So, one question we have is about the perception of calligraphy in your respective traditions or cultures, and also in your own family, wondering many of you, you know, you all kind of were interested in the art form at a young age, and I'm curious as to how that was seen by your family, especially in a time now where a lot of what we were occupied, preoccupied by economic concerns. My parents, there's no way I was going to be an artist. Six children, none of us were going to be artists, but three of us ended up being artists. Two lettering artists. My older brother is a sign painter. My older sister is an architect, which I probably would have been drawn to instead of lettering. Had it not been for a competitive atmosphere, and she had architecture. And within the family, when I got to the White House, my father still said, you're still going to do calligraphy? So, that's the family part, but yet they all appreciate it. So, I'll stick with the family part and get into cultural after you guys answer your family influences. Yeah, from my family, it's probably common. Art is usually just something you do in kindergarten, and when math comes in second, third grade, it's like, all right, slowly start to fade that art away.  So, I had to give up the art, you know? But, you know, I lived in back of a railroad track area, and they had these great walls that were just begging to get vandalized. So, you know, that's where I got my, you know, graffiti, right?   But eventually, you know, in terms of the family, it's probably just recent until I started making money, and I've got my very first piece of, oh, okay, you know, it's not a lot.  But as soon as I started to have that, you know, economic value, right?  But as soon as, you know, all right, you know, traveling a bit and, you know, starting to get some, and my mother, you know, started to get some press or something like that, then all right, they kind of turn around. So now they're one of my biggest supporters. Yeah, I'm very lucky that I'm coming from artist kind of family, and they all supported me. My dad is a manager or was a manager of the huge company. So he was very left-brained person, and my mom is a poet and artist. So she has a very bright brain. So I think growing up in that family, I tried to make a balance, and I'm really fortunate that I can apply both, you know, kind of management skills and artistic skills in my life. But in terms of calligraphy, I think, as I was saying in the film, calligraphy is really part of the, you know, Iranian society. You learn it at school when you're a kid. You learn it at after-school classes. There's a huge Iranian association of calligraphers that teaches calligraphy in a very classical way, and you have to go through classes and train with a master.  And I've heard that there are just two schools of calligraphy in the world that are teaching classical Islamic calligraphy in this way, and one is in Iran and one is in Turkey. So I was really, you know, fortunate to be able to get exposed to those masters and learn from them. And many of families have a couple of people who are, you know, learning calligraphy, at least, or loving calligraphy, and you will see calligraphy in many people's, as a decorating art. So I think they consider calligraphy as really art rather than, you know, a craft or something that is dealt with just technicality, but it's really, you know, a regarded art. Thank you. And then in terms of cultural perceptions, I know that, you know, in this country I think calligraphy can be associated with like, you know, wedding invitations growing up, you know, this kind of invitation type of thing. But then also, Christian, in your case, there was also sort of an excavation that you had to do culturally to sort of bring something to the forefront. So could you both talk a little bit about the perceptions that you've worked with and against in your practice? Yeah. Well, I think it's interesting to hear Arash say that calligraphy is taught in the schools in Iran still to this day. It was when I graduated from high school in 1979, calligraphy was considered a mandatory course in anybody who wanted to study commercial art in college, and those days are totally gone. Calligraphy, when I started professionally, there were three studios in Washington, D.C. It employed anywhere, four or five calligraphers, 40 hours a week filling in certificates and diplomas and resolutions. All those studios are gone. So culturally, through the digital age, we've seen a lot of this work change, a lot of it go away, but it's opened up doors for this stuff that Charles Pierce and Thomas Ingmeyer and this modern expressionist movement of calligraphy. So I think it's broadened its usage in the United States through that, but it's not taught formally at all. It was interesting to see that that's a nice part of the curriculum. And Christian, it was interesting to see. I want to make sure I get this clear. You mentioned in your presentation that young people could read your language, which is an otherwise obsolete language that had gone the way of history. How did that happen? It happened because usually when the internet age came out, a flow of information, and this goes along with the perception that you have this symbol, and I would have to say it came out of the tattoo culture. If you want to have something permanently on your body, you're going to make sure it's damn right. Because we've all seen, oh, that's supposed to say strength, but it says chicken fight rice just for a tattoo artist. So that forced people, Filipinos, to actually learn the very basics. And we kind of know the basics of language, strength, love, and all of those. And so they would recognize it. And in terms of the perception, it mirrors the Filipino American or Filipino experience where I was talking about as a kid going through this identity crisis because the Philippines is a melting pot. We have Filipinos who look white, have blonde hair, blue eyes. We have them that are black, that look Middle Eastern Indian. And so the question, we would guess, what are you? And that is also what happens with our writing system. I've had folks say, is that terrorist writing? It has happened, and that was just last year. And it's before this whole Trump thing. Because they associate things with culture, with writing. And if your culture is unknown, then your writing is unknown. So we have, myself and my peers, we have a lot of education that has to happen. But then we have to educate ourselves, educate our peers, and then try and figure out how to best perpetuate that and create systems and foundations for the next generation to do it. And that is the challenge and the opportunity there. Has the work that's happened in Diaspora influenced what's happening in the Philippines in terms of either the revival of the language or the preservation? Oh yeah, definitely. Usually, because we have a strong colonial mindset. So whatever happens in America, it starts off in America and then it makes its way back to the Philippines. But then now, since sometimes there is almost a separation, some static between who are you, you're appropriating your culture, even though you don't speak the language, you're rich, you live in San Francisco, and we live here, we are the true Filipinos. So it happens, it's happening with the tattoo traditions as well. So any cultural traditions. There's the dancing while the perception is that you're rich Americans and then you're appropriating our culture while we're living in poverty. And so that is another challenge there. But it does get a lot of interest because we have the privilege to do our cultural practice and also innovate and all these things, but it does make its way back home. And I intentionally, while we practice this writing or this culture, we have to support the others, otherwise we'd be hypocrites. There's one tribe left in the Philippines, so if we don't help them preserve it, then who are we to say that, yeah, enjoy this writing system while we're not economically taking care of the folks back home? Rosh, maybe because there's a lot more support in Iran for calligraphy, it seems that an associated challenge is maybe in innovation or