I'm Jay Fidel. This is Coronaville. We're talking about Trump. COVID is a blessing. That's what he said. It's a blessing from God, I quote. So that makes for an interesting show. And I think I'm going to do the whole show with a fly in my head, if you don't mind. I think it's all the fashion right now. Anyway, so let's talk about the hottest news that I've seen lately. And it's not exactly on Coronaville, but it is on these times in which we live. It's the kidnapping, the kidnapping in Michigan. Tim, are you familiar with that? Can you talk about it? It just happened today. Yeah, I just was reading it before we went on. You know, the FBI have charged six individuals with conspiracy to kidnap the governor. And my initial reaction is, why are we surprised? Because Donald Trump really fan the fires for groups like that to take action. I mean, it's almost like he implicitly endorsed things like that. By saying that they're in a, you know, in a, in a lockdown, you know, state. I'm just not surprised that it's occurring, but I'm disappointed that they probably took encouragement from the words of the president of the United States to do something crazy like that. Yeah, the army, right? They're referring to the army. And it happened before in Michigan. Michigan seems to be responsive to these dog whistle suggestions that he makes. Really extraordinary. And by the way, it's not six anymore. It's 13. And one of them is on the run. But they have 13 people involved in the conspiracy. And they, as far as I understand what happened is they were going to, they were going to kidnap her. They were making explosives. They were going to attack the state, the state legislature building, state capital. And they were going to try her for treason, violating their view of the Constitution. We're talking about madness here. And we're talking about, you know, madness encouraged by the president.  Yes. And that I thought, well, 13 at least, because they tied up with a mission. They wandered around thinking, well, maybe we don't really have enough people according to NPR this morning. And then they just, that's when they ran into, I guess, in the dark night on the street in the alley, a militia group. So it could be more, but I'm just, I'm terrified and pulled at the danger that she was in. And what recourse is there? And I believe this is all about masks. The mask mandate. Yes, exactly. That's what they're angry at her about. They think that her order requiring masks is a violation of their constitutional rights and they want to try her for that. And this is for treason. And then they would have a reason to shoot her.  God knows.  Cynthia, don't you think there'll be weapons? These guys, you know, love weapons. They're going to carry weapons on their assault on the state legislature. I mean, they were going to the FBI to its credit, stop them. But, you know, if they carry weapons, what are the police do? Do they also carry weapons? Of course they do. And now you have a shoot them out of the state Capitol, what everybody's been waiting for. Thank you, Dr. Trump. What do you think, Cynthia? Well, I think it started with him when he said liberate Michigan. Right. And I think it was more than just the mask mandate. I think it was the lockdown more than anything else. And the intelligence so far shows they intended to overthrow the state government, not just kidnapper and try her. They intended to take over the entire Michigan state government because they thought it was unconstitutionally. Yeah, there you go. So Winston, is this the kind of thing that could play out in other states or is it limited to Michigan? I think it's reasonable to say that there's always been this strain in America of these sorts of groups. They just haven't been banned and encouraged by the, had their flames banned and encouraged by a sitting president. That's where the real danger is. But hopefully he will take this opportunity to come out and say this is a horror. Don't expect it. Don't hold your breath. But, you know, the good news is that the FBI was functioning exactly the way that it should have. They're probably following hundreds of groups like this across the country. They have as much information as they can. Unfortunately, these folks do exist. Their solution is one of violence and chaos. And fortunately, you know, our system worked and I think it will continue to work. There's always going to be French lunatics out there, but we mustn't mistake them with the overwhelming majority of good people in this nation who have nothing to do with this. Yeah, but it's a confluence of confluence of events is going to the election day itself and and I suggest to you that this will happen elsewhere. There'll be more of this and there'll be more dog whistles from him because arguably he's he's decompensating now. Let's talk about the debate last night Tim. What did you think in terms of COVID anyway on how they did in the debate Kamala versus Pence? Well, I think she had to state very directly and she got that right off the bat that no administration, no presidency has ever failed greater than this administration on the way that COVID has been handled. But before I go in further than that, I just want to draw one parallel to what Trump said about, you know, calling out his army to go to the polls and make sure that the ballots are not being a suspect. And for me that call was exactly calling on groups like this that, you know, wanted to kidnap the governor. Those kind of groups that's that's who he implored, you know, made his request to is those kind of groups and I find that really dangerous and I hope that he sees the light of not trying to stir those folks up to make the election day a nightmare. But anyway, let me let me get back to your question and as I think Kamala Harris did an excellent job on pointing that out that there's a dismal failure with COVID and how this administration has handled it, and particularly the fact that Donald Trump knew very early on in late January, the deadly nature of COVID and he knew very well that it was more daily than the most, you know, virulent flu he knew it wasn't a flu he knew as much more deadly or and yet he chose not to say a word about it. Yeah. Well, yeah, I think she really she heard him on that. But, you know, it he presented he presented Trump's case his position. And I think the base like that even though he was full of lies.  And Pence, not so much he's not appealing to women. I don't know enough to know how this looks through the eyes of a woman but can can you speak to that. I can he acted very misogynistic in the sense of talking over women, not respecting women when they tell like the moderator, a woman tells him to stop six times one of the times she had to do it. She did tell him, you know, excuse me, thank you, Mr. President, thank you, Mr. Vice President, thank you six times she had to say that. They know when they walk in the door that when the moderator says thank you, all you get to do is finish your thought. You don't get to keep going on and on and add new thoughts. And he did that with every single question. And I stopped counting lies at 30. And we weren't even 30 minutes into the debate yet. Yeah.  How would you have handled that. I mean she would say thank you and he would ignore her blow her off again and again and again. Could you have stopped him what would you have done to stop him. Well, I think she was trying mightily to not have to get loud. She didn't increase her volume, and she continued to be pleasant and Curtis courteous. I was a little shocked that he was quite as aggressive as he was that didn't suit his, his usual stance and the way he started out being so gracious about Kamala. So I was there were a lot of mixed things going on. And as far as the moderator, I think she did a pretty good job because he did, he did do what Cynthia said, but she called him back but still Kamala lost a couple of, you know, half minutes there. I mean that adds up to 30 seconds or so it's very unfair. So I think that Kamala. I think she's trying to be all things so you know she's a tough prosecutor, but she also was pulling this kind of like cute smirky look at him, like when he was lying. She do that, you know, like thing and I think that, you know, as far as the gender things can say, I just think for the role and everything I think she ought to drop that and not not do that kind of thing I know it's signal to the audience to like she knew he was lying and he was looking at her and he and there's a whole but but I just don't think it suited her. She needs to be more the Elizabeth Warren, you know, blasted man with Winston, how, how, what's your reaction to how Kamala did. Should she have been more aggressive less aggressive. And what would you, this is a combination question what would you as the moderator have done to stop Pence from rolling on for minutes at a time. First, I think that the winner in this debate yesterday was America. It wasn't either of the candidates I felt like we could that this is what was a normal debate should look like. I'm not sure that they got into any topics that were were there was nothing that shifted anyone's opinion. But it did prove to folks that she would be able to ascend to the presidency. That was the most important thing that she did is she showed herself as a competent, reasonable, thoughtful person. I agree with Stephanie that the looks were great for the base but that she needed to be a little bit more holding his feet to the fire and just, but she had a hard she has a hard thing to do as many people have pointed out as a black woman. She has a double standard there that she can't be seen as shrill or as you know, whatever it is and I think that's that's true. And Mike Pence did interrupt her many times has been pointed out she also interrupted him, neither one of them answered a lot of questions because that's what we expected, but I felt after this that he was positioning himself for really 2024 or beyond and that his, his performance and the fly actually normalized things to a point after last week which was such a disaster, and it showed the vision of where we can be as a people where he said, look, we come together I thought the answer about that the last question from the eighth grader was, we come together we debate passionately but the end of the day we're all Americans were in this together so I thought it was very important for him to do that, even though his beliefs and his training and his secrecy for the current president are well known, I thought it was a positive step in the right direction for bringing our nation together and setting up the stage for a transfer of power when Yeah, yeah, but you didn't mention anything about the lies. The lies of course it was it was it was filled with lies and there's some really great articles out there that deconstruct those exactly but and I don't know that I answered your other question which is how to what would what would be different about Kamala. I don't know that I would have changed anything her her looks were fine, but she. Yeah, she can be like.  That was a really hard question and I think that the moderator last night did a much better job obviously than than Chris Wallace but she wasn't dealing with Donald Trump either she was dealing with a man who at least has been part of the system so I don't know what else she could have done except maybe. Mr President like I'm interrupting you right now. Yeah, Mr Vice President Mr Vice President. Continue to interrupt it, and you would get nowhere with it for as long as I control the moderator and I would say Mr Vice President I'm sorry, I am the moderator, and here, I am the president. And she could have done that and I think she did it to some degree of effect because the more she said it, the more all of us were aware like you're going over and I didn't I didn't I wasn't listening to what he was saying I was curious how many times she was saying it so he lost ground that way didn't he lost a lot of ground so I think she was effective in what she did and she also brought back this thing that says you both agreed to these ground rules so for me. It was, you know, of course he was doing what our man's planning and and going over the limits, but it seemed to be in a reasonable wish way that we're at least somewhat familiar with rather than the off the rails.  And I do not want to see Mike Pence in elected office or on media shows. All I can say is when you when you said that he was vying for you know 2024. It's just a very good thing that I have not had lunch yet. That's just well you know I mean that's what he's doing he's realizing this one's a lost cause he's trying to position himself as the evangelical ancient Republican Party that maybe somehow rudimentarily exists somewhere but it's not that being the case I'm taking off my fly. Okay, moving to the other side. Where it is. Where is my fly. I have to stay there. Okay, I'm taking on my flies no longer fashionable. All right, Tim, let's let's shift gears to Coronavirus Okay, so he's back and we must. He's back in business he made a huge gaffe yesterday in terms of the politics by by saying he was terminating and like he has the power to terminate discussions between the two houses of Congress. That's really extraordinarily dictator. But you know where are we today is he okay is he having a relapse is he is he going for a relapse what about the debate. So he dropped out of the debate because they said it was be virtual. Is that does that work does that wash. Can you talk about it. I will first off, who knows what we know.  