CTP (S3EMarSpecial4) Crossing The River Of Faith

CTP (S3EMarSpecial4) Crossing The River Of Faith
It's OK to be OK 
Exploring more of the fascinating intersection of Activism, Community Engagement, Faith / Religion, Human Nature, Politics, Social Issues, and beyond   
We talk with author and meditation teacher Leah Crest about moving from secondhand belief to a lived trust in God, how near-death experiences shaped her conviction, and why grief can coexist with peace. We compare scientific views with spiritual evidence and share a simple, heart-centered way to listen for God.
• show format changes and midweek drops
• Leah Crest’s background and books
• faith as personal knowing not inherited habit
• near-death experience themes and veridical elements
• science and skepticism held with humility
• distressing NDEs and moral transformation
• reincarnation framed within Christian conscience
• grief after losing a spouse and trusting God
• psychic experiences versus the primacy of love
• Christian meditation as resting in God’s heart
• practical listening prayer and daily steadiness
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A Short Story: A Lasting Legacy? book Trailer

Transcript

Opening Banter And Format Update

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello, welcome to another episode of Pristitutionalist Podcast. I am your host, Joseph M. Leonard. That's L-E-N-A-R-D. It looks French. It's not. It's wonderful without an O. Thank you for tuning in. As Graham Norton used to say on his show. Let's get on with the show! Special segment for February and March. Midweek drops. Normally Saturday monologues and normally a guest appearance on a Wednesday, February and March, two a week, Tuesday and Thursdays, in order to get caught up on some interviews that have been stacking up. Enjoy. Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode. What are we up to? Three million? No, no, we're close to that. But only in my third season. Uh any rate, Saturday monologues, midweek guest drops. I don't number them all the same. My Saturday monologues are a numbered show, and my weekday drops are specials, so separate numbering systems. Anyway, at any rate, whatever. Let's see. Joining me today now is Leah Crest. And no, not heir to the toothpaste

Meet Leah Crest And Her Work

SPEAKER_01 1:38

clan. There's an H in there. C-H R E S T. And she was explaining a former husband's last name. So right.

SPEAKER_00 1:53

So what was the maiden name? Uh the maiden name was Boschert, um, which was a German name and much harder to spell.

SPEAKER_01 2:04

Okay, so from Leah's bio, I got Believer that Knowing We Are In God changes everything. Author of It's Okay to Be Okay, Christian Grief Recovery, At the Edge of the Jordan, narrative fiction on NDE's near-death experiences, had a couple shows on that, so we'll get into that. Christian Meditation Teacher had a couple shows on meditation, Christian Mother. But before we get into any and all of that, let's back this truck up, right? Beep, beep, beep. Where were you born and raised and where are you now? And you know, any significant places you've been in between and whatnot.

SPEAKER_00 2:56

Yeah, sure. So um I am born and raised in Maryland and still there. Um, I haven't traveled much beyond that state. You know, it's got oceans, it's got mountains, it's got the rolling countryside, it got big cities, you got farms, you got everything, in my opinion. And you know what's wonderful about Maryland is that there aren't a lot of natural disasters. And it's a very unique state. There's not a lot of tornadoes. Hurricanes we get are very mild. Um, no earthquakes beyond little tremors. I mean, it's just pretty safe. So it's a really safe place to live. No, yeah, everything.

SPEAKER_01 3:29

Hey, that sounds good. Yeah, I mean, Michigan, we have tornadoes, we have all the lakes, we have floods all the time. So, yeah, uh the last real major hurricane that went up that way was in 1908. That went, you know, wreaked havoc in in New York, but in 1908, there wasn't really a whole lot there in 1908, and you probably felt that in Maryland too, or not you, who might have been there.

SPEAKER_00 4:05

I mean, I didn't realize I was showing my age that much, Joe's.

SPEAKER_01 4:08

Yeah. Yeah, pardon, pardon. Yeah. Uh, your great-grandmother might have known. Correct. So, indeed, at any rate, let's let's just tackle them in order. Believer that knowing we are in God changes everything. I I like that. Let's have at it.