modernizing or kind of taking it outside of maybe a traditional practice. Can you talk a little bit about ways that you've seen the tradition specifically coming from Iran change or develop? Yeah, very good question. So I think probably from 200 years ago when the way of modern publicizing or publishing introduced to Iran from Europe, I think calligraphers understood that their career is either going to die or they have to either compete with modern techniques and publishing techniques or they have to find new ways of continuing their art and their career. So I think from that point calligraphy in Iran or many of the probably middle eastern societies turned into art. So being a very highly respected art form rather than something that you use just for the function of writing and legal documents or official documents or those kind of things or just copying books. And then this was kept alive till probably 10, 15 years ago. So people would go through traditional and classic training and they would really respect that training and would try to keep the calligraphy script that they would learn and try to not changing it at all or adding a little bit of flavor to it. Sometimes when you compare many of the master's pieces, you might not understand much of the difference unless you are a professional artist or calligrapher or understand calligraphy. So many of them might look like the same because they're following the similar tradition and they are not supposed to change it, but they add a little bit of flavor or signature to it. But then 15, 20 years ago, again another modern movement, an internet and western art, abstract art, and then calligraphy faced another challenge which was either to continue as traditional art and you would lose your younger audiences or even western audiences or you could combine it probably with the modern art. So another type of style kind of born and it is the combination of painting and calligraphy and it is the usage of painting techniques and visual art techniques and calligraphy and many of them are becoming many where abstract that you can't even read the text and it's just the abstract artwork but it has writing as a foundation in a way which is taking off in auctions around the world and some of them are being sold millions of dollars and it's, yeah, yeah. So it seems there is an interest in the kind of modernization of the traditional calligraphy but it's still the traditional calligraphy I guess has its own values. You've all talked a little bit about the effect of the digital age on your work and I'd like you maybe to say a little bit more about how you see the practice evolving further. I mean the digital world, this age we live in has seemed to broaden your audiences and brought you inspiration but it's also an age in which younger people less and less are even writing by hand and communicating by emojis, right? So where do you see things going from here? Well, we ponder this on a regular basis. I think today, you could ask me tomorrow, today I think the craft is dying. I think that's where the answer is. The art is advancing and we argue it's calligraphy and art or a craft. I don't know if you do this in your cultures for us. It seems to be a topic of conversation that has been for years and it's both, there's no doubt about that and my part, I tend to gravitate as you saw from my influences more at the craft end. There's not a lot of innovation. There's clean, solid work is what we're looking for. To be a good artist you need to have craft. You need to have knowledge of your tools and your mediums and such but legibility is much less important and I think on the high end of abstract art, craft is an important part of it but what I see on the internet and what I see unfortunately coming out of a lot of modern calligraphy is not enough instruction of unfortunately for some, for many, you have to go back to that Roman alphabet. You can look at Thomas Ingmar's most modern work and it is absolutely derived from, you know it's like rock and roll is derived from classic music. It all perpetuates and moves forward and today I note that about 40 to 50% of the work in our periodicals is illegible. You can't read it but that's the design. It's working with letters and that's just where it's gone. So how we as artists individually embrace that is an individual choice. I want to ask you a follow-up question. So on Instagram I see a lot of, say, I know in the Philippines calligraphy from a Roman alphabet perspective is quite popular in terms of, I don't know if it's, is it, I'm noticing it's almost like, I don't want to say fad but something akin to getting vinyl records where I know that we'll have a calligraphy party for so-and-so's wedding and then they'll buy some stuff at Dick Blix, the calligraphy pens and I've noticed that, I mean has, do you notice any of those groups ever like digging deeper into, you know, what you've mentioned or do they maybe tend to stay within, you know, this, you know, glitter calligraphy? There is crossover and my background comes from a strong guild tradition and I think all the guilds in the United States have, most of them are 40 years old or so or newer and most of the founding people and the influential people in these guilds I think fortunately draw from a traditional perspective and keep that growth. It is the influence of Instagram and Tumblr and all those that there's just a lot of stuff out there that people can get their hands. It's dangerous when a non-calligrapher gets a tool in their hand and makes letters and they're terrible from somebody who's studied their whole life yet their reaction to the digital age, their reaction to real tight digital type so if it's got a lot of loops on it and it's a little bumpy and a little squiggly, it's okay and I think for those who study calligraphy it's not okay but, you know, it's judgmental, right? Yeah, I wanted to add one small thing about Rick's point about craft dying and I think it's kind of, it's the question of not just craft and art but, you know, traditional art versus the modern art and I think the traditional art is kind of fading away or the craft not just because of the tools or modern age technology but it's more affected by our lifestyles and the way we are living so when you're practicing a traditional art, it's not just the art or the craft that you're making it's the whole process of becoming someone else it's the journey of your lifetime becoming kind of one with your craft and with the message you're conveying and most of the time you have to, you know, study with an apprentice go through an apprenticeship journey with someone with a master who teaches you not just the art but the art of living, the art of being a human being the ethics, you know, it's just the whole journey our modern life just took all of that away from us there's no time for any of that you have to, you know, boom, boom, boom, create artwork, you know, go to the exhibitions sell the art for the economic value so I don't know if there is any solution to that at some point maybe people will look back and see there were so many values in that and appreciate that but I don't know, maybe we are at the age of that I think within my context of digital age I would say I started out digital I mean, always writing pen and paper or sharpies but I really got out there because of the internet and so it was around 2007 so I had the first website specifically around this and so it's kind of like, alright, I can do whatever I want because whoever has the most hits and whoever shows up on the first three on Google you're the one, right? so I had that opportunity and with the two other folks that I worked with I mean, we really had the vision of creating this organization and we did it and that was in 2007 and we would teach our goal was ultimately to get more exposure for this writing system and then, honestly, we were making a lot of money on commissions and then as we started teaching people I tell people this all the time we were going good and around 2012 down and that was because the promotion of the writing system was good so they didn't need us anymore so we were putting ourselves out of business and so that forced us to