Unpacked In Santa Cruz

Episode 66: Chapter XV: The Problem of Love in Christianity, and Keeping My Faith: A Soliloquy

• Mike Howard

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A short hiatus turned into a clear-eyed look at what this show stands for: celebrating the normal, telling honest stories, and making love a verb. I open up about rescheduling interviews, moving house, and why I’m choosing to weave my own perspective into the conversations you hear—so you know the “why” behind every question I ask.

That takes us straight into the question people keep sending: are you a Christian? I walk through why I stepped away from denominational leadership out of integrity, not resentment, and where I stand on the pulpit-politics divide. We also crack open a supposed feud between faith and science. If curiosity is honest, a geologist’s lifetime of study doesn’t threaten belief; it deepens wonder. The Bible reads like a library of human experience with God, shaped by language and time, and worth approaching with humility rather than fear.

From there, we get practical. Love is not a mood; it’s a form. 1 Corinthians 13 becomes an instruction manual: refuse performative care, suffer with people patiently, and stop keeping ledgers. In marriage, that means serving each other in small, concrete ways—trash out, socks picked up, meals cooked—because service builds trust and endurance. We talk about growing out of childishness while keeping a childlike curiosity, and we sit with the “foggy mirror” of time: how to move with faith and hope when the details are unclear. If culture pushes us toward isolation, the antidote is ordinary kindness. Coach a team, pick up trash, hold a door, forgive the lane change. Quiet service is how love stays real.

If this resonates, stick around. We’ve lined up everyday voices from Santa Cruz—neighbors, strangers, old friends—whose stories remind us why humanity matters. Subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review with one small act of service you’ll try this week.

SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to the Impact and Santa Cruz Podcast. I'm your host, Michael Howard. This podcast is pretty cheap today by a place like Beach. It's a place to go to if you want to have a small event in the heart of 41st Avenue. From Santa Cruz Vibes magazine. You can find both of those on the interweb. If you need to reach out, I'm just so grateful to the two of them for all of their help. Hey, so it's been a minute again. You know, so I I I want to apologize up front that uh I realize it's been, you know, five weeks or so since you have heard from me. And uh as you can tell by my voice, I am recovering from what was just a seemingly little cold, but it's just had a cough that's come with it. So my voice is a little uh still a little drawn out, and uh I have moved. And uh the I ended up having to cancel uh a lot of interviews over that process. So I am wanting to uh start with, because I'm getting all those rescheduled right now, with something that I wanted to do in the first place, which was to interweave uh perspectives that I hold, not so much that you can hear them as much as it is that you know where I'm coming from. And I, you know, I think that as a culture, we just presume upon words. And uh, you know, you say words like love or family, and uh, you know, we we we think things, you know, we think of the things the way we think them, and and oftentimes those mean very different things. And I just for my audience want you to know who I am as much and as much as I can, what I'm thinking when I say these things that I do say, uh, because it kind of speaks to the why I'm approaching particular topics the way that I am. And more and more as you listen to the podcasts, I'm hoping that what you're seeing and what you're hearing is a perspective that I'm learning to hold of just really celebrating what's very normal around me. And uh, you know, for for my own life, I'm I'm tackling, you know, what looking back was a lack of gratitude. Um, I'm not getting grateful. I'm actually seeing things differently. And and in that process, uh I I really got to see what a great support staff I had. A great group of people around me, great friendships, uh, the people that I've known for years, the people I don't know. There's just a really lot of great people. And and and so often we are focused on content where we're learning more. And while I think that that's good, I do it all the time. We forget what it's like to be normal. And and you know, in the situation here where we're having a podcast, listening to just normal people telling normal stories that we all actually really relate to, not the big things that make us afraid or that we want to accomplish, but the realities of day in, day in life. And um, those things just get skipped. And so that will continue to remain my focus, and at times it will be podcasts that seem more personal. Uh, but that really isn't necessarily the goal. It's not that I'm avoiding that, it's just that uh we need to celebrate being who we are, and and that really is the goal. So uh I wanted to tackle a question that that get is most often asked of me. And I I find it rather amusing in a way, but I also understand it. And what I've been asked personally, uh, whether it's through DMs on Instagram uh from people who don't know me, or whether it's people I have known for a long time, is is are you a Christian? And I have to laugh a little bit because I I understand the two sides of it. You know, on the one, I have uh, you know, friends, ex-leaders in in Christianity that I, you