Unpacked In Santa Cruz
Mike Howard talking ....
Unpacked In Santa Cruz
Episode 33: Collin Brown: Challenging Sin: A Journey Through Consciousness and Theology
Can consciousness itself be the original sin? Join us for a profound discussion as we unravel this and other complex theological questions with our special guest, Collin Brown. We delve into the nuanced interpretation of sin and evil in Christianity, from their original languages to their evolution through translations. Reflecting on Paul's words in Romans and the story of Adam and Eve, we challenge traditional views of original sin and consider what these pivotal biblical moments truly signify.
Throughout our conversation, we navigate the delicate balance of spirituality and cultural misappropriation, distinguishing genuine engagement from superficial piety. By exploring the historical context of sin, illustrated through the story of Cain and Abel, we examine how emotions and attitudes surrounding sin contribute to feelings of shame and the need for atonement. Our personal stories highlight the profound impact of different upbringings on perceptions of shame and discipline, emphasizing the role of supportive communities in fostering personal growth and understanding.
We also delve into the importance of intent and consciousness in evaluating actions, offering a fresh perspective on innocence, naivety, and sacrifice. By reinterpreting Jesus' crucifixion and challenging the necessity of sacrificial atonement, we encourage a reevaluation of traditional teachings. Finally, we address the influence of Christian nationalism and the idea of embracing peace through suffering, sharing our journeys and insights in hopes of fostering a more nuanced understanding of these deep theological concepts.
When Will my Love Come Home?
Speaker 2:Home from the end when my song you tell we may sing it again.
Speaker 1:Lost now in pursuit of empty chords, hoping in the vain pursuit of it all, Will you see me?
Speaker 3:Welcome to the Unpacked and Naked Podcast. I'm your host, michael Howard. I am currently torturing Colin Brown with one of his own songs. Yeah, thanks a lot. Yeah, a song, lot, yeah, a song that I love. I love him, uh, but, as any musician knows hard to listen to yourself, it is, yeah, we far more enjoy listening to you than you do to yourself, but I am sitting across a man who has many talents, who I love a lot, and then, uh, all the podcasts, I'll have your music in the front. I didn't know that.
Speaker 3:I'm getting permission right now. I'm sorry, the one, the one guy that may be suing me is sitting across from all these big bands. I was afraid and feel Colin just wanting to come over.
Speaker 3:Oh, anyways all, joking aside, it really it really is good to have you here, Colin, and um, uh, this is potentially one of these topics, words that, um, you all might experience I don't think friction's the right way to put it, but there's a largesse in my personality where I get dug in when I start perceiving something different. And what I mean by largesse is I can be a bit of a bully, and Colin knows this about me and, uh, you know, Colin knows this about me. Uh, but I do want to take the opportunity to talk about sin and evil today, Uh, two very big words that we have avoided for a year now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we can't avoid them longer.
Speaker 3:Right and, um, I do want to take a little bit of time for the whole audience to really discuss at least what I perceive might be the largest problems that live within this conversation that might transpire, being in Aramaic and Greek, then being transliterated to Latin, then to English. For us, a lot gets missed and you know we live in this wonderful opportunity, in a time where the words in Aramaic are coming to life more. We're learning a lot more about the Bible with really great young theologians. But, that being said, there has been these types of words like sin that are meant to embody a bunch of different things, and to me the term sin and how it's used in Christianity has done a lot of damage to itself. That's my perception about it, because we get to what Paul said in Romans to that church there and it seems kind of glib how he puts it off, and this is way away from the genesis of the word sin, the way that we use it. He says you know all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and you know that's nice and kind of colloquial and the use of that word sin there is like look, we've all just kind of fallen short, we've aimed and we've missed. You know we were trying to do something. It doesn't say whether it's good or bad, but you know it just didn't work. And that's a very big minimization of the many things that the Bible addresses that are just wrong. And we're going to start, hopefully, in Genesis, where we are told in our faith, where original sin showed up, though there isn't any indication from God in his words and his language that what Adam and Eve did was a sin. It's slightly inferred in that he said to them to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and that is in what they did.
Speaker 3:This is where Colin and I might depart a bit, so I want to leave room for whatever this means. I don't want to presume upon Colin in any way, and this is again for me. I don't know that he and I have ever thoroughly discussed any of what we're talking about. We've glanced on things. We've known each other a very long time. I say things.
Speaker 3:He stays quiet, walks out the door, might have a different approach on how we talk about something later. I don't know if he's adjusting in disagreement or sorting through something. I mean this. This is part of, you know, an area where I don't know him yet. Not that I don't know him, it's just a piece of his personality that I haven't picked through yet. And this seems to me to be one of those things where it's like, well, we might be picking some scabs on each other right now and it might not feel good, and so you know, fair warning, I guess you know. What you need to know is that, whatever we might disagree on, colin and I are going to give each other a hug, you know.
Speaker 2:I don't know how this conversation is going to end you know.
Speaker 3:But you know in full disclosure for you, colin, that this is a topic I brought up, I think, about three years ago, about transcendence. I do believe that, as humans, we can transcend the many issues that are associated with this quote-unquote fall of being conscious of what's right and wrong, that transcending and transcendence is dealing spiritually with physical matter, and I do believe that was what was offered in a relationship with Jesus. I think that's what he was saying is like there's a spiritual prospect here that you're not tapping into. Yes, you have the law, but there's other principles, transcendence being one of them. But you say something like transcendence and again, that's one of these words that's only associated with Jesus in our culture, you know, as it pertains to Christianity and you don't squirm as much with me, clearly, because you're not squirming yet but but you know the issue, issue of transcending, you know. You know, if I'm dealing with things spiritually, are the things I'm misunderstanding having the impact, the way that we would align with how sin has an impact, or evil or whatever else. And I I do believe that we have a very loosey, goosey culture here in Santa Cruz that that likes to throw out big words. You know how has people, you know, pretending or doing actionable things, you know, as though it's good, and yet their spirit is not operating purely, I guess, would be the best way to put it. You know, it's a mask, just like anything else can be, and I don't want to presume that I am now trying to put on a mask, believing that, you know, when you're dealing with things spiritually there's an added perfection or purity process that gets added to us. That is the promise, I think, of being a Christian and having a relationship with Jesus. It's certainly what I believe I'm participating in.
