So, we're back to Red Queen. I just did a video on this last week. If you haven't seen it, go ahead and watch it. That one's much longer and bigger. But if you have seen it, you'll know that there were a lot of points in that video where I mentioned Red Queen has potential. You know, it has potential to do something kind of neat or unique or just better than what it is because it's not the worst series ever, but it's pretty bad. And it just refused to ever engage with any of that potential. So I figured, you know what? The world is neat. The story is not good, but it is appropriately large in terms of scale. The characters almost work at a few points, so we're just going to do a rewrite video. And if you haven't seen any of these before, basically it's me taking a story, leaving it more or less the same, but just tweaking it and making it better. You know, obviously it's easier to come in after the fact and say, oh, I would have changed this to make it better than it is to create something from scratch. But that's that's what these are. So this is going to be Red Queen except better. So before we get going and start talking about all of the specifics that I will be changing throughout the series, here's just a couple of things to keep in mind throughout all of this. Number one, remove all of the POV chapters except for Mayor and Evangeline, because the first two books are told entirely from Mayor's perspective. And then this third book brings in like five new characters. And the last book brings in a couple new characters. And none of them add anything. In fact, at a couple of points, they actively take things away with the exception of Evangeline, because getting to spend a little more time with her as a character getting into her head was genuinely good. I would spend a bit more time making her narrative voice distinct from Mayor's. But I think leaving all of her POV chapters there are fine. And other than that, the stuff that happens in the other chapters, we either will just cut out entirely or we'll hear about it second hand, because some of the stuff I feel would actually be better hearing about it second hand. Like for example, there's a battle in the third book where Prince Cal goes out and captures the city of Corvium or the fortress of Corvium. And I mean, we only hear about it second hand anyways, so it'd be more powerful if we heard about it from Mayor. Number two, we're going to make it so all the silver powers here have actual limits and rules of some sort, because the extent of the magic system in this series is that magic exists. Some people are born with it, some people are not. And if you're born with it, you have one power. And that's that's pretty much it. So the idea I came up with was, well, the silvers are people with silver blood and they have powers. And then the reds are people with red blood and they don't have powers. So what if in order to limit them and make them so they're not too overpowered, the silvers will have to power their powers. God, this sounds weird.   And like, there, there you go. Instantly, I just made the magic system here 50 times better. Number three, emphasize the cultural and religious differences between all the different nations because the books go into a little bit of detail about that, but not very much. So they all kind of feel like the same place with the exception of their governmental systems, which are admittedly quite a bit different from one another. But I think it would be a lot of fun if these countries, which remember have been at war for a long time, let's imagine their governments are putting out propaganda to their people, trying to make it seem like, look at those people, they're savages, barbarians, they worship weird gods and yada yada, and maybe also spend a little bit of time explaining how they have different languages or at the very least different dialects, you know, something to distinguish them a bit more than what we got originally. And number four, Mare, the main character has basically no personality in these books or not no personality, but very, very little personality other than a few moments where she gains one. So I've decided to take some of those moments and just make them bigger and make it so that, okay, the rest of her personality is kind of built around those few seeds we have. So long story short, we're going to make it so she has some serious anger issues. And she just absolutely despises silvers because they really, they seem to hint at that at the beginning of the first book, but they don't go into that much detail as the series goes on. So I think having her really have to work past all the rage that she has built up, all the indignation she has over her many years of mistreatment at the hands of silvers, that would be much more interesting.    And with that, we're going to get started. Also, I'm not going to go into a whole lot of detail when I'm summarizing the plot of the original books here. So if you feel confused or feel like there's gaps, again, just go watch my original video where I summarize everything. So book one, Red Queen. This one starts originally with Mayer going around stealing stuff because she is a thief. And then she meets her friend Killorn and they go to an arena to watch a silver fight. And I figured we could start similarly, but just combine those two things. You know, they go to the arena to watch the fight.  So Mayer just takes the opportunity to pick a few pockets. There you go. It's two birds with one stone. Or actually, there's more than two birds there. Because, you know, we're introducing the world, we're introducing the characters, we're introducing what type of people they are, we're showing off how powerful silvers are. Like, we're doing a lot of things at once if we combine those two things as opposed to having them be separate scenes. And also, while this is going on, make sure to showcase some abuses of power from the silvers. You know, we'll have them steal from people and the Reds are unable to do anything about it. Or we'll have them assault people, bully them, you know, show something.  It takes a little while before they do anything truly awful. And just like originally, we're going to have Mayer spend a little bit of time with her family so we can get introduced to her home life. And originally, she has a younger sister, Giza, who is working on becoming a tailor. And then she has three older brothers who are all alive, but they're all off at war. And I think it'd be better to, at this point, just mention that one of her brothers was killed in the war a little while ago. Because in the original book, later on, they bring him home. But right before he gets brought home, he gets killed.  I think it'd be better if, like, he just is thought to be dead from the beginning. Again, we're trying to emphasize how awful the silvers are, how awful this regime is and how terrible the war is and how nobody likes it.  I no longer have a job. That means I'm going to be conscripted soon because he's 18 or he's about to turn 18. And then Mayer, who is also close to being 18, is going to decide, okay, I'm not going to let my best friend get conscripted so that he can go off and die. And then she just kind of decides to go along with him for the journey. In the original book, it's kind of weird. Like, she'd never thought about this. It had never crossed her mind that, hey, I'm going to be conscripted soon. So in this version, we'll have it be so that she already knows that she's going to run off. Because originally they like find a smuggler who is working with the Scarlet Guard, who are the rebels that want to overthrow the system. And Mayer just says, hey, smuggle us out of here. And they agree as long as she pays them and so on and so forth. But in this version, we'll have it so that Mayer already went to the Scarlet Guard and agreed to get herself out of there. And she has some money saved up for it. But now that Killorn is also going to get conscripted, she just goes to them and says, hey, can we also take my friend? And they're like, sure, but it's going to be a lot of money and Mayer just doesn't have enough. This will also make sure that Mayer already knows about the Scarlet Guard and she already knows Farley, who is the commander of the Scarlet Guard, in that area. And she will have it so that Mayer thinks their intentions are noble, but also they are still participating in smuggling and theft and stuff. So she doesn't think that highly of them. And she also thinks that their cause is completely hopeless. Like, she doesn't want to rebel against the system at this stage. She thinks that the system is impossible to defeat and she just wants to survive. Now we're going to follow what happened in the original book pretty closely for this next bit as well.  And just like before, Giza is going to get caught while this is happening and she's going to get her hand crushed as punishment by one of the silver guards. And originally, like this just got healed off screen.   But then off screen later on, she just gets magically healed and it's all good again. In this version of the story, it'll be so that it's never healed. Like by the time they're able to actually get any sort of magical healer to look at it, it's already been weeks or months since the injury. And by that point, it's just too late. Like so Giza is just going to have to be crippled and Mer will have to deal with the guilt of knowing that she is partially responsible for her sister getting crippled. And also she will have to keep in mind throughout the rest of the series that even if she wants to rebel against silvers and overthrow the system and stuff, there will inevitably be some collateral damage to that.  