Podcast appearances and mentions of John Paul

We'll begin with a reign of terror...a few murders here and there. Join Reneé, John Paul, and Travis as they discuss James Whale's 1933 science fiction horror classic "The Invisible Man."   Please consider supporting the show on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thepodmortem    Pod Mortem would like to thank Original CINematic for sponsoring this week's episode! https://www.ogcinpro.com/  Feel free to contact: William Rush: wrush@ogcinpro.com Xxena Rush: xrush@ogcinpro.com    Where to listen to the podcast and follow us on social media: https://allmylinks.com/thepodmortem   Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thepodmortem https://twitter.com/bloodandsmoke https://twitter.com/realstreeter84 https://twitter.com/travismwh   What would you rate The Invisible Man and what should we watch next? Email us at thepodmortem@gmail.com    "Pod Mortem Theme" written and performed by Travis Hunter. https://youtube.com/travismwh

Episode 121 Today we are joined by Dr. Chris Impey to talk about exoplanets, the search for life in space, and the search for meaning on Earth.   Dr Impey is a University Distinguished Professor of Astronomy at the University of Arizona. He has over 220 refereed publications on observational cosmology, galaxies, and quasars, and his research has been supported by $20 million in NASA and NSF grants. He has won eleven teaching awards and has taught two online classes with over 300,000 enrolled and 4 million minutes of video lectures watched. He is a past Vice President of the American Astronomical Society, won its Education Prize, has been an NSF Distinguished Teaching Scholar, Carnegie Council's Arizona Professor of the Year, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor. He has written 70 popular articles on cosmology, astrobiology and education, two textbooks, a novel called Shadow World, and eight popular science books: The Living Cosmos, How It Ends, Talking About Life, How It Began, Dreams of Other Worlds, Humble Before the Void, Beyond: The Future of Space Travel, and Einstein's Monsters: The Life and Times of Black Holes.    Support this podcast on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast   More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/   produced by Zack Jackson music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis    Transcript (AI Generated) ian (01:16.703) Our guest today is a university distinguished professor of astronomy at the University of Arizona. He has over 220 refereed publications on observational cosmology, galaxies, and quasars, and his research has been supported by $20 million in NASA and NSF grants. He's won 11 teaching awards and has taught two online classes with over 300,000 enrolled and 4 million minutes of video lectures watched. He's a past vice president of the American Astronomical Society, has been an NSF Distinguished Teaching Scholar, Carnegie Council's Arizona Professor of the Year, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute professor. He has written 70 popular articles on cosmology, astrobiology, and education, two textbooks, a novel called Shadow World and eight popular science books. I'm very excited to welcome Dr. Chris Impey to the podcast today. chris_impey (02:07.898) Yeah, delighted to be with you. zack_jackson (02:09.75) Welcome. That's quite an introduction. Ha ha ha. Thanks for watching. I hope you enjoyed this video. I'll see you in the next one. Bye. ian (02:12.983) Yeah. Obviously, I shortened down what you sent us, and it was tough for me to do that, Chris, because you've done a lot. You know, obviously, I was at fellow academic. I understand the need to do peer-reviewed research and those types of things in our field, but I was really impressed with how much writing you've done for the general public, both articles and also your books. You've written a novel. You've been on several podcasts. Can you kind of tell us a little bit about your background, what is you do, and then how you also got into that part of your profession of making sure you communicate with the general public as well? chris_impey (02:53.298) Sure, you won't hear it in my voice, my accent, but I was born into Edinburgh, I'm a Scott. I had a little transatlantic childhood that sort of wiped out the Scottish borough, but if you feed me single malt whiskey it would come back. And of course, I'm sure you noticed if you've gone to Britain that you look up and there are not many stars visible there. So once I decided to do astronomy I knew I was going to leave, so I did my undergrad work in London. zack_jackson (03:04.15) Thank you. Bye. Ha ha ha! chris_impey (03:22.938) and never look back and I'm a dual citizen now. So astronomy is big in Arizona. I've not looked elsewhere. The grass is never greener anywhere else. We're building the biggest telescopes in the world and we have five observatories within an hour's drive. So this is the perfect place to do observational astronomy. So I'm very happy. But then as people's careers evolve, you know, the writing research papers is important. It's the sort of stocking trade of the academic. But it's also, you know, the texture of the average research article is that of a three-day old bologna sandwich. It's almost designed to be indigestible writing. The constraints of an academic discourse make that happen. So I was always interested in more popular writing, so I segued into textbooks. And then I realized the problem with them is that you've written a textbook and that's a nice challenge. But then the publisher just wants you to update it every year or so. It's like, okay, that's not so exciting. I think I'm not going to do this anymore. And then I think more broadly, apart from just liking education and being very committed to teaching and mentoring students, you know, I've just seen the, well, even before the sort of large waves of misinformation and the assault on facts in our culture, it's, I viewed it as an obligation of a professional scientist to communicate to a larger audience because, well, to be blunt, we're paid by the taxpayer. zack_jackson (04:26.05) Thank you. Bye. zack_jackson (04:44.15) Hmm. chris_impey (04:54.118) And also, there's a lot of misinformation out there, and science is often misperceived or characterized in wrong and inappropriate ways. And so I think all scientists should not just stay in their little lane doing research, but they should, if they can, some better than others. And not everyone can be Neil deGrasse Tyson. That's fine. But I think there's an obligation to communicate to larger audiences. And once I got into it and got practiced and better at it, then I now understand that I mean, it's like I couldn't imagine not doing it. chris_impey (05:32.018) And the books just, okay. And so books just flow out of that because writing popular articles is just a sort of lighter version of writing a technical article. And then, you know, you want a meaty subject. You do a book-length version. So I've been writing about cosmology and astrobiology. And I've started about 10 years ago I say, I think this is my ninth book, Exoplanets. So books are fun. They're more challenging. ian (05:32.543) I almost had to sneeze. Sorry, go ahead. Ha ha ha. chris_impey (06:01.958) to take on a big subject and distill it down and make it, you gotta make it, have a resonance for a person with no, maybe with no background in astronomy or maybe just a little background and you're taking them through what could be a very esoteric subject. So that, I like the challenge of that. Although the books are exhausting. Once I've done a book, I don't wanna, I almost don't wanna look at a book or read a book or write a book for a while. zack_jackson (06:28.65) do people ask you like when's the next one coming out? Like right after you finish. It's like having a baby. I'm not sure if you can tell, but I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. chris_impey (06:31.898) Of course. Yeah, they are. Yeah, it's like I'm not going to go there about the having a baby because my wife would my wife would give me a hard time. There's nothing like having a baby. You can't even imagine, you know, and and and she and yeah, and she's right. But like having a baby, you know, women may feel that and then they do it again, you know, so I write the book, have have a slight, you know, trauma afterwards or just let down. It's a little bit of a let down sometimes. zack_jackson (06:43.89) That is a good man. Good job. ian (06:45.766) Yes. chris_impey (07:01.918) you finished any big-ish thing. But I do like writing, so I'm committed to it. zack_jackson (07:02.094) Hmm. ian (07:09.303) Yeah. zack_jackson (07:10.05) So you're writing and thinking and studying a lot about exoplanets these days. So you're writing and thinking and studying a lot about exoplanets these days. So you're writing and thinking and studying a lot about exoplanets these days. So you're writing and thinking and studying a lot about exoplanets these days. So you're writing and thinking and studying a lot about exoplanets these days. So you're writing and thinking and studying a lot about exoplanets these days. So you're writing and thinking and studying a lot about exoplanets these days. So you're writing and thinking and studying a lot chris_impey (07:15.718) Yeah, it's a super hot field with the number has up to 5,300 last time I checked on NASA's website. And remember, you know, 1995, the number was zero. So this is all, this is all the last few decades and it's just growing gangbusters. And now it's a slightly unfortunate because I have, we have students here who are working on exoplanets or astrobiology. And, you know, there was a time when if you discovered one cool Earth-like planet or water world, ian (07:27.244) I remember that. chris_impey (07:45.818) about it. Well now you know you'd have to find a hundred interesting things to write a paper. So the bar has been raised just by the success of the field. But the interesting thing is that it's moving to a new phase. So the most of what's known about those 5300 exoplanets is not much at all. They're basically is either a mass or a size or maybe both and you get a density and know it's a gas planet or a rocky planet. And that's it. We can't characterize zack_jackson (07:46.792) Hmm. zack_jackson (07:54.15) Yeah. zack_jackson (08:04.316) Hmm. chris_impey (08:15.698) thousands of exoplanets. So the next stage of the game, everyone's taking a deep breath in the research field is to try and characterize the atmospheres and the geology and of course find life. And that's just a very hard experiment. It's just much harder than detecting an exoplanet in the first place. So there's sort of excitement in the air because if I were betting, I would say that within five to seven years, we will have done the experiment of looking for life or Earth planets that are nearest to us and will either know the answer. Either there will be microbes on those planets that have altered their atmospheres or there won't be and that will be an amazing experiment to have done. So it's really on the horizon. But it's daunting because it's a very difficult experiment. Earth-like planets are a billion times fainter than the stars they orbit. So you have to, and they're far away so they appear very close to their star. So you have to isolate the planet from the star, blot out the billion times brighter and then smear the feeble reflected light from the exoplanet into a spectrum and look for molecules that indicate life like oxygen, ozone, methane, water vapor and so on. ian (09:26.503) But the molecules you're looking for are always in the atmosphere itself, right? Like you wouldn't, and I understand that, and I think we all do, but, you know, some people listening may not realize that that's, that's what you're looking at. When you're talking about with the spectrum is that makeup of the atmosphere, nothing about like if there's, if it's a rocky planet, what's on the ground, I guess. zack_jackson (09:26.614) Now. chris_impey (09:30.458) there. chris_impey (09:45.358) Right, right. And it's important for people to realize that the characterizing the exoplanets is done in that indirect way. For instance, of those 5,300, only 150 have ever had an image made of them. You know, seeing is believing. It's nice to have images of exoplanets. That's a hard thing. And those images are, you know, they're pathetic, a few pixels. They're just pale blue dots in a far away. So there's no, and if you ask this, ian (10:02.488) Right. zack_jackson (10:03.35) Thank you. Thank you. chris_impey (10:15.678) The question of when will we be able to make an image of an exoplanet to be able to see continents and oceans? The answer is maybe never. The answer is decades or a very long time because it's just too hard to make images that sharp of things that far away, even with space telescopes. So astronomers have to be a little more indirect and the clever method that's on the table now and will be done, James Webb is doing some of this but was never built to do this experiment, it will actually be better done with the huge... set of ground-based telescopes under construction. So the experiment is you use the star to backlight the exoplanet when it crosses in front of it, and the backlit, the light from the star filters through the atmosphere of the exoplanet and imprints absorption from these relevant molecules called biosignatures. So that's the experiment you're doing. And it's still hard. And it's also not clear you'll get an unambiguous answer. You know, obviously, and its cousin ozone are the prime biomarkers because on Earth, the oxygen we breathe, one part and five of our air, was put there by microbes billions of years ago. So the reverse logic is if you see oxygen on an exoplanet or in the atmosphere of an exoplanet, it must have been put there by life because oxygen is so reactive, so volatile that it disappears. If there's not life to sustain it, say the biosphere of the Earth shut down overnight, the entire biosphere just shut down. ian (11:41.803) Thank you. Thank you. chris_impey (11:45.458) just imagine the thought experiment. Within five to seven billion, a million years, so very short time in geological terms, the oxygen, that one part in five we breathe, would be gone. It would rust things, it would dissolve in seawater, it would oxidize with rocks, and it would be gone. So if it were not put there originally by life and then sustained by photosynthesis and other life processes, it would disappear. So the logic, therefore, is if you see it elsewhere, bang, it's got to be microbes putting it there and causing it to be there. ian (12:16.845) Yeah. zack_jackson (12:16.95) Hmm, unless there's some hitherto unknown non-living process by which these things happen. chris_impey (12:24.058) Right. So that's a good point. And there is a debate there because the data that's going to come in, well, first of all, it'll be noisy. It won't be beautiful, perfect spectra. So they'll be ambiguous to interpret. And then when you see it, what is the, where's, does the bar set for being enough? And the geologists have weighed in on this. And so whereas the sort of simplistic view as well, if you see any significant level of oxygen, certainly 18% like on the earth, what's got to be biology. zack_jackson (12:41.694) Yeah. chris_impey (12:54.218) That's pretty much true, but geologists have figured out ways where without biology, just with geochemical reactions, if you conjure up a geochemistry, you can get 6%, 5%, 7% oxygen. That's quite a lot, more than most people would have expected. So the geologists are saying, well, hold on. Yes, a lot of oxygen is probably a biomarker, but you would have to know more about the planet to be sure that it didn't have some weird chemistry and geology going on. for any of the other biomarkers. Methane is a biomarker too because it's produced on earth, you know, mostly by life, a good fraction of that, cow farts I think. But so it's the same argument. So these wonderful and difficult to obtain spectra are going to be, everyone's going to jump all over them and hope they give an unambiguous answer, but they might not. Science is not always as cut and dried as that at the frontier, which is where we are. But it's the zack_jackson (13:34.511) Hmm. Sure. chris_impey (13:53.958) exciting experiment and it will be done fairly soon. ian (13:58.804) Okay. chris_impey (14:01.358) And then a sort of related issue is that it's not just microbes. I mean, that's just looking for life as we know it on the earth. You could also look with the same technique, and this is an interesting possibility, for what are called techno signatures. So biosignatures is just evidence of life, typically microbes, because we think most life in the universe is going to be microbial, even if it's not exactly like our form of biology. But you could also look for things technology like chlorofluorocarbons, which you know, were responsible for almost killing the ozone layer for a few decades until we sort of ruled them out of refrigeration units. And there are other chemicals that are produced by industrial activity in a civilization, which would normally be very trace ingredients in an atmosphere, barely, you know, not present at all really. And if you could detect them in an atmosphere, it would be indirect evidence of a technological or industrial civilization. Realization on that planet and that will be very exciting. So that's the same method being used to ask a very different question But it's a more challenging experiment because these are trace ingredients. I'll give you an example I mean, we're all aware of climate change global warming and we've seen the carbon dioxide content of our atmosphere Increased by 30% roughly in the last few decades. That's quite a lot. It's obviously concerning and we know the implications But if you step back and look at the earth from afar and say, well, shouldn't that just be obvious? Shouldn't some other alien civilization look at the Earth and say, oh, those people are really screwing up. They're killing their atmosphere with climate change and fossil fuel burning? The answer is probably not because carbon dioxide is a trace ingredient of our atmosphere, and 30% increase on a trace ingredient would actually be very hard to detect from a distance. So even that dramatic thing that we are all anxious about on our planet industrial activity and fossil fuels is not dramatically obvious from a distance. So these are quite difficult experiments. The techno-signature experiment is much harder than the biosignature experiment. zack_jackson (16:13.592) Hmm. ian (16:14.165) Interesting. rachael (16:17.101) One of the things that you had said when looking at these exoplanets was, you know, we look at them and we want to see them and what's going on with them. And then you added the line, and of course, detect life. And that's where our conversation has gone for the last couple of minutes. But I'm wondering, you added that phrase that seems to think that finding life is part, entire reason for studying exoplanets. And I'm wondering, A, why you think that? And B, what that says about, you know, making it very narcissistic and Earth-centered, what that says about us. chris_impey (16:54.799) Mm-hmm. chris_impey (17:02.778) Right. Okay. So good question. I can unpack that in parts. I mean, yes, if I were a geologist or a planetary scientist, I'd be just pleased as punch and happy as a pig in a poke to just study exoplanets. That's all that I'm happy. I've got 5300 new, new geological worlds to study. Whereas the solar system only has a handful. Oh, yeah. So depending on your discipline, you might be totally zack_jackson (17:16.049) Hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe rachael (17:19.507) Right! chris_impey (17:32.718) properties. But astrobiology, I mean astrobiology writ large is the study of life in the universe, and the context for that search for life in the universe is the fact that we only know of one example of life, and that's on this planet. And everything in astronomy and the history of astronomy, and the Copernicus onwards, has told us we're not special, has told us there's nothing singular zack_jackson (17:59.891) Thank you. Bye. chris_impey (18:02.718) about our solar system, about our galaxy, or our position in the galaxy, and so on. In space and time, we are not special. And so, you know, for biology to be unique to this planet, when the ingredients are widespread, we've detected carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, the biogenic elements out to distances of 12, 13 billion light years, almost to the birth of the universe. Water is one of the, you might think it's special. Earth is a water world. Well, actually, some of the exoplanets have 10 to 30 times more water. water than the Earth. So it's not, the Earth isn't really a water world even, pale blue dot, it's not that special. And water is one of the most abundant molecules in the universe too. So all the ingredients, the table is set for life in the universe. And as the universe is evolved and is quite old, more and more of those biogenic elements are made by stars and spat out into space to become part of new star systems and planets. And so in an old mature universe with a lot of heavy elements, and with many habitable locations now, we the best guess is 20 billion Earth-like habitable worlds just in our galaxy, then it just, whether or not it's central to astrobiology, it absolutely begs the question, is biology unique to this planet? Because it really shouldn't be statistically. However, logically, you know, to be correct and scientific, it's possible that there were a unique set of accidents and flukes that led to life on Earth, and it is unique. It would still chris_impey (19:33.038) It's historical science to wonder how life on earth developed and nobody's ever built a cell from scratch in the lab people have done various parts of that experiment and They can't connect all the dots, but they've done some very interesting experiments that certainly suggest It's not a fluke that the whole thing happened. You need time. You need the possibilities of Chemicals bumping into each other and getting more complex, but that tends to happen It happens if you do it in a computer it in a lab as well as you can. And so the context of the ingredients for life being so widespread and there not seeming to be any sort of bizarre, flukish occurrence in the development of at least replicating molecules that could store information, if not a full cell, would certainly lead you to anticipate life elsewhere. And then game on, because the big question then is, so there are two almost binary questions you're trying to answer, which is why the field is so exciting. Is there life beyond Earth, yes or no? And then if yes, is it like our life? Is it biology? Because everything on Earth, from a fungal spore to a butterfly to a blue whale, is the same biological experiment. They seem like very diverse things, but that's one genetic code. experiment that led to that diversity after a long time, after four billion years of evolution. And there's no reason to expect, even if the ingredients for life and the basis for biology exist far beyond Earth and in many locations, there's no real reason to expect that it would play out the same way elsewhere. And so that second question, is it like Earth life, is a very big question. rachael (21:27.201) Just as a curiosity, when did, if you know, when did microbes appear on Earth? chris_impey (21:39.158) So the earliest, the indications of life on Earth, the history of that is really tricky, because as you know, the Earth is a restless planet, and we weren't there, it's historical science, and it's possible you may never answer the question, but the big problem is the restless Earth. It's very hard, there's only a handful of places on Earth, Western Australia, Greenland, somewhere in South Africa, where you can find four billion year old rocks. They just don't exist. I mean, everything's been churned by geology and eroded rachael (21:46.661) We weren't there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. rachael (21:56.104) Right. chris_impey (22:09.338) Weathered and so on so just even and that's about when we think life started So you're dealing with you know a crime scene where the evidence has been trampled many times and the crowds have just Obliterated the evidence so that's a hard thing and then the second hard thing is that the incipient Traces of life as you get to cells are very indirect They're sort of just you they're biochemical tracers or sorry there. They're chemical imbalances isotopic imbalances of versus normal carbon and so on. Because you're not looking for fully fossilized cells. So if you're just looking at what would be called chemical tracers of life, they're pretty good, but argumentative, this field is not resolved, traces that go back about 3.8 billion years. If you're asking when do you have the first fossil life forms, fossilized microbes, single cells, rachael (23:00.421) Okay. chris_impey (23:09.238) to 3.4, 3.5 billion years, and that's people then stop arguing about it. I think they believe that evidence. And then there's this enormous long time between that and multi-celled organisms. That step in the evolution of life seems to have taken a long time. You could infer that that means it's difficult or doesn't happen very often, but that's a dangerous inference from data of one. All the inferences, hazardous. So astrobiologists have to keep pinching themselves and saying, it's a sample of one. It's a sample of one. rachael (23:30.921) Thank you. Thank you. zack_jackson (23:32.75) Thank you. Bye. rachael (23:39.721) One does not make a line. One day to... That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. chris_impey (23:41.139) Don't draw too many conclusions. So, yeah, the cell formation, the evolution of the first cells and microbes seem to have taken 300 or 400 million years from the first chemical traces of life. But those chemical traces, we don't know. There's that Zircon that was found in Western Australia, 4.404 billion years accurately measured by radioactive dating. chris_impey (24:09.378) environment and so there's evidence really soon after the earth formed when it was just a hellhole of a place you know impacts and craters and geological activity that the earth surface was almost tacky like magma and yet there were there were any ingredients for life there so nobody would rule out life going back very close to the formation of the earth but then but tracing all these evolutionary paths is really hard I mean we have stromatolites which are modern descendants of the first microbial colonies. You can go to Western Australia, Shark's Bay, I've been there and it's great, they're stromatolites. These were just the same as they were now three billion years ago, it's really cool. One of the things you can't see behind me is my stromatolite collection. rachael (24:53.985) Yeah. rachael (24:59.962) One of the reasons, yeah, that's fascinating. It makes a collector about that. It makes a collector. Um. Yeah. zack_jackson (25:00.071) kind of a few collections chris_impey (25:01.578) Yeah. Oh, well, three. Does that make a collection? ian (25:05.749) It's good enough. chris_impey (25:07.958) Well, yes. It's like primitive counting systems, one, two, many. So I have many. I have many. I have many. I have many. I have many. I have many. I have many. I have many. I have many. I have many. I have many. I have many. I have many. I have many. I have many. I have many. I have many. I have many. I have many. I have many. I have many. I have many. I have many. I have many. rachael (25:13.941) That's right. zack_jackson (25:15.016) Ha! rachael (25:19.021) One of the reasons I was asking that question about Earth, because you were talking about these very far away planets and looking for microbial, likely microbial life, then showing up in the atmosphere by its various products. And so my question was stemming from how far back are these planets that we're looking at? a really long time to create its microbes, then perhaps, since we're looking so far back in time, that maybe those microbes exist now, but when we're looking at them, they didn't exist. Right, that lovely time, space question. chris_impey (25:51.579) Mm-hmm. chris_impey (26:02.098) Right. So in that context, it's important to say that the exoplanets we're finding are in our backyard. So Kepler, NASA's Kepler mission is really responsible for almost half the exoplanets, even though it stopped operating a few years ago. And so the most exoplanets we know of are within 100 to 1,000 light years. And that's our backyard. The Milky Way is 100,000 light years across. rachael (26:12.785) Okay. rachael (26:28.064) Oh, close. Yeah. chris_impey (26:32.398) And of course, logically, therefore, we're only seeing them as they were a century or millennium ago, which is no time geologically. So we can't see that far back. So we're not really looking at ancient history. However, the more important point, having mentioned that carbon nitrogen, oxygen, and water have been around in the universe for a long time, is that we now can very confidently say, even if we can't locate such objects, that an earth clone, rachael (26:32.606) Okay. rachael (26:38.901) Yeah, it's no time at all. Yeah. chris_impey (27:02.098) something as close to Earth as you could imagine, could have been created within a billion years of the Big Bang. And that's seven billion years before the Earth formed. So there are potential biological experiments out there that have a seven billion year head start on us and then add the four billion four and a half billion years of evolution. And that's boggling because you know, we can't imagine what evolution and biology might come up with given 10 or 12 billion years to evolve rather zack_jackson (27:11.75) Hmm. chris_impey (27:31.958) Maybe it makes no difference at all. Maybe these things are slow and they're hard and the Earth was actually one of the fastest kids on the block rather than one of the slowest kids on the block. We don't know. Sample of one again. We'll just put that as a big asterisk over almost everything I say so I don't have to keep saying sample of one. Okay. zack_jackson (27:32.014) Hmm. rachael (27:41.861) Simple of one. zack_jackson (27:42.808) Yeah. zack_jackson (27:48.834) No. rachael (27:49.221) That'll just be today's episode title, right? Today's sample of one. