Ep. 222 - Dr. Alexander Shaia "A Holiday Conversation" pt. 1

A Holiday Conversation with Dr. Alexander Shaia —

Part 1

For many people, the holiday season isn’t filled with joy and nostalgia — it’s filled with grief, loneliness, exhaustion, and complicated memories. This episode is especially for those who find this time of year difficult.

In Part One of this two-part holiday conversation, we’re joined by our dear friend Alexander Shaia for a reflective, unhurried dialogue about meaning, presence, and the wisdom found in honoring seasons rather than fighting them.

Rather than offering platitudes or quick fixes, Dr. Shaia invites us to slow down — to consider what it looks like to live faithfully and humanely when certainty feels thin and the world feels overwhelming. Drawing from ancient Christian wisdom, lived experience, and deep compassion, this conversation offers space to breathe, reflect, and feel less alone.

This is not a teaching session or a debate. It’s a pastoral, contemplative conversation — meant to be received gently, especially by those who are carrying more than they can name this season.

Part Two will continue the conversation, moving deeper into themes of hope, transformation, and what it means to move forward without rushing resolution.

🕯️ About Dr. Alexander Shaia

Dr. Alexander Shaia is a theologian, speaker, author, and Quadratos-trained scholar best known for his work on the ancient Christian fourfold Gospel model, a framework that predates modern linear approaches to Scripture and spiritual formation.

His work focuses on helping individuals and communities rediscover cyclical wisdom, spiritual maturity, and transformative faith — especially for those who feel disillusioned, wounded, or worn down by rigid or overly simplistic expressions of Christianity.

Dr. Shaia is widely respected for his ability to bridge scholarship, spirituality, and real human experience, offering language for faith that is honest, compassionate, and deeply grounded in history.

📚 Learn More & Connect with Dr. Shaia

Official Website:
https://www.alexandershaia.com & https://www.quadratos.org/
Books by Dr. Shaia:
Heart and Mind: The Four-Gospel Journey for Radical Transformation
Returning From Camino
Speaking & Teaching:
Information about events, workshops, and courses can be found on his website.

Education:

Ph.D., Clinical Psychology, California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco, CA, 1991

Graduate Certificate, Pastoral Psychotherapy, University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, WA, 1982

Master of Religious Education, Seattle University, Seattle, WA, 1981

M.A., Counseling Education, University of Alabama in Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, 1976

B.A., Cultural Anthropology, University of Notre Dame du lac, Notre Dame, IN, 1974

Jungian and Sandplay Studies, 1973 - Current; month intensive with Dora M. Kalff – Jungian analyst & originator of Sandplay, Zollikon, Switzerland, July/August 1989

Psychosynthesis Certificate, Psychosynthesis Training Institute, San Francisco, CA, Two year training, 1986-1988

🎧 Coming Up Next

➡️ Part Two of this holiday conversation continues with deeper reflection on wisdom, hope, and what it means to live faithfully in uncertain times.

If this episode resonates with you, consider sharing it with someone who might need a quieter, gentler voice this season.

