Episode 13 - Sink or Sin

What if sin isn’t a tally of private failings, but a way to see how our choices shape each other’s lives? We open the door to a deeper, more human conversation with two guides who’ve lived it from different sides: Pam Rocker, a queer playwright and activist working at the intersection of faith, belonging, and justice; and David Sweet, a retired homicide detective whose mantra—leave people better than you found them—was forged in the hardest rooms in policing.

We trace the old script from Augustine’s original sin to Dante’s seven deadlies, then turn it inside out. The panel shares raw first encounters with shame and fear—from shoplifted candy to purity culture’s damage—and asks whether people are born bad or shaped by moments and systems. David explains why empathy, not pity, opens truth in an interview room and in everyday life. Pam names the toll of Christian nationalism and the chilling idea that empathy is a “sin,” while Joanne Anquist reframes sloth as apathy toward what matters and calls for a new social contract rooted in dignity and mercy. Together we test greed, pride, wrath, and sloth against modern realities: workers who can’t afford the food they stock, billionaires celebrated while communities crumble, and survival choices punished without context.

This is a conversation about accountability without humiliation, forgiveness that leads to responsibility, and practical steps that make repair real. We offer simple practices—curate diverse stories, build the empathy muscle, confess clearly, and choose the daily discipline of leaving people better than you found them. We’re not defined by failures, and we’re not fixed by fear. We are human, capable of harm and capable of repair.

If this resonates, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a review. Your voice helps more people find thoughtful, nuanced conversations that trade shame for truth and turn empathy into action.

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Chapters

• 0:08 Setting The Table: What Is Sin?
• 2:17 Panel Introductions And Lived Beginnings
• 3:26 First Encounters: Guilt, Fear, Shoplifting
• 15:30 Original Sin And The Eden Script
• 24:07 Are We Born Bad Or Shaped?
• 35:47 Intermission
• 45:47 Dante’s Seven Sins In Modern Life
• 54:16 Greed, Wrath, Pride, And Power
• 1:07:14 Sloth As Apathy And Misplaced Effort
• 1:15:36 Survival, Theft, And A Broken Contract
• 1:26:35 Billionaires, Empire, And Systemic Harm
• 1:33:00 Leaving People Better: A Policing Mantra
• 1:44:36 Forgiveness, Accountability, And Growth

Transcript

Bill: 0:08

Hello again, friends. We have turned on the microphones, the coffee is poured, and this room is full tonight because tonight we are talking about sin, one of faith's oldest and most complicated words. For generations, sin has carried guilt, fear, and control. But tonight we are peeling it back to see what we might find underneath. Maybe it's about how we live with one another, how we hurt, how we heal, and how we try again. There's a line in a hymn that says, You'll never walk on water if you're not prepared to drown. Well, I'm Bill Weaver, and this is Prepared to Drown. Let's begin. Good evening, and we are here on a beautiful fall evening in Calgary, Alberta, in the basement of McDougall United Church for another episode of Prepared to Drown. I am Bill Weaver, and we are talking about all things sin tonight, because let's be honest, sin has been Christianity's best brand recognition for 2,000 years or more. Original sin is actually Augustine's claim that we are all born broken and we are guilty before we are even able to crawl. And the seven deadly sins have captured our imagination for generations. Pride and greed and lust and envy and gluttony and wrath and sloth is a list that has shaped everything from sermons to cinema, and it is an ancient catalog of everything that makes us human and afraid of being human. So here's the kicker. Over time, sin becomes less about being honest with ourselves and with our limits, and more about controlling people with guilt and fear. So today we are going to crack that open and talk about sin because if sin isn't just a naughty or nice list for Santa, then what is it and how might changing the way we talk about sin actually set us free? So joining me for this conversation, as always, we have our two regulars, Reverend Joanne Anquist and Ricardo Di Menezes, over on the far end of the table. And uh we are joined tonight, I'm very excited actually, to be joined tonight first by Pam Rocker, sitting right to my right. She is a playwright and a musician and an activist. She she uh her art and her advocacy invite faith communities to wrestle honestly with queerness and creativity and belonging and diversity. She's also stood at the forefront of a ton of justice work for everything from trans rights to the abolition of conversion therapy. And Pam, I am really grateful that you are here tonight. Thanks for being here.

Pam: 2:36

Thanks so much. I'm excited.

Bill: 2:37

And rounding out our panel is David Sweet sitting in the middle. He is a retired homicide detective, turned author and consultant and podcast host of his own as well. Uh over 25 impactful years with the city of Calgary, uh, the last 14 of them spent investigating some of Canada's most heinous crimes as a veteran homicide detective. Uh, we are really excited to have you here because if we want to talk about sin and the intersection of uh justice and trauma and all the good things people do and all the bad things people do and all the human stories that emerge, then who better to have than a retired police detective with the experience that you have had? So thank you for agreeing to be here tonight.

Dave: 3:17

Thank you, Bill.

Bill: 3:18

So I'm gonna start right at the very core of it. And because I get to do this, I'm gonna throw the question to Pam first and then open it up to the rest of the panel. Uh, what's the very first thing you remember about the very first time you encountered the word or the concept of sin?

Pam: 3:34

Wow. Um The first thing I think of is when I was probably four or five years old. And uh my my mom had four kids, has four four kids. And we lived in this really small house in upstate New York. And every Saturday we would have like a cleaning bee. Everybody had to clean, you know. And what we would get if we finished all of our chores was there was she had this big jar of uh bubblegum, you know, like Wrigley's double mint, you know, that sort of thing. And we didn't have a lot of money, so like having candy and gum was like not an everyday thing. Like having a pack of gum was amazing. And I loved it in my little paw, you know. And I remember uh like the first time that I had this feeling of like conscience or doing something wrong, um, was uh I went and I took a pack of gum on not a cleaning day.

Bill: 4:39

You stole the gum from the jar.

Pam: 4:44

I did. And I was so nervous. Like imagine a five-year-old holding Wrigley's like in their in their bed shaking, right? Um, and I think, you know, obviously it it seems like a small, you know, quote unquote crime. Um, but I think that speaks to the environment that I was in in terms of growing up in a super religious, you know, conservative, traditional, you know, household, and this idea that um, you know, you were inherently bad. And so I think I was hypersensitive to anything that I thought, oh, okay, this is this is not just against my mom or you know, the rules of our family, but this is against God. This is something wrong. And I think I still chewed all of the gum in that pack, you know. But but that's my the first time that I was like, oh, I have I've done something that may cause a separation. And I there's no way that I could have articulated that, you know, thought at that age. But looking back at it, I was like, oh, this is the first time that I felt a sense of separation, of uh, you know, that there's something that I could do that would put me kind of on the outside of the circle.

Bill: 6:08

Thank you.

Joanne: 6:09

Anyone else want to jump in first uh I have to come right in because I have a a story very similar to that, except that you know, I I was an advanced criminal and I actually shoplifted when I was five from the store. Oh, yes, the chocolate bar. And I remember going out to the car and putting it on the ground, like devious. I was very devious. And my mom got into the car, and I'm like, Mom, look, I found this chocolate bar. And she goes, Oh, your sister must have dropped it, you know, all that kind of stuff. Um, but eventually, one time, I did this a few times, like honestly, five years old. I was five years old. I was in kindergarten. And and this time I didn't have pockets or something, so I was holding it under my dress. And I was with my dad, and he was like, What have you got there? Oh, nothing, nothing. And he he finds it and then he pays for it. And when we get home, uh, I get it. You know, like my uh my father is one of those people who believes in corporal punishment, not bad, never angry, anything like that. But I did get, you know, the belt that day.

Ricardo: 7:10

Oh, I thought you meant you got the chocolate bar.

Joanne: 7:12

I was like, No, but that chocolate got angry. It sat in the closet for a long time. It was right there saying to me, You are a sinner. You go to the water, you are a sinner.

Ricardo: 7:23

Okay, you got whoop, you know.

Joanne: 7:24

You know, uh, so I just wanted to say, you know, you're like small time compared to me when I was true. But I think that and I understood that I was doing wrong, obviously. I was raised in a very similar tradition to yours, you know, like no no issue there. But it wasn't really until I was like seven years old and we had junior church, is what we called in the church that I went to. And the teacher was telling us about, you know, sinning and you know, you got to be forgiven by God or you're going to hell, you know. Like, I mean, that was it. And I remember every single night going to bed and praying that Jesus would forgive me for my sins because I was so afraid of going to hell at seven years old. Like, can you imagine? Um, so uh, and then one day in junior church, he said, Oh, you don't have to ask Jesus to forgive you every day. And that was like such a relief to me that I was like, oh, good, you know, I got a few days' grace before I got to the house.

Pam: 8:18

God's like, okay, enough. I gotta send this mesh to some other people I gotta listen to.

Joanne: 8:24

Just, you know, chill. You're seven years old. Um, but that was really it then I think, and that turned me around. I never did shoplift again after that. But let me tell you, it was like, and you're seven years old and you're afraid you're going to hell. That's a powerful motivator to be a good girl.

Ricardo: 8:46

I I mean, I was born Catholic, so it was a you know, the minute you enter the church, they're like, don't be sinning. Yeah, the guilt starts very young, even before your eyes open, right? So um I I think the first, and it's a it's a shoplifting story as well. I mean, it's we have growing theater.

Pam: 9:04

Everyone watch your purses,

Bill: 9:06

Our minister.

