Forces, our public affairs series that focuses on folks who have chosen to spend some or a lot of their time in the field of social activism. We are interested in knowing what drives them, what their journey has been to get there, and also, of course, what causes or causes it is that they are devoting themselves to. Today, I am very pleased to welcome into our studio Valerie Overton. She is, among other things, co-chair of Lex Pride. And Valerie, first of all, welcome. Thank you. Thanks for coming. What immediately precipitates your visit is that there's an event coming up. We're speaking to you on November 14th. And just a few days away, there's an event that I would just like to start off by inviting you to describe. And yeah, just let us know what the details are about it. Sure. Great. So, on Sunday, November 17th, we are going to be holding a Transgender Day of Remembrance Commemoration. It's going to be four to six p.m. at First Parish in Lexington. It's sponsored by Lexington and also co-sponsored by the Arlington Rainbow Commission, which we're really delighted to be partnering with the Rainbow Commission, as well as First Parish is co-sponsoring as well. Oh, First Parish here in Arlington as well? In Lexington. Oh, Lexington. Got it. So, the Transgender Day of Remembrance, the commemoration that we'll be doing, has two parts. The first part from four to five is really a way of bringing people together to connect and to get to know each other and to kind of think about the issues in a way that's easy and comfortable. So, we'll be making trans ribbons, the commemorative ribbons, we'll be decorating candles, we'll have flip charts about ideas of what the trans community needs and what kinds of actions people in the community can take to help the trans community and to help diffuse kind of issues around transphobia in the community. And then from five to six is the Remembrance itself, and so we'll have some folks giving a little background, telling their personal stories from their experiences as transgender people. We'll do the lighting of the candles and poems and songs, and then kind of highlight ideas for action that folks in the community, just ordinary people, not necessarily those who are activists, can take to just help make this a more peaceful world for the community. Right. I can imagine that you are not only interested in but would welcome, would embrace, you know, folks coming to this event who are not necessarily even connected through, in their own personal lives or in any other way, with the transgender community. In fact, maybe you'd especially like to invite folks like that in. That's right. Absolutely. This really is an event for everyone. We absolutely welcome people from the transgender community, and of course we welcome people from all facets of life. In fact, in our last few years when we've done these transgender Days of Remembrance, a lot of times it is people from the community who don't have direct connections who come. And partly it's a learning experience. And partly it's a way just to express caring, even if they're not directly connected to just express that caring, that we are connected by a shared humanity. And it's not always easy to find ways to express that. Well before we leave this topic and move on to your kind of your life of social activism more generally, I want to take the opportunity to ask a question. And let me give you a little background. I was a teacher in a high school here in Boston for many years. And it was a high school that was very welcoming to people just across all different kinds of spectrums, but including gender identity. And I know as far as 10, 12 years ago I had advisees and there were students in the school who were gender non-binary or transgender or somewhere in transition, et cetera. And who requested that we refer to them by pronouns that they're comfortable with, specifically in this case they and them. And I was a community basically full of well-intentioned, supportive adults and kids around this kind of thing. Nonetheless, we, the adults, consistently struggled with that pronoun. And I know that it is just, it just is an ongoing issue for folks within the community, outside the community, those, again, mainly everybody who wants to support people who are in that situation and respect that. And yet there is, so my question, you know, that's a long preamble to a simple question. Like how, is it simply just repetition, repetition, repetition so that you can get used to it? Or is there any way to approach this, again, so as not to create confusion or feel confusion oneself when, again, using the appropriate pronouns they and them to refer to a single individual? Right, yeah, it's, you know, it's definitely an adjustment. What we're seeing now is that, you know, various dictionaries, the American Psychological Association, and a variety of kind of fairly mainstream organizations have adopted they, them as a singular pronoun for someone who is either gender non-binary or who's gender you don't know. And so typically what I say is, you know, whenever I go to events or conduct training workshops or anything else, I always start out by practicing using pronouns. I'll introduce myself. Hi, I'm Valerie Overton. My pronouns are she, her, and I'm here to do whatever the case may be. And the more you model using the pronouns and just practice it, because it feels awkward at first. But the more you practice it, the more comfortable it becomes. And I think the other thing is that it does feel awkward for a lot of people who aren't accustomed to it, to use the they, them pronoun for a single person.  Can they please add some, you know, milk and sugar or whatever, right? So we do that anyway, and it's just something that we do without thinking. And the more we practice using they, them when we're either uncertain about gender, or we know that that person is non-binary, the easier it gets. And it's really just a matter of being respectful. You know, there's really not anything more to it than that. Right, right. And again, it is a, it's a small point. It really isn't nearly as significant as, as, as any number of other kind of issues and challenges for both people within, again, the community of the non-gendered or, or, or, or expansively gendered, etc. But, you know, also for others.  And I think one way of thinking about it too is that in some ways it seems like a small point. On the other hand, I know that when people are misgendered, it can be very painful. It can be like this non-recognition of who I am or this rejection of who I am, depending on the intent. And so my son, who is transgender, when he would be misgendered, he described it to me as feeling like he was punched in the gut, because it was such a negation of who he was as a person. Right. And so if I were to refer to you with female pronouns, it would feel wrong to you, it would be a negation of your identity. And in the same way with a transgender person, it's a negation of their identity and a negation of their personhood. Right. So it's a small point, but it also makes a huge difference in terms of establishing authentic, respectful connection with people. Yeah, and the fact of the matter is that regrettably, as we all know, transgendered people and everybody in such situations are already dealing with enough actual hostility. Yes. You know, people who don't care and are not going to respect them, etc.  And just one last thought on that is that sometimes people worry about making a mistake or saying the wrong thing, or they feel guilty or ashamed if they realize that they've made a mistake. And I think one thing to know is that in general, the LGBT community doesn't care if you make a mistake, right? It's okay to make a mistake. I make mistakes sometimes, right? We all make mistakes. And so just a quick, simple apology and then using the correct pronouns is all it takes to be respectful. We don't need to, like, belabor it or get into, like, lengthy apologies. I appreciate you making that last point because that is definitely another common touchstone for, I think, a lot of people who are wanting to be, again, supportive of those in this, in that situation.  So the faster you can just move, you know, understanding this, you having laid that out, hopefully means move right through it and get to the stuff that really matters, actual communication, et cetera. So speaking of communication, let's talk a little bit more again. As I explained earlier, this series really does seek to, you know, talk to and I was going to say kind of find out the secrets. But not really. Just more very much focus on what your particular journey has been to the life you've chosen, what that life looks like now, as well as what challenges are inherent in having chosen that life for you. So with that kind of very open-ended invitation, I just want to invite you to tell us some about, you know, how social activism has functioned in your life. Sure. Yes. It's actually been an important part of my life since childhood. Growing up in the 60s, you know, that was the time of a lot of activism on a lot of fronts in terms of anti-war, peace movements, the civil rights movement, both of those were certainly very influential on me. I grew up in California at a time and place where the area where I grew up was very agricultural. And there was a lot of migrant farm workers who would be, you know, sprayed from overhead from planes going by. And so the migrant farm workers struggle for decent treatment was also very formative in my early years. And so I became involved at a fairly young age in terms of volunteering with soup kitchens, advocating for migrant farm workers' rights, advocating for civil rights, domestic violence and intimate partner abuse were big parts of what I was working on in those early years as well. So those were things that kind of touched me from the environment that I lived in as a starting point. Yeah. And it's interesting to me that there's a certain commonality to several of those kind of causes or issues, I would say, by which I mean you recognize that there was inequity or injustice or both. And you wanted to do something to help the person or group of people who were being adversely affected, who were being discriminated against, who were being in some way put in harm's way. Does that, you know, I mean that's a drive that a lot of us feel, of course, but is that connect to the family you're raised in as well? Oh, sure. Or was it really? Sure, absolutely. You know, I grew up kind of below the poverty line. I grew up in a family with an abusive father, so the domestic violence was close to my heart. My friends were the children of migrant farm workers. Some of us would play in the fields, and we would be sprayed as well. So, and I was aware of, even in California, there were some efforts at segregation with Mexican-Americans and Native Americans. So it was very much kind of affecting me personally, as well as my family members and my friends. So this was really kind of in the trenches struggle, I would say. And clearly not just I'm going to help them, but that they are me, and I am them, yeah. Right. And I always felt that I was, I mean, I knew that I was different, too, because from a young age, I recognized that back then I would say I like girls, but now I would say I'm a lesbian. I didn't really have the language for it back then. And I knew it wasn't safe to talk about it. People in those days and in that area were killed for being gay or brutally attacked. And so that also was another area that was important to me to find ways to express ways of advancing equity and justice in whatever ways I could. And in those early years, the LGBT area was not a safe place for me to be. Right. And perhaps in this conversation, maybe in another conversation, we'll be able to explore and, I think, quite frankly, celebrate the amazing distance that we have moved in a relatively short space of time as a society around those very issues. But let me ask you right now, so did your social activism from an early age around those kinds of issues then inform or determine your actual professional aspirations in your education and then what you've done since then? Or is it happening in parallel? Yeah, a little bit of both. So I was very fortunate