009 MU Talks: Coping with the quarantine and where do we go from here

Foreign. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another podcast. It's quarantine time. The world has gone crazy. Well, maybe. Yeah. It's just unusual times, you know, times that. Unprecedented times. Yeah. A lot of us working from home. You working from home?

Yes. And we are setting up a very good example of social distance. How many miles are we? Like a hundred?

Yeah, like 110 or 110 miles right in between.

My Rob, right now, at this point. Where are you, Rob?

I'm in Newport. It's our. It's our only house. This guy built it a couple years ago. Nice spot. We can't. You can't see it, but the oceans over there. Yep.

So let me. Let me give you this. If somebody would ask me, Rob, if actually somebody did ask me on social media, like, where would you want to be quarantined? Right. If you could be quarantined anywhere. I said Newport.

Yeah. Yeah. I hate to say it, like, I don't want everyone to come out here, but, like, I'm the kind of guy who stays up every night thinking about, like, apocalyptic scenarios, and Newport is a pretty good choice. 10,000 people got Walmart. We got Fred Meyer, we got Safeway. They're not empty. Like, there's lots of stuff there. Not a lot of people. We got the ocean, like, 50 yards that way. So I can just. If worse comes to worse, we can learn how to fish survive.

Yeah.

So, anyways, we're going to talk. We're going to talk a little bit about quarantining. This is some crazy times, and a lot of people are dealing with it differently, and so lots of topics to talk about. A few of you have made comments on social media and some questions, so we'll talk about those, too. But I gotta. I gotta start off by saying this is nothing like the apocalypse I expected. You know, like, you watch the movies, you watch the nuclear apocalypse or a tsunami, and it's always guys running around like crazy and they got no food and they're not safe. And this has been, like, restful for me. But maybe not for you, though, because we're in different spots on this.

Well, just a little bit, because I know I don't want people to think I'm actually not excited about having three kids under four. I love them. But it's being quarantined with kids. Like, I'm pretty sure I represent. With younger kids. Right. I represent that group of people that are gonna identify with me and they're gonna be like, mm, no, it's just a different ballgame. There's no rest. No.

There's no reprieve. Yeah. You try to get into the bathroom, you can't even do that. Probably somebody knocking on the door.

Yep, yep.

My kids are 20 and 23, so we actually were lucky enough to have them with us. Um, which is good, except they stay up pretty late and they use a lot of bandwidth on the Internet. But, no, it's. We got enough Internet. We're okay.

If that's the worst problem you have, you're good. I can't even quarantine in the bathroom. I can't. I can't.

No, it's. Yeah, I mean, we don't. We don't get, you know. Yeah. It's actually kind of fun to watch. I've learned a little bit about the generations. Like, they spend most of the day talking to people. My daughter's on her phone, her computer, talking to friends. They're playing guitar together, they're exercising together online, like a bunch of people. My son is playing video games with his buds. He's like, oh, I gotta go, you know, play Call of Duty with Nathan. And then he's got to go play Rocket League with David Stone or Cameron. And it's. It's just an interest. It's a different way of life, you know?

Yes.

But it's. A couple things have been really interesting to me and, like, kind of the. I don't want to say the polarities, but some folks are working so hard for us right now, and then some of us just have, like, nothing to do. And I don't know that that's, you know, there's nothing we can do about that.

I think we can give a quick update on, or at least if I can, I give a quick update on what's happening at the university level. So, as everybody knows, we've sent our students home way earlier. Right. I mean, we were just, I think, two steps ahead of where this was going to make sure that nobody gets exposed. But I want people to know, especially, I know we have some students that follow us and they hear this, that there's been no break for people in leaders in a higher education institution. Absolutely no break. So we are looking forward to what's coming. How are we coming out of this pandemic? That's the worst thing about this pandemic that I've. I've never experienced is that you don't know. How do you come out of it? Like, what is this going to keep going? Is this, you know, I know President Trump and his team, they, you know, they want us to be in churches on Easter. But I just, I hope, you know, I hope and pray that's the case. We don't know, but they've worked tirelessly. And so I, I want to put leaders in higher education, right? Not close to any health workers or paramedics or any. Nowhere close to what they're doing, but still above the limit of people that are working in a way to make sure that the university will come back from this, will thrive, will work really well. So I'm just very thankful for Multnomah University's leadership that has not stopped from the moment this started in any way. So just giving a shout out to that.

