Welcome to Between the Threads, a podcast exploring the threads that connect us, story, memory, identity, and meaning, and how they weave the fabric of peace in our lives and communities. Between the Threads is a joint initiative between Kahanee and Narratives. Kahanee is a nonprofit organization that amplifies storytelling for peace building, and Narratives is an award-winning planning and design firm based in Winnipeg, Canada. Welcome to today's episode of Between the Threads. Today we're sitting down with Dr. Stanley Amaladas Stanley is the director of the Mauro Institute for Peace and Justice, where his work centers on peace building, dialogue, and community engaged approaches to conflict and reconciliation. With the deep commitment to justice and care, Dr. Amaladas brings together research, practice, and lived experience to explore How communities can respond to conflict with compassion and creativity. thank you so much for making time for us today. You're welcome. Our first question for you is, who is Stan? Who is Stan? Well, who is Stan? Well, you know, just, context-wise, I've just come here from a funeral. And it's kind of really neat. Very well attended, over 300 people at church. And it reminded me of the time when I was standing right beside my dad as he was dying. Right? So I've always wondered uh who is Stan Stan. And since that time, I was 18 years old when he passed away. was very young, 52. And I remember asking myself the question, not what do I want to do, but who do I want to be? That was the question, right? uh Because our culture, I grew up in Malaysia. And in Malaysia, you either became a doctor, a lawyer, or an engineer. And if none of those three, then you can become a teacher. uh So it's not so much who I want to, what I want to do, but who I want to be. So Stanley, in a way, is... uh I kind of really grew up in a faith-based tradition. ah I grew up as a Catholic. ah I grew up with philosophy. I grew up with uh sociology. ah And I grew up uh with Latin, because at one point, Stan Amaladas wanted to be a Catholic priest, and then he thought about it differently, and then, you know, here I am. So I'm not sure if I can say who Stan Amaladas is in one sentence. It is all of those influences that kind of enables me to be who I am today. uh And the whole idea of coming from an event like a funeral kind of reminds me that ah what's our purpose here? Yeah. Right. It's not so much that we're not born in order to die. Right. We're born and we're thrown in the middle of life and death. Those are our human conditions, natality, mortality. But surely, I think I love what Hannah Arendt had to say. We're not born in order to die, but we're born in order to begin anew. To begin something new. And that's always the surprise and that's always the adventure. So if I were to encapsulate Stan, it's adventurous. And adventurous in a way that says whatever venture you're on, you never know where it's going to go. Otherwise, it's not going to be a venture, right? And um always open for surprises. And so my story is about looking for surprises and being open to that. Yeah, and there's so much uh curiosity in living that way. And I, uh you know, I'm reflecting on the first time that we met uh after we figured out where, because we ended up going to different coffee shops. Same coffee shop, but two different ends. Yeah, who knew there was the same name of a coffee shop, like three or four blocks apart? uh And one of the things that really stayed with me from our conversation was just how many different things we talked about. it was, it truly felt like meeting an old friend who gets it. And I think, you know, I've been really looking forward to having another conversation with you. So that curiosity truly, I think, encapsulates who... who you are as a person. Thank you. It's always interesting to find out what other people think about you or see in you. that's always a surprise. Yeah. I welcome that. Well, tell me about your last name. We just started talking about it before we started here today. Well, you know, it's kind of interesting. Amaladas was my grandfather's first name. interesting. then what he did was he translated, I mean, he uh offered his first name as the children's surname. And I've always been intrigued by that word, Amaladas. Das is a very Indian, in Indian culture you find Das, but not A-D-A-S. I don't quite know what that means other than maybe it's a short form of Adidas. No. oh Looking for a little brand Amal is kind of interesting. Amal Clooney. Right. got Amal. And I looked it up in Hebrew, or in Arabic, I should say, in Arabic, Amal means hope. Right? And in Sanskrit, it means clean, unblemished. I don't think that fits me. And I'm blemished. Definitely not clean. We're kind of like, filled with life experiences, right? But I like, I love that language of hope. And much of what I write about and I read and I pull up my old materials and I go like, I can see hope as that thread, you know, running through in many of the writings that I do. That's beautiful. Thank you. So we've spoken previously about our respective connection to stories. And I'd love to hear how stories shaped your upbringing. You