diversify so how can we be different? and then other of these younger newer writers started doing these fancier things and they have more free time because they're living at home and they started to innovate and then we would get mad no, you got to do this but there's room for it all but since there's not that many writers of this we're going to be doing the traditional ones we'll leave the innovation stuff to the kids but me personally, I like to innovate and I've done some stuff with VR where how to write something in virtual reality let's say you write the word, a poem and then now imagine stepping into that poem, into that world on the context of that so there are a lot of things, living here in the Bay Area too the techie guys, they get a bad rap, I get it but there are some things if we can work in conjunction with them to kind of whether from the economics they're here to stay, they're here and trying to figure out how we can be happy together and benefit because bringing analog into digital but the internet is something that we can't move away from it but if we can get folks to learn about traditions and making tools and I think that's how but everyone doesn't have time they don't have patience, they just want to Netflix and chill and all of that stuff but if you can tap into the value whether it's the cultural value and social value and even economic value then you'll see people really invest because just with fashion there's this movement called slow fashion maybe there's slow writing maybe we can start that I'd like to open it up to the audience if you have any questions Yeah, the calligrapher is a participating artist if maybe you have any responses to the questions we've asked I can speak to that I think I really understand what you're saying in my tradition I think people are very acceptance they have a huge range of acceptance about other people learning their tradition I have many instances that American calligrapher learned Persian calligraphy and they were invited to conferences and things in Iran and people really appreciate it yeah, yeah but the point is if you're practicing traditional calligraphy you have to be really good at traditional calligraphy so it doesn't matter if you're from somewhere else but if you are really mastering those strokes and those nuances and details you're accepted but if you're making a lot of errors or changes or you're not sticking to that classical way of practicing it or implementing it then traditional calligraphers wouldn't accept your piece as a calligraphy they would say it's not a calligraphy so, yeah, I think the line is not where you're from but how you're implementing your skills I don't know I want to ask you Arash, do you how would I put this? I was talking about Instagram and Tumblr and it mostly tends to be with a pointed pen in America where people can just pick up one of those pointed pens learn how to add pressure and stuff has no basis, no historical basis that they're even trying to move forward from does that exist in Iran? Do you have just... what would you call it? an un-purposefully bad calligraphy that's prevalent? No, I think most of them at least the ones that were presented in the film they have very huge and strong historical background that you can't easily take them away or start changing them unless you're an artist, you're claiming I'm not a calligrapher, I'm just using calligraphy as a tool of expressing my artistic expression that's acceptable because in art you can do anything but when you say I'm a calligrapher it means that you're following some kind of specific script and techniques and history I've seen new masters who have been master in one script and then they try to design a new script and invent a new one but not much luck being accepted in the traditional spectrum but they have been accepted from younger generation who appreciate a new script is coming to life and it's not a font but it's a calligraphy script Can I just throw questions out because the same question for you do you see, so you've revived this script and young people are picking up on it do you see much of people who address it without a whole lot of attention to detail and take it the wrong direction? Yeah, all the time just the tattoo example it's very cosmetic but we all start at a cosmetic level and we do see it so the argument I always tell them is that why are you getting this say if you're Filipino, yeah because I'm proud of my culture but you won't take five minutes to learn the basics and call it out, it's a call out and sometimes it can cause some issues but that's the burden that I'll take but to talk about the... two minutes, that was a great question I think I can see that happening by way within my cultural practice as well I can see because I see it with other cultural practices I'll take one for example so Philippine martial arts, it's Kali there's probably only less than five or so grand masters that are probably in their 80s, 70s, 80s there's only a few what happens, they're students there are seminars, some guy from England per se we'll take a couple of seminars from a master and then all of a sudden John's Kali Institute chain all over Europe and then they'll get it they're making the money but then they'll take out the cultural context so I think that from an artistic standpoint anyone can do whatever they want I think that some folks I mean like myself and you have to be I don't want to say sensitive and being PC and all that but there is a sting so you have to kind of be aware of that of the backlash but for in our practice I think it would be great and I would think that I've always said if there was... success would be if we see our writing system on a t-shirt on target if it's a target we'll see it because we see it with different writing system like you go to a unique glow you'll see Japanese on there but most people can't read it so that means that it's fully not fully accepted but it's accepted at a commercial standpoint and that's our goal it may put us out of business or whatever but for example I work with the south of market Pilipinas cultural district it's the newest cultural district in California and one of our problems is that in a cultural district the first thing is a writing system go to Japan town go to Chinatown you see their writing system but within the south of market there's no more Filipinos there there's only a handful because of gentrification and moving out how do we do that how do we be visible the first is a writing system it's kind of a chicken and egg problem and eventually we have to work with these realtors and building owners and all of that and how do we bring in that cultural context or maybe some folks will just there's a brand called Super Dry they're in the mall you'll see them they have Japanese characters but it's wrong it's wrong and they're not from Japan they just want to take the aesthetic of cool Japanese fashion and put it on their British label and because the Japanese fashion and culture is in they say let's just take that and put it on our fashion label and so I see those things that can happen within the art world and different writing systems because writing systems are associated with the culture so it's a great area I think but in terms of art I think if you're up front and transparent about your influences and intention I think that is the best way to go thanks that's a very good question comic book art I don't know it's not huge in Iran most of the comic books that we were reading when we were growing up were translated from other places and most of them were using just fonts not huge in calligraphy being represented in them or being designed culturally in our society and graffiti is very new in Iran at least as far as I know I've been reading a book about graffiti in the world and it seems very few of graffiti artists who are well known are coming in general from Middle East and few of them are from Iran so it's very new I think avenue or medium for calligraphers to discover and I haven't tracked actually a huge influence from graffiti to calligraphy there's reverse so there's for sure influence from calligraphy to graffiti and the graffiti artists are liberating themselves