20 and 30,000 commoners. Its leadership include some minor nobles but its most visible leader was the odd Peter the Hermit.Peter's leadership of The People's Crusade was due to his fiery recruitment sermons. He wasn't so skilled in the tactical management of 30,000 would-be warriors. Once they arrived in Constantinople, his lack of administrative skill became obvious and the handful of knights who'd joined up realized they need to take control. But they refused to submit to one another and fragmented into different groups based on nationality. This lack of leadership proved fatal. They lost control of their so-called army which set to looting the homes and towns of Eastern Christians. The German contingent managed to seize a Seljuk city and the French began agitating for their leaders to do likewise. A couple Turkish spies spread a rumor in the French camp that the Germans were marching on Nicaea. So the French rushed out to beat them to it. While passing thru a narrow valley, they were wiped out by waiting Seljuk forces.A remnant made it back to Constantinople where they joined up with the knights who were just then, at the end of the Summer, arriving from Europe. This force formed into contingents grouped around the great lords. This was the kind of military force Pope Urban II and the Emperor Alexius had envisioned.The Crusaders realized they had to conquer and occupy Antioch in Syria first or a victory over Jerusalem would be short-lived. They took the city, but then barely survived a siege laid in by the Turks. Breaking the siege in the Spring of 1099, the leaders of the Crusade ended their quarrels and marched South. Their route took them along the coast to Caesarea, where they headed inland toward their goal. They arrived in the vicinity of Jerusalem in early June.By that time the army was reduced to 20,000. The effect of seeing the Holy City for the first time was electrifying. These men had fought and slogged their way across thousands of miles, leaving their homes and cultures to encounter new sights, sounds and tastes. And every step of the way, their goal was Jerusalem—the place where Jesus had lived and died. Accounts of that moment say the warriors fell on their knees and kissed the sacred earth. They removed their armor and in bare feet w/tears, cried out to God in confession and praise.A desperate but futile attack was made on the City five days later. Boiling pitch and oil were used by Jerusalem's defenders, with showers of stones and anything else they could get their hands on that would do damage. Then the Crusaders set a siege that took the usual course. Ladders, scaling towers, and other siege-engines were built. The problem is, they had to travel miles to get wood.  The trees around Jerusalem had all been cut down by the Roman General Titus twelve centuries before. They'd never grown back.The City was surrounded on 3 sides by Raymund of Toulouse, Godfrey, Tancred, and Robert of Normandy. It was a hot Summer and the suffering of the besiegers was intense as water was scarce. Soon, the valleys and hills around the city walls were covered w/dead horses, whose rotting carcasses made life in camp unbearable.Someone got the brilliant idea to duplicate Joshua's battle plan at Jericho. So the Crusaders took off their shoes and with priests leading, began marching around Jerusalem, hoping the walls would fall down. Of course, they didn't. I wonder what they did with the guy who came up with the idea. Help at last came with the arrival of a fleet at Joppa harbor from Genoa carrying workmen and supplies who went to work building new siege gear.The day of the final assault finally arrived. A huge tower topped by a golden cross was dragged up to the walls and a massive plank bridge was dropped so the Crusaders could rush from tower to the top of the wall. The weakened defenders couldn't stop the mass of warriors who flooded into their City.The carnage that followed is one more chapter in the many such scenes Jerusalem has known.Once they'd secured the City, the blood-splattered Crusaders paused to throw God a bone. Led by Godfrey, freshly changed into a suit of white linen, the Crusaders went to the church of the Holy Sepulcher and offered prayers and thanksgiving. Then, devotions over, the massacre recommenced. Neither the tears of women, nor the cries of children, did anything to halt to terror. The leaders tried to restrain their troops but they'd been let off the chain and were determined to let as much blood out of bodies as possible.When it was finally over, Muslim prisoners were forced to clear the streets of the bodies and blood to save the city from pestilence.Remember Peter the Hermit, who'd lead the peasant army to disaster? He made it to Jerusalem before returning to Europe where he founded a monastery and died in 1115.Pope Urban II also died just 2 weeks after the fall of Jerusalem, before the news reached him.Looking back, it's clear the First Crusade came at probably the only time it could have been successful.  