Death Isn’t Nothing at All

In this episode, we explore Scripture’s delicate balance: the acceptance of a life completed, the lament for the rupture that death brings, and the grounded hope that never needs to deny pain. Instead of over-describing the afterlife, faith offers images sturdy enough to trust and practices strong enough to carry us when words fail.

comms@ridley.cam.ac.uk

www.ridley.cam.ac.uk

Transcript

A Childhood Memory Turns Darkly Funny

SPEAKER_00 0:00

When I was younger, I went away with my parents and sister to a campsite in Norfolk. At least, I think it was in Norfolk. Most of the holiday lives in my memory as vague and blurry fragments. But there are a few vivid images that stand out first. The caravan. It was a ghastly thing. Dusty pink sofa cushions, brownish curtains, and white walls faded to a dull yellow in the sunlight. The bathroom had a smell that refused to leave. It was in every sense of the word unforgettable. Then there was a young family next to us, our neighbours for the week. They had two dogs, which, to abored nine-year-old, were nothing short of salvation. When my parents wanted to relax, the dogs became my ominoon entertainment. That was until the last day. What started out as play, some dancing, some running, quickly turned into a chase. At first it was fun, but then something shifted. I felt like prey. The dogs were fast, too fast, and my laughter turned into a full. I glanced around, hoping their owners would call them off, but no one came. My legs slowed, time dragged, and finally they caught me. A brace for the worst. But instead of fangs, I got a face full of slobber. They licked me, and I was fine. Still, for those few eternal moments, I was convinced I was being hunted by demons. And in that strange, faded caravan holiday, it became one of the most colourful memories that I have.

Why We Don’t Talk About Death

SPEAKER_02 1:41

Humanity is not an easy thing to live with. We often struggle with our limitations and the realities of a physical world we can't ever fully control. A human world of interactions that bring as much pain as it does joy. And yet, this is the existence that God chose and embraced. God brought salvation not by removing us from our humanity, but by entering it and inviting us into a journey of transformation within it. Um are about being afraid of death. That some of the ways we responded to the pandemic are about that absolutely kind of about clenching fear of death. And at the same time, we don't talk about it. Particularly in the UK today, I find that we don't talk about it. I was really surprised when I moved to the UK and I went to a funeral for the first time to find out that you don't go and visit the body of the person before they've died, uh after they've died, and you don't have an open coffin, whereas all the funerals had ever been, like certainly in my family. Um, you go the, you know, there's an open coffin in a funeral parlor at the hospital for a couple of days and 24 hours, and the family stays with the body, and you organize a bit of a rota, and people come and and they chat to you and whatever, and then at the funeral. Yeah, as well. Yeah, yeah, I did that as a child. And so you have an awareness of death, and you really realize that that person is gone because you see their body, you say goodbye to that person, you have an open coffin at a funeral. Um, and coming to the UK, I was really struck by the way in which we keep death behind closed doors by and large, and closed coffins.

SPEAKER_00 4:32

It's um I don't know if you're into Vikings at all. Um, both the TV series and also the the people group. I mean, obviously Vikings are deeply violent, and um, there is quite a few um contrasting ideas between the Christian faith and and the practice of living a good Viking life.

SPEAKER_02 4:52

Or at least the way they've been portrayed.

SPEAKER_00 4:54

At least the way they've been portrayed, yeah, exactly. One of the things that I've always admired in the various depictions of of the Viking and and the old Norse life is they seem to have a much better relationship to death. Um there's kind of there's there's a glory in it. There's a there's a not a living for death, but there's a death is just the next thing that I'm gonna do and there'll be something beautiful in that. Does Christianity I mean obviously heaven is such a prevailing image, but because we're so scared, it feels like it's it's not actually the exciting thing that is it's portrayed as. Does Christianity offer a framework you think that could replace or give us a better alternative to, like you said, uh particularly the English mindset, which is just let's just not talk about it?