Faith As Personal Knowing

SPEAKER_00 4:37

Yeah, so if you have a true faith, and I I would say that I think we all have to arrive at that in our own way, you know, because we can be taught.

SPEAKER_01 4:47

And will self-realization, you can't force someone to be a Christian at the barrel of a gun, or it's not real.

SPEAKER_00 4:58

Even if you come to believe for whatever reason, you have to to really deeply believe, to know it's true at the bottom of your heart. You know, that takes time for most people. I mean, some people are just born with that kind of you know, knowing. And other people, like, I mean, I spent most of my childhood and young adulthood believing because that's what my parents believe, it's what my culture believed, but I didn't believe it for myself. I went I followed along, I got confirmed and I was 13, and I was in a Christian Bible study and went to church every Sunday, but I didn't have that unshakeable confidence.

SPEAKER_01 5:32

Right, that's you know, until late. And the family, it was part of the family structure, part of just what the family did, and until you yourself, John, born again, our confirmation as Catholics are supposed to be that born again where we affirm and accept our faith and welcome in Jesus ourselves. But even then, as you're alluding at that age, it's still almost kind of just going through motions.

SPEAKER_00 6:07

Yes, and even if like I genuinely wanted to go through the process, and I did claim it as my own, but there's still that, well, I think it's real, but how do I know? And you know, I I think that's something that if you are on the fence, it's a prayer worth making. If you pray from the bottom of your heart, God help me to know this is true, help me to have that relationship with you. That's a prayer God always answers. It might take longer than you think because God's timeline is not our own. But if you genuinely are seeking, right, God will be there.

SPEAKER_01 6:42

And so it may not come in the form of the sky opening, the clouds parting, and literal beams coming down and telepathically telling you something, right? Right. We have to want to see it and be open to seeing it and wanting to receive it and noticing the signs and miracles and not just dismissing them.

SPEAKER_00 7:08

Exactly. Yes, you have to have ears to hear, eyes to see, and ears to hear, as Jesus says. And so um, with that said, I mean I I went through that journey in my late 20s, early

Near-Death Experiences As Evidence

SPEAKER_00 7:20

30s, where I went from doubting to believer, and for me, it was reading near death experiences. That's what God led me to, and you know, um, reading those. I read, you know, 500 of them. I read more than that, but about when I wrote the book on them, I read about 500, and since then probably another 100, 150, but um in a much slower clip. Uh, but that's what I just was to me undeniable when I started reading these and seeing the theme of God's love over and over and over again. And then I had some really hard experiences to write off on coincidence in the years that followed that really cemented it for me. I never had a near-death experience myself, um, but I had what would be called spiritually transformative experiences. So, you know, I didn't leave my body, nothing, nothing like that, but I definitely have had experiences that cannot be explained otherwise.

SPEAKER_01 8:11

Yeah, oh, I hear you. I I went through that when I was younger, but yes, I do not have any recollection recollection of it, but indeed, a car accident I passed was brought back. I don't remember any lights or visits or anything, but I know I was on the other side for a period of time and brought back, and and even I've had atheist Lyzentin on the show discussing afterlife from a non-believer standpoint, so you know that was a really interesting discussion, and as I think season one early on, people could check back in the catalog on that, and I've had others that have talked NDEs. It is really interesting how much of that's chemical, how much of that is spiritual, how it's like alien visits. Well, are you preconditioned to think you see an alien that would look like that and it's the mind-playing tricks, or we can't really fully ever truly know?

SPEAKER_00 9:24

I I hear you on that. Um, so my late husband, at the time that I was writing the book, he did not believe in them at all. And we would have debates on it. And you know, I understand that from a scientific perspective. You can do things with the brain, like put um signals into the brain and create an out-of-body experience. You can you can do that. Um, so I I'm not a denier of the science.

