495: Session 9 Capstone

Hey everybody, it's Marty, and you are about ready to listen to the capstone episode of session nine here on the Baymaw podcast. And this was the last thing that we ever recorded together. Oh boy, geez. Hey everybody, it's Marty and this is Wowzers Yeah Yeah Hey, everybody, this is Marty, and you are about ready to listen to the capstone episode of session nine here on the Baymont podcast. And this was the last thing that we ever recorded with Josh before he passed away. and whenever we've had an episode during the end of this session after his passing we've wanted to just give you a note and let you know that you're about ready to to hear his voice at at times in this episode and the whole team is here together and we have fun and and uh and and that's there but josh is going to be a part of that larger group discussion and he's going to be a part of that fun um and so we want to just take a moment this will be the last time that we have to give you this disclaimer. And it's a fitting, in a lot of ways, a fitting way to wrap up this session, which was our last session with Josh. But you're about ready to hear his voice. And we don't want that to be a jarring or a triggering experience. I think we mentioned a few episodes ago, we had a chance to talk with Sophia. She was confident that she wanted us to use the content that Josh had produced before he passed. And we felt good about that as well. We wanted to honor that. But if this experience of hearing his voice is too hard for any reason, if hearing his voice is not a life-giving experience, we want to invite you to, you need to be free to skip this episode. It will be okay. And you can always come back later if it feels more appropriate or more right to do so. experiencing grief is different for each and every one of us. Some of us want to lean into these moments and hear these voices. And some of us want to lean away for different reasons. There's no right or wrong way to do that. It's just a part of how we grieve. And so we hope this episode will be a great memory and a life-giving conversation. And if it needs to be something that you know is coming ahead of time, let this serve as that indication and disclaimer. So with that, we wanted to turn it over to the Capstone episode of session nine, but we had a listener. Her name is Emily. That's how she wanted to be credited. She wrote a poem and we asked her if she would actually read it. We just thought, I thought it was a great poem. And I always love it when a creator reads their own art. And so before we get into the Session 9 capstone and you hear that intro music, I wanted to be able to share Emily's poem with all of you in honor of Josh. When I die, and I will, dance and sing and cry. There is still beauty in the hedgerows. There is still sparkle in the sky. And you'll miss me, and I'll miss you, but the world will turn. When I die, and I will, eat cheese and drink the fancy wine. There is still pleasure in the small things. There is still tartness in the brine. And you'll remember, and you'll smile, but the world will turn. When I die, and I will, listen to your favourite album and dance in the rain. There are still depths in your untold dreams. there are still glimmers through the pain and you'll face the day and you'll rage but the world will turn when I die and I will know that I didn't want to leave you there is still unknown comfort yet to come there is still a shell speaking true and you'll notice the pain becomes softness and memories of love and space for something new and the world will turn josh do you want to share any personal updates in the personal updates section of this recording oh uh for the for the episode yes the publish date on this by the way will be january 29th so we're a little a little bit out yeah um i don't think so because i mean i don't really have anything to other than just i'm still here okay that's about it unless you're against it i would have you at least say that because i get this question multiple times a day every time i'm out so anytime that you can give an update in this kind of a space i'm not asking you to do anything more than just here i am yeah yeah works for me everybody wants to know if they're caught up that's how i know they're caught up they're like how's josh i'm like oh you're listening to the real time stuff yeah they could be somewhere early in session six those people are usually afraid to ask so yeah that's true josh you know did he did it did it happen i won't say whether or not i've had fun with a few people or not i can't oh that's great i'm glad to hear that This is the Baymaw Podcast with Marty Solomon. I'm his co-host Brent Billings. Today we are closing out session nine with Reed Dent. Oh, hi. Al Grover Fricks. Hi. And Josh Bossé. Shalom. We're on top of it already, guys. This is great. Nailing it. Of course, I'm the one that missed my cue. I didn't realize we were doing it that way. Well, nobody wants to listen to this mess, right? We should just get right into this and just set the agenda, get in and out, nice, short, sweet episode. I think people know what to expect when we get together like this, right? People know. I think it'd be awesome if this was our shortest episode ever. I don't think that's going to happen. Maybe for some of you. I'm not going to name names, but for some of you, maybe. What does make this special is that we do have a secret audience. we have three other team members because what are we doing here, Marty? What's going on? Well, I mean, we've got, I love that setup, Brent. That setup was so good. You caught me off guard. We're getting ready after this recording session. We're going to roll right into a meeting and plan out session 10. So session 10 is coming and we don't even know yet what exactly is all going to be on session 10, because that is the meeting that we have. That's why there are