Church Potluck: A Smorgasbord of Christian Curiosity
Church Potluck serves up thoughtful, friendly, informal conversation at the intersection of Christianity and contemporary culture. Just like a church potluck, we offer variety: a variety of topics, a variety of academic disciplines, and a variety of Christian traditions. Guests are friends and colleagues who are also experts in the fields of sociology, political science, theology, philosophy, divinity, and more.
Church Potluck: A Smorgasbord of Christian Curiosity
What We Did This Summer
In this episode, we’re joined by Michael Papazian, Professor of Philosophy, and Michael Bailey, Associate Professor of Political Science, for a lively and personal discussion of their summer experiences and reflections.
Michael Bailey opens up about the emotional depth of his daughter’s wedding, sharing moments of joy, community, and love that defined the day, from the profound presence of family and friends to spontaneous dancing to John Denver. It’s a heartfelt reflection on a significant family milestone.
Michael Papazian takes us on a literary journey, reflecting on his summer reading, particularly the works of Nobel Prize-winning author Isaac Bashevis Singer. He explores how Singer’s vivid portrayals of Jewish life and resilience offer not only intellectual insight but also deep spiritual and emotional enrichment.
Host Dale McConkey rounds out the conversation by reflecting on two key themes in his own life: his ongoing obsession with golf and his plans for a phased retirement. As Dale contemplates transitioning from academia, he shares his excitement about dedicating more time to Church Potluck by expanding into other media. Before that, he discusses how golf has enhanced his life despite raising some moral questions.
From wedding celebrations and literary insights to life transitions and personal passions, this episode serves up a hearty feast of engaging conversation and thoughtful reflection, true to the spirit of Church Potluck.
The views expressed on Church Potluck are solely those of the participants and do not represent any organization.
So Michael's wearing this is Michael Papazian is wearing a beautiful blue shirt and looks dapper and that sort of Dale complimented on it and that is sort of a cascade.
Speaker 2:You were just eager to talk, because we haven't even done this yet, because, yeah, you were just ready to get into it. Well, I was just so I don't know, you were just so struck by Michael Papazian's outfit. It's been a long summer, it's nice to get into it you were just so struck by Michael Papazian's outfit. It's been a long summer, people wear nice clothes today and of course, we're talking and discussing one another's fashion. This is what we do. We usually text each other in the morning to see what we're wearing.
Speaker 1:Although it is actually true that Dale and I have worn the same shirt on the same day before, several years ago, and we did sort of joke about do we need to start?
Speaker 3:texting each other to find out he's not with me. In my text. Do you think it's texting not to wear the same thing or texting to make sure we need to flip a?
Speaker 2:coin and say who's going to shop at Walmart and who's going to shop at Target. That's what we needed to do. Your Target.
Speaker 3:That's too far away, yeah, too far away.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, there you go.
Speaker 2:That's it. Well, welcome everyone to Church Potluck, where we are serving up a smorgasbord of Christian curiosity. I'm your host, dale McConkie, sociology professor and United Methodist pastor, and you know there are two keys to a good Church Potluck plenty of variety and engaging conversation. And that is exactly what we try to do here on Church Potluck Sit down with friends and share our ideas on a variety of topics from a variety of academic disciplines and a variety of Christian traditions. Well, welcome back everybody. I guess we should just give ourselves a round of applause for being back. Do it. There we are. We made it Welcome and welcome to all of you out there and thank you for welcoming us back into your podcast stream. We have been away for quite a while several months and we'll probably talk about that a little bit down the road here, but we are back and eager to dig in on Church Potluck and we have some very familiar guests to get us started. Start off with some familiar territory with some familiar folks. Our first guest Dr Michael Papazian.
Speaker 3:Hi, it's good to be back.
Speaker 2:They're just as eager as ever to have you, sounds like it, did you not hear?
Speaker 3:Yeah, listen, I heard.
Speaker 2:Again, over and over. Yeah, anyway. So how are you doing? I'm pretty good, yeah, I'm pretty good, yeah, I'm feeling good. So are you still everything you were before? What I mean in terms of introductions? Are you still everything that?
Speaker 3:you used to be. Nothing has changed drastically? I don't think.
Speaker 1:No, go ahead so you don't have to introduce.
Speaker 3:Do I have to introduce myself?
Speaker 1:It's been so long. I think people need to know.
Speaker 3:It sounds like maybe something has changed, house changed, but I mean I have another role at the college yeah, just for a year yeah we'll go ahead and give us the basics and then give us I am I I teach philosophy in the religion and philosophy department here at berry college and I'm also chair of faculty assembly, and so I have some respect and I think both of you have had that role in the past, is that not? We both have, so I'm following in your footsteps. Is this your first time doing it? This is the first time I've been chair.
Speaker 3:I've been secretary Last year of course I was vice chair, but this is the first time as chair.
Speaker 1:Right, and you've been chair of the department a long time. I hope the last time too.
Speaker 3:Actually You're doing great, Thank you.
Speaker 2:So my big thing my year when I was faculty assembly chair is we were bringing in a new provost and the provost wanted to create the chair system for the departments. And that was my big thing working us through the chair system with the provost.
Speaker 1:What was your big thing, Michael? I closed down the entire college through COVID.
Speaker 3:That was good work on your part.
Speaker 2:I tell you what, though that was a whole lot of you needed to be our voice during that time to help figure things out.
Speaker 1:So that was very important. Voice via Zoom yeah, Still, it's a voice.
Speaker 2:That's right. That's all. It was a voice, right? I guess Zoom there's video too.
Speaker 1:I did feel somewhat responsible for the college shutting down, but that might just be megalomania.
Speaker 2:And you are kind of doing this during a very critical year, because not only are you chair of the faculty assembly, what's your other thing?
Speaker 3:you're, I'm also on the search committee for a new president, since our beloved president of almost 20 years, stephen Briggs, will be retiring after this academic year.
Speaker 2:And so what's the big scoop that you have come to announce on Church Potluck? There's no scoop.
Speaker 1:Oh, there's so many scoops I cannot say a word.
Speaker 2:That was donkey brain for disappointment. I don't have a boo button on here yet.
Speaker 3:But yeah, no, these searches nowadays are confidential.
Speaker 1:You had to sign an NDA.
Speaker 2:Yes, wow, at the risk of what? What is the consequence? I mean, I could be sued.