know, um It's not so much what stories people tell, um stories come to you. They come to you through interactions, and then we construct that story out of that. You just shared a story when we met. It's a construction, and that's how we live. um So the life experiences are themselves stories, but only later in life I began to construct them as the story. ah So when I read books and I read texts, I began to receive everything as a story. So it's not the truth, but it's a truth. It has an element of truth, And uh you'll see in my books that I write, I always begin with a story and that story begins to inform ah the book, right? And by implication, all stories are bounded. ah So it's not here, there or everywhere. It's in this story and in this context and this is what it is. ah The interesting thing part is when we were growing up and I was just sharing that with my sister and I went to visit with her and she was undergoing surgery recently and we talked about how Our parents never read us storybooks when we were growing up. It wasn't part of the culture. You know, we heard some of the stories. My dad's experience in the war and my mom's, you know, struggling with kids. we were not with... We were limited means. em So, I was not exposed to the kind of storybooks that I am now reading to our grandchildren. Right. Right? And they love it, right? And my... grandson always, Elijah, the first fella, Bampa, Bampa, tell me a story. says, tell me a story. Tell me a story on your boy. You know, he's so interested to the point where because of his asking, I wrote a little book for him and I wrote it. He calls me Bampa. So it's life of Bampa through his bicycle rides. Right. So, you know, and I. My bicycle was my mode of transportation. I love cycling and I love long distance cycling and coming here too. The longest we did was a hundred kilometers. It was kind of just fun, just riding, right? ah So he said, me a real fun story. I thought, well, this is not a fun story. So here's the story of the boy growing up. You know how you... You ride a bicycle, you're really trying to find a balance that you're starting to learn, right? And you're always leaning one way and then it's like to fall. And after a while, you just get it. You just get it. And now that you know how to ride a bicycle, then you try to kind of show off a little bit. Look Ma, no hands, right? But here's one thing that Bampa did that I told him, I don't think you want to do that, Eli. And he says, what Bampa? I said, well, once I was riding my bike and I thought to myself, what would it feel like or what would it be like if you put your right hand on the left handle and the left hand on the right handle and I did it. uh A few broken bones there or dislocated I should say, dislocated and my mother when she saw me and the bicycle and the state it was and she asked what happened I told her and she said you idiot. Yeah. That is true. So that became a story for another article in a book. It's about, um, learn to keep your right hand on the right handle and the left hand on the left handle and it'll all be fine. Yeah. When you do that, when you crisscross the way that is, you know, you're going to get into trouble. Right. He loves that story. And then every time I say, um, that time, something, something really nasty happened to me today. He goes, no, that. Oh, that's awesome. It goes back. uh I've come to appreciate it. And in my classrooms too, when I teach, I always come with an example of a story. And especially in peace, uh it can be very, very, it's a very complex study, right? A complex experience. It's not so much what the student needs to know about peace or conflict. In my mind, in addition to what they need to know, they need to feel. They need to feel the need to act or they need to feel that there's something really wrong here. They need to feel disturbed. They need to then have the courage to disturb. ah And so, and it's, when I got that notion, I then started reading, and of all people, Karl Marx, right? Here we go. How can he say anything about this? In one of his speeches, he says just that. He says, you know, the atmosphere weighs upon us like a 20,000 pound force. Isn't that true today? the atmosphere weighing down on us like a 20,000 pound force. But here's what he then asked, but do you feel it? Now this is Marx, but do you feel it? Right? So if nothing is felt, I would say nothing matters. Wow. Right? How do we balance the... backing up here? One of the... challenges that I see a lot in the work of peace and peace building is I feel as society, we have demonized the idea of discomfort. Discomfort equals bad. Conversation must shut down. Yet, discomfort feeling expression is where peace lives. That's where the possibility of peace lives. How do we how do we balance those two? Keep your right hand on the right hand. That's advice for everything. I'm sure you already know this, Soumya. We're talking some talk in terms of productive discomfort. um Now, who wants to be in an... Discomfortable position. It's not a fun place to be. But yet, how many have really escaped from being discomfortable? Life brings us comfort and discomfort. So, what are we