Speaker 3:But, as you can hear all these words, this is a hard thing to get to, to talk about the issue of sin, because the word sin, as it's been transliterated and again I don't even know if it's the right word that we've come to in English doesn't really come up until Cain gets mad at Abel and God warns him. Hey, I see your heart. Right now You're looking for sacrifice and punishment and that really is the emergence of the word. You know that we don't have a way of measuring evil until the action, after the emotion. You know it was then that Cain killed his brother Abel and there we have the first real ooh, that's evil. You know you've killed your brother because you got jealous. And you know, just in a cursory study, you know, I ended up going two hours and there's so many different words for sin. It was annoying. I really it hadn't hit me yet and this is where I'm sitting in a bunch of confusion for myself at this point.
Speaker 3:So this is as much about us, kind of like wow, this was heavy to actually jump into because they're all different words. You know that there are emotions, there are feelings, there are attitudes that lead us to a place of we are punished, we feel ourselves in shame, and there is some sort of sacrifice that then the person in sin feels needs to be made and that, on a theology standpoint, given all the cultural norms of sacrifice, ritual sacrifice then leads to this whole other theological rabbit hole as to where the Hebrews fit in, you know, with other, what we would call pagan cultures, the human need for sacrificing thing to gods. I don't know that that was ever meant to be that way. Also, I think it's something that humans just did and then God somehow allowed, yet had his own way of like no, I want you to do it this way if you're going to do this thing Like there's too much in there, but without addressing, at least touching on, those things, we can't get to the meaning of what you and I are trying to attempt to say when we're talking about sin, which, at least for me, most of the sin that I truly regret are things that I did with good intent, that were good on the outside, from the inside they were good, but they didn't land the way they should have because they didn't have the full picture, and that's more about misunderstanding than it is about evil intent, and that does speak to how big God is, which is really, I think, the hallmark of knowing that there is quote-unquote sin in the room. You know, that emotion of like ugh, yuck, for me has always been a really good guidepost.
Speaker 3:But again, I want to bring another contradiction to Colin and myself, in that you know, without exposing too much, I'm pretty close to your family and have known you all since you were very young, and I think more with your younger siblings. I got a better view of how you were raised, where your parents didn't utilize shame as a tool of discipline, and for me, you know, it's not that you guys didn't feel shame at some point, and that isn't not what we talked about when, when you all were sorting through your your things and in early adulthood that that kind of stuff you know which, which, again, I would hope that anybody who goes to church has somebody to talk to to sort through these things, that maybe has at least a little bit more understanding of their Bible and of walking. And even if you don't go to church, I'm hoping for all of you, as you're meeting my friends, you realize that you probably have friends around you that maybe if you were just a little bit more vulnerable with some conversations might transpire that that can get at some of the things you know as you're, as you're doing what you know, whatever your psychologist is calling shadow work, blah, blah, blah, working on yourself. It's good to have others around you to bounce things off.
Speaker 3:But the reason why I bring up your upbringing is because it's in great contradiction to my upbringing where shame was what was being fed. You know that that there was a lot of bodily shame there was. You know there was no intent from my parents. You know I I can. You know I live next to my grandmother, who was not a great person, as I found out after I lived next to her, who was a wonderful grandmother before that moment. Uh, the kind of thing that she did to my mom, you know, to my dad, just you know. My dad was in jail when he was eight, you know, didn't have a dad. Last thing he had from his dad was a beating and then he died that night. Wow. So my perspective comes from a very different spot about my approach to Christianity, just solely because of how I was raised you know that my parents came with a lot of shame to church, as we're understanding about generational trauma.
Speaker 3:You know generational sin is the way we would talk about it. You know generational misunderstanding but but I grew up feeling very ashamed of who I was and it's something I've only overcome really in the last year, that that there's not a lot of or there's not as much of that to measure the way that I was utilizing shame in my head and my heart. You know from issues of quote unquote sin, whatever it is we're about to talk about. So I do want to acknowledge those real realities that are going to be sitting in this conversation, both to you for our audience, that there is a real difference between Colin and I that I have observed in his upbringing. Again, looking to your parents and others around in the church, I was able to navigate out a bit of that kind of principle that was living in the two households that Kim and I came from, but it does sit with my children still as men. Um, you know. So I see that reflection that still goes. You know I will never know where that came from. Where that came from. I do know some of the stories, but I know my own story the most, and the level of fear that came with the shame that I felt is how I showed up at church.
Speaker 3:So I don't want to take this topic lightly, because there are things that that my approach to christianity is very different than collins at this time. Uh, I'm I don't think I'm more open. It's not the right way, it's just I I've spent a lot more time in this space and, because of my experience of being outside the church more in this way, I I've just been exposed a lot to things. So so there may be less. I don't. I don't know how to put any of this. You can, you can, you can go ahead and feed in here. I've been going for 16 minutes now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a um, you've kind of thrown out a lot out there, yeah, um, yeah, I so try and kind of go through some of those, some of those things, so that the silence on my part. I think I mentioned before that my, my mode of operation is listen first, um, and I don't always think that a response is required or necessary or needs to be immediate, required or necessary or needs to be immediate. So my non-response is me trying to fully listen and understand, and then you know, if a response isn't in me for that moment, then one will not be forthcoming in my word salads.
Speaker 3:I'll that tomato over there.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure if I want to eat that yes, I, uh, I think I said this before too, but my one of my favorite scriptures is the one that says even a fool seems wise if he just keeps his mouth shut. So that's my, my foolish, uh understanding of wisdom. Yeah, so I, I, um, I think a way of saying it is my opinion, my perspective, my understanding. I believe that there's a much higher level of understanding and knowledge out there that none of us as humans can fully attain. So whatever level I have, I register that as incomplete. And so, even if I have a different opinion, I think sometimes it's best to try and consume what you're hearing, and even if you disagree, that's not always the moment to express that, and I think it's foolish to always kind of ride with your opinion first and sort of have that be the starting point.
Speaker 3:So we got the fool in the room right now? I don't think so. I don't think so.
Speaker 1:I don't think so. I just think that I have a lot to learn, which to me is a very positive thing, and I think sometimes, the more that we speak, the more that I speak, the less able I am to learn. And that might just be kind of my personality or whatever. It's not something I put on someone else. I just have learned that for myself.