Speaker 3:You could be sued too. I don't know. Actually, if this goes out on a podcast.
Speaker 2:Okay, they're moving right along, then it could. I don't know.
Speaker 3:Bad things could happen.
Speaker 2:Our other guests. You know them Michael the Lesser, michael the Lesser, michael Bailey. Thank you, remind the folks who you are, okay.
Speaker 1:I'm a professor here or associate professor, I guess, as I should say Political science. I teach American politics on eventful stuff, no big deal yeah right and one course in modern political philosophy which seems like a refuge from some of the other stuff. Yeah, so do you know why I'm doing this podcast today, Michael? Because Michael Papazian looks so beautiful. He's so dapper. Is it an honor?
Speaker 3:In that case, you should be streaming this on video so that the people could see One day, one day.
Speaker 2:One day? No, maybe not.
Speaker 1:We need a close ear because he would bring the Hawaiian vibe. Yes, absolutely All right Next time.
Speaker 2:But I am doing this podcast because, even though you've apologized, I emailed you over the summer and I texted you over the summer and you've you know didn't respond. I said if I put a microphone in front of Michael Bailey, I'll get a chance to talk to him.
Speaker 1:I would love to be able to defend myself, but everyone out there knows that this is they can believe you a hundred percent.
Speaker 2:I know it's been a big, busy summer for you, so that was all tongue in cheek, but it is good to have you in front of a microphone. Thank you, great. It's been a while since we have chatted, just as I said, so I thought we'd use this episode just to catch up, kind of a. Did you ever have to do the fifth grade report about what I did over the summer? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Multiple years. No, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:Fifth grade no, I was thinking that is the biggest shock of this entire podcast. That was like a joke. I've been in the fifth grade three times. A little subtle humor, I'm sure I did. Yeah, fifth grade maybe.
Speaker 3:I don't know. I don't remember that. Yeah, I don't remember what I said or what I did. It was very pedestrian that summer.
Speaker 1:I did this and I went here and there.
Speaker 2:Okay, this won't really be too game show me, but let's go ahead and pretend this is going to be like a kind of a game show I've grown to like these episodes. Oh, I've had people come up to me and say there was no game show in the last episode, so now I kind of feel obligated to create some kind of a game show.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you have to do it.
Speaker 2:I've already banged the table twice, so I'm going to have to control my game.
Speaker 3:You're just too excited, Dale. That's the problem.
Speaker 2:That is true, it is fun to be back. It is fun to be back, all right. So here's the game show. We're going to take turns, and whoever's turn it is is going to give us two topics of something that happened over the summer, and the other two folks get to decide what the other person has to talk about. All right, so? All right, so here we go. We will spin the wheel. First Bailey. It turned on Michael Bailey, so Give us at least two. If you've got more than two, you can give us one Paisley, and I will choose which one we want you to talk about.
Speaker 1:Okay, I've got a travel topic, I've got a wedding topic and I've got a walking topic.
Speaker 2:Okay, I kind of hope you choose I know which one. Oh, you're going to tell us what you want us to choose.
Speaker 1:No, that's not part of the game.
Speaker 2:I want the wedding. Yeah, I want the wedding too. Okay, is that what you wanted us to ask you about?
Speaker 1:We'll get to some of these others probably In case my daughter's listening, I say strong yes, anyways.
Speaker 2:Tell us about your wedding. Oh, I thought we're going to go around, and no, you're first and then we'll do ours later. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay, this past Sunday my middle daughter, emma Rose, married Zachary Musser. Now she is Emma Rose Musser. It was in Hilton Head and it was just a lovely, lovely weekend and I was involved with none of the planning. I mean I was, I presume, by design, by everyone's mutual decision, that I would be on a need-to-know basis, and that basis rarely came. So it is actually true that on the drive down we go past Atlanta to Macon, you take a hard left and then you just head to Hilton Head and on the road there I asked my wife so when is the wedding? So I knew the date and I knew I'd be told when to show up, but that's sort of the extent of what I knew. I had to redo my syllabi day before I distributed them because I did not know that I was coming back on the following Tuesday. I just assumed we were coming back on the Monday. So that is how much out of the loop I was. But because of that I was calm and relaxed and enjoyed the festivities.
Speaker 2:Very cool and I've had trips like that where my children knew New York City better than I did, so I just got to sit back and just follow their lead and it was delightful, so sublime. So the reason I wanted to ask you about this is because the photos you put on Facebook we talk about Dapper right now you and your wife look lovely and just the photo, especially the photo of you and Emma Rose dancing oh, that's up there. I thought you put it up there.
Speaker 1:Oh, I put yeah.
Speaker 2:I's up there. I thought you put it up there.
Speaker 1:Oh, I put. Yeah, I thought so too. I put up a photo of Zachary and Emma Rose and then of me walking Emma Rose down the aisle. Both of those were, you know, the official photographers. I know that there are other photos out there, but I just didn't know who's put up what?
Speaker 2:Okay, but anyway. And then Julianne sent me a few extra too of of you and Emeril's dancing that were just incredibly touching and she mentioned I hope I'm not breaking confidence in a public sense just how happy you were and just how it was. She just said she couldn't think of a time that you were even happier.
Speaker 1:I think the way she put it it was genuinely joyful and they knew enough not to tell me too many details about the dance. They actually told me the song the day before because they were fearful that I would blubber if I knew it. It's kind of a family favorite Annie song by John Denver. And you know, obviously there was no rehearsal, it just went out there and it was just really, you fill up my senses.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, yeah, it's just a lovely time with her, and then I kind of went, I cut loose on the dance floor afterwards when it went to some more modern stuff which I now, that's what I want to see video on that I there probably is if I find any, I'll put it on the church potluck website.
Speaker 2:So was there anything particularly? Was it a particularly christian focused ceremony? Was there anything that it about the celebration that had a particularly Christian-focused ceremony? Was there anything about the celebration that had a particularly spiritual component for you?
Speaker 1:A fair bit actually, but I don't have to go into great length. You know, my mother passed away in December and my father passed away a few years ago and I thought of them a lot, the fact that you know that they weren't there. But I was also genuinely grateful and touched that my in-laws, my mother and father-in-law, were able to make it and were in good health and participated in the wedding. And I'm going to go back to a piece of literature. So when I was a kid I don't know middle school I read the Jungle by Upton Sinclair. It's about the meat factories in Chicago at the turn of the last century and I think it's in here. But it's based in part about these immigrant families and they're dirt poor and they're working in the factories for nothing.
