All right. Let's get started. I'm just going to turn on our backup recording. Recording in progress. All right. Well, welcome everyone. Welcome to Brain Club. I will just introduce myself to begin. Mel Hauser. I use she they pronouns and I'm executive director here at all brains belong.  And before we get started, I just want to I know that there's many people joining from outside of Vermont today. And for those who are inside of Vermont and are impacted by this terrible flood I just want to sort of acknowledge acknowledge the heaviness of all of this and for for the stress that so many people are under and for all that all that many people have lost. I just wanted to to name that before, before anything. Hold on I'm having to, I'm having a technical difficulties related to user error. Next. Okay, great. All right. And thank you, Lizzie's posting in the chat for those who are local and need some resources from all public is put together some resources around emergency housing and locally in Montpelier. Another way is gathering food and clothing, and we'll try to share some other links as we as we go through. All right, I'm going to share screen. So tonight, we'll be discussing neurodivergent employment and health. This is brain club are very are for the past year and a half this is our education space for the collective all brains belong community for the purpose of educating the community around neurodiversity and everyday like brain life topics. So many of you have many different types of relationships with us we like to just like name, name the context of brain club this is an educational space. It's not a support group, and we're not able to give medical or mental health advice in this context, because, and just to name the thing of that. When, when, when people start processing trauma or other kinds of of issues that without wraparound support and ongoing medical and mental health care. It can be unsafe for that person.  All forms of participation are okay here. Many of you have figured out already you can have your video on or off and even if it's on we don't expect anything of you. We certainly don't expect you to look at a camera or anything so feel free to, you know, walk, move, fidget, stim, eat, take breaks. But do it, do whatever needs doing. And everyone is welcome here at brain club and all formats of communication are welcome so you can unmute and use mouth words you can type in the chat. We'll likely have a smaller group tonight, probably due to the circumstances. So, the, the, the, the selectivity of reading out the chat may not may not be so relevant as it is when it's a bigger group. The other piece of ground rule that I'll name is just that we affirm all aspects of identity and that we respect and protect the groups collective access needs what the group needs for full and meaningful participation. And safety is the most important thing to us so if there's anything that makes you feel uncomfortable for any reason during brain club. Lizzie per at our education programs coordinator Lizzie can you wave. If you're able to wave. It's totally fine for not. Amazing. Okay, so that's Lizzie. So you can send a private message to Lizzie who will be able to respond a lot a lot more quickly than I will, especially if I'm insured screen mode and not looking at the chat. All right. So, what last bit of ground rules, just giving just respect and give space for all participants. Yeah. And, and last bit of access needs so close captioning is enabled. You just need to toggle it on if you'd like to use it. So, depending on what version of zoom you have, either using the live transcript close captioning icon but if you don't see that one look for the more dot dot dot and choose show subtitles. You can do the same and choose hide subtitles if you'd like to turn them off. And if you're new to zoom, or just by way of refreshing the chat box on tonight tonight will be a community panel community member sharing their, their lived experiences related to employment. So it's a prerecorded panel. So we'll have the chat box going during the panel portion and we'll have plenty of time for discussion afterwards. So that is that speech bubble icon. That's the chat box. Okay, so tonight we're kicking off our new monthly theme around reimagining community. And we'll be looking at various aspects of community inclusion. Tonight we'll be talking about employment and the intersectional variables that that that that that come from issues around employment. Next week we'll have a special guest on one of the co authors of one of my favorite books, Parenting for social justice, Chrissy cologne brat will be here. And then our book chat for July is we're not broken by our Garcia. All right, we will start. What I would say is that for those especially for those who have not been to bring club before and or maybe maybe all brains belong is is new to you too. So we're an organization that is trying to make life better for neuro divergent people across the lifespan. And it was very clear to us when we launched a year and a half ago that to do anything for the neuro divergent community, we have to do everything. It would be it would have been, you know, okay to open a medical practice. That's one of the things that we do, but you have to change the world. So, in addition to educating the broader community around neuro inclusivity, we have employment support programs, and we help people access their education make friends. So because these are all part of health. And when we think about employment. There are a lot of people who do not have their access needs met by the defaults of society. You know, defaults of health care, you must pick up the phone to become a new patient, the defaults of the education system, you know you must sit in the chair you must sit still for eight hours. There are a lot of defaults of workplaces there are a lot of defaults at a lot of different workplaces right so so when we think about access, anything that someone needs for full participation. There are a lot of different types of access needs, and so therefore a lot of opportunities to be thwarted. And what happens often is that the person doesn't recognize that it's their access needs being thwarted. They internalize that there's something wrong or broken about themselves a lot of the time so one of the things that we do often a brain cloud shutter like unlearn that and break that down. So, when we think about neuro divergence and employment, the consequences of large numbers of neuro divergent people not having their access needs met in the workplace is that autistic adults are two and a half to eight times more likely to be unemployed or employed, and 75% least of ADHD years experience employment related challenges as well. What we know is that, you know in this we're always thinking about health as a community health organization, employment and health are inextricably linked. Unemployment increases the probability of developing a chronic health condition by 83%. So employment at any level has a huge impact on reducing mental distress and we could think about all of the reasons for that. The financial aspects of that the psychological impact of that. When we think about inclusion. We talk a lot here about all of the ways in which humans are marginalized and other and how, especially if you have many aspects of your identity that are marginalized and other. There's that intersectional impact of that marginalization. When we think about the intersectional experiences of being marginalized in employment. This becomes even more problematic. We looked at this graphic at our last brain club, looking at, and this comes from the Vermont Department of Health, looking at like how all of these things connect to health all of the social inequities, which you know interrelate with the institutional inequities which of course impact people's living conditions which going to zoom in and make it make it bigger. There we go. So there's just all of these things which impact health. And then when you also throw in. So here we are you know we're going to be when we, I'll get to class in a second but when we think about these social inequities which are going to have a huge impact on like that the the systemic barriers to all of these things that connect to health. And then we also work people's ability to access health care. We see a lot of problems. What we don't want is we don't want the square peg being hammered to fit into the round hole. And that is what happens so often for all kinds of people. So the book parenting for social justice and this is the book I referenced earlier we have one of the co authors is coming to present a brain club next week. Class is described as relative social hierarchical ranking. Another way of looking at that might be might be similar roles in the economic system, it might be cultural knowledge skills networks and all of these variables with all the other ways in which people are marginalized plays out. And so, you know in thinking about this as a combination of access to resources, your relationship to work. All of these many reasons that impact how much you feel like you belong and whether you have power, and there's so many power imbalances in any given situation. This is a quote from parenting for social justice so Jamie Lynn Castle describes what what economic oppression has has felt like for her. We were drowning in a river of stress, trying to swim through it and mostly failing. I'm in guilt that I carried with me, or how society viewed me simply because of my circumstances was extremely heavy. When I've been completely stressed out worrying financially, my brain just couldn't work efficiently, it took so much energy just to exist. And so with that, I'm going to introduce our community panel. It was really important to us here to have many different fields of employment, many different types of jobs represented in this community panel. So we have someone who works in food service construction, laws, social services, childcare, and all the many different types of employment status represented. Anyway, I all this this this background context just for like a lens to be thinking through as we watch this panel, I am going to stop share. I'm going to actually look at the chat. And I am going to open up our video. And one of the ways I that that that I support my motor planning differences is talking through all of the sequencing steps so don't mind me. Okay, here we go. Did I click the sound I don't remember someone do it again. I did. What have you seen in your workplace or in workplaces that you've worked in about how working conditions impact health. I work food service jobs. I'm a baker. So I've all of my jobs have been in kitchens. The things that I found that impact health conditions. The most are the practices in food service around. Scheduling, I don't know if you've ever heard the phrase in school. The