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CoffeePods
Finding Shade in Life's Heat
Have you ever felt like everything around you is burning? Whether it's the scorching summer temperatures or the heated conflicts erupting across the globe, we're living in a world that's hot in more ways than one.
Record-breaking heat waves are melting glaciers while geopolitical tensions simmer in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, and beyond. Even our personal relationships can turn into pressure cookers, with workplace hierarchies and family dynamics creating friction that threatens to ignite. When everything feels this hot, where do we find refreshment?
Drawing from both practical wisdom and spiritual insights, we explore cooling strategies for body, mind, and spirit. Dehydration affects not just our physical wellbeing but our emotional stability—even a 1% reduction in hydration can alter your mood and focus. Similarly, heated conflicts often stem from our unwillingness to truly listen to others. As James 1 reminds us, we should be "quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry."
The most powerful antidote to heat might be curiosity. When we approach others with genuine questions rather than defensive postures, tensions naturally dissipate. This applies equally to family disagreements and international diplomacy. Imagine if world leaders approached conflicts with curiosity about others' experiences rather than displays of strength and dominance.
Jesus demonstrated this cooling presence throughout his ministry, calming literal storms and bringing peace to heated situations. We can follow his example through practices like "breathing prayers," finding shade in God's presence, and approaching conflicts with gentle answers rather than harsh words. As Isaiah reminds us, God has been "a refuge for the poor, a refuge for the needy in their distress, a shelter from the storm and a shade from the heat."
Whether you're physically overheated or spiritually burning, this episode offers practical paths to refreshment. Take a moment to breathe, listen, and find your cooling shade in God's presence.
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Coffee Pods, a podcast of the Acorn Christian Healing Foundation Exploring what's happening in the world through the lens of Christian healing.
Speaker 2:Okay, Chris, are you going to sing for us? What's that song? I'm feeling hot, hot, hot. Did you know that one?
Speaker 1:It's getting hot in here We'll take off all your clothes.
Speaker 2:That's a different one.
Speaker 1:That one it is hot. It is so hot everywhere, gosh it's. I was in my back garden yesterday because I was so hot and I was just begging for a breeze and and then I looked and it's like hotter in Spain and France and there's. I mean it's just incredible that the temperature is so hot, and I did read somewhere that it's going to get better in the next week or so here in Britain.
Speaker 1:So that's good, but it is hot, and so maybe this is what we should talk about today on the podcast is heat.
Speaker 2:Yes, and maybe some hot topics.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because it's not just the heat, that's. You know, I was reading a story, having just come back from Switzerland, about record glacier melt and some of the glaciers that are disappearing, and but there's also a different kind of heat in the world. I mean, today people are obsessed with the conflicts in the world. You have what's happening in the Middle East with Gaza and the West Bank and Israel. The whole Middle East seems to be on fire.
Speaker 1:It does and then you have the Ukraine-Russia situation, with conversations in Alaska and conversations in Washington, and add to that things like the civil war in Sudan or Myanmar, or the Congo and Rwanda are in conflict, the Houthi rebels who are attacking ships in the Red Sea, and I mean there's still tension between india and pakistan.
Speaker 2:The whole world seems to be on fire, and I know an actual heat and not heat, actual fires happening. You know, um just the other day I was driving we live in the countryside and I was driving home from somewhere and I looked and I could see this black smoke and I thought, well, that's not good. And I drove past the field and the field was on fire oh, wow the tractor had caught on fire.
Speaker 2:No way it was awful. And then there's been reports of two combine harvesters that have set on fire. Um, there's, there's just so much going on, isn't there in terms of heat, and it feels like you know you look at your phone in the morning or whenever you look at it, and it's just so much going on, isn't there in terms of heat, and it feels like you know you look at your phone in the morning or whenever you look at it, and it's just hot, hot, hot, like in terms of, like you just mentioned, world events.
Speaker 2:Everything, yeah, yeah yeah, so maybe today we need to think about how we can cool down or get some respite in some of these things that are taking place in life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think so. Whether it's 30 degrees outside which, what is that? In Fahrenheit, that's about 90, I guess.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it would be yeah.
Speaker 1:Whether it's 30 degrees outside or someone is pushing your spiritual thermostat. Perhaps this episode of Coffee Pods can be for you. Absolutely how about give us a Bible verse. We always like to kind of ground what we do and something from Scripture and start us off with something from the Bible.