know, I I'm not sounding right. Uh, I don't fit necessarily into the dogma uh that we presumed upon each other. And you know, this this is normal for most Christians who have have quote unquote left the church, you know, where there's this unease that happens between us, you know, of the fear that comes from someone who's still quote unquote in the church about the nature of your relationship with with God or Jesus. And and so the fearful question that I often get is like, are you Christian from the Christians? And then there's the curious question that I get from people who really don't know me and maybe haven't heard people talk the way that I do about God. And so I want I want to get to that question because I think it's very, very relevant because it's part of the tone of almost every podcast you're gonna hear from me that there's an approach that I take about who I believe God is and and what God is, uh, though it's not easily describable or defined. I think I will have enough words to kind of conjure up, you know, here's here's a way that you can look at me. And uh the reason why it's so hard is because of all these dogmas. And, you know, I myself was prescribed to a particular denomination called Foursquare. I was in uh Christian leadership for 25 years, a pastor for much of that time. And, you know, for anybody who's ordained by a particular denomination, there's a there's a polity that you sign up with. And the polity is a really a set of rules and beliefs. And every year you get your ordination papers and you sign them at the bottom. And I'm I'm a very relational, motivated person. And, you know, for the most part, one of the reasons why I left my denomination was that the the senior leadership that knew me well, that safeguarded me from the ways that I did not agree with our polity, had just left also. You know, they they retired and and were no longer a part of the denomination in the same way that we were all together when we were in active leadership. And because of the lack of security uh and people truly knowing where I stood on some things, uh, it just wasn't good for me. It wasn't good for the denomination for me to represent them when I signed my ordination papers. So it's it's not as though that I that I that I left Foursquare. There's just a piece of honor that I have for both respect for for what I believe and also respect for what they believe, because they're the ones handing the licenses out uh for the things that we hold true together. And and so there's kind of a quick explanation of of why I left ministry. You know, it wasn't just the things that are wrong with church because they're still wrong, but you know, there's a real point of integrity for me that I want the closest people to know where I stand on some things and am I okay to fit here still? And and for 25 years that that was a safe spot. And then it just wasn't. And, you know, it's not anybody's fault that it was that way. I, you know, I I the beliefs that I hold now are not really that new. They're beliefs that I held the whole whole time when I was teaching behind a pulpit. But, you know, there is a responsibility that I think every pastor has to respecting that pulpit and respecting the organizations that they represent and respecting the belief that they say that they represent. And and this is what I'm referring to, you know, what when I when I express, you know, there are problems with Christianity, and it really is this kind of disrespect of the pulpit. And we we see that more pronounced in this last era. You know, I really think that from you know 2016 until now, you know, this Trump era that we are uh going through, you know, societally, all this kind of thing, you know, Christianity's kind of been hijacked by the MAGA movement. And, you know, I'll leave all my thoughts about that, you know, the actual political movement aside. The realities are is that both the country and uh most denominations are that politics and God are not supposed to mix. And it's not as though, you know, you can't have political leanings, it's not as though those political leanings are not going to influence how you speak to people, but the pulpit is not the place to talk about both things. And and so those of us who hold fast to these rule sets that are actually leak uh legal issues also, you know, what I've seen transpire over the course of the last 10 years or so has just been an abomination to even what I would consider uh Christian behavior, you know, that that pastors are not supposed to be involving themselves in that political arena unless it's for human rights issues, you know, in my estimation. And and and, you know, it it it really it's really a dangerous slope that that a lot of these leaders are putting themselves on. And uh it's certainly not an organization that I want to be a part of if you're just looking at it politically, you know, it just doesn't really represent the message that I think is in the Gospels. And so uh, you know, that this this becomes the profound conundrum, you know, at least for me, that, yeah, despite the fact that I cuss and and and say a bunch of things that maybe don't sound like a former pastor or whatever, uh, the reality is I've I've I've thought this way for many, many, many years. I was not very public about it, mostly because it wasn't in my responsibility chart. You know, that this is not things I'm supposed to share, but minus that ordination, minus that pulpit, I'm willing to be a little bit more open about where I'm coming from as it pertains to Christianity itself. Now, what you'll find whenever I'm doing one