Speaker 1: Hello, this is Craig Ferguson letting you know that I
Speaker 1: am hitting the road again with my Fancy Rascal Tour
Speaker 1: this summer and beyond, starting next week on August seventeenth
Speaker 1: and August eighteenth in Boulder, Colorado. For the full list
Speaker 1: of dates, please go to my website, the Craig Ferguson
Speaker 1: Show dot com slash Tour, where you can also buy
Speaker 1: tickets or not. See you out there or not. My
Speaker 1: name is Craig Ferguson. This podcast is called Joy, It's
Speaker 1: not Rocket science. I talk to people I like about
Speaker 1: their pursuit of happiness. Here's Kathy Lee Gifford, an American legend.
Speaker 1: She loves Jesus' TV country music Enjoy. I'm so happy.
Speaker 2: I went to bed last with the biggest smile my firs,
Speaker 2: I said, I said, I get to see my my Howard.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Craig tomorrow. Yeah we ready to go. Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we will just go. Can I be a little more,
Speaker 1: a little louder in here, because I'm going it was
Speaker 1: a little more of himself. I want a little more
Speaker 1: of you too. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I like to you know, only you did it just
Speaker 2: because of that slot. So this is called joy.
Speaker 1: It's called joy.
Speaker 2: Lord, please bless this time together with Craig can help
Speaker 2: us not to be too naughty and Jesus name man.
Speaker 1: Okay, I don't look, I have not one to scoff
Speaker 1: about prayer. No, no, I am not I am not
Speaker 1: a I wouldn't describe myself as a person of faith,
Speaker 1: but I am a person of doubt, which is on
Speaker 1: the way to faith. Right.
Speaker 2: Yes, and some people's journeys are quite long.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I take it a while. But I
Speaker 1: feel like that prayer you sent up there about Lord
Speaker 1: help us not be naughty, I think.
Speaker 2: That in a hurtful way.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I just think I'd love to be naughty with you
Speaker 2: anytime you're ready and you get rid of that you
Speaker 2: know woman that why is she still there?
Speaker 1: Wait? Wait, you know sometimes I think she asked us
Speaker 1: of the same question. So listen. I'm's a type of
Speaker 1: woman you want.
Speaker 2: To hate because she's so beautiful, she's so smart, she's
Speaker 2: so everything, and then you meet her and she's you.
Speaker 2: You love her.
Speaker 1: You're talking about my wife, no, the other one you have.
Speaker 1: But listen, I know, I know that you're very private,
Speaker 1: and I respect and listen, you know what let let
Speaker 1: me just say at the start of this, because because
Speaker 1: this this is an unusual set of conversations for me, Yes,
Speaker 1: that we are going to talk about joy and we
Speaker 1: are going to talk about that, and I wanted to
Speaker 1: talk to you about it because you and I have
Speaker 1: a friendship, yes, which I love you, I adore you,
Speaker 1: and I don't agree with you in a lot of things,
Speaker 1: and I think that the most important things. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that's true. But but I think that I see
Speaker 1: so much of like, people can't be friends unless they
Speaker 1: all think along.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the cancel the cancel things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that seems a little that's stupid. Yeah, we can
Speaker 1: learn from.
Speaker 2: Everybody we sit down and have a conversation with. Why
Speaker 2: would we want to block off? First of all, it's
Speaker 2: the antithesis of my faith, which is I don't say
Speaker 2: that my Christian faith because I'm I was born to
Speaker 2: a Jewish father and a shicks some mother, you know,
Speaker 2: which is a gentile mother, and we didn't grow up
Speaker 2: with any organized religion in my life at all until
Speaker 2: all of us came to an understanding of faith in
Speaker 2: the person of Jesus, who in the in the Hebrew
Speaker 2: is called Yeshua and all of my family did. And
Speaker 2: so when they say, what do you believe, I said,
Speaker 2: I'm I'm a follower of Jesus and even you and
Speaker 2: I have conversations quite a bit when we were on
Speaker 2: set for our movie Than He Knew, which is available
Speaker 2: on Netflix now if you want to know. But but
Speaker 2: you talked. I said, you said that to me, And
Speaker 2: I've told this story on a couple of occasions because
Speaker 2: we had a break in shooting, as you always doing
Speaker 2: the movie. Sure, and you said, and I can't do
Speaker 2: you without doing you. But because I see how your
Speaker 2: head I used to be in my head, I had
Speaker 2: you down perfectly. So I won't do it today. I
Speaker 2: will avoid it.
Speaker 1: I can. I give you. It's really all right now.
Speaker 2: Tell you because I just you know, I'm sitting across
Speaker 2: from you, and it's been.
Speaker 1: A couple of years and I've just been too long.
Speaker 2: It's and they put you too far away from me.
Speaker 2: I can't even reach you under the table.
Speaker 1: I think, well, then somebody's reached me. I don't know you.
Speaker 1: You got your channel change and stick down there. Something's happening.
Speaker 2: Anyway. Yeah, you said basically to me, Kathy, why do
Speaker 2: you love me? And Ricky meaning your vase. Right, we
Speaker 2: were not great guys, is the way you said it.