Speaker 2:Well, we've got a verse for today, which is Isaiah 43, verse 2. And it says when you walk through the fire, you will not be burned, the flames will not set you ablaze. Wow.
Speaker 1:Sometimes that doesn't feel true to me. I think sometimes it is hard not to just light up and just burn, and the idea of God quenching the flames is a good thing to think about in heat. Why don't we talk about? Let's start with actual heat, physical heat, okay, because I used to be a golf caddy in Florida for two years.
Speaker 2:Oh, that would have been tasty.
Speaker 1:It was so hot and I mean it really was remarkable. You could drink water every um, every two or three holes, you could guzzle water and you would just sweat it out. And uh, the um, you know the. The body is 60% water, and so when you think about that, when you're out on the golf course walking for long stretches I was watching Scotty Scheffler win another golf tournament this weekend. I mean, he's unbelievable.
Speaker 1:But I think if you only lost one to 2% of the water in your body, if you're dehydrated by the tune of 1%, it can actually change your mood, it can change your focus, it can directly affect you and I don't think people realize that heat and dehydration can truly leave you debilitated. I mean people think, oh, I'll be okay. And you watch them wandering around Disney World and they just look like they're in a fog and you realize that this is a person who literally is on the border of having heat stroke.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's funny we could pray for God to make it cooler, but actually a lot of the time there are things like drinking water that we can do to help keep us well in these instances. But obviously there would have been the need for hydration back in probably the Old Testament, especially the New Testament, but the Old Testament.
Speaker 1:You think we would be traveling across deserts that sort of thing, wells, and healing around wells, and you know even things like Abraham offering shade and water in Genesis. You know it's very much a part of of scriptural encouragement. You know, like the 23rd Psalm, people remember the Lord is my shepherd, but they often forget the verse which says he leads me beside still waters and he refreshes my soul. I mean, what's that about? It's about cooling you off and giving you a nice drink to quench your thirst, and I think that it's really important to have a relationship to God which points us to practical things to help us to remain hydrated.
Speaker 2:That's really good and it does make you wonder, doesn't it? Maybe you're listening now, thinking you know what would be a well for me or where would I go to that oasis and get a drink of water. But obviously, beyond sort of the spiritual realm, there is the physical, the practical things we need to do to keep us cool. There must be some high. If you're like me, you don't really like drinking water. I like drinking water if it's icy, cold, maybe even sparkling.
Speaker 1:My grandmother drank water every day in a very systematic way.
Speaker 1:This might be a good hack for people listening. She had a stack of pennies which must have been 50 years old and these were American pennies, and she kept them just behind the sink on the windowsill, and during the day she would drink a glass of water and move one penny to the left side and over the course of the whole day the entire stack would move from the right side of the windowsill over to the left side of the windowsill and that was her way of making sure she drank enough water during the day. And I remember when she died, one of the most strange things was trying to figure out what to do with the pennies. It was a connection to her desire for health and you kept thinking this is my grandmother trying to stay healthy and hydrated. And we used to laugh about you know what do you think?
Speaker 1:You say prayers when you're drinking your water and what do you do when you drink in your water? And you know, lord, help keep me refreshed. And you know, but those old, crusty pennies, they were dirty, horrible, ugly, dirty pennies sitting on that windowsill for all these years and, to be perfectly honest, I'm not sure what we did with them. I. It's probably best that I don't remember, because, but I mean, a lot of people eat watermelon and cucumbers and things like that because they they do have lots of water in those, uh foods and so it's not just drinking water like my grandmother. But you know, having having available foods that are going to continue to give you that extra bit of boost is important.
Speaker 2:I remember when I was really unwell, I used to suffer from chronic tonsillitis and the only thing sometimes I could do to get hydrated was to have maybe like cucumber and just like suck on it, or even a small ice cube in my mouth, because I physically couldn't drink water.
