1
00:00:00,200 --> 00:00:03,720
Speaker 1: Welcome to today's podcast sponsored by Hillsdale College, All Things

2
00:00:03,800 --> 00:00:06,280
Speaker 1: Hillsdale at Hillsdale dot ed or I encourage you to

3
00:00:06,280 --> 00:00:08,800
Speaker 1: take advantage of the many free online courses there, and

4
00:00:08,840 --> 00:00:11,119
Speaker 1: of course I'll listen to the Hillsdale dialogues, all of

5
00:00:11,119 --> 00:00:14,080
Speaker 1: them at Q for Hillsdale dot com or just Google,

6
00:00:14,200 --> 00:00:17,880
Speaker 1: Apple iTunes and Hillsdale Morning.

7
00:00:17,600 --> 00:00:19,920
Speaker 2: Glory and even Grace America.

8
00:00:20,320 --> 00:00:24,560
Speaker 1: Merry Christmas Eve, twenty twenty five. I'm here you at

9
00:00:24,640 --> 00:00:28,240
Speaker 1: live in the studio. Not a lot of news today,

10
00:00:28,240 --> 00:00:32,040
Speaker 1: and that's fine. People are out busy getting to their families,

11
00:00:32,520 --> 00:00:38,520
Speaker 1: getting the last minute Christmas preparations ready, cooking dinner, getting

12
00:00:38,520 --> 00:00:41,560
Speaker 1: ready to go to midnight Mass or church services. Many

13
00:00:41,560 --> 00:00:43,720
Speaker 1: of you are coming back from the four o'clock service.

14
00:00:43,720 --> 00:00:46,200
Speaker 1: They're getting ready to come to the four o'clock service

15
00:00:46,240 --> 00:00:49,400
Speaker 1: where the kids will do the reenactment of the Manger scene.

16
00:00:50,159 --> 00:00:54,400
Speaker 1: Have a wonderful Christmas Eve. Be careful where there is snow.

17
00:00:54,480 --> 00:00:57,400
Speaker 1: There lost snow in Maine and up in the Northern Tier,

18
00:00:57,440 --> 00:01:01,400
Speaker 1: but in California it's a nightmare reign like you have

19
00:01:01,520 --> 00:01:05,000
Speaker 1: not seen in a long time. And just be careful

20
00:01:05,240 --> 00:01:09,080
Speaker 1: as you go doing in feud a grandmother's house, don't

21
00:01:09,120 --> 00:01:11,520
Speaker 1: slide off the street, be aware of bud slides and

22
00:01:11,560 --> 00:01:15,720
Speaker 1: all that other stuff. I wanted to begin today on

23
00:01:15,880 --> 00:01:21,120
Speaker 1: Christmas Eve by reminding you that Christians are celebrating hope.

24
00:01:21,360 --> 00:01:27,399
Speaker 1: They're celebrating the arrival of a Jewish Messiah to a

25
00:01:27,480 --> 00:01:33,240
Speaker 1: Jewish mother in Judea roughly for Ad. That's what scholars

26
00:01:33,280 --> 00:01:39,600
Speaker 1: think now. And it's all set all of the Gospels

27
00:01:39,880 --> 00:01:47,760
Speaker 1: and Galilee, Samaria and Judea, lot in Capernaum, lot, some

28
00:01:47,920 --> 00:01:52,200
Speaker 1: in Nazareth, not happy times in Nazareth, some in Egypt,

29
00:01:52,520 --> 00:01:58,880
Speaker 1: a little bit in Samaria, mostly in Judea. And it's

30
00:01:59,840 --> 00:02:02,760
Speaker 1: a Jewish story, which is why I want to begin

31
00:02:02,800 --> 00:02:06,520
Speaker 1: on Christmas Eve with an appreciation for our Jewish older

32
00:02:06,520 --> 00:02:10,480
Speaker 1: brothers and sisters. Dennis Prager likes to joke when we

33
00:02:10,520 --> 00:02:14,160
Speaker 1: see them Issiah, either we'll be seeing him for the

34
00:02:14,200 --> 00:02:16,800
Speaker 1: first time or the second time, and one of us

35
00:02:16,840 --> 00:02:19,919
Speaker 1: will be right, but we'll be both there together. And

36
00:02:20,000 --> 00:02:21,680
Speaker 1: Dennis was able to do a message by the way

37
00:02:21,720 --> 00:02:24,840
Speaker 1: with Marissa, and it was wonderful. But I've been bothered,

38
00:02:24,840 --> 00:02:26,519
Speaker 1: and this is not personal. I'm not going to bring

39
00:02:26,600 --> 00:02:30,680
Speaker 1: up any particular names. I have been bothered by the

40
00:02:31,040 --> 00:02:35,040
Speaker 1: almost straight line rise in anti Semitism around the world

41
00:02:35,760 --> 00:02:38,880
Speaker 1: and especially in New York, and of course by the

42
00:02:39,000 --> 00:02:43,000
Speaker 1: deadly violence not just in and around Israel over the

43
00:02:43,080 --> 00:02:48,560
Speaker 1: last two years, but at Bondai Beach in Australia, in Europe,

44
00:02:48,960 --> 00:02:53,880
Speaker 1: in New York City and anti Semitism. I thought about

45
00:02:53,880 --> 00:02:57,640
Speaker 1: it last night and I made notes to myself. There

46
00:02:57,680 --> 00:03:00,359
Speaker 1: are lots of books written by authors Dennis Prager one.

47
00:03:00,520 --> 00:03:04,320
Speaker 1: I've talked with Dennis about this often at length. There

48
00:03:04,360 --> 00:03:08,080
Speaker 1: are at least five sources of anti Semitism. They come

49
00:03:08,160 --> 00:03:14,480
Speaker 1: up with Number one. People are afraid and scared of

50
00:03:14,639 --> 00:03:20,280
Speaker 1: complex events and rapid change. Scary stuff happens every day,

51
00:03:20,320 --> 00:03:25,120
Speaker 1: and people want an explanation to cling to. So some

52
00:03:25,200 --> 00:03:28,920
Speaker 1: people come up with the Trilateral Commission is doing this,

53
00:03:29,960 --> 00:03:34,040
Speaker 1: or the Builderbergers are doing this, or Davos is doing

54
00:03:34,080 --> 00:03:37,680
Speaker 1: this to us, or the old stand by the ancient evil.

55
00:03:37,800 --> 00:03:41,720
Speaker 3: The Jews are doing this to us. Now, believe it

56
00:03:41,800 --> 00:03:42,040
Speaker 3: or not.

57
00:03:42,160 --> 00:03:47,760
Speaker 1: Anti Semitism predates Christianity, but it got turbo charged by

58
00:03:47,760 --> 00:03:53,560
Speaker 1: the medieval church, Catholic Church, and John Paul went out

59
00:03:53,600 --> 00:03:57,000
Speaker 1: of his way, Saint John Paul the Second to apologize

60
00:03:57,040 --> 00:03:58,840
Speaker 1: for that condemn it, as did Benedict.

61
00:04:00,040 --> 00:04:00,120
Speaker 3: Ye.

62
00:04:00,800 --> 00:04:03,560
Speaker 1: People are afraid. They look for answers. They grab onto anything,

63
00:04:03,640 --> 00:04:07,520
Speaker 1: any explanation they were. Secondly, some folks are sad to say,

64
00:04:08,480 --> 00:04:09,280
Speaker 1: just not very bright.

65
00:04:10,280 --> 00:04:11,080
Speaker 3: Some are stupid.

66
00:04:12,000 --> 00:04:19,839
Speaker 1: They read antimitic literature like the Bizarrest manufactured Protocols for

67
00:04:19,880 --> 00:04:23,400
Speaker 1: the Elder of Zion. I mean, it's really terrible writing.

68
00:04:23,440 --> 00:04:27,880
Speaker 1: It's idiot, and they fall for it. They think Jews

69
00:04:27,880 --> 00:04:32,599
Speaker 1: are running banking or Hollywood or media, and they're doing

70
00:04:32,600 --> 00:04:35,359
Speaker 1: it in some kind of a giant conspiration. It's that

71
00:04:35,800 --> 00:04:42,159
Speaker 1: it's really quite dumb, but they believe it. Others aren't stupid,

72
00:04:42,240 --> 00:04:47,440
Speaker 1: but aren't ignorant. They haven't done any basic reading. And

73
00:04:47,520 --> 00:04:51,320
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about memorizing Will Durrant Aarl Durant History

74
00:04:51,360 --> 00:04:55,960
Speaker 1: of Civilization. I think of one recent book. Barry Strauss wrote,

75
00:04:56,440 --> 00:05:01,120
Speaker 1: Jews versus Rome, and it's about the Jewish wars against

76
00:05:01,120 --> 00:05:05,200
Speaker 1: the Roman Empire. The big one is sixty six to seventy,

77
00:05:05,240 --> 00:05:10,120
Speaker 1: but there are two other ones before Finally the Second

78
00:05:10,160 --> 00:05:15,679
Speaker 1: Temple was leveled in seventy a d. And Barcavo Coba

79
00:05:16,040 --> 00:05:20,880
Speaker 1: Revolt one thirty two. After that, they just drive most

80
00:05:20,880 --> 00:05:22,480
Speaker 1: of the Jews away after they kill about a half

81
00:05:22,520 --> 00:05:23,000
Speaker 1: million of them.

82
00:05:23,040 --> 00:05:25,640
Speaker 2: The Romans too, Romans killed Jesus too.

83
00:05:26,200 --> 00:05:31,400
Speaker 1: And at that time roman were so down on Jews

84
00:05:31,400 --> 00:05:35,520
Speaker 1: they renamed the land from Judea to Palestine, actually Syria Palestine,

85
00:05:36,279 --> 00:05:38,919
Speaker 1: and they had other prefects go and rule it. But

86
00:05:39,000 --> 00:05:40,920
Speaker 1: if you haven't even read that, if that's all news

87
00:05:40,920 --> 00:05:44,400
Speaker 1: to you, you just you need to do some reading.

88
00:05:45,960 --> 00:05:49,680
Speaker 1: Third that was third summer ignorant, so he got some

89
00:05:49,800 --> 00:05:54,159
Speaker 1: are scared, some are stupid, Summer ignorant. Some are mentally

90
00:05:54,200 --> 00:06:00,000
Speaker 1: ill and whatever reason, mental illness gets into some people

91
00:06:00,240 --> 00:06:05,360
Speaker 1: heads and they make Jews the object of their insanity

92
00:06:06,200 --> 00:06:11,640
Speaker 1: and then get over that with treatment. But you don't understand,

93
00:06:11,640 --> 00:06:14,799
Speaker 1: and you can't possibly begin. I think of the Trio

94
00:06:14,839 --> 00:06:19,119
Speaker 1: Life synagogue massacre. That Fellow was amped up on white

95
00:06:19,160 --> 00:06:22,920
Speaker 1: supremacist anti Jewish stuff, and I just think that's mental

96
00:06:22,960 --> 00:06:27,000
Speaker 1: illness with a gun. The kind that we are seeing

97
00:06:27,040 --> 00:06:33,880
Speaker 1: more and more is corrupt anti Semitism. I can't read minds,

98
00:06:33,880 --> 00:06:36,080
Speaker 1: and you can't read minds. You don't know what's in

99
00:06:36,120 --> 00:06:38,880
Speaker 1: my heart. You don't know God does, nobody else does, not,

100
00:06:38,920 --> 00:06:42,040
Speaker 1: even the fetching missus s Hewett. But some people are

101
00:06:42,120 --> 00:06:46,480
Speaker 1: quite obviously making a bunch of dough off of being antisemitic.

102
00:06:47,360 --> 00:06:52,520
Speaker 1: They make money to believe libels against Jews, you know,

103
00:06:52,600 --> 00:06:55,080
Speaker 1: like they run the banks and they run Hollywood, or

104
00:06:55,120 --> 00:06:57,240
Speaker 1: they run the White House, or they were behind the

105
00:06:57,279 --> 00:06:59,960
Speaker 1: assassination of Charlie Kirk, or that Israel is in a

106
00:07:00,000 --> 00:07:03,240
Speaker 1: apartheid state, or that there's a genocide in Gaza. These

107
00:07:03,240 --> 00:07:10,160
Speaker 1: are demonstrably false things, and to pedal them, you ask yourself,

108
00:07:10,200 --> 00:07:14,040
Speaker 1: why are they peddling? Because the first four categories want

109
00:07:14,040 --> 00:07:19,000
Speaker 1: to see their fears, their stupidity, their ignorance, or their

110
00:07:19,000 --> 00:07:24,280
Speaker 1: mental illness rationalized and made coherent and packaged in the

111
00:07:24,360 --> 00:07:24,800
Speaker 1: right way.

112
00:07:26,080 --> 00:07:27,920
Speaker 3: So none of that's true.

113
00:07:28,920 --> 00:07:33,160
Speaker 1: Israel is objectively the most important ally of the United

114
00:07:33,160 --> 00:07:36,240
Speaker 1: States in a world of free countries, opposed by the

115
00:07:36,280 --> 00:07:40,120
Speaker 1: alliance of tyrants led by g Putin, Kim Jong Un

116
00:07:40,720 --> 00:07:45,080
Speaker 1: Hammini Maduro, the gang run in Cuba. There are a

117
00:07:45,080 --> 00:07:48,360
Speaker 1: bunch of tyrants around the world, and they're not our friends.

118
00:07:48,440 --> 00:07:50,520
Speaker 2: And Israel is. It's a nuclear superpower.

119
00:07:50,520 --> 00:07:53,600
Speaker 1: It's an intelligence superpowered as the will and ability to

120
00:07:53,600 --> 00:07:56,840
Speaker 1: project power along with us, as we did in Operation

121
00:07:56,960 --> 00:08:01,080
Speaker 1: Midnight Hammer. Thank you President Trump this summer, but on

122
00:08:01,120 --> 00:08:08,239
Speaker 1: this eve, just a reminder, we are celebrating the birth

123
00:08:08,400 --> 00:08:14,160
Speaker 1: of a Jewish baby boy in Judea to a Jewish mother.

124
00:08:15,280 --> 00:08:21,720
Speaker 1: Jesus historical figure featured in non Christian writings of Josephus

125
00:08:21,760 --> 00:08:24,640
Speaker 1: and of course in the Gospels. And later in the program,

126
00:08:24,880 --> 00:08:27,440
Speaker 1: I'm talking with doctor Mark Roberts, who's a scholar of

127
00:08:27,520 --> 00:08:31,120
Speaker 1: extraordinary import I think his best book is Can We

128
00:08:31,160 --> 00:08:32,160
Speaker 1: Trust the Gospels?

129
00:08:32,280 --> 00:08:33,040
Speaker 3: On Why we Can?

130
00:08:33,640 --> 00:08:38,559
Speaker 1: But he is also a Dickens savant about a Christmas carol,

131
00:08:38,600 --> 00:08:41,600
Speaker 1: and twenty one years ago, in two thousand and four,

132
00:08:42,600 --> 00:08:44,760
Speaker 1: we did a program on the Christmas carol that got

133
00:08:44,800 --> 00:08:47,840
Speaker 1: lost or a ransomware attack, believe it or not, and

134
00:08:47,920 --> 00:08:51,320
Speaker 1: that happened. So he's coming back. I'm giving myself a

135
00:08:51,400 --> 00:08:56,160
Speaker 1: Christmas present in hour two by talking to Terry Pluto,

136
00:08:56,240 --> 00:08:59,079
Speaker 1: my favorite sports writer, and I'm going to talk about

137
00:08:59,080 --> 00:09:03,480
Speaker 1: Conservatism Inc. Broadcast and our number two. I got a

138
00:09:03,520 --> 00:09:05,400
Speaker 1: lot to cover today, but I wanted to start off

139
00:09:05,400 --> 00:09:08,319
Speaker 1: by saying, on this Christmas Eve, just remember, we're celebrating

140
00:09:08,360 --> 00:09:08,839
Speaker 1: the birth of.

141
00:09:08,760 --> 00:09:12,640
Speaker 2: A Jewish boy to a Jewish mother who Christians.

142
00:09:12,160 --> 00:09:16,880
Speaker 1: Believe is the Messiah, and that is the reason for

143
00:09:16,920 --> 00:09:19,200
Speaker 1: the season, and it's why I hope you have a

144
00:09:19,240 --> 00:09:21,439
Speaker 1: wonderful Christmas.

145
00:09:21,600 --> 00:09:25,800
Speaker 3: Will be out of Welcome back to America. I'm Hugh Hewett.

146
00:09:25,800 --> 00:09:28,880
Speaker 1: On Christmas Eve twenty twenty five, I decided I'd give

147
00:09:28,920 --> 00:09:32,400
Speaker 1: myself a present and I would talk to my favorite

148
00:09:32,480 --> 00:09:36,240
Speaker 1: sports journalist in America, the one and only Terry Pluto.

