An Army of Normal Folks - William Paul Young: They Saved My Life (Pt 2)

Episode Date: January 30, 2024

25 million books sold, a film starring Tim McGraw and Octavia Spencer, and tens of millions of lives touched. But the extraordinary impact of The Shack never would have happened if 3 different people didn't save the life of the author, William Paul Young. For our special "Supporting Greatness" series, Paul pays tribute to these unsung heroes. Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey everybody, it's Bill Courtney with an Army of Normal folks and we continue now with part two of our conversation with Paul Young right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. Hi, this is Giselle and Robin and we're the host of Reasonably Shady on the Black Effect Podcast Network. I absolutely love our podcast. Yes. It has been so much better than I expected.

Yes. Because we get to share our lives with everyone. They get to learn about us. This is the podcast that you want to listen to just to feel like you're in the living room with your girlfriends, you're driving in the car with your girlfriends, you're having that good girlfriend talk. And sometimes we say things that like you wanna say, but you can't say out loud.

We're like speaking your mind for you, but you're scared to say it, but we gonna say it. We do hot topics, we talk about reasonable and shady things. So get into it, get into it and join us every Monday for Reasonably Shady and be sure to tune into the latest season of the Real Housewives of Potomac. Subscribe to Reasonably Shady on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you listen

to your favorite shows. Hey there, I'm Maya Schunker and I'm a scientist who studies human behavior. Many of us have experienced a moment in our lives that changes everything. A moment that instantly divides our life into a before and an after. On my podcast, A Slight Change of Plans, I talked to people about how they've navigated exactly these moments. Something died in me that day.

It never came back. I'm so grateful that something new did emerge, a new me emerged, a new me was born. I also talked to experts on the science of change about how we can live happier, healthier lives. These momentary experiences of awe, they tend to, through their challenges to your belief system, help us be more resilient.

Because as we all know, the only constant is change. So let's make the most of it. Listen to a slight change of plans on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hey there, podcast fans. Michael Lewis here, host of The Pushkin Show Against the Rules. I want to tell you about a very special series we're doing called Judging Sam, the trial of Sam Bankman-Fried. SPF was worth tens of billions of dollars before FTX, his cryptocurrency exchange, came apart of the seams and now he's being tried for financial crimes that could send him to prison for the rest of his life. Against the rules is following the trial that decides his fate. Judging Sam is following the trial that decides his fate.

Judging Sam is THE place to hear trial news and legal analysis with me, Pushkin's Jacob Goldstein, and other special guests. It starts October the 2nd. Listen to Judging Sam, the trial of Sam Bankman-Fried, in the Against the Rules feed on the Iart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, now we return to Paul, who'd committed to seeing a counselor for a year and a half to work through all of this mess and trauma. About four months later, I almost bailed out. I planned a trip to Mexico City, which I'd never been to, but it was far enough away that my kids would not find my body. I gave up.

It was too hard. And two friends showed up. One is a good friend of mine, has been since before Kim and I were married. His childhood is unbelievably horrendous. Unbelievably. He is an alcoholic who loves me, who loves Jesus, and he shows up unbeknownst to me to Kim and says to Kim, I'm not here to tell you you need to reconcile. I just have a sense in my heart that if you hit him one more time right now,

you know, not physically, but with words, how could you do this to someone? How could you do this to our family? How could you do this to their family? If you hit him right now one more time, you're going to kill him. He didn't know that I was on the edge. And a woman who's a friend of ours came to me. They didn't know where I was at. They didn't know about where each other was at. And she says, Paul, just tell me where you are right now. I said, you want to know where I am? I've been like a mile away from the abyss and I've been, Kim's been just hammering in the chest, pushing me back and I have my heels on the edge of the abyss and she spins me around and says, look at it.

And I look at it and it's, there's nothing there and I lose all my hope. You want to know who I am? I'm this little dried up piece of shit that's on the edge of the abyss and the wind is blowing and I'm terrified that when it's done blowing there won't be anything left. And she says, Paul, in that little pile, there's a seed. I'm like, there's a seed? What do you mean there's a seed? And then I think, you know, if there's even a seed that is so small, I can't even see it.

If there's a seed, something living could grow. And then I think, you know, seeds, they grow good in this kind of stuff, don't they? It's exactly the thought. And all my hope came back and I went back to Scott, told him what was going on. And then we, we worked hard. I've never worked as hard as I did. And nine months into this, I come in.

You know, because every day I'd call Kim because it was the next right thing. And she every day would say, yeah, right, whatever. And nine months into this, Scott meets me at his office and he said, Paul, you're done. And I said, you told me it would take you. This is not a year and a half. Exactly. It's what I said.

And he said, we talk about you. I'm sure that breaks some kind of client thing. But he said, we talk about you because we have never seen anybody work this hard and stick with it. But it was life or death for me. If I couldn't find a way to change, why would I want to keep doing damage to people, especially those that I was learning to love? And that started an 11-year journey, 11 years of learning how to trust, how to trust people,

because I never had been able to trust. I was a control freak, I manipulated relationships, I was afraid to take the risk of trust and slowly over 11 years. And in that journey, I learned to trust God, but it required a total change in my understanding of who God is.

And it took 11 years for Kim and I to heal when she would learn to trust. You know, forgiveness, it's for the sake of the victim. No, I've said it a thousand times. Forgiveness is so much more important for the forgiver than the forgiven, unburden your heart. Yeah, yeah, for, yes, and I totally agree. It's for the sake of the one who forgives.

And if you're waiting for the person who harmed you to change before you forgive, it won't work because they they're dead sometimes. That's right. You know, and they don't care, right? So forgiveness is for the sake of the one who's been harmed because they don't need to carry around the weight and the poison that continues to harm their own heart as well as everybody around them. Hundred percent. Reconciliation is for the sake of the perpetrator, but it requires a whole lot of things like confession, becoming a truth teller, dealing with the consequences, learning to ask for

forgiveness, not just apologize, because apologize keeps the power. It's just an announcement. We have to say this, for all listening, I'm sorry, it's incomplete, inefficient, and won't work. It is, I am sorry, I was wrong, will you please forgive me? And I commit to you to try to change the behavior that wronged you in the first place. A proper apology is a four point deal. And if you are unwilling to hit all of those four points, then don't even try to say I'm sorry in the first place

because really all you're trying to do is make yourself feel better. Yeah. And that you're announcing that you got caught. That's it. I'm acknowledging you caught me. That's it. I'm acknowledging you caught me. I'm sorry. I'm sorry you caught me. And you keep the power. We're singing off the same sheet of music there, Paul. Yeah, we are.