bell doesn't release you I release you in you know early education or the pandemic hit or struggling. It was a field that was already really kind of hemorrhaging people it was really suffering. Here we were open 10 and a half hours every day for children. And so teachers were required to be here on either end of that too so like for an administrator, I would be here for at least 12 hours a day. But so we had, we kind of walked into that scenario and then worked to even just maintain it, you know, just to keep it keep the machine going. So it's like, I know it said nine on your sheet, but you're here until it's done. And because food service tends to pay less than a lot of fields. It can be very, very dangerous to try and set boundaries and situations like that so because we need it I mean these are human lives that we're taking care of so we need to be here. We're covering, we need the proper legal ratios of adults a child. So we could we were less flexible with people schedules, longer hours we had more kids we really kind of when we came in. We filled the rooms because that's like the business model of course like more kids equals more money coming in. So we had more kids in rooms larger group sizes and fewer teachers. It ended up being sort of we're just doing everything we can to survive. What have you seen in your workplace about how working conditions impact health. I mean I think it in terms it impacts health in terms of stressors and I think there's like, in a lot of ways there's a ton of them. There's like social stressors conflict conflict with co workers supervisors, those performance stressors understanding tasks and executing them. There's productivity stress. Can I meet the output and production expectations in the time that's allotted with the with energy that I can sustainably access. I'm working during preset hours with a schedule that's often set by somebody else at varying locations for varying durations, varying activities varying obligations so if I'm a person that has effect emotional or executive functioning or motor pattern, I'm working or attention or energy challenges or uns, unpredictable sleep patterns. All of that can make keeping track of schedules. Having the energy to follow schedules, being able to get to the right place at the right time with the right supplies and and perform consistently during the hours of obligation. My body clock and my energy very widely, along with my ability to plan and anticipate needs and concentrate and pay attention. I have a brain that means that I really really need to know what's going to happen before I go and do something. And it becomes extremely dysregulating for me and for a lot of other people who I've worked with when we can't have like even a ballpark of like how many hours we're going to be working what that shift is going to look like how many people are going to be there whether everyone else is going to show up because those are all common concerns in the field that I work in. And the uncertainty of that makes me dysregulated to an extent that it's like, okay, I said I could do these things and I could be responsible for these tasks. But you know, I am not fully present anymore so it's a lot less physically safe for me to be you know lifting the 50 pound bags of flour or operating the heavy machine. Trying to cut this thing super fast because my understanding of my body has gone from like 30% to 0% because it doesn't feel like I can. It doesn't feel my needs don't feel relevant to my safety and my environment anymore.  I'm just going to do it until it's done and I can be done being here. And so how to be a person in and who highly values autonomy, like, like a lot of us are, you know, that the PDA stuff persistent desire for autonomy so how do I how do I be in a workplace, and a person who consistently values autonomy, and needs to have someone else's way is better in order to really get myself to do it in an environment where basically unquestioning or minimally questioning compliance is expected. So something that I really struggle with is like, there's social cues and then there's the social cues of capitalism. And those are like you can't find out like once you find out like the motivation behind what someone is telling you. You have to do the like what is the hardest thing in the world to me and just accept that the answer is just because I'm like I need to know why something is happening why something does something and it's very very hard for me to be like it just is that way and you need to not think about it for a while. And part of that motivation that like drives all business is like not wanting people to know that they have to ask certain questions or have to advocate for themselves in certain ways, and certain jobs, making it much much more risky to have like try and enter into those negotiations. So I've been in situations where I'm being like dramatically underpaid, because I did not know that everyone else around me was getting like the salaries that they were getting from a place of like, I've been doing this that and the other that is beyond the job description I signed on for it is time for you to pay me more money because I am doing more labor for you. There's been times in that where, like, you know, it's my turn to talk or relate something or engage in the conversation. And I, I want to make a point I have a point to make.  So then I'm suddenly like in this loop where I'm like, well, you know, maybe what I have to say is not of interest, you know, and it's really just I think that I in that kind of environment. So there's a lot of pressure on getting to the point and letting the rest of the group engage and I certainly want to, to fit into that, trying to, I guess, you know, sort of navigate within that framework that is the framework that is mostly dictated by neuro typical people, right. Right. And so there's, there's also this element of, you know, the, the, the, a neuro inclusive space would, would involve a facilitator that like lays out ground rules about there's no right way to participate there's no right way to communicate and like explicitly naming that, you know, that's not what most groups do with kitchens have. But also, like, I'm transgender. And part of that was that I recently had, I like I experienced or experienced chest dysphoria. And so for a long time, I was binding my chest and that meant that like not only is it super dysregulating to work in more than eight hour day, but doing that results in like stabbing rib pains that may or may not you after surgery. So part of it was like, I had to have surgery, and that was a medical necessity for me, like regardless of how it impacted my mental health. And like accessing other forms of gender affirming healthcare were really, really imperative to me and that's not going to be the case for every trans person but like, I think that's definitely like a really important question as kitchens tend to attract multiply marginalized people because I've been in a lot of kitchens with other trans folks with other neurodivergent folks where it's like, okay, so these expectations are built around cis bodies and a one neuro type. And my body actually can't be here for 12 hours. I'm having heart palpitations. Yeah, so and then and then you add on top of that the personal life stressors that that can come up. And any of those things, one can have difficulty, I can have difficulty managing become dysregulated. So hyper focus means that I tend to get and stay distracted from work. Those are all stressors, and then, once I get like any of those stressors, you know that that can start to lead that that it goes unresolved can lead to really gets me into a vicious cycle of a dysregulation in my life. So I get, I get stressed out, I get anxious that which leads to mental and physical tension. I go into defensive behaviors, worry, self protective avoidance distraction. And there's this regulation, including sleep, which leads to less capacity for attention less capacity for motor skills and motor planning less executive functioning, which then can lead to more and bigger mistakes, hyper focus getting stuck on the wrong details and externalizing blame attacking perceived sources of threat, of which go over really well in a work environment, leading to more fit more negative feedback possible discipline job loss, bad reviews that limit my potential to advance and my potential for access to organizational power and privilege that could actually help me fix the problems that are affecting me. And then all that leads to more dysregulation, less resilience greater vulnerability to that tendency to hyper focus, which is consistent for a lot of us with ADHD and autism, and it's a superpower when it comes to focusing on job related tasks, but it's a liability if there's a stressor and that's troubling because then it becomes difficult to think about anything or do anything else until that stressor is resolved. And so, unless there's an ability to resolve, to resolve issues of concern, the hyper focus tends to tends to really get in the way of the things that that employers are looking for. So, when my needs aren't met, but me asking to have my needs met is going to be penalized. Remember, when I was working at a childcare center, my position was as a floater, which meant that I didn't know what was needed of me or expected of me or what my day was going to look like until I was there. I remember having a big conversation with my boss and being like, okay, this next year around, I can't handle this and I feel that my, my showing up here my attendance and being good employees being impacted when I don't know what's expected of me. So, it was a big wrong talk and then she like reformatted it that floaters would be assigned to specific rooms. So you would have at least know where you were going to be who you're going to be working with and everything and I was like, oh my gosh that's so amazing. I remember having, oh, and it like, oh man, it puts a little ache in in my chest. I remember feeling so like proud of that and everything and then walking by and hearing someone be like you mean I have to do the same thing every day.  