of these soliloquies is that I'm oftentimes backing up and contextualizing more and more. And it's a digressive speaking style. It can be very frustrating for people because they want to know what your point is. But I have to digress in the context before I make my point. So, my apologies. You know, my my mentor who who really truly brought me into ministry always told me to forewarn my audience that I'm like a tornado. It's it's that, you know, you can feel it coming, then all of a sudden it touches down, blows the room apart, and all of a sudden your furniture is everywhere else. And it's oftentimes in a better spot than it was in a way you couldn't imagine it. But the things that aren't enduring break. And so this is just in my nature, you know, I'm not trying to break things. It's just when I touch things, I move things around. And so that is why I adapted to a more digressive speaking style that I wanted to explain before I explained, not to hear myself talk, but so that you all understood where I was actually coming from. And getting back to uh where I started this is that Christianity in itself is in a really big crossroads. And, you know, it certainly emerged early in in my adulthood that Christianity had a really big problem with science. And I'm not sure why that is. Uh, most of the scientists that we rely on historically were all believers, uh, some of whom were atheists, you know, towards the end. And who who and what science is, uh, really is representative of trying to make sense of the world. And for myself, uh, when I was a pastor, there's there's no way I'm going to sit across from a PhD who has dedicated their life to studying rocks and argue with them about how old a rock is, or where a rock is from, or, or where uh a mammal of some sort that a fossil record has come up. You know, these people dedicate their lives to trying to understand what God made. And our inability to even understand that that time is a construct in a way that even what we call times that we would know, like, you know, as as we move into the AD years, uh, we're not even sure if we're not missing a couple 300 years from the dark ages. So, you know, there are just facts, you know, that that it's a very big universe. We're in a big galaxy, we're in a small solar system, and the human beings that are are residing on this planet don't know when time began. And so time started differently than the way that we imagined it. And, you know, and as we come closer and closer to understanding time more, as theologians are understanding words more, you know, this paradox of science and and religion not mixing never made sense to me. Because anybody who wants to believe that the Bible is true or accurate or or something like that, well, the sciences are going to have to be embraced because there's been a lot of transliteration issues for this thing we call the Bible. And, you know, there's a huge misunderstanding about what the Bible even is. It's not a book, it's a library. It's hundreds of stories about the Hebrews' interactions with God and who they perceived was God. And so, you know, culminating, of course, you know, towards the New Testament when Jesus, who, you know, called himself the Son of God, uh, shows up. And that's honestly where time kind of begins for most of the West. And that we can't be honest about the things that we really truly don't know, and that we can't be honest about, hey, this is our best guess. You know, we we've someone put together a hypothesis, developed a thesis about time, and this is where we live right now. Now, is that thesis accurate now? Probably not. And that's science, right? We we do the best with what we know at the time. We progress. Generally, things move forward historically, and then in that progression, we discover we were wrong about how we progressed. And so we go back and do the things we need to do to match where we've actually landed. And then boom, here we are again, coming up with another hypothesis, developing a thesis, validating that thesis, and then again we find out we're wrong. And so all of this really involves a faith prospect, right? This faith that we have, uh, you know, in my case, in God, uh, also in science, and the process that humans go through to try to understand the things around them. And and we find out that our our faith or our perception of the beginning of our faith is ends up being very different than the truth. You know, that uh when we see things for what they are, there's there's words for that, you know, in in our modern culture, it's called acceptance. You know, at AA, it's called sobriety. In in the Bible, it's called repentance, you know, seeing things for what they truly are, now that things have been lived out, you see, and accepting the fact that you were wrong about some things and you have to take that deep breath in, going, whoa, I didn't know that, you know, and having the compassion on yourself because you didn't know what you didn't know until you knew. And so it's with that approach that that I want to come to you to talk about the problem that I see. And the problem isn't with church per se, it's actually with a perception that church seems to be prescribing about Christianity and about who Jesus is or was. And and it really involves this word love. And you hear me joke around that one of the reasons why I can't be an atheist, I've tried multiple times, is that it's eyeballs and love. That those those are my two kickers, is that you know, there's no way science can describe an eyeball for me. You know, there are so many different types of eyes that see so many