And then she will run into Cal, who we later learn is the prince of their country, Norda. And she's going to like just pour her heart out to him for a minute.  But also at first, Mer thinks that she's about to be murdered. So like her and her family are very upset by this. So in this version of the of events, Cal is going to come along with the soldiers and just say, Hey, I got you a job. Come on. And then she's like, Okay, I guess that's fine.  It'll also be around this time that Mer realizes, Oh, okay, he's the prince. I just ran into the prince. That's kind of weird. And then after that, it'll be again, very similar to the original book, because at this beginning section of the series really isn't that bad. It just needs some polishing. And this new version will be similar, like she'll go to the arena, she will somehow cut herself because remember you have to actually cut yourself to activate your powers in this version of the story. And then she'll fall into the arena and unleash lightning. And then she'll realize, Oh, hey, I have special powers and everyone else is going to realize, whoa, hey, that red girl has special powers. That's crazy. And then she's going to try and run away, but she'll get caught. And the queen of Norda, Cal's stepmother is going to read her mind because she is a whisper, which is a silver that can actually reading control people's minds. And then she'll confirm that yeah, this girl's a red. I don't know what's going on. However, in this version whispers are going to be stupidly rare because in the original story, it didn't make that much sense that the people who can control minds weren't in control of the entire world. Like that just doesn't make sense. It's it's too overpowered for them to be in any other real position.  But we'll have it so that Cal's stepmother, the queen, is the first whisper who has been born for like 100 years or something. So she's the only one that's alive as far as most people know. And the rest of the book is going to follow the same basic plot where Mare is forced to pretend that she's a silver girl who got raised in a red family. She's going to have to go to tutoring and stuff so she can learn to be a proper noble lady. She'll get her brothers brought home from war and so on and so forth. And she will also be engaged to Maven, who is Prince Cal's younger brother. Here are the main differences to keep in mind that will be changing. So it's not just Mare kind of wandering around the palace for 150 goddamn pages. Number one, Cal found her on purpose. Like, it didn't make much sense originally that new bloods that is reds who have powers are called new bloods. It didn't make much sense that they were just completely unknown even to the royal family. Because apparently the military had been finding some of them and was just executing them without any sort of fuss and they're just pretending it was for other reasons like desertion. So in this version, we'll have it be so that they're very, very secret and they've only begun popping up recently. But the king and a couple of others know about it. And because they're trying to keep it so hush hush, he specifically sends his son out to try and find one of the new bloods, which the nearest one that they could find was Mare.  She'll probably be grateful for it. And then once she's here, we can study her. And then the whole thing of her falling into the arena was an accident. That wasn't what they were planning on doing, but they just roll with it. Now, Mare also has a tutor named Julian at this stage, who is a singer who is also somebody that can control people's minds, but he can only do it while talking to them. I don't know. But we're going to have it be so that people think he has no powers. Like he is still a singer, but people think that he is a silver who was just born without powers, which is really rare and not talked about that much, but it does occasionally happen. And Julian is going to want to keep it that way because, number one, he just doesn't like controlling people unless he absolutely has to. Number two, if he could control people, then other people would not only be paranoid around him, but they'd be constantly asking him for favors. And number three, it's easier to manipulate people with his power if people don't know about it. So at first, people will just think that he is powerless. And then later, Mare will find out, oh, okay, he can control people. We will also have Mare legitimately bond with Maven in this version of the story because in the original, she just kind of is in love with him even after he becomes evil later. I don't know. But in this version, we'll have her bond with him over feeling inferior to their older siblings because Mare, remember, is a thief, so she's probably going to feel inferior to her brothers who, while, again, they had to go off to war, they were at least not screw-ups the way she was. And Maven is going to feel inferior to Cal, who is a great warrior and leader and everything. So the two of them will bond over that and then it'll make sense for them to have some actual chemistry. And finally, we will have it so that Mare actually gets along with Evangeline. Now Evangeline, remember, is the girl that winds up getting betrothed to Prince Cal and she was in the arena when Mare fell in and actually tried to kill Mare. But in this version of the story, we'll have Evangeline apologize and say, hey, sorry, I didn't know what was going on. I thought you were attacking me. Sorry about that. And the two of them will actually wind up getting along pretty well instead of being adversarial as they were originally because they'll bond over the idea that, okay, we're both getting married to somebody we don't know and don't particularly like, and we're both far away from home and everything. So they just, they get along. There's no need to have a rival character, especially when that rival character winds up just deciding that they want to be friends, or not even friends, but they want to be on the same side later on. So in the original story, Mare teamed up with the Scarlet Guard and helped them plan and execute a terrorist attack and try and kill some people at the palace, except Mare doesn't actually do anything in the original story. But whatever the point is, in this version, we'll have it so that the Scarlet Guard attacks the party all on its own. Like they attempt to assassinate the king and some other high-ups all on their own. They shoot at some people and then chaos erupts.  And we find out later that the Scarlet Guard actually shot a gas line and Prince Cal using his fire powers actually did the explosion. It was an accident, but he did do it. And then in this version, though, we're going to have it so that in the chaos, Mare is running around and, you know, trying to not die, maybe trying to grab somebody else and get them to safety. And one of the guards she sees running around trying to attack the Scarlet Guard is going to be the same guy that broke her sister's hand earlier. And at this point, she's just going to completely snap and all of the rage and indignation she's been feeling for years is going to come right out. And she's just going to unleash lightning on this guy immediately killing him. And then she's going to be the one that sets off the gas and causes the explosion.  And then after that, her friend, Killorn, will be captured along with some other members of the Scarlet Guard, just like in the original book, because Killorn did join up with the Scarlet Guard. And she, along with Julian, is going to get them all free, just like in the original book.  The Scarlet Guard aren't perfect, but I think I'm going to work with them. Like this will be the moment where she finally decides to take a stand. And Mayor is actually going to get caught by Maven around this point, but he won't turn her in, he will want to help her. And so she will bring him in, which makes a lot more sense than how it was originally where the Scarlet Guard just trusted a prince for no good reason, and he had actually joined before Mayor did. And while this is going on, we're going to start getting news about how the Scarlet Guard is actually attacking all over the country of Norda. You know, there's bombings, there's assassinations, a lot of military equipment just goes missing, you know, things like that, things you would expect and insurgency to partake in. If you are unfamiliar with that sort of thing, just look at real world insurgencies for inspiration, but that's the basic idea of it. And that will cause the king to crack down really hard on the red population. And just like in the original story, the Scarlet Guard is eventually going to decide, okay, the only way we're going to be able to do this is by trying to pull off a coup. However, instead of deciding that they're just going to try and convince Cal to force his father to make the country better for reds in very vague terms, they decide, okay, we're going to actually kill the king and put Maven on the throne because they know Maven, while he is not the rightful heir to the throne, is on their side. Again, I don't know why they didn't think of this before. And it's going to go as it did before, it will fail spectacularly. However, when Mare and Maven get brought into the throne room, just like before, the queen will kill the king and blame it on Cal. And that's when we'll learn that Maven and the queen actually had this as part of their evil plan all along, like they are going to blame the Scarlet Guard for all the chaos. They're going to blame Cal for killing the king. Now Maven gets to be in charge, awesome.  