Yeah. And you guys are working hard. And not only that, having to make hard calls that are, you know, not everybody's in the same place. Some are like, ah, you know, it's no big deal. And others are like, I'm hiding in one room in my house. And so you got to kind of lead everybody and make rules for everybody. So that's, that's a, that's a challenging time. I would not. It's a tough time to be a leader. Working hard, staying up late. We're probably carrying the weight of the world a little bit. And again, same for healthcare providers. And I actually think of the grocery folks, the folks doing groceries like in Walmart and in all the. This guy's working hard. Some of them older. I was like, oh, you know, they deserve our respect for sure.

Yes, you know, yes, they respect, you know, I know we're going to talk about all kinds of things. One thing that I wanted to come out strong and just say the one, the one positive of this whole mess, an absolute mess that's going on, is to see, to see a different world. I know the world has changed. We can talk about how the world is changing and all that, but to see a different world, to see that underneath, underneath it all, there are people that are sacrificial. They're doing things that you have never could. Like, you just could never believe the level of sacrifice that they would put themselves into. I read of a priest in Italy, I don't know if you got to read that news, right. A priest in Italy that had refused to take that, you know, the air supply and gave it to a younger person in his own congregation. Right. That's just sacrifice of the level that we need to talk about, we need to expose and just, we can't be silent about. Right? So, and that's just one. But it's all around us.

Crises definitely bring out the heroes. And so, you know, that has been great. I think there's been hard parts. There has been some, I think, good parts to this crisis. Now, it was interesting. I had a few people post on the. On the old Facebook, talking about little articles we should talk about. One of them was talking about how. And you've maybe seen this online, the feeling, you know, the feeling you're feeling right now is actually grief. And I thought, yeah, you know, that's pretty good. It is A lot of people, again, this. This has impacted everybody differently. Some people probably worried about their livelihood. You know, the younger, the kids, the college students, you know, they're missing their friends, which is, you know, to us, to maybe some of the older folks. You're thinking, well, you know, you'll. You'll get them back. But that's a huge part of their life. That's a huge part of their life. And not only that, like my daughter, I was talking to her about this and she's kind of like, you know, I've been working towards graduation my whole life, and here we are, and suddenly school just ended and I don't get a graduation. That's, you know, that's a. There's grieving. It's hard thing.

Yeah. I think, you know, not. I love birds and everything that you have around there, but not that specific bird. I grew up not liking those crows.

Yeah, that's right. Where's my gut?

Anyways? But I'm not discriminating. I'm just that specific bird I don't like. But what's interesting about grief is, for example, we have people that are going to retire, right.

Oh, I know.

Can do. We can't send them off properly because, you know, I don't know, when we come back and term is over, we have people that are grieving a world that they just settled in. There was a restaurant in Portland that just launched, that they launched and they were open for three days and then they have to shut down. Right. Athletes at Multnomah University, they've worked higher year of getting ready. Right. Olympia getting ready. And they're gonna postpone that and how that works. So. But what I'm going for is really, it's an interesting thing because we do get settled with our world, how our world works. Right. We actually, we look, we start liking the world the way we've organized our world. And that has changed. That has changed for all of us in many ways. Right. And so I think that is spot on. Greece.

Yeah. Now, I think. But as you say, there are Some advantages too. Like, I can't stop thinking about the Old Testament through this crisis. And in a coup ways that one of the ones is the whole idea of if you've read the Old Testament, you know, every once in a while, you're supposed to have every 50 years, a year of Jubilee, every seven years. Like there's all. There's these kind of built in breaks, the Sabbath every once a week and every seven years. And in a lot of ways, I mean, not everybody. Some people, again, you're working like nuts. But for some of us, this is kind of a bit of a forced Sabbath. You know, you got to take a step back and if, if we can be smart enough, I think that could be a good thing like that. That could be a chance to reflect on life. And is this, you know, I want to live my life? Is this what I want to be doing? Is, you know, are these the people I want to spend time with? They're all good questions.

I think I want to respond to that a little bit with an interest, please. You know the reason I said there's a lot of wind, I don't know if you actually can move your mic. Oh, yeah, there's just a lot of wind that.

Sorry about that.

Totally fine. But what, what happens is I wish that some people would actually spend this time to reflect. I fear, I fear that we have our. Oh, that wind is really strong. I fear that we have. I think it's on your mic, on your.

It's on the computer.

Yeah. Maybe if you can turn just a little bit.

