Note: Can I Say This at Church is produced for audio listening and is transcribed from Patreon version of the conversation. If able, I strongly encourage you to listen to the audio, which has inflection, emotion, sarcasm where applicable, and emphasis for points that may not come across well in written word. This transcript is generated using a combination of my ears and software, and may contain errors. Please check the episode for clarity before quoting in print.

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Justin Gerhardt 0:09

If there's anything that's true about biblical narrative, it's that it is relentlessly spare. Right, especially as a modern reader coming to this text. There is there's just precious little there, we're coming away with all kinds of questions. Well, wait a minute, what about this or what we what was exactly was the tone of voice because that sentence could go about three and a half different ways. You know, we just have questions and the spotlight is so like, sharply focused. And there's other stuff happening in the room that we're just not told about. And so it's, it's so spare, and I think some people may interact with scripture, and these narrative portions of the Bible, deciding that that sparse way of telling the story is a way of putting boundaries up. And, you know, like, this is all that matters. This is all that you should, you know, think about as you interact with the text. I would disagree with that and say that, it more than that, it maybe it's maybe it's an invitation to enter the story ourselves, as a reader, maybe it's an invitation to, to enter the story as a storyteller. And imagine what what is just true, if if like it is just to read the text, these narrative portions of Scripture, strictly, quote, strictly, only allowing what's on the page to be what's real. It's just false.

Seth Price 1:56

Happy whatever day of whatever month, and whatever year it is that you happen to be listening to this. Welcome back to episode two of season two of the show, though, I think that's actually episode like 251, or something like that. Anyway, if you did not listen to the episode from a few weeks ago, on abortion, you should just really hit pause and go back in here that it was it was a doozy. It was a lot, and a lot of good feedback there. Now, I think, overall, that most people really have a very high, high, high level of some of the stories in the Bible, that they don't really lean into it and try to find new meaning and new depth and and I think we do a disservice when we watch these movies that are massively grand, right? And we watch, you know, these these huge series on, you know, HBO, or AMC, or FX or whatever, where we can just immerse ourselves into a story that we have maybe read, but that we never really took the time to sit with and wrestle with and meshed into it. And the Bible is stories like that it is full of stories like that, that are all over the place, really. And so that's what our guest Justin Gerhardt has done today, he has created a podcast called Holy Ghost Stories, where you can kind of mess all around and hear some stories from the Old Testament. And there's a beautiful story around why the podcast exists. And there are also just some amazing episodes that he has in his catalogue. And it has become one of my favorite things to listen to, though I will say I have to listen to it in the right setting. And you'll hear me mention that in the episode. So let me know if you do. But I'm really excited to present this to you because I like talking to other podcasters. But specifically, I love what Justin is doing. Like that is not an advertising pitch. I have told other friends about this show. And if you're listening to this, and it happens to be before October, and you live in the Texas region, he will actually be coming to my hometown and doing a live show of a couple of the episodes. And they're not crazy long, you know, 2025 30 minutes at the most. But I think that that would be worthwhile and something that I'm a bit jealous that I won't get to come and see. But that's okay. So I'm going to stop rambling because it's hard to describe exactly what he does. And I think that the best person to do that would actually be Justin. And so here we go

Justin, welcome to the podcast, man. I think it's like been four or five months I am the worst at I'm the best at taking a break in the summer when I say I'm gonna take a break. I'm all in on that break. So thanks for your patience with me. And I'm

Justin Gerhardt 4:48

glad to finally connect Yeah, after your needed rest well taken.

Seth Price 4:52

It was very good. I didn't sleep a lot but it was good to literally I don't think I touched this computer the entire time. I was on break, like I had no purpose and had no reason to. So it was fun. There's more than enough computers at work to go around. So there's no reason to touch one here. When you try to explain, you know what a Justin Gerhardt is? What is that? Yeah. So

Justin Gerhardt 5:13

a Justin get heart is a home in a. So I'm I'm, I'm a disciple of Jesus, I'm a student of the world I think one of one of my defining qualities is curiosity. I cannot turn it off. And I have no desire to. And so big, big fan of learning and discovering and trying anything new. And I'm a father of two beautiful, strong daughters and a husband of one incredible wife. We've been married for 22 years, this summer. And yeah, and and these days, I I spent 20 years in ministry, and then a year and a half ago, transitioned into full time, work with holy ghost stories. And I continue to feel like I robbed a bank and no one is coming for the money. And I'm so excited. I feel like I'm getting away with something.

Seth Price 6:27

Podcasting is fun, it's addictive. I think it's addictive anyway. And most like, unlike most drugs, you do have to rehab for a while. So eventually, hopefully you build in better brakes than I did do not go five to seven years without a break. Don't do it. It's not a good. It's not healthy. So, yeah, so why then so I want to break apart some of that. So why would you surrender a vocation? Because I guess that's what people say, you know, I have a vocation to do. ministry. And so why would you surrender a vocation as a pastor to do that?

Justin Gerhardt 7:00

Well, I think is I was trying to process all of that as it was happening inside of me, you know, in my heart, and in my head, I was doing a lot of unpacking with my wife and with a friend of mine who is further along in his journey of life and pass it was further along in his pastoral journey as well. Good mentor of mine, and he heard me like ramble for about I just rambled for about 12 and a half minutes, and stopped and he said, Well, what it sounds like is that you've been released from a call. And that made a ton of sense to me, and has been the way that I have seen that transition. Because that 20 years of of pastoral ministry preaching, I loved what I was doing. I always felt like that's exactly where God wanted me that's where I wanted to be. It's like he had me in a room with the door closed and I didn't even notice that the door was closed because I loved being in the room. And and then it was like the door swung open. And I don't know that he was pushing me out. He might have eventually if I had stuck around much longer, but it was like he just opened the door and I noticed there was a hallway out there and that led to somewhere interesting and it felt like permission to to explore something else and so so that's what I did it and it just it everything all of my enthusiasm which I always had a ton around located Ministry had just just like gone white mist nothing there. Now wasn't burned out. It wasn't mad at anybody. It was just like I could not see ahead. And then all of a sudden over here they were my energy was was just fizzing. I just felt like there was all this potential and I don't even know what I wanted to go do. But I knew it was just tell some of that old truth and share some of those old stories in some new and interesting ways. And, and so that's what became holy ghost stories.

Seth Price 9:09

Yep. So why ghost stories then? Like, are you like, Were you raised on the campfire? You know, back in the day you sat on your grandfather's knee, like what is like why ghost stories like why approach it from that direction?

Justin Gerhardt 9:22

Well, I think as soon as you as soon as you pull people around the fire this the stories are better, right? And ghost stories, just fun and Holy Ghost Stories worked on about five and a half different levels for me for one, you know, these spies, these these stories are are breathed out by the by the Holy Spirit as I see them, the Holy Ghost and everybody in them is dead. And so in that way they are in fact ghost stories and then also the Old Testament is where I'm always located in these and it is famously gritty and shadowy dark Ark and, you know, a bit creepy, weird, mysterious, all of that. And so I felt like Holy Ghost Stories, took all of that and kind of grabbed it into a fun package.

Seth Price 10:13

Yeah, yeah. So what was the feedback when you said, Alright church, this is my last Sunday, I'm preaching and then next week, I'm not preaching anymore. Instead, I'm gonna go do this podcast thing. And y'all should listen. Like what was

Justin Gerhardt 10:26

worse, it was worse than that. What was that was like, this is Sunday, I'm going to explore the world of sound and beauty and the arts. And I want to bring people into fresh encounters with God in His Word, and that is all I have for you.