SPEAKER_01 9:49

That's kind of a difference than uh uh actual death, though. Like, right. Absolutely. What do they uh uh oh I can't remember the term, but I myself, when I was younger, had that psychotic, I mean psychic, but um bum pun intended, pun intended. People do call me psychotic, and they may not entirely be wrong, but no, I used to have that psychic ability to run in the family, uh the the out of the ability to astral projection to leave the body and go somewhere else that's different than a near-death experience. I've experienced the astral projection myself, and I know it was real and that tricks of dreams, because as I get older later in life, I would be to those places I visited and know those places without ever physically having been there before.

SPEAKER_00 10:52

And I think that's exactly what you're getting at, and that's kind of to me the proof that our consciousness is not just in this body, it's something beyond that. And to me, that's proof of God, it's something beyond us. And and NDEs are similar in that these people, when they leave their bodies, they see it expanding.

SPEAKER_01 11:09

And again, near-death experiences, NDEs, near-death experiences.

SPEAKER_00 11:14

Right. Yep, thank you for clarifying. Yeah, but then the other piece that really strengthened my faith was just the conviction of when these people came back, the conviction they had about the loving creator, the conviction they had about um a lot of other aspects, and I'll save that for the book.

SPEAKER_01 11:33

Yeah, not all go that way. Like one I had on had really traumatic NDE, uh was not love and rainbows and lollipops.

SPEAKER_00 11:44

So right, and I do in my book, I address that. Um, so for sure there's a percentage, I think it's like under 10%, but there is a percent that do experience that, and some of them experience both. You start off in the hellish and then you cry for help and get pulled out. Yeah, so I mean, there's definitely, I mean, I say read and explore for yourself, but for me, as someone who was so on the fence about God's existence to have that read these and see, even in the hellish ones, there is a theme that um that kind of comes through that we aren't just this, this is not the end. There's something beyond this, our consciousness goes beyond, and what we do here, there's a purpose to our life. There is a deep rooted purpose, and we are cared for. Even like I I personally I

Science, Skepticism, And Consciousness

SPEAKER_00 12:30

believe that a hell exists, but it's only if we move away from love and we're in fear. If we are in a place of love and not of fear, we go to the love. Right. That's what, and we do create our own realities with the help of God. We are creating our experience on earth with God's guidance.

SPEAKER_01 12:48

I talk about the Bible, the whole Bible in full context, but we are but children to what God is. God doesn't owe us all the answers. Exclusion does not mean preclusion. A reincarnation is not precluded. So to poo-poo that of the other belief systems is wrong-headed, in my opinion, because we are one continuous soul. The Bible doesn't say that, then potentially we can come back several times uh, you know, to be given another chance on this planet to prove our soul's worth in to the book of life.

SPEAKER_00 13:39

Uh I love that.

SPEAKER_01 13:41

Right in our measurements, yeah. I go into the the book of life, try to and tie that back to Osai as Osiris and the feather and the soul balance. Oh yeah, yeah, in Egypt mythology. But it doesn't say there's no such thing as reincarnation, it doesn't exclude it from a potential. So perhaps some do go through that. It's one soul, it could be multiple lives physical on this plane, but one soul overall life is what is measured in the book of life for entry into heaven. That does that make sense.

SPEAKER_00 14:26

Absolutely. So when people with Christians who are struggling with that, and my book talks heavily about reincarnation, because even though I go from a Christian lens, it wasn't like I had no idea, and we just happened to be there at the same time, yeah. Yeah, no, it's one of those things that um that's why I self-published was because I didn't want that taken out. Because if I'm going evidence-based, and I would say, like, out of the ones that mention reincarnation or not, that are have enough because some NDEs, you walk, you go across, you see a light, you come back, that's it. But those that are more extensive, I would say 70 to 75 percent could be purely chemical, and that could be the 70 to 75 percent that go beyond that, where they really truly have an experience of the heavenly realms. Like I said, they they come back and they say reincarnation is real, maybe even higher than that. And so it really is hard to dismiss that. So when I talk to Christians about that who are on the fence about it, this is how I talk about it. I say, number one, regardless of how you think about it, do you believe that we're done growing when you die? Because I gotta say, I sure hope not. You know, I know that God wants us to perfect us, right? And so whether we whether we grow more in another lifetime or we grow more on the other side, we continue to grow. Our souls continue to become closer to Christ. And so that is true regardless. Um, and then the the second piece of.