I was kind of going for the Darth Maul thing, though. Okay. All right. Let's go for a walk. Let's go for a walk.

If you, if you turn it against the. Then it just covers that cover. It's going to come.

Maybe that'll help. Hey, let's try this.

Ooh. All different ball games right there.

That's the fun of zoom.

Yeah, that's the beauty of zoom.

Yeah, go on. Sorry.

I think buried with your head in your phone and technology and just writing this out and keeping yourself busy will be an enemy to that. Even reading or doing everything you can to stay busy with that. I think we naturally do not like to hear our thoughts. We will do everything we can to not hear our thoughts. I was one time attending a lecture and it was by a Catholic nun from Egypt. And she said something that was so profound that in her daily routine and daily. Because I'm going for. How do we meditate? How do we really reflect? How do you really spend some time and win this time back, right? Instead of just trying to ride these days out, how do we do it? And I'm not. I'm not teaching from this perspective. I'm keeping myself busy. Even. Even in between having very young kids and feeding and doing all that, I still, like, keep myself occupied. But this. This wonderful person said it is. It is a very hard thing to do. To silent your words. Silence your words. To be able to listen to your thoughts and silence your thoughts. To listen to your soul. Silence your soul. Soul. To listen to your spirit and silent your spirit. To listen to his spirit. That depth of trying to connect with something that is more meaningful, it takes a lot out of us. And I feel that it's worth it. It's very much worth it. But it doesn't work through fear and anxiety. I think our response, our natural response to making sure that we cope with this is to just keep our minds busy. And I have this image stuck in my mind that I think I want to share with you. National Geographic one time had a. Had an image in the middle of National Geographic. So the middle, like you open it in the middle, on the whole two pages, it was a picture of a belly of a bird. They cut a bird. A bird died, and they cut the bird open and they took out everything they found in the belly of that bird. And it was. On the whole two pages, it was just a round done with like. Like lighters, cigarette lighters, and everything that was shiny. Everything that was shiny. Everything, you know? And that bird died of hunger with a full stomach. And I thought it was fascinating and I thought it was brilliant because we fill our mind right now with so much making sure that we stay busy. I do believe maybe it's better to stay, to occupy and consume things that are worth it, that are meaningful, that really provide an answ. Solid answer for what's going on, or even not. I don't think a lot of people have significant answers, but they have some form of encouragement that will carry you longer than filling your head or your belly with all kinds of stuff. What do you think, Rob?

It's a really good illustration. A tragic. By the way, Isn't it tragic? I know that is. Yeah. No, I think you're right. I think. I think human beings, we prefer the world the way we want it. We don't like to be challenged. We don't like to be dis. Equilibrated. I don't know if your folks are familiar with that word. That means your worldview is pushed off balance, because something you run into a piece of information that, you know, contradicts what you like to believe about the world. And so we, you know, we kind of stay in our tribes and we stay with our ideas. And I think the same thing for this, we try to adapt. Really a fantastic book on this, humans in crisis called Shantung Compound. It's a real life story.

Can you say it again? It broke. Disrupted just a little bit.

The book is called Shantung Compound by a guy named Langdon Gilkey, and it's his story about being interned in a Japanese internment camp during World War II. And again, human beings in crisis. And he talks exactly about the point you're making, how a lot of us just adapt and then go back to life without, you know, seriously reflecting or making changes. But I think there are opportunities for humans and not not only coping, but. But even self improvement. You know, what's been fascinating is I've been watching. I have a lot of friends that are, you know, college students or recent grads, since I'm a teacher. And it's been fascinating to watch what's been going on with love and romance. Like, you're seeing a lot of. You're seeing some people get engaged fairly quickly. You're seeing some people get married earlier than they were planning to, and you're seeing some people delay their wedd. And I was thinking about it the other day, I was thinking, you know, in a lot of ways, it kind of makes sense because you're like, not that this is the end of the world, but, you know, when something big like this happens and you're asking deep questions, you know, you're wondering, you know, who do I want to spend my life with? And in some ways, I think this is maybe a good little push for some of our younger people. It's kind of like, do you want to spend your life sitting in a room by yourself or want to get out there and meet somebody? So I kind of like that. Covid love.

Covid affecting love. I think that should be at least a block spot, if not a blog, if not a full book on how.

Covid affected loved relationships or whatever. I got a helicopter flying over. I think they're keeping us off the beach. I don't know.

Yes.