extra faces on the Zoom call that nobody else can see because they're listening to this and we're going to roll right into a planning sesh. So there you go. Session 10 is on its way. You're going to hear about that in the next episode that we post, right, Brent? That's going to be the intro to session 10. They're going to find out everything they need. We'll tell you everything. And next week, next week's episode. So, so there you go. That's that. What we're going to look do today is we're going to look back on session nine. I think we did this. Did we do a similar thing in session eight? We all got together. We talked about the last session, right? Yeah. And it was so beautiful that we had to do it again. We didn't get enough. We didn't learn our lesson. So we're back. We're going to look at session nine, just kind of review some of that. I'm sure that at least some of us are going to want to share some words about Mr. Walter, Dr. Walter Brueggemann and his passing, which happened during our recording of session nine. He's been a lot to a lot of us and been a part of the Baymah world in a lot of different ways. So maybe you'll have some comments about that. I feel like maybe have we kind of found our way? Brent, do you suppose we've found our way? Do we have a rhythm that we've worked ourselves into now? Session eight, session nine. Is it a thing? Should I ask the team about that? It feels like it to me. I feel like we're, we have a pretty good rhythm going. Yeah. So I think what you could expect probably is session 10 in the future, as far as we can see for now, every one of our teachers brings a series. They plan a series out. They kind of lead it. We all jump in and join. So each session is basically four different series. We plan those out together, mixed in with a bunch of interviews. We always try to make sure that a couple of those series are kind of like straight exegetical bible stuff you know bema's the bible stuff and then a couple other series are like a little outside the box maybe more topical maybe something something but whatever reed's gonna do whatever reed's gonna do maybe some of us are going to abandon the word of our lord but you know maybe it'll be different next maybe we'll have to see i just find it in many guises is all very holy so So I do think that we've settled into a rhythm and you'll probably you can kind of expect more of the same in seasons to come, but never be surprised by a surprise. I don't know if that's even possible. It's not a very good surprise. That means I lose my mind when the whole team is here. I can't even communicate when I'm having to stare at all those faces making weird looks back at me. Part of what made this session special, Marty, is that we started doing a dual track recording setup. We had the Session 1 reboot going on while Session 9 was coming out. Yeah, we had Mondays where you'd see your reboot episode for Session 1, and then Thursdays would be our regular episode. And we got all done with that a little while ago as we record this, but months ago when you're hearing this. But that was good. We had some new things we included. Amber's not behind a mic. Nobody can hear her voice, but she helped us put together a companion for the reboot. That's been received pretty well. Brent any commentary you'd give to any of those new additions uh just the fact that uh it invigorated a bunch of people to start new groups or yeah go back and review and I feel like it's been really good it's had a lot of good feedback yeah a lot of really great feedback the occasional email letting us know just how bad it is but other than that uh yeah absolutely um but you know but then those people are delighted to find that the old versions are still available in the show notes i'm not sure some of those emails are delighted by anything but nevertheless i mean it's just the it's the same old good stuff with just a little bit more goodness into it i mean it's that's like saying that the family size of honeygrams is like somehow worse than the regular size of honeygrams it's just more it's more good stuff why would anybody hate that i mean yeah i agree i agree no argument from me yeah i just get that's the food honey that's our example food i was trying to think of a cereal on the spot i should have said count chocula because it's the season for count chocula and boo berry when we're recording not when this goes out i told you i told you the published dates dang it i don't do this time travel thing very well but it's it's october in my world right now so it's time for spooky things by the time this episode comes out people will know that the chiefs aren't in the super bowl oh no oh no oh no later later i shouldn have said that right now sorry oh my god brett knows what he done well and actually that not true then right who knows when does this episode air january 29th oh we will we will know by then actually we be finding out that weekend okay all right well anyway we not here to talk about football one other big update is that i got some help in this session we have an assistant editor on contract i guess technically but yeah i have i have some editing help so that's great too you probably i mean you're the one that's going to feel that more than anybody else but that's probably a nice little boost to the production workload? Yeah. A boost to production, but also a boost to production quality because I just had a limit to the amount of time I could spend on things. And now we get to put a little more TLC into each episode. It's great. Yeah. And this isn't in the secret agenda that's in front of us, but I would just probably a good time just to say thanks for everybody that supports our ministry because that's how we're able to do something like that. Yep. Like we're able to get Brent help like that. We're able to put somebody under contract because people support our ministry And we