Just like before, Evangeline is going to be one of the people there that's sent to kill them. But unlike before, because Evangeline is nicer and actually likes both Cal and Mare, she's actually going to let them escape. Like she'll make it look like she's trying to prevent it, but she will let them escape. And then the two of them will run back to the Scarlet Guard, and then they'll meet Shade, who is Mare's brother who she thought was dead, and she'll realize, oh my gosh, my brother's actually alive and he has powers too.  And then that'll be the end of book one. Then we go to book two, Glass Sword. This one is also going to start very similarly to the original, where the characters are fleeing, they go to a Scarlet Guard base, the Scarlet Guard base gets under attack by Maven's forces, they flee to a different, far off secret base. Now, Maven, however, during the sequence is going to be less cartoonishly evil, because the story really wants him to be sympathetic, but then they also have moments where he's just evil for the sake of being evil, and he's like cackling and taunting the heroes and stuff, and it doesn't quite work like that. So in this we're going to have him seem like he's more hesitant, but this is what he thinks the best thing to do is. When they get to the Scarlet Guard base, they're going to meet the Colonel just like before, and he's going to explain the situation, and he's basically going to say, look, the Scarlet Guard, we can't fight toe to toe with the Norton military. Like, it's not going to work that way, we can't stay out in the open, we are an insurgency. So even though Mare might just say, hey, why don't we have armies marching out there, he's going to say, well, we don't have the manpower or the firepower to do that. And so, like I was saying before, there's a whole campaign of bombings, assassinations, etc., across Norda, and they're also going to mention that the Scarlet Guard is the main rebellion group in Norda. However, in the original books, they mentioned that there are affiliated groups all over the place in multiple different countries, but they don't talk about them at all beyond mentioning that they exist. I don't even think any of them get named. So in this, we'll go into a little bit more detail about how, yeah, there's a whole complex web of alliances between various groups that just want to take down the current system right now. So there's going to be a bunch of different insurgencies and militias and just small armed groups that want the current regime gone. In the original book, this is where the Colonel just decided he was evil and the heroes ran off and then later he wasn't evil. So in this version, the Colonel is just, he's just going to be not evil for no reason. So he's going to tell Mare and the others, hey, there's a bunch of new bloods out there and we could really use the firepower, so we got this list. We want you to go out and gather up as many of them as you can, turn them to our cause and bring them back here. And while they're doing that, they're also going to be, you know, delivering weapons to various Scarlet Guard cells that are nearby and spreading propaganda to try and get the red population to join with them and rise up. Meanwhile, while this is going on, Cal is still being held prisoner and he's being horribly, horribly abused by the Scarlet Guard. And Mare is going to come in and protect him, like maybe sleep in front of his cell or something to prevent guards from going in and just beating him in the night or something because she'll be thinking, yeah, he's bad, but he's not that bad. He really doesn't deserve this, guys. And at some point, Mare is going to convince the Colonel to let Cal out and let him help them because by having him come out and say he's the rightful claimant to the throne, that will help destabilize Maven's regime. And so they will form a tentative alliance. And it's going to be pretty clear from the beginning that, okay, they're probably going to betray each other at some point, but now they have Cal on their side. And he's going to go out and help them gather up new bloods and stuff. And at some point, he'll probably save Mare's life or otherwise show himself to be a decent enough guy, at least in certain circumstances. And so that's when he and Mare are going to start connecting and eventually they'll still fall in love. Now we're still going to have it be so that while this is going on, Evangeline and Maven get engaged. Because, again, her father wanted her to marry the king of Norda. Now in the original book, they run into a guy named John who can see the future and he only shows up twice in this series. And his only purpose really is to tell them about the existence of Koros Prison, which is a horrible place where Maven is gathering up not only new bloods but also his silver political opponents. In this version, we're just going to have it be so that the Scarlet Guard finds out on their own. Like they have spies around, they have informants, you know, the sort of thing you would expect a rebel group to have. So they find out, okay, there's this secret black site prison. And they are like, okay, let's go and break some people out because it'll be a great propaganda boost to show Maven locking up his political opponents and we'll be able to get all the new bloods on our side. The breakout is going to go more or less as it did in the original book, where they get in, they free all the prisoners but then there's a big battle, Queen Alara winds up being there and Mare actually kills her with her lightning powers and also her brother Shade gets shot and dies. So we'll have all that happen pretty much the same and then afterwards they will do the broadcast where they're like, hey, look at this horrible prison and they show off the conditions and make it clear that the Silvers are not safe from Maven's regime either and they tell the Reds, hey, let's, you should rise up and then that's exactly what happens. Like all these Scarlet Guard cells as well as their affiliated groups just start rising up even more than they were before. Like the Scarlet Guard was mostly ignored up until this point, but after this internationally, they rise up and again, they start doing bombings, they start doing assassinations, there's riots, there's all sorts of uprisings all over the place, including in places like the Lakelands and Piedmont. So it'll be clear at this point that, oh yeah, this has been planned for a very long time. This is truly an international movement and Mare will still meet the ambassadors from the country of Montfort, which is an actual republic that overthrew its monarchy a while ago and has equality between Reds and Silvers and in the original story, Mare has like never heard of the idea of a democracy and also the actually educated characters like Evangeline haven't heard of it either, which is odd. So in this version, we'll have it be so that they have heard of it and they've heard that Montfort overthrew their monarchy a while ago, but they've heard that in the wake of it, it's just become a chaotic wasteland where it's constant war and there's just warlords all over the place taking over that no one can possibly live there. Like just the government is lying to them. It turns out it's actually a nice place, but that's the kind of propaganda that they spread in order to keep their population from getting any sort of ideas. And just like in the original book, because the ending of this book is admittedly pretty cool, they're going to be flying through the sky and then some people who can control metal grab it out of the sky, force it to crash, and then Maven is there where they land and Mare has to surrender so that all her friends can go free and then she's captured and then we'll go to book three. So book three is King's Cage and this one admittedly I did change the most out of all of them.  It's so pointless and I didn't like it. So sue me if you don't if you think I'm changing it too much, just sue me. In broad strokes, we're going to keep the beginning section exactly the same. Like Mare is going to be held prisoner for a couple of months and while that happens, her and Maven are still going to be chatting a bit and they will have some weird connection. She will learn about how Maven's mother abused him really badly and she actually went into his mind and removed the empathy and love that he felt for his father and brother in order to make him more ruthless.  You know, he's not evil. He's broken. I'm not going to go for a Maven redemption arc or anything, but it does help make him seem more sympathetic if you don't make him a cartoonishly evil villain before this point. And he will also still marry the princess of the Lakelands, which was the country that Norta was at war with before. So he will still bring an end to the war.  And Evangeline is going to be there and she will help Mare escape.  But in this version, again, her and Mare are going to be friends, so she's going to help her out just because, hey, you're my friend, here's the keys, go in the chaos, run. And here's where the big changes come, because in this version, instead of Mare just running back to the Scarlet Guard and going, getting to go back to their home base and everything, everything is great again, she is going to be thought killed in the fighting, you know, maybe there's a big explosion near her where Cal is nearby. And so he sees like a building fall on top of her or something.  