Ricardo: 9:08

It was in the US. We had got so back so you know, I'm for those of you that can't see me right now, I'm tall and our whole family is tall. And at one point in time, like my sister's a very avid basketball player, and we could never find shoes and high tops and basketball shoes for her in Canada. Like payless just didn't exist. Neither did Walmart. So we had to go to Great Falls, Montana to shop for her for her basketball shoes for like the season. And so I stole this jar of like Ninja Turtles like Play-Doh. And it was nothing special to it except it had a label of the Ninja Turtles on the front and it was green. I was like, I have to have that. So I put it in my pocket, like the security guard, excuse me, I'm sorry, and then my my dad was like, You did what? And I the store is no longer around, so I think in my heart of hearts, my theft shut that entire company down. That's the kind of guilt I felt, is that it was the demise of an entire multi-million dollar corporation. But that was the first time where, like, I mean, I got beat all the time. Sorry, Mom and Dad, you didn't beat me all the time, but like you sin all the time, you you know, you you you swear or whatever, and but that was the first time I felt embarrassment over my decision to sin or steal, right? Like, I felt my parents' humiliation of being hauled into a security office at like eight or nine or ten years old, and them having to sit there while this loss prevention person was like doing things. And I think that ingrains in my head so vividly because um you you literally feel like you've let the entire family down, right? And um those are the kind of it wasn't the last time that I've let my entire family down, let's be clear. But um

Joanne: 10:47

there's bigger things.

Ricardo: 10:49

There was a subsequent number of uh issues that uh transpired since that day, but that was the first one I can remember where like my dad who I looked up to and my mom who it was like the first time they were like, I'm I don't know what to say, I'm so ashamed right now. So that's my first vivid sin memory that I can think of. Yeah, I mean, I mean say the best for last. I mean, we got the murdered, we got the murder detective here.

Dave: 11:12

So I feel like I live like leave it to beaver here. I don't think um, you know, so I didn't grow up in a family that had any sort of religious structure at all. And so this concept of uh, you know, it was more around just what's right and what's wrong, which but I nothing was ever really kind of pointed out as sinful, and so I didn't ever have the pressures uh of having a family that would, you know, um be upset with a misstep and that kind of thing. So I actually don't really have a memory, a specific thing where somebody pointed it out and said, Hey, you know, this is gonna get you in trouble. If it was gonna get me in trouble, it was gonna get me in trouble with the police, right? It wouldn't be around, you know, any kind of a spiritual context or religious context that I would be getting in trouble. It would be more around, like, you know, there's laws and there's rules in the community and there's rules around our society, and this is how we behave. So, in a in a way, it's probably a little bit relieving for me because I was gonna say must be nice.

Pam: 12:24

No hell in your life.

Dave: 12:26

Because I have to tell you, I I kind of grew up uh pretty much guilt-free. With that, yeah, with the with that, with that said, I know that mom had uh, I don't even know what it would have been. It was like a 1970s plaque, you know, something from the 70s. It was like a with the old uh wood-edged plaque plaque that sat beside the uh phone for a long time, and there were some rules I think to live by on there. Okay. Um, but it was all around respect and you know doing right and and that kind of thing. But yeah, no, I guess I for myself anyways, it was uh I I can't really tell you when the first time I ever thought of it, to be honest. Still to this day don't.

Bill: 13:09

Yeah. There you go. Yeah. Um, so I I read a lot of your book before uh your first book. I didn't I didn't get to daunt it, unfortunately, but it's on my list. But uh I did actually I I was worried actually about whether or not uh like what a what a police officer might come and say about sim. But I found actually your uh you referenced a um uh American radio broadcaster named Paul Harvey. Uh and uh he had done uh What is a Policeman in 1970. And uh the the the opening line is a policeman is a composite of what all men are, right? Correct. Um, what's next? Mingling of a saint and a sinner. That's right, right? Yeah. Uh uh dust and deity. What what that really means is that they are exceptional, they are unusual, they are not commonplace.

Dave: 14:01

And they have to put themselves into those places where sin is and not partake. Yep. Is sort of the gist of his his his quote. Yeah and uh yeah, it was true. I mean, um long ago now, 20 years ago, 2004 to 2007, I was working undercover in the city. Uh we're working in our drug undercover street teams, and I spent a lot of time in uh in some pretty um uh questionable places, I guess, right? With questionable characters uh and um doing questionable things, and although I was there to observe, uh I couldn't partake. And that was uh so the hit his quote actually in that part that really does resonate with me because I can remember how many times I was in situations where um uh you know I faced a potential situation that I I guess I could have done or partake in, but my it was for me, it was ethics, it was around my ethics that didn't allow me to uh to do that, obviously. So um, but yeah, no, I really like Paul Harvey's quote actually. Uh and you're right, he he's he's right.

Bill: 15:25

Yep. Um so mine is not a shoplifting one, mine's a sex one. Um and not even sex. So I've actually told this story before. Uh recent. Um you started sinning late in life, though. Um no, my uh my my first kiss was actually the first time I actually encountered sin language. And I I told this story uh on a previous episode as well of uh my my very first kiss um was with a girl who uh went to a very conservative evangelical church. Um and we were young, obviously, and it was just uh like a peck on the lips kind of kiss. It wasn't anything more than that. And she she came the next day and she had talked with her youth pastor that night, and she felt so uh destroyed by the fact that she had violated this purity code um and that she had sinned against Jesus for it and broke up with me on the sidewalk outside the school. Um, and I didn't even really know that we had been dating anyway. Um and I I well, like I said, like I said the last time, I encountered girls before I encountered Jesus, and I was not a fan of Jesus as a result, right? Because it was just so crushing. It wasn't it wasn't embarrassing from a you know, I transgressed against my family kind of thing. It was a like, what did I actually do wrong kind of thing, right? Like just someone tell me where the like where the line was that I crossed, because I don't understand, right? So um, and that was the but for her it was all about you have actually sinned against God by doing this. And she I learned much later what the ring on her hand meant and what the Oh she like had the purity right now. The whole, yeah, right. So I had no idea at the time. I was so confused. Um, yeah, I mean it it was what it was, but uh I mean, yeah, it was it was uh it was devastating for a young kid. Um yeah, anyhow. Whoo! Uh it's all coming back to me right now. Uh so the story all starts in a garden, uh, with two humans and one rule and one apparently talking snake, uh, and a piece of fruit that Joanne's gonna argue vehemently was not an apple.

Joanne: 17:43

It never says it's an apple, just the fruit.

Bill: 17:47

Um and within 10 verses, paradise is administrative, and uh theologians have been arguing ever since about whose fault it was uh that uh that mortality is what mortality is. So for a lot of us, our first lessons about sin or even more broadly about right and wrong are actually wrapped up in this idea of original sin, uh, which is uh a teaching and uh a theological understanding that before we ever choose or chose anything, we were already guilty, and we are born now successively throughout time as guilty as well. And Augustine was actually the one who framed this idea over 1,500 years ago, saying that because of Adam and Eve, every generation since is born marked by sin, and we can never shake that inheritance. Um so for generations that teach that teaching has told us that we are default setting at broken. Wow. I thought early pattern male baldness was the biggest one for me. Possibly. Intriguingly enough, though, the lesson of Eden, according to Augustine, also ties in very nicely with uh uh something that uh David said in his uh podcast, second episode of his podcast, he was talking about curiosity. Um and uh he says, and I'm gonna quote it for you We don't always have to look at everything. Uh we should understand what we're seeing and what we're ingesting and how that could potentially affect us into the future. Sometimes it's best to peek only when it's prudent to do so. Um and he was talking about uh early in his career uh wanting to see everything and experience everything, and then um realizing that sometimes it's okay not to look at that video or okay not to, and he actually talks a lot. He he made me check my browser history actually after the after the episode. And I'm a pretty innocent guy overall, but uh he talks about uh our innate curiosity for things um and how it can sometimes lead us down roads we don't want to go down. And for Augustine, this idea that that curiosity around what happens in the Garden of Eden is what marks us all as flawed and broken for all time. Um so Joanne, I'm gonna throw it to you first for this one. What happens when people grow up with a script running underneath everything that they are broken before they can even act?

Joanne: 20:22

Well, I think um it really stunts your growth as a human being, actually, because you aren't able to uh like when everything in your world is uh through this lens of I'm broken, you really uh spend a lot of time trying to fix this stuff. You know, I I try to explain to people um the church that I went to when I was young didn't have Lent as a concept, you know, in Lent we're supposed to sweep out the cobwebs and consider, you know, be more reflective about our lives, but it's a season and then it's it's over. And I used to say, well, you know, when I the way I was raised, Lent was every day. You know, like every day you have to sweep out the cobwebs. What have I done wrong? Where is my brokenness? Um, and and it's very damaging to your growth as a human being and your ability to live into love instead of fear, you know. Um I I don't like the idea of original sin in any way. In fact, you know, when I was taking um uh Old Testament or Hebrew scripture studies, and they were talking about why is this story even here? Like, one of the reasons of the story is like rabbis used to tell these really elegant stories to explain things in human uh experience. And this was like one of the reasons for this story was why do women have pain in childbirth? That was the explanation. Well, you know, Eve ate the fruit of the vent, and now she it's hard to have babies, you know? Um, and which is totally different than Augustine's take on that. I think I'm not like original blessing. These are the things that we're all born, you know, blessed either, because I do think there is um in humanity, there is a strain in us that um where we want to, you know, look at things we know we shouldn't look at, we want to try things that we know are not healthy for us. I don't think that's like original sin. I think that's um it's just part of being human. I don't even really know if a lot of those things I would consider sin. I just think you choose things that are not good for you. Um but to have everything uh black or white, sin or uh grace, is a really um damaging um ideology that stun your spiritual growth as much as your human growth. Um that's what I guess I would say, like it's a big topic, Bill.

