Podcast appearances and mentions of Hester Prynne

What is fortitude—and why does it matter in literature and life? In this episode, the we explore the virtue of fortitude through the lens of beloved characters like Jane Eyre, Bilbo Baggins, Aragorn, and Hester Prynne. From the quiet strength of the hobbits to the moral resolve of Jane Eyre, we unpack how true fortitude blends courage, patience, endurance, and moral integrity. If you've ever wondered what makes a character truly heroic, or how virtue is taught through great books, this episode is for you.   Want to read the books we discussed?   Explore moral courage with the Jane Eyre Set (9th Grade): https://www.memoriapress.com/curriculum/literature-and-poetry/ninth/jane-eyre-set/?utm_source=PodBean&utm_medium=CETC&utm_campaign=172   Discover quiet strength in the The Hobbit Set (6th Grade): https://www.memoriapress.com/curriculum/literature-and-poetry/sixth/the-hobbit-set/?utm_source=PodBean&utm_medium=CETC&utm_campaign=172   Witness unwavering strength in the face of shame and suffering in the The Scarlet Letter Set (9th Grade): https://www.memoriapress.com/curriculum/literature-and-poetry/ninth/scarlet-letter-set/?utm_source=PodBean&utm_medium=CETC&utm_campaign=172

In this episode of The Watchung Booksellers Podcast, authors Laurie Lico Albanese and ANastasia Rubis discuss reading and writing historical fiction.Laurie Lico Albanese is a historical novelist, most recently of the acclaimed novel Hester,  which gives voice to Hester Prynne in a retelling of The Scarlet Letter. Hester was a Book of the Month club selection and an Audible and Goodreads Best Books of 2022. Laurie's previous historical novels include Stolen Beauty, about the famed Gustav Klimt portrait known as The Lady in Gold. She lives in Montclair with her husband, where they raised their two grown children. She writes for New Jersey Monthly, teaches writing, and is at work on a new novel.Anastasia Rubis' writing has appeared in the New York Times, Huffington Post, New York Observer, and literary journals. One of her stories, “Girl Falling,” was named a Notable Essay in Best American Essays of 2014. Another, “Blue Pools,” was included in the anthology Oh, Baby published by Creative Nonfiction. She co-wrote and co-directed a 13-minute documentary titled Breakfast Lunch Dinner: The Greek Diner Story. Her latest work, Oriana, is a novel based on the life of journalist Oriana Fallaci. Rubis earned a BA magna cum laude from Brown University and an MA from Montclair State University. She teaches memoir writing and is working on a second novel. She and her husband live in Montclair, where they raised their daughter, and spend summers in Greece, where their parents were born.Books:A full list of the books and authors mentioned in this episode is available here. Register for Upcoming Events.The Watchung Booksellers Podcast is produced by Kathryn Counsell and Marni Jessup and is recorded at Watchung Booksellers in Montclair, NJ. The show is edited by Kathryn Counsell. Original music is composed and performed by Violet Mujica. Art & design and social media by Evelyn Moulton. Research and show notes by Caroline Shurtleff. Thanks to all the staff at Watchung Booksellers and The Kids' Room! If you liked our episode please like, follow, and share! Stay in touch!Email: wbpodcast@watchungbooksellers.comSocial: @watchungbooksellersSign up for our newsletter to get the latest on our shows, events, and book recommendations!

Today I welcome journalist, professor and true crime podcaster, Kate Winkler Dawson, to the show to discuss her new historical true crime book, ALL THE SINNERS BOW: TWO AUTHORS, ONE MURDER, AND THE REAL HESTER PRYNNE. We discuss the 1832 murder of Sarah Maria Cornell and how that murder inspired Nathaniel Hawthorne to write The Scarlett Letter, as well as the research into both the murder and the writing of FALL RIVER, the first American true crime book written about this murder in 1833. Links and show notes available at https://sheworeblackpodcast.com/

Lee Génesis 12:10–20 En La letra escarlata de Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hester Prynne fue obligada a llevar la letra A en su vestido como símbolo de adulterio. Pero ¿qué acerca de su compañero en la inmoralidad, el reverendo Arthur Dimmesdale? Él mantuvo su pecado en secreto. A diario se hacía pasar por el “hombre santo” en su iglesia, pero su vida era una mentira que lo alcanzó al final de la novela. En Génesis 12, Abram estaba ocultando su culpa. Cuando él y su familia huyeron a Egipto para escapar de la hambruna, le dijo a su esposa Sarai que mintiera y dijera que era su hermana (v. 13). ¿Por qué? Tenía miedo de que algún egipcio poderoso viera su belleza y la tomara para sí, probablemente matándolo en el proceso. No se equivocaba: las personas poderosas pueden ser así. Y las personas socialmente vulnerables a menudo son maltratadas por quienes tienen el control. El problema de Abram no era que entendiera mal la situación, sino que no confiaba en el Señor para su protección. Abram cedió a la tentación y, para protegerse, fingió que Sarai era su hermana (vv. 11–13). En efecto, un poderoso egipcio —el faraón, de hecho— la vio, la deseó y la tomó (vv. 14–16). Esto resultó en riquezas para Abram, que tal vez él también contempló. Lo que no predijo fue que Dios no le permitiría salirse con la suya. No importa cuánto tratemos de ocultar nuestras acciones, el pecado siempre sale a la luz (Números 32:23). El Señor intervino para proteger a Sarai (del adulterio) y Su pacto (vv. 1–8). Dios le reveló la verdad al faraón, cuya ira era justa y probablemente perdonó la vida de Abram solo por temor al Señor (vv. 17–20). Además, los comentaristas señalan que la ética egipcia valoraba mucho la veracidad, por lo que el pecado de Abram fue un testimonio muy pobre. ¿Se arrepintió? Aparentemente no en ese momento, ya que lo hizo de nuevo y lo justificó en Génesis 20. ¿Cuál fue el error de Abram? ¿Por qué el miedo, las excusas y las racionalizaciones debilitan nuestra resistencia a la tentación? ¿Cómo esta mentalidad hace que el pecado nos parezca razonable? Ora con nosotros Señor, estamos asombrados por Tu obra en la vida de Abraham que nos muestra cómo Tu amor rompe con nuestro engaño humano y nuestra falta de arrepentimiento. Perdónanos por esforzarnos en controlar las cosas y las personas que nos rodean.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 22, 2024 is: betwixt • bih-TWIKST • adverb or preposition Betwixt is a synonym of between that lends an old-fashioned feel to both speech and writing. It is sometimes used in the phrase "betwixt and between" to mean "in the middle" or "neither one thing nor the other." // Charley took a seat betwixt two other passengers. // They sat on the long bench, a pile of books betwixt them. // The novel's protagonist is at the edge of early adulthood, when one is betwixt and between. See the entry > Examples: "Wolverines players were skipping toward the locker room after the trophy presentation, roses betwixt their teeth, battle scars on their bodies. Not many players in the recent history of college football have gone to the underworld and come back alive. But there was no doubt they belonged here, at last." — Tyler R. Tynes, The Los Angeles Times, 2 Jan. 2024 Did you know? Betwixt and between have similar origins: they both come from a combination of be- ("make, cause to be, treat as") and related Old English roots. Both words appeared before the 12th century, but use of betwixt dropped off considerably toward the end of the 1600s. It never fully disappeared, however, surviving especially in the phrase "betwixt and between" ("neither one thing nor the other"). Nathaniel Hawthorne employed betwixt no fewer than thirteen times in The Scarlet Letter, as when writing of "fear betwixt" the young, guilt-stricken minister Arthur Dimmesdale and Hester Prynne, as well as "a kind of horror at her boldness, who had spoken what he vaguely hinted at, but dared not speak." Nowadays, betwixt is uncommon, but it isn't archaic; it's simply used more purposefully than between, as it tends to lend a certain old-timey feel to speech and writing.

Lee Génesis 3:6–24 En la novela clásica de Nathaniel Hawthorne, La letra escarlata, Hester Prynne debe llevar una letra “A” roja en su vestido como símbolo de su adulterio. La “letra escarlata” estaba destinada a avergonzarla ante los ojos de la comunidad. En la narración bíblica de la Caída, también encontramos que la ropa significaba vergüenza. Adán y Eva habían estado desnudos sin vergüenza en el jardín del Edén, pero todo cambió después de que decidieron desobedecer a Dios y comer del árbol del conocimiento del bien y del mal (v. 6). De hecho, la primera consecuencia fue la vergüenza por su desnudez. Intentaron arreglar las cosas haciéndose ropa con hojas de higuera (v. 7). Cuando Dios los confrontó, recibieron consecuencias aún peores. Las mujeres ahora experimentarían dolor en el parto (v. 16). Los hombres encontrarían su trabajo difícil y desagradable (vv. 17–19). Y la muerte vendría, aunque no inmediatamente, tal como Dios había advertido: “Porque polvo eres y al polvo volverás” (v. 19). Pero Dios también extendió misericordia y esperanza. La simiente de la mujer (es decir, Jesús) algún día aplastaría la cabeza de la serpiente (v. 15), imagen que presagia las buenas nuevas del evangelio. Ese día estaba en el futuro, pero en el presente Dios les hizo ropas con pieles de animales (v. 21), y eran mucho mejores que las que habían hecho ellos mismos. Adán y Eva, vestidos con la ropa nueva que Dios les había dado, salieron a un mundo caído (vv. 22–24). Este mes estudiaremos ejemplos literales como figurativos de la ropa en la Biblia. Nuestro objetivo es interpretar cuidadosamente las Escrituras, y crecer espiritualmente a medida que aprendemos de la Palabra de Dios. ¿Puedes pensar en un símbolo de vergüenza en tu propia vida? Quizás sea algo visible o tal vez esté oculto. La buena noticia es que incluso cuando pecamos, ¡Dios no se da por vencido con nosotros! ¿Cómo has experimentado Su misericordia y esperanza? Ora con nosotros Padre, al comenzar este estudio, oramos para que nos des una comprensión más profunda de Tu Palabra. Cuando pequemos, danos el valor de no cubrir nuestro pecado y ocultar nuestra desobediencia, como lo hicieron Adán y Eva, sino de confesar y arrepentirnos.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Join me as chat with Laurie Lico Albanese, author of three novels listed on Art In FIction, including Hester listed in the Textile Arts category and Stolen Beauty and The Miracles of Prato (co-written with Laura Morowitz) listed in the Visual Arts category on Art In Fiction.View the video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/vUuYVDmYdDQInspiration for HesterHawthorne's The Scarlet Letter and its relationship to Hester: who was the real Hester Prynne?Why the novel is not about a love affair between Nathaniel Hawthorne and Margaret FullerHow Isobel Gamble's story is similar to Hester Prynne's, and how it is differentSynthesthesia in Hester and how it informs the gorgeous descriptive writingWhy the category for Hester changed from Literature to Textile ArtsEmbroidery as a feminist actHow women and men view the futureThe hero's journey vs. the heroine's journeyNathaniel Hawthorne had his issuesReading from HesterWitchcraft and slavery in HesterThe theme of HesterOne thing Laurie learned from writing her novels that she didn't know beforePress Play now & be sure to check out Laurie Lico Albanese's novels on Art In Fiction: https://www.artinfiction.com/novels?q=albaneseLaurie Lico Albanese's website: https://www.laurielicoalbanese.com/Music CreditPaganology, performed by The Paul Plimley Trio; composed by Gregg SimpsonThis website contains affiliate links. If you use these links to make a purchase, I may earn a commission. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Thank you. Are you enjoying The Art In Fiction Podcast? Consider giving us a small donation so we can continue bringing you interviews with your favorite arts-inspired novelists. Click this link to donate: https://ko-fi.com/artinfiction.Also, check out the Art In Fiction website at https://www.artinfiction.com and explore 2200+ novels inspired by the arts in 10 categories: Architecture, Dance, Decorative Arts, Film, Literature, Music, Textile Arts, Theater, Visual Arts, & Other.Want to learn more about Carol Cram, the host of The Art In Fiction Podcast? She's the author of several award-winning novels, including The Towers of Tuscany and Love Among the Recipes. Find out more on her website.

New York Times Bestselling author Allison Pataki joins me on the show today to talk about her latest release, Finding Margaret Fuller. We discussed Margaret's place in history, the many famous transcendentalist writers she was connected to, and her influence on the U.S. feminist movement. We also talked about Allison's research process, including her visit to Concord and Walden Pond and how real historical figures morph into a characters in her novels. Here's a description of the novel: Massachusetts, 1836. Young, brazen, beautiful, and unapologetically brilliant, Margaret Fuller accepts an invitation from Ralph Waldo Emerson, the celebrated “Sage of Concord,” to meet his coterie of enlightened friends shaping a nation in the throes of its own self-discovery. By the end of her stay, she will become “the radiant genius and fiery heart” of the Transcendentalists, a role model to young Louisa May Alcott, an inspiration to Nathaniel Hawthorne's character of Hester Prynne and the scandalous Scarlet Letter, a friend to Henry David Thoreau as he ventures into the woods of Walden Pond . . . and a muse to Emerson himself. But Margaret craves more than poetry and interpersonal drama, and she finds her restless soul in need of new challenges and adventure. And so she charts a singular course against a backdrop of dizzying historical drama: From Boston, where she hosts a women-only literary salon for students like Elizabeth Cady Stanton; to the editorial meetings of The Dial magazine, where she hones her pen as its co-founder; to Harvard's library, where she is the first woman to study within its walls; to the gritty New York streets where she spars with Edgar Allan Poe and reports on the writings of Frederick Douglass. Margaret defies conventions time and again as an activist for women and an advocate for humanity, earning admirers and scathing critics alike. When the legendary Horace Greeley offers an assignment in Europe, Margaret again makes history as the first female foreign news correspondent, mingling with luminaries like Frederic Chopin, Walt Whitman, George Sand, and more. But it is in Rome where she finds a world of passion, romance, and revolution, taking a Roman count as a lover—and sparking an international scandal. Evolving yet again into the roles of mother and countess, Margaret enters a new fight for Italy's unification. With a star-studded cast and epic sweep of historical events, this is a story of an inspiring trailblazer, a woman who loved big and lived even bigger—a fierce adventurer who transcended the rigid roles ascribed to women, and changed history for millions, all on her own terms. Purchase Finding Margaret Fuller on Amazon (affiliate). Check out Allison's website, and follow her on Facebook, and Instagram. Ways you can help the show: Join the Historical Fiction: Unpacked Podcast Group on Facebook! Be sure to visit my Instagram, Facebook, and website. Subscribe to my mailing list here. Follow the show on Instagram! Purchase Alison's historical novel, One Traveler (affiliate). Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. If you click an affiliate link and make a purchase, you help support my work without paying any more for the product. Thank you for your support!

Welcome to Episode 203! Some highlights of this episode: Emily dives into the pages of THE FROZEN RIVER by Ariel Lawhon and the delicious world of baking with THE COOKIE THAT CHANGED MY LIFE cookbook by Nancy Silverton and Carolynn Carreno. Meanwhile, Chris is back in high school with Jenna Miller's new sapphic YA romance, WE GOT THE BEAT. Emily devoured Elle Cosimano's new release, FINLAY DONOVAN ROLLS THE DICE, and was deeply moved by Suleika Jaouad's memoir BETWEEN TWO KINGDOMS. She also read three short stories: "Itinerary" by Lucia Berlin in EVENING IN PARADISE and "Los Angeles" and "Office Hours" by Ling Ma in BLISS MONTAGE: Stories. Chris highly recommends the new and first biography of a once hugely popular woman writer, THE VANISHING OF CAROLYN WELLS by Rebecca Rego Barry. She also revisited ETHAN FROME before reading SUMMER by Edith Wharton. We also discuss INDIGO by Beverly Jenkins, our first-quarter readalong pick. A question for those of you who read it: do you think Hester's name could be a nod to Hester Prynne from The Scarlet Letter? In Biblio Adventures, Chris explored The Library of Congress in Washington, DC. Over On Ingredient One, Emily sat down with Louise Miller, author of THE CITY BAKER'S GUIDE TO COUNTRY LIVING AND THE LATE BLOOMER'S CLUB.

