Podcasts about Renounce

 ਸਲੋਕੁ ਮਃ ੩ ॥ ਸੇਖਾ ਚਉਚਕਿਆ ਚਉਵਾਇਆ ਏਹੁ ਮਨੁ ਇਕਤੁ ਘਰਿ ਆਣਿ ॥ ਏਹੜ ਤੇਹੜ ਛਡਿ ਤੂ ਗੁਰ ਕਾ ਸਬਦੁ ਪਛਾਣੁ ॥  ਅਰਥ: ਹੇ ਚੁੱਕੇ ਚੁਕਾਏ ਸ਼ੇਖ਼! ਇਸ ਮਨ ਨੂੰ ਇਕ ਟਿਕਾਣੇ ਤੇ ਲਿਆ; ਵਿੰਗੀਆਂ ਟੇਢੀਆਂ ਗੱਲਾਂ ਛੱਡ ਤੇ ਸਤਿਗੁਰੂ ਦੇ ਸ਼ਬਦ ਨੂੰ ਸਮਝ। ਸਤਿਗੁਰ ਅਗੈ ਢਹਿ ਪਉ ਸਭੁ ਕਿਛੁ ਜਾਣੈ ਜਾਣੁ ॥ ਆਸਾ ਮਨਸਾ ਜਲਾਇ ਤੂ ਹੋਇ ਰਹੁ ਮਿਹਮਾਣੁ ॥ ਸਤਿਗੁਰ ਕੈ ਭਾਣੈ ਭੀ ਚਲਹਿ ਤਾ ਦਰਗਹ ਪਾਵਹਿ ਮਾਣੁ ॥ ਅਰਥ: ਹੇ ਸ਼ੇਖਾ! ਜੋ (ਸਭ ਦਾ) ਜਾਣੂ ਸਤਿਗੁਰੂ ਸਭ ਕੁਝ ਸਮਝਦਾ ਹੈ ਉਸ ਦੀ ਚਰਨੀਂ ਲੱਗ; ਆਸਾਂ ਤੇ ਮਨ ਦੀਆਂ ਦੌੜਾਂ ਮਿਟਾ ਕੇ ਆਪਣੇ ਆਪ ਨੂੰ ਜਗਤ ਵਿਚ ਪਰਾਹੁਣਾ ਸਮਝ; ਜੇ ਤੂੰ ਸਤਿਗੁਰੂ ਦੇ ਭਾਣੇ ਵਿਚ ਚਲੇਂਗਾ ਤਾਂ ਰੱਬ ਦੀ ਦਰਗਾਹ ਵਿਚ ਆਦਰ ਪਾਵੇਂਗਾ। ਨਾਨਕ ਜਿ ਨਾਮੁ ਨ ਚੇਤਨੀ ਤਿਨ ਧਿਗੁ ਪੈਨਣੁ ਧਿਗੁ ਖਾਣੁ ॥੧॥  ਅਰਥ: ਹੇ ਨਾਨਕ! ਜੋ ਮਨੁੱਖ ਨਾਮ ਨਹੀਂ ਸਿਮਰਦੇ, ਉਹਨਾਂ ਦਾ (ਚੰਗਾ) ਖਾਣਾ ਤੇ (ਚੰਗਾ) ਪਹਿਨਣਾ ਫਿਟਕਾਰ-ਜੋਗ ਹੈ।੧। ਮਃ ੩ ॥ ਹਰਿ ਗੁਣ ਤੋਟਿ ਨ ਆਵਈ ਕੀਮਤਿ ਕਹਣੁ ਨ ਜਾਇ ॥ ਨਾਨਕ ਗੁਰਮੁਖਿ ਹਰਿ ਗੁਣ ਰਵਹਿ ਗੁਣ ਮਹਿ ਰਹੈ ਸਮਾਇ ॥੨॥ {ਪੰਨਾ 646} ਅਰਥ: ਹਰੀ ਦੇ ਗੁਣ ਬਿਆਨ ਕਰਦਿਆਂ ਉਹ ਗੁਣ ਮੁੱਕਦੇ ਨਹੀਂ, ਤੇ ਨਾਹ ਹੀ ਇਹ ਦੱਸਿਆ ਜਾ ਸਕਦਾ ਹੈ ਕਿ ਇਹਨਾਂ ਗੁਣਾਂ ਨੂੰ ਵਿਹਾਝਣ ਲਈ ਮੁੱਲ ਕੀਹ ਹੈ; (ਪਰ,) ਹੇ ਨਾਨਕ! ਗੁਰਮੁਖ ਜੀਊੜੇ ਹਰੀ ਦੇ ਗੁਣ ਗਾਉਂਦੇ ਹਨ। (ਜਿਹੜਾ ਮਨੁੱਖ ਪ੍ਰਭੂ ਦੇ ਗੁਣ ਗਾਂਦਾ ਹੈ ਉਹ) ਗੁਣਾਂ ਵਿਚ ਲੀਨ ਹੋਇਆ ਰਹਿੰਦਾ ਹੈ।੨। ਪਉੜੀ ॥ ਹਰਿ ਚੋਲੀ ਦੇਹ ਸਵਾਰੀ ਕਢਿ ਪੈਧੀ ਭਗਤਿ ਕਰਿ ॥ ਹਰਿ ਪਾਟੁ ਲਗਾ ਅਧਿਕਾਈ ਬਹੁ ਬਹੁ ਬਿਧਿ ਭਾਤਿ ਕਰਿ ॥ ਕੋਈ ਬੂਝੈ ਬੂਝਣਹਾਰਾ ਅੰਤਰਿ ਬਿਬੇਕੁ ਕਰਿ ॥ ਸੋ ਬੂਝੈ ਏਹੁ ਬਿਬੇਕੁ ਜਿਸੁ ਬੁਝਾਏ ਆਪਿ ਹਰਿ ॥  ਅਰਥ: (ਇਹ ਮਨੁੱਖਾ) ਸਰੀਰ, ਮਾਨੋ, ਚੋਲੀ ਹੈ ਜੋ ਪ੍ਰਭੂ ਨੇ ਬਣਾਈ ਹੈ ਤੇ ਭਗਤੀ (-ਰੂਪ ਕਸੀਦਾ) ਕੱਢ ਕੇ ਇਹ ਚੋਲੀ ਪਹਿਨਣ-ਜੋਗ ਬਣਦੀ ਹੈ। (ਇਸ ਚੋਲੀ ਨੂੰ) ਬਹੁਤ ਤਰ੍ਹਾਂ ਕਈ ਵੰਨਗੀਆਂ ਦਾ ਹਰੀ-ਨਾਮ ਪੱਟ ਲੱਗਾ ਹੋਇਆ ਹੈ; (ਇਸ ਭੇਤ ਨੂੰ) ਮਨ ਵਿਚ ਵਿਚਾਰ ਕਰ ਕੇ ਕੋਈ ਵਿਰਲਾ ਸਮਝਣ ਵਾਲਾ ਸਮਝਦਾ ਹੈ। ਇਸ ਵਿਚਾਰ ਨੂੰ ਉਹ ਸਮਝਦਾ ਹੈ, ਜਿਸ ਨੂੰ ਹਰੀ ਆਪ ਸਮਝਾਵੇ। ਜਨੁ ਨਾਨਕੁ ਕਹੈ ਵਿਚਾਰਾ ਗੁਰਮੁਖਿ ਹਰਿ ਸਤਿ ਹਰਿ ॥੧੧॥  ਅਰਥ: ਦਾਸ ਨਾਨਕ ਇਹ ਵਿਚਾਰ ਦੱਸਦਾ ਹੈ ਕਿ ਸਦਾ-ਥਿਰ ਰਹਿਣ ਵਾਲਾ ਹਰੀ ਗੁਰੂ ਦੀ ਰਾਹੀਂ (ਸਿਮਰਿਆ ਜਾ ਸਕਦਾ ਹੈ) ।੧੧।  SHALOK, THIRD MEHL:  O Shaykh, you wander in the four directions, blown by the four winds; bring your mind back to the home of the One Lord. Renounce your petty arguments, and realize the Word of the Guru's Shabad. Bow in humble respect before the True Guru; He is the Knower who knows everything. Burn away your hopes and desires, and live like a guest in this world. If you walk in harmony with the True Guru's Will, then you shall be honored in the Court of the Lord. O Nanak, those who do not contemplate the Naam, the Name of the Lord — cursed are their clothes, and cursed is their food. || 1 || THIRD MEHL: There is no end to the Lord's Glorious Praises; His worth cannot be described. O Nanak, the Gurmukhs chant the Glorious Praises of the Lord; they are absorbed in His Glorious Virtues. || 2 || PAUREE: The Lord has adorned the coat of the body; He has embroidered it with devotional worship. The Lord has woven His silk into it, in so many ways and fashions. How rare is that man of understanding, who understands, and deliberates within. He alone understands these deliberations, whom the Lord Himself inspires to understand. Poor servant Nanak speaks: the Gurmukhs know the Lord, the Lord is True. || 11 ||

The new designated Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney, holds dual Canadian and Irish citizenship, with his grandfather hailing from County Mayo. As he takes up his new role, he has said he is in the process of renouncing his Irish citizenship, but how does this process work, and is it common?Joining Seán to discuss is Immigration Lawyer Cathal Malone…

The new designated Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney, holds dual Canadian and Irish citizenship, with his grandfather hailing from County Mayo. As he takes up his new role, he has said he is in the process of renouncing his Irish citizenship, but how does this process work, and is it common?Joining Seán to discuss is Immigration Lawyer Cathal Malone…

Pauls exploits continue as people burn their occult books and riot to try to remove Paul from Ephesus.

Patrick Madrid gets into a question from Emily in Maine, who’s wondering if she has to pack her bags for Rome to receive a plenary indulgence during the Jubilee Year. Here's the Explanation: Patrick explains that while Rome’s Holy Doors are a major focus during the Jubilee Year, you don’t actually need to fly to the Eternal City to participate. Many dioceses around the world designate their own churches: usually cathedrals or significant shrines, with Holy Doors. So, you can check out your diocesan website to see which local church has been designated. Once you know where the doors are, you can receive the same plenary indulgence as if you were in St. Peter’s Basilica. So, What’s a Plenary Indulgence Anyway? Patrick gives a quick theology lesson: A plenary indulgence is the "complete remission of the punishment due to sins that have already been forgiven." It’s like hitting the reset button on your soul’s "penance odometer." To receive it, you need to: Be in a state of grace (go to Confession if needed!). Renounce all attachment to sin: even those sneaky past sins you might secretly still take pride or enjoyment in. Perform the prescribed act (in this case, passing through a Holy Door). Receive Communion and pray for the Pope’s intentions (like an Our Father and a Hail Mary). Patrick makes it clear that detachment from sin doesn’t mean you need to feel it emotionally. It’s an act of the will: a firm decision to reject sin out of true love for God. What About Rome? Emily mentions she’d love to go to Rome (don’t we all?), but it’s just not possible. Patrick assures her that the indulgence she gets at her local Holy Door is just as “full” as the one you’d get in Rome. There’s no "extra holy" indulgence for jetsetters: it’s the same grace whether you’re at St. Peter’s or in Portland, Maine. Final Thought: If you’re dreaming of Rome but stuck at home, don’t sweat it. Holy Doors are popping up all over the world, and the grace is universal. So, grab your diocesan map, check out your nearest Holy Door, and step into the incredible mercy God is offering you this Jubilee Year. Hey, maybe pray for a miracle trip to Rome while you’re at it. You never know what door God might open for you, literally!

