Episode 15 - The Long Thaw

A cold December night, a live audience in a church basement, and a question that won’t leave us alone: why do Christmas redemption stories still hit home when the world feels stuck? We open with the “villains” of our childhood—Scrooge, the Grinch, Frosty’s rival, the Abominable Snowman—and uncover what lingered: not just neat endings, but the stubborn truth that joy finds a way and community calls us back.

From there we press deeper. Is redemption a flip of a switch or the long work of transformation? We wrestle with Dickens’ overnight arc, the pressure of perfect holidays, and how grief and absence reshape tradition. Our guests—an artist, a playwright-chaplain, and returning regulars—trace a path from performative change to lived formation: amends, accountability, and daily habits that restore us to each other. Along the way, we name the forces fighting against that work: algorithms that reward outrage, culture wars that distract from real needs, and the temptation to outsource care to systems while our neighborhoods grow quiet.

What emerges is a simple, demanding practice: choose tables over threads. One coffee instead of ten comments. Real communities—churches, arts circles, running clubs—become places to be known, challenged, and carried. We connect classic Christmas scenes to present choices: Rudolph and Herbie finding belonging, the Grinch hearing singing in the square, Scrooge stepping back into the business of humanity. And we end by gathering signs of hope in a hard year—artists hungry for meaningful stories, families holding each other through illness, neighbors rediscovering steady volunteerism beyond December.

If these themes resonate, join us. Subscribe, share this episode with a friend who loves Dickens or dreads perfect Christmases, and leave a review to help others find the show. Then schedule one real conversation this week. Grace meets us in person, and change follows close behind.

Check us out at www.preparedtodrown.com

Continue the conversation over at our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/PreparedtoDrown

Chapters

• 0:00 Setting The Theme: Christmas Redemption
• 1:09 First Christmas Villains We Remember
• 5:18 Grinch, Frosty, Rudolph And Meaning
• 10:01 Why These Stories Endure Now
• 18:57 Perfection Pressure And Grief At Christmas
• 27:06 From Hallmark Myths To Real Loss
• 33:41 Community, Purpose, And Misfit Toys
• 40:19 Dickens, Tradition, And Culture’s Shift
• 47:05 Intermission And Reframing Redemption
• 48:45 Redemption Versus Transformation
• 54:30 Personal Change And Communal Call
• 1:01:40 Systems, Individualism, And Accountability
• 1:09:05 Culture Wars And Distraction Tactics
• 1:17:00 Algorithms, Outrage, And Context
• 1:23:31 Bringing It Back To One-On-Ones
• 1:30:24 Real-Life Community Over Screens
• 1:38:15 Closing: Signs Of Redemption In 2025
• 1:56:40 Blessing, Hope, And Farewell

Transcript

Bill: 0:05

Hello again. We're gathered on a cold December evening in the basement of McDougall United Church, and we are turning on the microphones to talk about Christmas redemption stories. These are the kind of stories that take shape over time. Christmas always invites us back into familiar narratives. As we revisit these stories now, they open space for deeper reflection about how people change, how grace works, and how redemption unfolds. This conversation, as always, is recorded live in front of a real audience with real laughter and real pauses and the rhythms of people thinking together in real time. We gather to explore faith and memory and the possibility of transformation as it takes shape in ordinary lives. Tonight, we're stepping into the deep end of Christmas stories with redemption and grace, trusting that something meaningful waits beneath the surface. I'm Bill Weaver, and this is Prepared to Drown. And we are here in the basement of McDougall United Church on a chilly December evening talking about redemption stories in the season of Christmas. And before I even introduce the panel, I am going to start by asking the panel a question, and it can go to anybody first to jump in with their answer. I want to begin tonight with as far back as you can remember your childhood, teenage years, however far back you can remember. Who is the first Christmas villain that you remember encountering when you were growing up? The character who was not the hero, not the protagonist. Who is the first villain that you remember encountering in the Christmas season?

Val: 1:32

This is not real life. You're talking about I'm thinking more narrative, yeah.

Ricardo: 1:38

So throughout our entire lives, whenever we were bad, my mother would always say the devil is dancing on your head. That was especially prevalent when we were writing letters to Santa. So my first Christmas villain was always Satan. Satan?

Bill: 1:52

All right.

Ricardo: 1:53

You know, go for the gold. Why not the best one of all? Krampus, the Grinch. No, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, no. If you are bad in any way, shape, or form, it is Satan who will deal with you.

Val: 2:02

So there's that Catholic guilt, eh? Top that dancing Satan. Yeah. Dancing Satan. I uh, of course, I'm old. And so the original Grinch, the cartoon that came on every single Christmas, I think it was the early 60s it was made, and I was like born in 1962. So that was that was the one for me with the jazz underscore. Was it the Vince Giraldi or something? Yeah. Um, so that's my first Christmas villain. I'm having an image as we're having this conversation about a very old cartoon of Frosty the Snowman. Oh, yes, that's right. So the villain would have been the sun when it melted him. So I don't know if there's a metaphor in there of the sun. I don't know.

Bill: 2:57

There is another villain in the cartoon, though, the wizard that wants to steal his hat, right? Yeah, there's the wizard. You're gonna have to watch that again, Val. Yeah.

Val: 3:06

The wiz wizard.

Bill: 3:07

There's a wizard or some guy that actually tries to steal. He's the one who locks Frosty in the greenhouse to melt him.

Val: 3:14

Oh yeah, I'm gonna have to remember that. Well, that's a different one than I used to watch when we were young. But I thought there was like a you know mustachio. Oh, really? That's a great story. That's right. I must have been playing on my phone or something with Snell.

Bill: 3:32

Okay.

Aaron: 3:35

The villain I remember was the abominable snowman in Rudolph the Rednose. Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, which would often be completely mixed up with the um abominable creature in the Empire Strikes Back, uh both having very similar like living in an ice cave.

Speaker 10: 3:53

I'm not sure I've ever had that mix up before.

Aaron: 4:03

Maybe when you saw the Empire Strikes Back one, like you superimpose that onto the Rudolph the Red Nose, that cartoon does sort of get an added flow layer of like whoa, like whoa. And uh so um but uh yeah, I that's that's for me, I think is the earliest I can I can think of. Yeah. Yeah.

Val: 4:24

What were they called? What were those Star Wars?

Aaron: 4:29

Well, the the little the the little creatures they're riding on were called, I think, Tauntauns.

Val: 4:34

Oh, Tauntauns. Yes, because remember that can he had to like cut one open and it died and he would live I know a little while he stayed warm, but yeah, yep, yep. Like okay, this is a deep cut here.

Speaker 3: 4:46

This is a very strange tent, very good.

Ricardo: 4:49

I will say that to not put up all the negative emphasis of Christmas my mother. My actual like TV villain would have been Scrooge. Yeah, yeah. The cartoon Mickey Mouse. Mickey's Christmas Carolina. The fat guy, I was especially heartbroken when like he's like cutting a pea in half and like feeding that to his little tiny Tim with the crabs of the Scrooge.

Val: 5:08

Give him some cool man. Anything's better than half a pea.

Speaker 3: 5:14

Definitely Scrooge, yeah, definitely Scrooge.

Bill: 5:16

Well, and so I remember I think the first one that I really encountered that was a villain, because I I wonder about the abominable snowman because they just pull out all of his teeth, right? That's how they they deal with him in the Rudolph Red-Nosed Reindeer. Yes. He's an aspire uh the elf has an aspiring dentist, right? Yes.

Speaker: 5:31

It's coming back. It's all coming back.

Bill: 5:33

It's all coming screaming back to me, yeah. But uh but there was another similar movie that was put out at the same time, Santa Claus is coming to town. Yes, right. It was another claymation kind of and there were two villains or seemed to be villains in the movie. One was uh Burgermeister Meisterberger, um, who was the mayor of the town and wanted to like eradicate all toys and stop St. Nicholas. But it was uh it was the winter warlock for me, actually, that uh um that was uh again that uh St. Nick or or Nicholas had to um uh kind of kind of contend with. And and he he was actually redeemed through the process of learning how to um like appreciate the spirit. Christmas and learning how to walk, um and and uh and and learning how to like the there's an earworm song uh in the show that drives me crazy every time I hear it, and I'm not gonna sing it because that will be stuck in my head all day. Um but uh about put one foot in front of the other. And the whole kind of redemption song for him is learning how to um like just do one thing at a time and put one foot in front of the other and move just a little bit more towards goodness and all that kind of stuff. And uh and uh you know, the this villain ends up not actually being the true villain of the story, but uh um yeah. So uh we are here tonight talking about uh what keeps drawing us back to stories of villains and redemption arcs and redemption stories in the season of Christmas. Um, because these stories return with kind of a new um energy every December. They show up quietly, they're wrapped in familiarity, we can remember them from our childhood. We tie them into Star Wars apparently sometimes. Um but uh they they awaken something in us, I think, as people in general, as does the Christmas story itself. Um and I'm wondering what they might reveal for us now, especially in the world that we live in, and all of the uncertainty and the turmoil that we seem to be dealing with on a daily basis, um, about things like uh grace and accountability and fragile hope for peace on earth and goodwill for all, in a in a time and place when it feels like our world is becoming more and more frozen by discord and division and and sadness. So luckily for me, I don't have to do this alone because it would be a really boring podcast if that was the case. Uh we have, as always, uh Ricardo and Joanne joining us and uh and they are regulars on the podcast. Also grateful to have Valdeschi, who is a playwright and artistic director of Fire Exit Theater and chaplain to the arts community with a lifelong attentiveness to how stories shape moral imagination. So thank you very much for being here tonight. Well, thanks for inviting me. And uh returning for the second time uh is uh Aaron Navretti, who's an artist and creator of The Cold Fire, which he has now finished in theory. Uh uh but whose work also explores faith and violence and fire and transformation through visual storytelling. Um, really excited to have you here as well. It was uh uh uh an exciting time when you were here the last time, so I'm looking forward to you doing it all over again. Great to be back. Uh so I want to stay with the opening question for a minute. The the first Christmas villain you remember, what stayed with you about their story? So, what do you remember? Why do you remember them? What stayed with you about their story?

Ricardo: 8:38

I'm so happy I strayed away from saying really I am because what stayed with me. I think um the like the goat, the three ghosts that visit Scrooge, and and he he has that whole like um flashback and look forward on his life and stuff like that. And um, I think that uh he the the the lesson that like all the money you can have in the world means nothing if you have no um companionship and and charity and uh camaraderie and friendship and love in your life. You can have all the money in the world and you'll still be a miserable fool. And it wasn't until he started helping people and giving back to the community that he found uh true happiness uh in I guess the Christmas story, but I think in general, I would hope to I would hope it wasn't just a one-day thing, but yeah, that's what I liked about that story. It was our it was a reflect like the ghost or it was a reflection on his own life and the the life ahead if he carried on what he was doing. So I like that part about it.

