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Welcome back everyone to the midwinter's mean the inter lectures in the first at Western Belt lecture uh went to outcome also those who are watching us online As we welcome. Dr. Patrick raise the 2023 vester felt

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lecturer, he is a senior director for a learning design at the Forum of Theological Exploration. Patrick is an educator, an administrator and institutional strategist. He published broadly including two award winning books in 2016 he

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published nobody cries when we die, which received the 2019 Hispanic Theological Initiative Book prize in the first selection for the Children's Defense Fund Book Club. Also in 2019 and more recently, he published this book,

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The purpose gap and you can learn more about Patrick and his bio in the web page of the midwinter lectures. What we will not see there is that Patrick is a father to usher in Carmelita, a

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partner to carry their mother, uh a runner, a pink pong player. As a matter of fact , he already beat to a Pts faculty and one a PTS president in our developing ping pong league yesterday

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. And Patrick is a genuinely kind person. If you do not know him, like some of us have the privilege of knowing him. I hope you take the opportunity to do just that in the next

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couple of days. And the title of his lecture is pedagogy of the ancestors. I was just rereading of the purpose gap when I knew that Patrick was coming over and I will share with you one short

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quote that hopefully will convince you to buy this book if you, if you don't have it yet, we need to unlearn the myths that our education system teaches us and recognize that their silence. The silence

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of our truth is a form of racing is a rare asia from my own context. The historical myths are best exemplified in colonization and Conquistadors. We are all taught the same history. Hernan Cortes conquered the

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Aztecs because the local people thought he was a god . How naive my ancestors. My ancestors were stupid . Right? The opposite is true. I am not the descendant of people who found the spiritual enlightenment

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through the sight of these pale Conquistadors. I am descendant from the survivors who attempted genocide through warfare where guns, germs and steel forced new tactics of survival . Again, the title of this lecture is the

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pedagogy of the ancestors. Patrick, we are thrilled that you're here. Welcome to A P. T . S. Uh And would you please help me welcome the 2023 Western Belt lecturer. Dr Patrick race

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. That was nice. Mhm. All right. What he didn't say was I lost to him. So I beat some other people but I still I still gotta beat dr Chavez. So thank you so

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much for having me for the A. P. T. S. Community for having me here. I bring the love of my grandma. Carmen who you'll learn a little bit more about. Um And

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of course the absolute joy of my life, the love of my daughter whose namesake she carries Carmelita? Um she misses out on our evening dance parties by me being with you. So we're gonna have some

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fun we're gonna play. And if you're disappointed with this lecture, don't tell me about it because I'm missing out. I'm missing out on my dance parties and my daughter. Um, so the purposes lectures

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to answer why the pedagogy of the ancestors. Why do we gotta think about this multigenerational approach to meaning and purpose? I love the setup here because because that's where I'm at, my previous work has focused

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on meaning and purpose. How do people find it in our context, how they find their vocational call to life? So I wrote the first book, nobody cries when we die was my frustration with my

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own theological education that it seemed that every time we talked about vocation, me or my people weren't included . So I felt like I had to write something , say like, hey, my grandma had something

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to teach us the purpose gap which followed it said I got all that wrong. My bad, that vocation might not be as much to do with my own discernment. My own christian discernment might have to

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do more with my community. And just to give you a little bit of an insight of what's in that book. One of the things I play with this time. How do we think about our vocations

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? Not as a linear trajectory as I get older , I will find my purpose further on what if instead I'm borrowing from kate walworth economist, it's more like a donut. What if our vocation was more

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like a donut? And that we're actually trying to manage the energy in our donut ring. So that this was a huge kind of awakening. That wasn't really about me, It was really about the community

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, the conditions that I faced this book, which you're getting a preview on. It's gonna come out next year. Just say, I got it wrong again, my bad third time, as I said

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, you shouldn't read the purpose cap, it's a good book. Um but this is really to say what if we thought about ourselves in terms of five generations. So, let me reintroduce myself as a

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way of kind of getting us into this and then we'll practice and play a little together. Is that cool? So, here's what gonna happen. I'm gonna reintroduce myself. We'll do a little practice together