Speaker 1:listening first, truly listening, is the way that I can most consume, best consume what's being talked about Um and also, I think listening is a way of honoring someone, and just because you have a different opinion doesn't mean you can't still honor them. And so to me, really listening is a way of expressing to someone that I care about them. So you know, that's, that's kind of my, my mode, I guess. Um, I don't. I don't think I fully understand the whole transcendence thing that you're referring to. I don't know if that's core to the conversation or not.
Speaker 3:It's living principally in it, because this is where I have really become divergent towards the community. Okay, and what I mostly notice is because of the issue of sin, and I mean just the word, okay, just the word and how it's utilized, it has anchored the church as a whole in a way as though there are others, and unless you agree with whatever theological perspective in whatever church, like this is the thing like there's thousands of different denominations, most of which believe that they're right, and so, therefore, if you don't believe the way that we believe about sin and other topics, therefore you may not be going to heaven. Okay, which is kind of, I think, what many of the audience would be hearing, what they hate about church.
Speaker 3:It's like why the bait and switch, why the carrot and stick? You know what does accepting Jesus mean. You know what does accepting Jesus mean. You know how is that the only way to get to a spot, to a God who supposedly created 8 billion people as we're living on the planet right now? No-transcript. But we're so in the church, comfortable with how we talk about these things, so feeling heavenly and oh, we're going, so everything's great.
Speaker 3:We don't recognize how dismissive it is to others who may not agree with all the things that we are saying, in whatever organization, at whatever church, in whatever walls, the way that we're saying it, and it creates a real problem. Just sharing what I've shared about my own shame. How much more is there? Shame as people are walking into the church that's generally why they're there and then reinforced when something is confusing because it's not even being taught. Well, you know it's, it's uh, it's not hard to become a pastor. Hmm, it's not hard to become a pastor.
Speaker 3:And you and I know people who have gotten in rubs with our denomination who quickly get licensed by another denomination and you watch what they do and it's just a piece of their own ugliness that doesn't play well with others and then they culture that thing where it's pretty easy to see how theologically unsound what it is they're saying is. And yet they congregate and they identify with each other, they get tribal, they point fingers and again, because the transcending part is just a nuance me being open to you that I don't believe necessarily in the impact of sin, the way that it's taught in the Christian church, you know that if what Paul is saying is true, that because of this thing of missing the point we fall short of glory, is very different than you're going to hell, which most association is. I am a sinner, I would be going to hell without Jesus and you know that. That's you know we can talk about the eternal at another point.
Speaker 3:That's another big topic. That's another. It's a whopper yeah.
Speaker 2:I think that's a little bit funner with us than this one might be. Yes, that's another big topic.
Speaker 3:That's another. It's a whopper. Yeah, I think that's a little bit funner with us than this one might be. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 3:Because you know from the beginning, when Adam and Eve ate whatever that fruit was and became conscious of what was right and what was wrong, and the gods not just God's response. This is where it gets weird, in that the that portion of our you know what I would say are are are Hebrew myth of how these things work. That that whoever was assembled together saying oh, they've become like us, now they can see it, so they cannot live forever with the type of misunderstanding that may be coming their way, is how I would gently put that and probably more precisely put that. I would gently put that and probably more precisely put that. You know if there is any way for you and I to understand what the eternal means, where God is in the grand landscape of the universe, who these beings are that are having conversations about. You know like this is going to get weird.
Speaker 3:And you know, especially you know, in the business you're in with artificial intelligence becoming what it is and you know, getting into, quote, unquote, God status of these realities, of what may or may not make up humanity from here on out, because of artificial intelligence and all the DNA stuff that's going on like it's on the table. Yeah, you know, and of course we get to feel secure, both because we're older but, but it's not as though the terminator is off the table at this point.
Speaker 3:Right, you know that that there is some form of consciousness that can live within technology and all these things that were kind of living in fantasy world have stepped into kind of a reality. We're nowhere near that point yet. I do realize that, yeah, you know, because we're living in these, these language models that don't aren't complete. But you also know, the accelerator pedal is is pushed all the way down. Yes, in in in the valley, but these are the things that people are talking about you know, what is consciousness?
Speaker 3:what does that mean? Is consciousness a sin, then this is my point. You know that in our culture, in our tradition, we have viewed consciousness as a sin. What do you mean? Well, when Adam and Eve ate of the fruit, we consider that the original sin. They were then cast out of the garden as though that was punishment and that presumption upon that, I think, which is what most people believe. Until you really dig into, are you sure that that was punishment and not just a result of consciousness?
Speaker 1:Were they conscious not before that moment? Then Is that what you're saying?
Speaker 3:I don't know, but that's called the original sin.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you're saying consciousness is awareness of sin.
Speaker 3:Oh, is awareness of sin. That was the thing. Oh, now you know the difference between right and wrong. So it gets in these really high-minded things and, as I spoke before, we don't really have this word sin, until we get to the moment, with Cain, where it's like, hey, dude, you know God's calling them out. You know I see your heart right now and sin is, is creeping at the door.
Speaker 3:You know this, this need to punish, this need to have sacrifice, this need to deal with the shame that you feel you know is going to be it's, this thing is coming for you, which I think is what most of us would call sin.
Speaker 3:You know, these actions, these feelings that we have that don't properly represent what we'd really like to feel towards others, but they come so naturally that it's just part of our emotional package of being human, and I think, mostly by me. Even talking this way, it highlights how much presumption is in this idea as, as it is just kind of glibly talked about, oh, yeah, you know we all sin. Well, this is actually fairly complex thing to enter into. Yeah, of course we all miss, but like we don't all murder, you know we're not all alcohol, like we're, we're not all down these roads of bad behavior. You know that the world knows, everybody knows it's evil. So I'm not trying to make a mountain out of a molehill, I'm just acknowledging the mountain that's there, that's been ignored and created. It's talked about like a little tiny oh, it's just a little bump in the road, oh, it's a pretty big bump. You know, if consciousness is is what gets us to place of misunderstanding, that's an entirely different prospect than your evil.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, are you making a distinction between sin and evil, or are they synonymous?
Speaker 3:Well, this is my point. This is why I wanted to talk to you about sin and evil.