Speaker 1:But they put on a wedding and this is like in seventh or eighth grade. This really just struck me. So they put on this wedding that they could not afford in order to have a celebration, because sometimes in life not for me, thankfully, but for many there's a few rare moments of genuine celebration and it is worth having family and friends there and there's no equivalent to like the expenses here. But the point is a wedding is a big deal, with lots of moving parts right, and you invite people, and this happened to be in Hilton Head, and so anyone who made the trip down there really made an extra effort.
Speaker 1:I feel like I'm a pretty loving person, but I feel like I've always struggled, maybe feeling worthy of being loved, feeling God's love or other people's love. It's hard for me to accept that, but at that moment and this is related to the dancing it was just so obvious that this place was filled with loving people who wanted to be part of this ceremony, who loved Zachary and Emma, who wanted to be there to affirm this wedding and to be there with us, and it was just. I felt like God's love was there, and it turns out, when God's love is there, I dance.
Speaker 2:I didn't know that before. Yeah, I've had the pleasure of officiating many weddings as chaplain and now as pastor, and there are just certain ceremonies where you can see just the whole. Both families are excited about the wedding and you can tell that the couple is starting on just a rock-solid foundation and there's just a it is. There's just a sense of joy that radiates throughout everything that happens, and so that's cool that you were able to experience that at your own daughter's wedding.
Speaker 1:You're right. I mean it does start with the couple, right? And if you have concerns then, or if they have stress, it's more difficult to celebrate.
Speaker 2:It does start with the couple, right, and if you have concerns then, or if they have stress, it's more difficult to celebrate, it's much more difficult.
Speaker 1:But these two people adore each other and we are just thrilled to have Zachary as a new son in the family.
Speaker 2:To have a son.
Speaker 1:That's right, that's right I don't have Y chromosomes, it turns out, but also just his family is just a really beautiful family and I'm very proud to be part of it in a sense, even just by extension.
Speaker 2:Very cool.
Speaker 1:Thank you very much for sharing that I don't know how we it's really nice.
Speaker 2:I'm not sure if we'd be able to come in close. I know I won't be able to, so let's spin the wheel and see which one of us is going to talk next here. Sir Michael, this time Papazian. All right, I'm surprised it was me so yeah, I guess I should do three things.
Speaker 3:None of these are going to be anywhere near as beautiful as mine.
Speaker 1:You still should have chosen walking, but that's okay.
Speaker 3:We'll make room for that. I mean, one of them is something that all of us experience that is being thrown out of our offices, and that was both traumatic but also, I think, spiritually valuable too. So that's one thing. Second is I decided to do what I call therapeutic reading, like reading something that has nothing to do I mean not, obviously with any of my research or my teaching Just pick up a book and read it for fun. I found that very psychologically and really helpful for me Do you have a genre that you're?
Speaker 2:We can talk about that. We've got to decide what the topic is first.
Speaker 3:I can elaborate, that's right, but fiction was my main reading interest over the summer, and then what I was going to come up with a third. Oh yeah, this is not significant really, but I did spend a lot of time working on a new language.
Speaker 2:Developing a new. No, I'm not Tolkien. Okay, Not yet right.
Speaker 3:But learning a new language.
Speaker 2:All right. What do you think?
Speaker 1:I want to hear what he's reading. Okay, oh, okay Reading. You want reading too?
Speaker 3:Dave Reading Okay yes, and it was just as I said. It's just something I just randomly, I just want to read about. I read a couple of books by. I don't know if you all have read any of the works of Isaac Bashevis Singer, who was the great Yiddish author. He won the Nobel Prize in literature, I don't know when, 1970s, I think. Who knows?
Speaker 2:See, this is my level of sophistication. As long as he's Yiddish and he's writing with Yiddish terms, then it's got to be great.
Speaker 3:Oh, it is great.
Speaker 2:I mean, I can't read Yiddish, but the Yiddish terms that have made his way into English are amazing.
Speaker 3:And again, it's like you know I'm interested in Eastern European culture and Judaism, but it was, you know, nothing I do research in. I just wanted for fun, just to read, and I recommend him highly. I actually read two books of his and the first one I read is really a memoir. It's called In my Father's Court and the book is about living in his father's house. His father was a rabbi, but he was kind of like a mid-level rabbi, like not a distinguished one. He refers to the really top rabbis as wonder rabbis, because these are people who can perform miracles, like, let's say, you know, a couple are having trouble having a baby and they go to the wonder rabbi.
Speaker 2:So this is not fiction.
Speaker 3:Oh, this is about his real life. Yeah, I'll get to the fiction later. So, yes, this was a memoir and then I did read a fiction book. But anyway, he talks about his father literally had a court like a, you know, like a legal court adjudicating, you know Jewish law, and many of the chapters are like little vignettes about things that happen and that someone comes to ask a question of the rabbi, his father, and to give an answer. So I'll give you like one that-.
Speaker 2:Whose baby is it? Yeah, what's that? Who belongs to the baby?
Speaker 3:Something like that. It could be like that. Yeah, I mean mean one example that kind of sounds like really lurid and kinky is, but it's not. It's. A recently widowed husband comes to the rabbi and asks him rabbi, is it okay if I sleep with my wife's corpse? And that sounds really.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I know it sounds like yo, but it turns out it was actually loving, because they're living in a poor the ghetto of Warsaw and he wasn't able to bury his wife until the next day. If he left her body on the floor the rats would get to it, and yet if he touched the body he would become corrupt, you know he would be unclean.
Speaker 3:So he asked the rabbi would Jewish law allow me to touch my wife's corpse, because I'm doing it so that she can be, you know, away from the rats and all the other vermin in the apartment and all that? And the rabbi says, yes, in this case this is the loving thing to do. I mean, that just gives you one example of all the sort of different kind of things that come up. I know, yeah, that sounds like really yeah.
Speaker 1:That took like four twists and turns, I know, but that's why this is such a great book. Yeah.
Speaker 3:I mean, and since it's a memoir, I assume that this actually happened. This is true, that this happened, that you know things like that happened Also.