Speaker 1:um, and so I actually find it amazing that there are water, food sorry water rich foods out there that bring healing and wholeness to our bodies, like it's just and you know, in the hospital this is another funny little thing that just popped into my head they have these little sponges on straws and if you've ever been in a hospital intensive care unit, somebody that has been intubated and has had a breathing tube down their throat for any time, when they first take that out they have a really dry mouth and because a lot of the secretions and the normal things that happen when you breathe aren't happening, so the mouth is super dry and a lot of palliative to die, that comfort care, as it's called in some hospitals they'll take these little sponges and they'll dip them into water sometimes flavored water sponges and they'll dip them into water, sometimes flavored water and you'll brush the inside of the mouth of a person as a way of bringing them comfort. And for those who are kind of getting better after surgery, sometimes a loved one will come along and gently rub the gums or, you know, inside the mouth, rub your tongue, making sure they don't choke you. I mean it's kind of crazy watching someone who doesn't really know what they're doing and then all of a sudden they gag their loved one and the husband looks at me and says can you get her out of here, man, she's going to kill me, but the idea is putting that refreshment in their mouth. And then when you watch the expression of somebody when they get something in their mouth, that's sweet. Suddenly there's this feeling of connectedness to the divine and Holy Communion is really important for some people and I used to have some very, very elderly people who loved Holy Communion and when they got sick and they couldn't come to the church for communion, you would take communion to them.
Speaker 1:And I remember this one person in particular. She was suffering from terrible dementia and she had great fear and her daughter used to call me and she'd say Mother is screaming and she's scared. She's just constantly scared and we don't know what to do. But it was very distressing to see this sweet, sweet lady afraid. And I said, well, I'll come.
Speaker 1:And I said you know how your mother used to love communion. I'll come and we'll have communion. And she's like, oh, can you do that with her? I just don't think she's safe. And I said, trust me, this will work. And so we sat down. She kind of was a bit wild eyed, but she recognized my collar. She didn't recognize me, but she knew I was the priest and we prayed together. I held her hands and then I wasn't about to stick bread in her mouth, but I thought I'm going to stick my finger in the communion wine and I placed it on her tongue. I stuck my finger kind of in the edge of her mouth and when the when the wine touched her lips, it was as though peace just cascaded down her body, like she had just sat under a waterfall.
Speaker 1:And I looked in, this peace came over her and her daughter cried. I still remember this today. Her daughter became quite emotional and she was like she was communing with God in such a real way that the kind of intensity of that battle of her mind just suddenly stopped, and it was all because of a little bit of cool wine on my finger that was enriched with the presence of Christ. And those are the little miracles that I think we should always think about when we think about life and its intensity and its heat. You know, you don't just have to do like the early romans who went down into the ground, into the catacombs to. There's also a way to to be spiritually cool and find spiritual rest and sustenance in, in in um life's pressures. Maybe that's a good segue to the next part of our absolutely, yeah, I.
Speaker 2:I think it's a great place to look at. So emotional and spiritual heat. So how can we handle life's pressures? Especially because a lot of the time and I've heard so many people when we've had prayer ministry times talking about life feeling like a pressure cooker and it's just and then it's just going to go. So I think there's a lot of people who might be feeling this, but what? What causes life's pressures would you say, oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:I think you know there's tensions between people, there's conflicts which come from, um selfishness, I guess you could say. I think a lot of times um two people engaged in the same organization with different visions and different goals with each other. And it's conflict because they're trying to kind of win the battle. It's like watching a football match at Chelsea. You know you want your guys to score the goal and you'll cheer and do whatever you have to do so that your guys score the goal. And whenever there's an offsides penalty, I mean, everybody's got their view on it.
Speaker 1:It wasn't offsides, it was offsides, and suddenly we become so engaged in the rules and the regulations and all these things. Well, ultimately it comes down to a few people having differing views and deciding that my views are better than my willingness to listen to your views.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's good.
Speaker 1:And I think you know with so many things, combine that to the idea of management and hierarchy and you have people who work in jobs where they have to listen to the boss and they have to do what management's telling them to do, and there are times when they don't like what men do and conflict that comes from this, and then you have a very real kind of abuse of power and you have people that say you know my job, my job doesn't feel fair because I have these expectations placed upon me that it's not fair.