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. I'll show you a framework for how we might think about our vocations are calls a little differently, at least in community. Then we'll do another practice and then tomorrow this will be focused on yourself today

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. Tomorrow we'll talk about how to do this. Work in communities. I know all of you are leading communities. So I am Patrick Reyes. I sit between five generations of Karma litas as far back

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as we track in our family There's a Carmelita my grandmother's name is Carmelita, my daughter's name is Carmelita and in five generations I am sure there will be the spirit of Carmelita there now. What does that

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mean for my vocation? That Carmelita five generations back , didn't know who I was, I didn't think about me, didn't think about the Cres being born and in five generations that Carmelita might not know who

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I am and may not exist from that lecture earlier . But I think there is a way of thinking about how this means I should move in the world if it's not about me at the center, what

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does christian vocation actually look like? How do I center these generations? How do I live? Unstuck in time? So that way that carmelita five generations back is part of my vocational understanding that I'm living

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in a longer lineage and that Carmelita and five generations to come is also important to every decision in the life I live. So this is kind of where we're going. We're sitting in between these five generations

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and when I talk about this, it means that we have to carry a new spirit, we have to live with ancestor vision, ancestor vision is that vision that moves backwards and forwards and times it knows

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the traditions that came before and it's able to cast a vision forward for me, you know as a christian, I I love the transfiguration when jesus talking to moses and Elijah, what a beautiful moment operating

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out of time, jesus is unstuck in time and it doesn't look like it should two people who are operating on this plane because they don't understand how to what is this vocation. So that's what we're gonna

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do. We're gonna try to get a little unstuck in time. But my ask of you all is that we go to a challenging place today, we're gonna start with you, we're gonna try to get

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you unstuck in time. So we're gonna do a reflection back to think about our vocation, our inner self and then we're gonna go to a place in the future. Now I'm asking for active internal work

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because I'm missing out dance party, is that cool ? Alright, I'm gonna get off the stage here , walk around for a second. Okay. First to uh to set this up. Um one of

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the things that came really challenged my sense of vocation is I do a lot of public speaking, I go around and we're trying to change the conditions, the world that we live in. I was a

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part of a small group that was thinking about how do faith communities come and end mass incarceration and at the time that we're having this meeting like many of you was on zoom because this is right at the

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beginning of the pandemic, I was trying to explain why locking up Children away from their family was a problem. And I'm yelling into my screen at my kitchen table with my little headphones on. Those are

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our babies, our babies, not someone else's, those are ours trying to extend empathy, right? We'll do this tomorrow too, but trying to extend empathy to everyone who was on this call. So

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I am screaming at the top of my lungs and I closed that laptop as soon as the meeting was over and I turned around and I see my son Asher just staring at me wide eyed Now Askar in

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our family, he's chicano. His mom is jewish and mescalero Apache. He had just learned that previous sunday about the shoah. So in his mind, I'm staring into a young child who is just for

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the first time, I think having this moment like oh, our people have been erased before and the first thing to come out of his mouth was par they're gonna take you away now for me, this

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was a huge shift in how I was thinking as I was doing prophetic work, right? But I had a son in my house who had to think about how do I connect these dots in a way

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that he just doesn't feel so overwhelmed with the world overwhelmed with his father who is very passionate about this work. So I made a shift rather being a pandemic, I'm gonna show you and I'm gonna put

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it on right before we get into practice. So no one that was working from home all the time . And I got little ones where artists profits are artists and I thought about my grandma who was an

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artist, she always wore an apron. So I start to put together this apron and you'll see. I got all these patches on here, right? I walk around the house. So my kids know

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that while I'm a very serious person, we're trying to make a better world and part of making that better world means we have to do work together. So I'm gonna invite you into a practice to get

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you thinking backwards in time and a little bit different . So one thing I want to prompt you with is what is an ancestor? Just think about that for amendment. Let me pull one of your ancestors

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in mind and I'm gonna play with that image for a second. Everyone Good. Everyone got an ancestor by show of hands. How many of those images that you have more of a child? No one

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, No one imagined a child. Children. Our ancestors Children are closer to ancestors and I think a lot of us give them credit for. And I think one of the things we can do together is

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connect to our inner child as a way of connecting to our own ancestry. So here's what the invitation is gonna be. Once you get comfortable get a pen or paper out, we're doing meditative exercise.