Lesley Logan hosts an enriching conversation with Dr. Danny Brassell, a recognized expert in literacy and education. Danny shares his unique and innovative approaches to fostering a love for reading in children and adults. Listen as Danny offers practical tips and insights, demonstrating his commitment to transforming reading into a lifelong passion.If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to LesleyLogan.co/podcast. If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at beit@lesleylogan.co. And as always, if you're enjoying the show please share it with someone who you think would enjoy it as well. It is your continued support that will help us continue to help others. Thank you so much! Never miss another show by subscribing at LesleyLogan.co/subscribe.In this episode you will learn about:Danny's mission is to bring joy back into education in the workplace.Strategies to make reading a fun and habitual activity for all ages.The different ways we can teach kids to love reading. The true science behind forming and breaking habits effectively.Actionable storytelling strategies for entrepreneurs and speakers.How closed captioning can enhance literacy in a simple yet effective way.Episode References/Links:Dr. Danny Brassell WebsiteDr. Danny Brassell Social HandlesStudy on Habit FormingTiny Habits by BJ Fogg PhDThink and Grow Rich by Napoleon HillJames and the Giant PeachFree gift from danny.comGuest Bio:Dr. Danny Brassell is a highly acclaimed speaker, author, and educator, recognized for his expertise in literacy and motivational teaching strategies. Renowned as the 'Jim Carrey with a Ph.D.,' he has transformed the lives of countless individuals through his engaging and innovative approaches to reading and learning. Dr. Brassell has authored 16 books, including his notable work 'Leadership Begins with Motivation,' and has addressed over 3,500 audiences worldwide, making a profound impact in both the educational and corporate sectors. His commitment to fostering a love for reading has been instrumental in developing successful literacy programs, benefiting students, teachers, and parents alike. Dr. Brassell's unique blend of educational insight and entertaining delivery makes him a sought-after consultant, helping entrepreneurs, executives, and small business owners enhance their communication skills and business impact.  If you enjoyed this episode, make sure and give us a five star rating and leave us a review on iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podchaser or Castbox. DEALS! Check out all our Preferred Vendors & Special Deals from Clair Sparrow, Sensate, Lyfefuel BeeKeeper's Naturals, Sauna Space, HigherDose, AG1 and ToeSox Be in the know with all the workshops at OPCBe It Till You See It Podcast SurveyBe a part of Lesley's Pilates MentorshipFREE Ditching Busy Webinar  Resources:Watch the Be It Till You See It podcast on YouTube!Lesley Logan websiteBe It Till You See It PodcastOnline Pilates Classes by Lesley LoganOnline Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan on YouTubeProfitable Pilates Follow Us on Social Media:InstagramFacebookLinkedIn  Episode Transcript:Danny Brassell 0:00  I gravitate towards people that are actually doing things. I'd much rather be around people that failed gloriously than the people that do the worksheets and fill in the fill in between the lines and they just live a safe, dull life. That's not what life's about. Life is meant to take risks.Lesley Logan 0:18  Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self-doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guest will bring bold, executable, intrinsic and targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started.  Lesley Logan 1:00  All right, Be It Babe. Welcome back to the Be It Till You See It podcast. I have a great interview for you today. First of all, do you know that the reason why I call it Be It Till You See It is like you're acting as if you are the person you want to be already. And a lot of times we wait till we have the thing to be the thing. So you be the thing. And then you'll actually do the things that that person that your version of that person would have if they were already there, and then you'll have the thing. So be, do, have. Be it till you see it. Anyways, that's my little lesson for you. Because what's about to happen is you'll get a lot of amazing lessons. So my guest today is Danny Brassel. You're in here he's doing four frickin phenomenal things. I don't know how he's doing all four of them, but he's doing them and it's really cool. For my parents listening, there's some great things in here for your kiddos. For my nan and parents. Hi, I see you. I got so much out of this and I don't even have kids. So do not skip to the next one. This is absolutely what you want to listen to and really like, I hope you take any one of the action steps that he gives throughout and then also the one at the end. We've never heard it before. And I bet you you're going to use it starting today. So please let us know if you do make sure you reach out to Danny, reach out to the Be It Pod and let us know what your favorite takeaways are. Here is Danny. Lesley Logan 2:26  All right, Be It babe. I am so excited to chat with our guest today. Danny Brassel. He is here to rock your world for sure. I read his bio, the Jim Carrey, huh? I was like, oh my God, I had to talk to this man. So Danny, will you tell everyone who you are and what you rock at and maybe why they maybe assert Jim Carrey towards you and about what you do?Danny Brassell 2:48  Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me, Lesley, we need a lot more of you in the world, you're spreading joy and I appreciate that. We need you. My mission is to bring joy back into education in the workplace. And I do that in four different ways. First of all, I speak about 100 dates a year all around the world, primarily to schools and parent groups, but also to corporations reminding them take your job seriously. But don't take yourself too seriously. Because you ain't all that and neither am I. And if you think you're all that teach kindergarten for a week, they'll set you straight. Secondly, I've got the world's top reading engagement program for parents, which in just over two months shows parents how to get their kids to read more, read better, and most importantly, to love reading. I mean, I find that schools do an adequate job of teaching kids how to read. But the question I always ask people is what good is it teaching a kid how to read if they never want to read? I teach kids why to read because I've never had to tell a kid go watch TV. I've never had to tell a kid go play a video game. And I never want to have to tell a kid go read I want them to choose to do it on their own because they love it. Third, I work with entrepreneurs, small business owners and executives on how to create engaging presentations that get their audience to take the next step whether that's to purchase their product or to donate to their cause or even to invest in their ideas. And then fourth and finally, I'm the North American CEO of a company called CyberSmarties which was founded in 2015, in Ireland by a guy named Diarmuid Hudner, which is a social media platform for kids ages five to 12 and teaches kids how to use social media in a positive way. So the way it works is if you were to type in, Danny, I think you're fat and ugly. It wouldn't let you send the message instead says that's not nice thing to say to Danny. And our studies show that within three days, it frustrates kids so much that they can't send their message that they stopped sending negative messages altogether. And the programs basically completely eliminated cyber bullying in Ireland. Now it's in New Zealand, India, Turkey. I'm in charge of getting it here in North America. So all of these are all mission-oriented though. You know, I think life is too short. And we all have to smile a lot more. And so I listen to your podcast.Lesley Logan 2:48  Oh my God. Okay, so many amazing things I love. I love that you shared all of that, because I hope everyone heard like you can be multifaceted, and they don't all have to have the same facet. It's like, I would never have guessed the fourth one at all. And I know that all of the parents listening are like, how do we? Who do we need to call in our Congress? We'll put the Congress phone number in the shownotes, guys, I've got it memorized because it's on a sweatshirt. We have, who do we need to call to get that in because my goodness, even as an adult, I've been bullied online. So like, I can't even imagine what it's like for the kiddos. My first thing I have to ask you is, you know, so many people would have so many great ideas and then they don't know how to take that first next step, you do four incredibly humongous things that are mission-driven, and making massive impact. How did you, I guess the first one would be the hardest one but like, how did you make the steps because I'm sure people told you, Danny, you can't do all those things, you can't speak 100 dates a year and fix bullying and get kids to read like, I feel like that's a lot. So how are you able to make that happen with with all the obstacles that are out there? Danny Brassell 6:10  Well, I have OCD I have I mean, and I, ADHD and every other type of acronym, an abbreviation you want to give. Really, what I want everybody to know is that in order to do anything, you have to screw up a lot. And me when I work with, I was working with an entrepreneur the other day, and we put together what we call his stump speech or how to introduce yourself to new audiences. And I said, you got to practice, you got to go on tomorrow and deliver the speech he's like, but it's gonna stink, I'm like, exactly. And the day after that, I want you to give this speech and it's gonna stink, but it's going to stink a little bit less than the first time you did it. And by the 20th time, you'll start feeling comfortable, and you'll you'll start to get the hang of it. But most of us we fear things because we've never done them. And that's what all of this audience has to embrace is we got to get comfortable being uncomfortable. And there's always going to be it's amazing how many people are experts about things, they have no idea about. They've never traveled the world and yet, they're like, oh, you can't go there it's dangerous, and they've never started a business and oh, you can't do that you'll you're you're gonna do that everybody's an expert, but they haven't done anything. And so I gravitate towards people that are actually doing things I'd much rather be around people that failed gloriously than the people that do the worksheets and fill in the fill in between the lines, they just live a safe, dull life. That's not what life's about life is meant to take risks.Lesley Logan 7:39  Oh my gosh, it's like you've heard the intro to this podcast, we always take messy action, do it scare like, it's it is interesting, you know, I feel like people are people been raised to get the A, right? Like you talked about schools, and my mom's a teacher and she's listening. Hi, Mom, you do great work. My trainer is also a teacher for kindergarteners. That well not really does humble you. And so there's obviously they there's amazing people in the educational world. But there's this there at some point, you get to a point where like, we have to get the A's because the grades only matter because then you don't get to the next step. And like your whole life will be ruined if you don't get this. So then we become these perfectionist, because that's the only thing that matters. And it's like we don't take that risk. I feel like little kids take more risks than adults do.Danny Brassell 8:28  You're absolutely right. That's why I love being around kids is you know, I'll ask adults, what's two plus two and I get complete silence. I can ask little kids, what's two plus two, and they'll raise their hands to be like four, seven, I got a dog. And I love that, you know, they just play with things. It's really it takes until about third grade, where the kids are just like that adult audience. They're completely quiet. They stay in their seat because school taught them not to take risk. And it breaks my heart all the time. We need to encourage you know, I read biographies of successful people Lesley, all the time and there's one common element most successful people in these biographies have, most of them dropped out of school. And as an educator that appalls me, I'm like, what are we doing wrong? How do we make sure to nurture those passions inside of those kids? And you know, I'm still growing and learning all the time. And that's, that's, again, people listen to, I'm speaking to the wrong people right now. These are the people that want to actually improve themselves. But that's what you do is you constantly challenge yourself to get better, because every day you're not learning you're slowly dying.Lesley Logan 9:38  Yeah. Yeah, I am, I agree. And I think well, first of all, every single person listening to this, you know, they're seekers, but that's because there's people around them that can't give that like we're almost being the friend in their ear because the front in their actual ear is telling them you can't do that. You couldn't do three different jobs. You have kids, you have the how do we tell you all your stuff to do and it's like they need us in their ears to remind them that they're capable and it's going to be amazing. And it's going to suck the first 20 times. It's okay. Go listen to this podcast, the first 20 episodes, guys, take a listen. I'm sure it was fine. And I'm grateful for my amazing friends. But you get better over time we're, when this episode comes out, we'll have over 300 episodes out. So like, you just get better. Danny Brassell 10:21  Wow, congratulations, Lesley. That's wonderful.Lesley Logan 10:23  I know it's kind of insane that how fast that happens. But you just you get better. And you get you're less nervous when you talk to a stranger. Like, there's just so many things, you just have to get started. So yes, we are speaking, you maybe are speaking to the wrong audience. But I think maybe we're just reminding the people that they can do it and they don't have to be perfect at it. Danny Brassell 10:42  Well, at least we're speaking to an audience of people that are going gonna go out and do something, which is important. Lesley Logan 10:46  Yeah, yeah. No, it's so hard. I mean, like, I've talked about this on that, on the pod before but like, I've talked to, I called my grandpa, I'm like, hey, Grandpa, how you doing? It's like, well, I'm waiting to die. And it's like, awesome. Cool. And then I go, well, I'm gonna go to Cambodia, he's like, you should be really safe. Like, that's very dangerous there. And I'm like, so I've been seven times, we're doing great, like, feel safer than here. Just gonna say it.Danny Brassell 11:12  Yeah. You know, that's an important point you just made, Lesley, you need to surround yourself with positives. I mean, I was watching a show on television the other day it was horrible. It was called the news. And it totally depressed me. It showed all these horrible things happening. And one of the things I learned from my life, my wife, I don't even know if she knows who the president of the United States is, she has no time for that. She watches I Love Lucy and Friends and she's a much better person for it. I mean, I used to volunteer for the Special Olympics. If you ever feel down, you need to volunteer for the Special Olympics, those individuals are some of the most extraordinary people, I just think that they have a secret that the rest of us don't realize, which is life is to be lived and to be celebrated every day. Lesley Logan 11:59  Yeah. Yes, I agree to that. I mean, I mean, please also volunteer at your local dog shelter and you'll see that dogs don't judge you. They have no, they don't care if you're perfect and all those things, and it'll uplift your spirits. But that's really funny. Yeah, I know, the the news is the news is designed to make us scared to make us fearful and for us just to sit there for them to put up another ad in front of your face. Also, just so you know, that's what they're, that's why they do the clicky headlines and they repeat themselves all the time. It's so hard because there's FOMO I need to I don't want to miss out and you know this information and it's true, we do have to, there's got to be a balance there which is so hard to do. So I feel for the people who listen, who's like but I have to listen to news, Danny, but also I would like to just watch Friends and then you know, do my thing and stick with my idea. Lesley Logan 12:50  I want to go into something that you talked about helping kids want to read. A lot of our listeners, not children, they want to read even though they're not kiddos, can you, can we dive a little bit into like, what will help because they want to read but it's also like making the time, what should they read? Like, again, they're perfectionist, so then there's the new obstacle of like, well, I want to read but I don't know what to read. How? Do you have any advice for us on that? Danny Brassell 13:20  Absolutely. Well, I was that kid. I grew up hating reading. My father was a librarian. I always hated the library. It always smelled funny to me, the furniture was uncomfortable. There was always some elderly woman telling me to be quiet. There was always a freaky homeless guy hanging out by the shells, thought he was a vampire. I always hated the library. And it wasn't until I started teaching in the inner city in South Central Los Angeles where I saw a lot of my students didn't have a lot of the advantages I had growing up. I mean, I was very blessed Lesley, both of my parents were in the home. We weren't wealthy by any means. But we always had food on the table. And my parents always read in front of us kids, to us kids. And we always had plenty of access to great reading materials. And I basically said shame on me. It's my job to really expose my students to all kinds of ways to love reading. I mean, I was that kid I'll never forget in high school, I was forced to read The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne and no offense to people that love Nathaniel Hawthorne, I mean, I don't want to offend anybody but, basically the story is about Hester Prynne commits adultery, so she's forced to wear an A on her chest. And I raised my hand in class one day and I asked my teacher if I could wear a B on my chest because I was so bored reading that book. I absolutely hated it. And I think that's one of the most important things we have to understand is, you know, it has to be fun, like, make reading fun for you. And the research is very clear on this. It doesn't matter what you read. What matters is how much you read. It doesn't matter if you're reading James Joyce or James and the Giant Peach, people who read more read better. Danny Brassell 15:01  You know, when I got my Ph.D., my wife was looking at me because I had this huge grin on my face. And she's like, why are you so happy and like, because from now on, I pick the books. And I think that's what reading should be. You know, if you want to read, you know, a lot of the people in your audience are entrepreneurs, well, you don't have to read classic literature to be a good entrepreneur, you need to read about other entrepreneurs. What's their journey? You know, I get so many boys interested in reading because I find out what they're interested in. I mean, I use (inaudible) if the kids are talking about NASCAR, get on some NASCAR books, if they're talking about JLo, get a biography on Jennifer Lopez, you know, interest drives reading, and that's something that's going to be sustained all the time. I mean, I, I see things all the time. It's, America's crazy, like we'll say, oh, you know what, you should finish whatever you read. I'm like, well, that's stupid advice. I mean, think of think of reading a book, like eating a piece of food. You try a chapter. Oh, my gosh, that's disgusting. Well, maybe it gets better. Oh, no, it's disgusting. I mean, if you find a book, you don't like put it down. There's over 4 million books written in English last year alone. Some of them are pretty good. Don't waste your time on the lame ones. Danny Brassell 16:12  Here, I'll do something for your audience right now, Lesley, for all those people who have that large book on your bedside table that you started three years ago, I can do this because I'm a Ph.D. I absolve you of that book. Get another one. You know, I like reading. I have one of the top reading clubs online. It's called lazyreaders.com. If you go, it's a free subscription once a month for the rest of your life. I update it with 10 book recommendations, three or four adult level, three or four young adult level, and three or four children's level books all under 250 pages. So you have something to read when you're stuck in a boring meeting or at the doctor's office. You know, when I hear people say, oh, I don't have, I don't have time to read. I'm like, yeah, who has time to read after you watch the game on TV, have a couple of beers, go out shopping? I have a friend that's a time management expert. I always give him a hard time, Lesley, because I say there's no such thing as time management there's only priority management. Harvard did a study, whenever I say research, I would say Harvard did a study. Harvard did a study 100 years ago, they found out that people only had 24 hours in their days. Well, it's how are you using those minutes in your day? So the people that have a hard time getting interested, you know, I'll work with parents and they're trying to figure out how to get their kids into reading. So there's two numbers in my reading program. There's two numbers I have everybody focus on. The first number is 67. So a lot of people say it takes 21 days to change a habit. And to those people I say, show me the research on that it's a completely fabricated number. I know exactly where it comes from. It comes from, what's that?Lesley Logan 17:44  It's 100% fake, it doesn't work and we can talk about it. But I studied with BJ Fogg from Stanford. So you know, the West Coast. And you can actually create a habit in a moment, like you can it's all but an emotion. Your emotion derives things but that's...Danny Brassell 18:00  You can do a lot, yeah, well, so when they did a clinical study so the the number comes from there was a great book written in 1960 by Dr. Maxwell Maltz called Psycho-Cybernetics. I encourage everybody to read the book. But in the preface of the book, Dr. Maltz, who's a plastic surgeon and he flippantly said he noticed it took most of his patients about 21 days to get used to their new faces. Well, a lot of personal development gurus, a lot of people I respect by the way, started telling people it takes 21 days to change a habit, it's completely fabricated. So. Lesley Logan 18:33  It sounds really good.Danny Brassell 18:34  There was a study done by, Harvard did a study in 2009. It was actually University of London, it was a habit formation study and they determined it took anywhere from 18 to 254 days to change a habit and the average was 66 days. Well, I don't like the number 66. So I throw in a bonus day, 67 days to change a habit. And it really depends on the type of habit you're trying to form. So it can be a moment. Like if you want to drink a glass of water before breakfast every day, that might take 18 days to make that into a habit. But if you want to quit smoking, that can take 254 days. And here's why this is important, Lesley, let's say you go on a diet, you follow it religiously for 21 days, but on day 22 you fall off the wagon. Will you blame yourself? Well, research shows it takes three times longer than that to form most habits. So I just think it's very, I have a problem when I hear people throwing out these numbers and everybody, everybody's a little bit different. I was a teacher. I always say different strokes for different folks. Some kids get it in 10 minutes, some kids it takes them till April, but where there's a will there's a way. Danny Brassell 19:40  The other number I want people and this would be good for your audience to know, is, is the number is 20. So researchers were looking at patterns among successful students around the world. And they were looking for what are the characteristics what are the common characteristics they have? They stumble upon something which floored them. It was the number of minutes spent reading outside of school. So they looked at the low kids, the average kids and the high kids. So the first group was the low kids, the kids in the 20th percentile, some of your F students, they average less than a minute a day reading outside of school. Well, that didn't surprise anybody. It's probably why you're at the bottom of your class. But the next number did startle the researchers, the kids in the middle of the class, the 78th percentile, C students, they average 9.6 minutes a day reading outside of school. And so if I'm doing a live training with parents, this is when the room gets really quiet and the first hand raised is in the parents' side that says, wait a sec, are you saying if I can get my kid to read 10 minutes a day, I can take them from an F to a C? That's exactly what I'm saying. There's actually a lot of research to support this. But this next number really floored the researchers, the kids near the top of the class and 90th percentile A minus students. Do they spend three hours a day reading for fun outside of school? No. Do they spend an hour a day outside of school reading for fun? No. The average was just over 20 minutes a day. So my entire program is showing parents how can we find those 20 minutes every single day. And there's two things people have to understand. First of all, the number the minutes don't have to be consecutive. So you can do a minute here, five minutes here, three minutes there. And secondly, being read aloud to is just as good as reading on your own. So I work with a lot of dyslexic students. A lot of people don't realize over half of the Fortune 500 CEOs are dyslexic. Well, dyslexics, they process information really well with their ears. And so now I just say we'll turn on the audiobook, let somebody else read it to you. You don't have to read it. It's just as effective.Lesley Logan 21:43  I'm so excited. Because, first of all, I'm like, oh, so if I read 20 minutes a day, the overachiever in me is like, I'm gonna be an A student. I'm not even in school, but I feel like it's just gonna make me a better person. But also, I hope y'all heard that he said, audiobook works as well. And so like, guys, if you're got a 20-minute commute, instead of listening to your news podcast, you can listen to ours. But you then should listen to a book for 20 minutes. That's such a great thing. I love that. Also, there's this interesting thing. One, if you love to read, read BJ Fogg's Tiny Habits book, you will love it. Two, it's also emotions. So if you are trapped, like, first of all, we can all remember back during the pandemic, when we wore a mask everywhere, every single day, then they took us out a mask for like a week. And they're like, oh, hold on, actually, you said to wear the mask, at the grocery store, how many times you have to go back to the grocery store? Everyday, everyday, because you didn't like wearing the mask. So you never created the habit. So if you don't like the thing, it's not going to stick because the emotions around it are not exciting. So that's why the repetition doesn't work because it has to have an emotional pull that you'd actually like to do. And then second on the like breaking a habit or unwrap a, BJ will say unraveling a habit because habits are prompted by different things. If you are a smoker, there's a prompt that happens, if you eat a snack, if you eat candy at your desk, there's a prompt, you have to remove the prompt you have to figure what that is. And you can't have nothing there because it creates a vacuum. So you actually do have to find so that when those do take harder or if you're if your habit is to like emote, like beat yourself up, like if you're someone who just like, judges yourself has bad thoughts when someone says anything critical type of a thing, those habits are actually the hardest to break because you have to be really good at acknowledging like, oh, I'm doing the thing that I don't want to do. So that's why, that's why the numbers...Danny Brassell 23:40  Make sure you have him listen to this podcast, he'll be so proud of you. You're a great student, you learned a lot, you know.Lesley Logan 23:45  I know, BJ will love it.Danny Brassell 23:49  The other thing is Habit Stacking. So for example, like, I was watching too much TV, and I wasn't working out enough. And so now when I go on the bike, I, you know, I'm watching, I'm almost done. I've never watched The Sopranos when it came out. So now I'm on season six, I'm halfway through. But I only want Sopranos when I'm on the bike after I finished the Sopranos, I'll go to my next show. So it's really what you were talking about with the grocery store. It's amazing how primitive our brains really are.Lesley Logan 24:17  They really are. But it's that dopamine hit. And also like because you want to watch that show and you have really good boundaries and willpower. It's really so but it's so I just want to say I thank you for going over the reading thing. One, every parent in here is so excited. They just learned something about their kids. So I'm happy to give them that but two, you know, we've gotten questions from the audience before about like just wanting to have time to read. It's like you don't just like put the book in your bag or put like have the audiobook on your phone. And then instead of when you're on line at Starbucks, going on Facebook, you could hit play for a couple of minutes. So my husband. Danny Brassell 24:54  May I share another strategy with you, Lesley? This is for everybody in your audience. I'm not too sharp and I like to look like I'm sharp to people. And so before I go to parties, I'll go to either the bookstore or to the library and to the children's section. And I'll read like 10, 32-page picture biographies of famous people so that, you know, I can, oh, Elon Musk, did you know this about him? Well, I got it from a picture book. But you know, I've raised like, wow, he knows all these amazing things. I don't know why it is, as we get older, they take the pictures out of the books, I'm like, oh, I like picture books they're a lot easier to read. And you don't have to be judged. But I used to tutor athletes that were they had earned scholarships to universities, but they were, you know, academically ineligible. So I had one gentleman, and he had a full-ride scholarship, he was going to be a defensive lineman, who's six foot, nine inches tall, 325 pounds, he had a full ride, but he was the 12th grader reading at a first grade level. And so they gave him to me, and they're like, Danny, can you get him up to his sixth grade in six months? And I said, okay, I'll do it. And so I had to get him reading. But he wants, he wants to read this, but he's reading at a first grade level. Well, first grade level books are about like bunny rabbits and puppy dogs. Well, 12th graders don't want to read books about bunny rabbits and puppy dogs. But that was his reading ability at that point. And so what I said is, okay, what we're gonna do is we're going to write a book for a first grade class. But before we write the book, we got to figure out what do first graders like to read. Do you know? He's like, no, and I'm like, okay, so here, we'll start reading all these. You see what I just did. Now he has permission. So when his buddies see him reading first grade level books, now he has permission, because oh, because I'm writing a book for first grade class, you know, and we were able to get him up to a sixth grade level in six months, but it's just figuring out is, this is what every good teacher of anything, does. They figure out where you are, and then they take you to the next level, you know. The problem in most education systems, is we think every kid is at the same level. And I'm like, no, I mean, kids are entering at different levels, they have different interests. You know, having taught young children, I have no idea how men even evolved because you give me a six-year-old boy and a six year old girl and almost to the tee, I can tell you that girl's about three, three levels above that little boy, I mean, boys are nincompoops. They finally catch up eventually, at least most of them do. Some of them, maybe I shouldn't say most, some of them do. But it's fascinating. I just love looking at, well, what turns this kid on to learning? And you know, same thing with adults too. I'm when I'm working with adults I'm like wow, this is what proves effective with this person. I, to me, that's the fun part.Lesley Logan 27:41  Yeah, I know, my mom has a really good time, like coming up with different ways to teach different learning styles, but it makes you go, how can we aren't just letting the girls go in at kindergarten at this age? And why don't we just let the boys come in a year later, like, well, that the product I know, guys, we don't have childcare in this country. Sorry, we'll get it figured out. We'll figure that out. And then we could figure out because it is really funny that we almost hold one age group back and then we expect another, another person to like rise up. It's it's not fair to anyone, no one is actually having a good time. And then the teachers are exhausted. So and then the parents sorry, and then the parents are exhausted. Lesley Logan 28:15  So okay, I have one more topic I wanted to bring up with you because you have so many facets, you mentioned that one of the things you do is help people, like help people take an action like, right, okay. So, we do have a lot of entrepreneurs here who are hoping that people take an action. Also, there's a lot of people here who are hoping that they'll just take an action. So do you have anything for us, like, I'm sure it is a long journey to figuring that out. But like what is like a hot like simple tip to taking action or to getting people to take action?Danny Brassell 28:47  (Inaudible) I use, I'll do two-day seminars with entrepreneurs when we're creating a speech and I have a formula for it. And I'm like, once you learn the formula, you can use it for anything. But here's an action strategy for everybody that I tell them to do is tonight, get a libation of choice a pen and paper and I want you to write down every story that's ever happened in your life. And I don't mean the whole story just mean triggers. So like, the time I locked myself out of the car in front of Costco, the time dad spilled mustard on his tie in that fancy restaurant, and in an hour, you'll probably come up with about three to 400 stories like that. So that's the first part of the exercise. The second part is now you have to associate what's the teaching point here? So you're like, oh, well, this is really a story about loyalty. Oh, this is a story about taking responsibility. Oh, this is a leadership story. And then what you do is put them in folders on your computer. So the next time you have you're asked to speak anywhere and you need like oh, a story on love. Well, here's 20 stories on love I have right here at my disposal. Just a really easy and then, you know, I'll work with some people. They say, well, Danny, nothing's ever happened to me. I'm like, well, whatever. Everybody said, a million stories. But even for that Debbie Downer that has to be negative and say nothing's ever happened to them. Here's the next tip. I get that I'm no I'm I broke my rule. I don't give tips. I give tips to waiters not to people. I'm gonna give you a strategy. So the strategy is, if you look at personal development books, one of the most successful personal development books of all time is Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, in which he includes no personal stories. Every story he includes is based on interviews he did with the millionaires that he interviewed, I mean, you can definitely just based on the 300 guests you've had on your podcast, you could easily create a whole big compendium of all these different stories you've gotten and all the different teaching points. And so if you have if you find you're completely boring, well, then you have to be a student of the world. And I mean, this is why I'm watching things all the time that helped me like, oh, I'm addicted to a show on History Channel called The Food That Built America where they tell you, they show you how different foods came about. I'm like, oh, this is amazing. And so I have stories about that. I watch sports all the time. And my wife's like, why do you love sports? And I'm like, because at any given moment, something extraordinary can happen and they happen all the time when you see like that one act of sportsmanship, you're like, wow, that's really neat story or you see somebody that's hurt and they play a part in it. Wow, that's endurance. And so that's why again, it's, and it's the same thing by listening to this podcast is, oh, I'm learning. I'm learning all the time. I'm hearing you know, you, BJ gave you all these great, I'm like, wow, you learned a lot. And he gave you some stories. But people they don't remember, you know, it was actually Stalin, who said a million dead is a statistic, one dead is a tragedy and he's right about that. It's the way you connect with people is through stories. I think one of the I think it was President Reagan was the very first president of the United States that during his State of the Union address before Congress, instead of talking about health care, which nobody understood, he'd say, yeah, hey, Joe, Joe, Joe, Joe Thompson, get up, stand up. And all of a sudden, this guy in the gallery waves, that's Joe Thompson. He's like, Joe works at the GM plant in Louisville, Kentucky, and Joe got injured on the job a couple of months ago, but he didn't have health insurance and its costs and he can't make his rent he can't, and so now, when we think health care, we think Joe, we've put a face to the problem. And now we're starting to understand it a lot better. This is, you know, into my, my biblical people out there, Jesus was like the greatest salesman ever. That's what he always did. Jesus didn't say, you know, four to five of my apostles have to do this. No, he would always give you absolute actual stories. I mean, that's how we remember things is from stories. And so, again, long answer to your short question, but those are a couple of action items for your audience to take right now.Lesley Logan 32:58  I love that because it's so true. I write I have to write, you know, at least two newsletters per week. And then I have all the social media content that goes out. And I don't care what people say about no one reads the captions. People read my captions. You want to know how I know, because I put an action step in there at the very end and they have to comment and it's always different. It's like drop your favorite color. Do what's your favorite number, whatever. And people do it all the time. I take up all 2200 characters on Instagram guys, they do but I need stories because no one wants to just hear, like, the facts are great, like the facts about why you should move why you should work out, the fact about habits is all fine. But if you don't tell a story, no one's really interested. And then when they when they read the story and they take an action because they I feel like they attach, that story can relate to them in some way. Or that you know, that's what you're saying. So anyways, I love that. Thank you for that one. Lesley Logan 33:49  Okay. You're amazing. You do so many things on this planet. Like love to have you back. I can't wait for Brad to listen to this because he is just really going to love because he's an a, I'm just gonna share this with y'all. He does this gentleman thing once a quarter and all the guys like read actual, like the biggest thick books. One of our friends has an entire library. He's like reading so many books at a time. And they all bring a book to talk about and Brad, it's like their book is like okay, we're gonna bring a book about America. We're gonna bring a book or whatever the theme is. And Brad's like, so I'm listening to this, like, I don't know, you guys. He's talked about so many times. Oops. Anyways, it's something about time and it's about a god, the author died a long time ago. And some other people are writing the books. There's like 15 in the series, and he's starting them all over, and he listens to them. And he loves to listen to a book because he can listen to it while he's walking the dog. He can listen to it in bed, like right before he goes to bed. And so I just really think he's gonna love that you said we can listen to the books. He doesn't have to read them. Danny Brassell 34:43  Awesome. Lesley Logan 34:45  So, thank you. Okay, we'll take a brief break, find out where people can find you, follow you, work with you, hear more of your stories.Lesley Logan 34:51  All right, Danny, where do you hang out? Where can people stalk you in a good way?Danny Brassell 34:56  Well as a thank you for you and your audience bearing with me, I wanted to give everybody a couple of freebies. So if you go to freegiftfromdanny.com again, freegiftfromdanny.com, I'm gonna give everybody a complimentary e-copy of my book, Read, Lead & Succeed. This is a book I wrote for a school principal who was trying to keep his faculty and staff positively engaged. So I said, okay, I'll write you a book. So every week I'll give you a concept, I'll give you an inspirational quote, an inspirational story, a book recommendation on a book you should read, but you're probably too lazy because you're an adult. So I also give you a children's picture book recommendation that demonstrates the same concept, you can read that in five minutes. I'm also gonna give everybody access to a five-day reading challenge I did online last summer for about 700 parents around the world, where every day for an hour for five consecutive days, I give you basic, basic strategies. These are the space the basis of my reading program online, where I show you how to get your kids to read more, read better, most importantly, to love reading. Again, you get those at freegiftfromdanny.com. And I just really want to thank you, Lesley, for having me today. You're making a positive difference. Every day everybody has a choice, you know, was what it was either Socrates or read in The Shawshank Redemption who says you can get busy living or you can get busy dying so everybody out there, get busy living and celebrate. Thank you, Lesley, for all that you do.Lesley Logan 36:25  Oh my goodness, thank you so much. Hilarious that you quoted Shawshank Redemption. My girlfriend and I in college had one DVD for about three months and it was the Shawshank Redemption watched it every day. (Inaudible) What are you gonna do? Anyways, before I let you go, you've given us so many amazing strategies. But we like to end the episode with a Be It Action Item. So bold, executable, intrinsic or targeted steps people can take to be it till they see it. What do you have for us today?Danny Brassell 36:56  Well, you know, I was telling you to get those 20 minutes a day reading every single day, whether you're a kid or an adult and people that they'll often tell me well I have nothing to read at home I'm like oh, but you do. President Bush Senior over 30 years ago signed a very important law in this country. It says every single television set sold in America has to have closed captioning. So here's the quick strategy. Turn on the closed captioning. People say well, wait a sec. If this shows in English, and the subtitles are in English, what does that do? I'm like, well, that's a fair point. But let me make this point. Have you ever watched a show with subtitles and not looked at the subtitles? It's very difficult to do. Your brain is directed towards the text. There's actual research that supports this. If you look at reading scores around the world, the more kids watch TV, the lower their reading scores are in every single country on the planet except for one. The country with the highest reading scores on the planet also watches the most TV on the planet. It's Finland. And people always say well, how can that be? I'm like, well, because Finland makes really bad TV shows. And so what they have to do is they import all these old American sitcoms like Happy Days and Gilligan's Island and Brady Bunch, they subtitle them in Finnish the kids are constantly reading. So this isn't just for kids. This is for adults as well. But you know, turn on the subtitles, you'll be amazed at how it will help progress and advance your reading.Lesley Logan 38:17  Oh my gosh, blown away. Never have had that as an action item. Love it also had to do it on a flight recently because I could not hear the show. So I put the subtitles on. And I was like, I am not even watching the show. I'm just reading this. Well, then, you know, I did two hours of reading that day. Wonderful. Danny, thank you so much. This has been so wonderful. Just a joy. I love what you're doing on this planet. You're making amazing things. You'll have to let us know when we can get this, this social media thing for kids to the U.S. and also what other countries my listeners are in those ones. If you have kids and you're there, guess what? There's something for you. So y'all take a look at the links below. Make sure you check out Danny's freebies. They're all in the show notes. And until next time, Be It Till You See It. Lesley Logan 39:03  That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It Podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review and follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcast. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the Be It Pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others Be It Till You See It. Have an awesome day. Lesley Logan 39:30  Be It Till You See It is a production of The Bloom Podcast Network. If you want to leave us a message or a question that we might read on another episode, you can text us at +1-310-905-5534 or send a DM on Instagram @Be It Pod. Brad Crowell 39:45  It's written, filmed, and recorded by your host, Lesley Logan, and me, Brad Crowell. Lesley Logan 39:50  It is transcribed, produced and edited by the epic team at Disenyo.co. Brad Crowell 39:54  Our theme music is by Ali at Apex Production Music and our branding by designer and artist Gianfranco Cioffi. Lesley Logan 40:01  Special thanks to Melissa Solomon for creating our visuals. Brad Crowell 40:05  Also to Angelina Herico for adding all of our content to our website. And finally to Meridith Root for keeping us all on point and on time. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/be-it-till-you-see-it/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Tonight, we are reading Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter," a tale whose rich layers unfold into a lullaby of morality and compassion, perfect for easing you into a night of deep, restful sleep. As we stroll through the austere streets of a Puritan colony, we'll accompany Hester Prynne, a woman whose embroidered scarlet "A" becomes a powerful emblem of sin and societal judgment. But as the night deepens, so does our understanding of Hester's quiet dignity and the complexities of her community that both condemns and upholds her. So, snuggle up in your blankets and have sweet dreams. The music in this episode is A Love That Once Was by Gavin Luke. BetterHelp Visit our sponsor at BetterHelp.com/dreamful for 10% off your first month.Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the show