to be able to come out east and go to a really nice college in Western Mass. Went to Smith College, and it was very much a stroke of luck for me from where I came from to be able to do that. And initially, I had aspirations of becoming a doctor because I thought that that would be a way to work with people who were disadvantaged and didn't have access to good health care. We take a winding road, however. I wound up not doing that. Eventually, I got into public health education and public health evaluations. So that is a way for me to make a difference in a different kind of a way. And I'm very fortunate to be able to work on projects that really make a difference in terms of environmental and medical justice. And then I always kind of had the other outlets, though, in terms of for each, I feel like each decade, there was a new civil rights movement. Women's rights and HIV AIDS and gay rights and disability rights and so on and so forth. So how have you kind of navigated over the decades now? We often talk about the work-life balance. In this case, the work-social activism balance. How has that worked for you? Have there been particular challenges that you've had to deal with, whether it's energy and not enough sleep or what, but in terms of kind of persisting with these dual commitments for so long? Yeah, absolutely. There's definitely been challenges. And certainly the work-life balance or work-social justice life balance has been kind of a lifelong struggle for me, because I'm someone who always wants to do more than perhaps I should be. So that's always something that I try to work on in terms of maintaining a balance, because there are definitely long periods of time where I perhaps am not getting as much sleep as I should. We're not kind of visiting family and friends as often as I would like to. I mean, these are the kinds of sacrifices that do happen, right? Right. And then the other side, too, is in terms of work. For example, in the early 80s, I was working at a research institute in Boston. And it just happened to be that I was in a series of rallies and protests in those times. And I was captured on TV. And so there I was, Valerie Overton on TV. For all to see, right, including your employer. And so it was tough. It was tough. So was that because your employer didn't appreciate that? Yes. I faced a lot of harassment at work in those days for that reason. Yes. So it was pretty tough in those days. I'm fortunate now to work for an employer that I think is much, you know, the times have changed. And also it is kind of a socially conscious kind of a company. And even then, as a professional, I think a lot of LGBTQ professionals, there's always kind of this balance in terms of, well, we're well accepted in the workplace. Is it OK for me to refer to my life and what I'm doing with clients, for example? There's just kind of different considerations for us than there are for heterosexual people who wouldn't think twice about saying, like I went to a barbecue with my wife and I would hear, or you know, et cetera. Yeah. So there still are those kinds of considerations that we need to think about. And right now, in our introduction, I had alluded to your role within Lex Pride as a co-chair. Is that the primary place where your social activism, your social justice energy is going right now? I would say it's the primary place. I also am involved in a variety of other organizations among Lexington's Diversity Advisory Task Force. I am a member of Lexington's MLK planning committee. So we're planning our activities for MLK day and the weekend right now. I'm active in the Lexington Community Coalition and just recently helped to organize a series of community conversations on the book, White Fragility. So I do a lot of kind of planning of events and also advocacy in the schools and with the business community and with local government and the community in general. One of the things that we did with Lex Pride, for example, is to establish an open to all campaign in Lexington so that businesses and other organizations who committed to serving all people equally without discrimination could have an open to all decal on their business doors or their websites or whatever the case may be. So it's fairly varied. Yeah. We do everything from professional development workshops to film screenings. Yeah, I can tell that it is very varied. And again, it has extended over a decade. So one thing that we like to do in driving forces is, first of all, imagine that we have an audience out there who are some of whom are going to be listening to the conversation in a situation in which they aren't involved with other things and they may be open to it. They may even be thinking about it. But they're not sure how that happens or, again, what they have to be willing to give up, for instance, et cetera. So you have a lot of experience now. And I wonder if I just could ask you if there are... Again, I would hate to ask for bullet points or anything like that, but what are two or three things that you would share as wisdom that you've acquired over time for somebody, again, not yet in touch with this part of their own personality or life, but who might be open to it? Sure. I think that one thing that's really helpful first is just to go to a couple of events or read the resources or connect with the topic of interest in some way. Because that is really, and hopefully in some personal way, to sometimes these events, a lot of times we have people who tell their personal stories so that you can connect on the human level and really get a more kind of gut understanding of the issues. And when you do that, it helps to inspire us to take action and it increases our knowledge, of course. And then I would say to really value the impact of conversation. And so even if you are not someone who wants to become a hardcore activist, if you get connected to an issue, whether it's transphobia or any other issue, talking with people and your neighbors and family members and coworkers and so forth about the issue has a huge impact. Because that's how we spread awareness from a person to person, engaged, connected kind of a way. And that is one of the most effective things that people can do. In terms of becoming active, visit Lex Pride. Of course. There are so many ways to get involved and we can, and other organizations too, but we can kind of talk with you about what is your time like? Do you have an hour a week, an hour a month, an hour a day? Are you someone who likes to work behind the scenes? Are you someone who likes to be more upfront and kind of facilitating?  Are you someone who likes to draw? There's all different kinds of skills and personalities and tasks to match. And so we can connect people with kind of short, simple, one-off kinds of tasks to longer initiatives. And so I think don't be shy to connect with us or another organization.  And as you said, it could be one hour a day for some people, it could be one hour a month for some people that's all social, active, or it's all contributing to the common good in a sense. Or it could be 10 hours this month and then not for another few months. There's lots of different opportunities. And then just showing up, for whatever event is going on is really helpful. Yeah, so I think a couple of really excellent takeaways there. One, which I had not heard before and which makes total sense to me, being a person who engages in these kinds of conversations that we're having like we're having today and really enjoys them, but the power of conversation, as you just said, the fact that that alone, if you're doing that with, you are in a sense, acting. You are in a way and that's a great takeaway. And then the other thing that you were just mentioning, hey, if you're interested in a topic, find an organization, walk into the door because that organization is most likely gonna be very happy to see you and be able to deal with whatever. Right, and be able to take whatever you can offer and use that to start working for good. And so, again, two really excellent takeaways. I did, the first thing that you mentioned also allows us to circle back, which I'd like to do just to end our conversation, back to the, you said, go to events, start to explore this. So again, let's hope that this is encouraging some folks to come to the day of, to the transgender remembrance on this coming Sunday, the 17th, because I'm struck by the fact that you said that that second half of the proceedings of the event is really gonna be, it sounds very personal. Yes. And very much people sharing their stories, responding to those stories, connecting around those stories. And that does seem to me always a very profound kind of experience for anybody to have. One of the most kind of connecting things that we can do. And I think that one of the things that we see a lot of times with, particularly around the issue of transgender day of remembrance when we're honoring the lives lost due to kind of brutal transphobic violence, is that sometimes we lose sight of the humanity. Like these were really human beings who had lives and hearts and souls and connections and so forth. And we need to really remember the human factor and connect around kind of our grief and also our power to honor people and to make change. And so that kind of personal connection really matters to us and making this a very authentic, engaging, relatable kind of an event. Yeah, and I have to say, in just listening to you know, I was very struck by a realization that you're right that when it comes to a day of transgender remembrance or transgender day of remembrance, there's something fundamentally different about that kind of commemoration because it's not a disease. It's not a natural disaster. It's not something, it's people, it's violence. It's the very worst kinds of experiences that we can inflict on ourselves. And that's gonna be disproportionately the story of the folks who are being remembered. The transgender day of remembrance actually started 21 years ago with the murder of Rita Hester in Boston. So although it's a national and international day, it started in Boston with the death of a beloved community member who I had met, you know, although I didn't know her very well. And it was a way of just funneling our outpouring of grief and desire to have her be remembered respectfully and not just by the circumstances of her death. And so I really think about that each year that we really want to remember the humanity of the people who we've lost and recognize the abhorrent violence, but not put that on the lives of the people who we've lost. Right, focus on the living part of their lives. Yes. Not how they died. Yeah, I'm really, really good. Again, another great takeaway in general and that applies to even beyond these particular circumstances, I think. Well, let me just ask you to remind everybody of where we started this conversation, which is the day of remembrance that will be happening. Give us the details one more time before we go. Sure, yeah. So the transgender day of remembrance will be this Sunday, November 17th from four to six p.m. at First Parish in Lexington. And it's we welcome anyone and everyone. And you're welcome to come to either the first half or the second half or both. Be great to come to both parts. But they really provide kind of different ways in, in terms of kind of having that kind of connection through activity piece for the first half and that connection through stories and kind of the personal experience in the second half. So we invite people to join us for that. And it seems like a really well-structured event, as you said, for both four folks who are deeply steeped in the community already and those from outside who would just be interested in walking in. So best of luck with it. I'm so glad that you came in today. It's been an excellent conversation. Really appreciate it. And we look forward to checking back in with you again. We've got some future data about how things, you know, not just how things go on Sunday, but how things are going in general. Sure. All right. Yeah, great. Thanks for inviting me. Thanks very much, Valerie. And that is Valerie Overton, who is our guest on this episode of Driving Forces. I'm James Milan. We really appreciate your being here.


