the esteemed Howard Norman, to give an introduction. I've got this book for quite some time. And one thing I did say to him, I can't, one thing I did say to Bernie, I said, look, if you're going to call this thing a novel, you have to make some stuff up. Some of you might recall a novel by Susan Fromberg Schaefer called The Madness of the Seduced Woman. It was a turn of the century, that is 19th to 20th century atmospheric thriller. The woman of the title is on her way to Montpelier when she witnesses an incident that forever changes her life. But that novel was about the hazards of even approaching Montpelier. If there are other novels before Bernie Lambak's Uncivil Liberties, which are set in Montpelier proper, let alone so inventively reveal uncivilities, or certainly the unpastoral aspects of just everyday life in our capital, I'm not aware of. On the book, I refer to Uncivil Liberties as the B side of moonlight in Vermont. Those of us old enough to remember 45s will recall that the B sides often were the more shadowy, erotically or socially charged, and all around less easily comforting sides than the A side. The B sides, as Booker T. Washington put it, quote, tells us things we don't always care to know, but they sure jazz things up. There's much bandied about these days about the formal or informal differences between autobiographical fiction and every other sort. And yet in the end, it seems to me that any kind of writing strives for just one basic thing, really, and that's verisimilitude. To describe life with vivid immediacy, to make the streets we walk on, the town we live in, the people we know, the situational ethics we share, or which divide us, to make the familiar, somehow even more familiar. Or given some of the tensions of a novel like Bernie's, we find ourselves experiencing the familiar in perhaps unfamiliar ways. So if you take a chapter in Bernie's novel like arguing prayer, which is such a finely wrought and transitional chapter, remember, nobody who doesn't know Bernie doesn't know of his indispensable work with the First Amendment rights and so much else that so deeply informs our lives. No, a reader just experiences a writer of fiction having chosen a certain subject matter and chosen to write about lives in a particular time and place. But really, what I want most to do is to thank Bernie Lambak for allowing me to follow this first fictional journey of his, to read the manuscript in progress as his thinking changed, as the story evolved, all the while holding to its original inspirations. To see close up a person sponsored by his own perseverance disciplined curiosities. And coming to knowledge of himself as a writer has really been a gift. Even those of you who know Bernie very well, I imagine we'll have to say yes, but I didn't quite know this Bernie. Because a novel organizes and presents a person's emotions, opinions, philosophies of life, and everything else in a way, nothing else can really. This may sound a little offbeat, a connection, but Bernie is Canadian, born and raised in St. Lambert, a kind of suburb of Montreal. And as we know from Ovid, when a person lands on foreign shores, that person has afforded the opportunity to look at his new world at what Ovid called the artistic distance. Well, Bernie, of course, has long been of this place, Montpelier, but in the artistry of his novel, there is exhibited also a necessary distance, whether far or near, to tell us things about our lives and the place we live through a lens we might not otherwise have. Somerset mom wrote, I strive for lawyerly sentences. By that I mean sentences which construct an orderly view of our humanity and haplessness and foibles. So Bernie, what I wanna say is you've written a very fine story, and on every page, a reader wants to know what happens next. And that's a most difficult thing to accomplish. Good start. Thank you so much. So this is a little overwhelming for me. Obama never had crowds like this. I'm sorry. I mean, if you can't hear me, please let me know. Is this good? Can you hear me back there? Okay, I'll keep it close to your mouth. So, I mean, Howard Norman, who just spoke, is an incredible novelist, and I just have the good fortune that he's an old friend of my brother's who lives in Toronto, but Howard lives here part of the year, so I got to know him here, and he took interest in my book because I pressured him to do so. And, you know, read some really, you know, kind of a pretty early version of it. And at times I was discouraged, but Howard said to me, he said, look, you have a novel here, and it really allowed me to keep going, and I mean, it's really one of the reasons why I was able to keep writing, so I'm enormously grateful for that. Thank you so much. I've got to say, my publisher, Stephen MacArthur, is sitting right here, and right next to him is Ricky Garde Diamond, who is the editor of this book, and they are the midwives, and just tremendous to work with. Ricky is just a brilliant editor. He's also the author of Screwnomics, which is, well, it's tucked right here, and it was just published really a few weeks ago, and for those of you who like economic theory and feminist theory, which, you know, usually economic theory and feminist theory is inscrutable and impossible to read, both of them, but Ricky's book is incredibly lucid and irreverent, and it's a wonderful book, so I encourage people to read Screwnomics. It's really something. I've got about 20 pages left in it, but that's not much of it. I want, Susan Bull-Reilly is over here, and Susan is the painter who painted the painting that's on the cover of the book. She's really an incredible painter and has a lot of work. She lives in Eastmont failure now, but you gotta check out more of her work when you see. A lot of galleries have been hosting her work at various times, so check it out. Susan Bull-Reilly. And I think Donnie Hoffman is here. She's the design, she's sitting back here. She's the designer of this, so the reason it looks good, in addition to the painting on the cover, but the inside and the outside was all designed by Donnie, and I'm really grateful for that. I know there's more people to thank. My greatest critic is my son, Willie, sitting here, and he read early graphs and was very helpful, and my wife, Linda, here, also very helpful. Thanks for coming, everybody. I guess I'd kind of like to sit down now. I will read. I will read. So I'm gonna start really almost at the very beginning and read an early chapter, and then I'll skip a little bit and read another one. On a hill to the north of Montpelier-Sitz-Mahedy Park, a thousand acres of tall pines and mixed deciduous woods. Sheer granite outcrops overlook the town. Trails meander through the park. A couple of open shelters, one near the park entrance, off Smiley Street. The other higher up near the fire tower are used for picnics and barbecues, even in winter, vermonters. Snow had fallen a few days earlier and lay in scattered patches over the dark ground on this cold morning in November. Before dawn, a man walking his dog along the trail that skirts the bottom of one of the steep outcrops came upon a body. He didn't notice her at first in the dim light below the ledge. Steamer, am I loud enough? He was picking his way carefully along the trail stepping over roots and rocks, a mournful fiddle tune running through his head, his old dog snuffling along beside him. He smelled the familiar dampness of the woods and the earth. The dog stopped to inspect a lumpy shape at the side of the trail among the rocks and maple leaf detritus. Water dripped down the granite ledge, audible in the stillness. The man stepped closer and he then saw the shape was a girl twisted awkwardly in her down jacket, her eyes open and clouded. A denim cloth handbag was near the body. He spun around. No one else was there. He muttered an oath to the dog and they hurried home. In 15 minutes he was on the phone with the Montpelier police. Soon the cops were at the spot below the cliff. They found identification in a pocket of the handbag but Sergeant Laporte already knew who the girl was. They all knew her mother, deputy state's attorney Francine Laughlin. Barry Laporte held his breath as he looked down at young Kerry Pearson, innocent and dead.  There was a trail near the top, not so close to the edge. This had never happened before. No one had ever fallen over the ledge and no one had jumped. This chapter is about 20 pages into the book so there's a few things that have happened but not too much. That wasn't a joke. Gray and dark outside the start of the long season leaning back in his chair with his legs propped on his desk, Sam Jacobson looked out at the snowflakes whirling by his window and the leaves skittering across the street. His office was on the second floor overlooking Chamber Street. The shop below the office, Ripvo's antiques, sold vintage clothing and sundries and doubled as the office for a documentary filmmaker. Merchants came and went in Montpelier before the vintage clothing it had been a store that catered to Wiccans. Sam amused himself with the fantasy of a Wiccan delivering the invocation prayer at the town meeting up in Jefferson where Lucy Cross made her home and before the Wiccans he remembered the space it hosted upscale kitchenware, the front window displaying bright-hued colanders and crockery. On the other hand, Colton's hardware around the corner on Sprol Street was nearing its 80th anniversary, having bravely resisted the box store boom that sought to coat Vermont with the New Jersey pallor with hardware stores the size of city blocks springing up all over the Champlain Valley. Everybody loved Colton's where your bill was cranked out of an antique adding machine and the staff had the facility to advise you precisely what length and girth of bolt you needed for your current home project. Sam watched the wretched November snow and held both hands around the mug of coffee he had brought back from Sacred Grounds Cafe. Yeah, this really is a local audience, yeah. It's not going to happen in Chicago. He thought about Colton's hardware and then about his wife, Donna, who had a similar kind of stamina sticking with him through his periods of self-doubt and regret. They met when he was a law student and she was an undergrad psych major. They had eyed each other on several days over the cheeses at Orange Street Market in New Haven, Connecticut. She spoke the first words, asking him whether he liked Manchego. He didn't know what Manchego was. She explained about Manchego and the Manchego sheep in Spain, although she didn't know when he asked, just toying with the really why an Italian market would carry a Spanish sheep cheese. Sheep and cheese seemed to interest her. It was the way she spoke about sheep and cheese and the way her calm eyes appraised him as she did so that interested Sam. They fell in love. They were married three years later, still living in New Haven and her pregnancy with the child who became Sarah shocked them into moving north to cold St. Vermont. He had been ready anyway to leave his job as an associate at New Haven's largest law firm where the leading partner who assigned Sam most of his projects periodically jaunted to Africa for safari hunts. He killed lions for crying out loud. Sam stroked the cleft in his chin. The coffee mug set precariously on a stack of files at the edge of the desk.  