don't ever want to forget that or take that for granted. So well said, pointing that out, Brent Billings. What else do we got? We got personal updates before we review our Session 9 series recaps. Should we give some personal updates here? Elle, what do you got? You got any personal updates? Anything? Yeah, I got a baby, you know, just the little things, literally. A really cute baby from what I've heard. Oh my gosh, she's so cute. We love her so much. Her name's Fia, and all four of us are in love with her. And yeah, we are in the midst of newborn life right now when we're recording, and that's a lot. So I have a new thing that I can blame my brain not working well on. If I say something, Seth can just be like, aw, it's because she has a baby. Yes, I do love that. I have not seen Elle, actually, until today. This is the first time I've actually talked to Elle in quite a little while because maternity leave, all the things. So we're back. We're back. That was wonderful. Reed, you and I have some things. What's going on? A baby? If I say something crazy, it's because Marty and I had a baby. A literary baby. That's right. That's how I refer to the book that we co-authored. Well, you'll be hearing more about that. Never be surprised by the surprises. Oh, man. Okay. Well, there you go. We have a book coming out in April, everybody. That launch will be happening. You'll be hearing more about that in the Bama universe, I'm sure. But that's coming up. Those are some, we got it all done. It's out of our hands now. Are you going to tell the people what it's called, Marty? Why don't you tell people what it's called? Read. It's called The Gospel of Being Human. And it's coming out. Wait, hold on. What's the subtitle? How? Oh, yeah. Because, Marty. Yes. This book is a follow-up to your first book, Asking Better Questions of the Bible. Yes. So the title is The Gospel of Being Human, and then the subtitle is a nice little play on the first book title, How Asking Better Questions of the Bible Reveals Who We Are. Absolutely. It is the second in a three-book series for the Asking Better Questions series, so that will be coming out. Wait, was that just like a world premiere announcement right there, that also there's a third one? The real fans have heard it in different places already. Those that are probably too committed to the Baymah universe. Those are the ones who are never surprised by a surprise. There you go. As you like to say, Marty. As I like to say. As I always say. You know, so there'll be Tolkien and his trilogy and then you guys and your trilogy. Got it, got it, got it. Pretty much the same thing. Same vibe. Yeah, so SEO, optimized titles. It's great. And you can pre-order it in the show notes right now if you want to. I love that. That's coming up this spring. Let's see. Brent, you have an update. Probably not quite the level of cuteness of Fia, but still very cute. I have a German Shepherd puppy now. A furry baby. Yes. Absolutely. Incredible. That's fantastic. Are we going to put, are we going to, well, I shouldn't commit people to putting pictures of their babies in the show notes. Maybe I shouldn't say that. I'll put a picture of Maple. Maple is the name of the dog. She is a long-haired German Shepherd. Excellent. and uh yeah you'll she has her own instagram so that's how it goes yeah that's very billings-esque a dog instagram if brent takes photos of my family then we can put it in the show notes okay i love that it's my way of squeezing a photo shoot out yeah all right all right nice i have seen the glamour shots of maple by the way and they are very professional very good yeah dog influencer Ah, so good. I'm sure all of that will be in the show notes, the Instagram handle and the whole nine yards. So let's see here. Reed, you had more. Like, there's more things going on in your family. Yeah, I just continue to be outpaced in every facet of life by my very wonderful and brilliant wife, who is now Dr. Leanne Dent, PhD. So that's our other big family update. She finished all of her everything, dissertation, defense, etc. just at the beginning of September. And so she is now even more highly qualified than I am or ever will be. and yet she still seems to be very happy to be married to me so win-win there you go absolutely and then that leaves us with josh josh i gotta tell you every time i go somewhere on the road every meet and greet i go to the people that are caught up to real time want to know how is josh bossay doing josh how you doing well you know everyone else has been having babies of various types i've got twins two little two little masses there we actually um my little hodgkinses yeah so at one we're recording this i'm just about uh finishing up my first round of chemo and no news yet although in the near see this is what's going to make it weird in the near future when we're recording this, which means mid-October, I'll be getting a scan that'll tell us more about how effective the chemo has been. So I will have news shortly. And when you're listening to this, the news will already be out. Maybe we'll do a special little drop-in recording or something if we need to share something extra. Oh yeah, you could totally do that. The other thing you could do is get on my newsletter or something like that. We also have a CaringBridge set up. I'm sure Brent can throw that in the show notes as well. So you can get all the Josh updates you want in one convenient place. I need updates. I text you just like a week later, you know, you'll be like, yeah, Okay. Oh, I'm so glad to know. I have a problem. I have a problem remembering who I have and haven't told. I get it. It's tiring. Who needs it? I'm glad that I don't have to bother you, but all the things all the time. But yeah, so I'm still here. I'm still alive. Still, still doing the thing. And, you know, I got to say to your question earlier, Marty, about, you