Including Disabled Voices in Our Theology of Humanity

Foreign.

Welcome back to another episode of MU Talks. We want to salute every single one of you from the studios of Multoma University. We are always excited and our excitement comes from our gratitude. We are thankful to be part of a community of people here at Multoma of excellent scholarship and just a wonderful community. And today, no different than any other dates on Multnomah Talks, we have another special guest for you.

Yes, Today we welcome Multnomah University professor Ruben Alvarado. Reuben is a co pastor at Theophilus Church here in Portland, Oregon, and we are sitting down with him today to talk about a theology of disability, which is a topic that Ruben is passionate about and has dedicated research to. Welcome, Ruben. Thank you so much for being here.

Hi. Thank you for having me. Yeah.

Would you just begin by telling us when or where this passion for this topic began?

Yeah, absolutely. So when I was, I guess I was 20, I got a job at a vocational training program for adults with developmental disabilities. And my job was as a vocational trainer at age 20. Like, what do I know about work? But they were like, why don't you train other people? I was like, sure, I know everything. And so I jumped in and they gave me roughly, like, three weeks. And they said, this field isn't for everybody and it takes a certain personality to be in this line of work. So no hard feelings if this doesn't work. And I jumped in and we were running a wood shop, and so I saw people operating chainsaws and giant, you know, radial arm saws. And I was like, this is really impressive to me. And then I got to know individuals and was like, immediately brought into this community. And people just expressed care and expressed themselves to me in a very unapologetic way, like, this is who I am. This is who you are. Let's be friends. Let's do this. And I just found, like, this was a group of people I wanted to be around more. I had no idea about the vocational training, any of that, but I felt a connection. And so I spent about 13 years in that program, eventually became the assistant director there. And my boss at the time was also a pastor in the area. And I was also a pastor in the area. So I was bivocational. And one of the things that I guess frustrated me a lot was the fact that we would serve this hundred or so people with various disabilities over here at this vocational training program. But in our churches, we had nobody. And so we began to ask questions to people in our. In our program, and their families were like, do you Want to attend church? Do you have a church? And many of them expressed a desire to. But an unwelcome or hurts in the past or places. And. And that began to frustrate both of us to go, well, why is it. Why is it that the church seems to not be a very welcoming place for people with disabilities? What might exist theologically, what might exist culturally, what barriers are there? And so being in both of those worlds really kind of gave me this glimpse of a very unique problem that I felt like God was going to use me and ask me to help address. Wow.

Do you want to. Maybe. I'm curious about this. It seems like the term disability is maybe not always the favored term or the term that we are hearing often anymore. Do you want to talk about why that's the term that is still used in this phrase, theology of disability?

Absolutely. You know, when I go and do talks or I speak to specifically people with disabilities or their families, sometimes I will use some of the other language, maybe special needs, that kind of language. In the end, what we're talking about is the same thing. Right. And it's the. And so language matters. And so within this field, disability can become a broader term that we can use so that people with varying disabilities can read a theology of a disability and find themselves in it. So whether they have a, you know, it's. Maybe they're on the autism spectrum, or maybe they have a learning disability, or maybe they have a mental health diagnosis, but they can find, in a theology of disability, using a broader term like that, they can find themselves in that story and see what it is that God thinks and sees and how he treats people of all different kinds of embodiments. But it's a rather unhelpful term in some ways as well, when it's so general that we don't allow for there to be uniqueness and difference. Right. And so when I talk to pastors, then we have to account for, who do you have in your community, though? And let's not just talk disability. Let's talk about Joe, you know, because Joe's in your community. And what are, you know, what are Joe's specific diagnoses and what are his specific ways he wants to join the community, and what are his gifts he can bring to the community. And so we don't talk and use that term when we're talking uniquely about folks, but generally it's. It's helpful in. In theology of disability.

Well, why don't we dive in and actually talk about the theology of disability where where would you start?