Become a Client: https://nomadcapitalist.com/apply/ Get our free Weekly Rundown newsletter and be the first to hear about breaking news and offers:https://nomadcapitalist.com/email Join us for the next Nomad Capitalist Live event: https://nomadcapitalist.com/live/ In this episode, we explain how to renounce United States citizenship and then return to the USA as a visitor, potentially using the visa waiver program. Mr. Henderson covers numerous second passport options for individuals considering renouncing US citizenship. He also explains the process of applying for a visa and traveling to the USA as a renunciant. Additionally, Mr. Henderson reveals often overlooked passports that investors and entrepreneurs can get—while enjoying low-tax living—that could allow them to visit the USA without applying for a visa after renouncing US citizenship. Nomad Capitalist helps clients "go where you're treated best." We are the world's most sought-after firm for offshore tax planning, dual citizenship, international diversification, and asset protection. We use legal and ethical strategies and work exclusively with seven- and eight-figure entrepreneurs and investors. We create and execute holistic, multi-jurisdictional Plans that help clients keep more of their wealth, increase their personal freedom, and protect their families and wealth against threats in their home country. No other firm offers clients access to more potential options to relocate to, bank in, or become a citizen of. Because we do not focus only on one or a handful of countries, we can offer unbiased advice where others can't. Become Our Client: https://nomadcapitalist.com/apply/ Our Website: http://www.nomadcapitalist.com/ About Our Company: https://nomadcapitalist.com/about/ Buy Mr. Henderson's Book: https://nomadcapitalist.com/book/ DISCLAIMER: The information in this episode should not be considered tax, financial, investment, or any kind of professional advice. Only a professional diagnosis of your specific situation can determine which strategies are appropriate for your needs. Nomad Capitalist can and does not provide advice unless/until engaged by you.

Five Secrets to Win (Luke 8:4-15) 1. Prioritize God's Word (seed, vv. 5, 11) 2. Renounce the Devil (path, vv. 5, 12) 3. Deepen Your Roots (rock, vv. 6, 13) 4. Uproot Worldliness (thorns, vv. 7, 14) 5. Patiently Persevere (soil, vv. 8, 15)  