World-renowned and very clever Professor of Short Books, Douglas Ullard...along with his Twenty-Two Minute and Seventeen Second Classic Literature Audio Armchair Theatre Company (or TTMASSCLAATC for short) brings you Nathaniel Hawthorn's Puritanical classic "masterpiece" in just...well...1,337 seconds.  So, if you're trying to impress an American literature snob, then look no further than the book that all American students are forced to read sometime between kindergarten and their senior your in high school. So sit back and listen to this dark tale of how a villageful of puritans harass, bully and mentally torture a young woman and her child...all in the name of the Lord. Cast: Barbara Barnes as Hester Prynne and others Joanna Brookes as Hibbins and others Alan Marriot as Chillingworth and others David Menkin as Bellingham and others Shai Matheson as Rev Dimmesdale and others Charlotte McBurney as Pearl and others With a special introduction by the Professor himself, Douglas Ullard. Written by David Spicer Directed by John Schwab and David Spicer Audio Production by John Schwab Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Support our work: https://libri-vox.org/donate This book tells the story of Hester Prynne, a young woman who conceives a child while her husband is missing at sea. The Puritan Elders of the New England settlement of Boston, where she lives, condemn her to wear a scarlet letter A to signify her adultery. She refuses to name her lover, and he too keeps his silence, but with a terrible cost.The tale is prefaced with an account of the Salem Custom-house where Nathaniel Hawthorne was working when he began writing The Scarlet Letter. Summary by Cori Samuel --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/librivox1/support

Acclaimed author Laurie Lico Albanese is Marissa's guest. Laurie's latest novel, Hester, takes us back to 17th century Salem Massachusetts where we learn the origin story of Hester Prynne and about her relationship with a local man named Nathaniel Hawthorne. Marissa and Laurie also discuss the alarming growth rate of book bans, the Scholastic Book Fair scandal and which books are getting groups like Moms for Liberty in a lather. All why making French almond cakes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We're eating some homemade pasta and we give you our reviews of coffee drinks and seasonal DQ Blizzards.

In this episode of Literature and Lapdogs, the daughter and I discuss Nathaniel Hawthorne's 1850 novel, A Scarlet Letter, exploring the story of Hester Prynne and her struggles to overcome the shame of being punished for adultery by the hypocritical people of Salem. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/literatureandlapdogs/support

Chris Mottola is in his fifth decade as a Republican media consultant, with nearly 400 campaigns under his belt - including seven presidential campaigns and working with eleven US Seantors and six governors. His client list includes the highest echelons of GOP names like Bush, Dole, McCain, Giuliani, Specter, Rubio, Pataki, Sununu, Frist & many more. In this conversation, we talk his nearly lifelong passion for film, the non-political techniques he's brought to his political work, what drew him into campaigns, lessons learned from some of the smartest operatives who preceded him, and the stories behind some of his most memorable campaigns and effective TV ads.IN THIS EPISODEChris's roots as a Philly kid…The movie that ignited Chris's passion for film at age 7…Chris breaks down his embrace of “formalism” in filmmaking…A memorable first press conference in his first real political job…Handling over 50 spots in one cycle as a young NRCC production staffer…Chris tells lessons learned from legendary admakers Bob Goodman and Charles Guggenheim…Chris on the influence of “his favorite person on campaigns" , pollster Arthur Finkelstein…Chris talks some of his signature wins in Wisconsin and Florida as he establishes himself as a media consultant…Chis explains how a narrow loss to Patty Murray in the 1992 Washington Senate race that spurred his growth as a consultant…Chris's work for longtime PA Senator Arlen Specter and the drama around his 2009 party switch…Chris's time riding the campaign bus with Bob Dole in 1996…Chris on his work for colorful Montana Senator Conrad Burns…The story behind Chris's creation of the first gay rights spot for a Republican Senator…Three techniques that make Chris's spots a little different…Chris's 1970s moonlighting as an offensive football guru…How Chris embraced women voiceover artists…Why Philadelphia over-indexes on political media consultants and production talent… AND 80/20 questions, Adagio for Strings, JJ Balaban, the barbers' union, Brian Bellick, Ed Blakely, Don Bonker, Bertolt Brecht, Tom Brokaw, Buckely v. Valeo, the C&S Club, the Capitol Hill Club, Jimmy Carter, Alex Castellanos, Ronald Castille, Rod Chandler, commuter schools, Gary Cooper, Earl Cox, Mouse Davis, Dickens' novels, Fund for a Conservative Majority, David Garth, Tony Earl, Wilson Goode, Rod Goodwin, Bill Green, Gary Hart, Jesse Helms, Bernard Herrman, Edward Hopper, the Houston Gamblers, Asa Hutchinson, Peter Jennings, Andi Johnson, Ted Kennedy, laundry lists of grievances, Connie Mack, Buddy MacKay, Joseph Mankiewicz, David Marsden, George McGovern, Sally Mercer, Michealangelo's Pieta, Jack Mudd, Mike Murphy, Patty Murray, Neil Newhouse, old auctioneers, Neil Oxman, George Pataki, pearl clutching, potato peelers, Hester Prynne, Jerry Rafshoon, Dan Rather, Resonance Theory, the run-and-shoot, Tony Schwartz, Doc Schweitzer, seersucker suits, Judy Shepard, Matthew Shepard, Saul Shorr, Don Sipple, Gordon Smith, Bob Squier, Greg Stevens, stick time, Temple University, Tommy Thompson, Pat Toomey, the Voight-Kampff test, Bill Walsh, the World Football League, you bet....& more!

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne chapter 2, narrated by Isaac Birchall.The crowd gathered around the prison stand in wait while Hester Prynne is lead down the corridor, a new born baby in her arms, and a blazing scarlet letter A embroidered on her chest. The women in the crowd ;and all sorts of derogatory comments about Hester, calling her a hussy, a harlet, a succubus, and the like while she is guided towards the large platform on which she is to stand before the whole township. After mounting the steps of the platform, she turns to face the crowd ; the entirety of the town is before her, and more still, the person she never expected to see again, her Husband…Support the show.⁠https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/the-essential-reads/subscribe⁠Get SurfShark andprotect yourself online today.VPN: ⁠https://get.surfshark.net/aff_c?offer_id=926&aff_id=20389⁠Antivirus: ⁠https://get.surfshark.net/aff_c?offer_id=934&aff_id=20389⁠Get data brokers tostop selling your information with:Incogni: ⁠https://get.incogni.io/aff_c?offer_id=1219&aff_id=20389⁠*COMIC* By@Valenangelr ⁠https://www.instagram.com/valenangelr⁠ *Social* INSTAGRAM: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/theessentialreads⁠ TWITTER: ⁠http://twitter.com/isaacbirchall98⁠ KO-Fi: ⁠https://ko-fi.com/theessentialreads⁠ STORE: ⁠https://the-essential-reads.myshopify.com/⁠ Support the showThank you so much for listening, if you want to support the me go to any of these links :)*Social*SHOPIFY: https://the-essential-reads.myshopify.com/INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/theessentialreadsTWITTER: http://twitter.com/isaacbirchall98Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/theessentialreads

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne chapter 1, narrated by Isaac Birchall The first chapter of the book describes many angry puritan members of a small town in the newly founded colonies of the United States, gathered around a prison inside of which the main character, Hester Prynne is being held. Support the showhttps://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/the-essential-reads/subscribeGet SurfShark and protect yourself online todayVPN: https://get.surfshark.net/aff_c?offer_id=926&aff_id=20389Antivirus: https://get.surfshark.net/aff_c?offer_id=934&aff_id=20389Get data brokers to stop selling your information with:Incogni: https://get.incogni.io/aff_c?offer_id=1219&aff_id=20389*COMIC*By @Valenangelr https://www.instagram.com/valenangelr*Social*INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/theessentialreadsTWITTER: http://twitter.com/isaacbirchall98KO-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/theessentialreadsSTORE: https://the-essential-reads.myshopify.com/Support the showThank you so much for listening, if you want to support the me go to any of these links :)*Social*SHOPIFY: https://the-essential-reads.myshopify.com/INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/theessentialreadsTWITTER: http://twitter.com/isaacbirchall98Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/theessentialreads

Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic American novel. Moral fiction first published in 1850. Set in a 17th century Puritan Boston Bay colony during the years 1642 to 1649 - the story of Hester Prynne, who conceives her daughter Pearl, following an affair with a respected, unnamed figure. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ang189/support

Allison Pataki joined Carol Fitzgerald for a "Bookaccino Live" Book Group discussion about her novel, THE MAGNIFICENT LIVES OF MARJORIE POST. Allison talked about what drew her to write about Marjorie Merriweather Post and how she decided which aspects of Marjorie's life to share. She also explained how her work as an on-air journalist helped her as she was both researching and discussing the book. The conversation was brisk and fun, with great audience questions, and included what is next for Allison: AMERICAN MUSE, a novel that centers on the life of Margaret Fuller, whose circle included Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne (who based Hester Prynne on her), Louisa May Alcott and Edgar Allan Poe. Latest “Bookreporter Talks To” Interviews: Lisa Scottoline: https://youtu.be/8F-CDltuc3E Sadeqa Johnson: https://youtu.be/TW01NY0d7CE William Landay: https://youtu.be/Zcok9PHuRHw Shelley Read: https://youtu.be/aZHZx2LaU4Y William Kent Krueger: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDK_Ngau8qs&t=45s J.T. Ellison: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2F63lFI2nmw Hank Phillippi Ryan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMZjJCtKUU4 Jane Harper: https://youtu.be/-N2EWgHeeEU Deborah Goodrich Royce: https://youtu.be/0DluxmfXGoI Allegra Goodman: https://youtu.be/l_Un9MvpmNQ Check out our past “Bookaccino Live” Book Group events: Nita Prose: https://youtu.be/f_Ev0KN8z2M Chamaine Wilkerson: https://youtu.be/0DluxmfXGoI Joyce Maynard: https://youtu.be/atXP9_gxGU8  Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray: https://youtu.be/rYelwWiTJbE Janet Skeslien Charles: https://youtu.be/47Sx9DtcAkA Miranda Cowley Heller: https://youtu.be/gVlKvApDO8M Sign up for newsletters from Bookreporter and Reading Group Guides here: https://tbrnetwork.com/newsletters/ FOLLOW US on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bookreporter Website: https://www.bookreporter.com Art Credit: Tom Fitzgerald Edited by Jordan Redd Productions

Hester Prynne in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter wore a red “A” for most of her adult life as penance for her sin of adultery. While Hester carried that public condemnation, her lover, the young minister Arthur Dimmesdale, suffered in secrecy and died in shame. In Deuteronomy 22, the law stated that unfaithful wives should lose their lives, but the method was not prescribed. (The Mishnah specified strangling.) When an engaged woman was unfaithful, the woman and the man should be stoned. Consequently, many Bible commentators conclude that the woman in John 8 was engaged. When the scribes and Pharisees arrived at the Temple, Jesus was teaching. They presented the woman caught in adultery, appealed to the law, and demanded a judgment. The case was fishy. Presumably, if they caught the woman, they also knew her partner. Where was he? Clearly, they were less concerned with justice and more interested in setting a snare for Jesus. Would He disregard the law and destroy His credibility? Or uphold the law and ruin His reputation of compassion? Forced to choose between justice and grace, what would Jesus do? He stooped and wrote in the dirt. We don’t know what He wrote, but when Jesus did speak, He referenced Deuteronomy 13:9 and 17:7, which says the accusers of a crime should throw the first stones. Jesus added that they should be without sin. The scribes and Pharisees were silenced. One by one, they shuffled away. When they were gone, Jesus called her “Woman,” the same respectful term He used for His mother in John 2. Then He released her from condemnation, absolved her sin, and set her free. >> The scribes and Pharisees reveal our own tendency to pass judgment and condemn. The woman shows our struggle with shame. Jesus shows us life-altering forgiveness and an opportunity for new life.

