Live from the Pathway Studios in Johnston proper. You are live And you're listening to Live From The Path coming from the Pathway Studios here in Johnston Proper. It's lovely to be with you on this evening, and I'm gonna do something that I so very poorly do at most of the programs. I'll do you a quick introduction and who you're listening to. My name is is Ben Foust. I'm the host of Live From The Path. I would generally… You can pick me out. I'm the guy who's probably speaking first and who took too long to get the show started and intended to say something clever and didn't. To my… It's my right. It's gonna be in your bottom right hand corner if you're watching on the old YouTubes

is Mike Foust. Mike, go ahead and say hello. Hello. K. You can pick out Mike. One, he's gonna sound a lot like me. Generally I'm gonna distinct myself from that. So people… Wait. I'm gonna distinct myself from that. So people don't get the both of us confused. You can also pick out Mike. Just listen for like a slight note of disapproval or disappointment in something I've recently said. Well, I see.

That's probably him. And then Dan Hudson, who is in the studio, is directly in front of me. If you're looking at the screen, he's to my right. Hey, Dan. Hey. How are doing? Okay. Dan, you can generally pick out. He sits… He wait… Here's the deal. Dan's a smart man. Dan waits as the show starts, he waits till all the riffraff sorts itself out. He's like, these people are gonna jabber and it's probably Mike and I, probably Buva, and then whoever is in here are gonna just like blow the first five minutes of the show. And Dan just stays out of it. He's probably got some messages to return. I… He's discerning over there. And so that's that's Dan. Yeah. That's that's… Yeah. And that's a full studio down to the bottom left hand corner. That is the thrift store priest. His lineage is not known except for he does appear to be the priest, and we did find him in a thrift store. And if you take a picture of him and you search him online, he's fetching a decent penny from the Goodwills of the land. I think they're looking for $25.30 bucks, and there's a set of him that I've not been willing to invest in, but there he is. Okay. Do you call a group of priests something? Is it like… Is there a name It's a flock. There a name for a group of priests?

Okay. Here's what here's what we do. I'm gonna open that up to the complaint line (515) 517-0085. I want the best punchline to the joke. Keep it appropriate probably

to what do you call what do you call a group of priests? If you have to do a group of pastors so that you're not dirty on the complaint line, that's fine. (515) 517-0085. Call or text. What do you what do you call a group of priests? It's not meant to be a joke. It's a legit question. I know, but it sounds funny to me now. Let's open it up to him. Here's where I got going on the This is… Listen to me. We got elephants and we got advice. That's it. That's that's the story of the show. Sounds big. It's elephants and advice. And so I… We'll get right into the elephant story. And this is…

I saw this on the Facebook movies, and I probably watched too many Facebook movies. I try to I try to get bored within like thirty seconds or so because then it feels like I'm not overcommitting my life. But this one, I don't remember, Dan. It was probably like ten minutes long or fourteen. Jeez. Yeah. It was a long one. I was probably on the clock. Really shocked. Like, this is But I kept watching it. I know. I couldn't turn it off. I'm like, I usually… Or even you'll speed ahead, you know? Like, oh, let's just get to the end point. But doggone, was fascinating. And so I watched it all. So I'm gonna give you the setup. The story is about

Planisburg National Park in South Africa. And there was… They were doing some elephant population control coals at Kruger National Park. So, like, they were having to kill off some of these adult elephants were killed, and they kept the young elephants were spared and relocate them to park such as Pilatusburg. And the reason they were doing that because at the time, I think this was in '19… Early nineties or something. They basically didn't have the equipment

to move the bigger fatter elephants. So they would shoot them and then get the younger ones. And then they had the equipment where they could move those guys somewhere else. And so they were hard to transport the fat ones and they didn't have the technology or whatever. And so they would take the young animals, but none of the mature dudes, the mature bulls, those guys were all kind of killed off as part of this population control. What they found was as the young males reached adolescence, like something odd started to happen. They began entering for the… It's called… I thought they were saying must, but I think it's must with like an h at the end, m u s t h. But

it's like the elevated testosterone, sexual activity, and aggression in these male elephants. And they were happening much earlier than normal than they otherwise would have expected on these. And in in Johannesburg, young males roughly in their teens and early twenties began attacking like rhinoceroses.

So between 1992 and '97, they killed more than 40 white rhinos. And that's not, listen. The elephants and the rhinos generally, like, live together. They're not like… They don't… They ignore each other. Yes. Yeah. They don't fight. Do your thing. You do you. I'll do me. Yeah. Everybody's happy. And elephants aren't particularly… I mean, they will defend themselves and their babies. Right. There's like most of the time that you've… There's been any aggression. Aggression. It's not like they're after you as they're defending a kid. I've been chased by elephants who had small babies. Yes. Yes. There we go. Yeah. Yeah. But otherwise, they're like elephants aren't like aggressive creatures or anything. Okay. And so they found actually… So it's like 40 white rhinos were killed between 1992 and 1997, and they saw similar behavior at a different place. So it wasn't just in this like one park

where they documented 63 rhinos killed over a slightly longer period. There there… So they started research as this, like, like, why? Because like the the the video was like, not only did they kill the rhino, but like there was evidence of chasing it down and like beating it up after it was dead. Like all kinds of like gang behavior. Yeah. You know, like what heck is going on over there? So anyway, they start researching it and they they figure out or they suspect that the missing ingredient was older males. Now, excuse me, the video was interesting because there was like these animal psychologists that were like, oh, maybe it's the trauma of having seen, you know, rest of their family killed or whatever. And like, I'm not, don't don't hear me wrong. I'm not mocking or dismissing that. But like, it's a very human, like first reaction is like, Oh,

they saw their family killed and then now they just started to attack rhinos. Yeah. Or something like They were bullied at an elephant school or something. Yeah. Which you should… You know, what's interesting though, you see this, like,

we just want answers. I know that. Like, you wanna be able to explain ab… Like behavior that's like it's harmful or it's abnormal or something. You saw this at COVID. You know, two years after the lockdowns or whatever, especially for younger kids, your kid's acting like a jack animal and people are like, oh, it's Yeah. It's gotta be the COVID. It's all downhill from being locked down at COVID. I'm like, I don't know what you do with your kid while they were locked down. Like, did you… If you fed them cupcakes and, like, let them run feral, then I mean, yeah, the COVID may have caused part of the problem, but I don't think it was had to be that way. I'm not saying it wasn't difficult. I'm just saying like, you even see this Mount Vesuvius erupts and then like everything that happens in the community behavioral and like economical

and whatever, they're like, well, Vesuvius. You know? Obviously. Yeah. Okay. Anyway. So… But anyway, they get to it then and like they thought, well, that… I I I don't know if that can be it. And so they start researching and they suspect that the missing ingredient was older males. So like, normally, like young bulls spend considerable time around mature elephant bulls and the social hierarchy like seems to regulate their behavior. And the onset of when this like adolescents

and musts The musts. Yeah. Starts to happen. And so they're like, okay. Well, let's check this out. Like, let's let's test the theory. And so they transported six mature bulls from, like, that place where they were doing all this culling into Polanticsburg. Apparently, like, after about five arrived. Yeah. They could move an elephant. Sorry, uncle Bill.