Because everybody says, I hear the question all the time, if your child was killed by a murderer, which ironically is a theme that you highlight well that we're going to get to in a second. But how do you forgive that person? And I've always, I've always not always, but I now understand there's a difference in forgiveness and a pardon you can forgive, but you still pay the consequences for your actions. Yep. And when reconciliation is an absolute miracle, it's an absolute miracle because even the changing over time. And so 11 years it took for Kim to see the evidence of the change

so that she would trust me again. She's a phenomenal woman to hang in there. Calmly, you have no idea. Okay. So at the end of this, we've established you write the shock. In the 12th year. In the 12th year. Yep. Won't get published, 27 people passed,

then finally, and then it becomes this book. Yeah. It becomes this crazy, surreal, unbelievable humor of God thing. A question I haven't heard asked of you and I've watched a few of your interviews that that I have been dying to ask you sweet. And the reason I've been dying to ask you is because I have felt and had, and I felt this tug and I've had to fight the stug and without Lisa, I don't know that I would have been successful. Yeah.

I know that story. Having gone through all that you'd gone through having had been an entertainer in your life and every entertainer, if we're honest, relishes in the law. How dangerous was the success of this book to you? It wasn't. And here's why. Can't wait to hear this.

By the time those 11 years were up, already established, the way another person would put it, is, has this book changed you? And I would say, only in one way. But here's the things that were in place before I wrote the book, as a result of this 11 years. My identity, my worth, my value, my significance, my security, my meaning, my purpose, my significance, my security, my meaning, my purpose, my destiny, my community, and my love. All in place. The book didn't give me any of those things.

The book doesn't give me an identity, right? It could tempt me to, but if I'd have been in my 30s and something like this had happened, it would have, oh my gosh. You know, nothing in terms of my relationships would have survived. Right. Right. It would have empowered all my narcissism and all my, all my destructive behavior. And think of all the secrets you could have told them. Oh, I know.

So, so all of those things were in place and were not at all hurt by this. The only thing the book gave me that I didn't have was this constant invitation to walk on the holy ground of other people's stories. And I cannot express how incredible that is. We'll be right back. Hi, this is Giselle and Robin, and we're the host of Reasonably Shady on the Black Effect podcast network. I Absolutely love our podcast. Yes, it has been so much better than I expected

Yes, because we get to share our lives with everyone they get to learn about us This is the podcast that you want to listen to Just to feel like you're in the living room with your girlfriends, you're driving in the car with your girlfriends, you're having that good girlfriend talk. And sometimes we say things that like you wanna say, but you can't say out loud. We're like speaking your mind for you,

but you're scared to say it, but we gonna say it. We do hot topics, we talk about reasonable and shady things. So get into it, get into it and join us every Monday for Reasonably Shady and be sure to tune into the latest season of the Real Housewives of Potomac. Subscribe to Reasonably Shady on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

Hey there, I'm Maya Schunker, and I'm a scientist who studies human behavior. Many of us have experienced a moment in our lives that changes everything. A moment that instantly divides our life into a before and an after. On my podcast, A Slight Change of Plans, I talked to people about how they've navigated

exactly these moments. Something died in me that day. It never came back. I'm so grateful that something new did emerge. A new me emerged, a new me was born. I also talked to experts on the science of change about how we can live happier, healthier lives. These momentary experiences of awe, they tend to, through their challenges to your belief

system, help us be more resilient. Because as we all know, the only constant is change. So let's make the most of it. Listen to a slight change of plans on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey there, Podcast fans. Michael Lewis here, host of the Pushkin Show against the rules. I want to tell you about a very special series we're doing called Judging Sam, The Trial

of Sam Bankman-Free. SPF was worth tens of billions of dollars before FTX, his cryptocurrency exchange, came apart at the seams. And now he's being tried for financial crimes that could send him to prison for the rest of his life. Against the rules is following the trial that decides his fate. Judging Sam is THE place to hear trial news and legal analysis with me, Pushkin's Jacob Goldstein, and other special guests. It starts October the 2nd.

Listen to Judging Sam, the trial of Sam Bankman-Fried, in the Against the Rules feed on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We now return to Paul talking about what he caused the privilege of walking on the holy ground of other people's stories. I'm on a flight from Atlanta to Memphis and I sit next to a man and we start an hour, 53 minute whatever it is, about an hour long conversation that is deep and beautiful and he begins to tell me about his story and what's going on in his world and it's the kind of thing where you just want to take your shoes off, because every human being is a story, and that story is riddled with the presence of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There is this respect by God for your personal agency, and God works in such a way in your life where that

personal agency will be respected, will not be harmed and God will heal you in a way that doesn't add damage to you. And so it's going to take as long as it takes. I'm a football coach. I say the same thing in different words. I say there's a story under every helmet. There you go. Um, so I don't need notoriety. I say there's a story under every helmet. There you go. Um, so I don't need notoriety. In fact, it's sort of a cross and, and you would understand. It is absolutely a cross.

And I don't expect anybody to fully understand that unless you've experienced it. Right. I don't need a platform. By the time this all happened, I was so content being present and responding one moment at a time to the person or the situation that was in front of me. And I will live the rest of my life learning how to do that

because that's where real life is. It's not in some future tripping imagination that's shot through with fear, right? I used to go to my own funeral. I used to be pissed off that nobody else went to it. I'll show up. Yeah. Oh, thank you for that. But you didn't show up when my, when we didn't know each other. No, I know, but you wouldn't have.

I would have. I promise you I would have. All right. We're going to get to the supporting greatness part because there's three people. I want to give you an opportunity to celebrate who have supported the greatness of what you've achieved. And I know you, I know, I don't know. I sense that you're like me. And then when someone says you've achieved greatness, you really, you almost bristle at it, but you have and. In the way that the world sucks after. Well, and it's the way that the world views it,

but it gives you an opportunity to celebrate the people that helped you achieve that. Yeah. So we're going to do that. It's like I am a Christian when it's helpful. I have one more question before we get to that, to fully unpack who you are and how you think. Not fully, we can't do that if we need four more days. But to fully unpack the questions I have about you is the pretty clearly leads the reader to this conclusion when reading it. The movie certainly led me last night to reconsider my thoughts about the book and then having watched a few of your interviews, you allude a few times to it and I'm just gonna ask you.

I gather and if I'm wrong, please tell me, but I really wanna hear your thoughts on this. me, but I really want to hear your thoughts on this. You have a what feels to me. I don't know if the word of version is the right word or disdain or I don't know the right word. I hope you'll give it to me, but you clearly distinguish the relationship between religion and grace and faith. That is completely true.

