Loneliness Is a Spiritual Crisis, Not Just a Social One

[MUSIC PLAYING] Welcome to Expanding Your Faith, a podcast that tackles modern day issues with a focus on spirituality, with Bishop Greer Godsey, Reverend Mark Trim, and Bishop Ben Williams. Thanks for listening. Take a breath, open your heart, and let's expand your faith together. [MUSIC PLAYING] Hello, everyone, and welcome to this edition of Expanding Your Faith. I'm Bishop Greer, and joining me tonight is Bishop Ben. You're reading some blessings to all. So Reverend Mark is not with us tonight. He is on vacation. We hope he's having a wonderful vacation and gives us plenty of rest and relaxation. Right. Tonight, we're going to talk about loneliness is a spiritual crisis, not just a social one. And I want to remind you before we get started that you can always catch previous editions of this podcast, previous shows, on podcasts.myocci.social, on Apple Podcast or wherever you get your favorite podcast from. Loneliness is often treated as a personal mood problem, something to fix with a hobby or a phone call when it is actually a widespread and serious crisis with real spiritual, physical, and social weight. People are more digitally connected than any generation in history and report feeling more isolated than ever. Just doesn't add up. And part of that, something that doesn't add up, is that while we are more connected digitally, we have very little actual personal human contact with one another. Loneliness is not just a social inconvenience. It's a spiritual condition. And scripture takes seriously this spiritual condition from its very first pages. And the church has both a theological and a practical opportunity to respond to it in which we're going to do tonight. I want to mention too that this aspect of loneliness that we deal with is an epidemic in the country and it predates COVID. It predates the shutdowns. It predates quarantines. It is a problem that has developed out of our dependence upon social media, upon digital communications devices versus actual physical contact with another human being. Zoom is a good example of this. While it can be a great tool and can link us to other people around the world, it is no substitute for actual in-person contact with other people. So a question I want you to keep in mind as we go through this episode is, what does it say that the very first thing God calls not good in all of creation is a human being being alone? What does it say that the very first thing God calls not good in all of creation is a human being being alone? So Bishop Ben, what's your initial reactions? Have you noticed loneliness showing up more in pastoral care and conversations with parishioners in recent years? This didn't pop up during COVID. COVID was a catalyst that made it worse, yes. But loneliness has been around 38 years. I noticed that a lot of my parishioners were telling me to deal with struggling with not COVID but loneliness back in the 80s, in the 70s, because most people that I encountered, hospitals or shuttings or reco, what they call reclusives. They didn't say they're housing. They don't go in public. So they had that less contact of human contact and it makes the order of them to communicate and make friends. So the loneliness sets in and I see it quite frequently here, especially among other clergy, first responders, nurses and medical staff, etc. Certainly and those people that are in those types of jobs in particular deal with loneliness because a lot of people just don't understand the stresses and the issues that they face on a day-to-day basis. Right. So they end up being even more isolated because people just don't know what to say to them. Right. So what does scripture say about aloneness and community? Well, if we go all the way back to Genesis chapter 2 verse 18, God says it is not good for man to be alone. Let us make a helper similar to himself. This is the first thing in the entire creation narrative that God explicitly names is not good. Before sin, before the fall, before anything has gone wrong, God has already pegged loneliness as a major problem. Implication is significant. Humans are made for relationship at the most foundational level of the created order. It's not optional. It's not just an add on to spiritual life, but as part of what it means to be made in the image of a relational God. God wants us to have a relationship with him and by extension, he wants us to have a relationship with each other. The image of God itself described in Genesis 1, 27 as "mel and female together" already contains relationship within it. Aloneness being alone is a departure from the pattern of creation, not a neutral state. If he made man to be a relational being, extension, the lack of relationship, the lack of companionship, the lack of friends speaks to a breakdown in the social and creational order. Community shapes the early church as well. Acts 2, 44 through 47 talks about the earliest Christian community being described as being together constantly, breaking bread in their homes, sharing meals, holding possessions in common. Community was not an add on program to 1st century faith. It was the basic shape of it. They lived in a communal state. What we would more commonly refer to as hippies. Maybe the hippies had something right in their philosophy. had a relationship with a home party to be out in a temple around the big field. Yes, you can reach masters, but are you truly having communion? Are you truly having a fellowship with a big group? That's what I like about St. Mary of St. George's Parish. They have home masses, which I like because it brings a smaller gathering together to have communion and fellowship. Church 10 24 through 25 says, let us consider one another in order to provoke charity and good works. Not abandoning our assembly as some