00:11 --> 00:13 [SPEAKER_02]: Welcome to the deconstructions podcast.
00:13 --> 00:16 [SPEAKER_02]: I'm your host John Williamson and if the audio quality is not great.
00:17 --> 00:18 [SPEAKER_02]: Right now, I apologize.
00:19 --> 00:31 [SPEAKER_02]: We are in the middle of renovating my shared office space slash recording studio and so I'm set up on a small setup in the middle of the room stranded by plastic and saw to us.
00:31 --> 00:37 [SPEAKER_02]: So, but it hopefully will help provide better sound in the new year.
00:37 --> 00:38 [SPEAKER_02]: So,
00:38 --> 00:43 [SPEAKER_02]: Here's to open, but anyway, this time of year has a way of slowing us down.
00:43 --> 00:51 [SPEAKER_02]: The noise fades a little, the urgency loosens its grip and if we're paying attention, we're reminded that reflection isn't a luxury, it's an necessity.
00:51 --> 00:54 [SPEAKER_02]: Today's episode is a gift in that spirit.
00:54 --> 01:01 [SPEAKER_02]: We're joined by one of our dearest friends, Dr. Alexander Shia, or as we like to lovingly call him, Sweet Uncle Shia.
01:02 --> 01:08 [SPEAKER_02]: He's a teacher, scholar, and someone whose work has helped countless people re-encounter ancient wisdom in deeply human ways.
01:09 --> 01:14 [SPEAKER_02]: Instead of a formal interview, what we're sharing with you is more of a conversation.
01:14 --> 01:17 [SPEAKER_02]: holiday message offered with intention, humility, and hope.
01:18 --> 01:29 [SPEAKER_02]: But before we dive in, we do want to take a moment to share something we're genuinely, I don't know why that's so hard to say, excited about, we've recently launched a brand new Patreon.
01:29 --> 01:38 [SPEAKER_02]: And one of the things we are most proud of is a growing collection of educational tools available to all members at the $5 level in above.
01:38 --> 01:44 [SPEAKER_02]: Right now, there's already one full video available on Homosexuality and the Bible, what does the Bible actually say?
01:44 --> 01:54 [SPEAKER_02]: And it comes with an accompanying packet complete with references and discussion questions, especially helpful if you're using it for personal study or for group conversations.
01:55 --> 01:56 [SPEAKER_02]: And this is just the beginning.
01:56 --> 02:03 [SPEAKER_02]: Coming soon, our deep dive on topics like Paul, which letters scholars believe he actually wrote versus which ones he didn't.
02:03 --> 02:06 [SPEAKER_02]: a closer look at atonement theories and much much more.
02:07 --> 02:14 [SPEAKER_02]: Every video will include a reference guide and discussion questions because we want these resources to be thoughtful, usable, and grounded in scholarship.
02:15 --> 02:21 [SPEAKER_02]: You can find the link to the new Patreon page in the show notes or access it directly through our website.
02:21 --> 02:28 [SPEAKER_02]: So back to the episode, this is part one of a two-part conversation, and this is the first half obviously we slow down.
02:28 --> 02:36 [SPEAKER_02]: Together we talk about seasons, about meaning, and what it looks like to stay present when the world keeps pushing us to rush forward.
02:36 --> 02:45 [SPEAKER_02]: So wherever you are, whether you're driving, wrapping gifts, or unwrapping gifts, or just taking a quiet moment for yourself, we invite you to settle in.
02:45 --> 02:49 [SPEAKER_02]: This is a conversation meant to be received, not rushed.
02:49 --> 02:54 [SPEAKER_02]: So without further ado, Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah.
02:55 --> 02:58 [SPEAKER_02]: Here is Alexander Freakin' Shia.
03:01 --> 03:11 [SPEAKER_02]: This is Long Over Do, one of my favorite guests and dear friend of the podcast, Dr. Alexander Shia.
03:11 --> 03:13 [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you so much for being here.
03:13 --> 03:17 [SPEAKER_00]: John, I've been looking forward to this literally now I can say years.
03:17 --> 03:21 [SPEAKER_02]: I know it's it's uh I don't know why it took so long, but I finally I was like Oh good.
03:22 --> 03:22 [SPEAKER_02]: Kobe.
03:22 --> 03:22 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
03:23 --> 03:27 [SPEAKER_02]: Lots of crazy craziness going out of the world, but just thrilled to have you here.
