Dear, dear listener, hi, this is John Dupuy. I want to ask a favor of you. If you like the podcast Deep Transformation and you're getting a lot out of it, could you please help us by going to wherever you get your podcast, it's a Spotify or Apple or wherever it is and write, write a review that would really help us to get this out. We really believe in what we're doing and we're really praying and hoping this is helping people and being part of the solution. So if you could do that, it would be greatly appreciated by Roger, myself and our team. God bless. Thank you. Welcome to part two of our conversation with former California Governor Jerry Brown. Although Jerry is in his 80s, he remains a force to be reckoned with and brings his laser like insights into the national and planetary challenges that confront us now. Welcome to Deep Transformation Self, Society, Spirit, life enhancing, paradigm rattling conversations with cutting edge thinkers contempl and activists with Dr. Roger Walsh and John Dupuy.

What's to be done in the meantime? And they say, what are you talking about? I said between now and death or senility, what's your program? So I think you have to sit on that question because it's something you gotta ask yourself every day.

Absolutely.

And we're all, we're all older, you know, the three of us sitting here. So you know, whatever happens, we won't have to go through it for too long. But yeah, what do we, you know, why do you get up in the morning and put your shoes on and why are you here? What is your personal response given what you know? And it says in Ecclesiastes that great knowledge is great grief. So how in the face of that, how do we take that next step and how do we motivate ourselves just to be present and attempt to confront the darkness and be a light, a candle in the darkness.

That's a huge key ways to find people who are more enlightened and spend time with them, pick up what others have already realized. I have reflected as you asked me about what values, what overarching vision. That was one of the things you wrote down. And I think to myself, I don't know that I, I can't formulate an overall vision. But every morning I get up, I'm excited, I'm really enthusiastic. Boy, another day. Beautiful out there. The birds are chirping, the sun has come up. However, I'm not in charge of that feeling. It just shows up and someday I may wake up totally depressed. So I, I feel as if I'm not in charge Exactly. I'm. I guess I can make it worse, you know, by drinking or getting in a rut of some kind. And yet by living an active, full life and doing things that believe are valuable, that's important. But the inherent will to live, the inherent appreciation that seems to be prior to my awareness, it just is something that I am in. I mean, some larger gestalt that I show up in. So, so far so good. We don't know what I'm going to feel like tomorrow or the next. More will you. And some people get very depressed. Some people have bigger problems than others, and some people can. Can respond to great crisis. So that. That's just what being human is, is dealing with that whole range of human experience.

And to go to your question of, okay, between now and then, between now and death, we have today. So is there something you'd like to do? You've done so much. Is there something you really like to do now?

Yes. Yes, I'm. I'm trying to put together a book. I have hundreds of pages from various periods of my life and a lot, a lot of. I've encountered both in the religious life and in the political world and from an era that is past. What I grew up in doesn't exist anymore. Well, it exists in some sense, but it radically changed. So how to write that? You know, what. What has been my education? And I. I read the very grand biography of Henry Adams and he talked about his education. Everything in life, this is education. So I'm thinking about my education, how I could probe that, put it in good, clear prose and share something that, that I would find of interest. And that's what I'm doing now. But will I accomplish that? I don't know. I've been trying to write a book for 40 years, so I've got a little barrier here. So that's my goal. I like to. In the meantime, that's what I intend to do, besides maintaining my. My ranch and making olive oil and talking to old friends and new friends.

I think that would be a very good book and I certainly would read it.

It would be a good book if I could write well. And I've written many things and I've written book reviews and I'm writing. You know, I do shortened work, but putting together a larger narrative. Obviously they do 40,000 books a year, and Roger, you've written a dozen books, so it can't be an impossible task.

Sometimes it feels like it, but. Well, yep, definitely.

I look behind you, I see nothing but books. So obviously the book is not some rare beast.