Atlas Shrugged seems to be everywhere today. Randian villains are in the news. Rand remains influential on the right, from the Reagan era to the modern libertarian movement. Perhaps most significantly, entrepreneurs like Elon Musk and Marc Andreessen who are moving into government with DOGE, have been influenced by Rand, and, fascinatingly, Andreessen only read the novel four years ago. Hollis Robbins (@Anecdotal) and I talked about how Atlas Shrugged is in conversation with the great novels of the past, Rand's greats skills of plotting, drama, and character, and what makes Atlas Shrugged a serious novel, not just a vehicle for ideology. Love it or loathe it, Atlas Shrugged is having a moment. Everyone brings a preconception of Ayn Rand, but she has been opposed by the right and the left ever since she first published. Other than Jennifer Burns' biography, academic study has largely declined to notice Rand. But Rand deserves our serious attention, both as a novelist, and as an influence on the modern world. Here are a couple of excerpts.We talk a lot these days about, “how can I be my best self?” That's what Rand is saying. She's saying, actually, it's not about earning money, it's not about being rich. It is about the perfection of the moral life. It's about the pursuit of excellence. It's about the cultivation of virtue. These are the important things. This is what Dagny is doing. When all the entrepreneurs at the end, they're in the happy valley, actually, between them, they have not that much money, right?Also this.What would Ayn Rand think about the influencer economy? Oh, she'd despise it. She would despise it… all these little girls wanting to grow up to be influencers, they're caught in some algorithm, which is awful. Why would you want to spend your life influencing others? Go create something. It's a hard medicine.And.Her aesthetic is very classical, draped. She doesn't wear flowery patterns. She wears draped, clearly close-fitting gowns and gray tailored suits and a minimum of jewelry, though she does have this bracelet chain made of Rearden metal. You don't know when she possibly has time to go shopping, but she's perfectly dressed all the time in the fashion that we would understand as feminist. She wears trousers, she wears suits, but when she goes out, this black velvet cape. I think it's important to see her as that, even though nobody talks about that in terms of this novel, what a heroine she is. I know that when I was reading her as a teenage girl, that's it.TranscriptHenry: Today, I am talking with Hollis Robbins, former dean of the humanities at Utah University and special advisor on the humanities and AI. We are talking about Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. Hollis, hello.Hollis Robbins: Hello. I'm really glad to have this conversation with you. We've known each other for some years and follow each other's work. I was trained as a scholar of 19th-century American, Victorian, and African-American literature, mostly novels, and love having conversations with you about big, deep novels. When I suggested that we read this book, I was hoping you would be enthusiastic about it, so I'm really happy to be having this conversation. It's hard to know who's interviewing you or what conversation this is, but for you coming at this middle-aged. Not quite middle-aged, what are you?Henry: I'm middle enough. No. This is not going to be an interview as such. We are going to have a conversation about Atlas Shrugged, and we're going to, as you say, talk about it as a novel. It always gets talked about as an ideology. We are very interested in it as a novel and as two people who love the great novels of the 19th century. I've been excited to do this as well. I think that's why it's going to be good. Why don't we start with, why are we doing this?Hollis: I wanted to gesture to that. You are one of the leading public voices on the importance of reading literature and the importance of reading novels particularly, though I saw today, Matt Yglesias had a blog post about Middlemarch, which I think he just recently read. I can credit you with that, or us, or those of us who are telling people read the big novels.My life trajectory was that I read Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead before I read Dickens, before I read Jane Austen, before I read Harriet Beecher Stowe or Melville or the Brontës. For me, Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead were foundational novels as novels. I wondered what it would be like to talk to somebody whose experience was flipped.Henry: Right, I'm 38 and I'd never read this book. I was coming at it partly having read all those other books, but partly for my whole life, people have said, "Oh, that's really a bad book. That's so badly written. That book is no good." The number one thing I can say to people is this book is fun.Hollis: It's really fun. I was going to say usually what I forget to do in talking about books is give the summary. I'm going to hold up my copy, which is my dog-eared copy from high school, which is hilarious. It's got the tiniest print, which I couldn't possibly read now. No underlining, which is interesting. I read this book before I understood that you were supposed to underline when you liked passages in the book.It was interesting to me. I'd probably read it five or six times in my youth and didn't underline anything. The story is--- You can help me fill in the blanks. For readers who haven't read it, there's this young woman, Dagny Taggart, who's the heiress of the Taggart Transcontinental Railroad fortune. She's a woman. This takes place in about, I think, the '40s, '50s. Her older brother, Jim Taggart, is CEO. She's COO, so she's the operations person. It is in some ways the story of her-- It's not quite a bildungsroman. This is the way I tell the story. It's the story of her coming to the realization of how the world works. There's many ways to come at this story. She has multiple boyfriends, which is excellent. Her first boyfriend, his name is Francisco d'Anconia. He's the head of d'Anconia Copper. He too is an heir of this longstanding copper fortune. Her second is a metals magnate, Hank Rearden, who invents this great metal, Rearden metal.Really, it's also the story of the decline of America, and the ways that, in this Randian universe, these villainous group of people who run the country are always taking and extracting from producers. As she's creating and building this great railroad and doing wonderful things and using Rearden metal to do it, something is pulling all the producers out of society, and she's like, "What is going on?"It turns out there's this person, John Galt, who is saying, "I don't like the way the country is run. I don't like this extractive philosophy. I am going to take all the producers and lure them voluntarily to a--" It's a hero's lair. It's not like a James Bond villain lair. It's a hero lair in Colorado called Galt's Gulch. He is John Galt. It ends up being a battle between who is right in a wrong world. Is it the ethical person, Dagny Taggart, who continues to strive and try to be a producer and hold on to her ethics in this corrupt world, or is it somebody saying, "To hell with this. I am going on strike. You guys come with me and let the world collapse." How's that for summary?Henry: No, I think that's great. I couldn't have done a better job. One thing that we can say is that the role of reason, of being a rational person, of making reason the sole arbiter of how you make choices, be they practical, ethical, financial, whatever, that's at the heart of the book, right?Hollis: That's the philosophy. We could go there in a second. I think the plot of the book is that she demonstrates this.Henry: What she has to learn, like what is the big lesson for Dagny, is at the beginning, she hasn't fully understood that the good guys use reason and the bad guys do not, as it were.Hollis: Right. I think that's right. I like thinking about this as a bildungsroman. You said that the book is fun. Her part of the book is fun, but not really fun. The fun part of the book, and you can tell me because every time you kept texting me, "Oh my God, Jim Taggart. Oh my God, Jim Taggart. Oh my God, Jim Taggart."--Henry: These guys are so awful. [laughs]Hollis: They're so awful. The fun parts of the book, the Rand villains are the government entities and the cabals of business leaders who she calls looters and second-handers who run the country and all they do is extract value. Marc Andreessen was on a podcast recently and was all about these Rand villains and these looters. I think, again, to get back to why are we doing this and why are we doing this now, Ayn Rand and Atlas Shrugged is in the air with the second Trump administration.Henry: Yes. In a way, we're doing this because the question is, is this the novel of the future? Right? What we're seeing is it's very influential on the right. Rand's ideas have long been a libertarian inspiration. Elon Musk's read her. You mentioned Andreessen, Peter Thiel, all these people. It goes back to the Reagan days. People in the Republican Party have been quoting Ayn Rand. Then more broadly, we see all these worries about social collapse today. What happens in the plot of Atlas Shrugged is that society does slowly collapse.Dagny has to realize it's because of these people who are not using their reason and they're nationalizing things and taking resource away from proficient entrepreneurs and stuff. It's all about infrastructure, energy, people doing exploitation in the name of the common good, ineffective political leaders, people covering up lies and misdemeanors, people being accepting of what is obviously criminal behavior because it's in the cause of the greater good. We have free speech, all these topics, energy production. We're seeing this in the headlines. When I was reading this book, I was like, "Oh my God, how did she know?"Hollis: How did she know?Henry: How did she know.Hollis: I think the bildungsroman aspect of this as a novel. It's hard to read it as a novel. I think it's hard. By the way, I have to really I applaud you for not, until you got almost to the end of the book, texting me about this person or that person, or how it's political. I admire you for looking at the book and coming to the book as an expert in novels.What she comes to terms with, and it's a real slowly-- It's not even scales falling from her eyes. She doesn't sit and say, "Oh my God, the world is corrupt." She just is like, "That person's corrupt. I'm not going to deal with them. That person's corrupt. I'm not going to deal with them." She just keeps going, but she doesn't ever accept with a fatalism that she's living in this world where every single person who's in charge is going to let her down.Henry: It's also interesting to me that she doesn't complain.Hollis: No.Henry: Now, that reminded me of I wrote about Margaret Thatcher in my book. She was another big one for however hard it was, however difficult it was, why would you complain? Let's just go to work. A lot of people found her difficult for that reason. When I was reading this, I was like, "Ayn Rand clearly has the same idea. You can nationalize every last inch of the economy. I'm going to get up and go to work and try and beat you. I'm not going to sit around and complain." It's a very stern attitude in a way. She's very strict with herself. I found the book to be-- I know Rand is very atheist, but a very Protestant book.Hollis: Yes, it really is.Henry: Intensely Protestant, yes.Hollis: That's a nice way to think about it. A certain kind of Protestant, a Weberian Protestant.Henry: Sure.Hollis: Not a Southern Baptist Protestant who believes in the absence of reason. I was thinking I was teaching in Mississippi years ago. I was teaching a course on Wordsworth and had to do a unit on Voltaire because you can't really understand Wordsworth unless you understand Voltaire. There was a woman in my class. She was a version of Presbyterian who doesn't believe in reason, believes that in the fall, man lost their reason.Therefore, she asked if she could be excused from class because I was talking about Voltaire and the importance of reason. She said, "This is against my religion. If you believe that man has reason, you are actually going about it wrong, so may I be excused?" Which in all the years I've had people ask for excuses to miss class, that was a memorable one.Henry: That's unique. [laughs]Hollis: It's interesting because, again, I should get back to the novel, the opposition from Rand is as strong on the religious right as it is on the left. In fact, very strong. When Atlas Shrugged came out, William F. Buckley famously had Whittaker Chambers write the review. He hated her. He despised her. He despised the fact that she put reason first.Henry: Yes. I think that's worth emphasizing that some people listening will think, "I'm Rand. These nasty ideas, she's on the right." She's been ideologically described in that way so many times. Deirdre McCloskey in the Literary Review has just in the most recent edition written an absolutely scathing article about Rand. That's libertarian opposition to Rand.McCloskey is saying Hayek is the real thing here and Rand would have hated everything that Hayek did. She got everything wrong. I think the opposition to her, as you say, it's on both sides. One thing that's interesting about this novel is that because she created her own philosophy, which people will have different views on how well that went, but there isn't anyone else like this. All the other people like this are her followers.Hollis: Exactly.Henry: She's outside of the other systems of thought in a way.Hollis: We should talk about Rand. I'm going to quote a little bit from this book on feminist interpretation of Ayn Rand. Let's talk a little bit, if we can, about Dagny as the heroine of a novel, or a hero, because one of the really interesting things about reading Rand at this moment is that she's got one pronoun, he, him, man. She is in this era where man means man and women. That there isn't men and women, he and she, and now it's he, she, and them. She is like, "There's one pronoun." Even she talks about the rights of man or man believes. She means everybody, but she only means man too. It's interesting.I was very much part of the first pronoun wars in the 1980s when women scholars were like, "He and she." Now we're thrown out the window with that binary. Again, we don't need to talk about pronouns, but it's really important to understanding Rand and reading this novel, how much she embraces men and the male pronoun, even while she is using it both ways, and even while her story is led by this woman. She's beautiful. She's beautiful in a very specific way. She's tall, she's slender, she's got great cheekbones, she's got great shoulders, she's got long legs.Her aesthetic is very classical, draped. She doesn't wear flowery patterns. She wears draped, clearly close-fitting gowns and gray tailored suits and a minimum of jewelry, though she does have this bracelet chain made of Rearden metal. You don't know when she possibly has time to go shopping, but she's perfectly dressed all the time in the fashion that we would understand as feminist. She wears trousers, she wears suits, but when she goes out, this black velvet cape. I think it's important to see her as that, even though nobody talks about that in terms of this novel, what a heroine she is. I know that when I was reading her as a teenage girl, that's it.Henry: I want to be Dagny.Hollis: I want to be Dagny. I want to have capes, right?Henry: There's a very important scene, it's not too much of a plot spoiler, where Hank Rearden has invented this new metal. It's very exciting because it's much more efficient and it's much stronger and you can build new bridges for the trains and everything. He makes a bracelet of his new metal. It's a new steel alloy, I think, and gives it to his wife. His wife basically doesn't care.She's not really interested in what it takes to earn the money, she just wants to have the money. You get the strong impression throughout the book that some of the people that Rand is most scathingly disapproving of are wives who don't work. None of those people come out well. When Dagny goes to a party at the Rearden house and she is romantically involved with Hank Rearden, she sees the bracelet.Hollis: She isn't then, right? Isn't she not then?Henry: No, but they have feelings for each otherHollis: Right. Reasonable feelings for each other.Henry: That's right, reasonable feelings, but they're not currently acting on those feelings. She sees the bracelet and she exchanges her, I think, diamonds-Hollis: Diamond bracelet.Henry: -for the Rearden metal bracelet with the wife. It's this wonderful moment where these two opposite ideals of womanhood that Rand is presenting. It's a great moment of heroism for Dagny because she is saying, "Who cares about glittering diamonds when you have a new steel alloy that can make this incredible bridge?" It sounds crazy, but this is 1957. Dagny is very much what you might call one of the new women.Hollis: Right.Henry: I think in some ways, Rand-- I don't like the phrase she's ahead of her time. I've read a lot of 1950s fiction. This is not the typical woman.Hollis: No, this is not Cheever. This is not a bored suburban housewife at a time when the way the '50s are taught, certainly in America, it's like women could work during the war, then they were suburban housewives, there was bored, there were key parties and all sorts of Cheever sorts of things. This is not that. I read this first. I was only 15 years after it was published, I think, in the '60s, early '70s reading it.This, to me, seemed perfectly normal and everything else seemed regressive and strange and whiny. There's a lot to be said for reading this novel first. I think if we can talk a little bit about these set pieces because I think for me reading it as a novel and hearing you talk about it as a novel, that novels, whether we're thinking about-- I want to see if you want to compare her to Dorothea or just to any other Victorian women novel that you can think of. That's the closest, right? Is there anybody that's closest to Dorothea from Middlemarch? Is that there are these set pieces. People think that Rand-- the idea is that she's not a great writer. She is a great writer. She started in Hollywood. Her first book, The Fountainhead, was made into a movie. She understands plotting and keeping the reader's attention. We go forward, we go backwards. There's her relationship with Francisco d'Anconia that we see her now, years after, then we have flashbacks to growing up and how they became lovers.There are big meeting set pieces where everybody's in the room, and we have all the backstories of the people in the room, what is going to happen. There are these big party scenes, as you say. For example, this big, glorious, glamorous party at the Rearden house, Francisco is there. Francisco and Hank Rearden get in a conversation, and she's like, "I want to go see what my old boyfriend is talking to the guy I like about."There are these moments where you're not supposed to come at the book that way in this serious philosophical way. Then later on when there's this wonderful scene where Francisco comes to see Dagny. This is much later. Hank and Dagny are lovers, so he has a key to her apartment. He walks in and everybody sees immediately what's going on. It's as good as any other farce moment of somebody hiding behind a curtain, right?Henry: Yes.Hollis: Everything is revealed all at once. She's very good at scenes like that.Henry: Yes, very good. She's very good at high drama. One of the phrases that kept coming back to me was that this book is a melodrama of ideas.Hollis: Yes.Henry: Right? It's not a novel of ideas as such, it's a melodrama of ideas. I think one thing that people who think she's a bad writer will say is it's melodrama, the characters are flat, the prose is not lyrical, all these different things. Whereas when I read it, I was like, "She's so good at melodrama." I feel like, in some ways, it does not feel like a 1950s novel because there's so much excitement about technology, so much feminism, just so many things that I do not associate--Maybe I'm being too English, but I don't read John Cheever, for example, and think, "Oh, he loves the train." Whereas this book is very, very exciting as a story about inventing a new kind of train that goes really fast," which sounds silly, but that's a really Dickensian theme, that's in Middlemarch. Actually, that's what Matt Yglesias was talking about in his excellent piece today. What does feel very 1950s is you've got the Hollywood influence. The dialogue, I think, is not always great, but it is often great.I often would read pages and think, "This would actually be really good in, not an A++ movie, but in a decent crime movie or something. This would be quite good dialogue." There's a comic book aesthetic to it in the way that the scenes play out. Just a lot of these '50s aesthetics actually are present in the book. I'm going to read one paragraph. It's from part one. I think we should read out loud a few bits to give people a sense.Hollis: Yes.Henry: This is when Dagny has built a new train line using grid and metal to make the bridge so that it can go over a valley. I think that's right. The train can do 100 miles an hour. It's this very, very exciting new development. It means that energy can be supplied to factories, and so it's a huge, big deal. This is when she's on the train going at 100 miles an hour and she just can't believe it's happening."Things streaked past a water tank, a tree, a shanty, a grain silo. They had a windshield wiper motion. They were rising, describing a curve, and dropping back. The telegraph wires ran a race with the train, rising and falling from pole to pole, in an even rhythm like the cardiograph record of a steady heartbeat written across the sky. She looked ahead at the haze that melted rail and distance, a haze that could rip apart at any moment to some shape of disaster.""She wondered why she felt safer than she had ever felt in a car behind the engine. Safer here where it seemed as if should an obstacle rise, her breast and the glass shield would be the first to smash against it. She smiled, grasping the answer. It was the security of being first with full sight and full knowledge of one's own course, not the blind sense of being pulled into the unknown by some unknown power ahead."That's not MFA prose or whatever, but it turns the pages. I think she's very good at relating we're on the train and it's going very fast to how Dagny is thinking through the philosophical conundrum that is basically going to drive the whole plot forwards. I was reminded again and again of what Virginia Woolf said about Walter Scott, where she compared Scott to Robert Louis Stevenson. She said that Stevenson had beautiful sentences and dapper little adjectives. It was all jeweled and carefully done. You could marvel over each sentence.She said, "Whereas Scott, it's just page after page and no sentence is beautiful," but she says, "He writes at the level of the page. He's not like Stevenson. He's not writing at the level of the sentence. You have to step into the world." You can say, 'Oh, that wasn't a very good sentence,' but my goodness, the pages keep turning and you're there in the world, right?Hollis: Exactly.Henry: I think she made a really important point there and we just undervalue that so much when we say, oh, so-and-so is not a good writer. What we mean is they're not a Robert Louis Stevenson, they're a Walter Scott. It's like, sure, but Walter Scott was great at what he did. Ayn Rand is in the Walter Scott inheritance in the sense that it's a romance, it's not strictly realistic novel. You have to step into the world. You can't spend your whole time going, "Was that a great sentence? Do I really agree with what she just--" It's like, no, you have to go into this utopian sci-fi universe and you have to keep turning the pages. You get caught up and you go, "Wow, this is this is working for me."Hollis: Let me push back on that-Henry: Yes, good.Hollis: -because I think that was a beautiful passage, one of my favorite passages in this book, which is hard to say because it's a really, really big book. It's a memorable passage because here she is in a place at this moment. She is questioning herself. Isn't she questioning why? Why do I feel safe? Then it strikes her. In this moment, all interior while all this stuff is happening. This whole Rearden metal train bridge set piece is one of the highlights of at least the first half of the book. You come away, even if we've had our entire life up to her, understanding her as a philosophical this woman. How is that different from Dorothea or from Elizabeth Bennet? Yes, Elizabeth Bennet, right?Henry: Oh, no, I agree. My point was purely about prose style, which was to say if you say, "Oh, she writes like a Walter Scott, not like a Robert Louis Stevenson," you're going to deny yourself seeing what you've just said, which is that actually, yes, she has the ability to write philosophical characters.Hollis: When I first read Pride and Prejudice, I read it through the lens of Rand. Now, clearly, these heroines had fewer choices. Dorothea marries Casaubon, I don't know how you pronounce it, because she thinks he's a Randian expert, somebody who's got this grand idea. She's like, "Whoa, I want to be part of this endeavor, the key to all mythologies." Then she's so let down. In the Randian sense, you can see why she would have wanted him.Henry: That's right. I think George Eliot would have strongly disagreed with Rand philosophically. The heroines, as you say, what they're doing in the novel is having to realize that there are social conventions I have to understand and there are things I have to learn how to do, but actually, the key to working all that out is more at the moral philosophical level. This is what happens to Dagny. I think it's on the next page from what I just read. There's another passage where it says that she's in the train and she's enjoying. It's working and she's thrilled that her train is working. She was trying not to think, but she couldn't help herself.She said, "Who made the train. Is it the brute force of muscle? Who can make all the dials and the levers? How is it possible that this thing has even been put together?" Then she starts thinking to herself, "We've got a government who's saying it's wrong to do this, you're taking resources, you're not doing it for the common good." She says, "How can they regard this as evil? How can they believe that this is ignoble to have created this incredible thing?"She says she wants to be able to toss the subject out of the window and let it get shattered somewhere along the track. She wants the thoughts to go past like the telegraph poles, but obviously, she can't. She has this moment of realization that this can't be wrong. This type of human accomplishment can't be against the common good. It can't be considered to be ignoble. I think that is like the Victorian heroines.To me, it was more like Fanny Price, which is that someone turns up into a relatively closed system of ideas and keeps their own counsel for a long time, and has to admit sometimes when they haven't got it right or whatever. Basically, in the end, they are vindicated on fairly straightforward grounds. Dagny comes to realize that, "I was right. I was using my reason. I was working hard. I was being productive. Yes, I was right about that." Fanny, it's more like a Christian insight into good behavior, but I felt the pattern was the same.Hollis: Sure. I'll also bring up Jane Eyre here, right?Henry: Yes.Hollis: Jane Eyre, her relationship, there's a lot to be said of both Mr. Darcy and Mr. Rochester with Hank Rearden because Hank Rearden has to come to his sense. He's married. He doesn't like his wife. He doesn't like this whole system that he's in. He wants to be with a woman that's a meeting of the mind, but he's got all this social convention he has to deal with. Rochester has to struggle, and of course, Bertha Mason has to die in that book. He ends up leaving his wife, but too late. If we're going to look at this novel as a novel, we can see that there are these moments that I think have some resonance. I know you don't seem to want to go to the Mr. Darcy part of it.Henry: No. I had also thought about Jane Eyre. My thought was that, obviously, other than being secular because Jane Eyre is very Christian, the difference is that Hank Rearden and Dagny basically agree that we can't conduct our relationship in a way that would be morally compromising to her. They go through this very difficult process of reasoning like, "How can we do this in a good way?"They're a little bit self-sacrificing about it because they don't want to upset the moral balance. Whereas Mr. Rochester, at least for the first part of the book, has an attitude that's more like, "Yes, but she's in the attic. Why does it matter if we get married?" He doesn't really see the problem of morally compromising Jane, and so Jane has to run away.Hollis: Right.Henry: One of the interesting things about Rand, what is different from like Austen and the Brontës and whatever, is that Dagny and Hank are not in opposition before they get together. They have actually this unusual thing in romance and literature, which is that they have a meeting of minds. What gets in the way is that the way their minds agree is contra mundum and the world has made this problem for them.Hollis: I think in a way, that's the central relationship in--Henry: Yes. That was how I read it, yes.Hollis: Yes. The fact as we think about what the complications are in reading this novel as a novel is that here is this great central romance and they've got obstacles. She's got an old boyfriend, he's married. They've got all these things that are classic obstacles to a love story. Rand understands that enough to build it, that that will keep a lot of readers' interest, but then it's like, "That's actually not the point of my book," which is how the second half or the last third of the novel just gets really wiggy." Again, spoiler alert, but Hank is blackmailed to be, as the society is collapsing, as things are collapsing--Henry: We should say that the government has taken over in a nationalizing program by this point.Hollis: Right, because as John Galt is pulling all the thought leaders and the industrialists and all the movers of the world into his lair, things are getting harder and harder and harder, things are getting nationalized. Some of these big meetings in Washington where these horrible people are deciding how to redistribute wealth, again, which is part of the reason somebody like Congressman Paul Ryan would give out copies of Atlas Shrugged to all of his staffers. He's like, "You've got to read this book because we can't go to Washington and be like this. The Trumpian idea is we've got to get rid of people who are covering up and not doing the right thing."They've blackmailed Hank Rearden into giving up Rearden Metal by saying, "We know you've been sleeping with Dagny Taggart." It's a very dramatic point. How is this going to go down?Henry: Right. I think that's interesting. What I loved about the way she handled that romance was that romance is clearly part of what she sees as important to a flourishing life. She has to constantly yoke it to this idea that reason is everything, so human passion has to be conducted on the basis that it's logically reasonable, but that it therefore becomes self-sacrificing. There is something really sad and a little bit tragic about Hank being blackmailed like that, right?Hollis: Yes. I have to say their first road trip together, it's like, "Let's just get out of here and go have a road trip and stay in hotels and have sex and it'll be awesome." That their road trip is like, "Let's go also see some abandoned factories and see what treasures we might find there." To turn this love road trip into also the plot twist that gets them closer to John Galt is a magnificent piece of plot.Henry: Yes. I loved that. I know you want to talk about the big John Galt speech later, but I'm going to quote one line because this all relates to what I think is one of the most central lines of the book. "The damned and the guiltiest among you are the men who had the capacity to know yet chose to blank out reality." A lot of the time, like in Brontë or whatever, there are characters like Rochester's like that. The center of their