This panel is called Andromatergy in Leadership, and I'm just going to speak for a few moments about where the genesis where the inspiration came from for the panel, and then I'll introduce the panel so I have a brief discussion followed by a little bit of Q&A. We've got about an hour for the discussion, so we're going to make it light and lively. I wanted to begin this conference day with a discussion that's actually pretty close to my heart. For the past few years, I've been experiencing and getting opportunities for more and more leadership roles, and I realized very quickly that I was actively using a lot of my dramaturgical skills and qualities in that work. And particularly I'm talking about the act of listening carefully, of analyzing information, synthesizing information, and then articulating direction and interpretation to a group that allowed us to move forward. That's dramaturgical, and it also turned out to be leadership. So what I started to claim it as both, to the point where the way of talking about the impact of what I do as a dramaturg helps lead me to become the executive director of operative theater projects, which is a job I took up in November. And I was talking to folks who had MBAs, who had run companies for years, and it was the way that I spoke about leadership and the way I spoke about how I was interested in meeting the team and the organization, which was dramaturgical, that was really appealing to the board chairs and the people on the search committee. And I really appreciated that that was part of how I was speaking about that and not the part about appeal to people. So I wanted to have that discussion here, because I really started to recognize the power of what we do as leadership and the leadership impact we can have. I'm not sure whether we properly explored it or claimed it necessarily that way. And so I wanted to have this conversation today. One of the interesting tensions I discovered too when it is, a lot of times the way we speak about what we do as dramaturgs is that it's a support function. It's a support function for supporting. And there's sometimes a tension between thinking about supporting and thinking about leading. But they actually have a lot more in common than I think we think. So those are some of the things that occur to me and I'm really excited to speak today with these wonderful folks that are with me. You'll be able to read all of your bios in great detail in your packages. So I'm just going to speak a little bit, I think some of the high points. We have Alana Bronsky and Alana teaches at Boston University here and is also the dramaturg at Company One. Director of Newark. Yes, director of Newark and there's a whole roster of dramaturgs at Company One as well. The next to her is Ed Sobel, who recently took up the head of playwright at Temple University. And next to me is Mark White, a leader in our field of over 35 years experience and a lot of significant work both within universities and colleges and also at regional theaters and on a Broadway as well. And also an alumni leader of LMDA as well. So welcome to Alana and Mark. So one of the questions I wanted to ask you guys is what are the valuable qualities that you feel that are dramaturgical or that you recognize as dramaturgical that you apply in leadership roles within your organization but that you've seen applied by other people. Are there quality skills, ego? That feels like leadership that you've discovered. You want to take that one? Ed? It's working great, yeah. Well first, thank you for inviting me to be part of this. I have to confess that I said yes before. I knew that I was going to be sitting next to these two really fascinating accomplished people. That's true. So, and then when I learned that it became clear that, I mean, clearly the invitation to me was intended to pretty assert the function of particularly lowering the bar. Which, and I'm intensive to fill that role completely. So I was thinking about, I was re-reading your chapter on the line. Because Liz Angleman says that the fine art of preparing for what you're going to is the entire purpose of Plain Rise. So I was re-reading the chapter from your book on the plane. I was using it about leadership. And then I found myself using about the other thing that I used about Plain Rise. And we're being one street, right? So I know there's a lot of impressionable kids watching how I do this. So I wouldn't mean the thing that I was using about. But we have a group full of journal charts, and I'm sure you're all right at reading the subtext. And so you know exactly what I'm talking about. So I'm using those two things, and then I start putting them together in my head. So yeah, naturally. So I came up with, it's a short Plain Rise, so I only have 12 things. So 12, and I also don't claim to be an expert on either of these things. So it's just points of convergence, not advice. Just points of convergence between leadership and the other thing that I spent time thinking about. So you're there. I got on that. So first of all, is that if you're doing it alone, it's an entirely different activity. So you need the willing participation to do it, right? Oh, see there. If you're selfish about it, eventually people won't want to do it with you. For this next one, I actually owe it to Dex and Morgan to Dex. Ten years ago I think you called out for it, right? On a similar topic, talked about leadership as in leading like a shepherd. And so you can do it from on top. But there are a lot of other positions from which you can do it. And it's particularly rewarded sometimes to do it from behind. Another observation, you know, almost everyone thinks that they are better at it than they actually are. And genuine attempts to improve will almost always be met with appreciation. If you pay attention to other people's needs and you can provide them with satisfaction, then you'll be loved and desired. The more enthusiasm you can generate in the people around you, the better it gets. And it's good to do it with passion, but not addiction. You can learn something by watching other people do it, if they'll let you. But ultimately to really get it, you kind of have to just do it yourself. I'm guessing it's clear by now that I'm talking about playing online chess, right? It's really good to try it when you're doing it. It's really good to try something new. Being inventive and creative is good. But if you try something too weird without warning, you're likely to get kicked out. If you remove barriers while you're doing it, you might actually produce something. And if you leave those barriers in place, which is fine, but you have to understand that then you're just having fun and not really benefiting future generations. I think more women should do it and they should not be shamed for doing so by anyone or for enjoying it. Last thing, so while it can be fun to talk about, doing it is better. And sometimes the people who make the most noise while they're doing it are just big favors. So you don't need to talk much to do it well. It's a little show. Is he an informant? Does anyone else want to talk about qualities or skills that contribute to leadership? I think that some of the stuff that we train up with as drummeters is naturally lined with leadership. So in my own practice, I am particularly interested in how, much like what you were talking about in terms of shattering, right? How to lead by making space for other people, right? How to lead by creating provocative questions that don't have predisposed endings, right? So if you're trying to lead people towards a predetermined goal, it can be like hurting cats. But if, through the active leadership, you can lead with the text or with collaborators, which is what can be discovered together, right? And that's a way more fruitful path than trying to push everybody towards the goal that you think is the right choice. Whereas you don't even be an eye finder when I'm in leadership positions. I don't know what we're talking about. I'm more interested in figuring out, you know, what's that journey about. And I think one of the other qualities of, I think, really good drummetry is the fearlessness of speaking truth to power. Do it generously, right? Not combatively. And I think speaking truth to power has to be at the center point of any model of leadership. We have to be able to ask the questions that are a little bit dangerous that maybe take us in a new direction we are expecting. That maybe provide an opportunity for leaving behind comfort and other models that have worked in the past towards the unknown. And those are the things that stood us in the rehearsal hall as well as an institutional reaction and public advocacy. I travel on the train, so I was like, this is granted. I must fly in the future. A couple things about leadership. It seems to me, years ago when I graduated from this place in New Haven, I came out thinking that I did want to be an officer, but there was no question that I had in my mind I wanted to be an artistic director or something. I did, no question. But I had in my mind that that meant that you, to be an artistic director, meant that you were ultimately the smartest person in the room. And along the way, I discovered that's not the case. That's not all the case. And you can't afford to be the smartest person in the room. You may be, but you can't afford to be the smartest person in the room. It will probably be echoing things that you all said. It seems to me some of the leadership skills are about, you must be able to inspire people. And it's not necessarily through what's up on that stage. The old model, thank God you got beyond this. The old model was the CEO model of, they would never think of hiring a dramaturg. And thank God you got beyond that with everybody from Andre Bishop moving from Playwrights Horizons to Lincoln Center, Oscar Eustace moving from the Mark Taper to Trinity Rep to the public. Let's not forget. We must invite her next year, for God's sakes, to your Janet Allen at the Indiana Rep. Really, really critical. This woman had a tremendous amount of say. Kurt B. out of the Seattle, and then Space, the late 80s. More recently, not Mandy Greenfield, for God's sakes, moving from a theater club to a theater festival. These are all great examples of this model of the past, of the board saying, oh, we have to have a director, be the artistic director. Well, no, no, no. The seasons can be picked by idea people. I used to say, those are my ideas on the stage. Three of those six are my ideas, and they're each worth $20,000 or more. If you are attending a dollar theater, I think I deserve a raise, because three of those six ideas are mine. So that's inspiration. Two, the great leaders I've seen make their staff members feel like heroes, periodically. Make them feel like heroes. What is appropriate? Really critical. Not just the actors on the stage. That's easy. Listening. Really important. Listen hard. To synthesize. Really important. Able to synthesize. By the way, Ed said this. There's an article that Vicky's written that's going to be in a mobless, extraordinary book. Don't forget to read this. This is fantastic for an article. Communication. Again, it's something that she talks about. This is really, really important. This is our gift for God's sake. And it doesn't just take the form of articles. Talking. Sometimes, Tim Blake Nelson, I worked with him at Seattle Rep. Sometimes, I wouldn't say anything in a rehearsal. And Tim would take me aside and say, why? You haven't said anything all rehearsal.   