Like, now that person is going to have to do the same thing every day and it's all my fault. I have a control over all of their feelings. So, so a couple of things that are standing out for me, listening to this part of your story. One is, it's a story of unmet access needs access needs being anything that someone needs for full meaningful participation. So you needed novelty you needed multiple different things in the day you need multiple locations you needed movement. You know, you need a variety like all of this and so that was unmet. Another thing I heard from your story was it's a story of interdependence like I think independence is so overly glorified. Autonomy is really important, but but but the idea that like you don't need other people interdependence being connected to relying on other people like, like how profoundly human is that. Anyway, that's I'm also that I'm also hearing that from your story, and that you know in the team that you're leading now that you are bringing this lens of whether you're using this term or not, you're thinking about access needs and how to help the people that you're using have met access needs and like, you know, I think there's a lot of small businesses that struggle with, like hiring good people and keeping people and like all the, all the lost revenue of turnover and all the things or any training person. Like when people have their access needs they are less likely to quit their jobs. For sure. Yeah, right exactly. It's just not a one size fits all not just because it was in childcare typically at that time I think like a revolving door staffing wise and people were really burning out. It was a recipe for burnout stress fatigue. We couldn't actually do our jobs I mean, yeah, I mean it ended up being sort of we're just doing everything we can to survive. What strategies have you found helpful to cope with unhealthy work environments. What I started to write these down it was sort of an off the cuff I started to kind of laugh, but and I sort of thought well I just being like, you know kind of off the cuff and sarcastic but actually think these are are actually these are actually the strategies they use, which kind of says like saving enough money to quit or take extended lease of absence. Getting health care professionals in my court so I can qualify for continued health insurance under the family medical leave absence or temporary permanent permanent disability when I do leave. I'm structuring my life simply enough that if I need to quit, I can get government benefits, structuring my income so I can earn just enough to afford rent and still qualify for food stamps heating oil and Medicaid. Researching ways to house myself if I end up homeless self employment to get to to get myself maximum freedom and independence. I think there's there's a lot of people who are in work situations that are not working for their brains. How did you come to start your business. I've been a corporate traditional architecture practice setting for almost 20 years I started working. I went to architecture night school for architecture successful but my own measure. I felt like I wasn't actually doing anything, and I had a really tough time sitting at a desk. And so, you know, so I, I, I looked for opportunities to basically get out of the office what bought a house and I started to do work on it. I would go into the office in the morning, and then say I well I got to go, you know, I can only put in half day to day and I'd leave and I had all my equipment set up and I climb out the bedroom window and put shingles up on the side of the house. And that was like super. It was just so fulfilling to me. I basically started the construction business. And the reason for that was, people would drive by the house when I was working on it and they'd stop and they'd be like I need somebody to reach out really shingle my house and, and so that's how I got into doing construction. So, so I'm completely self taught when it comes to like, you know, estimating and that whole side of I'm trained is is an architect so the design part of it is is very manageable but and and the practice has been through some ups and downs I changing careers. I mean, literally as my, I like, in my 30s, my mental capacity to really do the grind of law started to massively decrease and I just couldn't cognitively sustain 60 or 80 hour weeks were being massively on. And so I switched to sort of a mental health and then eventually more peer support, which, which drew a lot more on experiential and empathic capacities and I didn't have to be. It didn't have to use my problem solving abilities like, you know, 16 hours a day and that was much and that and that's been a much better path for me. I had a lot of pressure in a kind of business, you know, environment small business whatever to move things along get to the point, you know, set the table and let your my team delegate so so that's where it sometimes it gets in the way of not that I'm, I don't think that I'm, have learned to be pretty good about delegating, but sometimes it just takes me a long time to get there so I made the decision to myself that I needed a business partner that could sort of ground the business in the things that I didn't have, or that I couldn't bring to the table kind of worked through to figure out like what I need to prioritize in a job in the hiring process is I, if I can, if I can avoid it I won't take jobs where I can't wear headphones. And, because for me, music is my like number one self regulation technique. And it helps to block out the sound of air vents and convection ovens which is super overwhelming to me. So one of the questions that I always ask on like an interview or training days like okay how many other people are going to be in the kitchen with me. Will I need to be super alert to people like passing through the kitchen, can I bring headphones or earbuds in with me. I wouldn't be doing it if I didn't love it. A lot of people get siloed into food service as like a school of marginalization of like, we're going to shove you back here and underpay you where no one can see you for 20 years, but, um, you know, it's, it's cool that I get to like go to work every day and I know that what I'm, what I'm doing, like what I do is feed people. I make food for people to eat that makes them full or makes them happy or makes them frustrated and gives them something to complain about with the other people that they got breakfast with. Um, but like, I know that the job that I'm doing is necessary for like human beings and that it often adds extra joy to people's lives. And I know that when I leave the building my work is done. I'm not worried about like I missed something I'm not worried about like, is this take home work going to take me like the amount of time that I thought it would I like my time once I leave the building is mine. Um, what do you wish other employers knew about creating healthy workplace culture. Exactly. And so the pandemic actually was helpful in the sense for us that we reevaluated like we is this working for us, and we're able to reflect on some observations and say, actually that's not working for us and really be like wait a sec. What are we doing and why, and then, and that change based on what we want to be doing. And one of the things we wanted to be doing was less of a revolving door more retention in our staff because we know that consistency of care will also provide a better foundation for the children if it's the same teachers and those same colleagues working together. And we know people want to be here and so the question is, what do you need to be here, like what what is it that you need in order to be doing this job that you love or that you want to be doing. So before we connected with Mel and all brains belong before even knowing about the term access needs, we were sort of asking folks what their access needs were to be able to show up and feel good about the work that they were doing because people were kind of showing up but it wasn't feeling good, you know, and so to feel good in your work, and to show up was really important and it just was a lot of a lot of conversation individual conversations conversations as a whole, as a whole staff to determine sort of what we needed, and really making a difference for those voices to be heard. And so it wasn't that Vicki and I were saying, this is what people need, you know, as sort of part of the leadership team. It was really asking those people to tell us because we can make tons of assumptions but a lot of those tend to be inaccurate and so that was a really, I just want to end this is how important that piece was for us in the process. We learned that particularly to the pandemic, we learned that a lot of people didn't have a primary care doctor or didn't have health insurance, including some of the admin team, and so we became in a sense, especially Cecilia like resource coordinators and we would have on the clock, you know during the work week, we have we still do this we have time with people who need because you're working Monday through Friday but that's when everything's open and you have to make your phone calls. And so we have time for people to connect with one of us, usually Cecilia to like call Vermont Health Connect and figure out health insurance or to call the health advocates or to call and have the emergency housing, find a therapist, access to food, access to food, yeah so those kinds of things where we just had to learn more about people's individual struggles and individual situations and also then the collective needs of like what are the barriers to doing the work that we want to do. And we really want to go against the rhetoric that like everything should be done in isolation by yourself and so that's also a way that we open that up to say, but do this together because, you know, health insurance for example doesn't make sense to a lot of us so if we can work together and support each other that feels better for everyone.  So when I'm starting work is good leaders offer opportunity for growth but as importantly they also understand unique needs of the people they are leading.  There's a lot of trade partners subcontractors materials suppliers and stuff like that and it is so we are so dependent, you know, and, and we, we try to have, we try to have a framework of expectation for certain things because you know it can't be just the total free for all, but at the same time like there's like our, our plaster that does almost all the board and plaster on our jobs. He's a single dad. He, he manages, you know, the all the business financial end of his business. He's got a couple of staff. He also stocks like the job sites every his job sites every morning you know. So, so we know, I know just over the years that we're not likely to get a quote, but we've talked and we know enough that we know what his pricing is.   Like, you're seeing that and think about so many people are not giving a character like that the right time of day. Yeah, for sure. I think. And the challenge. It hasn't been easy to stay in business. Because, because it takes time. That's not necessarily. And that that kind of investment is not what our system is set up to reward by, you know, making, making enough money to keep the doors open. Right, especially when you've got you know so see, as you've described you need a team and interdependent team to run the business. And then when you're responsible for the livelihoods of other people minutes. I feel it too it's just a lot of pressure. It is a lot of pressure. Yeah. Yeah.  