and i'm gonna i think it's either saint paul or or the other uh minneapolis yeah minneapolis and you were raised in the 60s you are in your 60s so i would like you to reflect please because you're a man who thinks observes and is really aware of the world What was it like growing up, and what do you see now in this, what used to be, in my humble opinion, one of the most idyllic states in the Union?

Yeah.

Well, I think the idyllic state of days of yore was a myth, first of all.

And I think the simplest way to understand the sort of ecosystem and ethos in which I was lived is for all of your listeners to watch Joel and Ethan Coen's movie, A Serious Man, which is their riff on the story of Job.

And they grew up about 10 blocks away from me, went to high school.

I'm the fourth of five kids, so they were in high school with my three older sisters.

And they really framed it well.

Right.

Mm-hmm.

And, and that, that...

So again, it's these dualities.

And, and, and death and grief, I also think maybe, and maybe this was what got through to you when I said that, so many of us were raised to believe that if we make the right...

If, if we have a decision to make, if we have a choice to make-

Thank you.

And the grief work that we've done together is important for everyone.

Now, where I was going with acknowledging that you were there is that you might remember, um, what I ultimately spoke about was the duality of separation.

Right.

And now with that understanding, imagine I approach the casket.

And I put my hand on his chest because I knew his body was cold and I didn't want to feel that.

That's its own kind of permanent goodbye.

So I put my hand on my dad's chest and I looked down and my first thought, Keisha, was, huh, that's how I'm going to look when I'm dead.

And my son is bending over my casket.

I am going to die.

What has that realization taught you about how to spend your life?

Tell us about what you have learned by doing this.

Well, I started this on my Instagram page, something called Preach.

Every Wednesday, we drop a 90-second sermon that I create based on a request.

Someone sends me a video requesting a topic or an answer to some kind of deep existential question.

And so what it, first of all, is it immediately ups the relevancy of what any preacher is preaching about when we're responding to a real concern or question of the individual and the congregation.

And what impelled me to do it was to see, can we create like a distillate? Can we crystallize that much meaning in 90 seconds?

A place

where we can focus on our inner life, which is, of course, both elevating and humbling.