And I'd say, this is what's wrong. And so communication that way is also equally powerful. A sense of history. A sense of short history and deep history. Perspective we can break. And last, putting oneself in a position of older ability. Again, you talk about this when I read your article. Oh my God, this huge collability. Can't tell you how to be kind of a nearly fire. Or ask to be in different places. In the 80s, I remember at the Guthrie Theater. I did some concerts, I don't know again. I brought this notion up of the idea of the man who shot Liberty Valley syndrome. As dramaters, I think I brought it up in the context of feeling sorry for myself. Or our feeling sorry for ourselves. I don't know how many of you know the movie, this great John Ford movie classic. Jane Stewart with John Wayne. About a lawyer from east goes to this southwest town. Trying to bring along order and his laugh back.  Eastern. And John Wayne, of course, is the only one who can stop it. But in the end, the one too much for you has to stop in the shadows. Just like a dramaturist sometimes does. And at the time, I thought, and Jane Stewart in the end ends up going on. He faces it down. In the end, Jane Stewart ends up becoming a senator. And John Wayne, who kills Liberty Valley from the shadows, ends up a drunken cowboy. And then nobody. And that is how I felt sometimes as a dramaturist. A man in the shadows, a person in the shadows. And I've come a long way since then. I've said, you know, no, no, no, no. Stop that. Stop that. How about the other version of that? It's the person whose industry has stood up for liberty balance and said, I shall be the person of accountability. And I think that's leadership. Thank you very much. Thank you guys. And it's interesting, as Mark brought out, a few opportunities. Increasingly, when we look at what kind of leadership those dramaturists are taking up, artistic directorship is one that sees, like it makes a lot of sense that more people are finding their way to it. And I'm curious about because one of the things that I was interested in, too, and the article has an interview with a gentleman named Ben Henderson, who is a city counselor of the city of Edmonton. And he's a dramaturist. I wanted to find out from you what are the qualities of your political career that are dramaturgical. And I'm interested in, you know, there's the opportunities like artistic director, but are there other opportunities that we see, or new opportunities that we see that we go, I feel like dramaturists could provide some impact on leadership there and how might we do that and what should we be looking for, what should we be going after other than whatever we'd like. I want to talk about that. Okay, long. Okay, so one of the things that I think maybe in the past, dramaturgists felt was maybe isolation, or maybe disempowerment. And we don't have time for that anymore. Nor do we have the requirement that we have to be alone in a room or in a library doing research or waiting for somebody to invite us into a conversation. I am so passionate about LNDA's initiative over the last many years of the concept of dramaturg driven, right? That is how do you make the work that excites you? How do you make space for other artists whose work you love to get together? How do you curate? And so you can do that physically, right? You can find money and rent a space and get people together or whatever, or you can do it online. And really the brilliance of the Americans of Social Media is that it provides us a way to be really vocal and powerful leaders as dramaturgists in the American theater. Twitter is amazing.  I talked a lot to people when I was in physical proximity, though. Now I talk a lot on Twitter to people who I otherwise wouldn't be in conversation with, right? Like, for example, I feel like I always read Peter Merck's reviews in The Washington Post. I write to him. I thought he was an interesting guy. I felt like I could kind of get a sense of, like, what he was caring about in the scene in DC. But now I can talk to him on Twitter and get a conversation about work, right? We can talk about plays that have been performed there that he or he performed in Boston. I can get deeper into a conversation with him. Then I would ever have a chance to do what am I doing? You know, fly to DC and knock on his door? No. But Twitter gives us a chance. Not just there. There are lots of media, socially. They give us a chance to be a voice in the field, to stand up for what we believe in. And more importantly to me is to be a voice for inclusion, diversity, parity.  Those are the things that matter to me. But what matters to you? What are you passionate about, aesthetically, socially, politically, in your art and in your work and in your life? You can actually have a platform to be a leader on those issues simply by opting in. And it's one of the things that I try and work with my students on, which is developing some fearlessness about being a leader on stuff you care about. You don't have to be a leader of an institution in order to have impact. You can be an independent human being who has impact with another group of human beings whether in proximity or not, right? Because suddenly we have a way to democratize that involvement and the voice of the artist. You don't ever have to wait for somebody to give you the entry point. You can take that step yourself. And to me, that is the most exciting development in American theater the last 10 years. If you simply look at what TCG has done, right? So they went from, I think, being an organization that was largely seen as sort of gatekeeping, right? Like for large institutions only. Through their development of their blog series and the TCG salons. There was some incredible conversation happening there that I don't know where that would have happened otherwise. Right? And because it's through TCG it gives it some legitimacy that it might not otherwise have had. And it's giving it shares for independent artists who maybe don't have institutional affiliations to have a voice in the things that matter to them. And to me, that's huge. And if me as dramaturgs can do better at advocating for ourselves what we care about and for our role in those, the way of making work that matters to us, then that's up again. Yeah, isn't that... I think there's... skills that we have. You know, one of the things I think that dramaturgs in that is identifying needs. Right? To look at a play today, this play is close to being. So, I think if one applies that notion to whatever setting one finds oneself, that part of what you're asking, whether it's a need in the field and you'll attempt to solve that need, that by its nature you're an active individual. I know just with the work that I've done with Stephen Mulford, it's been about saying here's something that I don't understand about the way that the field works. There's a different way of addressing that thing that I don't understand or that I perceive as a need. And so I think that if you do that, that's one way, whether you want to or not, you're meant to have serving in a kind of leadership role. Well, I think this is an interesting thing that's been raised by both Ed and Gilado. The space of five years, particularly, is touched upon something in no way. This is a space of five, six years. For many years, you go to a TCG conference and you sort of go there and wait for everyone to gather and define the need to go away and work on that in a way. And one does not need, really, it's a democratization, if you will, I don't know, some modern day potato build to write about that. I don't know, maybe there is somebody there in his room doing that. But that's exciting. That's liberating, in fact. I think you can really identify something very important. Is everyone back there okay without the mic? Because it is a bit frustrating, this might suggest. People on the live stream probably can't hear without the mic. I think if you stood up, though, you might be okay. Alright, we'll try that. I'm done with my formal questions and I wanted to make sure that we're able to open it up a little bit. This is another great thing about this mic. We've got about another half an hour and I want to open up the discussion here to start that discussion. Bob, you have something? Perhaps a just anecdotes along leadership in the theater today. I just want to second what Mark was saying about it. I remember these conferences in the early 90s and the ancients, among us, may remember what folks were like. When it was a lot of whining, the subtext was about the lack of power dramaturgs had within the institutions and within the rehearsal room. And I think you're quite right, we won't take that anymore. And the fact that this organization, for example, is flourishing that it has a wide range of practitioners of different genres of different generations, especially the fact that we have been able to, for the society or the community in general, have been able to effect change in such a way that we feel empowered within the room, welcomed within the room, and are generally considered by most, certainly people that I believe in, and that is something that you're celebrating and it is a change. And I want to give a very specific example of that if I may. And around the leadership issue too, I just finished working on the production of Alice to the Looking Fast and the Stratum Festival. An adaptation by the late James Rainey of Lewis Carroll's book. It was directed by Jillian Kiley, originally from Newfoundland, and now based in Ottawa, designed by Brett Gurekki from Edmonton. A lighting design by Kim Lee-Kertel, technical to our expression at the Amon Theatre's Raptor, which is a thousands house. It was a first craft. Choreography by Dan Petash, associate designer, Jennifer Goodman. And what the commonality there, of course, is, all of the power positions in the room are more women. And there were a few guys who were privileged to be part of that, and he is the production director of the Girls Composite. And what was remarkable to me was the nature of that collaboration, led by Jillian Kiley, who's an exceptional artist, and has her own kind of view of how it works creatively. But because it was women who largely, on all levels, created the show, past the 20th. The dynamic and the spirit in the room was totally different from what one usually expects at the Stratford Festival, which, don't forget, is 61 years old. The production model is based pretty, look-back in English. It comes from an English model of repertory theatre actor management. So that, you can imagine how alpha male that organization is. And so, this new way of approaching the creation of a work through the eyes of some of the older actors in the production, where they're used to being, you know, paraded or