Yeah, you that that interdependence is, it's all about community. Which other employers knew about creating a healthy workplace culture. Um, that it's not enough to fix problems as they come up you have to think about the people who are working for you the people who might work for you the things you might not know about the people who are working for you. And whether or not there is already space for them to work comfortably and healthily in that environment. Um, and I think that like. That is something that's like really under considered and that like a lot of the time that leaves room for people to create ableist and classes practices on and couch them in language of non discrimination. Um, and that if you really think about like, okay, could this kind of person who experiences these kinds of marginalization walk in here and feel like they could commit to this job. And like, would they be able to do it would they be able to account for their safety and their health, would they feel comfortable knowing that they would not be fired for being trans or for being a person of color and have it like couched in some other terminology to make sure that this place is not only safe but like has space built in for people who are not like the normative sys head white man model that we built the 40 hour work week around on. And that like, if you aren't seeing a group or several groups of people represented in your workplace, that is because you made it a space that they could not show up to you either like are advertising for employment in the wrong channels or offering enough money you are letting your employees say micro aggressive ignorant stuff that they don't know about you are expecting your employees to be able to do things with their bodies on that they don't necessarily have to do. I really think we need to reimagine work. I mean I just, I think it's bigger than just. I mean I think certainly think that there's ways that employers can be sensitive to a variety of stressors and sort of, you know, do this universal design thing, but it still doesn't get away from the power imbalance. Like having employers who are like kind of like preemptively thinking about like, how are my employees how are my coworkers moving around this space and like having coworkers who were like, Okay, I've got a little bit of positional power here how can I use this to make my co workers lives when I know it would be heard better coming from me. And that's something that like having had people do that for me is like really important to me is like if I see a co worker at my job being treated unfairly or like see something in like the kitchen get like that tends to get them bent out of shape, knowing that like as a man oftentimes people are more willing to listen to me than like my femme and woman counterparts being able to be like, Hey, I've noticed that like we could really fix that problem a like a lot of people work in areas that tend toward exploitation and dehumanization on and some of those folks are like, I'm just doing this until like, I make it in a creative field I'm just doing this until I am finished with this certification that's going to let me do this because I really care about. And some people are like, I've been forced to do this because of racism because of classism and discrimination and hiring practices, so on and so forth. And some of us are there because we want to be. And because we think that it's important that people do those jobs and that whether you are working a job that tends towards exploitation and dehumanization, or you and your day to day life are like other people working those jobs, whether it's buying your coffee at a coffee shop that a barista makes, or like, go into the grocery store where someone is stocking the shelves. Those are jobs that like are inherently like full of dignity, like that work matters on a fundamental level, and is important, and is noble, and like, even if you want to do it being treated poorly doing those kinds of jobs can really weigh on you and like, it's important that you're doing that work, whether you continue to do it or not it's, you should be proud of it. Do you have any advice for other employers that might be wanting to be more aware of this kind of thing, prioritize humans and not profit. Yeah, that's exactly right it's about respect for humans. And to make it's not, it's not easy but it's kind of simple. And, you know, you can't have a healthy workplace environment, where we're spending all of these waking hours, if you're not thinking about those workers who are there. And really recognizing that humans deserve to feel belonging and deserve to feel a place where they're part of something and in fact we thrive off of that sort of social collaboration and I think for a long time, a lot of us have been socialized before to sort of silo isolate, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, and that's something we really want to break down and try to rebuild in a different way where we're utilizing one another as supports. And this is all really important for us to be transparent about because we're teaching the children they're they're watching our every move. And it's important to us at Turtle Island that children are going into the world, you know with ideas about respect and kindness for humans and understanding that other human has a place and has feelings and emotions you know and perspective. And if we're asking kids to do that then we better be doing it ourselves. So there we have it, I just want to put up one more slide, just to thank our panelists. So, we are so grateful to Sarah Knudson, Nathaniel May, Cecilia Puglio, Theo wrote us and Vicki Senni for sharing sharing their experiences with us. And I think what what what we heard from so many people in the chat all along was that there were so many things that resonated with so many people here. And I would love to to hear any other on any any it's what's standing out for for any of you who would like to share. And then that guy back to be all workplaces are different. But then when the near typical like someone in our level capacity goes in there. It's going to be a challenge for us how do we fit into that environment. How do we fit into within the colleagues, you know, the colleagues that might be there. Every learning care. Yeah, and I think that it is really when when someone is in a situation where the environment is the people in it, like, don't get it. And there is. It's, you can't make people do the work. And I think that it's it's it's like, you know, neurodivergence is like, it's only it's it's it's I mean, and I would I would say that, you know, when like when we do trainings for employers, we're not like, here's how you're inclusive of the autistic people or the ADHD years like we're just like this is how you structure neuro inclusive environments. This is how you build environments for people with all types of brains to thrive. It's not like doing something special.  Um, you know, right so so and so so so to be able to say like what we do it this way this is the default but like we're happy to do something special on the side like that's not that's not going to Anyway, and I think that I said this in this this video we just watched about like think about how many people are putting their jobs and how many people like just just like the turnover and new employers who are having a hard time filling positions and keeping people in positions like turns out like this benefits everybody universal design benefits everybody. Well, for even for someone like me my level of capacity I actually work within the, um, I actually opened up the zoom groups for the turn of the system here in Australia. And I never thought at some of my level of capacity. It's not a long thing, but then we used to worry about one more colleagues have to go away overseas. And I actually got they let me into open up the room and everything and sit with people who shared their stories and I never thought I could even say the word colleagues in my life because I've never really made it work. I just had my birthday on the weekend and like, even after my age of 2049, I thought I'd never able to say that word colleagues. But now I can because these these people that they're down in New South Wales and stuff, they accept from they accept me for me where some other organizations still see this as a some form of defect or I'm not up to speed or something.  This is me. This is what we get. Yes, I'm out of brain damage and more and autistic, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, I'm hearing a pain, but hey, this is me. This is what we get. Why can't we all accept each other for who they are. And so we can get along with along within within within the community and society no matter where we live. I can't think of a more perfect way to wrap up this brain club. Thank you, Tanya. Because really, that's what this is about.   Isn't that the point? Oh, yeah. Yes, it does. It took so long for me to get there. And there is still hope for people, even though they feel down and I thought there's nothing's happening for them. But hey, I keep, I keep chipping away. It doesn't matter what you do. It doesn't matter what you just keep chipping away. You just never know something will be around the corner. Right.  You're going to yet another toxic environment. You're like, oh yeah, that's how I feel like around groups. It's like, no, that's how you feel in groups that are not inclusive. Right. So, so you have like you, you, you don't know what safe feels and if you've never felt it before and then like the ideas that you know, yeah, it's chipping away but it's like more than that it's more like you have to be able to discern safe from not safe because you have to have something to compare it to. So anyway, all, all, all, all part of reimagining community. Thank you all so much and I hope you'll join us next week. And as I said earlier, we're going to be joined by guest presenter, Chrissy cologne brat, who's a co author of a Vermonter who's a co author of the book Parenting for Justice. And I'll say good morning. Good day because it's not I am here Australia. So you'll have a lovely evening over in your neck of the woods to any good. Thanks everyone. Bye.