know, our rhythm. I think the fact that we've been able to do all this, even in the midst of me battling cancer, is a point in favor of us having figured it out that we can adapt so well. And also, conversely, that the load is not too heavy. Yeah. So, yeah. I'm feeling as good as you can. in these circumstances of mine. Yeah, I think that's well said, Josh. Part of the reason why you have to hear us doing the whole time warp thing of, well, right now it's October, but we know this isn't released till January is the rhythm has enabled us to always kind of stay ahead of the ballgame and give us the flexibility to take the time we need to have babies and deal with cancer diagnoses and all the things that come at us. And so that's part of why we do it this way. So So sorry for the time warp for people that listen, but it's a good thing for all of us. And it really has felt good to have the time and the space without the urgency breathing down our neck, demanding that we produce another episode this Thursday. And that's been good for all of us. So, yeah. All right. Well, let's do this. Let's just do what we did last time, but maybe a little less in depth. We don't have to have everybody give thoughts on every single series, but just let's call back where we did. We did four series in this session nine. I kicked it off. Maybe I always kind of will kick off a series. I don't know. Is that going to be my role? Who knows? But Hosea was the first series of session nine. We did a verse by verse journey through that book. I really enjoyed it. I didn't have a whole bunch that I had a whole bunch that went with me. I didn't have a whole lot of things circle back for me. I was like, oh, I wish I would have talked about that or, oh, what a missed opportunity. But I continue to love all the episodes where I get to share it with some of these co-hosts and the things that they bring. I am still thinking about talking about in my grad work with professors, Elle's opening episode about violence and Judah and the setting and potentially what's going on here with Hosea. and man, just those things have gone with me. I continue to pay attention to birds now because of Josh and Hosea and elsewhere. I just love those little tidbits, but I don't know if anybody else had any thoughts that when they thought about Hosea or think back to that, any other things that they would throw at that series here from the other hosts? I loved your final episode of the Hosea series because I mean, it's hard to beat Hosea 14, But the way you guys underlined God's rescue and his healing and his freely loving us with that last call to faithfulness, the last call to. So what do you have to do with idols? I love that. And then it got super nitty gritty in the Hebrew. And I'll always be a fan of that. I did discover me singing Tarzan was left on the postscript of that episode. So that was a surprise for me when it came out. But otherwise, left it. Thanks, Brent. The mics are rolling. You gotta always be careful. Constant vigilance. Why mine gold if we're not going to share it? Yeah. Anything else from Hosea before we jump to the next series? Well, fine. Hearing none, I'm glad. Keeps this thing moving. Talmudic Matthew. Elle came back for another round of the collision between the first gospel and the Talmud and how those things are talking back and forth to each other. Elle, what kind of any thoughts, memories, cyclebacks, anything that comes to mind when you think about your series in this session? No, I'm just stoked to be doing something fresh and new next season that I'm excited to talk to you about. But yeah, it was a good time. It was a crunchy time. Lots of details and really getting into it. And so next season, I'll have a different feel, and I'm excited about that. But I think it was time well spent. Absolutely. That was the series where I made the goof up and edited a very long episode and published it and then opened up the next episode only to find out that I was supposed to cut that last episode in half and so josh bailed us out and came in and gave us an extra episode to fit in that empty slot that i a champ oh yes that's right that was a lot of fun yeah it was good and our thoughts on talmud and matthew just el you have you have a fan club of friends of mine who are especially my like really nitty-gritty detail bookish kinds of friends They love all of your stuff. So you got a fan club out there. It's probably way larger than I realized, but it's good stuff. Nerdy, bookish, detail-oriented people unite. These are my people. Yeah, I was going to say this at some point. Now's as good of a time as any because I wasn't sure I was going to fit it in. One of the things I get to hear, just having so many conversations and being in so many different places and seeing some of the email or whatever it is that comes through And this is probably somewhat cliche but every single one of our teachers has I don know if i call it a fan base if i do it with a smirk on my when i say it but there are people out there that love the tone the voice the approach of every single one of the teachers and that also means that there's sometimes people are like i struggle to connect with that particular teacher but there are people that are like i love obviously l's got a huge fan club for lots of reasons. There will be people that are like, I love Josh, the way his mind works. I've had people like, the way that Josh will ramble is exactly what my brain needs. And I love it and I can follow it. And it pulls me in and I get those messages. And I'm getting ahead of myself, but a lot of great feedback right now. Right now we're listening to the Vice and Virtue series as we record this. And a lot of people, and this is Reed, so I don't mind saying this. A lot of people say, I'm really surprised, but I really like this series. And I think what they mean is not Reed. I think what they mean