Well, I think it was Ecclesiastes of the making of books. There is no end, except if you're an author, it feels like there's definitely an end to it. So. But. So a lot of threads here, Jerry. I want to just touch back into the global issues because we've talked about the nuclear issue, which is a big one and you've been deeply concerned with it. And you're also president of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, which was actually, I think, founded by Albert Einstein on the original Manhattan Project scientists. And as I understand it, it was originally founded centered around the nuclear issue, but has since broadened to include other of the global threats, for example, environmental issues. And I think of the. I'll just give my 2 cents worth here. I think of multiple issues here and kind of we have not only the nuclear and the. But we have pollution as a huge issue, part of the environmental issue. So many forms of pollution from, you know, toxins, lead and plastic. A big one. Now we have ecological degradation. Climate change, you've mentioned that's a big one, gets a lot of attention. You mentioned genetic engineering, you mentioned artificial intelligence, and you mentioned the complexity of systems. And then of course, there are issues we don't know about because we haven't recognized them yet. It took us 400 years to recognize that running internal combustion machines created a lot of carbon dioxide. So I'd love to hear any other, other reflections you'd like to bring up on the other global issues we're facing.

I'll bring up the matter of the nuclear danger since that still it's as important as it is under reported. So this is still a big deal. We had a million people in Central park in New York in 1982 on the freeze move, freeze. A number of nuclear weapons. Well, the Pentagon and the Congress said, no way, we have a gap with Russia, we gotta keep up. So we kept going. And now we have. Well, we have a lot of nuclear weapons. As it turned out, the world had 70 to 80,000 nuclear weapons, Russia and the United States. And now we're down to a mere 12,000. But it only takes. It doesn't take very many to kill millions of people. And the key here is fear. The fear of China, the fear of Russia, the fear of North Korea, the fear of the Iranians is so strong that whatever the people want, these weapons systems, they seem to get them. So. And you have addition to the fear that if we don't have a lot of nuclear weapons, then that we'll be bombed if we don't build as we're doing now. We're rebuilding. Our intercontinental ballistic missiles cost hundreds of billions. We're building new submarines for delivering nuclear weapons. We're getting a new bomber. The whole nuclear framework, the infrastructure, it's all being redone. It cost about 2 trillion. It'll take about 30 years. So we're embarking upon that and we want to win, we want to beat the others, mostly China, of course. China is building up theirs at the same time. We don't control them, they don't control us in the middle of all that. So you have this fear and you have difference. We're democratic. Under Trump, it's not clear what we are, but China's different. And China wants to dominate, but we don't think we dominate. We just think the free world is there and we're trying to help them. So we have these great differences, but not only the ideas, but you have this money machine, the Pentagon. There's a recent book called the Trillion Dollar War Machine. Trillion Dollar war Machine. That's what it is. The Pentagon budget is about 920 billion, and next year it's going to a trillion. First time, a trillion. And America is selling 40% of the arms in the world. That's armaments. So you have the. And people are making money. If you look at Gaza and you look at all those that suffering, all those people dying, they're getting hit with metal of some kind, some kind of weaponry, a lot of that is paid for, if not built in America. And people are getting a profit. Raytheon, Boeing, General Dynamics, they're making money, big money, and they're going to make more. As long as the arms race continues, there's a big payoff. So you got greed and you got fear, all working toward a goal of more armaments. But the trouble is, as you intensify your armament, you engender not stability and confidence, but you engender fear. So the other side, they do the same damn thing. And as they do that, then we respond. So you have this, this addictive process of escalating armaments that instead of making us more stable, more secure, does the opposite. On the other hand, we've been around since Rashima, Nagasaki. No, no nuclear bomb has been used in anger since then. We've had a lot of experiment, you know, tests, but no bombing. So people say that's because we have our weapons. And to maintain this 80 years of no nuclear use, we got to keep building those weapons. And you can't prove it. It's hard logic. You can question it, but there we are. And so not only do you have a logic, the nuclear logic, thinking the unthinkable, theorists like Herman Kahn, Kissinger in his early days and other people have a whole theory of deterrence, very sophisticated, hard to follow through all these weapons systems. Are we ahead? Are they ahead? Is there a window of vulnerability? What? Okay, that's one level. And then underneath it you have people who make real money. I'll give you an example. There's something called the ICBM Caucus. That's a caucus of representatives in Congress, the House and the