Living With Mortality Without Despair

SPEAKER_02 5:51

I think scripture kind of offers us both an acceptance of death and an acknowledgement of how significant death is for human beings. Um, and so there's this kind of honesty about it. So you have, you know, plenty of people who are said like Abraham died when he was old and full of years, and you know, he had a good life, he lived his he lived to the end of his days, and and that's a good thing. So on the one hand, there is an acceptance that you can have a good life and that death isn't tragic in that sense when death comes at the right time and in the right place. Um, and at the same time, there's the acknowledgement of the terror and the the kind of um you know kind of the separation that death involves. So, you know, Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus, his friend. Um, you know, death is called the final enemy by Paul in Corinthians. So there is that sense that death is a terrible thing. It is the thing that tears families apart, that tears kind of human persons. But neither is it the end. There is that, you know, that promise of bodily resurrection, that promise of the kingdom of heaven. But that's not unlike in some old myth, that's not fleshed out. So, and I think that's one of the differences maybe with Vikings, but with other kind of mythologies around the world, that Christianity and Judaism actually, uh, so whether you go to the Hebrew Bible or the New Testament, uh, neither spends a lot of time dwelling on what happens after death. There's a sense of hope and there's a sense of trust in God, particularly in the New Testament, but without the need to kind of overfocus on that and turn it into something that diminishes the reality of life. So it's a very balanced approach to death.

SPEAKER_00 7:42

Do you think that is because that it is trying to keep is it trying to keep mystery uh or recognize that mystery and that mystery of of life and death is such an unknowable thing? Is it trying to advocate for the fact that you shouldn't know?

SPEAKER_02 8:03

Yes, partly. I mean, you know, I like Paul's word in Corinthians when he's saying, Now I know partly, then I will know fully. You know, this sense of, well, actually, we can't know about death. So why waste time trying to imagine what happens next? You know, we trust that God has made promises, and those promises are good are good enough. And actually, what God asks us to do is to live well, you know, and and actually I think Christianity and Judaism are really focused on how does God transform our life now. And of course, the picture of what is to come helps us shape how we live, but but we don't live only in the hope of what's next, as it were.

SPEAKER_00 8:46

Yeah, I thought I I mean me, like probably everyone else listening to this, like I really don't like thinking about it. I really, really don't, and and there has been days where I've been so locked up thinking about it that you know it's been paralyzing to an extent where it's just like you either fall into the trap of, well, this is all pointless because I'm gonna die, or I better hurry up and fit everything in I can because I'm gonna die. And inevitably it's like you either end up at love, which is just I'll think about love and live out of love, or I'll think about death and I'll live out of death. That to me feels like the two polarizing ultimate places you end up as a human. Um, and we discussed in a previous episode about being limited, and I guess death is the ultimate limitation. Um and there's various things in the Bible which talks about stuff like um having children, for example, as as this um this continuing of your family, and there's lots of that genealogy talk throughout the Bible. How do you feel um we can best live within that limitation? Is there any is there any values that you might point towards or is it just a matter of just you know it can't just be a matter of just just trying not to think about it?

Weeping With Those Who Weep

SPEAKER_02 10:11

No, and for me it's about this kind of how does God ask us to live? Um, how do I make decisions based on how God asks me to live? And how do I trust that God has got things in hand for the future? So it's living in hope, you know, with the things that we don't know and with the realization that God might come, but also that, you know, things might come that I don't want either to myself, or I'm more actually I'm not particularly afraid of death for myself. I'm much more afraid of my loved ones going before their time. Um for me, that's that's my biggest fear in life. Um so I think Christianity and scripture give us ways of both living well in the day, living with hope of what God will do after death, but also crying out and raging against particularly untimely death. Um I mean, there's plenty of you know plenty of stuff in the Psalms and in the narratives about the the horror of you know children dying, about uh, you know, the prophets and Jesus raised children who've died, for instance. You know, that's quite noticeable in you know that the majority of the raising from the dead actually in the Bible are not grown-up people, their children who've died before their time.

SPEAKER_00 11:32

And I guess that's the reality that all mythologies grapple with it, whether it be the Vikings or an alternative, it's there's something about a purposeful death.

SPEAKER_01 11:44

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 11:45

With a purposeful life kind of behind it. So I guess we the ultimate kind of evil of death is when it takes someone that shouldn't die, yes. And when when it's an 80-year-old who's lived a great life, or a 90-year-old, and then they're deeply loved, it's sad, but not as sad.

SPEAKER_01 12:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:02

Um you're gonna miss them, but you're like, well, I'm I'm okay with it because they they did what they they got the most out of it they could in a way.