romance is that they will never do that to each other because that's what they believe philosophically, ethically. It's how they conduct themselves at business. It's how they expect other people to conduct themselves. They will never sacrifice that for each other.That for them is a really high form of love and it's what enables huge mutual respect. Again, it's one of those things I'm amazed-- I used to work in Westminster. I knew I was a bit of a libertarian. I knew lots of Rand adjacent or just very, very Randian people. I thought they were all insane, but that's because no one would ever say this. No one would ever say she took an idea like that and turned it into a huge romance across hundreds of pages. Who else has done that in the novel? I think that's great.Hollis: It really is hard. It really is a hard book. The thing that people say about the book, as you say, and the reason you hadn't read it up until now, is it's like, "Oh, yes, I toyed with Rand as a teenager and then I put that aside." I put away my childish things, right? That's what everybody says on the left, on the right. You have to think about it's actually really hard. My theory would be that people put it away because it's really, really hard, what she tried is hard. Whether she succeeded or not is also hard. As we were just, before we jumped on, talking about Rand's appearance on Johnny Carson, a full half hour segment of him taking her very seriously, this is a woman who clearly succeeded. I recently read Jennifer Burn's biography of her, which is great. Shout out to Jennifer.What I came away with is this is a woman who made her living as a writer, which is hard to do. That is a hard thing to do, is to make your living as a writer, as a woman in the time difference between 1942, The Fountainhead, which was huge, and 57, Atlas Shrugged. She was blogging, she had newsletters, she had a media operation that's really, really impressive. This whole package doesn't really get looked at, she as a novelist. Again, let me also say it was later on when I came to Harriet Beecher Stowe, who is another extraordinary woman novelist in America who wrote this groundbreaking book, which is filled--I particularly want to shout out to George Harris, the slave inventor who carried himself like a Rand hero as a minor character and escapes. His wife is Eliza, who famously runs across the ice flows in a brave Randian heroine escape to freedom where nobody's going to tell them what to do. These women who changed literature in many ways who have a really vexed relationship or a vexed place in academia. Certainly Stowe is studied.Some 20 years ago, I was at an event with the great Elaine Showalter, who was coming out with an anthology of American women writers. I was in the audience and I raised my hand, I said, "Where's Ayn Rand?" She was like, "Ha, ha, ha." Of course, what a question is that? There is no good reason that Ayn Rand should not be studied in academia. There is no good reason. These are influential novels that actually, as we've talked about here, can be talked about in the context of other novels.Henry: I think one relevant comparison is let's say you study English 19th-century literature on a course, a state-of-the-nation novel or the novel of ideas would be included as routine, I think very few people would say, "Oh, those novels are aesthetically excellent. We read them because they're beautifully written, and they're as fun as Dickens." No one's saying that. Some of them are good, some of them are not good. They're important because of what they are and the barrier to saying why Rand is important for what she is because, I think, people believe her ideas are evil, basically.One central idea is she thinks selfishness is good, but I think we've slightly dealt with the fact that Dagny and Hank actually aren't selfish some of the time, and that they are forced by their ethical system into not being selfish. The other thing that people say is that it's all free-market billionaire stuff, basically. I'm going to read out a passage from-- It's a speech by Francisco in the second part. It's a long speech, so I'm not going to read all eight pages. I'm going to read this speech because I think this theme that I'm about to read out, it's a motif, it's again and again and again.Hollis: Is this where he's speaking to Hank or to Dagny?Henry: I think when he's speaking to Dagny and he says this."Money will not purchase happiness for the man who has no concept of what he want. Money will not give him a code of values if he has evaded the knowledge of what to value, and it will not provide him with a purpose if he has evaded the choice of what to seek. Money will not buy intelligence for the fool, or admiration for the coward, or respect for the incompetent."The man who attempts to purchase the brains of his superiors to serve him with his money replacing his judgment ends up by becoming the victim of his inferiors. The men of intelligence desert him, but the cheats and the frauds come flocking to him, drawn by a law which he has not discovered, that no man may be smaller than his money."Hollis: That's a good--Henry: Right? It's a great paragraph. I feel like she says that in dozens of ways throughout the book, and she wants you to be very clear when you leave that this book is not a creed in the name of just make money and have free market capitalism so you can be rich. That paragraph and so many others, it's almost biblical in the way she writes it. She's really hammering the rhythms, and the tones, and the parallels. She's also, I think, trying to appropriate some of the way the Bible talks about money and turn it into her own secular pseudo-Aristotelian idea, right?Hollis: Yes.Henry: We talk a lot these days about, how can I be my best self? That's what Rand is saying. She's saying, actually, it's not about earning money, it's not about being rich. It is about the perfection of the moral life. It's about the pursuit of excellence. It's about the cultivation of virtue. These are the important things. This is what Dagny is doing. When all the entrepreneurs at the end, they're in the happy valley, actually, between them, they have not that much money, right?Hollis: Right.Henry: The book does not end in a rich utopia, it's important to say.Hollis: It's interesting. A couple of things. I want to get this back since we're still in the novel. Let me say when we get to Galt's great speech, which is bizarre. He says a similar thing that I'll bring in now. He says, "The mother who buys milk for her baby instead of a hat is not sacrificing because her values are feeding the baby. The woman who sacrifices the hat to feed her baby, but really wants the hat and is only feeding the baby out of duty is sacrificing." That's bad. She's saying get your values in order. Understand what it is you want and do that thing, but don't do it because somebody says you have to. She says this over and over in many ways, or the book says this.Henry: We should say, that example of the mother is incidental. The point she's always making is you must think this through for yourself, you must not do it because you've been told to do it.Hollis: Right, exactly. To get back to the love story aspects of the book because they don't sit and say they love each other, even all the great romances. It's not like, "I love you. I love you." It's straight to sex or looks and meetings of the minds. It's interesting. We should deal with the fact that from The Fountainhead and a little bit in this book, the sex is a little rapey. It's a difficult thing to talk about. It's certainly one of the reasons that feminists, women writers don't approve of her. In the book, it's consensual. Whatever one wants to think about the ways that people have sex, it is consensual in the book. Also in The Fountainhead.I'm sure I'll get hate mail for even saying that, but in her universe, that's where it is. What's interesting, Francisco as a character is so interesting. He's conflicted, he's charming, he's her first lover. He's utterly good in every way. He ends up without her. Hank is good. Hank goes through his struggles and learning curve about women prioritizing. If you don't like your wife, don't be married to your wife. It's like he goes through his own what are my values and how do I live them.I know you think that this is bizarre, but there's a lot of writing about the relationship of Hank and Francisco because they find themselves in the same room a lot. They happen to have both been Dagny's lovers or ex-lovers, and they really, really like each other. There's a way that that bonding-- Homosexuality does not exist in her novels, whatever, but that's a relationship of two people that really are hot for one another. There is a lot of writing. There are queer readings of Rand that make a lot of that relationship.Again, this isn't my particular lens of criticism, but I do see that the energy, which is why I asked you which speech you were reading because some of Francisco's best speeches are for Hank because he's trying to woo Hank to happy valley. Toward the end when they're all hanging out together in Galt's Gulch, there's clearly a relationship there.Henry: Oh, yes. No, once you pointed out to me, I was like, "That makes sense of so many passages." That's clearly there. What I don't understand is why she did that. I feel like, and this is quite an accomplishment because it's a big novel with a lot of moving parts, everything else is resolved both in terms of the plot, but also in terms of how it fits her philosophical idea. That, I think, is pretty much the only thing where you're left wondering, "Why was that in there? She hasn't made a point about it. They haven't done anything about it." This I don't understand. That's my query.Hollis: Getting ready to have this conversation, I spent a lot of time on some Reddit threads. I ran Atlas Shrugged Reddit threads where there's some fantastic conversations.Henry: Yes, there is.Hollis: One of them is about, how come Francisco didn't end up with anybody? That's just too bad. He's such a great character and he ends up alone. I would say he doesn't end up alone, he ends up with his boyfriend Hank, whatever that looks like. Two guys that believe in the same things, they can have whatever life they want. Go on.Henry: Are you saying that now that they're in the valley, they will be more free to pursue that relationship?Hollis: There's a lot of things that she has said about men's and women's bodies. She said in other places, "I don't think there'll ever be a woman president because why would a woman want to be president? What a woman really wants is a great man, and we can't have a president who's looking for a great man. She has to be a president." She's got a lot of lunacy about women. Whatever. I don't understand. Someplace I've read that she understands male homosexuality, but not female homosexuality. Again, I am not a Rand scholar. Having read and seen some of that in the ether, I see it in the book, and I can see how her novel would invite that analysis.I do want to say, let's spend a few seconds on some of the minor characters. There are some really wonderful minor characters. One of them is Cherryl Taggart, this shop girl that evil Jim Taggart meets one night in a rainstorm, and she's like, "Oh, you're so awesome," and they get married. It's like he's got all this praise for marrying the shop girl. It's a funny Eliza Doolittle situation because she is brought into this very wealthy society, which we have been told and we have been shown is corrupt, is evil, everybody's lying all the time, it's pretentious, Dagny hates it.Here's the Cherryl Taggart who's brought into this. In the beginning, she hates Dagny because she's told by everybody, "Hate Dagny, she's horrible." Then she comes to her own mini understanding of the corruption that we understand because Dagny's shown it in the novel, has shown it to us this entire time. She comes to it and she's like, "Oh my God," and she goes to Dagny. Dagny's so wonderful to her like, "Yes. You had to come to this on your own, I wasn't going to tell you, but you were 100% right." That's the end of her.Henry: Right. When she meets Taggart, there's this really interesting speech she has where she says, "I want to make something of myself and get somewhere." He's like, "What? What do you want to do?" Red flag. "What? Where?" She says, "I don't know, but people do things in this world. I've seen pictures of New York," and she's pointing at like the skyscrapers, right? Whatever. "I know that someone's built that. They didn't sit around and whine, but like the kitchen was filthy and the roof was leaking." She gets very emotional at this point. She says to him, "We were stinking poor and we didn't give a damn. I've dragged myself here, and I'm going to do something."Her story is very sad because she then gets mired in the corruption of Taggart's. He's basically bit lazy and a bit of a thief, and he will throw anyone under the bus for his own self-advancement. He is revealed to be a really sinister guy. I was absolutely hissing about him most of the time. Then, let's just do the plot spoiler and say what happens to Cherryl, right? Because it's important. When she has this realization and Taggart turns on her and reveals himself as this snake, and he's like, "Well, what did you expect, you idiot? This is the way the world is."Hollis: Oh, it's a horrible fight. It's the worst fight.Henry: Right? This is where the melodrama is so good. She goes running out into the streets, and it's the night and there are shadows. She's in the alleyway. Rand, I don't have the page marked, but it's like a noir film. She's so good at that atmosphere. Then it gets a little bit gothic as well. She's running through the street, and she's like, "I've got to go somewhere, anywhere. I'll work. I'll pick up trash. I'll work in a shop. I'll do anything. I've just got to get out of this."Hollis: Go work at the Panda Express. Henry: Yes. She's like, "I've got to get out of this system," because she's realized how morally corrupting it is. By this time, this is very late. Society is in a-- it's like Great Depression style economic collapse by this point. There really isn't a lot that she could do. She literally runs into a social worker and the social-- Rand makes this leering dramatic moment where the social worker reaches out to grab her and Cherryl thinks, "Oh, my God, I'm going to be taken prisoner in. I'm going back into the system," so she jumps off the bridge.This was the moment when I was like, I've had this lurking feeling about how Russian this novel is. At this point, I was like, "That could be a short story by Gogol," right? The way she set that up. That is very often the trap that a Gogol character or maybe a Dostoevsky character finds themselves in, right? That you suddenly see that the world is against you. Maybe you're crazy and paranoid. Maybe you're not. Depends which story we're reading. You run around trying to get out and you realize, "Oh, my God, I'm more trapped than I thought. Actually, maybe there is no way out." Cherryl does not get a lot of pages. She is, as you say, quite a minor character, but she illustrates the whole story so, so well, so dramatically.Hollis: Oh, wow.Henry: When it happens, you just, "Oh, Cherryl, oh, my goodness."Hollis: Thank you for reading that. Yes, you could tell from the very beginning that the seeds of what could have been a really good person were there. Thank you for reading that.Henry: When she died, I went back and I was like, "Oh, my God, I knew it."Hollis: How can you say Rand is a bad writer, right? That is careful, careful plotting, because she's just a shop girl in the rain. You've got this, the gun on the wall in that act. You know she's going to end up being good. Is she going to be rewarded for it? Let me just say, as an aside, I know we don't have time to talk about it here. My field, as I said, is 19th century African American novels, primarily now.This, usually, a woman, enslaved woman, the character who's like, "I can't deal with this," and jumps off a bridge and drowns herself is a fairly common and character. That is the only thing to do. One also sees Rand heroes. Stowe's Dred, for example, is very much, "I would rather live in the woods with a knife and then, be on the plantation and be a slave." When you think about, even the sort of into the 20th century, the Malcolm X figure, that, "I'm going to throw out all of this and be on my own," is very Randian, which I will also say very Byronic, too, Rand didn't invent this figure, but she put it front and center in these novels, and so when you think about how Atlas Shrugged could be brought into a curriculum in a network of other novels, how many of we've discussed so far, she's there, she's influenced by and continues to influence. Let's talk about your favorite minor character, the Wet Nurse.Henry: This is another great death scene.Hollis: Let's say who he is, so the government sends this young man to work at the Rearden Mills to keep an eye on Hank Rearden.Henry: Once they nationalize him, he's the bureaucrat reporting back, and Rearden calls him the Wet Nurse as an insult.Hollis: Right, and his job, he's the Communist Party person that's in every factory to make sure that everything is--Henry: That's right, he's the petty bureaucrat reporting back and making sure everyone's complying.Hollis: He's a young recent college graduate that, Hank, I think, early on, if it's possible even to find the Wet Nurse early scene, you could tell in the beginning, too, he's bright and sparkly right out of college, and this is, it seems like a good job for him. He's like, "Woohoo, I get to be here, and I get to be--" Yes, go ahead.Henry: What happens to him is, similarly to Cherryl, he has a conversion, but his conversion is not away from the corruption of the system he's been in, he is converted by what he sees in the Rearden plant, the hard work, the dedication, the idealism, the deep focus on making the metal, and he starts to see that if we don't make stuff, then all the other arguments downstream of that about how to appropriate, how to redistribute, whatever, are secondary, and so he becomes, he goes native, as it were. He becomes a Reardenite, and then at the end, when there's a crowd storming the place, and this crowd has been sent by the government, it's a fake thing to sort of--Hollis: Also, a very good scene, very dramatic.Henry: She's very good at mobs, very good at mobs, and they kill, they kill the Wet Nurse, they throw him over. He has a couple of speeches in dialogue with Rearden while he's dying, and he says--Hollis: You have to say, they throw him, they leave him on this pile of slag. He crawls up to the street where Rearden happens to be driving by, and car stops, and so that finding the Wet Nurse there and carrying him in his arms, yes.Henry: That's right, it's very dramatic, and then they have this dialogue, and he says, "I'd like to live, Mr. Rearden, God, how I'd like to, not because I'm dying, but because I've just discovered tonight what it means to be alive, and it's funny, do when I discovered it? In the office, when I stuck my neck out, when I told the bastards to go to hell, there's so many things I wish I'd known sooner, but it's no use crying over spilt milk," and then Rearden, he goes, "Listen, kid, said Rearden sternly, I want you to do me a favor." "Now, Mr. Rearden?" "Yes, now." "Of course, Mr. Rearden, if I can," and Rearden says, "You were willing to die to save my mills, will you try and live for me?"I think this is one of those great moments where, okay, maybe this isn't like George Eliot style dialogue, but you could put that straight in a movie, that would work really well, that would be great, right? I can hear Humphrey Bogart saying these things. It would work, wouldn't it?She knows that, and that's why she's doing that, she's got that technique. He's another minor character, and Rand is saying, the system is eating people up. We are setting people up for a spiritual destruction that then leads to physical destruction. This point, again, about it's not just about the material world. It's about your inner life and your own mind.I find it very moving.Hollis: These minor characters are fantastic. Then let's talk a little bit about Eddie Willers, because I think a lot about Eddie Willers. Eddie Willers, the childhood three, there were three young people, we keep going back to this childhood. We have Dagny, Francisco, because their parents were friends, and then Eddie Willers, who's like a neighborhood kid, right?Henry: He's down the street.Hollis: He lives down the street. He's like the neighborhood kid. I don't know about you. We had a neighborhood kid. There's always neighborhood kids, right? You end up spending time with this-- Eddie's just sort of always there. Then when they turn 15, 16, 17, and when there's clearly something going on between Dagny and Francisco, Eddie does take a step back, and he doesn't want to see.There's the class issues, the status issues aren't really-- they're present but not discussed by Rand. Here we have these two children heirs, and they don't say like, "You're not one of us, Eddie, because you're not an heir or an heiress." He's there, and he's got a pretty good position as Dagny's right-hand man in Taggart Transcontinental. We don't know where he went to college. We don't know what he does, but we know that he's super loyal, right?Then when she goes and takes a break for a bit, he steps in to be COO. James is like, "Eddie Willers, how can Eddie Willers be a COO?" She's like, "It's really going to be me, but he's going to be fine." We're not really supposed to identify with Eddie, but Eddie's there. Eddie has, all through the novel, all through the big old novel, Eddie eats lunch in the cafeteria. There's always this one guy he's having lunch with. This is, I don't know, like a Greek chorus thing, I don't quite know, but there's Eddie's conversations with this unknown person in the cafeteria give us a sense, maybe it's a narrator voice, like, "Meanwhile, this is going on in the world." We have these conversations. This guy he's having lunch with asks a lot of questions and starts asking a lot of personal questions about Dagny. Then we have to talk to-- I know we've gone for over an hour and 15 minutes, we've got to talk about Galt's Speech, right? When John Galt, toward the end, takes over the airwaves and gives this big three-hour speech, the big three-hour podcast as I tweeted the other day, Eddie is with Dagny.Henry: He's in the radio studio.Hollis: He's in the studio along with one of John Galt's former professors. We hear this voice. Rand says, or the narrator says, three people in the room recognize that voice. I don't know about you, did you guess that it was Galt before that moment that Eddie was having lunch with in the cafeteria?Henry: No, no, no, I didn't.Hollis: Okay, so you knew at that moment.Henry: That was when I was like, "Oh, Eddie was talking, right?" It took me a minute.Hollis: Okay, were you excited? Was that like a moment? Was that a big reveal?Henry: It was a reveal, but it made me-- Eddie's whole character puzzles me because, to me, he feels like a Watson.Hollis: Yes, that's nice, that's good.Henry: He's met Galt, who's been under their noses the whole time. He's been going through an almost Socratic method with Galt, right? If only he could have paid a little bit more attention, he would have realized what was going on. He doesn't, why is this guy so interested in Dagny, like all these things. Even after Galt's big speech, I don't think Eddie quite takes the lesson. He also comes to a more ambiguous but a bad end.Hollis: Eddie's been right there, the most loyal person. The Reddit threads on Eddie Willers, if anybody's interested, are really interesting.Henry: Yes, they are, they're so good.Hollis: Clearly, Eddie recognizes greatness, and he recognizes production, and he recognizes that Dagny is better than Jim. He recognizes Galt. They've been having these conversations for 12 years in the cafeteria. Every time he goes to the cafeteria, he's like, "Where's my friend, where's my friend?" When his friend disappears, but he also tells Galt a few things about Dagny that are personal and private. When everybody in the world, all the great people in the world, this is a big spoiler, go to Galt's Gulch at the end.Henry: He's not there.Hollis: He doesn't get to go. Is it because of the compromises he made along the way? Rand had the power to reward everybody. Hank's secretary gets to go, right?Henry: Yes.Hollis: She's gone throughout the whole thing.Henry: Eddie never thinks for himself. I think that's the-- He's a very, I think, maybe one of the more tragic victims of the whole thing because-- sorry. In a way, because, Cherryl and the Wet Nurse, they try and do the right thing and they end up dying. That's like a more normal tragedy in the sense that they made a mistake. At the moment of realization, they got toppled.Eddie, in a way, is more upsetting because he never makes a mistake and he never has a moment of realization. Rand is, I think this is maybe one of the cruelest parts of the book where she's almost saying, "This guy's never going to think for himself, and he hasn't got a hope." In a novel, if this was like a realistic novel, and she was saying, "Such is the cruelty of the world, what can we do for this person?" That would be one thing. In a novel that's like ending in a utopia or in a sort of utopia, it's one of the points where she's really harsh.Hollis: She's really harsh. I'd love to go and look at her notes at some point in time when I have an idle hour, which I won't, to say like, did she sit around? It's like, "What should I do with Eddie?" To have him die, probably, in the desert with a broken down Taggart transcontinental engine, screaming in terror and crying.Henry: Even at that stage, he can't think for himself and see that the system isn't worth supporting.Hollis: Right. He's just going to be a company man to the end.Henry: It's as cruel as those fables we tell children, like the grasshopper and the ants. He will freeze to death in the winter. There's nothing you can do about it. There are times when she gets really, really tough. I think is why people hate her.Hollis: We were talking about this, about Dickens and minor characters and coming to redemption and Dickens, except Jo. Jo and Jo All Alones, there are people who have redemption and die. Again, I don't know.Henry: There's Cherryl and the Wet Nurse are like Jo. They're tragic victims of the system. She's doing it to say, "Look how bad this is. Look how bad things are." To me, Eddie is more like Mr. Micawber. He's hopeless. It's a little bit comic. It's not a bad thing. Whereas Dickens, at the end, will just say, "Oh, screw the integrity of the plot and the morals. Let's just let Mr. Micawber-- let's find a way out for him." Everyone wants this guy to do well. Rand is like, "No, I'm sticking to my principles. He's dead in the desert, man. He's going to he's going to burn to death." He's like, "Wow, that's okay."Hollis: The funny thing is poor John Galt doesn't even care about him. John Galt has been a bad guy. John Galt is a complicated figure. Let's spend a bit on him.Henry: Before we do that, I actually want to do a very short segment contextualizing her in the 50s because then what you say about Galt will be against this background of what are some of the other ideas in the 50s, right?Hollis: Got it.Henry: I think sometimes the Galt stuff is held up as what's wrong with this novel. When you abstract it and just say it, maybe that's an easier case to make. I think once you understand that this is 1957, she's been writing the book for what, 12 years, I think, or 15 years, the Galt speech takes her 3 years to write, I think. This is, I think the most important label we can give the novel is it's a Cold War novel. She's Russian. What she's doing, in some ways, is saying to America, "This is what will happen to us if we adopt the system of our Cold War enemies." It's like, "This is animal farm, but in America with real people with trains and energy plants and industry, no pigs. This is real life." We've had books like that in our own time. The Mandibles by Lionel Shriver said, that book said, "If the 2008 crash had actually gone really badly wrong and society collapsed, how would it go?" I think that's what she's reacting to. The year before it was published, there was a sociology book called The Organization Man.Hollis: Oh, yes. William Whyte.Henry: A great book. Everyone should read that book. He is worrying, the whole book is basically him saying, "I've surveyed all these people in corporate America. They're losing the Protestant work ethic. They're losing the entrepreneurial spirit. They're losing their individual drive. Instead of wanting to make a name for themselves and invent something and do great things," he says, "they've all got this managerial spirit. All the young men coming from college, they're like, 'Everything's been done. We just need to manage it now.'" He's like, "America is collapsing." Yes, he thinks it's this awful. Obviously, that problem got solved.That, I think, that gives some sense of why, at that moment, is Ayn Rand writing the Galt speech? Because this is the background. We're in the Cold War, and there's this looming sense of the cold, dead hand of bureaucracy and managerialism is. Other people are saying, "Actually, this might be a serious problem."Hollis: I think that's right. Thank you for bringing up Whyte. I think there's so much in the background. There's so much that she's in conversation with. There's so much about this speech, so that when you ask somebody on the street-- Again, let me say this, make the comparison again to Uncle Tom's Cabin, people go through life feeling like they know Uncle Tom's Cabin, Simon Legree, Eliza Crossing the Ice, without having ever read it.Not to name drop a bit, but when I did my annotated Uncle Tom's Cabin, this big, huge book, and it got reviewed by John Updike in The New Yorker, and I was like, "This is freaking John Updike." He's like, "I never read it. I never read it." Henry Louis Gates and then whoever this young grad student was, Hollis Robbins, are writing this book, I guess I'll read it. It was interesting to me, when I talk about Uncle Tom's Cabin, "I've never read it," because it's a book you know about without reading. A lot of people know about Atlas Shrugged without having read it. I think Marc Andreessen said-- didn't he say on this podcast that he only recently read it?Henry: I was fascinated by this. He read it four years ago.Hollis: Right, during COVID.Henry: In the bibliography for the Techno-Optimist Manifesto, and I assumed he was one of those people, he was like you, he'd read it as a teenager, it had been informative. No, he came to it very recently. Something's happening with this book, right?Hollis: Huge things are happening, but the people who know about it, there's certain things that you know, you know it's long, you know that the sex is perhaps not what you would have wanted. You know that there's this big, really long thing called John Galt's Speech, and that it's like the whaling chapters in Moby-Dick. People read Moby-Dick, you're like, "Oh, yes, but I skipped all the chapters on cetology." That's the thing that you say, right? The thing that you say is like, "Yes, but I skipped all the John Galt's Speech." I was very interested when we were texting over the last month or so, what you would say when you got to John Galt's Speech. As on cue, one day, I get this text and it's like, "Oh, my God, this speech is really long." I'm like, "Yes, you are the perfect reader."Henry: I was like, "Hollis, this might be where I drop out of the book."Hollis: I'm like, "Yes, you and the world, okay?" This is why you're an excellent reader of this book, because it is a frigging slog. Just because I'm having eye issues these days, I had decided instead of rereading my copy, and I do have a newer copy than this tiny print thing, I decided to listen on audiobook. It was 62 hours or whatever, it was 45 hours, because I listen at 1.4. The speech is awesome listening to it. It, at 1.4, it's not quite 3 hours. It's really good. In the last few days, I was listening to it again, okay? I really wanted to understand somebody who's such a good plotter, and somebody who really understands how to keep people's interest, why are you doing this, Rand? Why are you doing this, Ms. Rand? I love the fact that she's always called Miss. Rand, because Miss., that is a term that we