149
00:09:37,000 --> 00:09:39,680
Speaker 1: You've heard Terry Pluto many times on this program over

150
00:09:39,720 --> 00:09:42,760
Speaker 1: the years. And Terry's got a brand new book out

151
00:09:42,800 --> 00:09:45,439
Speaker 1: which is perfect if you at a gift card for Christmas.

152
00:09:45,760 --> 00:09:49,440
Speaker 1: It's entitled why Can't this Team Just Find a Quarterback?

153
00:09:49,960 --> 00:09:55,439
Speaker 1: And Other Thoughts on life in Brownstown? Terry Pluto, Merry Christmas.

154
00:09:55,440 --> 00:09:56,360
Speaker 2: How are you, my friend?

155
00:09:57,520 --> 00:10:00,080
Speaker 4: I am doing well, Hugh. I mean, look Christmas Eve

156
00:10:00,080 --> 00:10:02,320
Speaker 4: and I'm with you, so I'm good with that.

157
00:10:03,320 --> 00:10:04,120
Speaker 2: Well, thank you.

158
00:10:04,280 --> 00:10:06,200
Speaker 1: I also want you to know we have been running

159
00:10:06,200 --> 00:10:09,520
Speaker 1: a campaign called Angel Tree for the children of people

160
00:10:09,559 --> 00:10:11,520
Speaker 1: who are in prison. I don't know if you do

161
00:10:11,559 --> 00:10:14,960
Speaker 1: prison ministry anymore. You might be doing more homeless ministry now,

162
00:10:15,040 --> 00:10:18,760
Speaker 1: But when you were doing prison ministry, did did Christmas

163
00:10:18,800 --> 00:10:19,880
Speaker 1: hit the inmates hard?

164
00:10:21,360 --> 00:10:21,560
Speaker 3: Yeah?

165
00:10:21,600 --> 00:10:24,439
Speaker 4: And well the homeless. I'll be there tomorrow night at

166
00:10:24,480 --> 00:10:29,000
Speaker 4: the behave and arrest, which is after we did a

167
00:10:29,000 --> 00:10:31,600
Speaker 4: couple of punds a month by wife and I and

168
00:10:32,960 --> 00:10:35,800
Speaker 4: he wants to be in jail. Who wants to be

169
00:10:35,840 --> 00:10:40,600
Speaker 4: in a homeless shelter on Christmas? Because everything is reads

170
00:10:40,640 --> 00:10:44,079
Speaker 4: it you know, you're away from your family or your

171
00:10:44,160 --> 00:10:47,839
Speaker 4: wing the family that it's difficult. But one thing that

172
00:10:47,960 --> 00:10:52,240
Speaker 4: is interesting sometimes is that when people are struggling with

173
00:10:52,280 --> 00:10:55,240
Speaker 4: the same things, it will bring them together and you'll

174
00:10:55,240 --> 00:10:59,560
Speaker 4: find that they'll be talking, really encouraging each other. They

175
00:10:59,640 --> 00:11:02,280
Speaker 4: kind of go two ways. Either people isolate or they

176
00:11:02,320 --> 00:11:05,480
Speaker 4: come together. There's not a lot of anger or anything.

177
00:11:06,040 --> 00:11:07,840
Speaker 4: It's those two things.

178
00:11:09,400 --> 00:11:12,080
Speaker 1: Well, I think that's a wonderful thing to do on Christmas,

179
00:11:12,120 --> 00:11:14,720
Speaker 1: even on Christmas Day, So thank you for that. And

180
00:11:14,760 --> 00:11:17,240
Speaker 1: I was listening to Terry's talking last night. If you

181
00:11:17,240 --> 00:11:19,280
Speaker 1: can pull your computer a little bit closer to you, Terry,

182
00:11:19,320 --> 00:11:21,280
Speaker 1: I think the sound might be get a little bit

183
00:11:21,600 --> 00:11:23,600
Speaker 1: muffled there because your computers distant.

184
00:11:24,080 --> 00:11:24,959
Speaker 3: I was listening to.

185
00:11:24,960 --> 00:11:28,400
Speaker 1: Your weekly podcast with David Campbell, the editor of Cleveland

186
00:11:28,440 --> 00:11:32,560
Speaker 1: dot Com, and a couple of thoughts occurred. First of all,

187
00:11:32,559 --> 00:11:35,800
Speaker 1: a lot of your correspondence do something that is rare

188
00:11:35,960 --> 00:11:40,200
Speaker 1: in our country, they thank you too for doing your jobs.

189
00:11:40,559 --> 00:11:44,360
Speaker 1: And I got to thinking about the number of sports

190
00:11:44,440 --> 00:11:49,280
Speaker 1: journalists who work on the holidays, who work around the clock,

191
00:11:49,400 --> 00:11:52,920
Speaker 1: who work really hard. You got a Cavaliers Knicks game

192
00:11:52,960 --> 00:11:54,640
Speaker 1: to cover tomorrow, you might be able to cover it

193
00:11:54,679 --> 00:11:58,480
Speaker 1: from your couch. I'm not sure, but generally speaking, do

194
00:11:58,520 --> 00:12:01,840
Speaker 1: you think the public understands how hard sports journalists work.

195
00:12:04,240 --> 00:12:04,360
Speaker 3: Well?

196
00:12:04,400 --> 00:12:07,400
Speaker 4: I remember years ago there was a writer. This is

197
00:12:07,440 --> 00:12:09,600
Speaker 4: when I set the Beacon Journal and I was moving

198
00:12:09,640 --> 00:12:15,720
Speaker 4: from being the Cavaliers beat man to becoming a columnist.

199
00:12:16,080 --> 00:12:18,679
Speaker 3: And this guy is a news writer and he goes, man,

200
00:12:18,720 --> 00:12:19,680
Speaker 3: I would love basketball.

201
00:12:19,679 --> 00:12:23,080
Speaker 4: I'd really like to cover that. And then what happened?

202
00:12:23,200 --> 00:12:28,800
Speaker 4: He goes to the schedule. He goes, it's like every weekend. Yeah, yeah,

203
00:12:30,080 --> 00:12:33,319
Speaker 4: you get a figure of the three days Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

204
00:12:34,200 --> 00:12:36,000
Speaker 4: Two of them they're probably going to be playing. They

205
00:12:36,040 --> 00:12:39,680
Speaker 4: might have practiced on the other one. That's how it goes.

206
00:12:39,720 --> 00:12:42,040
Speaker 4: You know, if you cover the NFL, it's every weekend.

207
00:12:43,080 --> 00:12:46,920
Speaker 4: The flip side is I worked in a food warehouse

208
00:12:46,960 --> 00:12:49,280
Speaker 4: growing up. My dad worked with the old Fisher five

209
00:12:49,320 --> 00:12:51,559
Speaker 4: the other Awes and believe went when I worked there

210
00:12:51,600 --> 00:12:55,720
Speaker 4: for I think four summers, and he certified to teach

211
00:12:55,760 --> 00:13:00,560
Speaker 4: the state of Ohio. I taught six months at and West,

212
00:13:00,559 --> 00:13:02,960
Speaker 4: which is on West twenty fifth and Cleveland, tough neighborhood.

213
00:13:02,960 --> 00:13:07,400
Speaker 4: I taught five classes of history and social studies, and

214
00:13:07,400 --> 00:13:08,800
Speaker 4: I had a three preps and.

215
00:13:08,760 --> 00:13:10,360
Speaker 2: A tell y'all.

216
00:13:10,480 --> 00:13:15,280
Speaker 4: I thought, I'll write compared to that stuff anytime you want,

217
00:13:15,559 --> 00:13:19,920
Speaker 4: because that was real, real work, and this is I

218
00:13:19,960 --> 00:13:21,960
Speaker 4: mean it could be hard in draining at times, but

219
00:13:22,040 --> 00:13:25,400
Speaker 4: it's so different. And I mean he also has an audience.

220
00:13:25,440 --> 00:13:27,400
Speaker 4: I mean, you have the same thing you've had an audience.

221
00:13:27,480 --> 00:13:31,840
Speaker 4: People are care of like what you say or whatever,

222
00:13:31,920 --> 00:13:36,400
Speaker 4: whether they agree or disagree. They're actually interested in that.

223
00:13:36,400 --> 00:13:39,559
Speaker 4: That's a blessing. Very few of us in life and

224
00:13:39,640 --> 00:13:42,720
Speaker 4: our jobs are people paying that kind of attention to us.

225
00:13:42,880 --> 00:13:44,160
Speaker 4: And as you said, thanking them.

226
00:13:46,120 --> 00:13:49,840
Speaker 1: I enjoy Terry's talking so much, and you and Dave

227
00:13:49,920 --> 00:13:52,760
Speaker 1: Campbell have established it's a great chemistry that I think

228
00:13:52,800 --> 00:13:55,960
Speaker 1: you could do it longer or more often, but it's

229
00:13:56,000 --> 00:13:59,040
Speaker 1: already you're working hard enough. How is the new book selling?

230
00:13:59,080 --> 00:14:03,840
Speaker 1: Which is another owed to I will soon be seventy.

231
00:14:04,600 --> 00:14:08,040
Speaker 1: I have no memory of nineteen sixty four, and so

232
00:14:08,400 --> 00:14:10,680
Speaker 1: my whole theory on the Browns is I don't care

233
00:14:10,720 --> 00:14:13,360
Speaker 1: what they do get to the super Bowl soon. Do

234
00:14:13,480 --> 00:14:16,440
Speaker 1: whatever has the quickest chance of getting to the super Bowl,

235
00:14:16,440 --> 00:14:19,720
Speaker 1: which I think means sticking with Shador and drafting Tate

236
00:14:19,760 --> 00:14:21,920
Speaker 1: and op I, like you guys were talking last night,

237
00:14:22,040 --> 00:14:24,280
Speaker 1: Dave was talking last night. I want to get to

238
00:14:24,320 --> 00:14:27,040
Speaker 1: a super Bowl on this side of Heaven, Terry.

239
00:14:27,160 --> 00:14:27,600
Speaker 3: That's all.

240
00:14:27,760 --> 00:14:29,400
Speaker 2: I have a very small ask.

241
00:14:31,040 --> 00:14:33,880
Speaker 4: Well, it could turn into some very big mistakes. I mean,

242
00:14:33,880 --> 00:14:36,040
Speaker 4: that's one of the things we talked about in the book,

243
00:14:36,040 --> 00:14:38,960
Speaker 4: where I can't this team dropt the quarterback that led

244
00:14:39,000 --> 00:14:41,280
Speaker 4: to I want to get to a super Bowl yesterday,

245
00:14:41,360 --> 00:14:44,480
Speaker 4: Let's do this. I don't care that Deshaun Watson's facing

246
00:14:44,520 --> 00:14:48,720
Speaker 4: all these civil lawsuits. I don't care that he hasn't

247
00:14:48,760 --> 00:14:51,080
Speaker 4: played in a year and a half, is going to

248
00:14:51,080 --> 00:14:53,200
Speaker 4: get suspended. I just want to get to the super

249
00:14:53,240 --> 00:14:55,880
Speaker 4: Bowl and maybe he'll get us there. And of course

250
00:14:55,880 --> 00:14:58,320
Speaker 4: then you get yourself back if you think about it, Hugh,

251
00:14:59,040 --> 00:15:03,760
Speaker 4: whether we're talking about finances or relationships or you're running

252
00:15:04,280 --> 00:15:07,840
Speaker 4: a company, when you get desperate is when you make

253
00:15:07,920 --> 00:15:13,040
Speaker 4: your biggest mistakes. You know, the classic overreach. But I

254
00:15:13,120 --> 00:15:15,840
Speaker 4: get the feeling like you have, and I mean, I'm

255
00:15:15,880 --> 00:15:18,760
Speaker 4: your same age on seventy I do remember listening to

256
00:15:18,800 --> 00:15:21,920
Speaker 4: the Browns in the championship game in nineteen sixty four

257
00:15:21,960 --> 00:15:24,760
Speaker 4: in my friend's basement. By the way, think about this.

258
00:15:25,320 --> 00:15:29,160
Speaker 4: That game NFL Championship game nineteen sixty four was blacked

259
00:15:29,240 --> 00:15:35,000
Speaker 4: out in Cleveland, right, model had the option of showing

260
00:15:35,040 --> 00:15:38,160
Speaker 4: it or not. For whatever reason, he was afraid they

261
00:15:38,200 --> 00:15:42,280
Speaker 4: wouldn't sell enough tickets, so he blacked it out and

262
00:15:42,320 --> 00:15:45,160
Speaker 4: they were shown the next following evening on TV. Now

263
00:15:45,160 --> 00:15:48,160
Speaker 4: people were I think, if you're outside of fifty miles

264
00:15:48,200 --> 00:15:50,480
Speaker 4: outside of Cleveland, it was on. So people were like

265
00:15:50,560 --> 00:15:53,680
Speaker 4: driving to probably around your hometown of Warren and Erie,

266
00:15:53,680 --> 00:15:58,240
Speaker 4: Pennsylvania and Columbus, running motel rooms to wash this game

267
00:15:58,560 --> 00:15:59,160
Speaker 4: because it's sold.

268
00:16:00,200 --> 00:16:03,520
Speaker 1: Rabbit ears on the television each week to try and

269
00:16:03,560 --> 00:16:05,120
Speaker 1: pick up a Pittsburgh station.

270
00:16:05,400 --> 00:16:07,720
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was it. Think about that.

271
00:16:07,800 --> 00:16:11,040
Speaker 4: There's your chance, there's your memory if you're a Cleveland

272
00:16:11,040 --> 00:16:14,640
Speaker 4: fan of the last time the Browns went to the

273
00:16:14,680 --> 00:16:17,240
Speaker 4: final two to a championship, which is pre Super Bowl,

274
00:16:17,400 --> 00:16:18,840
Speaker 4: just the championship game.

275
00:16:20,840 --> 00:16:23,880
Speaker 1: Well, I think what you got to do is fabulous,

276
00:16:23,920 --> 00:16:28,200
Speaker 1: and I like the fact that your listeners express appreciation

277
00:16:28,400 --> 00:16:31,440
Speaker 1: for you and Dave and the depth you go into. Now,

278
00:16:31,480 --> 00:16:34,960
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you a question about bosses because

279
00:16:35,040 --> 00:16:36,480
Speaker 1: there's a guy who works over at Fox.

280
00:16:36,520 --> 00:16:37,640
Speaker 3: I work at Fox a lot.

281
00:16:38,600 --> 00:16:41,400
Speaker 1: And his son wants to be a sports journalist, and

282
00:16:41,440 --> 00:16:44,160
Speaker 1: I said, well, make sure you find out a are

283
00:16:44,200 --> 00:16:46,240
Speaker 1: there any jobs, what are they paying be? Pick a

284
00:16:46,280 --> 00:16:48,840
Speaker 1: good boss, because if you have a bad boss, it's

285
00:16:48,840 --> 00:16:51,040
Speaker 1: going to be a horrible environment no matter what you got.

286
00:16:51,080 --> 00:16:53,320
Speaker 1: It's always the same advice I give to young people.

287
00:16:53,360 --> 00:16:56,120
Speaker 1: Always pick a boss. So I'm going to give you

288
00:16:56,480 --> 00:16:59,320
Speaker 1: a second to think about that here and then come

289
00:16:59,360 --> 00:17:01,520
Speaker 1: back and tell me the best boss you worked for

290
00:17:01,680 --> 00:17:05,560
Speaker 1: and why. Because you've worked for in major from Earl

291
00:17:05,920 --> 00:17:09,320
Speaker 1: Weaver to Kevin Stefanski, I don't know if you can

292
00:17:09,560 --> 00:17:12,280
Speaker 1: have two different types of people you got to interview,

293
00:17:12,320 --> 00:17:14,879
Speaker 1: and then your boss is above you looking at your work,

294
00:17:14,960 --> 00:17:17,240
Speaker 1: whether it's Dave Campbell or Chuck Heaton or any of

295
00:17:17,280 --> 00:17:20,960
Speaker 1: these other great legends of Cleveland sports. I'll come back

296
00:17:21,000 --> 00:17:24,000
Speaker 1: with Terry Pluto. Go over to Terry Pluto dot com

297
00:17:24,040 --> 00:17:25,720
Speaker 1: if you want to pick up why can't this team

298
00:17:25,760 --> 00:17:26,800
Speaker 1: find a quarterback.

299
00:17:27,240 --> 00:17:29,040
Speaker 2: It's a great new book, and you're gonna.

300
00:17:28,800 --> 00:17:31,240
Speaker 1: Get a gift card for Christmas, and I would recommend,

301
00:17:31,720 --> 00:17:34,000
Speaker 1: especially if you're a football fan, that would be a

302
00:17:34,040 --> 00:17:38,040
Speaker 1: good one. Chuck tied a blessed memory here on the show,

303
00:17:38,040 --> 00:17:40,320
Speaker 1: and maybe I'll be back someday and we'll talk to sports.

304
00:17:40,600 --> 00:17:43,639
Speaker 1: Swears by Loose Balls as one of the greatest georks

305
00:17:43,680 --> 00:17:45,280
Speaker 1: books he's ever ever read.