Words That Hold at the End

SPEAKER_02 12:11

And it I think one of the complex things about death is how do we talk about dying well without trivializing death or making it sound like somebody's expendable? You know, and I think that's probably one of the things we struggled with. So I I was very close to my grandfather and I was devastated when he died. You know, for me it was just I don't know, he was everything to me. Um he did have a good life, and he did have a good end, and and it was, you know, he was in his late 80s, but but death was still a terrible, terrible thing, even when it came at the right time. But but finding that sense of a Christian, how do I make sense of that? How do I find the space to say I wept, you know, as Jesus wept? And yet I do have hope because God gives us hope and because death is not ultimately the end of all things. Um and that's partly about finding that space to be human, that realistically we live on this side of the barrier, don't we? We live on this side of death, we live in life. Um and as a person bound in time, I don't have God's timeless perspective. I know that when my grandfather died, I was gonna have to live without him for the rest of my life. And I still think, you know, when my daughter was born, I was really sad that she would never get to know my grandfather. And I still think about him most days. Um that's the reality of being a human person living in time and living with the death of the people you love. That we have, you know, so so the question for me really as a Christian is how do we do that well? How do we not, you know, sweep it under the carpet? How do we accept that yes, this hurts, and this hurt needs to be expressed and acknowledged. But how do I live in a way that's not controlled or defined by that? So I don't want to despair because a loved one has died, or I don't want to despair and think that there is nothing in the future. So how do I find that balance? Um, and how do I think about my own death? Well, so that's something that's you know been discussed, particularly at the moment, with debates around assisted dying. What does a what does a good death look like? What is the value and dignity of a human person? What are the boundaries of medicine? At what point should we stop treatment? Um, how do we talk about death well without trivializing and diminishing the personhood um of of human beings?

SPEAKER_00 14:50

I mean it's crazy, isn't it? Because it's you you come to an inevitable place where you, you know, is there is there a good way? Is there a good way of talking about death, particularly to those who have experienced it because you can't speak to the person that's died, obviously. Um I I was in um when I was studying at Ridley Hall of About ten years ago now, we went to Adam Hitchin Hitchinbrook Adam Brooks Adam Brooks Hospital with the hospital chaplain on a pastoral care module. And um I'm not a big fan of hospitals. Well, I don't think no one's really a big fan of hospitals, are they? The the smell, the the sound, really intense um sensory overwhelm. We're having these lectures, and then it was kind of like right, everyone stand up, come in. And we were we were ushered into the morgue of all places. Um and his whole kind of angle on it was what do you say to someone who's just lost that person.

SPEAKER_01 16:04

Yeah.

“Death Is Nothing at All”? Rethinking

SPEAKER_00 16:05

And you have to arrive at a place of like, well, words do begin to fail you. And that's where I wonder whether one of the what I love about Christianity as a faith is this this commitment to to being with one another rather than doing for one another, or that there's a there's something about the only thing that you can do is kind of just climb down there with them and just sit there, isn't there?

SPEAKER_02 16:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:35

And their words do fail you.

Assisted Dying, Biohacking, and Good Life

SPEAKER_02 16:37

And weep with those who weep. We're not told find good words to tell those who weep. We're told weep with those who weep. I mean, having been a vicar in a kind of normal parish in the Church of England, I have done a lot of ministry, both just ahead of death at the time of death, and then a lot of funerals. Um it's a part of ministry I hugely, hugely treasure, because walking with a family just feels like a really significant and precious thing to do. You know, it's incredibly an incredible privilege that people tend to open up to you at that time. Um, and then you, you know, other so there's two different things. There's like with funerals, how do you help a family grieve? How do you hold that grief? And how do you help them grieve in truth is often a difficult thing to do. Because often we tend to think, oh, we can only remember the good stuff. But actually, the bad stuff or the hurtful stuff is still there and it eats away as people are people also trying to find, so in the face of death, how do we tell the truth about life in a way that's hopeful, that's fair, and that's healing for everybody involved. And and that's an important question for me in Christian ministry, but I think it's probably a question that all of us need to ask ourselves, you know, what what what are the kind of loose ends of my life? What are the loose threads? What are the relationships that actually I need to mend before I go? What are the things that I need to do? Um, and if if there is nothing I can do, how do you I want that to be held? Who might hold me or hold those out of within that? So that's one thing. And then ministry at the time of death is also there's something quite powerful about sitting together with somebody who knows that they're going to be going ahead, and there's often a time of acceptance. And I think sitting with that knowledge that death is coming and being able to pray and to hold that person in hope before Christ is something really, really important. But it's also a time at which as a vicar I've wondered how do we how do we think about the whole of life in our congregations and how do we prepare people in a way that's going to enable them to have a faith that holds them at that time, you know. So I had uh once I, you know, I spent time with uh with somebody who uh was in his last few weeks, and gradually he slipped into kind of unconsciousness. And then I was called in uh to come and pray with him and the family. And after not having spoken or opened his eyes for days, I said the Lord's prayer. His eyes opened, he muttered the Lord's Prayer with me, and then he closed his eyes and never spoke again. And that really stayed with me as long as several other instances like that. And I just thought actually, there was an incredible power in having familiar words. You know, no other words that anybody was saying were getting through, but those words of Jesus of Scripture kind of had stayed.