others have grown accustomed to doing, but consoling one another. This is Paul directly warning the ancient church against the exact pattern many people fall into today, drifting away from a gathered community. They find themselves embracing loneliness over the fellowship with one another. And Paul mentions how it is not a good thing that we need to be there for each other, consoling one another, loving one another, treating each other with kindness and compassion. That's part of the order that God intended. And then in 1 Corinthians 12, Paul goes even further by making the metaphor about the image of the body, where he needs each part. Isolation for the body is described. is a kind of dismemberment, not simply a scheduling gap. Paul makes it very clear that we can't live without the various parts of the body or that life becomes extremely difficult. You don't understand that fully until you've sprained an ankle or broken a toe or ended up dealing with something like carpal tunnel or arthritis and where your body or your joints ache or become difficult to use. Then all of a sudden you understand this concept, that we can't live without a part of the body. And just as that, we can't live without fellowshiping with one another. We can't live without being connected to one another in some personal way. Do you come to church with a big burden? Do you come with a lot of stress? Is your heart opened or is it hardened? All that plays a factor. Like us, when we get ready for mass, if we have a walk into mass and we have a big burden on our shoulders and our heart, it reflects in the way we do mass. People can see it. So I try not to go to mass with a heavy heart because it makes it harder for me to minister the segments correctly. So I tell people, yes, there is a factor of feeding lonely in church, but you have to be able to open up in church and let people minister to you to make you feel less lonely. Absolutely. That's the big part of connection. And do understand, I'm not going to sugarcoat it when you have connections with other people. You are going to open yourself up to being hurt. That's just part of the process. And a lot of people close themselves off because they have been hurt by others. And I understand that. But by the same token, the greater issue becomes loneliness. The hurt that you receive will eventually pass. But loneliness is a disease that is greater than the hurt you've experienced. Right. And even Jesus didn't do this alone. He called 12 disciples to follow him, to spend time with him, to eat with him. He took of huge gatherings of people eating, and he fed the 5,000. Right. And in his most agonizing hour in Gethsemane, explicitly asked his closest friends, his three closest friends, to stay near him in Matthew 2638. And he said, "Stay here and watch with me." Even in that time of great pain and agony, Jesus felt the need to have his closest friends near him. You would think, people hear that and they say, "What was he thinking? Why would he want to have anybody with him during that great agony?" But it makes sense. It really does because he's trying to keep from being, feeling that loneliness that appears when you're being persecuted. That's right, 100%. If the incarnate son of God, in his moment of greatest anguish, asked for human companionship, rather than facing it entirely alone, that says something about what human beings are built for and what is genuinely lost when someone faces suffering in total isolation. I have, and I know Bishop Ben has too, is a hospital chaplain. We have been at the bedside of people dying of cancer, of liver failure, of kidney disease, of AIDS and HIV, who had no one who had come to see them, no one who would sit with them in their final moment. Right. I was a part of a program at the hospital before I left, called No One Dies Alone, Nota. It's a nationwide program. Yes, it is. Developed for people who have no family or friends, who visit them, or who can stay with them, who are dying. And we just know that people take shifts, sitting with that person until they pass away. Right. That means those. So that they don't die alone, because one of the greatest issues is dying alone. So many people in hospitals across the world, die alone every day. Right, they sure do. And you don't realize, when we do that, even the nurses, even though they know the program exists, I don't think really the nurses really understand fully how it converts the patient, because they're so busy taking care of the patient. They don't have time to fully appreciate what we do as chaplains for the hospital. Right. Because they say, how do you sit there and just be with them, knowing that they're going to the outcome? Right. Well, I'm not here for me. I'm here for them. That's right. I'm here to comfort them in their final hours. May that be talking to them, holding their hand, or just being in the room. The last patient I sat with in No-Dote was a gentleman who had been a war vet from Vietnam, who was dying of cancer. And he had no one. Nobody came here. Right. So I'd sit there and read the Psalms to him. Speaking of the Psalms, even the Psalms don't pretend loneliness isn't real. No, they don't. Psalms 25, 16 says, Right. And then Psalm 68, 16 you think about that Psalm you just read and really think about it, and you tear it apart, and you really apply it to actual homes. I've been to homes where people have asked for home lessons that the home feels lonely in itself. Right. And that's because it's not because of the person's character, it's just the way it is. It's just empty. It just has an empty feeling. Right. And I like to that we use the Psalms to comfort people because it does bring comfort for certain people. That's very true. So let's look at the scope of the crisis right now. This is a documented public health concern, not just