whatever, fully by an English man, in this new context. Again, for me, who's been around the block a few times, was truly liberated. And I think that we reflect on what we're talking about. Leadership can be done in different ways. In the most aggressive case, we found ways to enable all of us to give our best work in a different way and in a more professional way. Everybody who has made that happen, I think, now is the new normal. Yes, Lisa? Hi, I wanted to thank Ed for bringing up the surprisingly, because it's 2014, in 1972, issue of leadership and gender parity in the American theater. I am kind of thrilled that it's going on. I'm very bored that it's going on because I work for a woman in Atlanta, Georgia. Atlanta, Georgia has women all over corporate America. If you go to a corporate leadership conference, it's so feminine-heavy. You feel like you're in a different world. I'm going to sing about Karen Robinson, who's a woman and is the head of the theater department at Kennesaw. There's a woman who's the artistic director of theater. And when I venture out of Atlanta, I feel like that's good. In 2014, a lot of women through the break. I feel like when I venture out of Atlanta, I'm put in this very strange throwback to my childhood, when there weren't women in executive positions and I feel a lot of anger and I feel a lot of conversations about this should be happening, which is reminiscent of the whining conversations that we used to have in the early 90s. I feel myself, I don't really want to be part of all that. I've moved to a city where I don't really have to work with a culture where there aren't a lot of women, and that extends to the funding community, the corporate community, the arts leadership community, so many, the leadership of Atlanta. And I don't think we're particularly progressive town, which is my point. Atlanta is not the progressive, it's not Portland, it's not Seattle, it's not Minneapolis. We're progressive enough, but this is not the progressive center of America, and yet there are women all over leadership positions. So my challenge and my question for LNDA is how can we move the gender parity conversation forward faster? Because American theater is not leading this conversation. We're behind, from my advantage point in Atlanta, we're behind the more progressive elements at Coca-Cola and Home Depot, which are not the most progressive corporate cultures in the United States, but they have found a way to allow women to thrive, really thrive in executive leadership. So I throw out to us, and I wonder if the channel could address how can American theater jump forward? Because it feels like we're a little step, and there's a place for dramaturgs to lead this, but I'm not really sure what the strategy is. So the question is how can LNDA, or how can dramaturgs really allow for the conversation about gender parity to take a leap forward and how do we lead that leap? Does anyone want to talk a bit about that? Anyone have an answer for that? You go on. Okay, I don't have any answers, Lisa. I'm sorry. I think that the American theater is entirely retrograde on the whole. I think that we get comfortable with liberal politics and they're not really reflected in the means of making. We are not progressive as a field. And that's a real problem. And I think sometimes we get a little when we make small advances, right? And yet the entire conversation with the Kilroy's, with Parity Ray, with this notion of the pipeline, it is incredibly frustrating to still have this conversation in 2014. And yet also incredibly necessary. One of the things that we as dramaturgs can do is not let our exhaustion of the topic discourage us from being forceful about it. Right? This gets back to that notion of speaking truth to power. What are you doing in your institutions and with emerging artists to make space? I will say that at Company One we're a collective. So we operate as a collective staff and we are also highly dramaturgical. And one of the things that I've become I realized the other day that I've never worked for a woman. I just never have. I've worked for amazing men. I've had amazing, amazing mentors. But I've never worked for a woman. And right now I have a staff of incredible young women as dramaturgs with me at Company One. And one of my goals is to find spaces to allow them to be leaders. Because that's how we're going to change it. I think in some ways time will do some stuff that we haven't been able to do. Because more and more young women are coming up with the expectation that A2 should have a voice. So I think numbers are in our favor in some ways. I'm Julie Menorca. The generation ahead of me has done a great job of mentoring. I can say that. And so for me it comes up one of the other things I've noticed and I would encourage all of you especially those of you just entering the field to take a look at institutional structures in their theater and feel that in the last 20 years or so at least the size of those buildings is shocking. That the role of the long-term gap in jobs position has fallen into a position that is not actually a leadership position. We can be gap-wise and we can speak truth to power. I have certainly lost many jobs because I'm high. To those of you who are entering the field much less those of us who actually want to have an institutional position even though we don't feel lucky every day to actually look at the actual hierarchy of your institution and where you sit.  That these are the things that we must do and we must actually seize that. I also jump in and suggest, I stand up I'm Jess and I work with One Year Lease and we're 14 years old and it's run by a woman and I've actually only worked in leadership roles with women in the theater so if we start to look at independent theater companies and bringing women into the model and not just use larger institutions I collaborate with an amazing director actually from Tata as well there's a collective called New Jersey Feelin and that has two women and one a man who is a clear man so it's yes to look at the institution but there are tons of independent companies that are working and have women at the company. Very quickly two things one, the history in many ways we don't like to talk about titles but in the early 80s this position started off in many ways about the literary manager and I do as a death trap you needed to be called a drawlature because if you were called a literary manager there was no power there you insist about being called a drawlature and then at a certain point we began to understand how you needed to have the title director of something in front of that because that was understood as well that was the more producerial position and indeed if you look around the country the people who were going to end up being considered for artistic director positions I mean Mandy Greenfield is a perfect example she functioned as a drawlature there are other people who functioned as a drawlature became directors directors of something or producers of something those are the people who ultimately end up being biggest artistic directors those are the ones who get taken seriously that's what happens you have to understand that and second I think it fundamentally starts with again this is a gestation process this is an evolutionary process it starts, Christian Parker recently said this to a former student of mine it starts in the training grounds we have to start there in those institutions in the colleges we have to start training people to think that women should be producers should be artistic directors you should be thinking that way at that point you should grow up to be a literary director you should grow up to be a drawlature you should grow up to be an artistic director that's where you start and the classes you should be taking should be thinking in that direction totally that's the curriculum that's the format yeah I'm just going to go back to Edelman's playing sorry I wasn't next to you sorry I wasn't next to Edelman's playing but just what you were saying let's not just talk about it let's not talk I think in terms of your questions you should get some frustrating exhaustions so we can talk about it but I feel like what we can do each of us can do something about it not having to talk about it but having your drama turned posse all being women by choosing who we work with at our level and relationally we're making that change so when Bob goes into his rehearsal that's going to be the room that's how it happened I think about being in Texas and being in Texas and being like oh there are women in power but I don't feel like I'm in Texas I'm also working on making things we're doing it where they are so if you focus on where you are what you can reach out to and how you can make a change I feel like oh but I live in a big red state or I live in a place where no women can I just want to add one thing to that Liz which is that I think it's really important that every single person in this room regardless of whether you are a drama on your second day ever or you are like you've been doing it for a billion years every person in this room has the potential for leadership you simply have to choose to do it especially those of you who may be very early career and you're nervous or you think what do I have to add you have your own innate experience that is different from anyone else's you absolutely have something to add you have to be brave enough to take the risk to do it because it's not always going to work out but you have to be brave enough and I see Sydney and also you the other thing too since I have a throat the other thing too that I discovered is the level of preparedness that we have that we do a lot of research and a lot of analysis it is rare in terms of I'm sorry the comment I got and I'll be very specific about this particular job interview the comment I got is that I was very prepared when you meet everybody and the thing is that we can apply our minds to a range of things including accounting I guess that's true so no limits on the no limits on the subject matter or the potential for what we can learn Sydney and then well I think we're skirting around gender parents who are also and other people but certainly unfortunately I would say that women still are the go-to in most America so I know that Selisa's theater has done some stuff around adjusting recursal schedules and things like that that are more accommodating to people who have caregiving roles outside of their loving theater and I think that that's something that we really need to think about as a group not just in you know in institutional theater we have to think about in academia as well because quite frankly I realized I couldn't be at work eight hours a day then go home for an hour and then go back and direct for another three hours or four hours at night there was a great was Atlanta or Denver that we did mom and turkey Atlanta and maybe next year at the conference we should have another mom as her dean I'm going to let Selisa comment on that because I think she was a part of it and then we're going to go over here and when to Sydney's point I think all those things that happen around our