Speaker 2: And I thought, that's so not true.
Speaker 1: Well, Ricky's a great guy.
Speaker 3: You think that.
Speaker 1: I think.
Speaker 2: No, you continue to say, we don't believe like you,
Speaker 2: We don't believe in your faith, we don't probably don't
Speaker 2: vote the way you do. But why do you love
Speaker 2: us so much? Because you knew I did, And I said, well,
Speaker 2: first of all, you're unbelievably lovable, and you're aging like
Speaker 2: a fine wine that you no longer drink. But anyway,
Speaker 2: you are created in the image of God, both you
Speaker 2: and Ricky. Plus you're the funniest, smartest, dearest people. There's
Speaker 2: so many good things to love about you. Why wouldn't
Speaker 2: I love you to which here's the thing. Yeah, you said,
Speaker 2: no person of faith has ever told us before that
Speaker 2: they love us, And I said to you, well, then
Speaker 2: you've never met one before.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I don't, to be fair, I don't know
Speaker 1: about Ricky. I mean, he probably gets told people love
Speaker 1: them all the time. But when I was, I mean,
Speaker 1: we're going to do people of faith. That was what
Speaker 1: that was about. He gets told he's what's not to
Speaker 1: love about him?
Speaker 2: Except maybe I can't think of something.
Speaker 1: Right, but you know you love what your love. But
Speaker 1: let but let me just say, let me let me
Speaker 1: talk to you a little bit about joy. We will
Speaker 1: talk to you about your about your faith and about Jesus.
Speaker 1: That was it? All right? Good? So we're done with that. Now.
Speaker 1: I want to talk to you a little bit about
Speaker 1: joy because the reason why I wanted to do to
Speaker 1: have discussions with people about it is because you, to me,
Speaker 1: are an example of someone who has gone through particularly
Speaker 1: recently with Frank and all that that You've gone through
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff. And I saw you. I remember
Speaker 1: seeing you. I think the Today Show wasn't long after
Speaker 1: Frank had passed, and you had that kind of quite
Speaker 1: speedy vibe of someone who was in grief and in shock,
Speaker 1: which is but you also had something else, which is
Speaker 1: I suppose is your faith. And you'll tell me. But
Speaker 1: you are someone to me who seems to be an
Speaker 1: adversity able to turn to a joy of some kind
Speaker 1: or maybe it's wrong to say, but manufacture it in
Speaker 1: yourself or procure or find it from somewhere. Would that
Speaker 1: be accurate?
Speaker 2: No, I'm sure it seems like that to some people.
Speaker 2: It was actually a week after Frank had passed. Now
Speaker 2: I had found just for people who don't know the story,
Speaker 2: and it's been almost eight years now since he passed. Wow,
Speaker 2: he had been sick. He had a lot of CTE,
Speaker 2: chronic traumatic and cephalop I can't say the last word,
Speaker 2: and cephalopathy, which is brain damage concussion after concussion, after.
Speaker 1: Going from the football.
Speaker 2: It was a Sunday morning, a beautiful Sunday morning. It
Speaker 2: was hod his birthday, August ninth, and I remember, it's
Speaker 2: the things you remember are crazy. But this is why,
Speaker 2: this is in answer to why I was the way
Speaker 2: I was during this quite would have been traumatic experience
Speaker 2: for somebody that didn't already cling to God the way
Speaker 2: I have. For so many years, I've always said, you know, uh,
Speaker 2: there's no bad time to find God, but the worst
Speaker 2: times you're grateful you already cling to him. It just
Speaker 2: being tighter at a time like that. And so I
Speaker 2: heard him get on his scale. The man was one
Speaker 2: week shy of eighty five, and he naked. He looked
Speaker 2: from the back. The man was thirty. You know, he
Speaker 2: worked out still, he exercised his brain. What was left
Speaker 2: of it, We didn't know, because you don't know about
Speaker 2: CTE until you do an autopsy, and we weren't going
Speaker 2: to do that on him. Before he was gone. I
Speaker 2: thought that would have been.
Speaker 1: It's just not people froving on it. It might even
Speaker 1: be legal in some states. I don't know, not anymore.
Speaker 2: Eugenics. Baby, bye bye, you're breathing air and leaving a
Speaker 2: carbon footprint. Bye bye. No more so anyway, No, he was.
Speaker 2: He was an extraordinary man to the day that he
Speaker 2: did pass. But I heard him get on his scale,
Speaker 2: which he did every day, and he and it said
Speaker 2: your weight is one hundred and seventy eight pounds, and
Speaker 2: I remember thinking, oh, it's going to be a good day.
Speaker 2: Was his playing weight for all those years, and that
Speaker 2: was his favorite weight. So he was extremely disciplined in
Speaker 2: lots of week now he enjoyed life like crazy, and
Speaker 2: God knows he made mistakes. Nobody knows that like I do.
Speaker 2: But he was a good, good, solid man of a
Speaker 2: different era, crab, a different generation. He grew up during
Speaker 2: the Depression, ate dog food as a child and was
Speaker 2: grateful to have it. His father was an itinerant oil worker.