When we sin, we should feel a burning sense of shame that keeps us from sinning again, at the same time, we should never feel ashamed of the Gospel. - SERMON TRANSCRIPT - This morning as we look one last time to the end of this chapter, Mark 8, and we're zeroing in on this one verse, Mark 8:38, and as we do, we're looking at one of the most powerful forces that shapes human experience, and that is the issue of shame. Shame. In Nathaniel Hawthorne's 19th century novel, The Scarlet Letter, that terrible symbol of sin, the scarlet letter A, representative of adultery was commanded by the magistrates to be stitched onto the dress of Hester Prynne, the young woman who was discovered to have born a child by adultery. The sentence was combined with the command that Hester should stand on a raised platform holding her infant daughter and displaying the scarlet letter for all to see. Clearly the goal was her public shaming in front of the entire population as a warning to all. She was required to wear this public emblem of her personal shame for the rest of her life. The author, Nathaniel Hawthorne, I think had an agenda concerning New England puritanism. He did tap into a very powerful force, and that is a fear of public shame. In our culture, public shaming takes a very different approach. It still powerfully exists, because anyone who doesn't fit into the popular narrative of morality in our day and our age will be shamed, publicly shamed, at least in the digital universe, forever. Made to stand up and bear public ridicule on some social media platform. But the moral code behind it has dramatically changed. Christians will become more and more ostracized if we don't agree with the world's views on all the most controversial societal issues, whether it's sexuality or gender, feminism, race relations, politics, climate change, sexual harassment, child abuse, undocumented aliens, or what have you. Shame is one of the most powerful forces shaping human personality, and that's the topic of today's sermon. It starts with a shame that Jesus mentions that we should never feel, ministered by a world that ought to be ashamed and isn't. Look at Jesus' words, one of the most convicting passages in the Gospel of Mark, indeed, really in all of scripture, Mark 8:38, "If anyone is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when He comes in His Father's glory with the holy angels." Years ago, I memorized that scripture by itself, so that I would not ever be ashamed of the gospel, in a workplace setting or in my neighborhood. Because I feel the temptation to be ashamed of Christ and His words, I feel it acutely. Jesus is severely warning His disciples against any feelings of shame about Him and about the gospel. They are going to be His messengers to a wicked and hostile world, and the world will hate them for it, because it hated Jesus first. But Jesus warns them that no true disciple of His should ever feel ashamed of Him or of His words in such a wicked world. So for me, as I look at this, I wanted to expand and look more generally at the topic of shame to try to understand it, because I think it needs a lot of biblical instruction. There's a lot of confusion about it. So with Jesus's statement as a starting point, and really is the center point, I want to expand and learn what the Bible teaches about shame in a number of ways. It's going to expand into five points. First, the world ought to be ashamed and isn't. Secondly, Christians ought to be ashamed and are. Third, Jesus is not ashamed of Christians. Fourth, Christians ought never to be ashamed of Jesus. And fifth, Christians in heaven will feel no shame at all. Let's walk through these. The context here, Jesus is training His apostles for their future ministry of the Word to the ends of the earth. He elicits from them the world's faulty, inadequate assessment of Him. Who do people say that I am? And they give their answers. Some say this, some say that. Then He asks them the most important question any of us will ever face, "What about you? Who do you say that I am?" Peter speaks as their spokesman and ours, saying with his full testimony, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Then Jesus declares His future death, which is the core of His saving mission, that He will be rejected, despised, mocked, beaten, condemned, publicly shamed and killed, and then His future glory completely vindicated by His glorious resurrection. Peter cannot comprehend this, cannot accept it, and rebukes Him privately for saying this. So Jesus turns and rebukes Peter publicly in front of everyone as a spokesman for Satan. Then He strongly charges His disciples with the cost of following Him. You must deny yourself, you must take up your cross. You must follow Jesus. He exposes the core affections of a saved heart. If you love your life, you'll lose it, but if you lose your life, you'll save it eternally. Then He reveals a proper evaluation we should have of our souls relative to the world. The soul is worth infinitely more than anything there is in the material world. With one last verse in this section, He gives a warning against currying the world's favor by aligning ourselves with its value system concerning Christ, so we can avoid the shaming mechanism it's going to heap on us. "For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man, also, be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels." I. The World Ought To Be Ashamed . . .and Isn’t Let's start with the first point. The world ought to be ashamed and isn't. Look at Jesus' evaluation of the world in a very potent statement, "This adulterous and sinful generation," He calls it. This world is deeply immersed in sin. Jesus calls it adulterous. The image is one of the deep, intimate love every single person should have for God. It's likened to the intimate love between a wife and her husband. God likened Israel to His bride in many places. For example, Isaiah 62:5, "As a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you." But Israel has gone after idols. She was spiritually adulterous, both Ezekiel and Josiah liken Israel's lust for idols to a wayward and promiscuous wife running after other lovers, committing adultery. All sin therefore is ultimately spiritual adultery. We are an adulterous and sinful generation. The entire world is adulterous in the same way. "Israel has gone after idols. She was spiritually adulterous, both Ezekiel and Josiah liken Israel's lust for idols to a wayward and promiscuous wife running after other lovers, committing adultery. All sin therefore is ultimately spiritual adultery." Jesus highlights the great wickedness of this world, a world that ought to be ashamed of itself, but it isn't. It isn't. So what is shame? Let's take a minute and define it. Shame is a painful emotion caused by a consciousness of guilt, shortcoming, or impropriety. It's a painful emotion caused by a consciousness of guilt or a shortcoming or impropriety. Shame always involves an audience, an onlooking audience, a sense of public censure, a stripping of honor before an onlooking crowd of disapproving people. There's disgraced, dishonor, reproach, the crowd being shocked, pouring out disapproval. Fundamental to shame is the sense of the respect and affection that we desire in the eyes of others, especially God. That God Himself and that other people would see us well, honor us, think well of us, speak well of us. To have the exact opposite, to be despised, to be publicly stripped of all honor is among the greatest fears of the human heart. God Almighty, definitely in many places, includes shame in judging sin. There are many verses I could use to prove this, but when speaking of Israel's forsaking of the true God to fall idols, he says in Jeremiah 2:11-13, "My people have exchanged their glory for worthless idols. Be appalled at this O heavens, and shutter with great horror," declares the Lord. "My people have committed two sins. They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water." When He says, "Be appalled at this, O heavens," He's calling on the heavens to witness His people in their shame in what they've done. To look on Israel's sin with horror and to shutter. Isaiah does the same thing, "Hear, O heavens! Listen, O earth!" The first mention of shame in the Bible appears very early, and it's mentioned negatively. “The man and his wife were both naked and they felt no shame.” They wouldn't have known what the word was at that moment, but it's ominous, because Moses, writing centuries later, knew exactly what it was to feel shame, and the first experience of shame came in the very next chapter. Tragically, Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit and they felt shame. First, horizontally toward each other and then vertically toward God. The eyes of both of them were open and they realized they were naked, so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. The word shame isn't mentioned there, but it's clearly implied, especially since it was just mentioned a few verses before that. Then all the more when God comes and calls to the man, "Where are you?" and he answered, "I heard you in the garden. I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid." But tragically, the disease of sin, specifically, attacks the sense of shame, and after a while, sinners feel no shame whatever for their sins. The world corrupts shame. As sin progressed in the world, people became more and more hardened concerning their sins. Genesis 6 says that before the flood, the thoughts of men's hearts were only evil, all the time, continually. The general principle in redemptive history has been the greater the evil in the hearts of the people, the more they throw off shame entirely and actually boast in the evil things they do. Jeremiah 6:15, "Are they ashamed of their loathsome conduct? No, they have no shame at all. They do not even know how to blush." Or again, at the end of Romans 1, when there's a terrible catalog of sins, twenty-one sins listed, Paul says this, "They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity." Then verse 32, "Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things, but,” listen, “they also approve of those who practice them." The word “approve” means “to have pleasure in”. They actually delight in things that they ought to be ashamed of. Paul talks about this in Philippians 3:19, speaking of lost people, "Their destiny is destruction, their God is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame." Paul means that these depraved people actually glory in what should be making them feel feelings of shame. People then boast with great glee over sexual promiscuity or getting away with the perfect crime or fits of rage as demonstrations of power, that kind of thing. This defective shame is part of what the Bible calls a “seared conscience". 1 Timothy 4:2, Paul mentions, "Hypocritical liars whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron." A seared conscience means they have no feeling in their conscience. To some degree they are like lepers. Leprosy is a nerve disease which manifests in a lot of ways, but one of them is that you lose the sensation of pain. You could walk the entire day with a rock in your shoe that's just gouging your flesh, and you never feel it. The end of the day you take off your shoe and your shoe is filled with blood, your own blood, but you never felt anything. I think that's what it means to have a hard heart, a seared conscience, you don't feel anything, but actually they're still aware of the existence of a sense of guilt and shame as a reality. They're aware of that. Thus, they often try to make righteous people feel ashamed of not joining with them in their own sinful actions. They want everyone to join their party with them. 1 Peter 4:3-4 says to Christian people, "You've spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do, living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing, and detestable idolatry. They think it's strange that you do not plunge with them into the same flood of dissipation and they heap abuse on you.” “Why aren't you joining in what we're doing here?” They heap abuse on anyone who won't join in their sins. Our culture will become even violent toward people who don't agree with them, who don't, for example, in Pride month celebrate homosexuality. They don't get on board with LGBTQ, et cetera. If you don't get on board, they'll heap shame on you. Or on other topics, make you try to join their crusades on those topics, and if you don't join with them in the same way, they will heap abuse on you. They'll try to make you feel ashamed. The world fundamentally wants us to dance to their tune. Jesus talked about this in reference to John the Baptist not dancing to anybody's tune. Matthew 11:17, "To what can I compare this generation? They're like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others, 'We played the flute for you and you didn't dance; we sang a dirge. And you didn't mourn.'" In other words, "We're calling the tune, you need to dance to our tune." Concerning the LGBT, et cetera, Paul actually calls it in Romans 1, "Shameful lusts." That phrase is not going to go anywhere, it's not going to disappear, and yet the whole thing has been turned around now, where it's shameful to oppose. It's shameful to tell the truth. In love, to say, "This like all the other sins are sins that Jesus, the great physician can heal you from." Now the whole thing's turned around. Isaiah said in Isaiah 5:20, "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter." Who call things that are shameful good and try to put shame on people who are doing actual good in God's eyes. Turn the whole thing around. So fundamentally, the world rejects the healthy shame they should feel for their sins. Without it they cannot repent and be saved. "The world rejects the healthy shame they should feel for their sins. Without it, they cannot repent and be saved." II. Christians Ought To Be Ashamed . . . and Are Secondly, Christians ought to be ashamed and are. In order to be saved, sinners must repent of their sins. Genuine repentance is essential to salvation. Jesus said in Luke 5, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I've not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." But what is repentance? The puritan pastor Thomas Watson in his masterpiece, The Doctrine of Repentance, defined repentance as, "Repentance is a grace of God's spirit whereby a sinner is inwardly humbled and visibly reformed. He then breaks out that inward humbling in six ingredients of true repentance. First, sight of sin. You see it as God does. Secondly, sorrow for sin. You have a genuine grief or sorrow over your sin. Third, confession of sin. Vertically, you agree with God that that is sin, that you are a sinner, and that specific thing is sin. Fourth, shame for sin. A sense, a burning sense of how repulsive that sin is in the sight of a holy God. Fifth, hatred of sin. A moral revulsion over the sin. And then that results in sixth, a turning from sin, a genuine transformation of life." That's what repentance actually is, and shame for sin is in the middle of it. The Holy Spirit comes in His marvelous powerful work, and He works repentance in us. Thanks be to God, if you're a Christian, the Holy Spirit has done this deep work of convicting in you. John 16:8, "When the spirit comes, He will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment." Therefore, part of that is the Holy Spirit works in us a healthy shame for our sins, a reasonable healthy shame for the sins we've committed. Ezekiel 16:63, "'Then, when I make atonement for you for all you have done, then you will remember and be ashamed and never again open your mouth, because of your humiliation,' declares the sovereign Lord." That's powerful, and that's in the spiritual adultery chapter of Ezekiel 16. But we see it all over the place in the New Testament. If you know what to look for, you can see it. The parable of the prodigal son. Remember, he's out there having squandered his father's money, slopping pigs, comes to himself, comes back, and he says this to his father, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” Or again, in Luke 18:13, in the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector, "The tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'" What do you think he's feeling there? Jesus said, "I tell you that man went home justified." Or again, in Luke 7:37-38, "When a woman who had lived a sinful life in that town learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisees house, she brought an alabaster jar perfume. And as she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them, and poured perfume on them." I don't think we can fully capture all the feelings she's feeling at that moment, but deep repentance for her sinful life is part of it. Justification by faith in Christ frees us from ultimate shame. Hallelujah! It sets us free. Now, I'm going to develop more on this in a moment, but shame is essential to our salvation, and I want to borrow a phrase from John Newton's Amazing Grace, “'twas grace that taught my heart to fear and grace my fears relieved.” Same thing with shame, “'twas grace that made us feel healthy shame for our sins, and it's by grace our shame is relieved.” Even after we have been forgiven for all of our sins, past, present, and future, I don't know if you've noticed, but your career in sin isn't over yet, unless somebody of you wants to claim that it has. But you know it hasn't. We're all wrestling with sin. Romans 7, "The very thing we hate, we do and the good things we want to do, we don't do, and so we commit new sins." We're not done with healthy shame yet. Sanctification involves an ongoing work of repentance and therefore an ongoing work of healthy shame. This is pretty controversial. Many Christians think that we should never feel ashamed. Jesus has taken away all my shame. I get all that, but I don't think that's carefully nuanced enough. I don't think it's even biblical. They fail to deal properly to the fact that we're not done being saved and that there's this ongoing work of necessary repentance. We're not done repenting. And therefore, according to Watson, we're not done with shame. In justification, all of our sins have been forgiven, past, present and future, and we're positionally perfect in Christ. That is true. But in sanctification we have this ongoing battle with sin. And when a Christian sins, what is the healthy response we should have toward that new sin, other than shame? Paul openly uses shame for past sins in the sanctification verse, in Romans 6:21, to me that just proves that shame is a healthy part of the ongoing Christian life. He says, "What benefit or what fruit did you reap at that time from those things you are now ashamed of?" Now ashamed, you're a Christian, and it's healthy to be ashamed of those things you used to do. Those things result in death. What do you think Peter felt that terrible night that Jesus was arrested, and Jesus predicted his denial, three times denial, "Before the rooster crows twice you will disown me three times." Peter swore he wouldn't, "Even if all fall away in account of you, I never will." But as he was being led into the courtyard, a slave girl at the door said, "You're not one of his disciples, are you?" "No, I'm not," off and running. And then he is warming his hands with God's enemies, Jesus' enemies, "I don't know him." "You don't know... You're not one of..." "No, I don't know him." By the end of that evening, he was literally calling down curses on himself if he knew Jesus. Then the rooster crowed for the second time. Then in Luke's Gospel, Jesus was going from one place to another in his trial, and he had the opportunity to look right at Peter, just at that moment, and Peter went outside and wept bitterly. What do you think he was feeling? If you don't like the word shame, then come up with a new word. But that's what he was feeling. Shame therefore is like physical pain. We will not feel it in heaven, I'll get to that in a few moments, but we need it now, so that we don't keep touching the hot stove, so that we stop sinning. Christians ought to feel shame and do. III. Jesus Is Not Ashamed of Christians Thirdly, Jesus is not ashamed of Christians. Now this should blow you away. Jesus Christ openly associated with sinners. He was a friend of tax collectors and sinners. He had no problem sitting with them, eating meals with them. He had no fear of guilt by association, none. He was a friend of sinners. And we need a friend, don't we? Jesus, we're told in Hebrews 2:11, is not ashamed to be called our brother. He's not ashamed to call us brothers. It's incredible given who we are and who He is, but that just mirrors God Himself. It says in Hebrews 11:16 that God is not ashamed to be called their God for He's prepared a city for them. God doesn't mind having his name associated with us. He's not ashamed of us. Why is that? Because Jesus, by His atoning work, by His blood, has removed all of our sin, has atoned for all of our sins. Jesus is willing, based on the blood He shed on our behalf, to stand next to a sinner who has repented and believed. Like the father of the prodigal son, who's still wearing nasty pig clothes, he gives him a hug, puts his arm around, he owns him. He puts a ring on his finger as an heir and a robe on around him. He's willing to stand in front of all the angels and say, "He is one of mine. I know her. I vouch for him. I vouch for her.” Romans 8:33-34, "Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen?” It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns Christ Jesus who died-more than that, was raised to life-and at the right hand of God interceding for us?" Owning us, He is saying, "She belongs to me. He belongs to me," advocating for us. He's not ashamed of us. He's not ashamed, because atonement removes all of our sin, all of the shame for sin. "Atonement removes all of our sin, all of the shame for sin." Romans 10:11, as the scripture says, "Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame." So by his atonement, the death penalty for our sins has been paid. By the miracle of imputation, His righteousness is credited to us. His righteousness is given to us, picture it like a beautiful robe to cover our shameful nakedness. That's the open language used in Revelation 3:18, Jesus says to the church at Laodecia, "I counsel you to buy from me white clothes to wear, so that you can cover your shameful nakedness." The white robe to wear is the imputed righteousness of Christ. It's faith in Christ, and it's pictured like a white robe. The ultimate shame in the universe, there is no greater shame than this, before the angels, before all the redeemed to be condemned to hell, to be condemned to hell. "If anyone is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when He comes in His Father's glory with his holy angels." What is He coming in His Father's glory with his holy angels to do? He's coming to judge the earth. He's the judge of all the earth. Another passage openly talks about that moment, Matthew 25:31-32, "When the Son of Man comes in His Father's glory, and all the angels with Him, He will sit on His throne in heavenly glory. And all the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate the people one from the other as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He'll put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left." Therefore the ultimate shame is to hear those dreadful words spoken that I spoke last week, "Depart from me, you who are cursed into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and as angels.” That's the shame we Christians will never feel. Anyone who trusts in Him will never ultimately, eternally be put to shame. If we repent of our sins now and trust in Christ now, we will never know that ultimate shame. IV. Christians Ought Not Be Ashamed of Jesus Fourth, Christians ought never to be ashamed of Jesus. Now, this is obviously the home base of this scripture, but I've sought to show the context of why this would even happen. Why would we be tempted to feel ashamed of Christ and of His words? It's because the world seeks to make Christians ashamed of Christ and of the gospel. The world in its sin attacks people who point out their sins. No one did that more perfectly than Jesus. Jesus said to his, at that point, unbelieving brothers in John 7:7, "The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify that what it does is evil." Did you hear that? The reason the world hated Jesus is because He told the truth about their sin and they didn't want to hear it. "The reason the world hates me is I testify that what it does is evil." And again, John 3:20, "Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed." Therefore, in His death the world heaped abuse on Jesus, they heaped shame on Him. Mark 15:17 and following, "They put a purple robe on Him, they twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on Him. And they began to call out to Him, 'Hail king of the Jews!' Again and again they struck Him on the head with a staff and spit on Him. Falling on their knees, they paid homage to Him. And when they had mocked Him, they took off the purple robe and put His own clothes on Him. Then they led Him out to crucify Him." Jesus told His followers to expect the same treatment if they follow Him in proclaiming the need that sinners have to repent and believe. John 15:18, "If the world hates you, keep in mind it hated me first." The world will try to make all Christians feel ashamed of Christ and His words though they are the ones who ought to be ashamed of their sins, so that they can be saved. But Jesus says, "If anyone is truly, at your core, ashamed of me and of my words, you're not a Christian, and I will disown you on that day." He will be ashamed of you at Judgment Day, that's what He's saying. This verse is fundamentally a warning to all of us. The shame Jesus is referring to here is the total rejection of Christ and his incarnation. If anyone does that, Jesus is going to reject them on Judgment Day, saying, "I never knew you, away from me, you evildoers." People have to come out from the world and join with Jesus by faith, as He is crucified. We have to make our stand with the crucified and bloody savior and not be ashamed of Him. The cross itself was designed to maximize every form of torture, including public shame. Isn't it amazing that Hebrews tells us that Jesus said, the shame they heaped on Him, He considered a small price to pay to save us, a small price to pay to save you and me. Hebrews 12:2, "Let us fix our eyes in Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. Who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of God.” What does that mean? He thought little of it, the shame. It's a small price to pay. Marvel at that, because shame is one of the most powerful feelings there is. For Him, it's small, "I know they're going to shame me. I know they're going to keep abuse on me. I know they're going to mock me, and they're going to spit on me, and they're going to strip me out in front of all the people. It's a small price to pay to win you," to win His bride. But then the author to Hebrews urges us Christians to stand with Jesus, under the cross bearing the shame He bore. In the next chapter of Hebrews 13:12-14, "When the sacrifices were made, the carcasses of the sacrifices were taken outside the camp and burned, refuse." The author then says, "Jesus also suffered outside the city gate," as though He's garbage, “to make the people holy by His own blood." Listen to this, "Let us then go to him outside the camp, bearing the reproach he bore. For here we do not have an enduring city, but we're looking for the city that is to come." So what does he mean? Go outside like your garbage, stand next to Jesus, own Him like He's willing to own you, and stand under that reproach, and bear the reproach He bore. That's what the author of Hebrews is urging us to do. Be willing to join him, to stand under the bloody cross, to preach the bloody cross, to not be ashamed of it in any way. That is our mission in the world to testify to Christ and to his words. We are sent as witnesses to a lost and dying world. Jesus said, "We should expect to be hated and shamed.” Paul was constantly. The shaming mechanism was dumped on Paul again and again. Think about Paul and Silas in Philippi. They were stripped publicly and beaten publicly and then thrown in the inner dungeon and their feet were put in the stocks as though they were maximum criminals, complete public shaming. In our generation, unbelievers will try to shame us as well. In America at this present time, it just means being mocked on social media, or on the news programs, or the brunt of standup comedian jokes or late night talk jokes, things like that. It's going to get worse though I think. I don't think it's going to get better. I think it's going to get worse. In more oppressive cultures and at different times in history, Christians have been more openly shamed. In the Chinese Cultural Revolution, 1966, Chinese Christians were made wear dense caps and had insulting signs put around their necks. They were paraded through the streets with gongs, and the crowds were expected to hurl insults and mud and stones on them to shame them. Now in our setting, the bolder and more faithful we are on witnessing, the more likely we're going to kick into that shaming mechanism the world's going to try to do. If we stay quiet, if we "stay in our lane", so to speak, and don't make waves, we're not likely to experience a lot of shame. But if we share the gospel, we will. And we know it, that's what's holding us back. What you need to realize is what we're talking about here, Christ is the most glorious thing there has ever been on planet earth, and His words are equally glorious. How could we be ashamed of Christ and of his words? How could we? Let's turn that whole thing around. Let's openly proclaim the glories and excellences of Christ. That's the best kind of evangelism you can ever do. Talk great about Jesus in front of lost people. So we can say, as Paul said in Romans 1:16, "I'm not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile." V. Christians in Heaven Will Feel No Shame Fifth, Christian in heaven will feel no shame. Dear friends, you Christians, brothers and sisters, this whole thing's temporary, praise God. You will feel zero shame in heaven. I believe you'll remember everything, for how could you thank God for your salvation, if you didn't remember from what you were saved? You won't feel any shame, just like you won't feel any pain. There'll be no more death, mourning, crying, or pain of any type, including emotional pain. You'll be set free [Revelation 21:4]. No shame whatsoever, so beautiful. The Book of Revelation again and again portrays the redeemed in heaven as wearing white robes. There's five different white robes verses in Revelation. For example, Revelation 7:9, it says, "There was a multitude greater than anyone could count from every tribe, language, people, and nation, and they were wearing white robes and saying, 'Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne.'" That's the covering of our sins with Jesus' imputed perfect righteousness. You know what's so beautiful, there won't be any scarlet letters on our white robes. You're not going to present as former blasphemer, former adulterer, former anything, just radiant beauty. You're going to shine like the sun. The backstory is necessary just to tell history, but you'll be able to say, "It is no longer I who do it, but sin that lived in me back then that did it, but I am done. I'm different. I'm a new creation. So tell the story, I have no fear in the matter.” It's beautiful. We'll be set free. VI. Lessons Lessons, first and foremost, all I can do is plead with you. If you have not yet trusted in Christ, come to him. Believe in him. You don't want that ultimate shame of being condemned on judgment day, so trust in Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Now to Christians I would say, let the shame of past and present sins fire you up toward personal holiness. What fruit or what benefit did you reap at that time from those things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death. Think about those shameful things and the shame you should feel for those in and of themselves, apart from the atoning work of Christ, and don't do those sins anymore. That's the point. Nothing good comes from sin. That's what Paul's saying there, “be holy." Secondly, be bold in sharing Christ in this hate-filled wicked world. Your eyes are open. You know what's going to happen. They're going to try to shame you. Don't be surprised when they do. Boldly share Christ, expect them to try to publicly shame you. Be willing to stand with Christ outside the camp and bear the disgrace He bore. Be warned here, take the warning, do not be ashamed of Christ or of His words. We constantly face that fleshly, cowardly, tendency that we have. We tend to hide... Think about what happened to Peter. Peter got this warning, he heard it, and then he was later ashamed of Jesus. But he's a genuine Christian and so God reclaimed him, got him back, all right. The problem was he was masquerading as an believer. He was masquerading as somebody who didn't know Jesus. He was masquerading as someone who hated Christ. It wasn't his true nature. Thank God He can rescue us from those kind of false masquerades. Let's not, this week, masquerade as though we don't know Jesus, and keep quiet when we could say something of His glories, something of His greatness. Ask the Lord, just go to Him in prayer, be honest with Him, say, "Lord, I know you know me, but I want to tell you I am a gospel coward. I would say a lot more about Jesus than I do, but I'm just afraid of what's going to happen. I'm afraid of people's reactions. Would you cure me?" Just be honest. Isn't it the truth? Just be honest and say, "Lord, be the physician of my soul. Help me to be bolder than I've ever been before. Help me to not be afraid what people will say. Help me to be willing to speak the truth for their salvation and for your glory. Help me to be willing to speak of your glorious Jesus. You're not shameful, you're glorious. You're pure and powerful and radiant and wise and good and loving. I want to tell people about you. I want to declare the excellences of Him who called me out of darkness into His marvelous light." Gospel witness as worship is the best way to go. It drives out fear for me. It's like I'm not afraid what they're thinking. I'm just going to say some awesome things about Jesus in front of lost of people, whether they want to hear it or not. I'm going to fish for them and at some point somebody's going to like, "Tell me more. I want to hear more about Jesus." Like, "I bet you do. I can't wait to tell you more. Hey, let's get together and study the Gospel of Mark and let's spend three weeks on two verses in Mark, something like that." It's incredible the things that we can learn. So just ask the Lord to move in you. As the scripture is written, "Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord." Close with me in prayer. Father, we thank you for the powerful warning that we've had from Jesus here to not be ashamed of you, of your words. We thank you for a day that we'll be free from all pain, any manner of pain. We thank you that you protected us from the ultimate shame of being condemned on judgment day. In the meantime, Lord, because we continue to sin, we know that we need shame to warn us. We need to feel a burn when we confess our sins to you. But we know that you love us, you're tender with us, that even that feeling of shame is temporary. If we just genuinely repent, you'll work in us. Lord, thank you. Thank you for the beauty of the gospel. Thank you for the beauty of the words of scripture, and for all we can learn from it. In Jesus' name, Amen.

You most likely read or skim read Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic novel, The Scarlett Letter in high school literature class. Hawthorne's story of Hester Prynne is a tale of a married woman sent ahead to America as her husband finished up affairs. Thought to be dead after his delayed arrival to their new…

Susan Shapiro Barash has been researching female infidelity. In her fascinating and provocative updated investigation, A Passion for More, we learn why and how a diverse group of women from their twenties to their eighties conduct affairs. Through personal accounts of over seventy women, we get a wide-angle picture of how a lover is chosen with agency.Today women have affairs with a sense of entitlement. The fate of Anna Karenina, Emma Bovary and Hester Prynne is over. While these literary figures' destinies were grim, real women in real time are exploring their needs with a striking absence of guilt and as a form of self- exploration.

Kathryn interviews Author David Tabatsky.Naïve young attorney Ryan Coleman jumps feet first into the hedonist world of wealth and power at the core of class-action law and finds himself in way over his head in a satirical legal thriller filled with scenarios loosely based on real-world interactions with lawyers, judges and plaintiffs. Included in the cast of colorful characters is Eugenia “Gene” Cauley, a female shark in the male-dominated legal world whose life spirals tragically out of control, and Randy Hollis, an insanely successful lawyer turned multi-billionaire, who is pursuing his ultimate American dream: buying a professional football team. Author and attorney Brian Felgoise alongside Co-Author David Tabatsky reveal the surprising ways in which our system of class-action law enables (mostly) men to get ridiculously wealthy and behave like sophomoric frat boys. As media billionaire Mortimer Zuckerman once said referring to some lawyer's self indulgence and unbridled hubris, Practicing law is the exact opposite of sex. Even when it's good it's bad. Kathryn also interviews Author Susan Shapiro Barash.The fate of literary heroines Anna Karenina, Emma Bovary and Hester Prynne is over. While their destinies were grim, real women today are exploring their needs with a striking absence of guilt and as a form of self-exploration, with a huge rise in female infidelity, according to bestselling gender expert Susan Shapiro Barash. Today women have affairs with a sense of entitlement and 90% of the women have no guilt and actively pursue the affair according to Barash's research which also attributes the explosion of female infidelity to social media, making exposure to a lover easier than ever before, and COVID which has increased the number of cyberspace affairs. She analyzes the four types of affairs and reveals how an affair can improve one's marriage/monogamous relationship. Barash has been featured in The NY Times, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, The NY Post, The Chicago Tribune, Elle, ‘O', and Marie Claire. She has also appeared on The Today Show, Good Morning America, CBS, CNN and MSNBC.

Kathryn interviews Author David Tabatsky.Naïve young attorney Ryan Coleman jumps feet first into the hedonist world of wealth and power at the core of class-action law and finds himself in way over his head in a satirical legal thriller filled with scenarios loosely based on real-world interactions with lawyers, judges and plaintiffs. Included in the cast of colorful characters is Eugenia “Gene” Cauley, a female shark in the male-dominated legal world whose life spirals tragically out of control, and Randy Hollis, an insanely successful lawyer turned multi-billionaire, who is pursuing his ultimate American dream: buying a professional football team. Author and attorney Brian Felgoise alongside Co-Author David Tabatsky reveal the surprising ways in which our system of class-action law enables (mostly) men to get ridiculously wealthy and behave like sophomoric frat boys. As media billionaire Mortimer Zuckerman once said referring to some lawyer's self indulgence and unbridled hubris, Practicing law is the exact opposite of sex. Even when it's good it's bad. Kathryn also interviews Author Susan Shapiro Barash.The fate of literary heroines Anna Karenina, Emma Bovary and Hester Prynne is over. While their destinies were grim, real women today are exploring their needs with a striking absence of guilt and as a form of self-exploration, with a huge rise in female infidelity, according to bestselling gender expert Susan Shapiro Barash. Today women have affairs with a sense of entitlement and 90% of the women have no guilt and actively pursue the affair according to Barash's research which also attributes the explosion of female infidelity to social media, making exposure to a lover easier than ever before, and COVID which has increased the number of cyberspace affairs. She analyzes the four types of affairs and reveals how an affair can improve one's marriage/monogamous relationship. Barash has been featured in The NY Times, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, The NY Post, The Chicago Tribune, Elle, ‘O', and Marie Claire. She has also appeared on The Today Show, Good Morning America, CBS, CNN and MSNBC.

Kathryn interviews Author David Tabatsky.Naïve young attorney Ryan Coleman jumps feet first into the hedonist world of wealth and power at the core of class-action law and finds himself in way over his head in a satirical legal thriller filled with scenarios loosely based on real-world interactions with lawyers, judges and plaintiffs. Included in the cast of colorful characters is Eugenia “Gene” Cauley, a female shark in the male-dominated legal world whose life spirals tragically out of control, and Randy Hollis, an insanely successful lawyer turned multi-billionaire, who is pursuing his ultimate American dream: buying a professional football team. Author and attorney Brian Felgoise alongside Co-Author David Tabatsky reveal the surprising ways in which our system of class-action law enables (mostly) men to get ridiculously wealthy and behave like sophomoric frat boys. As media billionaire Mortimer Zuckerman once said referring to some lawyer's self indulgence and unbridled hubris, Practicing law is the exact opposite of sex. Even when it's good it's bad. Kathryn also interviews Author Susan Shapiro Barash.The fate of literary heroines Anna Karenina, Emma Bovary and Hester Prynne is over. While their destinies were grim, real women today are exploring their needs with a striking absence of guilt and as a form of self-exploration, with a huge rise in female infidelity, according to bestselling gender expert Susan Shapiro Barash. Today women have affairs with a sense of entitlement and 90% of the women have no guilt and actively pursue the affair according to Barash's research which also attributes the explosion of female infidelity to social media, making exposure to a lover easier than ever before, and COVID which has increased the number of cyberspace affairs. She analyzes the four types of affairs and reveals how an affair can improve one's marriage/monogamous relationship. Barash has been featured in The NY Times, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, The NY Post, The Chicago Tribune, Elle, ‘O', and Marie Claire. She has also appeared on The Today Show, Good Morning America, CBS, CNN and MSNBC.

Kathryn interviews Author David Tabatsky.Naïve young attorney Ryan Coleman jumps feet first into the hedonist world of wealth and power at the core of class-action law and finds himself in way over his head in a satirical legal thriller filled with scenarios loosely based on real-world interactions with lawyers, judges and plaintiffs. Included in the cast of colorful characters is Eugenia “Gene” Cauley, a female shark in the male-dominated legal world whose life spirals tragically out of control, and Randy Hollis, an insanely successful lawyer turned multi-billionaire, who is pursuing his ultimate American dream: buying a professional football team. Author and attorney Brian Felgoise alongside Co-Author David Tabatsky reveal the surprising ways in which our system of class-action law enables (mostly) men to get ridiculously wealthy and behave like sophomoric frat boys. As media billionaire Mortimer Zuckerman once said referring to some lawyer's self indulgence and unbridled hubris, Practicing law is the exact opposite of sex. Even when it's good it's bad. Kathryn also interviews Author Susan Shapiro Barash.The fate of literary heroines Anna Karenina, Emma Bovary and Hester Prynne is over. While their destinies were grim, real women today are exploring their needs with a striking absence of guilt and as a form of self-exploration, with a huge rise in female infidelity, according to bestselling gender expert Susan Shapiro Barash. Today women have affairs with a sense of entitlement and 90% of the women have no guilt and actively pursue the affair according to Barash's research which also attributes the explosion of female infidelity to social media, making exposure to a lover easier than ever before, and COVID which has increased the number of cyberspace affairs. She analyzes the four types of affairs and reveals how an affair can improve one's marriage/monogamous relationship. Barash has been featured in The NY Times, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, The NY Post, The Chicago Tribune, Elle, ‘O', and Marie Claire. She has also appeared on The Today Show, Good Morning America, CBS, CNN and MSNBC.