Bill: 23:09

But I know it's a big topic.

Joanne: 23:12

But in you know, in my experience, it wasn't until I sort of gave up this idea that of this sort of traditional theology that starts with original sin, um, that I really could experience what it what love of God is instead of God as judge, for instance. God is the judge up there all the time. Did I do right by God or did I not do right? That's the whole sweeping out the cobwebs lent kind of thing that's every day of your life, you know, is God gonna embrace me or not? And you like release yourself from that, and all of a sudden, you know, you recognize that God uh is the first to cry, for instance, when um when there's darkness and and um suffering in the world, and all of a sudden your world is completely transformed by the thought of um God is essentially loving and we as beloved as opposed to we as sinners who are transgressing. It's a it opens up everything.

Bill: 24:16

Pam, you've worked a lot with faith communities on this kind of stuff. Uh what do you think about what it is, what does it do to us when the the narratives that were broken from the start?

Pam: 24:25

Uh I think the what Joanne shared is is right on. Uh the thing that it makes me think of is living within that model also means that we're not only going to project those judgments on ourselves, we're going to project them on other people. So we naturally are going to try to assess um, oh, is what that person doing a sin? I think that's bad. I think that's right. I think that's wrong. And then we begin to develop these like value judgments uh about who's like more worthy, who's more holy. Um, and and you know, like when I talked about that first feeling of like separation or or being worried that I'd done something to disrupt uh me belonging, um I think this whole idea like turns us into uh like makes us into God in a sense. Like we we have the illusion that we know what's right and wrong and that we can dish it out and we can, you know, say this, you know, whatever to somebody who we don't agree with, or we can just look at them and be like, oh, I wish that they would, you know, be saved, you know. Um, and I can say this from experience, living, you know, the first 25 years of my life in that mentality. And what's what's really interesting, and you know, I think that this isn't talked about a lot, but I think for a lot of folks who grew up in that scaffolding, um, you know, once I, you know, came out as gay, and once I once I understood um historically, analytically, biologically, why I was fine, um the next step for me was okay, wait a minute. If this scaffolding didn't work for me, like if if if me, you know, if inside this system I can now see that the system is is inherently flawed. And you just said like Augustine basically invented or oh, I'm gonna say this, right? I'm gonna invent this, right? Thanks, man, for doing that. And you know, if this system that I've been, you know, inherited doesn't honor who I am and actually doesn't make me any closer to God or any closer towards liberation or anything like that, who else doesn't it work for? And you know, I could have stopped and and said, okay, well, I'm I'm comfortable now. I've I've figured I've worked out my you know the theology to be able to like know that I'm I'm okay. But really the the hardest part um and I think the best part of of me coming out was that being queer actually allowed me to become a Christian because it wasn't until then that I realized oh how I'm how I'm looking at this is completely backwards. Uh we all belong. And and who am I to put a judgment on somebody else? It that's making God in our image, right? My my favorite, one of my favorite authors, Anne Lamott, says, we know that we're making God in our own image when God hates the same people as us, right? And so if I'm like, okay, I'm you know, I've got a list, and you know what, I have a list, right? Like we all have a list.

Bill: 28:16

We all have a list, yeah.

Pam: 28:18

Um but if I think if I ascribe that to God, then I'm just making God in my image, right? Um I I think that anything can be used, you know, the Bible, for example, it can be used to alienate people or it can be used to liberate. And so I had to begin to look at, you know, sacred text and things that I've been taught in this new lens and say, have I been taught to alienate or to liberate others? Have I been taught that there's only like that there's five of us on the lifeboat, but there's only room for four? And so I have to be good enough to stay, and I have to prove that somebody else is worse than me in order to stay. Like living in that kind of system really, you know, Joanne said this, and it's true, it stunts your own growth, but it stunts your ability to really have compassion and intimacy and be able to just see others as they are and appreciate the difference that we bring. So, you know, it's not only a losing game for us, but it's a losing game for everybody because it it skews how we see every single thing and we become the judge, right? And you know, I love um I think Rich, it's Richard Rohr who said, you know, that really sin is uh is immaturity, it's self centeredness, it's it's thinking, how does this benefit me? You know, and as We grow throughout our lives, and you know, if we're lucky enough to get older, like we we begin to hopefully start to think about how how do I how does what I do benefit others? Like, not just finding my place in the world, but how does it benefit people around me? And you know, I think I think about all of all of the people who uh through the years and even right now on social media love to say, you know, unkind things to me because of of who I am. And I'm like, oh, I see your immaturity, you know, like and because you're not willing to, you know, kind of see see the beauty and the difference uh of what's happening. And and also I have immature thoughts all the time. I mean, I do, right? So I think it's also knowing that none of us are immune to devolving back into that stance. And it's funny, like coming from, you know, a very zealous evangelical background, it's like when I start to feel that like, you know, what you what people describe as like righteous anger, you know, and when it starts to like bubble up in me and I start getting this idea like I know everything, I'm gonna solve everything. I'm like, uh oh, I remember that feeling. And now I'm centering myself and and what's happening for me and me being right and me securing my place on the lifeboat. And I have to say, okay, hold on. Maybe what I'm angry at is worthy of being angry at. But like, where is this? And I'm like, oh, this is the old structure that I'm going back to.

Bill: 31:40

I think you're talking about the old structure I you in Avenue Calgary, when you got the top 40 under 40, uh, they did a profile on you, and it said that uh for queer people, it's been ingrained in us that in order to experience something sacred, we have to feel guilty. Um that they can't actually imagine a faith community that would accept them without shaming them first.

Pam: 32:00

Absolutely. Uh what I think to this day is is so tragic, um, but I completely get it. Um and I think and I think folks who grew up with that messaging um for lots of different things, whether it was being queer or or getting divorced, or you know, put put something in that blank is um unless you feel bad about it, you're not having a holy experience. And so working with affirming ministries, a lot of times, you know, I'll talk to queer folks and and I'll say, like, oh, what was your experience like at this affirming church? Or like, what do you think about this? And so often they would say, like, it doesn't feel real, you know. And I'm like, okay, well, I understand doesn't feel real. You don't think you can be accepted, da-da-da. So we uh dig, dig, dig, right, to to understand what that meant. And at the end of the end of the day, for so many of them, it's like they couldn't handle being in a place where they didn't feel shame because shame equaled religious experience. And so, you know, they might go to church once or twice, but like it just they're like, it doesn't feel real. I'm not feeling bad about who I am. So, how can this be a religious experience? And so it totally flips on its head what they'd had been taught. And that's where I'm saying the deconstruction comes in for so many of us of like, wow, like we we might be able to put our heads around one thing, like, okay, maybe I'm okay. But then once we're in an environment where everybody else thinks we're okay, like it's kind of like you don't want to be a member of a club who like who lets you in, right? But it's so tragic, right? Because it's like, wow, is that really the kind of life of faith and the kind of communities like that like that we're creating that you unless you feel shame, it's not a real religious experience. But it's so true. And so often for for folks who have have had that background, they it takes them a long time. Like we're talking about years, like it took me a long time to be in a religious setting that accepted me and to accept that as a reality. And I think a lot of folks just think, you know, oh, we're in a firmry ministry. Why aren't there a you know a ton of gay people here and blah, blah, blah, whatever? Well, there might be a lot of reasons, I don't know, but one of them might be it's actually we have been given such different messaging. And so it takes a long time to build up like, oh, I can accept being accepted.

Bill: 34:49

Yeah, the answer might be it's just really friggin' hard sometimes to cross the threshold, right?

Pam: 34:54

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Bill: 34:55

Yeah, absolutely. Um so Dave, uh Joanne talked about, you know, maybe this isn't so much about like the right or the wrong, it maybe it's just like the nature of humanity that it's kind of built in our curiosity, the the temptation to do both good and and and evil um or sin, um, to look at the things we're not supposed to look at. Uh you talked uh in an interview on uh the focus core podcast uh actually about the idea that your years of homicide work actually uh forced you to see the humanity um behind the harm. Uh and you also talked a lot uh in your book about white picket fences, right? That some of your learning was really um uh or some of your experience really kind of leaned into recognizing that not everybody actually lives in this idealized kind of understanding of uh uh a white fic white picket fence kind of householder mentality, right? So well, I feel like we're also really uh reaffirming your parents' choices not to raise you in a religious setting with a lot of this conversation.

Dave: 35:55

No, not well, you know, there's lot actually lots of parallels. Like when I think about you know, the original question um that sort of started off this segment was uh to me, uh I just wrote it out as are we born bad? Right?

Joanne: 36:08

I mean That's great, that's exactly it.