Senate, Representatives from North Dakota, from Wyoming, from Montana, where they have ICBM emplacements. And they are dedicated to maintaining the ICBM force and make sure that it grows and never is taken away. Because that's money. It's like the communities are like prisons built in their community. It's jobs, it's money, it's economic activity. So that is a very powerful force. And the ICBMs, Bill Perry says we don't need it. And they're dangerous because they're fixed in a location. The Russians and the Chinese know where they are and they can take them out if they launch their missile. And all we can do to not have them taken out is launch on the warning. But the warning may be false because we've had mistaken warnings in the past. So the launch on warning, which is inherent in the international Intercontinental ballistic missile icbm, it's inherited, it's bad, so we ought to just get rid of it. And people high up. I've talked to people who've been high up in the Pentagon and they admit that. They say politically we can't do anything about it. And this organization of congressmen and the money they get from these companies and the investments these companies make in their local community, the Chamber of Commerce, the Rotary Club, investment, the Boys Club, all that is a interconnected infrastructure of maintaining and enhancing Just the ICBMs. And you can talk about submarines and all the rest of them. So we're. We're caught. We're not talking ideas or rhetoric. We're talking jobs, dollars and cents, profits by powerful people while propagandists, lobbyists and lawyers. And that is. And by the way, you don't hear much about it. You don't pick up the New York Times. You hear about the description of the flow of money, how much Boeing is making on the F35, even though it's over the IACBM not called the Sentinel. It's already 80 billion over budget or something. 80%. So these are dilemmas and this is the truth. But that truth is not very empowering. So after you hear all that, what the hell do you do? So then a very logical response is to shut up. And that's basically what we're doing. We're not talking about it. And so that's the dilemma. To talk about it is to turn people off. But not to talk about it is to be complicit in a very dangerous tendency that is characterizing our country and the countries elsewhere. So there we are. And you may conclude, well, I think I'm just going to take care of my own transformation. We'll have to let the world deal with it as best they can. But things will happen. There are organizations you can be a part of. I think the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists is doing its part. We have the Arms Control Agency, we have the Nuclear Threat Initiative. We have a number of people working. But I can tell you at this point the pro military, pro escalation is more powerful and how that will change and how Trump plays into that, how the elections complicated. But these are worth thinking about. I do submit though that there are relatively limited number of people that can make a difference. Now having said all that, we know From Greta, a 12 year old was able to make a big impact. So if somebody can sense this, can really take it into themselves and feel it and get enough internal power, they can excite a movement and effort. So we're kind of waiting for a Greta or Martin Luther King. We've had some of those people like Dan Ellsberg, but their impact is relatively limited. So that's kind of the brutal truth from the front. And I can tell you that's the way it is. You know, I'm not discouraged. I tell you, I get up every day. It's fantastic to be alive and we can work on our own little lives. And those little lives is all we got. So that's good. But at the same time, I think you gotta keep your eyes open and we should not sleep in the delusion of that things are better than they are. They're good in many respects, but they're horrible in other respects. That's just the way it is.

Yeah. I'm reminded of the line from, I think where it came from, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. And I appreciate your pointing out the stark realities we're up against. And yes, it's nice to have these ideas and it's very important we do something and it's also very important we realize exactly just how powerful the juggernaut we're up against is? And I come back to three questions I often come back to in the face of this kind of thing is given these enormous challenges we're facing, the question that comes up for all of us is what can I do? But below that is another question. You know, there's so many challenges, I can't work on all of them. So what is what calls me, what issue, what suffering speaks to me and what actually, what area of focus really calls to me and is where I want to turn my attention? And then third one is, what's the most strategic thing I can do given my situation, my connections, et cetera? What, how can I trim tab most effectively? How can I leverage myself? To quote Archimedes, give me a lever long enough and a place to stand and I'll move the earth. Well, okay, how can I, in my little way, move the earth in some small way and make a contribution? And these are cons. It's not like it's a. Oh, that's the answer. It's like these are things to questions to really sit with over time and feel into and allow ourselves to first to appreciate the enormity and the complexity and urgency of the issue and the challenge of effective responses. And still, still to look, what can I do?