It's it's a near thing, but she winds up surviving. And then she runs off and she decides, okay, I don't know where any Scarlet Guard bases are. So I'm just going to trek really far away. Maybe she'll decide to go all the way to the base in the far part of the country where they were last time. Maybe she'll decide to go all the way to Montfort. Just she'll think of somewhere that is safe, but very far away that she decides she has to walk to now while also preventing anyone that she runs into from finding out who she is. And again, remember, the war is heating up all over the place. Like even though Norda and the Lakelands are no longer fighting each other, the insurgency is getting worse and worse.  So it's a very dangerous time to be traveling and Mary's on her own. And at some point while she's traveling around, she'll run into another group of insurgents somewhere in Norda, like not the Scarlet Guard, but one of their affiliated groups. And then she will wind up helping them out.  I don't know. Like just the sort of thing insurgents would do and she will help them out. But because they are only affiliated with the Scarlet Guard, they aren't actually the Scarlet Guard, they don't know how to get into contact with them so that they can tell her, hey, I'm alive. So they're just going to wind up traveling together for a while and Mayor is going to wind up becoming sort of a leader of them.  In this version, I think it'd be better to make her important, but she's still only one piece of a much, much larger puzzle. So remember how Mayor was a thief and how in the original series that's mentioned in Act One of the first book a couple of times and then it just never comes back up. In this version, we're going to bring it back up by having it be that by being a thief, Mayor winds up being really good at guerrilla warfare. Admittedly, that's a bit of a stretch.  Like, you know, some of those skills could translate, I think. And so again, Mayor will start becoming like a leader of this small band of insurgents. And we will still have some chapters from Evangeline's perspective where her father decides to declare the rift an independent kingdom and split off from Norda. And we will also have her either witness or hear about second hand the capture of Corvium. And eventually, Mayor and her new insurgent friends are going to run into the Scarlet Guard and her friends are going to be like, oh my god, you're alive. And so they'll team up, they'll have a cheerful reunion. And we'll also have it be so that all of the insurgent bros that she, the friends that she made, the allies that she made, whatever you want to call that, along the journey, they're going to stay with her for the rest of the series. So she'll have like this elite corps of soldiers around her almost. Well, I say elite corps, it'll probably be like four or five guys. But either way, she'll have these people who are with her and loyal to her until the end of the series.  So excuse me. In this version, we'll have it be so that Dane Davidson is just a military advisor, like he's not the leader of the whole country. He's just going to be like a colonel or a lieutenant general or someone, you know, someone from Montfort. Montfort is still giving them aid, but they're not sending their president slash prime minister over there. Because again, that's just such a weird plot point. And in the original book, it ended with this big battle at Corvium because the Scarlet Guard already captured it. But now the Lakelanders and the Norton military want to take it back so that they can crush the rebellion and show them, Hey, you cannot defeat us, give up now. And so it'll be very similar to the original where they have this desperate defense, the Lakelander King is killed, but the Scarlet Guard is going to lose. Because again, Cal is going to be the one who insists on capturing Corvium. But that's going to be because he knows a lot about war, but he knows about regular open war, he doesn't know about guerrilla warfare slash insurgency. And so they might be able to capture the fortress in a sneak attack or something, but holding it against somebody with vastly superior numbers and vastly superior firepower is just not going to work very well. So the fortress falls and the heroes are forced to flee, that way they're actually at their low point before we get into the finale of the series. So then we go to book four, which is Warstorm and it's the final book. The heroes are going to flee to Monfort this time. And while this is going on, Mare and Cal are going to be falling more in love than they were before. And at some point during this, they are going to make their tentative alliance with Evangeline's father, who is now the self declared King of the Rift, because they realize, okay, we have the same enemy, but we have very, very different goals. So again, they're thinking they're probably going to betray each other at some point, but for now they're working together. And when Mare and company go to Monfort, Mare is going to decide, along with Dane Davidson, to force Cal to give up his throne. Like they don't tell him about it right away, but they make it clear to each other that, yeah, when we get Maven out of the way, we're going to tell Cal, hey, we're not going to have a monarchy anymore. We're getting rid of that. We're going to have a more democratic system. Now in the original book, there was this attack from a group of raiders who were like remnants of the old monarchy who just kind of hid at the edges of the country and occasionally came in and attacked. And it's not explicitly stated that they were paid by the Lakelander princess to cause a distraction so that she could come in and kidnap some people who she needed to kidnap. But I think that's what was intended to happen. But whatever the case is, in this version, it's still going to happen. There's still going to be a big attack. But rather than the raiders being outside of the country, they're going to blend in among the populace. You know, again, they're going to be like an insurgency except in the opposite direction. And we'll also make it clear that there are even some Reds who support a return to the old system for one reason or another. And Mayor and Company will still fight these raiders and still help them out and that will get them into the good graces of the Montport government. And now, while all this has been going on in both the original version and this changed version, the Scarlet Guard will have kidnapped the children of the leader of the country of Piedmont, which is in the American south. And so he will be helping them out in some small ways. But again, the Lakelander princess comes in and takes his children back. So now he's no longer on their side. And so that's going to stay the same from the original to this. And so now the Scarlet Guard and all their allies are in a much harder place because now they're being attacked twice as hard by the Piedmont government as well. And so the Montfort government will agree to help them out more. Like it's no longer just going to send clandestine support, you know, it's not just going to send weapons and advisors. It is going to send its full military force to help them take on Norda and the Lakelands and so on. And also while this is going on, Evangeline is still going to be there and she's still going to hear, hey, you and your girlfriend can come live in Montfort if you give up your titles and she's not going to say yes right away, but she's going to be seriously thinking about it for a while. In the original book, they just launched a massive attack on the city of Harbor Bay, which I believe is supposed to be Boston in the real world, or at least near Boston. And then there's a big battle and they managed to capture it. In this version, it's going to go pretty similarly, except the Montfort military like their navy and Air Force and such are going to be the ones to launch the actual head on attack, while Mare and the Scarlet Garden, them are just going to be there beforehand and even during the battle a little bit destroying infrastructure and stuff, just trying to make it so that the enemy can't properly fight back. Like if you're at all familiar with the way the French resistance acted before and during the invasion at Normandy during World War II, then it'll be things like that.  