is I did not think vice and virtue. And we said this, I think Reed, well, let's just jump ahead to Reed. Here I am talking about it. I've screwed it all up, but I've screwed up the whole order. But Reed, when we started that series, there was like this, okay, we're going to use Thomas Aquinas. Like that's not Bama, like vice and virtue. That's not Bama, but it's been actually so good and refreshing. and listeners are like, this is surprisingly right what I need. I'm studying Thomas Aquinas right now in grad work. Like it's just lined up so well. But any thoughts you have on vice and virtue? I'm just here to bring the spiritual formation. You know, that's what I'm trying to do. And I, you know, it's not like I'm a giant Aquinas head, but you can find... She was shocked that I used the expression Aquinas head. But you know, you can find good stuff in many places if you will just try to let anybody be your teacher. So I've been getting some good feedback on it too. My mother-in-law is actually listening to the Vice and Virtue series and she texts me every Thursday when an episode comes out. So I have enjoyed that just in my own little corner of the world. But yeah, I've enjoyed the series and I think I might do something with it at CCF while it'll be this semester in January or in the near future. but I always appreciate the overlap between Bema and campus ministry stuff. So probably just ride that horse for as long as I can. Well, I've really enjoyed just, I'm having conversations about classical Christian theology that aren't, they don't feel like, they feel like Bema flavored classical Christian theology conversations, which is weird thing to say. Yeah. But it's so good because usually every time I'll travel around, everybody wants to talk about rabbis this or midrash that or Pardos or Talmud or whatever, like that Jew, all the Jewish stuff, which I'm glad to do. That's very much what I love and what we do. But I'm having new conversations with a whole new kind of people I probably wouldn't even hear from because they're seminary trained Christian, like Christian theology, classical nerds, like, and that's just been really refreshing. And I'm learning, I'm learning a lot. And people are like gently saying, yeah, Marty, like you're really hard on these classical guys, but there's some really good Bayma stuff here. And I'm like, well said, well said. So thanks to Reed. It's that Western hand. It's that other hand on the piano and it's, it's got its job to do. So hopefully, hopefully we're doing it. I mean, wherever it comes from working on your character is pretty punk rock, right? Yeah, totally. Probably should be. My middle school self was very into punk rock music. So I feel very seen right now, L and thank you. You're welcome. My insufferable middle school self, as we have talked about at many times in the past. Live to serve. Any other thoughts on vice and virtue? It's probably the one that's fresh in our mind because we're like recording it like right now and listening to it. And it's the one that is Hosea feels like an E like a decade ago. Truly. It is crazy how the seasons sessions ends up working that way because there's like a full calendar year elapsing, which doesn't even seem like it should feel that long. But yeah, it does. It does. Yeah. All right. Well, there's no other vice and virtue reflections. I skipped one unintentionally. We got the Kohelet series, which, again, got some really great reviews. People really enjoyed that exegetical dive into Kohelet. So, Josh, any things that you think about or circle back to or anything on that series? And man, that was probably the real baby I had. That was such a, I thought I was in for an easy one because I had dug up Kohelet before and found all this cool stuff. And I'm like, I'm just going to get back in there, gather up those things, put them in a podcast. And yeah, it really kept being new layers and like just the whole Ramez structure in there really blew me away. And then even like the way that that ended up, I think it was when an episode you were on, Marty, we were, I'm not sure if this made it into the episode, but we were talking about how in some ways, like how Jesus's teaching style is heavily influenced by wisdom literature and particularly in his commitment to teaching in parables. And then, you know, we have Kohelet and this kind of verging on prophetic wisdom voice. It has even changed how I'm reading Jesus. So yeah, a lot of stuff came out of that. That was way more than I bargained for. So thankfully, though, that didn't result in, you know, Mishkan series level length of episodes. There was a lot there. It was quite an experience. I did it with Kohelet and I'm doing it with Vice and Virtue as well, where I'm chapterizing these podcast episodes. So if you have a podcast player that supports chapters, it gives you like an easy way to break it up because it's like, well, I don't want people to look at the length and be like, well, I just can't even do it and just not even try. It's like, okay, well, if you have 20 minutes, listen to this first part, we give you the clean break. I mean, it's not necessarily clean, clean, but I'm like, I'm telling you, this is where you want to stop and then you can come back later. So a little production increase there. Yeah. I really enjoyed that as I've listened to the episodes. I like how it shows up in my, in my Apple's podcast player. I don't know what it does in all your third party nonsense, but whoa. Use the Apple. How just shows you the whole list and the length of each chapter, you know? All right. Well, there you go. I was at my most recent event. Was it in Minnesota? Where was I at most recently that I had a large gathering and somebody shouted out, something about stay in the room. Like you got to be in the room with the king. And I was like, bam, like that was one of my favorite parts of that