Speaker 1:And then you go and talk to other people and the other people say, oh, it absolutely isn't fair, you're being horribly treated. You know those people are mean to you and so that's going to make everything more tense, more stressful. You know people end up in the hospital because they have heart palpitations, because they don't really know how to combat these tensions and, uh, and these realities, because they I mean it really is reality that you're dealing with, not not some fantasy in your head, and so you're trying to make really good, solid decisions, knowing that you have limited power.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah you know, unless you're an ultra rich billionaire who owns and you get to decide what you want to do, then you in some ways are going to have to work collaboratively within a management structure. And that's so hard. I know in the hospital when I used to work in the hospital, you would see. You know, the doctor comes on the floor and issues an order, and then the nurse has to do lots of tasks and carry out the order issued by the doctor. And then the certified nurse's assistant is busy bathing a patient in the next room and the nurse says can you help me with the order that was given? And then you've got social workers and other people at the desk who are also part of the chain of command and have to be a part of carrying out the order. And it's just like somebody at the bottom says I think that's a bad order, and then they ask the next person up and they go yeah, that's stupid, why would the doctor want us to do that? And suddenly you have this subterfuge.
Speaker 1:And next thing, you know, the nurse is actually questioning the doctor's order. And so there's all this tension now because everybody's in the break room saying can you believe what that doctor said? And then they go into the sweet patient's room whose son is a lawyer, sitting with his laptop next to the bed, and then she dares to say to the patient well, I'm supposed to do this and I don't understand why the doctor is asking me to do it. And next thing you know, the son is making phone calls and you get this firestorm because we're talking about heat and tension.
Speaker 1:The best way we found in the hospital world to disengage that is old boss used to say, embody your job description. Old boss used to say embody your job description, and what that means is that if you are given power and authority in your job for the welfare of a patient, that one of the ways you can do that is by appropriately stepping aside, expressing yourself to the person who is in authority. Under the guise of this is for the welfare of my patient and I am a trained skilled practitioner and if you do it that way, sometimes the doctor who is in a position of great authority and responsibility, will actually go. You know you might be onto something here, nurse. Let's try this instead. Thank you, for that doesn't always happen, but I think we're talking about ways to avoid the conflict and the heat and the tension. There's a way to communicate healthily and I think, communicating behind the authority's back is almost never the right way.
Speaker 1:Triangulation and kind kind of saying I'm going to undermine that guy, watch what I do. I'm going to destroy what they're. I'm going to tell people how horrible they are. I'm going to go write a, an anonymous comment on a google search engine, you know, and say this person's terrible and people have started using social media as a weapon. Absolutely yeah, Because they think that's the way to cool down.
Speaker 1:Yeah, isn't that terrible to think that you come home and have a few beers, pull out your phone and you start trying to malign people with your phone.
Speaker 2:But it's so. Who was I listening to the other day? It was on a podcast and she said said she started using instagram to um document stuff from her life. And she said you have to be prepared for people to just be horrible. Oh yeah, they will. They'll spend their time on there trying to do what they can do to be destructive. I was just thinking as well. You're talking about dynamics and you mentioned relationships and hierarchy, and I think also we see that in family relationships and all sorts of relationships, but one that I've seen quite a lot of in my lifetime, just um through friends, is a hierarchy of man of the house. So if there's, if there's a, a dad or a fatherly figure, and then there's maybe like a younger son or something like that, that can cause such tension because it's as the son gets older, he starts to become a man and the man of the house finds that really challenging and the behavior that can come out through that can be really destructive.
Speaker 1:Um, but I I I think I lost you there for just a second I don't know. Yeah, but that's okay. Yeah, we can fix it yeah, just that, um that.
Speaker 2:Oh, what is it? It's, it's. Is it hierarchy, chris, or?
Speaker 1:is it, do you feel it's? It's called Family Systems Dynamics.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:And I think culturally we as kind of Western people broadly have embraced this notion of hierarchy within a family system and I think that some of that's going away now. I think it probably needs to, because what happens is you have, the real strength in a family system is usually a woman, not a man. The man is the physical strength and the woman becomes the you know, the real strength behind the system.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And she's also the person that brings life into the world because she gives birth.
Speaker 1:And so these odd ideas that the man of the house is going to take care and protect and all this stuff.
Speaker 1:But no one, you know, everybody knows that a mom is a whole lot more scary than a daddy bear in a conflict in the mountains, and you don't want to mess with the mama bear, you don't want to mess with her cubs, and so this idea that the men are the great strength, you know, that is rooted in a kind of warrior mentality and hunter-gatherer idea that because men had physical strength, that somehow that made them superior to women. And you still see that acting out in the church, because you still have people in the church that try and marginalize the authority and the power of women's voices and they'll use theology to kind of justify that. And so that's a very tricky place of tension which may be a podcast for another day. We can talk about women's ministry and women in leadership and things. But in the family, where you have conflict at home between children and between a wife and a husband, conflict at home between children and between a wife and a husband, you know how do you, how you deescalate the heat.