running away from? so... What are we giving ourselves permission to interrupt? We need to interrupt our own comfort. But as someone who is in field of learning, I try and look for stories, poems that kind of at least point to that discomfort without necessarily saying this is what you need to attend to. Let me give you an example, if you don't mind. There's a wonderful fellow by the name of Patrick Kinney. This is the rights in the... He wrote this wonderful poem. um he writes within the context of the civil rights movement. And we got that context. um And in that time, there were rules in the cities that um black people cannot leave their homes after 7 p.m. m Because any blacks on the streets after seven must be up to no good. So he's a white man and he said, that's not right. He says, well, in this town, no black people live here. So he encouraged a couple, black couple, to move from Chicago City into this neighborhood, all white neighborhood. And then he went to the council and said, well, you got black people now. Oh, all right. So I'm not going to go to his personal story because they came down hard on him. But he writes this little... poem. And if I remember, he writes something like this. He says, six men, and thank goodness it's men and not women. Glad you excluded. Six men trapped in happenstance in bleak and bitter cold. Each man possessed a stick of wood. As the story is told, their fire in need of logs. The first man held his back because of the faces around the fire. He noticed one was black. The second man, looking across the way, saw one not of his church, and could not bring himself to give the fire his stick of birch. The third man sat in tattered clothes, and he gave his coat a hitch. Why should his log be put to use to warm the idle rich? Now the rich man sat and thought of all the wealth he had in store, and how to keep what he had earned from the lazy shipless poor. The black man's face bespoke revenge. All he saw in his thick wood was a chance to spite the white, the fire dying and becoming out of sight. The last man of this forlorn group did not, except for gain, giving only to those who gave is how he played the game. Their logs held tight and death's still hand as proof of human sin. They did not die from the cold without. they died from the cold within. I thought that was a powerful story by Patrick Kenny. And you know, I'm a crazy kind of guy because I love a poem, I go and memorize it. Sure, that's incredible. I'm so impressed right now. I mean, so I think that gets to the heart of, know, where we need to begin and where we need to start. we have so much cold in the world today, that cold within. And how do I respond to the cold within in others in a way that does not discount them, but rather care, show compassion for what's happening there. So I think when I come at it from this perspective, in my classes and in organizations, I've worked with silence. It brings silence. You know, as if they were saying, how can this be happening? Right? And I think it also then opens them up to talk about it differently. Because it's not about them, it's about the story. That's beautiful, Stan. And how do you, and you've touched on this in a few of the things that you've shared so far, what role can stories play directly in the world of peace building? I'm moving away from this language of peace building or making and peace keeping. They're necessary. I'm moving and the latest little manuscript that I wrote was on peace dwelling. oh And peace dwelling is because we are human condition, we are dwellers. We show up on earth by the accident called birth. And we are in this country, that country by the accident of where we were born. But we live as mortals. Everyone. And we live in relation to Mother Nature. And we dwell. We are dwellers. So how do we dwell with each other in ways that looks after each other rather than destroy each other? Right. Right. So peace dwelling, think maybe the So we don't build in order to dwell. But we dwell because we have built. interesting. love that reframe. yeah, a lot of peace building, what do I need to do? What do I have to build here? Right? But I turn it around and say, well, we dwell because we have built. So how are we dwelling together? then I can go back, what have we built that enables us to live in this particular way? Then I, it comes back to There's more responsibility there. Collective, yeah. It comes back to the person, it comes back to the collective, it comes back to the group. What am I doing that's contributing to what it is that we're experiencing? Right? So, that's why I talk about peace dwelling. And again, that came out of another story. Yeah. Which I... Do you tell? Well, it's... uh Yeah. oh I won't mention, I got to protect the people. it was at a conference without a doubt. uh You got to submit a proposal and all that. You know the routine, right? The conference was in October of that year and um the proposals had to be in by February of that year. All right. They accepted it. Great. And my proposal was more on working with those who are engaged in the activity of peace and living in the context of no peace. And how do they manage themselves? They are aspiring, working hard and experiencing the gap. That was essentially... um And a conference like this is usually about this particular conference is international and we get about 2000 a year in different cities. And if I get 15 people in a room, I'm a happy camper. Yeah, I remember you saying that. But in this one, I had 40. 