I… The… And it's… So… But the result was the… They said the effect was striking. The older bulls established dominance. The younger bulls abnormal must patterns subsided and the rhino killing stopped. And it was like immediate. It wasn't like, Oh, now we have the influence of these older bulls and like give it a fifteen year time period and all this stuff starts to slow down. It's like pretty directly all this behavior stops. And the video was interesting because they said what they started to notice was

that like they would look at, they were tracking, they had named all these like vigilantes, bulls that were around this thing. And they were keeping track of what they were doing, where they were going and like whatever. And they started seeing like these gore marks on their hind quarters or whatever. Because apparently these dudes, these

adult male bulls were like, every time they'd see behavior they didn't like, you know, they're not like harming them, like they're keeping them in line to like, hey, for our society of elephants, this is not okay. We don't behave like this, you know? And, but I think the big surprise, there's a there's a there's a couple takeaways and I'll kind of walk through them. But like what was so interesting about the story is that like one of our human assumptions are so weird because you would look and say, oh, they they

called the population. They took these younger ones. They moved them to a safe place. Like elephants weren't being hunted. They had plenty of food. They had plenty of space. They were healthy. They had plenty of water. Like, the kind of… Like, if you go to Maslow's hierarchy of needs and you put it on an elephant, you go, look, man, there shouldn't be any problems going on here. Like these are well prepared or well provided for, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Paradise. And the thing that they, the thing that you would miss, you think about it from humans, and I'm kind of defensive. I think about this when I'm trying to help people. I'm like, can't I just make sure they have food and water and shelter and then they should be fine. Yeah. But it's not, not only is it, that's not thriving,

but like our core our moral cores and how we behave is not just regulated by like whatever natural urges we expect to have. You know, it's like, well, if you calm down all these, what can be aggressive urges, well, maybe then we'll just, you know, we won't cause any trouble, but it doesn't actually seem like that's the case, you know? So anyway, it was it was a super interesting. I like, I was a bit enthralled at it. I usually don't share like long videos because like, no one's gonna watch it on the live from the path chat, but Dan checked it out. I did. I didn't watch it at all. It was so scary. Was. Yeah. Okay. So there's there's a bunch of different lessons to take from that. And then I kind of want to talk about

there's an extension of that as it relates to how we think about, I think spiritual discipleship and authority and stuff. But here's like a few interesting takeaways. I would be cautious to… I think one of the key things might be, dude, you gotta have dads. Right? Male authority figures just in general. And

so I think we can recognize that animal societies, and this is probably true for humans too. Like they transmit behavioral norms. So like an elephant doesn't just develop normally just because it has food space and other elephants nearby. Like social relationships matter, matter who's you around. It matters what those people think and how they react to your behavior. In elephants, older males have a regulatory role. So it's not just a reproductive one. These these mature elephants, especially when we think of the animal kingdom, we're like, oh, dudes just pop in, create babies and bail. It's like all the nature shows kind of make it look like that. But like obviously in the elephant communities, these bulls like constrain

younger males and they seem like they teach them appropriate behavior and, like, are willing to have some sort of physical means of enforcing that they act that way. Yeah. Know, they say And it's just some old cranky elephant because Right. As they're replaced, they keep doing it. Yes. That's right. Gets older and says, hey. I know about how I'm supposed act in this role now. Yes. Yeah. Yes. That's… Oh, that's a really good point. One, there's six elephants of the mature elephants that they brought in and they all did it. Mhmm. And then as they cycled through the next generation of the ones who were, like, causing trouble, they started doing that same exact same thing. That's right. That's true, Dan. We often look at the older dudes, know, or it could be ladies too, guess. And we're like, ah, they're just getting old and cranky. Yeah. I don't know. Some sort of we cut people off of a restraint role that we probably should be investing in a little bit more.

Removing a generation can have like delayed effects. Like again, I think it's interesting that they feel like it's in a modern time. We would have thought that like, you can't just wipe out part of the social structure. But again, it's a very scientific way of doing it. Like what are the variables? Food, space, you know, water, all this stuff. Let's just make sure those variables are provided for. And we missed the, did it matter that this generation of, I don't know how else to put it, elephant wisdom, you know? Yeah. Social, like ingrained social structure and that kind of thing that just no one's around to help shape you in.

And like, and then you think about, you know, you think about people that are that are in broken homes coming from families that are in broken homes. And I don't think it even stops just because like, you know, some of these, there's the higher, we're seeing higher and higher divorce rates in older people. You know, usually if you made it to 50 and you're still married, you're just gonna stay married. And like the divorce rates at the 50, 60 year old level is like wild. It's wild people aren't even staying together that long or not staying together for the kids or whatever. And like the consequences to that type of thing.

And I think, you know, if the elephant thing, you know, goes through. I think there is a question like, I don't I don't know how I think about animal trauma, but like, obviously, if you ever been to a dog, like an animal shelter, like you could… The dog… You can tell when the dog has been mistreated.

Yeah. Or been in harsh homes or whatever. It's sketchy. And so, there's there is definitely a reality to that. I think the risk may be in this situation and perhaps in others as we think about it, is like, are there five things going on here? Not just like, Oh, trauma explains all those things. Well, trauma is also, you know, maybe in some situations is likely to have occurred where there are also no social boundaries and blah blah blah. Like it's not, it's multiple things converging as opposed to like the presence of just a specific event. Because the risk in that is that you chase the event. You're like, oh, if I can only get through or get past the event, then things will be fine. But like part of the reason that maybe events hang with us to a certain extent is because maybe some of those other things actually weren't true at the same time either. It is interesting. Actually, hadn't thought about this until now that some people can… Two two different people can go through what feel like very similar events and some people… And they come out of it differently. Some of it could be

Some of it could be just the nature of the event, but some of it also could be some of the structures that are around you. Like sometimes they can help you process things in such a way that like when that's gone, it feels like the events dominating you, but maybe it's the event plus you just don't have any other structure to deal with it or handle it or something. Yeah. Anyway, and so… Then broadly, the social structures can perform functions that, like, I think aren't necessarily obvious. You would go… Like, it's easy to go, hey, there… If you don't have a dad in the house, there's not a a male to, like, I don't know, the guy who lays down the law when things are going bad, know, the heavy. And I think that's probably too, it's obviously too shallow a view of dads, but like even just that's the only bucket. How about someone who has the ability

to physically change the situation, but chooses not to and instead shows up and like handles things with words and paths to kindness and not because they were… They could have solved it a different way. Like, you can say that type of thing, but it's different to see it. And it's that kind of thing. So I don't know, Dan. What other… Any other reactions or thoughts that you had after watching that thing? Yeah. I I just… As I was watching it, I I thought it just seems like all of society is built on what they're talking about. Uh-huh. I mean, you you take a classroom of fifth graders and take the teacher out. They're gonna go wild and throw paper airplanes and disrupt things. The teacher comes in, and they're the ones saying, hey. This is how you act like a human. You know? Stop it. Well, in in ten years, all of those kids could be doing their own classroom, but but they gotta get there. Someone's gotta teach them. Someone's got… They gotta learn how to how to

respond responsibly in culture and in different settings. And and, you know, that's what the elephants were teaching them all the things, eating habits and the mating habits and all all all the things. And and on our own, we'll we'll come up with all kinds of bad ideas Yeah. That, you know, if we don't have someone to tell us otherwise. So Yeah. And I think that's true in the church. I think it's true just in life in general and family. I think I think about… Is this… I wanna watch it again actually later just to kinda absorb it a little more. Yeah. Like, from a human perspective though, like, do you know what kinda… There's a there's a… I'm sure there's a more exact Hebrew word for it. Right? But the kind of love that goes, we don't do that.

Right? Not I don't do that or you don't do that. Right? But we, we're we're together in this thing and This community acts differently. We don't do that. Metaphor breaks down a little bit because they're like, you know, these dudes are getting them with the tusks, and they're elephants. They don't do a sitting down over tea. You know what I'm saying? Like, there's there's a depth to the way that God created a human that doesn't exist in an elephant. Oh, yeah. It it doesn't imply that, like, go ahead and smack them, babies. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, like know what I mean? Like, know what You get on the the the fundy side of the Christian faith, and we're like, see? This is why you should beat them kids. You know what saying? Like, that's not what we're talking about. Right. But, like, like, when when it comes down to it that, like, not only are you taking

ownership for your direct descendants, but your community in general that goes, look, we don't act like this. It's not good for you. It's not… It's not even… It's not good for our environment if all the white rhinos are gone. The the elephants might not be able to express that. Right? But the truth is, when you mess with an ecosystem like that, that God created to be in balance, and your behavior puts it out of balance, then

this is where, like, always talk about sin being communal. Yeah. Right? When when you break the way that God created something to be, the effect doesn't just land on you because it… His world is interconnected that way because it all reflects him. And so, like, it does come… It pays a community cost to stuff like that. And so like, it is very interesting because it is the place where you can find, like, maybe our modern day society has

believed the exact opposite. Right? If you give people all the freedoms, then they will they will invent or explore or, like, be able to experience the best of their true selves. Right? Or the stuff that, like, all the rules and the community mores were stopping them from doing. But it's

a chronological arrogance. There's been millions of people throughout history that have tried this, and they have committed the most heinous things. Right? All the biggest crimes or the biggest atrocities against God's blessed humanity

has been people living outside the bounds of how he said that a community was designed to be. And so, like, the thought that like… I mean, there's there's there's some distinct personalities where some of that is true. Right? Like, maybe Van Gogh doesn't end up in the depth of his art if he was forced to factory ninety hours a week. But I think historically, they made knowledgeable trades.