There will still be some stuff that's similar to the original books though, like we're still going to have Cal have his big fight with the Lakelander princess, which he will lose, but he will survive from it. And then afterwards they're going to offer to have a meeting with King Maven and they're going to go to a small island, have a brief negotiation. Maven doesn't agree to their terms, so they managed to capture him. Because it turns out some people on their side actually made a deal with the Lakelander queen and princess to hand over the people who killed the previous Lakelander king in exchange for Maven and they don't really like Maven anyway, so they agree to it and then the deal goes through. And now suddenly their biggest enemy is off the throne and Cal can just go to the capital and declare himself rightful king. Now just like before, the other countries, specifically the Lakelands but also Piedmont, are going to still be invading Norda at this stage, so the war isn't over. And originally it's just kind of vague, like yeah, they want resources and stuff which I don't know, it's not totally stupid but it was kind of weird in the original book. In this version we're just going to make it clear that they're still invading because they don't want Cal on the throne because if Cal is on the throne then they're afraid that Norda will become an ally to Montfort and an ally to the Scarlet Guard. And remember they are dealing with their own insurgencies back home while this is going on and they don't want their own regimes to fall. And don't worry, this version is going to keep the best scene from the original series where after Cal has declared himself king, all of the red allies he has, like Dane Davidson and Mare and all them, they tell him, hey you have to give up the throne and make Norda a democratic country or we walk, we're no longer going to be your ally. But at the same time Cal has to keep his silver allies happy too and if he does that they're going to abandon him so he just cannot keep his alliance together and he eventually refuses to give up his throne. And so Mare and them just leave and it's clear that okay he has no chance of staying on the throne now the Lakelands is going to take over. And in the original they eventually decide to come in and help him later because they just decide it's a better idea. Again kind of vague, doesn't really make that much sense if you stop to think about it but in this version we'll have it be so that they're leaving and then not long after like maybe just a couple of minutes later Cal will run in and say okay okay what if we just made this a constitutional monarchy so he agrees to have like an elected legislature and stuff that will limit some of his powers as king. And so nobody is totally satisfied with this compromise but they all agree to it and the alliance stays firm. And maybe it would make more sense for Cal to have thought about this beforehand and bring it up when they say hey give up the throne or else but also I really want to keep that scene where his friends have to split with him because their responsibilities are greater than their friendship because that is a really powerful scene. And just like in the original book they are going to defend the capital city against invasion.  And just like in the original book the battle will be won by the good guys the day will be saved. Now Cal still will be King at the end of this but again he will be in a constitutional system so his powers will be limited and Reds will be granted much better rights so things won't be perfect but they will be better off. And the Lakelands and Piedmont will also partially have to withdraw not just because they lost the battle to take the capital city but also because their own insurgencies are still ongoing and they need to go back to uh damp that down let's say damp that down is that an actual term I don't know they need to put down the rebellion. And in the original series Mare just goes off to Montfort to live with her family in a new peaceful land while Cal decides to rebuild but in this version Mare is going to decide along with her insurgent friends and maybe Farley and some other members of the Scarlet Guard the war is not over yet as long as there are still monarchies where silvers are seen almost as gods and Reds are oppressed then our new gains in Norda and Montfort are not safe so Mare and them are going to go to the Lakelands to help the insurgency there and it's made clear that okay yeah their their fight is going to continue for a long time but her and Cal again will have connected and fallen in love by this stage and even though their responsibilities are pulling them apart they make it clear that maybe someday when all this work is done we can be together but not right now. And at some point during all of this Maven dies like I don't know what to do with him to be honest because after he's captured he ceases to really be the main villain of the story like maybe he could just be executed very unceremoniously maybe he could still escape and Mare could have a fight with him. I really don't know but just the way the ending of the story is written it's kind of clumsy and it just forgets that oh yeah your villain is supposed to be villainous and uh that'll be that'll be the end of this version of Red Queen. This ending will be similar to the original because it will acknowledge that there are a lot of issues with having monarchies and it's kind of a shitty system of government but also changing it is very difficult you know moving from one system of government to another is not an easy process ask a million people throughout history they will tell you that. But this version of the story makes the characters better it gives them like actual personality again Mare has an actual personality in my version just saying it makes them more defined as well and it makes it so that Mare does a lot more and contributes more to the success of the good guys without being the center of the entire world you know and that's really what this sort of thing should be like if you're going to write a story about rebellion make it so that the main character they contribute but they aren't the center of everything because it seems like too many stories go in one direction or another and it's always annoying but let me know your thoughts down below you know how would you change Red Queen to make it better what do you like and dislike about my version of it and also check out my second channel because I'm trying to get that one going off the ground a little bit more that's where I like rant about stuff that isn't really book related and just you know stuff that annoys me pisses me off and also just other random stuff that I feel like doing and that's about all see you later goodbye hey guess what well I mean you can probably already guess what you don't need to actually guess whatever uh all these names here these are my patrons these are the guys that send me money once a month over on patreon if you want to get access to stuff like early videos and occasional exclusive content then go ahead and go over there and help me out uh my ten dollar and up patrons are aposavalanan olivia rayan brother santotes buffy valentine carolina clay chibzahoy dan and seljevich dark king dio echo flax james m carcat kitsune lexy delorm liza rudakova lord tiebreaker microphone mist boy mitzimona peep the toad roby reviews sad martigan psych xs sillier the vixen stone stairs tesla shark vavictus vimex zole and wesley how could we ever forget wesley thank you all so much you're all the best i couldn't do this without you if you want to get your name up here go over to patreon if not subscribe to the channel like the video comment on it you know all the stuff that we are supposed to say at the end here i love you i don't actually love you i don't even know you but you know thanks goodbye


That's the one thing with education right now. People are not doing the research to find out Like if you're planning on going to university Spending a certain amount of money to get a degree to be able to get a job There's two things you need to look into How much is that degree going to cost you? Actually three things I guess how much is that degree going to cost you? if that Job is in demand or not and look at the graph see if it's declining or accelerating right the demand is increasing so How much is that education will cost you if that job is in demand and what is it going to pay? Right if you're gonna go into debt a hundred thousand dollars to get a degree which is You know Maybe in the man depending on the economic cycle the business cycle that's going to pay you $30,000 a year You're in debt servitude for 10 15 years Right, you're gonna get interested accumulating if not for a rest of your life, right? Don't go get a hundred thousand dollar degree because that's what it is. It's a price now right don't go into debt servitude for $100,000 Where your job you're going to get is gonna pay you $30,000. I don't care if that job is For the betterment of humanity.


Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, President. Commissioner, the Committee of Regions obviously is made up of directly elected local regional representatives and obviously we are the direct voice of the people we represent. The speaker is reading extremely fast. We have been trying to tackle the crisis and obviously we're now having to directly fight the consequences of the pandemic. Obviously over the past 25 years we've done our work, but a lot of things haven't been properly reflected in the budget. On behalf of the EPP what we have to do is assure that the Committee of Regions does provide the necessary financial and human resources in order to be able to properly function in the Committee of Regions and this has to be reflected in the MFF. We have our needs that we do need additional finances for example. If you take a look at what we have in the budget for 2021 we've said that we need financial resources in order to cover the needs that we have expressed. The Committee of Regions is an important body and anyway as I said we do need the right kind of budget in order to be able to carry out important activities and if we compare our Committee to the Economic and Social Committee and the number of members they get about 40 million more, they hire more people as well, than the Committee of Regions. So there is this difference in the budget between the Committee of Regions, the Economic and Social Committee and this has not been properly reflected in the draft budget for 2021 so as members of the Committee of the Regions we would like to make sure that we can properly exert our influence through our opinion so once again we'd like to turn to the Commission with our earlier request when it comes to the budget and ensure that we do have extra financial resources granted to the Committee of Regions under the draft 21 budget and also 2021 to 2027 without the European taxpayer having to pay more so thank you very much Commissioner for your attention. Thank you.