306
00:17:45,320 --> 00:17:46,480
Speaker 3: In Chuck Knows Sports.

307
00:17:47,240 --> 00:17:49,399
Speaker 1: Even if we disagree on how any politics, don't go

308
00:17:49,400 --> 00:17:49,960
Speaker 1: anywhere America.

309
00:17:49,960 --> 00:17:50,640
Speaker 3: I'll be right back.

310
00:17:54,440 --> 00:17:56,960
Speaker 1: Welcome back to America to you, and on Christmas Eve,

311
00:17:57,320 --> 00:18:00,600
Speaker 1: and I'm giving myself a Christmas present. A few minutes

312
00:18:00,600 --> 00:18:03,320
Speaker 1: of conversation with Terry Pluto. You can follow on Exit

313
00:18:03,400 --> 00:18:06,320
Speaker 1: Terry Pluto. Listen to his podcast once a week with

314
00:18:06,440 --> 00:18:10,920
Speaker 1: Dave Campbell talking Terry's Talking Terry bosses. In the world

315
00:18:10,920 --> 00:18:13,920
Speaker 1: of sports, it's been the best, and you don't need

316
00:18:13,920 --> 00:18:16,000
Speaker 1: to name the worst already. You already named the man

317
00:18:16,040 --> 00:18:18,040
Speaker 1: who must not be named on my show for twenty

318
00:18:18,040 --> 00:18:20,040
Speaker 1: five years, I've never named the man who must not

319
00:18:20,080 --> 00:18:22,200
Speaker 1: be named. He took the Browns out of Cleveland. But

320
00:18:22,880 --> 00:18:26,240
Speaker 1: who's been the best in what makes for a terrible boss.

321
00:18:27,200 --> 00:18:30,640
Speaker 4: Well in terms of coaches or managers, because there's two

322
00:18:30,680 --> 00:18:32,719
Speaker 4: different things that those guys are not my boss. Those

323
00:18:32,720 --> 00:18:35,720
Speaker 4: are people uncovering, but it's you can learn a lot

324
00:18:36,280 --> 00:18:41,119
Speaker 4: both ways for how they coach or handle the team.

325
00:18:41,160 --> 00:18:46,520
Speaker 4: Probably the best overall was Terry frank Count I thought

326
00:18:46,560 --> 00:18:51,720
Speaker 4: was terrific. He was a combination of knowing how to

327
00:18:51,920 --> 00:18:55,600
Speaker 4: keep things together when it feels like they're all flying apart,

328
00:18:55,920 --> 00:18:58,399
Speaker 4: to knowing how to do tough well generally it was

329
00:18:58,440 --> 00:19:05,240
Speaker 4: in private, to being a storyteller and almost like kind

330
00:19:05,280 --> 00:19:08,879
Speaker 4: of when the team's going bad, having some kind of

331
00:19:09,359 --> 00:19:11,840
Speaker 4: parables to give or something to the media to buy

332
00:19:11,840 --> 00:19:15,240
Speaker 4: his team at players time, and just a general feeling

333
00:19:15,320 --> 00:19:18,240
Speaker 4: that this is a guy that is sincere when he

334
00:19:18,359 --> 00:19:21,359
Speaker 4: was talking about players who had been cut or whatever,

335
00:19:21,440 --> 00:19:26,399
Speaker 4: and I really liked covering him. Earl Weaver was covering

336
00:19:26,480 --> 00:19:31,200
Speaker 4: kind of this eccentric genius and when it came to sports,

337
00:19:31,200 --> 00:19:34,120
Speaker 4: I mean, he's the man who invented the batting averages

338
00:19:34,160 --> 00:19:37,560
Speaker 4: of pictures and hitters when they can face each other.

339
00:19:37,640 --> 00:19:40,560
Speaker 4: Until Earl Weaver came along, he was all just well

340
00:19:40,680 --> 00:19:44,720
Speaker 4: right handed pictures versus left handed, you know, righty's versus lefties.

341
00:19:44,720 --> 00:19:45,159
Speaker 3: That whole thing.

342
00:19:45,200 --> 00:19:47,960
Speaker 4: Well, he began to realize he wuld see weird things

343
00:19:48,040 --> 00:19:50,199
Speaker 4: like a guy like Mark Blandrew, who was not a

344
00:19:50,320 --> 00:19:54,360
Speaker 4: very good hit or whatsoever, was facing Noan Ryan, one

345
00:19:54,359 --> 00:19:56,960
Speaker 4: of the greatest pictures at that time, and he knew

346
00:19:57,040 --> 00:19:59,600
Speaker 4: going to Hall of Fame, and for some reason Bilandrew

347
00:19:59,640 --> 00:20:01,959
Speaker 4: was able to hit him. It made no sense. So

348
00:20:02,080 --> 00:20:04,720
Speaker 4: he had a couple of their interns in the PR department

349
00:20:05,119 --> 00:20:08,640
Speaker 4: start going through looking at things like that, different batting averages,

350
00:20:08,680 --> 00:20:12,680
Speaker 4: and and he suddenly found all these trends which are

351
00:20:12,680 --> 00:20:15,920
Speaker 4: now just given. When you watch a baseball game, they'll

352
00:20:15,960 --> 00:20:19,960
Speaker 4: tell you know who the how they match up.

353
00:20:20,560 --> 00:20:23,520
Speaker 1: And that was plus minus that you guys did on

354
00:20:23,560 --> 00:20:25,880
Speaker 1: the Cavs. That's a new stat that actually makes sense

355
00:20:25,920 --> 00:20:28,480
Speaker 1: to me. Plus minus. I just never even thought about

356
00:20:28,480 --> 00:20:28,959
Speaker 1: it before.

357
00:20:29,520 --> 00:20:31,600
Speaker 4: Right, if you have five guys playing at one time,

358
00:20:33,560 --> 00:20:36,199
Speaker 4: you could sometimes see how a certain player you know,

359
00:20:36,320 --> 00:20:40,199
Speaker 4: makes more of an impact than others. And also it

360
00:20:40,240 --> 00:20:44,720
Speaker 4: could tell you could break it down even further. Of all, right,

361
00:20:44,840 --> 00:20:47,640
Speaker 4: these four play together, well, well, when that fifth guys

362
00:20:47,640 --> 00:20:49,080
Speaker 4: with them, they don't. But if you put them with

363
00:20:49,119 --> 00:20:52,520
Speaker 4: the three other guys. It can get complicated, but in general,

364
00:20:53,520 --> 00:20:57,000
Speaker 4: some players simply lend more to winning than others. Not

365
00:20:57,560 --> 00:21:03,399
Speaker 4: because they're so gifted athletic. Is they fit in combination

366
00:21:04,000 --> 00:21:07,040
Speaker 4: with the other guys that are out there, and those

367
00:21:07,080 --> 00:21:10,280
Speaker 4: are Earl Weaver, by the way, today, we'd go crazy

368
00:21:10,320 --> 00:21:13,720
Speaker 4: with all the stats available. He probably would overthink everything

369
00:21:14,160 --> 00:21:16,879
Speaker 4: because he was how about you know, we everything on

370
00:21:16,960 --> 00:21:20,720
Speaker 4: computers and everything now, Hugh, when Earl Weaver had those

371
00:21:20,720 --> 00:21:24,040
Speaker 4: batting averages of pitchers versus hitters, and that he kept

372
00:21:24,080 --> 00:21:26,840
Speaker 4: them on index cards and a cigar box and his death.

373
00:21:27,280 --> 00:21:30,919
Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan giving a speech, So, Terry Planal, would you

374
00:21:31,000 --> 00:21:32,920
Speaker 1: recommend we got like two minutes in this that would

375
00:21:32,920 --> 00:21:34,800
Speaker 1: you recommend to a young person that they go into

376
00:21:34,840 --> 00:21:37,840
Speaker 1: sports journalism? Now, I have lots of guardrails for people

377
00:21:37,880 --> 00:21:40,840
Speaker 1: who want to do political journalism because it's it's kind

378
00:21:40,920 --> 00:21:45,480
Speaker 1: of combative, and I don't think everyone's cut out for it.

379
00:21:45,600 --> 00:21:46,640
Speaker 3: What about sports.

380
00:21:46,400 --> 00:21:49,960
Speaker 4: Journalism if you want to do it, But I would

381
00:21:50,000 --> 00:21:52,560
Speaker 4: recommend you, you know, if you're in school, these people

382
00:21:52,720 --> 00:21:55,359
Speaker 4: just get a whether it's a sports management degree or

383
00:21:55,400 --> 00:22:00,679
Speaker 4: mass media degree, get a secondary degree and marketing or

384
00:22:00,680 --> 00:22:03,159
Speaker 4: whatever I mean. I Actually the reason I went and

385
00:22:03,200 --> 00:22:09,639
Speaker 4: got a degree in social studies and secondary education because

386
00:22:09,760 --> 00:22:11,800
Speaker 4: I thought I might not cut it as a writer.

387
00:22:11,920 --> 00:22:14,199
Speaker 4: I got to go get a job because there's so

388
00:22:14,320 --> 00:22:17,400
Speaker 4: few think about this. I've been I'm seventy years old.

389
00:22:17,400 --> 00:22:20,320
Speaker 4: I've been a sports columnist. You know, it's harder to

390
00:22:20,359 --> 00:22:23,359
Speaker 4: get my job than it's going to be to playing

391
00:22:23,400 --> 00:22:25,400
Speaker 4: the major leagues because.

392
00:22:25,280 --> 00:22:26,160
Speaker 3: You get in the conference.

393
00:22:27,040 --> 00:22:33,560
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, or yeah exactly absolutely, or if he's the

394
00:22:33,680 --> 00:22:34,960
Speaker 4: I want to be the I want to do the

395
00:22:35,000 --> 00:22:37,840
Speaker 4: Cleveland Guardians game. So Tom Hamilton's going to Hall of Fame.

396
00:22:37,880 --> 00:22:40,720
Speaker 4: He's my age, he's seventy and he's been doing it

397
00:22:41,040 --> 00:22:47,120
Speaker 4: since nineteen ninety and his partner, Jim Rowsenhouse is I'm

398
00:22:47,200 --> 00:22:48,199
Speaker 4: twenty years together.

399
00:22:49,280 --> 00:22:50,400
Speaker 3: And that's amazing.

400
00:22:50,440 --> 00:22:53,960
Speaker 1: In fact, it's amazing that Mary Kay Cabot and Paul

401
00:22:54,040 --> 00:22:57,919
Speaker 1: Wayns and Tom Hamilton. You've worked with three Hall of famers.

402
00:22:57,960 --> 00:22:59,800
Speaker 1: I don't know if herbscore made it and he should have.

403
00:23:00,000 --> 00:23:01,800
Speaker 1: Did herbscore make it in as a broadcaster?

404
00:23:02,560 --> 00:23:05,359
Speaker 4: Oh he didn't. But Sheldon Oker from the Beacon Journal

405
00:23:05,640 --> 00:23:08,720
Speaker 4: of yaftball writer. So when I was a baseball writer

406
00:23:08,800 --> 00:23:10,919
Speaker 4: in Cleveland, I had one Hall of Famer and wings

407
00:23:10,960 --> 00:23:14,160
Speaker 4: to my left and the other in Ochre to my right,

408
00:23:14,240 --> 00:23:16,720
Speaker 4: and neither of it rubbed off on me. But that's

409
00:23:16,760 --> 00:23:17,320
Speaker 4: really good.

410
00:23:17,720 --> 00:23:18,920
Speaker 2: It's no pressure.

411
00:23:20,000 --> 00:23:27,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, his brand new book, Don't Go Anywhere. I got

412
00:23:27,600 --> 00:23:29,720
Speaker 1: one more segment is brand new book is why can't

413
00:23:29,760 --> 00:23:31,160
Speaker 1: this team find a quarterback?

414
00:23:31,240 --> 00:23:31,880
Speaker 2: It's hilarious.

415
00:23:31,920 --> 00:23:32,760
Speaker 3: Don't go Anywhere, America.

416
00:23:32,760 --> 00:23:33,680
Speaker 2: I'm new to it.

417
00:23:34,480 --> 00:23:37,800
Speaker 1: Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewett. Terry Pluto, my favorite

418
00:23:37,840 --> 00:23:40,320
Speaker 1: sports writer, is joining me. And one of the things

419
00:23:40,400 --> 00:23:43,280
Speaker 1: I like about Terry, and he doesn't make a big

420
00:23:43,320 --> 00:23:48,080
Speaker 1: deal about it, but almost inevitably, character enters into his

421
00:23:48,200 --> 00:23:52,720
Speaker 1: conversation about people on the field. And he's been impressed

422
00:23:52,760 --> 00:23:55,880
Speaker 1: with Shador Sanders in the way he has handled this season.

423
00:23:56,480 --> 00:23:59,639
Speaker 1: He's been impressed with Dylan Gabriel. He's disappointed by clause,

424
00:24:00,240 --> 00:24:04,720
Speaker 1: but character always comes to the top here. So Terry

425
00:24:06,200 --> 00:24:10,680
Speaker 1: final segment. This is just purely indulging myself. I think

426
00:24:10,720 --> 00:24:14,840
Speaker 1: Shador could be at least a top fifteen quarterback. When

427
00:24:14,960 --> 00:24:18,520
Speaker 1: Dave laid out Carnal Tait and take as many offensive

428
00:24:18,520 --> 00:24:21,560
Speaker 1: linemen as you need or sign, I thought that might

429
00:24:21,600 --> 00:24:24,720
Speaker 1: be the best way for this club to go and

430
00:24:24,800 --> 00:24:27,400
Speaker 1: you I think you kind of agreed with him, didn't

431
00:24:27,440 --> 00:24:28,920
Speaker 1: you stick.

432
00:24:28,720 --> 00:24:32,359
Speaker 4: With Yeah, I would be willing to look at that.

433
00:24:32,440 --> 00:24:35,200
Speaker 4: I would bring in a veteran behind him just in case,

434
00:24:35,560 --> 00:24:37,719
Speaker 4: just have somebody there. I don't like having two rookies

435
00:24:37,800 --> 00:24:40,560
Speaker 4: or two guys going their second year, as you're only quarterbacks,

436
00:24:41,000 --> 00:24:44,359
Speaker 4: but sure I would look at that. Yeah, Sanders surprised

437
00:24:44,400 --> 00:24:47,360
Speaker 4: me because with all the you know, yes, over two

438
00:24:47,359 --> 00:24:50,800
Speaker 4: million social media followers and all the hype there, I

439
00:24:50,880 --> 00:24:53,360
Speaker 4: kind of thought he would be a real jerk, and

440
00:24:53,600 --> 00:24:56,600
Speaker 4: he's not. You could tell he's been in the public

441
00:24:56,640 --> 00:25:00,320
Speaker 4: eye for quite a bit. But there's this genuine uh.

442
00:25:00,440 --> 00:25:02,280
Speaker 4: And I've used genuine three or four times to you

443
00:25:02,440 --> 00:25:07,560
Speaker 4: in this conversation because that goes to character. But about

444
00:25:07,560 --> 00:25:10,720
Speaker 4: a week ago, he's being asked something about Stefanski and

445
00:25:10,760 --> 00:25:13,920
Speaker 4: basically is a question to design for in the second

446
00:25:13,960 --> 00:25:16,120
Speaker 4: guest as coach, and he smiles and goes, now, you're

447
00:25:16,160 --> 00:25:17,560
Speaker 4: not trying to get me into trouble here?

448
00:25:17,600 --> 00:25:19,520
Speaker 3: Are you going to do that?

449
00:25:20,240 --> 00:25:23,400
Speaker 4: I mean, it was confusing it.

450
00:25:24,920 --> 00:25:28,560
Speaker 1: You just mentioned Kevin Sevanski. I love the guy. UH

451
00:25:28,960 --> 00:25:33,440
Speaker 1: get boring. Press conferences are us, but uh, I want

452
00:25:33,800 --> 00:25:36,080
Speaker 1: I don't want to change his system. Ony young quarterback

453
00:25:36,119 --> 00:25:38,399
Speaker 1: again and he's been coaching the year twice and you

454
00:25:38,440 --> 00:25:41,119
Speaker 1: said he looked tired. Wouldn't you run it back one

455
00:25:41,160 --> 00:25:43,800
Speaker 1: more time and let him have one quarterback for two

456
00:25:43,880 --> 00:25:46,600
Speaker 1: years with maybe two receivers that can catch the ball

457
00:25:46,920 --> 00:25:50,080
Speaker 1: that split wide, just one chance to run it back

458
00:25:50,320 --> 00:25:51,120
Speaker 1: with one guy.