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. chris_impey (27:51.14) Yeah, right. zack_jackson (27:52.65) That's Apple F1. chris_impey (27:55.038) Yeah, induction is a bitch when you can't do it. zack_jackson (27:55.492) So. zack_jackson (28:02.51) So we've talked a lot about the how it's possible, how we might detect it, but what do you think it might do to our sense of self and our sense of spirituality, our sense of humanity, our sense of earth? Should we start discovering life outside of, or at least biological markers in other places? chris_impey (28:28.898) Right. I mean, I think it sort of bifurcates if we find microbial life elsewhere and improve it, you know, it's beyond a reasonable doubt. And even if we don't know if it's our biology or not, it's just a biomarker that's irrefutable or set of biomarkers. That will be a transformative, epochal event in the history of science. It'll be dramatic. But it will make front page headlines and then fade, I would say, fairly rapidly, because it's microbes. zack_jackson (28:44.618) Mm-hmm. chris_impey (28:58.858) Like, that's Ponskum or stuff on your shower curtain, like, okay, who cares? So, I mean being facetious, but not too facetious, because I think the public will just be interested and science interested people will be very interested, and books will be written, and documentaries will be made, and so on. But in the public consciousness, I don't think it will permeate very far or persist very long. Of course, the counterpoint of if we decide we found intelligent life in the universe through those techno markers. zack_jackson (29:03.391) Ha ha ha. chris_impey (29:28.978) you know, the search for artificial radio or optical signals from some civilization. So they're obviously artificial and they couldn't have been produced by nature. That will be more profound, of course, because that's companionship in the universe. And that will raise all sorts of questions. So I think it really divides that way. And since the universe logically, if life exists in the universe elsewhere, there'll be many more microbes than intelligent civilizations. You know. ian (29:29.523) Mm-hmm. chris_impey (29:58.858) seed in that first mode. Although SETI is a side bet. I mean SETI for 65 years has been placing this little side bet. Okay, yeah, we can look for microbes and those are hard experiments and now we can almost do it. But let's always place this side bet of jumping over the evolutionary path from microbes to men or humans and look for those intelligent technological civilizations directly. And so it's worth doing. I'm not science scientists are divided on SETI, even astronomers are divided on it, whether it's a worthwhile pursuit or not, whether it's even scientific or not. That's the strongest critique of SETI is that unlike, you know, if I wanted to go to the National Science Foundation and get a million dollar grant to study some issue of, you know, solid state physics or high energy physics, I'd have to propose an experiment and define my parameters and how I was going to control variables and say how I would interpret the data. could refute or confirm. SETI doesn't have that kind of situation. They don't know how to define success or failure even. Well, they can define success more or less, but they can't define failure and they can't say what the probability of success is. So it's not a normal scientific pursuit. So that's the critique of SETI from scientists, but I still think it's worth doing. ian (31:04.946) Right. ian (31:23.628) Yeah. rachael (31:24.842) You talked about, and I think you're probably right in terms of how much people will care in the long run or in their day-to-day life or, right? Okay, so we found some microbes from, you know, a thousand light years away. I don't, that didn't reduce my student loan at all. But like, didn't, thank you. It's nice, saw the headlines. It's now three years later. chris_impey (31:45.018) Right. rachael (31:54.441) But I've noticed that you did a lot of work with the Vatican and with monks, and I think that that's a different population that might respond to and other religious figures, but specifically those I'm asking you because those are the groups that you've worked with. They might respond a little bit differently to this existence. Could you speak a little bit ian (32:01.35) Yeah chris_impey (32:16.803) Right. rachael (32:23.726) in this idea of how it would change. chris_impey (32:25.658) Sure. And maybe preface it with just the cultural comment, with independent religion, that the other issue that will arise with, I mean, if microbial life is found elsewhere and astrobiology is a real field with the subject matter, finally, yeah, it's foundational for science. And of course, it terraforms biology because, you know, if you want to poke, if physicists want to poke at biologists who say, well, you just spent your whole life studying one form of biology, What about all the other forms? You don't have a general theory of biology like we have a standard model of particle physics because you've just been studying one thing like staring at your navel. Well, what about all that stuff out there? Okay, so so it'll be a big deal for biology for all of science but on the intelligent life or advanced life, the problem with what happens outside the scientific community is it's not a tabula rasa. It's not a blank slate. The popular culture, especially in the US ian (32:59.524) Hmm. ian (33:08.503) Thank you. Bye. chris_impey (33:25.718) but almost everywhere now, is so primed for the fact that, A, it's already there and sure, and B, it's visited, and three, it's abducted some of our people, and four, it can make a list of all the conspiracy theories and wild ideas about alien life. And they're just so embedded in the popular culture that it's like that the fact of the existence of intelligent aliens has been amortized. It's sort of been, it's just already been built in. zack_jackson (33:39.8) Thank you. chris_impey (33:55.698) in to the culture. And so, you know, that would lead to a collective shrug. Well, sure, we knew that, you know, the government's been hiding this stuff from us for 70 years, since Roswell. So, you know, and now your astronomers are coming along and telling us, oh, it exists and you're all excited, really? Oh, come on, you know. So I think that's the larger cultural issue or problem or whatever, it's not a problem, it's just amusing to me. But as far as a religious reaction to this, and I'll say, zack_jackson (34:02.271) Hmm. rachael (34:04.421) Thank you. Bye. zack_jackson (34:05.05) Thank you. Bye. zack_jackson (34:12.722) Ha! chris_impey (34:25.698) the gate that I'm an agnostic, which my wife's a pretty hardcore atheist. And so she gives me a hard time about being agnostic. She thinks that's a kind of, it's a kind of wussy position to take. But I, and I argue with her, we argue vigorously about that one. I argue with her and I use the phrase that was attributed to Feynman. And I think he did say this in the biography of Richard Feynman, famous physicist. His biographer said, zack_jackson (34:43.45) Fantastic. chris_impey (34:55.738) Feynman believed in the primacy of doubt and that he held as a high scientific mark and doubt skepticism and doubt is a is a very high mark of a scientist. So I'm proud to wear that mantle of skepticism doubt of not being sure and being okay with not being sure. So I'm an agnostic but I do keep bad company and some of that bad company is Jesuits. Don't you know, don't don't go drinking with Jesuits. You'll you'll you'll end up in a rachael (34:59.461) Thank you. Bye. ian (35:13.024) Right. zack_jackson (35:14.092) Yeah. chris_impey (35:25.798) and a Rome gutter somewhere and they'll be they'll have got back home safely. With the Buddhists, the other group I hang out with, you don't have to worry about being drunk in a gutter because they really don't drink. They do bend the rules a bit, you know, I've seen them eat a lot of meat for people who are supposed to be vegans and vegetarians. But anyway, those are the two tribes that I've sort of affiliated myself with. And their reactions or perspectives on life in the universe is are quite different. They're interesting. Each the Buddhists that I've been with and I've read behind this of course and read some of their More you know the scholarly articles written about this It is completely unexceptional in their tradition to contemplate a universe filled with life That could be more advanced It could be human like or it could be more advanced or different from humans in also a vast universe with cycles of time and birth and and death of the universe and rebirth of other universes. So the Byzantine possibilities of life in the universe are pretty standard stuff for them and would not surprise them at all. They do get into more tricky issues when they come to define life itself, which biologists of course have trouble with, or sentience, which is also a tricky issue. But on the larger issue of the existence of life in the universe far beyond Earth, that's just non-controversial. zack_jackson (36:48.35) Hmm. chris_impey (36:55.898) to them and when I say that's what we anticipate and that's what scientists expect it's like okay sure and the Jesuits are in a different slightly different space they're of course in an unusual space as we know within the Catholic Church because they're you know they're the scholarly branch you know they're they're devoted to scholarship they from Gregory and the calendar reform they were liberated to measure ian (37:17.944) Mm-hmm. chris_impey (37:25.678) the heavens and then eventually that just segwayed smoothly into doing astronomy research. The Jesuits have been doing pretty straight up astronomical research since certainly the early 19th century, so quite a long time. And they have that sort of intellectual independence of being able to pursue those ideas. All the Jesuit astronomers I know, there are I think 11 or 12 in the Vatican Observatory and they all live the double life. They're all PhD astronomers. rachael (37:37.221) Thank you. chris_impey (37:55.798) with parishes. So it's not a problem. Whoever else, whoever elsewhere might think there's a conflict between science and religion, they don't see it. They don't feel it. And if you ask... Yeah. Yeah. ian (38:05.145) Mm-hmm. zack_jackson (38:06.03) No. And if anyone out there wants to hear more about that, they can listen to episode episode 113 with brother guy, the, uh, the director. Yeah. ian (38:10.246) We have an episode. chris_impey (38:13.821) Right. ian (38:15.343) Director of the Vatican Observatory. chris_impey (38:16.418) Sure, sure. So I've known guys since, well, since he was a grad student actually, and a long time. And yes, and so they, they're pursuing it from a scholarly direction. And for them, it's also uncontroversial that there would be life elsewhere. Now, what is the, you know, what does that do to God's creation when you imagine that Earth and humans are no longer the centerpiece of it? That's a more interesting question. zack_jackson (38:22.034) Wow. chris_impey (38:46.298) I've had debates about that. And I heard Jose Funes, who was the previous director of the Vatican Observatory and Argentinian astronomer, in a press conference actually in the Vatican City State when we had a conference on astrobiology. In response to a question about astrobiology, because that was what the conference was about, he gave a very interesting answer. He said he gave a parable of Christ in the flock of sheep and how there was the sheep that was lost. you know, you had to gather back to the rest of the flock. And he didn't complete the story, he just left it hanging there. And so you were left wondering, are we the lost sheep, you know, and the other, and all the intelligent aliens out there are the rest of the flock? And what's the message, you know? So he sort of almost muddied the waters with his little parable. But in the manner of how they view the universe, zack_jackson (39:27.914) Hmm. rachael (39:28.621) Thank you. Bye. zack_jackson (39:33.792) Hmm. chris_impey (39:46.398) the rules of physics. I used to teach a team graduate cosmology with Bill Staker, who is one of their tribe. Sadly, he died a few years ago. We teach cosmology and he's a relativist. He works on general relativity and the Big Bang and all that. And if I was just wanting to pull his leg at breakfast, we had breakfast before we taught us to organize ourselves. I could do one of two things. I could say, oh, Bill, physics, we got you with physics. is squeezed back to the first 10 to the minus 43 seconds. Got to the gaps, there it is, that's a little gap. And then physics owns the rest, you know. And then if I was really feeling frisky, I'd sort of, since he was a Catholic, I'd tease him about the three impossible things he has to believe every morning before breakfast. Virgin birth, resurrection, et cetera, you know. So I don't know how all those circles are squared truly because we've had, you know, I've had conversations. zack_jackson (40:22.572) Hmm. zack_jackson (40:26.32) Hehehehehe zack_jackson (40:35.05) Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. chris_impey (40:46.798) But I know that it's not a conflict or a tension or even a problem to imagine life in the universe and even intelligent life. So for neither of those two very different religious tribes, does it seem to be an issue? ian (41:06.443) So can you talk more about, especially how you got involved? Cause I think that science for the monks and nuns program was really interesting. And, you know, one, how you got involved, but you know, reading your book Humble Before the Void was just very interesting to kind of see about your experience from there. And you told us before we started recording that you wrote that after your first time going and that you've been there eight or nine times now. What has all of this been like for you? How has it had an impact on your work and also your personal life? if yes and what ways. chris_impey (41:38.798) Yeah, it was a sort of profound, it's been a profound experience since 2008, I guess, so it's almost 15 years and eight trips. So the first time was one of those great things of you come across the transom professionally. Sometimes I got a call from a colleague that I didn't know that well, who he knew I had an education, a good reputation as an educator. And he just called me, he's a postdoc at Berkeley actually, an environmental science postdoc. He said, how'd you like to go and teach the Dalai Lama's monks cosmology? And it's not a question you ruminate over or look at your skit, look at, oh, I'll check my calendar. Let me get back to you. No, you just say yes, and then you make it happen. So I said yes, and then it happened. And I was savvy enough in hindsight to take my 17-year-old Paul with me on that trip. And he'd never been anywhere out, he'd been to Europe a couple of times, but he'd never been to Asia or anywhere exotic. zack_jackson (42:14.65) Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha rachael (42:17.821) Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha zack_jackson (42:23.05) Thank you. Bye. chris_impey (42:38.738) if you like. And so that was a profound trip in that sense. It was a bonding with your 17-year-old and you know, we were a little more adventurous together than either of us might have been on our own. And so the context was that invitation. And then I learned that his holiness the Dalai Lama, who famously has said in his autobiography that if he hadn't been selected at age four to be the of compassion would have been an engineer. Fine, that's an interesting statement to make. But, and it meant that when he was a child in Eastern Tibet, in a pretty primitive village, you know, he would just infuriate his parents by taking apart their clocks and mechanical devices and never quite putting them together again. So he had this analytic and mechanical and engineering and scientific mindset even as a child. And then of course his future was cast into the role he had zack_jackson (43:11.134) Hmm. zack_jackson (43:25.992) Hmm. chris_impey (43:38.798) he took. But he's always had that strong interest in science. So he looked around 20 or so years ago and realized that the monastic tradition, his, the Gelug tradition, of course, or other traditions in Buddhism, was sort of outdated. You know, the monastic training was extremely rigorous. They take years and years of rhetoric and philosophy and theology and comparative religion and all sorts of things. But there's very little science, very little math. And in the schools, there's zack_jackson (43:39.972) Bye. chris_impey (44:08.718) very little science and very little math. And he just thought that was unacceptable. He said, my monks and nuns, the nun part actually did come later. And that was a good part of his work to make the level of playing field for monastic training to include nuns. But he just said, these my monastics cannot be prepared for life in the 21st century if they don't have science and math. And so in the manner that he does these things, he just looked around and waved his arm and said, make this happen, you know, and I've now zack_jackson (44:19.05) Thank you. Thank you. zack_jackson (44:30.035) Yeah. zack_jackson (44:37.45) Hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe chris_impey (44:38.798) heard from proximity to people in his orbit that his holiness, the Dalai Lama says a lot of things. He has great ideas. He's very activist. He's very visionary. And he says all sorts of things. And people scurry around and sometimes they just ignore him. Sometimes nothing happens. But this one, they decided to make it happen. And what happened was they looked around Dharamsala chris_impey (45:08.658) the blue, who was an educator and a scientist, a young scientist. And they just glommed on to him and they said, Hey, can you help us with this? Can you set something up? And so he set up the science for monks program, then science for monks and nuns. When the nuns came on board and I was one of the early people he called. And so the model was to bring three to four Western teachers in different subjects. The Dalai Lama's core interest. it doesn't mirror a bit his interests, which are evolutionary biology, neuroscience, physics, math, and then environmental sciences come on board too. So it's not every field of science. So these, we would come out as Western teachers and there'd be cohorts of monks and then monks and nuns, about 24 in a group. And we do three week intensive workshops and they're very intense, you know, we're in the classroom six, seven hours a day and then our evening sessions or observing zack_jackson (45:50.671) Hmm. chris_impey (46:08.658) telescopes. So it's kind of grueling actually, but it's inspiring as well. And eventually, the idea is that enough of the monks and nuns will be trained to be educators themselves, and you won't need to depend on Westerners to come out and do this. And they're not really there yet, but they could get there. I don't want them to get there, because then I won't get invited out. So it was a singular experience. And the book I wrote, of course, was fresh, zack_jackson (46:24.494) Hmm. chris_impey (46:38.738) I was really, I wrote it not long after the first trip. And to your question of did it affect me or change me? Well, yes, in many ways, some of which I probably haven't fully appreciated. I mean, first of all, it was a deep embedding in a culture, in a way that I'd never done. I was pretty experienced world traveler, but in that sort of slightly superficial way of someone who goes to Asia and tries to hang out and go to a bar in a local restaurant and see the sights, but you don't really get to know the people ian (47:05.228) Mm-hmm chris_impey (47:08.838) you're moving around. So being three weeks, sometimes four weeks, and then traveling with them afterwards or during, you know, really you get to learn the culture. You also see in these northern Indian towns, most of the workshops are in northern India, there's now in southern India, Bidtabhatta, Nepal for this too. They're mixing very well. India has a, you know, kind of black mark on it right now with its current government of sort of sectarian strife and Most recently with the Sikhs, but also obviously with Muslims But in those little northern Indian villages where there are sometimes 50 percent Buddhist 50 percent Hindus They really get on pretty well. I mean that they're just they're sort of under the radar the geopolitics or the What the Modi government is doing at the time so? It works pretty well, and it's nice to see that So I learned that I saw the culture up close. I would be part of their rituals and go, you know and ian (47:50.666) Mm-hmm. chris_impey (48:08.758) see everything they saw and listen to their prayers and talk to their scholars. And so it was a pretty deep embedding. And then as far as my own life, when I come back, rather than just view it as, you know, amazing experience, I got some beautiful photos. I had these great memories. Um, it did sort of make me reflect a little, uh, because of their, the ethos they had. And their ethos is, is of course very, um, very different from most of a Western ethos. It's a Buddhist are all about compassion and suffering, suffering and compassion. They do go together. They're almost bedfellows. So I got the message, I think very early on, when I was walking towards the lecture hall and it was at one of these Tibetan children villages and they're very poignant places. They're about 11 or maybe now 14 Tibetan children villages in the northern part of India. And that's where the refugees go. ian (48:46.008) Mm-hmm. chris_impey (49:09.158) that escaped. So almost all the monks in my early workshops left Tibet when they were teenagers even younger, brought across the ice fields by family members at great risk. Some didn't make it, others lost toes and fingers from frostbite. They had to go in the winter because the Chinese troops would intercept them and even even then did in the winter. So they were orphans, And they grow up and go to these Tibetan children villages, sort of orphanages, really. And so I was walking towards the lecture hall, which is situated in one of these villages. And there was a hard, scrabble, packed dirt soccer pitch. You know, it looked really uncomfortable for falling. I am enough of a Brit to have experienced playing football soccer on really nice grass, because England does have good grass, you know. And I was thinking, the first thing I thought, damn, I don't want to play football. rachael (50:04.321) Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ian (50:04.525) Right. zack_jackson (50:05.412) Hmm chris_impey (50:08.918) on that field. That would be brutal. So there was this football field and there was a 10-foot wall behind it running the length of the football field, painted white, and on top of it in 10-foot high letters was a slogan of the school, others before self. And I was just thinking, I wonder how many American high schools would have that as their slogan. How would that go down with the, you know, social media, me generation, whatever. rachael (50:10.621) Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ian (50:31.167) Right. rachael (50:31.321) Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha zack_jackson (50:32.25) Hmm ian (50:34.845) Yeah. chris_impey (50:38.918) So that was one thing. And then a series of those little messages sort of sink in about how they do operate differently from us or me. And so one thing it made me reflect on when I went back home was I immediately embedded back in my academic life and hustling the next grant and writing the next paper and talking to my collaborators. And I just realized how really how intensely pressured. rachael (50:40.763) Wow. chris_impey (51:08.658) Darwinian that science, Western science system is, it's kind of, you know, it kind of grinds you down. I mean, I've been hustling for grants from funding agencies for 40 years and I kind of burned out on it, you know, it's hard. It doesn't get any easier because there's younger whippersnappers that are very smart and, you know, they're going to get your grant. So it definitely made me reflect on the sort of hyper competitive nature of some parts of zack_jackson (51:21.042) Hmm. ian (51:21.047) Mm-hmm. rachael (51:28.721) Thank you. Bye. chris_impey (51:39.719) and just reflect on what is important. Is it important to know something, or to teach something, or to give something, or to what is important? And how does that work when you're a scientist and educator? And that's it. Thank you for watching. I hope you enjoyed this video. I'll see you in the next one. Bye. ian (51:56.043) Yeah. Well, it's just interesting reading the book and I told you before we're recording. I've not been on to finish it yet, but I look forward to finish it just because, you know, one, you know, as I've already said, you're a fantastic writer for the lay audience, the general public, which is not something, you know, I've, I've worked with many scientists as a science educator and many of the ones I've worked with have said they struggle with that. Right. So I always applaud that. Um, but then just the, the personal experiences you shared and. chris_impey (51:59.833) I'm ian (52:26.163) humble before the void was just very interesting to me, especially someone who I have embraced meditation and mindfulness over the past three or four years and gotten really into it. And so, you know, first when I, when you shared that book with us and saw that the Dalai Lama wrote, you know, the preface for it and everything, I just was immediately fascinated because I find him to be absolutely fascinating in his perspective on things. So chris_impey (52:47.298) Yeah, I mean, I was, I mean, I've been privileged to meet him a couple of times. And, uh, and it's always, uh, a singular experience. Uh, the first time was that first trip out actually. And, and it was in that same Tibetan children village. And that was, this was in the winter. I was a January is a very, um, very difficult time to be there. It's in the foothills of the Himalayas. Quite high up. Dharamsala has trivial factoid that a Brit will appreciate like me. Um, It has the world's highest cricket stadium. And so drum solo, there you go. Now you know, when you get asked that, now you know. So we were in this auditorium, this cold auditorium, very cold, and they'd given the Westerners blankets, put over their legs, and even a few little heaters around. But it was brutal. And he was going to give an opening address. And everyone was full of excitement and anticipation. It was probably 2,000 people. But it was a cold, it was an unadorned Spartan auditorium ian (53:20.331) Oh. zack_jackson (53:20.594) Hmm. Ha ha ha. ian (53:25.403) Exactly. zack_jackson (53:34.892) Hmm. chris_impey (53:47.498) on a below freezing day in the Himalayas. And along that football field outside, which is the way his little, he has the equivalent of a pokemobile, he has the DL mobile or whatever that he comes into a place with, that he was gonna come along the edge of the field. And I'd seen walking in that the school children were starting to assemble in a long row along the side of the football field along the place his vehicle would come. And we were waiting zack_jackson (54:01.775) Thank you. Bye. chris_impey (54:17.258) He was late and it was so cold and it was quiet. People were murmuring, nothing was happening. And then suddenly we heard this sound, this wave of singing. So they were singing him in as his vehicle arrived. And I was like, wow, that was so cool. Just the sound of that. And then he came and he just radiates when he's in a room. And he's a little frail. He had trouble getting up the three steps onto the stage. But his grin is just... Oh, it's just... anyone who remelt the hardest heart. He's just so... and his comments are always, you know, they're always kind of offhand and insightful and, you know, he has a very interesting and sensibility. So that's been a remarkable thing. But the monks all had their own insights and I learned a lot from them. I mean, I was teaching them but I was learning a lot from them. And they gave me, you know, when you teach, well, the other thing I didn't say about the ian (55:12.667) Mm-hmm. chris_impey (55:17.418) experience there, which was also restorative for me, is, you know, I depend on my high tech gadgets and my PowerPoints and my whatever. And I was pretty much warned. I said, you're going to be pretty much off the grid. And it was almost like that. And there were a couple of workshops where, you know, if the cold water, if the water was hot, you were lucky. If the power stayed on all day in the classroom, you were lucky. There was hardly any equipment. We make these, these runs rachael (55:25.325) Hmm. chris_impey (55:47.278) These equipment runs down to the local bazaar, and we buy matchsticks and cloth and cardboard and foil and just super primitive ingredients to make experiments back in the classroom, rather than bring stuff out from the West. So you had to improvise, and it was good to do that. It was good to have to lecture and talk and use simple analogies and simple equipment. And so they informed me about that, too, because I wondered how they understood zack_jackson (56:02.75) Thank you. Bye. chris_impey (56:17.278) these very abstract things of physics and cosmology. And I think the first striking little insight I had, because I was always reaching for a good analogy. And then, so I sort of turned the tab