Speaker 1:There is kind of like he's the doctor and he's got the power, and he's got the authority, then somebody has to kind of pull him aside and say, hey, dude, we're in this together. Our ultimate goal here is the body of the patient, which is our family. And what can we do to disengage this nastiness and this attacking? And don't go to the kids and tell them how bad your dad is or how bad your mother is and can you believe what she did? All that triangulation stuff, it's just like corridor in a hospital and it undermines the goodness of care and creates a firestorm, and I would say families that talk about conflict, who are humble, who listen.
Speaker 1:You go to a partner and you say I want to tell you something and you're not going to like this, and then what I'm going to do is I'm going to shut my mouth and I want to hear from you and I'm probably not going to like what you're going to say, but we're going to listen to each other and then after that we may still feel the same way, but nine times out of 10, if you take the chance of actually listening to what's in the heart of the person that you love, you'll find a better way to navigate the heat. It's like dipping the family into a nice cooling bath and you say let's just cool down for a minute here.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Have you ever?
Speaker 1:sat with. I mean, I think sometimes I see people fighting and I think when they stop fighting and they just sit on a bench and listen to the birds and look at the flowers, how do you, how do you stay angry? And in the same way, I mean, yeah, you still probably have annoyances and things, but sitting quietly with someone is one of the amazing ways of breaking the tension.
Speaker 2:And yeah, it's so powerful. There's actually um, I can't think who it's called now, but there's someone who does a podcast where it's I think it's called like conversations on a bench or something like that, and what he does. It's so great, chris. It's about 15 minutes each one. He just goes and approaches somebody out in public with a thermos of hot tea or something. I've seen this have you?
Speaker 2:yeah, it's so cool and he just goes tell me about yourself, tell me about, yeah, and, and a lot of the people you listen to and we know this through ministry you might not necessarily agree with, well, you might not be able to relate to what they're saying, but you're right. Sitting with them in the quiet, in the presence of god, does something. It's power.
Speaker 1:There's your, there's your answer. You've and I think you've just hit it on the head. It's. You're not sitting there alone with another person. You were sitting there with god, with another person, and if, if you see the presence of God there, that's kind of like saying we're hot right now and the source of our coolness is the Holy Spirit blowing fresh winds across these flames.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:I think that's the magic of why his little cup of tea thing works, because I think he doesn't overtly talk about the divine. But I think there's the magic of why his little cup of tea thing works, because I think he doesn't overtly talk about the divine, but I think there's an element of divinity in his search for human goodness yeah, I do like that I I found a quote this week that I liked, um, because I hated math growing up.
Speaker 1:I was not a math or maths person, but the quote was the most valuable math that you can learn is to calculate the future cost of your current decisions. The most valuable math you can learn is how to calculate the future cost of your current decisions.
Speaker 1:So when I'm thinking about how I respond to heat and tension and troubles, it's probably best if I can imagine that amortization table all the way out to the end and think the consequences of this decision are. And if you can do that in the moment, then it can actually transform your present.
Speaker 2:That's very, very powerful and yeah, and it does make you take a step back and pause, actually, doesn't it? We're so quick to just go. I'm going to do this, I'm going to say that I'm going to feel this way, and I really like, actually, that it's just making us maybe stop and think.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I know in Mark 4, Jesus calms the storms, and I know that that's a story that we're told actually happened in the Sea of Galilee. But I think it's also a metaphor too for us that when we're struggling in life, that we call upon the Lord to calm our storms. And that may be a literal storm of our workplace and our colleagues. It could be the storm brewing within our family and it could be the storm brewing in our own hearts where we're struggling with our history or past bad decisions or past bad relationships. We're grinding inside and we say, Lord, will you just stop this storm from blowing, Because it's really keeping me tilted sideways every day.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, and if that's something any of you listening to feel like you do need God to just calm your storm, get in touch with us. We can link you to a healing hub. We've got a digital healing hub where we can pray online as well. But that's a wonderful scripture. The other thing a bit of fun here, chris, a surprising insight. Have you heard the phrase hot under the collar?
Speaker 1:I have, as a priest who used to wear a collar all the time. It got rather hot under the collar.