Speaker 1:it immediately gives you a sense of a different world, a different way of living.
Speaker 3:desperation, right, desperation in cramped quarters in a ghetto, in a society you know riven with anti-Semitism, and you can just see how, nevertheless you know, the people lived and attempted to, you know, live good lives as Jews. So it was a very moving book. And it's not all about legal cases. He talks a lot about his family, his siblings, apparently, his brother was also a writer, not as well known as Isaac, but he was Not a wonder writer, not a wonder writer.
Speaker 2:right Isaac the Cyber Singer was a wonder writer.
Speaker 3:So I read that and the next book I said I want to read more. I want to read a fiction work by him. So the next book I read, it's a short novel. It's called the Satan of Gorée, and Gorée is a small town in Poland, and it too, although it's fiction, it's based on an actual historical event that I've always been fascinated by, an actual historical event that I've always been fascinated by. In the 17th century, there was a man, a Jewish man, living in Turkey, named Sabatai Zvi. I don't know if you're familiar with him, but he actually claimed to be the Messiah and he had a following right, they actually a big following. He was, apparently was a very charismatic man and many Jews believe that. Yes, he is, you know, the redeemer, the anointed one of Israel, and his following grew until he was called in by the sultan you know the head of the Ottoman Empire of Turkey and he said you got to stop this. If you don't, you know, if you don't convert to Islam right now, we're going to kill you.
Speaker 1:And so he did.
Speaker 3:He converted to Islam, oh wow, and his following broke off. I mean, he didn't have as much of a following after that because most people thought, oh, he's just a fraud, he's not really the Messiah. But in any event, singer writes this novel about a small town Jewish settlement in Poland called Gorée, where a rabbi arrives who's preaching that the Sabbath is the true Messiah.
Speaker 3:Now this is before or after he converted to Islam. This would actually be after, because he still had a following. Okay, all right. Right, and there's still people who and in fact, apparently there might still be some people nowadays who are their crypto Jews they're called that, actually just as there are many people who are in Spain who are Catholics outwardly but nevertheless maintain Jewish practices.
Speaker 3:After the expulsion of the Jews in 1492 from Spain, the same thing kind of happened apparently in Turkey too, that there were people who outwardly lived as Muslims or presented themselves as Muslims but remained Jewish privately, and so some of his followers said that that's, you know, that's what he did, that's what Sabbatai Zvi did, and we'll follow that as well.
Speaker 3:But anyway, but it's interesting because what happens is and in reading this I couldn't help but connect it to modern, contemporary politics what happens is when you have these people preaching this Messiah, some of the Jews in this village, of course, accepted it and thought, yeah, he is our king, he is our savior, and others were like, no, I mean, you're just falling for a con man here at all, and that causes this kind of polarization in the Jewish community, not just there in this town, but all over the Jewish world and I couldn't help but think that you know maybe a lot of our modern views and looking for, you know, a king or someone like that, an authoritarian figure that has sort of split us two politically. This novel, I think, was written in the 1970s.
Speaker 2:It was kind of very prophetic and you still see the relevance. I still see the relevance of it today.
Speaker 1:We're all looking for that kind of not all of us maybe but many of us are looking for that kind of savior figure, Independently of politics. I think back to David Koresh and Waco.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, there too.
Speaker 1:And after everyone was killed right in those flames, he still has followers and we just discussed this last night at church, at our Bible study too.
Speaker 2:Jesus Day it wasn't like obvious hope. Here's the Messiah, right? People took sides and very hostile. So when someone's making a bold claim like I'm the Messiah, it's bound to cause division. I guess if I proclaimed that I was the Messiah, it would not cause any division because everybody would be on one side. Nobody would believe it.
Speaker 1:That's right, no, no no, I think that's the right disposition to have. When you hear that, I feel like if someone claims that God spoke to them I mean, if you have the special powers like if you can raise a rod and then water flows out of a rock or someone drops a dead you probably should believe them. But short of something visible and obvious, I think skepticism is not the worst attitude to have.
Speaker 2:I would agree with that. So, Michael, were there any like personal spiritual insights that you took away from that? Or was it just the wonder of the story that you read?
Speaker 3:I mean, I think I learned a lot just by reading this work. Is it sort of opened up a window into a different world? But I also saw it as something that I look for. You can find wisdom and spiritual truth in so many different traditions. It's like a big church potluck huh, it's exactly like that. You just pick up a book and it could be about Jews in Poland, it could be I don't know. It could be whatever about people in Korea or you know wherever, and it has some significance.
Speaker 3:I think you begin to see a common humanity, that the same kind of. You know both aspirations and longings that people have, as well as all the foibles and you know shortcomings. There's a universality to it, you know. So that's why, when I read this book about this incident in this small town in Poland, it was like, oh, those kinds of things you see that everywhere. You know it's not just particular. So you get this sort of sense of belonging to a greater humanity. I think that's one of the things I really I really got out of reading him and his works Great Well thank you very much, appreciate that.
Speaker 2:That was fabulous. Let's spin the wheel one more time. I mean, who's it going to land on? I don't know. Oh, it did Wait On Dale. Yeah, there it is. Yes, it's on me. So here are my two topics that you can talk about. We can either talk about my golf obsession or we can talk about my big plans for the future.
Speaker 1:I mean this is tough. I mean we should say big plans, we're going to do both. Okay, that's what I say.
Speaker 2:All right, we got to do both, all right.
Speaker 1:Because we have to do golf, but then we can't choose golf. I mean, I would look so like a horrible person, even though that's my number one rank order right there. So yeah.
Speaker 2:So which one first, then Golf, okay, all right. So I can't decide whether this obsession I have with golf. So for about five years actually, let me go back way back, all right. So I've always loved the idea of golf, but I never really golfed, and the times that I did golf when I was younger, I didn't play very well at all. So I was not a good golfer.
Speaker 2:And I kick myself today thinking that for four years in high school I dated someone who was not only a member of the girls golf team, but her father was the coach of the golf team in high school and they practiced at PGA National down in Palm Beach Gardens, which is referred to as the golf capital of the world. So I had this opportunity to, but I never learned to play well, even though I liked it. But about five years ago I picked it back up and started from scratch very poor golfer. And over the past five years I have really become obsessed with the game and I play it a lot and I've actually improved quite a bit, right, and so I have this kind of ongoing dilemma of just how much I love golf, how much I can.
