The Waging Peace Podcast

A Good Friday Vigil Outside Lockheed Martin

• Diana K. Oestreich • Season 3 • Episode 24

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Good Friday is supposed to be about the cross, but what happens when we take that story to the place where modern violence is manufactured? 

Shane Claiborne joins us with a challenge that’s as simple as it is unsettling: if you knew a bomb was being built for a school full of kids, wouldn’t you try to stand in its way?

Listen to find out:

  • How Holy Week is connected to the real-time violence in Gaza and Iran and ask what it means to follow Jesus when our nation profits from war?
  •  Why we’re gathering outside Lockheed Martin on Good Friday and how ordinary people can practice nonviolent witness with courage, grief, and hope.
  • Why “the right people get bombed” is the opposite of The Prince of Peace
  • Diana’s shift from Iraq War participation to conscientious objection & finding the freedom to change your mind
  • Good Friday is solidarity with victims of state violence and practice of refusing to meet violence with violence
  • Why weapons manufacturers make modern wars possible and why profit belongs in the spotlight
  • Memorial practices for children killed in Gaza and Iran, including names, candles, roses, and a shared rope
  • Direct action and civil disobedience as “divine obedience,” with many on-ramps for participation

How to join in person, livestream, or create a memorial where you live!
 

Find out more or REGISTER HERE

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SPEAKER_01

Welcome, my friend Shane Claiborne. I am super, super pumped to get to hang out with you today on the Waging Peace podcast. Uh, give the people a little Tennessee holler for the people.

SPEAKER_02

I'm ready to wage some stinking peace, Diana. I love you. Good to be with you always and uh excited about all you peacemakers out there and you friends. It's great to be together.

Shane’s Roots In North Philly

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and are you kind of fired up? We are in the middle of Lent. We're working towards Good Friday. We also are in an unofficial war with Iran right now. We're watching the headlines to see what's gonna happen. This is in a moment when I think the peacemakers are showing up right now, and you are one of my favorites, Shane. So can you introduce yourself a little bit?

From Iraq War To Conscience

SPEAKER_02

I'm a friend of Diana's, just wonderful. Uh yeah. Diana, I don't know if you know this, but we're pushing 30 years that we've been building our little community here on the north side of Philly. And that I think having feet on the ground anchors some of this work globally too. It's not that disconnected. You know, Martin Luther King and so many others have articulated well the connections between military spending and the bankruptcy of our social institutions. And uh our I mean, we we literally have schools that are going bankrupt in Philly schools that like the one right here, Costares, that don't even have air conditioning and have to release the kids when it gets above 100 degrees. You know, that that old sticker that says it'll be a good day when the schools have everything they need and the military has to have a bake sale to buy an F uh, you know, F-15. So that's I I think like the Dr. King's words resonate that a country that continues to spend so much money year after year on military defense, then then on programs of social uplift is approaching a spiritual death. And and there's the economic side, there's also the ethical side, and as a you know, as followers of Jesus, every time our government kills people in the name of peace or freedom or whatever abstract noun we give to it, we are teaching our kids that violence can get rid of violence or injustice, and it betrays the core teaching of Jesus that we're to love our enemies, that we're to overcome evil with good, that we're to turn the other cheek and uh you know refuse to meet evil on its own terms. I mean, this this violence, this escalating violence, you know, we've been working around Gaza for a long time, um, and the occupation of the West Bank and Palestine, but we've we've you know recently this this uh violence in Iran that mirrors what was happening 15 years ago when you know a group of us went to Iraq to stand against that war. You know, I don't know if you've seen those little dials that say, like, you know, that have Iran turning to Iraq, and the point is not to win the war, but to have perpetual war.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I really grew up really loving Jesus. Like something made sense to kindergarten Diana that I was like, yeah, there's like this big love out there that loves us, and in that I was raised God guns and country, and so I was in Iraq believing that this was somehow lining up with serving serving Jesus, and and that's how we connected through it it is, it is so you were you were in Iraq, like it was yesterday, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

You were in Iraq being a peacekeeper, and I was in Iraq being a Christian nationalist, being uh here to uh set things straight for God and country.