institute are being family friendly which has led to enormous retention at the senior management level of people with profound skills who have kids men and women but that's led by our artistic director having a child and not wanting to be one of those parents who sees their kids and the second mom church was great and came up with a lot of really practical things that you can ask for that are not that sometimes people just have to buy them and you've been waiting for a while I'm Jenny I'm from Australia I just wanted to offer a little Australian perspective which you can disregard because I know we're from that America we're talking about we're talking about we have a bit more federal and state government funding for our institutions and our federal government body the Australia Council for the Outdoor and when I was talking to some people about this last night one of the main things they found that there are as Jess was saying a lot of women in the independent sectors lead but it's kind of like a ghetto and that's part of the problem is that you have a lot of women in the independent sectors they're not going up into the major performing arts board companies and the other thing was that looking at the number of artistic directors is great but who are the CEOs and again the number of women on boards and who are the chairs on the boards and there are a lot of there is a reasonable parity in Australia members of boards but not chairs of boards the chairs of boards are still up with men and again women's playwrights are often always the bridesmaid they're always in development but not reduced as much as men but I also just wanted to say in terms of mentorship I was really lucky to have some really great female mentors and one of the things they said to me which I think is kind of relevant is that everything I do is because of the person that came before me and to the person who comes after and I just kind of love it over here because it feels like just to piggyback on some of the things that we've been talking about I think another thing which I'm going to call it the elephant in the room is we also need to talk about racial parity thank you take a look around who's being represented, who's being invited to the table, who is here, who's not here especially in place of leadership it is both amazing to me and also a little appalling to me that sometimes I have been the first in a particular institution and we really need to work on in terms of mentoring who are we mentoring drama stars in color are we mentoring female drama stars in color are we mentoring our LGBTQ comrades like who are we mentoring and like I was actually saying everyone is invited to this table and that we need all these voices in order to be an institution of power and of leadership so anyway Dylan, so long Sarah Ted talk I think in 2010 about being the first follower is often a really great mark of leadership so that when there's something that you really are excited by following and doing it will bring a whole bunch of other people and for me I'm really comfortable being the second in my organization and I do feel that will be here as a second because Jill Kyle is actually the director where I work so following that leadership I see Brian in the video Thanks Brian, Brian of course to affirm one thing that holding positions isn't the only way to lead and I think in Canada anyway the mythology, the leadership or the regional theaters are in fact meaning the theatrical world is a mythology and it's a dying line and so when they're aspiring for those leadership positions it's an offense that you fight but that leadership can take other avenues and the likely lead can be the way you lead and Liz Engelman would be a classic example of that of leading through the life she leads in the theater and beyond and indeed Sarah in Canada would be another great example of that leading through a variety of positions and certainly not sometimes but not always at the head of organizations the thing I wanted to ask the panel to consider asking including Vicki is where do you weigh the equation of the cost and the reward of leadership and the other thing I would ask is what do you look for in identifying leaders that may follow you because this room I suspect is full of those people and it behooves us who have had the fortune to stand up and take it on to find those people and identify them for all the reasons that everyone I've been quiet for a little bit so I've already overshared but but I think part of it is massacrism that I think anybody can kind of lead when things don't help the real challenge of leadership is when things are going not so well and for whatever first reason I kind of enjoy that the challenge of walking to the room when things are not going well and trying to I suppose frankly again oversharing is probably more a reflection of my overall world view that I feel I don't really think about that again necessarily in terms of leadership but in terms of how I live my life I think one thing that those people up there have in common and a lot more people in the room would relate to Brian's comment about this too but being a leader is just the worst thing in the world because you're right away on the wrong path to being. It's really doing and those are the biggest bunch of doers I've ever seen and if you do and you do and you do and you do at the end you look back and say hey I was a leader but being a leader is dangerous territory to talk about because it almost always leads you maybe down the wrong path so to me the biggest thing that those people have in common with having had actually some time to observe fairly closely and certainly with Brian isn't the world's biggest doers you know Brian I'm going to a lot of Marshall certainly speak to this as well but I think and the reason I the reason I didn't call this Andromeda in leadership is because I'm not certain that we always set out to be leaders but we're interested in leadership or a sense of how a contribution and to me that's what it was about. I recognize the value of my I really recognize the value of my contribution as a dramaturg and for me the transition to a larger leadership role was about realizing that my interest was in questions and the big question for me is in the theater I'm not sure you know all over the world probably what is the what is the value of what we do and how do we articulate it and how do we bring more people to it and I realize that as a dramaturg I had a limited relationship at certain times with that question powerful relationship not diminishing it but a limited a limited connection with that so for me the desire to take on a leadership position in a regional theater was about engaging more more directly with some of those questions about investment and value and to try to change the conversation we're having there so for me it's about contribution and the desire to change things Mark Ryan I think you phrased a really great question and there you know and this goes to everybody you know and whatever phase you are it's not to you know you're 60 you're 60 it's not to delay I have a perfect example of this there was no doubt when I got through the back in 1989 and I went from Seattle Rep I left there because I decided that was a dead end I wanted to be I wanted to be an artistic director and I went to Seattle Rep and I thought okay I'm moving there and I demanded not just a dramaturg title but an artistic associate title and I had a big fight about that and some of the production users blessed them they said you know whatever you want we're going to give that we wonder who is it and that in my head meant that's the next step for being an artistic and I was there three years and something happened and like it's not yet I'm not I want more out of life I wanted to be a writer and out of nowhere Stan Boyle's wife and I worked with a couple of times became the dean of the Yale School of Drama I played right at Gromiter's department and I knew that I would have my summers off to write and so I could be I'm sure to run a program or two be a writer, be an editor be a polymath and then the summer go off and dig for fossils out of the west and be whoever that was and that killed effectively being an artistic director but that was okay and it was fine it was just fine and leadership became another thing and as I understand exactly what you're saying leadership can take other forms you know and you decide that's the person I can wake up to before the morning I've been on that a lot of speaking and I think we have time for just one more from me if you'll enter handouts I know one more from here super short answer to Brian to your questions what do I look for in the leaders of tomorrow point of view and voice do they use it right and why bother with this at all because it's a lot about and what you talked about love the theater and I love the artistry of it but I wake up in the morning trying to use it to make the world better alright so my version of what the better world is means that I can have that in that so that's why I do it even though it costs a lot sometimes and we have time for one more and it's so caring that your hand was up something that I noticed and maybe it's just because it's so obvious that something that I noticed is not really being discussed one-on-one leadership and playwrights that I have been led to push past my peers this is the end of the formal conversation but I know we'll talk about this all day long at our site visits and I want to thank Alana and Mark once again where you're going to meet your tour leaders and go on your adventures and the playwriting workshop is just in the Anson building which is just across from it and again a volunteer will take you there the regional dinners this evening are at various restaurants it's about everything easier for everybody so if you hit a bank machine that'll be very convenient have a great day thank you so much for starting here


Hi, I'm back. It has been seven weeks since I published a new video. The end of 2016 brought me a virus infection, which in general is called winter flu. Unfortunately the respiratory virus that attacked me caused me to cough long and involuntary. That led to a strangulated sciatic nerve, which is rather painful. The heavy painkillers I therefore needed made me very drowsy and unfocused, so I had to stop working. I was so drowsy that I decided to use a short video message I had prepared earlier about having flu. This message made you massively react with your best wishes. Within the day I had more than 200 reactions from you and they kept coming. I wasn't able to answer a mole, but I did read a mole and they were heartwarming. It's so nice to know, so many people care for you. Thank you very much. Although the nerve has not fully cured and I thus have to be very careful, I started working today to get me through a pile of review equipment and urgent items that stacked up. It will probably keep me busy for the coming eight weeks, although I will try to speed things up. So bear with me, I'm extremely motivated to get to work again to share my humble knowledge and experiences with you. And whatever I do, I keep enjoying the music.