SPEAKER_01 15:53

Oh, did did you did you say regardless? I hope you didn't say irregardless.

SPEAKER_00 15:58

No, regardless.

SPEAKER_01 15:59

Oh, okay. I I I thought you said it because some people their heads will blow up, right? They they they go nuts with people. I I don't care. I'll do it to tweak people and say irregardless, just how you know knowing it's not correct, but I know it will upset people, so I'll do it just to piss them off.

SPEAKER_00 16:21

Oh, gotcha. No, I try to play with others. Um, and then the the second piece is um about the nature of these reincarnation experiences. So I personally believe that our soul does have multiple lifetimes. For me, it helps me to be patient because when with myself and also other people, because when you walk around and you see a lot of crazy things happening, you can think, you know what, maybe this is their first time around. Maybe they're just maybe they're in kindergarten and I'm in third grade.

SPEAKER_01 16:49

You know, can I be a little bit more patient with the fact that they this may not be their human, yeah, their human reality, they may not have a whole

Reincarnation And Christian Frames

SPEAKER_01 17:00

lot of wisdom even yet, and as well as like because old souls. Right, what explains that? Indeed, if maybe your soul has been through a few physical lifetimes, and therefore, you know, e uh 10-year-olds can be so wise beyond their years, maybe that's coming from their old soul. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 17:27

And even if you discount that and you say, No, that I don't believe that's true, that's fair. What they may have been experiencing in near-death experiences is just the unity, because we all have that the consciousness of God is all inclusive, and so it is possible, in my opinion, that when souls cross over, that they experience the collective consciousness, which includes other people's lifetimes. Oh, yeah. Maybe what they're experiencing is other people's potentially. I'm not ruling it out.

SPEAKER_01 17:54

Yeah, even non-believers, even atheists, right, believe in the collective conscious singularity concept, but separate that from the God experience. I I of course think it's one and the same. They're just trying.

SPEAKER_00 18:09

It's in my opinion, it is.

SPEAKER_01 18:10

Yeah, atheism to me is a is is indeed a religion of itself. It's just them never them wanting to claim to be God and no higher authority, potentially, no rules, no nothing on them. Well, anything goes, but anyway, that's off the beaten path, too. So let's kind of move on to we've already addressed this a little. Author of It's Okay to Be Okay. What was the genesis of that book?

SPEAKER_00 18:45

So um, my first husband, the one last name, Crest, like the toothpaste. Um, with an H in there, yes. With an H. So you can find me online. You can look up with an H Crest, Leah L-E-A-H, and then Crest with an H. Lots of H's in there.

SPEAKER_01 19:00

Um, not like not like Princess Leia. Leah, there is an H on the end, yes.

SPEAKER_00 19:07

That's right. My dad, my dad claims I was named after Princess Leia. I said, honey, or is it dad? That's not how that's not how you spell it. So I don't think that was right, but that's okay, you know. Um I I get called Leia too sometimes, and I'm cool with it. But um, so my first husband passed away um when maybe about four years ago, a little over four years ago. And so my faith had solidified extensively, very much very solid prior to his passing. And I had even had um, I wouldn't call it a vision. Again, a spiritually transformative experience. I can't explain it any other way. I was out on a dog walk and I felt this deep peace come over me. I was told that my husband was going to die, and I was told not exactly when, but I was told within while my children were still young, which kind of limited to the next couple years. And nine months later he passed. And um, it was sort of expected, unexpected, because even though I did it was in denial about like, no, this isn't happening, um, and pushing back on it, being told that and being held in this love where I was told it was the best for everyone involved, that everything was gonna be fine. And of course, I I fought back. And as I was going on this walk and feeling this blanket of love, I kept thinking and saying to you know, my angels, my guides, however, you want to define that, the Holy Spirit, no, is there anything I can do to prevent this? What can I do? And the answer was stop. You can't, it's happening, accept it. And so I got to the point where um I just internally, even if it was subconsciously on the subconscious level, was preparing and figuring out what I was gonna do without him when if it happened. Um so it didn't throw me as much as it could have otherwise. And I was able to, you know, mother through it and work, still go to work and all that. But the grief, I think my faith and having been told ahead of time and then have it happen, it was just kind of like, wow, you know, God's got me. He told me it was gonna be the best thing for everybody involved. Can I just trust this? Can I trust this the best thing even for my husband? Like I couldn't see it, but maybe I don't understand everything. I don't understand God's plan.