Val: 9:40

Um the Grinch story, uh the thing that sticks with me is well, Cindy Lou Who, of course. Um but the the episode, you know, where even though all the Christmas stuff was taken away and all the presents, he had everything he'd stolen Christmas, he thought Christmas came all the same. And there they were in the square singing, Yahoo Dor. You know, it was just uh so that idea of no matter what you do, Christmas will still come. You know, like it's not dependent on all the trappings that we've put around it, it's dependent on the spirit of Christmas. So and then as his heart grew three sizes that day, you know, and on the cartoon, the heart just you know, inside of him actually expands. But encountering that is what made the change. Yeah, I had not really thought about that. Uh the idea that all of all of the Christmas stories are Christmas came anyway. Is the is the end, it just it there's never like a Christmas story where it's like, yeah, and then Christmas didn't really happen that year or it really sucked that year, and so they canceled to the next like no matter how horrible the villain was or the tragedy or the Christmas came anyway, and it it yeah, it it it's it can't be stopped, actually, right? That uh obviously has um maybe spiritual people to say, uh like Jesus is coming anyway. I would say, baby, Jesus is coming, whether we're ready or not, or whether I have my shopping done, or who I'm fighting with, or whether I really yeah, Jesus, Jesus is coming, yeah, no matter what. Yeah. You know what's interesting about that? That's a that is a like hallmark moment in a way. Because I know people, especially people who've lost someone, where Christmas doesn't come that year. They choose not to celebrate. They go out for Indian food and not make the meal. They avoid anything that reminds them of their loved one. And more than one person in my life. And now it's I talked to someone just recently who said, Yeah, the first year we just ordered Indian food, and then the kids said we like that, so that's what we do every year now. Do you know? Like all those trappings and stuff are also very connected to people we love, like in real life. In movies, you know, you have to like obviously every Hallmark romance is exactly the same, and yet every year everyone watches them. So there's something about that story. People want Christmas to come. People want Christmas to come anyway, but in real life, sometimes it's too hard.

Aaron: 12:18

Yes. Um well, and that's like there's there's so much uh potency in that in the day and the week, and like you just get Christmas music shoved down your throat at every turn. Um and that's yeah, for some people it's the act of it seems like the act of uh I don't know, grace or redemption, or or even just uh making the time belong to them is of yeah, is of getting away from it. And or maybe just going up onto Nose Hill where it's quiet, or finding a quiet spot some anywhere. Um or yeah. Um which speaks again, it's it says how potent the time is, and yet also um maybe yeah, maybe it is you know too much for some for some folks. Like some of the memories are too hard, or the people they're missing is too much. Um because it was so it was so rich when they were there. Um well, on my end, besides uh the uh scene where uh Luke wakes up and he magically pulls a lightsaber to himself, cuts himself free, and then chops off the arm of the abominable snowman before later getting lost in the wilds of uh the planet Hoth and then being discovered by his friend Han Solo and put into the belly of the Tauntaun. Um those were epic moments. But were they Christmas moments?

Val: 14:01

It's the best stories. It doesn't matter. Is diehard a Christmas movie? It is a Christmas movie, we don't know. It's a Christmas mystery.

Aaron: 14:09

Um like those, I mean, those images are burned in my mind. But I guess when I think back to Rudolph, the red-nosed reindeer too, which is uh something I I actually have not seen in quite a long time. Um and also remembering Burl Ives' character as as the snowman, uh that too being very memorable. Uh the one the piece that does stick out for me was that elf that you're talking about. That reminds me of him. He had he didn't really have a place uh in his community of elves amongst Santos, so he had gone off with Rudolph. They were sort of split from the community and and uh having some uh formative adventures. Um but he discovers his his love of dentistry through the abominable snowman and discovers purpose and um the thing that he's into. He discovers his thing, and maybe it's not uh making toys, it's it's actual dentistry, which is an incredibly important gift in our world.

Bill: 15:07

Um you can't see it on the audio recording, but Val is like living this for the first time right here at the table right now.

Speaker 3: 15:16

How did I miss all that?

Bill: 15:19

Herbie does not like to make toys. Herbie the elephant does not like to make toys. Herbie, you know the name? Absolutely. But again, um my kids are not that that old. Oh, that's it. It's been fairly recent.

Val: 15:31

You have young enough and you probably you know participate in raising them as opposed to when I was young. It's like here's a VHS, watch that.

Bill: 15:40

Yeah. Um it's not actually that uh that much more romanticized now. It's just here's a DVD, let's watch it together.

Val: 15:47

So um but it's that together thing that's different.

Bill: 15:51

Um but yeah, I mean the the I the idea that uh Herbie doesn't like to make toys, wants to be a dentist, that is not okay for elves. Um and uh and so uh between between him and Rudolph, yeah, they're they're uh ostracized from the community and off they go. And Yukon Cornelius.

Aaron: 16:07

Yukon Cornelius, him too. Yeah. Yeah.

Bill: 16:09

So uh takes them to the island of misfit toys.

Val: 16:12

Is that gonna be our advent project next year?

Bill: 16:15

Oh.

Val: 16:17

Um that's the redemption story. Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer. People will really lose their minds.

Aaron: 16:22

Well, just why not just a full season of like full Christmas of Cornelius of Yukon Cornelius. Yukon Cornelius, yeah, absolutely.

Bill: 16:29

So so I get my question because these these stories still exist today, right? And again, um Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer plays every year, right? Santa Claus is coming to town, plays every year. Um we have a whole branch now of you know kind of holiday television that is like a Hallmark channel, it's a wonderful kind of stuff. It's a wonderful life. Yeah, that's my favorite. Every version of a Christmas carol that you can imagine will play every year, right? These stories have endured uh for generations. Um and and we still will see them, they they've been on already. They're they're on already, they're on they're on primetime right now. You can you can watch them, you can stream them, you can rent them if you need to. YouTube. Um YouTube, absolutely. Um but uh what do these stories still offer for us today, right? Uh what uh in a in a moment when change is feeling difficult to trust in our world, um, these are constants that seem to endure time. And I think there's a reason for that. I think there's a reason why we can still look to Rudolph and and Herbie or Um Frosty or The Grinch and Cindy Louhu and Max the Dog as well. Let's not forget about Max, right? Um like there's there's a reason that these stories endure, um, and there's a reason that we we tell them and act them out and do plays about them in church and and all this kind of stuff that uh that that speaks to us in a different way in the holiday season than throughout the year.

Val: 17:53

Is the question why? Why? Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, it's I I when I was thinking about this podcast, I'm thinking I we're always in need of redemption. Like I don't there's not one month out of the year that I'm like, oh, I need more redemption. No, I need it all the time. But there's something about this holiday than any other holiday that uh the idea of perfection is always put in front of us. The perfect family that's gonna go on the perfect Christmas card. We're gonna buy the perfect gifts, um, we're gonna make the perfect turkey. Um and at some point we've probably all tried to live up to that, and then the realization uh of oh crap, uh, I don't have the perfect marriage or perfect kids, and we're they're not all, they don't want to be on the Christmas card, and I don't actually like half my family, so it's gonna be an awkward Christmas. And so it bec that just becomes so much more present at this time of year. I can ignore that for most of the year. Um, but there's something, it's on in Instagram and on every the perfect picture is the perfect everything. And for me, it it reflects back on me of oh, I need to be redeemed. My family needs to still be redeemed. Um yeah, I that's why I think we're just drawn to that more at this time of year. Not that we need it more, I just think we're exposed to the other thing more often. The fear of what we aspire to be, maybe. And we just see over and over again how we I it's we can't. I yeah, we have very imperfect, ugly Christmases of uh it's interesting, Joanne. When you were talking about, yeah, people that just they want Indian food now. Of I think um the first year that after my father died, you know, we all sit around the table and we're like, who uh who's sitting at the head of the table? Now that's weird. Okay. And then like two years later, my first brother died, and we're like, who's bringing the ginger ale? Because that's what he brought. And then pretty soon Christmas now, you know, 20 years later looks so much different that now I've had another brother that's died, and um now we don't all gather, and now my siblings have kids who have kids, and so and a 97-year-old mom, and who's gonna it's super complicated, and yeah, so we all want to lose ourselves in the what if. What if? What if we could be redeemed? What if it could be joyful in the end that Christmas is gonna come after all? And it's we are, and Tiny Tim will be, and someone's gonna show up with the turkey. And look, I just bought like a 10-pound turkey, it was $42. Yep. Right? I can't afford that. No, right? Yeah. But we're longing at this time of year, maybe more than ever to be redeemed in every way.

Bill: 21:03

So, Joanne, I'm gonna ask you and follow up to this uh because it because it is interesting that there does seem to be a heightened. I was talking with someone earlier today about uh um like how how expectations get higher at this time of year for people across so many things, whether it be family gatherings, um, work parties, all that kind of stuff, but also even just simple things like going on dates. Um like there's just something really strange that happens um closer to holidays like this, where um like expectations are more heightened for for any number of reasons. Either like, are you gonna have somebody that you're gonna be taking with you to the family gathering or not, right? Like there's just so much more that that happens. Sorry, did I strike an early thing?

Val: 21:47

Like, why are you bringing the job bringing it?

Bill: 21:52

Um But but there is there is two countries right there. There is there is something um there's something strange about the idea that at a time when we when we in the Christian tradition, at Christmas, talk about the idea of of God actually coming and being among us, right? God, God with us, Emmanuel is born here on earth. Um, this idea that God comes down and is incarnate on earth, that um that there's something in this celebration, this marking, this this time, this season, uh that that stirs in us feelings of um inadequacy or um um you know somehow falling short or being less than enough, right? There's a there's a weird disconnect in that. What do you think about it?

Val: 22:40

Well, I I was thinking that um the cultural mythology around Christmas is so strong, right? But for good and for, you know, I'm not getting enough, right? The idea that they're like to me, the peace on earth, goodwill to all, right, is in the air around Christmas. And so people, regardless of whether they're Christian or not, there's a celebration of Christmas where people think this is the Christmas spirit. They have an idea of what the Christmas spirit is peace on earth, goodwill to all. And that people can see because it's before you I think people see, oh, this could be possible. Because little things, you know, happen and people, you know, by someone, oh, it was just the other day. It was a woman who was in my book study, and you know, she's not a a wealthy woman, I don't think. I haven't seen her bank account, but um she she's at the checkout, and the guy in front of her behind her bought her groceries, right? Just bought her groceries, and she didn't know till he was gone, and the clerk said, Oh, uh, he bought your groceries, right? Well, that doesn't often happen in August. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, like there's something in the air, and it has something to do with the story of this uh marginalized uh family that has a baby, and I'm just gonna correct, it was not in a stable out the back. In the houses at that time, the livestock were on the bottom floor and the people were on the top. So when they say there was no room in the inn, they mean there was no room in the house upstairs, right? They were downstairs uh with the livestock. But this idea that this marginalized family that's being oppressed by Rome, that they come and there is something glorious and marvelous about the simplicity of that story. And at Christmas time, somehow that gets in the air. Even if people aren't religious or they don't even know the story of Jesus, there's something in this Christmas time that brings us to that place. And I think the reason we look for redemption is because we think, wow, if I could get me some of that Christmas spirit, my life would be a whole lot better. If we could live that Christmas spirit every day, our lives would be a whole lot better. If the Christmas spirit could infect our politicians, our lives would be a whole lot better. And on and on and on. This idea that somehow this peace on earth, goodwill to all, if we could actually live that and we just catch a glimpse of it during the season, then everything could be different.