Yeah, well, look, you can't. By doing something, whether working on the nuclear matter, there are groups that are fighting the nuclear buildup or in climate, there are even many more groups fighting for stabilizing the climate, reducing and eliminating carbon emissions. And then not so much the whole bio business, the bio threat, any of these things, if efforts are made and become effective to slow it down, that indicates there's a social, political recognition of danger. And that is very important to me. I think you shouldn't think that you don't have impact if you organize just where you are in the Bay Area. And that grows through the Internet, through the connection that people have, that will be taken up in other places in New York, in Washington and throughout the world. So because with the Internet, so it's doing what you can, trusting that there will be a spread of these idea. We're on a collision course. We're on a, on a trajectory that I don't think, as a lot of other people think, cannot end well. So we're on the, we have to turn and everybody can contribute in some minute way to that turn. It's not just you, but as you gather with others, that then ripples out, the communication is made and other people are Inspired and you never know who will have the energy. It's amazing how people who Dennis Hayes started Earth Day 1970 just out of nowhere we got an Earth Day. So and Greta just said started talking about it and for a few years ready to big impact. So you can't tell depending on where you are. I believe you know, joining the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists join supporting Greenpeace, the Sierra Club. There are things you can do and in following activities through the Internet. It's small. So you know that. But that's what being a human being is. But we don't know how that smallness can be amplified by the shared sense that we need to change, we need to make a turn. And I certainly think that's possible. We don't know. And when I asked Bill Perry what gives you optimism and I think the answer is worth on he said the future is unknowable, unknown. So we don't know is it bad or is it good? We don't know. So don't derive a conclusion from something you don't know. So that then emphasizes present moment and what is within our grasp to do the best we can.

And Jerry, what would you recommend to a young person growing up into this world? You know, what would you.

I don't know as a general. I don't know if I have any general recommendations, but that's so broad. You know what people's. We all have to live our lives, you know, I don't know.

I guess the question is, given this, how do we. How do we live our lives? You know, how do we put the next foot?

Well, I would recommend having a father who gets elected governor because that really helps you become governor yourself.

Yeah.

It's also nice to have a great grandfather that starts a ranch and gives it to a son and his son doesn't have any children. So then my father picks it up with his brother and so there I am. So there's a lot of stuff that we don't control. And so it's hard. I don't think there is a general recommendation. Life is too. Various people become carpenters, they become coders, they become college students. The range is just, you know, unlimited. So I think we have to narrow cast a little bit. You have to. If someone came to me and they had a specific question, I would have a thought and I would give them recommendation. But as at a generic level, I don't have. I don't think this. I can't say anything.

I think we might say that to those of us to whom much has Been given, much is required. And I feel I had a very, very. I've given a lot in my life, a lot of opportunities, and therefore I tried to give back. I think you had a very gifted life. You went to the best schools and you had a good father who was a politician. And just from the outside, it seems that you tried to live your life in service, not just to accumulate stuff and power and to sage your ego. So I think to me you're a noble example of how to whom much has been given, let's give back. And I don't know, only history will say how effective it's been. But it certainly seems to me that you worked hard at trying to do that. So thank you.