Yeah, I think, you know, image of God is a place where many of us start because it's our ethic, right? Like it's how we're meant to treat one another. And so I love starting in that place. But there's almost a pre step we have to do when we talk about it from a disability theology standpoint. And that pre work is to go, what does our culture say is the pinnacle of humanity? Because how we understand what it means to be human already impacts when we then go and read the Bible and what it says about the image of God. And so we have some work to like take care of the assumptions we're bringing to the text that we don't even know about. And there's many of them we do know. But when it comes to cultural values, I don't think we're all that aware of them all the time. So some of those in a of lot our American context, our, you know, autonomy, being an independent self made person, right to not be dependent on another person, wealth, beauty, success, to be a producer and not just a consumer. And yet we value consuming, right? And I think one of the ones for this conversation that's huge is American culture values fun and undervalues suffering. And so then we have to ask the question, what do we do with a life before us, an embodiment in front of us that maybe doesn't fit any of those ideals of what war culture says is the pinnacle of a human experience? And so if we look at those lives and say, then how can we call that life human? It's the quality of life debate that we hear about in the church that becomes the quality of salvation debate. Can someone with this disability know their need for Jesus and accept it becomes the quality of the image debate. Is the image of God marred more in another person than in someone else? And I don't think we see any of that in Scripture. So we have to undo those kinds of things and say, okay, those cannot be present, right, Those values in how we then interpret the image of God. And so as we look at like how we've interpreted the image of God over the years, so you might look at like the view that it's, it's a substantive view. There's, there's something within, in us, there's some characteristic, some ability that separates us from animals, that, that separates humanity apart, that says this is what God put within you and it's a capacity you have. And we've defined that over the years as many things, right? Reason being one of those. Right. And so take reason and go. Right. So then it does leave some people out. Right. And is that what we're supposed to get out of the Genesis passages? That there are some who have the image and some that don't? I don't think that's what it's depicting. And so if you look at the relational image of God idea, that can be a helpful one. And yet also what. When it gets to reciprocating relationship, and there are some people that struggle to reciprocate relationship, so are they not operating in the image of God in their life? And so for me, where I go with a disability of theology is to say, if we have all these ways of interpreting it over all these years of the church trying to figure it out, then it must be mystery. There must be an aspect of it that's mystery. Let's embrace that part and say whenever we define it too closely, we run the risk of having an ableist view of the image of God and creating a norm based on what we think and an abnormal based on what we think. And then if we. So if we don't define it too closely but recognize, what's the point of it? God's giving himself to us. He's giving part of himself and seating it in us. And then there's the ethic that comes with it. Right. Genesis 9. Don't spill the blood of someone who's made in the image of God. Don't harm someone made in the image of God. The ethic becomes. It's how we treat one another. And so we don't harm one another because the image is present in us. So our job isn't then to look for where is it not present. Our job is to recognize it in each person and then live accordingly. And so those are the two pieces for a disability of theology I try to hold on to, not to define it, but to say, let's hold to the reality that we may not know fully. And let's hold on to the ethic part and really dive into that.

Oh, this is great. Already I'm really excited. And just the mere fact that we're talking about this, I'm very thankful for anybody listening. If you're in ministry, if you have somebody in your family that, that is dealing with this, to at least give permission to put some words and to put some framework around the conversation. I, I already love so much how you built and you asked some very important questions is this or that. I, I love the apostles right next to Jesus having a this or that mentality, it can only be this or sinned. We just need to know who sinned was, where is it? And, and Jesus was like, can I offer a third way? Right. And. And talked about the glory of God in a way that they just did not, did not could comprehend at that point. Right. But the this of that is hurting us. It is hurting. It's hurting in theology, it's hurting in church, it's hurting in, in, in ministry. It's hurting in lives. I, I do want to bring the conversation a little bit. You've said something that really was important for me and that is cultural values America. Right. I'm going to bring it from outside of America and then put pressure hard on America because in many ways it's leading the way. I was talking on a, on an audio social media platform, Clubhouse. I'll give a shout out to Clubhouse on our, on our thing because I think Clubhouse is very powerful. It's a powerful tool. And audio social is something that is picking up right now. And there was a person with disability over there, there was a blind person there and, and talking to us. And they were so appreciative of. And this is the first time I heard it of Apple, right. Being the first iPhone. Invested so much, so much for their community. They were so excited. He was just. And he was, he was so thankful for America because they led the way in developing so much infrastructure for that. Right. And I was. It created a sense of pride of like technology. Yes.