Speaker 3:That when we get to where our tradition begins, away from the Hebrews, that we believe that Messiah came and, quote-unquote, died for our sins. That's a mixed bag. And quote unquote, died for our sins. That's a mixed bag. You know, it's not just what we've done wrong, it's also the misunderstandings. And I don't even know. I'm not convinced anymore that Jesus had to die. I'm more convinced that humans murdered him, believing that the law that was given by God was a way to enact how we felt about things that were wrong. And for me and this is where my theology seems more open, I think it closes it up a little bit harder is what it does is that when Jesus said it's finished on the cross, he was making a declaration about this murderous behavior that we call sacrifice to make amends with God. It's as much about that physicality of what seems natural to us in whatever we're calling pagan, whatever we're calling the older humans pre, I guess. Now, when we kind of know what year it is from that moment of Jesus' birth maybe we're within 200 years, because the Romans were kind of keeping time we don't know what we're talking about mostly until we get to this point you know where we have jesus's birth and he says to the people that I believe he created this is it, it's done, you don't have to do this anymore. So I believe it's you, at least for me. This is what brings me a lot of peace, you know, rather than the natural arguments that live within the church of who killed Jesus, the Jews, the Romans, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. This stuff that has disconnected us from the Jews In Protestantism. It's disconnected us from the Catholic Church, jews, and Protestantism is disconnected us from the Catholic church. Like there's so much built in to the prospect of who did what, not accounting for the fact that Jesus just said it's done, we don't have to do this anymore. Can you? Can you see what you do with good things? And it's in that prospect that I found the most freedom. It wasn't new to me how I'm living it out today. This is something I have been sitting with for 15 years.
Speaker 3:So I was preaching for 10 years with this in my heart, staying in the tradition, I guess, living in the hypocrisy a little bit of it, where I was being the hypocrite. I was the one hiding how I really felt about our traditions, about salvation and all of that stuff. I have to live in my little Jonah world where, no matter what I do, whoever I am, is still happening. So I guess my point in that is sin to me is a very rough topic, because it's a single word that's meant to mean so much, and I don't even know if it's been transliterated correctly at this point and yet it is the word we use the most when talking about how good God is and how bad we are.
Speaker 3:And so it becomes this point of contradiction where, well, you can never be God-like and God can't really, you know, help you transcend from your flesh, which I don't believe it's not that we would completely transcend from that. It's just that you and I have been in enough worship services that have been transcended. You know where, it's just you're in the Spirit and there's just this thing that happens. And it's not from teaching, it's not from any of those things. Yeah, it's being in the presence of god, where you feel yourself for the first time. Yeah, you know, like, like who you really are.
Speaker 3:Yeah, singing lift of your hands, you know, for anybody outside of church, they're looking at us going what you know, but I'm sure anybody who's listening has all been to a concert of some sort where it's just you're in the flow of music and you know something different is happening than what you showed up for, yeah, so again, now I have gone another 15 minutes to your two minutes, mm-hmm. So, does that better kind of you know? Point us towards the issue that I'm seeing that I'm using a lot of words for of like we've got a problem.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I think. So I don't think I fully understand all of it, which is part of part of why we have the conversation. I don't think I understand.
Speaker 1:I think the word transcendent feels like it maybe has multiple meanings that we're touching on, and I think a lot of what you said makes sense. There's some of it I have a different perspective on, but I think maybe it's helpful to kind of say where I'm coming from, just so what I do say you know. You see, I have a frame of reference. So you know, I'm not a theologian and what I mean by that is is I don't know Hebrew or Greek, or I don't study the Bible in that form, so I'm not able to articulate well some of the deeper theological motifs in the Bible. I also don't think that's necessary to be a believer. I think that those things are available to us if we want them and they can be fun to dive into. They can be horrifying at times.
Speaker 1:To dive into. So it's, you know it's a pretty, a pretty mixed bag and you know I I definitely know that as people have dived into theology, for some it's been really beneficial and for some it's been really difficult to kind of process. So I'm I don't have that level of education, um, and so I'm not able to speak to those sorts of things. My, my perspective is really as an individual man trying to have a faith that I can live out and hold on to and and exemplify in how I live, and to me, the words that I speak are really the actions that I take and how I live. Those, to me, are much more important than what comes out of my mouth. And so my perspective is I'm trying to understand how do I live like today, and I want to be helpful to others as much as I can. But my concern is like how do I live out this faith In like today practically? What does that look like?
Speaker 1:And so when you say the word sin and evil, my mind goes to very practical things as opposed to philosophical or theological. I think having, of course, I need to understand those things to a certain level where I can live out today trying to be faithful to what I believe the Bible says and God says, and to understand that and to live that out. But I don't have a lot of answers that would maybe satisfy other people. I'm trying to come to answers that can satisfy myself in this pursuit. But my friend asked me the other day, hey, would you speak at church? And I told him I don't feel qualified to speak on God's behalf, and to me that's what speaking in church is is like speaking on God's behalf.
Speaker 1:I feel like I can speak from where I'm at and kind of give my perspective and my understanding. But, you know, let me point you back to what I said in the beginning, which is I also believe my understanding is incomplete, so I and I'm okay with that. Like that works for me, that doesn't bother me. I actually think that's exciting. To think that I don't know at all is really great. So that's not a problem for me. I think for other kinds of people that that is a problem that's just hard to live with.
Speaker 1:So, like that, that's where I'm coming from, as we have this conversation, very practical, and so I want to be as helpful as I can, but with a disclaimer of like I don't know it all, but I have to live today, and so that's the paradox, that's the paradigm that I'm in is I don't know it all, but I need to take the next step.
Speaker 3:Okay, so I want to sit here because this is, at least for me, whatever agenda that I had inside of this conversation. You know it's not with ill intent, but this is the kind of thing that I think is hard to sort out for most humans as to what it is that is actually happening at church. You know, church being the vehicle, for the most part, that has been utilized in our culture to. You know, get, quote, unquote the message out. You know, with it we've all acknowledged, or we've acknowledged, the flaws that you know. We've seen the flaws that we've seen the sadness that we are now experiencing at the site of what it's become, where it's so far away from things that we've experienced. Not that we weren't doing the same things in some form, they just seem to be manifest more. But you are speaking to an issue without you even knowing it of. The fact is, when people come to church, they are looking to folks like you, folks like me, for answers and your perspective, which sounds so simple, is not like at all like the amount of discipline that it takes for you to not get caught up, especially with the brain trust that you come from that has surrounded you, including myself, where you know, you've had the unique torture of being an engineer who was raised by an English professor who was thinking about philosophy but then decided not to, and you know cause. Philosophy has too many rabbit holes, you know. So it's.