All right. So welcome to the Seth Day of Vancouver. It's wonderful to see all of you here. We've been kicking off a whole series of Seth days this year. And it's great to be back at the Open Infra Summit. Myself, it's been probably six or seven years since I've been at one of these. It's wonderful to see the crowds are still out here, and folks are still very excited about using Seth and Open Infra and all things open source. So it's great to see folks here. And I thought, let's say a little bit about myself. For those who don't know me, I've been working on the Seth project for basically my whole career. Started off with the startup Ink Tank, before it became Ink Tank, working across multiple areas of Seth. And through Red Hat, and now I'm at IBM, managing a few teams of software and developers working on Seth to this day. In terms of the Seth itself, the Seth project is helped governed by the Seth Foundation, which was formed in 2018 to promote and foster the project. There are 32 members across multiple industries and geographies. And it's just a general home for collecting all the stakeholders within the Seth community together and pulling resources together to improve the project and the community overall. So we've run lots of Seth days, Seth Lacan's, which are multi-day conferences. We had the most recent one in Amsterdam a couple of months ago. It was fantastic. The Seth Foundation also does things like funding, upstream documentation and marketing. If you're interested in helping out with the Seth project, this is a great way to get involved, even if you aren't a developer. So feel free to contact us if you want to join. So we had many different Seth days this year across the US, Asia. And this week we had one in Seoul, South Korea, and today in Vancouver. And this is a photo from our Seth Lacan Amsterdam, which was a couple of months ago. It was an absolutely packed conference. Incredible content across three different tracks. So really good talks there. If you want to learn a lot more about Seth in detail, I definitely recommend checking those out on the Seth YouTube channel. You can find all information about other events here. And if you want to organize a Seth day, we're starting to think about planning for next year already, please send an email to foundationsf.io or come find us afterwards. And I'd like to say a big thanks to our sponsor for today's Seth day, OSNexus. Steven and Bihanker will come up and give a talk afterwards about OSNexus. But I'd just like to say thank you very much for your support. So before I go into more about Seth itself, I want to take a quick poll at the room. How many folks here are already using Seth? Okay, how many folks are not using Seth? Okay, so maybe this intro part, I'll keep it a bit short. So I'll just talk a bit about what Seth is and where we are. You probably heard of this before. You can hear described as the Linux of storage, software defined storage, unified storage system. But what does this really mean? Well, Seth is all open source. It runs on commodity hardware, all kinds of different networks and disks, what kinds of servers you can think of. And it provides access to storage and across all different protocols, object block and file related. Seth has always been very focused on freedom of choice and open source. So it's free as in beer. Anybody can take it off of GitHub and use it. It's free to modify and share again. And Seth has always provided the freedom from Ben Roelaken. Anybody can take the code, run it themselves, improve it and share their improvements with the community. The big focus for Seth has always been around reliability and quality. So making sure that you don't lose your data. It's a pretty important aspect of a storage system. So one of the big focuses of Seth is on really making sure that your data doesn't have any single point of failure. Durability is always maintained, even if there are outages happening. I know it's going down, disks failing. And there's no minimal interruption in service from any of these events. And as easy to use during upgrade processes or online expansion or shrinking of a cluster as possible. And in general, Seth is always favoring correctness and consistency so that your data maintain, remain safe over availability or performance. Seth is also designed for high scalability. So you can start off with a very small system and grow it to multiple petabytes. You can add or remove stuff for a storage over time. Seth doesn't care what size the disks are. You can mix and match all different kinds of things together in one system. And Seth will deal with it straight out of the box. In the last perhaps seven or eight years now, there's been a lot more interest and focus on multiple data center and disaster recovery capabilities. So there's lots more of interest in replicating data between different data centers, either for disaster recovery or for maybe access from multiple areas of the globe at once. We have one group coming online in one day working on things in one area, another group coming online later in the different time zone. And you can shift your workload kind of around the globe that way. So Seth is always built on this underlying RATOS layer. RATOS is the reliable autonomic distributed object storage system. And it forms the basis of all the other Seth protocols. It handles all the details of replication internally. So everything built on top of it doesn't have to worry about all of that. They just store things in as objects in RATOS, which has a very rich kind of object oriented API. Then there are three main interfaces for accessing Seth. There's the RATOS gateway for S3 or Swift style object access. There's the RATOS block device for you often use with virtual machines in OpenStack or containers in Kubernetes. And then there's the Seth file system, which you can imagine you could use in any place where you want a shared file system with access from multiple points at once. So I'll go a little bit more into depth on how RATOS works. As I said, it's all focused on strong consistency. And it's providing a very low level kind of object API, where you can interact with a single object atomically in a very reliable and scalable way. So you can do kind of really complex transactions on a single object. And it'll all be maintained atomically and consistently across however many replicas or however many racer coded shards you've configured. There are a few different aspects of RATOS. Three main demons. There's the Seth monitors, which maintain kind of the overall state of the cluster, which demons exist, which disks exist, are they up or down, that sort of thing. Generally, you need an odd number of these to maintain a majority state. And they use the Paxos algorithm to maintain this consistency and consensus about what the cluster looks like. So usually you only need three of them. For larger clusters, you might use five, maybe up to seven, but it's not really something that you scale out. Then there's the manager, which aggregates real time statistics from all the different demons and has a number of different kind of pluggable modules for orchestrating the cluster and doing other things like the manager's also hosting the web UI, the dashboard, Persef, among other things. Finally, the most numerous demon is the object storage demon or OSD. This is usually deployed kind of a one per disk configuration. If you have multiple different kinds of disks, you might be passing, giving it multiple, giving me different partitions from an SSD and one hard disk per demon. But in general, it's responsible for storing the actual data on these disks and managing all the replication and kind of cooperating with each other to rebalance data as needed and notice anything that's failing and report it back to the monitors. So when you're looking at a data storage application, generally in the past, you'd have the kind of legacy architecture where you have a single application talking to a single server, maybe with some kind of pairing for HA or failover, but you wouldn't be able to really scale this out very well. You'd have a really big bottleneck in the main gateway there. So Ceph is really more about client versus cluster architecture where any given Ceph client can talk to all the OSDs and all the monitors in the cluster as need be. And any of the things that are storing data in RATOS are gonna be strapping the data across many objects that are spread across all the OSDs in the cluster potentially, or at least within whatever pools you have set up. So you get the full parallelism of the cluster and you can get a very, very good performance, especially for large parallel workloads. So with this data spread around the cluster, how do you find it? Where does an application know when it's writing this object, where that goes? Well, there are a few strategies here. One classical approach is to have some kind of metadata server where you go and ask the metadata server, where is this data? That's great for a small system, but for a system like Ceph, where you're talking about millions, billions, trillions of objects, that doesn't really scale. So Ceph takes a different approach, which is calculating placement of objects. It has this map of the cluster called the OSD map that you maintain by the monitors. And this tells Ceph which demons are up and down. And from that map, it'll calculate, given objects, which OSDs the object should live on. So that tells the clients if they have the name of the object and the OSD map, that's all they need to know to figure out which OSDs to talk to. They don't need to do any extra lookups, they can just go directly to those OSDs and talk to them and get the data they need. And whenever something changes in the cluster, like say a disk dies, the OSD map gets updated, that OSD is removed. The new OSD map is distributed in a gossip fashion to all the other OSDs and clients. So whenever one finds that they're talking to another demon or a client finds that it's talking to another demon with an older, a newer version of the map, the new version is immediately shared back across the cluster. So everything is kind of distributed in a nice, even way and the updates are propagated quite quickly in this way. So radius is a very rich API for object storage. At the underlying layer, it's much more flexible and powerful than you might think of when you think of object storage as an S3 type of object. Radius objects are kind of more like files in that you can access and address them at a break granularity and you can update and do all kinds of complex transactions. Even customized ones on the OSDs themselves. They also have a kind of attribute and or key value interface. So you can store some, ultimately small structure data there. They have an easy way to look up and access things.  And objects are organized with NSF into pools. So you might have pools for different use cases. You might have one pool that's maybe stored on SSDs, one that's HDDs. Maybe you have certain pools that are for one file system that's more temporary storage with a different set of settings than you have another pool for a more long-lived storage sort of thing. So when you're talking about storing objects in pools, that's how a user or how a client sees radius. In order to find the OSDs that it needs to talk to, as I mentioned earlier, it's working based on the OSD map and the name of the object. In order to make the management of these objects a bit simpler and take less overhead, we also further subdivide pools. We shard them into what are called placement groups or PG's. So each placement group is just at an arbitrary shard of a pool, which means that all the objects in a given pool are distributed approximately evenly among the placement groups. And to find out which placement group an object belongs in, the client simply takes a hash of the object name. And the placement group is the piece that's actually fed into the placement algorithm to look up based on the placement group and the OSD map, which tells you which OSDs are up and down. You know precisely where your data is being stored. So this is, that's a kind of a simplified version of how the client and raters protocol. When you have replication involved, it's very simple. A write goes to the first OSD in the placement group and that OSD will replicate to the other OSDs. Replication can be any number of replicas you like from two to, most I've seen people you regularly use is four, but usually three is a good default. You can also use a ratio coding with CIF. This is much more space efficient, especially for very large objects like you'd see in an S3 sort of environment. It's possible to use it with other things like with blocker devices and CIF file system as well, but it has a high performance impact when you're doing lots of little random writes. So it's usually not as a good an idea to use it for those use cases. But with the ratio coding, the idea is kind of similar to replication. The writes are going to the primary OSD and it's breaking up the objects into chunks for your ratio code. You can kind of think of a ratio coding as like a more generalized version of RAID where you have some stripes that are just regular data and then some parity stripes at the end. And those are just divided among several different OSDs to maintain that durability guarantee. So in general, RAIDOS is all about virtualizing your infrastructure and your storage. You can have all kinds of different hard drives, SSDs and determine how exactly you want to manage it and how it's presented to the user, organizing it into different pools and choosing replication factors and ratio coding factors. With replication, you can even change replication factor dynamically. That's going to add a lot of extra copies or a lot of data movement as you're doing so. With the ratio coding, it's only possible to set that when you're creating the pool. So you want to really consider what kind of ratio coding you want to use at the beginning when you're setting things up. That's a good final overview for RAIDOS. I think since some folks are already pretty familiar with stuff here and have already used stuff quite a bit, we'll leave some extra time for Stephen to go into more detail on his things. So thank you very much. The next one. Okay, the next one is Stephen. Yeah, Stephen, yep, and I'm not sure. The program, I think it comes to you. Thank you.