459
00:25:52,400 --> 00:25:54,800
Speaker 4: Well, I mean he's in a sixth year, Hugh. And

460
00:25:55,240 --> 00:25:58,200
Speaker 4: sometimes what happens in pro sports, I've seen you could

461
00:25:58,240 --> 00:26:01,639
Speaker 4: be very good at your job and be a place

462
00:26:01,680 --> 00:26:05,160
Speaker 4: for just a long time. Anyone will tell you when

463
00:26:05,160 --> 00:26:09,600
Speaker 4: you're coaching the Browns, it's not like it's generally the

464
00:26:09,640 --> 00:26:13,240
Speaker 4: worst job in the NFL. And the total takes on

465
00:26:13,320 --> 00:26:16,359
Speaker 4: you emotionally and everything else. And a lot of times

466
00:26:16,400 --> 00:26:19,320
Speaker 4: what I've seen with coaches and managers is they whether

467
00:26:19,440 --> 00:26:22,760
Speaker 4: whether they go become an assistant coach somewhere or they

468
00:26:22,800 --> 00:26:25,560
Speaker 4: do some media for a year, sometimes they just need

469
00:26:25,600 --> 00:26:28,679
Speaker 4: to air out that's too bad. In politics, by the way,

470
00:26:28,520 --> 00:26:31,320
Speaker 4: they don't do that. You know, see there's a post

471
00:26:31,520 --> 00:26:35,720
Speaker 4: that you know they're they're imposed of verticals and pro sports.

472
00:26:35,800 --> 00:26:38,600
Speaker 4: But you get fired and then you come back with

473
00:26:38,640 --> 00:26:42,720
Speaker 4: something else. And I really I've watched Kevin. He's drained.

474
00:26:42,760 --> 00:26:46,560
Speaker 4: He's utterly drained, now can he So it's a question

475
00:26:46,640 --> 00:26:49,119
Speaker 4: of where he is there. I would have long talks

476
00:26:49,160 --> 00:26:50,760
Speaker 4: with kind of where are you in your life? How

477
00:26:50,800 --> 00:26:54,880
Speaker 4: do you feel about things? It's well beyond quarterbacks and

478
00:26:54,920 --> 00:26:56,560
Speaker 4: what kind of offense do you want to run?

479
00:26:58,000 --> 00:27:01,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, well urban Meyer was per think against that team

480
00:27:01,280 --> 00:27:03,920
Speaker 1: up north, and he still threw it in after seven years.

481
00:27:03,920 --> 00:27:07,919
Speaker 1: Because really there's a lot of life besides working twenty

482
00:27:07,960 --> 00:27:10,440
Speaker 1: three hours a day, eleven months a year and then

483
00:27:10,480 --> 00:27:14,280
Speaker 1: being recruiting terry. But all said and done, you've had

484
00:27:14,320 --> 00:27:16,880
Speaker 1: a blessed career, haven't you. I mean, you've been doing

485
00:27:16,920 --> 00:27:19,240
Speaker 1: this since year what twenty two, twenty three?

486
00:27:19,560 --> 00:27:22,280
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean really, I think my first byline a

487
00:27:22,359 --> 00:27:25,640
Speaker 4: Cleveland paper was in nineteen seventy five, the Cleveland Press,

488
00:27:26,280 --> 00:27:31,359
Speaker 4: so that's fifty years and I I was like twenty.

489
00:27:31,400 --> 00:27:33,520
Speaker 4: I did some high school sports from them part time

490
00:27:33,520 --> 00:27:37,359
Speaker 4: and answered the phone, and also to do it at

491
00:27:37,359 --> 00:27:40,879
Speaker 4: my hometown. The job I have now were being the

492
00:27:40,920 --> 00:27:45,040
Speaker 4: sports columnist. The playing dealer kind of was the hell level.

493
00:27:45,040 --> 00:27:48,080
Speaker 4: Witz was that job for decades and it was a

494
00:27:48,160 --> 00:27:51,560
Speaker 4: job that I wanted and I'm able to keep doing it.

495
00:27:51,600 --> 00:27:54,240
Speaker 4: And I have a great boss and Chris Quinn and

496
00:27:54,320 --> 00:27:58,160
Speaker 4: Dave Campbell there that allowed me to I have don't

497
00:27:58,160 --> 00:28:00,479
Speaker 4: have to chase all these teams all over the com tree.

498
00:28:01,320 --> 00:28:05,600
Speaker 4: You know, my travel is minimal and it still means

499
00:28:05,600 --> 00:28:08,960
Speaker 4: a lot. And I love the fact that Hugh. I

500
00:28:09,000 --> 00:28:11,440
Speaker 4: love the fact that sports is much better than politics

501
00:28:11,440 --> 00:28:15,280
Speaker 4: because in politics you could say something everybody runs into

502
00:28:15,320 --> 00:28:17,560
Speaker 4: their red state blue state thing. But all right, you

503
00:28:17,600 --> 00:28:20,800
Speaker 4: bring up we bring up Shador Sanders or Kevin Stefanski.

504
00:28:21,200 --> 00:28:23,280
Speaker 4: The opinions that come in I don't think are based

505
00:28:23,320 --> 00:28:25,880
Speaker 4: on like how you voted or one of vot It's

506
00:28:25,960 --> 00:28:30,360
Speaker 4: like like the guy right, you know, it's actually more rational.

507
00:28:30,680 --> 00:28:31,080
Speaker 3: It's hard.

508
00:28:31,200 --> 00:28:33,479
Speaker 4: It's a strange world, and sports is more rational than

509
00:28:33,560 --> 00:28:35,040
Speaker 4: real life at times.

510
00:28:35,119 --> 00:28:35,479
Speaker 3: It is.

511
00:28:35,680 --> 00:28:38,200
Speaker 1: And you know, when I hear that the Dolans are cheap,

512
00:28:38,240 --> 00:28:41,520
Speaker 1: I get mad. I think the Hasms have grown as owners.

513
00:28:41,720 --> 00:28:45,680
Speaker 1: I think Dan Gilbert is a gift to Cleveland. We

514
00:28:45,720 --> 00:28:48,800
Speaker 1: are blessed to actually have we are sports rich. And

515
00:28:48,800 --> 00:28:50,760
Speaker 1: then we got the Buckeyes down the road, and we

516
00:28:50,840 --> 00:28:53,240
Speaker 1: have a great You have a great group of colleagues

517
00:28:53,400 --> 00:28:56,560
Speaker 1: and they're all working around the clock. Turning out product.

518
00:28:56,800 --> 00:28:59,720
Speaker 1: I don't know if they work harder anywhere in the

519
00:28:59,720 --> 00:29:03,760
Speaker 1: Mayora then for Cleveland dot Com. They're working all the time.

520
00:29:04,720 --> 00:29:07,320
Speaker 4: Well, welcome to the Internet age. When that kicked in,

521
00:29:07,360 --> 00:29:09,719
Speaker 4: all of a sudden, we realized the Associated press used

522
00:29:09,760 --> 00:29:13,920
Speaker 4: to be you're always on deadline. Now, anybody at any

523
00:29:13,920 --> 00:29:18,160
Speaker 4: of these markets, you're always on deadline. And when something happens,

524
00:29:18,640 --> 00:29:20,800
Speaker 4: even if a columnist like I am with an opinion,

525
00:29:21,240 --> 00:29:24,560
Speaker 4: they'd like something within a half hour and forty five minutes,

526
00:29:24,600 --> 00:29:27,160
Speaker 4: and please get it in within an hour of happy

527
00:29:27,360 --> 00:29:31,160
Speaker 4: it happening, And we're before it's like, okay, it could

528
00:29:31,160 --> 00:29:34,560
Speaker 4: happen in the afternoon, it won't be until tomorrow's paper.

529
00:29:35,760 --> 00:29:38,840
Speaker 1: Well, have a merry Christmas. And I have one suggestion

530
00:29:39,080 --> 00:29:42,120
Speaker 1: for you on your next book, because you can not

531
00:29:42,120 --> 00:29:45,000
Speaker 1: not write. So you want to be a sports journalist,

532
00:29:45,080 --> 00:29:48,040
Speaker 1: because I have no advice for kids about because I've

533
00:29:48,080 --> 00:29:50,160
Speaker 1: been able to tell them about being a political journalist,

534
00:29:50,240 --> 00:29:51,960
Speaker 1: but I have no advice on so you want to

535
00:29:51,960 --> 00:29:55,760
Speaker 1: be a sports journalist. And you probably could write that

536
00:29:55,800 --> 00:29:58,640
Speaker 1: book in your sleep on the ups and downs, the

537
00:29:58,680 --> 00:30:00,520
Speaker 1: ins and outs, and why you don't want to do

538
00:30:01,080 --> 00:30:02,040
Speaker 1: this sport of that part.

539
00:30:02,080 --> 00:30:03,800
Speaker 3: But you come to our mall. You don't do much

540
00:30:03,800 --> 00:30:04,680
Speaker 3: Ohio State, do you?

541
00:30:05,600 --> 00:30:07,640
Speaker 4: I'll do so not too much. One thing I would say,

542
00:30:07,680 --> 00:30:11,000
Speaker 4: whether it's broadcasting or this, people say, well, I want

543
00:30:11,040 --> 00:30:12,920
Speaker 4: to be a sports writer or sports journalist because I

544
00:30:12,920 --> 00:30:15,880
Speaker 4: love sports. That's not the best answer. The mist answer

545
00:30:15,960 --> 00:30:18,120
Speaker 4: is like, if you're a sports writer, you better love

546
00:30:18,160 --> 00:30:20,200
Speaker 4: to write, and you you know this. Even if you're

547
00:30:20,200 --> 00:30:23,760
Speaker 4: going to be a political broadcaster, Yeah, politics is important,

548
00:30:23,800 --> 00:30:26,480
Speaker 4: but you better be very good at broadcasting. And a

549
00:30:26,480 --> 00:30:27,640
Speaker 4: lot of people miss that.

550
00:30:28,840 --> 00:30:29,840
Speaker 3: Yeah, there is a talent.

551
00:30:29,920 --> 00:30:34,280
Speaker 1: Joe Tate, the Immortal, Joe Tate, the Absolute and GiB Shanley.

552
00:30:34,360 --> 00:30:37,440
Speaker 1: I mean, we're all blessed up there, Terry, Merry Christmas,

553
00:30:37,440 --> 00:30:40,800
Speaker 1: and everybody else deserves a fetching Missus Hewett and a

554
00:30:40,880 --> 00:30:44,120
Speaker 1: Roberta Pluto in their lives as well. We're both blessed

555
00:30:44,160 --> 00:30:46,680
Speaker 1: in that department as well. Merry Christmas, Terry Pluto. Talk

556
00:30:46,720 --> 00:30:49,000
Speaker 1: to you in twenty twenty six at some point at

557
00:30:49,000 --> 00:30:51,600
Speaker 1: the Browns march to the Super Bowl, the Guardians of

558
00:30:51,680 --> 00:30:55,600
Speaker 1: the World Series and the Cavaliers to the final of

559
00:30:55,680 --> 00:30:56,480
Speaker 1: the NBA.

560
00:30:56,520 --> 00:30:57,880
Speaker 3: That's my wish for the new year.

561
00:30:58,320 --> 00:31:01,200
Speaker 1: Take care Terry Puto follow him on brand new book

562
00:31:01,320 --> 00:31:04,760
Speaker 1: is why can't this team find a quarterback? Welcome back

563
00:31:04,760 --> 00:31:07,960
Speaker 1: in America. I'm Hugh Hewittt. I'm reminding everyone Angel Tree

564
00:31:08,000 --> 00:31:10,400
Speaker 1: is underway. We only have a couple of weeks left

565
00:31:10,400 --> 00:31:12,640
Speaker 1: to get as many presents to as many children who

566
00:31:12,720 --> 00:31:16,520
Speaker 1: have a parent in prison as possible. Angel Tree is

567
00:31:16,560 --> 00:31:19,600
Speaker 1: sponsored by Prison and Fellowship. We welcome on the show

568
00:31:19,640 --> 00:31:21,560
Speaker 1: every year because they're so good at what they do,

569
00:31:21,840 --> 00:31:24,160
Speaker 1: which is bring Christmas to children who have mom and

570
00:31:24,400 --> 00:31:26,920
Speaker 1: or dad in prison. They find a present that the

571
00:31:27,000 --> 00:31:29,400
Speaker 1: child wants, they buy it, they get it to the kid,

572
00:31:29,720 --> 00:31:31,959
Speaker 1: along with a note from mom or dad, a Bible,

573
00:31:32,000 --> 00:31:34,880
Speaker 1: and a connection to a ministry that could change their life. Really,

574
00:31:34,880 --> 00:31:38,000
Speaker 1: the best thirty dollars you can spend, best sixty dollars

575
00:31:38,200 --> 00:31:40,920
Speaker 1: or ninety. It takes about thirty dollars to take care

576
00:31:40,960 --> 00:31:43,560
Speaker 1: of the present, the Bible, the visit, all that stuff.

577
00:31:44,000 --> 00:31:47,480
Speaker 1: It's one of the most effective ministries in America. Please

578
00:31:47,560 --> 00:31:52,560
Speaker 1: be as generous as possible. Head over to Hughewett dot

579
00:31:52,560 --> 00:31:57,520
Speaker 1: com and find at the top of the website the

580
00:31:57,560 --> 00:32:00,280
Speaker 1: banner for Angel Tree. Or you can call Triple eight

581
00:32:00,480 --> 00:32:03,920
Speaker 1: two oh six twenty seven sixty four, Triple A two

582
00:32:03,920 --> 00:32:07,720
Speaker 1: oh six twenty seven sixty four Christmas shopping time. Are

583
00:32:07,760 --> 00:32:10,320
Speaker 1: you feeling a little bit pinched? Well, if you make

584
00:32:10,360 --> 00:32:13,880
Speaker 1: a switch to Consumer Cellular, you may add some stretch

585
00:32:13,960 --> 00:32:18,080
Speaker 1: to your budget. Consumer Cellular dot Com slash Hugh one

586
00:32:18,160 --> 00:32:21,040
Speaker 1: eight hundred four to one one forty four fifty four.

587
00:32:21,080 --> 00:32:24,400
Speaker 1: Now listen, do not fall for the phone on us

588
00:32:24,440 --> 00:32:25,600
Speaker 1: Big Wireless offer.

589
00:32:25,680 --> 00:32:27,360
Speaker 2: That phone is not free.

590
00:32:27,800 --> 00:32:30,360
Speaker 1: Typically the most expensive phone you ever buy is the

591
00:32:30,400 --> 00:32:32,520
Speaker 1: free phone that you get with Big Sellure. Look at

592
00:32:32,520 --> 00:32:34,640
Speaker 1: the actual costs of that plan, the length of the

593
00:32:34,720 --> 00:32:36,800
Speaker 1: contract before you get locked into what could be one

594
00:32:36,800 --> 00:32:40,080
Speaker 1: thousand dollars mistake. Right now, for limited time only, you

595
00:32:40,080 --> 00:32:43,360
Speaker 1: get the second month of service with Consumer Cellular for

596
00:32:43,520 --> 00:32:47,160
Speaker 1: free when you use my promo code Q hugh or

597
00:32:47,240 --> 00:32:50,160
Speaker 1: visit Consumer Cellular dot Com slash Q.

598
00:32:50,360 --> 00:32:51,280
Speaker 3: It'll be automatic.

599
00:32:51,600 --> 00:32:53,600
Speaker 1: But if you call one eight hundred four to one

600
00:32:53,720 --> 00:32:57,040
Speaker 1: one forty four fifty four and mention Q, you get

601
00:32:57,080 --> 00:32:59,600
Speaker 1: that second month free. And here's something my listeners who

602
00:32:59,640 --> 00:33:03,200
Speaker 1: are fifth and older will love. Two unlimited lines of

603
00:33:03,280 --> 00:33:07,080
Speaker 1: data two for just sixty dollars. That's only thirty dollars

604
00:33:07,080 --> 00:33:10,320
Speaker 1: per line. Unlimited data. It's an easy way to manage

605
00:33:10,360 --> 00:33:12,680
Speaker 1: your costs of living. It is the best deal out

606
00:33:12,680 --> 00:33:16,000
Speaker 1: there called one eight hundred and four one fifty four.

607
00:33:16,560 --> 00:33:19,960
Speaker 1: Be sure to use my promo code. Hugh, Laura and

608
00:33:19,960 --> 00:33:25,360
Speaker 1: even Grace America. Merry Christmas Eve to you. More than

609
00:33:25,400 --> 00:33:29,120
Speaker 1: twenty years ago, I did a show with my next guest,

610
00:33:29,160 --> 00:33:32,440
Speaker 1: doctor Mark Roberts. Doctor Mark Roberts is a senior Fellow

611
00:33:32,480 --> 00:33:35,960
Speaker 1: at the DePree Center at the Fuller Seminary, the author

612
00:33:36,000 --> 00:33:40,480
Speaker 1: of nine different books, hundreds of articles over thirty five

613
00:33:40,760 --> 00:33:44,240
Speaker 1: hundred devotions, as the chief writer at Life for Leaders,

614
00:33:44,680 --> 00:33:48,800
Speaker 1: his daily study devotional at the Depre Center. These days,

615
00:33:48,840 --> 00:33:52,120
Speaker 1: Mark is helping people my age and the third third

616
00:33:52,240 --> 00:33:56,680
Speaker 1: of life flourish. You can learn more at dupre dot org.