Right? They would go, I'm just gonna be poor. I will be able to do these things like on the on the art side of things or the creative side of things. They're like, look for my art or expression of the thing that I'm doing, I'm going to trade having money and societal status. And they just went, that's the trade I'm making. Where like more in modernity, we're like, listen, you deserve to not be poor. And even if you do have put no effort into being in the community or supporting people around you or even supporting yourself, or like, where it was a knowledgeable trade, so it meant something. Goods were actually exchanged. And then now we're just like everybody,

you know, should be like their full whatever they think of, whatever they wanna do, they don't need to be kept in line, they need to be allowed to flourish. Yeah. Right? But like, that even sounds… That sounds bad as I say it because it makes it sound like, you know, like we're going for some kind of authoritarian state. But really, it's the love that goes, we don't do that. Yeah. Yeah. Like the misunderstanding is to say, for me to flourish, I must be unconstrained.

And that's silly. Like we would know this. And it's interesting to think about, like, to what extent does does God… Has God created a predictable nature as a way for us to understand ourselves a little better? Like, I I was I was looking… I've got a small… I've been putting on air attack like I have an orchard. I don't have an orchard. But I got like, I don't know, two two or three apple trees, a couple peach trees, and I don't know, something else, some bushes, I think. Grow berries. And, like, I was looking at this thing because my wife's like, my wife does all the nature work, and she's like, someone's gotta do some of this other stuff. You take care of the trees. I'm like, great. And I'm I'm, you know, talking to the AI. I say, how do I… What do I do? And it was overly aggressive with the pruning. It's like, you can cut this way the heck back. I'm like, nah, come on. This is the AI. And so I went searching others. Like, I went validated it. And yeah, everyone's like, this is some heavy pruning.

And they're like, the rough outcome was like, dude, if you want your trees to flourish, they can't be spreading their energy off of every shoot that just decided to show up. Like it has to be snipped.

Like it's not going… It's not freedom to go wherever you want it to. It will be the most effective. It will produce the thing it was made to produce. And not even just for my own satisfaction. It will perpetuate itself in the most effective manner if you prune the things and sometimes fairly heavy handedly. And so, like,

I… You… There's not a… To to Mike's point that we don't wanna get… You don't you don't read them britches to keep them out of ditches. Like… But, like you wouldn't ever… This notion of pruning like physically obviously doesn't make any sense for humans. But like the… But I… But you could see it. You could see it in the peach tree that if I even some… You're like, I can't believe that thing would recover. That's a pretty heavy pruning. And sometimes it's the same year, but sometimes it's two years later and it's bigger and it's beautiful. It's producing way more than it would have if you'd let it just go wild. And this notion of like, I can't flourish unless I'm completely free.

Your complete freedom is a danger to you. And it's a danger to the society. Like we don't… Like we do actually have to live community. We do have to share soil. If I let you go wild, you start killing the tree next to you because you're taking up all the resources and stuff. The point is that you gotta do it voluntarily. This is what the communally, think we're gonna… We run into problems with this. This… American notion, I think treats freedom

as if, like, I think that mixes that part up. Complete freedom can't mean that I don't voluntarily constrain or ask to be constrained for the benefit of the world around me. We're not, you're not made to be isolationist.

You are just meant to live free, recognizing that your freedom can either serve others or they can detract from them and you need to be cautious about it. But it should be voluntary. This is where the the key rub is. It's like you need to do it because it's right to do, not because the government forced you, but like whatever. Yeah. Yeah. It reminded me of another experiment. I've never seen, again, Facebook movies. I gotta probably gotta watch fewer. But like, there was this… It it was like a it's like a a mouse utopia. Have you guys seen this? Oh, yeah. Yeah. There was an experiment. I wanna say… I don't remember when it was in like the '70… I don't remember the time frame. It's within the last forty, fifty years. Was a big deal though. Yeah. It was a… There was guy named Calhoun who who created this mouse utopia. Basically, put some mice in a thing. They had tons of space. They had like unlimited food, unlimited water, controlled temperature, no predators, nesting spaces.

Like it was a utopia. They had everything they ever needed. And like initially, all these mice like like are reproducing rapidly. Like the society of utopian mouse are like flourishing. Happy. Yes. They loved it. And then like a bunch of weird,

like deterioration of society stuff starts to happen. So like they started nose… Noticing like aggression in the mice, the disruption in like the mating and the parenting, they were just abandoning their young. They were withdrawing socially. They weren't hanging out like being communal mice anymore. There were like odd… I don't know if you would say it this way, like perverse sexual behavior among the mice or abnormal,

I guess. And then eventually collapse in reproduction. They just stopped reproducing. And like the food sources didn't stop, water didn't stop, temper control didn't stop. And then you get like these mice that like are just, I don't know, they were kind of deemed the beautiful ones. They were better looking than the other mice. And they start to form this click and they start to withdraw like completely from the social life. And they spend their time eating, sleeping, and grooming, which means they're not mating or fighting, which is normal within the mouse society, you know?

And eventually, eventually the whole society collapses. Like population goes to zero. Yeah. They had everything they needed. And it all… Now again, I think you gotta be careful. Some of this could just be density. Like you had… It's explainable to a certain extent that like, hey, you overpopulated. But then eventually that would have reduced as they started dying off and not reproducing and a natural curve would bring it back up. Bring it back That's not what happened. Yeah. It just died off. And so it's just so interesting to think about

how we, just think about your political philosophy and go like, Hey, if we could provide all these things to people, then the society would flourish. We're not actually just the sum of our needs of our bodily urges or something like that. And yes, we can let everybody do all the things and you could provide for all of them. But like the thriving your society has sinews on like, how do we actually all interact with each other? And like these

lacking of social normalcies or boundaries can cause a societal collapse. And I get that sometimes we like… The most cautious of you because I'm… I would be cautious about this go, well, it kind of depends on who dictates the boundaries. Totally. Yeah. Totally. Sure. Like it's Jesus or nobody in my book. Otherwise, I like I trust no one else. Yeah. Yeah. But like there's something there's something there that can't be easily dismissed. I I kinda wonder. I mean, obviously, I've never thought of this before, but, like, you got the elephant story and you got the mouse story.

It… I mean, it'd be interesting… I don't know how to study this. That that… Is it because the older mice died? And and, you know, kinda kinda like Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Elephants weren't there, so they they just were going crazy. And and it's probably more than that, but I don't know. That… That's a… I doubt they thought they'd look at that. Yeah. They may… They might have, but I I didn't look at it in-depth before. But Yeah. That's curious. That's a good question. Yeah. Okay. So so interesting stories from the animal kingdom. Right? So so I think one of the questions then becomes, like, think there's a clear there's a clear and reasonable thought that goes

that there are there are there's a notion, there's a thing about maturity. There's a thing about regulating societal boundaries. How what is good to Mike's to your earlier point, like, how do we behave? And how do we know how we should behave? And then there's the notion of, and maybe those are easy answers because we could go, well, I should do a Jesus or what the Spirit tells me or what I see in the Bible, which I think we'll come back to because I think depending on which denomination you're in, you probably favor one of those over the other and which brings some risks to it. But like the other question is like,

if if if it's if it's fair to look at the comparison in say the elephant story, like who's the old… How do we think about the older elephant? Fathers jump to mind because the story was male. But like you could also say, like, is there a notion of some level of spiritual?