Unpack that a little bit. Religion, and I'm using it in a pejorative sense, because you can talk about it in a good sense too. But the way that a lot of us have religion becomes a performance oriented, systematic, structural based, uh, structural based invitation to something that clouds and restricts the truth of who you are. So much of religion is a human trafficking organization. That's interesting. Yeah, because what they need, the organization becomes the reason for its existence, not

the love of the people that you encounter. And so... Agape. Yeah. It's... The agape is under the ownership of the structure because it's the structure that needs to stay safe. And so it becomes intrenchable. It doesn't move easily.

And the truth is that in living relationships, like in a family, a healthy family will move at the speed of the slowest. But in a religion, it moves at the speed of the vision or the speed of the mission or the speed of the person. Yeah, yeah, or the leadership. And what you end up having is that everybody begins to hide. They don't deal with their stuff because it's not safe. Nobody is moving at the speed of the slowest, the harmed.

In fact, the harm tend to get shunted off because they're not part, unless, you know, there's for a while and we'll pick an ideal and then do that for a while will help in that part of town. So do you have disdain for organized religion or do you have concern for? No, it's not disdain. It's a recognition that in the world we have a tendency to create systems that impede relationships and love. So I would argue that organized religion in some forms have been one of the larger mechanisms that has reduced the number of faithful in our country today,

because the mantra that believe like me or you're going to hell is not really a very soluble one. No. And so such a great question. The Greek word for accusation or accuser is categorizomai or category. Say that again. It's, it's category where we get the English word categorize. Oh, okay. So when you, Charisma. Yeah. Yes. That's another form of it. And, I can't even say philanthropy.

I'm pretty proud of saying cataclysm. Yeah, you're doing great. Thanks. So when you begin to categorize people as us and them, which structure tends to do, you're involved in a kind of accusation that creates us us them divisions. And isn't that interesting because that feels like politics.

It feels like all kinds of things. I have all these friends on death row in Nashville, right? They're my friends and they've been my friends for five, six years. I don't particularly like the word ministry because it smacks of separation and superiority. You know, I'm coming and that's my end organized religion. Yeah, it does. So two things, two thoughts. One is people are leaving organized religions in order to save their faith.

Yeah. You know, and, and that's a rough one. Um, second thought, my friends on death row are in a category of animal or unlovable or whatever. And I've got a friend, Terry King, the first friend that I met. We have a mutual friend that wanted me to sign a book for him. And I said, no. I said, you get me in there and I'll go with you. And that started this whole chain of relationships. And, uh,

so once in a while, like I was at, uh, St. Henry's in Nashville and I was speaking, I don't know, six, 700 people and I had Terry call me, right? And so nobody knew that Terry was going to call me, but he calls me. He has 30 minutes, um, on the phone and I putting up, put him up to the microphone and I begin to ask him questions and he begins to respond. And Terry is one of the most humble, loving people that you will ever meet on death row on death row. And I watched the room and I watched Terry change the room because suddenly you weren't dealing with a category, you were actually dealing with a human being. And I was talking to the guys about how

my relationship with my dad, he died almost two years ago and he died at 92. On his 80th birthday, ago. And he died at 92. On his 80th birthday, I was there and he blew something up like he always did. And I went for a walk and I was so angry. It was in British Columbia during winter because his birthday is on December 10th. And I didn't even wear a coat and couldn't feel it. I was so ticked off. And I felt the presence of God in my heart and they weren't saying anything. The Father, Son, or Holy Spirit. I'm told for a while and then I hear Paul, your dad, he hasn't known how to be a father for 60 years. You think he's going to change? I go like, I know. And then I hear, if it's okay, how about if I be all that to you and more?

And my response was, that's not enough. I want my dad to love me. I want my dad. And in that, those little bits, I suddenly realized something. I thought I had forgiven my dad. And in that, those little bits, I suddenly realized something. I thought I had forgiven my dad. But I kept a set of expectations that he learned how to act a certain way. And I planted those minds in every field I led him on, but he didn't know where they were.

And eventually he would step on one and blow things up. And so it was the expectations that kept him locked away. Which ironically, in a very high form of thinking, is a form of manipulation. Absolutely. Which you don't want to do, but evil allows you to follow that path, even when you may not even know yourself, you're following it until it exposes itself to you. That's brilliant. And that's right.

We'll be right back. Hi, this is Giselle and Robin, and we're the host of Reasonably Shady on the Black Effect Podcast Network. I absolutely love our podcast. Yes. It has been so much better than I expected. Yes. Because we get to share our lives with everyone. They get to learn about us. This is the podcast that you want to listen to just to feel like you're in the living room with your girlfriend. You're driving in the car

with your girlfriend. You're having that good girlfriend talk. And sometimes we say things that like you want to say but you can't say out loud. We're like speaking your mind for you but you're scared to say it but we're gonna say it. We do hot topics, we talk about reasonable and shady things so get into it. Get into it and join us every Monday for Reasonably Shady and be sure to tune into the latest season of The Real Housewives of Potomac. Subscribe to Reasonably Shady on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Hey there, podcast fans. Michael Lewis here, host of the Pushkin Show Against the Rules.

I want to tell you about a very special series we're doing called Judging Sam, the trial of Sam Bankman-Free. SPF was worth tens of billions of dollars before FTX, his cryptocurrency exchange, came apart at the seams and now he's being tried for financial crimes that could send him to prison for the rest of his life. Against the rules is following the trial that decides his fate. Judging Sam is THE place to hear trial news and legal analysis with me, Pushkin's Jacob Goldstein, and other special guests. It starts October the 2nd.

Listen to Judging Sam, the trial of Sam Bankman-Fried, in the Against the Rules feed on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey there, I'm Maya Schunker, and I'm a scientist who studies human behavior. or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey there, I'm Maya Schunker, and I'm a scientist who studies human behavior. Many of us have experienced a moment in our lives that changes everything. A moment that instantly divides our life into a before and an after.

On my podcast, A Slight Change of Plans, I talked to people about how they've navigated exactly these moments. Something died in me that day. It never came back. I'm so grateful that something new did emerge, a new me emerged, a new me was born. I also talked to experts on the science of change about how we can live happier, healthier

lives. These momentary experiences of awe, they tend to, through their challenges to your belief system, help us be more resilient. Because as we all know, the only constant is change. So let's make the most of it. Listen to a slight change of plans on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Now we return to the complicated way Paul viewed his father. I have two photo albums in my inside house. One is predominant. It's it's easy, easily accessible. And it's a photo album of all the ways my dad failed. of all the ways my dad failed. Wow. Okay? All the ways, all the worst things. All the ways he harmed me, right? There's another photo album that I don't want to look at.