40. was like thrilled. thought, wow, they must love Stan. They're all coming here. Little did I know. So... We shifted the room, circle, and all that. And I'm the facilitator. Facil facere. Facilitators make easy. Right? Facere, to make. Facil, easy. Before I could say anything, was saying, well, if you get around the room and everybody introduces themselves for one minute, it'll take 40 minutes. We can't do this. why don't we, you The practicality of introductions. And before I could go anywhere, um someone yelled, no, you need to know. I'm a Jew and I don't appreciate what's going on in the world today. Well, you should know. I'm an Israeli but I'm married to a Palestinian. And it got worse. And before I knew it, it was like, no, no, no, you don't understand. And these folks, I know them. They are beautiful people engaged in good work. What was happening here? Right? So as facilitator, I lost control. Right. That's it. That was my adventure. I thought, then my Christian upbringing then stepped in and I looked up and I said, you got to tell me what I'm going to do here. A little help, please. I'm losing it. And my spiritual advisor always said, be careful what you ask for, Stan. Be specific when you ask. And then everything from there, occurred spontaneously. interesting. No plan. Not the plan out the door, right? So then I found myself pulling away from that circle. Right? So it was my way of saying to them, I do not want to be a part of this conversation or yelling and screaming. And as soon as I did that, what are you doing? you the facilitator? You should be here. Are you running away? Ignore it. And I went to the corner of a room and just overlooking these beautiful cities, sunshine. And then I didn't realize what I was going to be doing next, but I did it. I started humming to the words I did not know and singing to the words that I did know, this prayer of St. Francis. oh Make me a channel of your peace. Are you crazy? One person yelled, ignored and I continued. But you know what? Within a few seconds, those that are seated themselves started to hum or sing. And came up and joined me at the window. Of course, there were tears. And it was such a powerful moment um that got me thinking about what does it mean to dwell in peace. There was a... wonderful case study, really, right there. And I used that to produce this book which I called Peace Leadership, a story of peace dwelling. And it's a story, a story, right? And so I think stories come to us. Yeah, that's beautiful. I really appreciate that story. And what it brings up for me is There was a spontaneity and we talked a little bit about that earlier. There was a spontaneity in what happened. The room burned a little and you lost complete control. So your facilitator's agenda, as tidy as it would have been, was out the window and here emerged a very spontaneous response to what was happening. How do we balance that need for a structured response with spontaneity though? And you talk a little bit about intentional leadership and I'd to see, love to hear what you That comes from another story. And I think, know, cannot come to it with a structure in mind. The structure emerges out of that experience. So it's in retrospect, I can then now collect, okay, this is what happened. Then you can become structural about what happened. So I can't, I mean, I had a structure to facilitate that. It went out the door because I was not paying attention or didn't ask for where they were at. Right? Now my reflection would say, well, maybe I could be a part of the structure, not to come in with your plan, but to come in with asking where they're at. Maybe that could be another, but you see what I'm saying? The structure emerges as a reflective moment. In that moment, were you able to go back to any parts of your original structure that you had established? Yeah, we did. uh But with a little... um So then it became a question of not about... What happened? Tell me, let's look at what happened. What happened here? That would bring us back to this happened, that happened, right? It would not. So uh I went back and the question I asked myself and all around the room was, what was your experience here? How did you experience this? Because that gave me an opportunity to talk about how you were dwelling. Right. And as we were dwelling, we rebuilding something else. um What was our experience? Well, experience and the moment they began to speak about their experience of it, then they opened themselves up to being vulnerable again. Sure. But in a way that others took care of that vulnerability, they didn't take advantage of it. Do you think that in that whole experience took 40 minutes that you saved from the introductions? Probably. Yeah, I had a program, had this and my objectives. That went out the door. So ultimately we walked away experiencing what we need