Who do we look to? Who do we look to? Who can be trusted? Because like there has to be a… For there to be a correction, there has to be a disagreement. There has to be a spot where someone goes, look, that behavior is not what we do. And then in some influence or another tries to constrain or redirect the behavior of someone else and go, we do this instead.

And is… Who do you… Who do we look to? And what are the challenges about that? And like… And is it a who? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, like, the the reason I was I was thinking about this after you told that elephant story, I'm like, you know, if I put it in some context, I've heard a lot of, like, pastors in general be, like, coming after their congregants, you know, that like, look, you need to submit to spiritual authority. And I thought, well, who is that exactly? And I thought, biblically, where is this coming from? Like, we would ultimately say that God's Word is God's words, so it is authoritative. Right? So, like, you can take the Bible as an authority.

And then the Holy Spirit comes in here. And like, it doesn't contradict God's words, but it does fill in some grays every once in a while. Or have a more pointed where maybe the Bible for a long…

For most of its entirety is either being prescriptive or descriptive, like here's what happened or here's how you should be. But it's not answering the question like, should I move to Sacramento and start a giant youth group there? Right? These are like… The the the hows is covered a lot in the authoritative bible, but the means of which it's… How it's gonna get done or where is God moving or how is he moving in a society he's in or in your life. But this would in general be a holy spirit territory, which is a very… That's a very black and white way of saying it, which I'm sure includes more nuance. But let's just work off that premise for now. Yep. Yep. So

but like, I've noticed a lot of language coming from pulpits and pastors and like, let's say, listen, you need to submit to spiritual authority and like they're meaning themselves. Yeah. Or like the group of deacons that are running the place, you know? Yeah. And I thought I don't… I guess I don't know biblically

where that comes from or, like, that these folks are so bold to have claimed it. Right? I've been following Jesus a really long time in all of my, you know, my failures. But but, like, I I I don't I don't claim spiritual authority over people. I can give you some wisdom based on what I've screwed up or what I haven't, what the Bible says, some my experiences that I've seen God do. But, like, I would never walk up to somebody and be like, well, I'm the spiritual authority around here. You know what I'm saying? Like, spiritual authority, I would generally hand over to the holy spirit and go, look. I mean, God gets to speak on his own behalf. I mean, the the New Testament is pretty clear about a plurality of elders. Now you can decide, is that in a, you know, a local congregation or was it in community that that, know, just different conversations there. But there were eldership,

and that could be an older in years or could be older in experience, you know? So it could have been a younger guy that's been doing the thing for a while, following Jesus, and and the others hadn't. But there's a wisdom in that, I I think. And and maybe the reason some churches have gone like crazy is we've like… And I was maybe part of this group that at some point thought, man, elders are just a pain. Right. Right. All they're doing is saying no to everything. You know? And just like, well, we wanna have drums. No. You know? And and Do you think it was it was a, like, a saying that came out eventually that we capitalized elder.

Right? Where… Like, when the bible describes it, it's a responsibility of someone who is acting like an elder. Like, you have have wisdom to you. If you've been you've been just living your life in a way Yeah. That makes you a wise person in the faith. And then here we are two thousand years later, and we're like, it's a job title. We've reduced it to voting and and… Or I shouldn't say weeks that we our church doesn't do it that way, but but, you know, it's voting and policy making and and, you know, that type of thing as opposed Approving budgets. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Rather than, like, hey. We're we're shepherding this… We're we're with these people. We're we're moving… Discipling Yeah. And living together, so to speak, in this spiritual journey. And I think that's a more healthy way to do it, which I think that's where I really think… I shouldn't say this out loud. Like, the larger

church is not really designed that we're made to have that's healthy. Yeah. Know, because it's all corporate. It's all. There's There's all feel like jobs. There's just one bull up there that's, you know, the authority. Yeah. And it's like, I don't know if that's really healthy. Yeah. So here, I'll give you just a few, like, what is what is the New Testament basis for some of this? And I think maybe then we'll we'll figure out, like, I think to some of what you guys are getting at, where we have it wrong. So like, Hebrews is is pretty clear. Hebrews 13 says, obey your leaders and submit to them for they keep watch over your souls. That's a pretty straightforward text. It implies like there are leaders among you

and that you should accept their guidance. Now, to submit, I'd be cautious of, these are… These aren't like… One, it presumes that someone is watching over your soul. Like, this is a laborer Yeah. Watching over your soul. This is not just like an authority figure. This is not a rule maker. Like you would recognize this person. And I think that, you know, it's one of those deals where like, as I think about

elders, it's it's never been… It felt like an office. It's a guy who like, I wanted I wanted to hear from them. Sometimes I didn't, but I still knew that I should and I wanted to, like, I wonder what this person has to say. And if… And even if I didn't wanna hear what they said, it would stick with me that they said it or something Yeah. Like Well, and if you're one of them, you're

having that conversation together. Yes. You know? Yes. Like in the roles that we play. Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. And it's also in the context of Hebrews 13 is that these are people who are like, they keep watch

and they give account. Mhmm. And like like, so this… To to Mike's point, like these are responsibilities. This is not… I I… It's a privilege to serve the Lord and serve others. It is not it is not an elevation. Like it is a weight to be a person who's who's to be thought of that way because it means people are gonna listen to you. I mean, do you know what the… I mean, you guys do, but, like, the the burden

that lands on someone who is a watcher of a soul, a keeper of a soul that, like, whether you're whether you're following Jesus faithfully or you've tore out to act a fool, there's somebody in the background praying for you, worried about you, thinking about you, talking to God about you. Right? And what that isn't is like the figurehead of a 3,000 person congregation.

They don't even have the bandwidth to do that. You know what I'm saying? So like It's numbers game. Yeah. And so you submit… I guess maybe I'm trying to think here who who I would submit spiritual authority to. But like, does it help that the person I'm being asked to submit spiritual authority to, I know they're carrying the weight of me. Right? Not the way Jesus does, but like they are… Their soul is burdened Yeah. With where I'm at, what I'm doing, how my life is going, how my relationship with Christ is. Right? Like, if you knew what that felt like, then you'd be like, look, dude, if you're doing that for like me and 10 other people, what do you have to say? Yeah. I'm interested. Yeah. Right. Right. And I actually think that gets the right notion. So if I follow the other like key references through first Thessalonians five, like 12 to 13, like you're told to recognize those who labor among you that are over you and the Lord. Now, again, and admonish them and to esteem them highly.

But again, the notion is like they are actively working with among you and carrying some sort of burden for you or of you on their behalf. Which is not an office. Yes. No. Not an office. First Corinthians sixteen fifteen to 16, Paul says, Submit to such people as the household of Stephanus who devoted themselves to serving the saints. It's a service. First Peter five:one-five, elders shepherd the flock, but explicitly they're not domineering over those entrusted to them. Younger believers are told to be subject to the elders, and then everyone is told to clothe themselves with humility towards one another, which is a very similar picture you got with husbands and wives. The slaves sickening. Yeah. Yep. Yep. And then Acts 20, elders are told to oversee and shepherd the church, which establishes responsibility and authority, though not unlimited personal control. So interestingly, I think two things are stick out coming out of here.

It does seem like from a New Testament perspective, the New Testament is not going, look, the only model is everyone talks to the spirit. That's not the model. It's not that it's not a model, like that you do talk with the spirit. But like it seems to think that there is an explicit and beneficial

place for human shaping. Yeah. I think, like, individually, you're walking in the spirit. Right? I see that's day to day activity

and stuff, but in community, you're in that larger frame of hierarch… I'd say… I don't wanna say hierarchy, but but the eldership, the caregivers, the Yeah. The the the whole thing. Yeah. So think about it this way. Like, I would have a hard time… Let's say that I went to a church that was 300 folks. Right? And they have a a board of elders like churches do, and there's, like, 10 of these dudes.