No contact tracing. For all we know Donald Trump has been the spreader of coven, not, you know, he's blaming everyone else. He's blaming gold star families as his source of infection he he blamed the hope picks as she likes to get hugs from the, you know, from the police and Secret Service personnel so he initially blamed her and I mean who hasn't he blamed except perhaps himself. I don't know where we're at as far as what the truth is with his is medical status. I don't think we'll ever truly find out. Could he be subject to relapse absolutely. Once they start taking them off the steroids. Who knows how this thing may kick back in. As far as him going to a debate in person. Oh, I would highly recommend against that I would in fact device Joe Biden I'd say. Thank you. You know what kind of message do you get the Senate president United States that you're above and beyond health law and the common sense rules of infection. I would say no I can't do it. You want to do a virtual debate. I'm on. Yeah now so what now he's going to do a rally instead on the 15th you know. So what about that comments on that. Again, for the same reason, you know you're just sending the wrong message as you have been for the last, you know, eight months about not wearing masks, not testing, not doing contact tracing. You know it's just one one thing after another as far as the wrong messaging for how we combat this pandemic.  It's just like his personal finances.  But does the public. How much does the public have a right to know about this. What can the public know can they know every test he took every moment he had with every doctor. How much will be entitled to know about his disease. Again, I'm talking to Cynthia sorry the nuclear football. Oh, pardon. I wanted Cynthia to answer that. Thank you. Thank you. Sorry, I didn't realize. Well, actually, as the President of the United States, he lives in a goldfish bowl, and we get to know everything about him. That's the way it is. The President in the past has done that. And he is a time honored tradition that should never ever stop, because our, our future our daily lives are, you know, the land on how healthy or unhealthy he is. I want to really enter this with a quote from the New England Journal of Medicine that has just recently come out against Donald Trump says our current political leaders have demonstrated that they are dangerously incompetent. We should not abet them and enable the deaths of thousands more Americans by allowing them to keep their jobs. This is unprecedented for the medical journal to come out like this. And I recommend everybody to read it, the whole thing. This is just a small, you know, clip from it. It's very enlightening and it really talks and speaks to his response to this and his response to his own case of it. Yeah. So Stephanie, it sounds like a lot of people are turning against Trump right now. Can you say why is this a trend we should be watching the next few weeks. And does it mean anything in terms of the election.  No, the monster is never dead in these really good sci fi movies. So I think that people are still very tentative because it also reflecting the drama of the degree of malice that was in his threats to get in line. I think we're seeing some reflection of that too. But anyway, that some of them are also, you know, going to stay with them through the way but I would have expected people to be back be off more off by now away from him.  Well maybe maybe we're just at the beginning of something and people don't want to spend time with him in the White House. They don't want to catch it. And the White House is all were working from home now. That's what I read. So what you know what we have is a government that's not quite functional Winston, you know, how is this working. We have a government that works here. Can they make decisions. It was bad enough when Trump was, you know, in the Oval Office making all the decisions. Now he's the only one in the building making all the decisions. How can this government function. I read reading something about artists tweets considered to be authoritative are they orders in fact when he orders bill bar that Joe Biden should be arrested. Let me just let me just interrupt to say, you know, remember what he said, he said he liked this, this special treatment he got. He thought it was really miraculous of blessing from God. And he was going to he was going to save the country. He was going to make it available to everybody free. And now there's there's a fantastic statement. Do you think that will ever happen. Well, considering there's story out earlier today that says, if all Americans got the same level of treatment that Donald Trump got people magazine that says it would cost the average American more than $100,000. I'm going to say no, what we need to focus on is common sense things, wearing a mask, social distancing, vaccine development, washing your hands, the basics, you know, even I thought it was a little bit ironic that the surgeon general out here got ticketed by the police for not wearing his mask. I think it was a cool part, but that aside, okay, don't make don't put me on that jury. Well, you know, it was an anomaly, I get it he won he was and, but I think that's what Donald Trump is doing here. When Americans are reading that he's putting his secret service agents at risk for joy rights around the hospital that he's declaring himself cured that he is the only one that's going to save us.  They're looking around and saying, you know, he just he might have been the super spreader disease that then sent this to a thousands of people across the country with the Amy Barrett rose garden event so I think people are waking up a little bit more and saying you know what, this is not the chaos confusion insanity that we need anymore we need sane adults that are not corrupting. I hope you're so I hope you're you're you're right about that. So Tim you know we touched on this yesterday and it's, it's this whole thing about about what what the world thinks of this and, and whether the world would you know take advantage of our government not doing anything. You know my my view, as you know from the beginning of Trump is that he hasn't done anything. He's he's done all negative things all 180 off all wrong way car again. And if you ask me whether the country would be better if he had never been in the White House for one moment and done anything I would say absolutely. We would have been better off. Right now, you know, in a sense he's desperate. He's desperate to show his base a few things or two to be back in control. At the same time, fact is he's not doing anything fact is that we are an opportunity for Russia and China. Are we safe. That's my question. But I think measurable damage has been done to our reputation worldwide. I think Russia feels like it has a free play in our politics, either in this election or moving forward. I think our relationship with China has been strained. And I think our relationships with Europe has been horribly strained with NATO and, you know, just point out of all the Paris environmental agreements and the agreement with Iran. We haven't been a nation of our word and your credibility once your credibility has been damaged it takes a long time to rebuild that back up with your allies and your friends. And it's good if Joe Biden becomes the next president it'll take him minimally one year to send out an army of diplomats across the world to say, we're really sorry for the last four years and we'd like to show you something different on how a real administration acts in the world stage with its allies and partners. You know, I sent you guys just for reference a copy of the Gellman article out of the Atlantic two or three weeks ago and it continues to frighten me petrify me. And there's a long way to go from here to a new president in office, perhaps longer than we can imagine. But I want to get a snapshot from all of you want to go around the table here and consider all the things we've been talking about, you know. What happened in Michigan, the debate how it came off and how it might have affected people. His covert and his remarks about blessings from God, and his arrogance is total arrogance in, in reporting on that, and failing to take any steps even now to limit it, you know, the contagion. Incredible. But what I really want to know is, given all the things in the Atlantic, you know, which could screw up the election big time. Host office is only the beginning. How do you feel right now about the election, are we on the right track.  I'm glad that you brought up the international situation, the threat, because that's one of the things that we're not paying attention to, and these are unguarded moments because again, all this shiny object stuff. Very serious things in addition to shiny objects, but even more serious than that is our vulnerability. Now as far as I'm concerned, man, we could be hit any minute. The foxes are outside the hand house, slathering over this opportunity.   For all of that. All the storage of the of gas or whatever it is gasoline or anyhow energy to run the seventh fleet, right. Well, they're saying that I said why is anybody even talking about they're going into check the red hill storage containers for to protect us from. People could come in here and bomb that sucker and the whole island would.  Okay, Cynthia, what are your thoughts here, you know, the three weeks out. How are you feeling given all of these various factors that we, we, we four, five, whatever we have one, two, three, four, five have been talking about. What's what's what's on your mind. Yeah, you know, I've been working on trying to put together some of our past Trump weeks, and compile them together. And we've been talking about this stuff on Trump week now for like two years. Don't forget coronavirus to the current bill. Yeah. And so, sorry. Yeah, but I mean it comes over to this and it all comes together in the same way because Trump is at the, you know, he's the one that's at the crux of all of this. So, we're not going to be able to get out of this and even if Joe Biden wins by a landslide is sat on January and 20 versus it or 20 second 20. Okay. I believe that if Trump knows he's going to be leaving he's going to do everything he can to sabotage Joe Biden's term, which means he's going to hand us over to the highest bidder that's going to attack us and make Joe look bad. Our fear should end and I mean and our trouble will end on January 20, regardless of losing office. Thank you Cynthia.  No I'm feeling a little optimistic jade and recent is I would remember I did last week to I said, I don't know why but I'm feeling optimistic this week. I think that maybe it was maybe it was just gas. It could have been, but I, I, I'm feeling like Americans, even though I said nothing would move the needle with them. And his supporters, I think that those ones that that whatever the mythical five 678% it's bigger than that. It's normal people who felt they believe the myth and then suddenly they watch this performance a week ago and they thought, this is horrendous. I can't do it anymore. I can't put up the pretense of saying he's great for America is bringing back whatever they just have given up and you saw these massive swings in people who are seniors in across the board, even when Rasmussen comes out with their This is all hope that America is regaining its sanity and its sense of itself the debates last night that we're saying were a sense of hope for the future, arresting these folks for this plot for Governor Whitmire also shows that this very dangerous element has been rogue that is intent on just destroying the system and not just a person. And so I think all of this any, any normal person can look at this and say, you know what I might want change but it doesn't come about like this, and this candidate has led us down a path of this presence let us down such a wrong path that we need to change and so I think that the polls that people are voting, it's there's going to be some chaos some confusion certainly but we're going to come out of it and, as Stephanie said, our work is not over on the 20th. January, I think I'm speaking. I follow this opportunity to wrap all this, you know, my time, very, you're finished opportunity to wrap all this together. Tell us how you feel all these factors you know and it's the number of variables in this universe that we talk about. It's like if you start accounting them that would be dozens and dozens of things. So can you try to put it all together. I want to fly back on my head now. Yes, I'm optimistic for two reasons one is, I think the vote, not only in the swing states but the non swing states even possibly Florida may may go into obi Biden's his column. I'm really optimistic about that I'm also optimistic about what the polls look like against a lot of these Senate races, and I'm optimistic that maybe the Democrats do take the Senate. I'm really concerned that Donald Trump in his magical ways can manipulate those swing state GOP states that somehow he gets them to just ignore the popular vote in that state and somehow rig it for the Electoral College and manipulate it in such a way that he gets very close to victory, or unfortunately, takes victory. Yeah. Lots of variables. It's, it's a it's a world to discuss not only during the Trump week show in the Coronaville show but, as you know, all week long. So let's keep on exchanging ideas and articles and references and, and you know talking about it in our respective shows. Thank you so much. We're all done now. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.