Welcome to Hard Questions, where we gather pastors together to take on your tough questions and answer them right from the Bible. I'm Tom Hollis, the moderator, and today our panelists include Dr. William R. Glaze, Bethany Baptist Church in Pittsburgh, Ray Hypal, Providence Presbyterian Church in Robinson Township, Pete Giacalone, Lead Pastor, South Hills Assembly Guy Church, Bethopark, Pennsylvania, J. Anthony Gilbert, pastor of another level ministries in the North Hills area. Pastors, thank you for being with us today. Glad to have you. Glad to hear your answers to these tough questions. And today we're going to be talking about gambling, judging, and eating. Well, one of those I kind of like. All right. So let's see where we start with this one. All right, Pete, we're going to go to you first. And it's what does the Bible say about gambling? And before you answer, have you noticed that every single sports program you watch, every commercial break, there's an ad for gambling. I pull up my phone to check a score or check just Twitter or Facebook or something. And there's gambling ads there. It is everywhere right now. What does the Bible say? Well, first of all, let me piggyback off what you just said. The gambling problem in America right now is an epidemic. Tens of millions of people are literally addicted to gambling. Now, again, my family background, where I've come from, my grandmother, I'm just going to throw a quick testimony here. My grandmother taught me how to gamble when I was five years old. And when I would get together with my cousins, the very first thing was the quarter that they had in their pocket. I wanted in the quarter I had in my pocket. They wanted so. So gambling is nothing new to me. But when I gave my life to Christ, when I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, not only did gambling go in my life and drinking, and it was immediately, it is a true addiction. And let me use this scripture taken from Romans just as a springboard. It's just a springboard.  I liken that to that, that the once you open up that, I'm going to use the word Pandora's box. Once you open up that box and you have that lustful desire to have more, I think greed comes in with that. And that to me, again, this is my own personal conviction. It's a trust issue. From the day, again, when I gave my life to Christ, my family disowned me. Everything. But, and at 17, I learned to trust God. I'm now 69, and I can say that in church life and in my own personal life, God has never failed me. Of course, that's my testimony. I own that rather than gambling, trying to get anything rich quick. We're trusting God in this. Well, you know what? If you look at every gambling situation, they're not set up to lose money. Oh no. No, they wouldn't be on TV and advertising if they were losing money. Right. So somebody's losing money. And so it's the people that are involved in gambling. And I would ask the question, you know, as a Christian, am I being a good steward over God's resources? You know, if I realized that that my money comes from the hand of God, you know, is this something that God would want me to do, you know, to invest in something again, that is based on the company or the organization making money and not me. But then the second thing, because I hear this quite a bit, well, I just do it recreationally. And so, you know, addiction and all this stuff, they say, I don't have a problem with that.  Lady luck. And what is that? You know, lady luck. Be good to me tonight. Well, you know, as a Christian, if you have a need, what do you do? Heavenly Father, you know, please meet that need. So you're praying to luck and asking luck to, you know, to be your God and let the dice fall or let the cards fall in your favor. Oh, the pastors, they're going to give so much money to the church when they when they win. Let's go. They're not tithing now. They're not going to tithe when he makes big money. You know, it's funny. You talked about those ads that we're seeing everywhere. As soon as gambling comes around, you also see ads for gambling addiction problem call, you know, and the statistics show that whenever gambling is legalized in an area, everything is affected adversely by that. You get more drugs, more prostitution, more people homeless.   And that's what gambling does. And I understand the question because I've got this before two people. So where does it say thou shalt not gamble?  And no, it doesn't say that. I'll say right now. The Bible doesn't say thou shalt not gamble. What it does say is thou shalt not covet, thou shalt not steal. How are we to earn our living by legitimate work? The very concept that you can get rich quick or that you can make your living in a way that you don't have to work that violates the way God made us. God made us to work six days in legitimate occupations, you know, not as a bank robber or something. And we get satisfaction from that.  And gambling is just, it's just bad all the way around. It's bad for us. And it's a bad witness and it's not trusting God, as Dr. Glaze said. So, you know, this is something Christians just thought not to be involved in. Well, let me ask a side question that's still about people say, well, wait a minute, invest in the stock market, that's a gamble. We start doing business. That's a gamble. Everything's a gamble. Life's a gamble. What's the difference between gambling? Well, I think when you're making an investment and things like that, I mean, if you're looking at some of those, you know, underhanded, I got a little stock tip and you know, that no one knows about, well, you know, that's more of a thing. But there's, that's not the same type of gambling as that. I mean, usually if you have good investments, you're going to get a return. Usually, though, it's you make an investment now and then it pays out in the long run. It's not a quick get rich quick. As a matter of fact, there's something about the road travel to prosperity. I think it's important that people need to understand about the lottery. You know, the Bible says in Proverbs 1311, wealth gained quickly will dwindle. And if you take it, I don't know if you all remember the each true Hollywood story, if you all remember those back in the day, they had the curse of the lottery. If you ever get a chance to check out, it's amazing. There were six of them. I think they did one committed suicide, two were murdered. One was in worst debt and they were before and only one made it because there's something about that process of achieving prosperity, not becoming rich, but becoming wealthy, which is a mindset that really helps you to be able to cultivate and take care of that wealth when it comes. When you get all that immediately, money only makes you more what you already are. And so it really can be a mess. So while the Bible doesn't clearly say you can't, it's very important that we understand that there's a lot of dangers to that. Absolutely. What's to say in Proverbs that it makes itself wings and flies away. So we need to be careful. And then again, on that same study, Jay, I think that you were just talking about, they have proven that these people have won a million dollar lotteries that within a year they're broke. They're in debt. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. So gambling, again, doesn't say there's not a verse you can point to. It says not to gamble, but the weight of the Bible and Christian living is against that. So let's go to the next one. What do you say to someone who says they don't believe in God because Christians are too judgmental, Pastor Ray. You know, and I've heard that a lot. And you'll see that in little clips on YouTube. You know, I'm spiritual, but I won't go to church because Christians are hypocrites judgmental. Well, you know, I think that's one of the most foolish things a person can say. And if you know somebody who's saying that, and if you can just say to them, you're being very foolish in saying that.  Would you say, you know, that all Democrats are murderers because this Democrat committed murder?  Or would you say, I don't believe in science because I saw a couple of scientists over here plagiarize something. Or all scientists are wrong because they're wrong about some things, therefore everything they say is wrong. Or I don't believe in medicine because this doctor committed malpractice. I mean, if you do that, you can't believe in anything. People aren't perfect. People don't always line up with what they do. Do Christians unfairly judge people? Absolutely. They do a lot worse. I always like to say that if you think the church is full of hypocrites, you're right. And there's always room for one more.  That's really good. Let me go to Pastor Glazer. Well, you know, I'd say how can you make an assessment about God based on a human being? You know, we had in previous programs talked about the fact that we're all sinners, right? And you know, we all stand in need of the blood of Christ. So, you know, if you're looking at me and you're making an assessment about God, then you've got your eyes on the wrong person. You know, you need to get to know God for yourself. You need to accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, develop a relationship with God and not let it be based on what you see somebody else did. You know, for your answer, Peter, I really got to wonder what they mean by judgmental, too, because we will stand on biblical principles that may sound judgmental in a post-Christian culture, but I agreed all the way. And again, I would, if I had a chance to sit down and talk with an individual like this, I would probably look them in the eye and say, wait a minute, why would you allow someone else's life to affect you in a negative concerning eternal life? You know what I mean?  Now, you're trying to say, now we're dealing with something with far-lasting value, eternal life. So, I have a really tough question here. I'll leave it for you. Christians ever get judgmental? Do we ever get judgmental? Oh, my gosh. Oh, yeah. We're going to say guilty here. Okay. We have gotten two judgmental at times. I think that there's a possibility. Oh, yeah. I mean, I'm not saying all Christians. I'm making a blanket, but does it ever happen? Well, yeah, that's like, he just mentioned a bunch of things that people do wrong in anything. It's like, but you have a bad experience at a restaurant. You don't stop going to all restaurants. Because, but I think we'll step further with that. Somebody's going to judge you, though. So, how, why would you say Christians are two judgmental? So, I don't want to go to church and I'm going to stop believing in God. Well, if the Christians are going to judge you, you need to go into the judgment.  So, the reality is, is to stop believing in God doesn't make any sense at all. Because somewhere along the line, you're going to have to give an account for your life.  Sex before marriage is a sin. That's not being judgmental. That's telling the truth. And God doesn't call us to not do that. Everybody, you know, everyone's favorite verse, judge not lest ye be judged. And that means we can never judge anybody. That's not what it means. The whole thrust of that verse is that we're not to judge ourselves in a different standard. By the way, we judge others, but Jesus said, judge one another righteously. And righteously is by what the Bible says. When I stand on the Bible, I'm not being judgmental. I'm telling the truth. That's right. Amen. Well, good question. And a good lesson for all of us to remember. We're going to come back in just 60 seconds when we ask, what do you do when someone has a word from the Lord for you? Welcome back to Hard Questions. We're answering your questions. And here's a great one. What do I do when someone comes to me with a word from the Lord? I put air quotes around it last time, but it comes with the word from the Lord. But I don't believe it. Do I let it go? Do I say something? Pastor Jay, start us off. That's going to be good. And I can't wait to jump into this because I love the fact when we have different views. And this is one of the ones that I think is it's going to be we're going to see some different views from that. So I think it's really good. I'm a firm believer that when that type of thing happens, one of the things I live by is prophecy should always be confirmation, never information. But I do believe someone could prophesy something to you that could be information that can become confirmation. So I wouldn't say I don't believe it. I would say more on the line of where I haven't found a witness with that yet. The Bible talks about trying the spirit by the spirit. So I think with any word that comes in, your baby should leap. I love this. The fact when Mary was pregnant, Martha was pregnant. She was six months. Mary was pregnant. When she when Mary walked into the room with Martha, right? Yeah, Elizabeth. Elizabeth, thank you. I was like, wait, something's wrong with that with Elizabeth. John the Baptist slept in a room. So what was in her belly left with what was in her belly? And I think that's the way prophesy should work. What's in your spirit will bear witness with my spirit that we're on the right track. So if you don't, if you get a word from God and you don't feel that that's from the Lord, put it up on the shelf. Pray about it. Say, Lord, if this is you, show me the manifestation of that. If it's not, maybe that prophesy had too much cheesecake for you went to bed that night.  