Here we go.

They did something there. But I grew up in a world in which you did not, you did not see too many people with disabilities. They would have no. Too much room in society. They would not work in stores, they would not be in churches in a prevalent way. There was no. And what's even worse than that, because for the beginning part of my life, I grew up in a communist country. Dr. Paul Metzger likes to say that to everybody around whenever he has a chance. I'm giving also a shout out to Dr. Paul Metzger on this episode. Episode. But, but I was nine years old when. When the communism fell. And learning in retrospect about communism is how much effort they put to remove from society people that had any form of disability and stuff, any form really. And only present a society that is perfect.

Right.

So you see that in, in front of you as a society and then at the opposite pole you have a society that invests in tolerance and all this. But there's just underlying things that I think you've picked up from, from American society. And how it's influencing us. Even though the way you've, you're picking up on how important that culture is in interpreting and doing theology. I would like to hear some thoughts on that from, from the way you've, you've built that into the culture. Impact on that.

Absolutely. And a lot of that plays into my pastoral work. Right. And recognizing like there's been a lot said over the history of the church of how. What our role should be with the culture around us. Right. And how we should engage it, how we should separate from it, whatever your particular view, there's been a lot said. What I think we need to say more about is that what the culture is outside the church is going to find its way and be present in the culture of the church because we live in the reigning culture in our, in our country, in our city. And so to just not even acknowledge it is a, is a, a make believe. Right. It's a pretending and we have to acknowledge it if we're going to address it. And so there's ways to just not even focus on disability, but focus on what's, what is wrong with thinking that we are self autonomous, self made people. Right. How is that different than what we see in Scripture as a God made Holy Spirit empowered, you know, led by Christ person. And so you can talk about those things. And it's fascinating that the more you dive into disability theology and how it subverts some of those cultural things and values, you can actually, I guess what I'm trying to say is you realize you're not just talking about disability and people with disabilities. You're studying humanity and you're studying our views of humanity. And that applies to every one of us, regardless of our embodiments. So one of the things that hit me as I was studying was what Hitler called people with disabilities in World War II and he called them useless eaters. And it was the idea of only consumer, not producer. So what value is there?

Wow.

Yeah. And I found myself thinking, I don't know how far away from that we are. And we're very far away. Like you said, we're leading in many ways, supports for ada. And there's many things that are improving and yet there's, it's kind of a confusing place because we spend a lot of money and effort and focus on, on, on helping on improving and being there. You know, providing helps those kinds of things. But then there's also these underlying cultural values. And in those cultural values, I think we sometimes think very similar things.

To me, we have accepted those as being of being valuable.

You're right.

Or values.

Yeah. And so we live as if they're, they're the way they are. But it's, it's damaging to every one of us when we accept it as the way it is. Because now I can't live into my own vulnerability and my own need for dependence with others. I have to pretend that I am something I'm not. You know, I have to prove to everyone around me how I meet the, the values that our, our culture says I should meet. Or I have to feel extremely bad about the fact that I don't. So we kind of teach one another to wear masks with each other rather than be each other with each other.