to do if we are seeking peace with each other. I need to kind of respect the other as another. You know, the person as a person. um not with categories that they came in with. And also, like a lot of the times it's experiences like that, that actually stay with people. I'm huge believer that there's so much that happens in our lives on a daily basis. There's so many conversations, you know, you're looking at stuff online, you're reading stuff, you're meeting people. And ultimately, the things that stay with you are things that have evoked an emotion. That's right. which is where we started today's conversation, was the powerful thing about a story is that it stirs something inside of you. And I think that's what happened in that moment. And I forgot to mention, Soumya, I really forgot to mention that I presented my workshop was in October, A third week of October of 2023. October 7th is when the Hamas thing happened, right? So it was all in that context. So when I came, uh I still didn't tune into that. Because I was stuck with what I had to do. that's important element of a context. It needs to But some of the things you mentioned about intentional leadership, when I worked with that, that too came out of another story. Do tell. I love this. But this was... um You know, our kids are in kindergarten, grade one, know, dropping them off school and it was a snowy day. And, you know, it was, so I was coming out after dropping the kids off, I was coming out and I noticed someone that I knew was standing down the hall and he kind of looked distraught. And so at that time you kind of make a decision, right? Do you approach or do you, you know, and so on and so forth, but... So I thought, well, maybe I should just go check in on him. So I'm walking towards him and he's like where you are seated right now. It's about that. So I started to walk and a little kid, little kid goes running right by me, right? But he went straight to that man. Was standing by the wall, gazing out and... um That's all I it's a... And I was watching the kid and he went straight to this man and he pulled at his pant leg. Okay. I stopped. I just wanted to just watch. The kid. looks up the man and says, you do something special today? What? What a big question. So I thought, oh, I got to figure this one out. And the guy says, he didn't know what to say. Yeah. But we as adults are very schooled. Sure. When we don't know an answer to the question that the kid is asking, what do we do? We ask the question. Did you do something special today? I woke up! Wow! I thought, what the... This mother feed this boy today. And then he wouldn't stop. And we went, and you know what? No. I on my pants by myself, know? Wow. Yes. Eight-thirties already had a sense of achievement, right? Whoa. And he wouldn't stop and he says, you know what? No. Mom said it's a brand new day. Wow. my gosh. Right. So mom sent a little kid off to school with this energy pill, right? Yeah. It's a brand new day. And then as if he understood, like this is my interpretation, as if he understood where the man was at, it comes with me, said. So the man follows the boy, and of course I want to figure out what's happening to him, so I follow them. And he goes to the edge of the school entrance and he points out, says, that's me there, you know. and he's watching and then the man and then he takes off. The little boy takes off and the man walks away. Me, I wanted to go and see what he was pointing to. I'm curious, right? I'm curious. And the little kid had made himself a snow angel. Wow. You know? So that became uh my uh story for this book called Intentional Leadership, Getting to the Heart of the Matter. Yeah. uh I woke up, it's like, what does it mean to live a wakeful life? Right? uh And I have written something here that I thought would share with you because em I said, you know, that mom of that boy must have read and understood what the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius had said in his… when he wrote his book, The Meditations, in Book 5. And he writes there… In the morning, when thou risest unwillingly, let this thought be present. I am rising to the work of a human being. Right? When I am... When... Why then am I dissatisfied if I'm going to do the things for which I exist and for which I was brought into the world? So I thought, wow, this mom must have read really is. It's a brand new day. So I began looking for examples of people who actually lived a wakeful life and not a sleepy life. Because we can be sleepwalkers. So that became one critical element of intentional leadership. I lived with intention. I woke up. I might be unwilling to be unwillingly, but I woke up. So what's in store for me here? um And then the other activity. for me was relevant was the little tug at the pant leg. It's like what's calling for our attention? Right. How can I be intentionally focused on what's calling for my attention? oh And when I am called, when something does call for my attention, am I going to give myself the opportunity to be disturbed by it, interrupted by it, or celebrated? Doesn't matter, right? And if I am willing to give myself the permission to be disturbed, then I