But it's up for you to judge it though. You need to judge that word and don't move on it because you're afraid to miss it or because of fear. Move on it because you know don't blindly follow something like that. It's very important to mention that. Well, in the early 60s and 50s when there was a mighty move of God, this was happening in cottage pair meetings. Somebody would come up and say, the Lord spoke to me. You shouldn't be married to your wife. You should be married to so-and-so. And I'm talking about life change and experiences where just brought massive confusion into the body of Christ. So first of all, a word will, as far as a plumb line is concerned, the word, a word from the Lord will must line up at the plumb line of the word of God. And then I always encourage people never make a life-changing experience, a life change on someone else's word. And like you said, Jay, if it's confirmation, it's a different story. Yeah, get something from God yourself. Yeah.  And generally, when that happens, you know, I mean, a lot of times, 99.9% of the time, it's positive, you know? And I'm like, man, I really want to receive that, you know? I mean, I'm excited about that. But you know, generally, what I'll say is I'll say, man, you know, what that's... Because again, for me, most of the time when people do it, it's positive. And I say, man, you know, I really receive that. And but in my spirit, you know, I'm saying, let me go pray about this, you know?  Yeah, I think that's really important. I just heard someone say, when someone tells you, ask you to do something and you say, I'll pray about it. That was really interpreted. Leave me alone. Can I share a quick story about that before you go, because there was actually a lady in my church years ago that came to me one time and she said, God gave me a word and said that you need to start going to people in your church and you start washing their cars and buying their groceries personally. And you're missing everything with your wife, your wife, you know, meeting her needs the way you need to. You need to make sure you're doing this, that and the other. So I brought my wife in and I told her, I said, well, share this with my wife and see what she says to you. And she corrected her right there on the spot because she rebuked me. So I said, okay, well, that's fine. So I brought my wife and I said, share with her. And she said, no, you're way wrong. He's doing everything he needs to do. And then some, and so, you know, sometimes in those moments like that, people bring stuff to you, just bring them in on it, show them what's going on. And if it's not confirmation, don't receive it. So pass it right. Tell me something good. I'll give you a word.   I don't believe, I believe the scripture is complete. I know you all believe that as well. But I believe that means God does not inspire new words into people. But understanding that, I do believe in the Holy Spirit and that He illumines the word to us. He convicts us of sin. He convicts us of righteousness. You know, when I went into the ministry, people were saying that you're gifted and so forth. And the church said, quit your job and we'll pay for you. And the first thing I did was we need to pray. You know, we need to fast and pray about this. Because number one, I didn't want to go into the ministry and Robin didn't want me to go into the ministry, my wife. And so we really fasted and prayed. And I wouldn't say to you, I got a word from the Lord. But I would say I was convicted by the spirit that this was right. And what I did was I didn't, you know, just sort of go by feelings or anything. And I know you guys aren't saying that, but I sort of practically looked at this. So I made a list why I'm called. And it was about this long. And then I made a list why I'm not called. It was about that long. And, you know, and I started to pray and fast. And then I really began to look at, well, what has God provided and what do I lack? And so we made sure that everything could be provided that we needed and everything could. You know, we could get healthcare. I could finish the degree in two years. So all that fell into place. It came down to, I'm afraid to do this because I'm leaving a career in television 10 years and going into the ministry, not knowing what, the only reason not to do it was fear. And I knew that wasn't from the Lord. And so, you know, I wouldn't have said, I got a word from the Lord. I would have said that I was convicted by the spirit that God had made this possible. And I love that story. Thank you for sharing that. That's great. And so whether or not, so you're saying not necessarily an inspired word from God so much as somebody can still come and say, I really have a conviction about this part of scripture that I want to share with you that I really think our church should be doing or something like that. That's the way I take it. If someone said, God told me, I'm going to take it as, okay, this person is convicted. I don't believe he really heard God's voice, but he may be seeing something that is in the Word and he has the spirit. And so he's discerning something. So I am going to take it seriously, but I'm not going to look at him as a prophet speaking to me from God. You're going to tell him, I'll pray about it. I'll pray about it. I'll pray about it. Leave me alone. Well, coming up in 60 seconds, we answer our hotline question of the week. Welcome back to hard questions or taking on your questions. And we have an audio one. Let's listen. Hi. The Bible tells us that we shouldn't eat shellfish and that we shouldn't wear clothes made of two different materials. So if we don't have to follow those parts of the Bible, why do we have to follow the other parts of the Bible? What differentiates what we shouldn't follow and what we should follow? Well, to me, this is a really interesting question. And I think it goes to a lot about the Old Testament and how do we use the Old Testament?  Yeah, well, if you look at the law in the Old Testament, it fell into three categories. The civil laws, the ceremonial laws, and the moral laws. The civil laws, a lot of that expired with the Jewish civil government. When that went out, they kind of went by the wayside. And then there were ceremonial laws that when Christ came and did his priestly work, he fulfilled a lot of those laws. Give me an example of a ceremonial law. Well, sacrifice maybe, something like that? Yeah, the festivals, obeying the festivals, yeah, different observances that they had. And when Christ came, he fulfilled them. So I mean, if you still want to do them symbolically, there may be nothing wrong with that, but it's not necessary to follow them strictly by the law. But then there were moral laws. And those moral laws, if you look at the Ten Commandments, out of the Ten Commandments, nine of them were directly repeated in the New Testament, except for remembering the Sabbath day. So the moral laws carried over. So when you talk about shellfish and you talk about mixing garments, those things right there fell under the civil laws. And so yeah, when Israel pretty much came into the land and as time went on, those type things did go out of existence. So we're not mandated to follow those things, but there are moral laws that continued on that we need to continue to keep. Yeah, that's good. To keep. I think there's nothing wrong with being careful of the food you eat, but to say that it's sin to eat shrimp, or it's sin, or you're going against God, I see Jay licking his lips right now, to have lobster tail. I think you're bringing yourself under a law, which like you said, is no longer there for us. So we're out from under that. I'll go in moderation. Well, I want to say this. First of all, it's a phenomenal question. I mean, there's a lot of questions that come in, none of them are bad, but there's something I was like, wow, that's a very unique question. I like the way that you broke it down. I think one of the things that's important is to realize that those ceremonial laws that were there, once Christ came, they were 100% fulfilled. And now we operate in Galatians, according to the law of Christ, and Jesus even came and said, now all of the law is wrapped up in these two.  Even the 10 commandments are broke down into those two there. So everything, the moral laws, the only thing really that we carry over into, which thank God for that. And then even dealing with like food and clothing, a lot of that too, was also God showing the nation of Israel at the time, how to be separate from other nations. So some of those things were just their way of showing, we're not like other nations that God required of them, which a lot of those things too, when you really study them, can be shadows and types of how, what they saw on the outward, God now did on the inward of our hearts. Amen. Salvation as the Bible reveals it, it was given progressively and there were certain stages for God's people, as you guys have talked about. And the ceremonial law was an important part of that, that Israel would be given certain types and shadows so that they would wait in the promise that God would send them the first promises, the seed of the woman will crush the head of the serpent. Now that's not a lot of information, but somehow this woman's going to have a male offspring who's going to take the victory back from Satan and restore mankind into the presence of God. And then that's expanded to the seed of Abraham, right? And the seed of David. And so we get more and more of the seed of the virgin and those ceremonial laws. Jesus is the Passover lamb. That's why we don't sacrifice lambs anymore. And there is actually, he says, where do you find this in the question? Well, there's a couple of specific places. Acts chapter 10, when Peter is praying and he has a trance and he sees this sheet from heaven with all kinds of forforded animals, wildbeats, creeping things and birds. And the voice said, Peter rise, kill and eat. And Peter said, not so Lord, I have never eaten anything common or unclean. And the voice spoke and said, what God has cleansed, you must not call unclean. And in the gospels, it talks about Jesus cleansing all foods. And so those laws clearly were explicitly said to be fulfilled. They were put aside. And like what you said, Jay, God did give them in a sense to keep Israel separate so that they wouldn't become combined with the nations and then become idolaters and then commit sexual sin. You know, if you can only wear garments of one kind and you can't eat shellfish and all kinds of other things. Well, you can't mix with the nations. And so that protected them, that kept them separate. And we're still called to be spiritually separate, right? Believers can't be unequally yoked with unbelievers. So there's these spiritual principles that continue. You know, Israel was commanded to put a roof around or a fence around your roof. The principle continues, not that no one puts a roof or a fence around the roof now, but we put fences around pools so kids don't fall in and drown the same principle. So there's principles there that carry over as well. But the moral law is right and wrong. Right and wrong never changes. Yeah. And I think sometimes we have a hard time discerning where we draw that line. Because yeah, I think it was a great question. I agree with Pastor Jay. Thank you so much for your question. Well, we like to end the program with the scripture. And today we go to Psalms where it says this, The Lord is good to all. He has compassion on all he has made. That's from Psalm 145 verse nine. Thank you so much for joining us. We're so glad you joined us for hard questions. You can send us your hard questions. You can email them at hardquestions at ctvn.org or call us on our hotline. Have a great day.


