Can Invitation Beat Outrage As A Path To Change

Feeling squeezed to pick a side? We’re two longtime friends—a progressive Christian and a conservative atheist—who refuse the script and get honest about how change actually happens. Instead of scoring points against “the other,” we explore why declaring what we’re for creates room for unlikely allies, better policy, and more durable wins.

We cue up Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” and sit with its power to invite a nation into its own ideals—equality by creed, dignity by character, freedom shared by all. Then we turn to Malcolm X’s “The Ballot or the Bullet,” a masterclass in focus and force that names enemies, centers self-determination, and explains the practical logic of economic enclaves. One vision inspires, the other galvanizes; both confront real pain. That tension sets the stage for a deeper question: what is your end goal—defeat people, or transform conditions?

From a candid story about wanting opponents to “just leave” to a hard-won commitment to build rooms where disagreement belongs, we map the trade offs between assimilation and identity, purity and persuasion, outrage and invitation. You’ll hear practical habits to practice being “for”: pause before posting, translate anger into a positive aim, criticize behaviors not identities, and anchor debates to shared outcomes like safety, fairness, and dignity. We also get real about the cost: loving the person your tribe calls “the problem” may get you hit from your own side. If change is the goal, that’s a price worth paying.

If you’re hungry for conversations that bridge divides without papering over hard truths, you’re in the right place. Hit follow, share with a friend who thinks differently than you do, and drop us a note with one sentence about what you’re for. Let’s grow the tent together.

©NoahHeldmanMusic

https://livingoncommonground.buzzsprout.com

Transcript

Meet The Unlikely Friends

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Does it feel like every part of your life is divided? Every scenario, every environment, your church, your school, your work, your friends, left, right, conservative, liberal, religious, secular. It seems you always have to take a side. This is a conversation between a progressive Christian and a conservative atheist who happen to be great friends. Welcome to Living on Common Ground. Do you think if we met today, we would still be friends? I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 0:35

But we're friends.

SPEAKER_01 0:42

Man, so what? We want a few games. Y'all fools think that's something? Man, that ain't nothing, y'all. And you know what else? We ain't nothing either. Yeah, we came together in camp. Cool. But then we're right back here, and the world tells us that they don't want us to be together. We fall apart like we ain't a damn bit of nothing, man.

The Case For Saying What We’re For

SPEAKER_06 1:17

Alright. So today, uh what we're uh what we're planning on talking about is actually, you know, I was thinking about this. Um, so I started writing uh a script for a video that I'm gonna be shooting tomorrow. Actually, I shot it once and I hated it, so I'm gonna shoot it again tomorrow, and then it's gonna go up on my Substack account probably sometime uh maybe a week from tomorrow. Okay. And uh and one of the things I'm talking about in that is the uh well the the entire premise of the video is that it's better to be if we actually wanna if we actually want to be able to make change in this world, we can't just keep sh saying what we're against. We have to start saying what we're for sure because for invites other people in. Right. And so um I uh as I was working on the script and everything for that, we were coming up on Martin Luther King Day, which was um earlier this week. We're recording on Thursday of uh of that week. And um and I was thinking to myself, we really probably, if I had enough uh foresight, should have recorded this uh two weeks ago so that it would be coming out today instead of next week. When it's gonna come out the like the week after uh the week of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

SPEAKER_05 2:39

Oh, sure.

Listening To “I Have A Dream”

SPEAKER_06 2:40

Yeah. But anyway, so the reason I bring that up is because one of the things that I I think is that Martin So here's my theory, and this is what I want to talk about with you today. Yep. So first of all, the theory is that um being for invites people in, being against ultimately identifies who the enemies are. Sure. Okay. Nothing, no problem yet, right? All right. So um as I was thinking about that, I thought Martin Luther King Jr. is a great example of inviting people in. And his and his speech, um his uh I have a dream speech is a perfect example of that. And so even though it it's gonna take um time, I think it would be worthwhile listening to that if you're up for that. Sure. Okay, so let me uh let me cue it up and we'll we'll take a listen.