Dave: 36:11

And you know, there's so many debates about that, you know. Um personally, I mean, just from my own experience, I don't think I can answer that question, but I think that I think we're inherently all born good. And I think our experiences through our life are what shape us in different ways. I mean, I I was kind of going back through the my memory bank over the last, you know, 20 years to try and think about how many truly like bad people I met. Um, and I don't know if there was many that weren't, they did bad things, but they were usually shaped that way from some experience that they had. And um I think it's important to know that. Like, even when people commit, like, say, like the ultimate sin, which would be murder, for example, most people that commit that crime, that that they lived their life, a lot of people, without ever committing a crime that they at least they were caught for up until that moment. Um I always say, you know, when it came to things like um a homicide or a murder, most homicides, two minutes before the murder occurs, the victim has no idea they're about ready to be killed. And the offender has no idea that they're about ready to take someone's life. It's like a fateful set of circumstances that just all kind of line up, and then all of a sudden there's this explosion, and something happens. You know, it's hubby coming home uh after work and finding uh wife in bed with another hubby and boom, explosion, and then and and something like that happens. Uh, it's two kids getting into some sort of a beef at a bar. Um for the whole night they they mixed, and then all of a sudden, in uh in a in a 30-second span, there's some pushing, shoving, punching, and then a knife comes out and someone is stabbed. But these kids, the something bad happened, but they're not necessarily bad people, you know, like and it's it's hard to wrap your head around that, I guess, as a as a concept. But I actually think that we are more shaped, and that's why when I, you know, I mention things like when it comes to like just beware what you put in your in your mind, because once it's garbage in, garbage doesn't go out. And I can't tell you how many times I sat across the room in an interview uh looking at some 19-year-old kid who's spent his whole entire life playing video games, has now just been involved in a murder, and his eyes are big and wide and a little bit wild, and he can't believe that he's uh dealing with a big burly police detective who's now questioning him about his role in a crime that he's going to go to the rest to jail for the rest of his life for. And um I can't help but think that that kid was born bad. I think he got involved in a bad situation. And um, but I think it is all very much environment-based for the most part. I mean, I think there are some people out there that are just but I don't know if that's a birth thing, even. I think it's just uh it might be something else that takes them over. I don't know.

Joanne: 39:37

It's interesting. One of the things they say about like dropping crime rates, basically in in major cities and everything, that actually crime rates are dropping, and uh youth crime in particular, and and people who trace the unintended consequences, they actually uh believe that that has to do with um birth control and access to abortion because children are loved and wanted, and they turn out differently than if they are not loved and wanted. Interesting. And um that that's that has been uh an int and I I'm totally with you 100% about the things shape you um and you become what people have trained you to believe you are.

Dave: 40:24

Yeah, you know, I believe so too. Like it wouldn't it be I I mean to me it's sad to think that if we all grew up believing that we need to be fixed right from the very beginning, that's uh that's kind of sad to me um personally. Yeah from my from my view, we're not in disagreement. We're not in disagreement here, no because I because I think, you know, I mean, trust me when I say that the world can be a very, very cruel place. Yes. However, um, despite all of its cruelty, and I've seen some of it uh over the years, uh, I can truly tell you there's more good people than bad people. If we're just doing good and bad. You know, there's uh uh the world is uh is a pretty amazing, magnificent place with full of talent and full of people that want to um live in safe, healthy communities and full of people that will step up when they see something's not right. And uh and that's what we have to really kind of leverage behind. And uh we can't worry about you know what we hear in the news at six o'clock. Those are the one-offs. In a city of 1.4 million people, we will probably have upwards of about 30 homicides this year. That's not too bad. Like it's sad for one. It's 30 more than we would want, but it's yeah, but it's not like the the majority of people will not it it it's most of us will just go about our lives and we will come across good people, and that's a great thing. That's because there's more of us than there are of them.

Bill: 42:02

Purely because we are talking sort of about the idea of the environment that shapes us. That's right. And I and uh and I one of the most compelling stories you tell on your podcast, one of the I loved it. I listened to it twice actually. I think you changed the name. It was I think you used the name Nikki. Um do you want to do you want to tell the because that that's what you're talking about, right? Like you you actually got to work with uh undercover with uh uh we'll call her Nikki, um, that uh uh experiencing you just giving her basic respect, um basic, you know, human decency, um and just the the impact that it had on on someone that at the same time you had to grapple with the very real reality that you knew exactly she was going to jail. Yeah. Um and and she, you know, she was complicit in um drug trafficking and and all that kind of stuff. But that there was a whole kind of do you want to talk about it just a bit?

Dave: 42:54

Sure, yeah. Yeah. So Nikki, um, so Nikki was uh a gal that was being uh human trafficked. Uh she was also sort of one of the main girls down on the when there were still strolls in the city. And um, she was um always picking up and loading up from a particular guy that I was hanging out with a lot. And then she would go pick up her her drug and then she would go back out onto the street and and traffic it. And uh her world, of course, is uh very sad. It's a sad world. She's meeting all sorts of people every night, strangers, and and uh they probably not very many of them very respectful to her. And so uh in these little moments when she would come into the bar to what we called load load up, um, get her quantity of drugs to take it back to the street. We would just spend some time chatting and talking. And uh it's hard. Like if you're a good person, you leak. If you're a bad person, you leak. Um uh and so I think I leaked a little bit uh in terms of she could feel that there was something different about me. And uh it caused her to have, I guess, a uh a weird emotional reaction to me where she started to believe that she was falling in love with me. And uh it was only because I paid her respect and kindness and I I listened to her stories and and that, and uh it always reminded me of sort of a really um great idiom. I don't know whoever first said it, but you know, the the hardest people to love are sometimes the hard east the ones that need it the most, right? And I and I do think that that is very, very true when it came to Nikki. Yeah, and uh yeah, I I remember the day uh warrants were put out for her arrest after all the drug crimes I'd seen her commit. How bad I felt about that. Um but that was the that was the cost of doing business, I guess. Yeah, but sad.

Bill: 45:00

So I'm thinking maybe we'll take an intermission right here because when we come back, I want to uh start to talk a little bit about maybe imagining a different way of talking about uh the human experience that isn't so much about uh a stain on our soul that we can never uh never scrub out about being born inherently bad, um, about inheriting original sins. So we are gonna take uh an intermission and we will be right back. Augustine wrote Original Sin 1500 years ago, and we are now gonna jump ahead to uh a poet named Dante Alighieri who uh captured the world's attention by turning sin into an art form. Uh he wrote the Divine Comedy, uh an Italian poem at the time, uh, that gave us the seven deadly sins as uh a mirror of the human condition in very artistic flowing language, and named them as pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth. So to open up this section, uh I'm going to ask the entire panel, in whatever order you want to answer it, when you hear those sins, and I'll name them again pride, envy, greed, lust, envy, sorry, pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth. When you hear those seven sins, which one most which one feels most alive in our world today? While I'm eating a coconut brownie.

Ricardo: 47:03

Greed. Greed? Say more. Well, I'm a union negotiator, so for private sector employment, so all I ever see is that the constant pursuit of profits and the constant pursuit of shareholder dividends, and the constant pursuit of keeping people in poverty. Um we have grocery stores who are probably making the most money they've ever made right now in the public eye and vilified for that, still saying to their workers, we're not going to give you any more than 1% for a wage increase or anything more than minimum wage. And that translates down to um us uh in what's left of the middle class. Um we we we do what we have to do now to survive. And you know, we were talking earlier about the teacher strike and the possibility of a general strike that people are talking about, and and I said to many people, I said, I don't see it happening. I don't see a general strike happening like 1919 Winnipeg when people are working two, three jobs to survive or barely surviving on one, when governments are living paycheck to paycheck, and all you ever hear in the world is how much things are costing and and seeing, right? So um so I guess we ask ourselves like when we talk about sin, and um it's always what we do onto others, right? And there's never a reflection of sin on how we treat ourselves, how we talk about ourselves, how we nourish ourselves, um, and how we take care of our mental health. And I think that if we flip that lexicon of sinning against ourselves, we would have a lot more spirit to fight against those that sinned against us. And I often think to myself, like, if the root of sin that we were taught our entire lives is based on the disrespect of others, um, but you do so because you yourself is sacrificed as well, is it is it sin? Like if you're stealing to feed yourself because you have no money for that. Les Miserables. Right, right, yeah, yeah. Right, right. No, you know, and so Les Miserables is a great example of like you know, the people fighting against the boy, but nothing's really changed in that sense, right? And so that's why greed is the biggest thing for me. And I mean, gluttony is I could say gluttony is one thing, but I mean I think the war on obesity is a whole different topic of conversation for PDD. Um but we throw out a lot more than we consume, we over-consume, we overpopulate. Like I think greed is the worst one of all right now. Back to my brownie.

Joanne: 49:46

I think that's right. Um and I I agree greed is is really um shaping our culture in a way it never has before. You see that in the growing gap between the wealthy and the you know, the poor, or just the rest of us, really. Um but I wonder, like, I mean, I could pick any one of those, but when um when I think about lust, I don't think of it um necessarily sexually, but that I want, I want, I want, I want, I want, I want. And we have a culture that that is trying to cater to instant gratification in a lot of ways. Do you know? You can get whatever you want to eat. You know, you you can and if it is sex that you're wanting, you can find it. Do you know? Like anything that you want, you can get Amazon. You know, I I don't know how many deliveries I had this week, and uh, you know, but this idea that everything is instantaneous, whatever you want, you can get. And I think that that is um, you know, notwithstanding that I'm like everyone else, love convenience. Um the idea that that we need to have everything we want is really damaging to individuals and cultures, I believe, because inevitably it ends up in exploitation of people who are gonna get you that, right? Um and so, and it's easy to forget that. So that'd be mine.