Speaker 3:It's amusing for me to talk with your dad about this stuff. It's like you take us through nothing but rabbit holes. Like you should have studied philosophy for crying out loud, you know it might be a little bit clearer. You know, as as we're aging into it a little bit more. You know, because he had his own guardrails going to college, getting his doctorate going. Oh, you know, I, I can't go down this spot because that'll just take me to nowhere. Yeah, and I appreciate that about him, but it also like it's a barrier because you know, now, as content is so much more available, you know, and you don't have to go somewhere to be taught, you know you can learn all about philosophy in the luxury of your own estate. Yeah, you know, I spent two years studying economics. Like you know, I can teach people about the dollar in about 10 minutes. You know, I can't even figure out why, even figure out why. You guys don't understand this thing. So I get that my mind works differently, but you get the point that we have our own personal guardrails up. You've seen that demonstrated by your dad. I'm making kind of quippy little jokes about a very big personality who's very bright, very big personality, who's very bright. You know, then, how that played out with you and the and the guardrails you put up for your own heart, which you've just orated.
Speaker 3:This is my point, that that without guardrails, you know, I don't even know how to put this, so I'm just going to say it how it's coming. Right now, I see so many people putting guardrails up when it gets confusing and they're missing it. You know, I think what they're doing is being prompted by the Spirit to understand something, again, spiritually speaking, to transcend this physical space that you have allowed yourself to be stuck in and like here's the offering. You know, in your consciousness, do you want more to be conscious of, rather than sitting in your struggle, of how you're attempting to understand something? And again, because you and I have this rich history of both reading our Bibles, you know pulling out the Strong's Concordance, you know doing the stuff deeper word studies and concordance, doing the stuff deeper word studies. Of course I've done probably a little bit more of that than you have, just for my own well-being, so that I'm teaching as well as I can.
Speaker 3:I doubt the discipline lives very much in the pews, the way that I approached it when I was sitting in the pews myself. But we have worship, which brings this transcendence. We have teaching that we can receive. But then on this personal side of how do I live more spiritually whether you knew you did or not, you're talking about this discipline principle that you live in, called Colin Brown, of how you approach things, trying to understand things no, you won't understand but having a deeper understanding than the person next to you because you chose to try to, even though you know you don't.
Speaker 3:Like I don't think you and I are dissimilar that way. You know we vocalize it differently, but like that's very real, it's what's attractive about you. That's why people come to you is because you've chosen to be disciplined about not having to understand, but you're not being naive about it, you're being innocent about it and that's a very different thing about it and that's a very different thing, whereas, you know, we have certainly counseled a lot of people together. Where people are just choosing to be naive, yeah to their actions and the kind of damage that it does, mostly to them but also to the people around them, which is generally you know, once it came to my office, when it comes to my attention, what someone's naivety is doing amongst the people, not to themselves. There has to be something done about it.
Speaker 1:Well, I think the reality, what you spoke to, is that when Adam and Eve ate the fruit, god was saying now you know. And so I think what you're describing here is we need to live in the reality of what we know. And for those that would say, oh, I didn't know, or I don't know, is that's where I think we can get into trouble. There's the I didn't know because I wasn't given the chance, versus the I chose not to know, and those, to me, are two very different things, and I think we have to live in the reality of what we do know. And and some of that is is life experience. Like you, just you, just you know, articulated, articulated.
Speaker 1:You and I have different life experiences, so what you know is different than what I know and those life experiences. It's not like we got to choose what we know, yeah, through what we've experienced, but we know that and we have, we have to live in the reality of what we know, and that is a lot of times very painful, but I believe there's a path forward in that, and so I think what you're saying I really agree with, which is, in a sense, is different than naivety, and we live in a space where we have to acknowledge what we do know as much as we acknowledge what we don't know. We have to acknowledge what we do know and invite God into that knowledge. And to choose to be blind is different than being born blind, I guess.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's really well put and just for our audience, this is now relevant to this conversation and so that's why I'm bringing it up and I don't want to divert away necessarily from sin. But what Colin shared is in the Solomonic tradition, you know, in Proverbs, of the difference between someone who is innocent and someone who is naive, which is a conscious choice to not see what's in front of them, even though it's been pointed out and what Solomon had to say about these things and what was more God-like and what was less God-like is that there are things that people do innocently and there's some sort of grace that flows with that. That's okay, because God's grace is in that, whereas someone who's naive and consciously choosing not to understand might do something good in their naivety and be punished for it. Like it's pretty heavy once you get into these things.
Speaker 3:That naivety is certainly not something that is not addressed in the Bible and whether this is from the wisdom of the men that wrote this book or whether it's wisdom from God that is being prophesied from these men, whatever it is, it's an acknowledgement and an observation of the difference between very, very important things that you know a child who's one can walk up and punch you, and that is very different than the four year old that walks up and punches you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know there's there's a difference between those two things, because the action is coming from a different place, but the action's the same. It still hurts the person that's punched in some way, and so that would be a simple way of saying what you're saying the difference between the innocent and the naive, of saying what you're saying, the difference between the innocent and the naive. And so again, I want to keep backing up to starting with what I do believe is a misunderstanding that lives in our culture, that even calling it original sin consciousness as original sin, consciousness as original sin, it, it becomes a misnomer in my heart because yeah, of course we're going to misunderstand some things, but is that evil?
Speaker 1:yeah, well, which? Is how sin's kind of placed on people yeah, I mean, I'm still not totally understanding your, your definition of consciousness there. Um, I don't know if that's totally important for me to understand that. I think that there is a big distinction though between sin and evil and I. They're not synonymous. Um and you've already said this soon, sin is is really about missing the mark. I think what is the mark is kind of important in the conversation. So there we go.
Speaker 3:This is what I'm trying to like.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So what is the mark? It's describing a specific target. I believe that target is treating God and people with the honor and respect they deserve. I agree, that's the mark, yeah, and so sin is missing that mark.
Speaker 1:There's in that analogy there's sort of an implication that you're trying, though, which is, I think what you're touching on Like I tried to hit the mark and I missed is very different than I tried to destroy the mark.