MLK’s Vision Of Invitation

SPEAKER_02 3:37

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not waller in the valley of despair. I say to you today, my friend. So even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream. My four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. I'ma have a dream today. Whipped scum lips flipping with the white for interposition and mummification. Wumbe Alabama little black bombers and black girls will be able to drum and hand from little white bombers and white girls. Every hill and mountain should be made all the rough faces will be made free, and the crooked faces will be made free, and the ball of love should be revealed in all the flesh. We'll see it together. This is our hope. This is the faith that I might go back to the south with. With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day. This will be the day. This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning. My country tears of thee. Sweet land of liberty of thee, I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrims' pride, from every mountainside. Let freedom ring, and if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania. Let freedom ring from the snow-capped rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the crevace slopes of California. But not only that. From every mountain farmer. Let freedom ring and wimble happen. When we love freedom ring. When we ring from every village and every humble from every We will be able to feed up the village from all black men and white men and Jews and gentlemen of Protestants and Catholics. We'll be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual. Free to laugh. Free of love.

SPEAKER_06 9:47

It was, yeah. Okay. So uh the ballot or the bullet? Okay. Now um I was going to listen to it, and uh instead I listened to a lecture.

SPEAKER_05 9:58

Um that uh that you it's much, it's it's much, much longer. We wouldn't want to Yeah, I think it's like almost an hour long.

SPEAKER_06 10:04

Yeah, it's a very long talk. So why don't we do this? Um because here's the thing. Again, part of my theory, but then I want you to I want you to jump in because I want you to share a little bit about what that speech is about and then whether or not I've lost my mind. Okay. All right. So I think that what I think one of the issues that we're facing right now is that we as a culture, the way that we have decided to uh or the way that I don't know if it was a decision, I'm gonna give us the benefit of the doubt and say we did not actually come out and make this as a decision. It just sort of became the default. We have chosen to uh engage in our disagreements in a way that is more like Malcolm X than like Martin Luther King Jr. Um and I've been thinking about this, and it's interesting to me because we um we celebrate uh the life of Martin Luther King Jr. every year in our nation. Uh and uh and I think it's because we recognize in it that it it's it's the ideal that that what he did and the way he did it is something that we should um we should celebrate. Yet we model our behavior and our the way that we interact with each other more in line with Malcolm X who doesn't have a holiday. So all right, what was it give us give us a the a summary of his speech.

What Is Your End Goal

SPEAKER_05 11:29

Uh well it was it it was in large part it was a response to the um to the march um that had happened on Washington with um Martin Luther King Martin Luther King Jr.'s organization and um he's he it's it he it's also um when he has if I if I'm getting my timeline right, which I think I am, he has left um uh the why am I blanking on it? It's the it's the American version of the of uh the Muslim religion and they they it a lot of people consider them not actually Muslim, but they're um what Louis Farrakhan is the is the leader Yeah, I don't know the name. I'm gonna that's gonna that's gonna bug me. I'm gonna I'm gonna look it up. But anyway, he had he um had been uh uh a member um and had left and was trying to essentially start his own movement and he's trying to um he's trying to promote uh black nationalism. That's his words. And and I think I'll I'll just read a um Oh the Nation of Islam. Nation of Islam, thank you. I don't know why I couldn't remember that. I kept wanting to say Muslim Brotherhood, and I was like, that's not right, it's nation. So he was nation and then he had left. Um anyway, uh so I'm I wanna read a little passage here. Um and I had said to you when we were talking about this, this is one of my um uh it's something I'm very interested in because I had never listened to this speech or read this speech until I was a full-on adult, like in my 30s. Um all I knew of Malcolm X was a little bit black power, a little bit I didn't really even know much about the Black Power movement um or um uh like the Panthers or anything like that. Interesting. And so I I learned a lot about that when I was in my 30s.

SPEAKER_06 13:41

Anyway, real real quick, yeah. This is an interesting thing to me. Um Elena, who you know was on and she listens. Yeah, I was talking to her last night about this and um and she said that they had to read that speech in school. Which one? The battle and the bullet? Yeah, that that was part of like a class that she took. Interesting. Yeah, and so just think about like how because again, she's 10 years 12, 14 years younger than you. Yeah. Yeah. And so like how curriculum changed. Sure.