I feel like something bad is going to happen to me. Join Reneé, John Paul, and Travis as they discuss Joel Anderson's 2008 psychological horror film "Lake Mungo."   Please consider supporting the show on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thepodmortem    Pod Mortem would like to thank Original CINematic for sponsoring this week's episode! https://www.ogcinpro.com/  Feel free to contact: William Rush: wrush@ogcinpro.com Xxena Rush: xrush@ogcinpro.com    Where to listen to the podcast and follow us on social media: https://allmylinks.com/thepodmortem   Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thepodmortem https://twitter.com/bloodandsmoke https://twitter.com/realstreeter84 https://twitter.com/travismwh   What would you rate Lake Mungo and what should we watch next? Email us at thepodmortem@gmail.com    "Pod Mortem Theme" written and performed by Travis Hunter. https://youtube.com/travismwh

Change Your Perspective, Change The World. Have you ever struggled to see the world from someone else's viewpoint? Have you considered the possibility of changing your current perspective? True and lasting change often demands a shift in our position. Our position significantly influences our perception. By starting with the end in mind and cultivating empathy—immersing ourselves in another person's experience—we alter our frame of reference for those challenging situations. Changing our position inherently transforms our perspective. In the hustle and bustle of life, it's easy to overlook the gradual fading of our awareness and presence. This numbness to life's realities can hinder our ability to connect with others. Mr. Black is in the studio with a recent graduate of his Leadership Awakening program, John Paul, who hails from Uganda. Having endured considerable pain and hardship from a young age, John Paul shares his experiences, shedding light on the coping mechanisms developed during childhood and their lasting impact on adulthood. Join the conversation into the profound effects of changing one's position, fostering empathy, and awakening leadership qualities. Be sure to Like and Follow us on our facebook page. Get daily inspiration from our blog www.wayofwarrior.blog. Learn about our non profit work at www.likeitmatters.net/nonprofit. Check out our website www.LikeItMatters.Net. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

They will make cemeteries their cathedrals...and tombs, your cities! Join Reneé, John Paul, and Travis as they discuss Lamberto Bava's 1985 supernatural horror film "Demons."   Please consider supporting the show on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thepodmortem    Pod Mortem would like to thank Original CINematic for sponsoring this week's episode! https://www.ogcinpro.com/  Feel free to contact: William Rush: wrush@ogcinpro.com Xxena Rush: xrush@ogcinpro.com    Where to listen to the podcast and follow us on social media: https://allmylinks.com/thepodmortem   Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thepodmortem https://twitter.com/bloodandsmoke https://twitter.com/realstreeter84 https://twitter.com/travismwh   What would you rate Demons and what should we watch next? Email us at thepodmortem@gmail.com    "Pod Mortem Theme" written and performed by Travis Hunter. https://youtube.com/travismwh