Ricardo: 25:21

I I also think that there's um comfort and familiarity as well. And speaking of paying for someone's gross, I did one of those pay it forwards of Tim Hortons drive-thru. Yeah. And the guy behind me bought one of those 12 take 12 boxes, and I was like, I didn't want to be that confused. Of course, my one coffee and croissant was like quadrupled into the take 12 box behind me, but I hope God's watching that one. Um the there's comfort and familiarity. I think you bring up a great point when you we first started the podcast about people being in different places in in their lives right now, and sometimes Christmas is a negative experience, and I and sometimes Christmas is um now a lonely one. And but I think that there's and it's what struck me as um very unique is that um all of us had something to say about each other's Christmas villain because all of us knew exactly what movie we were talking about, right? I said the Mickey Mouse Scrooge, and all of you guys are like, oh yeah, right, or like the dentist, or or you know, like the the heart growing three sizes. I knew I knew it all, right? Because all of us participated when we were children in those movies and in that common theme, and that there's there's comfort and familiarity. And I also think like during this season, uh like Bing Crosby becomes the number one artist, like on the charts, right? Like he skyrockets the number one, and I think his entire family is set for the next following year based on Have Yourself a Merry Christmas. White Christmas. White Christmas. Come on. Sorry.

Speaker 2: 26:51

Sisters, sisters, yeah.

Ricardo: 26:55

But so all of us remember that time when we were children and waiting to open presents or just having a a family dinner, and um, sometimes some kids didn't have the same privilege as others, but I think at some point in time in everybody's lives, someone's parents tried to make their their best their best effort during Christmas, and we latch on to those memories. Um, because even if you're you didn't have a big turkey dinner and you just had a fa dinner with your family, we could all remember sitting around and watching the cartoon Grinch or the Claymation Rudolph and and and and clinging on to that happiness.

Bill: 27:32

Um California Raisins, the one too.

Ricardo: 27:36

Yeah, yeah, or Ernest Christmas movies. Ernest Christmas, absolutely.

Val: 27:40

Oh that Chevy Chase one too, the Christmas family. Yeah, it's really interesting because like we have these images. Um, you know, like people in your family drive you crazy all year round, but at Christmas somehow you wish they wouldn't. Do you know?

Bill: 28:00

I'm glad you said you wish they wouldn't not stop.

Val: 28:03

Yeah, no, you wish they wouldn't drive you crazy now. It's Christmas. Come on, can't we be different? That's the interesting thing. Because it's Christmas, we can be different. Our relationships can be different, our way we interact with each other can somehow be different, or we expect that it should be different. And that's the interesting thing because we want an easy Christmas. Like we want to like redemption is not an easy thing. Like being a better person is not an easy thing, right? It's hard work. It means that you have to recognize that you're flawed, and then you have to seek forgiveness from those you've hurt, and then you have to actually make steps to atone for you know what has the harm that has happened. But somehow we think because it's Christmas, all that can happen like instantaneously. And so we should be able to have, you know, dinner with I say an uncle, I don't have dinner with any uncles, but you know, they always talk about the uncle who is crazy. And, you know, somehow this dinner should be different because it's Christmas. And I don't know. I mean, that's what we wish for and we hope for, and maybe those yearnings that are there all year round like surface during this time just because the mythology in our culture around Christmas, notwithstanding, you know, the religious Christmas story, is so great that it somehow brings us to a space where we think we can be better. Why doesn't that come at Thanksgiving or Easter or grandpa day?

Bill: 29:40

That's actually an interesting question, Val. Like, why? Why Christmas of all of them? Because even the Christmas story, um, like Gospel, Luke, Gospel of Matthew Christmas story, um, doesn't we they talk about peace on earth, goodwill for all, um, and then everything that follows is anything but, right? Like realistically, it's warned in a dream, go go back by another road, Herod's gonna kill the baby, flee to Egypt, and hide out there because like Herod's coming looking, right? Like, like there, this is not a like everybody just the the earth just sighs and everybody's happy, kind of kind of story, right?

Val: 30:15

And yet somehow they didn't all live happily ever after.

Bill: 30:18

Absolutely not, right? In fact, very few did, and um the the people that we even hear about, there's a certain privilege to that compared to all the people that we don't, right? Um, so um like why Christmas? Is it the culture more than the story?

Aaron: 30:33

Well, when you're talking about uh um you know how why it isn't isn't carried out every you know through every day of of the year. Like the other the other thing I was thinking of is this is the time of year when every volunteer spot at every shelter is full. Like uh I don't even I don't even bother like I've been trying to uh volunteer at other times of the year, but I know Christmas time is not like not to sound cynical, but my my my volunteer time isn't really needed because every like they have they're turning people away in some instances around uh the time of year to to have volunteers just to do basic things and and that for me poses this really weird question, which is what yeah, why can that not happen uh in March? Like and I, you know, I think of like all the other times of the year when like okay, when do they need people um to do you know whatever the serving food or sorting donations or whatever? Um like I and I don't yeah, is it it maybe maybe maybe I mean I've heard some people say, well, it's because it's the darkest time of the year, there's the least amount of light during the day. Um uh may you know you know, when we're all sort of uh huddled in around like cups of coffee and things and coffee shops and and um but it's also it's also a little frustrating because I think um you know we we we could it it's I still find it hard at the middle of the year, I've got tons of time, I still find it I'm finding it hard to get out to volunteer in you know in amongst all of my priorities. Um and yeah, that so but and so you know it those are those are the types of things where again, yeah, if people just have found even just these are like three hour stints. Three hours I I you know I had a goal of like twice a month, two two blocks of three hours to go and volunteer, and I can't I struggle to get even one. Um but how like the kinds of change, especially in such a world of abundance, um you know, and uh often where maybe two we are hoping well hoping that uh our elected representatives are gonna solve that problem. Um and obviously these are you know these are we live in uh we're immersed in complex systems um where you know trying to reach the problem through the political through political mechanisms is uh is very c you know convoluted and and complicated. Um but and and at the same time y there are also ways in which we can just skip those, like I say, if we just find throughout a day in in the middle of May when no one's thinking about you know the homeless, um you know, those kinds of yeah, a lot of not world change but community change can could easily take place um uh in that, you know, in that regard. But but you know, we also have our phones to fill in every waking gap, every moment of even just being still and not just staring at the sky or out the bus window. Um is filled with uh content or whatever. Um so yeah, I mean I myself am still puzzled by that question.

Val: 34:32

It'd be interesting to uh not being wise in that of like how much I'm assuming 90% of what we think Christmas is now is completely well, it's consumerism and it's it's culturalism. So we've all been Americanized. So like if you were to find some tribe somewhere in the jungles of some that has not yet got Netflix, like what do they do with Christmas? Like short of they may know there's a baby Jesus and like what does their Christmas like obviously been visited by missionaries and this uh example or but like what does do they just go to church and and celebrate, commemorate that day? But obviously, you know, Santa Claus was mostly brought to us from the Coca-Cola company, and like that was all manufactured. The whole we're shopping now, we're doing Christmas. Like, there's not that there's many cultures that have a center clause and a we right. So it's not just the Saint Nick, right? But like, how did it actually converge into this chaotic time of just shopping? Where did that come from? Um, right? Of well, you know, it's interesting because I think I read somewhere. Now I could be wrong, maybe I made it up in my brain, but I read that Dickens was the first one with a Christmas carol to have Christmas celebrated at home as opposed to a church holiday, right?

Bill: 35:51

It was in it was in the time of Dickens and through Dickens' writing of a Christmas Carol that uh that Christmas became more of a family kind of an affair, right? Um and again, if you listen to season one, episode three of this podcast, uh, we actually um uh kind of unpacked the idea that like um it was like like there was there was an entire war between the Puritans and people in general around Christmas. There was a time when it was when it was not well, not illegal, but illegal to celebrate Christmas by virtue of not being at work when you were supposed to be um in order to go celebrate Christmas. So there were there were laws that were used to kind of weaponize um um church attendance or Christmas festivity attendance. And and at the same time, Christmas spent a whole long time um being really much more like Mardi Gras or Carnival or whatever than the Christmas pantomimes are still quite popular.

Val: 36:44

My daughter just got back from the UK, and she said the Christmas pantomime over there is still still a thing. And in the Middle Ages, like in the squares, they couldn't be able to do it.

Bill: 36:52

Probably not quite as like break into your house and like rob you.

Val: 36:56

Um but uh well in Newfoundland, don't they have mumflers or something? Mummers. Mumlers, yeah. Yeah. So there's a vestige of that maybe in that.

Bill: 37:05

Right. So and it's and it really was Dickens that bailed out Christmas at you know, uh, and in writing it and turning it into what is now largely a family kind of an affair. That's right. Whatever, whatever that looks like for you. And and again, like for all the good that may have done, also opens up the whole like how can we even celebrate when the person who would sit at the head of the table is no longer sitting at the head of the table, right? Like it's again, there's been this weird kind of like it attaches itself now to that familial piece that brings with it great grief as much as it does great joy.

Val: 37:38

What's interesting how the church has given into the culture in that way in many ways, right? So, for instance, this is the conversation Bill and I have often had. We sing Christmas carols right away in Advent, even though you know, liturgically you should wait until Christmas Eve to sing your first Christmas carols, right? But also, when I was young, there wasn't a Christmas Eve service, there was a Christmas morning service. And you went to church on Christmas morning. Yes, yes, you did. Well, there's no, even if it falls on a Sunday. Still no. We we don't sometimes we close down church on Christmas Day because it falls on a Sunday because we believe you need time with your family. Absolutely. It's a very interesting shift that's happened. It's also I was reminded when we were talking about all the people who volunteer at Christmas. When I was a divorce lawyer, we used to call December Honey I Love the Kids Month because we did so many custody applications for access over Christmas from people who didn't bother to see their children for the rest of the year. It's just really interesting. And I'm just saying the cultural mythology around Christmas shifts our way of thinking so that we feel like we can have a good family. You know, we can have a family that will enjoy Christmas, we can be better people, we can volunteer, we can do all these things, we can earn Christmas somehow. And that shift, if it's truly a redemption story, has to continue. I agree with Aaron. Like it has to continue somehow. Like if we really think somehow at Christmas I can be different than in January and make your New Year's resolutions. July, yeah. We we still have to think I can be different. I can be different. I mean, that's what it is. I can be different, the world can be different, we can be different together, and that's um that's the core of redemption. And you haven't really had a redemption story if you go back the next day, like you were saying, Ricardo. You know, if if uh Scrooge just had a nice Christmas spot, Fred's dinner, and visited with the Cratchits, and you know, even maybe give Tiny Tim and then went back to being a miser again. That's not redemption. That's performative.