SPEAKER_01

But Jesus was the one who stood in front of me that very first night and stood in front of me with love that said, I love Iraqis diet. And I was like, dang, you're right, that love your enemy, that do not kill. I guess Jesus is real about this. So being an Iraq war veteran and being bought into it, and then having Jesus change my mind on that has changed everything. And then you were in Iraq trying to change people's minds of like, no, we stand in front of our neighbors when bombs are dropping. And now we see the same thing with Iran, and it seems like this is the time where everybody who loves their neighbor, this is how everybody who loves God is gonna have to stand up and we're gonna stand in front of the bombs. And I remember a year ago when we were seeing even more children die in Gaza from bombs, now it's starvation and now it's these sanctions. Um but then I remember you saying, you know, someone was like, is this ever gonna do anything? Like, does it matter what we do as peacemakers? And you were like, Well, man, if I knew that a bomb was being built in a factory like Lockheed Martin is gonna get sold to be dropped on an elementary school with kids, wouldn't you do anything you could to stand in front of that bomb? And I remember thinking, heck yeah, Shane, like any normal person would do whatever they could to put their body in front of that. And it's not it's not worthless. I think people are like, really? Are you gonna end war? And I'm like, yeah, I think we are because we love life so much and we love our neighbors so much.

SPEAKER_02

I think of that line of Mother Teresa that you know, our at the end of the day, our deep calling is not just to be successful, but to be faithful. And I mean, I hope we end all war and beat our guns into garden tools and melt down some of these F-35s and whatnot. But meanwhile, it's about being faithful, you know, and it didn't look like Jesus won on Friday, but huh, come on, somebody. You know, like we know how the story ends, and love does win. And we are fighting for the people in Lockheed Martin, too, that are living with the burden of what their career uh is doing and the toll that it's taking on human lives. So we've got folks that have reached out from inside, just like you know, there are conscientious objectors in Israel and in um Gaza, all over the world, in the U.S. military. There are folks, even now, ICE uh agents that are refusing orders that that conflict with their conscience and their faith. We need more of that. And we've got folks at Lockheed Martin that are trying to repair the harm that they've done, that with one of whom will be there with us. We keep his name confidential, but he's he's a great testimony that you know Jesus had zealots and tax collectors and all kinds of folks that we've all found ourselves in different positions of complicity with the structures that harm. And so the important thing is that we're reorienting our lives around Jesus and trying every day to free ourselves from the systems that hurt so many people.

Why Good Friday Targets Arms Profits

SPEAKER_01

Right. And the good news has to be good news of this better world. And the better world and the good news can't be that the right people get bombed. What a small gospel that must be. One of the things that we have made a tradition of doing is spending Good Friday in front of the world's largest weapons manufacturer, which shockingly is an American company. That America is the largest arms dealer on the planet today. And we're gonna stand in front of one of them in your home city. So you want to tell tell people a little bit about what we're gonna do?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, there's an old saying, if you want to figure out how to stop violence, then figure out who's profiting from it. And I think we can think of that in terms of gun violence. We can also think of it, uh um, think of it in terms of militarism and war as that there are you know massive movements to try to get our legislators and Congress folks to stand against war and to stand up for human life in Gaza and Iran and other places, uh, folks at the border, folks being threatened by ICE. But meanwhile, we also need to put the spotlight on the folks that are literally making a killing off of killing. And that that's part of our message. There, there's a fundamental irony in the fact that Christians call the Friday that Jesus was killed Good Friday. And yet, I mean that that that is a profound reality, is that it's not just about the resurrection, but the solidarity that Jesus showed us as he died, as he suffered, tremendous violence. The crucifixion is where we get the notion. I mean, it's just a terrible way of dying. And it was state violence put on full display, even as Jesus refused to meet violence on its own terms. And so that that frames so much of what we do. It's an interfaith gathering, but there are, and there's folks that are not religious that join, there's families and kids. But the important thing too is that this has been going on for decades. There's a rich tradition of um vigiling and protesting outside of the weapons manufacturers and and and there's others, Raytheon and Boeing and other weapons factories. But the fact is that the these wars would not be able to happen. The the killing of tens of thousands of children in Gaza couldn't happen without Lockheed Martin and companies like Lockheed that sometimes even during the Iran-Contra scandal and stuff, like they were arming two countries and making money off of both of them as they killed each other.