I would give you a slightly different service. I haven't thought of myself as living in service. I think of myself as living in inquiry. And even when I joined the Jesuits, my goal was what a good place to go to understand what is God? Where do you find God? What's that all about? That's an inquiry. That is, I wasn't going to Jesuits to save the world and that was part of it, to save souls, as we talked about. But the big driver is the quest for what is. For truth. Truth seeking. We say the truth will make you free. Well, the truth's pretty important. Well, maybe it's all that's important. Well, not just the truth, because there's charity, there's love, there's camaraderie, there's helping is doing good. But primarily my interest has been, as I frame it now, I probably don't fully understand certainly what motivates me, but inquiry, learning, just even working. I emphasize. I do have specifics though. Why did I get interested in the environment? Why did I emphasize climate? Well, part of it comes from why I went in the seminary. I wanted something that's important. We're sitting around, what the hell does life mean? I had a sense it was empty and meaningless when I was 18. So what do you do in that case? Well, you join the Jesuits. That's meaning. And then the Jesuits, they tell you you're doing God's will. If you follow the rules, you follow the commands, the orders of your superior, the way of life, that's what God wills for you. It's an interesting concept. I'd never heard of it before. But you have God who becomes man with Jesus Christ. He starts the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church authorized the Jesuits. The Jesuits are still existing 400 years later. I join and so the order tells you how to live and then doing that you're doing God's will. You can't do any better than that. The creator of the universe as a program. So that was a very. Well, comforting. So that was a theory. All right, so now you. I leave all that. Okay, I've take that. That only goes so far. So now I'm going to go out into the world. Now we're not in the world of theology anymore, we're in the world of politics. So the question is, what's important? And when I read, I think it was in the 70s, I remember reading an article about the fragility of the atmosphere above and the thin soil below. I never thought of that, the vulnerability and that that idea resonated because it was about something that was absolute. This is, this is not opinion. This is not a Democrat, Republican, progressive, unprogressive, ice, chocolate or vanilla. This is. We can rely on the fact that the environment is there. It has rules, it has. We can cause more damage or we can cause less damage. So that then becomes almost theological. It's an absolute, it's a very firm foundation and that's why I'm drawn to the environment. There's a lot of other things, like in education, like in Crime and Punishment, there's a lot of opinions there. But you know that parts per million CO2 building up is not good. And it. 1.5% growth from the industrial period of 150 years ago, that's not good. And 2% growth or 2 degrees rather, that's bad. And that's where we're headed. So that then becomes something you, you don't have to doubt. There's no agnosticism here. We may not know all the ins and outs of the carbon emissions, what they're going to do, but we know it's bad. We know stopping it is an absolute good and that's why. But that flows from inquiry, what's important. And I do think respecting our environment is important. Of course, same thing as human beings. I worked hard to allow people who've been in prison a long time to be. To earn their release from a. And they've been locked in there with no parole, no hope. And I was able to enable 5,000, 6,000 people to get out. So those are all things I did. But I somehow the idea of giving back or doing service, I find just doing what I'm doing, that's what I'm doing, why I'm doing it. I obviously, I think this is what needs to be done. What I can do is what I want to do. Is what I should do. So I do it. But putting more labels of theories on it. That then, then is another exercise which I'll leave to you guys.

Thanks. Thanks for that. Yeah, that's a big question.

And clearly inquiry has been a central dynamic view. Really. You have questioned every sacred cow I can think of and come out of that questioning with really concrete responses that you've been called to. But you've also, you started to inquire, you say with the Jesuits, but of course, obviously it was a personal inquiry before then, but you also did deep inquiry and reflection, et cetera, in Zen and other ways too philosophical. Can you speak to those?