Welcome to morning prayer. So glad you're joining us as well as those who are here with us in the prayer room At the heart of our city in Kalamazoo.  Oh Magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt his name together Something powerful about us Worshiping and exalting the name of the Lord together and every moment is a moment That's worthy of us stepping into with a posture of worship I will bless the Lord at all times and the good times and the bad times and the morning in the evening and The day of trouble and in the day of rejoicing Oh bless the Lord. Oh my soul and all that is within me bless his holy name The name of the Lord is worthy to be praised and in a world right now that wants to praise men Praise brands praise political parties praise ideologies today We as the people of God say we're here to praise the name of the Lord and lift it up and to let his fragrance ascend Out of our lives. So today Lord Jesus we come And we say we want our lives to be a resting place this room This city this region this week this moment to be a resting place of your presence on earth in us As it is in heaven Lord, we're here to praise you Come now is the time to worship come now is the time to praise the name of the Lord What you wherever you're at to just use your mouth use your voice and begin to just Vocalize praise to the Lord even if it's just to say praise the name Let's begin to vocalize of resistance and Difficulty praise is our response So Lord today just like them The priests and the Levites went out before the armies of Israel Said the Lord is good and his mercies endure forever And it caused confusion to me today Lord we go the armies of Israel We go out before the armies of the kingdom of God today and we say the Lord is good The Lord is good and his mercies endure forever We say great is your faithfulness Great is your faithfulness. Oh God Lord, I'm praying for a breakthrough of joy today over the atmosphere Over the atmosphere of West Michigan as we go into the next three days Over West Michigan of this historic gathering called the sin I'm praying that even as the hurricane storm clouds begin to swirl and we see it on radars over, Florida And it begins to change the barometric pressure I'm praying that in the heavenlies today that there's gonna become a breakthrough a swirl of a cold front That begins to swirl over West Michigan of praise and Thanksgiving and joy that breaks through the religious spirit That breaks through the heaviness that breaks through the barriers in the walls and the man-made Structures that are not prepared for the storm clouds of joy and worship that are about to hit it Lord I'm praying for you to raise up a hurricane of praise a Hurricane of praise the Lord is good and his mercies endure forever Lord right now let the worshippers be raised up Let the spirit of joy begin to be elevated right now Lord I hear the sound of the abundance of rain I can see the storm clouds on the horizon They might just be the size of a man's fist But I'm declaring over Grand Rapids in West Michigan this weekend that there's gonna be a hurricane of praise That breaks open the atmosphere Releases the storm clouds of revival Releases the rains that have been withheld for generations Lord that you're going to unleash high winds torrential rains of revival They're gonna change the landscape problem The Lord is good come on wherever you're at. Let's do what the priest did the Lord is good and his mercies endure forever The Lord is good of the gathered people on Saturday So many prayers so much intercession has been prayed for decades over West Michigan Revelation 5 it says from the throne room scene in verse 8 When he had taken the scroll the four living creatures and the 24 elders fell down before the lamb each holding a heart In a golden bowl full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints and they sang a new song Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals for you were slain and by your blood You've ran some people for God from every tribe and language and people in nation and you have made them a Kingdom and priest or our God they shall reign on the earth Lord We're asking that this Saturday sin event would be a tipping of the bowls That the bowls in heaven that hold the prayers of the saints that have been mixed with the incense of worship That seemingly have dissipated as they've been prayed and hit the ceilings in the rooms in which they've been prayed and Disappointed Lord you've been collecting them in bowls decades of intercessions Tears that have filled bottles have not been lost heaven has recorded everyone and they've been filling up the bowls of incense filling up the bowls of intercession and Lord we're praying that those bowls are full We have full confidence that there are full bowls before your throne Lord today as we gather in a historic way on Saturday at the sin We're praying that the angels of revival would begin to tip the bowls That have been filled with the prayers and the worship of the saints and pour out Pour out the incense of heaven on our region and on this generation to ignite Holy revival of worship That you Jesus would receive the rewards of your suffering Lord that you're gonna raise up a generation of goers Of sent ones you're gonna raise up a room full of worshipers radical lexic worshipers And the song of the Lord is gonna break through it's gonna break through the steel atmosphere That has withheld the reins of revival for decades We're saying no more Lord let this be ground-shaking ground swirl Hurricane of praise that unleashes a storm upon this generation God Go before us right now Lord release angelic ministry over the atmosphere and prepare the bowls for tipping The praise of your people are gonna tip over the bulls And we're gonna see what heaven has in store released in Jesus name when we say revival We're not talking high full of hype. That's cotton candy that melts Impact the Lord we're praying for of the life and the revelation of Jesus the beauty of Jesus and the worth of Jesus to be placed on the chest of your body and for voltages of resurrection life To be shot back through your united body once again in the midst of a generation that the life of Jesus Would flow into us and the passion for Jesus would flow out of us God we don't need more hype. We don't need another arena event We're not looking for a concert for people to come together and feel all hyped up the Lord We're praying that as people gather together that there would be an opening of heaven and a release of the weight of the glory of God in our midst and acts for Weight of glory that comes and actually shakes the place Shakes its foundation skull Shakes the people that are in it or shake us beyond the American dream Shake us beyond our need for another event. Shake us beyond our own comfort in our D. I Y Christianity Lord shake us with a revelation of the beauty and the glory of Jesus in a sense of Urgency of the hour in which we live that this is a moment that you're speaking to the church to go for It's not called the stay event It's called the send event because Lord you're raising up a generation that will Not just lift up their shoes, but lift up their heart and say God here am I send me To the hardest places send me to my generation a post Christian post modern generation That ridicules the gospel of Jesus, but Lord would you raise up? Courageous steely young people who would go under the college campuses in the workplaces in social media And even into the church world in the mission field and go and declare the worth of the lamb Father we're praying for even pastors that gather in that room thinking I'm just gonna bring my youth to this event It will fire them up Lord. I'm praying that pastors who become cold and their devotion to you Whose prayer lives have been laid in a coffin and buried six feet down would be resurrected at the send event God we're praying that as they open their Bibles the eyes that once looked upon those pages of scripture as a new believer Are gonna see through those lenses once again and be captivated by the beauty and the fascination of who you are God Lord we're praying for fire in the pulpits We're praying for fire in the prayer rooms Lord. We're praying that out of this send event Thousands of prayer meetings are gonna emerge across America and across the region where we say come and let us return to the Lord Come and let us return to the Lord of Hosea six Cry out of our hearts come let us return to the Lord. He has torn us, but he will heal us He has struck us down, but he will bind us up After two days he will revive us and on the third day He'll raise us up that we may live before us come and let us know the Lord Let us press on to know him So that he will send forth the reigns of revival and let us return to the Lord let there be a sobering overwhelming spirit of repentance from apathy and complacency Then overwhelms it and a return to our first love Gonna walk into that arena By the thousands and they're all gonna have stories and the enemy is gonna have a tactic to build their senses to distract them bondage and sin That they're carrying in there's gonna be all kinds of warfare that's taking place in that arena because of the Potential that can come out of it and I want everybody even at home right now Normally we just intercede and we sing but I want us to take the next 60 seconds to a minute and every one of us Stand on the wall and intercede and ask off for a breakthrough in individual people's lives to verbalize it And I want you to contend like you were standing outside of a burning house One two three, let's go come on Verbalize intercede pray in the spirit whatever it is that you've got to do ask God Lord break through break through God break through Open people's eyes Lord soften their hearts intercede cry out to God ask him Lord move in people's lives In fresh new ways Reveal yourself Silence the voice of the enemy Break off the shackles of seeing Lord will deliver people from bondage God Stir their hearts Reignite the flame of first love in our hearts. Come on engage you verbalize it You verbalize it even at home. Nobody's hearing you, but heaven hears you come on verbalize it out loud out loud intercede cry out to God Send breakthrough God Blesses weak, but the spirit is willing let your spirit pray for his breakthrough happening ahead right now The people are gonna step into on Saturday because you're praying come on verbalize it out loud ask him Breakthrough Jesus even now heaven is preparing the atmosphere in the soil Even now Lord you put the blade of breakthrough into people's soul Or even now there's people that are at home saying my life has got to change There's got to be something more Tired of going around this track Tired of running these same lives. I'm tired of the sin and the weight that easily besets me. I'm tired of it And they're crying out