Speaker 2:There's all kinds of benefits that I have reaped from this, and I can list all these benefits, but then there's always this little voice in the back of my brain feeling guilty and said this is all rationalization. You know that you are spending way too much time focused on this and not doing things that are even more edifying for the world. You know, would Jesus' disciples have been golfing? So anyway, the right answer, I'm sure, is you probably should play a little bit less but it's not a bad thing that you're playing golf but also just kind of the stereotype that golf has too of rich.
Speaker 2:You're breaking that stereotype, All the categories. Maybe not the rich part, but the white men's club. Okay, Okay, that part. But then I rationalized it and say, no, this the white men's club okay, okay, that part.
Speaker 2:But then I rationalized it and say, no, this is a municipal golf course, right? There's all folks and there's actually quite a bit of diversity out there, so it's okay, they'll. You know, it's so funny that I'm finding ways to tear down this thing that I really like, even in the midst of really liking it. Here we're going to have you, we'll start on the positive side and then you can tear me down if you want. So what are all the personal benefits? Here? We'll do a game show, we're going to do a game show within a game show here.
Speaker 2:All right, you tell me what are all the personal benefits I get out of playing golf? There's physical exercise. That has been amazing, right? So, unless it's super, super hot, I walk, and so I get close to six-mile walk-in every time I play. I call it old man exercise. It's very inefficient exercise, but I get good exercise and it has been fabulous. And for me to want to do that over and over, right, so often, exercise is something that you have to do, but it's something that I actually very much look forward to. I'm disappointed on the days that I have to use a cart because it would be dangerous not to do so. So, anyway, so that, what else?
Speaker 1:I'm actually a big fan of golf, like you, mostly, just as an admirer I'm terrible. But one of the things I most admire about golf is you call penalties on yourself, and so it requires honesty and discipline rather than fudging it Just to do it. The right way is hard, so I think it would encourage a kind of discipline and honesty.
Speaker 2:Okay, so that's good and we'll get to the discipline part in a second. Did either of you happen to see the news? You mentioned the honesty of what happened this past week. So you're looking like this the sand trap. Yeah, you were a little bit busy with a wedding so maybe you didn't see much of the tour.
Speaker 2:This up-and-comer named Sahith Thigala I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly, golfer was in the tour championship where they're playing for. You know, the winner gets $25 million right and it's just many million dollars at stake. He's in the bunker and he takes a swing and for those of you who don't know anything about golf, it's a penalty if you touch the sand in any way before you hit the ball. And in his backswing he thinks he moves the sand slightly. He's not sure, but he thinks. And the rules official said if you think you move the sand, it's a two-stroke penalty. And so he took it on.
Speaker 2:Nobody would have noticed had he not said anything. It did not really affect his swing in any way. He didn't really get any benefit from this. There was nothing and everyone would say that this is a an archaic rule anyway, but he took two strokes. It ended up costing him 2.5 million dollars now he got like seven million dollars or something like that. So so it wasn't, but he lost $2.5 million because he fell in the standings enough to lose that, and it was all because of his honesty, so that was a very cool.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. That's an incredible story, yeah.
Speaker 2:And he's like I'm sure he's not hurting financially, but he's not yet.
Speaker 1:he's an up-and-comer Not many people can give up 2.5 without it stinging. I mean I could, but I would be honest, that's right.
Speaker 2:And then you also mentioned the discipline. I'll make that a different one. I have really found myself even enjoying the discipline of learning the swing and the honing your craft, of learning the swing and the honing your craft. Now, I assume some people will be thinking this is a totally useless, meaningful, unmeaningful craft that you're doing, but just to learn how to do something better and better, almost like what you were saying with the language, right? I don't know how often what language is, we'll get to it later. Okay yeah, but I've been working on Syriac, okay yeah, so is this now all right? And maybe you're going to end up using that in some way in your development.
Speaker 3:Oh, I will.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:So you're doing it for pragmatic reasons.
Speaker 2:Right, but just, and I don't know why the image of quilting comes to mind, but just the craft of doing something and doing it well and learning how to do it better and improving it. Something at this age has been a really cool.
Speaker 1:It's a total skill game right there's no forcing it.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, and you have to know the technique right, yeah, so that's impressive.
Speaker 2:And I thought it would take me a year, maybe 18 months, to, you know, basically get it down. And it's been basically all of the five years for me to really get a sense of confidence. When I stand over almost any shot, the assumption is I will hit it reasonably well, as opposed to I have no idea what's going to happen here, so it's a very long haul.
Speaker 2:I mean just even like how you grip the club is you've got to have lesson after lesson with that just gripping and there's readjustments all the time and even the pros still practice and it doesn't seem like it makes any sense that you have to practice gripping a club, something that you do, you know, thousands of times a day sometimes. But anyway, so that's Sociability 100%, Now, I would say somewhat. The downside is I do feel a little bit bad that I'm not as social with some folks like you as much as I have, but I've got a very great group of friends on the golf course and I just love banter.
Speaker 1:I was going to say I bet you have the golf banter.
Speaker 2:You have the repetition You've got probably running jokes Exactly, and so there is something very uplifting about the friendships out on the course.
Speaker 1:Sports teams in general just have, I think, really almost their own way of communication. Lots of teasing, but not to the point that it tears you down. If it's done right, I mean it sort of is teasing that says, I know who you are, but I'm acknowledging it and it still makes you feel good somehow.
Speaker 2:There's something about banter when you are criticizing someone and you know it's not a sincere criticism, that brings people together for some reason.
Speaker 1:I haven't quite figured out the psychology behind that, but I think you are acknowledging a person for their individuality and who they are, just like I felt so very good when you mentioned the email and texting that really warmed my heart and I always ruin it by always saying you do know that was a joke, right, you always have to follow it up with, are you sure? I'd say beauty, because golf courses are gorgeous. I was going to say nature.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was going to say that, natural beauty.
Speaker 2:It is so much fun being out there, and just something about the expanse too. Right Now, I am not sometimes when people will point to evolutionary biology as an explanation for something. True what I said? True, it's true, but I have heard that there's something about how we feel more at peace in big, open spaces because we can see the predators and we can see danger from far away, and so there's a safety feeling. But whatever the reason.