Please join me in a moment of centering silence. And now let's join our voices together in our in-gathering hymn number 44. The words are printed in your order of service. First Unitarian Society of Madison. This is a place where curious seekers gather to explore spiritual, ethical, and social issues in a safe and accepting environment. Unitarian Universalism supports the freedom of conscience of each individual as together we seek to be a force for healing and transformation in the world. My name is Beth Binhammer and on behalf of the congregation I'd like to extend a special welcome this morning to visitors.  Newcomers are encouraged to stay for our fellowship hour after the service and to visit the library which is directly across from the center doors of this auditorium. Bring your drinks and your questions. Members of our staff and lay ministry will be on hand to welcome you. This would be a good time to turn off these lovely electronic devices that you will not need for the next hour or so. We do not have a guide available for today after the service so we apologize for that. We welcome children to stay with us during the service. Please remember that it often becomes difficult for those in attendance to hear in this lively, acoustical environment. Our child haven and the commons are excellent places to go to still hear and see the service if your child needs to talk or run around. I'd like to acknowledge now those individuals who help our service run smoothly. This morning we have Anne Smiley serving as our lay minister. Joan Heitman as our greeter. Samuel Bates Elizabeth Barrett and Helen Dyer are our ushers this morning and we thank them for their service to the society. Please note announcements in the red floors insert in your order of service which describe upcoming events at the society. We also have a couple of additional announcements this morning. Our seventh grade compass points classes are offering a game night on Saturday May 14th from 7 to 9 p.m. The evening a fund will raise funds for two students whose education we support through the partner church program. There is one in the Philippines and I'm not necessarily going to pronounce this name correctly but it looks like J.L. Rose Condes and there's Beata Bartah in Transylvania. There will be games for all age levels and the chance to send a letter to J.L. and Beata. Tickets are being sold in the commons after today's worship service. Ticket sellers will even welcome donations from people who want to give but don't want to participate in the game night. There's also a reminder that peace poles are ready to be decorated. Meet by the tables outside the meeting house after the service if you would like to decorate a peace pole today. And finally 12, a mere 12 days until cabaret. Tickets are available in the commons. There will be food fund fellowship providing financial support for FUS. Again welcome. We hope today's service will stimulate your mind, touch your heart and stir your spirit. Welcome my friends to this privileged time and place where we turn our thoughts to how we can trust and be trusted, love and be loved, forgive and be forgiven, heal and be healed so that the goodness of our lives may become a shared blessing. And now I would invite you to rise in body or in spirit for the light of our chalice. Please join your voices with mine in our words of affirmation. We gather as a community of memory and a community of hope to celebrate life and the endless possibilities for love. We kindle this flame as a symbol of the light within every human heart. May our individual sparks meet and merge bringing both love and goodwill into the world. And in the spirit of that goodwill I invite you to turn to your neighbor and exchange with them a warm greeting. Please be seated. And if we have some children that would like to come forward for the message for all ages, we'd love to see you up front. And I have something wrapped up that's kind of interesting to see but you got to be up front to see it. Yeah, I know, that's probably true. Everybody's out here having brunch, right?  So this is a story. It's kind of a Mother's Day story and it comes from the Native American tradition from the Iroquois Indian tribe and it has to do with a little boy and with some bears and so I brought my bears. That's a little bear family. There's mama bear and two baby bears and this actually is a little sculpture that's made out of mikeshius clay which comes from northern New Mexico and it was made by the Taos Indians in New Mexico. Yeah, so these are my little friends here. So once there was a small boy who lived in an Indian village but unfortunately this little boy's parents had both died but it was the custom in this particular tribe that when someone's parents had died then the boy would be sent to live with a relative and in this case with this boy's uncle. Now this uncle was a great warrior and a very famous hunter, a really good hunter but he really didn't want to have to take care of a little boy and so he wasn't very nice to his nephew. He would dress him in rags and he would feed him only scraps from his own table and then one day he said, I just don't think I'm up to this. I'm going to get rid of my nephew. Pretty bad thought, huh? And so the next morning he told his nephew that the two of them were going to go hunting together and that the little boy was going to need to play the role of his dog. He didn't have a dog so the little boy was going to be his dog and so they walked for a long time until they came to this big cave and the uncle said, there are animals inside that cave.  And so the little boy did as he was told. He went into the cave but there weren't any animals in there and then suddenly everything got completely dark because his uncle had pushed a big stone up against the entrance to the cave and trapped the little boy there. The little boy knew that he was not going to be able to get out that his uncle was going to leave him there. So tears came to his eyes.  A song that he was to sing to himself any time that he felt afraid or lonely and needed to have a friend. And so he began to sing his song. Way on the way, on the way, on the way, on the hey way, hey, yo, yo, hey, yeah, yo, hey. And he sang the song over and over again but then he stopped because he thought that he could hear from outside of the cave someone singing back to him. Way on the way, on the way, oh. And so the little boy started singing again. Way on the way, on the way, on the hey way, oh, yo, hey, yo, hey. And then the big rock was rolled away from the front of the cave. The little boy walked out and his eyes had to get adjusted to the bright sunlight but as soon as he was able to see he noticed that all around him were all these animals. And there were foxes and there were raccoons and there were deer and there were eagles and there were bears and they were all looking right at him and he didn't know what they were about to do. But just then, old grandmother Woodchuck waddles up to him and pokes him in the leg and says, grandson, we heard your song. Do you need a friend? Oh, yes, I do. Well, I really, really need a friend and he explained what had happened to him and grandmother Woodchuck looked at him with pity and said, wow. We can be your family. We can be your friends.  And so one by one all the animals came up to the little boy and explained to him how they lived and the mole came up and said, I burrow in the ground and I eat all these good juicy worms. And the beaver came up and said, we swim under the water and we have a lodge that's made out of sticks and mud and we eat the bark from those limbs. And the little boy listened to every animal as it came up and said to himself, I couldn't live like any of these animals. I don't know what I'm going to do until old mother bear came up and she said, my boy, we take our time as we walk through the woods and we eat all these good berries and honey and we sleep in a nice warm cave and my cubs will play with you as much as you would like any time you want to. And so it was that the boy went to live with the bears and the four of them got along just wonderfully well and the boy got fat and happy living with those bears and after a while he began to look more and more like a bear himself because every time one of those cubs would scratch him when they were playing all this black hair would grow up where he'd been scratched and so pretty soon he was just covered with all of this black hair just like the bears themselves. And so for two seasons they lived this way but then one day all four of them were walking through the woods and mother bear said, shh, what's that way here? That's a two legs and the two legs is following us. That's our enemy. We've got to run. And so the young boy and the bears began to run through the forest clearing and ran through a swamp but two legs was strong and he was fast and he kept pursuing them. Finally they got to another clearing and this big tree had fallen down and it was a hollow log and they all went into that log to hide from two legs. The little boy could hear footsteps outside and then everything was quiet. He must have gone away. He said to himself but then he started to smell smoke coming through the log because two legs had built a fire on one end of the log to force them out back into the clearing. Just then the boy remembered hey, I'm a human being. I'm a two legs too. And so he yelled out, don't hurt my family.  His uncle. His uncle, the two legs had been pursuing them and he stared at the boy and the boy stared at him and he reached out the uncle reached out to the boy and as soon as he touched him all that black hair just fell right off. My nephew, he said is that really you? Yes it is said little boy you're my uncle right? Well how can that be said the great warrior I left you behind in the cave and then I realized I had done a very very bad thing. So I went back the stone had been rolled away and you were gone and all these animal tracks were there I thought that they had eaten you. No said the boy the bears adopted me they're my family now and you must treat them well.  