If one of them came up to me and said, well, you need to listen to me, and I'm an elder at the church. And I would go, I don't know you. Yeah. And you don't know me. So, like, you might be an elder for somebody, but, like, you're not you're not laboring with my soul and mind. You know what I'm saying? Like Mhmm. And so, like, that's a… I wanna be careful there because, like, that could be just me as a dude who don't like authority. You know what I'm saying? I could be like, you're not my elder. But, like, the truth is, like, if it's a responsibility

and not an office, then, like, an elder at the church down the street that I don't even go to, like, your role of elder is is, like… It's not a role. It's a responsibility. And, like, you're an elder for that church, for that group of people, for that community. But, like, I… You're not laboring for me. You know what I'm saying? So, like of a guy who goes, like, goes up to, like, the… I don't know, the Walmart or something. He's like, I'd like these three pounds of oranges. Go ahead and ring them up. I'm Ted Jackson, elder. You… Okay. You obviously haven't met a lot of small town church elders, if I could. But but I could see him at a coffee shop or something being real turd turd like. Well, here's the thing is I've known multiple

people who like, I'm so excited. My church is putting me up for eldership. I'm like, oh, like, I hear what you're saying, but like, if it… Like, I've had people refer to me in somewhere in that context before and I'm like, oh, oh, you don't realize what the Bible says about this. Yeah. Right? It's it's not a burden that you can't bear, and it doesn't make your life horrible. But, like, it is asking you, like, whatever selfless things you think you gave up for the Lord, when the eldership shows up or a pastoring shows up, they're like, you're done. Your name is done. Your ambitions are done. Right? You're now Jesus and other people. You're the two commandments Jesus, like, specifically breaks out. You love God. You love other people. You're not gonna be also a famous ski instructor.

It's out. You know? Right. Right. Okay. So what's interesting… So so I think the the the the wrong view of this in… And I have heard this happen is that like if you go, oh, look, to to Mike's earlier point, the pastor were to say something like, look, God has placed me as a pastor over you. Resisting me is to resist God. That's trash. Right. Because I have spiritual authority. That's what they would do. Right. And it's… And here's the thing.

By input… By action, I'm not even sure that there's there's places where some of that can be true. But the… If you would think of it that way, then it's implicitly trash. You are the wrong person. Right. You're the not guy to do the work. Like everything that it said in Hebrews, talent was never mentioned. And most of these folks, right, most of the folks that I would… That would ring up in my ears, I would go, like, the eldership or the pastor… Like, it sounds like a lot of sacrifice. Right?

But, like, what these fellows are are talented. Like, they have a gift with words. You know? And, like, to them, it's actually not even a burden to speak. Like, they're not even putting a ton of work into it. They're just gifted people. And maybe they're gifted with the word. Maybe they would also be gifted with the self help cookbook. I don't know. They could just have talent. You know? And so, like, merely the fact that you're a preacher here. Right? Like, that doesn't that doesn't automatically ring up spiritual authority to me. It just means you could be a talented guy. Yeah. Or you have a spiritual gift that God gave you. Right? That doesn't mean you're you're laboring well with that spiritual gift. It just means you have it. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think actually the the the earmarks of this, and it's not because any of these people are gonna be perfect. Like, obviously, your pastor is not gonna be perfect. I don't care, like, the people you think of… Actually, I don't… A lot of the people who would say something or speak something into my life, they're coming from like learning hard lessons, you know?

But like their humility should drive me to humility. Their deference to Jesus drives me to deference to Jesus. Right? Their… And like that's what I mean by like their… It's not their perfect example can remain perfect even then in their imperfections because in their frailties and fallibilities,

they still cling to the ankles of Yahweh. And that's what I'm… That's what I… So when they speak, it's not like they have to go through everything that I've gone through, but like this domination of like, you listen to me because I've been placed over you. That's not the labor among you. That's not the humbly serving. Like that attitude is wrong.

Even though like a person who is a pastor where all those things actually are true, yeah, they actually might be shaping you and their humility should draw you into humility and their walk with Jesus should draw you in a walk with Jesus. And you probably do need to be framed and formed and shaped by that. But again, it depends like if someone's using words like, you know, I am the spiritual authority, like those words coming out of your mouth would be the place where I would go, your humility does not draw me in humility. Right. So, no. Yeah. You gotta you've gotta show me that you care about my soul. Yeah. You know, like in Hebrews, you know,

you know, I'm I'm I'm in this for your benefit, for your… God has placed me here to help you. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Not to rule over you. And and not to, like, throw out the the, you know, the size of a church issue, but, like, at at… Like, on its face, I just don't know how you do this at scale because it's not a business. You know what I'm saying? Like, it's not a say… Like, our goal is to never figure out how to do this efficiently.

Mhmm. Our goal is to be obedient to the way that God said it needs to be done, which I think the bandwidth for one guy can't… Or one gal can't be much more than like 10. You know what I'm saying? Like, I just don't know how you can labor for that many people in your soul and in your prayer life and in the way that you read scripture and like have it be a hundred and two hundred, 300 people. I just… I don't know how to do I think you can't, which… And and some of it comes down to language. You might have been, you know, a hundred and fifty years ago, maybe you could go, look, I'm the pastor. And there a thought

that all this kind of stuff is baked into that notion because there were only 35 people and there were always ever going to be. Right? Marriage, birth, forty, forty five people, maybe 50, and then new job, three deaths, are back to 35 and it's going to cycle that for the next two hundred years. And it's fine because the size of your community would allow it. But like, you know, in some of these bigger sometimes

we go, look, I'm a teaching pastor. I might just go, look, I'm teaching here. I teach. Because again, we start to bundle those things together and they just don't mean… You don't… Maybe you even mean it right, but colloquially, it brings connotations that mean to go, oh, he… There's a teaching pastor. The pastor has authority over here. Over 300 people? You do not. You you can't possibly. You're not bearing their… It's not true. Even if you wanted to, you couldn't do it. Yeah. Billy Graham was not the spiritual authority for almost anybody. Yeah. Right? But he was a heck of a teacher. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Like, he taught the word.

Yeah. Yeah. And so… Okay. So so what's interesting then is if we think about it, so there is a human elephant which scares the crap out of me because you've met some of these people. And you're like, boy, why why? It's probably the… It's the key notion is like where I want to just go, Hey, I just want to deal with the Spirit. Can't the Spirit, just me and the Spirit, blah, blah, blah. And like, I think the implication here is that like, is the Bible full of right words from Yahweh? Yes, it is.

Does the Bible seem to imply that I continue to need help discerning it? Yeah, think it does. I think Paul is pretty clear on that. I think, is the Holy Spirit provided to everyone? Yes. Does the Bible seem to imply

that that actually, not that the Spirit itself is insufficient, but my human interaction with the Spirit still requires actually community people helping me discern. Like the presence of the Spirit is not the same thing as my ability to rightly discern it. And it's a pattern that was established not only in multiple letters by Paul, includes Peter. It includes whoever the heck wrote Hebrew. It

was a shared notion that like, I keep trying to use a phrase and I keep backing off it. I don't mean the Spirit is not enough. What I mean is, is I am a fallible discerner

of the Spirit. Mhmm. And I need to recognize that. And so it's actually not more holy necessarily to go, Yeah, I only talk to the Spirit. Like there is a pattern for communities working through things together like this. Right, right. I I can convince myself really easily that the spirit told me to do something I wanna do. Yes. Yes. That's the danger. Yes. That is the danger. And and I and I think the same risk I I brought up the I brought up the scriptures for the same reason is that like there's there's plenty of… If I think about denominational stuff, there's plenty of churches that are like, look, we're a spirit led church. Great. Are you discerning the spirit together? Are you reading the scriptures to make sure that you are all those things discerning together? Then you've got folks who are like, look, we stand on the word of God. I think you should stand on the word of God. But like it's the scriptures seem to imply that the spirit is actually still also living active. God is like Jesus tells you there's going be a helper here. And if you're ignoring the helper

and using all those things together, well then I think you're blind in one eye. And so I think you should be real careful about that. And so like, yeah, it's a do all these things have to go together. And I think for simplicity's sake, just like to go, I don't read the Bible really, but I pray and I listen for Jesus and then I do the things he tells me to do. But like, I don't know the structures of the New Testament seem to think people should be praying for me. I should be allowing people to shape me even if like even in what I think I'm hearing and what I think I'm reading. And that we, and if the elephants tell me anything, it feels like we need each other in this regard. Yeah. Yeah. You know, like 99.9%

of all pastors will leave a church to go somewhere else. They're all like, well, know, God really led me to do this. Right? And and I get it. I get it. But if you look at like Paul and Barnabas with Antioch, the spirit told the church, send them. The spirit didn't tell Paul and Barnabas, hey, you should go start churches. Yeah. You know, like, hey, this this… We wanna go do this. It was like, no. It was the people. He he spoke to… Somehow spoke to the people. Yeah. And the people were like, hey, you're… We're gonna send you. Yeah. I mean,