Speaker 2:It did get rather hot.
Speaker 1:I'm wearing my Hawaiian shirt for the topic today, I feel like I'm in Hawaii.
Speaker 2:You've got a fun fact about the hot under the collar saying, haven't you?
Speaker 1:To be hot under the collar was a phrase popularized in the 19th century, from back in the day when they used to have those dreadful detachable collars, which is in a lot of the, the, the movies.
Speaker 1:Now you know, a colin firth movie is not a movie without a detachable collar and they were starched and really stiff and evidently the the heat makes them kind of pinch and and makes people kind of irritable and so they came up with this phrase that oh, he's so hot under the collar, but it's rooted in that, but people still use it today.
Speaker 1:Yeah you do still hear it. Yeah, I'm so hot under the collar I don't really think about where that comes from. Proverbs 15 says a gentle answer turns away wrath or wrath. But harsh words stir up anger. So gentle answers are a whole lot better than harsh words. So it's probably worth remembering that whenever you're thinking about how to deal with conflict, you know, lean toward the gentle answer and the curiosity and away from the harsh words. I think that way we don't get hot under the collar.
Speaker 2:Very helpful. So we've talked about things like drinking water in the heat, making sure you have shady spots, pausing before responding to heated discussions, like that quote was sharing Give me some practical coping tips for my journey with God.
Speaker 1:I mean, surely you can help me, give me a couple of things I can do to deepen my walk and cool myself off spiritually.
Speaker 2:Someone asked me a question the other day day and it brought me back to my teenage years of being a christian at the youth group. They actually asked me what would jesus do? And I've all. I used to find that so cringy growing up because everyone had the bracelets with the wwjd on them. Um, and actually it has really stuck with me what would Jesus do?
Speaker 2:And I think that is something we can do too. If we're feeling hot under the collar, we're feeling fiery or defeated, what would Jesus do? Pause and reflect. Yeah, and it draws me to thinking about his character, how we sort of interact with people. There must have been times he felt how we feel in conflict and in heat, and we can look to him. But also, I think we've shared before, chris, that we find both of us find God in nature and in beauty, god in nature and in beauty. So taking time, like you say, just to sit and be quiet and to let God speak to us in those places. So you might have lost me again there, but yeah, I'm just thinking like what else? What would you say while I have a little think?
Speaker 1:What would I know one of my theology professors at seminary. When I was at Duke Duke Divinity School many moons ago, he used to teach us to pray when we inhale and we exhale. That we would do what he called breathing prayers, and I think when I'm feeling a bit hot and angry, I think sometimes it's really good to be able to just stop and I may have said this on a previous podcast, but just things like Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy to say them while you breathe, inhaling and exhaling.
Speaker 1:You know, I think, if I'm hot on the golf course, a lot of times I find shade, I find trees, somewhere I can actually stay out of the direct rays of the sun. And I think, as we follow Jesus, there are times when we need to find the shade of God's presence. If that doesn't sound too corny, but that could be inside a church, it could be on a little path next to a stream, wherever you can find that overarching wing of God's love and then spend some time in that place of peace and just having some deep thought. At one point I had a lot going on in my mind and there's just lots going on in general and I thought where can I go find this shade? And in a crazy way, I ended up in the middle of London. I ended up surrounded by thousands of people. It was just absolute chaos, but no one was interested in me. Chaos, but no one was interested in me. And so in the middle of the chaos, of being in the middle of this gigantic city, I found this incredible peace.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:I found a couple of places where I sat on a bench and I've and you know, and you bump into blue plaques everywhere and there's something connect you to history, which are also kind of affirmations from the Lord that you go. Oh, wow, all these great people that went before me, this chap, he walked right here, the guy who helped end slavery, he walked right down this street and this was his church, and so little things like that. Find your shade, find what works for you, and maybe it's a long bus ride on the top of a, on the top of a 418 bus, enjoying the view and just riding along, or um going and watching airplanes. My wife thinks I'm crazy, but I love watching airplanes take off and land at heathrow, but we all have to have our thing. That um helps to be a catalyst to you. Know it's in the real world. I guess you need to be a catalyst to you. Know it's in the real world.
Speaker 1:I guess you need to find a way to sit under the fan and let the wind blow on you and, spiritual way, find a place where you can feel the Holy Spirit resting upon you in some very real way yeah that's really helpful.