Suddenly he felt awful. He had left the house that morning saying hardly more than two words to Donna. What's on your agenda for today, she had asked. The usual stuff at the office, you and he was out the door heading to sacred grounds. Her words, see you tonight at dinner time, drifted out to the street after him. He was taking her for granted. He vowed to stop doing that. He tried her cell phone but got no answer. He would be in the car by now, heading to her office in Riverbury. He didn't leave a message. He'd have to ask Donna about Ricky still well, he thought. Maybe Donna had heard something from Clara. Ricky was acting pretty strange that morning at the cafe rushing out in his loping stride much as Sam had left his house barely saying a word. He liked the kid immensely and worried about him. He worried about a lot of things, his prostate, his marriage, Israeli settlements, video games and Ricky still well. He didn't worry about the boy's soul which was surely well protected by virtue of membership in the fellowship church of the crucified savior but about his happiness. He looked at the files piled on the table next to his desk and turned his eyes back to his reading. He was reading a court opinion on the question of whether a bank's security interest in a farmer's cattle also covered the milk and if so, whether it had priority over the dairy co-ops interest in the milk. Like Colton's hardware, the subjects of Vermont case law resisted change. This was one of the things Sam, born and bred in New York City, liked about his adopted state and its legal culture. He read another paragraph using his yellow highlighter to underline one or another passage. This was performed by habit and served little real function. The radiator in his office began to clank and he was startled glancing its way to see that Alicia stood at his office door staring at him. Alicia Santana had started work as an associate at Sam's office some 15 years earlier when there were five lawyers at the firm. Later there was a difficult split and Sam left with Alicia who then became his partner. The split had been over personality and money. Sam had come to recognize that it was mostly his personality that was the problem. That was the way Sam approached the past. He was the villain featured in his autobiographical documentary and every new year rolled another year into the dreaded past. The list of regrets accumulated like worn out furniture in an attic. But he didn't shortchange the future. He worried about that too. In spite of it all to his good fortune and partly by his deft maneuvering, Alicia high strong and brilliant had come with him. He was delighted with the arrangement and he told himself his delight had nothing to do with her dark sinuous beauty. The two of them did not always agree. A year or two earlier Sam had represented one of Montpelier city counselors who had been the subject of a nasty article in the local paper, The Central Vermont Argus. The article asserted that the city counselor had underpaid her federal income tax. But that wasn't true. Her taxes had only been filed late and she had duly requested an extension of time from the IRS. Claiming the newspaper had damaged her reputation by publishing false information, Sam filed a defamation suit. The case didn't settle and was tried before a jury. The jury found for the Argus on the ground that the newspaper didn't know the information was false. At the time it ran the article, nor did it act with reckless disregard for the truth of the information. The minimum quantum of fault needed in a case like this as the judge had instructed and emphasized to the jury. The Argus might have been negligent in publishing the article, but negligence was not enough for a public figure like the city counselor to establish liability under the law of defamation. Sam was angry about the result. You shouldn't be suing the press, Sam, Alicia said. They've got a First Amendment right to publish news stories. Fine, said Sam, but they should take care to get their facts right. This was sloppy reporting. You got to live with some slop if you want a free press, she retorted. They need room to make mistakes, otherwise we end up in a police state. You're not perhaps overstating things, Sam suggested. No, she said, I don't want us suing the press. This sort of disagreement did not trouble Sam. Alicia was at liberty to question his judgment. He knew her objection was a sign of respect. Respect flowed freely between them. Now she stood in the doorway and stared at Sam with her dark eyes wide. You haven't heard. Heard, the snow was coming harder outside, moving faster sideways. I just got a call from Barb at the high school, she finally said. Oh, Sam, this is difficult. Alicia's eyes were glistening and she paused again. The school's in shock. There was another moment of quiet. Carrie Pearson is a student there. She's Fran Loughlin's daughter. Sam knew of Francine Loughlin, one of the prosecutors at the county state's attorney's office and an old friend of Alicia's. Francine and Alicia had been in the same class at Vermont Law School, two women who had bonded together in the tiny community of the law school, laughing and crying about sex and politics and studying through the night for their exams. Francine's daughter, Carrie, now a senior at Montpelier High School, the same grade as Ricky Stillwell, was still a toddler when her mother and Alicia were in law school, as Sam remembered it. And he knew Alicia had a soft spot for the girl. Sam nodded. What happened? Alicia looked down for a moment, embarrassed by her tears. She's dead. Carrie, she committed suicide. Last night, I guess, she was found this morning. Sam took his feet off his desk, his stomach was cramping and the radiator was banging louder. He got up and wrapped his arms around Alicia's small shoulders. She was shaking and could not speak. That's probably a good place to stop. I believe not as tight as I thought. Yeah. You know, I had another chapter in mind, but I think that's a good place to stop. I think it's enough for reading. Fair enough? Yeah. So what do we do now? Questions? Like, is that Sam? Samantha? You know, and I didn't really think Samantha Colbert and Bairpond Books and Amanda Menard. Samantha's the one that put this event on, as far as I can tell, and Amanda's the one who's sort of in charge of getting all the books here and making sure they're sold, so. She's... But I mean, I really appreciate Bairpond Books and the folks here for doing that. I mean, they do a lot of book events. It's really something. Thank you so much. Okay, I guess I'll take questions, right? We'll do that. Yes, Steamer. Why Mahadee Park, Spool Street, Skate River? We're in Montpelier, right? Yeah, we're in Montpelier, and I kept the name Montpelier, although I didn't start that way. It actually started with a different name, and then some readers later in the game said, no, call it Montpelier. And they were right, so I called it Montpelier. And I just decided to use fictional names. I mean, some of them are... I'm paying homage to people like Mahadee is named after Judge Skip Mahadee, who, you know, was sort of a hero of mine, in some respects. And so I'm kind of... I do that a bit here and there. Sproul.  So I just named the street after my wife. But otherwise, it's a bit random. I mentioned a Smiley Street early on, and I think I read a thing with Smiley Street, and that's a bit of an homage to Jean Le Carré, who's an author I admire, is one of his protagonists of Smiley. Yes, sir? I'll just make it up to you a big question, and if you don't have to answer it, but I was just curious, how many books need to be sold to break even? How many books need to be sold to break even is the question, and my publisher would know more than I do. I mean, a lot. A lot. So if everybody buys 10 books, we'll break even. 20? Peter? So is Burning Land back a pen name? You've been holding out on us the whole time. Now, what was the inspiration for writing this? So the real question is, what was the inspiration for writing? And it's hard to answer that. Although you didn't get it from what I read, there's a chunk of the book that's really about legal issues and discussion of legal questions. There's First Amendment issues about free speech in schools and hate speech and cyber bullying. There's questions about religion at town meeting and whether towns should be sponsoring religious activities. There's an employment discrimination suit, and so there's a lot of discussion about legal issues that I try to make interesting, but, you know, I had... So I've been a practicing lawyer for those who don't know me for 30 years or so, and I've had some experience with some of the issues that the book deals with, really with most of the issues. I've had legal experience in helping clients deal with those issues. And I thought some of these issues are really interesting, especially the constitutional questions, and I wanted to kind of try to create a fiction that was built around some legal arguments and that showed the complexity of the arguments and, you know, tried to then build a story around that. So that's kind of how it started for me. David? Are there any people in the world, teachers or other people who are either alive or not? We'd really like to see your book. Well, I mean, yeah, my parents, for sure, who are not alive. My mother died a long time ago, but my father did read an early draft of this book. He died going on four years ago now, and, you know, I started the book seven years ago. And so, yeah, he was very interested. He used to read a ton of mysteries. So, you know, he was very supportive of this kind of chapter in my life, and I'm really sorry he didn't get to see it come to fruition. Toby? A mystery. What made me write a mystery? Yeah, like, why wasn't it a novel? Well, I guess it's, you know, it's a genre that I've always liked, and I do read a lot of mysteries, and I like legal mysteries in particular, but it's just a genre that I'm sort of familiar with. I think this is a little bit different than most. It's a little heavier on the law than most mysteries, but, yeah, I mean, I just wanted to capture people's interest, and I know a mystery is one way to do that, so I hope it works to that effect. Yeah, so the question is, the similarities and differences of the process of lawyering versus the process of writing? I have no clue. I don't know. I wish I had a good answer for that. I'll think about that, and I'll write you. Thank you for that comment. I appreciate that. Yes? Well, I'm promoting it through bookstores. I'm doing a cup of some other readings at Vermont Bookstores, and I did a reading last week at a Hanover bookstore, and, you know, we've sent it out to libraries, and, you know, Stephen MacArthur, of Rootstock Publishing here, has a better answer for that, and I mean, if you want to stand up and speak to answering that, you're welcome to or not, as you wish. Very briefly, we're sending out to the viewers, both in-state and out-of-state, the places like Booklist and the Library Journal, places that we view books and count in terms of bookstore owners and bookstore buyers and librarians, and these kinds of books that we do that matters in those publications. The next reviews, for instance, will have a review fairly soon, and we'll be posting it up on... Of course, we can't guarantee how they review it. That's just not something we can do, but given the nature of the quality of this book, I can't see that they're not going to be great reviews, so we're hoping. Thank you. Yeah, the Vermont Bar Journal kindly did a nice review early on before the publication, and so that goes out to all the Vermont lawyers. Question down here. Yeah. Uh-oh. Do you see you playing yourself in the movie? Oh, I don't see that at all.  