different things. There's no way to me that you know, two atoms somewhere deep in the universe, somewhere collided, and somehow eyeballs emerged by chance. You know, that there has to be, in my mind, some very extravagant design that emerged from that moment. Now, is it that I don't believe in the Big Bang? No, I totally believe in the Big Bang. You know, however it was made, I just believe it was made. But there's no way that with all the creativity that we see on our own planet, let alone what's in the universe and all the different elements that we don't know, that there isn't something behind this. And, you know, how I arrive at Christianity uh is kind of twofold. You know, there's this historical reality that I was raised in a Christian house. You know, I'm from the West, it's the dominant religion of the West. And so much of how we are, how we've been, is described through Judeo-Christian worldview. And so it's very hard to remove yourself from that. And although I do have a lot of friends who who follow more Eastern philosophy, it's still just a philosophy, you know, that they're very westernized in their worldview. And the West has is just saturated with this worldview, and there's just no way around it, you know, whether it's capitalism or politics or geopolitical issues, you know, there's a Western wor view and there's an Eastern view, and they're and they're not diametrically opposed. It's just that they're contradictory in a lot of ways. And so, you know, I can't undo where I'm from. That's my point. And and I'm and I'm not, in any of my words, and I apologize that that this might seem so religious. It really I'm hoping it isn't. But, you know, we we mostly all of us who come from America, spare people who move here from the East, come from a Western Christian worldview. Or and that complicates our view. You know, there's just no way around it. It's how we were raised, it's it's it's how we've lived, it's how we've walked, these kinds of things. So Christianity itself lives in a mindset for me that that is not easily averted from. And the reason that I feel so validated with it, not that you should become a Christian or anything like that, is the problem of love. And I think that anybody who's still listening can agree that Christianity. Christianity has a real love problem. And it's not just Christianity, humanity has a real love problem. And if I'm going to explain the problem of Christianity as it pertains to love, it's actually a problem with Jesus that Christianity would have. Because Jesus, when he came in John 3.16, said that he loved the world that he made. And that was everything. That's the people, that's the animals, the rocks, the trees, the rivers, the streams, the fishies, all those things. That he was so endeared in a way that we would be endeared to something or someone that he couldn't be without it. And I think it's really hard for humans to understand the polyamorous nature of God, you know, that he really true, truly does love all eight billion people on the planet and all these things that he's made. And the things that we make for the most part, like we're made in the image of God, and we're also creators. And so because we don't do well with a polyamorous worldview that way, and the intimacy that would be involved in loving someone so dearly and having it be so many people, you know, we we get this mental hiccup, right? If I feel God loves me, then God loves me this way, so he loves everybody this way. But if you're limited in the amount of love that you can give and accept, there's a problem because it's now limited. And so, you know, in the context of the New Testament, where we have Jesus on the one hand talking that way, you know, there's really three forms of love in the Bible. There's there's this love that we all understand, being endeared towards someone, you know, kind of to the point of death. Uh, and then there's agape love, which is just love we'll never understand. That's from God. But for the most part, when you're reading the New Testament, it's love is about what you serve. And as much as you would have heard in the former podcast, my problems with Paul, who is the author of much of the New Testament, Paul does a really good job of explaining what love actually is as a human being, like what its form takes. And so this is what I want to share with you. Is, you know, for any of you who have been to a religious or semi-religious wedding ceremony at some point in your lifetime, would know the scripture I'm about to share with you. It's 1 Corinthians 13, and it's about love, and it sounds like such a piece of poetry, but really it's this great instruction manual of what it really looks like. And, you know, the paradox for me, looking at it and knowing a little bit more than most people about Paul and his life and his lack of love or lack of real relationship with people and the problems that arose everywhere that he went, probably because he had an attitude. You know, he was a philosopher, he was an attorney, he was an observer of all the religions that were in the regions. And he was oftentimes trying to explain how much they're integrated and that the stories are very much the same, but that Jesus represented a truth in the story and and the ways that he contradicts himself, you know, if if you haven't been around someone really, really smart before, um, they can be really annoying. And and so Paul had a tendency to annoy a lot of people and probably did not, you know, in my estimation, feel a lot of love, but was a great observer of what it looked like. And so I want to welcome you