So, today, I'm going back to the room and I'm just going to take a shower and get some coffee. So, I'm going to take a shower and I'm just going to take a shower and get some coffee. So, I'm going to take a shower and I'm just going to take a shower and get some coffee. So, I'm just going to take a shower and get some coffee. Thank you so much, choir, for that wonderful opening. We are indeed now in the life of love. Now, good morning and welcome to the First Unitarian Society of Madison. This is a community where curious seekers gather to explore spiritual, ethical and social issues in an accepting and nurturing environment. Unitarian Universalism supports the freedom of conscience of each individual as together we seek to be a force for good in the world. My name is Karen Rose Gredler, and on behalf of the entire congregation, I'd like to extend a special welcome to any visitors who are with us today.  As we gather in this place and this time, let us remember we are all visitors in this life. We come together to find meaning and hope with all the other visitors in this life. Let us join our hearts and minds together as we celebrate this life together. Please silence your cell phones as I invite you to join me in a few moments of silence for contemplation, meditation, prayer as we settle in and come fully into this time and place together. Good morning. Let us rise in all the ways that we do to sing together hymn number 318, We Would Be One. We gather together staying up as we hear these words from the Reverend Natalie Maxwell Fenimore. We seek to be a home for all who desire our company. We seek to make a welcome for all those in search of our good news. Come, come little children, teens, young adults, adults and elders. Come, families in great diversity. Come to this loving home and this safe harbor, but not to find a place to escape the world. This is a community of engagement and of creativity. We come together to create boldly and dangerously. And together we light our chalice to the words printed in your order of service. As we say together, we must create the beloved community with an awareness of how difficult it is because it is hard work. It is work that challenges us to bring our whole selves and engage deeply and for the long haul. I invite you now to turn to your neighbors and exchange some friendly greetings. You are young and young at heart. All are welcome to come forward for a story. Good morning. There's lots of space on the carpet today. Good morning. Who did you bring with you? Is that a dragon and a bunny rabbit and a book? You have a horse? Good morning, good morning. Happy summertime. You have hearts. Excuse me, not a horse, they are hearts. Yes, come on up. We have space for everybody and we are so glad to see you. I have a book and I have some questions about the book and I'm wondering if any of you have ever felt like this. This book is called I Am Peace and you know this book? Oh, raise your hand if you've read this book. One, two, three, four, five, six people. Seven. Thank you. Well, on the first page it says there are times when I worry about what might happen next and what happened before. Does that ever happen to you? You worried about what happened before or what might be coming up? Yeah. Yeah, that happens to me sometimes too. Not yet. It doesn't happen to you. Yeah. Well, I'm glad. This is a book about someone where it does happen to them and they say the thoughts in my head are like rushing water. And I feel like a boat with no anchor. I'm being carried away. What must that feel like? I give myself a moment. I take a breath. Let's take a breath. Let it out all the way. Let's take another one and the person continues and then I tell myself it's all right. Let's say that it's all right. I feel the ground beneath my feet and I study myself. You can put your hands on the ground if you want. Can you feel it? It feels good, I hear. It feels weird, someone else says. It feels soft and lumpy. And look at this. And I start to notice the here and the now. My thoughts begin to settle. My mind begins to clear. I am peace. Can you remember that thought and tell me at the end? I can watch my worries gently pop and disappear. I let things go. I can say what I feel inside and out loud. I know myself. She says, I can share kindness with others. I make a difference. What's happening in this picture? Yeah. Giving the bird some food. Yes. And here is a picture with no words. What do we think is happening? Dropping what? A seed that grows into a tree. Look at that tree. A seed that grows into a tree. And then they say, I can hug a tree. And thank it for its beauty and its strength.  Oh, yes, I have. Yeah, trees are rough too. A cottonwood tree has been hugged. A humongous cottonwood tree. And look at this. It says, I connect to nature. So when you were hugging that cottonwood, you were connecting to nature. I can watch the clouds move and make shapes against the sky. I know wonder. Have any of you ever seen clouds? Yeah. I can taste and smell and touch and hear and see what is all around me. I use my senses. I can feel my breath fill my whole body. I tune in to me. Let's take another breath. Is it filling your whole body? Now the water is still. I have found my anchor and everything is all right. I don't need to worry about before or after. I am in this moment. I am peace. I share my peace with others. And I hope that it is carried away to those who need it. And I dream we are peace. Everybody dreams that we are peace, I hear. And other people say, maybe not so much. And so sometimes when things are scary, that's a good time to breathe, right? You want to tell me about it? I bet you do. We are going to sing a song about breathing. It's called meditation on breathing. And while we sing our next song, you all get to go to summer fun, okay? Thank you for joining me today. I hope you notice your breath this week. Let us rise in all the ways that we do to sing together him, number 109, meditation on breathing. Most of us are going to sing the top line if you feel adventure some and want to sing with a desk counter drone. That would be lovely, but no pressure. When I breathe in, I'll breathe in peace. When I breathe in, I'll breathe in peace. Oh, I'll breathe out love. This morning's first reading is a short passage written by the Reverend Dr. Arvid Strauby, who is a retired Unitarian Universalist minister. He currently offers spiritual coaching, spiritual direction, and meditation instruction to individuals. Reverend Strauby writes, in order to be at its most effective, a congregation needs to address four areas of religious practice. The cushion, the living room, the sanctuary, and the street. Today's second reading comes from Unitarian Universalist minister, the Reverend Rosemary Bray McNatt. She currently serves as president of the Star King School of the Ministry. This affirmation is entitled, this essential work of justice and liberation for all. By no means are we Unitarian Universalists perfect. We often fail as much as we succeed. Yet even when we have broken our vows a thousand times, we return to this essential work of justice and liberation for all. We do the work best when we remember what church is and what it is not. Church is not a place to hide. It is not the place to get away from the world. It is not a place where we get to pretend that the lives we live and our particular situations are not terribly complex, often confusing, and sometimes depressing. Church is the place where we stand with one another, look the world in the eye, attempt to see clearly, and gather strength to face what we see with courage and, yes, with joy. Does washing dishes count? You know, if we are like being mindful while we do it. That was the question posed by a group of first-year seminarians when they got an assignment to engage in a spiritual practice on a regular basis. They, okay, it was actually we for I was one of the people in the group, we were desperately trying to figure out how to fit this assignment to engage in a spiritual practice on a regular basis into our already full lives. It was our first semester at Meadville and our minds were reeling with lives packed with kids and pets, with jobs and relationships, with chores and the upcoming homework that was about to land on our shoulders. How were we supposed to fit this in, too? Washing dishes wasn't the only idea we considered when figuring out how to complete this requirement. What about walking the dog mindfully or drinking a cup of coffee? Mindfully, of course. For me, it was preparing food. Does cutting carrots count? Could these daily tasks that we were already engaged in count towards completing our assignment? Can any of these fulfill the requirement of doing a spiritual practice? In his 2015 blog post on the subject of what makes an effective congregation, the Reverend Dr. Arvid Strauby recommends, as Emily read earlier, that we attend to four different aspects of religious practice. He says that if we want to be an effective congregation, we should address four different areas or what I like to think of as locations. So the first location is the cushion. Reverend Strauby uses a meditation cushion to indicate a personal spiritual practice. Ideally, this would be an activity we engage in daily. Of course, it doesn't have to be a cushion. For some people, it's a yoga mat or a prayer rug or simply a comfortable chair with a drawing journal. The idea is that there is a regular time set aside for prayer, meditation, and or reflection. It doesn't have to last hours on end, even just five to ten minutes per day, dedicated to sacred reading, a body-spirit discipline, or even unstructured prayer. That