Seth Price 10:47

I ended a sermon five minutes.

Justin Gerhardt 10:51

You know, my dad's like, Oh, okay. You know, I mean, the church was like, okay, you know, we bless you on your way to follow the Lord into whatever he's leading you into. But I thought, man, what am I, you know, these these parents who, like, you know, I have grandchildren who are under your care, and they need to eat, because it wasn't like, this company is gonna pay me to start this thing or anything like that. It was just, it was a 100% pay cut into, you know, just walking into the, into the unknown. Yeah. And we knew that it would be a while to, you know, 612 18 months before, before any of that was was clear, or before there was, there was any, you know, revenue coming in to make it a sustainable livelihood or anything like that, but it just felt so like, it should have been super terrifying. But it felt very easy. It felt like we were on a conveyor belt, and we're just looking around, like, are we still moving in this direction? We, we are, hmm. And I think God blessed my wife through all of that with a lot of peace. And she was one of the one of the, I think, just as just as much as I was, you know, wanting to head in that direction. She was wanting me to head in that direction. So it was interesting what he was doing. We didn't know, we didn't know what and we didn't know how, and we knew that. We were like, Okay, this is going to be a drastic pay cut, we're gonna have to, we got to make our life work. Somehow we got a little bit of savings to to pad things. What we're going to have to take our, you know, our day to day expenditures down by like two thirds. How can we do that? And the way that we discovered was one of the easiest ways was to leave the United States of America.

Seth Price 12:44

What are you? Are you in the United States of America now?

Justin Gerhardt 12:46

We are right now, but only newly back. So the last year and a half we spent traveling slowly around the world in all kinds of places, because which is funny, like we did that and everybody was like suggesting quit his job. They're traveling the world. How long did it take to play the lottery before you like,

Seth Price 13:06

yeah, how much are we paying him? I was at the business meetings. I remember voting was embezzling years it was shut Are we still solvent, somebody looked at the checks. So,

Justin Gerhardt 13:21

so I understand that confusion, but the fact of the matter is, and this is, you know, this is true before this class, little spate of inflation here, the US has just famously expensive, that's an expensive place to live for a few reasons. And we just realized man, we could go somewhere else. And originally it was well let's go to you know, places like Well, the first place on our list was Kuala Lumpur, we're gonna go to Malaysia you know, some of those places in Southeast Asia really cost effective and anyway we thought where we could be we could cut our our living down you know, staying in an Airbnb. They do like 4050 60% monthly discount sometimes on the daily rates and if you stay for like our house up for you exactly. Or more and, and we put our house we say we put our house up on Airbnb, here in the Austin area, and cover our mortgage and also, you know, even cash flow if we can get it, you know, to a certain occupancy level and, and then you know, so we've got housing taken care of and seriously reduced and then we sell our cars and make sure we just live places with good public transit or small enough to be walkable. And then we make sure we're in countries where we can benefit from the whatever national health care they have available to visitors. When you start messing with lodging, transportation and health care and you have seriously altered your bottom line. And and that's what we did we live for a year and a half on like a third as what we had been living on in Austin.

Seth Price 15:03

Hmm, yeah. So I did not know about the Austin thing. I didn't do a whole whole lot of research on you because it's more fun to just ask you the questions live. Are you from Texas? Or do you just live in Texas?

Justin Gerhardt 15:15

We lived in Texas for 10 years.

Seth Price 15:17

You're not from Texas in

Justin Gerhardt 15:18

know, I was born and I was like from around you know, just around. I was born in Houston but we moved to England for a little while back to Houston then we were in Florida by the time I was six and then grew up in Florida. Till I graduated from from high school. So

Seth Price 15:36

that's cool. That's cool. So you're so I've had multiple thoughts about your show. And so I've listened to I've not listened to them all. Justin there's there's I have to be in the right mindset. And I thought that driving would be it. It's not it. What is it is bourbon on the weekend? In June, just sit there with a bourbon and and listen to a Holy Ghost podcast. Holy Ghost podcast. Yeah. I can't this weekend. I'm out of bourbon. So I guess I'll have to go to the store and fix that. Anyway. Because you're not allowed to run out of bourbon. It's a thing. It's an it's in the New Testament. You haven't made it to the New Testament yet in your in your stories?

Justin Gerhardt 16:16

Yes, you put that in the intro to the episodes. For for your glass. If you're out of bourbon, please stop this dry, go to the store and come back.

Seth Price 16:27

So I'm where I grew up. I grew up in Texas. I was born and raised in Texas. Okay. And so what you do with the Bible stories is way more liberal. And I don't mean that in the political sense. Like I mean that in like the over exaggerated sense of like getting into like a Lectio Divina kind of way of reading scripture, that type of stuff. And so what just overall is your general approach? Like to holy texts or scriptures or whatever?

Justin Gerhardt 16:59

Okay, is that the end of the question? Yeah. Yeah,

Seth Price 17:01

like just because you're you're leaning way and to the story like giving it you're adding dressing to it that that is not normally there, which I'm totally fine with. I'm happy that people call me a heretic. I could care less. So the will

Justin Gerhardt 17:15

I love that you I love that you use the that that term? Lectio Divina, because I see this as a as, as just essentially an exercise in that, right. This sort of Ignatian Well, we're more than Lectio Divina, like this Ignatian way of interacting with scripture where you employ your imagination and enter the story as a character or as a fly on the wall or as an imagined person who might have been there or whatever, and just sort of stand in the room and smell the smells, and hear the sounds and look around and see. You know, and engage a holy imagination in order to encounter the story in a new and and possibly, you know, illuminating way, I think Ignatius was confident that, that this was not, you know, this, this was not a crazy way, I think, to, to interact with Scripture. And, you know, had had quite a few people who were, who were up for that way of interacting with Scripture and relating to God, among other of his, of what sort of became a Jesuit path. But this is not, I'm not doing something new. As much as I'm, I'm doing what makes sense to me. When I interact with these stories, I think, if there's anything that's true about biblical narrative, it's that it is relentlessly spare. Write, especially as a modern reader coming to this text. There is there's just precious little there, we're coming away with all kinds of questions. Well, wait a minute, what about this or what we what was exactly was the tone of voice because that sentence could go about three and a half different ways. You know, we just have questions and the spotlight is so like, sharply focused. And there's other stuff happening in the room that we're just not told about. And so it's, it's so spare, and I think some people may interact with scripture, and these narrative portions of the Bible, deciding that that sparse way of telling the story is a way of putting boundaries up. And, you know, like, and this is all that matters. This is all that you should, you know, think about as you interact with the text. I would disagree with that and say that, that more than that, it maybe it's maybe it's an invitation addition to enter the story ourselves as a reader, maybe it's an invitation to, to enter the story as a storyteller. And imagine what, what is just true, if if like it is just to read the text, these narrative portions of Scripture strictly, quote, strictly only allowing what's on the page to be what's real. It's just false. You end up with a story that makes no sense. People are doing things that don't make sense. People are saying things that don't make sense. People are not saying things that of course, someone would say, and Yawei is they're thinking and, and breathing and being and caring and hoping and crying. And we're not even told about him. So is it? Is it because you always not mentioned in the in the book of Esther, is that is that God telling Christians to not mention him when they interact with the Book of Esther, like, don't think about me, because I gave you what I want you to think about in the text. That's just, that makes no sense to me. And I think it's a it's a poor, sad, boring way of interacting with Scripture. And I think what's there is an invitation not to, not to, you know, get all embellishing like, do you know, not to tell the story, the way my mother in law might, might tell a story and you know, like everybody in my wife's family is, is big on, you know, telling stories and not not allowing the truth to ruin a good story, right? And I'm not trying to do that. When I when I tell these stories, I'm imagining what, in many cases, as far as I'm concerned, must have been true. And so you'll hear me say