Bill: 39:54

And again, Dickens ends with learn or Scrooge knew how to keep Christmas well if any man plays. Us the knowledge, right? And uh and and this is the so this is probably a good place to break because when we come back from the intermission, I'd like to move into a bit more of the conversation about what does that redemption actually look like in the world that we live in today, and whether or not there's anything that these stories are going to uh help us to figure out on that line. So we are going to take a brief intermission and we will be right back. And we are back from our intermission, and I want to pick up on something that Joanne said before we broke about redemption being extremely hard work. Uh the work of redemption is not easy, and that is really important to name because a lot of the stories that we grow up with, all of the stories that we've named here tonight, as far as Christmas movies and Christmas stories, um, can make redemption feel very sudden. Even Dickens' Christmas Carol happens overnight, literally overnight. Um a switch gets flipped, and what we've been trying to talk about tonight, I think, is something very different because redemption is actually very hard work. It's uh it's a labor and it's a practice that has to extend beyond the immediate moment in order for it to actually be redemption. So I want to shift here into the world that we're actually living in now. Um when redemption is understood as hard work, how does that change the way that we think about redemption in our world today that is shaped more by polarization and fear and deep division?

Val: 41:25

I'm gonna push back on the on that definition of redemption. Uh I'm so smart that I looked up on Google. The definition of redemption from the Latin actually means to buy back. Uh often uh meaning uh re to purchase a slave, to buy that slave back, to pay ransom for something. So we could argue uh in a biblical sense, redemption has nothing to do with us and everything to do with Christ. Our uh reaction or reaction's not even the best word, to that though, would be transformation. Um, how do we accept the redemption, the gift of redemption, and that we're given, that's offered, uh, which we can choose to say, yeah, no, thank you. I'm gonna go back to being scrooged the next day. Um it's interesting because uh last season I wrote a play called Me Right Now. Uh, and it was about this idea of what is change and what is transformation. I think we live in a world, uh, a society or a culture that is about sort of outward change. Oh, I'm gonna get a new tattoo. Uh that's gonna, I'm gonna get a new haircut. I'm these outward things to do the work of transformation, yes, is hard and often long. And you go two steps forward and three steps back, but I don't know that we want to transform. We want to change. I want something new. I want um, whatever again, the cool kids are doing, or the whatever the thing is now that uh that outward thing. Um but do people actually want to? I'm I'm deeply intrigued by that question as a playwright, as a storyteller of because obviously stories are about it's the hero's journey, and what are the obstacles that are in the way of the hero, and it's the obstacles that actually make them better. They have to do scary things in order for them to be brave, they actually have to give something in a way in order to be generous. Um, in order to live. But we don't, yeah, we don't want to do all of that, like right? What that's hard. And I don't know that we even recognize that enough when it does happen. Because and sometimes it's quiet and internal, and and uh over a period of many years that you begin to transform. But that's what we're called to. Like that's a and that is a high and noble calling to really lean into transformation. Well, I think because it's it's really interesting because even in the the Christian story, it comes, it starts with a recognition of um your own inadequacy, right? That's why you give yourself to the Christ, is because you're inadequate, not inadequate. I I hate to say that, I don't like that language, but you recognize there is a um there is something in life that is just not uh abundant. Let's put it that way. We seek abundant life, and in the Christian story, we say abundant life is found in giving yourself, submitting to the the Christ and the way of Jesus, right? So um there's a whole a lot of conservative language around that, um, Christian conservative language that's become, you know, I was thinking a lot about this actually when I was thinking of redemption stories, how in my past, too often our redemption stories were, you know, someone was an alcoholic and now they have found Jesus and so they're not anymore. Or, you know, how we were so hateful towards queer folk, and their redemption story becomes, I'm straight now, which is not a redemption story, right? How we labeled sin and we wanted to see people's lives change so much. When I was young, you know, everyone had a testimony. It's like I did this and this and this, and we would just, you know, revel in all the sin we'd done, but Jesus saved me. Um, and I was reminded of my uh husband went to a men's retreat once, and it was just like one man after another getting up and talking about the affairs that they'd had and how bad they were. And and like Dave, not from that tradition, it's like, what is this all about? You know, like the redemption story has to include this horrible um sin. And I when I say redemption is hard, I think like Val, you're right. It's just like this idea of transformation um is something where, you know, it says in the scripture, it's by the renewing of your mind, right? It's by a different worldview, it's by seeing the world through a different lens, the, you know, the way of Jesus, that lens. But it's so counter-cultural and it's not uh self-serving. And it's um it shouldn't be introspective. It should be a you know, being in community together and being the hands and feet of God in the world. And that's not an easy thing. So again, you know, that whole path, the technical theological term is sanctification, and it's a long process, right? In the um Orthodox tradition, it's like you become more and more like Christ as you go along in your life, and ultimately that's that's the road we go. But again, it starts with this idea, and hopefully not performative sin, which I think all that you know stuff is sometimes. I'm I I gotta one up you on how bad I am, and it's been harmful to people.

Bill: 47:29

It happens on both sides. I've seen the performative piety too.

Val: 47:32

Yes, well, no question about that. No question about that. But just this idea that abundant life comes in walking in the way of Jesus, and walking in the way of Jesus is not an overnight thing, it's a slow process towards becoming more like Christ, like deification in the Orthodox tradition. Um then that's how change actual actually or transformation actually happens in our lives. It's not, you know, insert um church on Sunday and all of a sudden I'm a great person. But there have been this is the other thing. There have been uh stories of people who have been, you know, lost in addiction or they have um, you know, fallen on on hard times or they just had enough of themselves. I think sometimes people find find that they've lost who they are, their essential self, and they come to a realization they see that something's gotta go. And then it is like almost overnight, there's a new way of being. That does happen. I don't I've often thought the United Church with all its we take you however you are, and everything's great, and you know, God loves you, and we're all the beloved of God, which is so wonderful. It was freeing for me. But we don't have the mechanisms for someone who is really lost to themselves to say, you need to change, you need a new path, you need an to be redeemed, you need a redemption story. We don't have that. Why? Why? Yeah, well, because I think we've seen the harm that the uh sin identity kind of conversation has done for so many folk. Um and so we tend to concentrate on this uh the sin of society, do you know, like social system? Systemic injustice, right? That's the thing. Because we we would look at some of those people and say, well, no wonder, you know, they drink all the time, their life has been really hard, right? And so we tend to to concentrate so much on the social redemption, like how we can um, you know, change the world, redeem the world in, you know, the reform tradition, that we've lost the ability sometimes, I think, to talk to people who just need their lives to be different. They just want to be different.

Ricardo: 50:04

It also it's like it also goes back to what we said before the break, and how that only seems to happen this time of year.

Speaker 3: 50:09

Oh, yeah.

Ricardo: 50:10

And that like people will come out of the woodwork to help one another during Christmas. But like those people who have challenges and addictions and the diseases of addiction, it happens all year long and they beg for help. And then all of a sudden, like you said, the volunteers come out of the woodwork at Christmas, right? And it also is like uh we we we have some sort of like um you you know, you're working at a project all year, you know, you work at a project at work, and then the last little bit is to clean up all the loose ends. And that's what early Christmas is. We've been we've been jerks all year long, and this is our time to like you know, sweep out the dirt, the dirt from the house and and make sure our house is clean just in time for New Year's when we make our resolutions to be better people for the next year.

Val: 50:52

Like it's supposed to be Lent, didn't you know that?

Bill: 50:56

Well no, it's easier to come, it's easier to have a come to Jesus moment when the infant is still in the in the manger, Joanne. Then it's still in the manger in the stable.

Val: 51:06

It's a manger. That's a feeding trough.

Ricardo: 51:09

And so, like, I think we are at one point in time we we we we look inwards and we say, like, what can I do for my fellow person? And and that's sort of where capitalism is intertwined itself into this this um time of the year when people do that sort of um spring cleaning. I think you call it Jesus cleaning. I don't know what you want to call it, like manger cleaning. Right? And they're like, well, you know, get liberation through um buying them toys and and and and really expensive gifts. And then in the new year, you your gym membership was 50% off. Sorry. And uh and you know, I I made a resolution this year that you know I would read a book a month and I'm still on book two, and have quickly realized that buying books is a completely separate hobby than actually reading the books, right?

Val: 51:52

So, what if you said I'm gonna watch a different uh binge a different show a month? You could do that.

Ricardo: 52:01

Yeah, I could do anything.

Bill: 52:02

So that's that's yeah. I think one of the other things though, Val, bringing it back to your question about why, like why is it that we don't have um the ability to do that in the same way now in the United Church? I think I think to be like to be fair, I think we've also experienced um just how just how um wrong uh the church, the big C church, right uh has been um throughout history. Uh anytime it starts to say, you need to do this, right? Um you need to um we are here to tell you how um you should you should be living your life, right? We know better than you do your situation, your context, your whatever, right? So um and we wrestle with it um at the individual level. We never wrestle with it at the social level at all. We're always happy to tell governments how they should be. Um but uh nobody listens, but we're happy to tell them. Right.

Val: 52:54

H to a dap right there.

Bill: 52:56

But uh but but even I mean, like we wrestle with an above, like we wrestle with the idea of like you should be able to come out um because it is like you are perfectly, beautifully, wonderfully made as you are, right? Right. Um which is just as wrong um as as uh as anything because because we don't understand like what does coming out mean for you in the world.

Val: 53:17

Oh, you mean like encouraging people to come out instead of be closeted, but if they're not ready or they're yes, right?

Bill: 53:23

Um and and and it's like sometimes it's done with the noblest of intentions, right? Throughout history it hasn't always been, right? Um but uh but even with the noblest of intentions that we we've come to realize, I think in some cases, um in many cases, that it it really isn't for us to assert the the church's will um on on individuals. Um and in the midst of all of that, how then do you um still embrace what is part of the scriptural tradition as well? I mean, Paul writes a lot of letters about love you to death. You're messing with how do you how do you do that in this day and age?

Val: 54:00

Interesting, he writes it to communities. Yes. Paul writes to communities who are messing up, not people.

Bill: 54:06

Um but writes to communities that were a hell of a lot better than we are at holding one another. Yeah, accountable. And I'm not talking church communities even at that point, right? Like communities in general, holding one another, um, taking care of one another and responding to the needs of one another at the individual level, right? We've lost that as we've as the rise of individualism has kind of taken over. Yeah. We've lost the ability to.

Val: 54:30

Well, we've also offloaded community care to governments, right? And a welfare state. Like that's that's what we've done. And then at Christmas we claim it back for a month.

Aaron: 54:41

You know? Well, and the stakes of the first church were completely different to what we the very comfortable, uh, very well-established.

Val: 54:53

Empire church.