am going to be in discomfort. Absolutely. And then I also need to have the courage to disturb and to interrupt. And hence the intention. Right. so Pope Francis for me then became my uh model for what was happening with his life and what was happening with his relationship with his community of people in the Catholic Church. And that became for me an opportunity to kind of really flesh that out. So those are two elements. And then uh it's a brand new day. It is a Right? It's brand new. So how do we live out of the... And here again, how do we live out of the imagination of what could be? Right. Hope. know, and Barack Obama became my figure in that book, right? And Barack Obama was one who was always accused of being naive and being a hope monger. Right? A hope monger, not a gossip monger, but a hope. And he says, I accept that. I welcome it. Right? And that's sort of the consistency there in that little kid who has this positive outlook on life. He didn't know any better. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. How do you... So I would imagine that, you know, Stan has a wakeful life. What does... How do you balance that? that energy that comes from it's a brand new day with this gnawing draining of conflict around the world. How do you balance those two? ah You keep coming back to that balance stuff and I'm wondering if... um that um If that's too unreal. I'd love to hear that. Right. um We are imbalanced. And it's not balancing myself to some level of equilibrium, but rather living in that imbalance. Right? Living with that imbalance. And it's only by being imbalanced that I begin to walk through it. Beautiful. Right? So, you know, it's not a... It's kind of a... It's not an either-or. You're in the middle. And you see it. So, and I am unbalanced by it. And so what do I do? Then I have choices. Some choices that I make might move me into a very, really unbalanced. I could get angry, I could yell murder, I could, you know, get that village idiot out of here, and so on and so forth. No names mentioned, of course. But staying in the imbalance in my faith tradition means I need kind of really reflect and pray about it. Sure. For me, not to take away that, but to say, yeah, this is what it is. This is what I love it to be. This is what it is. Now, what am I doing that's creating this or the imbalance? Or what can I do more? I love how honest that is to the human experience. We may try to seek some sense of balance because we feel like we're in a little bit more equilibrium, but in reality, change happens when there is imbalance. And when there is imbalance is where there's an opportunity for us to be curious and do something about the world around us. I really appreciate that. I uh always say to myself, just No matter how, whatever the plans you have, they say, well, when man plans, God laughs. Right? You heard that one. But here is just walk out of your home every day, just accepting that shift happens. Yeah. It happens. But it's like on a bicycle, if you're feeling yourself getting out of balance, you try to balance yourself by leaning to the left or leaning to the right. And the more you... overcompensate your leaning, you will fall. You will fall. Right? Yeah. The best you can do is just let go. Can I just say how much I appreciate that you speak in metaphors. That's what stories are about. love that. I love that. And I, because to me, metaphors have this incredible power that, you know, when you were sharing that story of this little kid walking up to this man, You experienced that, you witnessed that, and from that came so many other things. And it's almost like a story that keeps on giving. growing up, and I grew up with a lot of different stories from my grandparents and my parents and what have you, one of my favorite cartoons though, to this day, The Lion King. And whenever I feel like my world is spinning out of control, I watch The Lion King again. oh And every time I watch it, there's new lessons that emerge from that. Because it's so metaphorical and yet can feel very real. I just wanted to say, I just really appreciate that there's, seem to have a lot of love for metaphors. you know, Soumya, from what you said, um you mentioned about going back to a story, but you're getting something a little different out of it. uh It reminds me of what Heracles is, uh philosopher from 400 AD or whatever, BC I should say. You can never step into the same river twice. Because we have evolved, you've changed, you've matured. And so with the change in you, then you go back to a story, you receive it differently. Other words jump out at you differently and different metaphors come to mind, right? ah But therein lies the joy of being in the company of stories. And I just caught something here that I thought, oh, I got to share this with you. There's a follow-up by name of Barry Lopez. He's an uh anthropologist, but he's into the Arctic. He's very much into nature. um What do call those things? Award-winning uh books. oh The Arctic Horizon. He writes a wonderful little storybook. It's called The Crow and the Weasel. And these are two indigenous men who go on a travel. And their name is Crow. One is Crow and the