the word perhaps, for instance, many times, every episode, right? And that's my signal to you, hey, I'm not trying to tell you that this is what the Bible says she was thinking. But I'm telling you, she was thinking something for you not to think about what she was thinking, shame on you. You're a terrible reader. And that's not what the story is, you know, like spare telling is intended to do, it's not boundaries, it's an invitation. And I'm just doing what I think more people who have a microphone these days, and a Bible in front of them ought to be doing, which is not teaching these stories, but telling them

Seth Price 22:56

what, so what then does someone do that wants to tell a story. And they're involved in a church that is not interested in telling stories, they're interested in telling you what to be like, what to believe? Like, what is the difference between telling a story about God and believing things about God?

Justin Gerhardt 23:17

I think it's so much of it is experiential, right? It's this it's the difference between you know, if there's if there's a girl that that you're super into, you know, as a as a teenage boy. And all you do is learn about her. And all you do is watch her, and all you do is find out facts about her. But none of that knowledge is is rooted in experience. You never like talk to her and interact with her and talk to other people about what they've experienced with her and that you're just a stalker in the end, right. That's not That's not relational in any way. And I think we we got, we've got to be careful not to just relegate, relegate the Father, the Son of spirit to, you know, just trivia. We know all kinds of things about him. But there's, there are things to know about him. Certainly, that's a lot of Scripture is telling us things about God. But so much of what we learned about God comes from people who found that out by interacting with him. All of the songs we learn a ton about Yahweh through the Psalms, but they're all from people who interacted with him. They're all from people who loved him who were disappointed by him, who hoped for things and got them who hoped for things and didn't get them. People who sacrificed for him and realize that it was worth it. People who sinned before him and you know, felt The separation that came and then felt the the joy of the reconciliation, all of that all of what we learned in the songs grows out of experience. And outside of the songs, you've got this giant, the biggest chunk of Scripture is narrative. TEXT 42% of the entire Bible is narrative. The next biggest type of literature is prophecy. And it's 19%. So more than twice anything else, is stories about Yahweh. And I just feel like we've got to, we've got to look at that and think, oh, maybe there's maybe there's something to that maybe he wants us to interact with him. And through that interaction, then to be learning things about him. And I think he's, he's a god, that's way too complicated, too, to get to know, in any with any kind of fullness, by just interacting with him yourself. Yeah. Now she's why then we get these stories of other people's interaction, right, so that we can receive the fullness of this stereo scope, sort of prismatic perspective, where I'm not just going on my impressions of Yawei. But if of David's and Deborah's, and Timor's impressions as well, and then I start to get closer, a lot closer, not close enough, but a lot closer to some sort of picture and understanding of this infinite God, who cannot be understood if we're just, you know, writing down what the Epistles tell us about him.

Seth Price 26:44

Yeah, how much time? And so for people listening, it's hard to this question won't make sense unless you've listened to an episode of the show. And so you should probably just hit pause, come back and finish this and go listen to an episode of the show. But how much time goes into scripting in episode because, like your word choices, sometimes I have to pause and look up a word, or like the way that you use a he used? We were talking about that Ezekiel episode earlier, like, you use the word like a hurricane of breath, or something like that, like use words in sentences that don't really go together usually. But when you think about it, you're like, yeah, that feels that feels big enough to try to metaphorically describe a god big enough to reanimate bones, or, you know, stuff like that. So how long does it take to actually begin to narrate and like insert yourself in a way that you can like, emotionally write it and get through it and then honestly, read it, I've been slowly rerecord in the unspoken sermons from George MacDonald, and then recording those and I plan to release them. Now I'm certain that someone else has done it. I don't care, I want to do it. So I don't give a darn if someone else has done it. Part of it's because of the sarcasm of unspoken sermons, and I'm gonna speak them. I'm certain that they're on YouTube somewhere, I do not care how much time goes into that they're like, and then is your wife aware that you were cheating on her with words, because you can tell that you really love. Okay, language?

Justin Gerhardt 28:05

Well, my wife is an author. So this is a mystery that we share as she understands it. So, yeah, there's, there's a few ways to answer that. So like the, the the time when I sit down to create an episode, until the time that the episode is finished, and I've uploaded it, and this is not counting, sort of like some pre work that I might have done planning out the season thinking through some of the bones of some of the stories that I want to explore. But when I sit down to actually begin work, it's about 80 hours total of time before the episodes complete. And a portion of that is, is just interacting with the primary text. And then a portion of that is just thinking out loud, initially about the primary text. And then part of it is doing research. Some research that, you know, anybody who's studying a passage in the Bible would do with with good, you know, solid commentaries and journal articles and that kind of thing, but then some research that's just bananas, kind of rabbit hole stuff. And aliens.

Seth Price 29:22

I see it

Justin Gerhardt 29:24

Yeah, well, you know, I'm, you know, as it's a totally different thing to tell this story than it is to preach this, this sermon, you know, saying like, there are things that just are far outside the scope of what I ever did or should have been spending my time researching, preaching. But we can maybe get into some of what that involves in a bit. But then after the research, then I'm coming back to the story and storyboarding, essentially, what I feel like a good narrative arc is to trace And I think a lot of these stories come to us, you could tell them a few different ways. That's not to say that, you know, you make different things happen in each story. But I think a lot of these stories are about five different things. And depending on which of those themes you choose, or whose perspective you tell the story from, that necessitates you following a different kind of story arc. And so I'm doing a lot of storyboarding to try to figure out, okay, if this is my protagonist, what is it that they want? What is it that they need? You know, and how does, how does that want and that need drive the plot forward? And what are the scenes that happen, and I'm looking usually for about 10 different scenes that I know will last about two and a half to three and a half minutes of narration. And once I've got those scenes outlined, then I start writing, and the writing itself, I usually give myself three days of writing, so so maybe 2024 hours of writing, total time, and then I hand the manuscripts to it's about 3000 words. In the end, some some bump up to 4000. There's a couple that are 2500, but about 3000 words, I hand it to my wife, and she, she reads it, and gives me a good edit, usually. And obviously it's not, it's not copy editing, she's, she's, you know, deep editing, and she just comes back to me, not with suggestions, but with super irritating questions that just make me angry. Like, oh, like, she'll be like, Well, I feel like I I still don't know who ie

HUD is.