617
00:33:57,360 --> 00:34:02,120
Speaker 1: Uh Mark Roberts, welcome back. We did this originally in

618
00:34:02,200 --> 00:34:06,800
Speaker 1: two thousand and four, and then the malware guys came

619
00:34:06,840 --> 00:34:09,760
Speaker 1: in and took it hostage, so we're redoing it again

620
00:34:09,800 --> 00:34:10,759
Speaker 1: for Christmas Eve.

621
00:34:12,200 --> 00:34:14,319
Speaker 3: Have you kept up with Scrooge.

622
00:34:14,239 --> 00:34:16,640
Speaker 2: In over those two decades?

623
00:34:17,280 --> 00:34:21,120
Speaker 3: Well, in fact, I have. I probably listened to two

624
00:34:21,239 --> 00:34:25,000
Speaker 3: or three recorded versions of the Christmas Carol. I've watched

625
00:34:25,239 --> 00:34:29,200
Speaker 3: many film versions, including one yesterday. I've seen it performed

626
00:34:29,239 --> 00:34:33,000
Speaker 3: on stage, and I read a Christmas Carol every year,

627
00:34:33,560 --> 00:34:37,800
Speaker 3: so I've added more than twenty readings since we last

628
00:34:37,840 --> 00:34:41,800
Speaker 3: did our show together. Why you re read it every year?

629
00:34:42,239 --> 00:34:46,000
Speaker 3: That's amazing, you know it is, And partly you can

630
00:34:46,000 --> 00:34:48,080
Speaker 3: get away with it because it's it's short of If

631
00:34:48,120 --> 00:34:50,200
Speaker 3: I told you, oh, I read David Copperfield every year,

632
00:34:50,239 --> 00:34:52,960
Speaker 3: you'd say, where do you find that? It's it's a

633
00:34:53,040 --> 00:34:56,240
Speaker 3: quick read. I read it because I love this book.

634
00:34:56,440 --> 00:35:00,960
Speaker 3: I love its story, I love the character, I love

635
00:35:01,040 --> 00:35:03,319
Speaker 3: the language. The more I read it, the more I

636
00:35:03,480 --> 00:35:07,880
Speaker 3: just find Dickens's language just delightful. A lots of humor

637
00:35:07,920 --> 00:35:11,759
Speaker 3: in this book, including some suspense, and you might even

638
00:35:11,760 --> 00:35:15,799
Speaker 3: almost say orror. The book has exceptional moral clarity, and

639
00:35:15,880 --> 00:35:18,319
Speaker 3: I appreciate that in a day like this, in a

640
00:35:18,400 --> 00:35:22,520
Speaker 3: strong encouragement. But most of all, what I find deeply

641
00:35:22,640 --> 00:35:26,840
Speaker 3: moving is the story of a human life transformed, of

642
00:35:26,880 --> 00:35:32,520
Speaker 3: a man who was alone and caught up in himself

643
00:35:32,719 --> 00:35:36,160
Speaker 3: and had no love for anyone to a man who

644
00:35:36,280 --> 00:35:39,520
Speaker 3: was a kind and generous, and it was a transformed man,

645
00:35:39,560 --> 00:35:40,920
Speaker 3: and I love that story.

646
00:35:42,080 --> 00:35:47,080
Speaker 1: In the second twenty five years of the New trillennium

647
00:35:47,280 --> 00:35:50,080
Speaker 1: or the New millennium. I gotta ask you a little

648
00:35:50,080 --> 00:35:52,760
Speaker 1: background please on this story for people who are driving

649
00:35:52,840 --> 00:35:55,920
Speaker 1: around or watching on YouTube who don't even know what

650
00:35:56,000 --> 00:35:59,240
Speaker 1: the Christmas Carol is because they exist, or at best

651
00:35:59,320 --> 00:36:00,520
Speaker 1: they've seen them up.

652
00:36:00,400 --> 00:36:04,239
Speaker 3: At version yeah yeah, or maybe in this day Jim

653
00:36:04,320 --> 00:36:08,160
Speaker 3: Carrey's version, which is fascinating. That's another story. Well, you know,

654
00:36:08,480 --> 00:36:11,600
Speaker 3: it's the story of the writing of a Christmas Carol

655
00:36:11,719 --> 00:36:15,000
Speaker 3: is itself a story in fact, actually is a movie

656
00:36:15,040 --> 00:36:17,880
Speaker 3: that Dan Stevens was in called The Man Who Invented Christmas.

657
00:36:17,960 --> 00:36:21,040
Speaker 3: They kind of tell the story of Dickens. So basically,

658
00:36:21,400 --> 00:36:23,959
Speaker 3: this book was published in December of eighteen forty three

659
00:36:24,160 --> 00:36:27,880
Speaker 3: in London. And let me say something about the broader

660
00:36:28,160 --> 00:36:31,680
Speaker 3: cultural context and then Dickens's own context. So England and

661
00:36:31,800 --> 00:36:34,320
Speaker 3: that time was in the midst of the Industrial Revolution,

662
00:36:35,239 --> 00:36:40,480
Speaker 3: great Or moved to urbanization. There were major extremes of

663
00:36:40,560 --> 00:36:44,920
Speaker 3: wealth and poverty. At that time. The working conditions for

664
00:36:45,080 --> 00:36:48,240
Speaker 3: even just average workers, not to mention lower class workers

665
00:36:48,320 --> 00:36:52,120
Speaker 3: were really quite oppressive and awful, often working ten and

666
00:36:52,160 --> 00:36:55,440
Speaker 3: twelve hours a day in really terrible conditions. There was

667
00:36:55,600 --> 00:36:58,759
Speaker 3: a lot of suffering of children who were just not

668
00:36:58,840 --> 00:37:01,040
Speaker 3: being taken care of well, while not at that point

669
00:37:01,080 --> 00:37:04,080
Speaker 3: being well educated by and large, especially the lower class.

670
00:37:04,560 --> 00:37:09,239
Speaker 3: And interestingly enough, Christmas really was not a thing then.

671
00:37:09,880 --> 00:37:13,759
Speaker 3: In fact, there'd been history in England of celebrating Christmas

672
00:37:14,360 --> 00:37:19,279
Speaker 3: more like people in some cities celebrate Halloween today, I

673
00:37:19,320 --> 00:37:22,960
Speaker 3: mean with all kinds of pranks and rowdiness and even

674
00:37:23,000 --> 00:37:27,000
Speaker 3: illegality and different things. Historically, so there was this sort

675
00:37:27,000 --> 00:37:32,200
Speaker 3: of negative sense of Christmas, and so many well most

676
00:37:32,440 --> 00:37:35,960
Speaker 3: proper people, but many Christians ignored it, and actually some

677
00:37:36,080 --> 00:37:39,759
Speaker 3: Christians in that day really rejected and criticized it. In fact,

678
00:37:40,360 --> 00:37:44,080
Speaker 3: in the colonies, in Massachusetts in the sixteen hundreds, for

679
00:37:44,120 --> 00:37:47,680
Speaker 3: a while, it was illegal to celebrate Christmas and if

680
00:37:47,719 --> 00:37:49,320
Speaker 3: you celebrated it, you get in trouble.

681
00:37:49,360 --> 00:37:52,879
Speaker 2: So you have the Puritans were not fun loving people.

682
00:37:54,120 --> 00:37:58,319
Speaker 3: Not by at large, and so basically Christmas was this

683
00:37:58,480 --> 00:38:02,000
Speaker 3: minor holiday at moment, okay, and not something that most

684
00:38:02,000 --> 00:38:04,239
Speaker 3: posts gave him U s thought to that's Christmas. Now

685
00:38:04,640 --> 00:38:08,200
Speaker 3: here's Dickens the context. In forty three, he was an

686
00:38:08,200 --> 00:38:11,680
Speaker 3: acclaimed author, but he was facing financial challenges. His last

687
00:38:11,680 --> 00:38:14,640
Speaker 3: book had sold well. He had three children who were

688
00:38:14,640 --> 00:38:18,239
Speaker 3: alive he'd lost a couple his books were also being

689
00:38:18,280 --> 00:38:20,920
Speaker 3: pirated by many in that day and sold, and so

690
00:38:21,760 --> 00:38:25,040
Speaker 3: he was very concerned about his own personal livelihood, but

691
00:38:25,120 --> 00:38:28,360
Speaker 3: also because he grew up in considerable poverty and that

692
00:38:28,600 --> 00:38:31,879
Speaker 3: was a really bad way to grow up in that day,

693
00:38:32,360 --> 00:38:35,880
Speaker 3: and so he was worrying about this for himself. In

694
00:38:35,960 --> 00:38:38,520
Speaker 3: October of eighteen forty three, he made a trip to

695
00:38:38,600 --> 00:38:43,000
Speaker 3: Manchester where in fact visited his sister fan like in

696
00:38:43,040 --> 00:38:46,759
Speaker 3: the book, who had a child who is quite ill

697
00:38:46,840 --> 00:38:50,520
Speaker 3: like Tiny Tim interestingly, but he visited her to speak

698
00:38:50,600 --> 00:38:53,880
Speaker 3: at an organization in Manchester that it really helps educate

699
00:38:54,000 --> 00:38:57,480
Speaker 3: lower class people. In that trip he observed children in

700
00:38:57,600 --> 00:39:02,400
Speaker 3: just terrible distress, poverty and depression, and he wanted to

701
00:39:02,400 --> 00:39:04,520
Speaker 3: make some kind of difference. And now he wanted to

702
00:39:04,520 --> 00:39:06,920
Speaker 3: sell some books for his own well being and for

703
00:39:07,000 --> 00:39:09,680
Speaker 3: his family, but what he really wanted to do was

704
00:39:09,840 --> 00:39:14,040
Speaker 3: make some sort of cultural change through writing a book

705
00:39:14,040 --> 00:39:17,080
Speaker 3: that might do that. And an idea came to him

706
00:39:17,239 --> 00:39:21,440
Speaker 3: for this short novel about Christmas that would encourage people

707
00:39:21,440 --> 00:39:23,680
Speaker 3: of means to care for and to support and be

708
00:39:23,760 --> 00:39:26,960
Speaker 3: generous with the poor, and especially to care about children.

709
00:39:27,200 --> 00:39:30,360
Speaker 3: So that was kind of a setup I want to underscore.

710
00:39:30,640 --> 00:39:35,160
Speaker 1: He worked in a blacking factory and ink factory. He

711
00:39:35,239 --> 00:39:38,320
Speaker 1: was in debtors prison. He knows of what he writes

712
00:39:38,360 --> 00:39:40,879
Speaker 1: when he writes about poverty. And do you have any

713
00:39:40,880 --> 00:39:44,200
Speaker 1: idea where he got the idea where a Christmas Carol from?

714
00:39:44,360 --> 00:39:49,040
Speaker 3: Well, what's fascinating is in the Pickwick Papers, which had

715
00:39:49,040 --> 00:39:53,680
Speaker 3: been written about seven years before a Christmas Carol. There

716
00:39:53,719 --> 00:39:56,680
Speaker 3: was a short story in there called the Goblins who

717
00:39:56,800 --> 00:40:01,200
Speaker 3: Stole a Sexton. A sexton is like the church stodian, okay,

718
00:40:01,680 --> 00:40:06,479
Speaker 3: And the sexton is a man named Gabriel Grubb. He's

719
00:40:06,520 --> 00:40:10,760
Speaker 3: a grumpy, lonely old man all by himself who hates

720
00:40:11,040 --> 00:40:16,000
Speaker 3: children and Christmas. But on Christmas Eve some goblins come

721
00:40:16,200 --> 00:40:19,239
Speaker 3: after he's had something to drink, and they steal him,

722
00:40:19,280 --> 00:40:21,040
Speaker 3: and they steal him away, and they take him to

723
00:40:21,080 --> 00:40:24,080
Speaker 3: a cavern where they show him all kinds of visions

724
00:40:24,120 --> 00:40:28,279
Speaker 3: of poor people suffering, but also visions of the poor celebrating.

725
00:40:28,640 --> 00:40:31,520
Speaker 3: And also the goblins beat him up many times, and

726
00:40:31,719 --> 00:40:34,520
Speaker 3: out of this Grub has a change of heart. He

727
00:40:34,640 --> 00:40:38,680
Speaker 3: becomes cheerful and the lover of Christmas. But he is

728
00:40:38,760 --> 00:40:42,640
Speaker 3: so embarrassed about this change in his life that rather

729
00:40:42,760 --> 00:40:46,960
Speaker 3: than look a fool to his neighbors, he actually disappears

730
00:40:47,000 --> 00:40:49,640
Speaker 3: for a long long time and hides because he doesn't

731
00:40:49,640 --> 00:40:52,560
Speaker 3: want to expose the change of heart. So when you

732
00:40:52,920 --> 00:40:55,600
Speaker 3: when you hear that story, you say, oh, that sounds

733
00:40:55,719 --> 00:40:58,120
Speaker 3: kind of like Scrooge, but not quite. But it was

734
00:40:58,160 --> 00:41:01,560
Speaker 3: sort of the you know how fine painters will have

735
00:41:02,040 --> 00:41:05,440
Speaker 3: chalk drawings of their painting before they actually do the painting.

736
00:41:05,640 --> 00:41:09,160
Speaker 3: This is kind of the chalk drawing of a Christmas

737
00:41:09,160 --> 00:41:13,760
Speaker 3: Carol seven years before. That was kind of that core story.

738
00:41:13,840 --> 00:41:16,480
Speaker 3: But then, of course what Dickens does with it with

739
00:41:16,719 --> 00:41:18,200
Speaker 3: Scrooge is very very different.

740
00:41:18,680 --> 00:41:22,839
Speaker 1: So you said, October of eighteen forty three, So how

741
00:41:22,880 --> 00:41:23,960
Speaker 1: did he what did he do?

742
00:41:24,239 --> 00:41:28,720
Speaker 3: That's a deadline, deadline if he's going to make Christmas. Yes,

743
00:41:28,800 --> 00:41:32,680
Speaker 3: So he started working on it in October eighteen forty

744
00:41:32,719 --> 00:41:35,520
Speaker 3: three and he worked feverishly, moved back to London. He

745
00:41:36,000 --> 00:41:39,400
Speaker 3: talks in his letters of walking fifteen to twenty miles

746
00:41:39,400 --> 00:41:42,280
Speaker 3: a day around London, thinking and thinking, and then he's writing.

747
00:41:42,480 --> 00:41:46,920
Speaker 3: He's deeply engaged. He describes himself as writing almost around

748
00:41:46,960 --> 00:41:51,240
Speaker 3: the clock, sometimes laughing, sometimes weeping. He is completely engaged

749
00:41:51,239 --> 00:41:55,080
Speaker 3: in this and he finishes it in late November eighteen

750
00:41:55,200 --> 00:41:58,960
Speaker 3: forty three. Now keep that dat in mind. His publisher, interestingly,

751
00:41:59,040 --> 00:42:01,239
Speaker 3: is not enthusiastic who had the book. They think it's

752
00:42:01,239 --> 00:42:04,319
Speaker 3: not going to do very well, so they will publish it,

753
00:42:04,360 --> 00:42:06,239
Speaker 3: but they're not going to put any money in it.

754
00:42:06,719 --> 00:42:11,359
Speaker 3: So Dickens actually paid for the editing, the art, the

755
00:42:11,480 --> 00:42:15,480
Speaker 3: printing of this book. He paid and was therefore eligible

756
00:42:15,560 --> 00:42:19,279
Speaker 3: for getting better income if it's sold. And so he

757
00:42:19,360 --> 00:42:23,000
Speaker 3: finishes it in November eighteen forty three and the book

758
00:42:23,120 --> 00:42:28,040
Speaker 3: hits the stores on December nineteenth. Now, you and I've

759
00:42:28,080 --> 00:42:30,640
Speaker 3: written books. It's you want it like eighteen months in

760
00:42:30,680 --> 00:42:33,440
Speaker 3: advance and it takes forever. Number this was a turnaround

761
00:42:33,680 --> 00:42:37,120
Speaker 3: of less than three weeks. Amazing, it's a miracle.

762
00:42:38,000 --> 00:42:42,239
Speaker 1: Now, our late mutual friend, doctor David Allen White, who

763
00:42:42,280 --> 00:42:44,840
Speaker 1: passed away this year, I did a three hour especial

764
00:42:44,880 --> 00:42:48,320
Speaker 1: with him on Dickens because of his command of the language.

765
00:42:48,320 --> 00:42:51,680
Speaker 1: Do you share that love of Dickens's command of the language.