SPEAKER_05 14:15

Well, and she grew up in a different place too, so um you know, different different area of the country and sure. But it's it is true, like the different curriculum. Also, I had a weird I might have maybe I was supposed to. I had a weird high school experience. So I miss a lot of things. Um but it is but but your point still remains. I mean, curriculums can change, and that changes a a perspective of a generation for sure. But anyway, I I listened to this speech. Uh the first time I heard any uh parts of it was on um the Martimaid podcast uh during his Jim Jones.

SPEAKER_06 14:52

We don't we don't promote other podcasts on here.

SPEAKER_05 14:55

And uh and so then I was like, I want to go listen to this whole thing. Because man, it gets me fired up. And this is what I was telling you. Is it like a pre-workout type of speech? It it'll get you going for a workout for sure. And what I was what I was telling, what I was mentioning to you the last time we were talking about it is that um, you know, I would have been his enemy. He's very clear about that. But he was honest about it. And there's something very refreshing about someone saying, No, you're my enemy and I'm coming for you. I know you're coming for me and I'm coming for you. There's something, there's something like it's I'm not saying it's good, but it's clearing. It like clears the fog, you know? And that's why I think like I I really think that the the whole being for, being for and being against thing, I think it's a really good dichotomy to be looking at, but I just I don't think anybody chooses to be against. I think that's just our nature. I think that's just first.

A Personal 180 On Inclusion

SPEAKER_06 15:53

Yeah, that's that's why when I was talking about like choosing between those two, I I do think that that seems to be now I but I also think though that that doesn't make it right. Sure. Right. Um because I often think uh that when we go to our nature, we're going to the base and we're going to the easiest, but we're called to uh something higher. Sure. Yeah, it's an I don't mean that. And I'm not even talking about as Christians or whatever. I'm just talking about as human as humans. Yeah. You know, um we have evolved to a place where we're called within our own nature to something higher than our base.

Enclaves, Markets, And Belonging

SPEAKER_05 16:29

Yeah. All right, go ahead. All right, here's a little this is just one clip, is is a big it's a long speech, like we said. All right, he goes, um, whether you're a Christian or a Muslim or a nationalist, we all have the same problem. They don't hang you because you're a Baptist, they hang you because you're black. They don't attack me because I'm a Muslim, they attack me because I'm black. They attack all of us for the same reason. All of us catch hell from the same enemy. We're all in the same bag, in the same boat. We suffer political oppression, economic exploitation, and social degradation. All of them from the same enemy. The government has failed us. You can't deny that. Anytime you live in the 20th century, 1964, and you're walking around singing, We Shall Overcome, the government has failed, this is part of what's wrong with you. You do too much singing. Today it's time to stop singing and start swinging. I mean, I listen to that, and it doesn't matter who he's talking about, man. I am ready to go. And when you listen to him, he's got so much heart behind it. And that's why uh it's you know, I I'm I'm just interested in what is that touching in me? You know, what what part of me is that touching that that it's so it gets me so fired up. Um and then you but and then you listen to the I have a dream speech and uh it does not get me fired up in the same way. Now it's it's like it's it's like the from my experience of of both of these, and I've I've juxtapositioned these like I've listened to both of them right back to back to feel the experience that I'm getting. I feel like Martin Luther King's is like soaring. You know, it's like and and I've heard this expressed that um from other people way smarter than me, that um that say, you know, what Martin Luther King was trying to do was to say the dream of America actually does include all of us. So you white uh America you need to live up to your obligation and include us. That was that's his we uh deserve to be uh in this uh big group. And Malcolm X is saying that is a fool's errand. They are your enemy. We need to defeat them and or carve out our own area, which I think there's an internal logic um to that. But um, you know, obviously I I I like uh MLK's uh vision better, and I do find it uh to be inspiring. Whereas Malcolm X's uh uh vision is galvanizing, I guess maybe is a different is a different way of looking at it. It's not it's not inspiring in the same way. It doesn't make my heart swell, it makes my my muscles twitch. Like, all right, okay.