Aaron: 54:54

You know, yeah, like like church in every uh in every community um where they were sort of um both trying to express a form of freedom uh in the midst of what they're perceiving as a as a well, uh a very challenging uh Roman Empire. Um and and in certain instances uh being persecuted, being real like very really persecuted in terms of just um being condemned to death for having a certain beliefs you know, belief system or um so the stakes like and and the types of people and the forms of poverty I think I mean that that is uh for me that's a humongous I can't I can't really make sense of it, at least today in in in the amount of um in the amount of prosperity and privileges that we we have um even amongst all the problems in our world. Like uh yeah that that part because I because yeah the stakes for those people were just so different. Um and maybe even as simple as your community could turn on you if you if you didn't really toe the line in certain you know in certain ways or or follow you know follow the uh the scriptural obligations, whether you were Christian or Jewish or um of another tradition, Samaritan, I can't remember what the other ones were. Um and then the po you know the the power dynamics of empires you know crashing into each other, uh vying for power, um, then looking but also looking for sources of resource, bread, you know, grain, um, looking for land and people to try and press into service to collect all those resources. Um and and and on another level, I sometimes wonder if we've even left the Roman Empire like today, like if we have actually left it. In in in part, when you look at the Middle Ages, there is both a fascination with the Roman Empire. There's there's of course the deep and uh uh abiding commitment to the new religion of Christianity that is to be for all to take and and the whole and all and all those stories and stained glass and everything, but it's still a fascination with the Roman Empire and its power and its I don't know, glory, um and its structures and uh I mean Charlemagne, like you had successive people uh attempting to reininstate the Roman Empire in Charlemagne, you had the Holy Roman Emperor, Holy Roman Empire. Um you have even architectural expressions in the 16th, 17th, 18th, like Renaissance upwards to the present, that still looked upon that Roman world. Um, and I am I swear to God I'm gonna bring this back to what we're talking about. But like because that was a total tension, but like um so it so it's yeah, I think I think we are still wrestling with that tension between again the the possibilities of uh uh that we have just in front of us in terms of culture and uh acquisition um you know what we could accomplish and acquire and be um versus and or again our yeah, our accountability to our communities. Um and and like for some it like that those um for some their access to alcohol, drugs, the amount of money that's in the bank that they could easily spend on that and um uh and maybe and maybe people retreat to that when things do get hard, when life does get hard. People people sort of um retreat to instant those instant gratification pieces because yeah, because it it's you know ultimately this this whole thing of us sharing this planet is hard.

Bill: 59:26

It's it's it's very the very United Church answer right there. Right. Honestly, right. Wow, is that is the idea that uh you know if if we're gonna look at these, you know, these these addiction issues and whatever the case may be, then we have to look at them as being escapes from the larger injustices that are are visited upon people, right? Um and and so in the midst of that, again, we we work in the United Church of Canada, we work for systemic change, you know, at at every level, um, to a greater or lesser degree. It's still very congregationally driven, it's still very kind of unique from community of faith to community of faith. Um but we are. I think still, um, and since our inception, really kind of the social gospel, social justice kind of church in Canada. Um and we have, I mean, we have progressively over time, progressive ha ha, um gotten further and further away from the personal accountability pieces of that work.

Val: 1:00:20

Um that seems overwhelming. Like when you talk about I'm like, yeah, I actually I actually can't fix the systemic chip problems. I'm like, that seems I can fix me and I can maybe fix one more person like at a time. Of like, and the people, the most transformation I've had is when people have spoken directly into me. Not hey Val, this is a it's like Val, you and not these are people who I trust and love. These aren't, you know, the high priest of something. It's like that is when I have actually when people have looked at me and called my shit out and said, no, no, no, no, what are you doing? Like, yeah, that's a that's super interesting to me because I've not ever thought of it that way because that seems over. I'm like, oh, I can't fix that. I think if we don't, if if we don't say we can fix it or at least move it forward, like if if sanctification on a personal level is every day becoming more and more like Christ, then we as a uh a people of God or people or humanity in general, every day we can make things a little better. And I always say when people say, Do you really think the world's better than it used to be? And I'm like, I don't know. You know, there was a time, and this is a myth, but everyone says, where a man could beat his wife with a stick the size of a thumb. That was the rule of thumb, which apparently it's not, but that was the rule of thumb. It was okay to in fact, you could not charge your husband with rape until the 70s. Yeah, okay. So is it better? Well, it's better for me. Right. Do you know what I mean? There are a lot of things in the world that are better. Yeah, there's a lot of shit too. Like as we say, if we're allowed to use these words online than now.

Ricardo: 1:01:58

That's enough speaking in a church wing.

Val: 1:02:00

Yeah. But I gotta believe that it's not just about me and my close friends, it's about a transformed world. That is what the community of Christ is about. Absolutely. The community of Christ, not Christians. That is that is such an important distinction. Like I said, Paul wrote to communities. It was all about how we as a people can be a hedge against the Roman Empire. We can set a table where everyone has a place. It's so important in these redemptive stories. And remember, Scrooge, his sin was not that he was a miser, his sin was that he had disassociated himself and disengaged from society. And Jacob Marley comes to him and says, We only cared about business. I could have helped in the time I was alive, and because I did not engage, have the business of humanity, I am doomed to walk the earth seeing want and need and not being able to do a thing. That's the sin of a Christmas carol. Not that he was like a miserable man.

Bill: 1:03:06

Not that he was rich.

Val: 1:03:07

Not that he was rich for sure. It wasn't that. It was that he had disengaged himself from all humanity and did not see the want and the ignorance that was amongst the people.

Bill: 1:03:20

But the the even the further nuance to that is that disengagement came from a place of fear.

Speaker 3: 1:03:25

Right.

Bill: 1:03:25

Right? Not from a place of power or control or anything else. It was actually a sense that he had none. He was worried about his safety, his security, his ability to for the world not to take him over or take advantage of him or crush him, right?

Val: 1:03:39

Well, because he'd been hurt, right?

Ricardo: 1:03:41

Um, the Marxist atomic also says that extreme wealth centered on one person is also a sin.

Val: 1:03:47

But fair enough.

Ricardo: 1:03:49

Next episode. Now it's interesting you say because we we I think in this day and age, and we talked a lot about like um especially when it comes to community care and caring for elder, we we put all those things on the government. And I think that in many ways, our mindset in 2025 from what my observations are, is that people can make individual change and push towards wholesale change, but don't see helping the person next to you or helping the small group of people or just doing a small act in the church or in a community center or volunteering, even like you said, two or three times a month for three hours, is they don't see that as contributing to the greater picture of change and redemption, right? If if and you know, coming from someone like myself in the in the queer in the in the 2S LGBT community where I'm seeing daily like rollbacks. Like I think there was a city, I put it on my Instagram today, like a city in Texas that just recently removed sexual orientation and gender identity from their from human rights. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's Arlington, Texas, right? And so, and you know, I'm s and you know well, forget Texas, what's happening here in Alberta, right? And and we're thinking to ourselves, let's sign the petitions, let's let's go out there and and protest in in at the legislature. All good things. I love a good old revolution, okay? I'm the first one to burn it down. I'll be there. Right? But let's look at the trans people in our communities that need help, that need jobs, that need food, that need housing, and focus on that. Empowering each other is a way to cut to get redemption and change, and we've forgotten that step to building community. The one-on-one conversations, uh the union organizer and me. You know, the the the conversations, the the one-on-ones, the building community and building your network, right? That's how you get the bigger change because right now we're just us and everyone. And we're having trouble getting the everyone on the same page, is what I think we're doing. Um and it all comes down to the the the society we've built around individualism and individual wealth and individual progress.

Val: 1:05:54

And um you know uh well, and and I think there's also another thing, like it is uh a technique of the powerful to have Christian folk or anybody concentrate on their own lives and their own sin and what they need to do in order to control those populations. I mean, churches that are very specifically do not engage with social issues because they have a personal faith feed into the empire's plan. That is easy. Okay, you go if you like you know, they say, let's not have politics in church. Well, I agree, let's not have partisanship in church. But Jesus had politics all over the place. Like, like talk to Jesus, not to me. That's what I I want to say. Because the idea that we are called to transform our own lives, but also transform the world, they are you know, locked in step. They both have to happen. One without the other is not the call of Jesus. Yeah, Jesus, he well, he would have had no idea when we talk about, well, I have a personal relationship with Jesus. That's a very contemporary like, no, your relationship with Jesus would include your rabbi and your mom and your friend's mom, and they all would have helped raise you, and then you would have been accountable to them, and they would have been like, stop doing that, right? Like you would grow in your faith in your community. This idea of, yeah, I have a personal faith. It's like, what is it's pro or people like private faith? What is that? Why is that private? Why yeah why would you want that to be private? Well, it was interesting. Michael Buble sings for the Pope and he talks about his faith and how it's hard to talk about that, right? You know, like it that was just last month. He said it's very difficult for to say in this day and age that you are a person of faith. And yet it has been very strong for him, like the highlight of his life to go sing for the Pope, you know? So it is a very interesting um thing, you know, when you say people in my life, they they call me out on on my shit. And and I think that, you know, like we have that in society, they're called interventions, right? Yep. Right? Your friends get together and they say I didn't know about this. Wait a minute. That's why we called you here today, Val. I did go to California that one time and stayed in a nice retreat center for that's weird. But we have built into our culture this idea that we have broken down relationships. Someone in our life is is uh not treating us well, and we confront it. We know that we as people are not perfect and we need a redemptive story in our lives. They can be small, they can be large. Sometimes they're big enough to have all your friends care about you enough to bring you into a room and say you're going to rehab or we're done, you know? Sometimes it's that big, and sometimes it's a little as I really didn't like that you yelled at me about that this morning. I know you're frustrated, but um, don't take it out on me. Do you know? Like they are small, they are large. We are all on these journeys towards being more Christ-like, if you want to put it in Christian terms. We know as a culture, we need transformation, whether it's the world or a person, an individual. But if you close yourself off from that, again, the other side of you know, the empire loves personal faith is the I'm not gonna get myself involved in my own transformation. I'm going to, you know, work for a change to the H to A dab thing, right? And so I ignore my own faith, my own need for growth, my own need for change because I'm helping the world. Isn't that a better thing? That's why it has to be both. They come, they go together. There will be no uh redemption in the world or transformation in the world if we do not have transformed people as well. They go together.

Bill: 1:10:04

So, what is the work of transformation that we see being avoided in our world right now? Oh, geez.

Ricardo: 1:10:14

Jeez, Louise. This was the worst year for that question.

Speaker 3: 1:10:19

Yeah.

Ricardo: 1:10:24

Actually, the opposite work is being done right now where we're like resisting.

Val: 1:10:28

It's being transformed, but not in the right direction.

Bill: 1:10:30

Say more. Thank God.