The Seljuk Turks had broken up into rival factions in 1092. The Crusaders entered into the region like a knife before a new era of Muslim union and conquest opened. That's what those newly arrived Crusaders would now have to face.Just eight days after capturing Jerusalem, a permanent government was set-up. It was called “The Kingdom of Jerusalem.” Godfrey was elected king, but declined the title of royalty, unwilling to wear a crown of gold where the Savior had worn a crown of thorns.  He adopted the title Baron and Defender of the Holy Sepulcher.From the moment of its birth, the Kingdom of Jerusalem was in trouble. Less than a year later they made an appeal to the Germans for reinforcements. And Godfrey survived the capture of Jerusalem by only a year. He was buried in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, where his sword and spurs are still on display. On his tomb is the inscription: “Here lies Godfrey of Bouillon, who conquered all this territory for the Christian religion. May his soul be at rest with Christ.”Rome immediately moved to make The Kingdom of Jerusalem part of it's region of hegemony. The archbishop of Pisa, Dagobert, who'd been a part of the Crusade, was elected to be Jerusalem's Patriarch.The new rulers turned from conquest to defense and governing. They tried to layer the feudal system of Europe onto Middle Eastern society. The conquered territory was distributed among Crusader barons, who held their possessions under the king of Jerusalem as overlord. The four chief fiefs were Jaffa, Galilee, Sidon, and east of the Jordan River, a region called Kerat. The counts of Tripoli and Edessa and the prince of Antioch were independent of Jerusalem but were closely allied due to the nearby Muslim menace.The Crusader occupation of Israel was far from peaceful. The kingdom was torn by constant intrigues of civil rulers and religious clerics. All that while it faced unending threats from without. But it was the inner strife that was the main cause of weakness. Monks settled in swarms all over the country. The Franciscans became guardians of the holy places. The offspring of the Crusaders by Moslem women, called pullani, became a blight as they were given over to unrelenting greed and the most grotesque immorality.When Godfrey died, he was succeeded by his brother Baldwin, count of Edessa. Baldwin was intelligent and the most active king of Jerusalem. He died after eight years; his body laid next to his brother's.During Baldwin's reign, the kingdom grew significantly. Caesarea fell to the Crusaders in 1101, then Ptolemais in 1104. Beirut in 1110. But Damascus never fell to the Crusaders. With the progress of their arms, they built castles all over their holdings in the Middle East. The ruins of those fortifications stand today and are premier tourist sites.Many of the Crusaders, who began the adventure planning to return to Europe, decided rather to stay once the work of conquest was finished. One wrote, “We who were Westerners, are now Easterners. We have forgotten our native land.” Other Crusaders did return to Europe, only to return later. Even several European kings spent long stays in the Holy Land.During Baldwin's reign most of the leaders of the First Crusade either died or went home. But their ranks were continually replenished by fresh expeditions from Europe. Pope Pascal II, successor to Urban II, sent out a call for recruits. The Italian cities furnished fleets, and coordinated with land forces. The Venetians, Pisans, and Genoese established quarters of their own in Jerusalem, Acre, and other cities. Thousands took up the Crusader cause in Lombardy, France, and Germany. They were led by Anselm, archbishop of Milan, Stephen, duke of Burgundy, William, duke of Aquitaine, Ida of Austria, and others. Hugh who'd gone home, returned. Bohemund also came back with 34,000.  Two Crusader armies attacked the Islamic stronghold at Bagdad.Baldwin's nephew, also named Baldwin, succeeded his uncle and reigned for 13 years, till 1131. He conquered the strategic city of Tyre on the coast. It was 1124 and that marked the high-water point of Crusader power.Over the next 60 yrs, Jerusalem saw a succession of weak rulers while the Muslims from Damascus to Egypt were uniting under a new band of competent and charismatic leaders. The last of these was Saladin. He became caliph in 1174 and set out to retake Jerusalem.But that's for our next episode . . .[1] Shelley, B. L. (1995). Church history in plain language (Updated 2nd ed.) (187–188). Dallas, Tex.: Word Pub.