can be, as Reverend Strauby notes, indispensable for integrating and reflecting on one's life experiences and growing into a whole human being. This is the location that we seminarians were fretting about. Perhaps we're not alone. Perhaps you too have wondered if you need to set aside time for a personal spiritual practice. Have you fretted? Or have you embraced the opportunity? Or have you rejected the idea entirely? Or perhaps you, like me, have done a little of everything at different times. Often congregations help us to find the cushion that is right for us. Here at First Unitarian Society, there have been study groups to learn about and to practice the traditions of centering prayer, Japanese crane meditation, and Buddhist insight meditation. By exploring these spiritual practices in these groups, which are open to everyone, regardless of their experiences, we are encouraged to integrate these spiritual disciplines into daily routines back home. Now, the second location is the living room. Of course, this location, like the cushion, need not be a literal living room. But imagine, if you will, a living room as a space where we might gather for face-to-face conversation with a small group of friends. In this framework, these groups meet regularly, ideally one time a month, to provide an environment in which people can nurture spiritual friendships with one another. Together, people explore deeply and express authentically, bearing witness to each other's processes. In these 90 minutes of structured times together in the living room, people explore the huge questions that life presents. Questions such as, what is my life purpose? And what does it mean for me that I have to die? And how am I to serve? And what of good will I leave behind? And finally, how can I love well today? Of course, theological themes are woven throughout these conversations, and we are attempting to grapple with such questions. Theological themes like forgiveness, compassion, liberation, they are all likely to come up. Additionally, and not surprisingly, by gathering monthly, the friends made in these small groups become those who most readily provide support to us when we experience times of trouble, loss, or illness. When I think of the living room, I think of small group ministries. Here at First Unitarian, some folks gather in chalice groups and have been doing so for years. Other folks meet monthly in journey circles, which are groups of 8 to 10 people who explore the worship theme of the month, be it resilience, trust, or curiosity. It is also where we bear witness to each other's life journeys, offering a place to celebrate joys and commemorate sadness with and for one another. The living room, like the cushion, is indeed a vital part of a vibrant spiritual and religious life. Now, the third location is the sanctuary. It's a location for collective worship, sometimes called corporate worship. That is what we are doing right here, right now. By coming together weekly to celebrate through music, through art, through the spoken word, this spiritual community is made stronger. Across the continent, Unitarian, Universalist, and others gather in sanctuaries to explore and interpret the symbols and stories of those who came before us and commit once again to creating a world for those who will follow us. Consider, for example, the story that Unitarian Universalists sometimes tell about the symbol of the flaming chalice. During World War II, an Austrian artist, Hans Deutsch, brought the chalice and the flame together through his work with the Unitarian Service Committee. To this artist, the image evoked connotations of both love and sacrifice. Of course, one can also see how the flaming chalice suggests the transformations that take place when we are held with love. As Unitarian Universalist Historian and Professor Susan J. Ritchie notes, when we light the chalice in worship, we illuminate a world that we feel called upon with love and a sense of justice. As a unified body of individuals, weekly worship and a sanctuary can remind us of our highest ideals and call us into our best selves. We use stories, song, movement, images, prayers, and silence. We use these to focus our collective attention on a collective good. The sanctuary is also an important part of an effective congregation. Now, the final and fourth location, location, location is the street. When you think of the street as a location of religious practice, what do you think of? For me, one of the first things I think of are the protests, the rallies, the marches, filled with poster boards and chants and calls to action. That's why I chose the images that you are seeing today. Reverend Strauby also considers the street any place where we are helping to heal the world. As he notes, the street is where all that is learned on the cushion, in the living room, and in the sanctuary is brought to bear to help heal the world in service and in witness. Perhaps for you, the street is a workplace or a classroom or the grocery store. It might be the neighborhood association, the voting booth, or a hospital room. It could be inside a prison, the state capital building, or a community center. If you are in that location embodying loving kindness and compassion, advocating for justice in our systems and bearing witness to the wrongs that must be righted, then you are in the street. Unlike the previous three locations, there's not a recommended frequency for how often we should take it to the streets. The frequency is really going to vary depending on each person's life circumstances and the various opportunities that present themselves. In this poem, written by Jess Reynolds, we see ourselves joined in the street by an embodied love. Entitled, Love is Calling, the poem goes like this. Love is calling for liberation. Love is horse from calling. Her voice raw from the decades she has spent chanting at protests and speaking from pulpits and singing the songs of freedom. Love is weeping into a white candle. She cups in her hands at a vigil for one more black hoax. Ripped away, gunned down, forgotten. She is holding the hands of a grieving mother and praying aloud for peace. This is where love shows up, where love has always shown up. She is tugging at our hands and our sleeves and begging us to lay down our egos and take up our courage. Love is weeping into a white candle and take up our courage and dedicate our lives to justice. This call to dedicate our lives to justice is not new. It's one of our deeply held unitarian universalist values as evidenced by the fact that justice is found in two out of our seven UU principles. We affirm and promote justice, equity and compassion in human relations. We affirm and promote the goal of world community with peace, liberty and justice for all. I would even go so far as to say that the effective congregation of which Reverend Strauby speaks is one that offers congregants ways to engage in justice making that helps heal our world. Justice is indeed a thread that is woven throughout the fabric of our shared faith. Today's reading from the Reverend Rosemary Bray Magnat is another such thread. We return, she writes, to this essential work of justice and liberation for all. And then she speaks about the role of the church, the role of the spiritual community, the role of a unified body of fallible and fabulous human beings who are speaking, who are seeking to build the beloved community. She reminds us that such a beloved community is not where we come to hide our true selves. This community is not where we retreat from the pain of our lives. This community is not where we pretend that the confusion and mess don't hurt sometimes. Rather, this location, this community, is where we work together. We side with one another. We grow stronger from each other's support.  And together, we gather the strength to face those realities with courage and yes, with joy. Both Reverend Strauby and Reverend Bray Magnat lift up the importance of the spiritual community in our ongoing faith formation. I have to say, Reverend Strauby lays it out nice and neat for us, explaining what it takes for our beloved community to be effective. Four locations presented in the order of the number of people involved. The cushion has one person. The living room has ten. The sanctuary has a hundred or more. And the street has a thousand or more. We could also imagine the four locations in order of frequency with daily meditation, being followed by weekly worship services, which in turn are followed by monthly small group gatherings, which lead us to live our values every moment that we can. But what about those dishes? Does washing dishes count? Perhaps you, like me and those first year seminarians, are already feeling too stretched. These four locations seem like just too much. Maybe there are about three locations, too many. This is too much time required of us. Too much time out of our already full lives.  