We're in James chapter five. We're going to look this morning at verses one through six as we continue our series through the book of James And I'm going to begin this study as I have recently especially as we've looked at some very tough things I'm going to begin by simply introducing it by by by saying that this is a very powerful piercing word it isn't a A Message that has a lot of Apparent kindness so there's an awful lot of mercy and kindness in his words But as we read it James was being very direct and he was speaking to the unregenerate rich And he was speaking concerning what is going to take place in their future because these are people who were Neglecting the things that they had been taught in scripture and we're treating those who were poor in a way that simply was not to be tolerated and so we're going to look at that and Again, I'm going to lay a foundation I'm going to take some time to lay it and then I'm going to build on it And I always come to the conclusion hoping to be able to tie it together with some application So beginning at verse one reading to verse six James chapter five James writes Come now you rich weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you Your riches are corrupted your garments are moth eaten Your gold and silver are corroded and their corrosion will be a witness against you and will he and will eat your flesh like fire You have heaped up treasure in the last days Indeed the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields which you kept back by fraud cry out and the cries of the Reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaat you have lived in the earth in pleasure and Luxury you have fattened your hearts as in the day of slaughter you have condemned You have murdered the just he does not resist you isn't that sweet? Those are strong words Those are very strong words and so I want to spend some time laying some foundations So we can get a context to see as to who he is speaking to Now in the first six verses of chapter five James is basically going to give to us what we would call two basic themes or two aims He has two aims in giving to us these words that he's presenting the first thing The first aim that he has is to show the ultimate worthlessness of accumulating earthly wealth So he wants to reveal that doing that Accumulating earthly wealth really has no eternal value and then the second thing is to reveal the character of those who trust in riches Now today, there's a consistent condemnation of those who are wealthy It's common for many to automatically consider wealthy people to be evil people and there are those and I've heard this Perhaps you have to who may say well the Bible says that money is the root of all evil Well, in fact, the Bible does not say that in first Timothy chapter 6 verse 10 This is what the Bible says it says for the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil For which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness and pierced themselves through with many sorrows It isn't money in and of itself in other words It's the love of money the Bible doesn't condemn wealth what the Bible does condemn is strained from God out of greed and the reason greed is condemned is because you cannot serve two masters in Matthew 6 24 Jesus said it like this. He said no one can serve two masters either will hate the one and love the other or He will be devoted to the one and despise the other you cannot serve both God and money and so The reason that James is laying this out and the reason scripture speaks about the love of money being the root of all kinds of evil is because you can't serve both God and Financial wealth What the Lord wants for us is contentment that we would be contented with what we have The God who knows all things knows what we have need of and he's promised to provide for us our daily bread And and he desires us to live for him and not just for ourselves, and he has promised he will Provide for us Philippians 419 says my God shall supply all your need He doesn't say my God shall supply all your greed He says my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus So we're supposed to pursue the things that matter because we know that material things do not eternally Satisfy we might go after something and desire to obtain it and we finally have it But once we have it there's this desire again for something different something new something more modern or up to date We know that according to 1st Timothy chapter 6 verses 6 through 8 Godliness with contentment is great gain and Paul said we brought nothing into this world And it's certain we can carry nothing out and having food and clothing with these we shall be content When you read the book of Job in the Old Testament chapter 1 verse 21 Job said it like this Job said naked I came from my mother's womb and naked shall I return there the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away Blessed be the name of the Lord I came into this world naked and that's the way I return It's popular today to condemn those though who do possess wealth And it would seem obvious that this kind of hatred is very selective Normally the wealth that is considered evil is related to what has been popularly called corporate greed We've all heard that term and much of the anger is directed at what has been now called the one percenters and that one percent speaks of the top tier of the top one percent wage earners in the United States and That number changes, but the one percenter number represents basically those with incomes averaging around $475,000 a year What I find interesting about all the selected selected hatred and all of this money is evil is It's usually Based on whether or not the person who is rich is liked by people It's really more of a popularity Contest as I see it because much of the negative that we read about is based on likes and dislikes of the person who is wealthy So it's very personal. I never hear for example negative things. Maybe you have I haven't I Never hear negative things about how wealthy Jeff Bezos is Jeff Bezos is the founder of Amazon and a variety of other corporations that I never hear anything about him Do you I don't I never hear him anybody say all that Jeff Bezos. He's really a monster. He's just too rich I just don't hear that and I was looking to see how much money he has in case he might want to send me some and But his his his amount kind of is it varies he recently had a divorce and quite a number of Quite a bit of money went to his his ex-wife over 30 40 billion dollars at all So he now has he only has a hundred and seventy billion dollars. I Feel I feel for that man my heart breaks. So a Hundred and seventy billion dollars, but okay, what does that mean and to me? I didn't mean anything a number is a number when you start looking at anything over a million I have no way to fathom that how much is a hundred and seventy billion who knows I don't know But I did this I like to I like to find ways to try and get my mind around numbers and things when I can't and so I Looked into Almighty Google and I said at the rate of spending one dollar a second How long would it take me to spend a hundred and seventy billion? Dollars how long at one dollar per second just to give you an idea and It comes out over two thousand years Over two thousand years if you spent a dollar a second it would take you over two thousand years to spend a hundred and seventy billion and That's not even counting how his money Multiplies every day how it's increasing every day So 170 is where you begin but today because of interest in other gains that he has he's got more He's got more he's got more in other words He would never be able to spend every single dollar he has if you live two thousand years So that's an awful lot of money, but do you ever hear anybody say that evil Jeff Bezos? No, you don't how about with our athletics our athletes, you know, I was looking into that And I was thinking what kind of money do our athletes make and so Bryce Harper signed a 13-year contract for 330 million dollars to play baseball and That included a 20 million dollar signing bonus. Nobody said anything about it Nobody said Bryce Harper is making too much money, you know, Paul McCartney. That's a blast from the past But Paul McCartney Former Beatle and still out there on the road his net worth is one point two billion dollars Nobody calls them out and says oh, you're evil because you have money even comedians like Jerry Seinfeld Jerry Seinfeld is his net worth is eight hundred and twenty million dollars and the Oprah Oprah Winfrey Oprah Winfrey her net worth is four point two billion dollars think about that and Then think when is the last time you heard them called out for being greedy? You don't but why don't you because we don't mind people who entertain us being rich We don't mind that Amusement for us is valuable and so if Bryce Harper can do what he does or Oprah does what she does We simply say well, they're earning their wages. It's okay It's the corporations that America seems to have such problems with the corporations that provide so many jobs and so many services And so it's real selective. That's a point I'm making People don't call these entertainers greedy because they like to be entertained by them So outrage is selective. It's motivated by personal philosophies more than economics But the question has to be asked are the financially rich more evil than those who are poor? And the answer is the bible has much to say concerning personal financial wealth You see in the bible the possession of wealth is not said to be sinful in and of itself Scripture actually points out that financial riches can be gained in acceptable ways in other words God doesn't have a hatred for those who are rich because riches can be gained in in a proper way Financial riches can be a gift from god the bible says Ecclesiastes 519 says moreover when god gives any man wealth and possessions and enables him to enjoy them To accept his lot and be happy in his work. This is a gift of god Financial prosperity can be the result of simple diligent hard work both physical or creative In proverbs 10 verse 4 lazy hands make a man poor but diligent hands bring wealth Riches can be inherited proverbs 13 22 a good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children But the wealth of the sinner is stored up for the righteous Riches can be the result of wisely investing in the kingdom of god That's what jesus referred to as of storing up your treasure in 2nd crinthians 9 6 through 8 Paul said it like this He said remember this whoever so sparingly will also reap sparingly and whoever sows generously will also reap generously Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give not reluctantly or under compulsion for god loves a cheerful giver And god is able to make all grace abound to you so that in all things at all times Having all that you need you will abound in every good work He went on in the same chapter in verse 11 to say you'll be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion And through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to god When you read your bible you'll see in the old as well as the near that there are various individuals that are spoken of As being very rich you have you have joe. You have abraham. You have isaac. Jacob. You have joseph You have moses and king david salomon daniel. You have nehemiah all of them in the old testament Had great wealth In the new testament you have men like zakias or joseph of eramathias or nicodemus. You have martha and you have philemon All of them were wealthy not one