Assimilation, Loss, And Trade Offs

Building Equality Before Assimilation

SPEAKER_06 19:38

Yeah, I so um I I think you raise a good uh at least something that got me thinking, a good point here, is ultimately when you're starting when you're talking about being for something or being against something, you have to ask yourself what's your end goal? Right. So like uh with Martin Luther King Jr., the end goal is full inclusion. And participation in the American dream. Right. Full access, um, equality. That is not Malcolm X's vision. That's not his goal. And so um, one of the things that might be helpful for people today is to take a moment and ask ourselves, what is our goal ultimately with with the with what we're seeing happening in today? Or or when we get it, when we get um frustrated or angry or concerned, uh afraid of what we're seeing in the news or what we're seeing, you know, or hearing from our friends or reading in online in our feed, whatever, um, is our goal to um defeat the people that seem to be holding different positions on these issues than us? Like, is our goal to just destroy them and get rid of them? Or is or do we have a different goal? Uh because I think that probably for some okay, I can remember at one point myself, and I think this is I think this is important that um you can see that I'm talking from a place where I've I've kind of come um maybe not full circle, but I've I've shifted. Um maybe I've done a 180. Um I'm trying to think if I've been here before. No, I've probably done a 180. Um, because I don't think I've ever been this concerned about um you know building common ground for people in the past than I have been over the last few years. Okay, but I can remember being in a in a meeting. This is this is embarrassing, but I'm gonna share it anyway. I was in a meeting and we were talking about full inclusion of uh LGBTQ plus persons within the United Methodist Church. And I didn't I didn't realize what meeting I had been invited to, but I had been invited and I went. Um that was back when I still went to meetings, um, and even when they weren't required. Now I only go if I have a a reminder that this is required for you to be at. Um so I went and I got in there and and I realized that they were trying to create a um uh uh what do you call it? A political um like a platform? No, like like you're trying to get your group together. Uh the the word is right, it's on the it's on the tip of my tongue. I can't think of it. This is good because you couldn't think of the word earlier. Yeah, like a political party? Yeah, not even a political party, but you're trying to create a caucus. I think that might be the word I'm looking for. And and so we were getting ready. It was it was uh this was years ago, and it was before an annual conference. Okay. Annual conference, we get together. And this particular year, we were gonna have to elect delegates to the general conference. If you're not familiar with United Methodism, just we were getting ready to elect delegates that would go to where all of delegates from around the world would come and get to make decisions based like that impacted the entire church. Yeah. And so this group, what they were trying to do is determine who they felt they could get elected and who they wanted to get elected in order to push the agenda of LGBTQ plus inclusion. And the conversation started getting kind of heated in there. Not that anyone was disagreeing, but that we were getting angry with those people who were who were like fighting against full inclusion. And I said, I I said, I just wish they would all just pack up and leave. All of the people that disagree with us, I wish they would just go away. People that know, like I I think that people that know me now may find that surprising that that came out of my mouth. Um because I I've done a 180 on that. I want, I actually want to create a place where everyone belongs, including the people that I disagree with. Yeah. But years ago, and I was ready to like so if you had asked me what is my goal, my goal was to destroy them. Sure. To get rid of them. Yeah. Um, I think that I think that's our natural reaction, like you were saying earlier, because uh it makes us I think that what happens is in all of these situations, right? So like, um, and I can't put myself in the place of a black man in the 60s, but I can put myself in in place of what's go what I see going on around me and try to draw parallels. What I get the sense is that both of them and and all of the all of the uh civil rights leaders, there there was a sense of impotence of we we we haven't like this this is wrong and we can't do anything about it. So what you do is you begin to develop your response to a sense of impotence. Sure. And and so, and I you see this on social media all the time, I think. And and our response, the easy response is to attack because it makes us feel like we're actually accomplishing something. Um the harder work though is to actually identify what's causing me to have this feeling and try to correct it. Now, if I do feel that you're the cause, then I will have to defeat you. Right. But uh but maybe we could do a little bit more work and realize maybe it's the behaviors or maybe it's the you know, you know, I don't know.