from just the rules and techniques but using calligraphy as a starting point and adding their own personal flavors to it but maybe in few years we can see the reverse influence as well but it might be more in English calligraphy I don't know neither one influenced me in my own art but I have strong feelings about graffiti is as much good as bad and a lot of it I think is absolutely wonderful and innovative and I'm just blown away by it sorry I hate the vandalism part just totally you know I wish there were more venues for people or I wish people who did that art would maybe seek more venues would it be accepted and not having to paint on things it's not their property where I certainly am drawn to some graffiti that I think is just fantastic graphic art and I stare at it and wonder how they got there but personally no influence whatsoever and I read a lot of comic books as a kid didn't even enter my mind yeah so graffiti is a big influence I don't vandalize anymore but the yeah I mean one of the what's interesting when I was a kid I used to go to school in the East Bay and I would go to Oakland A's games and you know when you go on BART you see that whole row of the warehouses of graffiti and I would see one it's a dream and I would see it all over the place and then I remember trying to copy his calligraphy style and when I went to the you know I went to Philippines did my thing there and when I came back I had a little bio at an event and I mentioned that yeah when I first saw Dream you know that's kind of what inspired me to do graffiti and things like that and then this guy walked up to me he says oh I saw you wrote Dream on there you know that's my brother he's Filipino I said I never knew that you know so it made this you know connection but in terms of calligraphy and graffiti there's a movement to use search for the hashtag calligraphy you get it yeah you'll see a lot Neil Schumann I think he's from Amsterdam he's good so you'll see a lot of that you know popping up in terms of comic books yeah I mean in terms of the you know the old school Batman Bam and you know those kind of fascinated me but I was over at the at the San Francisco comic convention over Labor Day weekend at Moscone and they had these covers of like Spider-Man and X-Men that are blank covers and I bought a few he said okay now I can do some calligraphy on these covers so that's my influence there thanks and the last question before we wrap up the panel is what's inspiring you right now and what are you working on at the moment what's inspiring you I'm thinking yeah yeah I can start okay yeah so I've been I've been collaborating with a ceramic artist for Les Middleton in Petaluma and I've been trying to implement calligraphy into ceramics and it has been beautiful two or three years of collaboration and a very good opportunity for me to discover this new medium and it's very different from writing on a paper or on a canvas which is more fragile and you don't anticipate it to last long but ceramic is just you know could be internal and it's very different when you write on a ceramic piece or transfer your calligraphy into ceramic piece so we're honored to have an opening reception in late October and I CCNC in Oakland and I invite all of you to be there and the beautiful thing about it is we are creating ceramic wares and people are going to eat off of them not just viewing them so it would be functional pieces like the ones we've been showing in the film that bringing the content and meaning into everyday life that when you're eating you're revealing the poetry that is under your food or you're revealing a message that is at least for your physical body and your mind and spirit so I'm so excited about it yeah yeah so over the next yeah this next month I'm going to be traveling doing talks in Houston LA San Diego but in the interim I think in I want to say the end of this month or October 1 or 2 you know American Book Festival here at the library for I think Friday to Sunday so I'll be taking part of that talking about the writing and doing some custom work but from a bigger picture the project I've been working on opening up an online school for the writing because there's no schools we don't have a cultural immersion school like other folks have so the best way I see it and to see where that expands but from an art perspective I've been working at the this SOMA cultural district we put in an event every 3rd Friday of the month at the Old Mint on 5th and Mission so this past Friday I've been doing big pieces big scroll paper about 30 feet long wall to floor and just explaining and talking to it that I'm in collaboration with others and just experimenting having that child's mind and seeing where I can screw up and trying to recover and repeat that cycle excuse me my work today is inspired by as I said nature and a lot of that is driven by what I did leave Washington, D.C. I figured I had written what other people want me to write that I believe for so many years and when I came here to California that I would try to advocate for nature and to write things that I more believed in and that has taken me as I said these words I've probably opened myself up to be directed by these words I'm not restricted by what I know so much as being moved by this text that I write for instance there's a short quote by that I'm trying to work on right now that celebrates water as it cascades down a waterfall and works through the mountains to the ocean and the only vision I came up with was this Chinese landscape painting Sumi painting so I found myself having to learn a whole different discipline and that whole journey has been so exciting and taking me into wood and stone and sand and places that I didn't think I would go but always letters being the uniting force Thank you Thank you guys Well this wraps up this portion of the event but it's an event that keeps on giving so there's more of it from three to five but a couple of announcements before we move the program up November 5th there is a calligraphy day that is happening here in the library the same lower level I think just across the hall there so we have two local calligraphy masters Ronald Nakasoni and Meredith Jane Klein and one international master Akimi Lucas from the UK they're all really amazing so I encourage you all to come here and see their demonstrations and lastly I want to just acknowledge that this exhibition was made possible with the support from various organizations including friends of the public library Zia Art Centre friends of calligraphy Multiverse Art Gallery Semenna Circle Persian Arts Revival Oakland Asian Cultural Centre the Islamic Cultural Centre of Northern California the California School of Traditional Arts and Silkworm Media thank you to our technicians Rich and our photographer today and thank you to the artists who are here you'll get a chance to hear from them directly and from these three on the panel more when we go upstairs so what's happening will be a few minutes to kind of make your way up there there it's on the sixth floor sixth floor but to get there you can either take the stairs up one floor to take the elevators up or take the elevators up one floor go through the gates and then take another elevator up so it's a two-step process to get upstairs there will be some light refreshments and then the curators and artists are going to lead you through so you'll have a chance to ask personal questions and kind of go through the exhibition with the artists that are here so it's a great opportunity so please stick around refreshments as well and refreshments so there's really no reason to leave really not at all so see you guys all upstairs thank you so much for being here