SPEAKER_01

Right. And nobody is doing this for free. My local school is trying to cut, you know, a million dollars. Like we've got no money for anything, no money for this or that. But I'm like, nobody, they're not giving any of these bullets, weapons, hellfire, missiles, Apaches, or rocket systems for free. Like we know that when they first invaded and started bombing Gaza, that the Wall Street Times wrote up about how they it was astronomical, the profit increase that Lockheed Martin had in just one vote of Congress to decide to ship weapons. So we're going directly to Lockheed Martin and say there is a better way.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And and as we set our face towards the brutality and the torture and the murder of Jesus when Christians around the world lament violence, then I think we put our face towards those who are experiencing violence today. And Jesus, through his entire lifetime, set the whole world right, faced all the evil and committed not one act of violence. Not one act. And he interrupted the ones that he saw. And so for Christ's followers to stand and witness evil and violence and say we refuse it the way Christ did, and we also will not commit violence to violence. Like we are part of a new creation. I think saying that out loud today is a powerful, powerful thing.

Memorials For Children Killed By War

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. So um, yeah, I don't know what you're doing on Good Friday, but we we and we are, it's not like a performative thing, it's actually a worshipful and deeply um authentic way to remember Jesus is by remembering the victims of violence today. And part of what happens when Jesus was killed is that they try Pilate, you know, tried to wash the hands, the his hands of the blood, and one of our banners says Lockheed Martin has blood on its hands. And and um we want to make that message that like war doesn't just happen, war is made and declared, and and people make these weapons and make lots of money off of it. And so, but we also won't want to center the victims, and so you're doing such a great job at that, Diana. We're gonna have a lot of ways that we memorialize, especially the children that have been killed. I mean, I think we have we believe every person is made in the image of God and is every life is precious, no matter whether you're 90 years old or nine months old. And yet, when we see the countless numbers of children that have been killed in especially in Gaza, but also the bombing of the school in Iran. We're gonna have all of those children's names, or as many of them as we know publicly right now. They're not those names memorialized. We're gonna light candles, carry roses, and this is a family-friendly vigil, too. So there'll be lots of kids that are participating in this. And the way that we block the entrance is very important. It we block the name the entrance with the names and the memorial uh to the children that have been killed by weapons like Lockheed Martin's.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. And as somebody who has waged war, I hold a deep accountability and responsibility. And I know that it's not only soldiers who hold this, that every single person in America where we have companies like Lockheed Martin, this is part of what we are part of. And if we can start to stand up to Lockheed Martin and lament these things, and then also say we choose not to say this is okay. Profiting and killing kids, this is not what what we're going to continue to be quiet about. It creates change. Like when one person has the courage to stand up and pray. I remember I think last year, the year before, we were standing there praying the Lord's Prayer. And it just hit so different for me. Like it was one of the most like profound things that made me feel the love of God. When you're standing in front of a bomb maker and there is a police officer next to you and you're saying the Lord's Prayer, I think the presence of God and the power is different when you have your body outside the church. And so that's it. You know, it's a witness, no matter how you witness, whether you come to publicly worship at the vigil or you come to the gates with us. It's all powerful to do, whatever your whatever your lane is for that. But I would just invite people, you don't have to be an activist. You don't have to be a public person. Like who you are matters.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and there's lots of ways that people can be involved too. We we want as many folks to come as possible. And you can go to our website at Red Letter Christians and register. Uh, we we are asking as many people as possible to let us know that you're coming and um make sure that you have everything you need to prepare. And um there's there's we're gonna be painting and singing, and even as we're grieving the lives lost and memorializing them, we're also casting a vision of a better world. That there, you know, Jesus did that almost every time he opened his mouth as the Prince of Peace. He talked about seek God's kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. So we're not just waiting till we die for things to be great, but we're trying to make this world a little greater and a little sweeter. And uh, you know, we are excited about one of our friends who's shown a lot of moral courage on so many fronts, but Ben Cohen, the founder of Ben and Jerry's ice cream, will be with us and be bringing the ice cream. And he's gonna uh participate in the action, and we will be serving ice cream to everybody. So if you need another reason to go to a vigil or protest, then free Ben and Jerry's bottomless Ben and Jerry's ice cream is uh certainly uh one more reason you can put on it.