Speaker 2: I mean they lived I think I don't even remember
Speaker 2: thirty different places while he was growing up, so he
Speaker 2: never was able to put down roots anywhere. But the
Speaker 2: one thing that could he could stand out at every
Speaker 2: time he moved to a different place was his athleticism,
Speaker 2: and so that came to be the thing. He was
Speaker 2: a terrible student. Later when he got a scholarship to
Speaker 2: USC to play football, he became their finest scholar athlete.
Speaker 2: He was so grateful to have an education.
Speaker 1: I was going to ask you about that one. Was
Speaker 1: Frank a grateful man? Was he a joyful man?
Speaker 2: You know, that's such a great question because you would
Speaker 2: think he was grateful. And that's why we didn't bring
Speaker 2: a class action suit once we got the results of
Speaker 2: his brain scans. You know a lot of people who
Speaker 2: had whose loved ones had worked in the NFL joined
Speaker 2: this class action suit because the NFL knew about this.
Speaker 2: They did and and and Frank was was He said,
Speaker 2: no matter what you find out, Kathy, you know, when
Speaker 2: I'm gone, I don't want to be a part of that.
Speaker 2: I don't want our family to be He said, I
Speaker 2: am so grateful for the life that I have had
Speaker 2: that the NFL afforded me. He would have he was
Speaker 2: when he wasn't playing for the Giants. He went back
Speaker 2: to California and sold for fertilizer in Bakersfield. That's what
Speaker 2: the NFL was at that time. Nobody was a full
Speaker 2: time football player. They only played it till the you know,
Speaker 2: for the season. Everybody else had jobs otherwere you know
Speaker 2: a lot of them came back from World War Two
Speaker 2: with half of their life shot up. You know, Connory
Speaker 2: Connorley who was his best friend there and was the quarterback,
Speaker 2: and they became dear, dear friends, and he had just
Speaker 2: just come back from World War Two, so you know,
Speaker 2: it's a different world. I'm twenty three years younger than
Speaker 2: Frank was to the day, so I would hear the
Speaker 2: stories he would tell, and I would have such respect
Speaker 2: and admiration for the for the the kind of human
Speaker 2: beings that existed. Then we hear so much today about
Speaker 2: the entitlement, about the cancel culture, all of that stuff
Speaker 2: which just demeans and diminishes the human spirit. Everything Frank
Speaker 2: talked to me about celebrated it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to talk to you a little bit
Speaker 1: about the councel cultures thing, because I do have a
Speaker 1: knee jerk reaction a little about it myself. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, I think, you know, I look at
Speaker 1: my you know, my oldest boy is twenty two, so
Speaker 1: he's kind of in that in that that world, that world,
Speaker 1: and and you you know, and I want to I
Speaker 1: want to have an open mind about the youth, you know,
Speaker 1: like you have an open mind about people who are
Speaker 1: not Messianic, Jewish, Christian, which.
Speaker 2: Is most of the world, right, which is I don't
Speaker 2: want to cut off most of the world because they
Speaker 2: don't agree with.
Speaker 1: Me, right, And I don't want to. I don't want
Speaker 1: to cut off the I'm not sure with cancel culture
Speaker 1: if it's if it's really like that for most of them,
Speaker 1: you know, I think for the kids, I mean when
Speaker 1: I say them, I mean I'm talking about young people.
Speaker 1: I think you call it.
Speaker 2: Gen X or Z g Z. Now what do you
Speaker 2: do now we've run out of that, We're going to
Speaker 2: pick up the Greek alphabet.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think that My youngest boy, Liam
Speaker 1: is twelve, so he's he's just coming into a generation.
Speaker 1: I don't know what the generation is called, but I
Speaker 1: think they're going to be different.
Speaker 2: He's twelve, you know, what, can we just say he's twelve.
Speaker 1: He's twelve and he's a boy.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: He reminds me of Stewie and family guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't think he would be he would be
Speaker 1: insulted by that. I think he'd be proud.
Speaker 2: He'd word is a badge of honor. I want to
Speaker 2: be called dad, call me Snewie.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Although I think I'm a little like Peter Griffin as well,
Speaker 1: which is a little I'm like that.
Speaker 2: I'm Brian the Dog.
Speaker 1: You're well, yeah, a little bit with the wine.
Speaker 2: Hey, this is a this is a latte. I'm about
Speaker 2: to graduate though, are you listen?
Speaker 1: There's another thing that I admire about you. You can drink.
Speaker 1: I can't drink. I know you can't. But have you
Speaker 1: ever had a problem. Do you ever feel like.
Speaker 2: Oh boy, yeah, times definitely of course.
Speaker 1: Yeah. That makes me feel oh yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Here's the thing. If Jesus is my model and we
Speaker 2: go back to Yeshua Jesus, people have no idea because
Speaker 2: they don't study rabbinically. The Western Christian world has no
Speaker 2: idea of our roots. They don't I've had people even
Speaker 2: say to me through the years, now, Jesus was Jesus
Speaker 2: is Catholic, right, I'll go. Do you know what year
Speaker 2: the Catholic Church came to be? I forget now, but
Speaker 2: it's like five ninety a d or something like that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I said, Jesus had long since died, resurrected, ascended to heaven.