First, remember that a single covalent bond is between two atoms and it involves one pair of shared electrons. For instance, in this methane molecule there are four bonds, each joining one hydrogen atom with the central carbon. Now have a look at these three other molecules. Each is a compound of hydrogen with another non-metal. Why is it that in each molecule the central atom has a different number of bonds? As you know different atoms have different electron structures and in particular different numbers of valence electrons. It's this that determines the number of bonds that an atom typically forms. So to work out the number of bonds typically formed by atoms of a particular element we look at its valence. And remember we're only dealing with non-metals here because it's covalent bonding. So that's groups 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 along with hydrogen in group 1. Elements in group 7 have a valence of minus 1. That's because they have 7 valence electrons which means they need to gain one electron to get a full outer shell. These elements typically form one covalent bond. Elements in group 6 have a valence of minus 2. They have six valence electrons so they need to gain two electrons to get a full outer shell to achieve a noble gas configuration. These elements typically form two covalent bonds. Likewise elements in group 5 have a valence of minus 3 and form 3 bonds and elements in group 4 have a valence of minus 4 and form 4 bonds. What about elements in group 8? Well what distinguishes the noble gases is that they have noble gas configurations that is full outer shells and so they don't need to gain any extra electrons. As a consequence they don't usually form any bonds at all.


Hey man, keep your place there in Nehemiah chapter one, so we're starting a new series tonight and this new series is on prayer. So for the next few weeks what we're going to be doing is seeing what we can learn about prayer and we're going to do it in a certain way. What we're going to do is we're going to look at special prayers in the Bible from specific people in the Bible, look at their actual words that they prayed to God. This is definitely one of those sermon series that we're going to have to cut short or we would just have dozens of sermons because there's so many great prayers in the Bible but we're going to start out this evening looking at a prayer of a man who is asking God for something. So we're going to look at Nehemiah's prayer in Nehemiah chapter one. So first of all, who was Nehemiah? Nehemiah was a man who was serving the king of Persia in the end or the end, the captivity I guess is past at this point. If you look at the books of Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther, these are all kind of books around the same time. The timeline kind of goes like Ezra went back first, Cyrus the first king of Persia gave the decree to let the Jews go back and build the temple, Ezra was back first, then we kind of have a book of Esther fits in there, the things that happened in the book of Esther even though it doesn't have to do with the captivity and the building of the wall and the building of the temple, that's the same timeline of Esther and then we have of course Nehemiah overlaps the timeline of Esther, that's not obvious when you read the book of Esther but I believe as I look at the kings of Persia, I believe that the same king, I believe that Asaharis of Esther's husband, I believe that is Artaxerxes that we're talking about in Nehemiah chapter 2 that we'll look at at the end of the sermon. So there's just some historical context but basically what we have here is Ezra receives some news from, he's in captivity serving the Persian king, he receives some news about Jerusalem and he receives news that the walls are burnt down, the gates are burnt, the walls are in disrepair and he wants to be able to go back and build the walls and rebuild the city. Look down at verse number one, the words of Nehemiah, the son of Hakeliah and it came to pass in the month Chislu in the 20th year as I was in Shushan, the palace, of course these are the same words used in Esther in Shushan, the palace, that Hanani, one of my brethren came and he and a certain men of Judah and I asked them concerning the Jews that it escaped and which were left of the captivity and concerning Jerusalem. And we asked them, how are things back in Jerusalem? And they said unto me, the remnant that are left of the captivity there in the province are in great affliction and reproach. The wall of Jerusalem also is broken down and the gates thereof are burned with fire. And it came to pass when I heard these words that I sat down and I wept and mourned certain days and fasted and here we are and prayed before the God of heaven. So first of all, we're going to be looking at what is about to come in the next verses in Nehemiah chapter one is Nehemiah's prayer to God, what he's asking God. So first of all, what type of prayer is this? The reason I'm starting with this prayer is because this prayer kind of encompasses what a lot of people's prayers are. When they're actually they're praying to God, they're asking something from the Lord for themselves, something that they would want from something. We'll get to that in a minute what Nehemiah is asking for. But let's be honest, that's a lot of prayers today. That's a lot of prayers that we pray. We're asking God for something. Hey, you know, God, I need something is what we're asking. That's what Nehemiah's prayer is about. So let's look. So Nehemiah's prayer was successful. So let's learn from a success story here and see if we can recognize a pattern of how Nehemiah did this because look, God said, okay, God granted this prayer. We'll look at and much more than just said yes. God said more than yes to Nehemiah's prayer. So let's look at the pattern of how he did this and see if we can learn, you know, how we should approach God to ask him for something this evening. Okay, look at verse number five. This is the beginning of Nehemiah's prayer. Let's see if we can come up with some patterns and maybe take some notes on how we should approach the Lord so we can get a positive result from our prayers in our life. I mean, wouldn't you like to have a positive result when you ask God for something in your life? I certainly would. Look at verse five and said, is that I beseech thee, O Lord God of heaven, the great and terrible God, that keepeth the covenant and mercy, that keepeth covenant and mercy for them that love him and observe his commandments. So first of all, just as I said previously, he's beseeching the Lord here. So what he's doing is he's, to beseech means he's, he's fervently asking for something. He's, he's urgently or fervently, you know, he's like, God, I really need this. He's putting some seriousness to his, his prayer right at the beginning. Now look, you know, all of our prayers shouldn't be like this, right? We shouldn't like hit the emergency button on every single prayer that we have to God. But let's just look at how he does this. He's beseeching the Lord for something. And the first point is this. How does he address God is the first question. All right. Does he say, Hey, God, you say, Hey, God, I need something. Look at how he addresses the Lord here. And I think that this is super important. And as you look, as you listen to this prayer, think about this from the perspective of a parent. All you parents in the room, think about this as a perspective of a parent who has a child that is asking them for something. Now, is it important how your children address you when they ask you for something? Look at how he, you know, imagine, imagine meeting someone that's very important. You know, imagine meeting like the president of the United, okay, that's not a good example for this crowd. But imagine meeting somebody who is really respected, who you have a lot of personal respect for. You're not going to walk up to them and just say, Hey, man.   I mean, they say like people decide in the first few seconds if they're going to talk to you, if they like you, this is good for the soul winner as well. How do you address people? How do you look? Men, when you come home from work, oftentimes I've made this mistake several times and you know, I wish I could stand up here and say, I'll never make this mistake again. But men, when you walk in the door after work, the first few words that you say when you walk in the door will determine how your entire night goes.  And right away, that just determines how the whole night's going to go. And this is what Nehemiah is doing correctly. He's starting the conversation on a respectful, positive tone.  