Well, let me just speak to Jesuits. When I was in the Jesuits, we had probably in our class, we started with 30, went down 10, 12 in base of two years. I was there almost four years in that. We had common beliefs. You know, we believed in heaven and hell, God and the devil. We believed in eternal damnation. We believed if you committed a moral sin and you didn't go to confession and get forgiven and you die, you go into heaven, I go into hell and hell will be eternal torment forever. Not just for 10 years or five years like the Holocaust. No, forever, okay? Everybody I think believes that, including me. Then, fine. Morning. Hey, wait a minute. I don't think I. That can't be. How can there be an all loving God that has created eternal damnation or, you know, for eating meat on Friday or for, even for killing somebody? I mean, it's one thing to kill somebody and get a prison sentence. It's another thing to go to hell, if such could be so. But everybody believed it, no doubt. No question. That's the world. We had no communication with the outside world. No visitors except your parents for two hours once a month. We had no television, no radio, no newspapers, no secular books. It was one world where everybody believed that, okay, so now, hey, I don't believe a lot of that, okay? What today are beliefs that everybody shares but are wrong. So that sense of being in the midst of unquestioning belief and nice people, good people, smart people, highly educated people, they believe it. So that has led me to be very skeptical, skeptical myself. I don't believe most of what people say, or I want to say, well, prove it or let's go a little deeper into that. What are we talking about here? So that inquiry has been a very powerful, powerful driving force. Even as governor, when people say, well, this is the law, I said, well, could you show it to me? Well, no way. And they can't Find the law. Well, it's a regulation. Well, show me the regulation. Well, they can't find the regulation. Well, we've just been doing it. Well, why have we been doing it? So you can go down that path and really illuminate the context, the situation. So without being total skeptic, leading to cynicism, or rather inquiry, leading to illumination, leading to a grasping of deeper truths, that's the path that I'm drawn to.

The love of truth, the pursuit of truth.

Yes, but I mean, it sounds a little grandiose, but our curiosity might be a little more humble way to put it. I'm very curious. How do things work? Where the hell are we going now? Zen, as I understand Zen practice, it's not studying, it's sit on your cushion, follow your breathing, follow, move, breathe in, breathe out. That's all. Don't have it. Don't. That's it. Just shut up and focus. And whatever it is, it is. So I don't know what you can derive from Zen, although the art, the tea ceremony, the. So many things that flower arranging, all the different ways that have been the product of Zen is quite remarkable. So just being present in that form leads to many things. But of course, if that's your idea, that's called a gaining idea and that's bad. So that's the issue. Emptiness doesn't, I don't know how you use emptiness. It doesn't add to the gross domestic product, it doesn't increase your wealth. And accepting that in our world, it's very hard because we're very oriented towards success, toward making something happen. Well, awareness, Kenjo Satori, that's not a commodity that you could exploit.

No, but hopefully it does provide an opening of space and awareness in which we can live more fully, be more alive, and hopefully respond more effectively to the very issues you've been raising.

I'd rather know and see than not know and not see. Understanding, that's the most of the time we're, we're wandering around in, in half baked ideas and prejudices and of course we have, we have to have a lot of half baked ideas because you can't figure everything out all the time.

So well, you don't get baked unless you start off half baked. Right? So that maybe that's just a way through.

So that's what, that's being human. So understanding, very important understanding of, of the world, of ourselves or our neighbors, what's needed, that's, that's quite a lot just to focus, dedicate yourself to that.

It's A lot. And I want to put it in a psychological frame, Jerry, because you're talking about. You've described in your own life a. A developmental progression which is. Which our culture is still wrestling with. And that is the. That we start off at a conventional, conventional level, or in terms of development of faith, fallow stages of faith, conventional, mythic, where we just believe and take for granted the stories and narratives and myths we've been given. But then hopefully we mature to what's called individuated, reflective, where we begin to reflect and question for ourselves and become an individuate as separate people in which our ideas and lives are based on inquiry and personal reflection rather than just a blind acceptance of what we've been given. And it feels like our culture is still resting with that transition.

But every culture is. And there's just a lot to learn. As I say, there's 40,000 books. I get the New York Review of Books and the Times Literary Supplement. They come out. One comes out twice a month, one comes out four times a month. So. And there's always plenty of books, plenty of ideas, plenty of essays on all these different questions. So there it is. Of course, when you're younger, you think there's more to learn. And luckily, as you get older, your brain tires, you begin to seek less because you have less energy. And maybe that's a comfort as you slowly fade into the sunset.

Well, looking back over. Since you've mentioned looking back and aging, Jerry, as you look back, what do you wish you'd known earlier?

I saw that question. You wrote it down in the email to me. I don't know what to say. If I'd known. That's a fun. What do they call it? Counterfactual. Hey, if I'd known what I know now, I might have got elected president. Might or might not have. And even if. Would that have been good? So if I'd known how good my wife was, I would have married her a lot sooner.