Speaker 2: And no, he was not Catholic. He was a Jew,
Speaker 2: a rabbinic. It was a rabbi, and he was a
Speaker 2: Jew and a perfect Jew.
Speaker 1: Was there a moment that kicked this off for you?
Speaker 2: I remember it as I'm going to be seventy years
Speaker 2: old this year. I can't even.
Speaker 1: That's not true. Good do I need to know which
Speaker 1: moisturizer you use, because you if only it was more
Speaker 1: just moisturized.
Speaker 2: You know what it's it's that's that's for our lunch
Speaker 2: afterwards where you usually talk. Yeaheah, No I do. I'm
Speaker 2: actually developing a skin line. And all of the botanicals
Speaker 2: that are in the skin line come from the Bible.
Speaker 1: What.
Speaker 2: Yes, Who was the greatest seductress of all time? No?
Speaker 2: Even before that.
Speaker 3: Cleopatra, Cleopatra, Cleopatra was used all these things that there
Speaker 3: was no CVS or of you know, Lord Lord and Taylors,
Speaker 3: you could go to.
Speaker 2: Everything came from the earth, and so what never changes truths.
Speaker 2: The scriptures are built on truth. So we started looking
Speaker 2: at the Bible and the and the and the botanicals
Speaker 2: that existed at the time. Some have have gone on.
Speaker 1: You really genuinely are telling me you have a skincare
Speaker 1: line based on the reading of the Bible. Yes, I
Speaker 1: am both appalled and delighted.
Speaker 2: Well, if it were two thousand years ago for the
Speaker 2: greatest aducters of all time, Cleopatra, why would it not
Speaker 2: work for for me and for you? It's then the
Speaker 2: beauty of it is. It's called Nila. It's not out yet.
Speaker 2: I mean, we've been in trust uh tests, you know,
Speaker 2: tiles for and my skin has never been better than
Speaker 2: it's been in my entire life. You know, you do.
Speaker 1: Well, I have to say, but listen what you say.
Speaker 1: Tracked me talking about the skin, Caroline. I want to
Speaker 1: talk to you about Yeah, that's not even that yet.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about it.
Speaker 2: No interest in talking about that.
Speaker 1: Your epiphany, your moment, your your literal come to Jesus moment.
Speaker 2: Okay, the beginning. This is not the moment I'm thinking of.
Speaker 2: But I fell asleep. I was a little girl living
Speaker 2: in Annapolis, Maryland. I looked up and it was fall,
Speaker 2: and my daddy and I were raking leaves. And I
Speaker 2: looked up and there was Jesus sitting on a cloud.
Speaker 1: And you actually saw yes in my dream and your
Speaker 1: dream in my dream.
Speaker 2: And he looked down at me.
Speaker 1: Jesus are growing up, growing up Jesus.
Speaker 2: And he looked down at me and he smiled, and
Speaker 2: I knew it was Jesus.
Speaker 1: That was it, That was the dream.
Speaker 2: Years later, now I'm twelve years old, I believe, and
Speaker 2: I go to a movie, not unlike the new movie
Speaker 2: Jesus Revolution, which is out right now. That's the time
Speaker 2: period that I was growing up in the early in
Speaker 2: the seventies. I graduated in my teen seventy one. That
Speaker 2: was when the Jesus Revolution was really starting and I
Speaker 2: was already a part of it. But when I was
Speaker 2: twelve before that, there was a movie called The Restless Ones,
Speaker 2: first movie that the Billy Graham Organization ever put out,
Speaker 2: and if you watch it today, it's one of the
Speaker 2: most dreadful wrek you know, you just even my kids
Speaker 2: looked at it, and they looked at it and they
Speaker 2: looked at my mom. This is awful, I said at
Speaker 2: the time, it wasn't. Billy Graham was so so criticized
Speaker 2: for it. You can't make a movie the devil lives
Speaker 2: in the movie theaters, the devil lives in the bass drum,
Speaker 2: the devil lives in the nightclubs.
Speaker 1: I can't argue that what always attracted me to all
Speaker 1: of that stuff.
Speaker 2: I know it, and left to your own devices, it
Speaker 2: still would. But here's the thing. Billy Graham knew something
Speaker 2: that something deeper because he didn't have a religion, he
Speaker 2: had relationship with the living God. You know how anti
Speaker 2: religion I am.
Speaker 1: Yeah, That's why I'm kind of fascinated by because you're
Speaker 1: your faith is unshakable, but you're it's almost like a
Speaker 1: contempt for religion.
Speaker 2: Not the contempt I have for religion is not that
Speaker 2: people love their churches and love to go and hear
Speaker 2: the word of God. All of that is wonderful. I
Speaker 2: have contempt, just like Jesus did, for the leaders of
Speaker 2: the church that do not feed the flock, that abuse
Speaker 2: the privilege of power, that misuse it. So I'm talking
Speaker 2: about organized religion that has gotten so big and so powerful,
Speaker 2: not unlike our government that it thinks that it is
Speaker 2: God instead of teaching the people, you know, to follow
Speaker 2: their their their their good shepherd. They said, no, no,
Speaker 2: you're our flock.