And I'm like, that seems like a big problem. Or I still feel like I've, I've no idea. I cannot relate. I don't relate at all to Hannah. That's the episode that I just did. And when I got done with that episode, my wife was like, I don't know who like I can't relate to Hannah. She just seasons inhuman to me. And I don't like O'Connor. And so now I've got to take that. And you can't, you know, like, tell a story with a protagonist that is completely unrelatable. And with a secondary, you know, character, who is who you're really supposed to like, and I think should like because he's great. And my first treat or just doesn't like him, you know? So now I've got to like, figure out what's wrong with that, and I do the edit. And then I and then I go ahead and record usually I don't sometimes I'll show or the Edit sometimes I'll be like, Listen, if this is if this is not fixed, I can't I don't have time to do anything about it anymore. So then I'd start recording and the recording you're right, man is is tough. When it's when it's scripted,

Seth Price 33:04

when something's scripted, much easier to talk. Yeah, yes,

Justin Gerhardt 33:07

absolutely. And you know, every sentence like with McDonald's, you know, of course, my my stuff is different. But similar in that every sentence of both of those things would have been very deliberately constructed. Right. And, and for me, I'm, you know, like, I'm telling the story out loud, the story doesn't really exist to be read, it exists to be listened to. And so as I record it, I will I, you can say, one sentence four different ways, and evoke a different kind of meaning right from it. And then when once you get a dialogue, then it's a whole other thing you can you know, what voice am I going to do? And how am I going to do this voice in a way that keeps people in the story and isn't some you know, flaccid, boring, you know, like, he's just reading. We're like, oh, Absalom, Absalom, my son, my son.

Seth Price 34:08

Like, he doesn't like Absalom. He doesn't even like him. Not what

Justin Gerhardt 34:11

it sounded like. But how do you how do you so how do you not get there? But also not, not

Seth Price 34:18

over? Yeah, that's outside of the room and yell, overwrought,

Justin Gerhardt 34:22

and we were like, ooh, someone wanted to be an actor. And like, and then keep that voice can, whatever you've chosen, you know, keep it consistent through the episode, maybe you've got two or three that you're doing. Anyway. So the the recording is a whole thing. And usually, I'm, I might say every sentence upwards of six times as I record and so I'm just going back again and again and trying it again and again and again. And and you know, it'll take me two or three hours to record 30 minutes 20 first minutes of

Seth Price 35:00

story 100% Get that? Yeah, I've noticed that your intro and your outro are pretty much usually the same thing. I think they are at least. Yeah, I record a new intro and outro for every single episode and I will legitimately spend 15 minutes on 40 seconds to be like, Nope, can't see that. Yeah, nope, can't say that. Oh, and the best part is sometimes I'll just let them run and I'll put them up as bloopers, you'll hear me be going, Why are you so stupid? Why can't you just talk into this stupid?

Justin Gerhardt 35:27

Like, well, you really have to say a sentence six times again, right? No, no, if you had a very sensitive microphone in front of your face, and you set a sentence, you would realize, you know that half is coming out of your mouth, you're saying a word wrong, you're dropping a syllable, you made a weird click with your throat,

Seth Price 35:46

you know, a little bit beard hair touch the windscreen that's not allowed is you scratched

Justin Gerhardt 35:51

your arm accidentally during you know. So all of that has to be has to be redone. So then when I've got clean audio, and I've got the whole narration recorded, then it's, uh, then it's off to the races with scoring the episode. And then so I don't know if you meant I don't think you said out loud yet in this episode. So for your listeners, every episode of Holy Ghost race has a full musical score behind it sort of a cinematic score. And obviously, that's a that's a whole thing.

Seth Price 36:23

You play those of you hire that done.

Justin Gerhardt 36:26

So I hire that out. And it's not, it's actually I subscribe, I use subscription library music from a couple of, you know, I've got like three different libraries that I subscribed to that I sourced from, with some great stuff from great musicians who are who are putting that stuff up there. But then, you know, it's, it's all it's not bespoke. And so I've got to find music that fits every scene and, and then it's not going to fit the scene, even the best, you know, in the best of worlds. And so now I've got to chop it into, you know, 17 different pieces. I want to chord to resolve when it's not resolving. And so I make that happen, or I want it to end here, and it's not ending and so I'll make that happen. Right. Meanwhile, I need to pad the, you know, pad, I need two more measures. Before we get to this, this move in the piece. And so I'll have to make that happen. So yeah, so that's the whole thing. I did have the luxury of working and season two, episode eight, I did an episode called The Lion, the Witch and the warzone about Saul, and the last part of his life where he goes to visit the Witch of Endor. Did you listen to that

Seth Price 37:39

one? I have not. But it's one that when I saw it, I was like, oh either really likes. For some reason indoor makes me think of Lord of the Rings, just because the word makes me think of that. I have not listened to it. But when I saw it, the dad joke just embedded in it makes me laugh.

Justin Gerhardt 37:54

Yeah, it's just that well, when I first said it was truly it only that title only existed for myself in my document,

Seth Price 38:02

you know, and then you realize the podcast is yours. And you can call it whatever you want placeholder

Justin Gerhardt 38:06

title. Who's gonna tell me I can't know. Correct? No one. And so I went ahead and did it. And I thought, you know, it's not just a little nod to, I was also writing it. And in producing that episode while I was in living in Ireland, and, of course, Northern Ireland, gave birth to to our beloved CS Lewis. And so I thought it was a nice, little homage anyway, it tells a story that episode does have of souls visit to the Witch of Endor always been one of the most intriguing stories in all of scripture for me. But I had the privilege of working with a composer, a cellist composer, to do an original score for that episode. And it was just stellar.

Seth Price 38:51

It was this guy. This guy was

Justin Gerhardt 38:53

way out of my league and a way to get get the chance to work with him. And it was just a joy. And he did an incredible job. And we're actually working together on a holy ghost stories related project that maybe we could talk about a few more. Yeah, absolutely.

Seth Price 39:13

This is the part of the show that there should be ads, right? Because we live in a capitalistic world, and everything has to get paid for. But that's just not the way that I want to do it. So if you feel led, support the show on Patreon, I do absolutely need you. But if you don't, I'm not gonna put any ads here because I just don't feel like it. Hopefully you do, though. The amount that you support will not change the benefits that you get. And so with that said, let's get back to the show.

I do have a question. So what's the one story that you're like this one needs words wrapped around it. But I'm also terrified and also excited to

Justin Gerhardt 40:12

do it. Like, what's the whole life of David?

Seth Price 40:14

Just the whole life of David like, you just want to start? And then all the way to the end, I thought you were gonna lean into Song of Songs you didn't that's fine.

Justin Gerhardt 40:22

No, you know, this is this is a Can I can I say this and say whatever you want. Yeah, podcast. Throw a little spice in. I actually saw I was writing the Esther episode, you know, and I was like, you know, the, the one night with the king thing. And, you know, I mean, the whole story hinges on on her, you know, and him coming together. You know, in a sexual meeting that evidently goes super well, you know, because he chooses her from all this, you know, super well, for, you know, for Xerxes, just to be clear. But anyway, I thought, well, let me just see what happens. And see if I can lean into this particular bedroom scene, and write it super graphically. And then give it to my wife as just a part of the edit and pretend that I'm intending, like, that's the episode. So it was entirely to just see if, if she would call me on it. And just to freak her out, and I left the room. She's sitting at the kitchen table. reading it, I just hear her exclaimed. She's like, What?

Seth Price 41:39

No, no.

Justin Gerhardt 41:42

She's like, come in here. Anyway, I was like, oh,

Seth Price 41:47

yeah, I don't I don't know if you've done Ruth and Boaz yet, but you could also take the same liberty there. You know, there's a lot there's a lot of sexual tension in the Bible.