of them was condemned for their wealth So wealth is not sinful in itself You see god gives power to obtain riches to some warning them that they should remember him Because it's easy to forget god when you're wealthy you become self sufficient In deuteronomy 18 god said you shall remember the lord your god for it is he who gives you power to get wealth Then he may establish his covenant which he swore to your fathers as it is this day and so wealth Is it can be the source of of blessing but it also can be a source of of temptation One of the chief temptations is the temptation to cease depending on the lord to forget him It's because of this temptation that so many warnings are given in scripture The self-seeking pursuit of wealth is really a dangerous ambition Proverbs 23 4 and 5 says it like this do not wear yourself out to get rich Have the wisdom to show restraint Cast but a glance at riches And they're gone for they will surely sprout wings and fly off to the sky like an eagle So there are a lot of warnings You see it can be a trap to be wealthy Because it can convince you that this world is all that there is And that's why god says don't trust in riches With wealth comes a variety of effects When you're wealthy you can become proud Proverbs 28 11 says a rich man is wise in his own conceit Wealth can give a false sense of security For simothy 6 17 Charge those who are wealthiest who he's speaking to charge them who are rich in this world that they may not be High-minded nor trust in uncertain riches But in the living god who gives us richly all things to enjoy great wealth can stimulate greed It provokes a desire for more Proverbs 27 20 hell and destruction are never full. So the eyes of man are never satisfied The rich man is asked how much is enough and his answer is a little bit more And wealth can warp your entire life's priorities That's why in luke 12 15. Jesus said watch out be on your guard against all kinds of greed A man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions Again wealth in and of itself is an evil Much good is done when god's people use their finances wisely We're stewards what we have we've received from god and we use it for his glory In 1st Corinthians 4 7 paul said who makes you differ from another and what do you have that you did not receive Now if you did indeed receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it? so When you have finances you can use it for the glory of god You can support missions You can support outreaches Buildings can be built land can be purchased Equipment can be bought Church staff can be added those in need can be cared for And so it's not the wealth in and of itself. It's the use of it It's the greediness that james is speaking about here in this passage And that's what we're going to be looking at as we go through james chapter 5 verses 1 through 6 And so james desires to prevent his readers from placing their hopes on earthly things notice what he says again james 5 verse 1 Come now You rich and weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you burst out sobbing literally shriek in grief Your miseries are coming upon you Now he's speaking to the unregenerate rich He's saying you're ready for the coming judgment you're primed for it And you're not even aware that judgment will come because your eyes are on gaining riches And he's saying the unbelieving rich are in danger of judgment because of their pride their fraudulent dealings their riotous living and their cruelty to the poor And so as he's speaking here at first glance it may it may feel like he's being cruel to them But in fact what he's doing is he's urging them to repent Beginning in Judea the romans were going to bring misery and pain to the jews They were gonna They were going to be losing everything when you go to israel And you get to go to certain sites and you see things the ruins of that that at one time were beautiful houses or whatever That were burned down And you know the history of israel a bit and you know that in 70 ad titus of rom came in and and just torched the city and things were lost Well, these events were going to be taking place in the lifetime of many of these rich And that's what he's saying there. He's saying your miseries are coming upon you. They're not even prepared.  This is again a very strong word to them He's saying you're heaping up that what you're going to lose Now it's interesting when you read those verses you might note this That these verses refer to the three main sources of wealth at that time grain garments and gold And he's pointing out that all of these are subject to decay all of them are subject to corruption and loss You're hoarding of things that will not last which is running the opposite of what jesus taught his disciples to be careful to store up In matthew 6 19 and 20 jesus said it like this He said lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth where moth and rust does corrupt where thieves break through and steal Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust does corrupt and where thieves do not break through nor steal He says in verse 33 of matthew 6 seek first the kingdom of god and his righteousness And all these things shall be added to you And so that's the opposite jesus says don't heap up these things store treasures in heaven But the rich were busy hoarding for themselves and james is warning them He says your miseries are coming upon you. You're going to suffer hardship. You're going to suffer suffer trouble You're going to have calamity Notice verse 4 he says indeed the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields Which you kept back by fraud cry out and the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the lord of sabbat The the lord of sabbat sabbat means the lord of host The the lord of the armies of heaven. That's who he's referring to So what's happening? Well, he says in verse 4 the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields While you've been keeping back their their wages They're not paying their workers in order to live in more personal luxury In other words a worker is working. He should be getting a certain amount But the employer the rich man is not giving him money because he wants to spend that money on himself So he's keeping back his wages And that's violating god's word God's word is clear concerning paying promptly not taking advantage of workers Because you see in withholding their pay they're violating the law of moses in leviticus 1913 the scripture says Do not hold back the wages of a hard man overnight In deuteronomy 24 14 and 15 Do not take advantage of a hard man who is poor and needy Whether he is a brother israelite or an alien living in one of your towns Pay him his wages each day before sunset because he's poor and is counting on it Otherwise he may cry to the lord against you and you will be guilty of sin Now many of these poor were humble day laborers They were generally unskilled They were living just above the poverty level But because they were unskilled they were also very often underpaid and treated unfairly And so verse 4 says the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the lord of hosts The lord of hosts is seated on his throne. He's saying he's preparing to judge you for for your wrong And psalm 72 12 he will deliver the needy who cry out the afflicted who have no one to help You're living in a way that is only Produced in you More to be guilty of and these people who are working for you.  And then when the time comes for them to be paid for their honest work that they did Then that guy says no, I'm not going to give you I don't like it I don't like how you did it or I'm not giving you that much Because I just don't think it was what I was expecting whatever and what they end up doing is They end up either short changing them or not paying them and then they'll say, you know what? You know, nothing you can do about it And that's the attitude that that we have we still have today that we had even back 2000 years ago And the law was very clear that if a man does an honest days labor You pay him promptly because he's relying on that But these people who are poor who are getting ripped off begin to cry and the crying out to the Lord and he's saying God hears In verse 5 he says you've lived in the earth in pleasure and luxury You have fattened your hearts as in the day of slaughter You've lived on the earth in pleasure You've been feeding yourself without fear. You've been pampering your own flesh When others you could help are suffering You make sure to take care of yourself Now here's something to think about People who are not poor Can have a difficult time having compassion on those who are The Lord began to teach me this many many years ago many years ago. There's so many things I could share with you I had an aunt Who was an alcoholic and an uncle an alcoholic And during the weekends very often when I was a little boy my mom and dad would pack my brother and me and My baby sisters into the car and we would drive to their home where they lived and My mom and dad would go into their home on Saturdays and clean their house Because my aunt who was extremely dear to me she came to know christ in her latter days and went to heaven when she died and so did her her husband my uncle louis but uh I can still remember as a kid My mom packing us into the car and off we'd go and we'd go to the house. There's a small little home there totally unkempt because my My my aunt would drink during the week. She was always drunk House is always a mess Lots of children running around My mom and dad and we would go so I started seeing that kind of spirit of charity very early in my life And and my mom was one of these very compassionate women Uh, we used to say mama you like to pick up the strays and the way we meant that was when you see somebody hurting My mom was very generous towards them and very kind towards them. She had a heart for them And so I saw that from a very early age And I've also seen the the hardened hearts The the the hearts of somebody who says well, you know clean yourself up and get a job and this and that And in ministry when I began our church was maybe a few years old at the most I remember somebody who would infrequently come to a bible study here and and I can remember How he would walk up and speak to me afterwards and then Walk away and then I wouldn't see him for a while and then one day I went to our church office and and we were in uh, ontario on maple street at that time and And as I pulled in this guy came on his bicycle and pulled next to me and wanted to talk and He walked in my office. I brought him in the office and we began to talk and And to be honest with you his body odor he hadn't bathed in I don't know how long Was so bad. It was so bad He was so dirty and so smelly that when he left my office I have to be real. I had to open the windows and and aired