to, on your own time, if you're interested, to go ahead and get, you know, it's about three-quarters of the way through through the Bible, 1 Corinthians 13, and read it yourself. But it's this story about love, like what it actually looks like. But I just want to do the touch points, you know. I I want to talk about the pieces of instruction and and go from there, you know, just let it let it be what it is. But the first thing that Paul warned us about is that love will have impostors, that there will be people that were that will perform in seeming, seemingly loving manners, but they're doing it as a display unto themselves. You know, they're trying to make it look like they're away, but they are not. And, you know, the the hallmark of that moment, you know, if it's in the scripture, is like there'll be like a clanging symbol walking down the road. It's like somebody at five o'clock in the morning with, you know, with a pair of symbols banging. I love people, I love people. And nobody would do that at five o'clock in the morning if you really love people. They're sleeping. But but we needed to know that that, hey, the first thing we need to know is there's a lot of people that it kind of looks like that, but really it's just a show. And we all have people in our lives where we know that whatever they're doing is performative, but it really lacks the integrity that that love actually brings to someone's life. And where the scripture gets very, very alarming about what love really looks like is at that next phase. And what he says about love is like if you want to know what love is, love is willing to suffer for and with people and do it for a long time and to do it patiently. And again, because of transliteration issues, they they you know changed the way a little bit. Not not, I don't think there was any any bias put in on purpose, but you know, because of the way that that that it came from Latin to English in the King James Version, you know, the the the notions shifted. But Paul wanted everybody to know that you want to see a loving person, look at who's suffering next to someone who's suffering. Those are the people that are loving people. That's the great lens. Those people who are willing to sit with suffering alongside of it with it kindly and patiently. And you know, he goes on to basically describe that love does not keep a list of anything, that it's it's not sitting there counting the cost, it's not uh singing Janet Jackson, what have you done for me lately? And this is for me culturally where I get really lost on a lot of I I I would call it psycho babble because I I don't think it's necessarily psychology that's doing that, but this this validation theory of you should always be being served, you know, because love itself is actually the service, and and you you get served by serving. And so when you're serving others and you're counting, that's a paradox to what love actually is, you know, and that this is one of the great flaws of this thing we call marriage, right? Is that you know, marriage is meant to be an act of service on both sides, you know, that that however this partnership is arranged, that they're two people dedicated to serving one another 100%, not splitting chores necessarily, but doing whatever it is that they do in service to that other person. That is the very nature of marriage. And they do it again in this patient, kind fashion. Not that you should be suffering in your marriage, that is not the point, and is not the point of marriage, but that there will be suffering in marriage because you're serving someone else and they are also serving you. It's a mutually, you know, the the uncomfortable world, a mutually submitted relationship, in that I don't have to do this, but I'm choosing to live in this paradigm where I want to be a servant to you. I want you to feel better by the things that I do and the ways that I think about you. And, you know, as I would always joke to men in counseling, you know, if you want to fix your marriage, it's pretty easy. You know, pick up your socks, do some laundry, uh, you know, do the dishes, cook when you can, like do the stuff. Like do all the stuff you think she's supposed to do and do take out the garbage without being asked. Like start right there. Like it changes a lot of things. And, you know, we can all laugh about that, but it's not funny because it is that simple, you know, that that when when we have men that are truly serving their women and seeing the world that they've have created together and they're in a service posture, it changes things. And so, you know, that that's really enough about that. And and you men, just keep serving your wives, it's it's gonna do you good. But, you know, Paul moves on from that and and he really talks about the promise of love, that that when we take on this posture of of being willing to suffer for and with people, being willing to serve them without counting, that it has a has the ability to endure everything. And that's what's amazing about love is that when we are doing the things in love, this posture, it's much easier. And because because the love is somehow protecting us from the things that might naturally harm us. And this is this is where it really for me has come to light this last year or so. You know, I've I've I've been to a couple of weddings, performed a couple weddings, where I got to see this thing emerge again of like, oh yeah, this really is a guess. You know, we're making these faithful promises that we'll be people in the future that we can't be yet. We've kind of been that person, but we're just trying