You have the freedom and the responsibility to search for what is true and meaningful for you. That said, there's a rub for me. I cannot do the street if I do not do the sanctuary. I cannot do the living room without the cushion. These four locations bring me, bring us different things, offer us different gifts, different opportunities for insights, different ways of being fed. Without all four areas of religious practice, there's no way that we can answer the call of love. The call of love is a hard call, and we need as much support as we can get in order to answer it with grace and with gratitude. If we are to return again and again to the work of justice and liberation for all, we need the courage we find from being in beloved community. We need the spiritual practices that will sustain us in times of crisis. We need to be supported by deep spiritual friendships. We need the joy we create when we celebrate life with song and with art. Imagine that. We need joy. Joy. We get to be joyful together. Indeed, I think that without joy, we won't be able to sustain the ongoing efforts it takes to answer the call to dedicate our lives to justice. We need joy. We need love. We need art. We need song. The song we will be singing as our closing hymn and that the choir beautifully sang for us to open our worship this morning has been called a joyful song of liberation. Imagine that. Liberation through song. Liberation through joy. What if we can't have one without the other? According to the song information provided by the Unitarian Universalist Association, Siahamba is a South African freedom song that comes from the apartheid era. It's not clear whether the original composition was in Zulu and Afrikaans, but today we sing it in Zulu and in English. Now, when we sing it, you'll notice that the structure of Siahamba is cyclic rather than sequential. That means the lyrics consist of one phrase that is repeated with permutations. The song information notes that cyclical forms emphasize a spirit of community and allow for a physical response during the performance. When we sing together today, I invite you to feel the spirit of community. May we feel the joy in our hearts and in our bodies. May we recall the South African communities from which this song arose. Communities that were facing devastating oppression. Communities that were not willing to give up their joy.  As we answered the ongoing call to dedicate our lives to justice, to dedicate our freedom to, in the words of Toni Morrison, freeing someone else, may we take the time daily to engage in spiritual reflection. May we take the time weekly to worship together as a unified body. May we take the time monthly to go deep with a small group of spiritual friends. Through these regular, dedicated, religious practices, may we find ourselves more open to the insight, the capacity, and the determination it takes to make a difference in our bruised and broken world. Together, we can answer the call to dedicate our lives to justice with joy. May it be so. Blessed be and amen. As we prepare ourselves for this morning's offering, may we remember that Unitarian Universalism is a grand vision for a world filled with peace, justice, love, and joy. And we each give and work for that vision. That vision is embodied in a few large congregations, like this one, numerous mid-sized congregations, and many, many small congregations. What we hold in common, what holds us together, is our own dedication to that grand vision. And that no matter our size, every congregation depends on each of its members. Each of you, by your commitment of time, energy, and resource, help make that grand vision real. As our offering is given and received, may we remember, individually and together, we are Unitarian Universalists, building a world with justice and peace, love, and joy. In addition to our great appreciation for your financial generosity, we thank you for all the ways you give to this community. And we want to express a special thanks to those who have helped make our service possible this morning. Our greeters were Claire Box and Dorit Bergen. Our sound operator is Mark Schultz. Our ushers are Marty Hollis, Brian Channis, Liza Monroe, and Dick Goldberg. Hospitality, the coffee, which is all important, is being prepared by Jeannie Hills and Richard DeVita. Our lay minister is Ann Smiley. Pulpit Palms are being cared for by Betty Evenson. Mary Bergen will be at our Welcome and Information table after the service. Also, our tour guide is John Powell. If you'd like a tour of our campus, please meet John over on that side of the auditorium near the big windows. Our beautiful single rose was provided by Ann Smiley in honor of her late mother's birthday, which is today, and she's brought it in a beautiful crystal vase, which was her mother's. Thank you, Ann. We have also two other special announcements, and they are both in your order of service, so I call your attention to the list called, sorry, Upcoming Offerings. We have the Welcome Back and Opportunity Fair with Food Cards. Friday, September 13th, from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. at FUS. Mark your calendars for this family-friendly evening of fellowship and food to celebrate the start of our 2019-2020 program. This is a good time to see other ways in which you might want to be involved, and we'll also have food available so you can purchase a meal and support local businesses. And don't forget to pick up your copy of our updated Guide to the Universe, at least our universe. Now we have another special announcement from Linda Warren. Hi, I'd just like to invite all of you to come to our music department cabaret fundraiser event. It's this afternoon at 3 o'clock in this room. We will have the FUS Chime Choir, the Solstice Harp Ensemble, a couple of violinists, and a special guest, my sister, who is a church organist. It's kind of a genetic flaw in our family. And also a professional cellist, and she'll be playing cello with us. We had our rehearsal yesterday, and all during the rehearsal, we were stopping and saying, oh, we need string players with the Chime Choir every time.  She's doing some conducting and also singing, and it's just going to be fabulous. So I hope you can join us at 3 o'clock. Tickets are $10, and if you haven't got them already, you're welcome to make your donation when you arrive. Or if that's not something you can afford at this time, please join us anyway. We would love to have you with us. Thank you. Moving into the cares of the congregation, may we accept the invitation offered by the story for all ages this morning, and let our breath call us fully into this place. Mindful of how the gift of life enters our body wherever we feel it most, may it remind us to be here now, that there is nowhere else to be but in this moment. And being in this moment is a gift. From the connection with the ground beneath our feet and the weight of our bodies on the chairs, may we be fully present here, returning to the place of our centering and our deep grounding. From this place, we remember that week after week, we come into this space, this space where we are loved and where we offer the gift of love, where we give and we receive and return. And in this coming together, we seek to find strength and common purpose. We think about the truth of our lives and the lives of those gathered here in the larger world. For a moment, I invite you to gather your own thoughts. What has happened this week in your life? What has happened in the lives of people that you know and love? What has happened in the larger life of community in the world as these thoughts come to your mind? May you hold each of them for a holy moment, the moments of joy, the moments of frustration, the moments of loss, all alike. Hold them, honor them, let them call you in some way to reach out in your life. This week in particular, we remember that there are many people moving, those who are moving to college, to jobs all over the world, many reasons for moving away from the home that they have known. We remember their times of big change, meaningful goodbyes, and powerful hellos. For just a moment more in quiet, we honor all the joys and sorrows, both those known and those not yet spoken. And I will light a candle to represent all of those joys and sorrows as we hold them in this space. May we remember that we are all part of the web of life that calls us to remember that we are one with humanity and with the universe. We are grateful for the miracle of our lives that we may share and hope together, remember and love. So may it be in this moment and in the days to come. Amen. And blessed be. I invite you to rise in all the ways that we do as we join our voices together in our closing hymn. So maybe we should say these words before we sing them for those of you who have not sung this song over and over again. Some of us have, but for those through whom it's new, see ahambe kukanyen kwenkos. See ahambe kukanyen kwenkos. See ahambe kukanyen kwenkos. Good. If you miss a syllable, I'm sure somebody else will get it. Don't worry about it. See ahambe kukanyen kwenkos. See ahambe kukanyen kwenkos. See ahambe kukanyen kwenkos. See ahambe kukanyen kwenkos. See ahambe, hamba, see ahambe. Oh, see ahambe kukanyen kwenkos. See ahambe, hamba kukanyen. We are marching in the light of God. We are marching in the light of God. We are marching in the light of God. We are marching in the light of God. Marching, we are marching. Marching in the light of God. Marching, marching, we are marching. Oh, we are marching in the light of God. We are singing. We are singing in the light of God. We are singing in the light of God. We are singing in the light of God. We are praying, praying. We are praying, we are praying in the light of God. We are praying in the light of God. We are clapping, put your books down. We are clapping in the light of God. We are clapping in the light of God. Captured by the peace found on the cushion. May you be ad livened by the love found in the living room. May you be emboldened by the creativity found in this sanctuary. And as you work towards justice and liberation with joy, may you find yourself out in the streets of your life. We extinguish our chalice today, but not the light of truth, not the warmth of community, or the fire of commitment. These we carry with us until we are together again. I invite you to be seated for one last gift of music.