to God Lord I'm praying in response to those prayers put the blade of breakthrough in like a plow That begins to turn over hard and soil Lord, we're praying that the seeds The seeds of encounters that people have had with you Two months five years ago ten years ago Lord, you're reminding them of those things You're stirring them up and you're reminding them of days when they had visions of serving you on the mission field Lord when they had days of saying yes to you at camp and shirt services where they encountered your presence But they become doled by the spirit of this age God I'm praying reactivate those members that they might come to their senses like the prodigal of the pig pen Lord, I'm praying that prodigals right now Prodigals all over the city all over the region are about to get a text a phone call and invitation come with me to the sand And Lord, I'm believing that the altars are gonna be filled With those prodigals who are returning home and what the enemy meant for evil are gonna become the weapons of righteousness Launched back out in power and purity and strength God Lord, we're praying right now for those who are on the fence We're like, I'm not sure if I want to go. I'm not sure if it's worth it Lord, I'm asking you from the north from the south from the east and from the west to build that arena as a sign and a wonder to a Hostile in a jaded Culture that wants to look at things like that and say I'll look there's just there's so many empty seats God I'm praying as a sign and a wonder you would pack that place out with hungry hearts So from the north and from the south and from the east and the west right now stir up the mighty men and women of war Stir up the mighty men and women of war Call a solemn assembly gather them together. This is the time to seek the Lord This is the time to call out To the Lord of Sable the Lord the one Who is above every other name Jesus? I'm praying that louder than the concerts that come out of that arena would be the name of Jesus lifted up We look at a generation and the questions asked can a generation live again Serve God again Be filled with his spirit again the enemy lifts up his trophies and says do you see what I've done? Do you see what I've done to God's image bearers? Do you see how I've cut them humiliated them confused them destroyed them strung them out? Do you see my trophies and yet we hear the spirit of the living God say prophesied of these bones prophesied of these bones And so we say to these dead bones Live live again. We say to the dry bones lying in the valley Come together Assemble Lord put sinew on bone put flesh back on bone Put unity back into order put the head in its place and let an army arise God And we say to the enemy You won't have the final word The one who went to the cross the one who rose from the dead has the final word He's the God who calls dead things back to life He's the God who speaks those things into existence that are not and we say I hear the sound of bones rattling I hear the sound of the spirit of God breathing in to that which has been dead and saying rise From the dead in Christ will shine upon you Lord. Let the spirit of the Lord. Let the glory of the Lord rise upon us Let it rise upon this generation. Let it become an army with the radiance of the glory of God Lord, I'm praying for a generation with a smile on its face Confidence in its heart a dance in its step a clap in its hands a sword in one hand In a trowel in the other ready to rebuild the waste places ready to rebuild the house of the Lord a Resting place for the Lord God Wake them up We say these dead bones can live we say they will live we prophesy live Live this great lakes region Jesus. You are worthy to receive the rewards of your suffering Lamb of God So have your way Jesus name we do not only Join us today at noon tonight at 6 30 p.m. Here at the prayer room as we're continuing to just pray morning If you're not planning on being at the send or you have it yet It's abandoned and so there's still an opportunity for you to go you can look up the send You can get a ticket you can also just show up at the Van Andel on Saturday morning and get in there But you're a little want to miss it and it's going to be a powerful powerful time together So even if you can't be there would you join us in prayer for the event as well? And I want to invite those of you who are here in the prayer room. We're about to shift Into a divo a devotional set so you're welcome to stay and enjoy the presence of the Lord Kind of soak in that for a while if you're going to talk or you're going to connect We're asking you to do that outside if you would just quietly leave the prayer room so that we can maintain an attitude and a posture of worship


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we will consider the hydrogen compression and expansion. Now the hydrogen compression or expansion that will depend upon which thermodynamic process has been used and thus the final state of the gas will also be determined by the process used. In actual practice it is very difficult to identify the actual process that occurs in the compression and it requires a lot of efforts. So what is done is actual process is in fact mapped to a reference thermodynamic process which closely approximate the actual process. So we can consider the process to be either an isoentropic compression or we can consider it to be a isothermal compression. Now if the process of compression is considered to be an isothermal compression in that case the work of compression required is minimum. If it is isothermal compression then the compression work required is minimum and that we know from the knowledge of thermodynamics. If the process of compression is modelled to isoentropic process in that case the compression work is maximum. Now single stage or whether it is multi stage compression compressors when they are compressing hydrogen gas and cooling is involved or cooling is being considered during the compression process then they can be modelled as isothermal or the process can be modelled as isothermal process. However there is no cooling involved during the compression process or for moderate pressure ratios the process can be modelled as an isoentropic process and if there is no efforts being put in so as to remove the heat which is generated during the compression process then in that case this is a adiabatic process. So the process can be modelled according to the whether the process involves cooling whether it is it does not involve cooling. So accordingly the process can be modelled to the appropriate thermodynamic process. Now let us first consider the hydrogen compression process to be an isoentropic process. So as mentioned it is very difficult to find out what the actual process would approximate to however it can be modelled to be isoentropic process where the when the compression is done to a elevated pressure the work of compression we can calculate. If we consider the gas to be an ideal gas then the isoentropic work involved is given by the specific heat ratio gamma divided by gamma minus 1 R is the gas constant, T is the initial temperature, P2 is the discharge or the final pressure, P1 is the initial pressure or the inlet pressure and again to the power gamma minus 1 upon gamma minus 1. So this is the isoentropic work considering the gas to be an ideal gas. Here since the process is of compression so the initial pressure is lower than the delivery or the final discharge pressure. Now considering the gas to be diatomic because hydrogen is diatomic gas the specific heat ratio is 1.4. Now this is the process considering an isoentropic process which is reversible but in actual process the process is not a reversible process there are several irreversibilities involved. To account for those irreversibilities we can consider an isoentropic compressor efficiency. So this is considering the ideal process which is reversible but if in order to account for the irreversibilities involved in the process we can include the isoentropic compressor efficiency in the denominator. So the actual work done is the ratio of the two the isoentropic work and the isoentropic compression efficiency. This isoentropic compressor efficiency this lies in the range of 75 to 80 percent. Besides that we have to also include the efficiency of the motor which lies in the range of 90 percent. Ideal gas we know this is a theoretical concept where we know that we consider that the gases these are made up of hard molecules which have negligible volume solid spheres and they have no interaction between the gas molecules. However in actual case the real gases they have an interaction attractive or a repulsive interaction that exists. So the behavior of the gas as we have seen in the earlier class for a real gas it is different from the ideal gas. Now in order to calculate the work which is required for compression using an isoentropic process for a real gas we can find the work that is given by the gas constant R T1 the initial temperature, the compressibility factor Z1 and the initial pressure P1. So R T1 Z1 P1 raise to the power 1 minus K1 upon K. K1 is the isoentropic coefficient which relates the pressure volume equation of state and then there is an integration from initial pressure to the final pressure P2 P raise to the power K1 minus 1 over K1 integrated over the pressure Dp. Now we know that the exponent K1 also changes when pressure changes. So we know that it is a function of both temperature and pressure at a particular temperature let us say T when the pressure changes from P1 to P2 the exponent also changes. Now since the variation is linear we can take average of the exponent in these two states. So the K1 average we can use. So if at pressure P1 temperature T1 the value is K1 at temperature T2 pressure P2 the value and the two values and we can take its average. Now this average exponent K1 average divided by 1 minus K1 average R T1 Z1 P2 by P1 to the power K1 average minus 1 upon K1 average minus 1 this gives the isoentropic work for compression for a real gas. The another possibility is if the actual process is modeled to be isothermal process that means we are removing the heat during the compression. So whatever is the heat generated during the compression that is removed such that the temperature of the process remains constant. Now here again we can consider either the gas to be ideal gas if we consider the gas to be ideal gas the work of isothermal compression is RT ln of V2 upon V1 we can have different models for real gas and considering the van der Waals gas model we can also get the isothermal work for the van der Waals gas as RT ln of V2 minus V upon V1 minus V plus alpha upon V2 minus alpha upon V1. So this is the required work of compression considering the process to be isothermal. However if we include the compressibility factor as a deviation between