Val: 1:10:35

Well, because well, I mean, Ricardo said the rolling back of rights in the queer community is unbelievable. The attacks on immigration in our country, you know, Alberta. I just read something today. Oh, that the panel said, no, we don't want our own like CPP, but we want to have a referendum or something on immigration. Like what you're gonna send this to people and ask them, you know, we need to do so so immigration, you know, the the uh marginalization of people who are poor, poverty, the rollbacks to social programs, all these things. This is the the world is being changed, but not in the right direction. Like it's it is slowly well, actually slowly and by design, at least in Alberta, unraveling of the public health care system, you know, teachers. Like, let's just go on and on, like every day. And I just remember Jennifer, our office administration, who said, you know, like because she's a German studies person, and so she sees the connections between, you know, uh Germany before the war and now, and she goes, I, you know, like I just never expected this unraveling, this move towards authoritarianism, this dislike of democracy, that I could just go on living a normal life. Like it would just feel so normal, right? And that is um, we can be so easily seduced into a feeling like, well, it's not hurting me. I'm okay, and I really don't want to be in the, you know, the spearhead of trying to make change. And I can go about my life, and I just had a kitchen renovation. I can sit in my chair and uh just adore my kitchen a lot easier than it is to, you know, protest and go out against these issues. Like it's so normal. The unraveling of um a democratic society where everyone has a chance. The Christian idea of everyone has a place of uh at the table, the unraveling it is just so ordinary. It's scary.

Ricardo: 1:12:39

And it seems like it's such a monumental task to stop that train of unraveling our public system. Uh, you know, I was so proud of Alberta when I saw how much people stood behind teachers. And the government still did what they did, and people are like, what the hell can we do now? Right?

Val: 1:12:57

And call an early election, do it, do it, do it now.

Ricardo: 1:13:02

Politicians, especially the ones that we have here in this province, are banking on that, on that fear and on that, and on that confusion because what they do while they're unraveling healthcare and they're unraveling education and they're they're they're they're doing all these horrible things, they're attacking trans people. You know, in the NCAA, there's 500,000 athletes. Do you know how many trans ones there are? Less than 10. So this is the percentage of people that they're trying to attack. And and it's it is a distraction that plays on people's confusion and their emotion. They don't understand and they don't acknowledge and they don't know that trans people have been intertwined in our society for thousands of years. Uh, it's only since the advent of extreme binaries through colonization and all those things that that we vilified it, right? And so, I mean, once again, coming back to what we're talking about. Um people can recognize an easier target um than the bigger one. Okay, let's uh how do we fix education? How do we stop the government from from from unraveling education and and and and burning out teachers and over overcrowding classrooms? That's a horrible that's a horribly difficult question to answer and a plan to to execute. But you know, a girl, um a man playing in female sports, yeah, that's just not right.

Val: 1:14:32

Let's make the little girls say I was born female. That's that'll take their minds to be able to do that.

Ricardo: 1:14:37

And so that is the easier visceral. Yeah, exactly, right? It's not as challenging, and it's easy, you know, it's it makes sense, right, in many ways, uh, for some people, right? And that's the challenging part because you are attacking a community that literally has um done nothing to anybody. Uh and all they want to do is exist.

Val: 1:15:00

Um well, that's what culture wars are all about. They're about appealing to those visceral reactions people have because they haven't examined or explored. I mean, in the Dickens thing, that's ignorance, right? That is the thing that is going to destroy our our uh our ability to set a table where everyone has a place because people react and people in power use those those reactions that are uninformed because you've never met anyone, or you know, just the idea of it for some folk.

Speaker: 1:15:32

Um you're not or you're not in that context.

Val: 1:15:34

Yeah.

Speaker: 1:15:35

You're outside of the context.

Val: 1:15:36

That's exactly right. And so so the so if we think typical people, yeah, they're doing fine, just don't bother me with what's on the you know, those folk who are struggling. And if we talk about them at all, talk about them in a way where their struggle is a moral failure, right? And and then um then power powers use those realities in order to continue their agendas. And Jesus very specifically was not on the side of Rome. He did not want to continue the agenda of marginalization and ostracizing of folk who were different. And if we're gonna have a redemption story, if we're gonna follow Jesus, it has to start with this idea like at least here in this place, I will seek abundant life and follow the way of Jesus. And we together will set a table where everyone has a place and all are beloved. At least here.

Aaron: 1:16:46

And yet on that outreach front, that just makes me think of like it's um uh algorithms. Like um the last decade, like at least for me in terms of you know, when you talk about and when you first brought up this topic, the thing that came to my mind was this last decade of where social like social media, well it's it and social media has been a lot, a lot longer than that. Um, but uh where algorithms that were cle like keyed into outrage, uh indignation, but also racism, sexism, outrageous statements, um uh like uh you know, whatever flagrant thing to get attention and to get hits and views and um and so that so that you know, so that our conversation like our conversation suddenly about a lot of these issues that normally showed up in the newspaper, and you might talk about it at the water cooler with your friends, with your family at the dinner table, suddenly was an there's an online discussion um where um people but but also you talk about accountability. Well, there was there is there accountability in that online space because people don't they're not looking each other in the eye and you're saying all kind well you're you're you're not only you're you're saying things that you would never say them in person even if it was just out of pure fear, um but also like it just became this it just becomes this fire hose again when I talk about context like uh things happen in I don't know Atlanta or anywhere in Halifax, like pick a spot in London. Um and I, you know, but I have a platform here in Calgary, and I'm furious about what just happened out there, and I have this whole thing to say, and um and and it in some on some level too it ends up being uh a very reactive your phone's in your hand, you're on the bus, that's horrendous. You start typing in your answer, and um there's so there's this immediate reaction, and then there's a reaction to that reaction, and once again the algorithm is just like, yeah, all right.

Bill: 1:19:21

And and but there's no relational connection.

Aaron: 1:19:23

There's no relational connection, there's no contextual, yep. So that somebody had to make a decision in Halifax on a certain thing that was difficult and outrageous and painful, and and that's and you know, and and um so what do what does it help that I have an opinion in Calgary to throw on that? Oh, how how dare you? What were you thinking when you made that choice? Um and and sort of I mean this played out in all in so many different forms, um, and so like uh Uh and and again to the point of distraction around uh LGGPQ issues and uh distracting away from health and and um uh teachers, education, uh housing like um these are suddenly like have been weaponized in ways like um if we can just get them talking about this certain thing over here, we you know they won't be they won't have as much uh gas in the tank to deal with again the the bigger broader issues. Um but but also as well like again from accountability point of view, it is your local your local community, the people you look at your uh at uh in the eye who are really the people who who you are accountable to and need to address the issues. I I can't like uh I can't help I can't really there's not really much I can do for the person in Chicago or in um and simply pile like having a huge pylon because of somebody's choices um you know, again, in another context, uh has not necessarily um helped with with that element of accountability. Uh on top of which there's a there's like the discernment um a discern the discernment piece of um and this is this is something I've been thinking about a long, long time. Like, when is it time to like throw someone in jail? When's it time to like throw away the key for the person you've thrown in jail? When's it time to let someone out of jail? When is it time to um let someone back in the community? When is it time to ask someone to leave the community? When is it uh time to say to someone, well, you're not quite ready to come back in the community?

Ricardo: 1:21:52

They tried that, then he became the 47th president of the year. Well, there's that.

Aaron: 1:21:55

I know, yeah. Like, seriously, like um, I mean that's well, that's all that's a whole gosh.

Bill: 1:22:01

So that's a whole other thing.

Val: 1:22:02

Let's not open that worm too.

Bill: 1:22:04

I want uh I actually want to pull away from I want to pull away from Trump before we actually go there.

Aaron: 1:22:08

Um on this front of on the front of redemption, like I feel like for so many issues of accountability and justice, we have this now have this fire hose pointed at these issues when on when for better or worse, we have to in almost trust people in the context to address those things with uh you know while by with reading the air of the moment and of deciding, well, is this is this person authentic in in what they're saying? And and and again, recognizing both the time when we move the person from uh mini medium security to minimum security in prison, the times when we say you're ready to come out of jail, the times when we say we need you to go to jail, and and I will avoid saying that person's uh that that person's name, but um that's uh anyways, I I I may have totally taken us off into a totally different well maybe a little bit, but I think I can actually pull it back.

Bill: 1:23:16

I've got an idea.

Speaker 2: 1:23:18

That's the host's job.

Bill: 1:23:20

I am I am aware that yet again what we have done. I so I asked the question what kind of work do you see being avoided right now in the work of transformation? And we all went again, very united church, systemic.

Speaker 3: 1:23:31

Yes.

Bill: 1:23:31

Um right? So I'm gonna rely on Val here to help me pull it back to because Joanne, you have said that changing the world and changing ourselves go hand in hand, right? Don't disagree. So we need to we need to recognize that absolutely there are systemic issues um that we we continue to kick in the darkness until it bleeds daylight and trust that that's gonna happen, right? Um, there you go. I gotta get the Canadian content in, right? So um, but at the same time, let's let's ask the question again um at the individual level, right? So um knowing that we are not very good at calling individuals on their shit, um, but but trusting that we still know how to do it, right? Spiritual gifts. So the the the question again, what is the work of transformation at the individual level? Um as as individuals that we are avoiding in our society today? What would be the the work of transformation that we are avoiding at the individual level?

Val: 1:24:35

I think it's this. I think it's having conversation. I think it's the face-to-face. Like you said, I uh as a you know, I'm a public figure, and so uh I get my share of I hate you, I love you on Instagram, on social media, email, whatever people feel the right uh as a pastor. You also people just feel like they have the right to comment on your calling, your sermon, your whatever, or in the theater world, even the plays I choose, or uh and uh since COVID, I have my new rule is um we can have one interaction on uh on email, or I'll respond to you on Instagram if you have a complaint or concern uh with me or my company. Uh and if it's not sort of resolved in that one interaction, I'm I'm not doing this online. So I will find you. Like, are you if we're in a 50 mile radius? I'm gonna buy the coffee. And I call people on that. Like, no, I'm not I'm not having this conversation online. You're gonna look, and I've had various ones who take me up on it. I'm like, look, I'm buying the coffee. And we at the end of the conversation, a lot of times we still don't agree, but I've actually heard your story and you've heard mine, and you've heard my heart behind the choices I've made, and hopefully I've heard yours. Um, and I I've never left a cup of coffee with someone in a hateful, but certainly you can on the keyboard tap out hateful things and then ghost them and walk away and not have to resolve it. But I'm like, yeah, new rule. I'm not doing this online. You're gonna talk to me and I'm gonna listen. My my words for are like, I want to be really curious and really kind. That does not mean I always change my worldview. It just means I'm gonna be curious to hear your story and how you came to that value, that point of view. Uh, and I'm gonna just try to be kind um back. Um so I I think this is a this is part of whatever the problem, the issue, the systemic is that we are not sitting across from each other and disagreeing kindly and listening to learn. Um I yeah, certainly during COVID, like I just shut my mouth because like it just was a dumpster fire online. And I was like, I don't, I am not weighing in on anything. And people wanted my opinion. What's your opinion on Black Lives Matter? I don't, I'm I'm a work in progress, and I'm not gonna actually put, I'm not putting a statement on my website. Um no. I'm wrestling, I'm thinking, I'm growing. If we again, let's have coffee, let's talk about it. We're not solving anything online. It on Facebook is for puppies. It's for schnoodles and sweaters. It's right for ducks with socks. Like, who get that in your algorithm? Like, it is, it is not, I don't, it should never have gone, it degraded itself down into like thoughtful con It's not a thoughtful conversation. It's you post and I have been sucked into those with my own family, with like, oh I'll show you. No, and I'm a decent writer, I can take you down. Right? But I don't at what no, I didn't hear your heart, I didn't look in your eyes, you didn't hear the nuance of my voice. No, nobody wins on that. And so I think that's part, uh, a big part of whatever the problems are. That can we just sit and learn from each other? I've learned something new about the United Church tonight. I'd never thought of it that way. I really had never that context of like, oh, yeah, that that that makes sense. That's interesting. I don't have to agree or disagree with that theology to just say, oh, oh, cool, I learned something. Right? Can we do that? We're yeah, we're just really angry. And there's lots of things to be angry about. And at the end of the day, I can only, I don't know. I being angry, I don't what's I don't know.