John & Paul genieten van reviaanse poëzie, politieke fitness en héél veel dieren. Van nijlpaard tot pinguïn en van babytapir tot capibara. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/john--paul-hebben-woorden/message

Even though I'm no better than a beast...don't I have the right to live? Join Reneé, John Paul, and Travis as they discuss Park Chan-wook's 2003 action thriller "Oldboy."   Please consider supporting the show on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thepodmortem    Pod Mortem would like to thank Original CINematic for sponsoring this week's episode! https://www.ogcinpro.com/  Feel free to contact: William Rush: wrush@ogcinpro.com Xxena Rush: xrush@ogcinpro.com    Where to listen to the podcast and follow us on social media: https://allmylinks.com/thepodmortem   Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thepodmortem https://twitter.com/bloodandsmoke https://twitter.com/realstreeter84 https://twitter.com/travismwh   What would you rate Oldboy and what should we watch next? Email us at thepodmortem@gmail.com    "Pod Mortem Theme" written and performed by Travis Hunter. https://youtube.com/travismwh

John & Paul bestuderen de concurrentie, werken aan een Zweedse woordenlijst (the making of), praten over verkiezingsretoriek, (te) lange bioscoopfilms, gratis boeken en nog maar eens over het kerstwalhalla. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/john--paul-hebben-woorden/message

This episode navigates this question using an associative method which links stories and sounds, forming a non-linear audio collage. Listeners are invited to tune in to their affective and embodied responses to end time stories including Lulu Miller's podcast and Kiyoshi Kurosawa's horror film, and stories of endurance, with Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner's poem and Tanya Tagaq's audiobook.Nadège Paquette (she/they) is a white settler living in Tiotià:ke/Montréal, on the lands and waters of the Kanien'kehá:ka Nation, where they are completing a master's degree in English Literature at Concordia University. Their research interests aggregate around the relationship between human and nonhuman forms of life and nonlife. They are drawn to narratives of the future extrapolating present troubles and delving into already-existing Indigenous, decolonial, queer, and non-anthropocentric alternatives to a colonial and capitalist world. For them, some of those alternative worlds take the form of collective gardens where they love to work with plants, soil, water, animal, and human neighbors.*Show NotesMusic:Tom Bonheur https://www.instagram.com/dj.g3ntil/Kovd, Kvelden, Tell What You Know, Ivory Pillow, and Fever Creep by Blue Dot Sessions https://app.sessions.blue/Podcast:“The Wordless Place” Lulu Miller https://radiolab.org/podcast/wordless-place“Why Podcast?” Hannah McGregor and Stacey Copeland https://kairos.technorhetoric.net/27.1/topoi/mcgregor-copeland/index.htmlShort Film:Anointed, Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner and Dan Lin https://www.kathyjetnilkijiner.com/videos-featuring-kathy/Film:Pulse, Kiyoshi KurosawaAdditional sounds from:“Interview with Tanya Tagaq,” Alicia Atout https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FupatQbcTeM“Open Dialogues: Daniel Heath Justice,” Centre for Teaching, Learning, and Technology https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrBN8_IGuuw“Monster 怪物,” United for Peace Film Festival https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8OJulGi1Rg*Works CitedBouich, Abdenour. 2021. “Coeval Worlds, Alter/Native Words.” Transmotion 7 (2). https://doi.org/10.22024/UniKent/03/tm.980.Butler, Judith. 2003. “Violence, Mourning, Politics.” Studies in Gender and Sexuality 4 (1): 9–37. https://doi.org/10.1080/15240650409349213.Chion, Michel. 2017. L'audio-Vision : Son et Image Au Cinéma. 4th Edition. Armand Colin.Copeland, Stacey, and Hannah McGregor. 2022. Why Podcast?: Podcasting as Publishing, Sound-Based Scholarship, and Making Podcasts Count. Vol. 27, no. 1. Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy. https://kairos.technorhetoric.net/27.1/topoi/mcgregor-copeland/index.html.Eidsheim, Nina Sun. 2019. “Introduction: The Acousmatic Question: Who Is This?” In The Race of Sound, 1–38. Listening, Timbre, and Vocality in African American Music. Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv11hpntq.4.Goodman, Steve. 2010. Sonic Warfare: Sound, Affect, and the Ecology of Fear. Technologies of lived abstraction. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. http://bvbr.bib-bvb.de:8991/F?func=service&doc_library=BVB01&doc_number=018751433&line_number=0001&func_code=DB_RECORDS&service_type=MEDIA.Haraway, Donna J. 2016. Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. North Carolina, United States: Duke University Press.Hudson, Seán. 2018. “A Queer Aesthetic: Identity in Kurosawa Kiyoshi's Horror Films.” Film-Philosophy 22 (3): 448–64. https://doi.org/10.3366/film.2018.0089.JLiat. 1954. Bravo. Found Sounds. Bikini Atoll. http://jliat.com/.Justice, Daniel Heath. 2018. Why Indigenous Literatures Matter. Wilfrid Laurier University Press.Kurosawa, Kiyoshi, dir. 2001. Pulse. Toho Co., Ltd.Lamb, David Michael. 2015. “Clyde River, Nunavut, Takes on Oil Indsutry over Seismic Testing.” CBC. March 30, 2015. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/clyde-river-nunavut-takes-on-oil-industry-over-seismic-testing-1.3014742.Lin, Dan, and Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, dirs. 2018. Anointed. Pacific Storytellers Cooperative. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEVpExaY2Fs.Madwar, Samia. 2016. “Breaking The Silence.” Text/html. Up Here Publishing. uphere. Https://uphere.ca/articles/breaking-silence. 2016. https://uphere.ca/articles/breaking-silence.Miller, Lulu. 2022. “The Wordless Place.” Radiolab. https://radiolab.org/episodes/wordless-place.Morton, Timothy. 2013. Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World. Posthumanities 27. Minneapolis (Minn.): University of Minnesota Press.Raza Kolb, Anjuli Fatima. 2022. “Meta-Dracula: Contagion and the Colonial Gothic.” Journal of Victorian Culture 27 (2): 292–301. https://doi.org/10.1093/jvcult/vcac017.Robinson, Dylan. 2020. Hungry Listening: Resonant Theory for Indigenous Sound Studies. 1 online resource (319 pages) : illustrations vols. Indigenous Americas. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. http://public.eblib.com/choice/PublicFullRecord.aspx?p=6152353.Sontag, Susan. 1966. Against Interpretation and Other Essays. London: Penguin Classics.Tagaq, Tanya. Split Tooth. Viking, Penguin Random House, 2018.Tasker, John Paul. 2017. “Supreme Court Quashes Plans for Seismic Testing in Nunavut, but Gives Green Light to Enbridge Pipeline.” CBC. July 26, 2017. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/supreme-court-ruling-indigenous-rights-1.4221698.Yamada, Marc. 2020. “Visualizing a post-bubble Japan in the films of Kurosawa Kiyoshi.” In Locating Heisei in Japanese Fiction and Film : The Historical Imagination of the Lost Decades, 60–81. Routledge contemporary Japan series. Abingdon, Oxon ; Routledge. https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&scope=site&db=nlebk&db=nlabk&AN=2279077.Yusoff, Kathryn. 2018. A Billion Black Anthropocenes or None. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

It's funny...you were so scary at night. Join Reneé, John Paul, and Travis as they discuss Jeremy Saulnier's 2015 thriller "Green Room."    Please consider supporting the show on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thepodmortem    Pod Mortem would like to thank Original CINematic for sponsoring this week's episode! https://www.ogcinpro.com/  Feel free to contact: William Rush: wrush@ogcinpro.com Xxena Rush: xrush@ogcinpro.com    Where to listen to the podcast and follow us on social media: https://allmylinks.com/thepodmortem   Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thepodmortem https://twitter.com/bloodandsmoke https://twitter.com/realstreeter84 https://twitter.com/travismwh   What would you rate Green Room and what should we watch next? Email us at thepodmortem@gmail.com    "Pod Mortem Theme" written and performed by Travis Hunter. https://youtube.com/travismwh

From the archive: This episode was originally recorded and published in 2021. Our interviews on Entrepreneurs On Fire are meant to be evergreen, and we do our best to confirm that all offers and URL's in these archive episodes are still relevant. John-Paul is a business transformation specialist who helps entrepreneurs start, grow, and turnaround businesses in Africa. In 2018, LinkedIn recognized him as a Top Voice on startups and entrepreneurship. Top 3 Value Bombs 1. Africa is one of the top 10 fastest growing economies in the world. 2. Most successful businesses in Africa are working on the margin side. Africa is enormous in volume, too. You can use both to maximize your profit. 3. Doing what you love to do will not get you to success. Along the way, you have to do something you do not like, too. Tune in to John-Paul's unique weekly podcasts for practical tips, advice, and insights that'll improve your chances of starting, growing, or turning around your business - The Smallstarter Business Podcast Sponsors HubSpot The HubSpot Sales Hub supercharges your sales process so you can find, track, and close deals all in one powerful, easy-to-use platform. Make the switch to HubSpot Sales Hub at HubSpot.com/sales. Thrivetime Show Is now your time? Clay Clark's business coaching has helped over 2,000 entrepreneurs to dramatically increase profitability! Schedule your free consultation today at ThrivetimeShow.com HelloFresh America's number 1 Meal Kit! See for yourself: visit HelloFresh.com/50eof and use code 50eof for 50 percent off plus free shipping

From the archive: This episode was originally recorded and published in 2021. Our interviews on Entrepreneurs On Fire are meant to be evergreen, and we do our best to confirm that all offers and URL's in these archive episodes are still relevant. John-Paul is a business transformation specialist who helps entrepreneurs start, grow, and turnaround businesses in Africa. In 2018, LinkedIn recognized him as a Top Voice on startups and entrepreneurship. Top 3 Value Bombs 1. Africa is one of the top 10 fastest growing economies in the world. 2. Most successful businesses in Africa are working on the margin side. Africa is enormous in volume, too. You can use both to maximize your profit. 3. Doing what you love to do will not get you to success. Along the way, you have to do something you do not like, too. Tune in to John-Paul's unique weekly podcasts for practical tips, advice, and insights that'll improve your chances of starting, growing, or turning around your business - The Smallstarter Business Podcast Sponsors HubSpot The HubSpot Sales Hub supercharges your sales process so you can find, track, and close deals all in one powerful, easy-to-use platform. Make the switch to HubSpot Sales Hub at HubSpot.com/sales. Thrivetime Show Is now your time? Clay Clark's business coaching has helped over 2,000 entrepreneurs to dramatically increase profitability! Schedule your free consultation today at ThrivetimeShow.com HelloFresh America's number 1 Meal Kit! See for yourself: visit HelloFresh.com/50eof and use code 50eof for 50 percent off plus free shipping

Real estate investors love talking about taxes! So who better than accountant extraordinaire, John Paul McDonald of JPMPartners.ca, to bring on this episode of The Your Life! Your Terms! Show. We chat about corporate structures vs. holding property personally, tax efficiencies and John Paul shares his current thinking on real estate and income property investing.

Let your “yes be yes” and your “no be no” with John Paul --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/leannhart/support

IrishFest Atlanta is this weekend. Join the Irish & Celtic Music Podcast #634 at the festival for even more great Celtic music. Ed Yother, Ryan Roubison, Dervish, W. Ed Harris, The BorderCollies, Eimear Arkins, John Doyle, Dave Howard Coons, Ashley Davis Band, Olivia Bradley, The Inland Seas, Mànran, The Muckers, Roehind GET CELTIC MUSIC NEWS IN YOUR INBOX The Celtic Music Magazine is a quick and easy way to plug yourself into more great Celtic culture. Enjoy seven weekly news items for Celtic music and culture online. Subscribe now and get 34 Celtic MP3s for Free. VOTE IN THE CELTIC TOP 20 FOR 2023 This is our way of finding the best songs and artists each year. You can vote for as many songs and tunes that inspire you in each episode. Your vote helps me create next year's Best Celtic music of 2023 episode.  Vote Now! You can also follow our playlists on Spotify and YouTube. These feature the top songs two weeks after the polls open. It also makes it easier for you to add these artists to your own playlists. THIS WEEK IN CELTIC MUSIC 0:02 - Intro: Robby Hilliard 0:11 - Ed Yother "Oak Cliff Road / O'Dowd's Pitch / Kitty on the Rail" from First Figure 4:39 - WELCOME 6:25 - Ryan Roubison "Kid on the Mountain" from Songs from the Willow Glen 9:00 - Dervish "The Galway Shawl" from The Great Irish Songbook 13:58 - W. Ed Harris "Toss the Feathers" from Cares of Tomorrow Can Wait 16:30 - The BorderCollies "For All That" from Single 19:36 - FEEDBACK 22:47 - Eimear Arkins "Fair of Sixmilebridge" from What's Next? 26:46 - John Doyle "Elevenses (Tune)" from The Path of Stones 31:15 - Dave Howard Coons "Sea Fever" from Sea Fever 34:42 - INTRO: ASHLEY DAVIS 35:19 - STORY FROM ASHLEY DAVIS 36:13 - Ashley Davis Band "Here By My Side" from When the Stars Went Out 40:34 - THANKS 42:10 - Olivia Bradley "Molly Malone" from Misty Morning Shore 44:44 - The Inland Seas "Heather on the Moor" from Crown of Clover 48:15 - Roehind "J'ai Vu Le Loup" from Buile 51:51 - The Muckers "Whiskey Tango" from Whiskey Tango 56:42 - CLOSING 58:04 - Mànran "Fingal's Cave" from Mànran 1:01:04 - CREDITS The Irish & Celtic Music Podcast was produced by Marc Gunn, The Celtfather and our Patrons on Patreon. The show was edited by Mitchell Petersen with Graphics by Miranda Nelson Designs. Visit our website to follow the show. You'll find links to all of the artists played in this episode. Todd Wiley is the editor of the Celtic Music Magazine. Subscribe to get 34 Celtic MP3s for Free. Plus, you'll get 7 weekly news items about what's happening with Celtic music and culture online. Best of all, you will connect with your Celtic heritage. Please tell one friend about this podcast. Word of mouth is the absolute best way to support any creative endeavor. Finally, remember. Reduce, reuse, recycle, and think about how you can make a positive impact on your environment. Promote Celtic culture through music at http://celticmusicpodcast.com/. WELCOME THE IRISH & CELTIC MUSIC PODCAST * Helping you celebrate Celtic culture through music. I am Marc Gunn. This podcast is here to build our diverse Celtic community and help the incredible artists who so generously share their music with you. Musicians rely on your support to keep making music. If you hear music you love, please email artists to let them know you heard them on the Irish and Celtic Music Podcast. You can find a link to all of the artists in the shownotes, along with show times, when you visit our website at celticmusicpodcast.com. If you are a Celtic musician or in a Celtic band, then please submit your band to be played on the podcast. You don't have to send in music or an EPK. Just complete the permission form at 4celts.com. You can also pick up a free eBook called Celtic Musicians Guide to Digital Music while you're there. Email gift@bestcelticmusic Do you have the Irish & Celtic Music Podcast app? It's 100% free. You can listen to hundreds of episodes of the podcast. Download it now. THANK YOU PATRONS OF THE PODCAST! You are amazing. It is because of your generosity that you get to hear so much great Celtic music each and every week. Your kindness pays for our engineer, graphic designer, Celtic Music Magazine editor, promotion of the podcast, and allows me to buy the music I play here. It also pays for my time creating the show each and every week. As a patron, you get music - only episodes before regular listeners, vote in the Celtic Top 20, stand - alone stories, and you get a private feed to listen to the show.  All that for as little as $1 per episode. A special thanks to our Celtic Legends: Bill Mandeville, Marti Meyers, Brenda, Karen, Emma Bartholomew, Dan mcDade, Bob Harford, Carol Baril, Miranda Nelson, Nancie Barnett, Kevin Long, Gary R Hook, Lynda MacNeil, Kelly Garrod, Annie Lorkowski, Shawn Cali HERE IS YOUR THREE STEP PLAN TO SUPPORT THE PODCAST Go to our Patreon page. Decide how much you want to pledge every week, $1, $5, $10. Make sure to cap how much you want to spend per month. Keep listening to the Irish & Celtic Music Podcast to celebrate Celtic culture through music. You can become a generous Patron of the Podcast on Patreon at SongHenge.com. TRAVEL WITH CELTIC INVASION VACATIONS Every year, I take a small group of Celtic music fans on the relaxing adventure of a lifetime. We don't see everything. Instead, we stay in one area. We get to know the region through its culture, history, and legends. You can join us with an auditory and visual adventure through podcasts and videos. Learn more about the invasion at http://celticinvasion.com/ #celticmusic #irishmusic #celticmusicpodcast I WANT YOUR FEEDBACK What are you doing today while listening to the podcast? Please email me. I'd love to see a  picture of what you're doing while listening or of a band that you saw recently. Email me at celticpodcast@gmail. Brad Comeau emailed: "Hi Marc, Kudos to you and your team for doing something great for music and for Celtic music in particular!!!