series. Somebody caught that. And I was like, oh, you're caught up to real time. Tell us more for all the people that have it. And they, I mean, they, whoever it was just nailed it. They were like, wisdom teaches us the wisdom of Kohelet, the wisdom of Ecclesiastes, the wisdom literature would tell us that we can't just run. Sometimes we got to stay in the rooms that we can influence, that we can have an impact so we can change the situation. And I thought, Josh is killing it. Got it. I love that series because so often, like if you hear Ecclesiastes talked about or Gohella ever preached, which not very often, it's kind of framed around the big themes like, is life, Hevel, is it vapor and meaningless? not with Jesus, you know, and then that's the end of the conversation, which like props, there's certainly something to that. And that could be life-giving, but the commitment to be like, no, this is a difficult, you know, traditionally considered hard book and we're going to work our way through it and take each verse. Like it is the inspired word of God, good for equipping us and, and dedicating that time to that is a beautiful thing. So I really loved it. Yeah. Well said. Well said. All right. Let's keep this train moving. We didn't just have a reboot and we didn't just have these four series. We also did our usual. We talked about some shows and Brent, you should tell us some about our, the chosen additions to session nine. Yeah. Season four was right at the beginning of session nine and we're doing session or season five. all these words. Um, is it confusing enough anyway? And then we, we wrapped up our discussion of season five with an interview with Dallas Jenkins, which we haven't actually recorded yet. We're going to do that in two days, but I'm confident that that will be great. We continue to go through this stuff. I mean, I like the more I dig into the text, I'm like, Oh, that is just right there in the text. I'm like, where did they get that? And it's just, it's just plainly written in the text. It's like, okay. So I appreciate their attention to detail. There's still plenty of room for interpretation, even in this final week stuff where there's a lot of text associated. There's still lots of stuff that you have to like, okay, where are we going to put this? How are we going to do this? What's the tone? There's still a lot of discussion to be had, even though there's a lot of text behind it, but we're having fun with it. Absolutely. And we also did a bunch of interviews as well, not just with Dallas Jenkins, but we, part of the rhythm that we have settled into is trying to sprinkle in interviews with either resources we're trying to share. And that might be because I know them and their personal friends. It might be because we feel like it's a very Baymont-esque type of a resource. It might be because the thing that they give their life to is about the foreigner, the orphan and the widow, or because it's about justice or because it's about hearing a perspective that we ought to think about and consider like we just try to do that on a regular basis and share our platform in those ways so brent you just want to go through the list of interviews and then if there's anything that jumps out to us that any of us i mean i think i think i was the one that did you and i facilitated all these interviews this time on this session but yeah tell us so first up we had aj cheryl with rediscovering christmas yes personal friend of mine uh love aj love his work we share a lot of the historical contextual love of the scripture so being able to dive into the christmas characters that was cool absolutely then we had katherine mcneil with fearing bravely absolutely just sent her a happy birthday message the other day it was her birthday said i enjoyed getting a chance to talk to her that's just one of my favorite books of the last handful of years her fearing bravely book was just so good i think about it often. Every time I see a tomato plant, I think about her. Yes. Then we had Brant Hansen, which we titled 3D caustic chess, something he said in the episode. But yeah, probably our single greatest source of people coming to Bama is through Brant Hansen. So it was great to talk to him. It was. And his episode was just all over the place, talking all kinds of good stuff coming in. I've been emailing back and forth with him the last couple of weeks. He's doing some more writing so he's got to have something else coming out here soon i'm sure we'll be hearing about but love talking to bray he was just fun then we had karen stiller holiness here was the title of her book absolutely saw i was just over at the dense house recently i saw a copy of that book sitting over there on their coffee table but love her writing she just got a new podcast too that she just started i can't remember what it's called now but she just had a new podcast she started with NavPress, I think, if I understand it correctly. Show notes, show notes. Yeah. Then we had Ashley Island say good. Yes, absolutely. I can still see in my mind her sitting in her office at her school where she works and makes a difference. And actually, that was just kind of fun for me because I kept thinking as she was talking about all the things she was sharing about in her resource, just her putting it like she's in the building where she puts it to work in some pretty cool ways. And it was just kind of cool to see her in that setting while she talked about it. Then we had perhaps our most ambitious interview with Bema Kokomo. If there's anything that's gotten close to Tohu Vavohu, that was it. Like that was, wow. But they were champs. That was and it was fun to see how much they cared about so many different things So I hear you saying that the spirit of the Lord was hovering over that since I was too Yeah it was it was pretty good Like it was pretty good It was a great conversation