Yeah. So, yeah, I put a post on Facebook. I said, hey, right now you should be asking yourself, who do I wish I was quarantined with them? And then why not ask them on a date once this is all over? Like, give it a shot. You know, what's the worst that can happen. Yeah.

I think even that question these days is different. What's the worst that could happen?

Yeah. Suddenly getting shot down is not like the end of the world. Part of me too loves the, like, you see some of these weddings going on with like 20 people and I think this is kind of cool. Or I saw one in Canada where they got married in their house and then they got in their car and actually they walked down the street and all their friends lined the street and they could kind of from a distance, cheerful. They had like a parade. I thought, that's a cool wedding. I don't know. I was like, I don't know.

And it's also, this is who we are as people. Like, we, you know, we put ourselves down so many times, but this is who we are. These are the stories. I love it.

I just love we're resilient. And actually this was a good one. I thought if it's too bad, like multloma. We're a big school, people from students from all over the place, so we can't do this. But I saw one school, like a local high school that did a grad is going to do a graduation where the kids each ride in a car and drive. It's like a parade. And I thought that is a creative idea.

Those drive in movie theaters come with your car. And then, you know, we, we assign parking spots where you. Six feet in between cars.

That'd be a fun way to do church. To actually drive in theater. Church. I'd come, I don't know.

I saw a really funny thing and it has to do with, you know, the devil whispered something in my ear and I turned and said, six feet away, please.

Yeah, I saw that one too. A little bit of, hey, let's talk, let's, let's, let's talk a little bit about coping strategies. I 100% agree that if you can, you know, this is a way to do self improvement. Now, some of it's probably survival and some of it's, you know, there's going to be a little bit of that. But I think if you can, I mean, improve yourself. What are, what are some ways you guys have tried? I'll say some. I've tried. I think there's no excuse not to be getting lots of sleep. You know, you should. Sleep is a good thing. Except for having a bunch of young children.

I was waiting for you, Rob.

Yeah, that was waiting.

Yeah, but, but if you're like, yeah, but accept that.

Failing that, if you're a college student or if you're like an adult man. You should be getting some sleep, you know, and not only that, food. What a great time to do some cooking. Like, you may find you have skills that you didn't realize. I don't know. Hard meals have been great.

I know. But, you know, for some of them, their cooking might be, right now more dangerous than the pandemic. So just be careful out there. Like, I'm just. I'm guilty of this. I'm not the best cook in the world. If I cook, the. The Old Testament statement comes out, death in the pot. You know, the sons of the prophets were screaming. So. So, yeah. But I actually think it's a brilliant idea. And I want you to know I'm giving. I agree with you from one perspective. When this started, I knew we're going to be quarantined. I was like, that's it. I'm cooking. I'm going to try a recipe now. Day 10. I have not. I have not. I'm still. I'm still trying. I'm going to go for it. But I think it's a. It's a good idea. I do want to put a little bit, something in perspective, because maybe it's. Some people are just starting to cope with it, right? In the sense that now they're just starting to think of strategies. Because from, like, by now you're just, you know, they slept, they took care of some things at home. Just yesterday was the first day that actually Home Depot regulated the lines and made sure before then, Home Depot was packed and Lowe's and all that. And I'm like, okay, I know people want to do some work at home, but I'm like, really? It was the only place where you can go and still hang out with your buddies and stuff. And I'm thinking, come on now. Hashtag, they can quote me. And I'm pretty sure the CEO of Home Depot listens to our podcast, so maybe he's going to learn something from this. But. But other than that, some people are really learning how to cope with this. Before I start with this, and I don't want to be dramatic, but I really. It just hit me a little bit, and I was thinking about this a year and a half ago. I. So, you know, I'm involved with Grain for Pain, and Grain for Pain is a nonprofit organization that works in South Sudan and Uganda. And I got a chance to go and be in Bidi Bidi. It's a refugee camp. And 50,000 people. I'm sorry, 80,000 people just in that camp. There are 1.4 million refugees from South Sudan, in Uganda due to the civil war, the ongoing civil war. But I got a chance to be there for a week and just be in a refugee camp for a week. And when we started this and during this quarantine, that feeling kicked back and I realized, wow, I've never thought about this in this way. People that are going to be in. They're in a refugee camp and they stay in a refugee camp, and they're there for some of them for a lifetime, and some of them for 5, 6, 10 years. Imagine being quarantined like you are right now for most of your lifetime. They have nowhere to go. They have nothing to do. They can't get out of their predicament. And every day is filled with bottom, basically, hopelessness. They're dependent on help from the outside. They have. They just cannot do anything about their situation. And I'm. It just hit me how I'm being restricted now. Semi restricted, right? I'm staying in a home that has everything. Everything really. We have food, we have everything we need. And it's hard. And I'm thinking of that empathy of that compassion of maybe for some of you, this might be one of the easiest and best ways to feel how other people. 1.4 million just. And that's just in South Sudan right now. There's. And it used to be the largest refugee crisis. It's not actually, right now, it's not the largest refugee crisis. There are other that are greater than that. So I want to put things in perspective. And what I loved about you, Rob, is that from when this thing started, you were, you know, you were like, I'm a Covid hater and I love that. Yes, we are a Covid hater. And you were like, I don't like what you know. You know, I just, like, forget this. And you were trying to put things in perspective compared with other stuff, you know, and always reminding us of the context. Maybe this is a larger context somehow where, where you are and where others are. You're learning to cope with it. But. But at the end of the day, when this is over, you're coming out to. To your life as you know it, right? Maybe it's going to give a chance to get involved with something, to volunteer with something to donate to, something that is bigger than you at this point. And that's one of my greatest challenges to myself and to everybody listening to us. This is bigger than me, this is bigger than you, but there's something out there. What do you Think, Rob.