This episode of the Breakthrough of Grace Podcast features reflections gathered and curated by Mark Kalpakgian.  Mark's talk is inspired by the life, the example and the witness of St. Mother Theresa of Calcutta- and in particular, by the recently pushed collection of stories and accounts from her life published in the book “To Love and Be Loved“ by Jim Tuohey.  We venerate St. Mother Theresa as a Saint – and rightfully so.  Jim Tuouy's book, and Mark's reflections on both it and on Mother Theresa's impact on his own life, give us insight into what were the key attributes which caused St. Mother Theresa's life to be holy – and in particular, in the less obvious ways? This talk was recorded at John Paul the Great University in Southern California with a small prayer group: we pray that it blesses you as much as it did us. Reflect on this scripture which sets the tone for this talk: 17 As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”18 “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. 19 You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honor your father and mother.'[d]”20 “Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.”21 Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”What stands out to you, and what is God offering to you today through this Scripture?In the chapel of the Motherhouse of the Missionaries of Charity in Kolkata, there is a large crucifix, and adjacent the crucifix the words of Christ from the Cross (John 19:38) “I Thirst”.Mother Theresa taught the following,:Why does Jesus say "I Thirst"?  What does it mean? . . . If you remember anything from Mother's letter, remember this — 'I Thirst' is something much deeper than just Jesus saying 'I love you.' Until you know deep inside that Jesus thirsts for you — you can't begin to know who He wants to be for you.  Or who He wants you to be for Him.Spend some time in prayer reflecting on Mother Theresa's words.Meditation courtesy of CatholicEducation.orgI Thirst':  Mother Teresa's Devotion to the Thirst of Jesus (catholiceducation.org)Audio Editing by ForteCatholic.com

Just because I cannot see it doesn't mean I can't believe it! Join Reneé, John Paul, and Travis as they discuss Henry Selick's 1993 stop-motion fantasy musical "The Nightmare Before Christmas."   Please consider supporting the show on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thepodmortem    Pod Mortem would like to thank Original CINematic for sponsoring this week's episode! https://www.ogcinpro.com/  Feel free to contact: William Rush: wrush@ogcinpro.com Xxena Rush: xrush@ogcinpro.com    Where to listen to the podcast and follow us on social media: https://allmylinks.com/thepodmortem   Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thepodmortem https://twitter.com/bloodandsmoke https://twitter.com/realstreeter84 https://twitter.com/travismwh   What would you rate The Nightmare Before Christmas and what should we watch next? Email us at thepodmortem@gmail.com    "Pod Mortem Theme" written and performed by Travis Hunter. https://youtube.com/travismwh

“Freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought.” -Saint Pope John Paul IISaints Alive presents the final installment of our three part series on Saint Pope John Paul the Great! In today's episode, we'll hear about the power of John Paul's forgiveness, friendship with Mother Teresa and his love for his flock to the very end. We'll also hear the conclusion of Paul's story and his new found inspiration from the saint he was named after! Tune in today - this is an episode you don't want to miss! Please rate, review and share with friends and family! Find resources on the saints, discussion questions and more about our team by visiting our website: https://www.saintsalivepodcast.com/

In part 2 of our conversation with Wall Street Journal golf columnist John Paul Newport, we go into depth about his Feb 26, 2012 weekend article “Golf's Biggest Delusions - Nine things people say about the game that aren't true -- and one that is.” This was originally a Members Only episode that has never been shared publically for free.This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/3464073/advertisement

This week, we interview John Paul (J.P.) Stephens. J.P. is an Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University. His research focuses on the experience of work relationships and the coordination that these relationships enable. More specifically, this has entailed close examination of people's experience of high-quality connections, their emotional carrying capacity (or ability to express more and different kinds of emotion), the interplay between emotion and attention for the aesthetic experience of collective work, and the relational coordination that facilitates the collective efforts of complex, interdependent project work. His work has appeared in the Academy of Management Review, the Journal of Business Ethics, the Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, the Oxford Handbook of Positive Psychology and Work, the Oxford Handbook of Positive Organizational Scholarship, and the Handbook of Leadership and Creativity. He has also contributed to stories in Fast Company and public radio's Marketplace.

This is part 2 of our series inviting John Paul the Great Academy students to share their senior year capstone subject mastery projects. In this episode, Colby, Becki and Tom welcome Liliana Pagan into our DesOrmeaux Foundation studio to discuss the many ways contraception has impacted our society since it was legalized in all 50 states 51 years ago.

You're talking about him as if he were a man...that part of him died years ago. Join Reneé, John Paul, and Travis as they discuss Dwight H. Little's 1988 slasher sequel "Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers."   Please consider supporting the show on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thepodmortem    Pod Mortem would like to thank Original CINematic for sponsoring this week's episode! https://www.ogcinpro.com/  Feel free to contact: William Rush: wrush@ogcinpro.com Xxena Rush: xrush@ogcinpro.com    Where to listen to the podcast and follow us on social media: https://allmylinks.com/thepodmortem   Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thepodmortem https://twitter.com/bloodandsmoke https://twitter.com/realstreeter84 https://twitter.com/travismwh   What would you rate Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers and what should we watch next? Email us at thepodmortem@gmail.com    "Pod Mortem Theme" written and performed by Travis Hunter. https://youtube.com/travismwh

Full Text of ReadingsTwenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time Lectionary: 145The Saint of the day is Saint John Paul IISaint John Paul II's Story “Open wide the doors to Christ,” urged John Paul II during the homily at the Mass where he was installed as pope in 1978. Born in Wadowice, Poland, Karol Jozef Wojtyla had lost his mother, father, and older brother before his 21st birthday. Karol's promising academic career at Krakow's Jagiellonian University was cut short by the outbreak of World War II. While working in a quarry and a chemical factory, he enrolled in an “underground” seminary in Kraków. Ordained in 1946, he was immediately sent to Rome where he earned a doctorate in theology. Back in Poland, a short assignment as assistant pastor in a rural parish preceded his very fruitful chaplaincy for university students. Soon Fr. Wojtyla earned a doctorate in philosophy and began teaching that subject at Poland's University of Lublin. Communist officials allowed Wojtyla to be appointed auxiliary bishop of Kraków in 1958, considering him a relatively harmless intellectual. They could not have been more wrong! Bishop Wojtyla attended all four sessions of Vatican II and contributed especially to its Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World. Appointed as archbishop of Kraków in 1964, he was named a cardinal three years later. Elected pope in October 1978, he took the name of his short-lived, immediate predecessor. Pope John Paul II was the first non-Italian pope in 455 years. In time, he made pastoral visits to 124 countries, including several with small Christian populations. John Paul II promoted ecumenical and interfaith initiatives, especially the 1986 Day of Prayer for World Peace in Assisi. He visited Rome's main synagogue and the Western Wall in Jerusalem; he also established diplomatic relations between the Holy See and Israel. He improved Catholic-Muslim relations, and in 2001 visited a mosque in Damascus, Syria. The Great Jubilee of the Year 2000, a key event in John Paul's ministry, was marked by special celebrations in Rome and elsewhere for Catholics and other Christians. Relations with the Orthodox Churches improved considerably during his papacy. “Christ is the center of the universe and of human history” was the opening line of John Paul II's 1979 encyclical, Redeemer of the Human Race. In 1995, he described himself to the United Nations General Assembly as “a witness to hope.” His 1979 visit to Poland encouraged the growth of the Solidarity movement there and the collapse of communism in central and eastern Europe 10 years later. John Paul II began World Youth Day and traveled to several countries for those celebrations. He very much wanted to visit China and the Soviet Union, but the governments in those countries prevented that. One of the most well-remembered photos of John Paul II's pontificate was his one-on-one conversation in 1983, with Mehmet Ali Agca, who had attempted to assassinate him two years earlier. In his 27 years of papal ministry, John Paul II wrote 14 encyclicals and five books, canonized 482 saints and beatified 1,338 people. In the last years of his life, he suffered from Parkinson's disease and was forced to cut back on some of his activities. Pope Benedict XVI beatified John Paul II in 2011, and Pope Francis canonized him in 2014. Reflection Before John Paul II's funeral Mass in St. Peter's Square, hundreds of thousands of people had waited patiently for a brief moment to pray before his body, which lay in state inside St. Peter's for several days. The media coverage of his funeral was unprecedented. Presiding at the funeral Mass, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger—then dean of the College of Cardinals and later Pope Benedict XVI—concluded his homily by saying: “None of us can ever forget how, in that last Easter Sunday of his life, the Holy Father, marked by suffering, came once more to the window of the Apostolic Palace and one last time gave his blessing urbi et orbi (‘to the city and to the world'). “We can be sure that our beloved pope is standing today at the window of the Father's house, that sees us and blesses us. Yes, bless us, Holy Father. We entrust your dear soul to the Mother of God, your Mother, who guided you each day and who will guide you now to the glory of her Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.” Learn more about Saint John Paul II! Saint of the Day, Copyright Franciscan Media

This week we get an update of the Synod in Rome, why it's happening, how it all works and what it means for the Church. Jermaine has a few good book suggestions, Billy has a question about evil spirits and we reconnect with singer/songwriter John Paul Von Arx who has a new video and some new songs to share.

John Paul Newport, weekly golf columnist for the Wall Street Journal discusses reporting on the four majors each year. Also he shares his feelings about various players he's interviewed including Tiger, Phil, Rory and others. This is part 1 of 2 originally published in March 2012.This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/3464073/advertisement

Where's the cross-over from country music to Catechetics?  John Paul Von Arx '17 shares his story, including how his God-given talents took him away from Franciscan... and then right back.  Don't miss the new music video for "He's Different", the song John Paul wrote about having - and learning from - a brother with Down's Syndrome.  Visit JohnPaulVonArx.com to discover his music or to book John Paul for your next event!

As we continue our month-long focus on our podcast's patron saint, St. JPII, this episode starts a series that looks at how his teachings are reaching young people 18 years after his death. Colby, Becki and Tom were recently joined in our DesOrmeaux Foundation studios by students of John Paul the Great Academy located in Lafayette, LA. In this episode, Emma Pourciau, shares her senior year capstone subject mastery project that concentrated on St. John Paul II's writings on complementarity and the many ways the male and female brains complement each other. Emma Pourciau's Capstone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dO1tTu1e8Fc

Every body has a secret...some just hide it better than others. Join Reneé, John Paul, and Travis as they discuss André Øvredal's 2016 supernatural horror film "The Autopsy of Jane Doe."   Please consider supporting the show on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thepodmortem    Pod Mortem would like to thank Original CINematic for sponsoring this week's episode! https://www.ogcinpro.com/  Feel free to contact: William Rush: wrush@ogcinpro.com Xxena Rush: xrush@ogcinpro.com    Where to listen to the podcast and follow us on social media: https://allmylinks.com/thepodmortem   Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thepodmortem https://twitter.com/bloodandsmoke https://twitter.com/realstreeter84 https://twitter.com/travismwh   What would you rate The Autopsy of Jane Doe and what should we watch next? Email us at thepodmortem@gmail.com    "Pod Mortem Theme" written and performed by Travis Hunter. https://youtube.com/travismwh

Join me as I engage in an enriching conversation with Dr. Jay Richards from the Heritage Foundation.In a world where science and ideology are increasingly at loggerheads, we dissect the controversial topic of gender ideology and its contradiction to biological realities. We navigate Neil Tyson's attempts to reconcile science with popular gender ideologies and the resulting chaos in children's understanding of reality. As we shed light on how gender ideology is used to propagate a utopian vision, we hope to equip you with the insights and awareness to navigate this complex and changing landscape. Join Jack and Dr. Jay Richards for this eye-opening discussion – it's a conversation you won't want to miss!Jay W. Richards, PhD, is Director of the Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Life, Religion, and Family and the William E. Simon Senior Research Fellow in Religious Liberty and Civil Society at The Heritage Foundation. He is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute and Executive Editor of The Stream.  Jay is author or editor of more than a dozen books, including the New York Times bestsellers Infiltrated (2013) and Indivisible (2012); The Human Advantage; Money, Greed, and God, winner of a 2010 Templeton Enterprise Award; The Hobbit Party with Jonathan Witt; and Eat, Fast, Feast. He is also creator and executive producer of several documentaries, including three that have appeared widely on PBS. Jay has appeared on hundreds of radio and television programs, including Larry King Live(CNN), CBS Evening News, MSNBC, Huckabee, Dayside, Fox and Friends, Studio B with Shepard Smith (Fox News), Glenn Beck TV, PBS, CBN, TBN, and is a regular guest on EWTN.His 2008 debate at Stanford University with Christopher Hitchens, moderated by Ben Stein, was broadcast live to several hundred churches in North America.Please visit the Heritage Foundation for additional information.Follow at Twitter@DrJayRichardsFollow up Episode! #406 Lieutenant Colonel Matt Crouch, USMC, Now With Heritage Action: The Strategic Attack on Our Culture and Our ChildrenDon't forget to sign up for our Newsletter!!  JPll Renewal Center email listPlease consider being a Sponsor! "The future of humanity passes by way of the family"--John Paul II.Please send donations to support our work to:John Paul II Renewal Center902 S Randall RoadSTE C #296St. Charles, IL. 60174Support the show     Email me with questions! Contact Jack: BWYR Podcast is a production of the John Paul ll Renewal Center or email him at info@jp2renew.orgPlease share this with your friends and family!Support the show