I don't want to just put it all on the men. How do you address your husband? You know, the Bible says that wives are supposed to reverence their husband. So, wives, when you talk to your husband, do you get too casual with your husband? Do you reverence your husband? The Bible says in 1 Peter 3 that Sarah addressed Abraham calling him Lord, meaning she was just having this respect and reverence for him as Ephesians chapter 5 says that we're supposed to do. But look, it's the same thing with addressing God. It's the same thing. Turn to Exodus chapter 20. God's name is super important. Matthew chapter 6 in verse number 9 says this, after this manner therefore pray ye, our Father which art in heaven hallowed be thy name, meaning God's name, how we start, how we treat the name of the Lord is to be respected. Look at Exodus 20 in verse number 7. Exodus 20 in verse number 7, thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that take his name in vain. So, number 1, Nehemiah is coming at the Lord in verse number 5 when he says things like, I beseech thee, O Lord God of heaven, the great and terrible God.  And I mean God's name is super important to God and how he is addressed, meaning we shouldn't be flippant with God's name. You know, outside of prayer like everybody is today. So be careful about that. But look, the entirety of verse 5 is about addressing the Lord properly. He says he's great and terrible. He acknowledges God's power. He's coming and he's standing before God. He's saying, God, I know you have, he's basically saying I know you have the power to do anything is what he is saying to God. Then look what he does. Then look what he does. He calls God trustworthy and just in the same verse. He says that keepeth covenant. That means that keeps his promises. It's like, God, you are reliable. You keep your promises and mercy for them that love him and observe his commandments. It's brilliant how he just starts out this conversation. Just approaches God with so much respect, so much respect for who God is, who his name is, and the power that he has, and the justice that he puts forth, the promises that he keeps, and just the mercy that he has for those that deserve mercy. Notice how he just doesn't say, God, you just give mercy to everybody. No, he says you're merciful God to those that keep your commandments. So he acknowledges God's justice. Look at verse number six. Then he reminds God of his promise to be merciful. Look at verse number six. Let's continue. Let thine ear now be attentive and thine eyes open that thou may us hear the prayer of thy servant. Again, putting himself in his place that he serves the Lord, that the Lord is above him and more powerful than him, which I pray before thee now day and night for the children of Israel, thy servants, and confess the sins of the children of Israel, which we have sinned against thee, both I and my Father's house have sinned. Now, there's a lot that he did right there in that verse. First of all, look at the middle of the verse where he says, which I pray before thee now, right now I'm praying for you right now only. Look what he says. He says, no, he says day and night. Nehemiah says that he prays day and night. Look, this is not, you know Nehemiah is telling us here. He's saying this is not a quick prayer for me. This is not a quick prayer for me. And guess what? This is not my only prayer is what Nehemiah is saying. Nehemiah is somebody that prays day and night. So Nehemiah is not this type of person that even though, look, even though Nehemiah is, he's in trouble here and he needs something from the Lord. But look, he is not the type of person that just gets it. He's not an emergency room Christian. Nehemiah. Nehemiah is somebody that is praying day and night to the Lord. He's not somebody that's like, Oh, I'm just in trouble right now. And God, I need money right now. Or God, you know, God fixed my problems right now. And that's the only time God ever hears from him. No, he's praying day and night fervently.  Like, Dear God blesses food so I can eat right now. I mean, that's not Nehemiah. Nehemiah is fervently praying and he prays day and night. So all this might be a new ask for Nehemiah in his life. He has a relationship from God. Think about this. Think about this from a parent's perspective.  It is like, Hey, man, I need some money. I'm in a lot of trouble right now.  You haven't seen them in years. They have no relationship with you. And they just show up asking for money. I mean, it's not going to be successful. But with Nehemiah, there was a relationship here. So the lesson here is that we shouldn't be these 911 Christians.  That's not Nehemiah. He was praying day and night and there was a relationship with God. God knew who this man was. Look back at verse number six. Now look what he does. Gets even better. Now look what he does in verse number six. That's still where. Look what he says. He says, he says, which I pray, he prays day and night. For what? For the children of Israel, thy servants and confess the sins of the children of Israel. Look, look what he does. He confesses the sins of the nation. He confesses the sins which we have sinned against thee, both I and my father's house. Look, he confesses the sins of the entire nation. He confesses the sins of his family and he confesses the sins of himself personally. In verse number six, he completely gets right here. He just for everybody. I mean, imagine the humility that he is showing here as he comes before God by taking responsibility for this. Look at verse number seven. He continues. So saying, saying, the nation, my family, and myself personally. Look, he's not even like, it would have been easy for him to be like, look, I'm righteous. But these wicked people, the children of Israel, you know, let me just talk about that. He's not throwing anybody under the bus. He's throwing everybody, including himself under the bus and they deserve it. Look at verse seven. He says, we have dealt very corruptly against thee, and have not kept the commandments, nor the statutes, nor the judgments, which thou commandest thy servant Moses. Turn to Psalm chapter 51. Turn to Psalm chapter 51. He just lays it all out on the table with complete humility. Look at Psalm chapter 51 and look at verse number 17. Now this is what God wants to hear from you. This is what God wants to hear from you. Look at Psalm 51 in verse number 17. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. That's what God wants from you. A broken and contrite heart, O God, thou will not despise. You know what God is saying here? You know what the Bible is saying here?  He wants the opposite of pride from you.  He's just completely laying it out there. He's saying, look, he's like, we have done wrong, the nation, my family, myself. We've done wrong, and we deserved everything that you did. He acknowledges God. Look, they just went through the captivity. The captivity is over, coming to an end. They're starting to rebuild Jerusalem, and he's just laying it out on the line saying, we deserved it all. He wasn't bitter, nothing. He's like, we deserved every single bit of it because you're just, as I said, two verses ago. Now, I mean, this is big. This is a big one. Why? Because isn't it possible, isn't it possible for someone to go through judgment?  I'm not going to tell you it's possible. It's common. It's common that people are going through chastisement and they don't accept it as chastisement. They don't recognize it as chastisement. They don't realize that it's chastisement from God.   And you're like, you know why? Because no correction will be made from that person. Turn to Proverbs 16. And if you're going through judgment, if you're going through chastisement of God and no correction is made, guess what you're going to go through? You're going to go through more chastisement. That is the opposite of what Nehemiah is doing. Nehemiah is laying it all out there. He's saying, we've done wrong. We deserved it all, is what Nehemiah is saying. Look at Proverbs 16. Look at verse number five. The Bible says everyone that is proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord. But just look at the last part. Though hand joined in hand, he shall not be unpunished. As long as somebody is prideful and they're going through chastisement and they remain prideful, they're going to continue going through chastisement. That's the brass tacks of it. So you always need to ask yourself through the storms in your life.   