Yeah, no, I think some great points. I think perspective is, you know, like somebody. You've maybe seen this to the post. That was somebody talking about Anne Frank Something like 460 or 470 days. She was stuck with seven people in 400 square feet. And I mean, they didn't have the Internet. You know, we get a little bit whiny. My brother called me out a little bit on online, and rightly so, Tim, you got me because I was whining a little bit about, oh, 1600 square feet, you know, and four kids. I can't find a TV to myself. You know, I mean, we got the Internet, we got great food. I got coaches and beds. And he's like, hey, we grew up in a house that's a thousand square feet with five of us. Remember where you came from. And it's true. A lot of us are pretty first world, first world problems with our whining. I mean, we can. There's so many things you can do. You can go on walks, you can exercise. You can obviously read to grow spiritual disciplines. You know, this would be a great time. I think a lot of us are, you know, people think, oh, I will do this if I have time. And now that we have time, a lot of us aren't doing it because it's actually a discipline issue, not a time issue for most of us. But this is a great time to get out there and, you know, regularly pray or worship or even just live in this simple, you know, read the scriptures. I mean, it's a great time for pets. My dog is happier than ever. He's got us all around. Yep. Maybe you saw the post. Maybe you saw the post about, you know, the adults reflecting back on this in 30 years and saying, oh, it was terrible. People losing work and we're all scared. And then the kids are like, I remember my parents being home and us having family dinners and, you know, there's an opportunity. There's an opportunity for us.

Yes. Now, I would not represent my. All the ethnic people in the world on this podcast if I wouldn't. If I wouldn't. If I wouldn't be sarcastic as well. And to say, for some, for some of you, use this time to actually clean your friends on Facebook. See, who do you not want to hear from necessarily the way that you can. Because, you know, I want to, you know, on Facebook or social media, do you know that you actually don't have to unfriend. You can just unfollow.

Yeah, that's a good.

That's a good. So you don't have to unfriend. You can still be friends with them, but you can actually mute some of the toxicity that they're posting. For some of us, you use this time to clean up some of that.

See, that's always a tricky one. And I often advise people to unfollow me because I post so much that I, you know, I'm like, I don't want people to hate me. So I'm like, it's okay to unfollow me, especially if I keep posting at a store or even hot. You can hide like an album or a thread if some. And I think, I think there's something space for that. Sometimes, you know, somebody, every time you see their post, it just makes you mad and you're like, I don't want to be mad today. On the other hand, you don't want an echo chamber. Right. Like, if I. If I delete all the people that are left or right of me, you know? And so in some ways, there's a couple people that I'd love to unfollow, but I'm kind of like, it's probably good that I keep hearing their posts, you know, because they force me.

Yeah.

You know, so I'm going.