Paul's the best example because he continually gets called to go to a place where he's gonna get his butt kicked for a while. Right? Almost every modern pastor's like, I'm called to a bigger and better for better influence Right. A bigger congregation so I can reach for people. I can't help it. Yeah. Paul's like, yeah, I just got this thing set up. We're three house churches deep. Oh, man. I gotta go till they ought to see. Which… Think would get beat up. You know what the interesting part is? It's like, I wonder if one of the limitations to that could be as we think about churches and communities that we put together, like, am I actively praying into, Father, help me not miss when you

like maybe, sometimes they got, does God sometimes have to tell the person because the church isn't listening? Because the community isn't listening because like, why would I want you to break up my community? I like these people. I've felt that before

where like I've tried to be to like our community is like so tight. It's so small that like there can be a thing where just it would feel devastating to someone was gonna go. And like we've had obviously, we actually just had our just this Sunday. We we did… The people surprised me. It was our ten year… Mike too, actually. They pulled off a surprise on Mike and I both. I don't know. It was our ten year as a as a house church thing. I think they were just trying to get out of the share week, to be honest. But but, like… And then some people who would, come and then they moved on to different… They're following Jesus at a different church and they were there. And it was I was very cool. I was glad to see them and it was it was touching and encouraging and all that stuff.

But like, are am I… Are we preparing ourselves to go look at any given time? Am I listening so that I can help go, hey, I actually wonder if… I I I think I think God might be asking for you You should go. I think God's asking you to Yeah. So it's because like it doesn't feel like, oh, at any given time, God might take someone like, well Right. Right. It's because like, am I often… It's the thing you pray against. The thing you pray for. Yeah. Yeah. And for for all like loving and I love these people and I care about them reasons. But like, I I I do wonder if, you know, sometimes if we would reorient that a little bit,

it would feel like, would I hear it? I hope I would, but maybe I wouldn't. Right. Right. Right. I've told our our… I'm I'm at the age now where I'm not like ready retire or anything like that, but people start asking, hey. You're retire? You know? I'm like, no. But I have I've told my my leadership, my elders, they say, hey. You guys have to tell me when it's time because I won't I won't know. Right. Right. I'm gonna think I'm doing great, bad, a thousand, you know, and I'm… They'll be like, no. No. You're really not. And and and I'll I'll think of all kinds of selfish reasons not to. Right. Oh, I want money. I want this. I want that. Or I I love the power of the pulpit because I'm your leader. No. But, you know, there'll be a time when god tells them, you know what? This we need a shift. And they're like, I will submit to that. Yeah. You know, which is kind of a scary thing, but it's like, I'll let the Spirit worry about that. Yeah. Yeah. Agreed. And it's just one of those things where like, it's

a wide wide open prayer to go like, God, you're aware of what is on… What I have on the table as a possibility. I need you to blow it up what I'm missing. What… If you're saying something that I wouldn't even recognize because like, Oh, I'm prepared if Jesus wanted me to move to Kansas. Right. But I'm not prepared for Quebec because the Canadians are nuts. Right. You know, which is like,

it's it's it's just interesting because actually, I think a lot of the time we're more open to the wild thing. Like I'm I'm more open for someone going, hey, look, I need you to be a missionary over in this place because like there's something that sound… This is pattern I recognize than to go, look, man. This family needs to serve closer to their community. They see these people all the time. They gotta be there. This is hilarious because I literally just sent a text out to my youth group leaders tonight.

And I said, look, will you guys pray on something for me? I was just realizing that there are things that I've taken off the table, and if God asked to change them that I would bristle against. Like, something so simple as what day we hold youth group. If I felt like… If someone told me we should move this to Thursday instead of Wednesday, I'm like, no. If youth group's on Wednesday Right. What if he decided that we do? What if God wanted to, like, change location or time or towns? Yeah. And I would I would instantly go, no. Right. I've I've been I've been putting together work here. Yes. And I thought, Lord, I I didn't realize how many things I had put in the… If you were speaking about something,

I would automatically assume it's not any of those five things because those have already been decided. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I thought, man, I'm I'm not open to him reexamining where I'm at or what I'm doing or what I've said or… And so, like, I asked him, I said, look. Will you just pray that whatever God is doing in the town we're in, that we hold our plans very loosely? That, like, if he wanted to move this to Tuesdays, I wouldn't be in an uproar and immediately go, well, we can't because there's volleyball on Tuesdays, and here's 10 other reasons why I'm not gonna do what god told me. You know I'm saying? I thought, crap. Is there any recess of my heart that behaves itself? Like, only to find out, no. There is not. And so, like, I have to resubmit the things that I just assumed or handled. Yeah. Because he gets to do that. And it's one of those things where, like, I I I get risks putting at, like, I… You know, what? Can I eat any breakfast cereal? Like, can I do anything, Lord? Where I think it's fine. I think it's always fine to keep moving. But the thing is, is that like, I never want to miss God speaking.

And so it's… I think it's more so that right… Because I… If you hold something, it's okay to hold something, it's okay to act on it. But if you hold it so tightly that it has an identity that's beyond what Jesus might otherwise call you to, like are you willing to to see it differently? Maybe I have overbaked there. Yeah. Because, like, our identity is a servant of the king Jesus Christ. Right? Yeah. And if he says, you don't sleep in this bed anymore, you sleep over here. Like, I'm the servant. I go, yeah. Alright. I assume you thought through this. I will be over here. Right. With a recognition, I suppose, that that says, look, a good and gracious father isn't gonna keep me guessing whether I need to move beds. The most likely block isn't that he wouldn't say it and wouldn't make it clear. It's that, like, I had already removed something or decided that it wouldn't be there, and so I wouldn't… I would dismiss it if it showed up.

But pending… If as long as I trust that he's good and he will speak clearly, I also don't have to go, well, maybe maybe it's not Wednesday this week. Maybe we should move it to Friday. And then I'll pray on it, I'll you what time next group… Like youth group is the following week. Right? Don't I don't wake up every day going, Lord, should we move youth group to today? You know what I'm saying? Like, that's not what I'm talking about. Yes. Right. But like if if if if, like, I felt through some mechanism of scripture reading and the holy spirit that the the word Thursday kept coming into me, I would never go, we might be moving youth group to Thursday. I would go, youth group is settled on Wednesday. Yes. Yes. The holy spirit will not speak into that because it's done. Yeah. You know what saying? That's right. That's a fool's parade. That's right. And I'm telling you what, like, there's just something exciting about about opening up some prayer time with some level of consistency going, God, I don't know what I've removed from something you might be speaking to, but I am asking you specifically to blow it up if I've got a blindness, if I've got one eye closed because I… Even to the things we were talking about, God, I'm so faithful

because I believe that your word is living and active and I follow it with everything that I close my eye to say the spirit cannot shape me because I've got all my eggs in this basket even though it's a glorious basket. Yeah. And a righteous basket and I believe the right things about it. Yeah. Same thing with do I believe the Holy Spirit guides and is the ultimate helper? Yes, I do. But I have I closed my eyes that I actually as a humble human that has his own fallibilities still need help discerning the words from the living God.