Welcome to the Instant Trivia podcast episode 592, where we ask the best trivia on the Internet. Round 1. Category: Cities In Literature 1: "Gone with the Wind"'s Rhett Butler was a profiteer from this South Carolina port city. Charleston. 2: In Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter", Hester Prynne did her sinning in this Puritan city. Boston. 3: Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn's hometown, St. Petersburg, was based on this Missouri city. Hannibal. 4: James Joyce's "Ulysses" takes place on June 16, 1904 in this city. Dublin. 5: "Tom Brown's School Days" were spent at a British prep school in this town. Rugby. Round 2. Category: Minty Fresh 1: White Mazda Miatas bear an uncanny resemblance to these "1 1/2 Calorie Breath Mints". Tic-Tac. 2: Pep‑O‑Mint and Wint‑O‑Green are flavors of this candy mint. Life Savers. 3: This Certs ingredient is a mix of partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil, copper gluconate and flavoring. Retsyn. 4: These "Curiously Strong" mints are "So Strong, They Come in a Metal Box". Altoids. 5: "Fresh Goes Better in Life" with these mints, "Fresh and Full of Life". Mentos. Round 3. Category: Arthurian Legend 1: Leodegrance, King of Cameliard, had Arthur as a son-in-law after this daughter's marriage. Guinevere. 2: Merlin didn't design this or buy it at Ikea--he copied it from Joseph of Arimathea. the Round Table. 3: This witch's name means she's a "fairy". Morgan Le Fay. 4: We learned more about this nephew of Arthur in the 14th century tale titled him "and the Green Knight". Sir Gawain. 5: Some accounts say Arthur still lives on this mythic island. Avalon. Round 4. Category: U.s. "O" Tour 1: Since the opening of Walt Disney World, this city has become a booming metropolis. Orlando. 2: Thanks to a National Park Service webcam, you can see this famous geyser erupt live on your computer. Old Faithful. 3: Pearl Harbor and its memorials are a must-see when visiting this island. Oahu. 4: Every year during the Kentucky Derby Festival, the Belle and Delta Queen steamboats race each other down this river. the Ohio River. 5: Go way down upon the Suwannee River and you'll discover that it rises in this swamp. Okefenokee Swamp. Round 5. Category: Pop Music Trivia 1: She was awarded her 1986 Female Pop Vocal Grammy Award by her cousin Dionne. Whitney Houston. 2: "Midnight Train to Georgia" was originally called "Midnight Plane to..." this Texas city. Houston. 3: In 1977 she spent a week on the top of the Top 40 chart with "Don't Leave Me That Way". Thelma Houston. 4: After his death in 1950, his recording of "September Song" became a big hit. Walter Huston. 5: After "Phoenix" and "Wichita", it was Glen Campbell's 3rd Top 40 hit with a city in the title. "Galveston". Thanks for listening! Come back tomorrow for more exciting trivia! Special thanks to https://blog.feedspot.com/trivia_podcasts/

E.R. Fightmaster's performance is an example of the unique magic that happens when a great narrator is paired with the perfect book. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile contributor Kendra Winchester discuss Cory McCarthy's young adult novel chronicling a nonbinary athlete's coming of age. River McIntyre spends every spare moment practicing for the swim team as a means to escape their internal struggle with gender identity — but when they meet and fall in love with another nonbinary teen, they begin to imagine a better future for themself. Fightmaster expertly captures River's intense internal conflict with their gender and queer identity, voicing the complex emotional depth of River's experience. Read the full review of the audiobook on AudioFile's website. Published by Listening Library. Find more audiobook recommendations at audiofilemagazine.com Listen to AudioFile's fourth season of Audiobook Break, featuring the Japanese American Civil Liberties Collection. Support for AudioFile's Behind the Mic comes from Naxos AudioBooks. This week is Banned Books Week. Controversial for its depiction of adultery and redemption, Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter has been challenged as recently as 1977. It is one of the great classics of American literature. Set in the harsh Puritan environment of 17th-century Boston, it describes the plight of Hester Prynne, an independent-minded woman who stands alone against society. Having given birth to a child after an illicit affair, she refuses to name the father and is forced to wear the letter ‘A', for Adulteress, embroidered on her dress. Listen to Adam Sims's Earphones Award-winning performance. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne audiobook. The story begins in seventeenth-century Salem, Massachusetts, then a Puritan settlement. A young woman, Hester Prynne, is led from the town prison with her infant daughter, Pearl, in her arms and the scarlet letter “A” on her breast. The scarlet letter "A" represents the act of adultery that she has committed; it is to be a symbol of her sin for all to see. She will not reveal her lover's identity, however, and the scarlet letter, along with her public shaming, is her punishment for her sin and her secrecy.

The Scarlet Letter Episode - Nathaniel Hawthorne -Episode 2 - We meet Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, Roger Chillingworth and little Pearl! Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne conceives a child during an affair and is reluctant to name the father. In Puritan Massachusetts in the mid- 1600s, Hester’s punishment involved public shaming. She was ordered to wear a scarlet “A” throughout her life. In Joshua 2 we meet Rahab who was essentially branded with a scarlet letter of adultery. She was one of Jericho’s well-known prostitutes, living inside its massive walls (v. 1). Joshua’s spies assumed that Rahab’s place would be the perfect hiding spot to remain anonymous. But rumors traveled quickly, and the king sent men to scope out her house (v. 3). After hiding the spies and turning the king’s men away, Rahab gives a confession of faith. Rahab expressed that she and all the Jerichoans heard of what Yahweh had done to the other cities and were terrified. However, she turned her fear into reverence, proclaiming her belief in Yahweh’s supremacy. Her expression of trust would have been shocking to the spies, Joshua, the Israelite army, as well as the readers of the book of Joshua. This woman, at whom others looked with judgment and scorn, put her transformed faith into action, kept her commitment to the spies, and tied a scarlet cord on her window to signify which home not to destroy. As early as the first century, commentators such as Clement of Rome, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Origen, and others indicated the scarlet cord as a symbol of Jesus’ blood shed on the cross. Only God can take our scarlet letter of sin and turn it into a scarlet cord of faith. >> We all deserve to wear a scarlet letter that marks our sinfulness. But the good news is that Jesus’ death and resurrection gives us a second chance. If you have not accepted Jesus, turn to Him today. If you know Him, don’t hesitate to share how God has transformed your life. Your past may change someone’s future.

Lee Josué 2:1–24 En la novela de Nathaniel Hawthorne, La letra escarlata, Hester Prynne concibe un hijo fuera del matrimonio y se niega a nombrar al padre. Ambientado en el estado puritano de Massachusetts a mediados del siglo XVII, el castigo de Hester involucró la vergüenza pública; se le ordenó usar la letra “A” escarlata durante toda su vida. En Josué 2 nos encontramos con Rahab, quien esencialmente fue marcada con una letra escarlata de adulterio. Ella era una de las prostitutas más conocidas de Jericó, y vivía dentro de sus enormes muros (v. 1). Los espías de Josué asumieron que el lugar de Rahab sería el escondite perfecto para permanecer en el anonimato. Sin embargo, los rumores se propagaron rápidamente y el rey envió hombres a inspeccionar su casa (v. 3). Después de esconder a los espías y alejar a los hombres del rey, Rahab hace una confesión de fe. Rahab expresó que ella y todos los de Jericó se enteraron de lo que Yahweh había hecho en las otras ciudades y se aterrorizaron. Sin embargo, convirtió su miedo en reverencia, proclamando su creencia en la supremacía de Yahweh. Su expresión de confianza habría sido impactante para los espías, para Josué, para el ejército israelita, así como para los lectores del libro de Josué. Esta mujer, a quien otros miraban con juicio y desprecio, puso su fe transformadora en acción, mantuvo su compromiso con los espías y ató un cordón escarlata a su ventana para indicar qué hogar no debían destruir. En el primer siglo, comentaristas como Clemente de Roma, Justino Mártir, Ireneo, Orígenes y otros relacionaron la simbolización del cordón escarlata con un símbolo de la sangre de Jesús derramada en la cruz. Solo Dios puede tomar nuestra letra escarlata de pecado y convertirla en un cordón escarlata de fe. Todos merecemos llevar una letra escarlata que marque nuestra pecaminosidad. Pero la buena noticia es que la muerte y resurrección de Jesús nos da una segunda oportunidad. Si no has aceptado a Jesús, vuélvete a Él hoy. Si lo conoces, no dudes en compartir cómo Dios ha transformado tu vida. Tu pasado puede cambiar el futuro de alguien. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Another Great Awakening comes about with the outrageously popular religion promoted by women shaking free of husbands, finding freedom in the all-about-me worldview. It's the ministry of Hester Prynne, first envisioned by Nathaniel Hawthorne in -The Scarlet Letter.- This program also takes a look at the positives and negatives involved with Charlotte Mason's teachings.--This program includes---1. The World View in 5 Minutes with Adam McManus -Disney-Pixar pushing homosexuality in new Toy Story film, Hillsong Church's Brian Houston is in more hot water, South Korea - Vietnam have record COVID cases despite high vaccinations---2. Generations with Kevin Swanson

This is for my English teacher

A Letra Escarlate de Nathaniel Hawthorne, escrito em 1850, retrata a condição de Hester Prynne, diante do julgamento legalista, nos tempos da religiosidade puritana.

Lauren Nordsiek is a high school English teacher at Conestoga High School in Berwyn, PA. // On Episode #45 of the Path to Follow Podcast, Jake and Lauren discuss Lauren's excellent book recommendation: 'Leave the World Behind' by Rumaan Alam (2020), deciding on teaching as a career path, mentorship during the first few years of teaching, classroom tips & tricks during the pandemic, changes in high school English curricula, "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, 'The Kite Runner' (2003) by Khaled Hosseini, Nathaniel Hawthorne and teaching 'The Scarlet Letter' (1850), admirable qualities of Hester Prynne, the concept of "the other," Conestoga High School, and self-care during the pandemic. // Purchase 'Leave the World Behind' by Rumaan Alam (2020) - https://www.amazon.com/Leave-World-Behind-Rumaan-Alam/dp/0062667637 // Enjoy the episode? Please spread the word and follow @pathtofollowpod on all platforms. More to come! // Many thanks to the all-powerful Cesare Ciccanti for all of his efforts on podcast production. //

This episode Dr. Nic and Mike break down the proto-feminist novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter! Yes, like the rest of you, I didn’t like this book when I read it in High School, but see how the reassessment goes! Oh, and skip the Custom House Chapter.

Following our last episode on Nathaniel Hawthorne, Jacke takes a look at The Scarlet Letter (1850), which tells the story of a 17th-century New England woman (Hester Prynne) struggling to maintain her dignity in spite of a shameful punishment imposed by her Puritan community. After offering some introductory thoughts, Jacke reads the first ten pages of the novel/romance, providing some light commentary along the way. Enjoy! Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/shop. (We appreciate it!) Find out more at historyofliterature.com, jackewilson.com, or by following Jacke and Mike on Twitter at @thejackewilson and @literatureSC. Or send an email to jackewilsonauthor@gmail.com. New!!! Looking for an easy to way to buy Jacke a coffee? Now you can at paypal.me/jackewilson. Your generosity is much appreciated! The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The guys are starting off 2021 with a bang! Kicking off the year by discussing one of their least favorite literary works that they were obligated to read during their tenure in high school, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Even though this was not their favorite read, it turned out to be a rather fun episode for the guys. Zach tells about his latest battle with a random pedestrian. Not a battle of physicality or dominance, but rather a civil sparring of cordiality and polite behavior. While the competition was fierce, we can safely conclude that each of the opponents came out with something to take pride in. Speaking of competition, Cody shares why he loves sports. While this is not a sports podcast, the guys like to sneak in a little sports talk here and there because they are big fans of their hometown teams. Competition is a great thing to witness but once the competition is over, what makes the world of highly competitive sports interesting are the variety of different stories that come out of it.The guys eagerly await as their favorite team gets ready to play in the NFL playoffs for the first time since they had to memorize all of their prepositions. Cody, has a scandal of his own that he must bring up before they discuss the rather scandalous Scarlet Letter. The stakes in the scandal going on within the life of Mr. Haggard is nowhere near as dramatic or traumatic as the one Hester Prynne had to go through but still very frustrating. The Scarlet Letter is a work that is known by many people around the world. Most of this is probably accredited to the fact that it is required reading for most us who have gone through the educational system in the United States. With this being a truth, the guys decide to share some of their favorite stories that are not as well known or popular that they think deserve a little bit more love. In the main topic discussing The Scarlet Letter the guys discuss many interesting things about the history of the book as well as share their opinions on it. From how Nathaniel Hawthorne decided to change the spelling of his name to the very mysterious case of who should get credit for the work’s publication, there are some rather interesting historical facts that accompany this historical “masterpiece.” The guys discuss their initial impact of the book while also sharing that they read it at a time that was completely irrelevant to the stage of life they were at. Is it worth taking the time within a literature class to examine a book like this, when many students find it somewhere on the spectrum of “not very interesting” to “downright boring.” The formative years should be those that are used to create interest in reading for students, not putting books in front of them that will make them want to run away from it. Even though neither of the guys initially liked the Scarlet Letter they can appreciate the story’s accomplishments and literary power. It was a book that challenged the status quo which is a common attribute of the stories we remember the most. Listen in as the guys discuss whether this is a book that they will ever want to revisit or one that they think should just be left for the annals of history.Thank you so much for checking out Parallel Quest. This is a production of Steel Lake Studio. We don't just have one podcast though, we are a team of storytellers trying to use a variety of different mediums to tell stories that we have been working on our whole lives. If you would like to check out more of what we do, check out https://www.steellakestudio.com/Zach’s Book Nightmare at the Fair: https://www.steellakestudio.com/booksSign up for our E-MAIL LIST: https://www.steellakestudio.com/emailI you enjoy the show and would like to SUPPORT the show, you can do so on Patreon:https://www.patreon.com/steellakestudioIf you REALLY like the show, consider rocking some Parallel Quest themed MERCHANDISE:https://www.steellakestudio.com/merch

Shame: (noun) a painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by the consciousness of wrong or foolish behavior. (verb) (of a person, action, or situation) make (someone) feel ashamed. Command and control: term can refer to the influence an attacker has over a compromised computer system that they control. For example, a valid usage of the term is to say that attackers use "command and control infrastructure" to issue "command and control instructions" to their victims. Advanced analysis of command and control methodologies can be used to identify attackers, associate attacks, and disrupt ongoing malicious activity. Winning hearts and minds is a concept occasionally expressed in the resolution of war, insurgency, and other conflicts, in which one side seeks to prevail not by the use of superior force, but by making emotional or intellectual appeals to sway supporters of the other side. A debunker is a person or organization that exposes or discredits claims believed to be false, exaggerated, or pretentious. Now, about 13.1 percent of U.S. adults have an advanced degree, up from 8.6 percent in 2000. These findings come from the U.S. Census Bureau's Educational Attainment in the United States: 2018 table package that uses data from the Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement. In the fields of sociology and political science, authority is the legitimate power that a person or a group of persons consensually possess and practice over other people. In a civil state, authority is made formal by way of a judicial branch and an executive branch of government. A shame campaign is a tactic in which particular individuals are singled out because of their behavior or suspected crimes, often by marking them publicly, such as Hester Prynne in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. In the Philippines, Alfredo Lim popularized such tactics during his term as mayor of Manila. Fear tactics or scare tactics: emphasizing the worst dangers of drug. use in order to create fear and anxiety, in. hopes that the fear alone will prevent or stop risky behaviors. Fear: (noun) an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat. (verb) be afraid of (someone or something) as likely to be dangerous, painful, or threatening. --- 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/chrisabraham/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/chrisabraham/support

On this episode (hoping all technical difficulties are finally fixed!), we will be disccussing the book The Scarlett Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Can you guess this was Jayna's pick?Hester Prynne is a beautiful young woman. She is also an outcast. In the eyes of her neighbours she has committed an unforgivable sin. Everyone knows that her little daughter Pearl is the product of an illicit affair but no one knows the identity of Pearl's father. Hester's refusal to name him brings more condemnation upon her. But she stands strong in the face of public scorn, even when she is forced to wear the sign of her shame sewn onto her clothes: the scarlet letter "A" for "Adulteress." The story of Hester Prynne-found out in adultery, pilloried by her Puritan community, and abandoned, in different ways, by both her partner in sin and her vengeance-seeking husband-possesses a reality heightened by Hawthorne's pure human sympathy and his unmixed devotion to his supposedly fallen but fundamentally innocent heroine. In its moral force and the beauty of its conciliations, The Scarlet Letter rightly deserves its stature as the first great novel written by an American, the novel that announced an American literature equal to any in the world.To purchase, you can use this link.... https://amzn.to/35SOHCM Have you read it?Is it on your list? Let us know!Be sure to follow us, download our episode, drop a comment, send a message, send a dove, whatever you want!twitter @2BluestockingsInstagram two.blue.stockingsfacebook two blue stockings podcastGmail two.blue.stockings.books@gmail.comSupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/twobluestockings)

For our Season 2 finale, we do a round of roasts and toasts. Hear us dunk more on the readership of The New Yorker, marvel at the dipshit failsonery of Horace Walpole, wonder why the f*ck Hester Prynne was so hot for Arthur Dimmesdale, and much much more! We still disagree sharply about how much one might cry while reading Little Women and not be embarrassed about it (don’t listen to Megan -- there’s no such thing as too much crying in the sentimental novel), but we very much agree that Billy Budd is extremely dope. Ships! Butts! Herman Melville! You’ll also want to listen for details on how to get some awesome Better Read than Dead swag if you leave us a review. And we say happy birthday to us! The pod is a year old! Stay safe, comrades. We’ll be back with you mid-September. Find us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook @betterreadpod, and email us nice things at betterreadpodcast@gmail.com. Find Tristan on Twitter @tjschweiger, Katie @katiekrywo, and Megan @tuslersaurus.

In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic, The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne was required to wear a scarlet “A” to signify her shame for having a baby out of wedlock. Humiliation and social stigmatizing were thought to be an appropriate punishment for a woman who committed adultery. If this had taken place in Joshua’s time, Rahab might have been forced to wear a scarlet letter as well. She was the town’s prostitute, the infamous adulteress of Jericho. But the Israelite spies believed her place would be the perfect hideout. What happened next would change the trajectory of her life. In our text today, perhaps for the first time in her life, Rahab became a hero. She saved the spies and, in due time, her family as well. Rahab agreed not to say a word about the spies and to tie a scarlet cord, or rope, outside the window where she let the men down (v. 18). This way, when they returned, they would know which home to spare from destruction. It must have taken tremendous courage for Rahab to let the spies leave. If the Jericho king and his men discovered her betrayal, Rahab would most likely have been tortured and murdered. Nonetheless, she kept her promise and did everything just as they agreed. Perhaps she was searching not just for a way out of Jericho, but a way out of her old way of living. Rahab’s brave act is remembered by the author of Hebrews, in the passage often referred to as the Hall of Faith (Heb. 11:31). As she obediently tied that scarlet rope (Josh. 2:21), her faith triumphed over her fear. God used that scarlet rope as a symbol of faith. >> Have you ever been given a label? Maybe you’ve been called slow, failure, old, or even a mistake? No matter what label people have given you, God calls you loved. He sees your faith. You are His child. He replaces the world’s false labels with the new identity He alone can give (1 John 3:1).

This week's Cinema Eclectica is devoted entirely to Badaptations - those times when, in between the page and the screen, something vital goes missing. Graham's choice is 1995's The Scarlet Letter, in which one of the most introverted and spiritual of 19th-century novels is turned into a Demi Moore bonkbuster. Hester Prynne isn't the only one suffering from lack of fidelity. Being too faithful to the source can also be an issue, as Aidan discovers when he reviews the slavishly accurate L Ron Hubbard adap Battlefield Earth. Hundreds of people worked on this film and not one of them challenged John Travolta on his outfit. Finally Rob rounds us out with World War Z, a classic case of Hollywood buying up a cult bestseller, realising it can't be turned into a PG-13 action movie, then going ahead and doing it anyway. If you like the podcast, send some support by visiting ourPATREON (http://www%2Cpatreon.com/thegeekshow) . Alternatively, give us a 5-star rating and/or review wherever you get your podcasts from, it helps other people find our podcast. The more feedback we have, the more people can enjoy our movie chatter.thegeekshow.co.uk (http://thegeekshow.co.uk/) #cinemaeclectica #moviereviews #badaptations #novels #thescarletletter #nathanielhawthorne #maxbrooks #battlefieldearth #worldwarz #zombies #bradpitt #mirielleenos #markforster #rogerchristian #johntravolta #barrypepper #lronhubbard #forestwhitaker #garyoldman #demimoore #rolandjoffe #joanplowright

Set in 17th century Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony, the novel tells the story of Hester Prynne who conceives a daughter through an affair and then attempts to create a new life of dignity. Hester, her estranged lover, and the town itself, all struggle with morality, sin and guilt during a strict religious time period in American history.

Neste episódio nosso podcaster Basso traz um clássico da literatura: A Letra Escarlate. Escrito por Nathaniel Hawthorne e publicado nos EUA em 1850, o romance é uma das melhores (se não a melhor) retratação de uma época, suas pessoas e seus costumes, imortalizando seu autor na literatura americana. Essa é a história de Hester Prynne, uma jovem esposa que, após 2 anos do desaparecimento de seu marido, dá a luz à pequena Pearl. Como seu casamento não foi oficialmente dissolvido, a jovem é julgada e condenada por adultério, tendo como pena carregar uma grande letra "A" bordada sem seu peito, sempre visível. O livro segue contando a vida de Hester carregando a letra escarlate como punição perpétua e como são tecidas as relações entre ela e o seu vilarejo. Para ouvir basta apertar o botão PLAY abaixo ou clique em DOWNLOAD (clique com o botão direito do mouse no link e escolha a opção Salvar Destino Como para salvar o episódio no seu pc). Obrigada por ouvir ao Perdidos na Estante! Ficha técnica Apresentação: Basso Edição: Basso A edição desse episódio é voluntária e pelos próximos dias lançaremos mini episódios todo dia com média de 10 minutos com novas dicas para você e informações responsáveis sobre a pandemia do Coronavírus para que você tenha mais informação e diversão nesse tempo. Não entre em pânico, não fique com tédio, a gente vai sair dessa. Se puder, fique em casa! Às segundas, teremos episódios de até 1h30 sobre Westworld e às quintas, episódios normais do Perdidos na Estante. Assine nosso feed para não perder nada e compartilhe nossos episódios para que mais pessoas conheçam nosso trabalho. Se puder, nos apoie no Catarse ou no Picpay, precisamos de você mais do que nunca. Apoie o Perdidos na Estante  O Perdidos na Estante precisa da sua ajuda para continuar. Nos apoie a partir de R$ 5 por mês no Catarse e faça parte da nossa história, além de receber recompensas. Escolha sua assinatura em catarse.me/leitor_cabuloso ou através do Picpay em https://picpay.me/leitorcabuloso. Compre & Leia A Letra Escarlate logo da “amazon” em preto num fundo amarelo

Ron Green Jr. of The Global Golf Post and Charlotte Observer on the aftermath of the Hero World Challenge and Patrick Reed's latest incident.  10 Predictive Questions for 2020 with Stewart Cink's caddy, Kip Henley.  And a revisit of our conversation earlier this fall with PGA Tour Pro Doc Redman.

This woman was belittled for a sin she had committed; adultery. This act, instead of tearing her down, sparked a flame in her. This was the beginning of Protofeminism in The Scarlet Letter. Hester Prynne faced sexist acts from many influential people in her town which lit a fire inside of her, and inspired her to become a strong, feminist woman. The Scarlet Letter was a sign of strength and resilience to Hester, no longer a humiliating symbol of sin.