SPEAKER_01 21:23

Can I just let this go? Yeah, and sometimes uh in this case, it sure sounds like it was part of God's will and God's plan. And again, God can turn bad things into good. Uh, and sometimes bad things happen to good people, and it's not all even part of God's plan, but in post, God can turn it into good. I I that's not where I thought that story was gonna go. And because what popped into my mind was I thought you were going to a visitation after death. Well, and I have one of those experiences. I when my grandfather was older and dying and in the hospital, and I needed to work midnight shift for whatever reason. And indeed at three in the morning, he visited me. I knew he passed. I called my mother, woke her up. Grandpa's passed. Your dad has passed. And sure enough, check with the hospital. Yeah, he's passed. So whole lot of things that just can't be explained as coincidentally. Oh, I thought it, so I think it happened, but no, it didn't really. No, because I'm not the you're not, we're not all the only ones with that story. There are too many stories for those to be happenstantial coincidental things.

SPEAKER_00 22:55

And it's interesting how, you know, I think our world is. I don't even know how to describe it. The the consciousness of the souls who are here right now is elevating. That's the best way I can describe it. That the souls here and whatever, but I think we are becoming more Christ-like very, very slowly. I think there's still some that aren't, but I think there's more of these experiences happening.

SPEAKER_01 23:19

Far too

Grief, Forewarning, And Trusting God

SPEAKER_01 23:20

many that aren't. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:22

But there's a lot more. I feel like since I was a child to now, there's it's so much more accepted for us to have this conversation, Joseph. It's so much more exp accepted than it would have been 30, 40 years ago.

SPEAKER_01 23:34

Oh, and especially a couple hundred years ago. Even burned. Yeah. Well, a couple hundred years ago, in a way, they were far more religious and in the faith than we are now. But as you said, yeah, uh, if I would have said that story about my grandfather in Salem, it well, I'd have been burned as a witch.

SPEAKER_00 23:58

Right, exactly. And so these things are much more prevalent. I I joke with my my children, my two boys, um, because they we all have different I joke with it's like in Kanto. Have you ever seen the movie Encanto or Encanto? I don't know. It's a kids' Disney movie.

SPEAKER_01 24:15

Yes, yes, yes, uh the Mexican day of death, or yeah, yeah, I remember that.

SPEAKER_00 24:22

And every every member of that family had a different gift, but you know, they were all united. And I said, our family is kind of that way. And so when you said you saw, was it your dad or your grandfather? Grandfather, yeah. Oh, grandfather.

SPEAKER_01 24:35

The Mexican thing is the day of the dead celebration. Yeah, yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:40

Um, so when you saw your grandfather, you know, I've never seen anyone or anything in the spiritual side. I have dreams, I have deep experiences, like knowings, but no seeing. My oldest son sees everything. He can be taking a walk and be like, there's this over there, there's that over there, this is behind me. There's my dad, there's my grandfather.

SPEAKER_01 25:00

When we're young, uh when we're younger, it's we're not ingrained in this no, you know, the reality of the here and now, and you're not, you know, and I think most people have psychic abilities or ability to see beyond, and it's beaten out of us. Uh, when I was younger, I saw my great-grandfather in my parents' basement as a child. I hated to go down there. I knew there was a there was a ghost down there. Decades later, finally figured it out when seeing an old picture of great-grandpa and his bowler hat and the must head. That's who I kept seeing as a child. Now, why great-grandpa would be in mom and dad's basement had nothing to do with that land or property, obviously, long past before it was ever developed, but yet there he was.