SPEAKER_00 19:56

I guess he had spoken throughout his life.

SPEAKER_02 19:59

And it made me wonder what what do we give people, you know, because I think an older generation would probably have grown up with the Book of Common Prayer and you know, saying words that were the same every week, and and we don't all do that anymore, particularly in the more kind of evangelical churches, which you know is the the place that I'm from and that really is from, uh, where we like to sing the latest songs and we don't always kind of use as much liturgy as in other places. I think what is it that is gonna hold my people at those times in the future? What is it that's gonna hold me? What are the habits of mine? What is the muscle memory of faith that we can have, you know, not just nearing death, but in dementia or you know, at those times when we lose our faculties and and things fall apart.

Valuing Every Age Without Hierarchy

SPEAKER_00 20:51

Do you think that staying on the theme of words here? Do you think that words serve a particularly important function within that? Because I I I know that you've you've um uttered about the Lord's Prayer. I know that um just from personal experience of someone with Alzheimer's, like the songs seem to be the only thing that that kind of cut through. Um and there does seem to be a prevalence about the words, words, sounds that that is of particular importance as we draw them, the the curtains close um in some ways. Some of the words that we you spoke about, uh you highlighted to me before this, like some of the words that people use on the final at when someone's laid to rest in funerals. Um one of the most prominent poems that's read at funerals is called Death is Nothing at All by Henry Scott Holland. And uh these are some of the words that people are using, and we'll see what they think about it. Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened, everything remains exactly as it was. I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged, whatever we were to each other that we are still. What do you think? If these were the words that we were given to people to hold up until death and then after death for everyone else.

Closing Reflections and Next Topic

SPEAKER_02 22:34

So, you know, I've taken dozens and dozens of funerals and I've been asked for that poem multiple times. And on the one hand, I never say no, because there is one sense in which it is true from a Christian perspective that Christ has gone good death. That's that's true, and I think there is hope. But my stomach always kind of drops when I hear that people want that poem because I want to say, but death is something, death is devastating. Death is the reason why you're crying here, sometimes crying in my arms, as I sit down with you to try and work out what we're gonna say about your loved one. And and I understand the sentiment because that's about trying to give hope. That's about trying to say there is something beyond us. But I think it's trying to give hope by denying the reality of the impact of death on those of us left behind. And so I don't find it a very useful poem. But I try to draw on the sentiment and to think, what does that look in a Christian? What does that look like in a Christian kind of context? And so I always encourage people at funerals to make space for grief. And I say, grief isn't the end, it's not everything, but actually expressing it, acknowledging it doesn't take away celebrating the life, it doesn't take away rejoicing at the whole person that that person was, but but actually acknowledging that this is a goodbye, this is a final moment, this is a step that you have to go through is is an important part of saying goodbye. And actually, you need to be able to do that. And I worry um about the tendency of many people now to just want to have a celebration of life rather than have a funeral, because actually it takes away one of those markers. You know, human beings are had cultures throughout the world for centuries have always had funerals, they've always had death rights, a way of saying this is a passage, this is not nothing, it is something, it's something really big, and and we need to acknowledge it. And you know, even if we have hope, that there's a need to mourn, there's a need to address grief. And so I worry that our society is so afraid of death that it's actually making it even harder to deal with the reality of death.