Listen to this episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts Have you ever read miracle stories in the bible and asked yourself, "I wonder if this happens today?" My guests today are Josh and Daisy Jones of the UK who share their testimonies of God intervening in and through their lives. Hear about Josh's miraculous healing from asthma, Daisy's baptism when a Muslim spoke in tongues, and various adventures walking with God both at home and abroad, especially in Israel. They also talk about their interesting journey to unitarianism as well as their plans to organize the first UCA (Unitarian Christian Alliance) conference in the London area in the summer of 2024.   —— Links —— For more about the Unitarian Christian Alliance (UCA) see unitarianchristianalliance.org. Check out episode 500 The Gifts of the Spirit in Early Christianity See also our 7-part series on the Holy Spirit, covering various major views of the manifestations of the spirit, especially speaking in tongues. Take a listen to episode 310 Are Gifts of the Spirit Available Today? with Sam Storms Lastly, check out these previous episodes on healing Support Restitutio by donating here Join our Restitutio Facebook Group and follow Sean Finnegan on Twitter @RestitutioSF Leave a voice message via SpeakPipe with questions or comments and we may play them out on the air Intro music: Good Vibes by MBB Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) Free Download / Stream: Music promoted by Audio Library. Who is Sean Finnegan?  Read his bio here —— Transcript —— This transcript was auto-generated and only approximates the contents of this episode. Sean Finnegan: So Josh and Daisy Jones, so great to have you on the show today. Thanks for joining me. Josh Jones: It's our pleasure. Wonderful to be here. Daisy Jones: Yeah. Thanks for asking us. Sean Finnegan: Yeah, yeah. To begin with, I thought you could just introduce yourselves a little bit and tell a little bit about who you are and then we could get into your story a little bit and your background. So who who are you? Who are the Joneses? Josh Jones: An unconventional couple presently living in in north London. I'm a serving officer in the Parish regiment being served for 20 years in one capacity or. And we have got two wonderful children, joy and Isaac, five and three respectively. Days. Do you wanna talk about yourself? Daisy Jones: OK. Well, I guess my my first role is is mummy at the moment cause I've got a 5. And a three-year old and they are an absolute joy. In fact, they're both called joy because one is called joy. And the other one is called. Isaac, which means join laughter. So we're in the stage of still sleepless nights a little bit. I'm still nursing my youngest. So if you hear a cry in the background, I might have to disappear. But such is life. But we didn't want to miss this opportunity to speak with you because we listen to you a lot and you know we wanted to share our story. Sean Finnegan: Let's hear about how you came to faith. I don't know who would like to go first, but I've heard that in the UK in general and London in particular, there are a lot of secular minded people. So how is it that you two are Christians? Really, I guess. Would be my first question. Who would? Josh Jones: So yeah, so I was actually born in Australia. I grew up there in New Zealand, the Solomon Islands, Portugal, before moving to England at the age of 12. And as a young kid, I was, you know, forced to go to church. My, my parents did have a faith. It is like live and vibrant today, very much so. But thinking in the younger days was very much just trying to instill in me some good behaviour and some. Good Bible stories. At the age of 12, moved to a place called Orpington in Kent. Again, just outside London up to the South East this time as opposed to the NW where we are presently and went to a really good Baptist Church, I very quickly fell in love with the word of God. There were some really godly men there who used to run the Bible study week by week, would go and just really enjoy studying the Bible as I got into my. Kind of later teens 1 by 1. My friends would leave as the lure of of teenage life just became too strong for. And but I just kind of fell more and. More in love. With the word. So I remember coming home from school and just like going. Into my other. Garage that we had converted and just like reading, reading the Bible and kind of got to age like 1617 or it's like, you know, this is real. Then if I pray something should happen because you know, this book is a story of men and women. And having supernatural encounters with a divine God, you know, every character is almost like a Marvel superhero in the sense that something extraordinary is happening in their lives. It's not just a blind faith, it's it's a living faith. And so I just started kind of praying where I was asking questions to understand what this particular passage. And or personal events in my life answers just started to arrive through all interesting and peculiar. News. There's a big move of God. Some Americans were probably aware of it in 1994. It was kind of aptly named the Toronto blessing. You know, I I. Did sense a change in the atmosphere in the churches? I saw people kind of leading what I'd more say, more spirit filled lives, passionate prayer activity, sharing their faith. And I knew that's what I wanted to do. And and in that period of time, you know, I saw miracles personally in my own life. I was healed, miraculously, of asthma that I had been suffering from from about 7:00. And right to the extent where I got prayed for in church and then completely forgot about it because there was a word that, you know, God wanted to hear someone ask for. And I had that since I was 7 and like my dad, he was like a fantastic rugby player. You know, I once made the B team at the age of seven. And on my glorious attendance on the pitch. I promptly had a a desperate attack within 10 minutes and got rushed to hospital, so my dad's hopes for a rugby player. You know, wearing the Kiwi jersey, we were cool, he. Crushed. Ohh man and. Sean Finnegan: Those those guys are epic. Those Kiwi rugby guys? Incredible. Josh Jones: And my dad was he was a fantastic rugby player and so there I was with my little inhalers, you know, and I was 19 at the time, 18 or 19. 18 I would. Have been a few. Weeks later, I went for my check up and my local doctor's surgery and I completely forgotten about the prayer and there was a new Doctor and I went through the test, et cetera. Then I went into her kind of office and sat down. And and she just started telling me off. I was like, what are you doing in here like. When the really aggressive. Voice, why are you wasting my time? And I'm just. Like what are you talking? About I'm here for my annual asthma check. Up and she said to. Me, there is nothing on these records to indicate. You've ever had asthma? In terms of the tests that I did in terms of all the scans and whatever they what they did for that for that check. Up so that. Was an astonishing thing for me. And you know, never, ever looked back. So I went the, the inhalers and all that stuff. Sean Finnegan: And how? How old are you now? You don't look 19 to me. Josh Jones: No, no, I'm 47 now. Sean Finnegan: 47 OK, so that's that's a long track record of not having asthma. Wow. That's incredible. Josh Jones: Yeah, yeah. Oh, absolutely, yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, I got baptized. I led my best friend to to faith, baptized him in the local swimming pool, cause his family were Buddhists. And if they if they knew that. He had come. To faith they would have kicked him out of the house. And and you know, I was kind of that term on fire. Now the interesting thing is is. That I was clearly part of the Trinitarian Church and through all my study of Scripture, I never believed Jesus was God and I always knew that my understanding of who God was and. Who Jesus was was. Different from my Bible teachers from the. Pastors and this type of thing. But I never knew there was a name for it. I was completely oblivious to what is. Unitarianism and the history of the church, that council creeds. And stuff like this I. Was just like for me, Scripture is clear, but the outworking of my faith was sharing the gospel and I felt I could do that without having to confront this issue. Because it was just. I was young, I was energetic, and this type of. Thing. So I took a year out in. In that time I felt that the reason why God was was going to do this and my father, in good kind of Kiwi fashion because at the age of 15 he was given 500 bucks and told to go make his way in. The world you know. I I was 18 is like right. If if you don't. Get a job within within one week. You're out of the house. And that was me. You know, on my knees, praying and like, literally that day get a random phone call from a friend of mine who. Just thought he would call me to offer me a job in the local Silver Spoon Cafe and I was like, thank you Lord. So I was living in this kind of vibrant spirit filled love of being in relation with God went to university. I then set up running something called the alpha course. Do you know what the. Alpha course is. Uh, nothing. Do you know its? Sean Finnegan: No, I'm not familiar. Josh Jones: Yeah, it's basically an Anglican introductory course to God. The meaning of life. It's meant to be for beginner Christians and also people inquiring. So it's a very popular course here. Run by the kind of. I say conservative, evangelical Anglican wing, but it's hugely popular. Josh Jones: Yeah. So the catch phrase is who is Jesus essentially and it's. Basically questions. Daisy Jones: That was the original catch phrase slogan. Josh Jones: Yeah, yeah. And it's a 12 week course and the unique thing about it is introduced this bit. Who is the? Holy Spirit so. It kind of jumped on the back of. Kind of. The outpouring or whatever term people would like to use in 1994, and it gave people to kind of transition from a a reading about stuff to kind of stepping forward in terms of an in filling. Of the spirit. Now the the intriguing thing is that clearly it's a Trinitarian course and. And the and one of the key catchphrases of it was based on. CS Lewis's most famous phrases. Which was either Jesus. Was either Mad Bad or God. Now, clearly, I never believed that and, but I couldn't tell anyone that because here I was running this and. I always said you. Know Jesus is mad, bad God or. Who? He said he was. And because he was running, because I was able to just slightly amend certain parts. Sean Finnegan: You got away with that, huh? Daisy Jones: I got away with it. Josh Jones: I mean, I knew the book. I knew the book back. I literally memorized the entire book. But what I was able to do was present Jesus as he declared he was. Now, I didn't have the same knowledge as I do now in terms of Messianic prophecy is. But what I just didn't do was just present Jesus as God Almighty. And the the amazing thing is, as I recall, genuinely everyone who completed that course came to an independent, genuine faith. And from this little church grew this really vibrant community, you know, from there, I was involved in setting up a youth group, taking a whole bunch of young kids to church. I mean things. You could never do today. You know, with another kind of friend. We took a. 3 year old A5 year old A7 year old a nine year old and 12 year. Old to church. Really met their parents once you know. You could never do. Things like that in this morning. Yeah. Yeah, end up. Joining a a pretty vibrant rock band. Sean Finnegan: And what? What did you play? Josh Jones: So I played bass. Yeah. So I I recall one day it was my coming to the end because I studied law at university. Yeah, I'd always in the careers office had always been Paris marines or submarines. But with this explosion of faith, I always kind of joked that. I'm in God's army now, so. You know, this is this is where. I'm going to serve. And so I decided to do law. I remember praying in my room that I really wanted to have the opportunity to share my faith with kids in school and. Stuff like this. The next day, my Rd. from Hertfordshire. I was up to Saint Albans and on route. Halfway through I met this bloke called Mark James, who is now quite a famous worship leader in the Vineyard Worship movement and wasn't well. He wasn't then I had seen his band play. A month or so before, we'd only kind of shook hands. I said hi. But anyway, we got chatting on the zebra crossing and he goes. What you doing on Friday? It's like nothing. And he goes well, we're going into. The local school. With the band. We would like you to to play bass. To come and. Share your faith. And I wasn't really a musician by any stretch of imagination I can. I can. I'm maturing. I can play a rhythm and I can move. These guys were proper musicians. You know I'm the fool who can who can move around the stage. But that was me, you know, on the Friday there. I am in a school sharing. My faith, not four days after, you know, getting my knees and prayers saying, Lord, I'd really love to, to share my faith in schools with. Young people and then from. There joined something called our nation and spent the rest of the year basically touring around different schools doing that exact same thing, whilst somehow managing to do my law degree at the same time. I never let on. That my understanding of. Who God was was was different. To Michael, there are there are a few things that I used to kind of. Day, but again, it was before the age of the Internet. From what I recall, I hadn't met anyone with any of the knowledge that you or who's the who's the chat that we met? The yeah. Fancy Buzzard. You know, I just wasn't exposed to to any of this stuff. And and to me it's not wasn't important. Because I was seeing God move, you know, people's lives were being. Daisy Jones: Changed. Can I add an interesting detail? A little factoid. OK. Josh was in two bands that were unrelated. The secular one was called dusk and the. The Christian one was called dust. So yeah, that's a fact. So yeah, the one with Mark James's dust, isn't it? Yeah. Josh Jones: Yeah, yeah, does. Now I'll kind of just bring. This particular part to a close and then we can go over to Daisy and then and then. Maybe back to me. In this period of time where I was, I felt very close to God. You know, I spent lots of time just out on the streets. Share my faith and many, many dark hours and that an incident occurred in the spirit that shook my faith in a way that I just. Was not expecting. It created like a kind of a a darkness, and it wasn't that my faith in God was shook, but it was my. Love for God? In, in the sense that I couldn't understand what had happened and you know, I struggled with this thing for almost five years. And I went to kind of senior leaders, people who I trusted. But because I was always kind of on the fringe of the church as I. Was a part of. Not so much because of my understanding who God was, but because I. Was out there living, sharing, preaching. I never really had that deep mentorship, and when I finally got to speak to the past, who I really respected, the advice he gave me was terrible, he said. Basically, if you can't understand why this happened, you will never trust God. It culminated with me at the age of 2526, walking away from everything that I was doing. I remained faithful in season and out of season as best as I. Good. And reconciling what had happened, what had got to a stage where I just was broken inside. And so I decided to step back and. Walk my own. Path, which I regret doing, and in that time I did get married. Not please Daisy and during up the Army, the parish regiment. There's a amazing verse that you. Know if we are faithless. God is still faithful and you know, slowly and surely he called me. Back and I've got many miraculous testimonies of extraordinary protection and provision and guidance, particularly whilst on operations and stuff like this, and and my son. Has really made a tremendous difference, but the kind of summary statement so I can break clean and that my beautiful wife speak is looking back. Whilst I was aware of what success looked like potentially in the spirit using kind of military terminology, what I wasn't aware of was my enemy and I didn't have the maturity and understanding of of. That's quite what it meant. When you know when Jesus said, you know, Satan is the father of lies, and that when he speaks deception, it comes out. As truth you. Know we live and fight this battle daily. We see how effective Satan's lives have been in terms of the corruption. Some of the. Most simple statements in the history of mankind, you. Know you're over God is. One and how they can turn 1 into a a purity you know. It's just but. How Satan can make but not just truth in the in terms of words and. Corrupt stuff, but actually in the spirit. As well, and I lacked the maturity of understanding just how deceptive. He can be and the absolute requirement to go back to the scriptures and test everything against the scriptures. Fast forward a number of years till about seven years ago, six years. Yeah, you always. Daisy Jones: Yeah, yeah, 6 1/2 years. Josh Jones: Well, that's marriages. And we met before then. Daisy Jones: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, yes. Josh Jones: In the February, yeah. Yeah. So do you. So do you spend some time on on young Daisy? Daisy Jones: Completely different background, so I'm a born and bred Londoner. My father is British, fiercely Welsh, and my mother's Argentinian, and so she's very Catholic. And my mother's side of the family are. Very Catholic. And so I grew up Catholic. I was baptized Catholic. I then flew over to Argentina for my Holy Communion. And. Yeah. Yeah. And it was actually quite embarrassing because they they handed me the cup of wine and basically I drank all of it because. Daisy Jones: I thought. That's what I was meant to do. You're supposed to. Sean Finnegan: Take a sip and. You can't. Daisy Jones: I was supposed to take a sip and I took the whole thing and I could hear all my family. The background. Goats up her like this, but anyway so but. It was still a good experience. And but sadly, that's where my official faith journey ended. Formally so my mom, I kind of see her as a Catholic marvel superhero. So she's she's worked for the Catholic Church for many years now. Well, now she works for a Christian charity that work with persecuted Christians in. The Middle East. But she's worked for the Catholic Church for many years, and so. Catholic highlights include going to Rome for the Catholic Great Jubilee in 2000 and sharing bread broken by John Paul the 2nd and sharing that with my. Mum, that was pretty cool. Even though I didn't identify as a Catholic at the time, but I still believed very strongly in God. Sean Finnegan: And and were you in Saint Peters Square, Vatican for that? What? What an amazing. Daisy Jones: Yes, yes. Sean Finnegan: Spot that is. Daisy Jones: It's just amazing it it it really is amazing. It's really amazing. Thing. And then my mom also organized Pope Benedict the 16th, who to my Protestant friends is Pope Ratzinger. I guess to come over. And that was around 2010. So she organised a big event in Hyde Park. And so I went to see him there, which was an amazing experience. Again, and because she'd organised it, obviously we were kind of in the front and I had all these bishops and Cardinals behind me. And I remember turning round and apologising to them, saying, oh, I'm you're far more pious than me and. I shouldn't really. Be here and I'm not. I'm not even Catholic. And I remember a nun who was next to this quite important cardinal. She said to me. Oh, you're right where God wants you to be. And I thought, OK. I'll roll with that. Another notable moment in my Catholic history with a bit of a Latin American flavour. Is a few years ago I went to the hills in northern Argentina in a place called Salba La Linda, which means Salta the beautiful. And there's a lady there who claims she says she sees apparitions of. The Virgin Mary. Thousands of people come from all over the world. Every Saturday they come to see her. So even though I was very non Catholic at the time and but still a very strong believer at that time and wanting to honour my mum who'd invited me, I went there and that was a pretty mad experience if you've experienced. The South American Catholicism, I don't remember seeing a branch on the way up to the hill Slash Mountain that didn't have hundreds of plastic rosaries on, you know, and and then when you got there, she prayed over you with a rosary in one hand and then she put her hand on your your head. And there were loads of people falling over and stuff, but very silently in a very Catholic way, not a Pentecost. The way. Sean Finnegan: I do want to hear, I guess I'm curious about the Unitarianism a little bit more because what, Daisy, what you said is that you, you never believed in the. Trinity at all. Daisy Jones: No, I know, I know. I mean don't. Sean Finnegan: You have like the Catholic. Daisy Jones: No. Yeah, I mean, I definitely did the sign, but I didn't know. What I was doing but. My heads, God and Jesus, were always distinguishable, distinct. Sean Finnegan: So then you're an example of a Catholic Unitarian. Right. Daisy Jones: No, no, I I don't. I I I cause I didn't even know the word Unitarian. It was just my it was just my understanding of it. I I never shared it. There was no real forum to share it. Sean Finnegan: Right, but here. Here's. Here's what I'm thinking. About is my own mother. She was a Baptist, I think a Southern Baptist. And she said she never believed in the Trinity and she was always, you know, she would never use EU word Unitarian. But she would she, but that that did describe what she believed. She believed that there was a father. Daisy Jones: 100%. Sean Finnegan: And then there's Jesus, OK. So I wonder how many people are in that category even now in Orthodox Christianity and Catholic Christianity and Anglican Christianity among evangelicals of all different stripes, you know? I I bet. There are lots of Unitarians that you know that it's not. Organized in their mind behind a word or a theology, it's just sort of like it's just sort of fuzzy. Daisy Jones: Yeah. So yeah, so those are my kind of highlights of my Catherine Catherine. Oh, gosh, sorry. Catholic, Unitarian. And then on my dad's side. So I'll go into a bit of my dad's family history, cause it's quite interesting from a non conformist Unitarian. Angle I come from about 5 generations of very non conformist Christian thinkers who wanted the disestablishment. Of the church. So they were a mixture of Welsh and from the Isle of Man. I don't know if you've heard of the Isle of Man. It's a kind of small island. Just off the coast of Britain, obviously, and so my ancestors were big on. Trying to well, they wanted freedom from worship. They didn't want to send taxes to the Church of England. They wanted the freedom to worship and for everything to be decentralised from Westminster, which is still why the Welsh and the Scottish hate the English because they think that it's still very centralised around Westminster. So my ancestors are kind of. Famous for rejecting the Affination Creed for not noticing Lent and not observing Ash Wednesday and things like this. So I like to think well, we I've just had an update from ancestry.com. I've still got 60% of Welsh blood flowing through my veins. So I like to think I've got a drop of that non conformist blood in my veins, definitely. Sean Finnegan: Well, at least you don't have the accent. To us, we need a translator. Daisy Jones: Ohh yeah, no. Well, she's well, she's very strong. Sean Finnegan: We Americans have no idea what they're saying. I yeah, I really. Daisy Jones: That's my dad's side, but unfortunately my dad is agnostic. I I checked in with him last week. He's 85 and I said daddy. You know, you still don't believe in God, and he said no, but I respect your, you know, beliefs and I love you and blah blah as you've mentioned before the UK. Is quite a. Secular landscape Brits tend to be just quite cynical about everything and just miserable sometimes. Maybe it's the weather. I don't. I went to university, I went to Durham University where Harry Potter was filmed. There I met my best friend, who is a evangelical Protestant, and I think she was the first person I'd ever met who was like an evangelical who actually believed in God and was Protestant, I guess. Thinking back through my faith journey, one of the things that really impacted me was. Meeting her parents and her parents, inviting me to pray with them all out loud around the table. It really had an effect on me about how powerful prayer was because prayer for me was always at night and to myself, and obviously always praying for other people, but very silent and very solemn. In the Catholic way, whereas this was very dynamic and I felt really moved by it, it moved me to tears actually. And I thought this is what I really like. This kind of charismatic expression of faith after university. I also took a year out in Spain and then I moved to Argentina. I went to Argentina for a bit. And then when I came back, I did a series of jobs, completely wild, different jobs. I've always talked for the last 20 years, but I also did a bit of modelling very badly. And then I also did just other things. Other work. I had a shop I was designing things. It was quite a hectic life. But because I didn't have that kind of firm biblical church foundation thing, I think I kind of drifted off and got very attracted by the esoteric things new agey kind of things. I kind of got lured into reading esoteric books. Reading about the new age and stuff like this. And also made friends with people who were kind of in that environment. I guess I was craving the spiritual. But again, I didn't really have that firm Biblical Foundation to realize that it's not what God wanted and it's not what I should have been doing. God really convicted me. That I should leave the new Agey world slowly, slowly, I started to kind of remove certain items like the Buddha on my on my wall and stuff like this, and to get rid of my esoteric books and stuff. I started listening to Derek Prince, who's a very famous Pentecostal preacher. He's died now. He's he was at Cambridge and he was a philosopher, originally had no interest in religion, and God hit him one night and suddenly he had this. Big healing and deliverance ministry. And so I started listening to. It's really powerful sermons, and they really. Really impacted me and I remember him saying about his healing and deliverance ministry that he felt. Really ill equipped to do it but he just did it anyway because he thought that. God would equip him. At the time, so that really stuck in my mind. Sure enough, in a very cliched way, I kind of everything was going wrong in my life and I guess I hit rock bottom. Them and it's a very cliched story and sometimes I think, God, you know, despairing at some of us going ohh, you know, another one who had, who was so stubborn and had to like, you know, get to a certain place in order to accept. So, yeah. So. So that's basically what happened is that I text a friend of mine who I I could see. Salt and lighten him and I asked him, could you take me to your church? And so, yeah, so I drove for four hours on Sunday and arrived at his church. And I arrived just in time for the pastor to. You say that there was someone there and then he went on to describe everything I'd done in my life and everything. I wanted to kind of clear out of my life. And so my legs just took me to the altar. It's never happened since it had never happened before. And there then I gave my life to Jesus in a full and whole way there and then. And. Yeah. And then my life changed quite dramatically after that in a very good way. After that, I decided to do an alpha course. And the alpha course. Is a very Anglican introductory course to God or to Jesus, as they'd say, and the meaning of life, basically. But it's a very, very popular course here. Millions of people do it. It's for those. It's inquiring, people who want to do it basically. And there's a focus on the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit Weekend at the end of it. So I decided I wanted. To do that. And at the same time, I continued going to this very charismatic Pentecostal church where I had been born again, and I had. A love for. Jews, Muslims and the gay community, and I felt like. Like I was going to do something, helping them, serving them, loving them in some way. That's what God had impacted on me at this conservative, very white middle class church. I met a friend who is the interfaith minister, was the interfaith minister at Lambda. Alice's Lambeth Palace is kind of our this is a really weak comparison, but it's like our Rome. It's the head of the Anglican. Church in the world? Yeah, but it's like a pauper's palace compared to Saint Peters Square. But anyway, so he worked there, but he was working with Muslims, and he invited me to this party with. Lots of. I guess the Christian Anglican movers and shakers I went there, I was just kind of chatting at this party and he pulled me aside and he said Ohh, would you pray with me and my friend for my friend and I said, yeah, OK. So I went with him and it was him. Who I obviously he's an established Christian. It was his friend who was a leader at Holy Trinity, Brompton. HB is the biggest church in the UK and the biggest Anglican and the biggest church. I think in of any denomination. It's it's a very big. Like big branch of. And they asked me to pray for their friend. And I thought, Oh my gosh, I'm a baby Christian. What am I doing here? I'm totally not qualified to be praying for these people. But anyway, I prayed for their friend and normally in that situation, I would definitely let the men lead the prayer. And especially because they were more. Qualified than I was in many ways. But I started just leading the prayer and the Holy Spirit just gave me words of knowledge about their friend, about his upbringing. It obviously chimed A chord with their friend. Anyway, the prayer went well and afterwards I pulled my friend to one side and I said, why did you ask like little old me? To pray and he said. Well, he said. I could tell you were good in dark places, he said, and he left it at that. And I thought. OK. So that was a kind. Of signpost for me, one of the first signposts. That I maybe was going to