Oh, wow. Oh, wow. And I see this fundamental difference between a socialist communist society that says this is the ideal person and people that do not come close to that. They're hindering us, they're preventing us from creating this. And then they find that. And here we in America or the, the Western world, this is the ideal, the dream. Right, The American dream. And anybody can, can go for it. But here's the roadblocks. Anybody can go for it. And if you, if you don't go for it, or if you, if you cannot reach it, then it's not on us that we've created this ideal. It's, it's, you know, we, you know, the pursuit of happiness is for everybody, and yet this or that. And then we have the biblical, the theological parent of, of what is perfect in God's eyes, what is really the image of God. I really, I really love the way that you're building this for us. Here's moving, moving the con forward, looking for belonging and looking for, for really understanding theology better. There's another pressure. There is another pressure point. So I was, I was attending a, a seminar on artificial intelligence and neuro, on all this, and there's a discussion on Humanity 2.0. And the Humanity 2.0 discussion is fascinating for me. I, I'm, I'm getting fascinated about industry 5.0, 6.0, and then also the, the keyword of humanity 2.0, what it, what it doesn't mean to be human because technology can do it better. So what does it really mean to be human? If a robot, which we're giving it a face and in all this can now we can, you know, we, we have 3D printed organs, all this. And then, so we can, but they do it better. So if it's just about reason, if it's just about computing and thoughts, if it's just, you know, all this, then here we are now. The need for theologizing. And because so people are saying, okay, the ultimate frontier that we have left from the who, what it means to be here is the soul, right? And so we're now people even that are not spiritual people. They're thinking there has to be something left for us to combat and fight artificial intelligence or fight the robots and fight the next generation that says we need humanity born or we need to evolve because the way we are right now is so broken that we can't fix. So we just need to evolve. So I feel that the pressure is coming from, from society, from all this, but also from progress. And it's coming down to something that for many, many years I don't think we have to do. Define the mere. What it means to be human. What it means to be human. So your thoughts on, on the theology of being human and how do we define that?

Yeah, that's so good. It's fascinating. My brain went in areas as you talk about it. I think the main thing I want to say is as we think about what it means to be human, some of the things we've already gone over, like let's. If we think of human as a machine, you know, then we're going to have different views and one of those being we can improve on it. Right. If we think of human as producer, then you might take a vocational model of, of humanity. And it's like anyone who produces at a high level, awesome. Anyone who doesn't, we're going to help train you. Right? And that's the field I was in. We did great work, but it was, it was, had a particular view of what it meant to be human. And then we, we implement helps to a portion of the population that can't produce so that we can help them produce. The, the issue there for me at least was we often would send our people out to jobs in the community once we got them to a high enough level of production. And we're like, sweet, you're at a hundred percent productivity, we're gonna go get you a job. We got them a job. Some of them would come back and we would question, well, why? And often we would question that when they weren't even in the room. We were trying to figure out what was the issue. I remember one day we brought one of our clients back in and we said, so why are you back? And he said, because you're here. And we all stopped for a moment, right? We're like, oh, my gosh, how did we miss this, right, Friendship relationship that meant more to him than producing, making enough money to buy his own pizza, you know, like, all of those things were important, but they weren't his goals. His goal was be somewhere where I'm loved and I can love others. And so we had to really shift, in a sense, some of that. And for me, there was an internal shift of, this work is important, so is the work of church. And we're absent in the conversation. What do we have to offer? And I think it's belonging, which goes way beyond inclusion, right? And so how do we talk about what it means to be human and then for belonging for all of them? And so one of the things we can bring to the conversation is a model of let's take our bodies seriously. God chose to embody us. It's part of what he chose to do. He could have made us any other way, but he gave us bodies. It's what it means to be human, to have this kind of body that we have. And so we have to look at that. And there's this beautiful model. I think it's Deborah Creamer. She created that. She has this embodiment model, and she compares it to the vocational model, the medical model. And she says, in all of those models, there's a norm, and it's decided by what the values are, you know, and then there's people on the outside of the norm. And so in the medical model, you might have to enact something medically to help bring someone into the norm. And this isn't to, like, diminish the importance of either any of those fields. We need doctors in medicine, we need vocation, all of those things that are very important. And we need to Christian people in those spaces too. Like, this is really important work, but for the church, there's a different way. And she says, if we look at it, we look at an embodiment model, it frees us to say what's normal about the human embodied experience? And the first thing is we're born completely dependent on others to even live, right? We're completely dependent. We don't have reason. We don't have any capacity that sets us apart as anything spectacular. You know, there's so much we can't do. We're vulnerable entirely. Only vulnerability. That's what we are. It's not strength, you know, and so that's where we start. And then you look at the scope of life and go, oh. And it kind of finishes in a similar place, right, where we Become more vulnerable. We need more help. And we live our life kind of dreading that because we've spent our life pretending we're not that. And so. And we've been told to pretend we're not that. So how can I be vulnerable with you right now? And why. And then I. I hate the idea that someday I'm going to be. As opposed to. Maybe we just need to embrace the fact that our bodies, first and foremost, what it means to be human is to be vulnerable. It's to be. To have limitation. God did not create. Create us to be other hymns. He created us to be limited, different from him, and yet he gives us his image. Right. So there's, I think that interplay that we need to really discuss and talk about is our bodies tell us a lot about what it means to be human. And if it means vulnerability is what it means to be human, then machines can't get it better. They can't do it better.