03:27 --> 03:42 [SPEAKER_02]: I've been looking forward to this since we scheduled it and so like we talked about before we started recording, I thought it might be neat since it has been a while and we've got some probably some new listeners since then who maybe aren't as familiar with your work to do a little bit of a refresher.
03:43 --> 03:58 [SPEAKER_02]: I want to dig in a little bit, and so, you know, we talk about, you know, your seminal work, carton mind, you know, as guiding readers along the four gospel journey of quadratos, how do Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John each map onto a spiritual path of transformation?
04:01 --> 04:02 [SPEAKER_00]: Take it away, Shia?
04:02 --> 04:03 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
04:04 --> 04:21 [SPEAKER_00]: So look, I know that there are many people who are thinking that these are tired, dusty old documents, or in the process of unlearning a lot of things that we learned earlier in life, have like, to the Gospels really have something to say to us now.
04:21 --> 04:36 [SPEAKER_00]: and what my work is showing is that these texts are about the universal cycle of growth and transformation that every culture, every tradition, every psychology knows.
04:37 --> 04:44 [SPEAKER_00]: And for us as Christians, we are given this great lesson through the life of Jesus.
04:44 --> 04:48 [SPEAKER_00]: Or as I'm more likely to say now
04:49 --> 04:56 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm really going back to my Lebanese and aeromeic roots and really for myself just prefering that name.
04:56 --> 05:00 [SPEAKER_00]: So please, to all of your listeners use whatever name you would like.
05:00 --> 05:12 [SPEAKER_00]: But way back, many, many years ago, when I was at the University of Notre Dame, I had a professor, a seminar professor, in my theology department.
05:13 --> 05:14 [SPEAKER_00]: and his name was Joseph Campbell.
05:15 --> 05:24 [SPEAKER_00]: And this is long before Joseph Campbell became the Joseph Campbell, but he came every year to teach us about scripture as universal story.
05:25 --> 05:32 [SPEAKER_00]: And one of the things that he impressed upon us, we're talking the early 70s now, so you can sense it by age.
05:33 --> 05:39 [SPEAKER_00]: But he said every great story of transformation is told in four parts.
05:40 --> 05:56 [SPEAKER_00]: And at that moment when I heard him say that in reiterating, I thought, could there be a connection between his saying that the great stories of transformation are in four parts and that we ended up with four gospel texts?
05:57 --> 06:04 [SPEAKER_00]: Is there a larger story that the four gospels tell than the sacred life of Jesus?
06:04 --> 06:14 [SPEAKER_00]: And my answer is yes, but it took me 27 years before I finally realized what the connection was.
06:15 --> 06:39 [SPEAKER_00]: Now, Campbell talks about the four parts of every great story of transformation as the first part is our waking up to realize that we need to change something in our life has happened, or we've grown to a point where we realize what we thought we knew is no longer working or it's no longer fitting, and so we have to take a new journey.
06:40 --> 06:55 [SPEAKER_00]: The second part is this time of in-between where we were not where we used to be and we're not where we're going and it's that feeling of sort of exhaustion and lost and grieving what was but knowing that we can't go back.
06:57 --> 07:03 [SPEAKER_00]: And the third part is when a new realization or a larger insider vibes.
07:04 --> 07:13 [SPEAKER_00]: And the fourth part is taking that new insight and doing the work to make it part of our everyday life.
07:13 --> 07:32 [SPEAKER_00]: All right, so Campbell then went on to talk about and we have that in the great Jewish story because in the Jewish story, the coming out of Egypt, the first part is I'm a slave in Egypt and I've been offered a journey of transformation with Moses but I have to make a decision about whether I'm gonna go.
07:34 --> 07:41 [SPEAKER_00]: And if I make that decision to go with Moses, I end up in the wilderness that place have been lost.
07:42 --> 07:47 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not where I was, I'm not where I'm going, how long I'm making it to be here, it really does it.