That's life. Not every storm is chastisement from God, but you always need to ask yourself personally as a Christian that when you're in that storm, could this be chastisement for something? Look, if you're smart and you're humble and you don't want to go through more punishment in your life than is necessary and you want to get right quickly, you will always ask yourself personally that question. And look, you have to do it personally because it's not our job as your brothers and sisters to walk up to you and be Job's friends to you when things are going wrong in your life. You always need to be asking yourself that question. Nehemiah is right here. Nehemiah is correct.  We deserve everything that you did. You are just, we're getting right. That's what Nehemiah is doing. Has Nehemiah asked for anything yet? Has Nehemiah said, God, can I have something yet? No, Nehemiah is just, he's still approaching the Lord. He's still approaching God. I mean, how long, I mean, we've been, I've been preaching this sermon for 22 minutes now and we haven't even gotten to what Nehemiah has asked for. He's still addressing God, getting things right. When you pray, remember this. When you pray, remember this. Don't be like, dear God, I need a million dollars. Dear God, you know, I need X, Y and Z. Hey, approach the Lord, get things right, approach in a respectful manner, get things right, acknowledge any judgment that's happened to you, and get things right. And Nehemiah, he's not upset with God. He does not foolishly charge God for any of the judgment that they've gone through. He says we deserved it all. Look down at verse number eight. He says we deserved every single bit of it. Look at verse number eight. He says remember, I beseech thee, the word that thou commandest I serve at Moses saying, if he transgress, I will scatter you abroad among the nations. But now he's appealing, he's appealing to God's mercy here. But if he turned unto me and keep my commandments and do them, though there were of you cast out in the uttermost part of heaven, yet will I gather them from this? And I will bring them unto the place that I've chosen to set my name there. Look at verse 10. Now these are the servants and thy people whom thou hast redeemed by that great power and by thy strong hand. So here he is saying he's appealing to God's mercy, but he's offering God something here. He's appealing to God's mercy and he's saying, look God, you said that if people get right, you will have mercy. He's offering, he's telling God that, look, this nation is ready to get right now. He's like, we are ready to get right.  We deserved everything that happened and we're right. Look, he's offering God something in return. He's saying, we're ready. We're ready to serve you now, Lord, is what Nehemiah is saying. Look, this is a really smart prayer right here as Nehemiah approaches God. Now look at verse number 11. Verse number 11, he says, oh, Lord, again, I beseech thee. Let now thine ear be attentive to the prayer of thy servant and to the prayer of thy servants who desire to fear thy name. Again, he repeats that we're going to get right now. We're with you now. We deserved it. We're back. We're humble. Here we go. Now he makes the ask and he says, and prosper I pray thee, thy servant this day and grant him mercy in the sight of this man. This man meaning King Artaxerxes, that he's about to go ask this question too. Here's the ask. Finally, in verse number 11, these 18 words which is basically 95 percent of this prayer was just beseeching God, you know, you know, addressing God with respect. You know, I mean, look, we should all address everyone with respect. Kids, you know, you shouldn't walk up to men in the church or ladies in the church and say, hey, Jeff or hey, you know, it's brother Jeff, it's Miss Heidi, it's sister this, sister that, brother this, we should all, you know, you will get further in life if you address people with respect. For sure. But he spends the whole prayer up to this point just addressing addressing God properly, showing God respect, confessing sins, getting right, acknowledging and accepting judgment and telling God that they're ready to serve him.  Let's look at how it, I mean, you say, okay, spent a lot of time there. He spent a lot of time doing this. How did it turn out? Turn to Nehemiah chapter two. How did it turn out? What does he ask? He asked for mercy from the king. That's what he asks. That was his prayer. God, will you grant me mercy from the king? Look at Nehemiah chapter two and look at verse number six. And the king, so he's sad, he comes to the king, the king says, hey, what's wrong? He's like, I've never seen you sad before. What's wrong? He tells him what's wrong. And the king says unto him, he says, I would like, you know, he asked him to go, you know, help out Jerusalem. And the king said unto me, the queen also sitting by him, I believe there's a very good chance that that queen is Esther right there. Okay. For how long shall thy journey be? And when will thou return? So it pleased the king to send me and I set him a time. Moreover, I said unto the king, if it pleased the king, let letters be given to me to the governors beyond the river, that they may convey me over till I come into Judah. He's asking, you know, for an escort here. And a letter unto Asaph, the keeper of the king's forest, that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the palace which appertain to the house and for the wall of the city and for the house that I shall enter into. And the king granted me, according to the good hand of my God, upon me. Then I came to the governors beyond the river and gave them the king's letters. And now the king had sent captains of the army and horsemen with me. So not only did the king listen to Nehemiah, the king gave Nehemiah men, the king gave Nehemiah materials, he gave him protection, the king gave Nehemiah anything that he wanted and more. You know, all he wanted was permission to go. And, you know, Artaxerxes just gives him everything. Now, look, this is a great example on how to ask the Lord for help right here. And, you know, finally we see here, I mean, just one final point about this is that when we see the results of what God did for Nehemiah here, we have to remember that, look, God can solve your problems in ways that you never understood. They could be solved. You need to understand that. You know, God can solve your problems with outcomes that you could never even think of. We have to remember that because a lot of times we will turn to James chapter five. Which is a lot of times we will try to solve our own problems in our head. We will have a problem and we will try to overthink things and we will try to, you know, in many times the way we end up, you know, before we even ask God anything we'll try to fix things ourselves. And, look, many times we make things worse than if we would have just asked God in the first place when we should have just beseeched the Lord, is what we should have done just like Nehemiah did. Look at James, I'm sorry, James chapter four. James chapter four. Look, God wants us to do this.  Look at James four, look at verse number two. James four, look at verse number two. It says, ye lust and have not. It means ye want things but you don't have things. Ye kill and desire to have and cannot obtain.  And you still can't get them. You fight and war, yet ye have not. He's like you still don't have things after going through all these things, killing people, going to war, you still have not. Why? Because you ask not. God is saying, look, God is detailing two problems that we have in James chapter four here. Look at verse number three. It says, ye ask and receive not. Okay, so I should have asked but I asked and then I received not. In verse three, why? Because ye ask amiss. They may consume it upon your own lust. So we see two problems. In James chapter four and verse number two and verse number three. Look, here's the two problems that we have with all the problems in our lives. The first problem is this. We don't ask for help. That's the first problem. We don't ask for help. We go through all. We try to fix everything ourselves to the point in James chapter four, verse number two. We're literally killing people and going to war with people.  