go into some kind of healing and deliverance ministry. Then when I got baptized. I actually ended up doing healing and deliverance on a lady who was there. So when I got baptised, I decided I didn't want to go the church route because all the baptisms I'd seen in church were very fast and furious, and it was like dunk towel, dunk towel, dunk towel. And I thought, look, if I'm gonna be completely born again. I need serious prayer and I. Want it to be intimate? That and so I reached out to a pastor and I said, look, would you baptize me not in a church? And he said, yeah, sure. I can baptize you anywhere. He's like, I can baptize you in the 10s, which is like, I don't know, the Hudson River, which is pretty gross or the sea, which I thought was cold. And and it. Or or your. Bath and I felt great. It can be nice and warm and I'm really happy with that. So we planned a date when obviously Josh could attend and his sister, who's a big worship leader in in a in a big church in South London. Unbeknownst to everyone he brought along last minute, two people and one of those people was an enquiring Muslim, but she didn't announce herself to be a Muslim. She didn't say anything and she was totally dressed as a Westerner. There was no indication she wasn't hijabi, she she was completely westernized. So when I got dunked in the privacy of my bathroom, she broke out into tongues and she didn't know what was happening. She didn't understand it at all. But when that happened. And as soon as I got out. And got dressed. There was a lot of commotion going on and then she asked. Me to baptise her. So at my baptism I ended up baptising a Muslim into the Christian faith, and that was pretty wild too, because, well, I've never baptized. Anyone. And secondly, just before I was about to put her in the water, I had a word of knowledge basically. That she was. Here for something really bad that had happened to her, and God was showing me what had happened and the people involved, and that she was gonna completely. Be set free from that, so I whispered to her what I could see. She was very shocked and she said that's exactly why I came today. Because I want to be. Free from this and then Josh's sister who's amazing. She said to her. I see you in white robes before the throne of God, and you are so precious to him and she her eyes just totally. She just just totally popped out of her head and she. Said I've had that recurring dream for a very long time. And you've just confirmed again why I'm here. So that was pretty crazy. And again, it was confirmation I had like. Confirmation that one I maybe had. A ministry with Muslims and two, that healing and deliverance is obviously for today. So then then out of the blue, I got asked to teach English to Arab Orthodox coptics and apostates out of the blue, my friends asked me, she said, would you teach English to all these people? And I said yes, I would, and turns out. The location was the church that I had become born again in. Yeah, that was actually a real privilege. That was about a year and a half and I heard some amazing stories about when Jesus visits Muslims. He really visits them in a really powerful way. So, like, at the end of their beds, speaking to them on the motorway, in dreams, in visions, I I heard the most amazing things. And they really left everything. They left their families, their countries and. Thing. Now I'm gonna say something super controversial. Obviously I'm already heretic in the Trinitarian world, but I'm likely to be a heretic in every world now, but I don't actually like the word apostate and the only reason I'm using. It is because. In the Koran, Jesus is the Messiah. He is. Marcia he is Al Masir, which is the Messiah. He is Marcia. He said. Jesus Christ, the Messiah. He's the word, you know. He's the healer. He's the mender of bones. And so for me. Dems love Jesus Christ. They just don't understand him in his fullness, and obviously they've got the one God part right. I'm gonna get a lot of haters. What I'm saying here, but I've just gotta. Say it, but obviously. We think Trinitarianism is the stumbling block for Jews and Muslims. That's just a fact they can't understand that God. Die. And so for me, I was just talking to them about the Jesus I love and also teaching them. English, which was which was really. Then I did a term in in prison. Not because I was arrested and went to prison, but I did prison Alpha, which is the alpha course in prison. So it's introducing the prisoners to faith. And that was pretty amazing because obviously I broke all the rules. We weren't meant to hog the prisoners. I hug the prisoners. What was weird was I I ended up getting Facebook requests from them in prison I was like. Hang on, he's. That has he got a mobile phone, but that was really amazing and that definitely impacted me massively on my face journey. I was always naturally Unitarian, but I'd never really thought that clearly. Obviously, I never thought that Jesus and God were one person. I always saw them separately. Ironically, yeah, all the Catholic iconography does portray them as completely different anyway, so for me there was always a distinction between. God the father and Jesus. And so when Josh and I started dating, I just came out with it and just said you don't believe Jesus is God, do you? And and yeah, he paused. And I thought, ohh, that's the end of our relationship. Short lived relationship and and no. And then he confirmed that he never. Taught Jesus as. God, when he was running out. The courses at university. And then I was like and then and and then after that I was driving with Josh and we were off to see his atheist, Pagan druid friends who live with loads of lizards. It's, and that's another story. But anyway. And we were off to see them. And I feel the Holy Spirit prompted me. To speak to a friend of mine who is the most knowledgeable person with the biggest encyclopedic brain I know on the scriptures and everything else he was learning Latin and Greek from too. He speaks multiple multiple languages, and he's very, very. Right. And I met him doing some. I was hosting some politics events. I thought, OK, I'll text him to see what he thinks about the Trinity. So I I sent him a message and I said, hey, I know you're on the board of a very ancient Trinitarian society, but you don't really believe in the Trinity. He and he responded almost instantly and said thank you so much for contacting me, Daisy, he said. Actually, no, I don't. And my parents run a Unitarian Bible study group, so. We went to this Bible study group and we met loads of cool people which introduced us to the very exclusive Unitarian community. Then we got invited to David Seaborn Jones, who's lovely and absolutely lovely. And we got invited to his house. Umm. And for a fellowship with Santoni Bozard because he was in the. And when we prayed, I I confess that our dream is to maybe open a. Hmm. Yeah, well, no. Open the church here. And it was Anthony Buzzard who said I see you may be opening a church, a Unitarian church in Israel. Josh Jones: I'm sorry. That's that's the point in. Sean Finnegan: Israel. Yeah, yeah. Josh Jones: That's before we realize that we celebrate Sabbath and stuff like that. So. I'm often like. Arguing with little Carlos on the thing going. Carlos like... Josh Jones: Although I've a I love the respect. For a lot of the stuff that Carlos. So yeah, so Daisy introduced us. Sean Finnegan: So when when did? You meet Anthony. Josh Jones: Maybe 3-4 years ago. 4 favored and. Daisy Jones: Before it was 20, joy Joy was one, so it must. Sean Finnegan: Yeah, yeah. Four years ago, OK. Daisy Jones: Have been four years. Josh Jones: Ago, yeah. So from so I took up this really unique job here in Northwood bays and I, you know, we got married, we moved in together, we started to develop this kind of little community of Unitarian Christians. I started to understand more about the history and this type of thing. And my my vision still was to look. It was almost like to infiltrate. Into the Church of England, a bit like a Nicodemus type of character in a way to try and bring about positive change because you know, I'd been part of Trinitarian churches or no Unitarian churches at all. Wear off and so I kind of again still discretely I was because still developing my understanding and started going for the the Bishop's advisory process, whatever that, that that was it because our, our, our real aim actually my real aim in the first instance was trying to build unity through community and not doctrine and 1st instance. So it was trying to bring about the love and. Daisy Jones: Now versus. Josh Jones: What about working of our faith? To then demonstrate and bring influence in communities, really to show the love and and the positive effects that people who follow you sure can bring to a community. And because that's what I've always seen in my younger days and it's like my sister, you know, you can break into the hard landscape here in the UK if you go out and preach the. Word and spirit and faith. Because God will be there and people's hearts will be changed, people's lives will be moved. Well, we had this vision to try and unite churches, to get churches to look outside their purview. Of their four walls, to get people to pull resources. To pull ideas. You know, a church full of old people helping. Maybe the church with like the young kids, you know, get a few churches together so that young people can form a good youth group thing. But basically all my ideas and work were just poo pooed, you know, the passing it back to me and don't look, having grown up in churches, I've got thick skinned Germaine. I'm not. I'm not taking it super personally, but when the guy in charge of the bat, I transpired, was the guy who was promoting the transgender liturgy in the Church of England. I was just like. There is no way in our good Lord sweet Earth I'm letting latch app determine whether I suitable. So we withdrew ourselves from that one of the offshoots of the church we were attending was gonna be shut down. And The thing is, it was full of very beautiful old faithful Christians. A lot of them quite set in their ways, but. They did outreach in the school, so sharing the gospel, you know, they did work with old people and stuff. Like this so we. Just thought it's wrong just to shut this down so days and another couple stepped up to and we ended up Co leading this church about a year and. 1/2 and you know. I was able to do that. You know, we were preaching. Regularly so just preaching. Daisy Jones: You're preaching Unitarianism in a Trinitarian church. Josh Jones: Yeah, basically. Daisy Jones: Totally undetected because we were just preaching the word. Josh Jones: And most people don't. They're blinking bibles. Do you know what I mean? So. Daisy Jones: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it does help when you're preaching from the. Old Testament and the. Arms you you can go under the radar, but it wasn't in an underhand way or anything. It's just we we just preached what was spilled and. What was written? And and that was it. And it wasn't anything under housing. Josh Jones: Yeah, we, you. Know with the hope of changing hearts and minds and developing people and introducing people to God's name. You know what it meant to be the Messiah. You know what? Were the prophecies in the Hebrew Bible that were then actually fulfilled in Yeshua? Well, I didn't, you know, these are terms probably still using the word Christ and stuff like this. But then it just got to a point where you know every now and again there'll be a. Like a a focus on the. Trinity and it. Will just infuriate me massively and we just got the points like where we actually wanna step outside of this. Now we want to have the freedom to really share what's on our hearts. So in the early stages about community, it was about just showing the word the. Passport that we we used to do lots of stuff on the on the military base where we are here. So running kind of messy church for kids and this time. The thing but the the kind of division changed to like I really now want to counter the Trinitarian narrative and. Take that head on. Daisy Jones: And also our love for juice and Muslims. You know, when we were in Israel, we're gonna have to do another show on on the miracles that happen in Israel, not least an Orthodox rabbi running after me and grabbing my arm and asking me what my secret was because I had joy. So I got to tell him about Yeshua and say, you know, I love Yeshua and I love Israel and had a good joke with him because then he prophecy. Died and I said wait, you're not meant to do that. You just think that old prophets did that. Anyway, he has been wishing me a happy Shabbat every Friday for the last five years. And we had other amazing encounters where we just had Jews on their way to synagogue and just come up to us out of the blue. Stop us in. The street and say. And in Galilee and and the sky just stopped us. And he was all in black with his little briefcase on his way to synagogue. And he stopped, and he wouldn't stop staring. And he was about to walk into a lamp post. So I was like, hey. Josh Jones: In in. Daisy Jones: Hey, so anyway he he. Just can't he? He didn't even say hello. He said I want you to know, I believe that Jesus walked on water here. And and then he. Josh Jones: Asked us to share. Jesus with him. Tell him about Jesus. This is a random bloke. Who literally just walked up to us as. We were walking from our. Hotel down to this. To the wherever the town centre is in in the the base. Of Galilee. Literally. Daisy Jones: I would really say it was hotel. It was a. Shed, but anyway. Josh Jones: Yeah. Well, yeah, I mean. It was astonishing, I mean, absolutely astonishing. Daisy Jones: Yeah, it was amazing. Josh Jones: Yeah. So we, we we met this a Muslim kind of evangelist who'd met a a French guy, was it who was gonna basically convert to Islam. He was all happy. And he showed this little photo of him. Anyway, the next day we'd arranged to go and meet this guy, but we were running late. Not that this was the imam guy, just to again speak about. Stuff and we're in the proper. You know what The streets are like in Jerusalem, completely crowded and. And then David just says. Stop that, man. I look around and I and she's pointing towards like a backpack and. Like a bloke with. A massive brown. Hair like uh. And so I just went out. To this guy and I just. Stopped him and I said I do. Do you mind? Stopping my wife would just. Want to speak to you? I have no idea. Why? Anyway, Daisy comes up. Daisy says you're the guy who's gonna convert to us, aren't you? And he goes, yeah. Why? And it's like I'm like, oh, my goodness, this is like one random bloke in thousands. How did Daisy know? Anyway, I said, look, I think we can give him a word and we'd like to just share our faith with you and speak to you. Give your story this type of thing. And so we end up going to the where's the beautiful, the beautiful cafe at Christchurch in near Saint? There David's gate and. Daisy Jones: Yeah, the concern. They're the only Protestant church within the walls. Josh Jones: Yes, that's the one. Have you been there? Sean Finnegan: Are you talking about the old city? Yeah. Nails. Yeah. Which gate is it? Josh Jones: So David's gate it's. The oldest Methodist Church in. Sean Finnegan: Yes, I I had. Yes, I do remember. Seeing that, yeah. Josh Jones: Best place to stay, I'd say. And best food anyway. So it was getting late and we sat down. We got coffee. I remember going into the toilet and just praying that God would give me the words to say, you know, help me witness. But. But I just pray for God to. To help us. You know, witness to this guy. Here we go outside. There's no one. Around except this old woman kind of sitting maybe 10 meters away from us. You know when you know that, someone can hear what you're talking about and they're. But they're trying not to be too obvious that they know that they. Kind of almost want to get. Involved in the conversation. And so she's rattling a little chair. And so I just went over this and just kind of introduce. Myself, but I can't remember quite how it happened. Daisy Jones: I told you invite. Josh Jones: Her over? Yeah. And basically walks as kind of 80 year old Palestinian Catholic woman who takes over the conversation with this young French guy. And gives him the most amazing testimonies of God's healing of God's speaking to her. Of this vibrant. Faith of this. Old Palestinian Catholic woman and we were just blown away. It was just like, wow. Sean Finnegan: And she spoke English. Josh Jones: Yeah, yeah. She spoke English. Yeah, yeah. Daisy Jones: And the reason why she was there was. Because she was. Waiting for a friend. She never turned up. I saw her on her own. I felt. Sorry for her. I was like come. On come over and then she did. She did all the evangelizing for us. And then that was it that. With him back to being a Christian again. Sean Finnegan: Yeah, well, that's great. It's great to hear that God is at work today and that that's really the message that's shining through from the two of you. Your testimony, your, your experiences, that's so great. So tell us about this conference that's coming up. You guys have a a plan and you have Co conspirators. And your hope. Daisy Jones: We've hooked up with. The Christadelphians it's a miracle I'm checking. No, we love. Sean Finnegan: Charismatics and Christadelphians working. Together it is a miracle, absolutely. Josh Jones: The UCA. I think it's a wonderful resource. I I use a lot of it and I do hope to become a more active participant in. In videos and and debates as we go. Forward, but I. There is this real. Sense of, you know, opportunity to try and build a community of Unitarian believe it's here in the UK. And actually I think and aim for a conference is a fantastic idea. The vision very much aligns with what the UA wants to do. You know, Daisy and I represent a I think was our background. We we are quite comfortable speaking with Unitarians and Christians from all different flavours. And so therefore perhaps. On call us. Honest brokers in every respect because we do have our own particular kind of where we learn issues. But. The unifying call really was saying it's Romans 15 five to seven, you know. May the God of patient endurance and encouragement grant you all to be in agreement with one another. So that was one mouth and one mind. You might glorify the father of our Lord Jesus, the anointed one, therefore accept one another just as the anointed one has accepted you. Daisy Jones: Although that's not the official strap line of. Josh Jones: The IT is. Not but. That that's the vision, really, one mind, one mouth, you know, come together to and unify in, in to kind of learn about and share our faith in God. The father, the ones we. God and but also to reach out across Europe because you know Europe, there are a number of, you know, little strongholds of Unitarian Christians across Europe. And so it's an opportunity to, to pull people together. The great challenge, how we're is finding a location and the Trinitarian churches basically were turning around saying, no, no, no. So my plan was and hopefully no one from it was to find a a church that has perhaps become more liberal in their meanings. And there's a particular denomination where, sadly they've sold off more than 5060% of their churches in the last four or five years they've made amalgamate. They're very much fall under the liberal banner, but actually the nice thing is that presents a freedom and an opportunity. So we found a a wonderful location now where they've agreed that we can host it. I'm not gonna say where it is at the moment, so I need. To go down and. Do the the wrecking, but everything seems seems fine. Sean Finnegan: Is it near? Josh Jones: London. Yep. Yep, it's near London. OK. Yeah, it's. Yeah. Sean Finnegan: Well, that, that. Gives people a a rough idea of where, where. Josh Jones: Ohh yeah, and it's a beautiful. Daisy Jones: Historic location. Josh Jones: Sorry, historic location. So everyone would love. To go there. Daisy Jones: And I think that's the angle we want. We want to entice the Americans here with the historic. Your perspective, I know you know well we we want the whole board to come. I think that that I think the whole board have said they'd like to come, but no, we we want to focus it on the kind of restorative aspect, restoring the faith back to what we believe is the original 1st century Christianity. And this is our little. Sean Finnegan: You are Americans. Daisy Jones: Historical bit, but it you know, I mean it is pretty historical to have a UCA conference in Great Britain and the United Kingdom, you know, and and and that's why we want to incorporate. Great. The other activities like a day at Speakers Corner where we've met lots of Unitarians and you know and we we'd love to also organise a debate with Dell as we're discussing and planning. So it has been tricky, as Josh said, because we always get initial. Yes. Yes, of course. And then I'll and then I've always had. To ask them. Can you just check with your board that this is OK? They check with the board. It's like, sorry your theology. Sucks. You're not welcome. And and so this has happened like I don't know 20 plus Times Now we've just been asking, asking. Anyway I think we do have a location and to be disclosed soon, very picturesque, very beautiful and I think. Sean Finnegan: Do you? Have a time when it will happen. Josh Jones: Yes, Sir. Was it the last? Daisy Jones: We're thinking July next year, aren't we? Josh Jones: Weekend in July. Daisy Jones: It's July next year. Let's not pinpoint it. Josh Jones: What? Yeah, yeah, yeah, just so we would like to maximise it, cause July, August, September. Is holidays for Europe as well. Is if we can link it in also with maximize your opportunity for the. Americans to come and. Daisy Jones: And good weather because we've. Sean Finnegan: Well, yeah. I was gonna ask about that. Is it the case that in July there might be like a day or two without? Daisy Jones: Had three. Sean Finnegan: Without rain? Yeah. Daisy Jones: No, I I think. I think London gets a bad. I think in the 80s and 90s it rained more than it did now. But I mean we, we've had I say I'd say three weeks of of a. Josh Jones: Yeah, definitely. Daisy Jones: Summer of of. Great. And now it's back to like blankets. Sadly, but no, we would like we would like to do it. Josh Jones: In the summer and yeah, we've reached out to different, you know, through this process, you know, developing relationships with Unitarians in more European countries that I was unaware of. So, you know, one individual in Copenhagen knows some people in Norway, people in Norway. For people in Denmark so that that that is developing and and also here in the UK, we're really developing our our understanding of you know there are different large Unitarian communities. Daisy Jones: Big messianic one. Yeah. And we're kind of quasi messianic. Josh Jones: Aspiring messianic. Yeah. And so, you know, winning. It'll be an opportunity for for people to come and meet and also new, you know, those newly out of the Trinitarian. Faith because. And by next year, there's gonna be a lot more of them, you know? And so it's that chance, that sense of belonging and some. Some good teaching. Sean Finnegan: When you are persecuted or an isolated minority, you know you can put aside a lot of these other issues to to meet together and you know, I think if if the conference can be a place where people. Don't feel pressured to conform to 1 doctrinal package other than Unitarianism can really spur on a camaraderie rather than a competition between groups. Yeah, that's what it's done in the US, and so many of the groups in the US, especially people from my background. Daisy Jones: Yeah, definitely. Sean Finnegan: Not I was never really. In the way but my. Parents were but. They all built these kingdoms. And they built these. Walls as high as high as they. Could and they and it. Was all loyalty based on Ohh are you with this person or? Are you with that? Person and that was my parents generation in my generation. What I've seen overwhelmingly is the tearing down of these walls and overwhelmingly people saying well. Maybe we have some disagreements, but that's OK. I'm not intimidated by you. You're not. Intimidated by me so. Let's work together as much as we can. This is really a period of of building in the unitary movement because we're not persecuted, we're excluded. I can't attend certain conferences. I can't attend certain universities. I can't get published by certain publishers, right, so I'm excluded. But I'm not actively persecuted. OK. And so we have. An opportunity to build, to build coalitions and you know, the UCA is an alliance. Doesn't mean you're free. Churchill and Stalin were an alliance, right? They weren't friends. They didn't even like each other, but they they they were. They were allies in World War 2. So that's really a starting point. Hopefully it goes beyond just sort of like putting up with the other person. So I'd love to see that soft thing happen. Where there's banding together and pooling of resources and and and you know marketing and getting the. Message out because. I think there are, I think you're. Right. There are all these sleep. Others in the churches that are just like, yeah, that never really made sense to me. They just didn't have a word for it. And I think we can agitate for a truth revolution within Christianity. Josh Jones: That's it. Daisy Jones: Yeah, yeah, yeah, 100%. And I think another interesting thing is that the Christadelphian church here have incorporated 1000 Iranians. So not for this conference, because they're English. They've just come and their English isn't. Josh Jones: That you 100. Daisy Jones: Great. We we're not going to spend the whole conference, you know, finding translators, falsely translators. But maybe in the subsequent conferences, you know, we could have a whole bunch of Iranians and Iraqis and people who who found us. Josh Jones: It is wonderful that we have this opportunity to branch out and and and share ideas and stuff like this. Sean Finnegan: Well, let me come back on the the Iranian comment. It's interesting because I did an interview with Sam Tiedeman on africat the Persian. And Afriat is a little known Christian from the 4th century who was a Unitarian. Living in the land of Persia, which is the land of the Iranians who speak Farsi, sounds like the word Persia, right? So you can say to the Iranians when they're at this conference that they can have ethnic pride in Unitarian Christianity going all the way back to the three. Three 20s and three 30s and three 40s, right about the time that Constantine died and Athanasius was agitating in the West. In the East offer how? It was writing his demonstration, so you have to check out that interview there. But there there might be some coming full circle with these Iranians, you. Know they took. A little detour to Islam for, you know, 13 centuries, 15th century. But now they're back, you know. And so I'm so excited about this. Conference. How can people hear more about it? I suppose we'll post it on Unitarian Christian alliance.org. Or or do you have other ways people can find out? Daisy Jones: Yeah, we need to square away the venue officially. So we're in the final stages of that, and then we need a bit more back and forth with the board. Just confirming everything's cool and then we're going to push, push, push. Josh Jones: Yeah, as I. Said so, we're lining up some, some hopefully. Some really some high profile debate. Some practical activities and some activities left and right at the conference that people want to attend that are not bespoke as part of the conference. So you know visits to the British Museum where they've got. This great book Biblical history for. Sean Finnegan: Ohh yeah, I've always. Wanted to go to the British. Daisy Jones: Museum amazing. It's amazing. Josh Jones: Yeah, yeah, you know, and you need. Sean Finnegan: You need about a week, right is. Isn't it just so big? Josh Jones: So yeah, and then we'll do, we'll do you know, we'll get stuff out on Facebook on YouTube, we'll pass you around. All the Unitarian commentators so they can put it on their different podcasts and stuff like this. Sean Finnegan: Facebook groups and. Twitter or ex whatever we call this. Josh Jones: Yeah, yeah. Sean Finnegan: This social media now. That sounds really great and is it? Is it? Mainly targeted at. Academics. Or is it more practical or inspirational? Or how would you characterize? Josh Jones: It's gonna be all. Yeah. Yeah. So we would like it to. We're gonna, we're going to model it on the US model. So combination of academic, theological, practical, personal, the whole smorgasbord of of Unitarian. Daisy Jones: And we're and. We're trying to make it as affordable as possible. So initially I think we did want the big grand venue until we got the invoice. And then we were like, oh, actually you. Know what we do? Want students coming and also we want everyone to be able to afford to get both a plane ticket from Europe and to be able to afford to to come. So I think we're we're also looking at catering and house cater all that kind of stuff. So I think we're moving for the first conference, it won't be residential. Which is what we were hoping for at the beginning, but it will be more affordable overall. We hope. Yeah, exactly. Sean Finnegan: It is near London, so we can't. You can't think it's going. Oh yeah. To be too inexpensive, right? It's a big city. Josh Jones: Yeah. Well, you'll be surprised. I said I've I've hopefully applied a bit of my my military planning to this to this little conundrum and a bit of spiritual cunning and wisdom in terms of. And because, you know, we're not blessed with America, we're all your joint. Super churches everywhere. We just we just. Which is which is. Sean Finnegan: Well, anything else you guys wanna share real briefly or say before we close. Josh Jones: Now I just say thank you once again, Sean, you're an inspiration. You know you've made a real difference in people's lives, you know, fulfilling your mission in, in, in, you know, in love and kindness and and with a good dash of humour. So yeah. Which is brilliant. Daisy Jones: Yeah, nothing apart from gifts for today. And we love Christadelphians and we're really excited to be all working together. That's. Josh Jones: It, yeah. Sean Finnegan: Awesome. Awesome. Well, thanks so much.