Bill: 1:28:46

So you wondered earlier about whether or not we were willing to do the work of transformation, right? Um, and so um I don't feel like you've answered that question yet for yourself about whether like is that is that the work we're avoiding right now? Like, do you think we're at a place in our world where that work can actually happen?

Val: 1:29:05

When you say place in our world, that's too big. Okay, right? I don't know. I don't know what's happening in Korea. I can't speak for them. K-pop demon hunters, apparently.

Speaker 3: 1:29:16

That's not a bad thing.

Val: 1:29:18

I can only say that where Satan's dancing. That's what I want to know on his head.

Speaker 3: 1:29:24

Yeah.

Val: 1:29:25

I do think we're yes, I do think we're avoiding that of it's easy again to look out and say, look at all those problems out there. It's not not that it's a I'm like wiping my hands of not my problem, but I do think if we can keep ourselves busy writing letters to the government, and as we should, and I've done, then we don't have to sit in our own brokenness and sin, I will call it, sometimes, of saying, okay, I gotta, man, I gotta fix some of this so that out of an outpouring of my own health, my own abundance, and then I don't know if it's then not as I wanted to say it's not as angry, but maybe that's not right. I don't know, yeah. I just think if we could we have to do, and that isn't a one-time deal. Okay, fix that. I'm transformed now. I'm I need constant transformation. And both, it's both in because yeah, because then again, I can see the other point of like, well, you're just so self-involved that you then you don't think of that at all. Both can be a distraction where we don't want to do the work either way. I personally, I do, I do get overwhelmed by I'm like, I don't, I I literally don't know what to do about the yeah, I I vote, I write letters, I give blood, I don't, I volunteer, like I do the things, then I'm like, I don't know what else to do. So am I just gonna be angry? Or I can protest? I don't, it's too cold. I can't protest in December. It's cold out. That's can we like, yeah, and there's so many things to be in like how do we also not everybody? I do think there's something about calling that I think Christ has put a calling on me to uh He has disrupted there's things in me that make me crazy that not don't make everyone else crazy. Because I I can't fix illiteracy in Calgary and the homeless problem, and that should we have uh safe injection sites and and and and and so like I think that there is something that we individually pay attention to to go, this is my lane. I'm really upset about that, and I'm gonna lean into that. And you're really ups, you go there because it over I can just open the paper. Do they still make the paper? I don't know. Uh and you go like that's overwhelming, that's overwhelming. Oh, there's human trafficking here, and I gotta like it's almost too much. And so for me, I have a I am deeply in love with the artists in Calgary, specifically theater artists, but some other and so that's my lane. I'm gonna pour everything. I can either give 10% to everything or give 80% to something and do it well. And so that's who I'm gonna lean into and say, um, this is a group of people that their whole life is performative. And when they don't get a good review, they don't have no other identity other than this thing. I have an identity in Christ. So I get a bad review in the paper, I don't care because I'm a child of God. Like I happen to be an artist too, but they're 100% that. So they get a bad review and they drink a little too much and they work a little too hard. And so I want to be in that community and be Jesus to them. That's my that's what I'm enraged about, that's what I'm passionate about. It doesn't mean I still, yes, I still vote. Yes, I still write right.

Bill: 1:33:08

But finding that place, what is it, where your where your passion, where your greatest passion intersects with the world's greatest need.

Val: 1:33:14

Yes, Beakner, yes.

Ricardo: 1:33:17

I'll combine both of what you said because you know you you said this is overwhelming, that's overwhelming, this is overwhelming, and it's it's still something that bothers us in the back of our heads, right? And and we have that itch and that year and to say things should be different. Um, even the artists who devote their entire lives, and I am a musicianist as well, and you know, I'm not a full-time musician like some of my friends, who who their entire life is is music and picking up gigs and check-to-check, and you know, yeah, and the affordability crisis hits them, the cost of milk is the same for them as everyone else. I mean and I think the algorithm piece that you spoke about was so important because our phones, those algorithms are feeding those overwhelming insecurities, and we they're not showing us a ways out. No, right? They're perpetuating exactly what it what it is. Like I'm telling you, like right now, like I don't know what I was looking up with with God and Jesus or whatever it was, and now all of a sudden the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is inviting me to church on Christmas Day.

Val: 1:34:14

You're gonna be busy, you're gonna be knocking on doors.

Ricardo: 1:34:16

I mean, no, the missionaries are good looking because those are the ones that are being pro, you know what I'm saying?

Aaron: 1:34:21

But um, like I'm amazing Christmas specials.

Ricardo: 1:34:25

Like, yes, you cannot beat those Mormon choirs, and so I I I strive to say that what you have said is bang on, and what what Bill's asking us to say is like those one-on-one conversations, put these away, meet at the coffee shop, meet at the park, not in December, um and just talk about what about your lives and about each other and about community and about what's affecting you. And perhaps if if you're having if you're an artist that's drinking a lot, right, you maybe know connections to other people that that can that can enrich their lives as well and build community and build that spider web that'll that'll bring us all together and create that transformational change, even at a small scale, right? Um but that small scale, like the artist community is is very small in its own way. It's it's it's our community is actually quite big, but the the you know, each individual community can can be real institutional change uh that you can do. But if we just focus on our phones, um if we're always on screens, it's never going to like I'm I'm making a conscious effort because I have two phones. You know, I'm a drug dealer. I'm just kidding. Um I assume that's you know, one's for work and one's for personal. And and I I made a conscious effort, like leave the work phone at home when I'm going out. And um, you know, sometimes you can't you can't live without it, right? Um in many different ways. But like we have a rule with our friends when you go out for dinner or whatever, like we're very present and our phones are staying in our purses or pockets and they don't come out because what's the point to sit your ass at home and look on your phone then, right? Um but we'll still have conversations um based on what we see on our phones, what we see in society, and perhaps those conversations can create some sort of change uh uh in opinion or even action. Um, because um it's only those conversations that'll break the cycle of your algorithm. Yeah, uh and those algorithms only make that bubble bigger that you need to pop. Yeah, the bubble needs to pop, okay? Uh because I get very angry at Instagram sometimes because like it'll be like my Instagram is either like all the socials like Gaza and Ukraine and States, and then all of a sudden it's just like jokes and I'm telling you, doodles are adorable. Let me down this dark evil path, but like and then all of a sudden three hours have gone by, and I was like, what are my love coming? Just like binge watching shows, right? But it's you know, it's just yeah.

Aaron: 1:36:52

That evaporates, yeah, the time just evaporates. Yeah. Well, and and to your point, like the um because yeah, the zone is like the zone is flooded. And well, in the end, of course, people also feed the algorithm because they're they're uh they want to get their followers and the the the algorithm rewards with uh engagement, quote, uh, you know, uh air quotes. Um and so and and so in in part the content how you know how much of the content online you're reading is just someone literally trying to feed the algorithm with the latest thought of their like 60 seconds or whatever, you know, when they're on the bus or in the office. Um and and and it's and like I feel like it's so that also it's filled, like again, it's filled all these empty spaces where maybe we would just be standing in line, like like just whatever. Having conversations, listening listening to someone argue with the bank teller or uh or live or just watch the quality of the sunlight, you know, or um so it's and or having conversations with people, Aaron.

Bill: 1:38:07

Or having conversations with not everything's about like filling the void of other distractions.

Aaron: 1:38:13

I know. But what I'm trying to say is how do we then how do we then make our uh identify our priorities when there's so much noise and static, basically again.

Val: 1:38:25

This is all in community, right? I'm just gonna put a plug-in again for the in real life community and why it's so uh one of the ways we're avoiding transformation is oh, I can watch church online or I can go out to the mountains or whatever. And I'm not saying everyone should go to church. God knows. Sometimes it's really boring. I bore myself sometimes in the middle of a sermon, I'm like, did I really want to say that?

Bill: 1:38:50

I'm like, yeah, this isn't sticking. No, yeah, yeah.

Val: 1:38:54

Yeah, so I mean, of course it does happen, but you know, the the benefit of this is first of all, you're confronted with ideas, right? I mean, if nothing else, when you go to church and you hear a sermon, there's an idea there. You can agree with it or disagree with it. Usually that idea has something to do with wholehearted living, about you know, treating each other well, whatever. Um, and that's that's important too. And then you have coffee afterwards and you're with people and you see them, and people from, you know, I wish we were more diverse as a congregation, but people from different walks of life, economic status. We just did a musical, intergenerational musical where you know the five-year-old and the 71-year-old are in the same show. I mean, how often does that happen? But it builds a community, and that community is a hedge against the world that is overwhelming. I'm with you 100%. Like that bloom where you planted for the Lord song that I used to sing when I was little is really true. Where are you? Who are the people in your neighborhood? Like, make a change there. We avoid the neighborhood. I I heard this interesting thing, actually, Luis was. Saint tonight, he's from Mexico. And it was a person from Mexico who was talking about the difference between houses in Mexico and North America. And we get bigger and bigger houses all the time. And this man said, Well, you know, in Mexico, you go to your house maybe to eat a meal, and then maybe not even that, you sleep there. And then we're outside with people all the time. We're always with other people. And in North America, we want to build a fortress so that we can do everything inside our house. We don't even go to movies anymore. Right? You know, what a breakdown in community is that we spend all our time inside our houses and our only connection is online. In real life, don't avoid in real life. It's messy. Relationships are messy. People just drive you crazy. We don't like them.

Bill: 1:40:49

I do need to say for the people who are going to criticize online that we are aware that Mexico, that Mexico is a part of North America. Yeah.

Val: 1:41:00

So is Greenland apparently. I apologize profusely. Yes, of course it is. Of course it is. We love you. Well, I'm so sorry. Yes. But I'm talking Northern Americans. Actually, I had an instructor who was uh Mexican once, and she said they call Americans North Americans, right? North Americans. And I will then what do you call Canadians? Because I was upset and she said Canadians are called Canadians. But, anyways, all I'm trying to say is and why the church is so important to me is because it is that place where we can call each other out gently, maybe from a sermon, you know, maybe our friends just encourage each other on a path. Uh, have conversations about things that are deeper than hey, did you see the new hockey, gay hockey special that I was talking to Ricardo about? Make a plug for that. Um you know, like they're just different.