It's in a little cupboard that's cobwebby and all that kind of stuff. And it's those things that he did right. It's like... Because are you hanging on to the pain and the anger so much that you don't want to reveal to yourself the things he did well? That's exactly right. So the ways that in the middle of the night he got up and went and helped somebody. The time that he, maybe the only time he came and heard me speak, but as I was shaking his hand as he was leaving, he leaned over and said, that was the greatest sermon I've ever heard in my life.

But see, those things don't agree with the narrative you have. That's exactly right. And you're not allowed to hang on to your anger and perpetuate all of that. And he's acknowledged the good. He's not allowed to change. I've got him locked into a cell. But he can step in the minefield. He sure can, because the minefield, I can go, see, he is still an SOB.

Right. And, and I was talking to the guys on death row. And one of the things they say, it is a horrible thing to only be known for the worst day of your life. And so I was talking to them about what I do with my dad. And they said, that is exactly how we're stuck. We're only known for the worst day of our lives and the justice system keeps them locked up in that photograph no matter how much they change, no matter how much work they do. Yeah and so, so

what I did was because of all of these things, I let my dad become something more than my dad, something greater than my dad. I let him become a human being. And when that happened and I released him from the expectations, things started changing. And the beauty of that was a human being is a greater, a, you know, a dad is a subcategory of being human. Human is greater. And when I released my dad from expectations, my forgiveness process finished.

And all of a sudden his story mattered. All of a sudden listening to him mattered. Right? It wasn't like he was ready to fail. And about a month before he died and He's still I mean we still were working on language, you know, we weren't going deep, but I told him I want to ask you a question every time that we talked something that I've always wondered and he was all for it and I'd only got one question out before he died

for it. And I'd only got one question out before he died. But in a conversation, I called him up. And he started the conversation the way he always had done when there was a tragedy. The three phone calls I got from my dad was when my 18-year-old brother was killed, when my five-year-old niece was killed the day after her fifth birthday, and when my sister got pregnant out of wedlock, which, you know, in my world, that was as big as a death. And he's always started those, there's something I need to tell you. That's how he started those conversations. And in this one, he said, Paul, there's something that I need to tell you. And he said, I said, Dad, he goes, No, no, no, you really, really, really need to listen to me. This is really important. You need to listen. I said, okay, dad, he goes,

you need to hear me. I really, really, really am proud of you. I'm proud of the man you are. I'm proud of the husband you are. I'm proud of the father you are. I'm proud of the way you've touched the'm proud of the father you are, I'm proud of the way you've touched the world, and I really, really love you. Now, if I had those expectations still, I'd have said it's about time. But I didn't have them anymore. And when you learn to live

without expectations, everything becomes a gift. And candidly, what do we deserve? What are we entitled to? Yeah. Yeah. Damnation. The first sin. And if we recognize that about ourselves and every good thing that does happen is a revelation of a blessing.

So what's the truth about you? What's the deepest, deepest, deepest truth about who you are? You're asking me? Yes. What is the deepest, deepest truth about who I am? Yes. I'm a child of God. Okay, so you're not a piece of crap.

Ha ha ha. You know, I love that. That's great. You know, because you're made in the image of God and being a child of God means you have God's DNA. His divine nature is woven in you. That means that everything that is true about God except things like omniscience and eternal and all that is true about you.

You know what that means? And here's what happened. Kim didn't know about my addiction to porn. And I hated it. I'd hated it since I was 12 years old. And when I blew up the world and I had to face myself, this was one of the big issues. And you know what killed my addiction,

beginning to know exactly what you just said. And in that list is I am pure of heart and I am self-controlled. Self-discipline won't override an addiction. But when you begin to understand the truth of who you are, the ways of who you are, begin to match it. And a lot of people, they look at their behavior and define the truth of who you are from their behavior.

And when you know, look, and the guy's on death row, I ask him, what is the deepest truth of who you are? Is the deepest truth that you want to kill somebody? And only somebody who is so damaged psychologically would ever say that they want to kill somebody. But I haven't met a person who has any sense of health who wants to kill somebody. They want to be truth tellers.

They want to be kind. They want to be good. And it has nothing to do with a relationship with Jesus that is overriding a piece of garbage. It has everything to do with a revelation of their union with God who is saying, Look, you're my child. You're made in my image. You are good by nature.

You just don't know it. And the good news is to say, you're good by nature. You're compassionate by nature. And you know the kids that you've worked with and helped and they don't know who they are, because nobody told them. So they think that their environment or their addictions or their told them so they think that their environment or their addictions or their damage or the justice system has told them the truth of who they are. And it's not the truth of who they are. And wholeness is when the ways of your being start to match the truth of your being. The word sin itself is ha martia and it means ha is a is a dis it's an un it's a not this and

Meros is the root form of martia and it's it's its origin or form. It's not behavior It's missing the mark of who you are And if you don't know who you are, guess what your behavior is. You can always tell by looking at someone's behavior, what they believe to be the truth of who you are. As you believe in your heart, so becomes the ways of your being. So when we talk about the difference of religion and faith, you are spewing faith.

Yes. Not and logical, logical doctrine. One thing I'm going to say, um, one of the men who helped me in my walk with understanding grace and faith and religion was Tim Russell. Tim was an associate pastor at my church here in Memphis. He came to Memphis actually to head up the Memphis Center for Urban Theological Seminary where their goal was to take pastors from urban areas who had thriving churches and who were godly

men, but didn't have a lot of proper theological training to give them that training and then replant them back in their urban churches to bring more theology to some of the urban churches. And in large part, I think it's done a good job. But Tim and I were talking about organized religion one day and he said, don't ever be confused about Sunday morning. Don't don't let the setup of the sanctuary confuse you. And I was like, what do you mean? And he said, well, you're used to going to the theater or concert or football game or concert or football game where all the people sit in something that looks like the pews. And then there's a stage where there's a choir and a pastor. And when you leave Sunday and you say, you know, the choir was pretty good or I didn't really like the pitch of the song or you

decide that the sermon was something to kind of take apart and decide whether or not the preacher is on for you or not that day. Then you think you're the audience and he said, you're so mistaken. You all, the choir, the pastor, the associate pastors and the congregants. You are all the actors, the audience is one. That's really good. You are there to perform worship for the Trinity. Yeah. You are not there to be entertained.

There's only one to be entertained. And he said, and if you will get your arms around that little piece of what Sunday is supposed to be as a microcosm, you can always avoid the trappings of where organized religion steps on the toes of grace and faith. I would add one thing. Act 17. This is not a God who can be served by human hands as if he needed anything. That's so true. We'll be right back.

Hi this is Giselle and Robin and we're the host of Reasonably Shady on the Black Effect Podcast Network. I absolutely love our podcast. Yes. It has been so much better than I expected. Yes. Because we get to share our lives with everyone. They get to learn about us.