07:48 --> 07:51 [SPEAKER_00]: It feels exhausting and anxiety-provoking.
07:53 --> 07:58 [SPEAKER_00]: Then, the Jews cross the Jordan into the Promised Land, the new realization.
07:59 --> 08:02 [SPEAKER_00]: But it's just the promise at that point.
08:02 --> 08:12 [SPEAKER_00]: And as we know, the Jewish people took 200 years before arriving in the Promised Land before it was their everyday reality.
08:12 --> 08:18 [SPEAKER_00]: And so there you have the four-part journey for the Jewish Hebrew people.
08:19 --> 08:22 [SPEAKER_00]: In Egypt, wilderness, promised land.
08:23 --> 08:26 [SPEAKER_00]: Now I've got to make the Promised Part of my everyday life.
08:27 --> 08:28 [SPEAKER_00]: Aha!
08:28 --> 08:34 [SPEAKER_00]: So I kept thinking, well, is this journey, was this journey underneath the Gospels?
08:34 --> 08:45 [SPEAKER_00]: And one of the really odd things that I discovered was the first thing that was said about the choices of the Gospels was not, we're going to go find the life of Jesus.
08:46 --> 08:50 [SPEAKER_00]: The first thing that was said was, there have to be four texts.
08:51 --> 08:59 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, excuse me, but what the heck does four have to do with the life of Jesus or the life of Yeshua?
08:59 --> 09:15 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, what I discovered was that in our Jewishness and those early centuries in our Jewishness, we were understanding our life with God through the metaphor Passover.
09:16 --> 09:36 [SPEAKER_00]: that the Jewish people looked at their life every year as part of my life today's an Egypt, part of my life today's an wilderness, part of my life today is hearing God's new promise, part of my life is making that new promise my everyday reality.
09:38 --> 09:42 [SPEAKER_00]: And then I found the work
09:42 --> 09:53 [SPEAKER_00]: of the Reverend Robin Griffith Jones in the year 2000, where he summarized what was going on in the community at the time the gospel came to them.
09:55 --> 09:59 [SPEAKER_00]: Matthew's gospel came to the community of Antioch,
10:00 --> 10:03 [SPEAKER_00]: We believe somewhere around the year 70 or least 70s.
10:03 --> 10:07 [SPEAKER_00]: Mark came to the community in Rome around the year 65.
10:08 --> 10:14 [SPEAKER_00]: Luke came to all the emerging Christian communities across Mediterranean around the year 85.
10:14 --> 10:29 [SPEAKER_00]: And the final gospel John came to the community of Ephesus in roughly 95.
10:30 --> 10:36 [SPEAKER_00]: But here was the thing in summarizing what was going on in each of the communities.
10:37 --> 10:46 [SPEAKER_00]: I realized that what each community was telling was one part of this great journey of transformation.
10:46 --> 10:55 [SPEAKER_00]: And they were giving it to us through the presence and the teachings of Jesus, the presence and the teachings of Yeshua.
10:55 --> 11:17 [SPEAKER_00]: So in this way, Matthew, Mark matches that part of where slaves and Egypt, because the community of Matthew had just lived through the days where the temple was destroyed, and the Jewish priesthood was massacred, and many people thought that this was the end moment.
11:18 --> 11:27 [SPEAKER_00]: And the gospel of Matthew came to them as the teaching and the presence of Yeshua saying, Oh, no, this is not the end.
11:27 --> 11:30 [SPEAKER_00]: This is how the new journey begins.
11:32 --> 11:47 [SPEAKER_00]: And the entire gospel of Matthew is a text like, we so need this wisdom right now, because it tells us in these days today, where it feels like everything that we've cherished is passing away.
11:48 --> 11:51 [SPEAKER_00]: And that people may think, this is how the great world ends.
11:53 --> 11:57 [SPEAKER_00]: This gospel is like, oh, no, this is not how our world ends.
11:57 --> 12:00 [SPEAKER_00]: This is how our world grows in a new direction.
12:03 --> 12:11 [SPEAKER_00]: So Matthew is that gospel through my work I describe as a text, which teaches us how to face change.
12:12 --> 12:18 [SPEAKER_00]: and who of us today don't need a text that is giving us the courage and the wisdom about how to face change.