Speaker 1:Those are two very different things. So if you missed the mark, that means you tried, and I think that's maybe a subtle point that we don't talk about. Much is really intent, yes, and I think this gets to the heart of it, and I think the Bible actually has a lot to say about the heart, and the heart is actually really where most of this goes down, which is really speaking of intent, and so I can attempt to treat someone with honor and respect and fail, and that would be, quote sin, but you couldn't look at me and say, well, you're an evil person because you weren't successful in your attempt. Because you weren't successful in your attempt, and I think God's able to acknowledge the attempt while still acknowledging that the mark was missed, and what he's offering is a way to help me hit the mark next time, and I think that's what Jesus came to offer is hey for those who are trying to hit the mark and missing.
Speaker 1:I have some helpful things that are going to help you hit the mark next time. And if the intent truly is to treat people with honor and respect and to hit the mark, then that's good news. Like, oh, I don't know anything about archery at all, but whatever the things are that help you improve when you're doing archery like, oh, hold it this way, or, you know, take a deep breath before you release, or whatever it is Like, those are the kinds of things that Jesus is offering. Here's a way to be more, to hit the mark more often and get closer.
Speaker 1:And for those who are trying to hit the mark, it's like, oh, that's really helpful, thank you. That's very different than you're evil, and maybe if you follow all these exact, specific, very tight laws and rules and regulations, then maybe you'll get the reward. But we'll see how I'm feeling that day. Let's do very different things, and so when we talk about just about sin itself, I think how this is good news, which is what we you know the, the term or the phrase that we use in church.
Speaker 1:Often, I think the good news is like hey, you've been trying and it's not working. Well, guess what, there's a coach to help you. Yeah, Like oh great, yeah, I do want to become a better player, and so I think that's the that's a way to look at it where it is good news. I know that's very simple, but it's at least a place to start from and say hey, there is a lane here that exists, that has these boundaries up around it. It doesn't answer everything, but maybe it begins to put some framing around the word sin that we all can hold on to, because none of us, 100% of the time, treats everyone else the way they should be treated. That just doesn't happen. It doesn't exist. So it's at least one way to begin to look at that word sin without it instantly bringing shame, which is to acknowledge that, yeah, you are trying and yeah, you're not not successful all the time. So here's something that could help you with that.
Speaker 3:Well, that's actually really refreshing to hear and one of the reasons why I always enjoy speaking with you, having these kinds of conversations, having these conversations now, is, for me, my relationship with church, with the function of it. You know, again, not necessarily discipline you had to operate in, but you did at times. You know, having to be the corner office guy, you know, in particular situations, but, as someone who's been a corner office person within these institutions to protect people, there's a perspective of why is this happening that you're constantly having to ask um to best, you know, have best practices right within within the institution. You know how do I, you know, allow for functional boundaries, you know, so that all the people can come and feel like they belong? Um, in this conversation, I feel like, like the touch that at least was in my heart to try and get at the questions I think people have about church, like what is wrong with church, that us to be able to discuss this this way becomes really important, really relevant because of, again, the pain, the shame, this othering that the church has become with.
Speaker 3:You know, now the Christian nationalist movement is not hiding anymore, yet they've been hiding in all of our institutions that somehow they think a theocracy of some sort is what freedom is supposed to look like, and to me that's utter nonsense. Like utter nonsense, nonsense, like utter nonsense. It is just a real displacement and mistrust of what I think we find in scripture about what God said about kings that what he really wanted for us was to be so intimate with him there would be no king necessary. You know that there would be a set of behaviors, you know, within a law that would be a set of behaviors within a law that would allow a construct for us to understand for ourselves that maybe what we did wasn't the right thing to do and we should make some sort of amends for it. That we should, whether it's asking for forgiveness or whatever else, that we would be people that have our ear to the ground, to what God really wants in these situations.
Speaker 3:That was the offering from the beginning. It wasn't here's your rule set, get it right or you die. It was here's a rule set, so you have some sort of function to kind of get the idea of what it's like to be really listening to me. And then, when we're close, there isn't this big obstacle quote unquote of sin, if that's how we want to put it in the way of you really hearing what it is. I have next for you how it is you want to approach it. This is what most humans would call their conscience. That built inside all of us and I believe this is very true is a very, very good person. But that is not the message that is being given at church. It's like, oh no, you're just full of sin. And it's like, ah, you know that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I think the other word that is hanging out there is the word evil and, like you know, good versus evil. Good you do good things, and if you're evil, sin, that kind of it just sort of becomes very binary, and I don't think it's that's actually the way it works, I think? Um, I was. I listened to the Bible Project quite a bit, and so a lot of this is coming from what I've heard them talk about, which resonates with me.
Speaker 1:Yes, just to give credit and I'm going to get this quote wrong, but I think they said that from CS Lewis. He said something like he defined evil as the parasite that eats away the good he said something like he defined evil as the parasite that eats away the good and we can all look at, say, someone like Hitler and go evil, like there's not really any discussion.
Speaker 1:That's not. You don't have anyone arguing in the right mind that what he did was not evil, that was evil. What was evil? It's the intent. So that's where it comes back to the heart, which is, I believe, what evil is is an intent to do harm, to bring bad, as opposed to I tried to do good and it ended up bringing harm. Those are two very different things. Sin is the I tried and it didn't work, I missed. Evil is the I tried to do bad and harm and yeah, I was successful. We would also say that's sin because, even though you're shooting at the wrong target, you definitely missed the one you should be shooting at. So it's hard because, like the Venn diagram diagram or whatever, there's an overlap right.
Speaker 1:But it's not one and the same thing. And so to say that I've sinned is not to say that I'm evil. To say that you sin is not to say that you're evil, and perhaps that's the message that has been conveyed and that's not the reality. I think where it gets a little bit tricky is oftentimes to do right by someone else is at your own expense, and so do I actually want to spend that, that cash, that reserve. And that's where we, I think, all go a little bit like well be sure, at some level I want to do right by that person, but that cost is a little bit steep for me, and so actually I don't really want to do right by that person, but that cost is a little bit steep for me, and so actually I don't really want to do right by that person. I mean, I do, but not as much as I don't.
Speaker 1:And that's where we begin to recognize like, oh, my intent isn't as pure as maybe I want it to be, or I pretend it is or don't pretend it is. And that's where I think that concept of evil begins to come in. Is my intent? How far does that go? And at some point it does turn into evil, which is I'm going to harm you for my own sake. That's evil, but it's a very long sliding scale and I don't know that there's any one point where you go. Oh well, you know, at this point along the scale now it's turned from, it's turned into evil. And so I think each of us sort of recognizes that there are tendencies in our own heart that are on that spectrum. Yeah, and it's not comfortable to acknowledge that. Yeah, there's something in me that, yeah, I would I would hurt you if it benefited me.