I'm not going different. I'm going for toxic. You know, there's some people right now, I'll tell you, like, I'll tell you where it was my toxic limit. And I think we can switch it to discussing more coping mechanisms. But I want us to be real. I don't want us to be sure. So curated on this podcast that we don't talk real stuff, but people that actually use this opportunity for political reasons and politicize stuff that is toxic, and then people that use this to actually bring bring down God's like, fire and all that and not have any form of sensitivity to this, and they use it. I mean, they actually thrive. Whoever thrives in this environment. Right. That's toxic regardless of what you believe in. I don't know how, you know, I don't want to be too harsh on this, even though. But how are you helping? How are you helping people that are home? Are you helping people that right now are losing their jobs and their livelihoods and people. And I'm not saying let's not only post nice things. Right. I don't want us to be that radio station that only posts positive things. I'm not going to call it by name. Right. So don't curate in that regard. But there's a level of toxicity that you need to make sure that you stay away from in order for you to really know how to cope with this. Because we're talking about coping right. In quarantine, you want to feed yourself like that bird with all the toxic stuff and feel like your mind and your heart and your family.

Right.

You can't tell me that that post that you've seen, you know, Trump did this, Democrats did this, all this, you know, these. This president. That's the whole situation. How's that helping you? I'm just going for that.

Yeah, there's no. There's some. There's some. You know, you have some friends, and every time it's gonna be, oh, somehow this is gonna get back to Trump is bad. Or back in the day, it was like, somehow this is gonna get back to Obama's bad. And I don't know how they're gonna make that connection, but I know they're gonna get there, bless their hearts. And with the religious stuff, man, you got to be careful when you're trying to rep God. Like, if you're a prophet, go for it. Rail on us. But. But if you're, like, if you're not a prophet, you better be careful with that stuff. And probably most of us are not prophets.

Putting words in God's mouth is. I think it's a very dangerous thing.

Not a great life strategy, not a.

Good strategy, but, you know, not take that.

Like, there's the Old Testament. Pass the test of a prophet. They're like, you know, if somebody claims I said this and I didn't say it, that you're supposed to stone them. So I'm like, if you're gonna. If you're gonna walk around saying, God told me this, then, you know, you better be following that. The rest of the part about if you're wrong, you get stoned. So, I mean, yeah, I don't know. If God told you something, say it.

I know this is a really bad idea, but maybe Facebook should invent a button where instead of liking Stone.

Stone. I do love the heart button. Yeah. Oh, hey, you know, we should say this, too. Like, you know, the questions come up. And I think someone posted this on. Yeah. They're talking about how some churches are like, we're not going to close. We're going to keep going. And it was interesting. Like, my own thoughts. You know, I'm not the biggest quarantine guy around, although I'm definitely. We're quarantined here. We're being very good. But, like, my first thought was if they want to meet, I get the problem. But then the more I thought about it, I'm thinking nowhere in the Bible. I mean like we're told to not forsake assembling, but there's not a real, a lot of defined stuff on how often you have to meet and how many people need to be get. That's not in the scriptures. Right. But there is in the Old Testament very specific instruction about quarantine. Like when someone gets sick and they're supposed to stay away. God cares about quarantine. That it's not Christianity against, it's not like faith against common sense. The Old Testament has tons of stuff about if there's infectious disease, keep these people away. So it's, it's not the Christian thing to be fighting a virus. I mean, you know, you love your neighbor and you submit to your authorities. Those are both very Christian things. So don't, don't think that you're, I don't think you should think you're crusading for God by, by making your church service run.

You know, I, our church is different and responded really differently to this and I think I would say with compassion and empathy and with wisdom. So I'll put it out there, you know, without saying that the other ones have not used that.

Sure.

But I would, I would like to ask that question. Why do you really want to do it? But, but truthfully, why is it that you've had pre established programs established that you had somebody was already on the schedule? Is that is really the heart of it? Why are you insisting to do it knowing you're actually putting people in jeopardy? I just want to know, because if it's, I would like to know that. Right. I think the motives are different, but if we would have a very sincere conversation at the heart of it, you have no strong reason to do it that would actually justify in a good way you putting anybody at harm. I saw a pastor in Florida, got all the congregation together and challenged them to shake hands. Actually, he actually told everybody to shake hands to show the world that there's no coronavirus in God's body.

No, no, there's no, there's no need to go lick toilets or like, you know, lick. That's nothing Christian about that, I don't think.

You know, at the end of the day I'm thinking there's, I don't think this is the time. And you're looking at Italy, you're looking at people like, you know, right now, Romania, one of the most permanent, preeminent Pastor known there died of COVID like yesterday morning. Right. And you're looking at that and you see that compared to these churches that are. They want to make a show of it.

Right.