Summary: Sin is a voracious, bloodthirsty, corroding force – never satisfied until it has parasitically sucked the life out of a person, family, community, or even a church. Therefore, the most hateful thing we can do is turn a blind eye to sin, in our own lives and in the lives our loved ones. In the church, we are called by God to humbly, lovingly, and graciously confront our brothers and sisters about their sin (and invite correction from them about our own), for we are our brother's and sister's keepers. Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston and our neighborhood churches, or donate to this ministry, please visit mosaicboston.com.Good morning. Welcome to Mosaic Church. My name is Jan, I'm one of the pastors her at Mosaic and if you're new or if you're visiting, and you'd like to connect with us, we'd love to connect with you. We do that officially through the connection card in the worship guide. If you fill it out legibly and then afterwards you can either toss it into the offering basket, or you can redeem it at the welcome center for a little gift that we've prepared for you to say thanks for coming out. With that said, would you please pray with me over the preaching of God's holy word.Heavenly father, we thank you that though we were rebels, insubordinate, wayward, running from you, pursuing our own sin and folly. Lord, we thank you that you didn't leave us in our ways, but you sent your son Jesus Christ, who died an excruciating death on a cross to pay the penalty for our sin. And I pray today, Lord, that you remind us that you sent your son, Jesus Christ, not to die so that we can continue sinning, but to die so that we can be empowered by your grace, and your love, and your holy spirit to live lives in submission to your will, lives of righteousness, lives of holiness.And Lord, so we take some time now as Christians to repent of any known sin in our own lives. We repent, Lord, in brokenness and contrition, humility. We come before you asking for more grace, and we pray that grace empowers us to live lives worthy of the gospel. And Lord, show us that your grace is never cheap, it's costly, and that we are never to use it as an excuse to continue in sin. And Lord, show us today if anyone here's not yet a Christian, what it means to truly be a Christian, truly be saved.It means to be part of your household and in your household there are rules. Rules not to keep us from fun, not to kill our joy, but rules that keep us from things that will kill our joy, which always sin. And I pray Lord, that you draw many to yourself even today. And I pray for those Christians who are on the outskirts, on the fringes of the church. I pray that you show them just how dangerous of a place that is to be, that we all need mutual accountability. We all need one another. Lord, I pray that you bless our time in the holy word, and pray this in the beautiful name Jesus Christ. Amen.So at the foundation of our society is this idea of moral relativism, meaning there is no good, there is no right, there is no evil, there is no righteousness, and therefore, that the chief virtue in our society is not truth. It's tolerance, and there are two pillars to this moral relativism in our culture. One is moral individualism that I personally get to decide what I do with my life. I get to decide what's good, what's evil, what's right and what's wrong. I don't have to look outside. No one else can tell me it's me if I'm not hurting anyone, live and let live, and there's no such thing as categorical sin, or categorical evil. The only sin that's left in our culture is to call something sin. The only evil that's left in our culture is to call something evil, that's moral individualism.And then the second pillar of moral relativism is expressive individualism. No one has a right to tell me how to love my life, and therefore, I have no right to tell anyone how to live their life. Therefore, we have a deep-seated prejudice against passing judgment, especially when it comes to moral decisions, decisions that have to do with our private life, or sexuality, our finances. Therefore, in this context, in the society that we live in, any talk of rebuke, or correction, or reproof seems viscerally unloving. It's unloving to tell someone else that they are making a mistake. And this idea, this world, it has crept into our churches to such an extent, that to talk of church discipline, even the idea is a faux pas.It sounds like we're trying to revive the Salem Witch Trials or the Inquisition. It seems like a throwback to Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter with the Puritans, make Hester Prynne wear a red A on her chest for committing adultery. It seems to antiquated, so rigid, so counter to the idea of love. And we throw out Matthew 7:1, probably the most famous verse in our culture. "Judge not, that you be not judged." And it's this idea that we shouldn't judge anybody, but as soon as you say, "Don't judge anybody. Hey, don't judge me." "I've got a Bible verse." "Oh, you're being judgmental," so it can't mean you can't discern, you can't distinguish between right and wrong. What does it mean?You got to read in context, Matthew 7:6. Jesus goes on and he talks about the sermon, "Do not give dogs what is holy, do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you." How do you know that someone's spiritually a dog, or spiritually a pig? And he's talking about someone who's so materialistic, so focused on the physical world that they have no sense of the spiritual. Jesus said, "You got to be discerning."Matthew 7:15, "Beware of false profits, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves." You got to be discerning, and in that context, what Jesus means when he says do not judge, he's saying do not be hypocritical when making discernment. Don't be condescending. Don't be self-righteous. Take the log out of your own eye before doing the sensitive spiritual work of taking a speck out of your brother or sister's eye. It's personal repentance that then helps another brother or sister repent of sin. It's not heartless passivity, it's humble proactivity.Well, what about casting the first stone? It's a story of the woman who was caught in adultery, that was brought to Jesus by the pharisees and then Jesus said, "Whoever is without sin cast the first stone." But then what did Jesus say? He said, "Woman, where are they? They all left? Has no one condemned you?" She said, "No one, Lord." And Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you. I've paid for your sins on the cross for the penalty of your sins on the cross. But," he says, "From now on, sin no more."And what Jesus is doing, is he's discerning that there is such a thing as sin in your life, you are on a path to sin. Now turn from that, that's what repentance means. Repentance does not mean I come to God and I say, "God, forgive me. Now I'm going to go continue living in sin." Forgiveness in the Greek, metanoia. I means I turn around, it's a 180-degree turn. Now you turn. Say Lord, I was living for myself, I was living in sin. I repent of that sin. I turn to you.If sin is just a description of someone's mistake, some character flaw, some foibles, indiscretions, then our emotional recoil against this idea of correction, it makes sense. If sin is neutral, if it's stagnant, leave the person alone. Let them make their own decisions, let them learn from their mistakes, but sin is not neutral.As soon as a voracious, blood-thirsty, corroding force, and it's never satisfied unless it's parasitically sucked the life out of a person, out of a family, out a community, even of a church. Scripture says that sin produces death in us by separating us from God, who is the source of life. Therefore, the most hateful thing that we can do is turn a blind eye to sin in our own lives, and sin in the lives of those whom we loved, brothers and sisters. In church, we are called by God to humbly, lovingly, graciously confront our brothers and sisters of their sin and invite them to confront us of our sin, when we don't see it because sin has a blinding effect, a hardening effect, a deadening effect. We are our brothers and sisters keepers.This text that we're about to read makes no sense outside of the church, outside of the church community, outside of the household of God. So if you are not a Christian, if you are just exploring Christianity, I need to set this up for you, it won't make no sense at all. This is how Christianity talks about becoming a Christian. We are guilty before the judge of the universe.Imagine yourself in a courtroom in an orange jumpsuit, we're guilty. The sentence comes down, we deserve eternal separation from the eternal God because of an eternal debt that we owe. And we say, "Is there any other way?" He brings in Jesus Christ, his son. He said, "My son has died on the cross for your sin, to pay the penalty for your debt. If you trust in him, believe in him, repent of your sin, his righteousness is counted to you, his record is counted to your record, is counted to him.But, this is the truth, but now you belong to this judge. Now this judge says, "You are my son. You are my daughter. You are adopted into my family. It's not receive this forgiveness, receive this forgiveness of your debt so you can go and accrue more debt. No, you've been living as a spiritual orphan and if you receive this forgiveness, I'm adopting you into my family. I'm taking you home, I'm giving you my last name. Therefore, I have a claim on you. And the claim is, you are to live according to my household rules, and these rules I've given not to keep you from fun, but to keep you from things that hurt you, to keep you from the corroding effect of sin."So as we read the text today, we need to understand that these are rules for the household of God. Would you look at I Corinthians 5, one through 13 with me. I Corinthians 5, one through 13. "It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among Pagans, for a man has his father's wife. And you are arrogant. Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you.""For though absent in body, I am present in spirit; and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing. When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.""Your boasting is not good. Do you now know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.""I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people. Not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I'm writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother is he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler, not even to eat with such a one. For what I have to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges the house outside. Purge the evil person from among you."This is the reading of God's holy, inherit, and fallible word, may he write these eternal truths upon our hearts. We'll frame up our time with four points. First, we'll look at the prompting of this letter, what's the goal of church discipline? Then we'll look at the purpose, why is church discipline an idea in scripture? Then we'll look at the problems, when is church discipline to be implemented? And then the procedure, how is it to be done?The prompting. What has caused St. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to write this letter to Corinth? Well, he planted this church about 20 years after the resurrection of Jesus Christ, in this debaucherous, this Pagan, this sinful city of Corinth. And he spent 18 months there, about 50 people had been gathered to form a core group for a church. He then goes onto Eposes to plant a church there. While in Eposes, he hears from this lady named Chloe who's part of the church, that there's all kinds of problems within the church in Corinth. And the whole idea, like none of this text makes sense apart from the context of church membership. These are all people who have covenant together for mutual accountability, to help one another grow in the Lord.So St. Paul says in verse one, "It's actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you." It's the Greek word porne, it's a vast word, a broad word, which includes all kinds of stuff. But here he's talking about an incestuous relationship. "A man has his father's wife." So this is a guy in the church, who's a member of the church, who's a professing believer, who is sleeping with his stepmother. Not a one night stand, followed by broken hearted repentance, has his father's wife, not had. It's an ongoing present tense. And then he says, "It's the kind that's not even tolerated among the Pagans."And the Pagans tolerated a lot of sexual immorality, tolerated fornication, prostitution, adultery, homosexuality, even pedophilia. Demosthenes was an order of the day says, "Mistresses we keep for the sake of pleasure, concubines for the daily care of the body, but wives to bear us legitimate children." But even they would draw the line here. This is an exploitative relationship, this is a relationship that is so counter to the natural order. The Pagan Roman Order Cicero says, "Incest was virtually unheard of in Roman society."And this brings us to a question, where should the line be drawn when it comes to sex? In culture, it's getting pushed further, and further, and further. They're two consulting adults, not hurting anyone. No harm, no foul. Love is love. Personal fulfillment. Self-expression. Where do we draw the line? Nadia Bolz-Weber wrote a book recently called Shameless and she considered herself a Lutheran pastor and she wrote this book to self-professed Christians. And she says, "I'm here to tell you, unless your sexual desires are for minors, or animals, or your sexual choices are hurting you, or those you love, those desires are not something you need to struggle with. They are something to listen to, make decisions about, explore, perhaps have caution about. But struggle with, fight against, make enemies of? No.Scripture would say she is a false prophet, preaching an anti-gospel. She's going contrary to God's will. Why isn't this arbitrary? You're drawing the line at minors and animals. Why? When is that boundary then pushed? Where does God draw the line? God says, "Sex is such a powerful force, for good or for evil, that only within the confines of a marriage, a covenant lifelong relationship between a husband and a wife, a man and a woman, one covenant, one lifetime, only then is it safe. Only then is it a blessing and not a curse."And this gentleman in the church could say, "Well, Jesus Christ never said anything about me not sleeping with my stepmom." Well, Jesus Christ also didn't say anything about pedophilia, but Jesus Christ was an Old Testament rabbi, and he assumed a lot of the Old Testament case law, specifically when it came to morality. So Leviticus 18:8, "You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's wife; it is your father's nakedness."What's St. Paul doing here? He takes it as a matter of course, that there are parts of the case law in Leviticus that are still enforced, still binding. This isn't part of the 10 Commandments, this isn't commandment 7A or 7B, but it's part of the case law. Jesus Christ said in Matthew 5:17, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them." He fulfilled all of the law in himself, but he didn't abolish it.He fulfilled the ceremonial law, and he fulfilled the temple laws, and the laws of the priesthood, but when it comes to morality, he still calls us to submit to God's word. As gut-wrenching as this sin is of sexual immorality, that's not what the point of the sermon is. The sex sermon is coming in two weeks. The second part of I Corinthians six so come back for that. But this sermon is about church discipline. It's gut-wrenching, but their reaction is why St. Paul writes this chapter.I Corinthians 5:2, "And you are arrogant." I Corinthians 5:6, "Your boasting is not good." They're taking pride in their perversion. They've got flags, and they've got bumper stickers, and parades, and they've got the Facebook profile picture frames. They're taking pride in their tolerance, and their diversity, freedom, open-mindedness. They're presenting themselves to be more loving than God. They're saying things like, "Who am I to judge?" Because as soon as you begin to discern and call a sin a sin, call a spade a spade, then you got to do something in your own life. And that's inconvenience.What theory would give rise to boasting in this kind of immorality? I'll give you the theology, and this is rampant theology in our day and age. God is love, God doesn't judge. God is absolutely tolerant. If God gets glory by forgiving us, let's sin some more so that grace may abound, and it turns grace into license. Freedom and opportunity for the flesh, all things are lawful for me.Why did Jesus Christ die? Why did God, the father, put his son Jesus Christ to death? Jesus took our sin upon himself. Our sin killed Jesus so that we would kill our sin. That's the point. God doesn't just want to save you from the penalty of your sin. He wants to save you from the power of sin over your life, and he releases you, and we no longer have to submit to the power of sin. We can submit to the power of righteousness, which is the only true freedom. And then by the power of the holy spirit, we are to mortify the presence of sin in our life.Therefore, love is not opposed to discipline. What is true love? True love is you want the best for the beloved. Well, what is the best for us? The best for us is to be in perfect fellowship and communion with God. And sin is that which pulls us away from fellowship from God. Sin is that which kills our joy, it kills our satisfaction, so God despises our sin, and he wants that sin removed. So he sometimes has to discipline us in order for us to be drawn near to him. Because God loves us, he disciplines us so that we may share in his holiness and be conformed to the image of Christ.Look at Hebrews 12:5, "And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, for be weary, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives." And then he goes on in that chapter to say, hey, when parents discipline, when parents parent, when parents try to discipline their children because the children don't have their own self-discipline, is that because they're unloving? No, the most unloving thing to say is, "Do whatever you want." Revelation 3:19, "Those whom I love," says Jesus, "I reprove and I discipline so be zealous and repent."Second point is the purpose, why is church discipline a thing? Why does Jesus teach us to implement this? In I Corinthians 5:12, "For what I have to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. Purge the evil person from among you." So he's saying in terms of outside, those are non-Christians. We love them and we show them the love of God, they need to meet Jesus Christ, and we're not expecting them to live under the household rules of God. They're not in the household, so we tell them, "Hey, believe in Jesus. Come to him for forgiveness. Submit your life to yield yourself."I was thinking about this last night, as I was awakened at two a.m. by drunk BU graduates. And I was like, "I could go out and tell them right now, submit to the Lord. You're all sinners, stop drinking and waking me up at night." I didn't do that. They're not Christians yet and my wife would have gotten really ... They're not in the household of God. So we tell them about grace, and we tell them about the gospel, we tell them that they can be forgiven, they can meet Christ, but this discipline language, it's for believers to hold one another accountable. And it's all because of love, love for Christ, love for the watching world, love for the church, and love for the individual who is under this church discipline.So church discipline shows love for Christ, this is a subpoint number one under point number two. God's holiness is a dominant theme in the Bible. The Bible is saying, "Love, love, love." The angels saying, "Holy, holy, holy." God is literally holy, utterly opposed to sin, you can no mixture with sin. In the Old Testament God said, "You are my people and you shall be holy for I the Lord am holy." It's repeated in the New Testament that the church is a holy priesthood in a holy nation. That's the verse right there, "A kingdom of priests in a holy nation."God is saying you are distinct people, I've saved you for myself. You're in the world, but you're not of it. A people within a people and we are to represent God, we carry God's name. God's name is bound up with this church, his reputation is at stake. And when his people sin, when the church is infiltrated with sin, God does disassociate himself from the church.How do I know this? Revelations two and three, Jesus writes letters to churches and he repeatedly warns, "If sin is not dealt with in their midst, he will remove the church's lamp stand." And that's what he did with Thyatira, and because of moral compromise. God would rather not have a testimony to his name in a city than to have his name maligned. When discipline leaves the church, Christ goes with it. The transformative power of the gospel goes with it.Why did God punish King David so severely after David committed adultery with Bathsheba and then killed her husband? He said, "By doing this," the words of God, "You have made the enemies of the Lord show utter contempt. You've blasphemed the name of God." Church discipline shows our love for Christ. Christ is holy, and the way that we honor Christ isn't just with empty words, but with heartfelt obedience.Church discipline also shows love to a watching world, that there is a difference between Christians and non-Christians, that Christ's power does make a difference, that Christ's power does transform, that he satisfied, that he is the source of joy. If people see our lives, the lives of the church and they're exactly the same as those outside of the church, then they begin to think that this is nothing but religion. "Oh, you're just very observant. Grace does nothing. It's just an excuse to sin more."Because ultimately, you love sin as much as the unbelievers. You're just using Christ as an excuse to sin more. So the Pagans mocked and they jeered the church in Corinth. Brennan Manning said this, some of the most powerful words that capture this idea. "The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, walk out the door, and deny him by their lifestyle. This is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable."Many churches today, and even in the city, in an attempt to be attractive to non-Christians, they begin to preach things like, "We're normal. We're as sinful as you. We don't have a problem with sin. We don't judge sin. We're tolerant, so join us to feel safe about your sin." And people say, "What's the point? It's a waste of my Sunday morning." Can we keep the visible church absolutely pure? Of course not, just like we can't keep ourselves absolutely pure. That doesn't mean we don't fight our sin and fight the good fight of faith. And in the church, we are to do the same.Church discipline shows love for God for the world, but also for the church, in particular the weaker sheep, the younger Christians, that they might be protected. So St. Paul says in verse six, "Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?" And what he's talking about is the Passover feast that Israel was saved from captivity in Egypt through the Passover, and before the angel of death came over all of Egypt, they were take a lamb and to sacrifice it.And take the blood and paint it over their doorway, and then they would take unleavened bread, before they made that bread, they were to sweep their whole house for leaven. Leaven was used instead of yeast because yeast was hard to come by, it was scarce. And what leaven is, it's just a piece of old dough that had been fermented. And if you are to make bread, you take that piece of leaven, you put it in the new batch of dough, and you let it ferment.The problem is, if you leave it in there too long, it become poisonous, and then you lose the bread, and this is what he's saying. He's saying you got to get rid of the leaven in your house, just like the people of Israel would do, they would sweep the house from top to bottom, every drawer, every cupboard. It had to be cleaned out because if your unleavened bread was leaven, then you would lose Passover joy. And here, the leaven represents sin. Sin in the same way as leaven, leaven's the whole lump. Sin has an effect of infecting the whole lump, infecting the person, infecting the people close to the person and the whole church.And sin, when tolerated, when excused, when ignored, indulged in, it's like an infection. Once it's excused, and then what? You got to excuse another sin. Compromise leads to more compromise, and this weird dynamic develops in a church community, where the preaching says one thing, but people in the pew says, "Yeah, we don't really mean that, we don't really believe that." And then the preaching has to change, the preaching begins to pull punches, and stops talking about real life, things that every single one of us struggle with. You stop talking about lust, and greed, and pride. You stop talking about anger, and sloth, and envy.And that our consciousness are seared and the church seizes to be the church, now we're just a vaguely religious club where people get together for some community and live their lives anyway they want. And then the pastor or the clergy do, they just hold onto their job for dear life from the endowment, and prepare sermons where they studiously avoid saying anything that might be possibly offend anybody.It's like in a family, if parents do not discipline their children, do not parent their children, when one child rebels, the younger children see and they start to do the same thing. When a government doesn't enforce laws, there's anarchy. When a church doesn't wield spiritual authority, after a while, the church is no longer useful by Christ, and it actually becomes useful by Satan. It becomes demonic in many ways, actually pushes people away from God. You see this in churches. You see the sex abuse scandals with the Catholic Church, you see that with the Southern Baptist Convention, go denomination by denomination, when sin is not dealt with, it does leaven the whole lump.Therefore, St. Paul says, "It needs to be dealt with." I Timothy 5:20, why? "As for those who persist in sin, rebuke them in the presence of all, so that the rest may stand in fear." Sin is serious. Sin is as serious as cancer. Sin is death. Therefore, we are to deal with it as radically as we possibly can through repentance and obedience. Christ was put to death by our sins so that we might put our sin to death.And finally, church discipline shows love for the individual, the person that warrants the church discipline so that the person is brought to repentance. And here we say, "Oh, it sounds so invasive. It's an overreach. I don't want to cause a problem." And by the way, vast sentiment sounds really humble and noble, but it's anything but. If you go to your dentist and your in pain and he does the x-ray, and he knows that you need a root canal. He says, "Oh, you're good. Pay for the bill at the front." You go to a doctor and he sees a tumor, but he said, "Oh, you're good. We don't have to deal with this now."If a firetruck drives by your house and your house is on fire, the most cruel thing they can do is to drive by. And what church discipline is, it's a wake-up call. The goal is to have the person wake up from the spiritual ... This past week for example, we had a situation. My four-year-old decided to bring her bicycle up from the basement, and she's got the training wheels, and she's riding around the house. And then something happened, where my daughter's running to my room, and I open the door, and it smells like gas. Gas is just wafting in. Apparently, through her handle, she had turned one of the knobs on the gas stove. Gas is wafting into our whole place.Now we're all outside, we turn around. We're all outside freaking out because we could have died. And but it's a great illustration for this part of the sermon, thank you, God. Why did this happen? It's because we took our fire alarms off, which also have a carbon monoxide. We took them off because they're annoying. Sometimes in the middle of the night, they just go off. It's so annoying, it's inconvenient. We took them off in the whole house and we almost died. That's the point. And this is what church discipline is. It's a wake-up call.This sermon is supposed, I'm supposed to have zero comedy, so I apologize for that. Sin is dangerous. Sin does destroy, it destroys people, it destroys the relationship, and indifference to sin is actually hate, not love. Overlooking the sin of someone that you love, it's not loving, it's sinful. It's not gracious, it's cowardice. It's not merciful, it's dangerous. It's not kind, it's actually hateful. And then we say, "It's none of my business," and we live in a hyper-individualistic society and we're accustomed to passing by the plights of other people.But church is not a restaurant full of strangers sitting together, ordering messages from the menu that seem really palatable, with a side of grape juice and some communion wafers. That's not what church is. Church is a family and we are each other's keeper. I try to teach my kids, and my 10-year-old loves her relationship with mom and dad, does not love the responsibilities that come with that relationship to help her siblings grow, to protect her siblings. I tell her, "Can you feed your younger sisters, too? Can you make sure that she doesn't hurt? Can you just watch?" We are each other's keeper. We are to bear each other's burdens.Deitrich Bonhoeffer in Life Together he says, "Nothing could be more cruel that leniency which abandons others to sin. Nothing can be more compassionate than that severe reprimand which calls another Christian in one's community back from the path of sin." Church discipline is only perceived as unloving if we have an unbiblical definition of love.This is how scripture defines love. "For God so loved the world that he, he gave his one and only son Jesus Christ to be crucified on the cross," that's love. Love is defined as a cross, as God's wrath pouring out in full, as judgment of sin. True love judges sin, it hates evil, calls to repentance and obedience because that's the best thing for us. I Corinthians 13:6, "Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth."It brings us to point three, when is church discipline to be implemented? What are the problems? And I'll give you a few phrases that I'll go one-by-one, but here's just a sentence. We should deal with any professing Christian who is a member of a church, who is knowingly and rebelliously disobeying clear commandments of scripture and unrepentant. So I Corinthians five, here he talks about in verse 11, "Look, I'm writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of a brother." That's the point, this is a person who's calling himself a Christian, but is living in a way that is inconsistent with being a Christian.Because what does it mean to be a Christian? Does it mean I go to church? Does it mean I read the Bible? What makes me fundamentally a Christian? What makes me fundamentally a Christian is that I am on a path of repentance. I repent of my sin. I did it once, and I do it, I did it this morning. We do it on a daily basis, we progress in our faith. Faith, repentance. Faith, repentance. Church doesn't, this isn't implemented for sin per se, it's for the sin of unrepetence. That's the goal so that you repent, you get forgiveness, you get grace that empowers you to change.And he says in verse 12, "Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? The person is also a member of the church." What right do I have to go and tell another Christian in another church with whom I am not in mutual covenant of mutual accountability? I can say something, my words don't really mean anything. This is why church membership is so crucial. This is why we practice church membership, it's in the Bible. A lot of churches don't, that's why it's such a foreign idea, and we got to talk about it all the time.God gives us this idea of church members, this chapter doesn't make sense apart from church members from getting together with a body of believers and saying, "Look, I need your help. When there's sin in my life, I welcome you to call me out. Please, I welcome you to rise to that level of love, where you are inconvenienced, it's uncomfortable, you're willing to do it because you love me. That's what I want, that's what church members should be." That's why there's no mention of this woman, he says brings this man to church discipline not her because most likely she's not a Christian and she's not a member.And then the person must be knowingly and defiantly disobedient. Sometimes Christians sin because of just immaturity. They don't know better. This is I Thessalonians 5:14, "We urge you brothers, admonish the idle," these are people who are slothful, and that's a sin. "Encourage the fainthearted." It doesn't say admonish the fainthearted. "Help the weak," it doesn't say admonish or rebuke the weak, we help them. And it says, "Be patient with them all." And then the person must be disobeying clear commands of scripture, and there are clear commands of scripture.Drinking alcohol is not grounds for discipline, drunkenness is. Watching movies isn't grounds for discipline, watching pornographic movies is. And scripture has many a lists of clear moral commandments. Romans, I Corinthians, II Corinthians, Galicians, Ephesians, Colossians, and I'll just give you a summary. Violations of God's moral commandments, that's what's happening here. I Corinthians 5:11, "Those who are guilty of sexual immorality or greed."By the way, that should give us pause in the United States that greed is a moral sin. "An idolater, someone worshiping something or someone other than God." A reviler, this is a person who is verbally abusive. A drunkard or a swindler, this is a person who is sinning in illegal business practices. Another sin for which church discipline is to be practiced is unresolved relational sins, gossip, slander, anger, abuse of speech, divisiveness in the church, false teaching on major doctrines, and disorderly conduct and refusal to work.Now point four, procedure how, how are we to do this? Jesus gives us the pattern, the procedure in Matthew 18:15, "If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his faults, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you've gained your brother." One-on-one in a private meeting. Show them in scripture, "This is where you're violating God's word, God's will." Our opinion doesn't matter, God's word is the authority and it begins with you, Christian. Not a pastor, not a leader in the church, not in elder. It begins with the Christian. All members of the church are finally responsible for what the church becomes, not the pastors, not the leaders. We are to continually to seek conforming the church in our lives to God's word. We're responsible for the church's health."Against you only," and a lot of people use that phrase to say, "Well, the person hasn't sinned against me, so why should I go and correct them?" Well, James 5:19, 20, Jude 22 and 23 says, "That Christians, when they see any Christian, in sin are to try to bring that person back from that sin because any sin if persisted in is a sin against Christ and also against the church, the body of Christ, with whom we are so interconnected, so independent on that when a person is in pain, we feel that pain. When a person bears a burden, we feel that burden, so we are to go to that person.So if Christians, but this is the first step in church discipline. It's just Christians going to one another, holding each other accountable, speaking truth in each other's life, and calling one another to repentance and leaving sin. If we would conscientiously apply admonition and rebuke, there would be no need for excommunication. But before we do that, we got to check our own heart. Before pointing out a speck in your brother or sister's eye is their log in your own. We repent ourselves, we humble ourselves, we check our motives, we get the facts, but we are still to do it.St. Paul gives us an example of how he practiced this first step in Galicians chapter two, he talks about going to Peter. Peter had been dining, he had been having meals with gentile believers. When Jewish believers came, he then pulled back from his relationships with the gentile believers, and started saying, "Oh, they're not on the same level as you guys are relationship." And Paul sees this and he calls him out for hypocrisy.This is Galicians 2:11, "But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned." This is one apostle calling out another apostle, correcting, rebuking. Why? To show him that he's on the wrong path, to draw him to repentance. And Peter did repent and later on, by the way, how'd that feel? How does being corrected feel? How does being rebuked feel? It always hurts. Our dainty egos are always bruised.But Peter afterwards, do you know what he calls Paul? II Peter 3:15, "Our beloved brother Paul." You did that because you love me. Reprove is always a fork in the road for any sinful soul. Either we cringe at correction like it's a curse or we embrace it as a blessing. First step, personal. Second step is a private conference with witnesses.Matthew 18:16, "If he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses." Now you bring in other believers, so they together hopefully awaken this person from spiritual stupor. If the person still doesn't repent, the next step is a public announcement to the church.Matthew 18:17, "If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church when the members are gathered, gathered together." The person still does not repent. Next step is a public exclusion from the church. This is Matthew 18:17, "If he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a gentile and a tax collector."I Corinthians 5:13, "Purge the evil person from among you." This is where you're saying, "You are no longer walking in a manner worthy of the name of Jesus Christ because if you were, you would have repented. You would have turned from your sin, and pertinence is always inconsistent with the Christian profession of faith. We ourselves condemn nobody, but we are doing is pronouncing God's judgment on a person who does not repent.And then Saint Paul gives a description of what this means, I Corinthians 5:4 and 5, "When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that in his spirit, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord."What does that mean? What he's saying is, that the church is like a bomb shelter and there's a nuclear fallout of Satan's sin and the world outside of the church. And when you are no longer in the confines of a church in relationship to the church, you are being exposed to the forces of Satan's sin and the world. For the purpose, why he says, "So that to bring about the destruction of the flesh." It doesn't mean destruction of the body, he's not talking about bodily harm. The world flesh here is sarx in the Greek, not to be confused with soma which means body. Sarx is the sinful part of our nature.And what he's saying is, this person is to be given up to Satan so that his sinful, his sin might be ... Sin might be hurt, not him so that his heart is softened. And Saint Paul uses similar language in I Timothy 1, 18 through 20, "This charge I entrust to you, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies previously made about you, that by them you may wage the good warfare, holding faith and a good conscious. By rejecting this, some have made shipwreck of their faith, among whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme."And the goal of that, what's the goal of that? To inflict pain on the person? No, of course not, the saved person's soul in the day of Jesus Christ, huge application for us is that to not be a committed member of a fellowship of believers is to expose ourselves to harm. This is how serious this language is.Job, God uses the same language in the Book of Job, where he gives Job up to Satan. And he says, "Behold I hand him over to you only spare his life." And God used everything that Satan did, sovereignly used Satan's work in Job's life to refine him, purify him, rid him of self-righteousness, and draw him to himself, and draw him to repentance. Job 42:5 and six, "Now my eyes sees you, O Lord, and I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes."Saint Paul actually about himself used similar language, II Corinthians 12:7, "So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited." Sometimes God uses Satan's influence sovereignly to purify us, so that's the idea where Saint Paul says, "Give him up to Satan if he no longer wants to walk in repentance, there's no other way."But the goal of all of this, the goal of this whole process is never vindictive. The goal is not punishment for a sin. The goal is restoration. The goal is to draw the person to repentance to accept forgiveness from the Lord and to transform to life.I Corinthians 5:2, This is the sentiment, this is the heart with which this process is done. "Ought you not rather to mourn?" Ought you not rather to mourn over the sin in your midst? There's no joy, there's no pleasure, it's grief. Saint Paul is wounded as he is writing this letter. I have no joy in writing this sermon. I have no joy in preaching this sermon, three times today in Boston, Massachusetts, 2019. But why do we do it? Because it's God's word and we as Mosaic Boston want to be a church that does God's work God's way.How do we then relate to this person after this process is gone through? Well, Galatians 6:1 says, before we do that, how are we to help this person come to their senses, "Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore them in a spirit of gentleness. Gentleness. Keep a watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted."I'm a sinner. We're all sinners. We need Christ. There's no self-righteousness, there's no condescension, but when we repent there is forgiveness. And if this person is a true Christian, they will repent. And if not, their self-deceit is exposed, and then that person can finally realize what the gospel is and have a true relationship with the Lord. How are you to relate to the person? We're no longer to fellowship with person as if there is no problem.II Thessalonian 3:14, 15, "If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person, and have nothing to do with them, that he may be ashamed. Do not regard them as an enemy, but warn them as a brother." And then Paul clarifies in I Corinthians 5:11, "I'm writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother and if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an isolator, reviler, drunkard, swindler. Not even to eat with such a person."So is he saying that we can't have any contact with this person? No, of course not. But he's saying we are no longer to relate to them on a buddy-buddy level as if everything's okay. He says don't even eat with them. Table fellowship in that culture meant a deep friendship. We are not to mix indiscriminately. We're not the same in our relationship as we were before. Any contact must communicate I'm heartbroken over your impendent sin. Please repent, please come back to Christ, please come back to the fellowship of believers. Won't you come back? Won't you be restored? That's the heart.In conclusion, all of us with to be healthy. We take care of ourselves, try to eat right, try to diet and exercise, but for each one of us there will come a point where there's a breakdown in our health. And at that point, what we need is some serious medical intervention. Sometimes it takes someone cutting us up to remove a tumor and we're subjected to powerful poisons. That's what church discipline is like. Why? To restore us, to make us healthy.What happened to this gentleman that's mentioned in I Corinthians five? Well, they went through this process and it was painful. But it says in II Corinthians chapter two that he repented and that his sorrow led him to repentance. He saw the gravity of his sin. Conscious was awakened. The church did its job to help this person be restored in the relationship with the Lord. The church is not a fellowship of sinless people. The church is a fellowship of holy people, who are pursuing holiness, pursuing sanctification, and we're a fellowship of forgiven sinners by God's grace, pursuing a life of holiness and obedience together. May God give us strength in this.Let's pray. Heavenly father, we thank you for this word. It's a hard word, but hard words make for soft hearts. Some of us, Lord, are in habitual sin. We can't get out of the quagmire of sin in our lives. I pray by the power of the holy spirit, show them that there is hope, that we can be pulled out and that you long for us to be in deep communion with other believers in transparency, confessing sin to one another, repenting of sin, and walking together.I pray today, pull them out. I pray if there's anyone who is on the fringes of the church, Lord, I pray that you show them how important it is to mutually covenant with other believers to hold each other accountable. And we pray all this is Christ name, amen.