766
00:42:53,080 --> 00:42:57,440
Speaker 3: Oh, you know, yes, it's it's really amazing. And you know,

767
00:42:57,680 --> 00:42:59,719
Speaker 3: and these days you have to look some things up,

768
00:42:59,800 --> 00:43:02,359
Speaker 3: and there are ways to do that so you can

769
00:43:02,760 --> 00:43:05,239
Speaker 3: know all the words. But look, we've got a minute

770
00:43:05,239 --> 00:43:08,440
Speaker 3: at a break. So yeah, example, the most obvious thing. Yeah,

771
00:43:08,800 --> 00:43:13,840
Speaker 3: the name Ebenezer Scrooge actually has meaning. So Scrooge actually

772
00:43:13,880 --> 00:43:17,160
Speaker 3: was an Old English verb that means to squeeze or

773
00:43:17,239 --> 00:43:20,600
Speaker 3: to press something. And there's this this description leader of Scrooge,

774
00:43:20,640 --> 00:43:24,600
Speaker 3: of a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, cove at as

775
00:43:24,640 --> 00:43:29,239
Speaker 3: old sinner. So Scrooge, it's a squeezer. Ebenezer is a

776
00:43:29,239 --> 00:43:33,879
Speaker 3: biblical word. It means help, stone, stone of help. It's

777
00:43:33,920 --> 00:43:37,680
Speaker 3: a memorial. And so you have in the name Ebenezer Scrooge,

778
00:43:37,719 --> 00:43:39,920
Speaker 3: on the one hand, the description of where he began,

779
00:43:40,400 --> 00:43:44,200
Speaker 3: and a memorial for us of what happened in its life.

780
00:43:44,920 --> 00:43:48,359
Speaker 1: More coming up on a Christmas carol. On this Christmas Eve,

781
00:43:48,520 --> 00:43:52,399
Speaker 1: don't go anywhere America, Doctor Mark Roberts will be right back.

782
00:43:57,000 --> 00:43:57,960
Speaker 3: Welcome back to America.

783
00:43:58,040 --> 00:43:58,640
Speaker 2: I'm here here.

784
00:43:59,000 --> 00:44:01,719
Speaker 1: I can almost always get an answer from someone when

785
00:44:01,760 --> 00:44:04,200
Speaker 1: I ask who their favorite Scrooge is minus George she

786
00:44:04,280 --> 00:44:07,160
Speaker 1: Scott and their favorite scene and mine is when he

787
00:44:07,200 --> 00:44:10,319
Speaker 1: throws the window open and sees the boy below. It's

788
00:44:10,360 --> 00:44:15,120
Speaker 1: about a change level. Mark, what is the draw of

789
00:44:15,160 --> 00:44:18,040
Speaker 1: a transformed life. Why do people love that so much?

790
00:44:19,800 --> 00:44:22,480
Speaker 3: Well, you know, as I mentioned, there are many reasons

791
00:44:22,480 --> 00:44:26,720
Speaker 3: to love a Christmas Carold, but mostly what really grabs

792
00:44:26,800 --> 00:44:29,880
Speaker 3: us and keeps us reading in my case is this

793
00:44:29,960 --> 00:44:33,279
Speaker 3: story of this transformation that e Benezer Scrooge goes from

794
00:44:33,320 --> 00:44:36,920
Speaker 3: what I just said, this squeezing man who squeezed his

795
00:44:37,080 --> 00:44:39,719
Speaker 3: money to hold on to it and really squeezed his

796
00:44:39,760 --> 00:44:43,520
Speaker 3: own heart and soul, and just was this squeezed, bound

797
00:44:43,600 --> 00:44:46,839
Speaker 3: up old man. And by the end he is a

798
00:44:47,000 --> 00:44:52,400
Speaker 3: warm and happy and laughing, caring, generous and good person.

799
00:44:52,400 --> 00:44:55,279
Speaker 3: In fact, the goodness has emphasized it again a great

800
00:44:55,360 --> 00:44:58,920
Speaker 3: Dickens line. He describes Scrooge as a good as good

801
00:44:58,960 --> 00:45:02,080
Speaker 3: a friend, as good master, as good a man as

802
00:45:02,120 --> 00:45:04,640
Speaker 3: the good old city New or an ill any other

803
00:45:04,719 --> 00:45:07,480
Speaker 3: good old city town or borough in the good old world.

804
00:45:07,880 --> 00:45:10,440
Speaker 3: It's just that's great, a lot of goods. But how

805
00:45:10,440 --> 00:45:13,799
Speaker 3: did this happen? You know, how did Scrooge change? Well,

806
00:45:13,880 --> 00:45:17,000
Speaker 3: the most obvious thing is he got some supernatural help,

807
00:45:17,560 --> 00:45:20,960
Speaker 3: in this case, not from God necessarily, but from the

808
00:45:21,040 --> 00:45:24,520
Speaker 3: spirits who visited him. He didn't just change all by himself.

809
00:45:24,560 --> 00:45:28,239
Speaker 3: That's sort of number one. Number two, there was this

810
00:45:28,680 --> 00:45:34,160
Speaker 3: profound interruption of his ordinary experience. And you know, in general,

811
00:45:34,560 --> 00:45:37,480
Speaker 3: when we when we go through certain kinds of transformations,

812
00:45:37,840 --> 00:45:42,759
Speaker 3: it's usually because we've experienced something unusual, something that isn't

813
00:45:42,840 --> 00:45:45,240
Speaker 3: ordinary and obvious. One would be when you get married.

814
00:45:46,360 --> 00:45:48,600
Speaker 3: That's a big change in your life, and it can

815
00:45:48,680 --> 00:45:52,040
Speaker 3: lead to transformation in my season of life. It could

816
00:45:52,080 --> 00:45:54,640
Speaker 3: be the you and I you of recent one of

817
00:45:54,640 --> 00:45:57,799
Speaker 3: our good friends just recently lost his spouse and that's

818
00:45:57,840 --> 00:46:04,200
Speaker 3: a huge change interruption. Okay. Number three the influence of nostalgia. Now,

819
00:46:04,719 --> 00:46:08,960
Speaker 3: when Scrooge is taken back in time by the spirit

820
00:46:09,360 --> 00:46:13,600
Speaker 3: of Christmas past, he has his profound nostalgic experience of

821
00:46:13,600 --> 00:46:16,319
Speaker 3: what it was like when he was young. And you say, well,

822
00:46:16,320 --> 00:46:20,719
Speaker 3: that's interesting. What difference does it make. Actually, psychologists study this.

823
00:46:20,800 --> 00:46:23,320
Speaker 3: There's a group actually the University of Southampton in England

824
00:46:23,360 --> 00:46:27,600
Speaker 3: that studies the impact of nostalgia on people and especially

825
00:46:27,600 --> 00:46:30,680
Speaker 3: over people, and it actually does things like opens our

826
00:46:30,760 --> 00:46:34,919
Speaker 3: hearts and softens us and does these things. So nostalgia's

827
00:46:34,960 --> 00:46:37,919
Speaker 3: part of it. Okay, Dickens must have known this, he

828
00:46:38,320 --> 00:46:41,120
Speaker 3: didn't know the science. It wasn't around yet. Number four

829
00:46:41,800 --> 00:46:45,440
Speaker 3: there is experience of pain in transformation. For Scrooge, he

830
00:46:45,480 --> 00:46:49,359
Speaker 3: had pain in his life prior, but it's reexperiencing that pain,

831
00:46:49,440 --> 00:46:53,440
Speaker 3: the rejection he had felt by his father, the loss

832
00:46:53,880 --> 00:46:58,319
Speaker 3: of friends. These hard things he had to reexperience them

833
00:46:58,360 --> 00:47:01,360
Speaker 3: again and the pain of them in order for again

834
00:47:01,400 --> 00:47:04,080
Speaker 3: for his heart to be tenderized and open up to

835
00:47:04,160 --> 00:47:06,600
Speaker 3: the possibility of healing. Now there's a couple of other

836
00:47:06,640 --> 00:47:13,440
Speaker 3: things really important. Many times Scrooge, in as he goes

837
00:47:13,480 --> 00:47:16,720
Speaker 3: back and in the present, he is exposed to children

838
00:47:16,800 --> 00:47:20,920
Speaker 3: who are suffering, including himself. The first time he really

839
00:47:21,200 --> 00:47:24,120
Speaker 3: evidences some kind of empathy in this book, it's when

840
00:47:24,120 --> 00:47:27,640
Speaker 3: he's looking at his own little boy, left alone at

841
00:47:27,680 --> 00:47:31,680
Speaker 3: school at Christmas, not going home, and he feels sympathy. Okay,

842
00:47:32,560 --> 00:47:35,239
Speaker 3: later in a letter he wrote to a friend and

843
00:47:35,280 --> 00:47:38,279
Speaker 3: he said, certainly, there is nothing more touching than the

844
00:47:38,320 --> 00:47:42,440
Speaker 3: suffering of a child, nothing more overwhelming. And so in

845
00:47:42,480 --> 00:47:45,719
Speaker 3: this story, and tiny Tim is the most obvious example.

846
00:47:46,000 --> 00:47:49,400
Speaker 3: As Scrooge pays attention to the suffering of children, his

847
00:47:49,680 --> 00:47:52,200
Speaker 3: heart is moved, his heart is opened up, and then

848
00:47:52,480 --> 00:47:55,480
Speaker 3: to the six point, he begins to see with new eyes.

849
00:47:55,840 --> 00:47:58,160
Speaker 3: He sees what life is about with new eyes. He

850
00:47:58,280 --> 00:48:01,200
Speaker 3: sees himself with new eyes, he sees the purpose of

851
00:48:01,239 --> 00:48:04,360
Speaker 3: his living with new ISSI he has had a transformed

852
00:48:04,880 --> 00:48:08,319
Speaker 3: in vision. And the last thing I would say about

853
00:48:08,320 --> 00:48:12,560
Speaker 3: this is he experiences this by grace, that he has

854
00:48:12,600 --> 00:48:13,720
Speaker 3: an experience of grace.

855
00:48:14,840 --> 00:48:19,560
Speaker 1: Okay, we have non Christian listeners, so let's explain grace

856
00:48:19,640 --> 00:48:19,960
Speaker 1: to them.

857
00:48:20,000 --> 00:48:23,000
Speaker 3: What do you mean by grace? Well, I'll explain grace

858
00:48:23,040 --> 00:48:25,760
Speaker 3: and then talk about where you see it. So grace

859
00:48:25,960 --> 00:48:32,279
Speaker 3: is unmerited favor, unmerited kindness. I mean for Christians, we

860
00:48:32,360 --> 00:48:35,640
Speaker 3: talk of course about the grace of God, God's unmerited kindness.

861
00:48:35,719 --> 00:48:38,680
Speaker 3: But you can show grace person to person too, simply

862
00:48:39,000 --> 00:48:41,880
Speaker 3: giving to somebody something that they don't deserve, or a

863
00:48:42,000 --> 00:48:45,439
Speaker 3: kindness that was not earned. And Dickens, by the way,

864
00:48:45,600 --> 00:48:48,200
Speaker 3: was not a Christian per se, He was a fist.

865
00:48:48,640 --> 00:48:51,520
Speaker 3: He was influenced by Christian faith. He had many fine

866
00:48:51,560 --> 00:48:55,200
Speaker 3: things to say about Jesus, actually even in a Christmas carol.

867
00:48:55,760 --> 00:48:59,640
Speaker 3: But just to say, however, he knew about grace. You said, well,

868
00:48:59,680 --> 00:49:07,520
Speaker 3: where's grace? First and foremost the visit of his nephew Fred.

869
00:49:09,000 --> 00:49:11,360
Speaker 3: Fred knows that he's not going to get be treated

870
00:49:11,400 --> 00:49:14,480
Speaker 3: kindly by Scrooge, but he doesn't care. He shows him love,

871
00:49:14,520 --> 00:49:18,040
Speaker 3: he invites him over. Then there's the grace of Jacob Marley,

872
00:49:18,600 --> 00:49:21,400
Speaker 3: his former partner, who comes as a spirit, and somehow

873
00:49:21,480 --> 00:49:27,319
Speaker 3: Jacob Marley is a this opportunity for Scrooge to be transformed,

874
00:49:27,680 --> 00:49:32,680
Speaker 3: just out of grace. Bob Cratchit toasts, even though Scrooge

875
00:49:32,719 --> 00:49:36,920
Speaker 3: a terrible boss, Bob Cratchit toasts Scrooge in a kind way.

876
00:49:37,120 --> 00:49:40,640
Speaker 3: And their Christmas dinner, and then once again you have

877
00:49:40,760 --> 00:49:44,759
Speaker 3: Fred showing up in and it hit this dinner. He

878
00:49:44,880 --> 00:49:51,600
Speaker 3: wishes Scrooge to marry Christmas. He drinks a toast to him,

879
00:49:51,880 --> 00:49:54,360
Speaker 3: and again it's nothing that Scrooge deserved to earn, but

880
00:49:54,400 --> 00:49:58,080
Speaker 3: Scrooge is now observing it. And so he's experiencing grace

881
00:49:58,120 --> 00:50:00,920
Speaker 3: people being kind to him, and that has a way

882
00:50:00,960 --> 00:50:03,200
Speaker 3: of opening our hearts.

883
00:50:02,680 --> 00:50:06,040
Speaker 1: And you just read it yesterday and I can't remember it.

884
00:50:06,080 --> 00:50:09,400
Speaker 1: But didn't he reject grace originally when Fred came to

885
00:50:09,440 --> 00:50:13,239
Speaker 1: see him, Oh yeah, oh yeah, humbug right, and the

886
00:50:13,280 --> 00:50:16,279
Speaker 1: guys who wanted him to make a subscription, he got

887
00:50:16,320 --> 00:50:17,600
Speaker 1: like the opposite of grace.

888
00:50:18,520 --> 00:50:22,200
Speaker 3: Well true, he was not interested at first, but as

889
00:50:22,239 --> 00:50:25,160
Speaker 3: the spirits work on his heart and as he experiences

890
00:50:25,960 --> 00:50:29,560
Speaker 3: all the things that lead to transformation, eventually he is

891
00:50:29,640 --> 00:50:32,680
Speaker 3: able to receive the good gifts that are being given

892
00:50:32,719 --> 00:50:35,959
Speaker 3: to him and open his heart to them. And so again,

893
00:50:36,000 --> 00:50:39,839
Speaker 3: though it's not a Christian novel, it's actually a marvelous

894
00:50:39,880 --> 00:50:44,440
Speaker 3: illustration of how grace and his unmerited kindness can actually

895
00:50:44,480 --> 00:50:45,840
Speaker 3: make a difference in people's lives.

896
00:50:46,719 --> 00:50:49,000
Speaker 1: By the way, when you reread this every year, do

897
00:50:49,040 --> 00:50:51,399
Speaker 1: you notice something new every time?

898
00:50:51,520 --> 00:50:54,960
Speaker 3: Always? Always? And it's kind of funny you because sometimes

899
00:50:55,000 --> 00:50:57,480
Speaker 3: I'll be reading a lot and I'll think, wait, was

900
00:50:57,520 --> 00:51:01,400
Speaker 3: that always in there? And the thing I was noting

901
00:51:01,520 --> 00:51:07,320
Speaker 3: yesterday was just how many different versions of mulled wine

902
00:51:07,640 --> 00:51:10,200
Speaker 3: show up in this book. I think they're like six

903
00:51:10,320 --> 00:51:13,759
Speaker 3: different kinds of mold wine, smoking Bishop and Negus and

904
00:51:13,800 --> 00:51:16,399
Speaker 3: all this, And these are the things you see when

905
00:51:16,400 --> 00:51:18,279
Speaker 3: you've read the thing like thirty times.

906
00:51:18,719 --> 00:51:21,560
Speaker 1: Well, you have reference to me and annotated Dickens. Did

907
00:51:21,560 --> 00:51:24,600
Speaker 1: they annotate all of Dickens or just a Christmas Carol?

908
00:51:25,239 --> 00:51:29,239
Speaker 3: Well, I don't know that was Dickens would be an

909
00:51:29,320 --> 00:51:33,200
Speaker 3: overwhelming challenge, But there is an annotated and you can

910
00:51:33,239 --> 00:51:36,319
Speaker 3: find it on Amazon book and what's wonderful, it's got

911
00:51:36,360 --> 00:51:39,120
Speaker 3: the text, but then it has all kinds of footnotes.

912
00:51:39,280 --> 00:51:41,320
Speaker 3: This is what this means. This is what this means.

913
00:51:41,320 --> 00:51:44,680
Speaker 3: This is what this means, and it's very helpful for

914
00:51:44,760 --> 00:51:46,800
Speaker 3: those of us who want to know the story a

915
00:51:46,840 --> 00:51:47,520
Speaker 3: little more deeply.

916
00:51:48,440 --> 00:51:50,799
Speaker 1: All right, don't go anywhere, America. I'm coming right back

917
00:51:50,840 --> 00:51:54,839
Speaker 1: with doctor Mark Roberts. Has been my friend forever. And

918
00:51:55,400 --> 00:51:58,640
Speaker 1: doctor Roberts was a year behind me at Harvard. He

919
00:51:58,680 --> 00:52:01,080
Speaker 1: got his PhD from Harvard. He was in the pulpit,

920
00:52:01,120 --> 00:52:03,160
Speaker 1: he taught down at the Laity Lodge. He's been at

921
00:52:03,200 --> 00:52:06,640
Speaker 1: the Fuller Seminary as the senior Fellow of the next

922
00:52:06,800 --> 00:52:09,480
Speaker 1: Dupree Center for Leadership for many many years.