a feeling. It is. Loneliness and social isolation have been formally identified by public health researchers and the U.S. Surgeon General as a serious health risk with data linking chronic loneliness to increased risk of heart disease, stroke, dementia, and early death comparable in some studies to the health impact of smoking. This is not exaggeration or spiritual metaphor. It is a measurable physical harm tracked in public health data. And that's hard science. People who are lonely, people who don't have people to support them and love them, heal at a slower rate. They have more issues with various diseases and mental health issues. It's just a known fact. It's a scientific fact. Right. And there's a big debate especially here in Texas between healthcare professionals and counselors that they say, "Well, loneliness is not a mental health." And the other half say, "Yes, it is." I agree it is. Very much so is a mental health issue. And with the lack of resources within the U.S. and Texas for mental health care, it becomes a bigger issue. Right. It absolutely does. And there is a digital paradox of this. People are more connected digitally than ever before in history. And yet loneliness has been rising, particularly among young people in the elderly. Two groups on the opposite ends of life who might be expected to have very different social experiences. Both report increases in isolation. A screen can simulate the appearance of connection without providing the actual substance of being known, without being physically present with someone or being cared for in tangible ways. And I'm not saying that phones and tablets and computers are bad. It's a question of what kind of connection actually meets the need built into human beings since Genesis. Right. And the reality is that while seeing someone over a screen and connecting with them online can provide some connection, it doesn't always provide the kind of connection human beings need. Right. And to go with that, but on their lives, and just not just for intimacy, but this is for everyday living, humans, whether it be female, male, non-binary, whatever, we need the touch century. Because the touching of a human, human touch stimulates the brain to feel good. It creates all kinds of endorphins and feel good stuff. The chemical doesn't make you feel happy and feel relaxed. And reduces the cortisol. People don't realize that. Right. And that's why it's so important sometimes to just be able to reach out and touch someone. Right. If it's nothing more than a handshake or hug or holding their hand, it is so important because that is part of what we as human beings are designed for. The elderly, in particular, who have lost a spouse or whose adult children live far away are most at risk. Young people navigating a culture of digital first relationships and declining participation in the kinds of institutions they would normally get involved with, churches, clubs, unions, neighborhood associations that used to reliably produce in-person community. They're just not there or they don't take advantage. of them anymore. Right. And I find in my parish area that I serve, especially the Metroplex of Houston, I find that most of the young people are more in tune with iPads, cell phones, the digital stuff, instead of having an actual physical and personal coffee meetup or just eating out, you know, having a dinner or maybe meet in a park. I find that I ask the young people, well, what is your thinking behind that? And most of them feel that a hug, you know, handshake is cringe to them. And for me, that makes me think, why is it cringe? I don't get to today's youth. You know, I really don't understand it. Another group of people that are most at risk are people who have been isolated from family or community because of who they are. For instance, the LGBTQIA plus individuals rejected by their family of origin, people estranged over divorce, people isolated by chronic illness or disability, people released from incarceration and cut off from previous relationships. We talk a lot about those cut off because of divorce or those called off because of who they are or because of disability or chronic illness. We don't talk much about people who were incarcerated and no longer have connections or whose connections fear being around them. So even the individual who are incarcerated who have served their synods deal with this type of loneliness. Right. And unfortunately, when they get released from prison, nobody prepares them to become a part of the society again. So they always taught that they're scum of their earth. They're rejected. They're not to be trusted. But that's not true. They're not animals. They deserve love and compassion like everybody else. That's correct. They have paid their debt to society. We can't judge them anymore. And says, I've got post traumatic stress disorder and haven't left my house in five years. I'm afraid to go outside. I understand that. And that's the kind of thing that we're talking about. Right. Are those people too that have agoraphobia or have anxiety or have PTSD and can't go and socialize the way we would normally go and socialize? But your experience and loneliness is just as great. If not greater, than anyone else's. Right. And it's very much so valid because in my ministry here in Houston area, I deal with people like that. It's a matter of how to bring them out of their shell. It can be done, but it takes time. It's not going to come out of your house instantaneously. Right. Absolutely. But we still love you. We love you all and we'll be there for you all. We need us. That's right. And that's why we're discussing this topic is to hopefully provide some help and insight to people who are going through that kind of loneliness. And then on top of that, others who are at great risk of