Justin Gerhardt 41:56

I don't know, to be honest, there's, we could just keep naming stories. Yeah. With with potentially graphic content, and, you know, anyway, I tried to in the shownotes I don't know if you've noticed in the show notes, I try to every episode, I have a section that just says what spooky, and then I just list the the, you know, salty content of that story. You know, there's multiple instances of dismemberment. You know, a human being is flayed alive. You know, there's, there's prostitution or there's sexual slavery or there's Oh, man, it just, you know, it just keeps going. There's like, statutory rape. I mean, like, and the, the reason I do that is because people are like, Oh, it's a podcast is telling Bible stories. Let me get my kids and like, we'll cuddle up and, and I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, like, I know that we've made the weird move in church over the years and made Bible stories for children. It's the only time we ever tell the stories and lean into the telling of the stories. It's like VBS and children's ministry and everything. You know, bless us for telling the stories at some point. But these are, of course, not children's stories, and I just want to make sure parents no more people for that matter who are like, you know, I had to issue a warning before the Taymor in Judah episode that was just like, hey, if you've got if you've got a history of sexual abuse, this episode is going to be difficult for you. And you may want to, you want to skip it, because it's it's just brutal what she experiences. And I'm always looking to echo scriptures approach where it's not gratuitous. But also, it's what he's not shying away from from reality.

Seth Price 43:50

Yeah, yeah. Well, and that's what life is like. It's not intentionally not intentionally in your face. It just happens that it's in your face, but it because it exists the same reason that the squirrel was dead outside. Like, it was just a splayed out body on the road over there. It just happens. Yeah, yeah. And you thought I wasn't paying attention on the head episode. I was favorite line in that one is that I think his hand or his arm gets stuck in the belly of the King, the Moabite king I think that's I think that's that story. Like quite literally, like, puts his hand in Oh my we're in it. And I thought about the X Men for all all like the blob for some reason. I don't know if you have ever seen that show or not. That was what I thought about that. That's actually the one that we were driving through on the way to vacation and I was like, I'm gonna turn this one down. We just we just dial that in, that's when I decided to crack into the Bourbon instead. While I'm listening to the show, so So yeah, yeah. So what is next for for you? So you've done three episodes or three episodes, three seasons. And you have a thing coming up in Midland, which is actually where I'm from. I saw that on your thing. Yeah, I was born in Odessa, and then raised in Midland dad was a pastor. So we were up in The Northwest for a little bit, and then we came back home. Yeah. So what is next for you

Justin Gerhardt 45:05

guys? Well, so, so we're in season three right now. And season one and two I did 10 episodes that I pushed Season Three out, we're gonna do like 15 episodes and season three, because I'm still wanting to to give folks episodes, but I'm wanting to buy some time before season four, because season four, which will which will premiere in January is going to be different. I'm telling the story of Moses and the Exodus sequentially through the whole season. So so far, Holy Ghost Stories is you know, every episode is just a different a different story from a different place in the Bible, different time, different characters, all of that, with in no particular order, other than this is the one I wanted to do next. And this is these are the ones that my patrons voted for this season. And but I thought, man, wouldn't it be amazing to do this, some of these stories are just so long form. And Exodus is one of those. And it's this the story in all the scripture that's referenced most often by God. So it's it's without, you know, like, you just can't argue it is one of your ways, it probably always favorite story. And it's given so such great airtime. And it's told so incredibly well through the book of Exodus. And so I thought, Let's lean in to that we'll do 10 episodes, the story of the Exodus in order will just track with Moses that'll allow me to do some fun new things, storytelling, you know, trace larger orcs. Yeah, and that kind of thing. And then the big other thing is I'm working with Kendall RAM sewer, who is the one who scored the Witch of Endor episode. On the whole season, he score and he scoring the whole season for me.

Seth Price 47:01

So you have to write it all and speak it all so that he can hear it and find music that fits or is it just like he's doing something separate? And then

Justin Gerhardt 47:08

upon losing? He's composing all of the music from scratch. And yes, I've got to work ahead. Yeah, I took a little hiatus in season three to do some work ahead. I went to Egypt, to do on the ground research. My family and I lived in Egypt for a little while, swam in the Red Sea, climbed Mount Sinai, stayed at a Bedouin camp on the Sinai wilderness and began writing those, those episodes there. And so So yeah, so I've already got four episodes of that season already written. Kendall is working on scoring. The first one. And the idea is if we can if we can raise enough to fund that whole season, he'll score all 10 And the first one will premiere in January.

Seth Price 47:54

Nice. Yeah. And so I'm just ad libbing here. But it makes sense in my head. So you have Moses sitting around a campfire with his grandkids telling the story of the Exodus at a campfire Holy Ghost Stories, from the point of view of Moses of Nomi tell you back in the day, that's probably not what you've done, but that's what I hear in my head. And then I hear him bickering with his grandkids at Sinai like No for real. I went up there I had to argue with God because he was going to kill everybody because y'all can freaking listen, I gave you one job more than once I went up there you can make it Yeah, I don't even like mountains. I don't like climbing. I don't like hiking and you people, you people maybe go up there.

Justin Gerhardt 48:28

Moses didn't like this. crotchety

Seth Price 48:31

Get off my like,

Justin Gerhardt 48:34

his old age. Maybe that's anyway, so that's, that's, that's coming? Yeah, we all do that. Right. I think Moses was me. I think God is me and it's wrong

Seth Price 48:45

with you. People gave you the rules. You can't let this is why we can't have nice things.

Justin Gerhardt 48:52

For real, so that's that season four very excited about that. And then the Midland thing. So the very first Holy Ghost Stories live show is happening in Midland on October 30. And it's being hosted by by a church there in Midland, who was super generous reached out to me said, Hey, we want to we want to do something holy ghost stories. What have you got? You know, we're like, there was something about speaking on the website, we want you to come and do whatever. And I said, Well, what I've been thinking about, you know, doing for a while, is doing a sort of a live experience of Holy Ghost Stories. This won't be like I'm recording the podcast live. It'll be a live experience of two of the stories that I've done. But it'll be really special. We'll have live cello accompaniment from the one and only Kendall RAM sewer. He's going to be joining me and and we'll do that. And then we've got folks from the Midlands symphony orchestra who are coming to help us open the show and that's cool. It'll be a really, really magical night we'll we'll have some bonfires Like lining the path as you walk into the, into the church building and it'll, it'll be, it'll be enchanted

Seth Price 50:05

bonfires in October in Texas, they're gonna they're gonna give you citations. Like you can't burn in Texas and October. It's true.

Justin Gerhardt 50:13

We'll have folks stationed with hoses to put them out. Yeah, but in Midland, there's nothing to burn anyway. So

Seth Price 50:19

yeah, yeah. So this question won't come as a surprise to you. Because it's the question that I asked everyone, maybe it will come as a surprise to I don't know if you've finished the episode. And so when you try to wrap words around, whatever it is, when you say, God, whatever that is, like, what is that for you?