And anytime we get this many people on a call, like we're doing right now and it goes, okay, I feel like the spirit of God was enabling miraculous things. So there you go. We titled that one, the body of Christ and Brian, our, our, uh, Bayma team leader, strategy director, extraordinaire, shares it with everybody who's starting a group. Like, Hey, if you want to know what a group looks like, a group of people who, you know, have disagreements and struggles and whatever, and how do they work together? Like it's our picture of the body of Christ that we like to share with people as they're starting groups. Yeah, that's great. Good idea. Then we had Ethan Bryan. If you were brave. I've always been captivated by his story and the way his love for baseball comes out in particular ways. I thought about him often as the post season has rolled around but i saw he was doing a a catchvember is that what he's calling it that just went out yeah something like that by then it's january when you're listening to this so it's all it's already happened but that's cool catch you area now at this point you can make it work for any month we can make it work absolutely uh then we had annie f downs that sounds fun and it was fun yeah i was just gonna say we nailed it it was fun like that was a great That was just a fun conversation and getting to hear from her and all the stuff that she's been involved with, which was a lot. And then we closed out the session having Sandra Richter back with us. And we haven't actually recorded that yet, but my goodness. The last conversation we had with her was delightful. She has a new book that recently came out, Abigail and the Waterfall. So that's kind of the impetus for our conversation. But boy, got to ask her some fun questions. Got to. I'm going to get to ask her some fun questions about Deuteronomy. And yeah, lots of lots of fun conversations. She's a total Bible nerd, a lover of the land of Israel and studying there. And boy, I love it. Her first interview we did probably got the most request I've ever heard of, like, have her back on again. Like, we want to hear her again. Not that people don't feel that way about all of our guests, but that one got particularly like direct straight comments of that was so good you need to have her back so we're doing it we're doing it and then we had one uh we had a christmas special that reed and i did on it's a wonderful life and yeah yeah reed is somehow like i i cannot tell you how many people i've heard from who are like i hate that movie i didn't want to listen to this episode but i listened anyway and my goodness he has a point Did he though? Did he have a point? I did have a point. George Bailey is what this world needs. Oh my goodness. I don't know about that. And that movie isn't, that movie is, I'm not here to re-litigate the whole thing, but that movie is incredible and more people should watch it. I think lots of people watch it. More people should love it. Just saying, if Brent gets me to do the Christmas episode this year, words will be had. theories will be put out. Are you just going to do It's a Wonderful Life again? Well, but actually, I know what Reed said, but actually... It's a terrible life. It's a not so wonderful life. Don't tempt me with a good time. My goodness. All right. Well, I think we should close out with our thoughts, our whatever we want to say about the Reverend Dr. Walter Brueggemann. a wonderful source that we have. I mean, I should have counted how many times we've referenced his work, but it is many, many, many times we owe a great deal to Bergman. You have some notes here in the document we have. Brent, how about you just read some of the stuff here that you've gotten written down about Walter? Walter, as if I know him, about Walt. Waltie. Yeah. Goodness. In case you are not aware of the situation, I don't know exactly the details, But apparently he died peacefully on June 5th, 2025. He was 92 years old. And I was just kind of like trying to get some stock on how many things and what he was up to throughout his life, because I know some of his work pretty well. But he had seven doctorates. Wow. Which is crazy. I mean, I think some of them are honorary, but it's like you don't you don't get an honorary doctorate for, you know, sitting around in your chair doing nothing. Yep. What now, Leanne? i'm definitely going to tell that to her so that i can tell that about myself you have one and i have zero and we're basically the same compared to walt nice so wikipedia lists 58 books that he has plus hundreds of articles and commentaries and other stuff i don't know exactly how they're counting this but his website has 169 books that he was involved in some way or another. So just a prolific writer. And I learned about the concept of a fest shrift, which is like a book that other academic people write about a person because they are so prolific in the academic world. And so his version of that is called God in the Fray, a tribute to Walter Brueggemann. And, uh, Al, maybe you can, you know, speak to this a little bit being in that world. Like how many people get these sorts of books? How common is this? You have to be pretty fancy. You have to be pretty special. All right. So there you go. Yeah. I had never heard of that until I saw that link in our notes. And that's really cool. That's really, really cool. I probably have some thoughts. Reid, I know you've read a lot of Brueggemann in the past. He's found his way into your... Do you have any thoughts or anything on... I know a lot of people know him for his scholarship and Old Testament surveys and things like that. My personal most cherished book from him is called Finally Comes the Poet. He wrote about preaching, the act of preaching. And so this is a book about the act of preaching. And especially the first chapter of that book is like an all-time chapter among all books. In my