SPEAKER_00 25:04

Well you've you said the um the Lord's Prayer. Have you found any other particular words to be of use within these times?

SPEAKER_02 25:16

I always go to the Lord's Prayer because I think that's something that most people kind of have kind of in their mind. Uh but when I, you know, when I spend time with families, um, I often ask, did did a person have a favorite song, did they have a favorite hymn, did they have a favorite Bible passage if they were a Christian? And actually kind of going to the type of you know words that are meaningful, I think are really important to keep connecting with that person who's sleeping away or who has died. Um for me as a priest, I also have to have people pick Bible verses and Bible passages for uh funerals. And so I've used, you know, many different kinds of passages, but I think there's probably two Bible passages that I think are particularly helpful. One is Jesus talking about going ahead and you know, um, I'm preparing a place for you in my father's house. There are many rooms. Um, and often I get people to think about what kind of room would be would Jesus prepare for your loved ones, you know, and we engage in a little bit of, you know, not too much, but some kind of imagining the person in the care of Christ, I think, is helpful. The other passage that is often used is Ecclesiastes, there is a time for everything, a time to live and a time to die. Um, and I think that's that's about I think that is more useful when somebody has lived a long life and you can accept their death more easily, but acknowledging that sense now. Um that that person has gone and acknowledging that they have had their time and it's a good thing. It's much more difficult when you're taking a funeral for, you know, somebody who's been taken suddenly or through illness at a young age or death by suicide, for instance, where actually I find the psalms of lament are much more helpful, the psalms that rage and that's I don't understand, I don't know why that's there. And I think finding helping people to find a way of expressing their anger for me is really important. And the range of emotion that you feel. So, in a sense, almost a good funeral should be able to draw on the different emotions. So I've had families sometimes who said, Oh well, I'd really want to tell that story about Grandad, but it's a funny story, so I can probably not tell it as a funeral. And I'm like, No, you should. You know, a good funeral can have sadness and it can have laughter and it can have everything. One of the funerals I took that stays most powerfully in my mind is uh for an old lady, she died in her 80s, and she had lots of grandchildren, and she used to have her grandchildren reign for the day and look after them. And at the end of the day, they always put on YMCA and did the actions and sang. And um, so as we finished the funeral, we did a final YMCA song and dance with everybody the entire funeral party. And and actually, there was something incredibly beautiful about that, you know, about that sense of laughter, but the laughter enabling the pain and carrying the pain.

SPEAKER_00 28:31

It seems like with lots of subjects that we've spoken about, that we're in quite a polarizing time when it comes to death. On one hand, we have we've just had new legislation passed around um assisted dying. Um on the other hand, we have people like Brian Johnson, who is literally spending millions of pounds um fighting back against death. Um, have you heard of him?

SPEAKER_02 29:01

No.

SPEAKER_00 29:01

So he's a tech entrepreneur turned self-experimental biohacker. That's the term. He's on a quest for uh immortality, or at least to slow his aging to a cruel. He has over 70 pills a day and follows a minute-by-minute routine and undergoes treatments, most of us have never even heard of. His body, according to some markers, is now that of an 18-year-old. Not bad for a man in his forties. So we have these two polarized ideas. One is we're maybe trying to adjust our society to have more room for death. In another way, we've got people that are saying, you know, now's the time to really start pushing back against death. Will we one day be a society not in the Christian sense, in in the physical sense that conquer.

SPEAKER_02 30:03

It is really complex because I think the assisted dying debate may not just be about making room for death, but I think it's partly motivated by the fear of death and the fear of a difficult and drawn-out death. But the question that really interests me with both of those is what do these examples tell us about what we think a good life is? You know, because I think the assisted dying debate is motivated partly by people's definition of a good life and the sense of if the life isn't if life isn't good enough, I'd rather not live. So I'm not sure it's about making room for death as much as it is about refusing some types of life. So that's one thing. And I think with the entrepreneur, I want to say what what kind of life do you want to have? I wouldn't want to go back to being 18. You know, I quite like being an almost 50-year-old. Almost.

SPEAKER_00 30:59

By the time this is, she will be an actual 50-year-old.