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I design for adults to think about that inner ancestor , That inner child that you have, someone who's a little bit further back in your past as a way of reimagining who is an ancestor and you can

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close your eyes if you want to be more meditative and just go internal. But I'm gonna ask you to take some notes at the end of this, remember to breathe, get comfortable in your body.

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This is called meditations for the ancestor who grew up . Let these kind of words wash over you and just pay attention to what shows up in your mind . When did I stop being a child? Was

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it when I stopped being delighted by staying up late or getting my afternoon nap or fighting my afternoon nap ? Was it when I stopped going to the playground to just sit or run around with my friends?

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Was that when I stopped riding bikes until the street lights came on, watching my favorite cartoons on Sundays , Saturdays or laughing until my belly hurts. I stopped being a child. The first time I realized

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my dog, my cat, that lizard wasn't coming back facing death for the first time. Was it the first time I said goodbye to my friends who were moving their parents work had taken them from my

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community. Was it my first funeral bearing a beloved elder grandma grandpa papi mami was that when we buried a close friend who looked like me and had my name? Was it when friends and cousins moved in

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because they had fallen on hard times. When did I stop believing I was a child? Was it when adulthood came too soon? The sound of trauma abuse gunshots? When I first felt the deep pain

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of being unloved and believing I was unlovable was that when I went from having all the potential to being a problem? When did I stop belonging to childhood ? Was it when I was too cool for those

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clothes? Those shoes, those friends, those places , those hobbies, those games? Was it when I could no longer be seen for those? I loved more than anything for fear that my new friends

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may not approve of their weird quirks, looks or mannerisms, many of which I share. Was it when I accepted homework as the work? Was it when I forgot the words to my favorite song or

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was it when I was no longer or when my favorite artist was no longer rafi and moved on to songs that denigrated my people, my culture, my family did. I stop being a child when I

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no longer dance whenever I heard a beat, a song and sounds of the world will tell me to move when I stopped swaying with the wind. The sound of traffic of my grandma's humming mexican folk songs

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as she cooked. Did I stop being a child ? When I stopped asking why? Why Why or turning over rocks just to see what was under them watching clouds drift by. Was it when I stopped

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drawing pictures of my friends and family and giving them portraits as gifts, no matter how out of proportion their heads were on their small little bodies, was it when I no longer asked my friends to come

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out and play, no activity of mine just delighting in their presence or for my friends to come to my house and see my drawings, a new toy or that weird poop my dog had. Was it

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when I forgot to say sorry. Even if it didn't mean, even if even if I didn't mean to hurt someone because the friendship always means more than being right and to be perfectly honest, was just

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learning what was right and wrong in the first place . When did I stop being a child was it when I start feeling the big joys. The overwhelming sadness that was once you know only made better by

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a hug from grandma. A sensation of love wanting to draw little hearts on every paper was when I stopped being happy. I don't mean I am not happy now, but I mean the happy with that

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crappy cheese pizza on the lunch tray. Happy with the same playground every day at school. That also was not the same every day because one day it was a spaceship, then a pirate ship in a

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castle, a school, a hospital in office, a bakery and the don't come in here. This is my area. When did I stop being a child was when I started caring more about tomorrow or

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yesterday and forgot to be fully present today. Was that when I first understood that not everyone loved me , not because of anything I had done, but because of who I am and in this skin was

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it when I went from being full of potential to a problem a problem because I think act and behave in a world that was not built for me. Did I stop being a child when I stopped loving

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unconditionally? When I stopped wanting to live in a world with magical creatures, dragons, unicorns, magical forests and miss school oceans or seeing the coyotes, hummingbirds, neighborhood dogs, cats, parks and playgrounds

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as magical. Was it when I stopped giving out love notes to strangers just for being near me when I stopped telling the birds, trees, flowers and sky that I love them with so much left behind

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in childhood. When can I be a child again , Maybe here with all of you, Maybe you all can be my friend, maybe we can be Children together as we think about becoming child ancestors.