SPEAKER_00 26:07

And that's cool. Yeah, I I and this I believe everything you say, and my son says he's uh almost 15 now. He lost the ability for about four or five years, and then it came back. And it was interesting. And then my youngest son, he's a he's a sixth grader now, and he's started his is starting to pick up a little bit, but his is totally different. For him, he dreams things, and then it's weird, weird nuance things like eating a pancake and saying one particular phrase, and he's like, Mom, I dreamed that last night and it's happening, you know, these little weird things. He's like, And I said, Sweetie, I believe you. I believe you because it's like in Kanto, like everybody's got a different gift.

SPEAKER_01 26:46

I again growing up, yeah. Uh, my mother, uh on my mother's side of the family, there's always been a degree of psychic abilities, and yes, I've uh too, not just the astral projections, but also being places in dreams, and indeed that extreme case of deja vu. I I've been here and it isn't deja vu because I could specifically remember I dreamt it. This isn't this is different. I and you know, I understand deja vu, and sometimes it is that. So yeah, I and you know, some hearing all this for the first time might be thinking I'm crazy and you're crazy, but your kids are crazy.

SPEAKER_00 27:37

You know, and people do, and it's interesting. I you know, when I asked what I would say as as a response to any of that, um, and it's like whatever. I used to think my grandfather, when he would tell me the things that he had seen and done, because he was he had his abilities too, I really did think he was hitting the loony bin. I really did until I lost my own experiences. But you know what the the test though was for me, and this is where it gets to the important stuff, it was his character. Because if you have psychic abilities, don't matter. If you go back to Paul's letters, right, in Paul's words, you could have all these gifts, but if you don't have love, you have nothing. And so as I was whatever the word is, however you want to talk about this awakening of the soul to the reality of God and to my own purpose in this life. As that happened, um, you know, I had multiple mentors talk to me, and one in particular said, Leah, do not get stuck on the flashy things. Because the flashy things don't matter, they look cool, they look interesting, they draw your attention. Oh, I want to have that experience or this experience.

SPEAKER_01 28:52

And and even physical, like the Bible doesn't say the love of money or money is the root of all evil. It doesn't say that, it says the love of money. It's we're human to want to have and acquire nice things isn't the sin. We we all want that. It's getting caught up in it all and craving more and more of it and allowing

Afterlife Encounters And Family Gifts

SPEAKER_01 29:20

jealousy of what others might have and wanting to covet that then becomes the major sin. It's all complicated. I say all the time, the context of the Bible. You can't just pick one scripture and the whole thing adds additional context. And we've already talked more or less NDEs, but the book on that itself is Edge of the Jordan.

SPEAKER_00 29:47

At the edge of the Jordan, the Jordan River, right? And when you cross over the Jordan, yes.

SPEAKER_01 29:52

Yeah, or the river sticks.

unknown 29:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:55

Well, I was keeping it Christian, but you know. We all have rivers in there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:02

Well, again, you know, I don't want to poo-poo the other face. I'm saying the the the concepts overall, yes.

SPEAKER_00 30:12

Exactly. No, it is. It's a similar context. It's it's just rivers, you know, it's crossing the river.

SPEAKER_01 30:19

And uh uh, and speaking of the river, I'm here in Detroit, so it's okay. The Detroit River. Anyway, it's whatever, just the way my idiotic OCD brain works. Uh Christian meditation teacher.