923
00:52:09,760 --> 00:52:12,640
Speaker 2: You can find out more at Dupre dot org.

924
00:52:12,719 --> 00:52:14,800
Speaker 1: And of course we'll post this over at YouTube so

925
00:52:14,920 --> 00:52:17,960
Speaker 1: you can send it to your friends who are perhaps

926
00:52:18,280 --> 00:52:21,360
Speaker 1: not as jovial and grateful as they should be on

927
00:52:21,440 --> 00:52:26,000
Speaker 1: a Christmas even America in this millennium, don't go anywhere America.

928
00:52:26,080 --> 00:52:34,680
Speaker 1: I'm Hugh Hewitt. Welcome back in America. I'm Hugh hewittt

929
00:52:34,680 --> 00:52:40,919
Speaker 1: with doctor Mark Roberts, revisiting revising a traditionally we did

930
00:52:41,040 --> 00:52:44,879
Speaker 1: back in two thousand and four, twenty plus years ago,

931
00:52:45,000 --> 00:52:47,840
Speaker 1: Doctor Roberts and I did this show and it was

932
00:52:47,880 --> 00:52:50,760
Speaker 1: lost to malware, to a ransomware attack.

933
00:52:50,920 --> 00:52:52,319
Speaker 3: But we're just redoing it.

934
00:52:52,320 --> 00:52:56,320
Speaker 1: It's a revival like on Broadway, Doctor Roberts, what evidence

935
00:52:56,400 --> 00:52:59,200
Speaker 1: do we have that the grace, the unmerited grace that

936
00:52:59,280 --> 00:53:02,759
Speaker 1: Scrooge received actually changing them?

937
00:53:02,920 --> 00:53:09,560
Speaker 3: Well, great question. So early it on, before the last Stave,

938
00:53:09,880 --> 00:53:13,279
Speaker 3: which is the last chapter, when he's transformed, he talks

939
00:53:13,320 --> 00:53:17,520
Speaker 3: about he's described by as being overcome with penitence and

940
00:53:17,560 --> 00:53:20,719
Speaker 3: grief because of who he had been. He says, to

941
00:53:20,800 --> 00:53:23,839
Speaker 3: the spirit of the Christmas future, I hope to live

942
00:53:23,920 --> 00:53:26,319
Speaker 3: to be another man from what I was. I'm not

943
00:53:26,440 --> 00:53:29,239
Speaker 3: the man I was. I will I will be the man.

944
00:53:29,600 --> 00:53:32,400
Speaker 3: I will be a different kind of man basically. But

945
00:53:32,480 --> 00:53:34,600
Speaker 3: you say, okay, a lot of times people talk of

946
00:53:34,680 --> 00:53:38,520
Speaker 3: that way. So what evidence is there. Well, when you

947
00:53:38,560 --> 00:53:41,200
Speaker 3: get to Stay five, the last stay of the last chapter,

948
00:53:41,520 --> 00:53:45,680
Speaker 3: first of all, just you see Scrooge's utter joy, freedom

949
00:53:45,760 --> 00:53:49,000
Speaker 3: and celebration that begins to come out early. But he

950
00:53:49,120 --> 00:53:53,399
Speaker 3: is utterly happy, and he is very childlike. In fact,

951
00:53:53,600 --> 00:53:55,720
Speaker 3: he describes himself he says, I'm as long as a feather,

952
00:53:55,960 --> 00:53:58,040
Speaker 3: I'm as happy as an angel, I'm as marry as

953
00:53:58,080 --> 00:54:01,120
Speaker 3: a schoolboy, I'm as giddy as a drunk man. He says,

954
00:54:01,200 --> 00:54:03,799
Speaker 3: I don't know anything. I'm quite a baby. Never mind,

955
00:54:03,840 --> 00:54:06,239
Speaker 3: I don't care. I'd rather be a baby. So there's

956
00:54:06,280 --> 00:54:12,840
Speaker 3: this childlike freedom. Also, he's laughing all the time, and

957
00:54:12,920 --> 00:54:15,440
Speaker 3: the narrator says, really, for a man who had been

958
00:54:15,440 --> 00:54:17,839
Speaker 3: out of practice for so many years, it was a

959
00:54:17,880 --> 00:54:22,240
Speaker 3: splendid laugh, a most illustrious laugh, the father of a long,

960
00:54:22,440 --> 00:54:27,400
Speaker 3: long line of brilliant laughs. Later, the narrator says that

961
00:54:27,480 --> 00:54:30,640
Speaker 3: some folks laughed at Scrooge because of his change, but

962
00:54:30,719 --> 00:54:33,279
Speaker 3: he didn't care. Says his own heart laughed and that

963
00:54:33,280 --> 00:54:35,840
Speaker 3: was quite enough for him. So you have this joy, freedom,

964
00:54:35,920 --> 00:54:39,279
Speaker 3: laughter as evidence of a change. Heard. You certainly have

965
00:54:39,880 --> 00:54:43,440
Speaker 3: a new way of seeing. He sees himself differently, he

966
00:54:43,480 --> 00:54:46,000
Speaker 3: sees Christmas differently, he sees what it is to be

967
00:54:46,040 --> 00:54:49,480
Speaker 3: a boss differently, he sees his life differently. He has

968
00:54:49,680 --> 00:54:53,120
Speaker 3: learned lessons, so it's not just an emotional thing. It's

969
00:54:53,600 --> 00:54:55,600
Speaker 3: a new learning, a new way of seeing.

970
00:54:55,880 --> 00:54:58,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I want to inject here, as I said

971
00:54:58,920 --> 00:55:02,440
Speaker 1: George Scott's My Fingavit Scrooge and the News. Scrooge comes

972
00:55:02,480 --> 00:55:05,320
Speaker 1: to find the men who had asked him for a subscription,

973
00:55:05,440 --> 00:55:07,879
Speaker 1: and he added the famous line, are there no workhouses?

974
00:55:07,920 --> 00:55:11,000
Speaker 2: Are there no orphanages? And he runs into them.

975
00:55:11,040 --> 00:55:14,200
Speaker 1: They're almost physically afraid of him, and then he just

976
00:55:14,320 --> 00:55:16,359
Speaker 1: lets Kyle, yes they are.

977
00:55:16,560 --> 00:55:20,880
Speaker 3: And in fact, when he tells the man working for him,

978
00:55:20,880 --> 00:55:24,560
Speaker 3: Bob Cratchitt, that he's going to raise his salary, Bob

979
00:55:24,600 --> 00:55:28,720
Speaker 3: Cratchitt is worried too, and the narrator says, he grabs

980
00:55:28,719 --> 00:55:32,040
Speaker 3: a ruler as if to hit him. So this is

981
00:55:32,120 --> 00:55:35,680
Speaker 3: a real change. And there you just mentioned. He has

982
00:55:35,719 --> 00:55:38,560
Speaker 3: a new way of relating to people. He relates as

983
00:55:38,600 --> 00:55:42,480
Speaker 3: a boss differently, he relates as an uncle differently, He

984
00:55:42,520 --> 00:55:47,160
Speaker 3: greets people on the street. One of my favorite things

985
00:55:47,160 --> 00:55:50,279
Speaker 3: in the Kurst chapter says that the dogs that lead

986
00:55:50,280 --> 00:55:52,720
Speaker 3: blind people, when they saw Scrooge coming, they would hide

987
00:55:52,719 --> 00:55:56,520
Speaker 3: and take their person away, And that's in some of

988
00:55:56,560 --> 00:55:58,279
Speaker 3: the movies. But then at the end, I mean, he

989
00:55:58,400 --> 00:56:03,520
Speaker 3: loves animal. He's just he is. He relates differently, and

990
00:56:04,360 --> 00:56:06,440
Speaker 3: he also that means things like he's going to treat

991
00:56:06,440 --> 00:56:09,040
Speaker 3: his employee more justly and pay a decent wage and

992
00:56:09,080 --> 00:56:09,800
Speaker 3: that sort of thing.

993
00:56:10,000 --> 00:56:13,840
Speaker 1: But he's generous, and Marley, of course, was the opposite

994
00:56:13,840 --> 00:56:16,279
Speaker 1: of generous. He is weighed down by his greed, his

995
00:56:16,480 --> 00:56:19,560
Speaker 1: lock boxes of money, and he won't. I think the

996
00:56:19,640 --> 00:56:22,400
Speaker 1: generosity is a counterpoint to the first ghost.

997
00:56:23,400 --> 00:56:26,600
Speaker 3: Well, that is number one for Dickens, because in a

998
00:56:26,640 --> 00:56:30,080
Speaker 3: way he wrote this to help people who of means

999
00:56:30,160 --> 00:56:33,719
Speaker 3: be generous with those in need. And so the clearest

1000
00:56:33,719 --> 00:56:37,960
Speaker 3: evidence for Dickens of real change is generosity. So how

1001
00:56:37,960 --> 00:56:40,200
Speaker 3: do we know that? He sends a giant turkey to

1002
00:56:40,239 --> 00:56:42,520
Speaker 3: the Cratchett family, doesn't even let them know who it

1003
00:56:42,560 --> 00:56:47,240
Speaker 3: comes from. These the portly gentleman from the first chapter

1004
00:56:47,680 --> 00:56:51,839
Speaker 3: that he completely turned down. He we don't know what

1005
00:56:51,880 --> 00:56:53,959
Speaker 3: the mount is. He whispers in one of their ears

1006
00:56:54,040 --> 00:56:55,960
Speaker 3: what he wants to do, and the guy is blown

1007
00:56:56,000 --> 00:57:01,000
Speaker 3: away by how generous the Scrooge is. Later on, he

1008
00:57:01,840 --> 00:57:05,400
Speaker 3: cares for the Cratchit family, He raises Bob salary, He

1009
00:57:05,480 --> 00:57:09,520
Speaker 3: assists his struggling family. That's a quote. He helps Tiny Tim,

1010
00:57:09,600 --> 00:57:13,360
Speaker 3: who would have died but for Scrooge's I'm sure his

1011
00:57:13,520 --> 00:57:17,240
Speaker 3: finances for medical care. His intervention, Tiny Tim does not

1012
00:57:17,440 --> 00:57:20,200
Speaker 3: die and the narrator says he became as good a friend,

1013
00:57:20,240 --> 00:57:21,960
Speaker 3: a good a master, a good a man as the

1014
00:57:21,960 --> 00:57:22,880
Speaker 3: good old city knew.

1015
00:57:23,080 --> 00:57:26,960
Speaker 1: And that thirty seconds. How did it sell? I'm always

1016
00:57:27,040 --> 00:57:29,440
Speaker 1: interested in how did it sell?

1017
00:57:30,240 --> 00:57:36,480
Speaker 3: Yes, well, it sold six thousand copies made available on

1018
00:57:36,520 --> 00:57:41,280
Speaker 3: December nineteenth. Everyone sold out by December twenty second. That

1019
00:57:41,520 --> 00:57:44,200
Speaker 3: was the beginning. We can talk more in the next section.

1020
00:57:44,320 --> 00:57:46,520
Speaker 3: But that's a good start for a book, don't you

1021
00:57:46,520 --> 00:57:49,880
Speaker 3: think you Oh no internet? Yeah, no internet? It either

1022
00:57:50,920 --> 00:57:51,880
Speaker 3: in the modern time.

1023
00:57:52,080 --> 00:57:56,320
Speaker 1: Five thousand copies is a big breakthrough, much less in

1024
00:57:57,200 --> 00:57:59,360
Speaker 1: that few days. Don't go anywhere, Doctor arbit will be

1025
00:57:59,440 --> 00:58:08,120
Speaker 1: right back to Welcome back, America. I hope you're enjoying

1026
00:58:08,200 --> 00:58:11,480
Speaker 1: Christmas Eve. It is really raining in California. Who knows

1027
00:58:11,560 --> 00:58:13,800
Speaker 1: what the weather is wherever you are, but wherever you are,

1028
00:58:13,920 --> 00:58:17,000
Speaker 1: a merry Christmas Eve to you. Doctor Mark Roberts a

1029
00:58:17,280 --> 00:58:20,400
Speaker 1: fuller theological seminary in the do pre centers joined me,

1030
00:58:21,360 --> 00:58:24,280
Speaker 1: reviving something we did originally in two thousand and four,

1031
00:58:24,560 --> 00:58:28,160
Speaker 1: which is to tap into doctor roberts immense love for

1032
00:58:28,360 --> 00:58:31,720
Speaker 1: and knowledge of a Christmas Carol by Charles Dickon. So

1033
00:58:31,760 --> 00:58:35,040
Speaker 1: it's sold all the six thousand copies. Dr roberts right away,

1034
00:58:35,240 --> 00:58:40,640
Speaker 1: what's its impact over the two plus centuries it's been out?

1035
00:58:40,920 --> 00:58:42,440
Speaker 1: I get not quite two centuries.

1036
00:58:43,560 --> 00:58:46,200
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, if you just looked at sales just

1037
00:58:46,400 --> 00:58:49,800
Speaker 3: an idea, they're not sure. The people study that aren't

1038
00:58:49,840 --> 00:58:52,440
Speaker 3: sure how many have actually sold, but it's somewhere. They

1039
00:58:52,480 --> 00:58:56,760
Speaker 3: say between twenty million and two hundred million. So for

1040
00:58:56,800 --> 00:58:59,080
Speaker 3: those of the great writers, I'd be happy with the

1041
00:58:59,120 --> 00:59:04,520
Speaker 3: low numbers. But what did it do to dis Well, Ok,

1042
00:59:05,440 --> 00:59:08,880
Speaker 3: he didn't get filthy rich on the thing, but he

1043
00:59:08,920 --> 00:59:12,160
Speaker 3: did get steady income. And actually it helped grow his

1044
00:59:12,280 --> 00:59:15,320
Speaker 3: influence because he went all around and would do readings

1045
00:59:15,560 --> 00:59:18,000
Speaker 3: of the whole thing. You go and you hear Dickens

1046
00:59:18,000 --> 00:59:20,280
Speaker 3: read take about three hours, and he would read the

1047
00:59:20,320 --> 00:59:26,040
Speaker 3: manuscript and so it certainly supported his career. But perhaps

1048
00:59:26,080 --> 00:59:28,960
Speaker 3: more interesting, you wondered if he wrote this to try

1049
00:59:29,000 --> 00:59:33,040
Speaker 3: and help the poor. Didn't make any difference, And historians

1050
00:59:33,040 --> 00:59:35,080
Speaker 3: have worked on this. I'm not a story that I

1051
00:59:35,120 --> 00:59:40,400
Speaker 3: read historians and it's fascinating and didn't make a difference. Well, first,

1052
00:59:40,400 --> 00:59:42,280
Speaker 3: there's it's kind of a yes to note. So I'll

1053
00:59:42,320 --> 00:59:45,920
Speaker 3: start with a note, there's really no evidence that a

1054
00:59:46,000 --> 00:59:49,600
Speaker 3: Christmas Care led immediately to any of the change in

1055
00:59:49,800 --> 00:59:52,880
Speaker 3: laws that really were hurting the poor. There was at

1056
00:59:52,880 --> 00:59:55,240
Speaker 3: this time in Britain there were laws that were really

1057
00:59:55,280 --> 00:59:58,360
Speaker 3: meant to punish the poor because it was believed that

1058
00:59:58,440 --> 01:00:01,680
Speaker 3: they had sort of earned their place. It's hard for

1059
01:00:01,760 --> 01:00:04,160
Speaker 3: us to get that, but there were poor laws, and

1060
01:00:04,760 --> 01:00:09,320
Speaker 3: there's no evidence that any of those laws were immediately changed. However,

1061
01:00:10,120 --> 01:00:14,640
Speaker 3: there is lots of evidence that it began to change

1062
01:00:14,800 --> 01:00:18,360
Speaker 3: minds and hearts in thinking about the poor, and many

1063
01:00:18,440 --> 01:00:22,000
Speaker 3: scholars have said what Dickens did was change sort of

1064
01:00:22,000 --> 01:00:26,320
Speaker 3: the worldview thinking about poverty in such a way that

1065
01:00:26,480 --> 01:00:31,680
Speaker 3: later it led to changing in laws and institutions to

1066
01:00:31,720 --> 01:00:32,320
Speaker 3: help the poor.

1067
01:00:32,400 --> 01:00:37,120
Speaker 1: So I'll get the timing arm it. Lord Shaftesbury is

1068
01:00:37,200 --> 01:00:39,480
Speaker 1: running commissions on the poor at the time because the

1069
01:00:39,520 --> 01:00:43,520
Speaker 1: Industrial Revolution is really rough on people. People die in

1070
01:00:43,560 --> 01:00:45,680
Speaker 1: the streets, and many of his characters and his other

1071
01:00:45,800 --> 01:00:49,600
Speaker 1: novels die in doorsteps, poor and penniless. So he is

1072
01:00:50,000 --> 01:00:54,080
Speaker 1: not looking away from the roughness of the Industrial Revolution,

1073
01:00:54,360 --> 01:00:58,040
Speaker 1: but back to him and the impact of the book.