No, I'm not the protagonist. Oh, yes you are. Okay, that's going to be a debate. Yeah, I mean, there is sort of a protagonist in the book. It's kind of an ensemble of characters, but there is this, and I read a chapter sort of focused on him, on Sam Jacobson, and he has some commonalities with me. Yes, he does. But he's not me. He's not me. Keep that in mind, please. Andrew? Is this the beginning of a series? Not yet. No, I mean, I really don't have another novel in mind at the moment. I would like to do more, because I like writing it. I had fun, and I could imagine that there are characters in this book that could have second lives, so that's, you know, possible, but it's really just a pure imagination at this moment. Terry?  So the question is whether I always wanted to write for a long, long time, and no, not really. I hadn't thought about writing a novel until, basically until I started, seven years ago, I just said, okay, I want to write a novel, and I sort of started doing it, but I hadn't thought about, I mean, I write, every lawyer writes a lot, so I'm always writing, but it's fiction is, Howard, fiction is really different. Really hard. I mean, it's truly different, and I've never written short stories or anything, so that's all new to me, and I hadn't planned to do that earlier, no. Yeah, Paul? Was there a moment of resistance or challenges that you faced in going into this unknown task? So were there challenges going into this, and yes, and resistance going into, yeah, I mean, at various points, certainly I got this, when I say I worked on it for seven years, but it wasn't, you know, every day, it would sit idle for six months at a time, and then I would pick it up again, work for a few months, so there were times where I thought, well, this really isn't working out, this isn't going anywhere, or it's just not good enough, you know, I'd get discouraged. And, you know, there was enough in there for me to kind of keep going back to it, especially with some helpful readers who were encouraging. That really did help me. If I didn't have readers, I don't think I could have kept going. Mary Alice, Mary Alice who runs and owns a down-home kitchen, and she's responsible for the cookies here, and her sapphire, and down-home bits in the cross-street cake corner, and people should go there. It's a really good place. I couldn't put it down. Bernie, I wanted to ask you as a keen observer of this particular community's life and people, and that definitely comes through in your book, that you're very watchful, you're very insightful, and you're studying the people that live in this particular small community. What advice would you give to us all as a community in terms of, you know, you're obviously studying and thinking about a lot of legal issues and a lot of ethical issues. That was the thing that came through for me in reading the book. What advice would you give us as a community in thinking about the ethical challenges that we currently have as a community in just your study of us as a community? Yeah, that's a real puff ball right there. That's a long conversation. I don't, you know, I don't have any particular insight. I mean, I don't know if you all heard the question, I think you did, but I don't have particular insight about that. I thank you for the comment, and I mean, I wish I could answer that intelligently. Was there any one of the questions? Yeah, I mean, so, you know, there's a chunk of the book that deals with what's protected speech in schools, and of course that's really relevant.  And I've, you know, been consulted by school districts about that question. So that's happening.  So that's happening. And of course cyberbullying is happening. Can I leave it at that? She read it in one night, so you must not have really read it or cared about it. Thank you very much. Yeah. Hi Peter. Has writing this book might have been moving you more towards writing? I'll join in with you. Has it deepened my commitment to the practice or moved me more towards writing? Well, I don't think it's deepened or lessened to my commitment to the practice of law. I mean, I'm keeping my day job, clearly, unless everybody buys... What's it? Did I say 50 books? Yeah, I mean, I'm not about to make a living as a fiction writer, but I do want to write more, and I'm not going to be practicing law full-time for that long, and I'm not really full-time at this point anyway, because I kind of don't work that hard. I play a lot of ping-pong, as some people know. Steven? One of the things when I first read it that I found really fascinating about it, knowing you and knowing a lot of your own philosophical foundational beliefs about the law and issues, was that you could write in this protagonist, Sam, contrary opinions and contrary conflicting kinds of situations. And it didn't come across as, you know, one big hurrah for me, and this is what I believe, and I'm going to put it into my character. It just was so much more subtle than that. And that was, for me, that was one of the first things that attracted me to the book. So how did you find that task of taking an opposite position or having an opposite kind of decision made? Difficult. But the need of thinking was significant when you were writing this. Yeah, I don't know if everybody heard it, but I can't really repeat the question, but it has to do with the different points of view, opposing points of view, reflected even in the same character at times. And I mean, the legal issues that I deal with in the book to me are complex and nuanced, and there aren't simple yes or no answers to most of these things. The degree to which students have the right to express freely their views in school, even when it's really hurtful. The case in the book is about homophobic speech that's very, very hurtful. And these questions aren't simple, and there's, you know, lawyers know and judges know that there are competing values at stake and competing arguments that can be made. So my point in addressing these things is not to say one view is right or wrong, but it's to really address the ambiguity in the law and the difficulty of resolving many of these questions. So that's an approach I take throughout the book, that these are difficult questions. So did that address your question? Yeah, I mean, making him not heroic. Yeah, nobody's heroic, and nobody's too... I mean, there is sort of a person in the book who's rather a villain, but I wanted to make that character also somebody that one could empathize with. And that was important to me that I dealt with. The characters are ambiguous as well as the issues. Yes, Stephen? You mentioned a few minutes ago your reference about ping-pong. Perhaps if you were to write another book, you could bring in the topic of like an illegal surfer followed by a perfect kill-shot or something. Yeah, that'll get a lot of readers. Excuse me, I have to go get a cup of tea and go read now. Thank you, Cindy. Thanks, Jeff, for coming. Thanks. I hope that arm heals. Thank you. If there's a movie, will you be the approach I get ahead of me? No? Yeah, Lori. Is there any one real takeaway? Is there one takeaway I want readers to have? I guess I wouldn't say that. I mean, I think the answer to the previous question about the complexity of these issues, that there's, you know, you can have really strong views, but there are strong competing views that have validity as well in many cases and we shouldn't be too sure of ourselves. Joseph? How did the book change from the time you started writing it to what we see today and did your views of the issues change as you wrote the book? How did the book change and did my views change?  And that was the challenge for me, not having written fiction. I mean, I've written about legal arguments always so that that wasn't so hard, but so the big change was making it breathe and wanting the readers to really empathize with the characters and believe them. So that, I mean, that's the difficult part for me. Does that, did you have another part to the question? Did your view of the issues that you write about change over the course of the book?  Yeah? Yeah, Shannon? I'm wondering what you learned about yourself as a writer. She asked what I learned about myself by writing the book. I mean, it's a huge accomplishment over seven years. Yeah, I don't know how to answer that. Well, you have grit, right? Grit, I have grit. Yeah. Yeah, okay. How much did you write at Williwans? I write at Williwans, a restaurant we both frequent. I didn't do any writing at Williwans. All of the writing was done on my computer and I don't carry around a laptop that I write on. So I mean, it was just done on the screen, all of it, not on a yellow legal pad. Aaron? So I'm wondering when you thought of the title, because for me, it's actually resonating with a lot of things that I'm reading in the media today. So is that a coincidence? Has the title been the title all along? No, I mean, it wasn't the title all along. I went through a series of titles. So, I mean, I just, I had different names for it as I was writing it and I think, I mean, it was really during the editing stage with Ricky as the editor that the title then became this title on Civil Liberties. And there are other books called On Civil Liberties, it turns out. But not by Bernie Lamp. Not by me. I don't think any of them are fiction, but I may be wrong about that. There's a couple of non-fiction books. Calvin Trillum, he used to write for the nation, writes for the New Yorker, as a book called On Civil Liberties from, you know, maybe 25 years ago. I'm sorry. One more comment. Sure. I read anything during Christian mode. He's a lawyer terminated. And this is an equal plot about better than Christian. My book is better than Christian. I knew that all along. I just want to say a word because I got you all captured here. Use the microphone. I'm a sax player, so I usually come across pretty loud. But if you have an opportunity, after you read this book, to go to Amazon, and I'm sorry to have said the word in the Bear Pond books, but it's true. I hear this from every independent publisher around the country. If you get 50 or more reviews and ratings on Amazon, Jeff Bezos bumps you up to a different level of exposure. 