Dave: 51:21

When you list these out, they almost look like motives for murder.

Bill: 51:24

Well, you did actually you did uh you did an event at uh Spark After Dark, and somebody asked you what the main five top reasons were, and three of your answers were three of these, right? Yeah, there was a movie already though, seven.

Dave: 51:37

Seven, yeah, yeah. Brad Pitt. Yeah. But I mean I think about how many how many times people have lost their life over greed.

Bill: 51:44

Yeah.

Dave: 51:45

Right. Um you know, lust, same thing, or sort of uh I don't even know if it's lust, but if it's more of a uh like a perverted form of it, really. A lot of that um if I can't have you, nobody else can kind of which is also greedy. Um and wrath. I mean that that's uh the one that really kind of stands out for me in terms of but that's coming from a uh a lens that's a little bit um a little bit jaded that way. Obviously, uh wrath was behind almost everything I did for 15 years. And um and uh a little spoke speaks a little bit about like uh Pam and I were having a lovely conversation about punishment, and maybe you can finish that part of it off. But um, we're living in a very much a punishment focused society right now. And um we you know whether it's uh uh punishing people without due process, like rushing to judgment very, very quickly, um or just wanting the worst for somebody. Uh we we seem to see that playing out quite often now. So uh I think wrath would be probably my top pick there.

Bill: 53:07

Yeah.

Pam: 53:11

I think the the first thing I think of is pride, not in the beautiful queer pride where you're like, I'm I'm glad I exist, I'm glad you exist, let's celebrate that. Um but I think about exceptionalism and I think about empire. Um I I don't really read history books a lot because they're usually really boring, but um I did have uh uh a chance to recently interview Lyndon McIntyre, um, and he wrote a book called Accidental Villain, and it talks about um Sir uh Hugh Tudor, who was basically really celebrated during World War One. Um and then uh right before you know the the war for Irish independence um was actually called a war when they started to want independence. Um, Winston Churchill looked at that and thought, oh, if if they work towards independence and get it, um like that's gonna threaten our empire, like our our colonization, our our sense of like uh control. And so he said to his friend, because he was close friends with um Tudor, he was like, I want you to go and like handle this however you need to. So he did, and he handled it in an extremely brutal way. You know, that's when Bloody Sunday happened, and um, and basically, you know, for several years, um, you know, for the time, some of the most brutal things happened. Um and he did that kind of unquestioningly, um, because Winston Churchill said, Can you do this? One of the tactics they used that I found interesting was um framing political opponents as criminals, framing political ideas as crimes, and then being able to justify murdering people because of that. And I look at you know, the state of our world today, it's really easy for us to look at the US, it's easy for us to look at the Middle East, it's easy for us to look in a lot of different places to see the same thing happening. And you know, because I work in queer faith intersections, the first thing that I think about is that exceptionalism, not only in the sense of like a physical war, physically getting rid of any um attempts to take over empire or you know, challenge the status quo. I think about Christian nationalism. And I think about the ways in which I have seen, you know, I've been doing this work for like 15-ish years, the ways in which I've seen Christian nationalism, this sense of like we're the best, this is what our country is built on. Everyone should believe what we need to believe. We need to make sure that the next generation follows our rules because we know the one and only truth in the one and only way, and the ways in which that exceptionalism is leading to really fatal consequences for people on the margins. Um and it and it again, it has nothing to do with Christianity, it has everything to do with the empire and who holds the power. And uh to me, it's unrecognizable as being Christ-like uh in any way, shape, or form. And I think we're we're underestimating the influence that that has on Canada uh right now, uh, because I see how it's influenced there's misinformation, disinformation campaigns. I mean, there's a lot of money uh going into this idea that some people are disposable, that some people are uh not even human. And so I think about that bad kind of pride. Like, I'm the best, I know what's right for everybody, and everybody needs to follow what I believe. And um it just makes me particularly angry because it's in the name of faith. And again, you know, like I said, faith should be liberating, it should make us more of who we are, not less. It should make us not want to be billionaires, it should make us care about whether people are fed and and whether people have enough money to have a little piece of land and raise their little family or have whatever, you know, something to to make in this life. Um and uh so the fact that people do that and say that this is just, this is this is a calling from God is wild.

Joanne: 58:35

What's interesting, I think, in that whole Christian nationalism conservative manosphere, um, and there's been books about this, I think I've mentioned it in other podcasts, about they talk about the sin of empathy, right? And and they also put that on women. Women are far too empathetic and they need to take their place again. And they they will um put up with sin because they're empathetic about the person and their circumstances, and that is uh, you know, a great transgression for people with that particular, you know, I'm right and you're wrong. And so it's not just um it's not just you know what we would say uh I mean, women have been marginalized, but you know, there was the first, second, and uh third wave feminism, which made many of us believe that things were different and we could hold our position. But come in with something about the sin of empathy and start telling women and churches that being empathetic is a sin, that changes a lot of things in terms of what their role is, in terms of what Christianity is, in terms of what our culture becomes if we lose empathy.

Pam: 59:54

I and I have to add here something that just like underlines that completely. Like I I'm related to um lovely people who have very different beliefs than me. And what's really interesting to me in in a really wild way is you know, they say so many things that are very anti-immigrant. Um unless it's an immigrant who's being persecuted for trying to spread the gospel of Jesus. Oh yeah. Right? So it's a carve out. There's a carve out. Yeah. So it if if they're fleeing the country because they're being gonna be murdered or they're being trafficked or they're doing whatever, it's like, nope, sorry, rules are rules. If they're fleeing the country because they were trying to distribute Bibles, let's have a fundraiser.

Bill: 1:00:57

So I need to ask Dave what he thinks about the sin of empathy.

Dave: 1:01:02

Well actually I actually it's interesting. I I actually think empathy is um more of a persuasion of anything or an influence more than it is uh a sin. Um Brene Brown uh has talked lots about empathy and sympathy and sort of the differences between the two. Uh her lesson on this subject um completely changed my way of interacting with people uh to the better. I had way more like so many more positive interactions with people when I started to practice empathy versus sympathy. And what she says about it, and and I absolutely agree, empathy, well, first of all, sympathy, it's disconnecting, separating, and at its lowest form could look like pity, which maybe is a little bit sinful.

Bill: 1:01:58

Or patronizing, yeah or patronizing, right?

Dave: 1:02:01

I'm so sorry that happened to you. Sounds can it can come across wrong. Empathy, though, is the um it it will bring you to a place where you can connect with people. And I can certainly tell you, like just even from my experiences, like in an interview room, when I was empathetic to the person that was sitting across from me, whether it was the 19-year-old kid that had just murdered somebody, if I practiced empathy um versus sympathy, I had a much greater chance of being able to get his truth from him, for him to tell me his side of the story, which was always my goal and objective in an interview. And I I mean I just will just speak on it just a little bit more, if that's okay, Bill. I would just mention when it comes to like the analogy between sympathy and empathy, I just want you to kind of think about like what is really the difference? Well, the difference is this. If you were walking down the street and you came across a friend who had fallen down into a hole, you would walk up to that your friend and you'd see them in the at the bottom of this hole or this pit in the middle of the street, and you might say, I'm sorry to see you falling down that hole. Do you need any help? And if that individual would probably say to you, No, I'm okay, I'll figure it out. Why? Because you disconnected that using a phrase, I am sorry, which is sympathy. However, same scenario, you're walking down the street, your friend's falling in the hole, you get to your friend who's fallen down that hole, and you say, Oh my gosh, I can't believe you've fallen down that hole. You must be cold, you must be scared, you must be hungry. Give me one moment, I'll be right back. You go, you get a ladder, you come back, you put the ladder at the edge of the hole, and you climb down, and you help your friend up, and then you go up behind them, that's empathy. Empathy is really kind of getting into the hole with somebody, and that is why it is such a um connecting experience for people. So it's so for me, uh, do you even think that uh empathy could be uh viewed as something um it's not uh in my view, in my view.

Joanne: 1:04:29

But if you are of the persuasion where you're actually trying to sow division, right? Which a lot of Christian nationalists are. Sure. And if you're trying to uh cultivate an us them mentality, and if you want to make sure that all the people that you don't like, that God hates the same people that you do, then empathy is the most dangerous thing. Because if you can see yourself, I mean, empathy says me too. Brene Brown says that most powerful words in any the human language are me too. If you see yourself and that guy down the hole in the hole, right, that's dangerous, particularly if that guy is one of those people that you don't want to be part of your club, right? So that's why um see I I was listening to a uh an interview with uh Latina woman, and they were talking about how um in the last election there was a real swing of um Latino voters towards you know the one whose name shall not be spoken. And um she said it's because they went into the churches, they went into the churches, and then they equated, you know, Democrat ideas with sin, right? And the right thing and the just thing and the thing God wants is what the Republicans are putting out there, and that was what she believed was the reason for the swing, because they knew to go to the churches, and that's why this whole idea of sin and original sin and we're right and you're wrong, and they're against God is so dangerous in our culture. Notwithstanding I'm a minister. Do you know it is so dangerous in our culture because as soon as you say, Oh, you're not on God's side anymore because you love queer folk, you know, that is it's like all of a sudden, like when I was that's the phone. Uh Ricardo's phone said they don't understand. I think I must have said Siri.