1074
01:00:58,680 --> 01:01:00,800
Speaker 2: Any other evidence of what they did. They have a

1075
01:01:00,840 --> 01:01:01,840
Speaker 2: cultural impact.

1076
01:01:02,400 --> 01:01:04,840
Speaker 3: Yes, I mean, so here's the thing. That many of

1077
01:01:04,920 --> 01:01:10,800
Speaker 3: us wouldn't realize. Several years ago, the London Sunday Telegraph

1078
01:01:10,840 --> 01:01:14,840
Speaker 3: had an article on Dickens called the Man who invented Christmas.

1079
01:01:15,120 --> 01:01:18,040
Speaker 3: You say, wait a minute, what does that mean? Well,

1080
01:01:18,800 --> 01:01:22,120
Speaker 3: I mentioned earlier that Christmas wasn't much of a holiday

1081
01:01:22,200 --> 01:01:25,240
Speaker 3: and it was not celebrated in ways we're familiar with

1082
01:01:25,360 --> 01:01:30,320
Speaker 3: prior to Dickens. The historians of cultures say that actually

1083
01:01:30,760 --> 01:01:35,120
Speaker 3: a Christmas Carol significantly changed the way that people in

1084
01:01:35,160 --> 01:01:38,560
Speaker 3: the West, and especially England and the USA celebrate Christmas.

1085
01:01:38,560 --> 01:01:41,960
Speaker 3: For example, it is now a major holiday it used

1086
01:01:42,000 --> 01:01:45,520
Speaker 3: to be not. For example, it seemed now mostly as

1087
01:01:45,560 --> 01:01:47,800
Speaker 3: a one or two day celebration. In the Church, it

1088
01:01:47,840 --> 01:01:53,360
Speaker 3: was always a twelve day but Dickens shortened it number three. Christmas.

1089
01:01:53,360 --> 01:01:56,040
Speaker 3: We think of Christmas ourselves as an occasion for gathering

1090
01:01:56,040 --> 01:01:58,400
Speaker 3: the family and close friends to eat food and have

1091
01:01:58,480 --> 01:02:02,600
Speaker 3: good times together. Before Christmas Carol, that really didn't happen.

1092
01:02:03,320 --> 01:02:06,240
Speaker 3: Turky is a big deal to be eaten at Christmas.

1093
01:02:06,280 --> 01:02:10,400
Speaker 3: In this book, before Christmas Carol, people did not eat

1094
01:02:10,440 --> 01:02:16,320
Speaker 3: turkey on Christmas. And again big point, Christmas is a

1095
01:02:16,680 --> 01:02:19,120
Speaker 3: time for being generous to the poor, even for those

1096
01:02:19,160 --> 01:02:21,200
Speaker 3: who are not Christians. By the way, I think Dickens

1097
01:02:21,240 --> 01:02:24,040
Speaker 3: would love the Angel tree thing you're doing, because it's, yeah,

1098
01:02:24,120 --> 01:02:27,040
Speaker 3: sort of brings together care for the poor and for

1099
01:02:27,120 --> 01:02:31,360
Speaker 3: the incarcerated, and it's just it's a great Dickensian way

1100
01:02:31,400 --> 01:02:34,560
Speaker 3: to thing. But so this whole notion of generosity at

1101
01:02:34,640 --> 01:02:39,840
Speaker 3: Christmas really was hugely from Dickens's vision for it. And

1102
01:02:39,880 --> 01:02:41,680
Speaker 3: the last thing to say is that for him and

1103
01:02:42,160 --> 01:02:45,320
Speaker 3: his Scrooge's life, Christmas was a time for personal reflection

1104
01:02:45,600 --> 01:02:48,760
Speaker 3: and growth, even transformation, and that too is new. So

1105
01:02:48,800 --> 01:02:53,880
Speaker 3: the greatest influence that Dickens had on culture was substantially

1106
01:02:54,280 --> 01:02:59,000
Speaker 3: raising the importance of Christmas, substantially changing the way we

1107
01:02:59,040 --> 01:03:02,080
Speaker 3: celebrated so much what we take utterly for granted today

1108
01:03:02,560 --> 01:03:07,680
Speaker 3: was actually something that Dickens himself kind of invented or

1109
01:03:08,040 --> 01:03:11,320
Speaker 3: or took from small pieces of the culture and promoted

1110
01:03:11,360 --> 01:03:12,120
Speaker 3: and made popular.

1111
01:03:12,560 --> 01:03:15,040
Speaker 1: Can we also make an argument that maybe he made

1112
01:03:15,280 --> 01:03:20,280
Speaker 1: nostalgia for childhood Christmas. Thing Like a Christmas Story is

1113
01:03:20,320 --> 01:03:23,080
Speaker 1: a favorite movie for many people because it's the old

1114
01:03:23,720 --> 01:03:27,560
Speaker 1: Nostalgia for Christmases of childhood is a big deal, and

1115
01:03:27,600 --> 01:03:30,480
Speaker 1: it's also, unfortunately a point of sorrow for some people.

1116
01:03:30,720 --> 01:03:34,480
Speaker 3: Right, you know, certainly could have been. And by the way,

1117
01:03:34,480 --> 01:03:37,880
Speaker 3: on the Sorrow, Dickens himself talked about the fact that,

1118
01:03:38,720 --> 01:03:40,760
Speaker 3: not in the book, but in some of his letters

1119
01:03:40,880 --> 01:03:43,800
Speaker 3: that in the context of Christmas, we remember our loved

1120
01:03:43,800 --> 01:03:46,120
Speaker 3: ones who have passed on, and so there is this

1121
01:03:46,240 --> 01:03:50,680
Speaker 3: element of sadness in the remembrance as well as this

1122
01:03:50,840 --> 01:03:54,680
Speaker 3: nostalgia delighting in our experiences of Christmas as we are

1123
01:03:54,760 --> 01:03:59,800
Speaker 3: young and sort of reliving them. So and I think

1124
01:04:00,160 --> 01:04:05,320
Speaker 3: what Dickens portray certainly has encouraged that kind of behavior.

1125
01:04:05,600 --> 01:04:07,800
Speaker 3: And the psychologists would say, if you don't get stuck

1126
01:04:07,800 --> 01:04:11,320
Speaker 3: in the past, but if you sort of relive the past,

1127
01:04:11,720 --> 01:04:14,080
Speaker 3: it actually is a good thing for your brain and

1128
01:04:14,080 --> 01:04:16,280
Speaker 3: for your body. Random question.

1129
01:04:16,880 --> 01:04:19,200
Speaker 1: I grew up Catholic going to the midnight Mass, and

1130
01:04:20,400 --> 01:04:22,960
Speaker 1: many people still do. I don't do that anymore. I'll

1131
01:04:22,960 --> 01:04:26,240
Speaker 1: make I think eight o'clock services tonight. Did the Anglican

1132
01:04:26,360 --> 01:04:29,680
Speaker 1: Church adopt a midnight Mass? Was midnight Mass a thing

1133
01:04:30,880 --> 01:04:32,120
Speaker 1: before Dickens?

1134
01:04:33,040 --> 01:04:37,200
Speaker 3: You know, I am not sure of that on the Anglicans.

1135
01:04:37,240 --> 01:04:40,080
Speaker 3: You know, the Catholics have been pretty faithful with that

1136
01:04:40,120 --> 01:04:44,360
Speaker 3: sort of thing for like centuries and centuries, but I

1137
01:04:44,400 --> 01:04:46,520
Speaker 3: don't know if the Anglicans did or not. I mean,

1138
01:04:46,560 --> 01:04:52,479
Speaker 3: what I do know is that Dickens's influence helped sort

1139
01:04:52,480 --> 01:04:55,760
Speaker 3: of to bring together the religious celebration of Christmas and

1140
01:04:55,800 --> 01:04:58,440
Speaker 3: the birth of Jesus and some of the secular things

1141
01:04:58,440 --> 01:05:02,000
Speaker 3: that previously had been and the perceived an experienced as

1142
01:05:02,040 --> 01:05:03,720
Speaker 3: being very sort of opposed.

1143
01:05:05,400 --> 01:05:07,520
Speaker 1: Okay, don't go anywhere, America. I'll be right back with

1144
01:05:07,680 --> 01:05:10,720
Speaker 1: doctor Mark Roberts. If you want, we will have this

1145
01:05:10,880 --> 01:05:13,840
Speaker 1: uploaded tonight over at my YouTube channel, so you can

1146
01:05:14,200 --> 01:05:16,440
Speaker 1: send it to your friends and loved ones who perhaps

1147
01:05:16,520 --> 01:05:19,720
Speaker 1: don't know much about Christmas Carol and inspire them to

1148
01:05:19,760 --> 01:05:21,480
Speaker 1: go out and get it. You can even give them

1149
01:05:21,520 --> 01:05:23,400
Speaker 1: what Mark Stolis. You can read it in three hours

1150
01:05:23,400 --> 01:05:25,160
Speaker 1: out loud if you're a good reader.

1151
01:05:25,720 --> 01:05:26,360
Speaker 3: Don't go anywhere.

1152
01:05:26,360 --> 01:05:28,320
Speaker 1: I'll be right back with doctor Mark Roberts of the

1153
01:05:28,360 --> 01:05:32,520
Speaker 1: Decree Center at Fuller Theological Seminary. Stay tuned, and I'm

1154
01:05:32,520 --> 01:05:35,280
Speaker 1: Merry Christmas Eve to all of you, and to Harley

1155
01:05:35,440 --> 01:05:38,280
Speaker 1: and to Adam and of course General Lisimo, everyone who

1156
01:05:38,280 --> 01:05:40,920
Speaker 1: listens to the program. To Danielle and Diana and make

1157
01:05:40,960 --> 01:05:44,560
Speaker 1: it work behind the scenes. Everyone at Salem. Doctor Mark

1158
01:05:44,640 --> 01:05:47,440
Speaker 1: Roberts is my guest. I have an off the wall question,

1159
01:05:47,840 --> 01:05:50,720
Speaker 1: which is we did this first in two thousand and four,

1160
01:05:51,000 --> 01:05:54,480
Speaker 1: more than two decades later. We're different people, lots of

1161
01:05:54,520 --> 01:05:57,200
Speaker 1: different life experiences for both of us in that period

1162
01:05:57,240 --> 01:05:57,480
Speaker 1: of time.

1163
01:05:57,760 --> 01:05:58,200
Speaker 3: How's it?

1164
01:05:58,920 --> 01:06:01,439
Speaker 1: Have you changed your under standing of it and of

1165
01:06:01,680 --> 01:06:02,600
Speaker 1: the story it tells?

1166
01:06:04,000 --> 01:06:07,440
Speaker 3: Well? I think two. I would say two things, and

1167
01:06:07,560 --> 01:06:10,960
Speaker 3: one is you and I are both older, and I

1168
01:06:11,000 --> 01:06:14,240
Speaker 3: am much more aware now than I was at the

1169
01:06:14,280 --> 01:06:18,240
Speaker 3: time of the opportunity and challenges for older adults to

1170
01:06:18,320 --> 01:06:20,520
Speaker 3: live flourishing lives that make a difference in this world.

1171
01:06:20,600 --> 01:06:22,840
Speaker 3: And I'm actually in my work at the de Precenter

1172
01:06:22,840 --> 01:06:25,040
Speaker 3: and at Fuller, I'm really focusing on what we call

1173
01:06:25,120 --> 01:06:29,760
Speaker 3: the third third of life. From that perspective, there are

1174
01:06:30,320 --> 01:06:35,880
Speaker 3: many things in a Christmas carol that are significant for

1175
01:06:36,160 --> 01:06:38,600
Speaker 3: older adults who want to florist. For example, we mentioned

1176
01:06:38,640 --> 01:06:41,120
Speaker 3: already the power of nostalgia, and there's a lot of

1177
01:06:41,160 --> 01:06:43,320
Speaker 3: research on that that it's not necessarily bad to go

1178
01:06:43,400 --> 01:06:45,680
Speaker 3: back and remember your past, as long as you let

1179
01:06:45,680 --> 01:06:50,960
Speaker 3: that inform who you are today. Dickens emphasizes the importance

1180
01:06:51,000 --> 01:06:55,080
Speaker 3: of relationships versus isolations. Screw it had been isolated, he

1181
01:06:55,160 --> 01:06:59,040
Speaker 3: becomes relationships. The Harvard Study of Human Development says the

1182
01:06:59,080 --> 01:07:01,560
Speaker 3: most important, the most important thing if you want to

1183
01:07:01,560 --> 01:07:06,320
Speaker 3: flourish as you get older, are your relationships, especially intergenerational

1184
01:07:06,440 --> 01:07:11,080
Speaker 3: relationships like Scrooge and I need Tim. There's lots of

1185
01:07:11,120 --> 01:07:14,920
Speaker 3: evidence on the value of play and celebration for older adults,

1186
01:07:15,320 --> 01:07:17,920
Speaker 3: and that helps them to flourish. But and this is

1187
01:07:17,920 --> 01:07:20,280
Speaker 3: where it really gets important, the importance of some kind

1188
01:07:20,280 --> 01:07:23,800
Speaker 3: of purpose beyond yourself, So not just getting rich as

1189
01:07:24,040 --> 01:07:26,880
Speaker 3: the early Scrooge, but a purpose of helping and serving

1190
01:07:26,960 --> 01:07:32,360
Speaker 3: people living beyond yourself in retirement. And that also a

1191
01:07:32,440 --> 01:07:35,360
Speaker 3: generosity is central to that. And many of us who

1192
01:07:35,400 --> 01:07:39,240
Speaker 3: are older, of course, we're looking at our finances and

1193
01:07:39,240 --> 01:07:41,040
Speaker 3: trying to figure out how we're going to do in

1194
01:07:41,080 --> 01:07:43,240
Speaker 3: the next you know, how many years, could be twenty

1195
01:07:43,320 --> 01:07:46,400
Speaker 3: or more. But there's an opportunity often for us to

1196
01:07:46,400 --> 01:07:49,439
Speaker 3: be generous. And you know, and again the Angel Tree

1197
01:07:49,440 --> 01:07:53,320
Speaker 3: thing great example. Your other posts on the radio have

1198
01:07:53,440 --> 01:07:57,800
Speaker 3: other kinds of opportunities, and so if so we can

1199
01:07:57,920 --> 01:08:01,200
Speaker 3: take kind of the life of Scrooge and this story

1200
01:08:01,280 --> 01:08:04,080
Speaker 3: and say, one of the things we learn is the

1201
01:08:04,440 --> 01:08:06,600
Speaker 3: what we can do if we want to live well

1202
01:08:06,880 --> 01:08:10,920
Speaker 3: as we get older, and yet those lessons are as

1203
01:08:10,960 --> 01:08:13,560
Speaker 3: relevant to people who are younger as older. And so

1204
01:08:14,480 --> 01:08:18,600
Speaker 3: maybe the great lesson of this little story is that

1205
01:08:18,640 --> 01:08:22,080
Speaker 3: when our hearts are transformed, we live to serve others.

1206
01:08:22,160 --> 01:08:24,200
Speaker 3: We live for the sake of others. It's not just

1207
01:08:24,280 --> 01:08:27,639
Speaker 3: about ourselves, what we accumulate, or our knowledge, or our

1208
01:08:27,880 --> 01:08:31,960
Speaker 3: even our own happiness. We live to be generous, we

1209
01:08:32,040 --> 01:08:35,200
Speaker 3: live to give, we live to invest our lives in others.

1210
01:08:35,240 --> 01:08:38,679
Speaker 3: And that's a lesson that's great for Christmas, for sure,

1211
01:08:39,120 --> 01:08:39,559
Speaker 3: but for.

1212
01:08:39,680 --> 01:08:43,799
Speaker 1: Any absolutely, And I want to tell our audience tomorrow

1213
01:08:43,880 --> 01:08:46,599
Speaker 1: on Christmas Day, I'm not live. We have nt right

1214
01:08:46,880 --> 01:08:50,080
Speaker 1: a Bishop bright on all of these radio stations, and

1215
01:08:50,120 --> 01:08:52,080
Speaker 1: then Kirch Schlicktor will be in for me after the

1216
01:08:52,160 --> 01:08:55,439
Speaker 1: following week. But thank you General Lisimo, thank you Adam

1217
01:08:55,479 --> 01:08:57,720
Speaker 1: and Harley, and a special thanks to my long and

1218
01:08:57,880 --> 01:09:02,439
Speaker 1: dear friend doctor Mark Roberts for prising our conversation from.

1219
01:09:02,280 --> 01:09:05,280
Speaker 3: Two thousand and four lost to the ransomware people.

1220
01:09:06,200 --> 01:09:09,519
Speaker 1: Merry Christmas, God, rest you all you marry gentlemen, enjoy

1221
01:09:09,800 --> 01:09:12,280
Speaker 1: and we'll talk again soon on a quick show in

1222
01:09:12,320 --> 01:09:12,799
Speaker 1: the future.