50. So everybody here who reads this book, if you have an opportunity to go on to Amazon and review the book, tons of people will go there, look at the book, see all of the reviews. Many of them will go to their local independent bookstore, like Bear Pond. At least we hope they do. It's by here, review it there. Stamer? Are there going to be electronic versions of your book on Amazon? That's the intent. I don't think they're there yet. Yeah, it'll be up in a week. In a week or so. I mean, the book is available on Amazon, although that's not something we should say too loud here, but yeah, there'll be an e-version coming up. Kim? Bernie, how did your experience at Yale Law School influence you to write this book? How did my experience at Yale Law School influence me? Kim Cheney is also a graduate of Yale Law School. I mean, I stuck in some references to Yale Law School, and there's actually a character in the latter part of the book who was the dean of the law school, and I used his real name, Guido Calabresi, he's the judge on the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and I actually used his name, and then I realized, before publishing the thing, I better contact him. Say, is this okay? So I sent him a copy of the manuscript, and he did give me his blessing to use it. But other than that, I mean, I don't think it matters. It could have been any law school.  It's not so much what lawyers call black-letter law there. Yes? Great, and I think it might build on Kim's question of thinking about you writing professionally as an attorney, and that's a certain kind of a school to reference kind of a writing. And then I'm looking for the bridge to writing a novel, and I'm just thinking of numerous authors have heard interviewed and talked about developing characters, and then as writing progresses, the characters take on a life of their own, speak for themselves, so to speak. Two very, very different kinds of writing. I'm curious about how you've approached that, too. Yeah. So how did I bridge the chasm between legal writing and fiction? I mean, it was new for me. You mentioned characters taking on a life of their own. That kind of happened for me a little bit. I did experience that. I did, you know, I did sort of have a bit of a feeling that the characters were telling me what should happen next. I mean, that's, you know, a bit of a fantasy, but it felt that way. And so they did kind of take on personalities. And I found that really interesting. How are we doing with time? I mean... We're fine. There was another question down that way. Oh, yes. I'm interested in the character you found most difficult to round out and the one you found most fun. Which character was most difficult to round out and which character was most fun? Well, you know, there's a character who's, as I said, is kind of villainous and that character was perhaps the most difficult to round out. I don't want to say more about that. So, yeah, a number of them were fun to write about. I don't think I have one that was most, you know, most enjoyable to create. Well, then, who would you want to meet? Who do I want to meet? Which one would you want to meet? Who. Give any. Well, so this judge, you know, who I wrote about, Guido Calabres, I met him. And so he was fun to meet, except there was one time where I did an argument at the Second Circuit and he was the presiding judge on that panel. And that was not fun. It really wasn't fun. It turned out. Can you say it again? You used some family member's personalities. I used family. Well, I mean, I sometimes used bits and pieces of people's lives, including family member lives that creep into the book, but I don't know so much about their personalities. I tried. I mean, as I continued to write, I tried to have the characters be themselves and not just be reflections of people. Even sometimes I sprinkle family members' names in here and there in the book, as you know. But, you know, I don't know if the, you know, the personalities are. They're just situations. Yeah. Yeah. Situations. Yeah. I'll do that. Thank you so much.


Mr. President, fellow delegates, my friends, thank you for the opportunity to address this assembly. Like many of you, I've spoken in this forum before, but never like this at a time like this. The world is in crisis, and not just because of the last few months, not just because of COVID-19, but because of the last few decades, and because of us. This is our wake-up call, and we cannot ignore it. Time and time again, history has shown us that the price for turning away for failing to act is much too high. Our parents and grandparents remember all too well what things were like in the 30s and the 40s. Economies collapsed. Governments and systems of government crumbled. Millions died. That was the world they faced. That was the challenge they had to meet. And this is what they did about it. Our parents and grandparents chose to get up and rebuild themselves. They set foot on multilateral institutions like the United Nations. They created international financial institutions like the World Bank, the FMI, and other institutions like Bretton Woods. And they threw the foundations of an international order based on rules through which we knew a period of common prosperity unprecedented during the second half of the 20th century. We had a system. We had a generation that learned from crisis and set us on a better path. In their era, those systems worked. But that was 50, 60, 70 years ago. Today, all those institutions no longer serve us well enough on what they were designed for, defending multilateralism and international law, protecting human rights and open markets. That is what the crisis of COVID-19 has shown beyond a shadow of a doubt that things have to change. And not just on the world stage, but at home too. We don't do enough for the most vulnerable people, whether they are elderly people who are dying in health care establishments or unopened people who fight each night. We don't go far enough to eliminate systemic injustice, whether it be racism towards black people, or autochtones, homophobia or sexism. In the difficulties of our citizens, we can see the failures of our institutions, of our world. After the pandemic has decimated their economy and their basic services, many countries are now at the brink of suffocation. That is what I heard from so many of you during the meeting on the development financing that Canada has organized last spring with Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the Prime Minister of Jamaica, Andrew Holness. We must do more for the children of the world to be fed and that they can go to school. If we don't do it, the consequences will be disastrous. We are facing a global humanitarian crisis. And the most worrying thing about all of this is that this pandemic and the crises it has put into light are not even our biggest threat. Right now, our world is facing a climate reckoning. We are at this point because of our collective inability over the past decades to make the tough decisions and sacrifices needed to fight climate change and save future generations. The pandemic has not changed that. Our shared failures have continued and our citizens are paying the price. We need a new way of thinking, on climate, on inequality, on health, because the way we're doing things just isn't working well enough. Too often concerted action is blocked. The needs of our citizens are denied as a result of gridlock at decision-making bodies. And why? Because there are few consequences for countries that ignore international rules. For regimes that think might makes right. Few consequences for places where opposition figures are being poisoned, while cyber tools and disinformation are being used to destabilize democracies. Few consequences when innocent citizens are arbitrarily detained and fundamental freedoms are repressed, when a plane of civilians is shot from the sky, when women's rights are not treated as human rights, when no one has any rights at all. We are in deadlock. The international approach we've relied on since the second half of the 20th century was built on an understanding that countries would work together. But now those same countries are looking inward and are divided. We need to recognize where we are. The system is broken. The world is in crisis. And things are about to get much worse unless we change. Right now we have a chance, not a big chance, but a chance to shift course, to realize that the only way through this is together. Putting some people ahead of others does not work. A healthier, cleaner, more equal future cannot be the privilege of a lucky few. It must be the right of us all. The only way to arrange things, the only way to build a better future for our children and our children is to work together. By defending each other, whatever the lines drawn on the cards, Rohingyas are dead, the demonstrators in Belarus, the Lebanese people, the citizens held arbitrarily in China, the Autochtones people in Canada and all over the world. A global, real and constructive collaboration is the only way to proceed. But who are we to ask this? Canada is not a country that can make things move in its great international relations. Like so many others, we are subject to the caprices of superpowers. But as Canadians, we know that we are in this together. As Canadians, a trading nation where we trace our origins to every corner of the planet, we know that we are in this together. And I know other countries, your countries see this too. Instead of hunkering down and hoping that we come out the other side okay, let's remember that we're all in this together. Instead of crossing our fingers and hoping that the big powers will figure this out, let's look at what we can do to make a difference together. Let's use our shared power, not just to get a vaccine, but to get it out to everyone. Let us be inspired by our citizens' call to restore the global economy while we tackle climate change. In other words, let's not wait for someone else to act. Let's do it ourselves. Each one of us here in these United Nations, each one of us uniting around a shared future. Canada has a long history in peacekeeping and we will continue to step up and continue to move the dial on lasting peace by empowering women. Canada has always supported the work of agencies like UNICEF, the World Food Program and the UNHCR. Not only will we keep supporting these efforts, we will keep increasing our international assistance budget every year. There's still so much more to be done. In the four corners of the world, children wear masks to go to school or won't go to school at all. Old people die. Manifestants are killed. The sea level rises and forests burn. People who only think of themselves continue to aggravate inequalities and conflicts. It's time for us, as a United Nations, to unite our forces and to do what we have been created for. Ensure peace and security and avoid global crises. These days, we are leading a fight not like the others, but against an invisible virus. At the same time, we are fighting against the consequences of our own actions because of which the level of carbon in the atmosphere is now unsustainable. Everywhere around the world, people are becoming mindful of this reality. They're refusing to accept inequality. They're refusing to close their eyes to the peril we're facing. Our citizens will no longer shrug off as someone else's problem a failing status quo. That's a good thing because there is the path forward. After a wildfire rips through a forest, life adjusts and begins anew. After an earthquake hits a city, people work together and rebuild. As we face these layers of crises, this is what we must do. We must understand our opportunities and our responsibilities to take real action together, to protect each other, to support each other. If we meet this moment, if we rise to this challenge, I know that, like our grandparents did 70 years ago, we will lay the foundations of a better world.