Think I'm on safe ground when I say à Those listening to this are mostly likely students of history. Your knowledge of the past is probably more comprehensive than the average person. And of course, the range of knowledge among subscribers to CS spans the gamut from extensive to, well, not so much. Yet still, more than the average.If asked to make a list of the main thinkers of the past; philosophers, theologians, and such like, of Western tradition, we'd get the usual. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle. Seneca, Cicero, Virgil. Clement, Origen, Augustine, Aquinas.A name far less likely to make that list is the subject of this episode.  Though he's not oft mentioned in modern treatments of church and philosophical history, his work was a major contributor to medieval thought, which was the seedbed form which the modern world rose.His full name was Anicius Manlius Torquatus Severinus. But he's known to us simply as Boethius.Born to a Roman senatorial family sometime between 475 & 80 in Italy, Boethius was left an orphan at an early age. He was adopted by another patrician, Memmius Symmachus, who instilled in the young man a love of literature and philosophy.Symmachus made sure Boethius learned the vanishing skill of literacy in Greek. With the split between the Eastern & Western Roman Empires now settled, and the Fall of the Western Empire to the Goths, it seems Greek, primary language of the East, fell to disuse in favor of Latin. In the West, Greek became increasingly the language of scholars and those suspected of lingering loyalty to the East.Nevertheless, Boethius' familiarity with the classics commended him to the new rulers of the West – the Ostrogoths. Their king, Theodoric the Great, appointed the 35 year old Boethius as consul. While the office of consul was technically linked to the ancient Roman Republican Consul, by the 6th C, it was an office far more of image than substance. Still an important position politically, but wielding none of the authority it once had. By Boethius' time, that is the early 6th C, being a senator meant little more than, “This is someone to keep your eye on as a potential future leader.” Being made a consul was like making the finals in the last round of the playoffs. But with an emperor seated on the throne, all rule and authority was concentrated in the royal court. A 5th & 6th C Roman Consul was more a political figurehead; a polite fiction; a nod to the glory of ancient Rome and her amazing feat of world conquest. From Augustus on, the Roman Senate and her consuls steadily lost place to the new imperial bureaucracy. After Augustus, who moved swiftly to relocate and consolidate all power within his executive office, Roman emperors turned to the Prefect of the Praetorian Guard as the new go to guy in executing Imperial policy. By the time of Boethius, that office had evolved into what was called the Magister Officiorum; head of all government and judicial services.When Boethius's term as consul was up, his two sons were appointed co-consuls in his place, one for the West, the other for the East. He was then promoted into the role of Magister Officiorum – the highest administrative position in King Theodoric's court.And that's where the fun begins. à Well, it wasn't so fun for Boethius. I probably ought to say; that's where the political shenanigans and devious machinations began. For it was there, serving Theodoric, that Boethius ran afoul of the ambitions of powerful men.They used Boethius' faith to bring him down.And here we're back to the old Arian-Nicaean Controversy. You see, while Arianism had been debunked and expelled from the Western Church long before all this, it found a home among the Goths of the East; the Ostrogoths, who now ruled what was left of the Western Roman Empire. King Theodoric was an Arian, as were his Ostrogoth pals, many of whom were jealous that an outsider like Boethius had the highest post they could aspire to. Oh, and don't forget that Boethius is fluent in Greek, the language they speak over in the Eastern Empire. Whose Emperor, Justinian I was openly known to aspire to reclaim Italy from Theodoric. Oh, and to add fuel to the fires of controversy & suspicion, those Easterners are also Orthodox, Nicaean Christians, people who've systematically wiped out Arians.Boethius' was doing a stellar job as Magister Officiorum, so they knew they couldn't attack him directly. They went instead after his less well-connected friends, accusing them of conspiring with Justinian in his designs on Italy. They knew Boethius would come to their defense, and that would be enough to cast a pall over his imperial favor. The ruse worked, and Boethius was arrested, hauled off to an estate in Pavia, where he spent a year in confinement, then quietly executed when the news cycle shifted to other more pressing matters. Ha! Today, the news cycle is down to about 5 days. Back then, it was several months.Now, you may be wondering, what does Boethius have to do with CHURCH history? I'm so glad you asked.Boethius' main contribution to history in general and to Church history in particular lies in his impact on the relationship between theology and philosophy. He's regarded by many as the last of the ancient philosophers.Boethius adored the ancient Greeks. It was his life's ambition, to translate