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What if the pain you're experiencing is actually the pruning you need to bear MORE fruit?In this powerful sermon, Pastor Verna DeHart dives deep into the heart of God's pruning process and how it leads to true growth. The faithful aren't exempt from the cutting—God's pruning is His way of preparing us for something far greater than we could ever imagine. It may hurt, but it always brings MORE.Using Scripture like John 15 and Proverbs 13, Pastor Verna shares a prophetic word of encouragement for 2025: This is your year to thrive, bear abundant fruit, and walk into the promises of wisdom, joy, and supernatural provision. The message also explores a practical, three-step process for partnering with God to remove toxic habits, thoughts, and relationships: Repent, Renounce, Replace.Whether you're going through a season of struggle or just needing direction for the year ahead, this sermon will inspire and equip you to walk in the fullness of God's promises and cut out what no longer serves you. Prepare for MORE in 2025!

Is God calling you to bear MORE fruit? Get ready for a deeper level of pruning and growth in your life!In this impactful message, Pastor Verna DeHart continues the "I Will Cut You" series with a powerful word about More Excellent Fruit! Discover how God's pruning process leads us to greater spiritual fruitfulness, with a promise that those who trust in the Lord will not only thrive in seasons of drought but will continue to bear fruit no matter the circumstances.Pastor Verna unpacks the truth that God cuts—not to harm us, but to increase us. Pruning is painful, but it's always a pathway to MORE and BETTER than we imagined.Through John 15 and the Battle Seed Promise from Jeremiah 17, Pastor DeHart encourages listeners to align with God's plan for their lives, even when it means cutting out toxic behaviors, mindsets, and people. The key to transformation? Repent, Renounce, and Replace.Are you ready to grow in ways you never thought possible? Tune in for a word of encouragement and practical wisdom for 2025!