12:20 --> 12:26 [SPEAKER_00]: Secondly, our ancestors needed a gospel to tell the story of the wilderness.
12:26 --> 12:54 [SPEAKER_00]: and for that text they chose the Gospel of Mark, because Mark was written, we believe somewhere about 65 for a century, in the city of Rome soon after Nero had condemned all the Jewish Christians of Rome to be executed, as punishment for having, in his belief, set
12:54 --> 13:09 [SPEAKER_00]: off of his back, and his horrible scapegoat ended up being the Jewish Christians, who were now rounded up and executed what was today called the Circus Neuro.
13:11 --> 13:20 [SPEAKER_00]: And in that moment of extremists, this gospel of Mark was composed as the presence and the wisdom of Yeshua,
13:21 --> 13:25 [SPEAKER_00]: to how to face a time of such wilderness unto death.
13:27 --> 13:38 [SPEAKER_00]: And the entire text of Mark from the beginning to the end is this uplifting presence of, yes, you are going to walk through the valley of the shadow of death.
13:38 --> 13:45 [SPEAKER_00]: But you do not walk alone.
13:48 --> 13:57 [SPEAKER_00]: And then the next place in Campbell's understanding of the journey is that we come into that place of new insight, larger understanding of revelation.
13:57 --> 14:11 [SPEAKER_00]: And the early Christians then chose the gospel John to be in this third place, because John was written for the community in Episcest late 1st century.
14:11 --> 14:34 [SPEAKER_00]: And Ephesus was that first community that not only heard the teaching about all of us being one, but actually, with beyond bloodline tribe, it's the first community that we have a record of, that said, we have an open door and a table, and it low-long grammatters who your mama was.
14:35 --> 14:37 [SPEAKER_00]: No longer matters what your bloodline.
14:38 --> 14:50 [SPEAKER_00]: no longer matters where you were born, no longer matters what language you speak, no longer matters whether you're free or slayed, whether you're educated or uneducated, come.
14:52 --> 15:01 [SPEAKER_00]: Now, we might think of that as an ordinary understanding, but 2 years ago.
15:02 --> 15:09 [SPEAKER_00]: we can't find any other place on the planet 2000 years ago that had that understanding.
15:09 --> 15:23 [SPEAKER_00]: It really is the original promise of Christianity that has now generated across the planet to almost everybody until every tradition and every religion, but not 2000 years ago.
15:24 --> 15:30 [SPEAKER_00]: Christianity is that first tradition of in my U.S. Southern Y'all come.
15:34 --> 15:47 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, the Gospel of John is that story of everyone belongs, but it's also the story of what in us pulls against that.
15:48 --> 16:04 [SPEAKER_00]: And the practice and the learnings of Yeshua the teachers about how to be willing to keep that door open and pull up another chair and pull up another chair and pull up a chair people not like us pull up a chair people who don't believe like us.
16:05 --> 16:16 [SPEAKER_00]: In fact, exactly pull up a chair of those who seem to be quite an opposite from us.
16:17 --> 16:28 [SPEAKER_00]: We have that fourth part of the universal journey, which is, okay, we have this wider revelation, but now how do we live it out and make it part of our everyday life?
16:28 --> 16:34 [SPEAKER_00]: And our early ancestors chose Luke to be this part of the story.
16:34 --> 16:41 [SPEAKER_00]: And what's happening is that Luke is written, we believe in the community of Antioch.
16:41 --> 16:54 [SPEAKER_00]: like Matthew was written for the community of Antioch, but Luke is written in Antioch as a book that's to be taken around all the emerging Christian communities in the Mediterranean world.
16:55 --> 16:58 [SPEAKER_00]: Every community is facing the same crisis, if you will.
17:00 --> 17:10 [SPEAKER_00]: And the crisis is that we have now realized that we are coming out from our mother tradition Judaism.
17:10 --> 17:14 [SPEAKER_00]: And this is the moment of that horrible wounding.
17:14 --> 17:17 [SPEAKER_00]: And so it's a mutual wounding on both sides.
17:17 --> 17:27 [SPEAKER_00]: And this text of Luke is, first of all, the text that says, we will not look at our mother tradition as it had the theory.