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Alright, just write down what comes up for you as you hear this kind of meditation of many times to reflect back on your own world, your own childhood because it's something you have access to. Your

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actually an expert in your own childhood and as you do that, I'm gonna give you the framework for pedagogy of the ancestors. One of the things that comes out of his research around how we educate and

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form the next generation. How do we think about bringing and raising them? And I'm gonna take you through what you just did was an exercise in recovery . So we've got a couple of dots here.

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This one closest to me is you reflecting back on that other dot that's there inside what we're calling, reflected now? I want you to see this as an aperture. How do you expand the vision that

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you have for your own life, for your own community or your own world reflected is what you see in the mirror. It's captured in your, your books on your facebook, it's the things that are

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publicly available to all people reflected. If we're thinking about this historically, is probably what you were taught in school as well. If you're extended to your community, maybe it was you taught in seminary.

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But then there's that what's remembered, I love thinking about my childhood with my dad in the room because he would love to tell you all the things I did wrong if he was here, I was a

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menace to him, remember it is a broader vision of your own history. These are things that your community can capture, can tell you if you're thinking historically, this is what might not be in those

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history books but is in the community. Forklore. This is what your grandma, your auntie can tell you about what happened when now For those of us from bipod communities, there is a broader vision here

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where we have to do a little recovery where maybe the quote that you offer from the purpose gap, I need to do some recovery of my own history , my own traditions because the way that slavery colonization

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works is it erase and eradicate some of the record that we have to go and recover it. So this is all about broadening your vision. Now, what we did in that first thing, the first

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practice was to just go back to something, you know, reflected. But my hope is you get better and do this. Practice more. Do a version of this practice that you start to include the

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community to try and broaden that aperture. Alright now the hard part vocational e is when we go into the future. So let me just tell you right now, tomorrow I'm just going to take just go

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after the question where do you want to be in five years? Because it's a stupid question. I'll probably say that about 50 times because the brain is not wired to think about the future. In fact

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, if you do all this like vocational work we do with young adults at FT that I do with doctoral students. The work I do on meaning and purpose. It's all about finding your one true passion

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or your call. But what's really curious to me is that what we've learned from neuroscience is that when you do that work, when you try to imagine into the future, Do you know what your brain

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is doing? It's a stranger to itself. You are a stranger. Nothing is lighting up. If I asked you to go back five years or do you go back into childhood? You all have memories

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to draw on. You all had images. But if I ask you to project out 5, 10 years, that same part of that self referential part is completely blank. You are a stranger to yourself

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. Now show you some hacks and brain hacks will do one at the end of this lecture to kind of get around that. But this is just to say this vocational work needs to be projected into the

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future and it has similar trajectories. So here probable shouldn't be, You know, this is what's going to happen. This is the steady state. I'm gonna keep my same job. I'm gonna live in

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my same community things. If they just keep going along as they normally go, then there's the plausible . Well, you know, if I made a shift in my career in my vocation, here's what

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might happen. And then there's the possible if I had the wildest imagination. I mean Pixar right here , I sat behind Pete Docter on the who's the creative director at Pixar on an airplane and the whole

00:24:00.050 - 00:24:07.990

time I regretted not saying hello to him because that was my dream job was to work at Pixar. So like that would have been possible. Had I spoken? It wouldn't have been possible. I have

00:24:07.990 - 00:24:19.030

no skills for Pixar, but this is the broadest thing and similar to what we do with history. We need to do this with the future. If we continue on, life will just happen to us

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. But if we start to imagine what is plausible , what else could we shift in our church, in our community? If we could do the possible , which we'll do tomorrow. If this room could

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put all of our resources together to make a shift , a single decision, what might be possible in the world. So this is the kind of think about ancestors as those who are able to be unstuck

00:24:42.770 - 00:24:56.620

in time. What does it mean to be able to move backwards and forwards in time? My grandma could do it. She sat in the kitchen, we'd all tell her all this stuff and she knew

00:24:56.620 - 00:25:07.680

exactly what we were going through and so she'd never been through it. She had this ability to play with the smallest Children in our family and sit with the oldest adult in transition. So this kind of

00:25:07.680 - 00:25:18.680

moving back and forward in time. And if we do this really well, we do it in community , we get a broader vision. So all of this is to really kind of think about how do

00:25:18.680 - 00:25:37.340

we expand our vision? Our aperture? These are practices that we need to reimagine our world. All ready to go into the future. Are you sure ? All right, so this is a closed meditation

00:25:38.130 - 00:25:49.380

. Um so get comfortable both feet on the ground again. Remember I'm gonna try to hack your brain . Your brain is not set to go five years into the futures, but we're gonna do it.