Friend, can we talk about how challenging 2024 was? You're not alone—I felt it too. But guess what? 2025 is full of promise, and this episode is here to help you step into it with faith and strategy.  In this deeply personal episode, I share a story of hope and resilience tied to the Hebrew month of Kislev, a season that symbolizes rest and security. Whether you're navigating tough seasons in business or seeking clarity on your next steps, know this: you don't have to do it alone. That's why I created the Seek First CEO Mastermind—a safe, faith-filled space to grow your business while nurturing your mind and heart. Imagine making communion, fasting, repentance, and Biblical truth foundational elements of your business in 2025. Ready to align your faith and strategy to transform your life and business? Let's do this together   Send me a DM on Instagram to get started! www.instagram.com/heathershriverburns   Related Episodes: //235. Biblical Business Strategies for Christian Entrepreneurs: Part 1   //233. How to Align Your Mind, Body and Business for Success: Soul Care Strategies Part 7   //220. Repent, Renounce, Rewire: My Secret Weapon for Hearing God! [How to Hear from God Series Part 6] Produced by Lydia Haig, Podcast Manager & Strategist, helping purpose-led entrepreneurs create impactful podcasts. Follow me on Instagram: @lydia.podcastpro

Breaking Generational Curses: Walking in the Freedom of Christ • Sunday Service   Website: www.PastorTodd.org To Give: www.ToddCoconato.com/give   Today, we're addressing a topic that many believers struggle to understand—generational curses. The Bible speaks of how sin and its consequences can affect families and communities, sometimes for generations. But it also declares that in Christ, we are set free from all curses, including those passed down through our bloodline. However, we must not only receive that freedom but walk in it daily. Generational curses may manifest in repeated patterns of addiction, anger, fear, sickness, or poverty. But the good news is that Jesus Christ has broken the power of sin and death, offering us new life. The purpose of this message is to bring clarity, hope, and practical steps to live in the victory that is already ours through Christ. 1. The Reality of Generational Curses Exodus 20:5-6 “You shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.”   2. Personal Accountability Before God Ezekiel 18:20 “The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not bear the guilt of the father, nor the father bear the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.”   3. Christ Has Redeemed Us from the Curse Galatians 3:13 “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree').”   4. Becoming a New Creation 2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”   5. The Freedom of the Spirit Romans 8:1-2 “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.”   6. Renewing the Mind Romans 12:2 “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”   7. Authority to Bind and Loose Matthew 18:18 “Assuredly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”   8. Overcoming Through Prayer and Repentance 2 Chronicles 7:14 “If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”   9. Declaring the Enemy Defeated Colossians 2:14-15 “Having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.”   10. The Promise of Generational Blessing Deuteronomy 7:9 “Therefore know that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments.”   Conclusion: Walk in Freedom In Christ, you are free from every curse, but it's essential to walk in that freedom. Renounce any ties to generational sin, declare the victory of the cross, and align your life with God's Word. As you do this, you'll not only break the patterns of the past but release blessings for future generations.  

Recorded 4th April 2024 Radha Rasa Sudhanidhi 81 visit: http://beautyofreallove.com/ visit: https://sadhumaharaja.net/ audio: https://tinyurl.com/BeautyOfRealLove #raganugabhakti #bhaktiyoga #radha

The Rev. Kenneth H. Brannon - “I Renounce Them”

Ever wondered why some business strategies leave you feeling more stuck than successful?    Hey Sister Friend!   Join me in today's episode as I share my favorite business strategy, rooted in spiritual alignment—repentance. Learn why Jesus's first message, repentance, is critical to your business growth, understand the deeper meanings behind it, and discover how to realign your brain's neural pathways with God's truth. Plus, hear real-life examples of transformation and the importance of surrounding yourself with a supportive community. Get ready to renew your mind and see a thriving business in the new year!   I'd love to connect with you on Instagram! www.instagram.com/heathershriverburns   The Made for More Challenge is December 16-18, 2024. You can find the link to join here: ($97): https://www.heathershriverburns.com/offers/ZmMcvrpV Topics covered in this episode: Repentance as a Business Strategy The Deeper Meaning of Repentance Aligning with God's Will Practical Tips for Repentance in Business   Related Episodes: //226. Exhausted Beyond Belief? Recognize the Signs of being Soul Tired and Reignite Your Joy in Life and Business. Soul Care Strategies Part 2   //220. Repent, Renounce, Rewire: My Secret Weapon for Hearing God! [How to Hear from God Series Part 6]   //202. Is Visualization from God?   //186. Overcoming Stuckness: Unlocking Your Entrepreneurial Potential with God's Guidance

AP Washington correspondent Sagar Meghani reports the Biden administration is laying out some conditions for supporting a new Syrian government.