Practicing “For” In Daily Life

SPEAKER_05 25:37

Well, I uh it's very, it's very interesting. That experience, I think, is a very understandable experience. And I think that it happens over and over and over and over again. Another part of the uh main thrust of that ballot or the bullet um speech. I am gonna go back and listen to it now, though. Yeah, it's really good. A main uh main thrust of it, um, a big chunk of it, he talks about how um we've got um, in his words, white and Jewish um uh business owners that come in and build businesses in our communities, and then we do business with them, stores and whatever, and then that money leaves. So what we need to be doing is only doing business with our own, right? We create enclaves and we only do business with our own. That's that's a big part of his of his platform there. Which, you know, you you I can sit in my you know, in my home in Placer County, California, when I first heard this, and and um go, well, that's I mean, that's ridiculous. We're segregating when we do that. We shouldn't be segregating, we should have everything together, you know, all of that. But you can also see the um the um there's some level of like that's practical for trying. Uh we uh I have a sense of a people group. We all kind of have a people group together, and we want to raise the level of life, you know, living standard of living for my people group. We got to come up with ways to do that. Right. Why are we just sending the money out to other communities? And so, as another example, I know a lot of people who have moved to Tennessee from California. And the vast, vast, vast majority of them that I know who have moved from California, they're very conservative. And very um religiously conservative as well. And so, what did they want to do? They wanted to go live in an enclave that was shared all of their values and sure.

SPEAKER_06 27:48

Which is interesting. Real quick side note uh the people in Tennessee feel like the influx of people from California are the reason that this is becoming a more progressive area.

SPEAKER_05 27:56

Yeah, and it's so that is so interesting. I could talk about that forever because it is completely missing the mark. But oh, I think so too.

SPEAKER_06 28:02

I mean, at least the at least the people from California I know.

Loving The “Problem” Person

SPEAKER_05 28:05

Well, there's some. But the vast majority of people are moving from any doesn't that doesn't it doesn't matter. Sorry, I just yeah, I just pulled us off topic. I said I I could talk about that a lot. But anyway, um so when you're in a group and you're in this group of people who are like-minded with you, I think that it's like only like that is natural. That's normal. You you send a bunch of kids of all different races into a lunchroom. It's not atypical to see them kind of start dividing by race. Not always, obviously. And not and that does change, of course.

Willing To Pay The Price

SPEAKER_06 28:51

And you do start. And I will say this I think that it's I think that it's different. Like when I was in school in Florida, in high school in Florida, it was like strict and it was unspoken. Well, actually, it was spoken. I one time made the mistake of sitting at a table that was uh considered a black table. Right. And I almost got my brains beat in. But it's not an enforced law because it doesn't have to be. No. But I do think like when I look at the schools now, uh, it's getting better. But to your point, I I I concede your point. That we do my mom, when I went off to college, she was like, I'm not worried about you because we always find our own.

SPEAKER_05 29:30

And and what what I'm and I want to make sure that I say this the naturalistic fallacy says that because something is natural to happen, that means that it's right or that it should. Right. Because something does happen, that means it should happen. And that's a fallacy. That's a logical fallacy. That is not the case. Um and I mean, I'm I just I I just feel I feel the need to like directly expression. I think there's a difference. I'm, you know, I'm here try trying to do that.

SPEAKER_06 30:02

There's a difference between making an observation and making a moral judgment statement. Right. Yeah.

Closing And Call To Action

SPEAKER_05 30:07

And well, but and also I'm not so quick. I think where I fall on the kind of maybe on the other side of the center line is that I'm not so quick to make the moral judgment that it's bad, that it's wrong. Do you know what I mean? That it must be proportional, whatever. You know what I mean? Like I understand the impulse, and I'm not so sure all the time that that Malcolm X should be wrong about that. You know, like um it I can see the point that he has in that. And also this whole trying to bring everyone under one roof is how you get crucified. Oh, I'm yeah, I know, I know this. Um and yeah. So even though I think that I that's what I would prefer. So I would prefer one room.

SPEAKER_06 31:02

The idea of like buying and trading and like building up the economic uh capabilities or however you want to say of your own. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, there's a reason that churches sometimes have these directories of businesses owned by members of their church. Right. That they do that.