Speaker 1: To me, it sounds like you're a little bit Did
Speaker 1: you ever encounter the writings of the Desert Fathers? Have
Speaker 1: you ever come across that? No Evagras of Pontis.
Speaker 2: Or origin heard of all of this, but no.
Speaker 1: Origin of Alexandria was as an early Christian theologian from
Speaker 1: Alexandria in Egypt. I think it was like his father
Speaker 1: was a Christian martyr. He was origin was I think
Speaker 1: around two hundred AD, so pre church.
Speaker 2: Well not really pre Catholic Church, yes, way pre Catholic,
Speaker 2: but the original church with Jesus.
Speaker 1: Yes, so he's pre Catholic Church. And and he he
Speaker 1: got excommunicated five hundred years after he died. They got
Speaker 1: very angry at him because he said God can exist
Speaker 1: only in the mind. There can be no physical.
Speaker 2: Manifestation.
Speaker 1: Manifestation in the sense of which is not what you
Speaker 1: want to hear if you're selling church. Cus, I guess
Speaker 1: it's my accent basically means crap. Yeah, but I think
Speaker 1: that I think that to me is it sounds to
Speaker 1: me like you, you're Christianity for want of a batter word,
Speaker 1: that you're following of Jesus has a very airly early
Speaker 1: Christian feel about it, like first one hundred years after
Speaker 1: after the.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's exactly when when people who don't just just
Speaker 2: it's not that they're ignorant people, they just don't know.
Speaker 2: There's different kinds of ignorance in the world. There's I
Speaker 2: just didn't know that, and then there's willful ignorance. And
Speaker 2: I find so much so many Western Christians are are
Speaker 2: ignorant about their early history, ignorant about what the Word
Speaker 2: of God actually says, only because they've never been taught.
Speaker 2: And that's what I get angry about, right, Craig, that
Speaker 2: that we we have people graduating from from seminaries all
Speaker 2: over the world right now who don't even know that
Speaker 2: Jesus wasn't a carpenter. That's a bad translation. No, see,
Speaker 2: there you go. This is the kind of stuff. From
Speaker 2: studying rabbinically like I have now for a long time,
Speaker 2: you find out what the word tecton in the New
Speaker 2: Testament is the original word for builder slash architect, for
Speaker 2: what Joseph and his and Jesus did to make a
Speaker 2: living before Jesus became a rabbi, and so when and
Speaker 2: it all goes back, always to bad translations of the
Speaker 2: Word of God. The Old Testament was written in Hebrew,
Speaker 2: ancient Hebrew, which is still the same Hebrew. Yeah, I don't,
Speaker 2: but I studied the reading, you know, I study it,
Speaker 2: But I don't. I can't sit down and read backwards
Speaker 2: and all that stuff.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 2: I study with the world's greatest biblical scholars. Many of
Speaker 2: them are Messianic, and otherwise they are the rabbis, and
Speaker 2: rabbis are the most learned people in the world according
Speaker 2: to scriptures. I mean, they just are. They go ten layers.
Speaker 1: But they don't always agree. Rabbi.
Speaker 2: No, that's the whole point of being a rabbi. They
Speaker 2: fight all the time. Because it's not fight. They argue,
Speaker 2: and they argue, and by arguing, this is what's wrong
Speaker 2: with culture. They learn and they start to ponder another
Speaker 2: person's opinion and their take on something. And that's what
Speaker 2: good honest discussion should be like, respectful disagreement.
Speaker 1: I Craig Ferguson will be hitting the road again this
Speaker 1: summer and fall, bringing the Fancy Rascal Tour to your region.
Speaker 1: For tickets and full list of tour dates, go to
Speaker 1: my website, The Craig Ferguson show dot com slash tour.
Speaker 1: Come see me live or don't. I think we could
Speaker 1: talk about religion for a long time, and in our
Speaker 1: friendship we have talked about religion for a long time. Yes,
Speaker 1: But there's another part of you. There's another area of
Speaker 1: you which I think most people are aware of. But
Speaker 1: even if they don't know, you are a You're a
Speaker 1: very earthy person. You're funny, you have a you have
Speaker 1: a little body, You're a deliciously body sense of humor.
Speaker 1: You're thank you and you and you are your your
Speaker 1: funny and your naughty, and you're aarthy And I think,
Speaker 1: and I mean all of these things is compliments because
Speaker 1: you know, I love you, I know, and I find
Speaker 1: that fascinating. With the what I understand of trinal holiness.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know what holy actually means set apart for
Speaker 2: sacred use. Okay, it doesn't mean perfect, it doesn't mean
Speaker 2: you got a halo over your head. It means set
Speaker 2: apart for sacred use in the in Hebrew. And that's
Speaker 2: what I am, and I think every human being is
Speaker 2: is wired to be set apart for sacred use. I'm
Speaker 2: not going to stop having the sense of humor I have.