loneliness, the specific vulnerability of clergy and caregivers themselves, who often pour out care constantly while having very few people pouring back into them. And there's many days, even you and me and you, we suffer from that loneliness and anxiety of being lonely because our job is so hard that people just don't know how to talk to us that you go, they hear that we're priests and all of a sudden they get like, how do we talk to them then? They say away because they don't know what to say. Or as clergy, we've been taught that we can't be friends with people in our flock because that breeds familiarity, which then makes it more difficult to shepherd. And so we shy away from any kind of meaningful connections to the people under our care, which damages us and it doesn't help them either. Right. It doesn't. Sunday morning. So why the church has sometimes made this worse. So I'm trying to get out. Why the church has sometimes made this worse. Sunday morning attendance is not the same as belonging. Person can attend weekly worship and still be entirely unknown by anyone in the room. Showing up is not the same thing as being seen. Many congregations are structured around a single large gathering with little infrastructure for the smaller sustained relationships that actually address loneliness. That's why it is so very important for churches to have groups of people to help make others feel welcome, seeing and feel like they belong. It is so important to engage with one another, not just sit in the pew next to each other. Right. And I agree with that. And it's done too often. That's why I'm not a fan of the mega churches because the mega churches tend to have 15, 20, 30,000 members. How can you truly make a connection within that church if you don't know the members and the pastor doesn't know who you are. He could pass by you in the hallway. And for all, you know, you could be a staff member or maintenance worker. How would you know? How can you form an actual connection? That's why I like the small parishes where we have small parishes that are small and manageable, where we can make a connection with our congregation. and the congregation can make a connection within the congregation itself. Make a connection with your partner in the pew, your friend, your family, whoever's in the pews with you. Make connections. Make that effort to reach out and say, hey, welcome. Get to know them. Absolutely. Unfortunately, church culture can quietly punish people for being alone. Church programming and social culture often centers around families and couples. Potluck, small groups and events implicitly assume a spouse or children are present. This leaves single adults, widows and widowers and people without local family, feeling like they are on the margins of the very community meant to embody it is not good to be alone. And I've seen that happen so many times. That is why we work so hard when we do events and programs to cater them towards everyone, not just families, not just people with children or local relatives, but everyone. And that's why for the longest time we've run community Thanksgiving dinners. Right. But so that people who didn't have family could come and feel welcome. Right. You're geared specifically towards people who were single or didn't have family widowers. So if they could come and eat with us and communicate, reverse, fill a part and belong, not expecting them to bring lavish side items and things of that nature, but just to come and be. You don't have to bring anything. Just come and be. Right. I missed a comment right now, but part of Ricardo makes a good point. People take solace in having a pet. They help some feel comfortable and heal emotionally and physically too. That's right. That's always good to have. And especially nowadays, there's a big argument between days. Are they service animals? Are they not? I say that they can be in a certain instance. Especially people that have PTSD. or just stuck in homes. I don't have any companionship. That can be a very good companionship. Absolutely 100%. I would go nuts without my pets sometimes. Right. And here's the other thing. Shame keeps people from naming it. Right. Loneliness often carries an unspoken shame, assumption that if you're lonely, something must be wrong with you. That you failed to build a relationship. That emitting itself is an embedded harassment. It's not. This shame keeps people quiet in exactly the community that is supposed to be safe enough to say I'm struggling, which means the very people most in need of connection are the least likely to ask for it out loud. Again, that is why it is so important that churches, social organizations, communities make sure to connect with each person coming through the door because they are not always able to articulate that they're struggling that they need connection. So it is our job to have that connection rating and waiting and ready for them so that if that's what they need, they can connect and fill apart. Right. I mean, struggle through a committee or filling out forms or answering a bunch of questions. It doesn't matter why you're lonely. It doesn't matter why you're lonely. You need connection. It is enough to know you need it. Every day, every Sunday, when I say my ass in Galveston, there's always a handful of people you see at the back of the church, the linger. And some people say, they're just lingering because they don't want to go home. I have discovered the lingering because they're lonely and they're looking for somebody to approach, but they don't know how to approach them. So I made that first step to approach them to talk to them. And then you find out the day they're lonely. They're the only one at their house and they don't have no friends. And that's why they hang out in the back of the church hoping to make a connection. So