Speaker 2:Okay, so let's move on to our next little segment of this episode, where we're going to be thinking about the hot topics in faith and society. So faith and society would you link them? This is a big question. I suppose Under the same heading are they different things faith and society.
Speaker 1:When we're looking at this, I mean, I think there are fires that are happening in the world that we don't control, but we observe, and there's a faith that we possess which is very personal, and it's our own journey.
Speaker 1:And so the interesting thing is what happens when our journey and our walk with the Lord collides with something which looks like a global calamity. And you know, you think about, you know what is the role in place of a follower of Jesus when they are made aware of the annihilation of human beings in something like the Holocaust. You know, what should our response be? Be? To finding out the heat? Should we say, well, I'm going to pray for you, I'm just going to, you know, I'm going to pray for you. Is prayer enough, or should we pray and do something? You know that was James 1,. Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry. I think there's also an element of being willing to respond that tacks onto the end of that that, as a follower of Jesus, there'll be times when he calls us to go not to stay and that's risky, just like the disciples when they went, you know.
Speaker 1:Go ye, therefore, into the world at the end of Matthew 28,. He sends the disciples into the world and almost every one of them got killed. So the idea of being a disciple of Jesus means that there'll be times when it is unpleasant, when it is hot and when you have to challenge injustice and illegality and oppression and all the you know and that's so. That's hard to to look at society and say how does my faith impact my understanding of the world?
Speaker 2:Yeah, cause we can't just isolate ourselves and live in a bubble where you know we don't, we don't engage with what's going on in the world. And that passage you just shared from James 1, everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry. I have to be honest, that often feels so the opposite of how we operate in the world, and so for us to be acting and having that as a value and behavior of us, I think is a real gift to a lot of people.
Speaker 1:And you think about quick to listen. I wonder sometimes um, of course I'm going to be a fan of the listening Academy that Acorn offers, but I wonder how many people really know how to listen anymore. I know I am challenged all the time because I talk so much and I and I like to talk, and the idea to be quick to listen rather than quick to speak. Um, quick to listen, um, and listening is not listening to respond, it's actually listening to understand. So when we sit and listen to someone, our posture shouldn't be like this defensive posture to think, well, what am I going to say next? What, what's, what's my retort going to be? And you see so many people that everything turns into a debate yeah to be quick.
Speaker 1:To listen is to be in a posture of like genuinely wanting to know what's going on with the other person. So when they're talking. It's like tell me more. I really want to know. Tell me, and why are you saying that and where does that come from? And and so I know curiosity is one of the things that I've explored for the last five or six years that how can I become more deeply curious?
Speaker 1:And I think curiosity absolutely destroys heat, because when a person is curious, it's very hard to stay mad at them. You say why are you mad at me? I just want to know. I just want to know more. Why are you so angry with me? Just tell me, tell me.
Speaker 2:I want to know.
Speaker 1:And it's like playing tug of war with a piece of spaghetti.
Speaker 2:It doesn't work.
Speaker 1:It doesn't work yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So, you know, you have to kind of acknowledge the person, um, before you respond to them. And, and I know that's a tricky thing, but, um, you know, as I remember, remember, um, someone told me that when you're responding to someone, um, even if you're going to counter what they've just said, that one of the ways to soften that is by using their name and and complimenting them as a preface to a response.
Speaker 1:And you say, Lisa, you have such fantastic ideas and you know so much more than I do about X, but I'm just curious about Y. And then all of a sudden I've disarmed you a little bit, but then I stick in there something that otherwise would look like I disagree with you, Lisa, I think. Why is the correct?
Speaker 2:answer.
Speaker 1:And you're going wait a minute. I'm going to put my fist up. We're going to have fighting words yeah.
Speaker 1:I just think people in the world who don't understand diplomacy jeopardize the peace in the world, and so we live in a time when there's a lot of fighting going on and wars and all the things that we talked about at the top of this podcast. And the people who are in charge of making peace. If all they do is talk so that they can have their opinions heard by others, then you won't resolve anything. But uh, for example, ukraine and russia is a good example. Yeah, if people sit down and say tell us what the experience is for the ukrainian people, tell us what your reality is like and you, you know you're a sovereign nation and you, you've been invaded and there's military action and there's people dying. Tell us your, your experience and your reality. We, we want to know what it's like to be a proud Ukrainian today. And then the flip side of that is to say to the people from Russia you know that are engaged in these dialogues to say so, what is your perspective on this? Where are you coming from? And not just get in a fight with them when they say this is ours and this is ours and we demand this and we demand that, but to say what's that rooted in? Where's that coming from? Yeah, yeah, is it rooted in a false sense of this land belongs to us and it never should have been given away. But there's a way to unpick it in a way that peace can actually happen?