SPEAKER_01

There's something about envisioning a world with less bombs and more ice cream, it's contagious because the truth is we all want that. So if you have never celebrated Good Friday, this is going to be a one-hour service where I invite you to uh to experience how people celebrate Good Friday. And then also, if you are a religious person, celebrate it differently. This might be the very first time you celebrated it outdoors in front of a bomb maker and celebrating with other people with an ice cream party at the end. But it's pretty powerful, and we're going to have a memorial where we're asking people to write the name of a child who was killed in Gaza or Iran, and then their age. And as you write their name, it's just this communal way of honoring them and saying their life mattered and they are not forgotten. Then we're going to tie it onto a rope and then carry it together. I feel like every time you show up and we do these things, I feel like there is something that is restored. There is this vision that we can unmake some of the violence and we can carry a better future forward. And it is encouraging. I feel like people are like, well, it's just depressing. I'm like, no, it isn't. I don't know what happens, whether it's like the spirit, people, song, but I always leave feeling more hopeful that like I'm a little more in love with people. And the headlights can kind of steal that from you over time.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and I think a lot of people want some something they can do because we're inundated with tragedy, tragic news, and offensive things that are being done by our governments and politicians. And so this is a real concrete way that we can show up. And it means so much to our Palestinian and uh Iranian neighbors. There's a lot of them that'll be there, but um, so many folks tell us this means the world to us to just know that this is happening. And and you know, last year we even had someone that worked on the inside of Lockheed Martin, a new person. We've had several, but one that's still working there that said it means so much to have us outside, and they're trying to figure out how to free themselves of deeply being embedded in this company that's doing so much harm. So it's a hopeful and invitational um event. So and we will be live streaming. We want as many people to come as they can, but you know, we'll we'll have a stream going at probably starting around noon. So like we'll be there at 11 o'clock, but you can come 11 noon, we'll go until about a little after one o'clock or so at the um headquarters. It's right by King of Prussia Mall, uh outside of Philadelphia. And not only are these massive weapons like the F-35 and the F-16s and the missile systems, the the like rocket systems, they they all have these you know coded names, M-142s and all that stuff, but these are all like made there. But even some of the other weaponry is made here in Pennsylvania, the tear gas that's used often just on nonviolent protesters on children. I went to a refugee camp that they gathered tear gas canisters that were fired on them, and they said it's where the Israeli defense practices their aim and practices this new weaponry. And those tear gas canisters are made in Pennsylvania just a couple hours from here. So our government, our US companies, our tax dollars, all of that is a part of participating in the violence. So, this is one of the ways that we can say, let's go a different direction. And for those of us that love Jesus, let's do it in the name of the Prince of Peace. Hallelujah. Let's do it during Holy Week. Let's stand on the side of love and stand on the side of life.

SPEAKER_01

And we're gonna have kids there. And I think them seeing that the adults in their life are standing on the side of love is creating a new reality for them. So whatever they see on social media, they're like, no, wait, I know Shane, I know Diana. Like we come every year, and there are these adults who are loudly and proudly saying that love is always gonna win, and we're gonna stand with the Prince of Peace, and peace will always give us what war steals from us. So if you were to give people the message, this is what we're gonna come in front of Lockheed and say, what would you tell people?

SPEAKER_02

Well, we've been saying God loves Gaza, and that's a good message. That God loves Gaza, God loves the children of Iran, that uh uh they're made in the image of God just as much as the children in Philadelphia or Duluth or New York, like every child is precious. And and you know, I think we can also say that part of why we do actions like this is what what Dr. Martin Luther King said, we expose injustice so that it becomes uncomfortable and so that it stirs people's hearts to take action. So join us in any way that you can as we uh this is these are not just normal times, and this should never be normal to see the deaths of children by our government, by our weapons. So it's a way that we can show up and say uh we we want to stand against this and we want to put our bodies in the way.

Direct Action As Faithful Practice

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. And as somebody who has changed my mind and has become a conscientious objector, I feel like one of the things we're also inviting people to do is it's okay to change your mind. I'm from Minnesota. One of the songs that we have been singing and people have been singing outside the hotels where I sustain is it's okay to change your mind. You can stop this anytime. Come and join us. This call is for people who are in the military right now, is it's okay to change your mind. You can have a conscience, your spirit can change. And you have a group who wants you, who's saying, come and join us. And that's going to be a powerful thing for people who have been in churches who have always said, you know, God loves to bomb the right people. It's okay to come and change your mind. And people in the military right now, I know that the conscientious objector lines are kind of ringing off the hook. And I wish that would have happened in Iraq. I wish people would have invited us to ask if this is okay with us and to have a conscience. And also we're going to be singing it to people in Lockheed Martin. So if you are part of the many people who make their living from being in these companies that are creating weapons, it's okay to change your mind. And we're going to be singing that and inviting people to do that, not just this year, but next year until it changes. That's what we're hoping for. Okay, so here's another thing. A lot of people maybe grew up like I did, and the most intense thing we ever did was vote. So marching or even doing direct action or risking arrests. Can you kind of break that down for people who maybe have no idea that this can be part of their faithful spiritual disciplines?