And so from then on the nephew and the hunter were basically family again. And the bears well they also became part of their family and ever since then this story has been told to remind parents that they need to love their children as much as the bears love theirs. So that's our story for today and we're going to ask you to stay in the auditorium go back to your seats because we're going to have a special little ceremony for some of our newest members here and then after that we'll continue out to your classes. Thank you so much for listening. And so as part of our services this weekend we do recognize several individuals who have formally and officially joined First Unitarian Society since January. Overall 24 individuals have taken that step and there are a few in attendance at this hour. Becoming a member of a congregation like this one is on the one hand a fairly straightforward proposition. One attends a series of representation classes signifies their intention, professes agreement with our UU principals and our bond of union and then enters his or her name in the membership registry. And so in terms of actual preliminaries and mechanics that's about all there is to it. But then we would need to ask why would someone choose to do this? Well we join a faith community in the first place because we believe that the promotion of liberal religious values will help to make a difference in the world. That a strong Unitarian Universalist movement will help to make our community and the planet at large a more peaceful and enlightened place. And we make this commitment because we believe in the transformative power of our UU tradition. We join because we want to be part of an enterprise that can elevate humankind ethically and at a personal level fulfill us spiritually. And also because we hunger to be in relationship with people who like us regard religion as an open ended ongoing quest for deeper meaning, more honest and authentic religious connection. But this is not a casual commitment that we ask people to make. And that is why we take the time today to recognize and to celebrate those who have accepted these solemn responsibilities and this commission for themselves. And now Lyns Gobi will read the names that we hear this morning. When I call your name, if you would please join me up front here and bring your little slip of paper that shows you what to say. The first new member is Liz Hatchin, Jeremy Janicki, Mercedes Kraus Marcos, Mel Meder, Christie Minahan, Melissa Moss, Chip Quadi, and if there's anyone else here who's a new member that I did not call you would like to join us. Please feel free to come up. New members, do you accept the responsibilities and freedoms associated with membership in a Unitarian Universalist congregation? Do you pledge to support this religious community with your words, your time and your substance? Are you willing to join the members of the First Unitarian Society in a common quest for religious and spiritual understanding and for the common purpose of living reverent and compassionate lives? Do you accept these people into this community as companions in the spiritual journey? Do you pledge to rejoice with them in times of happiness and to grieve with them tomorrow and to share with them all the blessings of our free faith? We do. We can all say in union, in unison, the continuing bound of union. We, the members of the First Unitarian Society of Madison, desiring a religious organization in the spirit of Jesus of Nazareth which shall make the integrity of life its first aim and leave thought free. Associate ourselves together and accept to our membership those of whatever theological opinion who wish to unite with us in the promotion of truth, righteousness, reverence and charity among all. In that rabbit you will extend the right hand of fellowship to our new members a sign of full inclusion in our religious tradition and in our spiritual community. We also wish to bestow flowers upon each one of our folks. And let's give our new members a big hand. And as they return to their seats and as our children leave for their classes let's sing together our next hymn. Please be seated. The late Charlotte Joko Beck was the leader of the San Diego Zen Buddhist community for many years and this is an excerpt from her book entitled We tend to pick our friends and lovers in much the same way as we turn on the TV. For instance we meet a nice girl and say hmm she looks like a Channel 4 I'm always calm and comfortable with Channel 4 I know what to expect on Channel 4 so we get together and for a while everything is just hunky-dory. Lot of comfort lot of agreement seems like a great relationship but lo and behold what happens after a while somehow Channel 4 gets switched over to Channel 63 which features a lot of irritation a lot of anger sometimes it's Channel 49 all dreams and fantasies and what am I doing during all of this well see I was pretending to just be a Channel 4 kind of person but no it seems like I also spend a lot of time on Channel 33 childhood cartoons mostly about my dream prince and princess and then I have all these other channels like 19 gloom depression with withdrawal and sometimes when I'm on that channel and I'm into gloom she's into the fantasy and the light that doesn't fit very well and then sometimes all the channels seem to be playing at once we have upset a lot of noise and one or both parties fights or withdraws what to do we are now in our usual mess our usual scenario and we have to try to fix it don't we somehow everything was fine at one time so obviously what we've got to do is to make both parties get back on Channel 4 and so I will say to her you should be like this that's the person I fell in love with and so for a while both parties make an effort because there's this artificial piece on Channel 4 and also a good bit of boredom but it's interesting that the question nobody ever asks about these channels is who turned them on what's the source of all this activity in a way there's nothing wrong with the channels but we never ask who turned the set on what's the source of this and that is the key question that we need to ask and if we don't ask this question and the suffering gets bad enough sometimes we're just going to have to leave the relationship entirely and find a new Channel 4 and this scenario is true not just for our intimate relationships but at the office when we're on vacation just about anywhere because this is what we as human beings do sometimes we may realize that after living with someone for a long long time we've never really met him never really known him and I did this I did this for 15 years because some people live a whole lifetime together and they never meet their channels meet once in a while but as two people they never really meet for anthems for the entire year this will be their last performance until September so we are very very grateful for all other efforts and all the rehearsals among the many unusual case studies described by the late neurologist Oliver Sacks one of them focused on a man's slow recovery from a brain tumor that seemingly had erased his memory and rendered him largely unresponsive to the people and the stimuli around him the last hippie was the name that Sacks gave to this particular case and it was subsequently made into a feature film and titled The Music Never Stopped this film played for a brief time at Sundance Cinemas and my wife Trina and I showed it here at FUS as part of one of our film series but being a low budget independent production with no big name actors the music never stopped didn't garner a lot of attention after its release but it is a wonderful story about reconciliation and about healing Gabriel is the only child of Henry and Helen Sawyer and in his pre adolescent years gave bonds with his father through music the music of Sinatra, Bing Crosby the big bands however during his teenage years in the late 1960s gave turns to rock music and together with some of his friends starts a rock band his musical taste shift and his political views they also start to diverge sharply from those of his conventional and conservative father and ultimately the two have a very serious falling out over the Vietnam conflict and amidst his mother's tears and his father's anger gave storms out of the house vowing that he will never never come back and he never does years pass without reconciliation whatsoever but then one day the Sawyer's receive a call Gabriel now homeless has turned up and he must undergo delicate brain surgery to remove this massive tumor the family has been physically reunited but in the weeks that follow Gabe's affect remains completely vacant he speaks only in monosyllables and when normal rehabilitated practices prove unsuccessful there's this young female psychologist who urges the family and Gabe's treatment team urges them to try using music as a stimulant having exhausted other options the team begins to expose Gabriel to a variety of different musical styles including those old songs that he and his father had enjoyed during Gabe's childhood but Gabe remains indifferent to this as well music therapy seems like a dead end but then quite by accident Gabe hears this snatch from a song by the Beatles and voila he becomes animated chattering excitedly about the song and about his love for the Beatles and so then over time and in fifths and starts Gabe learns to communicate again he struggles to retain memories of his childhood and his youth because his short term recall has been permanently impaired but he does have a new lease on life now as Gabe copes with this medical condition his father Henry he's fighting his own demons Henry has never been able to accept Gabe's rejection of his musical tastes and of his political views and in a real sense Henry is still very angry and so even as Gabe begins to respond to this rock music Henry vigorously opposes the protocol and he only relents when his wife Helen delivers an ultimatum grudgingly Henry begins listening to the music that his son loves and then playing the same music in the rehab facility where Gabe is now living they listen to the music together and for the first time in their adult lives they begin tentatively to discuss the past the harmonious early years and then the contentious later ones that split the family apart and listening to his son really listening for the first time Henry begins to gain insight into his thinking his musical ethos appreciation follows understanding and in the music's final scenes father and son both dressed in tie-dyed T-shirts attend a raucous grateful dead concert both of them responding enthusiastically to the beat of the music stop look listen this in a nutshell is the process many of us have to go through in order to get the most out of our relationships first and as a result to live self-awareness now the sequence in which these three actions occur may shift and in this case the case of Gabe and his family it would be stop listen look when we are stuck in old self-righteous patterns of thinking and judging nothing positive nothing transformative can happen until until we are brought up short we have to stop even after his prodigal son had been returned to him gravely injured Henry Sawyer keeps traveling in that same well-worn groove he knows what real music sounds like and either Gabe has to come to his senses or he's just going to have to remain in that semi-comatose condition so Henry angrily dismisses the work of the psychologist who has found this musical key that unlocks his son's brain now until this point Helen Gabe's mother she's remained pretty much in the background deferential and passive in the face of her husband's militant resolve but Helen desperately wants her son back and she realizes that this unusual approach to therapy may represent their last hope and so Helen plays her trump card Henry I will leave you if you don't change your attitude