17:28 --> 17:38 [SPEAKER_00]: We understand that they are saying that because we believe the Messiah has already come, we are near no longer welcome in the synagogue.
17:39 --> 17:50 [SPEAKER_00]: But the second part of it is, is because that Jewish women, after the loss of the temple, has had this bad hero moment.
17:51 --> 17:56 [SPEAKER_00]: They have a momentary bad hero moment where they say to us, you have to leave.
17:57 --> 18:05 [SPEAKER_00]: But what that means is that the Roman Emperor now looks out and he goes, no, we've got a passionate,
18:05 --> 18:13 [SPEAKER_00]: Religious tradition that's getting started and this passionate tradition is doing things we want no part of.
18:14 --> 18:14 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, what is that?
18:17 --> 18:26 [SPEAKER_00]: We're saying not only is everybody brother and sister, but we're saying that as brother and sister we can be at the table together.
18:27 --> 18:32 [SPEAKER_00]: We're saying, as brother and sister, we want to take care of each other.
18:32 --> 18:34 [SPEAKER_00]: We want to take care of people not like us.
18:34 --> 18:43 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, the Emperor wants no part of this because the Emperor likes to keep people divided, because people divided are easier to control.
18:44 --> 18:49 [SPEAKER_00]: His army has a lot less work to do if we stay squabbling with each other.
18:50 --> 18:54 [SPEAKER_00]: If we unite his empire is threatened.
18:56 --> 19:07 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, in their other things, we are saying to women, you have higher status, you are not simply property, you are not simply owned by your husband.
19:07 --> 19:11 [SPEAKER_00]: You have integrity and respect as a human.
19:13 --> 19:25 [SPEAKER_00]: I can't say that Christianity is yet looking fully at a quality, but we're moving way beyond the more ways of the Roman culture.
19:26 --> 19:28 [SPEAKER_00]: You're a person, you're not an animal.
19:29 --> 19:35 [SPEAKER_00]: You have a soul and a person and you have dignity and you're worthy of respect.
19:35 --> 19:43 [SPEAKER_00]: Again, we were not yet at the point of wanting to abolish slavery, but we were raising up the status.
19:44 --> 19:54 [SPEAKER_00]: And on and on and on, it's for all of these practical attitudes of living out this wider understanding
19:54 --> 20:01 [SPEAKER_00]: and how we are to live with each other, all of this set us as a criminal to the Roman Empire.
20:02 --> 20:10 [SPEAKER_00]: And so the Emperor said, are now illegals, and soon he begins to condemn us to execution.
20:11 --> 20:21 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, the gospel of Luke is that it's one of the first beautiful texts that we have of non-violent resistance
20:22 --> 20:24 [SPEAKER_00]: We will speak truth to power.
20:24 --> 20:28 [SPEAKER_00]: That's the first part, and in some ways that's the easy part of what Luke says.
20:29 --> 20:31 [SPEAKER_00]: The second part is harder.
20:32 --> 20:36 [SPEAKER_00]: We will speak truth to power in love and respect.
20:38 --> 20:41 [SPEAKER_00]: We are not going to agree with your laws.
20:41 --> 20:44 [SPEAKER_00]: We are not going to agree with your values.
20:45 --> 20:49 [SPEAKER_00]: We are going to seek change and transformation.
20:51 --> 20:54 [SPEAKER_00]: But we're going to do it through non-violent resistance.
20:55 --> 21:01 [SPEAKER_00]: And we are going to do it by seeking to grow a new value system.
21:03 --> 21:05 [SPEAKER_00]: A new understanding of who God is.
21:06 --> 21:11 [SPEAKER_00]: One heart, one heart, one heart, one heart, one heart.
21:12 --> 21:20 [SPEAKER_00]: And Christians did this for 225 years before the emperor
21:21 --> 21:22 [SPEAKER_00]: were no more.
21:23 --> 21:40 [SPEAKER_00]: So now what we can understand is that in the fourth century, when Christianity named what were going to be the four texts that we call the Gospels, they also did something beside just naming them.
21:41 --> 21:45 [SPEAKER_00]: They placed them in a definite reading sequence.
21:46 --> 21:57 [SPEAKER_00]: and they read them in this sequence for up to 400 years and that sequence is not the sequence that we see in quite and quite the Bible.