How do you feel about globalization? I detest globalists.  We should be free to communicate, trade, travel, enjoy each other's company, sing together, eat together. Globalists want to prevent us from doing that. Globalists want to control every aspect of the globe. That's why they're globalists. They want to control economics, they want to control politics, they want to control healthcare, they want to control food production, they want to control currency, they want to control your mind, they want to control information. That's who globalists are.   We need to deal with that.


Deliverance is dangerous. Beware, deliverance is dangerous. At the beginning of the church, I'm a student of church history. And then our international school of exorcism, online educational institution of exorcism and deliverance. I have any students or graduates of my school out there. A few of you, wonderful. I saw you nodding in your heads, sir, you know what I'm talking about. We teach people a deep understanding of church history. Because I think it's so important to see movements like this are rooted in what happened 1800, 1900 years ago. So what you do was normal then. What you do was normal in the life of Christ. It was normal in the apostolic age. It was normal in the early church. Most people do not understand that. They think that somehow we went from the apostolic age to nothing in terms of healing and deliverance. But also, you need to know that at the beginning were the roots of what you do were established. It was dangerous to be a Christian. One of the most dangerous statements ever uttered in the history of mankind was the words of Jesus in Matthew 419, follow me. Follow me. This right-tag group of tax collectors and fishermen, et cetera, had no idea what they were in for. What did that mean? Follow me. It meant they would hear a radical message that had never before been preached in human history. It meant they would see Jesus walk on water, blind eye, sea, lame hill, people raised from the dead. And the gospel would be preached to the poor. But it also meant that eventually, eventually, 10 of the original disciples would pay for it with their lives. Only one of them lived to a ripe old age. They think John lived to about 98 when the other one killed himself. But the other 10 who responded to the message, follow me. Paid for it with their lives. Peter was crucified upside down at his own request. Andrew was crucified. Thomas was pierced by a spear. Philip was impaled with hooks and hung upside down. Matthew was stabbed to death. But follow me, we sometimes call him Nathaniel. This flayed and beheaded. James the son of Zebedee was stoned. James the son of Eltheus was stoned. Son of the zealot was crucified upside down. And Faddeus Jude was executed with an ax. The phthias, chosen after Jesus the sang, was burned alive. Well, so much for the prosperity gospel and the idea that Christians should always be healthy and wealthy. I think the most of you believe we're at the end of time. But these indeed are the last days I've heard that my whole life. And as you know, the pastor let you know I had been around for a while. Thank you, pastor. I've heard it my whole life. And I don't have time to get into why I believe that now we've taken an exponential leap forward. That's the last couple of years, to the fulfillment of that time. In the first century, to be a Christian meant to be persecuted. If we've forgotten the words of Hebrews 11, beginning in verse 35, others were tortured not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. Still others, that trial of Maches, are scourging, yes, that have changed and imprisonment. They were stoned. They were sodden, too. They were tempted. They were slain by the sword. They wandered as sheepskins, ghostskins, destitute, afflicted, tormented, of whom the world was not worthy. Oh, and they wandered in desert, mountains, dens, and caves of the earth. That's not a way to gain conference, is it? That's not the way to get people involved in deliverance, is it? Let's be realistic. Deliverance is dangerous. To be sold out to Jesus Christ is dangerous. You're going to live a very comfortable Christian life in America today. And you can be told every single Sunday what a wonderful life it is to serve Jesus. And how happy, wealthy, and healthy you're going to be as a result of it. But those folks don't do deliverance. They don't get spit on, puked on. I one time had a football player called Collegiate Level, all muscle, sitting across from me. And sometimes when I do deliverance with people, as those of you who have been with me know, I get up real close and personal. Not I should have known better. The next thing I know, he had knocked me unconscious. And I'm laying on the ground, coming back too, having seen stars. So this day, I have a DBA deceptive because of what he did. Remember one time in South Africa, I was driving an automobile? And the brakes went out. Just totally disappeared. This was a brand new Jaguar that had been loaned to me by another individual. And I barely made it to the side of the road. And shortly thereafter, I got a phone call. From someone I had been ministering to in America one of the most serious cases of satanic abuse that I've ever dealt with. And this individual said, did your car almost crash? I said, why are you asking? I hadn't said a thing to this individual. The person said, because the demon's tampered with your brakes, that you're supposed to be dead right now when I'm calling to see if you're alive. I've had my ribs broken. I've had a knife up my throat. And just a couple of weeks ago, I was involved in what could have been a fatal accident, or at least one, a very serious injury. I was just less than a mile from my office getting off the freeway. I just made a turn. I was going down the road. Suddenly, a crunch of metal, airbags exploding. I flew across two lanes of traffic. Smell of smoke and fire coming out from under the hood. I regained my senses and said, Lord, I'm in a car wreck. I never saw what hit me. Young woman, I don't know if she was texting or whatever, she made an illegal U-turn. Smashed in to be at a high speed. I got out of the car, staggered. A little bit shaky. I called my house. My middle daughter jumped in the car, drove just a few miles there to be with me.  Said, Dad, I got this. Take care of my sit in the car. I'll handle the whole thing. And she did a great job. Well, I'm sitting there in a daze. A man walks up to me. I did not know what happened. And he says, excuse me, sir, but I was waiting at the intersection. I saw this car make an illegal U-turn at high speed and jam into you. The driver was saying, what did you do? Why did you hit me? Why did this accident happen? The guy said, ma'am, you hit him making it a legal term. Oh, really? God even had a witness. I did spend five hours in the ER making sure I got my brain scanned. Everything seemed to be all right. Maybe it was just an accident. OK, things happened. Not every car accident is the devil. I don't even know if it was the devil. I just know that it was an extreme close call. And the day before, I spent the entire day ministering to a Haitian woman bound by some of the most powerful voodoo demons on the planet. OK, maybe this is just life. Maybe it's not.  The danger of deliverance may not be what you think. I'm not referring to the challenges to your physical well-being, like being assaulted by a demon-possessed person. Let me tell you what the danger is. Getting involved in this kind of ministry and being misunderstood by those who pose this idea. So let me tell you what some of the dangers are that you might face. Deliverance is dangerous to your spiritual apathy. When you embrace all the deliverance stands for, you're going to bring a radical change in how you see God and how the Christian life is to be lived. Deliverance is dangerous to your complacency to avoid claiming the promises of God. What would happen? Do your demons of defeat, failure, poverty, and disease if you really started living in freedom financially, emotionally, physically, and spiritually and following the path that this pastor in church has set for you? That's dangerous to think about. Come on. Deliverance dangerous to your apathetic, underachieving, boring Christian life. Come on, somebody say amen. It's dangerous idea to walk in God's anointing to destiny. It's dangerous to your lower expectations of what the rest of the world and American Christianity thinks being a Christian is all about. It's dangerous. Some people can't handle being delivered. As I often say, they've made friends with their demons. They don't know how to live without their anger. They don't know how to live without their rejection. They don't know how to live without their depression and negativity. I know this pastor understands what I'm talking about. They are so bound to their demons and have lived that way for so long, that is what's most comfortable to them. And to tell them it can be different is dangerous. There's some of you here this morning. You've made friends with your depression. Everybody feels sorry for you. He's really depressed today, isn't he? And I'm not saying there aren't issues of biochemical depression. Of course I don't that. But for some of you, your depression is demonically driven. And you've been depressed for so long, you don't know how to not be depressed. And you've kind of got used to it and made friends with it. And then here's your anger. You've learned to make friends with your anger because you could control and manipulate people with it. Jezebel loves that. People are so afraid of when you're going to go off at them. When's it going to blow next? Everybody, as we say, walks in pins and needles around you. And you like that. You feed on that. You don't know what it's like to be free. And some of you don't want to know what it's like to be free. It's dangerous to think about not being bound to your afflictions and your negative emotions and having everybody cater to you, rather than you standing up on your own in Christ and claiming his promises and walking in freedom to set an example of what being a Christian is all about. Not only is it dangerous to your underachieving Christianity and spiritual apathy, but deliverance is dangerous to your theological beliefs. You're going to have to walk against the grain and swim upstream against the inbred ideology of American Christianity.  You don't fit. Not with American Christianity.  Didn't they tell you that? Some of you came to churches from churches where they told you that, and that's why you're here.  Amen? It's dangerous because you're going to have to embrace the idea that Christians can be bound by demons. They can have demons. Whatever word you want to call it. I just like the word possessed. I know some preachers don't like that because they think it connotes the bad one. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Demonized. OK, demonized. This is such a strong word. Because most of my life has not been spent in the church. Most of my ministry has been spent in the secular world. The Dr. Phil with Oprah and with Larry King and CNN and NBC, MSNBC and Fox and whatever, I've done them all. I've done more network secular television shows than any living Christian, OK? So those people are caught up in all of that.  You guys don't remember the movie, do you?  I just like it. It's powerful, strong. It kicks devil butt. Exorcism, possession. Now you can split hairs, theologically. You can quote the Greek. But you see, in the world that I minister to and the crazy people who watch me on YouTube, I don't have a Christian audience. I've got some really strange people out there. So they understand exorcism, they understand possession. So that's why I use that. But here's my point. The idea that a Christian can in some way have a demon, you're going to have to give up.  Come on, you know what I'm talking about? Christians can't have demons. They said so on TVN and that makes it a fact. And he hence said it, that makes it a fact. I'm not knocking, Benny. We hear them believe Christians can have demons. They just picked on Benny. His name happened to come to my mind. Sorry, Benny, but it was the Holy Spirit. I downloaded it. I had to say it. OK. You know one of the nice things about getting old?  Thirdly, now we're going to get, I haven't been terribly controversial so far. We're going to veer into a little bit of a controversial area. Who delivers dangerous or theological beliefs? Is all dangerous to your, you know, that's how Joe says that. What he does, he leans into the microphone. He says, I want to say this about COVID. And he's just one year older than me. I think Jesus makes a difference, don't you? I wouldn't be who I am doing what I do without the super charge of the Holy Ghost flowing through me. Come on. It's dangerous because when you deal with demons, boy, I could spend a couple of hours on this. When you deal with demons, you're in another world. You're in another spiritual reality.  People who believe in deliverance, they are not victimized by woke culture. They know a lie when they see it. We live in an age where truth has turned upside down. Meekness has become capitulation. Social media group think determines how people live. And with COVID's come a new kind of mind control. The enforced sacrifice of individuality. How many of you know who Dinesh D'Souza is? He's the guy that did the Hillary films that nobody wanted to see, you know? The guy the government sent to prison kind of trumped up political charge that eventually got out. Strong, powerful Christian conservative voice in America. I had breakfast with him just a couple of weeks ago. And boy, did we have a lot to talk about. He's a great guy. And he's got some more films coming out. And he made a statement to me.   How do they get by with what they get by with? And he said, Bob, in politics, the bigger the lie, the more likely it is to be believed. That's the principle they operate on. I thought that was incredible insight. You get that?  The bigger the lie, the more likely people will believe it. Let me try this on for you. Abortion is a medical right. I saw a sign in front of the Supreme Court a couple of days ago. Abortion is healthcare. What? It's murder. It's murder. Well, how do I know that? I'll tell you how I know abortion is murder. Anybody in deliverance knows abortion is murder because you over and over again encounter spirits of murder and death and when you ask those demons of murder and death, how they got there, they always sneer and say, because she had an abortion. Now, if the demons know that abortion is not healthcare but murder, why can't these blank, blank, blank, blank in Washington figure that out because they have demons? The Taliban had us for launch and we tipped them with $80 billion of our finest fighting machines and left it behind and the Pentagon walks away from that leaving our friends to be slaughtered because we really trust the Taliban to do the right thing and then focus their attention on gender diversity. Now, what am I saying to you?  Actually, I'm saying I don't know of the single deliverance minister who voted for Joe Biden, but don't quote me on that.  Are you still streaming? That was a joke. My point is this. Deliverance, hear me, touches every area of your life. When you start to embrace this idea of people really being free in Christ, it changes the way you think about everything. If you aren't married, it's gonna change who you're gonna marry, okay? You get delivered, you might not wanna marry Jezebel. I'm talking about you women and the man. Men have Jezebel too, okay? And maybe most important, deliverance is dangerous to how you see Satan in the supernatural. Time's running out. If you believe in deliverance, it's dangerous. You cannot do yoga anymore without reflexology and kigong, tai chi, and reike. How are you going to survive without your energies being properly redistributed? Live without your enneagram and your astrology horoscope if you get delivered. Do you see it's gonna change your whole world? You're not even going to be able to cast the spell against that ex-lover who dumbed you. What are you gonna do? You're not gonna be able to sit in a lotus position and find God. You won't be able to get what you want by the law of attraction. Oh, I could go on and on and on.  All you'll have is Jesus. God's calling you to a life of danger, a life on the edge, a life of excitement and challenge. It's dangerous. It's dangerous for John the Baptist. Lost his head. Jesus said of him, in Luke 7.28, I say unto you, among those born of women, there's not a greater prophet than John the Baptist. What are you aspiring for? Hmm. Come on, what are you really after? The approbation of people, the acceptance by other Christians, or to be known as someone unique in the eyes of Jesus. It was dangerous to be Mary Magdalene. It's pretty dangerous when you got seven demons. Most people don't know that's a small amount. I often cast out a lot more than that out of one person. You people know what I'm talking about. It's dangerous to have seven demons. She got delivered and John 20 tells us on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb early while the stole dark and saw that the stone had been taken away. It was dangerous to be demonized, but she got delivered and she was the first person to see Jesus alive. Come on, amen. It's dangerous. As Stephen, he was stoned to death, but here are these words of Acts 755, but he being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven. He saw the glory of God and Jesus standing to the right hand of God. And he said, look, I see the heavens open, the Son of Man standing to the right hand of God. You do not want to get me started on the whole open heavens thing. And all these people are going up to have a chit-chat and a friendly little talk with Jesus, Peter, Paul, James and the rest of them. Just don't ask me to go there because I'm going to tell you the people who do that for the most part, they don't do deliverance. They're picking on other supernatural strange fire, maybe not a hundred percent. You didn't ask me here to be nice, okay? You didn't ask me here to see pleasant, comfortable veins. Well, actually you didn't even ask me here at all. He did and you could blame him, but he saw Jesus. And Jesus, I'm sorry, some of these stories out there, Jesus just not come to sit on the foot of your bed in heaven, a chat with you some evening. No, no, no. He saw Jesus, it was real. It's recorded in the holy word of God. It was not some man's idea of what happened and a sleepless night with too much pizza. He saw Jesus as he was dying. You get it? He's dying. The stones are falling and he sees Jesus.  Ask my wife, ask the people who know me. I have absolutely perfect health. I have more energy and I'm probably older almost than anybody in this room. And you couldn't survive a week with me. There isn't enough Red Bull on the planet to keep you going. And you know why? Jesus, because I'm involved in a ministry that constantly challenges my mind, challenges my soul, challenges my spirit. I'm involved in a ministry that brings me to tears day after day as I hear the gut-wrenching stories of what people have been through and what the devil has done to them. Like this precious young lady, I may be here this morning somewhere I can't see because of the lights I ministered to you yesterday. After two hours of prayer ministry with her, she got it and gave me one of the tightest hugs I've ever had in my life. You can't, you can't trade a hug like that from somebody who's being set free, but Jesus, compare it to anything else. It will pour vitality and strength and energy into your being that is supernatural from God. And that's why the devil hates deliverance. And that's why the Satan's gonna come against you in this church in ways you can't even imagine. And you can't even really prepare for it except spiritually. But God will see you through it. God has seen me through it. I've cast out more demons than any other living person on earth and deliverance if it's such a bad thing and it's such a terrible thing and if it's such a thing to be avoided, why am I doing so great? I've got a wonderful wife, a great family, incredible friends. If it's so bad, why am I doing so well? And I'm not crediting me. Yes, I'm gutsy and I'm determined and I study very hard to do what I do and I never give up. That's what my soul does. But what my spirit does in Jesus because of the calling of deliverance. I wanna tell you, if you want real success in life what really matters with your family, with your friends, with the people who really know you, answer the call to minister healing and deliverance to people. I call you to a dangerous life, a life of liberation and unlimited possibilities living on the edge of the next greatest miracle. I come home from work at nights and I sit down with my wife. How many sessions did you do today, eight? I didn't even talk to you about the virtual encounters that we do, but I do them all day long. Sean, oh man, it was just one more during that day but what a miracle. And sometimes I say to my wife, you're not gonna believe what I'm gonna tell you. You will not believe what happened today. I've learned so much today about spiritual warfare in the realm of the supernatural.  