Yeah. I was, I was having a conversation recently with, with somebody that completed a PhD in artificial intelligence. And he was, he was battling other people in the field and he, he was really firm convinced that we are not being honest with what artificial intelligence and, and the entire technology world does. They cannot even mimic really well logic. We think we've built logic in it, but it actually is not. Is not nowhere near there. Right. And there's this myth of, of that growing. The lecturer that I loved about, and they concluded is that the power we have is time and space. That we are here today, face to face in the same time, in the same space, and nobody can take that. What, what happens in that time and space. And that limitation is very powerful. We're getting close. Renee, do you have a question? Because I have one more question.

Okay, I do have a question.

I'll let Renee ask that question. Oh, there's so much here. There's so much here.

This discussion is. It's been fascinating. It's been very heady. Right. Like we're living in this headspace as we talk about this and the theory of it and, and all of that. And I want to, as we, as we finish, to bring that maybe back down again. Do you have advice for a way forward for those of us who belong to the body of Christ, who want to not just know this in a headspace, but actually we practice this in the communities where we worship? Yes.

Amen. First of all, thank you for that. That's very important. And I'll go back to a little bit of what we're talking about with different models. One of the models people within the body of Christ use is a charity model that people with disabilities are primarily people in need. And then we are helpers. And so, you know, that becomes the model for how we do that relationship. And so I think what we each have the power to do in our communities is to subvert that, get rid of it, kick it out the door and say, that's not the model for how I relate to other people, regardless, just other people. That's not the main model on how we relate to one another. The body of Christ says interdependence is expected. Right. It shows us that we all belong to one another. And when I read Romans and it says that each member belongs to one another, the picture I get is one of mutual responsibility and vulnerability. For me to look at the two of you and say, I belong to you, I have to be vulnerable with myself, with my story, and I have to trust that you will be responsible with my story. And likewise, if you belong to me, it's my turn to be responsible with your vulnerability. And why would we think that anybody, because of their embodiment, can't hold one side of that conversation? I have found that people with disabilities in my life have been better holders of my vulnerability than other people.

Sure.

And so to be able to trust one another in that space, regardless of embodiment and to say, let's get rid of those things that set up in us them. Right. That within the body of Christ and, and just choose to get to know Susan. Right. And let's not set up any particular, like, norm that any of them have to meet. And then the second one I would say is, and I learned this from John Swinton, disability theologian out of Scotland, and he says the church does not take seriously enough that the only measure of normalcy is Jesus Christ. And so as pastors, as we disciple folks, as teachers in our kids classrooms in our churches, might we remember that we're not discipling people to any sort of human, normal, sit quietly, don't say this, don't do that, act this way, no, but let us disciple every one of us towards being like Jesus Christ. And there are ways in which every one of us, regardless of our embodiments, show each other what Jesus Christ looks like. We need to allow people within, with disabilities in our communities to show us what Jesus Christ looks like, how he actually walks the earth right now. Because there's a whole bunch of us that don't get it without them teaching.