other is Weasel. And they do their traveling. And they come uh to a home, it's Badger's home. So Badger invites them in. talks about, just listens to their stories. And then it's about to leave. This is what Badger sends them out with. It says, remember on this one thing. One thing. The stories people tell have a way of taking care of them. And it says, if stories come to you, care for them and learn to give them away where they are needed. uh Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive. Wow. Now that is why we put these stories in each other's memories. This is how people care for themselves. And I thought, wow. It's beautiful. And you're involved with uh narratives and Narrative Inc. and your presentation you did was the soft... power of stories. Yeah. And I think that softness is because it opens up this metaphor, not only to listen to the story, but also to care for what's being shared, right? Yeah. thank you for sharing that. Like my heart is warm just to... reflecting on that healing power of stories. And it's true, stories can evoke so much. They can evoke hope in the darkest of times. They can evoke love. They can evoke all sorts of emotions. I think that's can also evoke anger. Absolutely. Right? And so, and if somebody's angry, the last thing we want to say to them is, don't be angry. Yeah, we usually learn that the hard way. We need to take care of that anger. And how do we do that? So in a way we become curators, healers. And if we are on ourselves in a bad place or in a place that is also angry. Well, thank you. Sen, how would someone find copies of your books, including the one you wrote for your grandson? The grandson, we've got two copies. Oh, wow. One for him. more copies of that? It's not published. It was one of those little storybooks I wrote for him. Beautiful. And that's another one that I have a copy at home, hoping to give it to my other fellow. But he's not so much into stories right now. Look at there. But the other books, they're available in... Amazon and Goodreads or wherever. We'll make sure we include the links to those. Any final thoughts for our listeners? Final thoughts? Maybe if I came back to this whole language of peace dwelling, you know, and I talk about it, what does it mean to dwell? A philosopher by the name of Heidegger, I mean, and I'll excuse all the sins that come with that. I'm not going to go there. ah But he's a phenomenologist that really engages in language. goes to the etymology. It goes back to the origins of language. And to dwell means to protect and spare each other from harm. That is from the language of Moan, which comes from the Gothic. So already as dwellers, we care for each other, but we protect each other. We protect each other from harm. And so you can see how that language of do no harm also plays itself there, But yet we do harm each other. And so what do we then do? Another element of it then becomes how are you a healing presence? in the midst of that, so it doesn't take away. And if we're able to do that, then how do I become a welcoming presence with arms wide open, and hands do all kinds of funny things like hug, or stay away from me, and so on and so forth, right? And finally, what then would it mean to be what I call a good neighbor? Where neighbors, like the Samaritan story, my faith tradition, is where the Samaritan makes himself available to those who are in need, right? That's the idea. I think... um Yeah, there's four. I know Mary Brooks Welch, a wonderful lady. She wrote one poem. If I can remember that. So you have to excuse me if I bugger this one up. But she's speaking about a violin. Okay. A toss battered and scarred. And the auctioneer thought it was scarcely worth his while. to waste much time on the old violin. But he picked it up with a smile. What am I bid for this, good folks? He cried. One dollar, one dollar. Well, two dollars, two dollars. Well, give me three. Three dollars, going once, going twice. But no. From far back of the room, a grey-haired man stepped forward. He picked up the bow. He dusted the old violin. He tightened the loose strings. And he played a melody so pure and sweet. as sweet as the caroling angels sing. And when the music ceased, the auctioneer, with a voice quiet and low, asked, What am I bid for this, good folks? A thousand dollars, a thousand, two thousand dollars, two thousand dollars, who would, three thousand dollars, three thousand dollars going once, going twice, gone. And the crowd cheered, but many of them cried. What changed its worth? they asked. Swift came to reply. a touch of a master's hand. And many a man whose life is battered and scarred with sin is auctioned to the thoughtless crowd. A mess of potage, a glass of wine, a game. It's going, going, almost gone, but the master comes, and the foolish crowd cannot quite understand the worth of a soul and the change that is wrought by a touch of a master's hand. Wow. That's I'd like to leave with your audience. Just to believe that you have the power ah to touch and to bring about change. Thank you. Thank you so much. And what a beautiful, beautiful way to end and really appreciate you spending the time with Thank you for having me.