Episode 2929 of the Vietnam Veteran News Podcast will feature information about Charles Liteky – The only Vietnam Vet to renounce his Medal of Honor. Information featured in this episode comes from Wikipedia and a story titled. This Is the … Continue reading →

Aaron Lee | November 17, 2024 | Youth Sunday School A sermon application exercise. Listen on YouTube: https://youtu.be/iLahksynQlE

Rev. Dawn Douglas Flowersfalse

Delson Armstrong is a spiritual teacher, meditation virtuoso, and author of ‘A Mind Without Craving'. In this interview, Delson renounces all of his previous claims to spiritual attainment. Delson details recent changes in his inner experiences that saw him question the nature of his awakening, including the arising of emotions and desires that he thought had long been expunged. Delson critiques the consequences of the Buddhist doctrine of the 10 fetters, reveals his redefinition of awakening and the stages of the four path model from stream enterer to arhat, and challenges cultural ideals about enlightenment. Delson offers his current thoughts on the role of emotions in awakening, emphasises the importance of facing one's trauma, and discusses his plans to broaden his own teaching to include traditions such as Kriya Yoga. Delson also reveals the pressures put on him by others' agendas, and shares his observations about the danger of student devotion, the hypocrisy of spiritual leaders, and his mixed feelings about the monastic sangha. … https://www.guruviking.com/podcast/ep280-i-renounce-my-attainments-delson-armstrong Also available on Youtube & Spotify – search ‘Guru Viking Podcast'. … 01:14 - Delson's declaration 07:56 - Why has Delson changed his view? 10:13 - Pressure on Delson and other peoples' agendas 15:12 - Delson's shocking observations about his 3 year teaching experiment 15:53 - Teaching debut under Bhante Vimalaramsi 17:22 - European teaching tour 17:32 - Tension towards other traditions at Dhammasukha 19:26 - Teacher-student divide at Dhammasukha 20:14 - Tensions with the Indian sangha 21:18 - Discomfort with guru worship in India 22:41 - Mixed feelings about the monastic community 24:30 - Teachers should never stop learning 24:45 - The 10 fetter model and an unhealthy narrative of spiritual success 26:15 - Potential for teacher-student abuse 27:41 - Questioning the 10 fetter model 29:28 - Ideals of awakening and cultural projections 30:48 - Transcending all models and systems 31:39 - Importance of ethics 33:21 - Why is Delson renouncing all spiritual attainments? 36:15 - Being open to your own experience 37:06 - Don't gloss over suffering 39:41 - Changes in Delson's understanding about the Buddha, dharma, and sangha 44:20 - Rethinking negative emotion and the end of craving 47:23 - The Simile of the Saw Sutta, Kakacūpamasutta 48:11 - Recontextualising the higher fetters of restlessness, conceit, and ignorance 49:15 - Is awakening static? 50:06 - Delson's definition of awakening 51:55 - Redefining the 4-path model from stream-enterer to arhat 57:26 - Facing the shadow 59:10 - What was the experience that changed Delson's mind? 01:02:48 - Learning from conflict and shadow 01:04:37 - Maintaining the image of a teacher 01:05:12 - No longer a teacher 01:06:35 - The corrupting pride of being a spiritual teacher 01:07:04 - Hypocrisy of spiritual leaders 01:09:23 - Do not seek perfection in Delson 01:10:14 - K the Buddha 01:11:44 - Against disempowering students 01:14:06 - Does Delson believe awakening even possible? 01:17:12 - What is awakening? 01:18:06 - Levels of awakening 01:18:58 - The true nature of reality 01:20:43 - Siddha tales and Delson's supernatural experiences 01:24:27- Sifting the serious students from the merely curious 01:25:22 - Delson's powerful trip to South India, astrology, and mystical experiences 01:31:07 - Delson's future plans for teaching 01:32:02 - Plans to conduct Kriya Yoga initiations 01:32:41 - Delson as a conduit 01:33:16 - Reactions to Delson's declaration Watch previous episodes with Delson Armstrong: - https://www.guruviking.com/search?q=delson Find out more about Delson Armstrong: - Personal Site: https://www.delsonarmstrong.com/ - YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@delson999 - Delson's Foundation: https://www.freedom-of-mind.org/ … For more interviews, videos, and more visit: - https://www.guruviking.com Music ‘Deva Dasi' by Steve James

In this sermon, we answer the following questions:a) What are idols?b) How do idols work in our lives?c) How do we renounce idols in our lives?

27th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B  Prayer of Forgiveness Ask the Holy Spirit to show you whom you need to forgive (family, friend, abuser, yourself) Picture the person in front of you and pay aBenCon to what you feel in your heart and body Make an account of the debt they owe you (what did they take from you, how did they hurt you? It is okay to feel angry or nothing at all) Imagine yourself telling them what they did to hurt you and how it has affected you Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you any identity lies you believe about yourself based on that incident Renounce the identity lie “In the name of Jesus Christ, I renounce the lie that I am not loved or cared for, that I have to perform well to be loved, etc.” Announce the truth of your identity in Christ-“In the name of Jesus Christ, I announce the truth that I am seen, that I am valuable, that I am loved, etc.” Bring the person with you to meet Jesus on the Cross at Calvary and look at His face of care and mercy Ask Jesus to forgive the person 10. Ask Jesus to give you the grace to forgive the person 11. Pray a prayer of blessing for that person-as God to bless them and heal them on their journey 12. Ask Jesus to seal this forgiveness and heal the wounds in your life 13. Thank God for His healing mercy and grace  

Homily for Sunday, September 29, 2024

Have you ever said the words, "I can't hear God's voice"? Perhaps you've felt that God isn't speaking to you or that your spiritual communication is broken. Your beliefs may be affecting your ability to connect with God the way you desperately want to.    Hey Sister Friend!    What if there was a simple, actionable process to hear from The Lord on a daily basis? Well, that's what I have for you in this episode! I want to challenge you right now to STOP saying you can't hear from God. You belong to the Good Shepherd whose sheep hear His voice. What you say has the power to create the world you live in, so declare that you can and do hear your Father's voice! If this is a struggle for you, this episode is full of ways to fully connect with God so you can hear Him speaking. I can't wait for you to dive in and feel empowered to confidently hear what He has to say to you.    I pray this blesses you!    Doors to the Kingdom Business Accelerator are now open. We start on October 1, 2024! Click here to get registered: https://www.heathershriverburns.com/kingdom-business-accelerator-96805e0d-8dd8-4545-a004-5c6888261f91   Mic drop Moments: “A thought, repeated enough, solidifies into a belief.” “Your words create worlds.” Related Episodes: //214. Eight Key Reasons Why You Struggle to Hear God's Voice in Your Business and How to Fix It! [How to Hear from God Series Part 1]   //215. How to Know the Difference Between God's Voice and The Enemy's Voice. Find Peace and Clarity for Your Business. [How to Hear from God Series Part 2]   //216. Hearing God Clearly: Differentiating Between God's Voice, Our Voice and Others. [How to Hear from God Series Part 3]   //217. Tips to Regulate Your Nervous System to Hear from God. [How to Hear from God Series Part 4]   //219. How to Know the Difference Between Religion and Relationship with God. [How to Hear From God Series Part 5]   I love the Seek First CEO Podcast! If that is you, would you consider leaving a 5 star review on Apple Podcasts? Your feedback means so much to me and it will help more like-minded Christian women find the soul changing content I share every week.  If this episode resonated with you, I'd love to connect with you on Instagram: www.instagram.com/heathershriverburns

Prioritize peace and godly values over temporary worldly gains.Series: Called By GodSpeaker: Herber CamposScripture: Genesis 13: 1-18 (NIrV)#CalledByGod #Called #Abraham #Renounce #God #Lord #JesusMountainview Church carries the necessary Christian Copyright Licensing International (CCLI) license to play and perform the contained Christian worship songs. And all track recordings have been purchased with the coinciding public performance permissions. Background music was acquired royalty-free and available for public use at FreeMusicArchive.org, listed below. Alternate video content not filmed by Mountainview Church is open-source, and listed below for reference.Support the show

How to Support the Rob Skinner Podcast.  If you would like to help support my mission to multiply disciples, leaders and churches, click here:  https://www.buymeacoffee.com/robskinner Herod's Dilemma Introduction How do airplane crashes happen? Malcolm Gladwell describes the 1997 crash of Korean Air Flight 801. The pilot was experienced and in good health. The aircraft was in perfect working order. As the flight approached Guam, the Ground Proximity Warning System alerted the pilot that the plane was within five hundred feet of the ground. Unable to see the runway in the rain, the first officer suggested aborting the landing and circling around for another attempt. The captain, however, was slow to respond. Before the plane could recover altitude, it hit the side of nearby Nimitz Hill, killing 228 of the 254 passengers. It's not just plane crashes.  How do… ·         People end up homeless on the street ·         End up in terrible disfunctional relationships ·         End up deeply in debt and in a terrible financial situation ·         End up slaves to alcohol, drugs or porn ·         End up in jail or prison This chapter offers insight in how we can end up in a situation we never dreamed could happen to us… 1.      The Death of John the Baptist, 14:1-12 14 At that time Herod the tetrarch heard the reports about Jesus, 2 and he said to his attendants, “This is John the Baptist; he has risen from the dead! That is why miraculous powers are at work in him.” 3 Now Herod had arrested John and bound him and put him in prison because of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife, 4 for John had been saying to him: “It is not lawful for you to have her.” 5 Herod wanted to kill John, but he was afraid of the people, because they considered John a prophet. 6 On Herod's birthday the daughter of Herodias danced for the guests and pleased Herod so much 7 that he promised with an oath to give her whatever she asked. 8 Prompted by her mother, she said, “Give me here on a platter the head of John the Baptist.” 9 The king was distressed, but because of his oaths and his dinner guests, he ordered that her request be granted 10 and had John beheaded in the prison. 11 His head was brought in on a platter and given to the girl, who carried it to her mother. 12 John's disciples came and took his body and buried it. Then they went and told Jesus. ·         This is a sidebar in the narrative about Jesus.  Its importance is in closing the loop on what happened to John and also to foreshadow what would happen to Jesus.  Matthew 17:12, 12 But I tell you, Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but have done to him everything they wished. In the same way the Son of Man is going to suffer at their hands.” ·         1-3  John's death is recounted in a “flashback” formula.  Herod hears about Jesus and immediately connects Jesus to John whom he had murdered.  Herod had hosted a feast, which contrasts with the feast Jesus provides in the following section.  Herod is freaking out and imagining Jesus has reappeared.  This happens today with people who have passed away, like sightings of Elvis. ·         Anatomy of a bad decision. o   Herod and Herodias are like Ahab and Jezebel part two.  Their marriage is a sham.  John the Baptist had continually told Herod that it wasn't right to marry this woman, but he did it anyway.  This kind of stubbornness led to one of the worst decisions on record, murdering John the Baptist.  John is the guy Jesus praised as the greatest prophet of all time.  I don't want to think about what happened to Herod when he faced Jesus.  But I think this points out something that commonly happens today on a smaller scale.  Now I want to talk specifically to guys today.  o   Guys are on the run.  James Dobson highlighted this about twenty years ago in his book “Bringing Up Boys” when he titled a chapter, “Men “R” Dumb.”  Society is going after guys.  They are easy targets.  Look at recent movies like Frozen, Twisters and others.  Who is the hero?  Is it the man?  No!  The man is often the bad guy or lovable loser.   Go through the bookstore and pick out a bestseller.  Chances are the hero is going to be a woman.  This is a big shift. o   Herod comes across as a fool in this story, why?  Let's take it apart: §  He commits adultery.  He marries his brothers wife while his brother is still alive. §  He messes with the wrong woman.  Herodias.  She is the boss, she's the one in charge, the one organizing the “hit.” Herod is simply a puppet in her hands. §  He's passive, he lets things happen. §  Sexuality is involved  §  Alcohol is involved §  Peer pressure is at play §  He doesn't control his words §  Pride.  He doesn't back out when he's made a mistake, he allows pride to guide him down the road of destruction.  He should have said, this is stupid, I'm being manipulated.  Instead, he does something so wrong, it's impossible to take back. §  The momentum and inertia from too many mistakes takes over.  Malcolm Gladwell talks about this in one of his books.  Most air disasters don't happen after just one mistake.  There is one mistake, then another and they slowly compile until something massive goes wrong and the plane goes down. ·         “In a typical crash, for example, the weather is poor—not terrible, necessarily, but bad enough that the pilot feels a little bit more stressed than usual. In an overwhelming number of crashes, the plane is behind schedule, so the pilots are hurrying. In 52 percent of crashes, the pilot at the time of the accident has been awake for twelve hours or more, meaning that he is tired and not thinking sharply. And 44 percent of the time, the two pilots have never flown together before, so they're not comfortable with each other. Then the errors start—and it's not just one error. The typical accident involves seven consecutive human errors. One of the pilots does something wrong that by itself is not a problem. Then one of them makes another error on top of that, which combined with the first error still does not amount to catastrophe. But then they make a third error on top of that, and then another and another and another and another, and it is the combination of all those errors that leads to disaster.” o   For men today, we can end up following the same path: §  We mess with the wrong woman.  Instead of a godly woman, we start dating those who don't follow Jesus passionately.  Women are like Kryptonite to men.  All the greats have been taken down by women:  David, Soloman, Samson.  §  We are passive.  We let the woman lead us instead of leading as God desires and designed.  Go to many churches and who do you find?  Women.  Where are the guys?  At home worshipping at St. Mattresses or St. Maddens.  We don't stand up and do what's right.  Slowly we are led to a place that we can't get out of. §  Sexuality.  Porn, impurity, temptation weakens us. §  Alcohol.  Paul says “Do not get drunk on wine which leads to debauchery.”  Alcohol leads to bad decisions.  §  Peer pressure.  Once we allow our friends or family to guide our decision making, it's nearly impossible to make changes.  §  Rash words.  We say things and make promises that are foolish.  Then we get held to those stupid words.  §  Pride is the final nail in the coffin.  Pride keeps us from making a change when we know we are way off course.  Instead of backing out, we plunge into destruction.  ·         Examples:  I was counting the cost with a young man and asked him, “What do you see as the biggest challenge facing you?  If Satan wanted to take you out spiritually, what would he do?”  The man answered, “Send a woman into my life.”  A few months later, this man started dating a woman and he abandoned his relationship with Christ.”  He knew it in advance and still fell. ·         Challenge: o   What situation are you caught in?  Do you feel trapped, closed in, boxed in with limited options.  That's a sign you may be stuck in Herod's dilemma. o   Some of us are falling right into Herod's dilemma.  We are involved with the wrong woman or man.  We are drifting away from God, passively allowing it to happen.  Sexuality and alcohol may be contributing toward it.  We've said things that were stupid and now we're afraid of making a change and looking foolish.  So we are stuck in a situation of our own making. o   If you want to be strong, you have to stand up, step back and look at your situation with fresh eyes.  Renounce the words you've spoken.  Break up with the wrong woman and turn back toward God. o   Get some help. Gladwell goes on to say, §  “These seven errors, furthermore, are rarely problems of knowledge or flying skill. It's not that the pilot has to negotiate some critical technical maneuver and fails. The kinds of errors that cause plane crashes are invariably errors of teamwork and communication. One pilot knows something important and somehow doesn't tell the other pilot. One pilot does something wrong, and the other pilot doesn't catch the error.”  The copilot told the pilot they were too low, but the pilot refused to listen. §  Herod had no one in his life.  He didn't have a copilot.  If you are a disciple and you need help you can reach out for help.  Unfortunately, when we get into bad situations, we often try to hide it and keep it from others.  We get prideful  That's where discipling can make all the difference.  One spiritual talk with another disciple can often make all the difference.  Don't be like Herod.  Don't get caught in Herod's dilemma.  Stubborn, isolated, compounding mistakes until he finally crashes and burns and commits the worst sin imaginable. 