Well praise the Lord Brother Dale said it very well When we see somebody that doesn't look like us We tend to shy away from that And it seems like this whole weekend. We've been hearing advice against that. We talk about reaching all Nations we talk about going out and making disciples How many nations do we have here representing us? Are we doing our best at that? Or do we like each other so much that we just want to keep just us together? And when the odd man comes in He doesn't feel welcome He doesn't feel that love like we just heard Now I'll admit to you here this afternoon That I am drawn more to the first part of the title of this message than the second part Overcoming evil with good and I'll tell you why because When I begin to talk about ministering to the gangs and Haiti too often We start to lift up this person and can you imagine what that does to God? Now I could spend the whole time here telling you about all of my failures I could spend the entire rest of the day talking about what I am without God To try to prove to you that anything that I do that's not terrible is of God People ask me to come share my testimony, and I just want to say I Want to say no We all need to have a testimony of salvation. We all need to have a testimony of God working in our lives And it's God working in our lives But I like speaking to young man young men I know a lot of people say they feel like young men. I can't say that I feel like a young man I'm not any smarter than a young man But I see brothers like Dale and other brothers here old men older men, excuse me, and I just Can't help but think about the day when they're gone, and I hope it's not for a long long time But it's going to happen like we already heard today, and then it's going to be us We are the future of the church Maybe not all of us Hopefully all of us What do we think about that responsibility? Do we take on that responsibility? Is it exciting to you? Or do you fear it and plan to pass the buck as long as you can? I think we all here we all want to be spiritual. I hope that we do we all want to have a great relationship with God We want God to use us But I found in my life that God will give us all that we want It's up to us You'll get out of it what you put into it Do we believe that? We'll get out of it what we put into it and for some of us that may think that may seem well We're not going to get much out of it because we don't put much into it But it reminds me of a story of a boxer Or a young boy that wanted to be a boxer And when he was nine years old he was from New York City He told his friends I want to be a boxer when I get older and his friends all laughed at him He was shorter than his friends He had some physical problems They made fun of him And then when he was nine years old he made this statement Not only do I want to be a boxer, but I am going to become The world heavyweight champion true story Well that only intrigued the poking fun, and he had a bad childhood Everybody made fun of him His father went to prison His mother left him, but he had something in he had something in mind And that was all that was important to him So when his friends would go out and do something he would say no I Can't afford to do that He would sit down to eat and he would choose what to eat This vision that he had controlled his life It was what was important to him and it didn't take long for people to realize that this really is important to this young man He's never going to become who he is and we he should stop trying to pretend to be that he's that he's somebody He's not but we can't argue that he really really thinks he's going to become the heavyweight champion of the world And we can tell that by his actions not by just what he says And young people at 19 years old. He stepped into the ring With a man twice his size The man was making fun of him Prior to this and in three seconds That young man won that fight And he won the next 19 fights that he fought And he became the heavy the youngest heavyweight champion in the world Now I'm not supporting sports in any way or any fashion. I only tell you that story to tell you this What can we do with God when we set our vision on the crown? What can we not do? We can achieve whatever God would have us to achieve if we just put our focus on there and stop compromising for the things of this world fashions and All of this that's trying to creep in We just need to say no and prove that we're really serious About Jesus Christ have we made salvation too easy? This is a burden of mine Have we made salvation too easy? I want us to know that in the Old Testament the children of Israel they had a law to follow do this Do not do this And I want us to know that we they didn't need God They didn't need God they needed the law do this and I'll shout live do this and I'll shout die And that's what they had to govern them But when Jesus came it didn't take Jesus very long to raise the bar to a level that we cannot possibly achieve Without God is that not true? We're talking about overcoming evil with good and this is one of those things that Jesus Christ introduced It takes supernatural power to walk with Jesus. Do we believe that today? We can't just choose to do it and Continue doing things our way because without Jesus Christ we cannot live up to these expectations We can talk about them and they can make us feel good But we can't actually do them and Because we're not confident of how we'll respond to evil We avoid evil Because we're not confident of how we will respond to evil. We avoid evil in Luke chapter 6 starting in verse 22 Blessed are ye when men shall hate you and when they shall separate you from their company and shall reproach you and cast out Your name is evil for the son of man's sake Rejoice in that day and leap for joy for behold your reward is great in heaven For in the like manner did their fathers unto the prophets but woe unto you that are rich For you have received your consolation won't you that are full for you shall hunger won't you that laugh now for you Shall mourn and weep won't you and all men shall speak well of you for so did their fathers to the false prophets But I say unto you Which here love your enemies do good to them Which hates you bless them that curse you and pray for them which despitefully use you and Unto him that smighteth thee on one cheek offer also the other and Unto him that taketh away thy cloak forbid not to take thy clothe Also give to every man that asks of thee and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again and As you would that men should do to you do ye also to them likewise For if he loved them which love you what think have ye for sinners also love those that love them And if you do good to them which do good to you what thank have you for sinners also do even the same and If we lend to them of whom you hope to receive what thank have you for sinners also lend to sinners to receive as much again But love ye your enemies and do good and land hoping for nothing again and your reward shall be great And you shall be the children of the highest for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil Be there for merciful even as your father also is merciful Now we read those verses and make us feel good But is it a reality in our life? Do we have the power of God that proves that we can do these things? Or is it just some verses in the Bible that are out there somewhere? We have to remember something it's not us And we already heard this today. It's not us. It's God And I want you to know something when God does something in us that we can't do on our own that produces humility It produces humility When we do something that we do and God did not do that produces pride So that's why it's very important to understand who is doing what? And when it's something that men without God cannot do then it is God Let me let me use an illustration If I'm up here trying to move this pulpit and I can't move it and you're all watching me You see that I cannot do it. I want to do it I'm trying to do it But I can't do it. So I asked for help. I need someone to help me move this pulpit and Somebody comes up to help me Now I should be able to do something that I couldn't do prior And it's not me that did it But the one that came up and helped me I'll tell you a story about a time shortly after I was converted I was at a university preaching and there was a man there You know, we think of Haiti. We think of demon possession. We think of witchcraft. We think of all these things But I'm telling you they're right here in America as well. We just haven't looked for them But I was preaching and I noticed out of the corner of my eye this man that did not seem to be happy And I watched him and he was getting madder and madder at the at the gospel being preached And all of a sudden he was out of my sight. I didn't know where he went and Quickly there. He was behind me and he punched me from behind and hit me right in the nose And then he threw me to the ground and begin to punch Now I want you to know something before I was converted. I was a fighter I've got belts and martial arts in the Marine Corps, but I didn't think of any of those things And I can honestly testify that as that man was punching I was thinking about the love that I felt towards him And you know why I was thinking that because it surprised me. This is not me This is not me My flesh would love to get up and plumb with this man, but I'm not thinking those thoughts I'm only thinking about the fact that I feel love towards this man. That's humbling Pretty soon a several police officers showed up the man ran off and The policeman came up to me and they said we need description of who this was and I said I said this isn't between me and him I'm fine if you just forget about everything And we'll go about our day Because I truly believed that it wasn't between that man and me when we step into the battle There's someone waiting for us there And we're going to come into conflict with evil when we step into the battle wherever you're at Well, the policeman went away and I continued to preach and a few minutes later. They walked up with this man And there I could see him the police talking to this man and they told this man you assaulted him and there's a lot of witnesses But in the state of Ohio If he chooses not to press charges We can't do anything We feel like you need to be Arrested and taken to jail for assault but we can't We just want you to know that and the police been left Was it long before that man came up to me? And he said he was sorry. I believe he's seen something that he'd never seen before and it wasn't me that he saw Do we believe that today? He's seen something that he hadn't seen before maybe been to church before maybe he had some sort of background And that's what happens when we live out What Jesus is saying just this last week or just this week here. I was speaking with a pastor and he was He had quite a background different churches evangelical churches But he was on fire talking about the King James and this and that and we agreed on several things And then