that's why I make it a habit not to run off at the church, right to the stack of things and hang around to help them make them feel comfortable and welcome. That's right. And that moves us into our last segment. What a faithful response actually looks like. Right. Presence over programming. The most effective response to loneliness is rarely a new program. It is consistent, ordinary presence. The same people showing up for each other again and again over time. Street Ministry reflection, what we do at St. Francis Parish and outreach on Green Street is not a loneliness curriculum. It is simply showing up, knowing names, remembering details about people's lives and returning next week. That's what we do right here in the lives every single line. Just about everybody in here. I know your name. If you've asked me to pray for you, I remember that. Right. So do I. And I will ask follow up. So how are you doing? Navi, how's your ankle? Things like that because that isn't so important in making connection. I don't do it because it grows numbers. I don't do it to make my money. I do it because it is important to have that human connection to each other. Absolutely. Isaiah 41 10 says, do not be afraid for I am with you. God's own promise to the isolated and afraid is not a solution to a problem, but a presence in the midst of it. And that models what human ministry to lonely people should look like as well. We should just be present as pottery says, when you meet a lonely person and don't know what to do, ask yourself, what would Jesus do? Right. Jesus would sit with them. Right. One of the great examples of this and I didn't write this down. I should have. But one of the greatest examples of this was the woman at the well. Right. That's a good example. She was there alone outcast, considered a harlot right by people around her. She came in the middle of the day because there would not be women there drawing from the well because women would go early morning and late evening to draw the well. She went in the middle of the day because she didn't want to have to be around everybody. And Jesus just sat and listened to her. That's all he did. He didn't offer solutions. He didn't offer anything but a listening ear and she talked and he heard her out and then told her you're doing what you need to do. He didn't remember. I'm sorry. Go ahead. We experienced that in every parish. I'm sure business in George's experience is that we have the one person that comes off the street that that comes in the shovel. They haven't had a bath in months. But it's not our place to question how come to write that. It's our place to give them a hug, welcome them in and ask them, what can we do? How do you need us to show up for you? And another thing to remember in the church, smaller is often better. Right. Large worship gatherings matter. The actual antidote to loneliness tends to live in smaller structures, a meal shared regularly with the same handful of people, a small prayer group, a standing weekly phone call, practical encouragement, congregations should think less about attendance numbers and more about whether every person has at least one or two people who would notice if they disappeared for two weeks. Does your church, does your parish have that? If somebody disappeared tomorrow, Sunday morning from church and wasn't back for two or three weeks, would you notice them, gone? I know. I would. But would you? That's what's important and actively seek out those who are missing. Look 15 for the parable of the lost sheep. The shepherd does not wait for the one missing sheep to find its own way back. He goes looking for it. He goes looking for that lost sheep. A practical faithful posture towards loneliness means actively notice who has stopped showing up, who never gets invited, who eats lunch alone and going towards them rather than waiting to be asked. I taught my daughter that when she was younger and starting in the elementary school. I always taught her to notice the people who ate lunch alone. That was the first step just to notice who it was. And without even having to say anything, she began to go and sit with that person or those people. And she started making it a habit to go sit with the people who were alone. And she built a network of friends that is huge over the years. Right. Just reaching out to those who were alone, not worrying about being popular, not worrying about sitting with the popular kids, either going to those who were alone. And those have become friends for life. She's 26 now. And many of those kids that she sat with the first time in elementary school, she still communicates with, still goes out and goes into Dave and Buster's with or goes to the mall and hangs out with her because there's a lifelong connection she made. And you never know that might be the thing that saved their lives. Right. I was going to say that. You could have sat down with them on the darkest day when they were sitting there wearing. They could have been worrying about something or contemplating just self deleting themselves. That's even a hard topic. You could have just sat down with them. And that's what they needed to turn that table and say, I'm not going to do that. That's right. She's the same being grace for them. That's right. And as pastors, because we do have some pastors who listen to this podcast. Correct. We do. Naming loneliness without shame from the pulpit and pastoral care is a necessity. Yes. Simply saying out loud and preaching and pastoral conversation that loneliness is common. Human and nothing to be ashamed of can be enough to give someone permission to finally say me too. Right. Taking the stigma away from it. And I say, and I've been making loneliness not being embarrassment is key because people sit in church and they think, Oh, well, I'm lonely. So