SPEAKER_05 31:24

Absolutely. Right. And so I every immigrant group has done it that has moved into that has come over into the United States. That's the reason you have Little Italy. It's the reason you have Chinatowns, it's the reason you have you've got all of those.

SPEAKER_06 31:36

Yeah. And so I don't have any problem with like any of that. I, you know, I think it just comes down to um the the whole message of are we being um are we drawing, are we allowing, are we inviting people into what we're trying to accomplish, or have we already identified who needs to be destroyed? Yeah. You know, and so maybe it's a good proxy for what we're trying to discuss. I think so. And I also think this like maybe the first, okay, so like let's look at, let's just stick with the topic of um of trading and doing c like doing business with your own. Right. So yeah, you have Chinatown, you have Little Italy, you have like all of this, all of these where when um immigrants came, that's what they did. And then they helped, they helped establish their own um community, they helped, they helped build up their their own um nationality, you know, even in the within um until you get to the point where you still have some of that, but for the most part, like the now that they have become established, you then you begin to see the assimilation, right? Um because like I but I mean, within my own family, for example, you didn't marry, my mom's generation was the first generation to marry outside of people from the Netherlands. Um But then once we were established as people then the people from the Netherlands, once the Dutch people became pretty well established in Cleveland and and um and and uh um other areas, uh, we then we begin to assimilate and we begin to, okay. And so maybe what maybe what Malcolm X is pointing out or was was pointing out, the idea of first, first, let's do some, let's do some community building by this, right? In the in the event that, or in the hopes that, what I would say then is in the hopes that, and and I think this is where he would disagree with me, in the hopes that at one point you build up equality and then can assimilate.

SPEAKER_05 33:35

Well, that is the that's the American mythos that we are a country based on an ideal, not based on a people group. And so then that is always set as the end goal, which is when you come here, you do not have um the goal is for you not to have a people group anymore. I mean, just to say it like that. You're not, you don't have a people group, you're just one of the rest of us. And I think that there's merit in that. And also I think that you I just I was listening to our podcast from last week, and when I had said, like, I think sometimes the what we call progress is a is a change. Um it's it's a trade-off. And you lose something when you gain something. And I think you you definitely gain something when you assimilate. Um, but you lose also, and that can be painful. And I do think that, yeah, Malcolm Mexico. No, we're not, we're not building these communities so that we so we can assimilate. Right. No, I yeah, I I I agree with that. But I I see your point. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 34:48

Yeah. And um anyway, and I think that that within the United States is the ideal. Um, but for that to happen, I think that it requires I think it at some point it would require, because I still see that that needs to be sort of the goal. We need to figure out how we can look at some of these communities that are um uh uh underserved, right? And how do we help strengthen those communities, build up equality, so that then you can have assimilation. And until we allow people and provide people the opportunity to for equality, we'll never have assimilation. It'll always be us and them. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_05 35:34

Yeah, I I I think that that's always the yeah, that's always the um the push-pull there. But as a proxy for what we're trying to do here, I think where you and I uh uh I'll just I'll step on a limb here. I think you and I completely agree on this, is that um what we're trying to do here is make the this space here as local as we can get here, you know, um a uh a space that's for everyone and is not against anyone. That and that's a real tough thing to do, man.

SPEAKER_06 36:12

I think so too. And and so like the reason that I I put the the video together about um or I'm putting the video together about for, not against. Um and the video that I put out, I think it was last week, it might have been the week before, um, is because I'm trying to I'm trying to provide tools to do this. Like it it we can talk about it and we can invite people into it, but at some point we have to start practicing it. And so what what are ways we can practice it? And one of the things that I'm I'm trying to do for myself, and I'm just sharing it, is when I find that I'm having this visceral reaction to something I'm reading or seeing, how can how can I take a moment, pause, and identify that my problem isn't that person, right? But my problem is what is what's happening or or the um the result of what they're saying or what they're doing. Um and uh right. And so like um if how can I say that um what I'm actually for might be um okay, like for example, let's just go back to something we talked about a while ago. Um when I say that I am for uh the um the sanctity of human life, that I believe that uh as humans, we should recognize humanity in one another and that we should treat each other with a certain amount of uh respect and dignity simply because we are part of the same thing. We're all humans. Yeah. And all humans deserve to be treated with a certain amount of respect and dignity.