21:58 --> 22:04 [SPEAKER_00]: The sequence is first Matthew, the question of how to face change.
22:05 --> 22:15 [SPEAKER_00]: Second Mark, the question of how to endure trials and suffering.
22:16 --> 22:31 [SPEAKER_00]: The question of joy and the experience of union and in fourth loop, the question of how do we mature in service.
22:32 --> 22:39 [SPEAKER_00]: And so, what we have in the Gospels are not just dusty old codes from yesterday.
22:39 --> 22:50 [SPEAKER_00]: We have a living presence of Yeshua here and now leading us through this journey that we're going through through our life, over and over and over and over and over.
22:50 --> 22:53 [SPEAKER_00]: The journey never ends, but it's a circle.
22:55 --> 22:57 [SPEAKER_00]: And we now have a Gospel.
22:58 --> 23:03 [SPEAKER_00]: They give us a particular practice for a particular aspect of our life.
23:04 --> 23:27 [SPEAKER_00]: And so rather than a text about another time and another age and a different people, we have a text which is as fresh as any spiritual or psychological texts that's written today
23:27 --> 23:44 [SPEAKER_00]: through the presence of Yeshua, so that we might live with more creativity, so that we might answer questions today that even 50 years ago we didn't have back question, much less 2 years ago.
23:45 --> 23:57 [SPEAKER_00]: So the gospel becomes the book to follow, to find new answers, rather than the book to
23:57 --> 24:09 [SPEAKER_00]: It is the way of living the life of Yeshua in each new age, each new day, each new question that we have.
24:11 --> 24:34 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, there's so many different directions I want to go, so yeah, I think the first thing I want to say is that it does feel more relevant now than ever one of the things you touched on was, you know, the the emperor and and the fact that he's division as a as a tool and it feels like we've never been more divided than we are today right now.
24:34 --> 25:03 [SPEAKER_02]: and so for for people who are looking for a little bit of hope and I try not to depress people too much going into the holidays but for people looking for hope and for looking for this some inspiration within these texts in ways that we can even when it's difficult still love people and reach across the table to people who differ from us especially politically in this time and then age what what advice would you give uh folks
25:05 --> 25:20 [SPEAKER_00]: I absolutely, it's like, in fact, I, in my life, I try to live beyond hope, because the cycle of transformation, which has been going on since the first moment of time, to me is a universal given.
25:21 --> 25:35 [SPEAKER_00]: We just simply need to live it, and to know that there are times in the cycle, when of course we feel despair, of course we feel low, it's part of the journey, but it's not the end of the story.
25:36 --> 25:48 [SPEAKER_00]: So one of the things that our Jewish ancestors did in that Christianity followed is that it chose autumn or the moving into the dark to be the beginning of the year.
25:49 --> 26:00 [SPEAKER_00]: We know that for our Jewish ancestors, they do it sometime in September, as Christians we do it sometime in November, maybe write up into the beginning of December.
26:00 --> 26:19 [SPEAKER_00]: But both are telling us that when our lives, when our culture, when our world turns back to the time of darkness, that's not the end.
26:21 --> 26:27 [SPEAKER_00]: And it's equally why our Jewish ancestors chose to start the day just after sunset.
26:27 --> 26:38 [SPEAKER_00]: It's a daily reminder that when we go into the dark, this is the start of the new journey, not the end.
26:40 --> 26:48 [SPEAKER_00]: So the next thing is, is that the gospel journey teaches us not to look at any person as an enemy.
26:48 --> 27:08 [SPEAKER_00]: We will vociferously disagree with values and positions and yet we understand that every person on the planet, every person is on this journey whether they have woken up to the reality or not.
27:09 --> 27:13 [SPEAKER_00]: They are a human, they are a brother in a sister.