00:25:51.030 - 00:26:30.260

So get real comfortable. Remember, close your eyes , Take a deep breath in deep breath out. Deep breath in deep breath out now in your imagination . I want you to see a mirror. See

00:26:30.260 - 00:26:48.660

its contours with the frame is made out of it . Could be wood metal, but see a mirror in front of you as you go to sit in front of this mirror. I want you to see

00:26:48.660 - 00:27:03.610

yourself in five years. Not your inner self. But notice what has changed. Maybe there's your hair has changed. You got a haircut. Maybe you colored it if you're bald like me, maybe you

00:27:03.610 - 00:27:26.010

just stay bald, but notice a change in physical feature. Maybe you got a couple more wrinkles. Maybe wearing glasses, not wearing glasses. Look at yourself five years from now, notice what you're wearing

00:27:27.270 - 00:27:49.390

five years. Has your style changed? It's the shirt you're wearing. Look at yourself five years into the future. Have a little crow's feet around your eyes. See yourself smiling back at you because you're

00:27:49.390 - 00:28:15.190

getting ready for something you are preparing to go out into the world to do something in front of this mirror. Start to think about what that thing might be, could be an activity, could be a

00:28:15.190 - 00:28:36.930

new job, could be the existing job In five years. See yourself preparing for whatever comes next in your day. I want you to see in this mirror, that person smiling back at you. They

00:28:36.930 - 00:28:59.450

are proud of what they're doing in the world. They are happy with where they are going, this future stranger, this future you is going into the world with confidence. Sit with this for a moment

00:29:00.060 - 00:29:27.480

, smile back at that image in the mirror. Be proud of how far you've come in just five years and as you sit with your future self see them express gratitude for you. This future self in

00:29:27.480 - 00:29:52.530

the mirror says thank you for the work you put in for the love that you gave for the time that you spent this future self is grateful for what you created. Taking one last look at this future

00:29:52.530 - 00:30:21.670

self, remember to breathe, return to the breath , come back to the room when you're ready. As we think about how we become good ancestors together , I want to put these two pieces together.

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These two meditations is what I do with young adults to that child that you met that was full of joy that didn't have a job in mind. I was just happy to be with their friends. That's

00:30:34.090 - 00:30:52.630

a good ancestor. I need you all to reclaim that as what being a good ancestor is living a full life And we need to step into that future self. five years from now, that's saying thank

00:30:52.630 - 00:31:06.140

you to you in this moment. Here's one last thing I want to leave you with as we think about what our work is. As christians, as still as theologians, as educators, as people who

00:31:06.140 - 00:31:17.920

are doing this work really well. We need to do this in community and practice one of the reasons why I wear this every day with my kids, why my research and scholarship includes them. You'll see

00:31:17.920 - 00:31:29.180

a rapid prototype from a nine year old for our practice tomorrow. So I'm really excited about it. It's because they need to see what being a good ancestor is now and that starts with how you live

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. This is not a why conversation is not your big purpose in life. It's about how you live and how you live into the dreams of that child you recovered and that future self that you just met

00:31:41.390 - 00:31:48.240

. All right now, when we have a conversation now, we have some questions. I can do all the neuroscience. You want to geek out on the vocation literature. We can talk about where all

00:31:48.240 - 00:32:00.940

this fits. But I'm also really curious about what we uniquely can do together here. So introduce yourself as you ask your question or we have a conversation , Tell me about that inner child if you can

00:32:01.270 - 00:32:14.970

tell me about that future self. I love the kind of heady conversation. But if we don't do this soul work, what was set up here, We will continue on on this probable mark. And

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we will say goodbye to our species. All right , So can we become good ancestors together? Yeah , we'll do A. Q. And A. Today and then tomorrow we'll actually do a group exercise

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. The futurism exercise. We'll put all this together , Pieces together. Cool, cool. Thank you