I'm thinking, I don't think it's sensitive. Our heart is filled and we give all kinds of things. We have a few minutes left. Rob and I wanted to talk about how do you think this world has changed, maybe in what ways and where do you see us coming up from this now?

This is a fascinating discussion and there's. I've actually read a couple articles on this. I think, I still think, I mean, we'll see. I think human nature is to default back to what you know. So I mean, there's some things that I think people will be a little less touchy and I think will be a little more sensitive to communication of germs. I don't think that'll go away long term. Which businesses thrive, which, you know, what happens with all the economy and trying to run a world without people working. You know, it's fascinating. I've heard the most interesting one I think I heard was somebody saying that they think this will help actually with wealth inequity because the people that are actually working are critical. Like, you know, your person working in Walmart, that person's really important right now and they're going to, you know, that might get valued more in society. Whereas some of the ones that just have a bunch of money doing nothing on the stock market, I mean, they've lost a lot of money, the guys in the stock market. So it could, in some ways that could be a good thing for equity, social justice, maybe even the same can be said for universal healthcare. I got my fingers crossed. Fingers crossed. People realize that, you know, we're all in this together with health care. We got to make sure we're taking care of stuff. So I think there's a couple positives that come out. I really believe humans are going to win. I think we're going to win. I will see how many, what percentage of the population even. Even if it gets to the whole population, you know, you're going to see a significant number that are just having immunity and there's going to be a significant number that recover. And so I'm optimistic. Although the numbers have been bad, I mean, very bad, you know, that the. We're going to. We'll be probably within a day. The US Will be the leader in cases. Maybe end of Friday probably. So we got to take it seriously. We got to do the quarantine you.

Know, yes, yes, we do want to challenge. Even now, if you're not listening to this podcast from home, you should. You should. Or from someplace where you can. Where you can be quarantined and make sure that you love your neighbor in a very, very tangible way. Right? Yeah, I agree with all your points. I. I think it would be childish to think that this world has not changed last week and, you know, for some people, they might still think, hey, this is just gonna, you know, blow over and not change. But I think it's moved our world in a new era. I think it's moved us very, very even deeper into the digital era. And, you know, at Multnomah, I'm very. We're passionately thinking about a course on digital literacy, and I'm very passionate about that subject because that. To know how to deal with information, to know how to organize information, to know how to consume digital information and how to live a digital life now has become so. Before, it was like, let's. Let's help people get there and know how to handle that. Now it's like it's a new lifestyle. Right? I saw a really funny meme, right? Pastors in 2010, social media is from the devil, right? And now 2020, they're like, follow me on Facebook and follow my sermon, right? It's a different world. I mean, they're there, everybody's there.

Right?

So how do you. How this. This world has been digitized even further, and that has implications, Right. We might have to really quickly think of a theology of technology and rethink a theology of technology that really addresses how do you live, how do you exist, how do you function in a digital world. Issues of ethics and issues of, you know, just. I think there's a lot of implications. I think we're gonna have some form of economic impact, and I think people should, you know, it's gonna. It's gonna hit us, it's gonna come to us. But I also think we're gonna. Going to come stronger out of this.

Right.

I'm not going to go to 9, 11 or even to the. To the crash of 2008.

Right.

Or 2007. 2008. But they were significant and they change our lives in interesting ways. And yet, look, we came stronger out of that in a different way, but our world was changed.

Yeah, no question. Yeah. Fascinating times. I mean, if you're wanting to live an interesting times, you got your wish.

Yes.

The world is changing, so be smart and be aware and, you know, be ready to adapt.

To those, I agree. Well, I think this is our time for today. Stay with us. Mu talks. This is an amu talks. Mu talks. Yeah, we're gonna play that music. It just. But you see us. We are here. We are alive and kicking and enjoying whatever God has allowed to happen on us right now. We believe that we are exactly where God wants us to be, which is really hard to understand sometimes, but we are not in a place where we're not. We're not surprising God with this. God is not surprised by this. We're exactly where he wants us to be. Please reach out to us. I mean, we don't have any major answers to these, but we want to just at least be alongside you if we can help with anything. If you're part of Moloma's family, you know you have direct access to us. If you're not part of Moloma's family, you can go to multnomaplus.com go to multomaplus.com and right now, all courses are actually free. All our courses are free on multnomaplus.com so join our family and thank you for being with us. God bless every single one of you, and we'll see you or hear you next time on our next podcast.