Speaker 3:Okay, so we're going to sit here for a second, because you said something which I think is fantastic, I do, but I don't really want to. And you know there certainly are folks now that are speaking to the reality that you know, this kind of self-serving culture that we are as Americans, where money and aspirations for fame are what are celebrated as being success, are what are celebrated as being success, and anybody who's been in the game like truly knows that if you ever really want to impact people for the good, you're going to suffer in that process, and I don't know if I told you this, but your but your mom's coming on, uh, really, in a week, yes, and so we're going to tackle this topic of suffering, you know, and and talk about Job. Hopefully we go three hours, and that's usually how her and I go when we get deep in these things.
Speaker 3:So I'm excited, preparing my heart for that you know, really feel privileged, really hoping that it does get to happen, yeah, but excited for that conversation, cause I don't think there's a better person I know that can talk about the process of suffering and yet still doing good and what, what that looks like. So to that point of like I do, but I don't want to suffer. That's really. That's really what we're talking about. This better embodies what I would think a really good frame for how we misunderstand, or we sin because our perception about suffering is wrong, that we think we're not supposed to suffer. The prosperity gospel that has really infiltrated the evangelical movement of somehow life is supposed to work out. Life is supposed to work out using God's name in vain. Right, I want to use God's name for what I want, yeah, yeah, really seems to be the big permeating dysfunction of the church. You know that I believe in God. God wants me to do well, so therefore I do, but I don't want to, and I don, therefore I do, but I don't want to, and I don't have to because I'm not supposed to suffer, and I'm clinging to Christianity in that prospect of not suffering, when really I think that's antithetical to the whole message, the way that I've understood it. If you're going to love people, you're going to suffer through it. That it's going to hurt yeah, it's hurting for the right reason, not for the wrong reason, and that makes it far easier to demonstrate the difference between sin and evil. When you're suffering because you're a dipshit, it's different. When you're suffering because you're a dipshit, it's different. And what, at least to me, on observation again, I've been out for seven or eight years. I know why I left.
Speaker 3:It was so many of these conversations of like look, people who don't believe in God know why they're suffering. It's because they're being stupid. It's not God, it's not the devil. Like stop being naive, stop behaving dumb. You know I'm not even talking about law prospects, I'm just talking about this thing that I'm choosing not to understand, even though consciousness is the basis of all of this stuff. You know it's like.
Speaker 3:You know, whatever that moment was in the way back when's, where humanoids became conscious of the realities, of the consequences of the behavior, whatever that is, whatever we're calling original sin, there's just a reality that we have to behave consciously.
Speaker 3:And this is this is where it gets slippery right, because you have the New Age movement that has used terms like consciousness, and I don't think they tried to hijack them. I just think that we tried to distance ourselves so far away from those kinds of words that we've just lost our vernacular. The real, I think, really built into Jesus' message and his life was are you willing to be conscious of the things you want to remain unconscious of? Do you want to remain naive or do you want to be in the eternal and see it? How I see it, do you want to be conscious of this world around you and know how to operate in it? That's the freedom that I'm offering, is that you're not operating blindly in this thing. To me, that's, if I can sum up, any value that we could have in life, because whatever humility I've embraced in the last couple of years, um of just this reality that I'm just not that important Like.
Speaker 3:I'm just not like, not even to my sons, you know, I guess I'm more important to my wife, but really like eh you know like, yeah, you'll, you'd be fine actually to have a million bucks and you'd be fine without you know, you wouldn't have me poking you at midnight. Hey, you want to you know, like, whatever that is, you know, like, like, and it feels so good to not be important, you know.
Speaker 3:But it is a spot where I really you know, but it is a spot where I really you know my own attempting to be naive. I really fought that for 54 years the freedom of like I don't, I don't matter, yeah, yeah, I'm not. I think less of myself. I mean, I'll allow people to think whatever they want about me, but it's like I knew I was not what you thought of me anyway, if you really knew me. Not that I think ill of myself, it's just this reality that you know, whether it's consciousness or kind of free will.
Speaker 3:God, that's going to be a scary one. Like what's that? Not it? Yeah, you know it's it's. You know I don't. I don't even know that we have free will.
Speaker 3:I think we have choices that we can make as we become conscious to those things, but everything we're learning about early childhood trauma and generational sin and all that stuff, like it's a setup for disaster. You know, this whole thing is like oh God. Like if getting it right is the point, then like we're doomed god. Like if getting it right is the point, then like we're doomed. And so you can hear my freedom in my tone of voice of like we can't get it right, but actually we can do really good things. Pretty cool, yeah, and.
Speaker 3:But this juggernaut of sin, oh yeah, but you're a sinner and that being held over people's heads until they conform to our version of who God is. You better get that right, because it doesn't matter what you do. If you don't get that right and you don't accept Jesus, then you don't get to go to heaven and hell's what you get, because he hates people who don't love him. I mean, I don't want to dismiss the value, because it was real for me to invite Jesus into my heart, but the friction that people feel is like, am I really part of the team? That's why people don't come, that's why they don't come to church. It's like, okay, am I a part of this? I don't know if I want to be a part of this team. You guys are a little bit mean to each other Because, yeah, we are. Just being a Christian doesn't make you a nice person in any way, and so the lack of kindness which really you know. All my feedback I get is always how much they love you. So there's a kindness.
Speaker 3:I really love when you call and talk, and's a there's a kindness I really love when you call and talk. You know, and you know again, a lot of these people are not believers, they just, they just like listening to us talk about the Bible which is strange and talk about words, but but it really is the kindness that you bring into the conversation, that that that is really attractive, you know, to these things that you know, as I've said from the beginning, there isn't anybody, I know that embodies what I would imagine to be God's kindness towards another person, which you've done such a good job of calling honor. I really want to bring honor to the people I'm sitting with. That's a really good way to put it Because it cuts right through the issue of sin, the way it's perceived. Like you know, I got this guy I admire who wants to sit and listen to me Like boom, that cuts through so much garbage that is going through my head, I think going through most people's heads when they sit in the presence of someone you feel is a better person than you, and the shame that comes from like oh, am I really going to tell you who I really am? You know, I know that you know became the barrier as we got further and further into ministry is.