Speaker 2: I was woven in my mother's womb before the dawn
Speaker 2: of time. So was my mother, So is your mother,
Speaker 2: so is Liam and Milo. They just it's that's that's God,
Speaker 2: that's Jehovah, God Elohim, the creator of all things. And
Speaker 2: so that's not going to change. And the world in
Speaker 2: quote does that. It tries to change us and make
Speaker 2: us cookie cutter Christians or cookie cutter Jews or Mormons
Speaker 2: or you know, it's all the same.
Speaker 1: Have you run a conflict?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 2: All my life, I was kicked out of the Brownies.
Speaker 2: I was kicked when I was I was kicked out
Speaker 2: a few years later. I was kicked out of Sunday School.
Speaker 2: A few years later. I was kicked out at the
Speaker 2: age of seventeen the America's Junior Miss pageant. Why because
Speaker 2: I questioned things that were stupid and I knew innately
Speaker 2: that that's not true. I'll tell you a perfect example
Speaker 2: of religion and relationship. In Jesus's day, when he walked
Speaker 2: on the earth, which he did for thirty three years,
Speaker 2: the people who follow Jesus would understand because they'd grown
Speaker 2: up this way that the trees and there were no
Speaker 2: big trees them, there were just sort of glorified bushes.
Speaker 2: Back then, Israel was a desert. Those trees, the trees
Speaker 2: that you go to Israel and you see now have
Speaker 2: been planted since it became a nation in nineteen forty eight.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, you and I are going to go
Speaker 2: one day and it's going to it'll continue to blow
Speaker 2: mind and it's going to your yours a go flying
Speaker 2: off your neck, okay, And so it's so so interesting.
Speaker 2: So back then in Jesus's day, certain trees represented certain
Speaker 2: groups of people within the Jewish culture, the Jewish people.
Speaker 2: Just one that everybody would know is the olive tree
Speaker 2: represented God's people, the Jews. To them, what what the
Speaker 2: sycamore fig tree represented? Back then were the religious leaders
Speaker 2: of the day, the Pharisees and the Sadducees. You know,
Speaker 2: Jesus was cursing them for not caring, not feeding the people,
Speaker 2: lying to them, cheating from them, misrepresenting themselves, abusing their power.
Speaker 1: That sounds familiar.
Speaker 2: Nothing's changed because human nature doesn't. That's why we need
Speaker 2: the Holy Spirit to to live within us. That's the
Speaker 2: only thing that changes are innate nature.
Speaker 1: All right, So you you live with the Holy Spirit
Speaker 1: within you. Now I'm gonna so that. I'm gonna say that.
Speaker 2: I think you do too. But that's another discussion.
Speaker 1: We're not talking about me. Yeah, So the the idea
Speaker 1: of joy within you, yes, is from that, I think.
Speaker 1: I think it's fair to say it comes from.
Speaker 2: Knowing where I came from and who I came from.
Speaker 1: Now, give me an example in your life in the
Speaker 1: secular world. Give me a piece of adversity in your
Speaker 1: life where you turned immediately to that to if you like,
Speaker 1: seal the wood, stop the floor. You know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Is that something?
Speaker 2: Oh, there's so many. I have a lifetime of it,
Speaker 2: a lifetime of history of That's what keeps me going.
Speaker 2: I still have tough things that happened to me on
Speaker 2: a daily basis. But as I said earlier, I cling
Speaker 2: tighter to the to the one I know has never
Speaker 2: betrayed me, never let me down, never lied to me.
Speaker 2: My rock, the rock of my salvation. And so I'll
Speaker 2: finish the little story about finding Frank an hour later,
Speaker 2: and he's gone. He's gone. At first, I try to
Speaker 2: resuscitate him and I can't. Cody, my son is home.
Speaker 2: He hears me calling for him, He comes down, he
Speaker 2: gives the compressions and I am sobbing by that time
Speaker 2: because I know that code and Cody's still trying, and
Speaker 2: I'm crying. But they were not tears of anything, not fear. No,
Speaker 2: there was total peace in me. There was no anxiety
Speaker 2: in me.
Speaker 1: Were you aware of this at the time, Yes.
Speaker 2: Of course. And the Bible says it's called the peace
Speaker 2: that passes all understanding. You don't understand what that means
Speaker 2: until you're in a position where you know. I shouldn't
Speaker 2: be feeling joyful right now. I was sobbing, tears of
Speaker 2: joy because the look on his face was this And
Speaker 2: you can't see me over the airwaves, but I'm showing you, Craig.
Speaker 2: It was like wonder, wonder, And even Cody stopped doing
Speaker 2: the compressions and he says, Mom, look he's smiling, and
Speaker 2: I said, I know, honey, he's with Jesus, and Jesus
Speaker 2: took his breath away. And that's exactly what happened. And
Speaker 2: so we instead of people talking about this tragedy of
Speaker 2: Frank dying no, Frank had been to Israel with me.
Speaker 2: By that time. He'd found out that he did that
Speaker 2: having a religion, all of his life was worthless. He
Speaker 2: found out by studying the Word of God that he
Speaker 2: had a relationship with the living God. And that is
Speaker 2: the difference between night and day.