Yes. Between the scripture and the community that he surrounds me with. And like, boy, it'd be more convenient and a little bit more straightforward to bail on either the community or the scripture or the spirit in any given combination. I'm not sure that I've been given the option with what I know of Christianity to bail on any one of those things, which means I've to do them all. Yeah. Alright, you're listening to Life from the Path. I don't know. Give me some

any thoughts on that particular thing. I'll I'll see if I can find… I'll post a link to this elephant video. I'm sure it's on YouTube also, which is probably more easy to get to. And I'll see if I can… I think I saw that mouse thing, like, a number of years ago, and it was fascinating. And I even looked up the study because like, obviously you got a shorthand version of it. I was trying to like decide. They did like a bunch of them. It wasn't just like they did it one time. They did it like a bunch of times. Anyway, I'll see if I can find them and post them or whatever, but let me know your thoughts. (515) 517-0085. Call or text. And, yeah, we'd love to hear from any reactions you have to that particular conversation or any questions that kinda jumped out of it. Alright. Alright. Let's… Mike, let's give out some advice. Dear life from the path,

I am a single woman in a friendly neighborhood. Every month, I have the neighbors over for dinner and a movie. I like to be inclusive. Bring the kids. Bring the dogs. One couple recently had their elderly mom move in, and I installed the ramp so she could join us. Babies cry, dogs bark, women breastfeed, all are welcome. I put sleeping bags on the floor for the kids to sit on while grown ups sit on the couches. Clean up is a bear, but every squished meatball on the floor reminds me of how much I love everyone. Recently,

a new couple moved in. So, of course, I invited them and their six year old to join us. They warned me that he has severe autism, but I told them everyone is welcome, that he wouldn't be expected to be quiet, and that the house is thoroughly kid proofed. When the family showed up to join us, their child was horrible, even by my nonexistent standard for kiddo behavior. He screamed, threw food, bit, spit, and hit the other kids and the dogs for an hour. Finally, everyone started to leave before the movie was over. The boy's parents really did try their best, and I was genuinely sympathetic.

They apologized the next day and said that if they were welcome in the future, they would alternate one parent staying home with their son while the other joined us. That sounds reasonable, but I don't like it. I can't be inclusive just when it suits me. They have since invited me to their home for dinner, and their son was just as bad there, banishing my thoughts that maybe it was just a strange house he was reacting to. I don't know what to do with all this. I'm looking for a magic wand. Any suggestions? I I I know that there are strategies in these situations. I don't know. Like… And I don't know what they all are. Like, little squeezy toy thingies, weighted blankets. There's different things you can do that helps, but

some of this… I mean, it's just the way it's wired, I think. Yeah. Yeah. I I… What feels weird to me is, like, the parents are well aware that their son has severe autism. Right? And, like, their life looks different than everybody else's for all the reasons. And, like, to to… It's… It doesn't feel fair to go, look. You should stay home. I don't actually think that's the answer.

But, like, you should know that, like, you probably shouldn't let him around the dogs or when he bites kids or… You know what I'm saying? Like, you basically set him up to fail. Right? If if the kid doesn't have the cognitive ability or understanding, you can't… What's the point in, like, disciplining him? He's not… He doesn't think through it right. Right? So, like, basically, you set him up to be in a really bad position. And I know that sounds really unfair, but, like, it's not loving to make it seem like he doesn't have severe autism. Right. That… That's not loving to him or you or your neighbors. You know? And so, like, I don't There's even, like, respite organizations that will come in and, like, maybe watch him at their house. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Parents get away, get a little they gotta get some life too. Yes. Just for their own mental health. Yeah. That's a possibility.

Yeah. I mean, I think I think it's fair to say it's it's great. Like, what you're doing is great. Mhmm. And… But you have to serve people in their uniqueness. And I think, maybe this is borrowing from a little bit from our previous conversation, but like, full freedom isn't necessarily flourishing.

Like, nobody is better off. And I think about… I think we've talked about this on the show, probably to some level of offense, but like, you know, I remember

if you go to if you go to London and look at all the attractions and stuff, these do not have handicap accessible ways of getting to the top of of Saint Paul's Cathedral. Yeah. You want… If your head… If your your friend… If if if our good friend Pants wanted to go see the top of Saint Paul's, we're… We gotta carry him up there. He can't. There's no… They're not put… And they're not gonna do it. They're not putting in an elevator. They're they're not going to change the the situation of… Or like put some sort of elevator on the outside of this cathedral

to accommodate that situation. In some ways, you're like, well, that stinks, man. This person does not get to have the same experience as everybody else does. And I don't like that. Although, the the… In that situation, you can carry them up there. Like, it's just gonna… It's just more work on your behalf. But I I think there are… The reality is is that, like, everyone's experiences aren't the same. And to Mike's point, like, I'm not sure it serves anybody, the kid included, the parents included. Like, I just… If that was if that was happening to me, like, it's not to to your point, you know that that your son is gonna behave this way. So he can't help it. It's just how he is at least for now. And so, like, he's not enjoying himself. You're not enjoying himself. You know everyone else isn't enjoying themselves.

Like, those are all good criteria to go. How can we create a situation in which you do actually find some respite or peace or like you do enjoy yourself? And I think all these other options are fine. Like, maybe we come over and like maybe the kid is having trouble at his own place, but the parents feel less bad about it because they know it's their house and, you know, whatever. That's the level of of of service you can provide that actually has a benefit. So like there's the illusion of, oh, we welcome everybody. Everyone's treated the same. Everyone can enjoy themselves,

but that is an illusion. No one actually enjoyed themselves there. And so I would I would say you're not you're not not serving them by trying to find ways of which you actually do enjoy. They get enjoyment out of those scenarios. And it may not be the way everyone else gets to. And in some ways that's super unfortunate.

But but like, let's go for the right reality, which is, you know, how do we, what situations will this feel like we're serving you? Yeah. And I know, I know on paper, looks like, oh, we want to, you know, we want to exclude you from this type of thing. That's not actually what you're saying. I'm guessing people would voluntarily exclude themselves. It's the same reason you don't… I know I'm not gonna use that example because it'll be taken wrong. But like, you just have to be careful. I like the thing, the appearance of the thing

seems like you're being hard on people. But the reality is, is that like if you're actually looking for ways to serve them, it probably won't look the way that you serve everybody else. And that's not crazy given the uniqueness of their situation. Yeah. Secular says, you are a caring, lovely person, but there is no magic wand that will make that child's severe autism and behavior problems go away. Because you are determined to entertain the entire family, the practical solution would be to invite them and their son over on another evening when other children and pets won't be at risk of injury. Your movie night will be history if it is disrupted like that again. While I commend you for wanting to befriend the family, I think the parents had the right solution. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I… Like, obviously, there's some nuance, and

severe autism covers a lot of ground. And so it's… It would be almost ridiculous to try to go, you should buy this thing or you should do this. Right? That's being basically taking someone's who they are and then boiling it down to a disease. And that's really unfair. But I think ultimately, right? There's just… If your goal was for people to feel included and be part of a fun night,

that particular potion that you made didn't accomplish that. Mhmm. So maybe you rent a screen and project this thing with the kid could stay in his house and then everybody play on the lawn or something. Like, you you can't control that for him. Like, you can't make that all go away. And pretending like you can, there's a level of arrogance to that that turns out not helping anybody. Yep. Okay. Dear lie from the path. Oh, I'm a man in my forties. A woman and I had a relationship that ended badly. We met on the job, though we work in different departments.

Everyone knows about our previous relationship, and it is extremely awkward. Every time I walk by, there are lots of smiles and chattering. When I approach my coworkers' desks, I'm greeted with silence and intense stares. I still have strong feelings for her, and I know they are reciprocated because she has verbalized it and shown it with her actions and behaviors. After she ended things, I was upset and gave her the silent treatment. I know she feels hurt by my pretending like she doesn't exist. I am a stubborn man, but I really miss her. After the breakup, she mentioned being friends. I cannot be friends with her. Despite the amount of time that has gone by, I still wanna fix things. However, I know my real intentions and illusions about getting back together are misguided fantasy.