the real and ideal gas behavior we can write the isothermal compression work as RT integration over the initial pressure to final pressure compressibility factor Z upon P integrated over Dp. So RT integration P1 to P2 upon Pdp on integration we can get a value of RT Z average ln of P2 upon P1 so the pressure ratio. Now again this Z average is the average compressibility factor we have already seen the variation of compressibility factor for different temperature and pressure. Now in this case since it is an isothermal process the temperature remains constant. So the average compressibility factor is found as an average of the compressibility factor in the two different states where the pressure was different. In one state where the pressure was P1 in the another state when the pressure was P2 and then we can find out the isothermal work for the compressible gas. Now this figure shows that depending upon which gas model we have used the work of compression may differ. So whether we have used an ideal gas model whether we have considered it to be a real gas whether it is an isothermal process whether it is an isoentropic process whether we have considered a Wenderwals gas or we have considered it to be a compressible gas considering the compressibility factor the different curves are obtained. So for an ideal gas considering it to be an isoentropic process we are getting the highest amount of work of compression. Similarly for considering it to be a compressible gas with the compressibility factor the model which uses the compressibility factor and considering it to be isothermal the third one is considering it to be a Wenderwals gas and under isothermal conditions and finally considering it to be an ideal gas under isothermal conditions. This shows that depending upon the gas model used the work of compression varies with the pressure. Now important thing to be noted here is that other than the gas model the effect of the gas model used the curve is not linear that is to be noted it shows a parabolic nature. So the curve shows a parabolic nature and that is very important consideration because the work of compression its variation with the pressure the delivery pressure or the discharge pressure is showing a parabolic nature. That means it depends upon the suction pressure. How? Let us say if we have compressed it to 350 bar. So if we compare the work of compression which is required to compress from ambient pressure to 350 bar is much higher. If we see the variation this is much higher as compared to the amount of work which is required to compress it to from 350 to 700 bar. So this work is much higher compared to the amount of energy which will be required to compress it from 350 to 700 bar. And thus this makes it very important that the method of hydrogen production which is used whether it is reformer based hydrogen production or whether it is the hydrogen which is being produced is from electrolyzer whatever production route is giving hydrogen at a higher pressure we can save in terms of the work of compression or the process can get more and more energy efficient if the suction pressure for the compressor is available at a higher pressure. And that is the importance when the delivery from the production plant is at a higher pressure. Now as mentioned the theoretically the work required to compress hydrogen in an isothermal process is minimum and to compress it through an isoentropic process it is maximum. But the actual work of compression it lies between the two theoretical limits of isothermal and isoentropic compression. So the actual process of compression it is neither isothermal. The reason being as we compress the temperature of the gas increases on compression so we cannot keep it isothermal neither it is adiabatic because there will be heat exchange with the surroundings. Neither it is isoentropic because in isentropic process the process is considered to be reversible but the actual process is a non-reversible process. There will be losses associated because of the friction there will be viscous losses. So all these make the actual process neither isothermal nor adiabatic nor an isoentropic process. So some of the reports some of the researchers they have even modeled the process to be a polytropic process. Here in this curve the work of compression has been plotted so the same curve has been plotted as a percentage lower heating value that the how much amount of energy of hydrogen would be required energy content of hydrogen would be required in compressing the hydrogen to a higher pressure. Now as mentioned some researchers consider the compression process to be a polytropic process. So if we consider the process to be a polytropic process then it is pV to the power n is equal to constant and that n is the polytropic index. So the polytropic work is n upon n minus 1 n is the polytropic index RT1 the initial temperature gas constant times the P2 by P1 pressure ratio to the power n minus 1 upon n minus 1. So this is the work of compression which will be required if the process is considered to be a polytropic process. This is considering an ideal process however the actual work of compression will be higher and that can be accounted for by considering a polytropic efficiency, eta P and this polytropic efficiency is related to both the polytropic index and the specific heat ratio as n is the polytropic index n upon n minus 1 is equal to gamma upon gamma minus 1 eta P where gamma is the specific heat ratio eta P is the polytropic efficiency. Now considering the process of compression the temperature the final temperature of the gas on compressing it from pressure P1 to P2 can be obtained as T2 will be the final temperature. So T2 upon the initial temperature T1 is the pressure ratio P2 upon P1 to the power n minus 1 upon n. Usually in the compression process the temperature increases on compression we know that now since the temperature increases if we cool down the gas on compression the increase in the temperature and we reduce the temperature of the gas the required work of compression will also reduce. So if we cool the gas on compression the work of compression reduces. Now ideally what is required is as we know that the isothermal process if we make the process to be completely isothermal an ideal isothermal process is very difficult to attain. The reason being by means of isothermal process an ideal isothermal process is we remove the heat from the gas or during the compression process at the same rate as it is being produced in the process or we consider that the temperature is uniform throughout the compression. So ideally it is very difficult to achieve it is a very complicated cooling system will be required. So actually we can approximate it by considering a multi-stage compression or including an intercooling stage so that the temperature at each stage of the gas attains its initial temperature. So if this intercooling which is introduced between the different stages if it is perfect in that case the temperature of the gas will become same it will be identical after each stage of compression. Considering a two-stage compression considering an ideal gas undergoing an isoentropic compression including two stage of compression if the initial pressure or the suction pressure is P1 the delivery pressure is let us say P3 or the discharge pressure is P3 and there is an intermediate or an optimal pressure. This is an intermediate pressure or an optimal pressure. Considering that the isoentropic work of compression is given by gamma RT1 upon gamma minus 1 times the pressure ratio P2 upon P1 to the power gamma minus 1 upon gamma minus 1 this is corresponding to the first stage plus gamma RT1 the temperature remains constant after the first stage compression upon gamma minus 1 times the pressure ratio P3 upon P2 to the power gamma minus 1 upon gamma minus 1 where the pressure P2 which is the intermediate optimal pressure is given by under root of P3 and P1. So, ideally it is considered that the pressure ratio should be same between the different stages. Now, if we consider a multi-stage compression with intercooling in between so what we are doing is after each stage we are cooling down the gas to its initial temperature by introducing an intercooler and using that it is not becoming ideal isothermal process but we are trying to keep the temperature same after every stage and using that we can reduce the work of compression. Now, if we consider the electrical work which is required for compression as against the variation in the pressure for 2 different suction pressure this is being plotted in this curve. So, for 2 different pressures 35 bar and 2 bar considering different stages of compression for 2 bar there have been 5 stages which has been considered considering 1 stage considering 2 stage 3 stage and 5 stage compression for 35 bar 3 stages has been considered 1 stage 2 stage and 3 stage. Now, from this curve we can see that introducing an additional stage with intercooling in between it reduces the amount of work of compression as we go from stage 1 to stage 5 the work of compression required reduces. At the same time this curve also emphasizes that the importance of the suction pressure. So, if the initial pressure for compression is higher the required amount of work for hydrogen compression will be lower. Usually like the there is a tradeoff between the number of stages that we can add to the amount of energy being saved. Like if we add more number of stages then there will be a requirement of infrastructure and additional cost associated with it and that needs to be considered against the energy which is being saved or energy work of compression which is being saved by adding an additional stage of compression. To summarize this part we have seen that it is difficult to approximate the actual process it requires a lot of efforts as such the actual process could be approximated by a reference thermodynamic process it could be an isothermal process or an isoentropic process depending upon whether the compression is done with cooling or whether the heat is not removed during the compression process. We know from the basic thermodynamics that the work of compression required is minimum if the process is an isothermal process however it is maximum when the process is an isoentropic process. So, we have in this class also seen that work of compression considering whether the gas is ideal gas or whether it is a real gas which type of thermodynamic process we have modeled and also we have looked at the compression work which is required when it is multi-stage compression with intercooling. Multi-stage compression with intercooling has an advantage that it can save the work of compression and it can approximate it to be a isothermal nearly isothermal process such that the temperature of the process is same after every stage of compression. Thank you.