Forget shuffleboard and crossword puzzles if you wanna stay young, do deliverance. Leave behind a life of languor and malaise and frustration and tages, this monotony and humdrum routines. Embrace a way of life constantly breaking free of bondages of your ancestors, your predecessors and your detractors. I think I should say that again. Embrace a life of constantly breaking free from the bondage of your ancestors, your predecessors, your detractors. You people here, I am so excited for you. Where you're gonna go and what you're gonna do. Some of you will fall by the way. You can't handle it. But from the sound of the applause, I don't think that's very many. Most of you are gonna make it to the mountain.  Stay the course, stay the course, stay in target. Don't ever give up so much. I wanna say, well, let me, let me just have this because so many times, Andrew's been with me, Susan, Tony, they've been with me. Well, I've been pounding away at a case, maybe for an hour or two, and it's going nowhere, right? Nothing's happening. Nothing's manifesting. And all of a sudden, right? How many times you've seen that happen with me?  If I'd quit five minutes earlier, if I'd quit 60 seconds earlier, that wouldn't have happened. Now there are times, I won't wish I had time to teach you on this, but there are times they take a time out and stop. Sometimes I get in the leverage that I just know, this is not going anywhere, I've got to stop. But that's rare. Most of the time, the devil depends on the lack of perseverance of God's people. Our lack of determination, our willingness to be worn out, exhausted, ready to give up and giving up. If you think this is all talk, you ask these people who know me best and who have been by my side.  So it's dangerous. One always go the way you want it to go and some stuff will happen along the way. But if you persevere, you're faithful, incredible things are waiting on the other side. And let me tell you this, what's most important is not the success you'll have at deliverance, but the success you'll have with marriage, family, friends, the things that count most in life. My real prize isn't any accolade I've ever received of any kind here. It's a loving wife I pray with every day.  You think they just happens? No. I believe God has honored me for my faithfulness and he will honor you for your faithfulness. It doesn't mean there aren't gonna be a lot of trials and some heartbreak along the way and some sleepless nights and hey, I'm the bionic man, I've had more surgeries on me than anybody in this audience to keep going. Okay, I believe in doctors and once in a while you need them to patch them up and I came home from climbing Count Mill in Kelimanjaro in Africa one of the tallest mountains in the world and I had to have my knees replaced, but I made it to the top. So thank you pastor for having me.


gray hairs man it's a thing that happens what's up beautiful how you do it so today we're talking about a little bit of a stressful subject for some people gray hair it's inevitable for a lot of us that it's going to happen aging is a real thing i realized that recently when i just had my 25th birthday that i am aging and i'm having a quarter life crisis if i even live that long gray hairs are probably in my future soon but listen there are a lot of myths out there there are a lot of facts out there about gray hair and we're gonna go over them all today we're gonna learn all about gray hair find out why gray hair happens debunk all of the myths you've ever heard about gray hair and then we'll move on to ways you can treat gray hair or not treat gray hair let's go over that all today and let's just get into things let's do it oh my god what is this that's so weird how did these end up here oh my god i might as well talk about them well i can here are my two new x mono products if you don't know what x mono is it's my haircare brand and i'm obsessed um obviously i created these myself one is called prismatic glow it is a hydrating mask and the other one is called electrical rain and it is a moisture cream these are two products perfect for winter and that is why i am coming out with them on november 22nd i'm so excited about these you can read all about them what they do and the ingredients and everything the scent whatever you need to know the price it'll all be available on my website x mono hair.com today you can click the link below and learn all about these products and see if you want to purchase them so i'm so excited and you guys are going to absolutely love these they are magical it is perfect for somebody with hair like me is perfect for somebody who has colored their hair is perfect for somebody who doesn't color their hair honestly obsessed and essential for the winter time i look at the packaging are you joking with this i did create that i'm very proud of my products and i cannot wait for you guys to get your hands on them yay and add it to your x mono collection that i know a lot of you already have yay let's get into gray hair why don't we start with the basics what is gray hair is it actually gray a lot of people think that literally your hair turns gray there's no such thing as gray hair i hate to break it to you it actually is just a loss of pigment in the hair follicle so as you get older you lose pigment in your hair the cells in the follicle actually die off therefore leaving your hair strand with no pigment left therefore it is basically a see-through strand of hair so when clear hair strands are layered on top of your scalp or on top of darker hair that is not yet turned gray it appears to be gray because of the darker surfaces reflecting through the hair fiber that is why it appears to be gray but if you really hold a strand out look under a microscope it is just a clear piece of hair kind of cool that you can have clear hair like we should start calling it clear hair instead of gray hair because i just feel like that's cuter that way like kind of trendy you know what i mean basically you have less melanin in your hair fiber which is the stuff that makes your skin the color it is the stuff that makes your hair the color it is and so on so once you lose that you no longer have colored hair it actually turns a different color which is kind of a beautiful process if you really think about it i mean really it shouldn't be something more shamed up it's quite miraculous that our hair can just change colors and it's one of the things what the human body that is just like what like it's right up there with like women having babies like how does that happen how does your hair turn clear somebody explain this stuff to me it's mind-blowing okay also a very interesting fact you may or may not know that hydrogen peroxide is the way we lift hair that is how you get from a darker color to a lighter color we use hydrogen peroxide that lifts the pigment out of the hair actually hydrogen peroxide naturally occurs in our hair follicle and as we get older it builds up and actually can block the production of melanin therefore losing that pigment in your hair follicle so weird okay let's not go over some of the things that cause gray hair aging is gonna be your worst nightmare when it comes to having clear hair no i'll call it gray hair just not confuse people today but clear hair is the same thing as gray hair so if i interchange the both of them in this video i just mean gray hair but it's not really gray it's clear about 50 percent of the population over the age of 50 has about 50 percent gray hair on their head half it is gray half of it is their color they usually have before they turn gray that's kind of wild um so basically at age 50 you're gonna really have a lot going on with that gray hair not everybody but most people also besides gray hair your hair also changes in texture as you get older it typically gets more coarse as you age your ethnicity and natural hair color could also be a deciding factor and if you're gonna go gray sooner or later white people Caucasians tend to go gray the fastest out of all of the different races on this planet all you Caucasians out there you're gonna go gray and also apparently redheads are the fastest to go gray out of all people on the planet so my very small population of natural redheads watching i'm so sorry to break it to you so after Caucasian people goes Asians and then African Americans so if you are not white you probably have a better chance of not going gray congratulations i am actually my bad scapegoat gray i'd rather not and maybe i would i would look good as a silver fox daddy you know what i mean so aging and ethnicity are two of the biggest culprits in why your hair turns clear or gray and now there are several other reasons but why don't we just go through some myths and if they are true let me explain how that can affect you going gray so the main question that i was asked uh if this myth is true or not was if you pull out one piece of gray hair more will grow back in its place do you think that this is true or false i'll give you a second false man what that doesn't even logistically scientifically make sense that what i got so much honestly have no idea who made that up or what they were on when they made it up no you can't physically make a difference in how your cells operate through pulling a hair fiber out of your head that's not how cells work they act on nutrition and stress and hormones not pulling a piece of hair out of your head unless pulling the piece of hair out of your head did cause you stress maybe more will come back but no so the next myth i want to debunk is that stress plays a huge role in you going gray do you think that's true or do you think that is false true or false true ish basically stress is your worst nightmare so stop being stressed go do yoga go meditate go do something makes you happy and get unstressed because it really ruins you in all different kinds of way not just getting gray hair ruins your skin it ruins your life and it ruins your hair get unstressed go get a massage if you are i don't know do something makes you happy yes stress can cause an imbalance of hormones in your body causing yourselves to react causing a loss of pigment in your hair causing all kinds of damage to your body so yes stress can cause gray hair however i wouldn't say it is the biggest factor of you going gray it can make you go gray a little bit faster but i wouldn't say it's the full on reason why you're turning gray however just don't be stressed i'm still learning how to be not stressed not succeeding now the next myth we're gonna go over is your hair it doesn't turn gray it grows that way do you think that's true or do you think that's false do you think it actually changes color or do you think it grows out of your scalp all is one color true or false that is true it will grow out of your scalp a different color than it was before it will not all of a sudden magically