Speaker 1:There's another thing too, which I would say is that we evolved from a savanna, which means that you have lots of green and water. That's sort of why you evolved there. But the other thing is we're this one species that is over the whole world thing is where this one species that is over the whole world, and one you know. One thought on this is that, just because of our curiosity, we always want to know what's around the corner, and that's how a golf course is actually, you know, with the dog legs, and so on is you just want to see what's around that corner, so you might do that with fear what's around the corner?
Speaker 2:So, whatever the reason, there is just something about semi-manicured nature of golf course that's upkeep, but there's also just regular nature all around it that it is beautiful.
Speaker 1:Those are our French gardens, I guess I don't know.
Speaker 2:You know I've thought about that because you know, again trying to justify oh, all the irrigation that goes into golf course. Because you know, again trying to justify oh, all the irrigation that goes in a golf course, but you think about all the folks and our golf course here in Rome, stonebridge, gets used a lot, that it is kind of like walking through a park.
Speaker 1:You know, a good walk spoiled is the phrase of you know it's attributed to Twain, but it's not Twain. But a golf course in Rome is different than a golf course in phoenix, arizona. To be honest, in terms of yeah, we have plenty of water.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's true, but anyways, we keep on going over down other directions here. But just the beauty. You know I will often, on hot days I'll I have a umbrella that has a reflection and I get disappointed, right, because I just don't get to see the expanse the umbrella kind of gets in the way of the beauty, and so it's yeah. So those are the big points, and y'all did a very good job. I didn't even have to add anything, so thank you very much. So what's the big news?
Speaker 2:What's the guilt I was actually gonna ask should I not be feeling as guilty as I sometimes feel? I don't understand where this comes from, but I just don't think Jesus' disciples would be spending a whole lot of time on the golf course. Or am I wrong about that?
Speaker 3:Maybe not, but then a lot of the things we do, I can't imagine them doing either, so I don't think you should feel guilty. All right, you should feel a little moderately guilty, all right.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, that's the sweet spot for the Christian faith. It's a little moderate, guilty.
Speaker 1:I mean guilt is sort of my stock in trade, so I can speak about this. But what I would encourage you is if this is something that you enjoy, that is a positive in your life, you're doing really no harm and it has those benefits, then you ought to do it. This has not been the entirety of your life. This is a stage of your life. You don't know whether it's going to last another three or four years. I mean, it might go straight into retirement. You just don't know. Well, I've thought about that too.
Speaker 2:There is a happiness that I'm doing this now, rather than waiting too late and all of a sudden an injury or something comes up and I don't get to Not just pushing something down the road and all of a sudden not getting to.
Speaker 1:You're not missing out, I think, on familiar obligations, you know, and I think it's actually great. I'm jealous, okay.
Speaker 2:That is great. Thank you for that. All right, so you're pointing at me like don't even spin the wheel, just go ahead and tell the big news. Yeah, go ahead, all right, because it is related to Church Potluck. So if you've stayed with us this long, got some.
Speaker 1:Or joining us new. What? Or joining us new?
Speaker 2:Or joining us new.
Speaker 3:I just meant if you stayed, if you've been listening to this so far, for the past 41 minutes. You haven't shut off yet.
Speaker 2:You know, if you look at like YouTube videos, it tells you you know this many viewers were here, and then it tapers off.
Speaker 1:We're down to two right now. That's right. We're peaking with golf, no doubt, for both of you still listening.
Speaker 2:We're grateful. But my really big I've got some really big news, actually a big, major milestone in life that I've entered into an agreement with Berry College for this to be my final year as a full-time professor at Berry and followed by two years of half-time, part-time work here at Berry and it's called the Tom Kennedy Plan Tom, if you're out there listening but a phased retirement. But even though I'm still relatively young and I still love my job very much, I've got some other thoughts and ideas and things I want to do and I still love my job very much. I've got some other thoughts and ideas and things I want to do and so I decided in a situation that I can do it. It's kind of wrapping up here at Barry and it's both surprising to say but also a little bit exciting as well.
Speaker 1:Are you mostly? Obviously, you've made the decision, decision which means that you're leaning towards it. But what are you perhaps most anxious about and what are you most grateful about this move?
Speaker 2:What I'm most anxious about is and I I don't. So I've checked with folks to make sure that I'm not doing this stupidly right? So what I want to do in my next phase of of life May or may not generate revenue, yeah and so so what I want to do in my next phase of life may or may not generate revenue, and so I'm assuming can I retire and not generate revenue in the rest of my life? And so that's what I'm mostly worried about, and I guess everybody is. But how do I know, how do you know when you can retire? And so that's been on my mind.
Speaker 1:I think a lot of people our age have that very question. I wish we knew there was a good, clear answer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that's the biggest anxiety part of it Right, that's really the only anxiety part of it is to make sure that I'm making a smart choice, not just a foolish one. But the goal actually to do this in part was prompted by what we're doing right here, doing Church Potluck. I have really enjoyed doing this, even though we've had our ups and downs. Let me actually take a quick step aside. Part of the reason that we have been inconsistent or I have been inconsistent about getting these out is because I have decided I have set the bar way too high on these podcasts, and what I mean by that is I spend way, way too much time editing them.
Speaker 2:When I first got together, I knew nothing about this. Everything was a learning curve but something that came up when I was talking to people about me starting this up, they kept saying make sure the recording quality is good, because people won't listen if the recording quality isn't good. And then I did a few and they said, oh man, the recording quality is so good, and so I was really proud of that, right. But then, okay, if they thought that was good, I started getting deeper and deeper into editing, to the point where I was spending hours taking breaths out of you want to take a deep breath was spending hours taking breaths out of you want to take a deep breath, and it really has. All of a sudden, I got so wrapped up in the form that I was just thinking, hey, people aren't here to see something that perfect, right? And especially when I was listening to this American Life and I heard someone take a breath, I said if they can have a breath, we can have a breath on this episode.
Speaker 2:So there's still some editing but anyway I'm going to try to really hone down on the process and try to figure out a much more sustainable process for doing the podcast. But anyway, I've really enjoyed doing this my whole life, my whole adult life for sure. But ever since a teenager listening to talk radio and being confused how Jesse Jackson and Jerry Falwell can both be followers of Jesus right, just people with such different perspectives I've always tried, I've had this lifelong pursuit of how do we know what's true and, especially from a faith perspective, how are we supposed to live our lives. And I did that a lot through the sociology of knowledge and specifically the sociology of religious knowledge, and I've really enjoyed that. But just this kind of exploration and kind of, with my ADD tendencies, just go off in this direction. Go off in this direction.