Ricardo: 1:06:33

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Joanne: 1:06:35

Um this is religion can be used to sow division. Absolutely, particularly religion that is void of empathy, that calls empathy a sin. But religion can also be because it is am I my brother's keeper, for instance, was the question. And yes, we you are, you know, we are each other's keep, we carry each other.

Bill: 1:06:55

We are the keepers' we are each other's keepers in the carrying sense of the word, not in the um, you know, meeting out judgment and punishment sense of the word, right? Exactly.

Joanne: 1:07:06

We get to carry each other. I love that line from the U2 song. We get to carry each other, and that's how community faith should act.

Bill: 1:07:13

So in the in the understanding of the seven deadly sins, which again, um take it for what it's worth, middle ages, right? Um the the the idea really is that at the root of all of these sins is pride, right? And that pride actually um weaves its way into all of the other ones as well. Um that if I if I believe that I am more than my neighbor, um then it it will not be okay if my neighbor has a better house and and there is the sin of envy, right? Right. Um it will not be it will not be okay if my neighbor has more wealth and therein lies the sin of greed, right? Um and and so on and on and on it goes. Um that's that even the the these are not these are not rigid boundaried sins at all. They they intermingle and interrelate with each other all the time. Um part of part of I think you know my answer to the question would be sloth, in fact, I think is the most prevailing I I almost said wrath, but that's just because that's my sin of choice, so I see it everywhere. Um but uh but I think sloth, and and I say sloth because historically sloth has been viewed as um and has been portrayed as just pure laziness in the sense of um you sit on the couch all day with your bag of Doritos and do nothing um of any socially redeeming value. And certainly that can be sounds like heaven to me.

Joanne: 1:08:35

Right.

Bill: 1:08:36

Um it's a very appealing sin, in all honesty, right? Um but but a workaholic is also guilty of sloth because the actual understanding of the sin of sloth is failure to um to put your time and your energy and your um your attention into the things in life that matter. So to work nonstop at a job that pays minimum wage or less and um you know, neglect your family, neglect your relationships, your own well-being, your health, your livelihood, your joy, all of that is as slothful as never getting off the couch and you know, binging Netflix 24-7, right? So um, but it's also um like sloth is also the complete and utter apathy we see right now towards everything that we know is breaking down in our world, right? And and it it looks so conveniently simple as um I've served my time, right? Um yes, this this cause still needs you know people to fight for it, but I've done my time. Um or um I'm uh it I'm not capable of doing anything about this, so I'm going to choose to do nothing, right? Like it, we we tell ourselves so many, or it's happening south of the border, so it doesn't matter here, right? Or it's it's on the other side of the world, so it doesn't impact us here. That is the that is what makes it so strange and insidious, right? Is that it it doesn't come across as just sit on the couch. We have so many really great reasons why it's not our fight, it's not our cause, it's not our action, it's not our time, it's not our you know, our our thing. Um and in the middle of it all, everything continues to spiral, and we all keep saying the same thing to ourselves and each other. So for me, that would be that would be the one that I see the most right now. We know things are not as they ought to be. Um globally, in our communities, in our relationships, like wherever it is, we know things are not as they're supposed to be. Um we have a long list of reasons why it's not for us to fix it. Um and I say that painting with a broad brush, because there are plenty like Pam, you stand on the front lines of more fights than I know how you have time for. Um but uh but I'm painting with a very broad brush when I say that there are fewer and fewer people standing in the breach trying to prop these.

Ricardo: 1:11:03

It's also interesting where people stand in the breach and in defense of what, right? And well, who or what they're willing to sin for. Um and I often think about like people protesting um companies who treat or mistreat workers or indigenous communities in Latin America or like Amazon. Sorry, I shouldn't say the company, but his company. And like their their global their global reach now on I remember what Amazon was like a just a book company. Yeah, do you remember? And now they're just putting small businesses out of business like left, right, and center, right? And people are still like, oh, that's horrible.

Bill: 1:11:40

But before Amazon it was Walmart, before Walmart it was chapters, but like I mean, you the the arc is long and proud.

Ricardo: 1:11:47

So when when people are saying, like, uh, you know, these people are suffering and that people are suffering, and I think we do naturally have maybe it's just sympathy versus empathy, like you said. Um and there's a and I I always I always remember that that that quote that I saw where it's like we all in this room have more in common with the homeless person, the unhoused person on the street than we do with the billionaires. For sure. But if we have a roof over our head and we drive a car and we have food in our cupboards, we think we have more in common with the billionaire than the unhoused person. And and that in itself causes us to do some remarkable things to each other um and have disdain for that person who's living on the street rather than disdain for that billionaire that is treating his workers like garbage and and steamrolling across natural habitats and um polluting the environment. We we we don't turn a blessing. So I when I said earlier, like, you know, um the sin against each other, uh but at what cost to ourselves? Uh and in in what sense and in what world do we have to come to where survival mode is also not considered a sin, but it's considered like surviving, right? And how do we how how how do we overlook that?

Joanne: 1:13:00

Um well, and you said this, right? It's like because people are in a state of not, you know, of fear, they're not gonna go on and do a general strike because they're afraid they'll lose their job, right?

Bill: 1:13:14

Yeah. Um I think there's a difference between like when you talk about survival mode, you may need to clarify for me because um we know that there in the United Church of Canada especially, we know about systemic sin. We know about the idea that there are there are systems and there are structures in the world that actively work to put people in a place below you know their their God-given right to dignity and and compassion and humanity. And we know that the system works very hard to keep people there, which leads to a lot of people ending up with undercover police officers working, you know, hanging out with them, figuring out, you know, just how far and how deep it goes, um, and and then making some really terrible decisions that on one hand could be the Jean Valjeans of Les Miz, but also can be the the Nickies of the world as well, right? Um, and and and so like we get all so there's I think there's a difference between trying to survive in an unjust system. I don't think that's sinful.

Ricardo: 1:14:10

I think that's I think the most obvious example of sin that I can think of that people would consider sin is what's prevalent in today's society is theft. Um if everyone's been to a grocery store these days, there are bars and plexiglasses and gates for you to not be able to go into certain doors and all and they're spending millions and billions all in the name of keeping Black Forest ham safe, right? But let's call it what it is, right? If somebody steals an apple, and then people who can afford the groceries in the grocery store say to themselves, part of the reason why groceries have gone up in price is all this theft. But there's no economy of scale in people's heads where you know, if these grocery stores make billions and gazillions of dollars, theft is not the problem, right? Um, the or the biggest problem, I should say. Um, but we are quick to judge those people that steal. And and I'll give you an example of how I encounter it in my line of work. Um, you know, you have workers that are paid a wage that is unsurvivable. And I our Safeway campaign right now is that a lot of our workers in those stores can't afford to shop where they work. Uh, and sometimes they steal, and um, they steal to eat. And I came from a world or I came from an upbringing in Christianity where forgiveness is is important. And um, if somebody makes a mistake or somebody does all of a sudden, I live in a world now where stealing a chocolate bar is fatal to somebody's lifelong career. Uh, and grocery stores will fire employees for lifelong careers.

Joanne: 1:15:47

I'm scared now. I didn't want to watch by I've admitted.

Ricardo: 1:15:50

But yes, it's I just battled somebody who worked at the Safeway store for 37 years, popped three blueberries in their mouth, and they wanted to fire him. 37 years. Okay. And that's that's what I'm talking about, right? Um, when I'm saying, like, when do we start um showing mercy and and forgiveness for these sins and and start start understanding the root cause of why people do those things, right? Um, and you were right too, we're not born bad people, and they're the external factors, Dave, where you said that that influence who we are today, but some of those external factors are like more than just what we were taught by our parents, right? It's just the circumstance that we're in. And that's the thing what I mean by survival, right?

Joanne: 1:16:34

And um, I think that um like we always have to draw a distinction. They always say you can't legislate morality, which is really true. You can't. What I think the criminal justice system does and all these rules about that is enforce a social contract that we perceive that we have made with each other about how we behave in society, right? And everybody knows you can make laws that are unjust. You know, the whole civil rights movement was to overturn laws that were unjust, and they were enforced because that's the law, because the empire says this is the social contract and this is how we're all gonna get along. And what has happened is that because there has been a breakdown in the um, like when you have a contract, you get a benefit. And the benefits of the social contract have broken down for people who work all day long and no longer can support themselves. And as that, the social contract frays around the edges, and everyone knows, I think you can understand that the social contract is there to uh benefit the wealthy and the powerful, right? That's why we have social contracts. Um and um and what happens is the the wealthy and the powerful, then they then they talk about the moral hazard. Well, if you can steal, then the whole social contract's gonna break down, right? And so the difficulty of um our culture is if we have a social contract, it's broken down because the benefits have not accrued to the entire population. Um, we need a new social contract, and that would include uh this understanding that there shouldn't be billionaires. That's way too much money to accumulate in one person's uh purse, that we need to talk about justice that has includes empathy, that doesn't mean accountability is not there. Forgiveness does not mean a person is not accountable for how they've hurt someone, but instead of you broke the rules, um, the way it in sin to me, instead of saying you you sinned. Like we used to have these sin identities, you're a murderer, you're an alcoholic, you're uh uh adulterer, whatever, and that defined you. And we moved outside that and say, okay, let's look at context here. Like, why did this happen? Like you were saying, Dave, something has happened in their lives to lead them down this path where now they're selling drugs or you know, um sitting in an interview room, yeah, across from a police officer, all those things. So we got to think about um like sort of the banality of evil. It's very easy to let things go around the edges. And Hannah Aaron said the only thing that can be truly radical is good, because that's the only thing that contains anything worth worthwhile. Um, we need a new social contract because the one that we had that was created around the idea of capitalism and the moral actors, and there is enough for everyone, is gone. And when we do that, then we can say it is in instead of saying he stole three blueberries, we can say it is unjust that he works all day and does not have enough to feed his family. That's the that's the shift that we as a culture need to do. The sin in our culture, the systemic sin, is that we have created a space where uh the rules define how people are treated instead of the uh justice of the situation.