This is the podcast that you wanna listen to, just to feel like you're in the living room with your girlfriends, you're driving in the car with your girlfriends, you're having that good girlfriend talk. And sometimes we say things that like you wanna say, but you can't say out loud. We're like speaking your mind for you, but you're scared to say it, but we gonna say it.

We do hot topics, we talk about reasonable and shady things. So get into it, get into it and join us every Monday for Reasonably Shady and be sure to tune into the latest season of the Real Housewives of Potomac. Subscribe to Reasonably Shady on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Hey there, I'm Maya Schunker and I'm a scientist who studies human behavior. Many of us have experienced a moment in our lives that changes everything. A moment that instantly divides our life

into a before and an after. On my podcast, A Slight Change of Plans, I talked to people about how they've navigated exactly these moments. Something died in me that day. It never came back. I'm so grateful that something new did emerge, a new me emerged, a new me was born.

I also talked to experts on the science of change about how we can live happier, healthier lives. These momentary experiences of awe, they tend to, through their challenges to your belief system, help us be more resilient. Because as we all know, the only constant is change. So let's make the most of it. Listen to a slight change of plans on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey there, Podcast fans. Michael Lewis here, host of The Pushkin Show Against the Rules. I want to tell you about a very special series we're doing called Judging Sam, the trial

of Sam Bankman-Fried. SPF was worth tens of billions of dollars before FTX, his cryptocurrency exchange, came apart at the seams. And now he's being tried for financial crimes that could send him to prison for the rest of his life. Against the rules is following the trial that decides his fate. Judging Sam is THE place to hear trial news and legal analysis with me, Pushkin's Jacob Goldstein, and other special guests.

It starts October the 2nd. Listen to Judging Sam, the trial of Sam Bankman-Fried, in the Against the Rules feed on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, here we are. If anybody's reached, uh, amazing heights as an author, even though he wants to probably run and hide when I say that. There are three people that I've identified that I think support your greatness. Three, three, that I would like to give you an opportunity to talk about each three kind of briefly and then add to.

Cause this is not my list of your list, but I'm going to name three that I know are there. And if you want to add, add and just briefly tell us, you know, how without them you would not be sitting with me today. Yeah. Kim. Absolutely. Scott Mitchell. Yes. Christ. No question about it. No question about it. Kim, that was the grace of God. No question about it. And we are the best we've ever been. And we are the best we've ever been.

And I look back at those 11 years and I would never want to do it again. It was, what did they say? Religious people believe in hell, but spiritual people have been there. Ha ha ha ha. I love it, never heard that, but I love it. Oh my gosh. You put Kim through hell.

I did. And it was hell going through that whole process of being, but she forgave you and she loves you and she's your wife. And she's, she was the one that inspired you to write the book. I know, but there's no, I know, and there's no justification for adultery. The ends don't justify the means. And so, you know, Kim, we all say she's wise and she says she has common sense, right? And,

Maybe synonymous. Well, we think it's synonymous, but for her, this is just common sense. The fact that she in a sense violated the agreement of the sisters in the family who always said that there was one thing they would never allow put up with or stay at. And that was adultery. The reason that she in her fury and anger and all of that stuff, what she would tell you, she didn't do right.

And I'd tell you, I don't care. all of that stuff, what she would tell you, she didn't do right and I'd tell you, I don't care. She would say, the reason that she let me stay was because she thought she was sure I had hit the bottom. And I did, I hit the bottom. When you hit the bottom, you don't point a finger at anybody else. I think it's safe to say from what I've heard that

Kim probably saved your life on earth. Oh, there is no question about it. But what about your eternal life? Certainly had a hand in it. Yeah, certainly had a hand in it. And I mean, wasn't it her that said you got to write something down for your kids? I know. I know. It was.

What a blessing Kim is. Yeah. Even though she said she was thinking four to six pages. Well, as anybody can tell when talking to you, 46 pages can go on and on. Yeah. I mean, there's so much out of that brain. Which was so funny. Four to six pages. So, um, oh's so much. Yeah, out of that brain, which was so funny. Four to six pages.

So, um, oh, so she. Is so absolute. So if you summed her up, if you had to do one word, what describes what is Kim's tenant or fundamental that describes how Kim supported the greatness that's become you. I'll hyphenate it. Fiery affection. Scott Mitchell.

Scott. Your therapist. Yeah. Those. Yeah. Make sure everybody knows where we are here. Yeah. And then my friend.

I pulled him out of the yellow pages and Byron Keeler ran the clinic and I met with him first. And he says, I think I got the guy for you, but you can interview him and decide for yourself. And I ended up with Scott. And after the nine months, we would connect. And he just, he just became a friend. And he comes from a very similar, almost identical history, apart from the mission stuff that I did from Canada and all this. And

he had started working on the whole side of the therapeutic side of sexual abuse histories because of his own. And then he had started helping churches with abuse situations in their congregations. And at the end of those nine months, he said, Paul, I want to tell you about a situation and see if it sounds familiar. And he begins to describe an elder who was abusing the little boys. And I realized he was talking about one of my uncles. Oh, oh, I was going to say himself. No, no, he was talking about someone in your family. Yeah.

Did he know that? He didn't know it until after he met. Oh my God. We had started talking, we started with a genogram, which is where you talk about your family tree on both sides and what kind of stuff was happening and that's when he knew it. And that was right at the beginning of the nine months. And so I pull a guy out of the yellow pages who's already entwined with my history. Right? Like how incredible is that? of the yellow pages who's already entwined with my history.

Right? Like, how incredible is that? There aren't no coincidences. No, there aren't. Here's a little part of Scott in my relationship. Scott had a son who was a methamphetamine addict. And meth is a disaster drug. to an amphetamine addict. And meth is a disaster drug. And so Scott had been working, working with him. And he had said at a Wednesday night Bible study

with the guys, he had said, you know, I don't know what to do, but I would die for my son. He gets home that evening and his son is out talking to a woman who had been a conduit for the meth and she had a restraining order against her for like a thousand yards and and he he comes up to the car and says you know you need to leave right now and or else I have to report you." And says to his son, you're a grown man and you in this moment need to make your own choice. And the son indicates, I'm with her.

And so Scott turns around and walks into the house and shuts and locks the door behind him, not realizing his son is right behind him because he wants his flip-flops. He was barefoot. And in their house you go down the first hallway, then the living room drops to the left and the staircase goes up. And then there's a kitchen and stuff to the right. And he didn't know that his son had bought an illegal pistol, three days before, and he had tried to sell it back and nobody would take it. And he had it in his waistband. And when he found the door locked, he had a moment of anger

and used the butt of the gun to smash the window. And it went off and he didn't know it. And he shot his father right through the heart. And Scott falls into the living room. And his son just goes in, goes upstairs, gets his flip-flops and comes back out and leaves with the woman while his dad is dying in the living room. And I hear that Scott has been shot and killed by his own son. And I was so wrecked that I couldn't even bring myself to go to the funeral.