Devon thoughts on the Simon Michelle from FED now join the show is it all kind of a done deal Simon welcome to you For the Fed this week get a cast and look very looking very much that way Absolutely, and I think you know the difference we're seeing now is that yields position themselves in preparation for that tightening Futures very much a done deal as well 100% chance So I think now it gets to what happens after this this increase how many Increases will we see from the Fed this year? And you as a house minded to change that projection based on Everything so far this year or you're saying let's just see how this first one runs and then we'll You know perhaps Recast our calls look I think so absolutely because if you have a look at the longer end of the yield curve cast If you have a look at the 10 year have a look at the 30 year We're still off of last year's highs so you know while you've seen the short end of the curve You've seen that to you as you mentioned drift up closer In anticipation these high rates We're not really seeing that adjusted in the 10 and the 30 and that's really where you see you know They're proxy for for growth and inflation and I think that's because you're really still seeing you know growth forecast You know it's still fairly fairly moderate Inflation has drifted up a little bit But you know the bond market is certainly not on board with this huge infrastructure spending and you know 45% growth forecast that we're seeing out there. Mm-hmm. The question is in Westpac asked this and it's that's weekly kind of look ahead You know what is the feds view on neutral rates and why is that important for Australia? So just sort of try and Thread the needle if you could on that one. Well, this is interesting I mean, you know, it's about looking at this excessive rates. So how many interest rate increases are we going to get? Considering that they are based on obviously, you know, growing inflation growing growth and a solid Performing economy now a lot of people are saying, you know If if inflation and growth are going to remain low globally and we certainly suggest that is the case Then the ability for the Fed to continue to raise interest rates is inhibited by those low forecasts And what you're likely to see is a bit of an inverse of the yield curve Where you actually see short-term rates higher than longer-term rates and that reflects obviously, you know negative growth slow and growth recession Hmm. It's interesting. You do under to yourself Is the Australian economy in that scenario even say at a 1% neutral rate down from three in the 1980s? Are we resilient enough to see out the cycle? Well, I mean, it's really interesting.  I suppose, you know You've got a lot of commentators out there in major banks suggesting we'll see a cash rate as low as 1% this year Others suggesting we won't need a further cut You know, the the US Fed moving their rates higher Does do a bit of that work for the Reserve Bank because it makes the US rates much more attractive than Aussie rates And you know, then you start to see a bit of pressure off the dollar the dollar drips a little bit lower That's positive for our manufacturing export market So, you know the US Fed if we do get sort of three four interest rate the increases Would probably take a bit of pressure off the need for the RBA to lower rates But they have some real concerns in our domestic economy as you mentioned. Hmm. Indeed they do so speaking of which we do get a jobs print ourselves this week is that Composition I suppose now more than ever to your point the composition matters a lot And we perhaps would be more buoyed up if we did see a pivot back into full-time. Well, absolutely And I mean, you know employment's you know, it's not looking too bad rates around 5.7% They're not expecting a huge change to that But we do have a real problem with the change in the underlying structure of our workforce and you hear a lot of Talk around under employment, wherever, you know, people might have a job They might have two jobs, but they're not working as much as they would need to or would like to So, you know, people are looking at that transition from full to part-time the underlying impact of that seasonal factors as well I don't think it's going to be a key driver at the moment. I looked at the forecast. They're pretty much status quo Let's talk about Harley-Davidson. Yes, I tend to need a salary to To go well, maybe you don't maybe you can do it all on higher purchase these days to nab a Harley, right? Well, I don't know like that. It's like your speed from experience. Anyway, go on, Simon. Go on That's right. Well, this is really interesting because we've seen a lot of US issuers and non-US issuers using the Australian bond market And I think it's a real factor of the development and maturing of the Australian bond market greater number of investors here We've seen Coca-Cola. We've seen Apple issue bonds in Australia in Australian dollars Harley-Davidson the next big one as well They've never issued outside the US So I tell you what, you know, if you're big supporter of this company, they've been around since 1902 I think it is you know time to jump on you can lock in some good funding and support Harley-Davidson Because they've only raised US dollar funds to date up to this point Yeah, never used any offshore markets at this point This will be their first look outside of the US looking at Aussie and Singapore But you know, I think it just again We're seeing a succession of what we call kangaroo bond issuances We should basically non Aussie companies issuing Aussie dollar bonds into Australia providing great source of diversification sector diversification for Aussie investors Okay, we must roar on To adopt the lexicon or something like that I don't know We'll talk to you soon. All right. Thank you. Thanks, Carson. Bye. Bye Simon Michelle there from Fegg. We must take


Hello, all right. I like to walk No, thank you. It's a huge honor to be here today. I've never been to Singapore before So this is my my first chance to visit my wife and I are planning on sticking around this weekend and exploring a little bit So we would love any any recommendations So I'm a developer at github I work on Ruby Java scripts and kind of whatever else needs done to to work on product features most recently I finished a project kind of Re-vamping github wikis a little bit. I don't know if you've used them recently. They've gotten a bit better And then right now the project that I'm working on is actually upgrading us from Rails 2 3 to 3 Which is like five years late So, but we're close. We're close.  So anyway, that's what I've been working on You can find me online as beekeepers both on Twitter and github I'm not a garden gnome despite what that suggests But if you have any questions throughout this or want to get in touch feels feel free to tweet at me We'll probably have some time for questions at the end, but if we don't get to them. I promise I will reply on Twitter So about seven years ago My wife and I bought a house and we planted our first vegetable garden It was in our backyard. It was small not very ambitious. We had no idea what we were doing But we kind of wanted to experiment with it Each year we've kind of continued to do this and continue to expand This is actually the a picture from like the second or third year that we did it We built some nice boxes Started kind of scaling things up and over the years I've realized That what I like about software development what I like about the software development process is not the engineering side, I'm actually not a very good engineer But I really like the gardening side See software really isn't like this like Predefined prefabricated product that like goes through this like nice clean process and comes out at the end It's really more of an organic process like you your job is to to create the right conditions for this thing to thrive And then as it grows make small adjustments and try and shape it into Something that eventually hopefully produces fruit And And ideally with that fruit then you you have seeds that you can then go on and and plants and other products and use them in other ways And so I've been thinking a lot about this the last year or so and And specifically with as it relates to open source because I mean gardening alone is awesome You get you get all of these things you get you know nice fruit that you get to eat yourself But it's even better if you can share it with other people Especially if you can share the harvest So a github over the years we've actually done quite a bit of open source And I would say if we're honest about it lately, we haven't been that good at it I mean we're still on rails to three which means that we can't participate in Making rails itself better. We have some projects that we haven't haven't been the best caretakers of So at the beginning of this year, I kind of made it one of my personal goals This is something we need to get better at there's something I want to do better at myself And this is something I won't github to be better at So I've kind of set out on this journey this last year And I want to talk today about some of the lessons that my love for gardening has been teaching me about maintaining open source And so today we'll kind of walk through the process of gardening As that relates to maintaining an open source project and kind of ultimately my goal is to convince all of you To go out and start your own gardens to go out and release open source and learn what this process looks like So before I do before we dive into this process, I want to talk a little bit about my experience My first open source contribution was in 2006. I was shortly after I had started using Ruby and rails and Recently well over the years I've contributed to whatever projects gems and stuff that I was using but I've never really been involved in a Large open source projects. I've submitted some patches to rails here and there but never You've been extremely involved Recently, but my most well-known project is dot-env. It's just a really simple thing that will Load up configuration files into the environment when your app bootstraps. It's not very complicated In the past I was the maintainer of delayed job for a long time. I didn't originally write it It was written by Tobias Luke key from Shopify But at the point at which we went from rails one to two when two started supporting gems He didn't really have any interest in maintaining it. So I gemmified it and then supported it for several years After that I worked on a project that probably nobody's ever heard of called Q Which is kind of an abstraction of these database Q idea where you can swap out back ends My first gem ever was called Tinder. It was a campfire API before campfire actually had an API It would just do screen scraping um My only non ruby project that I've kind of actively worked on is called Rosie. It's basically factory girl for JavaScript and then recently my kind of Pet project has been this github notifications client Because I hate email and get a lot of github notifications. I'm trying to figure out a better way to manage them So this is where I'm coming from. I mean none of these projects as you can see are huge None of these are rails, you know, they're not it's not ruby These are all really small projects actually And so I would say, you know, if I had to judge myself as an open source contributor, I would say I'm average I'm not prolific. I'm not a beginner. I'm somewhere kind of in the middle And I say that means basically to convince you that this is something that all of you can do So we talked about large open source projects, I would actually Argue that something like rails is actually more like farming. It's not gardening It's at a much bigger scale than that Or, you know certain projects Might be a little bit more like land management where you're just trying to make sure that things don't fall apart and burn down But you don't necessarily have control over the process So specifically today, I'm talking about gardening. I'm talking about these smaller projects That we all use it in and out on on our apps every day So before we dive into this a little bit more I do need to give some some credit to Steve Klamnick. He posted this great article How to be an open source gardener. I would highly recommend you go read it His was his was at the perspective though of diving into one of these really large apps You know, he got involved in rails started kind of tending kind of some of the issues And so anyway, it's a great perspective. I would definitely recommend reading it But I want to clarify that this is not actually the perspective that I'm coming from I'm talking about smaller gardens than this So before we dive into this I just kind of want to get an idea of where you're all at show of hands How many people right now maintain an open source project like you are the maintainer or one of them? All right, excellent. Keep your hands up. How many people have committed Contributed in some form to an open source project Even more. All right, excellent. Thank you So before you dive into any gardening project, you need somewhat of a plan. It doesn't have to be perfect but a plan will at least help you kind of avoid some common mistakes and When you start that out, I think the important question to ask is why am I doing this? What are my motivations? I think there's some myths about open source and what it will gain you You know, some people think oh if I just put this out somebody else will write the code for me Somebody else will do the work And if you if any of you that have maintained open source I've experienced this you know that