the works of Plato and Aristotle into Latin. He died before he was able, but he made a good start. His singular contribution to history is his serving as a bridge between the classical and medieval ages for understanding Aristotelean thought, especially as it regards Aristotle's work in LOGIC. Boethius recast Aristotle's principles in terms that Medieval Europeans could grasp. His work then was foundational to many other theologians and philosophers for hundreds of years. One can argue that without Boethius, Roman Scholasticism, might not have happened, or at least it would have adopted a very different form. Boethius provided much of the vocabulary of medieval theology and philosophy. He's sometimes called “the first scholastic” because in his work titled Opuscula Sacra, written to defend orthodox theology, he applied Aristotelian logic, seeking to harmonize faith & reason – the great task of later Scholastics.But it was during his year of imprisonment in Pavia, as he awaited execution that Boethius wrote his most well-known volume, The Consolation of Philosophy, regarded as the single most influential work on Medieval and early Renaissance Christianity, & the last great Western work of the Classical Period.Written in 523, The Consolation of Philosophy presents a conversation between himself and Lady Philosophy, who's come to console him. It's essentially a theodicy; an examination of the age-old dilemma addressing the challenge posed by the dual proposition of the existence of evil & God's omnipotence and love. A theodicy seeks to answer the question: If the God of the Bible is real, why is there evil in the world; a potent question for a man like Boethius, an innocent man awaiting execution by the wicked.During Lady Philosophy's discourse, subjects like predestination and free will are examined. The Consolation isn't an overtly Gospel centered work. Jesus isn't even mentioned. A rather generic God is assumed; a deity who certainly aligns loosely with The God of Scripture; but a distinctive Christian Trinitarian God isn't defined. For this reason, some historian claim Boethius wasn't a Christian. But that assessment simply doesn't square with the rest of his life, his other writings, or why he was accused of treason. His enemies went after him precisely because his orthodoxy raised Arian suspicion.So, what are we to make of the Consolation's lack of Gospel content? Surely the answer is found in Boethius' intended audience. He wasn't writing to or for Christians, showing them how to link faith and reason. He wrote to convince pagans that real philosophy, the kind that led to a better life, the BEST life, doesn't flow in tandem with paganism. The best life is a moral life, where justice and moderation are virtues. It was no doubt Boethius' hope, once pagans realized pagan religion hindered a better life, they'd investigate Christianity, because at that time in Europe those were the only two options, the only available worldviews: Christianity & Paganism. Take down paganism, and people would move to the only thing left – The Gospel.

In the last episode, we introduced the political situation framing the debate that ensued between two church leaders at the Council of Ephesus in 431.Those two leaders were Nestorius, Patriarch of the Capital Church at Constantinople and Cyril, arch-bishop at Alexandria. Let's get in to the background on these two men so we can better understand the brueha that happened at Ephesus.Nestorius was appointed as Patriarch of the Church in Constantinople by the Emperor Theodosius II in 428 after the death of the previous Patriarch, Sisinnius I.  The godly Sisinnius only served a year before dying on Christmas Eve in 427. Theodosius took 3 months to pick his successor and settled on Nestorius, a priest living at a monastery just outside the walls of Antioch in Syria.Nestorius had developed a reputation as an excellent preacher, something the Emperor and his court required at the Capital. So Nestorius was summoned and consecrated to his office as Patriarch of the East in April 428.And so the trouble began.As we saw last time, there was a long and heated competition between the Churches at Alexandria & Antioch to supply the Patriarch for the Eastern Capital. Though Alexandria considered itself to be academically superior in every way to Antioch, Constantinople kept drawing its lead bishop from their rival, Antioch. With the selection of Nestorius, Alexandria once again had its nose tweaked. What made it worse, wasn't just that they picked an Antiochan, but that they picked THAT Antiochan. As far as Cyril, leader of the Alexandrian Church was concerned, Nestorius was the WORST POSSIBLE choice.By all accounts, Theodosius probably could have come up with a better choice. While a capable teacher, Nestorius wasn't really cut out for the role of being the Patriarch of the Eastern Capital's Church. He'd better serve as the vice-principle of a reform school than as lead pastor