he's after a long while of talk He began to tell me how eight years ago a drunk driver killed his son in a car wreck And now he's doing fairly well and he went on and all I could think of was how does he respond to the man that did this? And I had to ask him he said the drunk driver got eight years in prison and he's going to be released this month. I Said can I ask you sir? How do you feel towards that man? You know I asked that because I like to hear about people that are using the power of God. It strengthens me That this man can bury a son and forgive the man that killed him Because that takes the power of God it does We can say we forgive, but when we really truly forgive someone that's God He said brother. I got to be honest with you. I can't forgive him. I can't forgive him and he acted like that was okay. I Want to forgive him. I'd like to forgive him, but I just can't and That's what's accepted in our world today, and it's simply a form of Christianity without any power Can you imagine the power of him going back to him and loving him? We see it we read about those things I want to read a few verses in 1st John 1st John chapter 4 verse 17 Herein is our love made perfect that we have that we may have boldness in the day of judgment Because as he is so are we in this world There is no fear in love, but perfect love casteth out fear Because fear hath torment He that feareth is not made perfect in love We love him because he first loved us Do we believe those verses today? That perfect love cast out fear I marvel at this because we think of perfect love is something different or I've heard that too many times Love means that we don't communicate Love means that we talk slowly and softly and the world doesn't connect with that There are people out there that want us to tell them how it is They want to hear it We cannot minister without love like brother Dale was saying Without love, this is all foolishness But it's calling people to repentance love Absolutely when we see people that are not converted When we see a gangster We have to look past their evil Why do we do that? Because we expect them to be evil do we not I know we live in a country where we want everyone to be good We want to stop abortion. We want to stop this and stop that and we forget that the world is evil That's what they are We can't expect the world to try to live like Christians We need to expect them to live just as they are heathen wicked however you want to say it We shouldn't expect the world especially People that worship Satan To treat us well We should expect them to not treat us well. They don't know Jesus There was a gang leader in Haiti that he sent me a word Couple years after we moved to Haiti And he said I've calculated the cost of your funeral to be five thousand dollars If you give me five thousand dollars, you don't have to worry about your funeral But if you don't give me five thousand dollars, you're going to spend it on your funeral anyway That was clever But he forgot something I Look forward to my funeral. He said he was coming back for the money when he came back. I wasn't home. Nobody was at home But a neighbor knew about this situation The police were looking for this particular man and the neighbor called the police and the police came and shot Him dead right at our gate and there was a lot of people that were happy about that But how does it make us feel? I Still question why that happened that way What would have happened if I could have talked to that man if I could have expressed to him That we're not like other people or are we you know, we don't choose what evil comes our way But when we enter the battle we expect evil to come the gangs came. I didn't ask for that in Haiti When you look up Haiti on the news, you'll see a lot about gangs Article after article about gaining activity in Haiti So it just seemed like common sense to me if you're a missionary in Haiti, you're gonna probably have to deal with gangs The gangs came and that gangs did what gangs do They terrorized with fear tactics They threaten to kill they do kill but we have to remember something We could be them We could be them Do we believe that I know it's very hard to imagine but just imagine if you were born in an alley in Porter Prince Haiti And your mother didn't want you And you grew up on the streets Have you ever wondered why you were born where you were born? Why you had the opportunities that you did maybe someone has a better answer than I But I think of myself in the history that I've had in my past I could be there and that creates a love for them and since perfect love cast out fear it goes hand-in-hand Because we can't love them and fear them the leader of that gang Was a vicious man? I'll just be honest. I was kind of excited to work with these gangs. I've been called a fool for this I've been called a lot of names for that and I don't know Why but I've seen it as a ministry and this leader he threatened he had demands But he's seen something in me that came from God and that is a lack of fear and they have to respect somebody that does not fear them They control people just like an animal with fear It's the way it is So I began to build relationships with them. I knew that was the ticket to getting into their lives gaining trust building relationship And that takes time and energy that a lot of us don't have We fill our schedules and we don't have time to build relationships with people that we want to win to the Lord And that's why we have few from the outside amongst us But out front there on the road There was two men that were shot By a gang It was right in front of us there and so I decided I want to see what happened here So I went to this leader and I said the last night to the two men that got shot out here What happened he got a little nervous And he said they they offended some of my people I said, what do you mean? They offended some of your people.  He said that's right It's hard for me to wrap my mind around that And all the good thing about was the verses that we just read This is more natural what he's talking about someone slaps you and you are highly offended I want to know how many people in here have had someone walk up to you and just slap you right across the face And if that has happened to you it'd be interesting to know how you responded to that I Trust that you responded well, but without God you did not respond well And so I told this gangster that he's a very large man He was just arrested two weeks ago and put in prison. He'll probably never see the light of day again, but I told him I said listen Jesus Christ can give you the power to actually love the man that slapped him. He said what are you talking about? I said just picture this And I lifted my hand up.  He said if you slap me dead, but I believe that I've experienced that The power of God in our life that causes us to love someone that hates us To overcome evil with good is the testimony today that people are waiting for and they're watching They're watching Teaching the pastor training course there at Cam We were teaching on this topic for the week overcoming good with evil Non-resistance loving our enemies and I really enjoyed it But I didn't I didn't even understand it But one night I got a call and that the gang was very unhappy with me for some reason, which is very common So I drove over there to them and They were very upset with me I tried to just talk to them try to calm them down. It's not uncommon for them at all to pull a gun and shoot and ask questions later But I was trying to get these people to understand the truth of what they're upset about and they begin to escalate One of them ran to get the gun his gun and one said you better leave now because if he gets back before you're gone You are a dead man And I didn't want to leave that way because I didn't know if that would be the end of my work there I couldn't leave They began to push me onto the ground And I eventually got in my truck and left and they threw rocks as I was leaving We were just in their little little compound there their little area There was nobody around Or so I thought the next day in class a pastor stood up He said I want to tell you what I seen yesterday He said I want everyone to know this isn't just something that he's saying he actually lives it remember who I was Without God But people are watching us and you may think well when's the next time I'm going to be in that situation And maybe you never will be but there will be a situation that you're in where somebody's watching you Watching how you react to someone that talks to you Watching maybe it's a child in the back seat watching how you react when someone pulls out in front of you simple things And we often say we don't know how we'll react We don't know how we'll react if someone does this to me. Yes, we do I Argue that Because if you can't handle it when someone pulls out in front of you on the highway with your air conditioning on You're not going to handle it. Well when there's a gun in your face. I Believe that to be true Yeah, we got robbed one day and like I said, I don't want if anyone here is gonna start trying to think anything of me I'll stop talking. I really really prayed and debated whether to say anything about Haiti to be honest But I'm trusting you But we got robbed at gunpoint and everything was taken and It was vicious vicious robbery a lot of shooting. It was over The Lord watched over us But a few weeks later. I got a call from a man. He said I'm the one that robbed you This is how God works things happen for reasons. We believe that he said I want more money. I Know where you are. I said, well, I'm glad you know where I'm at because I've been wanting to talk to you You can take whatever you want, but I won't give you any more money There's people that think that's not the right approach give to him that ask it And maybe I'm wrong But I said I want to give you something that's far greater than money And I just want to talk to you come over so we can talk and it wasn't long before this man told me I Want something better than money This thing we talked several times this thing that you talk about is it real? I want to know is it real and I believe there are so many other people That have the same question and I'll be honest There's probably people sitting in here right now that have that question. Is it real? It's real brothers. It's real It is real We must have confidence in God's sovereign will for our life Do we have confidence in that? We put brother Zach had those pictures of those missionaries that were killed Do you think that they thought it was God's will? I don't know But do you think that God used that situation? Was there sacrifice of their life worth it in the perspective of the kingdom of God or eternity? But when we think of our life we hold our lives too precious we do We've got it all figured out. We can actually go and do whatever we want We can we can we can choose what color paint to paint our houses what what we want on our hamburgers Do we take the sovereign will of God for our life seriously? Maybe it's his will that we do die like