and we have to learn this thing together. And Paul said, what's confusing about life is two twofold. He said, number one, when we were a kid, we got to act like a kid. But when I decide to love, I have to put away that childish behavior. And that's a very hard statement, you know, that I don't get to feel like a kid all the time. And I think most of you probably know that that most of the traumas that we face uh were built in our past, right? It becomes this lens that we look through. But there's a girding up that we need to do as adults if we're gonna choose to love somebody. And we don't get to think like a child anymore. And there's a real difference, I like to put it this way, between childish and childlike. You know, a childlike perspective is one of curiosity and not knowing and wanting to learn. A childish perspective is one that throws tantrums all the time, one that thinks that it should get what it wants whenever it wants it. And there's a real difference between that. And of course, we're not going to hold a four-year-old toddler to to an adult standard in the very same way, you know, if if you look at that in the reverse, how many adults are just really being childish, you know, because they want love, but they're not willing to give love. And so that's the first paradox he puts in front of us. And then the second one is he's he says that, you know, looking at time is like looking in a foggy mirror, like you just got out of the shower. That you can see the outline, but you can't see the details of your face. You can't really see what's in front of you. You know something's there, but you have to do this thing in faith. Like, like, like you know it's you that's sitting in front of the mirror, but you can't see yourself. And that's how time operates. And God, that's hard. You know, it's it's hard now. You know, I'm I'm 56 years old, and I still have a tough time realizing that when I'm looking at myself, I'm not actually seeing myself. That that the mirror that I'm staring in front of, even though it might look clear, is foggy because there are things that I don't see about myself that will eventually reveal themselves, you know, over time and and as the fog kind of clears. And that's a very tenuous spot to live in, yet it's a spot we all live in. And so we need to approach life that way, that we all really don't know. We don't know necessarily what we're going through, let alone what someone else is going through. And it's just we we can't really see it, but we can have an approach of service and kindness towards one another. And he he stops, you know, the the this this whole wonderful piece of poetry with with this simple statement. He said, the elements that we deal with as humans are threefold. We look through three different lenses. We look through the lens of faith, which is belief in the in the things that are unseen. We look at them with hope, if we can, and that is belief that the future is going to be okay. And then we also look with love. And he says the greatest of these things is love. Now, I speculate that the reason why he said that is love is something we can always do. Let me say that again. Love is something we can do for everybody, and that's what makes it so hard. And because we rely on our feelings of love more than we rely on the doing of love, it becomes a problem for humanity. And I I don't know how to say this another way. We keep tiptoeing into further lovelessness with one another. And I'm not just talking about the church. The church is an easy target for me. You know, the church is meant to be an expression of love, so I can throw lots of daggers at the church. But as a culture, we are more and more becoming loveless, more and more becoming isolated from one another. So, how could you serve someone else if you're not even around other people? And I am a deep believer in introspection. You know, that there are times of solitude. And in fact, I have have a just a person I adore that that was meant to sit with me here here this last phase, who has has lovingly declined because they are not wanting to be outward focused right now, that they're going through a moment of solitude, of really attempting to see themselves. And I have such a deep respect, not only for the person doing that and and taking the time to pull back from many of the relationships because they're not cutting people off. They're working on themselves. And I cannot wait to see this person re-emerge. Like I'm excited for them. Of course, I'm lonely. You know, I would rather see them right now. I'd rather have the conversations, but they're sitting in a conversation with themselves about who they want to be next. And so I am all about those moments that those can take months, years, sometimes to really get a grip on who you have been so that you can be the person that you want to be next. But that is very different than what is now becoming the cultural norm of just cutting people off one after another. Well, you made me feel bad, so I don't want to be around you. And I, you know, I get it, you know, self-protection is great. I wouldn't advise anybody being in abusive relationships. That's not the point of what I'm sharing here. But isolation just creates more loneliness. And, you know, one of the great factors we have as human beings is the skill set to serve other people, especially when when we're not in a place of want or need. You know, that when we have the things that other people don't and give them away in various ways, it does something for us. In fact, it's one of the most selfish things we can do, you know, is serving