I couldn't do it. While his son gets arrested, 10-year sentence for manslaughter, a sentence to a prison, his grandmother and others would visit him. His grandmother calls me and she says, I just went to visit. I walk in the door. The guard on the right is reading a copy of the shak. The guard's coming down the row with a copy of the shak under his arm. And the first cell, the guy in there is reading the shack. Ten years, son comes out clean. He died for his son. He participated in the way we are loved

by Jesus, who we are all included in. That is nothing that came into existence, came into existence apart from Him. We have always been in Him. And you can't have being the offspring of God without God being there. And so we were all included in the death of Jesus. When he died, we all died. When he rose, we all rose. This is scripture.

When he ascended, we all ascended. That means that that work is done. It was a covenantal work and a covenant is all about the other and is never about the self. A contract is only about the self. But a covenant is done unilaterally. It is what marriage is supposed to be, that I covenant to her and regardless, we even say it in our vows, but then we go back to contractual language. If you don't do what you're supposed to do, then we'll get a divorce, you know, because it's a contract. And in that covenant, it was unilateral, it was forever,

and God makes the contract with us. And Jesus is the— God didn't kill Jesus. We killed Jesus. But death needed to be destroyed. And so death takes him to the place that he can destroy death. And so we were included in that. So our salvation is included in that covenant. And now it has created a space for us to use our personal agency. I have a problem a little bit with free will, you know, because how free is free will, but we, but we have personal agency.

People want to ask why God quote, let somebody get hurt or let children happen. But you cannot have free will without also having. Yeah. Yeah. There, there, if you're, you can't have free will and everything be perfect. Yeah. If you're no, if you're no, doesn't matter. Your yes doesn't matter. That's exactly right. Right. There's why there's a tree of being right in the garden. Right. Right. And there's a tree of life was, which is about love and relationship. And we almost always will eat of the tree of life.

And we think that person needs to know that we're right more than they need to know that we love them. That's right. Okay? So now we get to work out our salvation and that's where we're at. We're working it out and every choice we make to love changes the cosmos, changes us. Every choice we make to forgive changes us. And that's where we're at. You don't have to do what everybody's doing.

This is about your life and your relationship with God. And it's slow, it's incremental, we make lots of mistakes, but the Holy Spirit is there to help us learn how to live in freedom. And freedom begins to feel irresponsible as it should. It's safe to say that pre Scott Mitchell, pre the work you did with Kim, pre the 11 years of reconciliation, this ethos was inside you but was collapsed and contained by dysfunction and abuse and sadness and shame. Yep.

There's never been separation from God, but there's been alienation. I get it. Yep. So, Scott helped you on the road to unpack all of this so that it could ultimately reveal itself in the shock and ultimately allow you this amazing blessing and opportunity to share these thoughts with a needy world if you had one word

to talk about how Scott supported your greatness. Mm. to talk about how Scott supported your greatness. Hmm. Compassionate-presence. Compassionate presence. You're wearing out the hyphen spot. Hey, I'm stuck with trying to get one word. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha We'll be right back. Hi, this is Giselle and Robin and we're the host of Reasonably Shady on the Black Effect

podcast network. I absolutely love our podcast. Yes. It has been so much better than I expected. Yes. Because we get to share our lives with everyone. They get to learn about us. This is the podcast that you wanna listen to, just to feel like you're in the living room

with your girlfriend, you're driving in the car with your girlfriend, you're having that good girlfriend talk. And sometimes we say things that like you wanna say, but you can't say out loud. We're like speaking your mind for you, but you're scared to say it, but we gonna say it. We do hot topics, we talk about reasonable and shady things.

So get into it, get into it and join us every Monday for Reasonably Shady and be sure to tune into the latest season of the Real Housewives of Potomac. Subscribe to Reasonably Shady on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Hey there, I'm Maya Schunker and I'm a scientist who studies human behavior. Many of us have experienced a moment in our lives that changes everything. A moment that instantly divides our life into a before and an after. On my podcast, A Slight Change of Plans, I talked to people about how they've

navigated exactly these moments. Something died in me that day. It never came back. I'm so grateful that something new did emerge. A new me emerged. A new me was born. I also talked to experts on the science of change about how we can live happier, healthier lives. These momentary experiences of awe, they tend to, through their challenges to your belief system, help us be more resilient. Because as we all know, the only constant is change. So let's make the most of it. Listen to a slight change of plans on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. billions of dollars before FTX, his cryptocurrency exchange, came apart at the seams. And now he's being tried for financial crimes that could send him to prison for the rest of his life.

Against the Rules is following the trial that decides his fate. Judging Sam is THE place to hear trial news and legal analysis with me, Pushkin's Jacob Goldstein, and other special guests. It starts October the 2nd. Listen to Judging Sam, the trial of Sam Bankman-Fried, in the Against the Rules feed on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. The last unless you have one to offer.

How's Christ's sports greatness? Unconditional dash love, you know, and I would say the same about God, the Father, and the Holy Spirit, because they don't have different natures, you know, but Jesus was at the forefront, and the Father is never offended by the Son being at the forefront, and the Son is never offended by the Father being at the forefront. And the son is never offended by the father or the spirit. I think the son is the easiest because he was human. He is human. It is human.

He didn't drop it like a robe. You know, it wasn't a persona. You're right. You're absolutely right. He is human. Yep. And, but I think it's easiest for us for us. Well, it's because it's also spirits are tough. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, when in your mind's eye, when you hear Holy Spirit, what is it a mist or a fog of some sort, but we can.

I don't know. An Asian woman. Jesus, because he is human. Yes. God, we think of a spirit and this omnipotent aura. The Holy Spirit is the one that's an interesting thing to try to relate to. I know.

I think Jesus is easy. Yeah, it way easier. It looks like us, and he felt like us. That's why in the shack, you know, Pop is a big African-American woman. Yeah, I don't know which is, you know, Papa's a, yeah, Papa's a big African American woman, you know, yeah, which is hilarious. Oh, it's, it's a, it's a metaphor. You're an older Native American.

Yes. It's a metaphor and the Holy spirit, I, talk about precious, you know, I was, I was riding the max train down to one of my three jobs and it was on a day and I was going like, so Papa God, is it okay to give a name to the Holy Spirit? Because I had Jesus and I had... You mean you're writing the book? I am. And you're like, is it okay to give the name?