that's not usually the case Most small projects hardly ever see a real contribution But ultimately I mean our goal has to be to produce fruit right we want to make our projects better we want to Create things that other people can use We're all driven by this desire to create things But I think there has to be something else that sustains us and that and that is this this ultimate goal to produce a better product The second question we need to ask ourselves when we're getting involved in open source is how much time can you dedicate to this? Because it takes a lot more time than you think it should and the weird thing about it is So there's large large open source projects seem to be the ones that you would expect to take up more time And they do take a lot of time And they're hard because so many people care about them, but smaller projects are kind of the opposite They're hard because nobody cares about them. You're the only one and so you have to spend all of your time tending it So that's a that's the planning phase just ask yourself some simple questions Now we're ready to actually dig in and start doing some of the work When you're ready to release it there are a few things that we can do to create the right conditions for this project to flourish And in gardening we call this cultivation You're preparing the dirt. You're fertilizing it So that the project can actually take root So for an open source project you want to make it as easy as possible for people to contribute and use your project Any small barrier to that any small hurdle could be enough to discourage somebody from actually contributing So let's talk about what some of those things are the first one seems obvious or silly But pick a good name The name of your project can actually make or break it And so what makes a good name? This is not a complete list, but these are kind of the things that I've been That will run through my head as I'm getting ready to release something first It has to be searchable if it's really generic. It's hard for people to find it It needs to be memorable So those two are kind of at odds if you want something to be searchable You need it to be unique But you also don't want to be so unique that nobody can remember what it is And then you need to be suggestive like what it needs to suggest somewhat of what this project actually does It can't be completely unrelated And then on the the knot side it can't be too boring Organ it'll be hard to find people won't care about it. It can't be too weird It'll be hard to it'll be hard to remember and also not too trendy like if anyone wrote a rails plugin back in the day there was the acts as whatever trend and now Nobody writes plugins named acts as whatever so be careful that your name will actually last for a while So as an example of this I mentioned my my project called Q. I think in terms of The the quality of code. It's probably one of the projects. I'm most proud of But nobody's ever heard of it. Nobody's ever used it because they can't find it it's really hard to search for and People can't even really pronounce it. They're like Q you quick Huh? So when I was showing this to a friend initially I was trying to explain it to him and I'm like, you know, it's just oh my gosh. It's a better background queue That's all it is. So I came up with this idea like oh, I should have called it omg bbq So I'm gonna rename it. I Claimed that name on Ruby gems recently so that nobody else could steal it But we'll get ready for the marketing push soon But I think this is a good example of a name like it's kind of fun. It's playful It's not too weird because we all know what it means at least somewhat depending on cultural barriers But I think this is a good example The next thing we need to do is write documentation TJ talks about this a little bit ago If you want people to use your code or if you want your project to thrive You need people to use your code and if you want them to use it They have to be able to figure out how and that's docs. So docs are not as fun. They're not as sexy They're you know, it's not as interesting as actually writing the project, but it's still extremely important And a little bit of documentation can go a long way So probably the most important part is the read me at least if you're putting your project on github This is the thing that takes center stage So I want to talk briefly about what makes a good read me because I think that this is probably the most important part of your documentation So first we have a one-line description. This is just a project that was on the github trending page recently So I completely picked it at random simply that it was like the second thing on there So you have to have a quick one-line description tell people what the heck this thing does and why they should care It should be clear. It should be concise should have some of the key words that people are looking for But not so long that they get bored while they're reading it That's what the second line is for a little bit longer explanation This project chose to just do a sentence or two Some of my projects I've done like a couple paragraphs to explain the motivation behind it or why it's different than than some existing Thing that's out there After that we need to tell people how to actually install it again This depends on the project if it's a ruby gem just say gem install the gem name or add this to your your gem file If it's something else, so this is a JavaScript library. They say hey just include this in your in the header of your page But showing people how to install it is an important next step We need to then tell people how to use it and this should probably be the longest section in your read me It should kind of outline all of the the different options you know give an overview of the way different ways that people can actually use the project and Then finally all the way down at the bottom You tell people how to contribute because the goal is that you know the first time somebody comes to your project They're gonna start at the top of that read me, but over time they're gonna they're gonna work their way down right eventually They'll install it eventually. They'll use it and The only way that your project is gonna thrive then is if you can help them become a contributor So at the bottom include that information. How do I get the source code? How do I run the tests? How should I submit a pull request? Do you want pull requests or would you rather you know me email you a patch? I don't do people still do that. I don't know maybe not But tell people how to contribute If you want some examples of good read me's I said I went to the trending page. I would recommend starting there I've found that most of the projects that show up there are there because they've done this one thing well They've they've documented their way their code in a way that that is engaged people So look at those examples Next I'm not gonna spend a lot of time on this because this is something. I don't care a lot about what it is important You have to choose a license If you don't have a license on your project then the assumption is that it is copyrighted by you and nobody else has permission to use it But there's also like weird legality things there that I don't understand But I'll basically just choose a license If you need help with that choose a license comm is a pretty helpful site that will kind of walk you through the like couple basic ones So start there And then lastly for for preparing your projects You need to just simply follow conventions of other projects if you want people to contribute then they need It's helpful if you can have them do it in a way that they're already familiar with So if it's a Ruby app follow Ruby conventions if you know have an app directory if it's rails have a lib directory if it's a gem Have your tests mirror your app or your your lib files Which seems kind of silly, but then it is actually really helpful people can easily dive in You know have a gem file have a rake file whatever it is those conventions are there for a reason But mostly it's it's easier for people to dive in But if you're gonna make changes to your project now is the time to do it because nobody has seen it yet so the next step in Tending this open-source garden is we need now need to sew it and I think that this is probably what we imagine As we imagine kind of this glorious open-source life. We imagine that this is the main part of it, right? But this is actually the easiest part This is simply taking everything that you've already done and just putting it out there There's not a lot of work involved in this The only the only work required at this step is that now you have to talk about what you just did And I know for many of us that's hard. We're not very good at advertising the things that we do But you need to you need to advertise it say hey, I created this thing. Here's why it's important. Here's why it's good Here's why I think you should use it. I found it helpful to blog about it So I just have blog open soul org So here was my blog post about dot-end when I released it and it was just you know a couple paragraphs as you can see Here's why I did it Here's why I think it's important. It doesn't have to be slimy. It doesn't have to be You know deceptive as long as it's coming out of a place that's that's genuine People really appreciate it And then after you've blogged about it put it on social media I know that this seems like a silly game of trying to like get your thing on the top of hacker news or whatever But I think it actually makes a huge difference. So so tweet about it You know some projects if they make sense have a Twitter account That helps people follow it But we'll talk about it So everything we've done up to this point is really the fun and easy part. We created the projects We got it ready We released it and now is when the work actually begins And this is the part that I think most of us don't think about when we're thinking about open source Everything that wants to grow needs watered And it needs it consistently So without water plants in the garden will go dormant An attempt to survive drought the leaves will curl up and they'll eventually die if you don't water them So our projects are the same way we need to consistently water them And consistency is the important part In gardening they recommend that you water your plants every morning in the morning before it gets too hot This gives the plants time to draw up the water before the heat of the day But if you do it at night, there's a chance that there could be like disease Anyway, I found that this is actually really helpful advice for open source that if you Try and form a habit of not maybe not every day, but most mornings just wake up Check in on your project. Has there been any issues? Have there been any conversations? Try and keep moving the ball forward on several of those things Part of that is then also setting a guide for what it looks like to contribute to your project And I found it really helpful to follow your own contribution guidelines So if you tell people hey if you find a bug Open an issue for it. If you want to submit a fix create a pull request do that yourself It seems kind of silly. This is this is a pull request I made to myself on my github notifications app notice that nobody even commented on it by the time I committed it I'll usually like open a pull request and then let it set a day or two and then I'll merge it if You know if there's no discussion Again, it feels really weird It feels like you're talking to yourself, but I think it's really helpful for people watching the project to see what it looks like to contribute It also gives them an opportunity to jump into the conversation if they want to And that's where you have to start trying to invite them in Again, like it's really hard to get people engaged But there's often these opportunities where you can just say hey I See you commented on this thing I think you know or you created this issue about something that should should be made better Would you be interested in submitting a pull request? I'll do that almost on almost every issue that's open on our projects anymore I'll ask them if they'd be willing to investigate it and a lot of times they are sometimes they're not But if I hadn't asked they wouldn't have had that opportunity to participate We also have to always be hospitable on our projects and sometimes this gets really hard But by the time you see a contribution the author has usually spent a couple hours either getting familiar with your project or Investigating the bug or the issue or figuring out how to build the new feature And so whether their contribution is something that you want or not you have to be hospitable to them You have to be courteous You know some of these some of these contribute some of these contributors are extremely ambitious But maybe their contribution doesn't quite meet your standards So you have to tell them that you have to give them that feedback say hey, I really liked this I usually start out by by thanking them for their time and their energy say thank you for give for working on this and Then I start to give feedback and and usually it's in the form of questions Like if I just tell them hey, this is not good. This is not good. I asked them say hey Could this break in the future would maybe it makes sense to have a test for this Or what do you think about this other thing somehow engage them in a way that that brings them into the conversation even more When you're patient and courteous with with contributors, it'll eventually start to snowball They'll do that to other people that are participating in