Us that, wow, I'm So happy you asked the question, Renee. And I didn't go back to the heady of how do we build the theology. But maybe that's for another episode to talk about that. That we have nuggets of things we've heard throughout our life to stay with us for a long time. And I will never forget a friend of mine just finished medical school. They go through 150 years of education in that, apparently, that world. And she just finished medical school. She was part of our group. She comes in and the first thing she said, which stayed with me, and it was so beautiful. It was like for the rest of my life, I only be wondering what happened. When people are. Are healthy, not sick, I had to learn thousands of names of diseases. So when I see somebody healthy, I'm surprised. How are you healthy? Because they had to learn thousands and tens of thousands of just viruses and things that are out there right in this broken world we. We are now we call broken abnormal in a broken world. How interesting is that? Instead of thinking the exact same that the doctors looking at the world around like, how is everybody, like, not. Not sick with so much knowledge. Right. It's so. It's so powerful. Thank you. Thank you for. For giving these thoughts to us today. And we have the blessing of. Of also getting to know who you are, not who Reuben. The. The doctor of. Of disability, of. The theologian of disability is. So can we get a little bit of questions for you? Let's start with. Can I go with the question? Sure. Here we go. If you had a boat, what would you name it?

It?

Oh, man.

All right, man, we're gonna have to do that.

How about, I don't know, the first thing that comes to mind? And don't ask me for a reason.

No, no, I won't.

Wisdom.

Wisdom I could see you sailing on.

Okay, so in your wisdom, which is the best ice cream flavor?

Oh, Rocky road, hands down.

Okay.

You're starting wars, huh? If you had a parrot, what would you teach it to say? You walk in the house. This is what you would teach the parrot to say.

Chant my name as I walked in. Reuben, I think that'd be amazing. And we all need lift it up a little bit, Right. Some days are hard and you walk in and your parents chanting your name. That's amazing.

Oh, my goodness.

What's something that you wanted to be when you were a kid, when you grew up?

A professional baseball player.

Professional basketball.

Classic.

Yeah, right?

Wow.

I know. Yep. I was going to be a second baseman for the Los Angeles Dodgers.

That's Specific.

Oh, man. Yeah. What? Yeah.

Second.

Second. But you passed.

Maybe I don't understand baseball that well.

Okay.

What item do you hope it will be obsolete in 20 years?

Whoa.

If you had that power, an object.

That would be obsolete in 20 years? That's a really good question. Thank you, man.

I didn't come up with. Just so you know, I'm not taking credit.

I wish your question was obsolete right now.

In 20 minutes, it will be. But.

I don't want this. And yet I want this.

Okay.

This, the smartphone, dude, I love it. And then also there are times I just want to throw it and be like, I wish I never saw this thing. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It just overtakes everything.

I don't know how it was before. Right.

I know how.

Like, what's before?

Yeah.

Do you have any truly useless talents?

Useless talents? Yes. I'm sure there are.

Talk about vulnerability dogs.

My son would say, this is useless. It was useful for a moment, but I worked at the Rhinelander restaurant and learned to sing German beer drinking songs while I slung schnitzel and gave it to everyone. And he says, it's completely useless. But I know there's going to come a time when this is going to be useful again.

It'll come back.

Yes.

My favorite story is this. This choir went in Germany and they went to a beer garden. Right?

Okay.

And all of them ordered water because the pasta was there, Right. And the waiter was like, this is a beer garden, not a kindergarten. He got so frustrated. Everybody was ordering water. Your questions, Renee.

Okay. So we want to wrap up our time together, just kind of bringing it back around to the ideas of education. Education is valuable to us and to everyone that we bring in this room. And so we have a couple questions focused on that, the first of which is, tell us about a time during your educational journey, anywhere from childhood to present that has been transformative or just even memorable for you.

Yeah, I mean, there's so many. My dad was a teacher for 36 years. He taught middle school, bless his heart. Right. I know. Everyone always asks me, are you gonna follow suit? And I was like, no way.

I saw the marks on him.

Exactly, exactly. He taught math, science, and art, and so. And he was an artist, of course. And so he would spend the summers focusing in on what were the popular movies for the summer that all the kids would be watching. And he would draw these amazing posters. And so I'd watch him do this. And then he changed the name a little bit so that it, like, focused on the class or the content or, like, maybe a character trait or something that he wanted. And so I think one year it was like Alvarado Jones and the last.

Or something like that.

Right.