A name to the Holy Spirit? Yeah, because I used to be a Holy Ghost, which was not good at all. And, but, you know, the Holy Spirit, all right, that's good. But I had Jesus, I was an easy name to come up with. Yeah. I had Eluzia, all right, that's good. But I had Jesus, that was an easy name to come up with. Yeah.

I had, uh, Eluzia, which is part Greek, part Hebrew, the very ground of being for, for God the Father. And, but she goes by papa anyway. And, uh, which by the way is a metaphor, you know, thinking about God is three persons and three men in love with each other. That's a metaphor. Jesus is, I'm the bread of life. Thinking about God as three persons and three men in love with each other. That's a metaphor.

Jesus is, I'm the bread of life. Why did, why was the Holy Spirit an attractivation woman? You know, so I was, I, for me, Which ended up working beautifully. It does. But, and I'll tell you. Interesting. Where did that come from?

So I wanted the guy in trouble to be me, a white guy. Right? Because we've done so much damage to the world and we're very damaged. And so I didn't want the solution to be a white solution, right? So it was important for me to pull, and part of it's my missionary background, part of it's just being in the world and loving the cultures of the world. And so all of that went into this. And when Papagod shows up in a male form, I didn't want it to be white. And an indigenous tribal person fit perfectly for me.

So I'm on the train on my way down and I was working for one of my jobs was for a web conferencing company and they would give me the, you know, those that are out in the world, right? The ethnic ones, because I just have an affinity for that and an ease about that. So I, the person calling in was Geetika Prabhu from India. And she was looking for a web conferencing solution for her company. I was looking for a name for the Holy Spirit. And so she says, oh, it's great.

So it took me two minutes to figure out that their company needed a solution of a competitor of ours. So I gave her all the contact information and stuff. And then I said, before you hang up, Geetika, I have a question. Can you give me a bunch of words in your dialect for the wind? And so she gives me a list of about a dozen words.

And I'm going down the list and I, I like this one and I, I told her, okay, I like this one. How do you say it? And she said, well, it's, it's kind of a special word because you can either accent the first or the second syllable and it has a rolled R in it, which white folk are really hard of, they have a hard time with rolled Rs. And so she said, you can either say, Sarayu or Sarayu. And I said, that's beautiful. Do you ever name your children after this? And she says, no, but we have a river named after this. So I've got wind,

which is a common expression in scripture for the Holy Spirit, and I've got river, and I'm going like, this is great. And so I said, all right, here's the big question. What kind of wind is this? Because I didn't want a tornado, and I didn't want a fart, and I didn't want, you know, because they got words for that. And this is exactly what she said. words for that. And this is exactly what she said. She said, Sarayu is the common wind that catches you by surprise. Oh my God. And I started crying. And she said, you know, it's like when you're so hot, you think you're going to die.

And suddenly out of nowhere comes this wind and cools you down. That's Saudi. And that became the name of the shot. Yeah. So Indian Asian. I know. So the whole Asian thing worked and Sumi who played the role in the movie. Everybody who played their roles in the movie were absolutely fantastic kind

Aviv who played Jesus You know the first night I met him He's down by the water because his wife is in labor, right? So they're texting back and forth and and he gets on the flight That evening and got there to Tel Aviv We had a Jewish Jesus like who's ever had a Jewish Jesus? And it was beautiful. Let me tell you one little secret about it. Okay. Add people. Jesus was Jewish. Just a... Oh, yeah, there is that. Just for those listening. Yeah. Just a small reminder. So let me add a few people to the list. Yes. And then I'll tell you something in the movie that you don't know.

Okay. There have been women all along the pathway of my life who have either pushed me back from the edge, who've handed me something that was helpful. One was my Greek teacher, Eunice, who was from... she'd been a missionary in South America, so my Greek has a Spanish accent. But the way that she related to me, the president's wife in Bible school, and she did this for a lot of people. We shared these things at her funeral,

but she would write these beautiful notes, or she'd slip me a book, and she did this a lot. And there was a woman who I actually, in part, took the persona from Papa from, and she and I became friends. I only worked for a box church once in my life. And she was the worship leader. And I was working with the college kids

because I was 22 years old. And her name, Yeah. Her, um, pardon, um, the brain disorder I have. I definitely her name, but who is she? Okay. So she comes from a background where she was abused while playing Christian music. And she, she taught you Greek? No, no, that was Eunice Smith. Okay. Eun she taught you Greek? No, no, that was Eunice Smith. Okay, Eunice taught you Greek.

Yes. Who's this other one? The second one was the president's wife in Bible school. The president of the Bible school's wife. Correct. She's the one that would slip me things. I know the name, but I'm going to leave it out for the moment. And so she and I became friends, and she comes into my office one time and she

says, Paul, how come you and I from the first moment we met have been friends? And I said, well, that's easy. We're the only two black people in this white church. There it is. Yeah. So, and she was large because it was a protection. Yeah. So, and she was large because it was a protection. It was a survival mechanism against the kind of abuse that she has had experienced. And she lived way past what she was supposed to. And we were friends, Kim, deep friends. And so there were people like that. There was a,

I'm deep friends. And so there were people like that. There was a, there've been a couple theologians. One was a theologian preacher who now lives in Bandera, Texas named Malcolm Smith. And Malcolm, I don't know who gave me his tapes. Remember those cassette tapes that you'd get and listen to? But I got tapes of Malcolm Smith's teachings, and he opened up a whole new world for me. And I used to hand write his tapes, you know, three lines to a single line in a pad. And I remember when I heard like the Revelation series on the, on the

the Revelation of Jesus Christ, the last book in our Bibles, but not the last one written, the gospel of John was written after Revelation. And, um, and, and I, I listened to that and bawled my way through the whole thing because it was such a different. It wasn't, oh good. This is about, you know, it was a lot. It was like, well, we have the Old Testament, you know, where God is a genocidal maniac, and you get this commercial break with Jesus, and then with Revelation, you're back to killing and destroying, you know, and it's like, how can this, how can this even be? I haven't studied. We studied revelations last summer at church and, you know, going into it, I was like, ooh, revelations, the eyes and the seven, this and the seven that I'm going to sit in a corner and shake. and the seven this and the seven that. I'm gonna sit in the corner and shake.