and give this a chance to work her husband is stunned and perhaps for the first time in their life together Henry's wife has challenged him and he stops we can't really look and listen properly with depth and sensitivity unless we first bring ourselves to a halt this is where the practice of meditation can make a real difference in lives where we feel like we're always on the go we're always rushing around because meditation is first and foremost it's about stopping it's about putting the brakes on in order for us to be present for and fully aware of what the external environment and our own inner voices are trying to tell us and this is by no means an easy task caught up as most of us are in our personal agendas in our busy schedules but it's ever so important that we make the attempt the Canadian physician an expert on child parent dynamics, Gabor Maté draws a crucial distinction between the phenomena of attachment and attunement attachment and attunement most parents and children he says quite naturally form an attachment to one another but because they have trouble stopping what they are doing and giving their full and undivided attention to the relationship they fail to become attuned they're not on the same wavelength and so to understand where another person is coming from we have to learn to stop parenting, Gabor says is not about technique parenting is about the relationship you can read all the latest books but if your relationship with your child is not well established because you're too stressed, you're too busy you're too involved with your career even the best techniques are not going to work and to be honest full disclosure this was for me a really big issue in the early years of my ministry while I was serving a church in upstate New York I would be working away in my office deep in concentration and there would be a knock at the door I knew better than to tell the party outside to go away after all a minister is supposed to be accessible to his congregants but it bugged me visitors broke my train of thought and although I never said get lost that message undoubtedly was communicated through my body language and through my tone of voice as Anne Lamott once put it the devil can't get you to sin he'll keep you busy but eventually and with the help of some candid critical feedback and a meditation practice I was able slowly to change my expectations and my demeanor and I did I did actually acquire the ability to be pulled off task and then to come back to it even after a lengthy interruption we can learn to stop so let's talk about listening good listening is an art but what passes for conversation many times in our daily lives would better be described as intersecting monologues I take my turn you take your turn but the threads of our conversation are never woven together because each party is more interested in what he has to say according to Kay Lindahl careful listening is the true hallmark of hospitality when a person knows that they have our full undivided attention they feel cared for they feel that their personhood has been honored none of us listen enough do we dear Father Joe an English benediction and spiritual counselor once said none of us really listen enough do we we only listen to a fraction of what people say but it's a wonderfully useful thing to do he continues you almost always hear something that you didn't expect moreover Father Joe continues we must listen because so often we are wrong in our certainties that is certainly what Henry Sawyer once he had been forced to stop discovered when he had no choice to engage with his son Henry did begin listening more closely to those rock songs which for so many years he had smugly dismissed as incoherent noise then as he and Gabe began listening to those same songs together the father began to find his son's enthusiasm infectious and he got curious Gabe what is that song about I don't get it and Gabe would patiently explain what the composer's message was and Henry would struggle to understand but then as he gained insight from those conversations he was able to begin to step into ever so gingerly his son's world and then to identify the true source of their estrangement now Henry had an advantage in all of this that many of us probably do not because following many years of faithful service to the same firm he was laid off he was forced to take early retirement but after the initial shock and the anger the sense of betrayal wore off this turned out to be for Henry a very fortunate fall because he had time now to learn this new musical language by which he could reconnect with his son this is not a luxury that many of us have in our families and yet there are latent opportunities in every household for developing greater attunement yes many of us are pressed for time many of us don't feel that we can carve out more time in our busy days but as Bill Doherty suggests we can use the time that's already available for family activities more effectively hypothetically everyone has to stop what they're doing to eat so make sure that at the family meal everything else stops no texting, no scanning social media no TV all families establish these patterns of behavior, rituals that they follow not so much out of intention but more or less you just kind of fall into those it's more by accident and so those patterns can be changed if the stakes are high enough it's important enough a greater degree of mutual understanding and appreciation, greater attunement achieved through this kind of casual but connective banter between family members that would seem to be ample reason for making the effort stop listen look listening pays the way to looking and here I mean looking squarely at one's self in the reading that I offered earlier from Charlotte Jocobat she talked about all those different channels all those various story lines that our minds create and then those story lines go on to color our perceptions of others without a greater degree of self awareness we imagine that the source of our disc content, the source of our pleasure or our pain that it all has to do with the other what they are doing, not with the frequency that we happen to be on at the time and so Jocobat suggests that in order to really know another person we have to get a better handle on our channel guide some people live their entire lives and never meet she says their channels meet once in a while but they never do and this is precisely what occurred with Henry and Gabe the father was held captive by what the Buddhists call fixed views a couple of comfortable channels continually supported and reinforced Henry's world view and it was very discomfiting for him to consider or to be exposed to the channels that his son was on and so initially it was downright painful for Henry to listen to his son and to give his experiences serious consideration wrong channel Gabe and he heard a lot of things that were painful to him a lot of things that caused him to feel regret but it was important enough that he persevered he kept on listening listening without exercising judgment and ultimately he was able to turn back to himself, recognize his own prejudice, see himself in a new light not as the villain of the peace but as the product of a culture that never has required men to listen to their children Henry acquired insight into the underlying sources of his intolerance and as a result he began to see new possibilities for himself I don't have to be so self-protective my thinking and my imagination can expand beyond these preset channels that I have restricted myself to for decades and so it was without the least degree of self-consciousness Henry, accompanies Gabe to a concert that the father knows will bring his son happy memories for the rest of his life as we endeavor to practice with relationships, Charlotte Jokobek says we begin to see that they are our best way to grow in them we can see what our mind, our body, our senses and our thoughts really are why our relationships such excellent practice because, aside from our formal sitting meditation there is no way that is superior to relationships to help us see where we are stuck and what we are holding on to as long as our buttons are being pushed we have an excellent chance to learn and to grow so our relationships are a great gift not because they will make us happy, she says often they will not but because any intimate relationship if we view it as practice is the clearest mirror we can find the music never stops ends with Gabe and his mother walking out of a cemetery following Henry's funeral at his burial Henry had already suffered one severe heart attack and not long after he and his son attended that Grateful Dead performance Henry was felled by a second coronary and before lowering the casket a boombox is brought out it's turned on and a final musical salute to the deceased is played it's not Sinatra Touch of Grey by the Grateful Dead I know the rent is in arrears the dog has not been fed for years it's even worse than it appears but it's all right I will get by I will get by I will get by I will survive because of what they learned by stopping, listening, and looking we know that Gabriel and his widowed mother will also get by they will survive and our offering this morning will be distributed in part to the Madison Dental Initiative and you can read about the good work that they are doing with people in our community please be generous we gather each week as a community of memory and of hope and to this time and place we bring our whole and broken selves carrying with us the joys and sorrows of the recent past and seeking here a place where they might be celebrated received and shared there were a couple of entries in the presentation book for Erin that she finds success and respect at her new job and for Stephanie as she and her husband heal from kidney transplant surgery and navigate the challenges of receiving disability from the Veterans Administration and then please keep Jan more in your thoughts and prayers during his time of recovery in addition of those three just mentioned knowledge any other unexpressed joys and sorrows that remain among us and as a community we hold those with equal concern in our hearts let us sit silently for just a moment or two in the spirit of empathy and hope and so by virtue of our brief time together today may our burdens be lightened and our joys expanded please rise once more in body and spirit as we sing together our closing hymn number 307 is seated for the benediction and the postlude earlier in the service I showed the children a bear that was fashioned by the Taos Pueblo people and so we end with these words from the Pueblo Indian tradition of New Mexico hold on to what is good even if it's a handful of earth hold on to what you believe even if it's a tree that stands by itself hold on to what you must do even if it's a long way from here hold on to life even when it's easier letting go hold on to the hand of your neighbor even when we are apart blessed be and amen