Speaker 1:Yeah, but my guess is we have leaders who are like, like we said before, the the traditional strong men who are in charge, and I'll take care, you know, and and I I honest to god, I think if, if we had like 12 women from all these countries who met, it would get sorted. I actually think you're right. Yeah, I think sometimes it's the fact that we've got all these powerful men who like their power, who come together and you know, my plane's bigger than your plane and I'm going to fly over a B-2 bomber just to show you how powerful I am it's this idea that it just escalates and escalates, and I think really we need to be curious about culture, about who these people are. Who are the Ukrainian people you know the church in Ukraine and the people that worship God there and have worshiped God there for you know, for centuries and who are the people involved on the Russian side who want nothing to do with this? I mean, where do these conflicts come from?
Speaker 2:That right. It's so deep, isn't it?
Speaker 1:it is the same thing with uh, with gaza and and israel. There's an element of, of a lack of curiosity there too, where I think the uh, you know the idea that there are starving people in gaza, it's, it's a fact, it's not something that someone's suggesting that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's a reality.
Speaker 1:And so the idea of being curious enough to say why are we letting children starve, or what you know? And the answer can't just be well, because there are bad people that live in their midst. And so then we're punishing all of the population because of these bad people who they can't control. These children don't have any ability to put a stop to terroristic activities, you know. But again, diplomacy in families, diplomacy in workplace, diplomacy in the world, I think to find ways to be a better world by being more loving and seeing God in the midst of conversation. It's got to be a better world by being more loving and seeing God in the midst of conversation. It's got to be the best way to deal with the hotness of the world.
Speaker 2:That's super helpful. Thank you, and just to reflect, what we've looked at briefly this morning is just knowing that God's peace is a shade from life's scorching heat and that we can seek that out. And Isaiah 25, verse 4, says you have been a refuge for the poor, a refuge for the needy in their distress, a shelter from the storm and a shade of heat isn't that amazing, um.
Speaker 2:so we'd encourage you to find your daily shade moments, your quiet time with God, where he can be your shade. He can rescue you. Worship as a spiritual breeze that shifts the climate of heat, and doesn't it just do that? When I'm often so like I don't really Well, for whatever reason, everything in me is going no, I just want to roll up in bed and not do anything. And then you start worshiping and there is that shift in the climate of the heart. Um, and then come to the water, and there is a song, isn't there?
Speaker 1:come to the water we used to sing it in our praise band and, um, it is such a good song. The chorus is just so rich, and maybe I'll find a way to incorporate that into something. All who thirst, let them come. Without money, without you know why did you sacrifice? But for the Lord. I can't remember all the words, but it's such a glorious encouragement that Christ calls us to come to the water. So whenever you're just you know where I grew up if you got hot, everybody always knew.
Speaker 1:Ultimately, when it gets too hot, you go to the watering hole, you go to the pond, you find a way to get to a place that'll cool you off and in our walk with the Lord, the waters of baptism are the cooling place where we can find healing and restoration. You know, I think that that's the answer for me. You know, I know that science tells us that if you, if you look at pretty trees in nature, that it reduces your stress scientifically proven that it will reduce your stress. But I think if you combine that with faith and an understanding of God's presence in your journey, that I think that's the, that's the magic formula to get me through the rest of my life anyway.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's so helpful. Will you say a prayer for those who are listening, Chris?
Speaker 1:Lord, we thank you for this podcast, this vehicle of your grace. We pray for all those places where there is conflict. We pray that people might cultivate a curious art, that they might seek to learn more about the other rather than questioning and being suspicious of the other. And we ask, Lord, that in the heat that we endure, be it physical or spiritual, that you will be our source of peace and rest and coolness from this day and always. Amen.
Speaker 2:Amen. Thank you for joining us and don't forget to like, follow and subscribe Subscribe.
Speaker 1:We'll catch you next time time I'm gonna go have a cold shower.