SPEAKER_02

Well, the good news is that there's lots of on-ramps into ways that we can go public and make our voices and put our bodies out there as a physical like manifestation of our opposition to the things that are hurting people right now. So there's lots of ways that we can do that. You know, there's the No Kings demonstrations this weekend, the biggest protests in the history of the United States are happening. So, you know, there's folks that go, What would I have done if I was alive during the civil rights movement, Dr. King? And you're like, let's look at what we're doing right now because we're living in a moment where we we can really be a part of making history, not just watching history on TV. As far as the direct action, you know, there's folks that use the language civil disobedience, but I like how uh Dan Berrigan, he was a Catholic priest uh that was arrested many times for his sort of nonviolent prophetic actions. And he said he preferred to use the term divine obedience, that we're we're standing on the side of God and love when our governments are very clearly out of sync with the things that God wants in the world. And our point is never to get arrested, our point is to bear witness. But like Diana said, when you know that weapons are being manufactured that are going to kill innocent people, that urgency puts a sort of fire in your bones to um do something other than maybe just make phone calls and write letters, although we need to be doing those things. We're actually gonna do it there. We're gonna make some phone calls. But, you know, Dr. King said traffic lights are good things, but when a fire is raging, the emergency vehicles go through the red lights at top speed to try to save lives. And and this is one of those times where there is a fire raging, like lives are on the line. We have bombs being dropped in real time. And so uh that demands kind of an urgency from us that for some of us to kneel down and pray and have our bodies block the entrance is one of the ways that feels faithful to Jesus and nonviolence uh in the face of that, just like we might try to get in the way of someone who is is trying to hurt someone. There's a precedent for that even in the courts, to make an argument that we broke a minor law in order to try to protect someone's life. That's there's actually a whole legal argument to that, but it but there's also just our conscience and our faith, right? It causes us to do this, and it's not just about the folks getting arrested, the children, of course, so many others. There's a whole beautiful, it really is sort of a form of worship and kind of a form of liturgy to create this, um, especially during Holy Week, as we remember from Palm Sunday, you know, to the crucifixion and all that happened there. That's part of what we're remembering, but doing that in a way that really connects with what's going on in our world right now. So it's a worshipful time. And then some of us do go to jail with Jesus. So that's one of the ways that John Lewis, he talked about the good trouble, he said, that's why we can smile in our mugshots because we know that we're on the right side of history and we can be proud of what we do. I told the young people in my neighborhood, Diana, they saw that we went to jail on the news or something, and and I said, You can go to jail for doing something that's wrong, and you can also go to jail for doing something that's right. And there's a rich history from Jesus to Dr. King and millions, so many others that have their conscience has led them to do things that did land them in conflict with the authorities at times, but all of it's a part of a beautiful witness, you all, the anchored in love and joy and hopeful resistance. So join however feels like uh right to you.

SPEAKER_01

And it creates change. We know from Jesus to Martin Luther King to Gandhi to Mandela, we do know that when ordinary citizens have an extraordinary conscience and they are willing to voluntarily say this is not right, Gandhi had a thing where he said that it is our duty to not cooperate with an unjust law. And that's why he went to jail. So we even know during civil rights they arrested, I think it was like thousands of elementary school students, packed the jails, but they knew that they had to do something extraordinary to push back on the injustice of segregated schools, and they won. So I keep thinking in my head, like, what if we do something that creates the tension that says this is wrong because the future good is so good, and these lives are on the line. And if we do nothing, we know what will happen. Like, we know our history just continues to create more bombs and kill more people and create more conflicts. And I think there's a possibility of something better.