mind, I read it frequently, especially before, like when I'm preparing to speak or before I speak, it completely, I don't know, I wouldn't say changed, but it did something. It did something transformative and powerful for the way that I think of the preaching act and the way that I approach it. So yeah, finally comes The Poet is Great. And then there's another kind of related one, but a little different called The Word Militant, which is also about preaching. So his preaching works especially, I would encourage people to check out if you are a preacher of any kind, because you may not know them as much. Those are like older volumes. They're not a ton in circulation, I don't think, but check those out, his contributions to that. And then, you know, if you just ever, you can just look him up preaching himself. Like he is a scholar primarily, but is also like, was also a preacher at times. And he's just, he's got this amazing, really gravelly sort of Southern old man voice and it It's powerful. So props to Briggs, as I call him, and his preaching. And that's the legacy he has with me, at least. Brighamman was one of the first voices that I read when I first encountered Martin in, what was that, 2012? And I was like, who is this guy? What is he talking about? Who are his sources? Seems sketchy to me. And I picked up Hopeful Imagination, Prophetic Voices in Exile. And yeah, like first introduction to thinking about the prophets as different voices, talking about the same things with different rooted emotionality. So a good time. The world misses him. But hey, we'll get to hang out. World to come. Have a big party. Meet under the fourth root to the left on the tree of life, you know. That's right. That's right. Yeah. I moved to Cincinnati just too late. He had been living in Cincinnati and then he moved, I believe, to Michigan. Right. as I was moving into town. And he heard you were coming. Yeah, I know. He probably did. We reached out and we connected with somebody on his end. And it might even been him. I can't remember. We exchanged some emails and we were asking him to be on the podcast as a guest. And he had just gotten to that point where he said, I just recently made the decision. I'm not doing guest interviews like that anymore. And so we just missed him. And I will forever be frustrated that I didn't reach out sooner. But I stumbled. Somebody gave me a Brueggemann book. I probably would have eventually found him, I'm sure. But I remember finding him. Somebody gave me out of Babylon, which is the first book we just quoted a gazillion times on the podcast. And everybody would talk about the prophetic imagination. And I'm one of those people that when I hear a book, nobody will shut up about it. I don't read it. I'm just that contrarian that's like, I'm not going to read that. Everybody else likes it. I'm not going to like it. And eventually I was like, okay, this is on every bibliography. And just one of those works that really shifted at least one part of a consciousness of a world that talks about the Bible. I have read a fraction of those 169 books, but just what a great contribution he was to the way that we think about and we talk about the Bible. I now go to Xavier University for my grad work where there's a special program in his name and in his honor and the Brueggemann Center. And there are people that are part of a program named after him in the grad program that I get to hear from and learn from. And just the impact that he's had is huge. So very grateful that his gift was shared with the world in the way that it was. So absolutely. Well, anything else that we need to say before we close this, before we get off this train ride? What's going on, anybody? I know I can't not ask that question, but I'm always afraid to ask that question at the end of this episode. Never be surprised by a surprise. Really, really hope that's the title of this episode. Wow. Well, we don't really put it. We don't really do a special title for this, but I'll throw that in the subtitle. Sure. Wow. Jeepers. Okay. Well, I'm going to take that as a no. So Brent, I think we did a good job with session nine. I'm pleased. I'm happy with it. I love our team. It's not getting worse. It's getting better every day, every session, every year that we work together. So appreciate what we do. But anything you would add to any of that? I'll just reiterate your thank you to our supporters that you mentioned earlier. We are here because people believe in what we're doing and want to enable us and support us to continue that work. And we're blessed by that. and we can't say thank you enough. Yeah, we'll probably expand on that maybe in the introduction to session 10 and talk a little bit more about where we're at and how people can still give and how that stuff is still needed for different reasons and talk some about that. So you'll probably hear some in the next episode. All right. Well, in the meantime, you can go to beymahdiscipleship.com, and we have a lot of show notes, a lot of Brueggemann books that you can check out, a lot of other resources that we're sharing, stuff about our personal updates, a lot of notes. So check that out. You can use the contact page there to get in touch with us. But for now, thank you for joining us on the Baymall podcast. We'll talk to you again soon. Are you going to link all 169? No, I'm just linking the ones that we actually mentioned. You should link all 169. All right. Do I need to hit stop record or is there still more crazy nonsense that's going to get said? You never know. Never be surprised. I'm now going to have people asking me to put that on a t-shirt for sure. Inaugural merch store option. I'm really glad I got up this morning. It was really good. It's got a good decision on my part. Next time you come to CCF, I will have that shirt for you. You can wear it while you preach. Big promises. Jeepers.