Do Hester and Dimmesdale surrender to love? Find out in this episode!

Welcome back Drunkies!! The penultimate episode of Season Three! Where has the time gone? This episode we talk about Lillian Gish, Ivy Close, Hester Prynne, and Molly Malone. If you don't know who any of those ladies are, listen to find out! A very special thank you to Samantha Aurelio, the genius behind our music!

In episode 2 of the Scarlet Letter we jump into chapters 2 through 8 covering the first of three scaffold scenes. We meet Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, Roger Chillingworth and little Pearl. Our study begins with Hester on the scaffold and ends with Hester defending her right to keep her child three years later.

Episode 3 covers chapters 9-12 and dissects the relationship between Dimmesdale and Chillingworth. The triangular relationship between Hester, Arthur and Roger creates moral and psychological drama and tension!

Welcome to the How To Love Lit Podcast! We start our journey with the classic work by Nathaniel Hawthorn - The Scarlet Letter. Episode one introduces the history of the author and historical background information on the Puritan culture. We will also meet the main characters in the story and begin discussing the cultural, psychological and religious forces that impact their lives. Enjoy!

Welcome to the How To Love Lit Podcast! We start our journey with the classic work by Nathaniel Hawthorn - The Scarlet Letter. Episode one introduces the history of the author and historical background information on the Puritan culture. We will also meet the main characters in the story and begin discussing the cultural, psychological and religious forces that impact their lives. Enjoy!

This week, Kardashian scholar Mariah Smith joins us all the way from foggy Londontown to discuss the alleged affair between Cavs bench warmer Tristan Thompson, the father of Khloe Kardashian’s daughter, and Jordyn Woods, Kylie Jenner’s best friend and unofficial co-parent to her daughter, Stormi. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Brenna and Joe are back with our first full Chapter of 2019 and it's a doozy: Nathaniel Hawthorne's 1850 puritanical novel The Scarlet Letter and Will Gluck's delightful 2010 "loose" adaptation, Easy A. Come for the lively discussion about how to pronounce Hester Prynne's last name, why Salem sucked for women (shocking!) and how much we love Emma Stone. Plus: 2 new YA Bingo terms. In the news, Joe laments the 50 Shades of Grey-esque trailer for the YA adaptation of Anna Todd's After while Brenna champions the rare Indigenous YA text, Cynthia Leitich Smith's Hearts Unbroken, and Debbie Reese's great resource: https://americanindiansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.com/ If you want to connect with the show, use #HKHSPod on Twitter: Brenna: @brennacgray Joe: @bstolemyremote Or send us an email at hkhspod@gmail.com. See you on the page and on the screen!

A woman’s alleged horseback ride through a small Ozarks boomtown in 1913 caught the attention of newspapers throughout the Midwest. The Atchison Daily Globe in Kansas was one of the many newspapers to publish the shocking story of a bizarre night gone wrong in Old Horton, Missouri. The small community was in a part of the Mark Twain National Forest in Howell County near Cabool. Here’s part of the newspaper’s account: A special dispatch from Old Horton, Mo., gives the details of the feud between factions of the Collins clan which lately broke out anew: It has developed here that a woman on horseback, devoid of clothing or even the fig leaf which Eve’s modesty required her to don, riding through the streets of this almost deserted village one night several weeks ago, was the cause of the recent outbreak of night riders who gave Mrs. Paralee Collins a severe whipping, and burned four houses, including the home of “Blind Jane” Keith or Mrs. James Keith. As the story goes, the woman,

Jess and Trisha shout out romance bestsellers, talk about a whole bunch of romance series and what draws us in, discuss Trisha’s arbitrary list of rules for children in romance novels, and announce the short list for the WIR book club read. This episode is sponsored by It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Timeby Kylie Scott, Blood Bondby Helen Hardt, and Chica Chocolate. Also! Book Riot is giving away 16 of the books featured on our Recommended podcast! Go to bookriot.com/recommended3 before August 31 to enter. Vote on our book club books by emailing Trisha or Jess (or via Twitter/Instagram)! A Night To Surrender by Tessa Dare Glitterland by Alexis Hall Butterfly Swords by Jeannie Lin Intercepted by Alexa Martin Subscribe on Apple Podcasts  and Google Play AND find full show notes at the When in Romance page on Bookriot.com.

La letra escarlata de Nathaniel Hawthorne (1850) es una novela que nos adentra en la sociedad puritana de Estados Unidos durante el siglo XVII. Hester Prynne es una joven mujer que ha cometido un crimen imperdonable por la comunidad de Salem: adulterio. Ahora tiene que vivir con una marca en su pecho, que le dice a todo mundo sobre su pecado. Escucha qué tiene de bueno y de malo La letra escarlata en este episodio de A la aventura, podcast de libros y lectura. Descarga este libro, gratis y de manera legal, desde el proyecto Gutenberg http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/33  (en inglés) Música de entrada: Gymnopedie No. 1 de Erik Satie Música de salida: Jeux D’eau de Maurice Ravel APP app.alaaventura.net Contacto www.alaaventura.net/contacto www.facebook.com/alaaventurapodcast Twitter: @alaaventura jboscomendoza@gmail.com Ayuda a hacer posible este podcast a través de Patreon http://wwww.patreon.com/alaaventura O compra el libro del que hablamos este episodio http://www.alaaventura.net/libros

From Adam and Eve to Hester Prynne to Cersie Lannister, characters in literature have been motivated by and undone by shame, so this month we decided to get up close and personal with this uncomfortable emotion. We spoke to author Pajtim Statovci about his brilliant first novel, My Cat Yugoslavia, which was originally published in Finnish in 2014. It tells the story of a young gay refugee from the Balkans, whose search for meaning in the midst of loneliness leads him to purchase a boa constrictor, in spite of his acute fear of snakes, and to befriend a talking cat he meets in a Helsinki gay bar.

Hey, what's the deal with New Englanders who stitch red letters onto their clothing? Join Janelle and Tami as they figure out whether infamous Scarlet Letter sinner Hester Prynne or famous Red Sox baseballer Carl Yastrzemski would be better at assembling furniture. Also: learn what not to do at Fenway Park. 

This week's song is called "Scarlet Letter," which was released by my band Declaration on our 2006 album, Panic Button. This was originally written during my senior year of high school for a class project. We were reading the book, "The Scarlet Letter," and tasked with doing something creative to depict certain aspects of the story. Most people made posters or collages but I decided to write a song and perform it for the class. This is one of the few times I've actually sat down and started writing a song with a topic in mind beforehand. To give you a little background about the story, it takes place in Puritan times. The main character, Hester Prynne, whose husband was presumed lost at sea, has committed adultery and forced to wear a scarlet colored "A" on her chest so that everyone in the town would know what she had done. As it turns out, the person she committed adultery with was the town's priest, Arthur Dimmesdale, who is put in a position where he feels forced to condemn her publicly but secretly is racked with the guilt and torment of what he had done and of knowing what a hypocrite he actually is. Eventually, he confesses his sin to the town and opens his shirt to reveal scars from the letter "A" he carved on his own chest, signifying that while Hester openly carries the burden of sin, his was carried in secret until now. So, the lyrics are written from the priest's perspective and speak of his torment as well as the need he felt to come clean and live a repentant, virtuous life. The mood and tone I was going for was something along the lines of Radiohead's song, Exit Music (For A Film) from their album OK Computer. So, fast forward about a year. I had just finished my first year at BYU and was about the leave on a mission. I had a friend who was studying sound recording and needed someone to record for his project. I came in BYU's studio and laid down piano, vocals, drums and bass. Here's what the first version sounds like. During my mission, it would occasionally come up that I was a songwriter and people would want to hear one of my songs. This was usually the song I would play to them if they had a piano in their house. Plus, it also has a spiritual component to it so it made sense to play it as a missionary, I think. After I returned home from my mission, I reformed my band, Declaration and we set out to record an album. Originally, we tried to recreate the version of the song I recorded I few years before. It felt a little vanilla so we decided to experiment with some different sounds. The first of those was a wurlitzer electric piano. One of my friends was storing it in my studio so we gave it a try. We ran it through a guitar amp for the recording. It has a really cool, smooth sound quite different from a regular piano and we felt like it really added something interesting to the song so we went with it. After the wurlitzer was recorded, we laid down the drums. I think we got a really good tone with the recording. We added a small room reverb effect and a light delay or echo effect to help it sound a little fuller and give it additional texture. There are three electric guitar tracks on this song. The first is played clean, lightly strumming the chords with a thin, washy tone. The next guitar plucks the chords in an arpeggiated pattern with a light delay effect. The third guitar has a stronger delay effect and heavy reverb. We were going for a spacey, cosmic sound here. The notes are played in a tremelo strumming style much like on Radiohead's song. Halfway through the song, the drums cut out for the third verse. I thought the song could use a shift in texture at this point so we added a church organ. When the drums come back in for the chorus, we wanted a big, epic moment so I recorded three tracks of ohs and ahs, layered with a lot of reverb to give the impression of a choir singing in a cathedral. I think all these elements came together nicely to make for an interesting production. Here's the final version of the song. I hope you like it. Download "Scarlet Letter" on Bandcamp Become a sponsor of this podcast through Patreon.com