Living A Life Of Honor / Guest Pastor John-Paul Burdashaw by Hope City Church

Once the wings have brushed you.. you're mine forever! Join Reneé, John Paul, and Travis as they discuss John Boorman's 1977 supernatural horror film "Exorcist II: The Heretic."   Please consider supporting the show on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thepodmortem    Pod Mortem would like to thank Original CINematic for sponsoring this week's episode! https://www.ogcinpro.com/  Feel free to contact: William Rush: wrush@ogcinpro.com Xxena Rush: xrush@ogcinpro.com    Where to listen to the podcast and follow us on social media: https://allmylinks.com/thepodmortem   Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thepodmortem https://twitter.com/bloodandsmoke https://twitter.com/realstreeter84 https://twitter.com/travismwh   What would you rate Exorcist II: The Heretic and what should we watch next? Email us at thepodmortem@gmail.com    "Pod Mortem Theme" written and performed by Travis Hunter. https://youtube.com/travismwh

Questions answered this episode: I'm trying to read through the actual text of John Paul's Theology of the Body but I find it incredibly difficult to understand. Is there anything I could do? My best friend and her husband are practicing Natural Family Planing. She feels isolated, discouraged and frustrated. Meanwhile, I feel like NFP should be a team effort and a source of closeness to the couple. Do you have any advice? I was in an unhealthy relationship with a man but I still long for his closeness. What place do old relationships have in light of the TOB? Ask Christopher West is a weekly podcast in which Theology of the Body Institute President Christopher West and his beloved wife Wendy share their humor and wisdom, answering questions about marriage, relationships, life, and the Catholic faith, all in light of John Paul II's beautiful teachings on the Theology of the Body. Get 3 FREE sessions (https://www.tobforfree.com) of our flagship course on Theology of the Body! Get a copy of God Is Beauty, A Retreat on the Gospel and Art (https://www.godisbeautybook.com) by Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II. Available now for the first time in English. Want to support the Theology of the Body Institute and have a better chance of us answering your question? Join our Patron Community (https://tobpatron.com)! Submit your question at AskChristopherWest.com (http://www.askchristopherwest.com). View our COURSE SCHEDULE (https://tobinstitute.org/programs/tobi-schedule/) to register for a course, ONLINE or IN-PERSON! GOOD NEWS ABOUT SEX & MARRIAGE (https://shop.corproject.com/collections/best-sellers/products/good-news-about-sex-and-marriage) by Christopher West Join Christopher, Fr. David Stavarz and the TOBI Team for our Holy Land pilgrimage Sept 3-13, 2024! Get details here (https://selectinternationaltours.com/product/pilgrimage-to-the-holy-land-september-3-13-2024-24ja09hltobi/) If you are in financial need and honestly cannot afford a book or resource recommended on this podcast, contact: michele@tobinstitute.org Find Christopher West on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/cwestofficial) and Instagram (http://www.instagram.com/cwestofficial). Discover the Theology of the Body Institute (http://www.tobinstitute.org). If you enjoy the podcast, help us out by writing a review (https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/ask-christopher-west/id1448699486). Thanks for listening! Christopher and Wendy hope their advice is helpful to you, but they are not licensed counseling professionals. If you are dealing with serious issues, please consult our list of trusted professionals (https://tobinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/TOBI-Recommended-Psychologists-Updated-6-8-20.pdf). Featuring music by Mike Mangione (https://www.mikemangione.com/).

They're all in the dining room... they're all in Hell. Join Reneé, John Paul, and Travis as they discuss Stephen Cognetti's 2018 found footage horror film "Hell House LLC II: The Abaddon Hotel."    Please consider supporting the show on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thepodmortem    Pod Mortem would like to thank Original CINematic for sponsoring this week's episode! https://www.ogcinpro.com/  Feel free to contact: William Rush: wrush@ogcinpro.com Xxena Rush: xrush@ogcinpro.com    Where to listen to the podcast and follow us on social media: https://allmylinks.com/thepodmortem   Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thepodmortem https://twitter.com/bloodandsmoke https://twitter.com/realstreeter84 https://twitter.com/travismwh   What would you rate Hell House LLC II: The Abaddon Hotel and what should we watch next? Email us at thepodmortem@gmail.com    "Pod Mortem Theme" written and performed by Travis Hunter. https://youtube.com/travismwh