it out It was he was just really really a mess, you know And I was talking to one of my friends another pastor and I said, you know, he needs to get a job And my friend said something I've never forgotten. He said, yeah, if you can keep it And I started thinking, you know, I've been I judged him. I judged this guy. This guy's mental Abilities are really not there. I don't know if he could work. I don't know if he could hold a job He doesn't even bathe himself let alone clean himself and that's when I began to think in terms of You know, we have to have compassion We have to have concern We have to have hearts that don't don't grow callous You see because that's easy to do and and somebody who's who's doing fairly well Or at least you have, you know, clean clothes in a home that you live in and and a bed you can sleep on Sometimes we forget those kinds of things You see, james is dealing with this now. Remember in this in this letter james has already addressed the sin of Preferring the rich over the poor. He already said in james 2 verse 9 You show partiality and when you do it you commit sin and you're convicted by the law as transgressors They were already showing priority to those who had money over those who were poor And he's addressing this the second time and he's making it very clear how wrong this is and he's speaking to them And he's saying to them certain things that I think are interesting for example in verse 5 He says you have fattened your hearts as in the day of slaughter When he says you fatten your hearts It's a way of saying your hearts are no longer capable of feeling By taking advantage of the poor you've made yourself callous to their pain And you're becoming fat off of the sacrifice of other people And this has repercussions In proverbs 21 verse 13 the bible says whoever shuts his ears to the cry of the poor will also cry himself and not be heard so We want as a fellowship to always keep our hearts open to those in need And I was thinking about this and I thought I'd share a few things with you that you might find interesting because To me it's a blessing and I want to share with you But this church's fellowship has been going a long time and we've had opportunity Over the years to be of help to some as a matter of fact We've been a help to quite a number of people over the years And I was thinking about some of the things that that have happened here all the way back for example in 2004 In 2004 our church ministered to those who were devastated by that by that tsunami that that hit there In asia and some of us are may remember that and when that tsunami hit It devastated tremendous areas and we heard about it and and I I came out on a sunday morning and I said to the church I said i'm not receiving an offering. I'm not doing that But I am saying this The devastation is is is all over the news and as a church Let's do something to be of help and if you'd like to be of help You can put in the agape box is what I said you can put in the agape box an offering And we will get whatever the finances are that come in and we will get it to them We don't take a penny We don't take a penny of that If ever we have something come in and it's designated for something like that, of course every nickel every penny We don't have operational costs. We don't have anything But I said that I said every penny will go and and that that weekend This is amazing that weekend to the next week 167 thousand dollars were donated by this church 167 thousand dollars And that Take into consideration inflation and adjust it over 15 years ago And you'll see how generous this church has been to those in need Absolutely, and then there was that time that we had uh katrina When katrina hit I did the same thing which was a year later 2005 I came out and said we want to be of help you see with the with the tsunami in the east We actually I went there with the team We went to a puquette, thailand And I went and I reviewed all of the devastation came back sent a work team over And that work team went and helped to build a chapel in puquette a calvi chapel We had teams that went worked and then the next year with katrina when that hit We bought we bought a big old truck is in the parking like and still see it It's still here. It's by the house over here And um we bought that truck and we loaded it with things because I told the church I said we need to be of help and that time we saw 70 000 dollars come in in a week And we went out and we helped the victims of katrina. We've done that yearly yearly for all these years we we send gifts to to children in mexico cali I I have a picture. I think of of what we did. I asked if they put that up if they don't they're fired But we had yeah, and now that's not the right picture there. That's something else I'll share with you in a minute about that Forget it. Um, I'll I'll just go but this is out of order with what we had is we had 475 gifts that were donated by you And actually 485 that were taken to mexico cali for the kids for their christmas And some of those kids you may or may not know this perhaps you don't let me tell you Some of those children don't have any shoes These are poor babies. We're talking about little children. They don't have any shoes And so you'll see them sometimes they'll have two different shoes, you know, maybe a black maybe a tennis shoe One's a certain size the other smaller. That's what they have And so we have pictures of babies receiving a pair of shoes a pair of tennis shoes Brand new shoes for them and their little faces and their smiles or or giving them dolls or giving them You name it and you guys you guys do that You gave that and we love you guys for it and those babies are receiving because that's what god has has called us as a church to do We we had our prison ministry dinner that's taking place And and there were 16 prisons represented by wardens or officials of the prison that were just here That were celebrating with your prison ministry team here because they go in to the prisons and they minister to the prisoners And and we have the angel tree Kind of thing where where gifts that you donated over 200 gifts were given to children of prisoners Just this just within this last week god does that we have those things we help provide for families in need Here in newman elementary just down the road. We helped them just recently in christmas These kids didn't have things you guys gave to them We have ongoing weekly ministry to the poor and needy and pomona because the scripture teaches us to do that Churches are more than just groups of people who come and have a hallelujah huddle and then go home Churches are are made up of people who care Who who care about the lost who care about those who don't have care about those things that that's that's the body of price There was a there was a A book written i have it in my library somewhere where a liberal i'll call him liberal because he declared himself as a liberal That's his words for himself. He says i'm a liberal He said and i've always had it. He said i had in my my own heart my own mind He said i had a prejudice against conservative christians He said because i think that that conservative christians don't do as much good as those who are not christian He said and so he went about as an experiment He went about to to validate his thesis that that the liberals are just as or even more generous than conservative christians and all and so what he did was very simple he he He uh looked at giving as in the salvation army the amounts of money that came into the salvation army buckets From san francisco and then he looked for a city in the united states in the midwest That was basically equal or equivalent in population size and the midwest has looked at as being like a bible belt And so i believe and i may be wrong about the the city It's been a number of years since i read the the book, but i believe it was in demoine iowa I believe that that was the city that he used to compare with the giving in san francisco And what he did is he simply wanted to find out how much money came into the buckets in san francisco versus How much came into demoins and then he wanted to compare it and show that it was at least equal But he believed that the san franciscans would give more because this in san francisco The city of love and this and that and was he ever surprised when he discovered that the demoine christians out gave by a By several several times the amount that came in in san francisco now He's wondering about his thesis what's wrong here So he interviewed people and he discovered what it is and the discovery was interesting in enlightening Because the those whom he referred to as the liberals in san francisco They when he asked how come you're not giving to the salvation army They said we already give to the poor we do that in our taxes But when he spoke to the christian conservatives in this other city They said it's our responsibility to not only pay taxes we render honor to caesar We already pay our taxes, but we also are obligated to help those in need That came from the teachings of jesus christ You see so christians are much more many times more Generous than those who are not believers It's documentable and it's true and it comes from scripture to love your neighbor as yourself And if you love your god and you see a brother in need and you harden your heart john says How does the love of god dwell within you? He says you cannot say i love you brother and curse that guy at the same time He says because that means you don't know what love is so the believer Actually knows what love is why because god so loved us that he gave to us eternal life And he said care for those who are in need and that's what james is talking about Care for those in need care for them because they have great need and he's saying you who are unregenerate You who don't know god you're too busy accumulating things for yourself And even when your laborer is crying out because he's hungry you make sure you're fed first Before you care about him it reminds me of the rich man and lazarus where lazarus is at the gate there Begging for scraps from the rich man's table and the rich man the bible says he fared sumptuously every day He had banquets every day And and all lazarus wanted was just some of the scraps And that's how it works the rich don't know god and the poor have faith and trust in god for our daily bread And he's speaking to the rich here and he's saying you don't care But their cries have reached the ear of god himself the righteous Well notice verse 6 it says you have condemned You have murdered the just And he doesn't resist you The righteous are being persecuted and oppressed by the rich Their death was a consequence of being dragged before judgment seat We're having no influence no one to plead their cause They were condemned and they were executed it says in verse 6.  