Speaker 2:No, this is interesting, I jokingly said when I announced my retirement on Facebook. I made it Facebook official. I said now I set off to church potluck media empire and I was slightly joking about that, I said that tongue-in-cheek. But I'm hoping to do more kinds of content that produce kinds of Christian resources that are both gracious in tone and kind of lighthearted but also help people think about some of the deeper, more important things in faith, hopefully to offset some of the very narrow-minded anti-intellectual that you can find in American Christianity and get a lot of attention in the media and so— Well, that's a noble pursuit A difficult one, since narrow-mindedness often tends to win out.
Speaker 2:And that's kind of one of the things I think about, right, because to have a media presence, you have to have a voice right, and that voice is much more embraced if you are like super conservative or super progressive or if you take a hard stand right and you know, hey, can't we all learn from one another? Is not a really?
Speaker 1:It's not a spectacle, it's not gripping.
Speaker 2:It's not gripping right and so I'm going in this. The plan here is to go in this very modest expectations. Do my part, you know. Drop my, provide my two cents and what's the toss my stone into the, you know, my ripples.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we get what you're saying, yeah.
Speaker 2:I think you're. I don't know what the metaphor is, but anyway. So going in there with very low expectations, but just maybe be a little bit helpful.
Speaker 1:Totally unsolicited advice is to approach it as you do golf, which is you don't have plans to be in the PGA, but you want to get better and you want to learn the discipline of it and you want to enjoy it.
Speaker 2:And I want to learn the discipline of it and you want to enjoy it and I want to be helpful and you want to be helpful and enjoy it.
Speaker 1:And if you can make progress as you go, then that seems to me sufficient more to proceed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, great, thank you all, and for those reasons I'm very excited about it, I'm very much looking forward to it, and so it won't be much more than the podcast this year because still full-time and then you know. So I picture this as a very slow roll, but somewhere, you know, in the next three years to more or less try to kind of dive in fairly deep. That's good. You're going to start selling ads. Either that or I get to golf 36 holes a day.
Speaker 3:Or both Do it all.
Speaker 2:That's right, that's right, but anyway. So that's my big news and I'm excited about it. That's awesome, that's great, great, great. I guess I can edit this part out, at least as I'm sitting here thinking. But we'll go ahead and finish up, because we have a little bit of chat we can do afterward a little bit, unless there's anything very gripping we need to talk about no, no, I can't think of anything right now.
Speaker 2:All right, that was a lot of fun, guys, thank you. Thank you very much. It's good to be back in behind the microphone talking with you all, yeah, and let's see if we can say goodbye to everybody take care y'all have a good week that's right.
Speaker 2:I guess I should go ahead and give my little traditional outro here. I want to thank you all for sitting around the table with us today, and I hope that we have provided you with some food for thought and something to chew on. Some news, too, some news, yeah, some news, but we aren't finished yet. After the music finishes up, we'll have some leftovers for you to enjoy, some additional thoughts that we share with one another after we wrap up, so feel free to continue listening to those. We appreciate your support and, as part of that support, please consider subscribing, rating and reviewing Church Potluck, because it's got to be a media empire in the future, and it starts with your ratings, I think. I think.
Speaker 3:I'll find out eventually about that.
Speaker 2:But until we gather around the table next time. This has been Church Potluck, and thanks for listening.
Speaker 1:So since we all were expelled from this building, Michael, I was actually curious what you saw as sort of almost like a spiritual element of it.
Speaker 3:It was kind of like going into exile or being you know like, yeah you're, because I mean I don't know how it is for you all. But you know Evans Hall is like a second home to me. I mean I'm here almost every day and you know I feel really comfortable here.
Speaker 2:So even over the summers.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'll be sometimes here on Saturday on the summers, just, you know, maybe just for an hour or two, but still it's like it's a place that I could, you know, do some of my work and research, and most of my books are there. So being, you know, it was almost like I was, you know, like expelled from paradise, you know, an Adam and Eve moment. But fortunately, where I ended up was turned out to be really a nice experience. I did get in through the graciousness of the library here. I had a study room that I turned into a temporary office there and it was great to be, first of all, with all the librarians who were so friendly and nice to me.
Speaker 3:And also you had all the books. My study room was. If you just walk right out, it's where all the philosophy books are. Oh, so, I could, just you know, I'd go in and I'd go Now.
Speaker 2:was that intentional?
Speaker 3:I need a copy of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Oh, it's right there. You just walk out or you can just browse.
Speaker 2:Now, was that happenstance, or did they kind of do that to be?
Speaker 3:honest, I don't think, unless there's some sort of you know, supernatural force that made that decision.
Speaker 1:I'm going to just be a little bit goofy here, but I think it's true. It's like for people who love books, it's like being with your friends.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, it was fantastic. It was great to be, I mean, the. The bad thing was it was really lonely. I was up in the second floor. There weren't that many people around, so you don't really see, but that's often the case in the summer anyway. Even here, you know, in Evans Hall, in my regular office too, you don't see that many people. But it was nice to be in that kind of.
Speaker 2:They didn't put Christy. I know Christy spends a lot of time. She was somewhere else. I think, in the, in Mac in the science bill, yes, but.
Speaker 3:I just, I kind of last minute, asked for a space and they found a space in the library.
Speaker 1:When we did move out I mean regular Chrissy Snyder I spoke with her and I told her that I felt I couldn't fully account for why it felt so very gloomy and it did have this kind of feeling. The building was being temporarily shut down, but there was a sense of a part of our life was being shut down and, for one thing, we were carrying out a lot of us at least lots and lots of boxes of our artifacts and books and it just had that feeling of being like a forced exit.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I don't think I attach much of a spiritual meaning to it, other than it made me think about what will retirement feel like?
Speaker 3:you know so yeah, I had that same feeling like it was a precursor or a for you know. Yeah, kind of a looking ahead to what retirement will be like, where it's where you're permanently leaving the exile.
Speaker 2:Yeah, or it could be like a twilight zone episode, where you're in the library and you're so excited but you drop your glasses, and then you're surrounded by all your friends but you can't read. That is one of the.