Speaker 3:You know what transparency really looked like. You know what were people confessing to us. You know these big sins that we don't find ourself in when we're alone and our wives are away, or whatever else you know that lives in the men's world? Yeah, you know that I. You know I. It's not that I didn't take those topics seriously. It's just that the shame associated for what, in essence, is a fairly normal function for most people, that can be explained very easily through science and all these other things, and really it's more about guarding your mind than it is anything else. It's not the function itself that causes the problem itself. That that causes the problem. You know it's what our mind does and goes to. You know thinking that. You know, if we're talking about masturbation, that whatever we're masturbating to, somehow that person would allow us to do the things we're thinking in our minds and our hearts when we're doing this function to ourselves. You know, but I use that uncomfortable. Reality is that and I used to use this a lot. I use it a lot less but but I feel like church really became this masturbatory culture where we're sitting and just kind of soothing ourselves to god, you know, imagining in our own hearts and our own minds what a relationship like that might look like, not really involving ourselves in that relationship, I mean that to me is the deepest, quote-unquote misunderstanding sin that I see has transpired amongst you know, whatever it is that I was doing, what I was seeing around me is that you know, you've really subjugated yourself to a relationship with me myself and I. That's the triune you're worshiping.
Speaker 3:You have different voices saying different things, but it's just you and you and your own dialogue. I know, for me, with my mental health issues really starting to go away, seeing how much those different voices and different personalities that live inside of all of us, my wife always gets uncomfortable. She's like stop saying, there's voices in your head. I'm like, well, that's just a voice in your head, so I don't know what it is you're so afraid of. Well, you sound crazy, like, well, I am crazy. You are too.
Speaker 3:You know we all have these things, but you know, my voices were a little bit louder, you know, I guess that's what we can call mental illness, but I don't think they're more significant than any other human. Who is, you know, just doing that run that we all do when we're sitting with ourselves and not allowing the peace of God in our life. You see, and so that simple dysfunction or naivety to what I'm doing, which is just focusing on what I think, and I don't even have to go to scripture for that, you know, I can just live in intimacy, whether it's through meditation or or worship of, of transcending the physical this is my point, being transcendent. You know getting out of this physical reality and getting my heart and my mind in a spot where the noise is stopping, you know, where I'm not listening to my own conversation. You know letting what's really in my heart emerge and letting it flow freely with God and allowing Him to bring peace, not trying to bring peace to myself, which is, I think, in essence, kind of, is built into any religious structure.
Speaker 3:You know, I don't think Christianity has the, I don't think that we're alone in this. You know that, whatever religious structure, whether it's Buddhism, hinduism, you know that, that whatever religious structure, whether it's buddhism, hinduism, you know the muslim religion, judaism, you know these structures are meant for us to have form, good habits, you know. But the experience of god in those things is a whole, another prospect. You know, it's not just in our actions. So, anyhow, I I feel, I feel I have exhausted myself.
Speaker 1:Well, so I would say, to kind of bring it back, I think so if, if the mark is to honor and respect god and others in the way they deserve I think the word that's used in the bible for that, which is a very Bible sounding word, is the word righteous, which has always been like a. That to me has always felt like a word of condemnation, oh yeah.
Speaker 3:Finally, you brought one that's big enough.
Speaker 1:Oh man, but my having a fresh perspective on that word has helped me see that how I honor and respect God is largely lived out by the way I honor and respect people, and that's kind of it. Yeah. So any religious activity that negates the honor and respect for other people, I think by definition negates the honor and respecting of God. I don't think he's very interested in what we would call our sacrifices or our vows or our worship or our words. They're very empty if there's not a life behind those words that's living them out. You know, when we say that we want to honor the Lord and give Him praise or whatever that is, how is that done? It's through the way that we live our lives, and that, then, is how we treat other people.
Speaker 1:And so when I say, like I have my own issues, I'm not a good person, that's what I'm talking about. It's not. It's not some ratio of well, I've hit some percentage of goodness, therefore I can call myself good. It's this understanding of intent in my heart going. Well, there's spots in me where it's like, yeah, I want to, but not actually as much as I don't want to, and it's acknowledging those spots as much as I don't want to, and it's acknowledging those spots.
Speaker 1:And if there's any of those spots in me, then there's a motive other than the good that God meant for there to be there. And I think what Jesus offered us was not a lot of conclusions, but a lot of questions coupled with here's the good news, here's how you can treat others with with date, and date and respect and honor is to take the hit yourself to suffer. That was the good news and that's what's hard about it is. The good news is you get to suffer. That doesn't really sound that great until you've lived it out and you go, wow, it's like, it's like buying something, right, it's like.
Speaker 1:I don't know a house. The house in Santa Cruz costs what? A million bucks, yeah, Minimum, yeah, and, and, and, and you know it. It's like paying the price. To buy a house is a way of suffering. You're parting with something that you own, but is it worth it? I guess it depends on the house. What do you get in return? And so when we suffer, there's a cost to it. We're paying something, but what do we get in return? And I think what Jesus is saying is we get something he calls eternal life in return.
Speaker 1:And without going into the heaven and hell thing, but he said that that eternal life begins now, and so the suffering is a price. Is it worth the price? I don't think you're going to know until you pay, but I can tell you from my experience that paying that price has been well worth it. And I think that's what he's offering us. And when he talks about the peace in our hearts, is paying the price and the peace that comes with that and sitting in that going oh, I'm so grateful. I imagine that it's what it's like to have lived a good long life and looking back at all that you suffered and going, it was worth it. It was worth it yeah.
Speaker 1:I think that's the kind of peace that Jesus is offering us today, so that you can go about today with a certain sense of, yeah, it's worth it. Yeah, so the good news is, you can suffer. Doesn't sound very good until you experience it.
Speaker 3:I don't think I could have summed that up better. I appreciate you taking the time. Yes, folks, this is, I guess, fortunately or unfortunately, what we mean. You know what are you suffering for? That is the conversation. Have listened to two men who have suffered a lot, in very healthy ways, some of them unhealthy, but the reward of peace is really what we get to sit with. We've suffered well, you know, not by our own benchmark, it's not. It's not something I would brag about. It's just that it's what it took, but there's a piece that comes with it. So, colin, thank you so much, love you a bunch and love all you. Have a good rest of your day.