I would appreciate your insights. I'll tell you one thing, friend. You ain't 40. What? All over the place. These are the ramblings of a fifteen year old boy. She loves me. She hates me. We love each other. We hate each other. What a weird proposition. He's like, here's a story. Just give me your thoughts. Like, broadly. It wasn't like an ask for advice or like, what should I do? How do I change? It's like There's a lot of things in here. I'm gonna chunk this out. Let's just take a couple lines at a time. I'm a man in my forties. Okay. We'll take it at your word, sir.

A woman and I had a relationship that ended badly. Yeah. It sounded like she just broke up with you. Yeah. You didn't you didn't explain the badly part. Right? Like… But… Okay. It ended. Yeah. We met on the job, though we work in different departments, blah blah blah. Everyone knows we were in a relationship, and now it's extremely awkward. Here's his his list of things. Every time I walk by, there's lots of smiles and chattering. When I approach my coworker's desk, I'm greeted with silence and intense stares. Okay. You, sir, seem to think that the entire world revolves around you. And I… I'm gonna promise you right now. Let's say this was even two months ago. Everyone has forgotten.

No one is continually thinking, oh, there he is. And then going, whisper, whisper, whisper. Tee hee. Right. This is not happening. Unless you also work with other 15 year olds. If you are actually in high school and you are just describing your lunch your lunch cafeteria situation, this makes sense to me. I think I I I would be willing to buy that there's like one or maybe two people of which they have nothing better to do. Their office gossips and this may happen, but you're painting it like the whole world is acting this way and it's not. Yeah. Okay. Here we go. K. Fact number three. I still have strong feelings for her, and I know they are reciprocated because she has verbalized it and shown it with her actions and behaviors,

except for continuing to date you. Purpose. So so maybe not. Okay. Right. Clarity of she still wants to be with me would be to say, I want to remain your girlfriend. I

am with you. That is Let's end this badly. We should be together. That is the fruit of people wanting to be with you is they are with you. Okay. Fact four. After she ended things, I was upset and gave her the silent treatment. Very 40 year old man. I

know she feels hurt by my pretending like she doesn't exist. Really? Because she verbalized that too? Yeah. Apart from her undying love for you, which is not continuing in a relationship? Fact five. I'm a stubborn man,

but I really miss her. After the breakup, she mentioned being friends. I cannot be friends with her. Despite the amount of time that has gone by, I still wanna fix things. I I don't know, dude. I think you should be off the dating scene. Remember when like the internet tells you that you should work on yourself? This

might be that time for you. Yeah. You're not husband or boyfriend material at all. Like you're solving your problems in the most prepubescent way I've ever seen. Yeah. Like, oh, you know how I want… Especially 40 years old. You're like, you know, the clock seems to be ticking. You want a long lovely relationship. You're like, the foundation of this will be if I don't get my way, I act like you don't exist. I hope she's drawn in by that. Yeah. This man has lived a telenovela. Right? He's like, I love you so much, but we can no longer be together because we are at work together. I will not speak to you. Is this has gone so badly. My heart is broken when I pine for you. If

I cannot love you, I will hate you. That's right. Do you pine for me? I indeed pine for you, but we must not be in relationship together. Right. I see you collating, and it makes me know you pine for me. Good night, fella. I I think I think he needs a golden retriever. Yeah. That solves it all. Yeah. You need you need a dog and then start a long running sitcom, one that spans seven to ten years. And then just sit there, pet the dog, watch the sitcom, and maybe see if your life comes into some clarity.

Obviously, I would recommend you spend some time in the Lord's word and maybe see what… How relationships are described. And maybe when it talks about Christ loving the church and husbands and wives, and this is how we treat people. And if if none of that lands, then go back to the sitcom and the dog and then just stay in your house and just leave people alone. Yeah. You can update your your your Bumbler profile to say, erratic drama factory. Looking for someone who wants an erratic drama factory. I love you so much. I know speak to you. My heart speaks.

Okay. Here we go. Segular says, do you understand that it's you, not your coworkers, making things awkward? No. No. Thank you. By resorting to the silent tree… Treatment, you've made everyone uncomfortable. You say you wanna fix things, but you've made no attempt to do so. You don't believe you can reconcile with your ex, but on what grounds? You won't even talk to her. I don't think you're stubborn. I think you're afraid. You've kept up this unseemly behavior because you don't wanna be hurt again. If you can't muster the courage to tell this woman you want another chance, you have two options left. Either speak with her purely as a colleague and bury the hatchet so you can at least be cordial in the workplace or start looking for another job. Yeah. I don't… You know, I I do I do wonder if we've overbaked on…

Look. I… I'm behaving this way because I'm just protecting myself. Like, you don't have any grit. Like, you don't have any any stones or ability to… Like, the world… You're waiting for the world to come to a realization that it has not treated you well as opposed to taking steps to shape the world in such a way of which it is getting better for you and the people around you. And your lack of grit is not attractive. And frankly, the types of ladies who are attracted to your lack of grit are the exact people you should not be cohabitating or coupling with and creating more people in response from. Yeah. And so… Yeah. Yeah. I got… Think you would… We gotta get over that bit. It's like, oh, I I I behaved poorly because I was just protecting myself. I I would submit to you it's not working. You're becoming a worse person for having behaved poorly. So stop protecting yourself in these manners. Handle yourself correctly, and then let the chips fall where they may. Yeah. I… Yeah. Really,

like, we get caught in the adjective parts and not the verb parts. You know what I'm saying? We're like, here's the thing. I behaved poorly. Just just stop right there. Just stop. Period. That's… You can be done. And then be like, how can I stop behaving poorly? What should I do? Should I apologize for my poor behavior? Right? Let's just stop with all the… Here's how I got here. At some point, like, it like, does matter sometimes what feeds into things. But the truth is is, like, we've almost discarded reality and facts facts for complete feelings mountains. Mhmm. Or like the truth is is like, I felt this way, so I did this. Yeah. That's a crime,

and you're gonna go to jail for that. Well, but don't you understand my dad wasn't very nice to me? I'm like, that's probably… That sucks, dude. And like, God wanted better for you for sure. But like, your output was within your freedom to choose. And like, everything that this man has chosen is resembling a scorned teenager

and, like, has no place in in modern society or a mature man. This would be the kind of guy that's excited to be an elder. You know what I'm saying? He's like, I can't wait till I have authority over people. Like, okay. I don't think so, Oh. You've been listening live from the past. Anybody anybody downloading that app? Anybody using that app? You leave us on a complaint line. There's numbers. Or, actually, you could message directly in the app and say, hey. I've been enjoying the app. I do it all the time. I don't I don't… Actually, it's still not public, though. Like, I'm not past the beta phase, so, like, I still have to, like, put you in. Do we still need more people Yeah. For the for the Android side? Android, sure. Android, for sure, I need some more folks. I might able be to get on the Apple one out and pushed out. But it's… I I mean, I think it's about ready. It's stable. Well, okay. I'm gonna say this. Like,

listen. This is not a bargain, but let… We come in and produce this show every week. At the very least, you could submit your email so we can try to get this app passed. And then once the app has passed, you don't have to keep it, but it does have to get passed. We have to say that we had x amount of people try it out. Yeah. So if you are an Android person and you're like, man, I don't wanna give my… You don't even have to give your feedback. We just have to have that you downloaded it and and, like, opened it. Yeah. This is all they need to see is that we we… It wasn't full of viruses. It wasn't working for the Russians, and, like, it didn't cause your entire phone to crash. So this is the things they're trying to prove. Yeah. So if you would please be willing to just throw your… The operating system you have and an email address our way so we can get this prototype done, it would be very, very helpful. Yeah. Yeah. Hit us up on Life From The Path complaint line. (515) 517-0085.

Call or… Well, that's a text if I… You're gonna send me your email. Alright. That's it. I think we appreciate you hanging out with us here on Life Path. Hit up that Bob Eisen on Life From Path complaint line, and I'm gonna leave you as you sit. In the meantime, be faithful to the means. God will handle the ends. You've been listening to live from the past.