turn a different color all of a sudden okay you have to actually lose that entire hair fiber and when your cells regenerate a new one that is when it kind of loses its momentum and stops putting as much melanin in your hair causing it to be clear so save your damn hair fibers okay don't let them fall out however you do lose about 50 to 100 hair strands every day so good luck trying to save them from growing back gray okay moving on gray hair is more coarse than colored hair is that true or is that false i'll give you a second there this one's a weird one false and i actually learned that while doing the research for this video i always thought gray hair was more coarse more difficult to work with i mean it is but not because it's more coarse actually gray hair is actually finer than colored pigmented hair one of the factors of this could be because your scalp gets drier as you get older therefore making your hair fibers drier and they're not as silky and as soft as they once were making it feel a bit more coarse also another factor could be because people love to pull out their damn gray hairs and you shouldn't do that because guess what usually they grow back differently and they grow back more coily and they grow back uglier so stop pulling out your gray hair unless you want a full head of crinkly coiled nasty gray hair i don't want that for you and next gray hair is resistant to hair color true or false it's true gray hair is sometimes a hairstylist's worst nightmare you typically need extra coverage when covering gray hair as hairstylists call it a double natural nn usually is applied to the hair in order to fully repigment the entire hair follicle you need to refill the hair with all the underlying pigments and then deposit the tone on top in order to get a fully beautiful rich looking color on your head if you have gray hair sometimes people have extremely tough gray hair honestly i've seen people who get full coverage color and somehow it still doesn't cover their gray hairs it is so stubborn needs to go under heat it needs to be processed for longer it needs double the amount of color it needs a dying permanent color over the permanent color in order to fully cover those gray hairs and listen that's just a lot of work okay it is much more difficult to color gray hair than it is natural pigmented hair fibers your diet can seriously affect you going gray is that true or is that false listen your diet affects basically who you are and how you feel and how you live you are what you eat i'm sure you've heard that one before it is so true i am a big believer in you are what you eat it makes sense you whatever you're putting your body is who you are and how your cells operate is through the nutrients you give it without food you wouldn't be living with the right food you'll be living better with the wrong food you'll be living worse you know actually loss of b12 vitamins is a serious contributor to going gray so eating foods with b12 in them can actually slow down in the process of going gray and losing pigment along with helping cure heart disease cancers and other elements eat well stay hydrated do some fitness and you'll feel great and you will look great basically it's what i'm trying to get at so now that i have went over all of the myths and facts about gray hair let's now go over how you can treat your gray hair there are several different options on what you can do to treat your gray hair all right why don't we just go over my favorite first which is highlights most people with gray hair don't have a full head of it it is very uneven it is a lot in the front a lot up here none back here hair turns gray faster and slower in different parts of your scalp i like to try and even out the entire graying process with some really beautiful very very tiny highlights to give the effect like you are graying all over beautifully and it's more like just highlights you can throw in a single process color with some foil highlights and you will get a beautiful blend of your natural gray hairs and your natural pigmented hair and a full on different color however it will not be as much upkeep as doing a full on single process double natural full gray coverage retouch single process color why don't we just talk about that too i don't like single process colors full on all over one color i don't know who is a big fan of it if your hair sells out there listen honestly it's easy money for us you just walk in this lawn we quickly apply it and our assistant does the rest it doesn't look good and the reason why i say it doesn't look good and the reason why i actually try and transition a lot of people out of doing a full on single process over their gray hair to cover it is because no matter what typically it always looks too pigmented when you're filling gray hair you need to refill the hair fiber with all its missing pigments and typically you're never going to get that natural looking hair color unless it's really is natural when you're putting such a pigmented color over gray hair it tends to look heavy and dark light absorbent and it never really has like that vibrancy that real natural pigmented hair has and that is why i like to throw in those highlights and throw in dimension that way we're not trying to combat the gray we're trying to work with the gray that is what it's all about is working with the gray and not against it so highlights are going to be your friend work in some highlights can still do a single process coverage color work in some highlights you'll be all set it'll look beautiful also if you are used to doing a single process all over one color maybe another option for you will be to not do a full coverage single process do a partial coverage single process my mom i love to do that with her because she has about 50 gray hair on her head and when we do a single process color at a level seven which if you're not a hairstylist is like a dark blonde if we do a partial coverage single process she ends up with a little bit of pigment in her gray hair her natural hair color colored so when you layer those two on top of each other she gets little flecks of beautiful silver highlights but it's not as in your face as it was before but it really gives her a lot of dimension a lot of shine and it's just so beautiful i am obsessed with doing partial coverage single process on people with gray hair because it gives you that beautiful glisten of highlights and keeps you looking young and fresh but not like you're trying too hard to be young and fresh because also that's not a good look you know you can really always tell on somebody like is really grasping onto their youth when they're like doing the darkest single process color possible and you're like that doesn't look good your other option also is to just let your hair be gray especially for people who have beautiful distribution of gray hair on their head it is perfectly distributed there's no spots of extreme gray anywhere you can work with it i mean like live your gray life it is very trendy right now to be gray do it while you can i have no problem with gray hair i think it's beautiful and a lot of women and a lot of men and it's a beautiful sign of aging and honestly you're not going to be young forever which is a little scary to me i think it does look beautiful on all the people i've actually followed a bunch of hairstylists on instagram who do gray hair for a living and they do a beautiful job at transitioning people from a dark single process to their natural gray hair color and blending in their roots their entire head i'll insert some pictures here it is so cool to me and it's such a beautiful art and i see a lot of women you know doing the gray hair thing now i feel a lot of people are more comfortable with it for some reason and the more we talk about it the more comfortable people will be about it i think it's really awesome and if you do have a single process color and you want to just embrace that gray there's an option out there for you just go to the right hairdresser who specializes in that i think it will look wonderful and lastly you can use a purple shampoo if you don't want to go to the salon you already have gray hair you want to embrace it but you want to make it the best possible gray hair you can grab a purple shampoo i like finola they have a great purple shampoo it's awesome for toning hair i use it on my hair every once in a while to make sure it stays nice and white it's great for gray hair get that yellow out of it because what happens with gray hair pollution from the outside world if you're living in a city you have a lot of that so if you're living in a city you probably have some yellow gray hair and it's probably a little nasty my hair turns yellow also from the pollution outside that is why i need to keep on toning it and keep on taking care of it or else it turns really nasty yellow which is just gross so it actually does also happen with lighter hair and gray hair it will turn yellow do some clarifying treatments use a malibu clarifying treatment you can find them in a lot of places just google it do that every once in a while once in a month once every two weeks clarify your hair and use a purple shampoo and you will get that perfect sparkling shiny white beautiful silver hair that we sometimes see on the streets and you're like how did you do that that's probably how they did it or you can go into a salon and get what's called a glaze or a toner put on your head that will just remove those yellow tones in your hair and won't permanently color your hair and will wash away within several washes those are some of the options to dealing with gray hair living with it not living with it fixing it whatever you want to do with it i happened to really like gray hair and i think it's beautiful on a lot of people and i think embracing it is really fun whatever makes you happy go for it that is all i have for you today i hope you learned some things about gray hair it's a very interesting topic and i hope you enjoyed listening to me blabber on about it today don't forget to follow me on instagram i'm on omic don't forget to follow x mondo hair on instagram we have a new product launches coming up november 22nd and i am so excited about it cure that winter dry hair with these beautiful magical products of mine i am so excited for you guys get your hands on it and thank you for so much of the support since i've launched my haircare brand i am so beyond grateful for each and every one of you that watches my videos and supports me thank you so much you're an amazing person and i love you and that is all for today don't forget to live your extra gray-haired life or not and i will see you next time bye


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