Speaker 1: Are you a believer in the continuation of a form
Speaker 1: of consciousness of life after death? Oh of course, yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, nobody exemplified that more than Jesus. They thought
Speaker 2: he was dead a big surprise three days later, a resurrected.
Speaker 2: And you know what I love about that resurrection. It's
Speaker 2: one of my favorite stories in the Bible. If you
Speaker 2: don't know it that basically, Jesus it's morning time, it's
Speaker 2: Sunday morning, and nobody could come. The women in Jesus's
Speaker 2: life were the most unafraid. They were the most loved
Speaker 2: because they were basically considered useless in that society back then.
Speaker 2: You were you were there for sex, you were there
Speaker 2: to have to prove to be you know, to give
Speaker 2: babies to the powerful full. But for the most part,
Speaker 2: women were considered less than chattel, you know, they were.
Speaker 2: They weren't even even Mosaic law considered a full human beings.
Speaker 2: We have so much of that still in our world today.
Speaker 2: Jesus came along and said, no, you are equal. You
Speaker 2: are equal in God's kingdom. You are daughters of Abraham,
Speaker 2: you are daughters of the king. You are going to
Speaker 2: be a co heir with me to God's kingdom. This
Speaker 2: is why the women were there at the cross, only
Speaker 2: one man, the apostle John, the only one man. And
Speaker 2: at the at the grave on Sunday morning when the
Speaker 2: sun came up, Uh, the women were there. And the
Speaker 2: first person that that that Jesus appeared to was Mary Magdalene,
Speaker 2: whom Jesus had cast seven demons out of. We would
Speaker 2: call that today mental illness.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the demons. Thing is that shop's going to talk
Speaker 1: to you saying about yes, the demons are the again
Speaker 1: when I've talked to you about the Desert Fathers, origin
Speaker 1: of Alexander, Evagrius of Pontus. These are early Christian theologists
Speaker 1: and mystics, and they talked about demons in the way
Speaker 1: that we today talk about character defects. Right, And it
Speaker 1: seems to me sometimes in early Church thing and perhaps
Speaker 1: later church. I don't know much about church, but it
Speaker 1: seems to me that a law of early almost psychotherapy
Speaker 1: comes from from that kind of thing, is like trying
Speaker 1: to get rid of the negative aspects of your own consciousness,
Speaker 1: your own.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, unfortunately do that.
Speaker 1: Who put them there in the first place?
Speaker 2: Well, that's why I'm so glad you asked, because I've
Speaker 2: just got an answer to that. I've been studying all
Speaker 2: my life, basically with the world's greatest biblical scholars in Israel,
Speaker 2: and it's always in Genesis. It talks about at the
Speaker 2: dawn of creation, how God there was an essem, there
Speaker 2: was a council of the heavenly realms. That means it
Speaker 2: wasn't just Jesus and the Holy Spirit and God there
Speaker 2: and the Father there were there were other entities.
Speaker 1: Are you and you believe like like like a big
Speaker 1: kind of like Game of Thrones Lord of the Rings thing?
Speaker 1: Do you think?
Speaker 2: Or you know, maybe this is why I haven't read
Speaker 2: so many of these other things that people say, have
Speaker 2: you read? Have you read of your head? Right, I've
Speaker 2: been studying this my entire life, and I don't. I've
Speaker 2: barely scratched the surface.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: If somebody says, go read this, somebody, I would respect.
Speaker 2: And now I would, because you have said it. I
Speaker 2: would read the Book of Enoch. I would read some
Speaker 2: of the town some of the the deeper Kabbalah stuff,
Speaker 2: which comes from a good place of early Judeo Judea mysticism.
Speaker 2: And but but I for now it takes everything that
Speaker 2: with the brain cells, I still have left to study
Speaker 2: what it really. I've learned it the wrong way for
Speaker 2: so many years, Craig that I'm going to spend the
Speaker 2: rest of my life trying to unlearn what wasn't true.
Speaker 2: Like Jesus was not a carpenter, that's a bad translation.
Speaker 1: Of the word, didn't curse out a tree.
Speaker 2: And he cursed what the tree represented. But the Bible
Speaker 2: talks about Jehovah Elohim, creator, talks about the lesser elohem gods.
Speaker 2: In the scripture, it says, and the lesser gods, Well,
Speaker 2: well what's that? How's that work? He said, you shall
Speaker 2: have no other god before me. He meant, the ultimate
Speaker 2: epitome of the God has So there you think that
Speaker 2: it all started back then.
Speaker 1: So it's there's a god, yes, but there's also like
Speaker 1: a bunch of other slightly lesser naughty gods.
Speaker 2: Well they all started out as God's creation, and some
Speaker 2: of them rebelled as a story and Satan, who is
Speaker 2: the you know, he's the god of chaos. If God,
Speaker 2: my God, Jehovah Eloheim is the god of shalom. People
Speaker 2: think shalom just means peace. It does not. Peace is
Speaker 2: one of the parts of shalom. And it's almost like mahallo.