Uplifted

Did Joseph Smith Renounce Polygamy? William Marks said "Yes" on multiple occasions! We'll find out more details from John Dinger & Cheryl Bruno, co-authors of the William Marks biography. Check out our conversation... https://youtu.be/-f6RAkcIUPM transcript to follow Copyright © 2024 Gospel Tangents All Rights Reserved Except for book reviews, no content may be reproduced without written permission. transcript to follow Copyright © 2024 Gospel Tangents All Rights Reserved Except for book reviews, no content may be reproduced without written permission.

The weekly podcast of Empowerment Ministries Christian Center, led by Pastor Gregg S. Magee, Sr.

This Sunday, Pastor Ben Applebee continues our series called "Knowing & Doing", with his sermon called "Renounce and Welcome"!Want to learn more about Watermark?Visit: https://watermarkoc.com/We would love to start a conversation with you!

Rains Retreat teachings from 15th July to 23rd September 2020. Teachings given by the abbot Ajahn Brahm at Bodhinyana Monastery in Serpentine (southeast of Perth, Western Australia). The main audience was the Sangha.   Track 11/11:  Renounce Wanting – 23 September 2020 See the full set here. The BSWA is now using Ko-fi for donations. Please join us on Ko-fi and cancel your donations via Patreon. Thanks for your ongoing support! To find and download more precious Dhamma teachings, visit the BSWA teachings page: https://bswa.org/teachings/, choose the teaching you want and click on the audio to open it up on Podbean.

In this episode we begin the discussion of renunciation, what it really means, and how it applies to us as regular people.For more information on booking one on one sessions, the monthly gatherings, books and merch visit https://www.theinfinitesparkofbeing.comSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-infinite-spark-of-being/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

God wants us to renounce secret sin --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/encouragingchristians/support

God forgive us for ALL of our sins that we have committed unknowingly and knowingly against you!

Rains Retreat teachings from 1st August to 17th October 2018. Teachings given by the abbot Ajahn Brahm at Bodhinyana Monastery in Serpentine (southeast of Perth, Western Australia). The main audience was the Sangha.   Track 5/12: Let go, Let it be, Renounce – 5th September 2018. See the full set here. The BSWA is now using Ko-fi for donations. Please join us on Ko-fi and cancel your donations via Patreon. Thanks for your ongoing support! To find and download more precious Dhamma teachings, visit the BSWA teachings page: https://bswa.org/teachings/, choose the teaching you want and click on the audio to open it up on Podbean.

This talk explores the potential of mindful renunciation.   You'll learn how critically important it is to know what is most important, cultivate the thoughts, behaviors and actions that will bring about that outcome and as well, identify and modify the the thoughts, behaviors and actions that get in the way of that outcome.

"The Man In The Mirror" Originally published in 1984 Last Days Magazine  https://web.archive.org/web/20200429081529/https://www.exodusglobalalliance.org/themaninthemirrorp338.php More about Sy:https://www.abbi.org.au/2007/12/sy-rogers/https://www.abbi.org.au/2017/03/sy-rogers-2-2/?fbclid=IwAR2S7Md3S-JKyJUcHEwBbBHKLfF2Jqt2y9yDsx-jhf2tIB40uUNksT5DIhwhttps://the-singapore-lgbt-encyclopaedia.fandom.com/wiki/Sy_RogersAmbassadors & Bridge Builders Internationalwww.abbi.org.au/Anthony's  Autobiography https://alifeofunlearning.com/Can't afford it? We'll reimburse you!  Buy the book, send screen shot of receipt to  cultsisterspodcast @ gmail and we'll pay youAnthony on 60 Minutes Australiawww.youtube.com/watch?v=8txAPzOXzKAMUST SEE! "Pray Away" & "Boy Erased"www.prayawayfilm.com/www.youtube.com/watch?v=-B71eyB_OnwWelcoming/Accepting/Affirming www.abbi.org.au/2017/03/welcoming-accepting-affirming/Invitation-only Flamy Grant concert Ocala, FL, Oct 31, 2024! Join Facebook COMMUNITY group for info www.facebook.com/groups/677407940871421Flamy Grant!https://www.flamygrant.com/SPRKL by Flamy Grant  Spotify, or Bandcamp for $1 (Love it? Maybe chip in more) https://flamygrant.bandcamp.com/track/s-p-r-k-l  A few  lyrics:When I finally picked up that brushDragged it through the blushOh, what a revelationIt felt like a salvationWhen I painted what was inside outPuckered her lips and poutedWhat a situationI think I found my new vocationBut honey, you said waitBased on my inherited valuesThat I have not investigatedThis makes me uncomfortableIt's such a scandalAnd it's hard for me to handleAnd I said greatI don't know why you think you'reEntitled to a certain presentation from othersBut I am happy to dismantle itCause this is not your body...Stay proud, radiate, only love can drive out hate!See all lyrics here:https://www.lyrics.com/lyric-lf/14381329/Flamy+Grant/S.P.R.K.L.+%28feat.+Ricky+Braddy%29https://www.instagram.com/feetofclay.cultsistershttps://feetofclayconfessionsofthecultsisters.buzzsprout.comWe love acronyms -- and we aren't afraid to use them! Here are some common ones that we might forget to explain:LDM - Last Days Ministries (organization) ICT - Intensive Christian Training School (at LDM)YWAM - Youth With A Mission (organization) CCM - Contemporary Christian Music

You can read the full text of the tract "I'm Gay...O.K.?" in the UNT digital library here:https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc177448/Ambassadors and Bridge Builders International:https://www.abbi.org.au/Anthony's MUST READ book:  https://alifeofunlearning.com/The MUST SEE movie "Boy Erased"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-B71eyB_OnwAnthony on 60 Minutes in Australia:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8txAPzOXzKAAbout Anthony Venn-Brown: Anthony Venn-Brown is an author and a respected LGBTQ community leader.  In a former life, he was a high-profile Pentecostal preacher, in Australia's megachurches such as Hillsong. His autobiography,  ‘A Life of Unlearning', became a bestseller and now in its third edition. The memoir details Anthony's rise to prominence and his several decades long struggle with homosexuality including constant prayer, counselling, fasting, conversion “therapy”, exorcisms and marriage, trying NOT to be gay. A chance encounter shattered the wall of denial he'd built and thrust him through a maze of public scandal, rejection, isolation, and trauma. People often say it's a miracle he survived.Since 2004, his book, writing and organisations have been a source of resolution and healing. Anthony has worked with over 4,000 conversion “therapy” survivors and many more individuals experiencing faith/sexuality conflict.Anthony is the founder and CEO of Ambassadors & Bridge Builders International. He has been recognised for his contribution several times, including being twice voted one of the 25 Most Influential Gay and Lesbian Australians and in 2020 was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for his service to the LGBTQ community.Another claim to fame is that in 2008, along with Heath Ledger, Darren Hayes and Peter Allen, Anthony was named one of Australia's Poster Children for Sin by the infamous Rev Fred Phelps from the Westboro (God Hates Fags) Baptist Church.Much of Anthony's work came together recently when he worked with survivors and the state government to see legislation pass banning conversion "therapy".  https://www.instagram.com/feetofclay.cultsistershttps://feetofclayconfessionsofthecultsisters.buzzsprout.comWe love acronyms -- and we aren't afraid to use them! Here are some common ones that we might forget to explain:LDM - Last Days Ministries (organization) ICT - Intensive Christian Training School (at LDM)YWAM - Youth With A Mission (organization) CCM - Contemporary Christian Music

Ambassadors and Bridge Builders International: https://www.abbi.org.au/Anthony's MUST READ book:  https://alifeofunlearning.com/The MUST SEE movie "Boy Erased"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-B71eyB_OnwAnthony on 60 Minutes in Australia:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8txAPzOXzKAAbout Anthony Venn-Brown:  Anthony Venn-Brown is an author and a respected LGBTQ community leader.  In a former life, he was a high-profile Pentecostal preacher, in Australia's megachurches such as Hillsong. His autobiography,  ‘A Life of Unlearning', became a bestseller and now in its third edition. The memoir details Anthony's rise to prominence and his several decades long struggle with homosexuality including constant prayer, counselling, fasting, conversion “therapy”, exorcisms and marriage, trying NOT to be gay. A chance encounter shattered the wall of denial he'd built and thrust him through a maze of public scandal, rejection, isolation, and trauma. People often say it's a miracle he survived.Since 2004, his book, writing and organisations have been a source of resolution and healing. Anthony has worked with over 4,000 conversion “therapy” survivors and many more individuals experiencing faith/sexuality conflict.Anthony is the founder and CEO of Ambassadors & Bridge Builders International. He has been recognised for his contribution several times, including being twice voted one of the 25 Most Influential Gay and Lesbian Australians and in 2020 was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for his service to the LGBTQ community.Another claim to fame is that in 2008, along with Heath Ledger, Darren Hayes and Peter Allen, Anthony was named one of Australia's Poster Children for Sin by the infamous Rev Fred Phelps from the Westboro (God Hates Fags) Baptist Church.Much of Anthony's work came together recently when he worked with survivors and the state government to see legislation pass banning conversion "therapy".  https://www.instagram.com/feetofclay.cultsistershttps://feetofclayconfessionsofthecultsisters.buzzsprout.comWe love acronyms -- and we aren't afraid to use them! Here are some common ones that we might forget to explain:LDM - Last Days Ministries (organization) ICT - Intensive Christian Training School (at LDM)YWAM - Youth With A Mission (organization) CCM - Contemporary Christian Music

We all have those sins that we  constantly revert back to and feel like we just cannot break loose from. Well, good news! Through true repentance, God CAN and WILL wash us clean of those sins, and give us freedom from them forever! Listen in to today's episode to learn the 3 step system of “Recognize. Repent. Renounce.” to break free from sins you never thought you'd gain freedom from!Support the Show.

Threevisiting on the Tues: Scott, Paul & Lauren discuss The Vow, the elephant parable and the Becker theme song before playing Instrumentals. Follow us on social media @threedomusa. Send Threetures and emails to threedomusa@gmail.com. Leave us a voicemail at 424-252-4678 (HAG-CLAIMS-8).