SPEAKER_02 31:03

Thank you. You're old enough to be my son. I I just find it really fascinating because actually I look back at my life, and there are there are negatives about being older. You know, things start to go wrong, and you know, but actually I feel more settled within myself. I feel more settled in relationships. Um there are people I miss who've died, but there's new people I've welcome and I've seen grown up and then I've prayed off. Um and there are things I have learned about myself, about the world. Some of them have been good things, some of them have been hard things. I wouldn't want to lose any of that. Um I worry a little bit about the cult of youth in our society, which I think goes together with that fear of death, that we almost think that being young is better than anything. You know, we do that even in the church sometimes, where we idolize the idea of having a young church. And I want to say, actually, can we value every age? Can we value every part of human life? And, you know, I often think, I wonder what the people of the Bible, the people of the Old Testament, would say about the way in which we treat older people in our society and in ways we in which we conceptualize old age. Because in lots of more traditional societies, old age is considered, you know, as it the Bible says, a crown of glory and a crown of wisdom, and you know, and you value and you respect and you treasure your older people, uh, and and they represent something to look someone to look up to. Um, and with your story of the entrepreneur, I want to say, is this somebody I want to look up to? Is this does this give me the sense of a life we lived, or does it give me the sense of somebody trying to escape life in all its fullness and life in all its seasons?

SPEAKER_00 33:00

It strikes me that I wonder whether we've got such a deep sense of misunderstanding about the the not the usefulness of old people, that's a terrible phrase, um about the different um things that different ages bring into life. Uh in part, I think that maybe because we've had such a culture shift through things like the internet where our our businesses, our economies have had such rapid change that there is this heavy leaning towards a certain generation because there's a familiarity with what culture is like now. And then another generation, an older generation, is then kind of gone they've been thrust out through through progress um in airquaves. Um and maybe we're in a particularly prevalent time where anyone that hasn't fitted neatly within that culture change has been thrown out. I wonder if in in that way, I wonder if there's hope in in the next kind of 50 years that that the ages balance out a bit more. But have do you think in history as someone that's interested, is has is there any markers of when history has done this better?

SPEAKER_02 34:20

I think there certainly has been, I mean, you can always get out of kilter, can't you? Because I think there have been plenty of times in history where children haven't been or children have been valued, but children haven't been respected or seen as full human beings either. So I think again, as human beings, we struggle with balance and we struggle to see every person as made in the image of God and equal in dignity and value. But I do think that kind of modern societies, so post-industrial revolution societies have tended to see the value of a person depending on their economic value, their production value, and therefore if you don't produce and if or if you're not a promise of production like a child would be, then you're not valued and you don't count. And and for me that's the worry about the assisted dying debate in particular, but not just that debate. It's that sense of, you know, are we dismissing people because we think they don't have anything to give, because they don't produce anything, or because if somebody, you know, has lost their faculties, then they have nothing to give. And we dismiss them as human persons, and we're not open to the gifts they might have to give us.

SPEAKER_00 35:35

It's really interesting. Uh it just conjured images in my mind of I imagine Adam and Eve, in a sense, to be kind of athletic 35-year-olds, but you know, prime physicality, prime mental fortitude. And thereby, if you're younger than that, you're working your way towards, and and they were creating God's image. If you're younger, you're working your way towards being in God's image, and if you're older, then you're leaving it. But it is, I guess, God's image is is big enough to encapsulate looking like a frail, um, curved spine woman in a way, all the way right down to a toddler. Like that the image is big enough for us all to be image bearers, not just when we're our physical peak.

SPEAKER_02 36:26

Well, and why do we think physical peak is better than anything else? You know, see it's the human tendency to have hierarchies. We think, oh, we're all human, but some humans are a bit better than other humans, you know? Rather than thinking we're all human, all made in the image of God. We have the same value, the same beauty, but we have we're different. And I just think human beings are seem to be incapable of dealing with difference without turning difference into hierarchy. Um, but if we remove the hierarchy and just have the difference, then we're able to appreciate the gifts we have for one another.

SPEAKER_00 37:04

In our next and final episode, we're gonna be discussing love. And maybe in that episode we will begin to discuss what it really means to live a good life. This has been Being Human, a limited series produced by Ridley Hall with your hosts Isabel Hamley and Matt Cooper. Audio by John Lee. If you want to support this podcast and any of our future projects, like and subscribe on whatever channel you are listening on.