And then as, like, all you would bring in me and my sisters, and we would go in weeks before school started and we decorate his room. And it was all in preparation for the students to create a learning environment. Right. And I think as a little guy, I just was like, oh, just the posters are cool. But, like, looking back at it, I realized I learned early on how much teachers do for me, you know, to create an environment. And now that I'm teaching, it's like, like, oh, yeah, don't just run into that classroom. Spend the time to think about creating an environment I want to teach in and a culture that they want to learn in. Right. And to do both of those. That. Yeah. To me, that was super formational.

Wow. I don't think I've heard anybody. Anybody teaching math and arts the same.

Yeah, right. I mean, yeah, I think he would say it's not something to do.

Yeah.

Like, but, wow, if you could change one thing about education, what would it be?

Man.

It was like, one thing. Like, can I give you five?

Nope.

See it in Rubens.

I know. I guess I would say the sense of. Of teaching to the test. Right. There's a sense in which it's like, getting the right answer. And. And I think that's been an issue for a while, but in a digital age, there's the extra element of, like, I've just watched myself. I watch my son, I watch. Watch my students. We struggle with the fact of, like, I don't really have to embrace the journey and the skills to get to answers, to learn how to think, to learn critical thinking. On all of that. I can just know the right search words to type into Google. And I do that. Right. It's like, oh, I forgot how to fix that thing on my car that I fixed four times. I'll just go find my YouTube link that I saved and I'll go do it again. And. And so I don't know what the fix is and what I change, but somewhere we need to, I don't know, have a different imagination for how we help people in this age embrace the journey to the answer versus the answer.

Right. Wow.

And what is something that you're currently learning?

Yeah, man, so many things. I think during the pandemic as a pastor and my previous pastoral job was called the pastor of justice and Mercy, and I spent time in the city with our city's most vulnerable. And I found myself burnt out and tired of holding these stories. And I was talking to a older pastor friend of mine, and I said, I got to the end of myself, and I was done. And I was crying. I wasn't feeling anything. And he said, congratulations. And I said, that was an odd thing to say. And I said, what do you mean? And he said, at the end of ourselves, we can see where God. God begins, where he. Where he walks. And you don't need to bring all of yourself to it. And he says, the key is don't wait for burnout to get you there, because then it's not healthy. The key is keep going. You know, once you're healthy, once you. You heal up and you're ready to go back, notice that you need to get, like, normalize, getting to the end of yourself so that you don't just think God gave you all these gifts to do it on your own, but to do it with him.

Oh, wow.

And he goes, there's an invitation in getting at the end of yourself. And I didn't get it then. And I think over the years of healing since that it's just something I'm gonna have to learn for the rest of my life is how to recognize staying somewhat at the end of myself, because that's where I work with God.

Oh, wow.

It's beautiful. Thanks.

I don't want to say anything after that. I just want to say thank you. Thank you, Ruben. Thank you for being with us. Thank you for sharing your wisdom. And one of my. My most favorite things I've heard recently is that nothing can stand against a person who can. Who can read and write and they know what to write. I want to thank you for your contribution to the body of knowledge, but mostly to the contribution to the body of Christ in terms of disability, in terms of what it. What it really means, means and theologizing about it. I mean, I just love thinking of that third option of the glory of God in the midst of all that. So thank you. Thank you for being with us. If people want to know more, where can they go? Can. Can. Do you want to send them somewhere? Can they come to a specific page or something that. That it would. Can actually get more from you?

I mean, I guess I would send them to email me specifically, you know, and that's at Ruben Alvaradoma. Edu.

Oh, perfect.

And there's a lot of resources and there's a few resource pages. I don't have them, you know, updated at this point, but some friends of mine that are working on.

So okay, yeah, you've heard it first here. Wonderful people. Please contact Ruben if you're interested and passionate about this. If you want to partner with us with Manoma in any specific field, we would love to have you. Thank you again, Renee, for facilitating such a wonderful guest. Thank you, Ruben, for being with us. Us. Blessings to all of you. See you in one of our next episodes at MU Talks. Whenever that happens, and we do have to say this, it's important for us to say this. The views and opinions expressed on MU Talks do not belong to Yumula University, but mostly to and only to the people that are guests on MU Talks. Sam.