of a large church. He was both intense and stubborn; a dangerous combination. Having spent most of his time in a monastery, he was ultra, politically naive, which ill-equipped him in dealing with the massive political machinations of the Byzantine court. Upon his arrival, he immediately alienated many. In once example, he assured Theodosius the Empire would triumph over its enemies if he exiled all heretics. Then securing permission to assist in this task, Nestorius burned down a chapel belonging to holdouts of Arianism. But as it's wont to do, the fire didn't stop at the edges of the chapel. It burned down a large part of the City. This earned Nestorius the title “Torchie.”Nestorius refused a request by the Roman bishop Celestine to return a group of heretics taking refuge in Constantinople.Nestorius was completely intolerant of any views but his own. When someone who's by far the smartest person in the room adopts that attitude, it's bad enough. But Nestorius wasn't that sharp. So when he was unable to answer the questions raised by some monks following one of his sermons, he invited them to his house the following day. When they arrived, Nestorius's guards beat them. Within months of Nestorius settling into his roles as Patriarch, the list of his enemies was impressive. The only thing that kept opposition from going public was the Emperor's support. And that didn't last, as we'll see.The other main personality at play at the Council of Ephesus was Cyril, arch-bishop or Patriarch of Alexandria. He was working on a reputation not far off from that of Nestorius. Cyril was quite a character. Rabble-rouser might be a good description for him. When the previous bishop of Alexandria died in 412, a riot ensued between two factions, each of which wanted their leader to become the new leader of the church. One group favored Cyril, the other his rival, Timotheus. Cyril's faction won and Cyril was installed as the head of the Church. This was at the time of the height of Alexandria's influence and power in the Roman Empire. Cyril believed the church ought to have a more influential role in the governing of the city; something the Roman prefect Orestes was not about to give him.Cyril wanted to prove to everyone he was large and in charge so, soon after being named patriarch of Alexandra, he closed down and appropriated the property of a splinter group.There was ethnic and religious tensions in Alexandria at all times. But at this time the tension between Pagans, Jews & Christians was at an all-time high. It broke out in a riot with well-organized Jews on one side and hapless Christians on the other. It was obvious that the whole thing had been engineered by a small group of Jews who'd managed to slay not a few Christians. So Cyril called out the entire Christian community to ransack Alexandria's synagogues and expel the entire Jewish community from the city. The governor Orestes was furious that so large and important a part of the city's population was exiled. It was destined to ruin the city's economy. And besides, who gave a religious leader the authority to take such an overt civil action?Both men appealed to the Emperor for support. But in the absence of a reply the tension grew. That's when a group of monks from a desert monastery arrived. These guys were nothing if not interesting. Their attitude was, “Submit or die.” They attacked Orestes, whose guards managed to rescue him.  One monk threw a rock that hit the governor in the head. He was arrested and tortured to death. Cyril pronounced him a martyr. The governor and bishops fired off another letter each to the Emperor.Though Orestes claimed to be a Christian, having been baptized by the previous Bishop of Alexandria, a famous leader of the pagans there supported Orestes in his contest with Cyril. Her name was Hypatia, a philosopher, mathematician and astronomer who bore tremendous influence in the City. Hypatia's reputation had spread over a good part of the Empire so that many students from wealthy families went to Alexandria to be taught be her. Those students went on to fill some of the Empire's most important offices, both in government and the Church.Though a Christian, as governor, Orestes sought to build a healthy relationship with both the Pagan and Jewish communities he was supposed to represent. His critics in the church used his familiarity with outsiders to say he was in truth a pagan. They wanted to drive a wedge between Orestes and his pagan supporters, so they dragged Hypatia form her chariot one day and hacked her body to pieces.While there's no evidence of Cyril's direct involvement, word got out he was ultimately responsible for her assassination.Can you see where all this is going in the controversy between Cyril & Nestorius? It's not looking good for the patriarch of Constantinople, is it? Unlike the political neophyte Nestorius, Cyril had 25 yrs of political scheming the time of the Council. He's also regarded by history