Justin Gerhardt 50:39

So that's, that's, that is a tough question. And I think words are one of the perfect things to, to apply to that question. And they are, they are absolutely powerless. In response to that question, can both of those things be true at the same time? So I would say, what is God he I like? What? The way he introduces himself at the beginning of the Exodus story, right? So in so many ways, you know, the Israelites are just they've been away from him for a long time. His This is his introduction. He's introducing himself to Moses, to Israel, to Egypt, and to the world. And the way that he introduces himself, the way that he describes himself in that particular moment is, is of course, famously with the words I am. And I love how enigmatic and all inclusive that is. I love that. When, when it's when, when that when your question is put to him. His answer is, what am I all have it, I am all of it. I am existence manifest. And I think that helps us begin to get a sense of the fullness of of him. And I think I think that's the God that I'm interested in exploring, I think I am says he is, he is the definition of existence. He's the definition of reality. He is the source of all life. And when I see him as as that, when I see everything is coming from him, rather than like trying to look for, I don't know, going going the other way about exploring him. I think I get a little closer to who he is. So that's like a terrible, probably a terrible answer. But I feel like if you if your if your answer to that question doesn't have a bit too much bigness and mystery. You might have answered it wrong. Yeah,

Seth Price 53:17

no, I agree. Yeah, that's a little bitty God, if you if you know the answer, yeah, yeah, we have an entire, there are multiple versions of the Bible that still don't quite have figured out how to wrap their, their heads around by multiple versions. I mean, not just 66 books, like there are multiple Bibles that are doing their best to try to talk about God and still fall woefully short point people where they need to go Justin, like, what do you want them to do? And say they want to start with one episode, like, where do you want them to start? Like, pick here? Like, some people are completionist and other people are like, no, if you're gonna like, I have my own personal two or three favorites when people are like, hey, out of all of them, which one? Do I listen to first? And I have three or four that I will point them to, but where do you where do you want people to go and do two things.

Justin Gerhardt 54:00

So I I'm low control on this particular question. I think in terms of the answer to your first question, what do I want folks to do? I would love folks to just listen to an episode. I feel like if if you listen to an episode, and it's the last episode you listen to great, this is not for you. But I would be very surprised. If you listen to an episode and it's the last episode you listened to. I'm that confident not in my my own anything but these stories are amazing. And again, I'm not doing anything spectacularly special. I think what all I'm doing is bringing storytelling to these stories, which for too long, we have brought a lot of didactic energy to the stories a lot of homiletic energy to the stories and and not enough story craft. And so I'm asking us to just sit inside Have these stories and what happens when we get inside of these stories is we encounter your way. And, and that is addictive. He you cannot turn away from Him. And and when he's just a list of facts or he's, you know, he's the things that you're not allowed to do or you know, anything like that, of course like, yeah he's that's very resistible. But this this iridescent prismatic God who appears to us in story after story doing these things, not doing these things interacting with these people making these moments with humanity, and then making sure that some of the most spectacular moments of collision get recorded. I think you can't spend time truly spend time in those stories and not want more. So hopefully, that's what I'm giving you. So where are you start, start wherever you want, I would say if I can't recommend the latest episode of holy ghost stories to you, I have failed to do a good start. So start with the latest one, a lot of folks have more than I would imagine, go feel like they need to begin at the beginning, which that's a great way to do it too. I think I've gotten you know, I've grown a bit in the over those 30 episodes that I've put out. And if you want to, if you want to benefit from that you can start at the beginning and go forward. If you want them to get worse and worse, start at the end and

the podcast is totally ghost stories. There's a website Holy Ghost stories.org course it's all it's on, you know, Apple, podcast, Spotify, Google, whatever. Audible I've got one person I think like somewhere who keeps listening on Amazon, like on their echo device. Like somebody somebody finally did that thing that Amazon wanted all of us to do. And it's like, Alexa, play Holy Ghost Stories, anyway. But you can listen wherever. And, and I think if you keep listening, then I trust that, that it'll take you wherever you need to go. I I'm trusting that God is at work in these stories. His word is alive. I really believe that that the Hebrews writer was like, right on when they talked about that. And I think you will encounter him in a way that you will not soon forget. And you will want more. And if you eventually listened enough and you want to you want to pitch in on Patreon or whatever, then we'd love for you to do that. But I'm so grateful to the Patrons for making it free for everybody.

Seth Price 57:44

Yeah, yeah, I would I would echo that. I'm just gonna take what you just said. I'm gonna make it this exit intro 100% agree. Yeah, patrons make the world go round. Yeah. And people that patron patronize I use that I think in the proper way. Pay the people that you like what they do. They're happy with any of it. So, Justin, thanks for your time tonight. I have no idea what timezone you're in. But I'm well aware that it's later for me. So I assume that it's also later for you, but I appreciate you being on the line, man.

Justin Gerhardt 58:13

Thanks for having me. I appreciate what you're doing.

Seth Price 58:18

Do not hit pause, don't hit skip, hold on. The show's not over. So with permission, I asked Justin if I could introduce some of you to his show. And so here right at the end of this show, hit pause if you're not in the mood, but don't delete it, come back to it. I have episode six of his show called the breath in the bones this one is one of my favorites. And so with his permission, I would like to share that with you here we go a little bit of what Justin show is because again I find such meaning and and then we will be done

Justin Gerhardt 59:03

death finds everyone everything really. It is inescapable. And it is final your death for instance is not a question of if but when and when it happens there is no changing it or is there are those the rules of death this is a story about life. Deaths primeval enemy. It's a story about where life that precious elixir is found, what it looks and smells like and how to find it. When all seems lost. I'm Justin Gearheart. Welcome to Holy Your stories a stand of poplar trees towers over the landscape, each trunk tall and straight. The branches crowded with glossy green leaves quivering in the muted wind that blows from the west. A pop poplars leaves are unique, four lobes rounded, and the top of the leaf snubbed, like it's been cut off. Further down the trunks, the lower branches of these trees hang heavy with strange fruit, arched skin adorned with intricate designs, the insides exposed, revealing not seeds, but strings. There harps still further down at the bottom, a man sits with his back against the trunk staring into the water nearby. They call it the key bar. It's still and muddy. And it is not a river. It's an irrigation channel. Cut like a knife wound into the Once dry, desolate landscape. Straight as a bronze blade in organic, a natural and the only source of water for the refugee camp where this man lives. His name is Ezekiel. It's his 30th birthday. And he's thinking of home. Home is Jerusalem, the Holy City, the capital of Judah, the southern kingdom of the Hebrews, the place where today Ezekiel would have been officially beginning his work as a priest of Yahweh. If he was in Jerusalem, he'd be donning his priestly garments, adjusting the ephod and the breastpiece, the emerald and Sapphire, Topaz and Ruby, onyx and Jasper glinting in the sunlight streaming into the temple courtyard. But he's not in Jerusalem. This is Babylon, where he and 10s of 1000s of other Israelites live in exile, made captive by the enemies of Yahweh who become the agents of Yahweh because the Israelites had made themselves enemies of Yahweh. It was always there, of course, lurking every so often the Hebrews rebellious hearts would get the best of them. They'd crave the proximity and predictability promised by the idols of the adjacent nations. They'd bristle at the accountability required by Yahweh and they'd wander. Freedom would turn into slavery as they became addicted to the objects of their affection, money, power, sex, violence. It had happened again and again over the years. Ever since the genesis of their nation it seemed.