But you don't even ask. It's the first problem. You didn't even ask for help. You should have asked for help before he started all that trouble. It's what God is saying. Look at verse number three. Here's the next problem. It's like you ask and you receive not. You're like, yeah, but sometimes I ask like, oh, man, I got these financial problems. Ah, I have all these bills. All these bills. God, give me a million dollars. And God didn't just drop a million dollars on my head in that second. No, because God said no. Because what did I ask?  I asked for something bad. I asked for something that wasn't the solution. You say I got all these spending problems and gambling problems and I can't keep a dollar in my pocket and God's going to give me a million dollars so I can ruin my life with it. I mean, that's a good, this is one example. Where we think we have a solution and we pray for that and God just says no because that's not the solution. We ask for the wrong things. We don't ask and we ask for the wrong things. That's our problems. Right there. So, how to solve that? Here's what we should do. Before we trainwreck everything, before we start trying to figure out everything ourselves, we should ask the Lord. We should beseech the Lord. And then, if he says no, guess what? We were beseeching the Lord for something that was wrong. That's the flowchart right there, folks. Just ask God and if he says no, we're not asking for the right things is what James chapter four is asking for. And God says no to us. When God says no to us, it's for our own good. Asking things of the Lord. Look, go to Matthew chapter seven. Go to Matthew chapter seven. I can't, I mean, the money one is a perfect example.  I mean, so many people, if you look up like financial stress, financial stress is like, number one, it's consistently, like financial worries. I mean, you look at a country that has a divorce rate of 50 to 75% depending on what charts you look at. And you look at why are people getting divorced? Other than like infidelity, like financial stress is like, number one or number two consistently. People think, look, people think, people think generally across this country, probably across this world that if they just had more money, their problems would just be gone. That's what people think. That's like a consistent, regular thought. You're probably thinking that yourself a little bit as I'm saying this. If I just had more money, all my problems would be gone. Go look up people that have won the lottery and what happened to them. I mean, I'm not gonna say it's 100% because I don't like blanket statements, but the vast majority of people that have won the lottery have literally destroyed their lives. They've destroyed their lives. They've destroyed, look, the reality of it was their life was a mess already.   There was this guy in Texas when we lived there and he won the lottery. The guy was in the news, like the guy was in the news like every month. He was 60, 70 years old. He won the lottery and it was terrible. Like he had all this money stolen from him. His grandchildren were dying. Like his grandchildren got all addicted to drugs. They, one of them like killed them.  This guy's life. And but look, maybe not as bad as that guy every single story, but look, money.  That's why God's not gonna do it. That's just one example. Look at Matthew chapter seven. Look at Matthew chapter seven. So Nehemiah, Nehemiah gives us a great example of how to approach and beseech God.  You should be having a good relationship with God every day. You should be confessing your sins to God every day, every night. You should have prayer time, but there's gonna be times when you need things from God. And guess what? You don't have to worry about that because look down at Matthew chapter seven. Look at verse number nine. The Bible says, or what man? Look, go to verse number seven. It says ask and it shall be given you. Seek and you shall find. Knock and it shall be opened unto you. For everyone that asketh receiveeth and he that seeketh findeth and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. He says, or what man is there of you? These are red words. This is Jesus talking here. He says, what man is there of you? Whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then being evil, look he's appealing to just as I appealed to your parental thoughts at the beginning of this sermon, he's appealing to you and your children. Kids, let me tell you something. Your parents in this room, every single kid in this room, listen. Your parents want the best for you. Your parents want you to succeed in this life. They want you to grow up and be strong Christian girls and strong Christian women and strong Christian young men that work hard and that serve the Lord with their lives. They want everything that is good for you. But you're like, well, every single time that I ask my parents for something, they don't say yes every time. It's the same thing. It's the same thing. Your parents want the best for you. God, even more so, wants the best for us. And God's saying the main problem that he has with us. He's like, my main problem with you down there is that you don't ask me. You don't ask me for anything. Look at verse number 10, verse number 11.  He's like, you're just sinners down there. He's like, you'll treat your kids that way. How much, God is trying to convince you to ask him for things more here. That's what he's trying to do. He's literally begging us to ask him when we get in trouble. You know, look, as a pastor, I can relate to this. I mean, he's saying, he's like, when you get in trouble, just ask me.  He's like, ask me back here. Ask what God is saying. He's like, if you, as parents feel that way, how much more, you know, he says, if you know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your father, which is in heaven, give good things to them that ask him? God is literally begging us. God's literally trying, he's trying to convince you to pray to him and ask him more things here. I mean, that's a loving God. You know, we see that there's this guy this morning, I don't even wanna repeat his name. This guy, you know, Richard Dawkins, we talked about this morning. He's like, God, just this unmerciful, unforgiving. God is literally begging us here. Trying to make a case. He doesn't just say, hey, ask me more. He makes this huge case to try to persuade us to ask him for things. He's like, hey, back here.  You know, this Dawkins, I didn't mention it this morning, but this guy who thinks God has no idea what the Bible says. This is mercy right here. This is love right here. This is a God that cares for us. This Dawkins, he has more ex-wives than children. I mean, he's train wrecked his own personal life and he's giving these great moral advice about what the Bible says. It's crazy. It's crazy that people listen or read the things that people like that write. But anyway, not the point of the sermon. God needs us to ask him more things. God needs them to ask him more things. When you get in trouble in your life, when you have questions in your life, you need to just ask God. You need to ask God. And when you ask God things, a great way to do it is to turn to Nehemiah chapter one and follow Nehemiah's pattern. The prayer is in verse 11. You don't even have to look at verse 11. Look at the pattern running up to the prayer.  If you have any problems with that pattern, I would get those problems fixed before you beseech the Lord for things. You know, you're like, I don't know. I don't think I have anything to confess. Well, you're not humble.  If God has punished you, just take it. Take it because God's right, you're wrong. And then ask him more, just like Nehemiah did. And I bet you things will start changing in your life. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.