we heard about this afternoon Are we ready for that and excited about that are we willing to be a living sacrifice? I Think that's important because we're not willing to do that. We're not going to be able to do what we're talking about Because when you're worried about your life It's very difficult to stand in the face of evil and Overcome it with good. It's very difficult. I tell you all these stories But there was a time when a gangster It was like God was showing me. I couldn't I couldn't find love for him He had done something to my family And I battled with that thing all through the night and I had Evil thoughts, but God was able to bring me to a place Where I began to love him We got it to the point with these gangs that we would meet we'd have its service every other Friday. Oh What a tremendous opportunity We actually had a building maybe this size maybe a little smaller than this Where we had our first meeting and there was hundreds of gangsters there and I wish you could have been there to see that I Be in the sooner they began to preach a man walked in with a gun and just paced back and forth here forth in front of me And people were wondering what it was going to happen But because of the power of God The message was preached long that day There were tears shed in the in the faces of these gangsters And I'm telling you what if you experience that it makes everything worth it They have no hope Without God we believe it one of those meetings I was there and waiting for people to come and Sitting beside two gang leaders And I was kind of talking to myself the one right beside me was a hothead and didn't trust him at all He was their killer. He was the one they'd send out to shoot And I just held my Bible up and I said it's such an amazing thing that this book is more powerful than any gun And I said it with a smile on my face I don't know if I would have said that if I would have known he had a gun with him But he pulled out his gun And he said I don't believe you Now when you come to the crossroads where reality is going to set in where our faith is going to be tried We're gonna find out if what we say is what we believe You know in America we can say whatever we want We can We can preach sermons for years. We can listen to sermons for years But I'm telling you when you come to the crossroads That's what builds our faith And you can't find those crossroads when you're sitting in your easy chairs very often But when you're out working You're out working you come to those crossroads and God is always faithful A few weeks later that man pulled a gun on me again and and this time he was going to shoot me He was certain of it And another leader looked at him and he said not here Not here And I can testify here today that I was at peace with that I have a family I have children But I believe in the sovereign will of God and that God is in control And if God sees that it's best that I be shot down in the street in some Haitian village That I'm okay with that and that God is big enough to take care of my family And people don't understand that they call me a fool But I really believe it it's exciting to me It's the battle And if you don't fight you can't win And if you don't win You can't have faith If you don't have faith you don't have a relationship You have defeat And once you live in this defeat for so long You believe it's the only way to go You believe it's that it's all that there is It's just reality We're defeated people When we go back to the altar many times Do we find the power there at the altar? And if we don't find the power there we're doing something wrong. There was another story I'll share here About a gang leader that was feared A vicious man And I was somewhat waiting for him to show up He did one day and he Wasn't very nice Which we expected right We were gathering We're having a meeting there Us missionaries with our children And they approached and they shot into our group We I knew that we had something on our hands that was maybe a little different than what I'd been used to I'm not sure how much of the story to tell but He was simply going to kill till he got what he wanted He didn't fear anybody And he locked our compound I didn't tell anybody about this there. I didn't want to invoke fear He locked our compound and he said tomorrow morning if I don't have $150,000 You're all dead He told me that over the phone So I went to where they hang out To try to talk to him And it didn't go well But I just told him I'm sorry, but I can't give you that They took the the motorbike I was on and I went back to the Compound He went back with me let me back in I just remember thinking do we believe that god is in charge of this situation? Thinking to myself Do I believe that god is in charge? Or do I believe that this man Can do something that god will not allow? That's the question we need to ask ourselves and I came to a a resolute Conclusion that god was in charge. He was in control And if it was god's will that he come and burn the compound down Then so be it He called me and he said Where's the money? I said I told you I'm not going to give you the money he said I maybe spoke a little too soon on the 150,000 and I realized that's a lot of money If you would give me a hundred thousand that will work. I said, I'm sorry. I can't He got super mad swore cussed hang at the phone About exactly an hour later calls back Fine fine fine 75,000 And this thing's over I said listen if I'm not going to give you 75,000 I'm not going to give you any amount of money, but if you come and unlock our gate I'll come and talk to you and I'll sit with you and I'll listen to you I want a relationship with you. I want to hear your heart. I want to help you But no, he wasn't interested in that. He was interested in money He kept calling all through that night until he was down to bury. Give me one food box I'll unlock your gate. No, I've been called a fool many times But just thinking in your mind what would have happened if I would have gave him that food box I don't know. Maybe you know something. I don't and you probably do But I told him I can't I'm not going to lie and say that I didn't struggle a bit. I'm not going to lie and say why can't I do it But I'm going to tell you this I believe that God was saying no The next morning came I won't rose early and went out The gate was unlocked at about nine o'clock. He called me Hey How you doing? I'm doing good. I said, I know you didn't come. You didn't come this morning Oh, I'm sorry. He said I shouldn't have acted that way. I'm sorry. Can you forgive me? I said absolutely He said but you you didn't say that you come talk to me, didn't you? Now I've seen the I've seen the the the the wicked side of this man very personally He was trying to steal land there And I went out and told him I said do you realize that That God owns this land and he said if God owns this land tell God to come down here And I'll cut off his head But now he seems to be different this morning. He says you said you come talk to me So I said yes, I'll be there at 1 15 I was getting ready to go and a couple of the other missionaries there said they wanted to come So three of us went Went to his house there a little shack Him and his cousin were sitting there And I'm gonna I preached And I'm gonna tell you I preached a hard message to him that day And I'm gonna tell you too that it was out of love love for this man A passion that he would turn his life around I told him what he needed to do He needed to forget about this life.  Will you let me come here on Fridays? And hold a church service right here He looks up me with big eyes Yes He said the only problem is this area would be too small I can get everybody to come he said I said okay You pick a place and Friday We'll meet And we'll have a service and I'll preach And he was excited about it his cousin there excited about it And I can't I can't tell you the joy that I felt for this opportunity That came from simply returning evil for good An opportunity that wouldn't have come another way But as we were there talking I didn't know it But two men came With the purpose to kill that man And they seen us sitting there talking So they waited waited until we left and them two men were executed. I don't understand it. I don't understand it A lot of things that happened In the last year they don't understand But I do know one thing God understands it We're not called to understand it And I need help with that. I want to understand But we're simply called to do what Jesus tells us to do We're simply called to return evil for good and let god do the rest Maybe it doesn't turn out like we think Maybe it turns out different But this that i'm talking about is the warfare that's raging It's the warfare that god is waiting on soldiers to enter And although I have a lot of questions I have some answers as well When we submit to the will of god and we love our enemies It brings peace Knowing despite what other people are saying about you Despite what other people feel about you Knowing that you're doing what god has called you to do brings peace And we have to believe young men We have to believe that god has a calling for you We love each other We love our brothers God forbid that I actually love them gangsters and I can't love my brother But let's pursue it With everything that we have with everything we have We're going to need to say no to some desires to look like a certain way We're going to have to say no to some fashion We're going to have to put on the identity We're going to have to put on the identity of jesus christ and accept that like brother john d said this today Real quick in closing. I'll tell you a story about that identity. My wife come from a baptist home They don't cover their heads. She never covered her head And so after we got converted we didn't cover she didn't cover her head We didn't really think about it. Some people we just didn't do the people we were with they didn't do it but when When we started meeting the anabaptist people that wore the veiling We soon realized that we connect with these people They're in allen county We connect with these people spiritually on a spiritual level For some reason this covering seems to be separating us Listen to this But we fought that thing For what reason? I don't know The only thing I can say today is that we wanted to fit into the world. We wanted to be I we wanted to go into walmart Not everybody look at us We wanted to be able to go to her families get together and not look strange or weird I'ma tell you something after fasting and praying about it. We decided To begin to wear a veiling Just that simple But it changed our lives forever because it identified us with the people of god And maybe that seems trivial to you, but it was not for us. We couldn't hide it anymore We walked into the room and everybody was staring And from that point on it was real easy to identify with christians.  We'll never regret it It is amazing the peace Oh praise god and it adds accountability to your life so many things So god bless you. I believe in you and let's pray for each other