This week on StoryWeb: Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel “The Scarlet Letter.” “What we did had a consecration of its own.” So says Hester Prynne to Arthur Dimmesdale in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 1850 novel, The Scarlet Letter. When I was 15 and reading the novel for the first time in my high school American literature class, I had no idea what Hester – she of the scarlet letter – meant. But as I got older, as I experienced my own deep connections with others, I came to understand Hester very well. In her view, her forest rendezvous with Dimmesdale was not lustful fornication but sacred, holy lovemaking, lovemaking that honored both of them. If you read (or read about) The Scarlet Letter in high school and haven’t touched it since, I highly encourage you to give it another chance. I don’t think it is a book for teenagers, for they do not have nearly enough life experience to understand the bond between Hester and Dimmesdale. They can’t fathom what each gives up – or considers giving up – for the other. (Other teachers, however, report some success with teaching the complex moral novel in high school. See Brenda Wineapple’s essay “The Scarlet Letter and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s America,” and David Denby’s piece “Is It Still Possible to Teach The Scarlet Letter in High School?”) If you’re ready to read The Scarlet Letter for the first time or if you’re ready to read it again, you can read the book online for free or buy a hard copy for your collection. Don’t bother with any of the wretched film adaptations (especially the 1995 version starring Demi Moore as Hester). Just stick with the novel itself. Your own imagination will bring the book to life! Once you’ve got the book in hand, it’s best to start with Hawthorne’s opening essay, “The Custom House.” Many readers skip it, wanting to move ahead to the story. But “The Custom House” is key to the novel in so many ways. It tells of Hawthorne’s years working as the chief executive officer of the Salem, Massachusetts, Custom House. Salem, of course, was the site of the heinous Salem Witch Trials. In 1692, the Puritans “pressed” one man to death and hung fourteen women and five men, all of them falsely convicted of witchcraft. Salem was Hawthorne’s hometown, his long-time ancestral home. In fact, one of his direct ancestors was Justice John Hathorne; he was the chief interrogator of the accused witches. So distressed and estranged was Hawthorne by his family’s participation in the Salem Witch Trials that he changed the spelling of his surname, thereby distancing himself from the family legacy. In “The Custom House,” Hawthorne tells of his struggle to come to terms with his family’s past. He says, This long connection of a family with one spot, as its place of birth and burial, creates a kindred between the human being and the locality, quite independent of any charm in the scenery or moral circumstances that surround him. It is not love, but instinct. . . . It is no matter that the place is joyless for him; that he is weary of the old wooden houses, the mud and dust, the dead level of site and sentiment, the chill east wind, and the chillest of social atmospheres. . . . The spell survives, and just as powerfully as if the natal spot were an earthly paradise. So has it been in my case. I felt it almost as a destiny to make Salem my home. . . . Nevertheless, this very sentiment is an evidence that the connection, which has become an unhealthy one, should at last be severed. Later in the essay, Hawthorne tells of poking around one day in the “heaped-up rubbish” of the Custom House and finding a beautifully embroidered, red letter A, “a certain affair of fine red cloth, much worn and faded.” It had been wrought,” Hawthorne says, “with wonderful skill of needlework; and the stitch . . . gives evidence of a now forgotten art.” While puzzling over the meaning of the scarlet letter, Hawthorne places it on his chest. “I experienced a sensation not altogether physical, yet almost so, as of burning heat,” he writes. “as if the letter were not of red cloth, but red-hot iron.” Accompanying the scarlet letter, Hawthorne finds a “small roll of dingy paper,” which reveals that Hester Prynne had been the wearer of the letter. Hawthorne’s story of discovering the scarlet letter and finding out about Hester Prynne is completely fabricated as far as we know, but the reader is hooked. The novel that follows promises to tell the story of the infamous Hester Prynne and her even more infamous scarlet letter. While the story of the scarlet letter may be a figment of Hawthorne’s imagination, what is real is the harsh legacy of the 17th-century Puritans and Hawthorne’s own Transcendentalist-touched life in the 19th century. In a surprising and quite interesting turn of events, it was the descendants of the 17th-century Puritans who became the Transcendentalists – those fervent free thinkers – in the 19th century. I always imagine that the Puritans would have rolled over in their graves had they known what their heirs espoused. In fact, Hester can easily be seen as a Transcendentalist heroine set smack dab in a Puritan world. As Hawthorne created his heroine, he made her much more a product of the 19th century than the 17th century. As she “stand[s] alone in the world” and “cast[s] away the fragments of a broken chain,” she determines that “[t]he world’s law was no law for her mind.” Wearing her scarlet letter, “[i]n her lonesome cottage, by the sea-shore, thoughts visited her, such as dared to enter no other dwelling in New England.” In fact, says Hawthorne, “she might have come down to us in history, hand in hand with Anne Hutchinson, as the foundress of a religious sect. She might, in one of her phases, have been a prophetess.” No wonder Hester is ostracized from her community: she was much too dangerous for the small community of Boston! Ready to explore Hawthorne and The Scarlet Letter further? Start with an overview of Hawthorne’s relationship to his ancestral hometown, created by one of my students at Shepherd University and illustrated with photos of our 2002 trip to Salem. “Hawthorne in Salem” is another great website that helps the scene and the context for Hawthorne’s writing of The Scarlet Letter. For links to these resources, visit thestoryweb.com/hawthorne. Listen now as I read excerpts from the first three chapters of The Scarlet Letter. You’ll see Hester Prynne as she leaves the prison, walks to the scaffold to receive her punishment, and returns to her cell.   A THRONG of bearded men, in sad-colored garments and gray, steeple-crowned hats, intermixed with women, some wearing hoods, and others bareheaded, was assembled in front of a wooden edifice, the door of which was heavily timbered with oak, and studded with iron spikes.   The founders of a new colony, whatever Utopia of human virtue and happiness they might originally project, have invariably recognized it among their earliest practical necessities to allot a portion of the virgin soil as a cemetery, and another portion as the site of a prison. In accordance with this rule, it may safely be assumed that the forefathers of Boston had built the first prison-house, somewhere in the vicinity of Cornhill, almost as seasonably as they marked out the first burial-ground, on Isaac Johnson’s lot, and round about his grave, which subsequently became the nucleus of all the congregated sepulchres in the old church-yard of King’s Chapel. Certain it is, that, some fifteen or twenty years after the settlement of the town, the wooden jail was already marked with weather-stains and other indications of age, which gave a yet darker aspect to its beetle-browed and gloomy front. The rust on the ponderous iron-work of its oaken door looked more antique than any thing else in the new world. Like all that pertains to crime, it seemed never to have known a youthful era. Before this ugly edifice, and between it and the wheel-track of the street, was a grass-plot, much overgrown with burdock, pig-weed, apple-peru, and such unsightly vegetation, which evidently found something congenial in the soil that had so early borne the black flower of civilized society, a prison. But, on one side of the portal, and rooted almost at the threshold, was a wild rose-bush, covered, in this month of June, with its delicate gems, which might be imagined to offer their fragrance and fragile beauty to the prisoner as he went in, and to the condemned criminal as he came forth to his doom, in token that the deep heart of Nature could pity and be kind to him.    THE GRASS-PLOT before the jail, in Prison Lane, on a certain summer morning, not less than two centuries ago, was occupied by a pretty large number of the inhabitants of Boston; all with their eyes intently fastened on the iron-clamped oaken door. Amongst any other population, or at a later period in the history of New England, the grim rigidity that petrified the bearded physiognomies of these good people would have augured some awful business in hand. It could have betokened nothing short of the anticipated execution of some noted culprit, on whom the sentence of a legal tribunal had but confirmed the verdict of public sentiment. But, in that early severity of the Puritan character, an inference of this kind could not so indubitably be drawn. It might be that a sluggish bond-servant, or an undutiful child, whom his parents had given over to the civil authority, was to be corrected at the whipping-post. It might be, that an Antinomian, a Quaker, or other heterodox religionist, was to be scourged out of the town, or an idle and vagrant Indian, whom the white man’s fire-water had made riotous about the streets, was to be driven with stripes into the shadow of the forest. It might be, too, that a witch, like old Mistress Hibbins, the bitter-tempered widow of the magistrate, was to die upon the gallows. In either case, there was very much the same solemnity of demeanour on the part of the spectators; as befitted a people amongst whom religion and law were almost identical, and in whose character both were so thoroughly interfused, that the mildest and the severest acts of public discipline were alike made venerable and awful. Meagre, indeed, and cold, was the sympathy that a transgressor might look for, from such bystanders at the scaffold. On the other hand, a penalty which, in our days, would infer a degree of mocking infamy and ridicule, might then be invested with almost as stern a dignity as the punishment of death itself.   The door of the jail being flung open from within, there appeared, in the first place, like a black shadow emerging into sunshine, the grim and grisly presence of the town-beadle, with a sword by his side and his staff of office in his hand. This personage prefigured and represented in his aspect the whole dismal severity of the Puritanic code of law, which it was his business to administer in its final and closest application to the offender. Stretching forth the official staff in his left hand, he laid his right upon the shoulder of a young woman, whom he thus drew forward until, on the threshold of the prison-door, she repelled him, by an action marked with natural dignity and force of character, and stepped into the open air, as if by her own free-will. She bore in her arms a child, a baby of some three months old, who winked and turned aside its little face from the too vivid light of day; because its existence, heretofore, had brought it acquainted only with the gray twilight of a dungeon, or other darksome apartment of the prison.   When the young woman—the mother of this child—stood fully revealed before the crowd, it seemed to be her first impulse to clasp the infant closely to her bosom; not so much by an impulse of motherly affection, as that she might thereby conceal a certain token, which was wrought or fastened into her dress. In a moment, however, wisely judging that one token of her shame would but poorly serve to hide another, she took the baby on her arm, and, with a burning blush, and yet a haughty smile, and a glance that would not be abashed, looked around at her townspeople and neighbours. On the breast of her gown, in fine red cloth, surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and fantastic flourishes of gold thread, appeared the letter A. It was so artistically done, and with so much fertility and gorgeous luxuriance of fancy, that it had all the effect of a last and fitting decoration to the apparel which she wore; and which was of a splendor in accordance with the taste of the age, but greatly beyond what was allowed by the sumptuary regulations of the colony.   The young woman was tall, with a figure of perfect elegance, on a large scale. She had dark and abundant hair, so glossy that it threw off the sunshine with a gleam, and a face which, besides being beautiful from regularity of feature and richness of complexion, had the impressiveness belonging to a marked brow and deep black eyes. She was lady-like, too, after the manner of the feminine gentility of those days; characterized by a certain state and dignity, rather than by the delicate, evanescent, and indescribable grace, which is now recognized as its indication. And never had Hester Prynne appeared more lady-like, in the antique interpretation of the term, than as she issued from the prison. Those who had before known her, and had expected to behold her dimmed and obscured by a disastrous cloud, were astonished, and even startled, to perceive how her beauty shone out, and made a halo of the misfortune and ignominy in which she was enveloped. It may be true, that, to a sensitive observer, there was something exquisitely painful in it. Her attire, which, indeed, she had wrought for the occasion, in prison, and had modelled much after her own fancy, seemed to express the attitude of her spirit, the desperate recklessness of her mood, by its wild and picturesque peculiarity. But the point which drew all eyes, and, as it were, transfigured the wearer,—so that both men and women, who had been familiarly acquainted with Hester Prynne, were now impressed as if they beheld her for the first time,—was that SCARLET LETTER, so fantastically embroidered and illuminated upon her bosom. It had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity, and inclosing her in a sphere by herself.   “She hath good skill at her needle, that’s certain,” remarked one of the female spectators; “but did ever a woman, before this brazen hussy, contrive such a way of showing it! Why, gossips, what is it but to laugh in the faces of our godly magistrates, and make a pride out of what they, worthy gentlemen, meant for a punishment?”   “It were well,” muttered the most iron-visaged of the old dames, “if we stripped Madam Hester’s rich gown off her dainty shoulders; and as for the red letter, which she hath stitched so curiously, I’ll bestow a rag of mine own rheumatic flannel, to make a fitter one!”   “O, peace, neighbours, peace!” whispered their youngest companion. “Do not let her hear you! Not a stitch in that embroidered letter, but she has felt it in her heart.”   The grim beadle now made a gesture with his staff.   “Make way, good people, make way, in the King’s name,” cried he. “Open a passage; and, I promise ye, Mistress Prynne shall be set where man, woman, and child may have a fair sight of her brave apparel, from this time till an hour past meridian. A blessing on the righteous Colony of the Massachusetts, where iniquity is dragged out into the sunshine! Come along, Madam Hester, and show your scarlet letter in the market-place!”   A lane was forthwith opened through the crowd of spectators. Preceded by the beadle, and attended by an irregular procession of stern-browed men and unkindly-visaged women, Hester Prynne set forth towards the place appointed for her punishment. A crowd of eager and curious schoolboys, understanding little of the matter in hand, except that it gave them a half-holiday, ran before her progress, turning their heads continually to stare into her face, and at the winking baby in her arms, and at the ignominious letter on her breast. It was no great distance, in those days, from the prison-door to the market-place. Measured by the prisoner’s experience, however, it might be reckoned a journey of some length; for, haughty as her demeanour was, she perchance underwent an agony from every footstep of those that thronged to see her, as if her heart had been flung into the street for them all to spurn and trample upon. In our nature, however, there is a provision, alike marvellous and merciful, that the sufferer should never know the intensity of what he endures by its present torture, but chiefly by the pang that rankles after it. With almost a serene deportment, therefore, Hester Prynne passed through this portion of her ordeal, and came to a sort of scaffold, at the western extremity of the market-place. It stood nearly beneath the eaves of Boston’s earliest church, and appeared to be a fixture there.   In fact, this scaffold constituted a portion of a penal machine, which now, for two or three generations past, has been merely historical and traditionary among us, but was held, in the old time, to be as effectual an agent in the promotion of good citizenship, as ever was the guillotine among the terrorists of France. It was, in short, the platform of the pillory; and above it rose the framework of that instrument of discipline, so fashioned as to confine the human head in its tight grasp, and thus hold it up to the public gaze. The very ideal of ignominy was embodied and made manifest in this contrivance of wood and iron. There can be no outrage, methinks, against our common nature,—whatever be the delinquencies of the individual,—no outrage more flagrant than to forbid the culprit to hide his face for shame; as it was the essence of this punishment to do. In Hester Prynne’s instance, however, as not unfrequently in other cases, her sentence bore, that she should stand a certain time upon the platform, but without undergoing that gripe about the neck and confinement of the head, the proneness to which was the most devilish characteristic of this ugly engine. Knowing well her part, she ascended a flight of wooden steps, and was thus displayed to the surrounding multitude, at about the height of a man’s shoulders above the street.   Had there been a Papist among the crowd of Puritans, he might have seen in this beautiful woman, so picturesque in her attire and mien, and with the infant at her bosom, an object to remind him of the image of Divine Maternity, which so many illustrious painters have vied with one another to represent; something which should remind him, indeed, but only by contrast, of that sacred image of sinless motherhood, whose infant was to redeem the world. Here, there was the taint of deepest sin in the most sacred quality of human life, working such effect, that the world was only the darker for this woman’s beauty, and the more lost for the infant that she had borne.   The scene was not without a mixture of awe, such as must always invest the spectacle of guilt and shame in a fellow-creature, before society shall have grown corrupt enough to smile, instead of shuddering, at it. The witnesses of Hester Prynne’s disgrace had not yet passed beyond their simplicity. They were stern enough to look upon her death, had that been the sentence, without a murmur at its severity, but had none of the heartlessness of another social state, which would find only a theme for jest in an exhibition like the present. Even had there been a disposition to turn the matter into ridicule, it must have been repressed and overpowered by the solemn presence of men no less dignified than the Governor, and several of his counsellors, a judge, a general, and the ministers of the town; all of whom sat or stood in a balcony of the meeting-house, looking down upon the platform. When such personages could constitute a part of the spectacle, without risking the majesty or reverence of rank and office, it was safely to be inferred that the infliction of a legal sentence would have an earnest and effectual meaning. Accordingly, the crowd was sombre and grave. The unhappy culprit sustained herself as best a woman might, under the heavy weight of a thousand unrelenting eyes, all fastened upon her, and concentrated at her bosom. It was almost intolerable to be borne. Of an impulsive and passionate nature, she had fortified herself to encounter the stings and venomous stabs of public contumely, wreaking itself in every variety of insult; but there was a quality so much more terrible in the solemn mood of the popular mind, that she longed rather to behold all those rigid countenances contorted with scornful merriment, and herself the object. Had a roar of laughter burst from the multitude,—each man, each woman, each little shrill-voiced child, contributing their individual parts,—Hester Prynne might have repaid them all with a bitter and disdainful smile. But, under the leaden infliction which it was her doom to endure, she felt, at moments, as if she must needs shriek out with the full power of her lungs, and cast herself from the scaffold down upon the ground, or else go mad at once.   Yet there were intervals when the whole scene, in which she was the most conspicuous object, seemed to vanish from her eyes, or, at least, glimmered indistinctly before them, like a mass of imperfectly shaped and spectral images. Her mind, and especially her memory, was preternaturally active, and kept bringing up other scenes than this roughly hewn street of a little town, on the edge of the Western wilderness; other faces than were lowering upon her from beneath the brims of those steeple-crowned hats. Reminiscences, the most trifling and immaterial, passages of infancy and school-days, sports, childish quarrels, and the little domestic traits of her maiden years, came swarming back upon her, intermingled with recollections of whatever was gravest in her subsequent life; one picture precisely as vivid as another; as if all were of similar importance, or all alike a play. Possibly, it was an instinctive device of her spirit to relieve itself, by the exhibition of these phantasmagoric forms, from the cruel weight and hardness of the reality.   Be that as it might, the scaffold of the pillory was a point of view that revealed to Hester Prynne the entire track along which she had been treading, since her happy infancy. Standing on that miserable eminence, she saw again her native village, in Old England, and her paternal home; a decayed house of gray stone, with a poverty-stricken aspect, but retaining a half-obliterated shield of arms over the portal, in token of antique gentility. She saw her father’s face, with its bold brow, and reverend white beard, that flowed over the old-fashioned Elizabethan ruff; her mother’s, too, with the look of heedful and anxious love which it always wore in her remembrance, and which, even since her death, had so often laid the impediment of a gentle remonstrance in her daughter’s pathway. She saw her own face, glowing with girlish beauty, and illuminating all the interior of the dusky mirror in which she had been wont to gaze at it. There she beheld another countenance, of a man well stricken in years, a pale, thin, scholar-like visage, with eyes dim and bleared by the lamp-light that had served them to pore over many ponderous books. Yet those same bleared optics had a strange, penetrating power, when it was their owner’s purpose to read the human soul. This figure of the study and the cloister, as Hester Prynne’s womanly fancy failed not to recall, was slightly deformed, with the left shoulder a trifle higher than the right. Next rose before her, in memory’s picture-gallery, the intricate and narrow thoroughfares, the tall, gray houses, the huge cathedrals, and the public edifices, ancient in date and quaint in architecture, of a Continental city; where a new life had awaited her, still in connection with the misshapen scholar; a new life, but feeding itself on time-worn materials, like a tuft of green moss on a crumbling wall. Lastly, in lieu of these shifting scenes, came back the rude market-place of the Puritan settlement, with all the townspeople assembled and levelling their stern regards at Hester Prynne,—yes, at herself,—who stood on the scaffold of the pillory, an infant on her arm, and the letter A, in scarlet, fantastically embroidered with gold thread, upon her bosom!   Could it be true? She clutched the child so fiercely to her breast, that it sent forth a cry; she turned her eyes downward at the scarlet letter, and even touched it with her finger, to assure herself that the infant and the shame were real. Yes!—these were her realities,—all else had vanished!   Hester Prynne had been standing on her pedestal, still with a fixed gaze towards the stranger; so fixed a gaze, that, at moments of intense absorption, all other objects in the visible world seemed to vanish, leaving only him and her. Such an interview, perhaps, would have been more terrible than even to meet him as she now did, with the hot, mid-day sun burning down upon her face, and lighting up its shame; with the scarlet token of infamy on her breast; with the sin-born infant in her arms; with a whole people, drawn forth as to a festival, staring at the features that should have been seen only in the quiet gleam of the fireside, in the happy shadow of a home, or beneath a matronly veil, at church. Dreadful as it was, she was conscious of a shelter in the presence of these thousand witnesses. It was better to stand thus, with so many betwixt him and her, than to greet him, face to face, they two alone. She fled for refuge, as it were, to the public exposure, and dreaded the moment when its protection should be withdrawn from her. Involved in these thoughts, she scarcely heard a voice behind her, until it had repeated her name more than once, in a loud and solemn tone, audible to the whole multitude.   “Hearken unto me, Hester Prynne!” said the voice.   It has already been noticed, that directly over the platform on which Hester Prynne stood was a kind of balcony, or open gallery, appended to the meeting-house. It was the place whence proclamations were wont to be made, amidst an assemblage of the magistracy, with all the ceremonial that attended such public observances in those days. Here, to witness the scene which we are describing, sat Governor Bellingham himself, with four sergeants about his chair, bearing halberds, as a guard of honor. He wore a dark feather in his hat, a border of embroidery on his cloak, and a black velvet tunic beneath; a gentleman advanced in years, and with a hard experience written in his wrinkles. He was not ill fitted to be the head and representative of a community, which owed its origin and progress, and its present state of development, not to the impulses of youth, but to the stern and tempered energies of manhood, and the sombre sagacity of age; accomplishing so much, precisely because it imagined and hoped so little. The other eminent characters, by whom the chief ruler was surrounded, were distinguished by a dignity of mien, belonging to a period when the forms of authority were felt to possess the sacredness of divine institutions. They were, doubtless, good men, just, and sage. But, out of the whole human family, it would not have been easy to select the same number of wise and virtuous persons, who should he less capable of sitting in judgment on an erring woman’s heart, and disentangling its mesh of good and evil, than the sages of rigid aspect towards whom Hester Prynne now turned her face. She seemed conscious, indeed, that whatever sympathy she might expect lay in the larger and warmer heart of the multitude; for, as she lifted her eyes towards the balcony, the unhappy woman grew pale and trembled.   The voice which had called her attention was that of the reverend and famous John Wilson, the eldest clergyman of Boston, a great scholar, like most of his contemporaries in the profession, and withal a man of kind and genial spirit. This last attribute, however, had been less carefully developed than his intellectual gifts, and was, in truth, rather a matter of shame than self-congratulation with him. There he stood, with a border of grizzled locks beneath his skull-cap; while his gray eyes, accustomed to the shaded light of his study, were winking, like those of Hester’s infant, in the unadulterated sunshine. He looked like the darkly engraved portraits which we see prefixed to old volumes of sermons; and had no more right than one of those portraits would have, to step forth, as he now did, and meddle with a question of human guilt, passion, and anguish.   “Hester Prynne,” said the clergyman, “I have striven with my young brother here, under whose preaching of the word you have been privileged to sit,”—here Mr. Wilson laid his hand on the shoulder of a pale young man beside him,—“I have sought, I say, to persuade this godly youth, that he should deal with you, here in the face of Heaven, and before these wise and upright rulers, and in hearing of all the people, as touching the vileness and blackness of your sin. Knowing your natural temper better than I, he could the better judge what arguments to use, whether of tenderness or terror, such as might prevail over your hardness and obstinacy; insomuch that you should no longer hide the name of him who tempted you to this grievous fall. But he opposes to me, (with a young man’s oversoftness, albeit wise beyond his years,) that it were wronging the very nature of woman to force her to lay open her heart’s secrets in such broad daylight, and in presence of so great a multitude. Truly, as I sought to convince him, the shame lay in the commission of the sin, and not in the showing of it forth. What say you to it, once again, brother Dimmesdale? Must it be thou or I that shall deal with this poor sinner’s soul?”   There was a murmur among the dignified and reverend occupants of the balcony; and Governor Bellingham gave expression to its purport, speaking in an authoritative voice, although tempered with respect towards the youthful clergyman whom he addressed.   “Good Master Dimmesdale,” said he, “the responsibility of this woman’s soul lies greatly with you. It behooves you, therefore, to exhort her to repentance, and to confession, as a proof and consequence thereof.”   The directness of this appeal drew the eyes of the whole crowd upon the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale; young clergyman, who had come from one of the great English universities, bringing all the learning of the age into our wild forest-land. His eloquence and religious fervor had already given the earnest of high eminence in his profession. He was a person of very striking aspect, with a white, lofty, and impending brow, large, brown, melancholy eyes, and a mouth which, unless when he forcibly compressed it, was apt to be tremulous, expressing both nervous sensibility and a vast power of self-restraint. Notwithstanding his high native gifts and scholar-like attainments, there was an air about this young minister,—an apprehensive, a startled, a half-frightened look,—as of a being who felt himself quite astray and at a loss in the pathway of human existence, and could only be at ease in some seclusion of his own. Therefore, so far as his duties would permit, he trode in the shadowy by-paths, and thus kept himself simple and childlike; coming forth, when occasion was, with a freshness, and fragrance, and dewy purity of thought, which, as many people said, affected them like the speech of an angel.   Such was the young man whom the Reverend Mr. Wilson and the Governor had introduced so openly to the public notice, bidding him speak, in the hearing of all men, to that mystery of a woman’s soul, so sacred even in its pollution. The trying nature of his position drove the blood from his cheek, and made his lips tremulous.   “Speak to the woman, my brother,” said Mr. Wilson. “It is of moment to her soul, and therefore, as the worshipful Governor says, momentous to thine own, in whose charge hers is. Exhort her to confess the truth!”   The Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale bent his head, in silent prayer, as it seemed, and then came forward.   “Hester Prynne,” said he, leaning over the balcony, and looking down stedfastly into her eyes, “thou hearest what this good man says, and seest the accountability under which I labor. If thou feelest it to be for thy soul’s peace, and that thy earthly punishment will thereby be made more effectual to salvation, I charge thee to speak out the name of thy fellow-sinner and fellow-sufferer! Be not silent from any mistaken pity and tenderness for him; for, believe me, Hester, though he were to step down from a high place, and stand there beside thee, on thy pedestal of shame, yet better were it so, than to hide a guilty heart through life. What can thy silence do for him, except it tempt him—yea, compel him, as it were—to add hypocrisy to sin? Heaven hath granted thee an open ignominy, that thereby thou mayest work out an open triumph over the evil within thee, and the sorrow without. Take heed how thou deniest to him—who, perchance, hath not the courage to grasp it for himself—the bitter, but wholesome, cup that is now presented to thy lips!”   The young pastor’s voice was tremulously sweet, rich, deep, and broken. The feeling that it so evidently manifested, rather than the direct purport of the words, caused it to vibrate within all hearts, and brought the listeners into one accord of sympathy. Even the poor baby, at Hester’s bosom, was affected by the same influence; for it directed its hitherto vacant gaze towards Mr. Dimmesdale, and held up its little arms, with a half pleased, half plaintive murmur. So powerful seemed the minister’s appeal, that the people could not believe but that Hester Prynne would speak out the guilty name; or else that the guilty one himself, in whatever high or lowly place he stood, would be drawn forth by an inward and inevitable necessity, and compelled to ascend the scaffold.   Hester shook her head.   “Woman, transgress not beyond the limits of Heaven’s mercy!” cried the Reverend Mr. Wilson, more harshly than before. “That little babe hath been gifted with a voice, to second and confirm the counsel which thou hast heard. Speak out the name! That, and thy repentance, may avail to take the scarlet letter off thy breast.”   “Never!” replied Hester Prynne, looking, not at Mr. Wilson, but into the deep and troubled eyes of the younger clergyman. “It is too deeply branded. Ye cannot take it off. And would that I might endure his agony, as well as mine!”   “Speak, woman!” said another voice, coldly and sternly, proceeding from the crowd about the scaffold. “Speak; and give your child a father!”   “I will not speak!” answered Hester, turning pale as death, but responding to this voice, which she too surely recognized. “And my child must seek a heavenly Father; she shall never know an earthly one!”   “She will not speak!” murmured Mr. Dimmesdale, who, leaning over the balcony, with his hand upon his heart, had awaited the result of his appeal. He now drew back, with a long respiration. “Wondrous strength and generosity of a woman’s heart! She will not speak!”   Discerning the impracticable state of the poor culprit’s mind, the elder clergyman, who had carefully prepared himself for the occasion, addressed to the multitude a discourse on sin, in all its branches, but with continual reference to the ignominious letter. So forcibly did he dwell upon this symbol, for the hour or more during which his periods were rolling over the people’s heads, that it assumed new terrors in their imagination, and seemed to derive its scarlet hue from the flames of the infernal pit. Hester Prynne, meanwhile, kept her place upon the pedestal of shame, with glazed eyes, and an air of weary indifference. She had borne, that morning, all that nature could endure; and as her temperament was not of the order that escapes from too intense suffering by a swoon, her spirit could only shelter itself beneath a stony crust of insensibility, while the faculties of animal life remained entire. In this state, the voice of the preacher thundered remorselessly, but unavailingly, upon her ears. The infant, during the latter portion of her ordeal, pierced the air with its wailings and screams; she strove to hush it, mechanically, but seemed scarcely to sympathize with its trouble. With the same hard demeanour, she was led back to prison, and vanished from the public gaze within its iron-clamped portal. It was whispered, by those who peered after her, that the scarlet letter threw a lurid gleam along the dark passage-way of the interior.      

The Scarlet Letter, published in 1850, is set in Puritan New England in the 17th century. Exploring the issues of grace, legalism, and guilt, it tells the story of Hester Prynne, a Puritan woman who commits adultry then struggles to create a new life. The introduction provides a frame for the main narrative of The Scarlet Letter. The nameless narrator, who shares quite a few traits with the book’s author, takes a post as the “chief executive officer,” or surveyor, of the Salem Custom House. This section introduces us to the narrator and establishes his desire to contribute to American culture.

Episode 48: Is it the Show or the Performance?   This podcast continues a series of talks between Lindsay and Craig on the plays they saw during their trip to England. This week they talk about two shows currently on in London: One Man, Two Guvnors and Merrily We Roll Along. The question they had about both shows is the question of the podcast: Is it the Show or the Performance? Show Notes New Release: Scarlet Expectations of a Drowned Maiden and Two Greek Queens New Release: Monster Problems New Release: neeT Teen New Release: The Gift Merrily We Roll Along One Man, Two Guvnors Subscribe to The Theatrefolk Podcast On iTunes. On Stitcher. Episode Transcript Welcome to TFP, The Theatrefolk Podcast. I am Lindsay Price, resident playwright for Theatrefolk, talking on mic into a little foam box. Hello! I hope you're well. Thanks for listening. Today, Craig and I have our last conversation about the shows we saw across the pond. Finally, we make it to the West End! But first, let's do some THEATREFOLK NEWS. New plays! We've got new plays in the Theatrefolk news section! How appropriate is that? I'm going to stop singing now. See? I start these things, I dive into them, and I think, “Oh, that's not going to sound too goofy or awkward,” then I, in the middle, “Wow! This is goofy and awkward.” Welcome to my world! Okay. So, I want to send a big shout-out for one of our newest plays Scarlet Expectations of a Drowned Maiden and Two Greek Queens by Robert Wing. It is so new! It's got that new play smell and it is just a wonderful gem of a comedy. So, in this play, legendary TV talk show host Dee Dee Dane welcomes women who just can't seem to get it right when it comes to men. But, Dee Dee's guests aren't just any women. These relationship-challenged women are none other than some of literature's most memorable characters. We've got Hester Prynne from The Scarlet Letter, Ophelia from Hamlet, Miss Havisham from Great Expectations, Penelope from The Odyssey, and Medea from, well, Medea. Ah! It's funny, it's got great characters. You have to check it out just to see how Medea acts in this talk show world. It's a fantastic competition piece, minimal staging. Go to our website, read the sample pages now. Do it. Or, you know, wait till the end of the podcast – that would work, too. Lastly, where, oh, where can you find this podcast – this awkward, goofy podcast? We post new episodes every Wednesday at theatrefolk.com and on our Facebook page and Twitter. You can find us on the Stitcher app AND you can subscribe to TFP on iTunes. All you have to do is search on the word “Theatrefolk.” Episode Forty-Eight: Is It The Show, Or The Performance? This is a pretty big question to ponder when it comes to seeing theatre. A less than stellar show can be saved by an awesome performance, and a good show can be completely sunk by something subpar. And, as a theatre artist, when you're going to see shows, I think it's part of the job of being a theatre artist to distinguish, to make that distinction with what you're seeing and where the success lies, or where the fault lies. You cannot tar everything with the same brush. “I like this. I don't like this.” You have to figure out what it is – specifically – that you don't like or you do like about what you're seeing. And, when we were in London, we went to see two shows in the West End for which we were seriously contemplating this question before we went – One Man, Two Guvnors, a modern version of the comedia play One Servant, Two Masters, and the Sondheim musical, Merrily We Roll Along. And, we also have a special treat. It's not just Craig and I talking into the little foam box. We'e joined by an old university friend who – fun fact – was actually in the play – as opposed to figuratively, or metaphorically. Julie was in the play where Craig and I first met and fell in love over 20 years ago. Everybody say, “Awwwwww,” or, “Ewwwwww,