Pam: 1:20:08

To to go back to billionaires shouldn't exist, um, which is so true. I it's wild to me now, like thinking about you know, we have lists of billionaires and they've been on the cover of time, and everyone's like, oh my gosh, look at all what they have, right? Like it's with how the world is and with how many people are suffering, just because they can't, you know, children. Let's just say just how many children are are suffering who literally have done nothing wrong but but exist. And there's actually enough in the world for everybody to be okay. I don't understand why billionaires aren't like like the top 10 criminals. Right. And I mean, I love Oprah as much as much as the next person. Um but you can't acquire that wealth without people suffering. You can't acquire, like, there's no fair way for that to happen. And and so we were talking actually about you know before the show, like there's no such thing as an ethical billionaire. Like you cannot accumulate and sit on that amount of wealth ethically, and and yet there's still some sort of like allowance for that, like we're we're allowing it to happen. Exactly. We're we actually celebrate it. We think, you know, we we still want the possibility that we could be there in that position one day. And I remember thinking I like I I was at the zoo and watching gorillas is fascinating. They have the a whole social hierarchy that's very interesting. And because they share a lot of human traits, like you know, there's something that that feels familiar about watching them. And I remember watching uh, you know, sort of the patriarch of this, you know, one group of gorillas. Uh there was this big pile of food that was set out, and there's, you know, he's the biggest one, right? And there's all these small ones kind of, you know, walking around trying to like get a little piece of lettuce, a little piece of cabbage, you know, a potato, right? And he'd literally go over and like smack it out of their hand and be like, wait, remember, like I am number one. There'd be like little babies going over, and I was sitting there, oh my gosh, I can't believe this, right? Like this is so mean, right? And and yet we allow the same exact thing to happen. So if if we saw, you know, in a if we had, you know, if we could watch just in real time what's happening in the world, and there was 10 people, you know, and we're watching, and one of them has like all of the food, you know, the next one has like enough for like a little while. And then as you go down, most of them like barely have enough. And if we watch that for one day, we would say, like, this is this is ridiculous. These people are gonna die. This is not right. But that's exactly what's happening in our society, and so this, you know, I was thinking whenever we think about sin, uh, you know, for me, it conjures up the concept and the mythology of hell, which also we got a lot of our information on what hell is from Dante. Um, like we are making hell or heaven on earth every day for people. And so, you know, I think we have to really consider, like you said, Joanne, like the social contract uh is is broken, the system is broken. And so, how can we, in our own little ways, one by one, be a part of you know, making sure that this is not the society that we glorify? Um, because heaven forbid, like, you know, that everyone be fed and that somebody just does it has a one less zero in their account.

Bill: 1:24:17

So um making making heaven or hell on earth every day. Um I'm gonna segue because I have one question that I do want to make sure we cover before we end tonight. But I'm gonna actually start by saying that uh um I feel like that might actually be a great time for you to tell the story about where your mantra came from. Um because uh the idea of leaving people better than you found them uh would be exactly how it is that you create heaven on earth every day.

Dave: 1:24:48

For the person that you hopefully you leave better, right? Yeah. And for yourself too. Absolutely.

Bill: 1:24:54

Yeah, yeah. Um it's a it works as a segue, yeah. Yeah, it does work. That was brilliant.

Dave: 1:25:03

Um yeah, so my story actually was one of my very early, I guess, teachings as a young whippersnapper of a police officer. I was uh working with a very senior officer. He was policing before the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. So many of them were back in the uh late 90s because the charter hadn't been out for more than about 10 years, which is relatively new legislation. And um, so anyways, uh we were working together and we'd gone to a a um a housebreak and enter. And back then, being 24 and wanting to catch bad guys all day long, um, going to a housebreak and enter to to basically do the paperwork uh isn't that exciting, but uh that's one of the things that you have to do. And so on that particular night, uh my partner and I go and we when we get there, we meet with an elderly woman. She had just recently lost her husband. Um, she was living on her own, and some creep had come into her home for greed or whatever it would be, uh, and uh uh went through her underwear drawer and did a bunch of things just to make her feel just very, very uncomfortable in her space. Yeah. And so regardless, because I'm the new guy and there was a hierarchy like the gorillas, um can't get away from it.

Pam: 1:26:33

I was I was I was gonna go.

Dave: 1:26:35

I was I was gonna get uh I was got swatted to do everything in the house that night uh while he sat and visited with her. And uh so I did what I was supposed to do. I went through the home, I found found my point of entry, my point of exit, made sure I, you know, called for the crime scenes to come over and do some fingerprinting, uh, went out and spoke to the neighbors, see if anybody saw something suspicious. And uh it was during this period of time I was getting everything gathered up from my report uh when I hear over the radio that um a teammate of mine was in behind a stolen car. Well, back in the 1990s, if you got in behind a stolen car and you turn on your lights, there was going to be a police pursuit. Now that's way more fun for a 24-year-old. Yeah, right. And so I remember hearing Chevy and Paula's. Yeah, crowned victorious.

Ricardo: 1:27:29

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dave: 1:27:31

So yeah, so I'm listening to my teammate call in this stolen vehicle, and I'm and I uh so I kind of go racing back into the house and I say to my partner at the time, I said, um, I don't know if you heard, but you know, you know, you know, 1330, whatever, was falling behind a stolen vehicle, and we should go. And he kind of shushed me, right? As he continued to talk to the the uh the lady inside the home. And he was asking her all these ridiculous questions like, uh, who's that on, who's that a picture of on the mantle of her fireplace? Uh and she would say, Oh, it was my granddaughter, or that was my grandson, or what have you. Well, I'm very, very impatient and I want to get going. And if I get into the police car, we can still join the what's going to be a police chase. So I leave. I leave the uh the house. I get into the police car and I'm sitting in the passenger seat because I wasn't allowed to drive. And um and I got the radio cranked up and I'm waiting for my partner, and uh I hear exactly what happens. The units behind this stolen vehicle, turn on the lights, siren, police chase, car crash, bad guy out, run, foot chase, best call of the night, and I missed the whole thing. Anyways, uh a few minutes after this all transpires, my partner finally comes out of the house, gets into the car uh with his little square glasses that he would wear on the tip of his nose. He dropped it down and he says, You need to understand something. And he was very, very curt in the way he spoke to me. Uh, if you and I are gonna work together, we're going to venture to do one thing. And I said, What's that? He goes, We are going to always leave people in a better place than we found them. You missed the whole entire concept of speaking to this lady for as long as I did. She had just gone through a very, very traumatic incident. I spent many minutes uh speaking to her about her family, reminding her about her family, um, how fortunate she was to have a family. And all of those things. When we left today, she was thinking more about her family and the love and support that she had from them than she was ever going to be about some creep that had been into the house. And from that point forward, it was something that kind of stuck, and it was a big mantra that I kind of carried through in my career. So whenever I had an opportunity, I always tried to do something. And we can do that every day. You know, before you leave for work in the morning. And you know, you make sure you kiss your wife on the cheek, or um you that's leaving her in a bit of a better place than you found her, right? You acknowledge your children and their day at school and you spend a little bit of time talking to them about stuff that probably bores you, but it makes them feel a little bit better. It's leaving them in a better place. And I think if we kind of all try to do that, it doesn't take too much to be that way. And uh another officer much later on said, you know, it doesn't take much to be a little bit better than average, and they weren't wrong about that either. So and uh bit better than average is really just doing something to leave somebody in a better place. So yeah, that's that's the story around that.

Joanne: 1:30:48

And that is uh how you I was gonna say that's very Christian of you.

Dave: 1:30:55

It's very good of me for sure.

Bill: 1:31:00

So last question of the night before we go to closing comments, uh, because I do believe that uh as much as the language of sin and everything from Augustine, even even some of how we we we pivoted the language of hell and the descriptions of hell from Dante has been horribly misused. But we have also talked about the idea that like forgiveness does not mean no accountability. We uh sin, I think at its core is meant to inform us on the reality that how we carry each other matters, or how we how we don't carry each other matters for ourselves, for each other, for our world, right? So, how do we reframe all of this in a way that doesn't throw away the reality that we are in relationship with one another, and how we choose to uh be intentional in those relationships matters without the um the shameless misuse, the control, the fear, the guilt, the shame? How do we, I'm not, I'm not gonna say even um reclaim sin because that may not actually be what the exercise is, but there is also such a thing as throwing out the baby with the bathwater, I believe is the idiom, right? So um, how do we um keep what is important for our mutual growth and thriving and care and compassion and humanity um and let the rest of it go with integrity as well? That is the question to whoever would like to.

Pam: 1:32:31

The first thing I think of is wherever we're at, like we can always use more stories from different perspectives and experience in our lives. This is something we can control. So I'm a huge podcast nerd, so I have to put Dave's podcast on my on my feed.