What I found out is it's wrought with agape. Totally. And it kind of collects all of scripture and finds a way to do agape inside that. It's stunning. So Malcolm Smith did that? Malcolm Smith, that? Malcolm Smith. Incredibly helpful. And you know, I look back and I see sprinkled through my life

people that were absolutely in the right place at the right time for me. And the guys that you did the football with, if they don't see it already, they would see that one day. They'd go back and look. They'd answer this question and they'd tell us about you. And so again, it's this beautiful tapestry. The thing about the tapestry that God is weaving, we don't often get a glimpse of the front. Sometimes he flashes it, the face of Jesus,

but we get to see the knots and the strings and they're just a mess. That's an interesting metaphor. Yeah, but it's true, you know, here we are and we get to see the harm that's been done to the people that we now see as those who are indwelt by the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, but don't know it. see as those who are indwelt by the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, but don't know it. And so, but once in a while, because if you look at the Old Testament, anybody that got too much of a flash, they decided that they needed to make it happen. And huge messes as a result. Let me tell you about what's in the movie that you don't know. I was just about to say, all right, tell me the thing about the movie I don't know,

which is probably a lot, but don't tell me anything about that. There's a number of things, but the one that I'm thinking about is at the end of the movie there's this scene in the garden and in that scene Max tears are being poured out by the Holy Spirit onto that section of ground that earlier they dug up. Because- Which ultimately blesses daughters' rift site. Yeah, and where he was stuck. And it was a beautiful flowery area

and it was important to dig it up so Matt could move, right? And so now his tears are flowing into that and up comes the tree of life. When they were shooting that, they're up in the mountain. You have all your, you've got your actors, you've got your camera people, you got your flower people, you've got, you know, the lighting and the sound and all of that whole lot of people. The mountains of what? Up in British Columbia.

British Columbia. Yeah. And that was one of the site locations. So here's the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit with Mackenzie in the middle. And they want to take that shot. And they're looking down to where they will eventually put the Tree of Life coming up. Right? And that's the shot.

They want this one shot. And as they roll camera for that shot, and everybody it's special effects and it's not as they roll camera for that shot out of the woods comes this huge butterfly and lands on Mackenzie's nose. That was not scripted at all. And everybody stayed in character. The reaction to that in the movie seems so real now that you say that. Yeah, he was completely surprised. And everybody, the other stayed in character like, isn't this a wonderful gift?

But it's completely, they did put a little shot of a butterfly right before that scene. Well, to set it up. I know to set it up. And I'm like, ah, you didn't need that. Just happened. It just happened. There are no coincidence.

No, it was so great. And I could tell you a whole lot of stories, other stories about the set and all that, but. Paul, just close yours if you don't want to hear it, but the shack is great. close years if you don't want to hear it, but the shack is great. And the shack is great. The proof is that when you're one of the 40 highest selling books in human history, it's great. But the reason it's great is because it reaches people and it allows so much brokenness to be identified with, I think. It does.

And you talk about shame and secrets. The secret is we've all experienced brokenness. Absolutely. We've all experienced pain in some form of another. We've all experienced trauma. We are a collection of that we are as as adults I think a collection of all the traumatic things that happened to us and simultaneously all the wonderful things that have happened to us and the people that have imprinted our lives

along the way and we are not 100% like any of those traumas or any of the collection of positive things. But we take bits and pieces from all of those positive negatives experience that sum us up. Yeah. And often time that leads to all kinds of difficulties and the shack in a real personal way, I think gives us a safe place to explore those things. Yeah, thank you. It's great. Thank you. And you're an amazing thinker and just a phenomenal person and a gift.

And you're a normal guy who did something extraordinary. But in this segment, not only do we celebrate the amazing thing normal folks like you can do that impact and affect people across the world, we also wanna celebrate your greatness and to think about your Greek teacher and the the Bible school president's wife and Malcolm Smith and his take on revelations and all the people along your path who've imprinted you and then to celebrate Kim and her fiery affection and Scott and his compassionate presence and ultimately

Christ unconditional love and agape for you and all of us and how your story allows us to reflect on what fiery affection and compassionate presence and unconditional love should mean for all of us and what the story you wrote should mean for all of us. Paul, I don't know what you're going to do next, but what you've done so far is pretty amazing. And I just want to tell you how so very much I appreciate you stopping in Memphis today on your flight home to Portland to share your story and to share Kim and Scots and Christ's story on you and it is without reservation that I say to you, you have infected my life too and I hope that those listening us now, if they haven't read

the shack or seen the movie, will do so and will think deeply about the main things you've shared with me today. Wow, I love you. And I'm honored. Every conversation is a two-way street. And in every relationship, don't forget you don't know the whole story. And don't forget you don't know how it ends. So be present to the person and the situation that is actually in front of you, because

this is where real life exists. And as long as we breathe, our story continues to be written. Absolutely. Amen. Amen. Thank you, Paul. You're welcome. And thank you for joining us this week. If you hadn't read the shack or watched the movie,

make sure to do one or both on Amazon and Amazon Prime. Guys, I recently rewatched the movie and I just, I can't emphasize enough to you. Watch the movie, read the book, the metaphorical stories he uses and read the book, the metaphorical stories he uses and how he sets everything up is is at the very least thought provoking and for some kind of life changing. I hope you'll check it out. To check out Paul's other incredible books, projects and subscribe to his email list, go to WMPaulYoung.com. And if Paul or another guest has inspired you in general or better yet to take action by wanting to heal

from the trauma in your life, helping someone else through theirs or something else entirely, please let me know. I'd love to hear about it. You can write me anytime at billatnormalfolks.us and I'm telling you, I will respond to you. And if you enjoyed this episode, share it with friends that on socials, subscribe to the podcast, rate and review it, become a premium member at normal folks dot us, all

of these things that will help us grow an army of normal folks. Remember guys, more impact comes from more people. And speaking of premium members, we've got some bonus content for you from this episode. We recorded this with some guests in the room and we had a little Q&A afterwards. In it, Paul talked about someone that was relatively absent from our conversation, his mom. We're releasing that as a bonus episode for our subscribers. I hope you'll listen. Thanks for joining us, folks. I'm Bill Courtney. I'll see you next week. What up guys? Hola, qué tal?

It's your girl Chiquis from the Chiquis and Chill and Dear Chiquis podcasts. And guess what? We're back for another season. Get ready for all new episodes where I'll be dishing out honest advice, discussing important topics like relationships, women's health, and spirituality. I'm sharing my experiences with you guys and I feel that everything that I've gone through has made me a wiser person and if I can help anyone else through my experiences, I feel like I'm living my godly purpose. Listen to Chikis and Chill and Dear Chikis on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. conversation with someone who inspires me or teaches me something about life, leadership,

and other curious things. I hope you'll join me on the journey. Listen to A Boot of Optimism on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. After Lives is a new podcast about the life and legacy of Leilene Polanco, a transgender Afro-Latina who died tragically on Rikers Island gel complex. Justice for Leilene Polanco, a transgender Afro-Latina who died tragically on Rikers Island gel complex. Justice for Leilene! Leilene loved to dance, she loved to sing.

She was just happy to be alive. Stepping foot on Rikers Island has been widely acknowledged a potential death sentence. Listen to Afterlives, available on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.