SPEAKER_02

And as you look at our country, I think some of us we are kind of ingrained with this mythology, or it's even sort of an ideology and a theology that America is sort of this messianic force in the world, and so we are to liberate uh all these countries, we're to stand against evil. And then you take a closer look, though, and you see that we're the only country that's ever actually dropped nuclear weapons on a population, and we did it twice in one week, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and these are hundred, a hundred thousand lives, and up to I mean it's countless because people died from the residual effects of that. So most think it's over 300,000 lives that were taken in those bombings that must grieve our hearts, you know, as we think about what's happening right now. And uh, you know, Dr. King, I think of him a lot right now. Um, this will be right before the day that Dr. King was killed, and also a year before that, that he gave his Riverside speech, where he spoke to many people's outrage uh against the war in Vietnam. And he he he said they must see us as strange liberators. And even though we do this under the guise of liberation, when you bomb a school with kids, when you are destroying so many lives and built bombing bridges and making it nearly impossible for people to live, displacing millions of people, that's not liberation in the the way that Jesus gives it. It's not it's no version of love um justifies the kind of things that we're seeing uh by our government right now. And and um so I think it's a it's an amazing time to be peacemakers, as Jesus said. Blessed are the peacemakers for that they're the children of God, so let's do our best to live into that. Lean in.

How To Join, Register, Or Stream

SPEAKER_01

We're we're leaning in and we're gonna wage peace. I was taught to wage war, so we just take all the things that we learned, but instead of waging war, which really doesn't get us anywhere, let's just put all that we have into waging peace. And that means we gotta show up again and again, and we're each gonna do something. So for people, put it on your calendar, Red Letter Christians, Waging Peace Project, and multiple others. We are all collaborating to create this moral witness on Good Friday. So mark your calendars, Shane. They should register with RLC. If you register, you'll start to get the informational email. So if you're like, I'm not totally sure what I want to do, or if I am comfortable with X, Y, or Z, just register so you can start to find out more.

SPEAKER_02

Yep.

SPEAKER_01

And we will both be there. Woo-woo. And your son Eli and your wife Katie Jo comes to uh cheer you on.

SPEAKER_02

Well, she uh shows up in in many ways, and Eli too will have ways that people, the young, the little people can put their fingerprints and handprints on things, hold candles, so we'll all be doing it together. And uh yeah, thanks. And we've gotta we've gotta think about this as a movement too, not just these isolated protests and events, but to build momentum, and that's what Red Letter Christians and Waging Peace are about, too, is training ourselves in nonviolence, is grounding ourselves in Jesus and in love so that we stand against violence consistently and we stand up for life and we show up when we're needed. So all these things are very connected. You know, what's happening with the violence in our communities and out there in Minnesota, like with ICE and the um the funding of war, the the dehumanizing of people, talking that talking about countries as assholes and just like the day the anytime we we speak of someone any less than a person made in the image of God, it's an insult to God because people are made, we are the image bearers of God. And so as as Dorothy Day said, we only love God as much as the person we love the least. So let's love, let's love big as big as God is.

Rapid Fire Hope And Farewell

SPEAKER_01

And as we're creating this movement, we are building connections, relationships, and practice. If we're ever gonna be good at something, we gotta have practice. So show up with us because we are gonna practice rooting ourselves in nonviolence, and we're gonna practice in singing resistance. So I'm bringing some of the songs that we use a lot in Minnesota and Minneapolis, and we are creating this ecosystem of life and of connection and of joy. Like when we sing together, it changes things. And I'm really excited. So whether or not you can come in person, we're also gonna offer people ways to connect. So I'll be sending out ways that you can make your own memorial rope, whether that is with your family as a way to observe Lent, or whether that's with your church or your community or your neighborhood. You do it where you're at. We're gonna do it in Philly, but we're gonna keep building this love-centered movement that has joy and continues to resist the violence that we see happening. So, Shane, as we wrap up, I always like to play a little game with people. So, this is a rapid fire. I'm gonna ask you three questions, and you can give one-word answers. So don't overthink it. Are you ready? All right. Question number one how do you play?

SPEAKER_02

Oh yeah. Wrestling right now.

SPEAKER_01

Wrestling.

SPEAKER_02

We do a lot of wrestling, me and Eli.

SPEAKER_01

He wins, doesn't he?

SPEAKER_02

Yes. Except yesterday.

SPEAKER_01

Number two, what's your superpower?

SPEAKER_02

Oh, the only superpower I know is love. Yeah, come on. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Last one, what is giving you hope right now?

SPEAKER_02

The sweet Lord Jesus, every day. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

You got it. So thank you so much for being my friend. Thank you for being one of these people that I get to practice showing up together. I'm like, yes, this is fun. This is what's worth giving our lives for.

SPEAKER_02

Hallelujah, amen. Good to be with you. Thanks for listening, everybody.

SPEAKER_01

See you in a week.

Head Shot

Diana K Oestreich

Host