Bill: 1:32:53

I've loved every episode so far, it's been really good.

Pam: 1:32:56

I said Dave fascinates me. I'm just looking at him. I'm like, who is this former cop? This is so interesting. But um, but I I listen to a lot of podcasts, and and something that that it does for me is it reminds me of all of the different ways that humans are experiencing and going through life. Um there's uh there's a one by Alan Alda, if anyone remembers Alan Alda from MASH, and it's called Clear and Vivid, and it it's all about empathy building, and it's phenomenal. And I just try to always put different stories from different people, even people I completely disagree with, in my head to remind me that I'm not the center of the universe, that other people are experiencing things that maybe are similar to me. Um, other people are experiencing things that I have no idea how they're making it through. And I think that that has really helped me remember like empathy is a muscle. It's something that we can lose if we don't use it, it's something that we can strengthen if we use it. And no matter how much money we have, we can always grow it. No matter what we're lacking, like we can always grow it. And so, like to me, and one of the antidotes to what we're talking about is like making sure that we understand that we're not the only person, we're not the only experience. Um, not only for ourselves to remind ourselves that we're not alone, but to remind ourselves like I might actually need to care about this thing that I don't think has anything to do with me. But now that I've heard another human and and how they're experiencing it, wow, I think I have to care about this now. And so I follow people on social media who are gonna remind me of how to live out empathy because I usually don't want to, you know. Um none of us are altruistic about it. So I try to just put in my daily life people and uh stories that are going to hopefully help me be grounded in humanizing everybody around me.

Dave: 1:35:40

Uh when I think of um forgiving, like I I like I'd like to go to that concept of the forgiveness. I think about a woman, a mother, whose daughter was standing outside of a nightclub one night, um many years ago now, and um she was out there in the at the end of the night, uh the bars were closing, and um someone that was very careless with a handgun was shooting it off into the the air and then pointed the gun into a crowd of 30 people and uh one of the um bullets uh ripped through the air and caught her perfectly in the chest, and she she dropped dead right there. It was a completely like unnecessary thing to have happened. Um, she wasn't bitter about it. She actually she goes back to her her faith, actually, and and believed that her daughter's um murder was fated. Um and so this maybe helped her a little bit, but by giving forgiveness to the young man, she put him on a path to be able to um accept that and apologize for his actions, right? And I and I I very seldom do you sit in a courtroom and and watch uh an accused person actually speak from their heart, but uh he wouldn't have had the um ability to do that or uh if she hadn't have put him on that path through from for with her forgiveness. And I think it's just a very, very powerful reminder how important it is that we we do do that because I think it does put people on a path where they can exit a situation with some level of grace if we can use forgiveness as a way to do that. So that would be just my two cents.

Joanne: 1:37:39

That reminds me of the uh movie story um dead men walking, you know, where the nun walked with this murderer, and it was like you care more about him than us. And the last thing she did before he died was say, you need to, you need to be accountable for what you did, you know, because he was always making excuses. Um and you need to recognize that you did, you know, you murdered and you did wrong. Um, and I think that's where when I think about sin from a religious or theological point of view, we forget about the sanctification part, right? So it's only good that we got rid of sin identities in the sense of you know, you are a murderer, and that's the only thing that defines you. Because I always say I would hate to be defined by the worst day of my life or the rest of my life, right? So sin identities, everybody is beloved, and we do things that are out of sync with how God wants us to live. You know, like I say, the blueprint that God has for us. That's where sin happens. We miss the mark, you know, uh the Greek word, that's what that means. Sin means. We miss the mark. We don't do what we know is best for us. What God has put in our hearts, they say, the laws in your heart. You know, we know as human beings what good is and what bad is or evil. We know it and we ignore it and we end up straying off the path and sinning, right? Um, it doesn't do us any benefit as a progressive church or liberal church to just always concentrate on systemic sin, how the empire, you know, rules us, how the social contract has broken down, as much as I advocate that kind of talking all the time. Because we as human beings miss the mark. We treat each other in ways that we shouldn't. We get angry when we know it's not justified, you know, we uh dismiss our children when we should be uh paying attention to them. We have always in our lives things where we know we've missed the mark. And so the concept of sanctification, first of all, confession is a good thing to come clean, right? To just say, I messed up, I'm sorry. Confession is an important thing. It's not a Catholic thing, it's just a human thing.

Ricardo: 1:40:01

Oh, just what is forgive me, Father, for I'm sorry.

Joanne: 1:40:06

I my brother-in-law calls me father sometimes just because I'm a minister. But um but this idea that sanctification is always this sense of you can be better. And your life is a journey towards becoming better and missing the mark less and being on the path in a way that is uh closer to the blueprint that God has for humanity. And if we all took seriously our own need for sanctification, for being better people, our world would be better too, you know. So I think it starts uh with us as individuals not beating ourselves up anymore because someone told us we'd sinned, but at least recognizing we are human and we can do better. And our journey as humanity is to come to a place where, you know, in in the words of our faith, as we become more Christ-like as we move through our lives, that's how we uh combat the idea of sin overtaking us and the world.

Ricardo: 1:41:15

I I will say that um what I've I think I've said throughout this episode is that sin is um uh sometimes a reaction to a circumstance that that is brought upon us and how we react to that. But you know, um how how we treat ourselves is just as important as how we treat each other. And and this and and the concept of sin. Um, I mean, if if I grew up knowing and thinking that sin was evil, um then what Pam alluded to was the fact that like the good that you've done, but at what cost is that not sin as well, right? Or what you've earned in your life at what cost is that not sin as well? Even though the billionaires in the world's hands are clean, they're still stained with blood in some in so many ways, right? So I I always think like what you know, this episode made me think of Tommy Douglas when he said, like, you know, we're all in this world together, and the only test of our character that matters is how we look after the least fortunate among us. And how we look after the how we look after each other and not how we look after ourselves. That's what really matters, I think. And I'll add one word into that quote, Mr. Douglas, and it's not how we treat each other and not just how we treat ourselves, because it's just as important to be able to treat ourselves well and and take care of our mental health and and all these things and and not act, because you're absolutely right, Joanne. We as human beings, we we we get angry before we we we think we speak before we think in many in many different ways. We act before we think, and it's a natural reaction to whatever stressors exist in our world. And um I think that we in the Christian tradition were taught that those natural reactions that we have to that have negative consequences or or results um were a bad thing rather than us looking at each other and saying, like, how can we build upon it, learn and grow and um and and do better? And uh on the break, uh Dave, you were saying like uh some of the tr traumatic things that happen to police officers and some of the things they see in the course of their careers are always addressed in a negative light. But you know, there is a possibility for us to learn from these examples of things and grow and be better people ourselves and as a humanity. Like um, I often think of like my brother works in the force as well right now, too, and he probably works in one of the most complicated areas. I don't forget what it's called, but um, I always think to him, like, how do you not bring all that stuff home with you, right? Um, maybe he does, I don't know. Maybe he's just really nice at Thanksgiving and right. But uh He's undercover. Yeah, yeah, right, right, right. Um, and I think that's curing curing the root the root cause of what we perceive as sin um will all boil down to curing the root cause of how we treat each other and how we treat ourselves um in the long in the long run, I think. So um that's really what I have to say.

Bill: 1:44:12

Well, sounds like a good place, as any to kind of wind it up. So uh just to to kind of pull it all together. First off, um my thanks to Ricardo and Joanne as always uh for tonight, but uh special thanks to both Dave and Pam for being here. This has been a fantastic evening of conversation. And to everybody in our live audience that is here tonight, thanks for being here and uh and being a part of this, and to everybody that is uh listening online as well. Thanks uh for continuing to listen. And uh you can certainly check us out on our website, uh, Patreon, anywhere you get your podcasts. Uh like, subscribe, definitely check out uh Skeletons in my closet and uh Dauntless by David Sweet. He has co-writers as well whose names I'm gonna forget right now, but that's okay. Um, and the Ride Along podcast, uh, I'm almost done it, so uh definitely uh check that out as well. Uh just uh remember that we can be better, uh, but that is not because we are broken. It is because we are human. Uh so whoever you are.

Joanne: 1:45:18

What's the pink says we're not broken, just bent, and we can learn to love again?

Bill: 1:45:24

Absolutely. Fair enough. Uh but um perhaps uh perhaps the way we do that is uh by by finding a way to leave people in a better place than we found them. And maybe in so doing we will also find a way to leave ourselves in a better place than we found ourselves as well. So uh there is a story in the Gospels that ends with uh then uh then go and do not sin again. And uh maybe that's how we leave it tonight. Uh go out and uh and if you're gonna sin, uh just know that God loves you in the midst of it all, and uh you are not defined by your failures. You are defined and held always in grace. So thank you and good night. And that's where we're gonna leave it for tonight, folks. Thanks for being part of the conversation and for diving in with open minds and open hearts. If something you heard tonight stirred a question, stay with it. Keep wrestling, keep wondering, and keep talking about it with the people around you because that's where change begins. You can catch past episodes and bonus reflections at preparedrown.com or join us on Patreon to help keep these conversations going. And wherever you listen to podcasts, make sure you hit subscribe so you don't miss what's next. I'm Bill Weaver, and this has been Prepared to Drown. Until next time, stay curious, stay kind, and keep showing up for one another with all the messy, beautiful humanity you can muster.