other people. I I joke around about this with any any of the other coaches that I'm around, because I've done it for so long, that we all coach baseball for ourselves. And it's it's not it's not a bad thing. It's just that I just love, you know, watching kids grow and take the things that I know already that they're learning and watch them be able to implement how to throw a baseball. Like that's fun for me. And is all the stuff that comes with it fun? Not necessarily. You know, dugouts with a bunch of 10, 11, and 12-year-olds are pretty precarious spot at times. There's a lot of language and a lot of behaviors that drive me crazy. But overall, the service to this up-and-coming community is one of my favorite things to do. Like there's there's a layer of kindness that comes to me by giving myself and my understanding away. See, like these kinds of things do something for the adults, do something for the people that are doing them, whether it's for that or, you know, homeless work or picking up trash, you know, whatever it is, when you're doing something that's invisible to the person that's actually experiencing it later, that's a good spot to be, is in this kind of service. And it's because it's these hard expressions of love. And in the very same way, just as I joked around about a husband taking out the garbage without being asked, how much more does your wife love you when she sees that empty, well-lined can when she had to run out the door also after breakfast and all the kids, and you guys were all together and left, and you happened to get home before her and you took care of the garbage. Like it's the same thing. I mean, she knows what happens, but she didn't. She just knows the garbage out. She doesn't know who did it. You know, these kinds of things, like, like that, they're really good things. And and how I want to just close this out for all of us, you know, and and thank you so much for enduring through the 40 minutes of me trying to express myself here. I think we need more love in this world. And more love isn't sticking with your tribe, more love is not just, you know, staying in your bandwidth or, you know, what whatever all these things are. You know, love is an expression that we can give on the freeway. It's not taking it personal, you know, when someone cuts you off. You know, they didn't see you there, or they actually don't even think about you. Like it's got nothing to do with you. You know, something as simple as letting something like that go and not carrying it and taking away love from you is an expression of love. Um, holding a door open. Uh, when you're going into the coffee shop, you know, letting someone sit in your chair, uh, you know, if if you have the ability to stand. You know, male, female, you know, the these boundaries are just self-imposed boundaries. And when we start tearing these boundaries down from ourselves, the ones that we're holding, I I think you'll be surprised by how other people's boundaries fall. That simple kindnesses, simple ways of approaching people, not as an enemy, but as a fellow person, you know, going on this on this rock that's flying around the sun, you know, getting to feel these expressions from strangers is something really, really good. And so to that question, you know, of are you a Christian? Yeah, I I think so. I I think that's what I got from Jesus' story. You know, I don't want to impose that story on anybody. There's there's no conversion I'm looking for. I I mean that's God's your business with God and God's business with you. You know, whether you want to believe in God, I I I get it. Like I really do. But yeah, I I think so. I'm trying. You know, that this is what I'm trying to do. And so when you hear me say this word, this is what I'm meaning. And and and trust me, I do nothing but fall short on what I'm trying to do. Because I don't see it either. You know, and that I have wiped the mirror a few times and have seen my eyes or the shape of my nose or something like that does not make me more loving. It just means that I've seen more. And and I'm just gonna keep on trying to wipe that mirror as much as I can to get to see myself so I can be a better version of myself. So to that end, thank you for listening. Uh, I got some interviews lined up uh for really, unfortunately, next year. And I'll be sharing a few more little tidbits, you know, as we move forward about, you know, maybe some political persuasions, things like that, so that you have a more fundamental understanding of what my approach is. And in this coming year, it is going to continue to be just you hearing from everyday people, people that I pass by on the street that look interesting, you know, people I know, people I don't know, and just hearing their story and letting them be heard. Because, you know, I have this sneaking suspicion that as we become more robot-like because of the technology that that we are now using, we need a little bit more humanity in my in our in our lives. And yes, some podcasts would be more heartfelt, more personal, but these everyday stories of people just trying to get by here in Santa Cruz, whether it's with a lot of money or a little bit of money, I think you'd really be surprised by who's had the money and who hasn't, based on who I've interviewed so far. And I think you'd really be surprised who doesn't have the money with the other people. But, you know, we're all trying just to take this place that we call Santa Cruz and call it home. So on that note, I will leave you with No Man's Land from Colin Brown. And you have yourself a good rest of the day. Bless ya.