Thanks everyone. So just wanted to, before I get started here, just wanted to acknowledge, you know, I'm privileged enough to work with indigenous Palestinians resisting a European settler state that was established on top of them in Palestine, right, the state of Israel, and want to just recognize how weird and, you know, just complex it is to be doing that work here in the United States, right, a much older and much more successful, at least in terms of extermination of the indigenous population, European settler state. And so just want to acknowledge that as we're engaged in this conversation that we're standing here on indigenous land, on occupied land of the Piscatawe, the Nantikoke, and other indigenous peoples who predate the establishment through militarism, right, of this United States here on indigenous land. So, so, and now want to move on what I'm going to just talk to, talk to you all about for just a few minutes. I'm not going to get into the basics of the situation in Palestine, but rather since we're here at a divestment campaign launch, want to talk just very quickly about what the BDS movement is. It's been referenced a few times already today, which is very exciting. Talk about what it is, and then how we in the BNC, the Palestinian BDS National Committee, how we look at various campaigns and think about how to prioritize resources, because just like when thinking about divestment from the U.S. military industrial complex, we don't have the resources to do everything we want to do at the same time, so we need to think about priorities. And then I'll get into a few possible joint targets that we might want to think about moving forward. So very quickly, the BDS movement, Boycott Divestment Sanctions movement started on July 9th, 2005, over 12 years ago. It was on that day that over 170 organizations in Palestinian civil society ranging from unions to women's groups to agricultural groups to student groups to all the various levels of Palestinian civil society issued what's known as the BDS call, the call for Boycott Divestment and Sanctions. And what this was, was modeled after the South African anti-apartheid struggle, as well as inspired by the Black Freedom Struggle in the U.S. or the Civil Rights Movement, a call to international solidarity activists, those who wanted to stand in solidarity with the people of Palestine, to engage in the tactics of Boycott Divestment Sanctions, until three basic demands dealing with the three kind of divided segments of the Palestinian populations come to be. And these demands are based on international human rights law. BDS is a rights-based movement. So the first being ending the occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the wall, what Palestinians generally call the apartheid wall inside the West Bank. So this refers to the segment of the Palestinian population living under direct military occupation, those who live in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, and also includes actually the Golan Heights occupied by Israel since 1967 from Syria. Number two, the Palestinian citizens of Israel, that all citizens of Israel have equal citizenship, instead of where it exists now, which where Israel meets the international law definition of apartheid, which is that there are different classes of citizen based on your identity. So Jewish citizens have rights and have laws that apply to them that Palestinian citizens and other non-Jewish citizens of Israel do not have. So full equal rights and an end to kind of the apartheid system inside of the state of Israel. And then thirdly, referring to actually the largest percentage of the Palestinian population, unfortunately, the refugees who were created primarily in 1948 with the establishment of the state of Israel, but also expanding in 1967 when the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip were occupied. And that being that the right of return for all Palestinian refugees to their homes, to their indigenous lands today, there are over well over 4 million Palestinian refugees who have never been allowed to return to their homes inside of the state of Israel from when they were ethnically cleansed either in 1948 or 67. So BDS, boycott, right, meaning boycotting Israeli consumer goods as well as consumer goods of corporations that are profiting and complicit from any of these activities of occupation or inequality that the state of Israel is carrying out. Divestment, what we've been talking about all day today, but withdrawing funds, generally looking at institutions, withdrawing institutional funds from targeted corporations. One of the biggest examples of this, and I'll get to this target a little bit more in a moment, but one of the greatest examples right now in the U.S. is the HP Free Churches Campaign targeting Hewlett Packard, a U.S.-based corporation that's very involved in supporting what Israel is doing in Palestine, where churches across the U.S. are pledging not only to take their funds out of HP corporations that actually split into two corporations, but also pledging not to buy HP products in their congregations. And then sanctions being state-level actions putting pressure on the state of Israel. One of the primary focuses of the BNC in this regard is military embargo and cutting off the weapons flow to the state of Israel. So I need to move quicker. Just to get into a little bit of the way that we think about when we look at, as I said, the like wide array of corporate actors that could potentially be targeted by the BDS movement based on that criteria. How do we decide? Right? We have a few criteria that I want to share just as this campaign moves forward, maybe helpful to think about. One is how bad is the actor, right? How horrible is what they're doing in Palestine? The reason that this is a criteria is because the worse the actor is, right, the more we are able to mobilize support in response, right? And again, there's many, many, many, many different entities that are complicit, right? And so trying to think about how are we going to be most successful? One of those is how bad are they and how much support can we mobilize? Then another strong criteria that we really think about is what is the potential to mobilize allies and build coalitions, right? Not just what they're doing in Palestine, but again, to use the HP example, right, has a history of working with ICE is one of the largest military contractors, right, in the US consistently for decades. And so how can we, oh, and it's also involved in prisons in the US, right? So how can we look at these targets to think about mobilizing other constituencies, not just BDS supporters, not just supporters of Palestinian freedom and liberation? And then thirdly, really thinking about the potential to win, right? We're not just doing this because it's the right thing to do. We actually want to win these campaigns, right? And so really thinking, one of the things we always do before launching a priority campaign is really think through what is the strategy going to be and how are we going to get from where we are to winning victories, not only thinking about how bad they are, not only thinking about who we can mobilize and support, but really thinking about how we're going to win. So, and I will just lastly add in that section that on that strategy question and really thinking through that, research, research, right? Like the more we know about our enemies, the more we know about the targets of these campaigns, the better we're able to shape this strategy, right? And of course that continues, you know, as you move through campaigns, there's going to be changes and ways of having to tweak your strategy depending on what these corporate targets and other targets end up doing and how they move in response to your campaign. So just very quickly, I'm going to name a few possible common targets. One is that of course all five of the top five U.S. weapons manufacturers that were named, that are named as priorities in this campaign, of course, are very much involved with Israel. Israel's weapons, you know, industry is one of their primary industries and both in terms of research and exporting their own weapons as well. And the U.S. weapons manufacturers work very closely with that industry in Israel and have institutions and research facilities, et cetera, in Israel as well. I mentioned HP and kind of touched on them. That's actually one of the HP boycotts, one of the primary targets that I kind of have responsibility for as the North America person for the BNC. But another thing we're really looking at right now that somewhat bridges these areas of focus is the U.S.-Mexico border and where there are common targets in terms of who are getting, who already have contracts on the border for border militarization that are common targets and who are getting new contracts in this era of a threatened wall expansion by Trump. So two of those corporations are, you may not have heard of. One is Elbit, an Israeli weapons corporation that specializes in surveillance. They have a $145 million contract in Arizona and actually just got a new contract in Texas to build surveillance towers along the border part of this whole virtual kind of wall aspect of the border. And many of those towers are being constructed on indigenous land, on reservation land of the Dona Lotham people in southern Arizona, a nation whose traditional lands have actually been bisected by the border. And then more recently a corporation called Elta, which is a subsidiary of Israel Aerospace Industries, one of the largest weapons manufacturers in Israel, who just got one of the eight prototype contracts to build prototypes of Trump's wall and very eagerly took that on. And I will just mention G4S, a corporation that many people have heard of, another one that has been involved in Standing Rock, is involved in, is actually runs the buses that deport people, has the ICE contract for all transportation of deportations and many, many other things around the world. They're the largest security corporation on the planet, third largest employer on the planet, largest employer on the continent of Africa, bad, bad, bad actor everywhere they are, another priority contract because they train Israeli police. And then lastly I will just say the Jewish Voice for Peace campaign, deadly exchange, which is really, which is a new campaign focused, as other people have mentioned, on police training and police militarization and the exchange of worst practices between the U.S. and Israel amongst security forces that goes on very commonly. And I'm going a little bit over, but the last thing I will just say is that even as we win these campaigns, it's very important to keep an eye on what comes next, just to name that in the 80s, when U.S. sponsored wars in Central America became so bad, so much torture, so much human rights violations that even the U.S. Congress had to start to put limits on U.S. aid, Israel was there to step in and supply those weapons and training to the right wing governments in Central America. And so even as the U.S. war machine is shrank through this campaign, it's very important to look at other weapons manufacturers, including the state of Israel, for where they may be stepping in to fill that gap worldwide. Thank you very much.


Hi everybody. I just want to say thank you to Juliana, to Mason. I feel like you're psychic somehow. I totally agree with Vernon, but everything you picked out was totally me and I was like, yeah, so thank you. And to the Hormel Center because I never knew something like this existed and definitely as a college student when I was studying the blues and that's what inspired my piece, The Ephemera I Used. It's called Taint Nobody's Business, Black Queer Divas. No one ever taught me about this. It was really about the intersections of gender and race, but sexuality was always an afterthought. So it would be like, oh yeah, and Bessie Smith, oh yeah, and she was bisexual and let's go on and talk about her blackness or how she was a woman and had to go through all of these barriers to be where she was and to know that there's a place like this that exists where I can just dive in. I'm going to take my library card and go to town here. So thank you, thank you. And I want to start this off with a quote from Alberta Hunter, who's a blues singer. Blues means what milk does to a baby. Blues is what the spirit is to the minister. We sing the blues because our hearts have been hurt. Our souls have been disturbed. And for me, this is really important because the more I read and learned about some of the women who I so admired as a kid, Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, Ethel Waters, they were literally the walking wounded and how did they become what they became? So that's what my piece explores. It's a conversation and I loved what they were doing so much that I went out of my genre, which is fiction and decided to dabble into poetry. So do not shade me at all or shade me silently, but this brought out the emerging wanting to be a poet in me. Yeah, and it's a conversation. The wound always pulses when you're black and blue, bruised and open for the world to see.  The ticket is steep and gives you the ride of your life into the darkness where all colors become one. Your thrust into the abyss asking, when will this be done? The snot comes out your nose, the tears roll down your face, the slush of vomit is ready to spill out, the bodies in a constant ache. How do you gather yourself in all this pain? This black, this blue, this price you pay? Tell me, Bessie Smith, I see you flying way up high. Tell me how you hold yourself. How did you reach the sky? Do I wear my best headdress and flaunt my gap tooth for the world to see? Showing them that the empress is here and the empress looks like me? How'd you do it, Gladys Bentley? You braved the troubled rivers of being black, woman and bull dagger. How'd you do it all those years? How did you maintain your swagger? Did you cry yourself to sleep or put on your best top hat to thwart the shade? Did you belly laugh at the haters, pull up a lawn chair and sip lemonade? How'd you do it? Ma Rainey, Ethel, Billy, Alberta, Faye, Ida, how'd you be so brave? Take nobody's business, nobody's business but mine. Take nobody's business, nobody's business but mine. How'd you do it, blue swimming? How'd you do it all the time? It was nobody's business. It ain't nobody's business. But you know that I know that you know that everybody's always in our business. Who you sleeping with? Why you dressed that way?   Why you so proud? How dare you of all people think you're something in this world? Why you singing those lyrics so dirty, so sacrilegious, so yucky, so black? Why you so lavish, so larger than life, taken all up the space right here? It just isn't right. Black and blues women open and exposed. Floating in the abyss, did you ever get cold? Tell me how you did it, do it, done it. Tell me, won't you please? I think I'm a black and blues woman. I think I'm in need. I'm pulsing and shooting through the sky like a star, but the fingers point beneath me and tell me I'm going too far. I've taken every color and mixed it into one. How do you gather yourself when you're rippling out in the vortex and paying a high price, unwilling to be less than what you are, refusing to make nice? Tell me, tell me, won't you please? And it's a conversation, so the way the black and blues women I imagine respond is this way. Girl, make it big, make it pop and fly. Make it bright, make it shimmer, even if you die. We love a good show. We love a life that glimmers, but yes, the bruise you feel that's going to have to find its place in the soul. Every time you expose yourself, it's going to take its toll, but you better fly. Don't come back here if you don't. Don't you dare. We don't care. Fly up high until you burst. Thank you.