But for a while, that had been out of hand. Corruption, infidelity, blatant idolatry, oppression of the poor. It was everywhere. And for your way, it wasn't just his children sinning. It was there souls, slain by sin, murdered one by one by an enemy they knowingly embraced one child after another, killed the bodies piled like a mass grave. He had to stop it and so five years ago, Yahweh stepped in brought Babylon in all her violent might against Jerusalem, sacking the city and conquering the people of Judah, bringing so many of them the most skilled the most educated east to Babylon On leaving the rest in Judah to work the land and pay tribute to their new lords. It's hard to know who has it worse. The ones who stayed are the ones who were carried away to the strange land. Now, surely them Israelites like Ezekiel wrenched from his home, spending every day now longing for the beauty, the familiarity the life that he had in that place, watching the sunset every night in ugly, alien, lifeless Babylon. His nation, their dreams, extinguished the whole place so full of death is being a captive different than being a slave? Yes, surely their forefathers had it worse in Egypt making bricks day in and day out whipped like dogs by their taskmasters. This is different, but it's not freedom. No one can leave. Most all of the Jews are cordoned off and their own ghetto on the banks of this ditch. Home fades like a dream. The memory growing dimmer the longer they spend here is equally and the Jews tried desperately not to forget the Holy City. The Hills, Mount Zion, the olive trees, the brook Kidron their family's houses, they tell stories to their children to preserve the precious memories of their homeland. It feels like drawing pictures in the sand. Toddlers now walk among them who've never stepped foot in Jerusalem. How long will this last? Will these children have children who've never seen the temple who've never known the one for whom Solomon built that magnificent place. Meanwhile, the Babylonians treat them like a sideshow, their culture reduced to caricature. Zeke eels notice that the musicians may have at worst in this regard. Sing us one of the songs of Zion, their captors yell, like telling a dog to bark on command, calling for the songs about Yahweh and their life with him before all of this what do these songs even mean to the people of Babylon? Nothing. But the Babylonians like how much they mean to the Jews. They can tell the songs come from deep inside of them. And that's interesting, intriguing. It's voyeurism. In spite of it all, they do want to play them zekiel can see it in the musician's eyes, they long for that music, the lyrics heavy with happiness, the notes that sound like home, the chords, prismatic and beautiful like that God. But Yahweh is not here. How can they sing the songs of Yahweh in a foreign land? They can't. And so they've hung their hearts and the poplar trees by the key bar and protest and grief and resignation. Ezekiel hates the sight of them swinging their limbs like gallows.

But it does seem right. Suddenly, the sky above the canal darkens, a strong north wind blows through the poplars. The leaves violently dancing to the discordant sounds of the HARPS is the air rushes across their strings and knocks the instruments against the trees. Ezekiel shields his eyes from the dust in the air and looks up at the Sapphire clouds. But it's not clouds. It's one cloud rimmed with an almost blinding light. Fire flashes inside of the cloud and at the center of the fire and amber glow zekiel can't take his eyes off. And as he watches, something emerges from the Emperor. What Ezekiel sees that day, he'll try to describe in writing, but words cannot do it justice. He gazes at this extraordinary sight until it's clear that this is a vision of the glory of Yahweh Himself. He hits the ground prostrate. He tries to catch his breath 1000 questions in his mind, but this one looms largest. What is Yahweh doing in Babylon? That is the beginning of his call. Though he will not serve as you always priest in Jerusalem on this his 30th birthday, Ezekiel will serve as he always Prophet in Babylon. You will be difficult though, says Yahweh, the people, My people will not listen to you. corpses are notoriously deaf. Sure enough, they do not listen. And Yawei almost in response to their refusal pursues more and more graphic ways of communicating. He has Ezekiel build a tiny model of Jerusalem and stage and attack on it, demonstrating the threat of another Babylonian siege back home if the people don't change, Yahweh has Ezekiel shave off his hair and cut it up with a sword. Ezekiel plays the role of the Day of Atonement scapegoat, laying on his side before the Jews for over a year, and eating only food cooked over excrement. a foreshadowing of the horrible sustenance the people of Jerusalem will be forced to survive on during the impending siege. Surely they will change and avoid the fierce judgment of Yahweh avoid the destruction of the holy city, the temple. But then, seven years after Ezekiel begins his work as a prophet and escapee arrives from Jerusalem with the news. The city has been taken again, and this time, destroyed, burned. Judged where it is that Nebuchadnezzar did unspeakable things to King Zedekiah and his sons. What's worse, Yahweh informs Ezekiel, the disciplined people still have not changed. The idol worship, the brutality, none of it has stopped. This is when surely the last emperor of hope in Ezekiel his heart goes black.

As the months pass, the message is your wake is zekiel to deliver become strange, even for him. He's telling Ezekiel to direct his prophecies to inanimate things, mountains and valleys and city ruins as if they're alive. Could be as if they are subject to you always command as if they can obey him. Perhaps their symbols, metaphors Yawei clearly has a proclivity for truth taught in pictures. He looks at his world and sees sermons everywhere, truth in fields and on farms, in Rivers and Ravines and animals and adoption and adultery. Everything a lens pointing to a deeper reality. Eventually, one picture will steal the show. One day, the hand of your way rests on ECq. That's how Ezekiel will later describe it. It feels like you always hand on him. Just like that day on the banks of the key bar. All of a sudden, he's flying or racing, or swimming, moving somehow through space and time, the world rushing past him until everything stops Ezekiel finds himself standing in the middle of a valley. He's with Yahweh Is he home, as the Lord finally brought him home. Now, he's never seen this place before. It's just as foreign as the refugee camp in Babylon.

But it's worse. Something is wrong there Bones everywhere What slaughter field is this? How many animals died here? And how did they die?

He's prompted forward by Yahweh, tiptoeing almost, to avoid the bones. There are too many though. They crunch sporadically under his feet like walnuts. Then Ezekiel glimpses an unmistakable shape the curve, the twin caves flanking a triangular abyss. It's a human skull. Everything in his body tenses, recoils when he realizes all of these bones are human. It's a layered response, the primal reflexive terror of being surrounded by corpses, but also the religious repulsion bred into him early on, Jews become unclean in the presence of a dead human body. But priests, priests are squarely prohibited from any such contact. What is your way up to the to walk together across the length of the valley with no sign of an end to the littered remnants? It's an enormous mass grave.

And then it always urging they turn around and cross again. This time, Ezekiel realizes how long ago these people must have died. There's no meat left on these bones. Every scapula every clavicle every metatarsal is dry, entirely void of fluid, moisture, the smell of decomposition even any trace at all of life. Son of Man says Yahweh is voice breaking the dead silence. Can these bones live? What do you say? When Yahweh asks you about the future? There are many wrong answers to that question. Can these bones live? Of course not. Neck Deep and mystery here in this valley? Ezekiel understands so little one thing he knows them. Dead things stay dead. But this is not a time to plant flags on the tiny hills of his knowledge. This is a time to defer. The Sovereign Lord replies Ezekiel, you alone No. And he's right. Yahweh says to Ezekiel prophesied to these bones and say to them, dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Preaching to inanimate matter again. And still, this is not the strangest thing he's been told to do as a prophet. strangeness is a hallmark of Yahweh, he's Zeke zekiel. Notice that from the beginning, nothing the way he'd do it no message, no vision the same way twice. A persistent defiance of convention of expectation. And along with this strangeness, might, might greater than his ability to perceive it even Ezekiel is terrified of Yahweh. And somehow, the times he has been fully aware of your ways fearsome presence, or the times zekiel has felt the safest. The Prophet stands up straight, looks at the chalky shapes and raises his voice. Dry Bones. Hear the Word of the Lord. He continues with the always script. This is what the Sovereign Lord says. I will make breath enter you and you will come to life then you will know that I am Yahweh

some somewhere deep in the heart of this valley of the shadow of death. A femur carves a shallow line in the dust dragged across the ground by an invisible hand

somewhere else a handful of human teeth, molars and bicuspids and incisors, strewn like dice on the soil, tumble resolutely toward a jaw bone. rattling sound fills the air as clavicles and ribs, vertebrae and owner's jigsaw pieces of skull and scattered phalanges bump past one another, and eventually collide. In orderly arrays. Ezekiel eyes widen as a sternum perhaps crawls across his foot.