SPEAKER_00 30:36

Well, that you know, that ties right into what we were talking about because I was talking about love and being centered in love. And you can go after all the flashy stuff. And when you talk about spirituality, it is so easy to either judge or be attracted to um these so-called abilities, you know, these psychic things, these experiences. And in the end, I could give up every single one that I have. I do not care about them. They are, you know, as Paul says, this, this, this, this. I don't care. It's nothing compared to the love of Christ. Christian meditation, all that is being able to sit and just be in the love of God. That's really all it is. And so I talk about um when we pray, that's one side of the conversation, right? You're talking to God or at God, depending on your prayer practice. Um, but rarely do we sit and listen and have the other side of the conversation.

SPEAKER_01 31:28

That that brings to mind though, and I gotta interject. Well, let me back up so two things, because I don't think I've made that thought proper, right? The Bible doesn't say money is the root of all evil, it's the love of money that's and then all those other things and being caught up in the trappings. And the other thing, kind of what you're referring to, you can pray at God. You may not always get an answer, as the Garth Brooks song says, but doesn't mean he doesn't care. Sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers, right? There might be something better planned for me down the road. I'm not getting what I'd like to have in this situation, like you know, whatever. In the case of the song, it was uh his old flame, as he says in the song, right? Had he not gone through that relationship and it fell apart or it just didn't happen, he wouldn't have then met the person he's with now. Right.

SPEAKER_00 32:38

Exactly. For sure. I you know, that sense of being able to speak your mind to God, to have that full like David does in the Psalms, transparency, full reality, um, authenticity is the word I was looking for. You're authentic with God, but then you shut up and you stop and you go into your heart, you let your attention rest in your heart, and you just wait. And if you're doing this for the first time, um, it's gonna be really weird because you're not used to sitting and just listening. But eventually it becomes after I've done it from you know years now, probably eight years, maybe longer. Um, but it's like my favorite time of the day. And that's the one thing you could take anything from me, literally anything or anyone out of my life. I trust God with everyone and everything, I'd be fine. My health, whatever. Take it if you need to, God. Do not take me from your presence. Because the feeling of what I feel in meditation, when I just feel and just held in that love. And I never knew I could experience that. That's that part of it's okay to be okay. When you are in that, it doesn't matter what's going on around you, you're okay because you're held, you're held in that love, and that's what meditation does. And um, the difference between Christian meditation and um other kinds of meditation, which are also wonderful. I've not throwing stones. Um Right.

SPEAKER_01 34:02

Well, I had someone on talking meditation, and of course, what comes to mind? Um Buddhism, right? Right, yes, yeah, don't poo-poo it just because you your immediate thought goes to Buddhism. That as a tenant of philosophy versus Buddhism as a faith is very valid and good.

SPEAKER_00 34:26

Yes, absolutely. And um, although typically more more Buddhist meditation, from my understanding, and when I did practice for a while, um, is more a clearing of the mind, a stilling of the mind. And although that tends to happen in Christian meditation, the focus is on the heart. And so instead of focusing here and watching the th thoughts pass by like clouds, which is a beautiful practice. It's a beautiful practice. I highly recommend that too. I rest in my heart and I just focus on the love of God in my heart. It's a little different, and for me, I prefer it. I like sitting basking in love. I just I think it's wonderful. And then you can pray from that space too.

SPEAKER_01 35:06

Yeah. And I can never, my audience knows I can never pass

Love Over Gifts: Core Christian Ethic

SPEAKER_01 35:10

on the lame puns and whatnot. If I did meditation of the heart, I might start thinking of cows or pigs because I had Tavor heart valve replacement. So I've got pig or cow parts in my heart. My aerotic valve had to be replaced. Oh, okay. So yeah, you never know what might happen. Yeah, the OCD brain just you know immediately goes to these stupid places. Anyway, thank you, Leah. Not Leah, Crest, but with an H in there. Your name is a mess. Leah Crest for joining today. It was a great conversation. Thank you. Take care. God bless. Thank you. Like and subscribe to Christitutionalist Politics Podcast and share episodes. We need your help. Thank you for having tuned in to another Christitutionalist podcast show. I really appreciate that you stop by. Again, please like, share, subscribe. We need you to help spread the constitutionalist movement. Thank you again. Take care. God bless. Love you all.