27:14 --> 27:35 [SPEAKER_00]: And so in a very difficult way, this journey asks us to put ourselves on the line for what we believe, but not in any way to consider another human being as the enemy even when we realize that they may put our life and our values in danger.
27:37 --> 27:46 [SPEAKER_00]: I, Martin Luther King, Jr., for some of you who know the story I grew up in Alabama and the f***ing, I was a Lebanese descendant.
27:46 --> 27:50 [SPEAKER_00]: My parents came from Lebanon to the United States as children.
27:51 --> 28:06 [SPEAKER_00]: My grandmothers, how my grandmothers, my sit-those house was burned down by the KKK in 1957.
28:07 --> 28:18 [SPEAKER_00]: And I remember these, as a child, I remember when he spoke these words, and I, for some grace, wrote them on my heart.
28:18 --> 28:36 [SPEAKER_00]: He said, send your hooded perpetrators, meaning the KKK, send your hooded perpetrators into
28:38 --> 28:43 [SPEAKER_00]: break our bones, and we will not hate you.
28:45 --> 29:06 [SPEAKER_00]: We cannot in good conscience obey your unjust laws, and we will win our freedom, we will.
29:07 --> 29:17 [SPEAKER_00]: That when we win our victory, when we win our freedom, the victory will be too fold.
29:19 --> 29:22 [SPEAKER_00]: For we will have one yours as well.
29:24 --> 29:36 [SPEAKER_00]: It's hard to quibble with Martin Luther King, but if I could change one word in that beautiful quote from you, I would say something like,
29:39 --> 29:47 [SPEAKER_00]: even in the face of oppression, even in the face of injustice, even in the face of danger.
29:49 --> 29:52 [SPEAKER_00]: We will choose, love.
29:53 --> 29:55 [SPEAKER_00]: That really is the text.
29:56 --> 29:57 [SPEAKER_00]: of the gospel of Luke.
29:57 --> 30:04 [SPEAKER_00]: If I were going to try to summarize what that entire beautiful text gives us, it's that, it's that.
30:05 --> 30:08 [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, we want transformation.
30:08 --> 30:10 [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, we want a more just world.
30:10 --> 30:17 [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, we want to take off oppression from those who are on the margins, et cetera, et cetera.
30:18 --> 30:26 [SPEAKER_00]: But we are not going to believe that you do that by changing a law alone or electing a different politician alone.
30:26 --> 30:29 [SPEAKER_00]: Those are necessary guide ropes.
30:30 --> 30:37 [SPEAKER_00]: But transformation happens when you change a person's heart, not just change a law.
30:37 --> 30:40 [SPEAKER_00]: And we've got to be in this work for the long run.
30:42 --> 30:52 [SPEAKER_00]: And we've got to be in this work, not because we believe we're going to see the turnaround, but we're doing it for the generations that come after us.
30:54 --> 31:11 [SPEAKER_00]: And early Christians faced that life and death oppression for 225 years before the Emperor was no more.
31:12 --> 31:23 [SPEAKER_00]: But there's a power that I call Yesher with a Christus who can hold us in doing a work that's greater than what my small self wants to do.
31:23 --> 31:24 [SPEAKER_00]: Does my small self want to do that?
31:25 --> 31:25 [SPEAKER_00]: No.
31:26 --> 31:41 [SPEAKER_01]: I wonder what was it like to see a light so low in the sky to follow it blindly, to see it shining so bright?
31:46 --> 32:09 [SPEAKER_01]: Did the stars know the light was shown The way to the Savior of the world Hear the angels singing glory They're telling the story that can save the world Tell them the story that can save
32:24 --> 32:39 [SPEAKER_01]: The way to the world and the babies had, they were part of the story, part of a master plan.
32:39 --> 32:43 [SPEAKER_01]: The end of the stars, nothing like was shown.
32:44 --> 32:46 [SPEAKER_01]: The way to the savior.
32:53 --> 33:16 [SPEAKER_01]: You're telling the story that can save the world You're telling the story that can save the world The stars hung in the sky
33:17 --> 33:44 [SPEAKER_01]: Gazing upon the world, Latin art A world that was different And finally, I have a chance In the stars, no the light was shown The way to the safe
33:48 --> 34:04 [SPEAKER_01]: The angels are singing glory They're telling the story That can say the world They're telling the story That can say the world They're telling the story