the conversation And they'll also do that back to you Now there's there's times too where even after this feedback cycle like things still don't quite meet your standards And I kind of I liken this to like our every once in a while our niece will come over and try and help us when when we're gardening You know and she'll like start digging something and obviously she does no idea what she's doing She's doing it horribly wrong, but I still need to honor that she's interested in that and that she's she's putting some amount of effort into it And so in the same thing with open source, you know if somebody has made their best attempts to try and contribute Sometimes sometimes you just need to merge it even though it might not be the same merge their pull request and then come back and fix it up later and then most importantly with with Disgardening metaphor is you have to give it time And an open source project is no different as soon as you plant the seeds in the ground It seems like nothing's happening. You'll spend weeks maybe even month or more and see no progress But as long as you can keep doing it consistently eventually you'll start to see see things grow So as your as your project starts to grow there's actually countless forces that are trying to destroy it And it's up to you to defend against them So in gardening you'll actually take in you'll cover the soil with mulch So either wood chips or or grass or something But the idea is that you're trying to protect the plants and the soil from these forces so it could be weather It could be weeds You know it could be erosion So we have to wait to figure out how to protect our project The first thing we need to do is only add features that you want to maintain And this is probably one of the hardest things with maintaining a project as soon as you have somebody interested They'll submit a pull request and you're like excellent And then you realize that it's not something that you're remotely interested in Even though they think it's extremely important They'll you know they might kind of go back and forth with you and say oh, this is why I think it should be If it's not something that you want to maintain then you simply should not merge it this has been a Probably one of the more painful parts for me in open source is you know somebody will submit a Pull request for a mongoid adapter to queue and it's like well, that's great But I don't want to maintain a mongoid adapter because I don't use mongoid And you don't want me to maintain a mongoid adapter Tests are extremely important in this process As people are submitting contributions, you need to know that the things that they're submitting actually work And and so having an existing test suite will will give an example of how people how people should contribute Not only does it give you confidence, but it also gives confidence to the people submitting these things so Travis CI is Incredible if you haven't used it I would recommend on every single open source project But the great thing is they submit it they open up a new pull request the tests will run and they'll know right away And you'll know whether their contribution is is passing or not Now the hardest part Don't feed the trolls There's gonna be people that will not be happy with your project no matter what you may be the nicest person in the world to them And they will still be extremely upset Try not to engage with them. I mean say thank you Be be courteous as you would to any of your other participants But do not try and aggravate them TJ earlier was talking about the the hearts thing. I tried that with one Contributor that was not very happy. I kept posting hearts and eventually I got an email from him that said just stop posting hearts I don't love you. Oh So I actually went back and took the hearts out and I think I replaced it with like I like you or something like that I don't know he didn't appreciate it. So I learned not to feed the trolls As your project grows eventually though, you're gonna mess up some of those things. We just talked about you know mulching is not enough There's gonna be weeds that are gonna start to grow. There's gonna be mistakes that you made and so we have to prune You have to remove features that have either Kind of gotten unwieldy gotten out of hands or things that kind of evolved into something that you don't want to actually take care of So so remove any of those features that you don't want to maintain that slipped in there I found it helpful to split them into separate repositories So like the Q project that I talked about If somebody submits an adapter that I don't want to maintain I'll just say oh well you can publish it as your own and just name it you know Q dash Adapter name and then other people can use it. There's a nice plug-in API But I don't have to worry about maintaining it anymore One in one recent example of this I was on dot-end when I when I started working on dot-end The intention the entire time was to have it be development only because in production. There's better ways to set environment variables But development it's pain in the butt You got to like either set them on your machine and then they conflict with other projects or figure out some other way to do it But anyway over time people like oh, well here's a Capistrano Support for it so that when I deployed it'll automatically copy over my config variables People wanted multiple environments and it got to the point where I was like wait a second This isn't what the project was originally intended for So pull request 95 on this repo was the one that split out all of the deployment all the multiple environment stuff to a separate gem Now somebody else can maintain that and people that want that can add it But I don't have to worry about it being part of the core So the important part of with this use semantic versioning We'll first use versioning in general in your app I'm really excited about the the ruby core changes actually kind of switching to more semantic versioning ish Scheme but so semantic versioning is this idea where each of these the places in this this number are significant You have the patch number Which is basically bug fixes You increment that anytime there's a bug fix and only a bug fix Maybe sometimes like a minor feature, but yeah mostly bug fixes The second one is minor backward compatible functionality So whenever you add new features to it you'll bump that and then finally the third one is any incompatible API changes So to show what that might look like If you wanted to remove a feature you would deprecate it in a minor version and then come back later and remove it in a major Version so the ruby code for that say here's one vert, you know one dot x dot x of our project You just simply add a conditional in line It's like if you're using this future this feature, you know print out a warning statement That's just you know this feature will be removed in whatever next version And then also it's helpful if you if you include caller zero or whatever Caller line will will show the line of their code that is calling it that way They know when they see those run in their tests or in continuous integration. They know where it's coming from as you're doing this It's really helpful to keep a changelog So here's the changelog from dot nf And basically all it is is it's changelog md in the repo and I just highlight major changes That people will care about they could go I have I keep a link to the full changelog That's actually the list of commits, but I think it's helpful as as the maintainer to roll those up And highlight here's the features that you'll actually care about so then the whole point of all of this is To get a harvest And that's not to mean work at harvest like TJ No, just all right. That was lame. It's not as funny as Aaron's joke. I'm sorry She's not as funny as Aaron No, but the whole point of this process is to make your products better, right? It's the main reason we do it There's also the like, you know altruism trying to help other people make their product better But this is this is the point of doing it At the point at which it stops producing a harvest you need to ask yourself some questions First doesn't make sense for me to keep working on this I've had a lot of projects over the years that I worked on while I was actively using them And then at some point I stopped a delayed job was one of them I haven't used it in several years and so it didn't make sense for me to keep working on it And so give it away when it stops being fun find somebody that does care about it and it's willing to take it over The only caveat to that is don't do that if your product still depends on it This is something that we've we've learned the hard way at github We've given away several projects in the past that we thought we were done with And it turned out our product depended on them One example is it is actually the the projects I just got done working on was github wikis And wikis are powered by this library called golem Which about two years ago there was some people that were submitting some amazing contributions were really active on it And so we gave them commit access and release access They did a bunch of great work. The problem is we didn't keep up with it And two years later now golem itself had evolved to a point where we can't use it anymore And that's I mean that's good. I think golems gotten better But we were not we did not kind of a whole uphold our end of that bargain so Be careful when you do give it away That either the person has your interests in mind or that yet you keep a communication channel open with them You also need to clearly state the project status if you don't find somebody to hand it off to then let other people know That is no longer maintained The lesson that we learned this project on was grit grit is the Library that we used to talk to get from Ruby and For I'm since the beginning this has been to the to the outside world the thing we were using Except that we've been actually working on not using it anymore We've been working on lib get to and some bindings to these native C libraries, but we didn't tell anybody that So recently I submitted a pull request to grit that just updates the changelog Or excuse me updates to read me I don't know if you can read that but it basically just says great is no longer maintained Github's working on moving off of it, and you know, we're not we're not accepting contributions anymore And then I just went through and closed the like 200 and some open pull requests and issues With a link to that said hey, sorry, we're not working on this anymore If somebody wanted to pick up a fork of it, they definitely could So all of these basically come down to us learning from some of our mistakes And this is actually an extremely important part of gardening and maintaining open source I think a lot of us are afraid to get into it because you know, maybe our code's not good enough Maybe we're not very good at maintaining these things, but it's all a learning process And the only ways to get better at it is to actually practice it So earlier this year I actually tweeted for the record. I am terrible open source maintainer And a couple people like hit me up on this and they're like really like I've seen you doing a bunch of stuff That doesn't seem consistent But I think for me personally like it's not it's something. I don't feel like I'm good enough at And so I've been trying to work really intentionally at it But the best part about this is there's not like a world's best gardener There's not a world's best open source maintainer You just have to be good enough to produce a harvest if you be good enough to make your project fit your needs And so I think that's kind of the redeeming factor in this that There is no perfect So, you know, we should need to keep practicing. We need to keep getting better at this One favor I ask of you is if you see an abandoned github open source project Please ping me because I want to know I want to be a better caretaker of that or Explicitly say hey, we're not using this anymore Thank you very much


Hey everybody, this is James from Ohio and recently I ordered my first batch of leads from Cody and Did ten final expense leads? Got all my leads the very next day Which was awesome. You don't have to wait a week or two or three like you do with the direct male leads But got my batch of ten right away very next day called through them the second I got them because I was excited to try them out set three appointments right away These people when they answer the phone they're expecting somebody to call They're very hot leads very easy to set that appointments I followed the script word-for-word because he sends a script right along with the leads and I mean I've had my own script up in the business for ten years But I figured well just use use Cody's since it comes with the leads and works perfect to follow that word for word I think I talked to five people first time calling through my list of ten and set three appointments out of those five and With the other ones I'm still gonna follow up and Try to get some more appointments and hopefully get plenty of sales out of these and I'm gonna place another lead order here Today or tomorrow, so talk to you later


No, not oh my god.    I thought he was just punching the ground Oh my oh, let's go.  Oh this the way he said that was so good man.   After he uses gear. I wonder if there's gonna be like side effects Why is he wasting it on him?   What's the fight?   Oh, he's not he's not he's not he's not he's just gonna collapse Watch watch watch Uh-uh, uh-uh, oh Gear tubes done Third what Already third gear.  What was I was right?