it's a stigma. I'm not going to put that out there. And the pastors that refuse to address it, are part of the problem. They're complicit in not helping the situation. We as pastors have to address that situation head on. We took a cue from the Metropolitan Community Church that we have. We rent space from Bar Parish. They had this thing called a connection card. I love those cards. They're nice. Everyone fills them out on Sunday morning. It's how they keep up with who's there, who's missing that kind of thing. in the collection place. Just a second nature thing at this point. And of course, if they have an address change, an email change, phone number change, they can drop that down the connection card and it gets put in the system. Right. On the back of it, it has a section for prayer requests, but it also has a section for just anything you need. Anything you want the pastor to know, anything you want the congregation to know, whatever. Well, the next practical suggestion in this is congregations can build in low pressure ways. Right. I want to talk to the pastor. I could really use somebody bringing me a meal on Wednesday. No big announcement. No big hoop lock. It goes quietly in the collection plate. The only person that sees it is the pastor and administrator. In our case, I'm the one who sees it in our parish because I collect those after mass. Right. And I get to see and it says, I need a visit. I'll set up a visit with you. That is an important way to signal without making a big deal of it, that you are in need of assistance, that you are right. That there's a need for you to connect with someone. And so every church should have a system like that built right. And that's why I believe in the connection cards and that's why people should use them because the biggest thing is that we don't know what the issue is. We can't help. We have to know what is actually going on so we can help and provide those services you may need. But on the same token, I took something that I got from MCC, one of the members, they're not going to name names right now, but always said, I love you and there's nothing you can do. You can do about that. I use that every Sunday and it gets a kick out. of the congregation to get a kick out of it. But it makes them feel that I'm making them feel welcome and that I'm approachable. Absolutely 100%. And he also says, I give somebody a hug today because it might be a bridge, it gets them from today until the next time you see them. Right. That's important too. Yeah. Loneliness is a discipleship issue, not just a pastoral care issue. Right. Community and connect actions are not simply nice extras for people who are struggling. They are part of what it means to follow Christ faithfully. Since Jesus himself model companionship and asked for it, a congregation that takes loneliness seriously is not doing a side ministry. It is living out the same conviction God stated at the very beginning of creation. It is not good for a person to be alone. What are your final thoughts on this topic, Bishop? I was going to say, it's funny how all this stuff that we've been talking about the last couple of days, wrangle into one common theme and actually figured it out last night. This is why we're all together again. And it all comes into one common theme. And I don't know, even if you even realized it, but I did last night, I had that all hot moment. This is what we call faith in action. 100% to the recap. It is not simply a personal mood or a scheduling problem. It is named in the very first pages of scripture as something that is not good. It carries real physical and spiritual weight. And the church has both a theological reason and a practical calling to respond to it. Well, the response is rarely a new program. It is ordinarily. It is the ordinary, consistent presence actively seeking out who is missing and naming loneliness out shame. So people feel safe enough to say they are struggling. If you're listening today and you are lonely, that is not a personal failure in this community. And this show wants you to know you are not alone and feeling alone. You can always reach out for help. The Bishop God see at my OCCI.org or by visiting our st. Francis dot org. I'm there for you. I will help you connect to resources in your local area as much as humanly possible. As always, we hope you've enjoyed this podcast. And if you'd like to listen to previous editions, you can do so at podcast.myocci.social on Apple podcast and wherever you look, find your favorite podcast. We're live every Saturday at eight p.m. Eastern time on you now.com forward slash Bishop Greg and tick tock. at expanding your faith. Reverend Mark returns next week. I want to thank Bishop Bin for being here with us tonight. Thank you for having me. I always appreciate doing the show with you. And we appreciate all of your hard work, Bishop Bin, as our producer and keeping us on track with time and everything else. Thank you. Until next week when we're going to talk about not putting people on pedestals and still honoring those who deserve it. That'll be our topic next Saturday until until we once again attempt to expand your faith. Keep shining bright, my friends. Thanks for spending this time with us on expanding your faith. If today's conversation encouraged you, share the episode. It helps more people find the show. You can listen wherever you get your podcasts. And you can also find us online at podcasts dot my OCCI dot social and our st. Francis dot org. Follow us on Facebook. at expanding your faith. Our producer is Bishop Ben Williams. Expanding your faith is an outreach ministry of St. Francis Parish and outreach in Augusta, Georgia. Produced in cooperation with the Metropolitan Community Church of our Redeemer in Augusta, Georgia. Until next time, keep expanding your faith. you