Speaker 10: 1:41:58

Heated rivalry.

Val: 1:42:03

It's a romance. Anyways, all I'm saying is the in real life, like like let's not avoid in real life. It's so important because you read things in real life, that whole transmission of affect that I, you know, have talked about before. This idea that in a room you can sense what's going on that you just don't get online. And that is an important part of human communic communication. The most important part, actually. So 100%.

Ricardo: 1:42:31

That's I think transform transformation is stepping a bit back from what's been built, right? You know, um the uh the technological change that has happened in the past 20 years has completely changed our entire like can you imagine what it's gonna be like 20 years like at this rate?

Val: 1:42:51

Like in 20 years, like what I've stuff that our parents are like, what?

Ricardo: 1:42:54

Like I don't I don't even think we need to look 20 years with AI now and how it's rewired children so badly. Um and some teachers are telling me that kids are using AI for all their assignments. Oh, yeah, so much so that they're even copying and pasting and even like not even taking it apart. Was like, do you want me to edit this thing over now? They're leaving that in the assignment, right? Like they're just it's just so I just think that I don't even know where things will go. Here's my utopian.

Val: 1:43:22

Unraveling my utopian is that times before culture has started to shift, and then ethics catches up. You know, and there is a rollback, or there's a maybe that's not really good for us, and there's legislation. It happens over and over again. And I think we're starting, I mean, they're trying to do legislation for social media events.

Ricardo: 1:43:42

I'm not sure that's sure ethics will catch up as quickly as it did in the past.

Bill: 1:43:46

That's always been a good thing. Because you have the boxes open, it's so strong now. I'm gonna reel this all in before we go down this road.

Ricardo: 1:43:53

What are we talking about? I can feel the fork in the road here. I missed the AI podcast, so I was just gonna say you know.

Bill: 1:44:02

I want to be sensitive to the time in the room. Um, so I am going to pull it into closing comments. Before I do that, Val, thank you for being here tonight. Thanks for coming. Really, really appreciate having you here, Aaron. As always, a pleasure. Thank you for being here. Thank you. Really appreciate you showing up as well. Um, last question. So um let me see if I can frame this in a way that pulls us back because, oh, good grief. Um whether we're talking about Scrooge, right? Overnight, three ghosts, four ghosts, really, but three spirits who actually lead him on the journey brokered by the first and fourth ghost. Um uh the the transformation that happens for Scrooge is very much a personal transformation that invites him to restore himself uh to the community around him. Um and we have talked about a number of things, especially in the last few minutes, around this idea of uh whether it's a church or not, um, find find your community and and not just a social club, but a community, a community that will hold you, that you will be relationally responsible to and accountable to, but will also um love you and carry you and support you, uh, whether that be a church or um any kind of a faith group, whether it be a a running club, like whatever it is, the place where you are gonna find um your your support and your accountability and your responsibility to the greater good of your immediate relational community. Um so um we've we've talked a bit about redemption versus transformation. I'm gonna stick with redemption for now in this question when I say that for closing comments, and I'll start with Ricardo and we'll work our way this way across the table until it gets back to me. Um, this is our last podcast of 2025. Uh, I think we can all agree it has been a rough year and that everybody's bingo card has been kind of messed uh for the the year on what we might have figured would be happening. Uh, but where have you seen signs of redemption in the past year? And that can be individual or systemic. I don't need to plant that flag for this one. Where have you seen signs of redemption in 2025?

Ricardo: 1:46:04

You know what's interesting when we did this podcast in uh January of this year, my little closing comment was like, I can't wait for 2026, and I was bang on. All right. Yeah, 2025 would be. Um signs of redemption in this year. I I think that I have seen um people uh who generally didn't talk to each other or or associate with each other over the past number of years are come together um because of the political strife that exists in our world right now. Um people have found a lot of common ground in um things that are that are changing uh right up right in front of our eyes, like education and healthcare and stuff. And so um I'm seeing a lot of um return to charity, a lot of return to volunteerism. Um I'm seeing a lot of return to um people helping one another uh in times that are tough. I think the affordability crisis uh that we have right now is affecting every single person. Um, but of course, the the marginalized and the poor most specifically. And uh people are recognizing that it's a problem that is, like I said before, much bigger than any of us can can wrap our heads around solving, but at least we can help the people beside us. And uh it's not uh it's not turning a blind eye anymore. I think people are waking up and saying that we need to support each other and hold each other up. So it's it's been good in that sense.

Val: 1:47:36

Well, I'll be uh a little bit more personal. I live with adult children. Sometimes there's six of us in the house. And yeah, we're all friends, I think. I know. Um and the each of us have had individual struggles this year, you know. Like I was diagnosed with breast cancer, and you know, I have a son who had testicular cancer, and another son who was struggling with mental health, and a daughter who went away to school and was crying for an entire week. And, you know, there was uh all that happening. But what is beautiful, again, community, and this is my family is a kind of community, is how we all, even if it is on the group, the family chat, um try to support each other and work through these things and how much we rejoice with each other in our victories and grieve with each other in our struggles, and how in the end um we become closer because we've chosen um to live this way and to be there for each other. And I just think, you know, it's not perfect, obviously. Um, but um, it's a microcosm of a community where love is lived, and that that gives me hope. I drink uh probably a hundred cups of coffee a year, uh certainly more than that, um, but specifically uh with artists uh as a chaplain. And this year I have just seen a real deep hunger from a community. Um I don't know that they can articulate what it is they're looking for. You know, I would superimpose God on that or some sort of mystery. Um we're a few years out from sort of the COVID shutdown, which uh deeply impacted uh obviously live arts, the film people seem to be able to carry on, but there's this deep longing uh for stories that matter. Uh not as much just fluffy entertainment. There's there's still gonna be lots of that. We're gonna get dumb and dumb or 47 or Fast and Furious 62 or whatever what they're on, but this desire to tell stories that matter and to embody that. Um yeah, so I've I've just had really, really lovely conversations this past year in in the midst of all the all the stuff the world is ending, the the end is nigh, all the stuff that there is still um there's still great hope. I'm I'm full of hope. My middle name is actually hope. I know.

Aaron: 1:50:40

I think we're one of the at least one of the ways we we are stronger or have some of the where we get some of the resilience is that at the very least we are more um you know, people we people have access to more information. We are having more conversations about all the different dimensions of of living and uh the issues um uh that face us. Um and like I I I I guess to that point of of we embrace technology and do the learning and ask questions later, I I do think we are asking more it's taken a lot of questioning and uh repeated uh you know conversations about what's happening and what's changing. Um but there is uh still it feels like there is still a growing, you know, sense, whether that's just things like um well there's apparently there's the people are trending away from online dating and and again these laws in Australia about uh a certain age for social media, uh laws laws that are being enacted uh in uh you know in different countries around um uh what you know what some of these large uh uh entities are are uh you know getting up to. Uh I th I that's I think that's mainly where I see the hope. As as well as I suppose, again, for for myself in in community, again in the arts community where um you know we have uh a monthly group that gets together just to sit down and draw with each other. And um and so that that people haven't lost uh you know the desire to just fa you know to be face to face one-on-one. I mean, I mean, yeah, COVID pushed like pushed a lot of people into you know staying at home and uh uh you know being concerned about their health and trying to protect their health. But you know, I I um I I don't think that either is has become the whole story or this the story as it has transformed is that people are returning to uh um you know their their different groups, whether that be church or uh arts or running. Um yeah, that I mean, and and uh maybe that repeat repeats a little bit of of what all you folks are saying, but just but that yeah, that we haven't even even as it can feel like the drive for um uh basically for people to get rich uh off of you know whatever uh ways they can, you know, they can sort of loop us into um different different systems um you know, or or different algorithms or you know, whatever. Um we haven't we haven't we haven't lost that hunger for you know face to face sitting down and gathering in groups and and uh talking to each other directly. Um and and being open to tackling hard stuff in a way that we probably they probably had a real much harder time in Charles Dixon's time, you know, of of tackling the issues and just being blunt and honest sometimes. And of making tons of mistakes in along the way, uh course, and um having to uh retract or um uh you know apologize for for uh things you have you know you may have said or or whatever. Like but yeah, it's it's people are uh at the very at the very least, we are yeah, we're not afraid, we're not nearly this afraid to say you know things that we feel need saying.

Bill: 1:54:54

Well, thank you everybody for being here tonight. I'm gonna I'm gonna wrap it up with just a couple of thoughts uh that have been uh niggling at the edge of my my consciousness as we have been going through this. Um we've talked a lot about uh Scrooge tonight, obviously, and uh and we opened uh in early in the podcast talking about how Scrooge's um Scrooge's sin or Scrooge's uh problem that required redeeming was uh that he had closed himself off from community in general. Um we talked about Rudolph and Herbie the dentist elf at the beginning as well. Um and the idea was going back to watch this movie. Um but uh uh and and the that again they experienced uh a segregation from community as well, um, by virtue of the fact that they did not uh feel like they fit in in the way that they were supposed to, which sent them to the island of misfit toys. Um all of our stories of redemption also seem to have some kind of element of closing off from the community or from the the well-being of ourselves and others in the midst of them, right? Frosty's wizard uh adversary whose name I have forgotten wanted to take Frosty's magic for himself and for his benefit. It's it goes on and on and on. So wherever uh you find yourself in this Christmas season, um, first and foremost, I want to say um that um it is not my personal belief uh that anyone is ever broken. Um we are human and we are loved by a God who knows that there are days when we get it right and there are days when we get it wrong, but desires nothing more uh than for us to be held in loving community um and be contributing to loving community as well. So uh wherever you find yourself, whether you are feeling like you are crushing life right now, or whether it is hard, uh whether you are experiencing losses, whether you're experiencing absences at the table for the first time, just know that you are not alone and that you are loved, and there is a community that you are either a part of or that is waiting for you uh to join it that will hold you and carry you through all of it. Uh and with that, you do not need to be redeemed. That work has already been done. Um transformation is a lifetime of work. And just know that uh you are never alone on that road, and trust that God loves you in the midst of it all. And with that, we will sign off for tonight with a Merry Christmas, and we will see you in 2026. That brings us to the close of tonight's conversation. Transformation often unfolds gradually. Along the way, humor, discomfort, and insight invite us to deeper understanding. It is our hope that this episode invites you to discover new layers of meaning and compassion and grace and familiar stories, and that these moments of recognition carry the quiet promise of change and growth for you. If this episode stayed with you, you can continue exploring with us by subscribing wherever you get your podcasts or by connecting with us on Patreon. As this Christmas season continues, may you find space for reflection, gentleness, and hope. Redemption grows through patience, grace meets us in the midst of living, and hope arrives in ways both subtle and steady. Thanks for being with us. Take good care of yourself. I'm Bill Weaver, and this is Prepare to Drown. Merry Christmas.