SPEAKER_05 37:58

Um those with uh extra Neanderthal and I'm like myself. Right? Yeah, little extra two percent Neanderthals.

SPEAKER_06 38:08

I yeah. I I I wouldn't say that about you, but um but yes, right. And so so that means that means that I can't I can't turn people into villains and um avatars. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Right. And so I have to be able to look at the responses to shootings and not jump in the hero creation or the villain creation. Mm-hmm. I have to say, well, actually what bothers me here is the way humans are treating one another. And I want to see us do better. Um it's a short episode, but I think that's okay. Do we solve it all?

SPEAKER_05 38:54

Yeah, we don't need much time to solve it all. We're pretty good.

SPEAKER_06 38:56

I think so. I I just I would encourage people, this is me, uh, and then you can tell us where we I think you've already stated our common ground. Our common ground is trying to find common ground, but maybe within this particular topic, um, which the topics seem to be common ground. Anyway, um, I would encourage people that before you make your next post, or bef you know, um, or before you make your next statement or uh or or whatever it is, ask yourself, is this statement simply identifying who the enemy is? Or is it is it identifying what I stand for? Um is it a is it an attempt to try to um please the community that I'm a part of, the tribe I'm a part of, and show them how how pure I am? Or is it or is it an attempt to actually help bring about change? How's that?

SPEAKER_04 40:00

Yeah, that's good.

SPEAKER_06 40:02

Yeah, because I was talking to somebody last night and they were like, no, I love what you're talking about. Um, and they said, My biggest fear right now, I think this is really telling. They said to me, My biggest fear right now is like if I try to love the other person that I disagree with, my fear is that I know my tribe is going to turn on me. Sure. How sad is that?

SPEAKER_05 40:33

I think that's just normal. But I but it's a it's a that's an issue.

SPEAKER_06 40:38

Yeah. That's that's what we have created. Um and so that's what I want. That's what I want to change. I'm trying to find um what uh I think you commented on it too yesterday, what um our friend posted. I think this is really good. So for anyone that's a Christian that listens, I think this is a good question to ask ourselves or a good good thing to hear. The test of loving like Christ is not loving Jesus, it's loving Judas. Yep.

SPEAKER_05 41:14

Who do you know is the problem? Who's the problem? Not the downtrodden. Who's the problem? Can I that's the person you're supposed to love like yourself?

SPEAKER_06 41:27

That sucks. Right. So uh can I say this? Yeah. Uh I'm quoting here um Jordan Peterson. Uh-huh. Uh, when you talk about can you identify the problem? Yeah. He says, if your life isn't perfect, hopefully the problem is you. Yeah. Because that is the only thing you can change. Mm-hmm. Pretty good. That's so good. All right. You wrap us up. Where's our common ground?

SPEAKER_05 41:55

Yeah, I think our common ground really is that what we're both trying to do is in the spirit of the I have a dream speech. And we're, and at least for myself, I am trying to, the reason I'm so honest about what comes up when I listen to Malcolm X, Malcolm X's speech is because I want to I want to look directly into the abyss. I want to look into myself and know and be honest with what is happening there. But I think both of us are trying to create something locally that is in more in the spirit of the um you know, big tent.

SPEAKER_04 42:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 42:35

So here's the other thing. Yeah, real quick. I know this was gonna give you a last word, I lied. Um, are you willing to get crucified for that? That's topic for another day. Because here's my thought. I've reached a point where I'm willing to get crucified for it. I'm so committed to this. Your your kids are almost both launched. I'm willing to get crucified for this. But but part of me wants to to I want to build this community for two reasons. One is the um, one is the number nine in me. Sure. And and with the strong one-wing Enneagram uh nod there. I do want, I do want to change the world. Yeah. And I do want to create peace in this world. And I think that this is the way to do it. So that's the first reason I want to do this. The second reason I want to do this is because um misery loves company. And I'm willing to be crucified, but I would like to know that when the time comes, I'm not hanging alone. So all right. On that, thanks.

SPEAKER_00 43:48

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