as a more astute thinker & theologian than his rival.Antioch and Alexandria hadn't just been in competition with each other over who got to send someone to lead the Capital Church. They'd long argued over an array of theological issues. When it came to interpreting Scripture, Antioch tended to understand things literally. Alexandria followed a far more allegorical bent. They also differed in their Christology, that is, how they understood the nature of Jesus.Nestorius's hometown of Antioch, favored a straight-forward historical, literal approach emphasizing Jesus' humanity. Alexandria emphasized His deity. When battle lines were drawn at the Ephesian Council, the attending bishops split pretty much along ethnic lines. That is, the Easterners from Syria over supported Nestorius, while in the West; Egyptians, Greeks, & Romans, backed Cyril.As I mentioned in the last episode, to modern readers, all this political tension in the Church is disheartening. It may be helpful to keep in mind the ancient world operated under a different perspective than our own. One of the virtues of modern enlightened civilization is the idea of tolerance. That people ought to be free to believe what they will, without the threat of coercion by the civil government, or anyone else. In fact, it's the duty of govt to make sure that coercion doesn't rise. Tolerance doesn't mean all views are equally true or right. It just means each ought to be free to decide for themselves and to respect the views of others while disagreeing with them.That's NOT AT ALL the attitude of the ancients. Both Nestorius and Cyril believed, as did all their followers, it was crucial to the peace & prosperity of the Empire and all it's people, to have right thoughts about God. Ideas have consequences. And if people have wrong, even bad ideas about somethings as important as Who God is and What He's like,. It will result in choices that have long lasting & deadly effects. And if a church leader ALLOWS people to hold wrong ideas about God, God may bring judgment on his city and church for allowing such blasphemy to go unchecked.That we may scoff at that idea today, doesn't make it any less certain in the minds of a Nestorius or Cyril. If we could climb into a time machine and go back to chat with these two guys, we might attempt to reason with them by asking where in Jesus' ministry He stirred up riots and assassinated His enemies. But let's be careful about judging the past based on modern values, which are themselves the result of a long process of development, those earlier years and characters helped shape.Let's move now to a description of the two Christological schools that butted heads at Ephesus.Nestorius had developed his ideas on the nature of Jesus against the backdrop of two major heresies that had threatened The Faith: Arianism and Manichaeanism.As you know, because we've been examining it over the previous episodes, Arianism said Christ wasn't God. He was just a special being God created.Manichaeanism took the opposite approach and said Christ was a divine being and not Man. He couldn't be because physical matter is inherently evil.Nestorius shaped his Christology in such a way that it refuted both of these heresies. He said Jesus was both fully God and fully man and that these parts were separate. Nestorius thought that the previous Councils, dealing primarily with the error of Arianism, had already done the work of affirming Jesus' Deity.It was the error of the Manichaeans that needed to be dealt with now, so he emphasized Jesus' humanity, showing that Jesus was made human in all points like us. Therefore in His sacrifice, He's able to be a complete and perfect substitute.Nestorius rejected any sort of suffering in the divine nature of Christ at the same time he affirmed that His human nature grew and was tempted. In his mind, the separation of the natures of Christ and the emphasis on Christ's humanity did not mean Jesus was two separate people or that he was not fully God. But his opponents, chiefly Cyril, accused him of holding that position.If Nestorius emphasized the humanity of Jesus, Cyril emphasized His deity. Cyril was concerned that Nestorius' views allowed the Humanity of Christ to obscure and block His divinity. It seemed to Cyril that if Nestorius was right, then when people worshiped Jesus during the Incarnation, they were worshiping a creature, and that's forbidden, for worship is to be to God alone.Cyril was insistent that emphasizing Jesus' dual nature destroyed His unity as one person. He equated two natures with two persons and accused Nestorius of making Jesus a kind of spiritual schizophrenic.This is not to say Cyril denied Jesus' humanity. He certainly did NOT! But Cyril said Jesus deity was so overwhelming to His humanity that it was like a drop of ink in the ocean. The ink's there, but totally taken up and over by the sea.And once again, our time's up.We'll get to the actual council in our next episode.