As they move the bones come alive, red and yellow marrow courses through their vacant cavities manufacturing millions of blood cells, collagen fibers are endowed with new vitality osteocytes awakened and set osteoblasts and osteoclasts to work. The bones are not dry anymore. Skeletons now take form 1000s of them stitched together, prone, the valley full of new shapes ordered and white, like a field ready for harvest. Ezekiel trembling now faces the skulls, their MTI sockets gazing vacantly up, down sideways, and continues to prophesy given to him as Yahweh looks on. This is what the Sovereign Lord says, I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin. He winces a bit, no doubt at the thought of what is apparently about to happen. At the sound of his words, yeah, always words. Pink tissue wraps itself layer upon layer around the bones of one skeleton after another. How many are there 50,000 twice that the sounds are now wet, squishy, as myofibrils woven together on some unseen loom form muscle fibers muscle fibers wind into fascicles fascicles Wind finally into muscles bound by membranes of silvery connective tissue. Acetylcholine gushes from the cells allowing my Osen to bind with actin so that the muscles can contract and move the nascent legs and fingers and lips. But there is no movement yet. They all lie their limb Ezekiel looks on transfixed as now the flayed corpses are closed keratinocytes multiply and spread like floodwaters across the expanse of mussels, the dermis first and then the stratum bisol A followed by the stratum spinosum, the stratum granulose and the stratum lucidum. The stratum corneum. Let there be skin, melanocytes materialise saturating each epidermis, tinting at the color of olive wood. With the skin come nerve fibers and blood vessels, hair follicles and sweat glands. The hurricane of creation persists, one fully formed body and another and another and another. It's astonishing

but Ezekiel can't help but notice, there is no life here. Not as such. The Prophet stands beside Yawei surveying what can only be described as a hoard of cadavers. There is no breath in them. Yahweh speaks again. Prophesy Son of man, to the breath. This is what the Sovereign Lord says. Come breath from the four winds and breathe into these slain that they may live. Ezekiel calls the sleeves of his heels robe flutter, and then dance. The leaves of the trees on the mountain sides flanking the valley quiver as the wind blows from the West, and the east and south and north. The breeze becomes a gale whistling through the valley dust and grass and beetles swept up in The Tempest. Is he Ezekiel shields his eyes squinting behind a raised forearm as the gusts get stronger and stronger. at his feet, the mouth of one of the bodies opens drinking in the wind. Its nostrils flare as if newly inhabited. In the corner of his eye, Ezekiel notices its fingers Twitch, flex grasp. Ezekiel his mind possibly flashes back to the stories his mother told him as a child. The stories of a garden were your way breathed and brought dust and bone to life. All around him, the lumps of bone and flesh and skin begin to stir. They push up on their knees, and then as armor presents itself on their chests and thighs and weapons and shields appear in their hands, they stand blinking, breathing alive. Human beings, awaken, animate, able to sing and cry and catch fireflies and warm their hands over a campfire and hold a baby and fight. All of them are outfitted for battle. The vast army Ezekiel, Surely his heart already brimming with fear and wonder feels something new, as he stares in awe at this endless expanse of soldiers. dread the last time he saw a force like this, it was the army of Babylon sweeping into his home, ferocious and brutal. The instrument of a jealous God is Eagles heart races. What terrible judgment is Yahweh have in store?

Son of Man says the voice replacing the sound of the rushing wind. These bones are the people of Israel. What they say our bones are dried up and our hope is gone we are cut off. Therefore, prophesy to them. And say this is what the Sovereign Lord says, My people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them. Can Yahweh change the rules of death? What about what his people have done and who they've become? What about the choices they've made in the idols they've exalted and the shame they carry the assassin they've invited into their arms. So many of them have left Yahweh and it's been so long. It wouldn't be one resurrection. Israel at this point is a mass grave their souls beyond rotten empty of any trace of life like dry bones the army stands before zekiel inhaling exhaling, making eye contact with him. Something rises inside of the profit. Something dormant, unfamiliar hope and then Yahweh says this a message to his people to Ezekiel. I will bring you back to the Land of Israel home then you might people will know that I am Yahweh. Yahweh the one who gives life the one who will bring his people home where life awaits. Ezekiel sheds a joyful tear it cannot come soon enough. years from now, Ezekiel will find himself still in Babylon. Still watching the sunset every evening by the banks of the key bark now. Still hundreds of miles away. From his precious Jerusalem he doesn't know it yet. But he will die in this place in the same camp next to this same ditch. Would it break his heart to know that? What do you feel betrayed? Perhaps, but a couple of decades after his initial calling zekiel aged certainly but still strong. He'll find that Yahweh shows in one final fishing. It's a river. It flows from the entrance of a temple. It's not the temple, Ezekiel remembers. The waters streamed down through the landscape of Judah and into the desolate Dead Sea Valley. As the river floods the valley it gives rise to myriad forms of life, foliage and flowers, schools of fish trees of all kinds with year round fruit and medicinal leaves fluttering in the breeze. zekiel will watch and as Yahweh shows him the home he remembers and longs for, the better. The Dead Sea alive, verdant teeming the center of a New Eden. It looks it looks like a good place to sin. Where is this? Exactly? This new temple. He's got to go there. It's perfect. The kind of place where life eclipses death where what he saw in the valley that day could actually happen. It surely it's Jerusalem. This is why he's longed for it dreamt about it, prayed toward it. But then Ezekiel is given the name of this new garden city, this wellspring of life. It is not Jerusalem. Named after its defining quality. It's called simply Yahweh Shammah. Yahweh is there. That night, Ezekiel lays his head down and listens to the breeze rustling leaves, the frogs singing on the banks of the Kivar the hearts pumping gently against the trunks of the poplars making strange and beautiful sounds as they're played by the wind, the whole place, so full of life, almost as if Yahweh is there.

Seth Price 1:32:57

Now, I haven't added it up. But there are hundreds of 1000s, if not millions of podcasts on the internet. And I am humbled that you continue to download this one. This is your first time here, please know that there are transcripts of these shows. Not always in real time, but I do my best. And if you go back in the logs, you can find transcripts for pretty much any episode that you'd like the show is recorded and edited by me but it is produced by the patron supporters of the show. That is one of the best if not the best way that you can support the show. If you get anything at all out of these episodes, if you think on them, or if you you know you're out and about and you tell your friends about it or Hey, mom, dad, brother, sister, friend, boss, Pastor, here's what I heard, what are your thoughts on that? If this is helping you in any way and it is helping me consider supporting the show in that manner. It is extremely inexpensive, but collectively, it is so very much helpful. Now for you. I pray that you are blessed, and you know that you're cherished and beloved. We'll talk soon