Speaker 1:I can hardly watch that one. That's so tough. Yeah, just awful Cruel of the writers to do that. I think. All right, so you're learning a new language. Just go ahead and take the audience through the languages that you know. Come on, okay, I know I love this.
Speaker 3:I know English. I always say that I have to start out with that, with English, because what You're counting.
Speaker 2:I'm going to listen.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. So in school I studied French, and my speaking is rusty. I'm working on that, though, but reading is pretty good. In fact, I'm reading a lot of French theology, which has been helpful in my research, so my theological French is pretty good. And then German. I actually majored in German in college and spent some time in Germany, so German is probably my second best language right now, after English, and then I grew up speaking modern.
Speaker 2:Armenian. I mean, that was your everyday language.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, growing up with my grandparents, all four, I mean, I only knew three of my grandparents, but they all spoke Armenian, and my parents too.
Speaker 2:If I can impose on you, just say a little something in Armenian right now.
Speaker 3:What I said was how are you Dale, Laves, Aisar? What I said was how are you Dale, Are you okay, Are you good, yeah? So yeah, that's actually for those in the know out there, that's Western Armenian dialect. There are two dialects of Armenian, but those of us who come originally from Turkey Turkish Armenians, speak that Western dialect. If you go to Armenia today, they speak a different dialect, the Eastern dialect, which is in many ways quite different.
Speaker 1:It's hard.
Speaker 3:When I first went to Armenia visited, I had a lot of trouble understanding the Eastern dialect.
Speaker 3:Interesting I'm better now because I've figured out the differences. But yeah, but then I studied, okay. So this is a big question. This is a philosophical question. How do you count languages Like, okay, dialects Eastern Armenian, western Armenian are they one language or two? Sometimes they're not so comprehensible to each other. Then the other problem is what about classical Armenian, the Armenian that was spoken in the 5th century? Is that a different language? I don't know, I won't get into that.
Speaker 2:I'm not pressing the button. I'm going to clump it all into Armenian, but I studied classical.
Speaker 3:Armenian. In fact, I do research in that area too. I do Greek and Latin too, so I don't know.
Speaker 2:I've lost count. Another reason I'm retiring is just the it's embarrassing. Not modern Greek, the smallness I feel I'm terrible with modern Greek.
Speaker 1:We are too we share that together.
Speaker 3:But classical Greek, biblical Greek, I'm pretty good at. Yeah, I should be more modest. I shouldn't say that.
Speaker 1:But anyway, no, you should not, you are very modest.
Speaker 3:I just love languages. I'm fascinated by them. I want to learn more. In fact, that's when I do retire. I'm not going to announce my retirement here, but if I do retire, when I do retire—.
Speaker 1:Are you just going to keep coming to the office? I'm just going to keep coming to the office.
Speaker 3:Whether they want me there or not. I'm just going to go up, but yeah.
Speaker 2:I was just last class talking to my students about the superior wharf hypothesis, how language shapes what we see. Can you think of an example from any language to any other language where there's this concept that just does not translate, and especially if you got one religiously, but it doesn't have to. If it's not religiously that's okay, but just something.
Speaker 2:That's that some concept that you can say in this language and everybody understands it, but it just does not make its way to okay so this is something and I this is like completely, I could be completely wrong because I'm not a linguist.
Speaker 3:I, I really don't know I'm not a linguist linguist.
Speaker 2:I'm a polyglot.
Speaker 3:I guess you would call me. I know many languages, but linguists are like people who study the science of language, so I'm just kind of a dilettante when it comes to that. But one thing that I've remarked to some people about Armenian is that it seems to me that some of the words have more spiritual significance, and I'll give you one example.
Speaker 3:In English we have two different words. We have a word table, like your dinner table or the table you're sitting we're sitting around right now, and then we have the word altar for the sacred table right when the Lord's Supper is celebrated or sacrifice is performed. Armenian has just one word, seran, which both means table. You use it for your table at home and also for the altar in the church, and I've often wondered I don't necessarily buy into the Saber Wharf hypothesis, but I just wonder, if you speak a language where the term that is both used for secular or more mundane purposes is the same word you also use for spiritual, whether that gives you more of a kind of an understanding of the sense that the spiritual world extends beyond.
Speaker 1:Or into.
Speaker 3:Or into yeah. That's a good way to say it, whereas when you separate them, you get like a distinction between the secular and the sacred.
Speaker 2:We lose the connection that this is a meal that we're having in a sacred space that this is just like gathering around a table.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and so that's, I've never really I've told this to a couple of students, I've never really published it or done anything with it, but and I think I can come up with other examples of that too where something about the English language allows us to sort of separate the sacred and the profane more than other languages do- that's interesting. Translate into, like even our First Amendment, like church-state distinctions and all where, if you speak certain languages, it doesn't make as much sense to separate out the two realms.
Speaker 2:So this is a whole other episode actually, but I kind of say the opposite, I think with regard to agape, because I mean kind of say the opposite, I think with regard to agape because I mean to Americans' use of the word love, because we kind of have eros and philos and agape all wrapped up into one word, and so we don't make those distinctions, which I don't think helps us to connect agape to eros. You know what I'm saying? I kind of bemoan the fact that we don't have three different words, so that when it's really clear, when we're talking about this kind of love versus this kind of love, and so in that case I'm thinking it's nice to have those distinctions. But I like the way you put it too, though, that sometimes having that one word blends the two, the sacred and the profane, together.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a great example with with love. But yeah, I was wondering that that's interesting because you could say that you know, in the greek example, when you talk about eros right, that you know it's that's not, that's purely physical, that's purely sexual, whereas when you say you know you, you can say I love you and that has that can convey all the richness of love not just the physical love, but it has, it can have a spiritual dimension too.
Speaker 3:That eros in Greek Plato would say it has already, but it would be specifically erotic love.
Speaker 1:I think that's one of the few times I got feedback on. Something I said on here was I was very pro-eros for spiritual reasons and you know I got all these emails and texts like perverts, but I didn't respond to him for several months because I didn't open them. Sure.
Speaker 2:Touche, very cool. All right, we have a meeting to get to in a little bit. Oh, do we? Oh, yes, we do.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we have an Evans School meeting, yeah, so we'll go ahead and wrap up and thank y'all.
Speaker 2:That was a lot of fun, it was.