I can say the same about my.

That's one thing I would say.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah. What I would know, I would have asked my grandmother more. I. I'm very sorry. I've talked about a lot of things, but she lived before the car. Born in 1878 and she was around in 1950. 1960, 1970. So, boy, what transition. And she was the seeker. She used to take my father when he was a little boy to different churches in San Francisco, different lectures to hear.

She was.

Even though she had limited education, she was very interested in the spiritual. Not Dogmatic, but more of what we're talking about, an inquiry into the depths of our reality. So, yeah, I wish I'd have more conversations about what that was to live with. No electricity, no car, no running water. What was that about? And then you come. She leaves the ranch when she's 18, comes to San Francisco in 1896, and she lived here ever since till she died in 1974. So that's quite. There's probably a lot of wisdom there. A lot of that I never really tapped into. So, yeah, if I known that, I would have dealt with that. So even your. These are more personal things. So I can think of political things. My eye for the political is clear, having gone through it for 50 years, so. And. But personally, we have the same thing and have things that we learned, but life is going from ignorance and darkness into hopefully, greater illumination and.

And mystery always remains.

Right.

Always mystery. Yeah. Terry, this has been so rich and so just beautiful and so multifaceted, you.

Know, I want to add one more thing just to throw.

Good.

Throw something on the table that you're not going to have. One of the meditations and the famous spiritual exercise of Sagnatius, it has but divided into four weeks. First week you meditate on hell and damnation. Then ultimately the fourth week, you meditate on the beauty of God and the world and everything that's good. But you start out on the negative, the negative path. And one of the meditations is to meditate on one sinner. A sinner who committed a mortal sin and died is now burning in hell. And you who've committed a mortal sin, you are not in hell and God has saved you. And how wonderful, how merciful God has been. And I made that meditation. I did. It wasn't until recently I thought, wait a minute, that's not equal protection. God's putting somebody in hell for one sin, and he's not putting me in hell. We're doing the same damn thing. Instead of gratitude at the mercy of God, it's horror at the inequality. So here's an interesting point. I didn't think of that at the time when I'm doing that meditation, 1956, and nobody brought that point up. Hey, wait a minute. Would God really do that? And is that really a good thing, that we're saved and somebody else isn't? That thought never came to mind. Well, if that thought didn't come to mind, what thoughts today are not coming to mind. That down the road we're going to look back and say, boy, I never quite understood that the way I do now. So that's a point that we can know. There's more to be known, more to be found.

Yeah. Learning is endless and mystery always remains. Yeah. Beautiful. Jerry, this has been so rich. Anything else you want to add, though?

I think I've said more than I should have.

I know that feeling. I know that feeling well.

Yeah, No, I think you've said what you should, and it's just. And it's been a real gift just to have this dialogue with you, Jerry, personally. It's always a gift to engage with you and to wrestle with some of these questions and really a gift for our listeners. And hopefully your words will reach out through the listeners to other people and hopefully contribute to some of the healing we so desperately need and some of the wiser responses we desperately need.

So.

And finish the book. Finish the book.

Exactly. And remember the great comfort that future is unknown. So don't conclude that all is dark or that all is bright. It's unknown. So as long as we're breathing and functioning, we have a lot to do.

Beautiful.

Thank you.

Wonderful place to end. Thanks so much, Jerry.

Thank you. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Yeah.

Thank you very much for being a part of this conversation. We hope that you were moved, as we are moved, being part of it ourselves. We'd also like to say that this is being funded by Roger and myself. It comes out of our pockets. So if you would like to help us to make. Mainly to get this podcast out to more people, because the bigger audience have. Which is steadily growing, but the more people we can reach and the more marketing we can do, the more positive effect we can have on the world. So we've done that a couple of ways, but we'd like you to buy us a cup of coffee. Very simple. And I do that with podcasts that I support, and I find it's very satisfying. So thank you for your help, thank you for your presence, and thank you for all you are and all you do. We love you.