I shared this on Wednesday night, but I can repeat it here. None of you were there, but anyway On Wednesday night We had all the gifts behind us Almost all the gifts behind us and I wanted the people to see that I wanted them to see the picture of what were we were able to do 485 packages That we're going to be giving in the name of christ through the love of this church And I was sharing with them And I'll I'll share with you this and I'm about to conclude so I'll share with this Last story And our church was very young We used to meet in a place in ontario called central school And uh I went to do a sunday morning And I had had a dream That I awakened on a sunday morning and then I went to teach I had had a dream that uh That morning That I shared with the church and I said, you know, the lord used that to speak to my heart to spark something in me because In the dream I was in kind of a wasteland and And there was a lot of dirt. There was no grass and there were broken down Shacks that people were living in and and I remember I was walking and I came up to to there was a pipe with a faucet and You could turn the the knob off and on and the water would come out of the spout and all And I was just there in the middle of this dry land And I remember there was a little girl who was four years about four years old Who was there next to the water? Spigot and and she was sitting there in raggedy dirty clothes No shoes and her dress was supposed to be white, but it was so dirty and and and soiled and and her hair was kind of a Blondish brown But it was so matted with filth and dirt.   Because that's the love of god being shown By the body of christ Your riches Are in heaven This doesn't mean that that we shouldn't say lord as you prosper me I'm blessed But I will use what you've given to me to have helped others That's what we should do. That's what believers do The rich that james is speaking about they're different They're accumulating wealth for themselves without realizing That rome is going to come in in 70 ad and tear everything all the things that they thought were theirs And made them who they are would be lost in a short period of time.  They're okay. I'm not saying they're sinful. Of course. I'm not Wonderful if you can afford it, please don't walk out with condemnation.


Item number SCP-1981 Object Class Safe Special Containment Procedures SCP-1981 is to be kept inside a secure video storage unit at the media archive of site ██. When in use, SCP-1981 should not be removed from its casing, or exposed to any strong magnetic sources. A Betamax home video system and an analog television have been provided in Observation Theater 02 at Site ██, as well as video equipment to record viewings. Description SCP-1981 is a standard Betamax tape. Ronald Reagan cut up while talking has been handwritten on the adhesive sticker and belt tip pen. Laboratory analysis indicates that SCP-1981 is made of ordinary material, and serial numbers correspond with home cassette tapes produced in September of 1980. SCP-1981 was initially encountered by a filing clerk in the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in 1991, who upon watching it alerted the police, with the intent to find the tape's creator to press obscenity charges. A low-level police investigation was conducted, at which point the Foundation was alerted and secured SCP-1981. Class-A amnestics were administered before ██ could be notified. Another investigation of the library's records by Foundation personnel failed to yield any leads on SCP-1981's origin. SCP-1981 appears to be a home video recording of former United States President Ronald Reagan delivering his evil empire speech to the National Association of Evangelicals at Sheridan Twin Towers Hotel, Orlando, Florida, on March 8, 1983. However, at 1 minute and 10 seconds, the speech begins to deviate heavily, eventually resembling no known speech ever made by Reagan. Beginning in approximately 5 minutes, multiple incisions, lacerations, and penetration wounds can be seen being slowly inflicted, though no corresponding source of these wounds is visible. Despite suffering bodily harm that would likely incapacitate an ordinary person, Reagan will continue to deliver his speech until either his vocal cords are severed or the tape degrades the static at 22 minutes 34 seconds. Upon rewinding SCP-1981 on initiating playback, Reagan will deliver an entirely new speech, often radically different from the ones previously observed. Topics have included torture, child molestation, and ritual sacrifice. Trauma inflicted upon Reagan also appears to be divergent, with impalement, general mutilation, and ██ having all been observed. In roughly one in seven buoys of SCP-1981, a figure clothed in black robes with a conical hood will have replaced a random member of Reagan's press detail, henceforth referred to as SCP-1981-1. The significance of the appearance of SCP-1981-1 is currently unknown. The speeches delivered by Reagan are mostly incoherent, lacking any sort of underlying thematic structure and largely being composed of nonsensical anecdotes and parables. However, occasionally references are made to future events that Reagan could not possibly have known about or predicted, such as the September 11 terrorist attacks, the result of the 2008 Russian elections, and ██. For this reason, rigorous time and effort have been devoted to recording the speech delivered on each playback. Attempts to replicate SCP-1981 onto a similar Betamax tape have met with failure. However, cameras used to record a television SCP-1981 as broadcasted on have succeeded in capturing individual playbacks. Many observations performed on SCP-1981 must be recorded on the camcorder provided and delivered for subsequent review to Dr. ██, Project Supervisor. Years of natural magnetic interference has severely degraded SCP-1981's signal quality, making it even more difficult to set meaningful information from playbacks. Additionally, the gruesome nature of the mutilations performed upon Reagan have been described as extremely disturbing, and for this reason it is recommended that any personnel feeling squeamish or ill after playback visit the on-site psychiatry facility for a level 3 evaluation. As Ronald Reagan was alive at the time of SCP-1981's containment, a surveillance net was deployed to establish any relation between him and SCP-1981. No known connection was developed, though Reagan would frequently complain about nightmares before his mental state degenerated due to Alzheimer's. Excerpt from video transcripts of recording made on ██-93 Seventeen minutes twenty-four seconds, Reagan, a renewal of the traditional values that have been the tenets of this country's strength. One recent survey by a Washington-based researcher concluded that Americans were far more willing to participate in cannibalism than they have in the past hundred years. America is a nation that will not suffer abominations lightly. Seven, and that is the core of the awakening, twelve, eighteen. We will stop al-Qaeda. Now there you go again. Seventeen minutes fifty-three seconds, applause. Eighteen minutes two seconds, Reagan. For the first time we have risen, and I see we are being consumed. I see circles that are not circles. Billions of dead souls inside containment. Unravellers have eaten country's moral fabric, turning hearts into filth. I am from the kingdom level above human. What does that yield? A hokey smile that damns an entire nation. Eighteen minutes forty-three seconds, there is no hope. Eighteen minutes fifty-nine seconds, applause. Nineteen minutes fifteen seconds, Reagan winks his back as if experiencing severe pain. Several new lacerations begin to manifest across bare eye socket, as well as punctures appearing to penetrate forehead and temples. The fear of left arm is now cleanly bisected. Nineteen minutes fifty-nine seconds, Reagan. Further consensus has proven that over half of all Americans still hate, eaten whole by void, the emptiness, the sadness, the blackness, the darkness, laughter. Twenty minutes thirty seconds, laughter continues until signal degrades into static. In transcript. Record from video transcript of recording made on ██████████████████ 96. 1232, Reagan. I've been to the steel mills of Alaska and the cornfields of Nebraska. I've seen the derelict offices of Google burn with the window boarded up and the squatters inside them. I've seen the houses where they cut up the little babies. From coast to shining coast I have walked empty down drooling path, indecipherable, the decaying flesh of false morality poisoning our children. I have stood atop the mountain of this greedy earth, looking upon our beautiful pious pit, filled to bursting with the vast hands of helplessness. And did you know what I saw? Thirteen minutes fifty-seven seconds. Hell. Fourteen minutes twenty seconds, the audience erupts in the laughter. Fourteen minutes thirty-two seconds, muffled voice can be heard behind camera. Fourteen minutes forty-five seconds, Reagan. Now there you go again.  Fifteen minutes. Reagan. But truly now we live in a fortunate time. This is a fortunate time. Time is on our side. Tee-hee-hee. A stitch in nine saves time. Fifteen minutes forty seconds. There are your truths and there are my truths. There are known knowns, known unknowns, and known undecipherable. Some of them are in the audience right now. Sixteen minutes two seconds. At this stage, wounds inflicted upon Reagan's neck appear to be so severe that it can no longer support the head. Speech degenerating to gurgles as Reagan violently jerks forward, spine being severed cleanly, and the head only being loosely connected to the body by strands of muscle tissue. Body remains animate for the next three minutes, and continues to gesture as spinal column appears to be withdrawn from neck cavity, before finally collapsing. Take the grades in the static at twenty-two minutes thirty-four seconds. End transcript. Video transcript of recording made on ██ 2002. Redacted. O5 level clearance required. Video transcript of recording made on ██ 2005. Zero seconds. Long shot of podium as well as empty chairs normally occupied by Reagan and Entourage. Curiously, this is the only recording that lacks both the Entretitles and the presence of Ronald Reagan. Thirty seconds. Camera zooms in on podium. Two minutes fifty-five seconds. Entity known as SCP-1981-1 enters shot from left and stands at podium. Remains motionless for remainder of film. Twenty-two minutes thirty-four seconds. Tape flashes the single frame Entretitle with words, I see you, colored in red. Remains for seven seconds and immediately cuts to static. No further signal for remainder of tape. End transcript. Note, this is the last known sighting of SCP-1981-1. SCP-1981-1 has been absent in all subsequent playbacks. If observed, staff are advised not to attempt to communicate with SCP-1981-1, and to alert any level 4 supervisor on duty.