Speaker 2: It's just becomes sort of, hey, shalem shalom. You know, no, God,
Speaker 2: God is shalom. That's every attribute of God that makes
Speaker 2: him God, faithfulness, justice, peace, joy, your joy, miracles, glory, righteousness,
Speaker 2: all those things, that's shalom.
Speaker 1: Okay, So let me ask you this then, because I'm
Speaker 1: going to steer you back around to what we talked
Speaker 1: a little bit about earlier, which was the idea of
Speaker 1: a life after death, because I think a lot of people,
Speaker 1: particularly in the more naive agnostic, atheistic community communities is
Speaker 1: the wrong word, but realm, realm the idea that religion
Speaker 1: is all about life after death. It's all about and
Speaker 1: so because it's an unprovable situation while you're alive, I
Speaker 1: would ask you, do you have a conception of it?
Speaker 1: Do you have an are you certain of if it
Speaker 1: exists an and if it does exist, what it looks like.
Speaker 2: You know, you're so smart to say that it's in
Speaker 2: the suite bye and bye. That's what so many people
Speaker 2: live there. Like, if I can just get this through
Speaker 2: this life, it's going to be perfect one day, you
Speaker 2: know that. What what Jesus came to show us is, yes,
Speaker 2: there will be a new a new heaven and a
Speaker 2: new earth, and it will be perfect, and every tear
Speaker 2: will be dried. And know there will be no pain,
Speaker 2: and there will be the perfection. That God had originally
Speaker 2: placed us, and he put us in a garden. Whether
Speaker 2: you believe in that as a as a as a
Speaker 2: real place or as a metaphor, it was perfect. That's
Speaker 2: what He always always meant for us, is the garden
Speaker 2: where he Why did he need us to be born?
Speaker 2: Did he need to create us? Why did he create
Speaker 2: us with free will? You know he could have created
Speaker 2: a bunch of robots and we would have done everything
Speaker 2: he wants. No, I know, because they they want, they'd
Speaker 2: want to they want they want to be they want
Speaker 2: to be God. Sorry, Ultimately, these robots are good. They're
Speaker 2: gonna He's so much smarter than us and that's what
Speaker 2: happened in the original story. Suffice to say, nothing is
Speaker 2: new under the sun, and the things that we battle
Speaker 2: with today, like Mary Magdalene at the cross. I was
Speaker 2: going to finish that story. Jesus. She doesn't recognize him
Speaker 2: in the morning because it's early morning, it's dawn. She's come.
Speaker 2: She believes he's died. She saw him die. She was
Speaker 2: at the cross, watched him, watch them throw the spear
Speaker 2: in his and the blood in the water gush out.
Speaker 2: She saw his suffering that They never left the cross,
Speaker 2: and he was there from nine in the morning till
Speaker 2: three in the afternoon when they pronounced him dead, which,
Speaker 2: interestingly enough, greg at three o'clock. They call it the
Speaker 2: ninth hour. That is when all of the animal sacrifices
Speaker 2: at the temple take place at three o'clock in the afternoon.
Speaker 2: So Jesus was the ultimate sacrificial lamb while they were
Speaker 2: actually sacrificing a lamb in the inner court, this Holy
Speaker 2: of Holies on the temple. Jesus naked, he was not.
Speaker 2: You've always seen him on the cross with the loincloth
Speaker 2: and all of that.
Speaker 1: That's a society.
Speaker 2: No, that was the ultimate for them. They wanted to
Speaker 2: crucify you naked and as as vulnerable as anybody could be,
Speaker 2: and that was anybody that Christians naked.
Speaker 1: I think that also the idea, I mean the historical
Speaker 1: aspects of crucifixion, you know, the idea Spartacus and like
Speaker 1: I think, like ten. I don't know what the number was,
Speaker 1: it was thousands of slaves were crucified on the Appian Way.
Speaker 2: That was their warning. You you mess with Rome, this
Speaker 2: is going.
Speaker 1: To be your end. I mean that was I think
Speaker 1: Pompy that did that, which was run about the same
Speaker 1: time as or Crisis maybe who did it? Run about
Speaker 1: the same time as Jesus of Nazareth.
Speaker 2: It was, it was it's one of it's the worst,
Speaker 2: they say, the worst death that's ever been contrived by
Speaker 2: a human being.
Speaker 1: What crucifixion.
Speaker 2: Well, there's been some bad ones since.
Speaker 1: So listen. We talked a lot about religion, and clearly
Speaker 1: that is at the core of of who you are.
Speaker 1: Not religion, sorry, relationship.
Speaker 2: I do your hard habit, You're a hard habit to break.
Speaker 1: This is another habit you've got. You will sing directly
Speaker 1: at people which record No, I don't think that's true.
Speaker 1: I also find that I quind I find it quite
Speaker 1: alarming and very endearing at the same time, a little
Speaker 1: bit like you. You are very much who you are
Speaker 1: and I and I love that and I appreciate that
Speaker 1: about you. And I wonder do you ever when you
Speaker 1: when you get because you say things about Jesus Christ
Speaker 1: and a lot of people are very touchy about that.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yes, do you ever It's not popular in
Speaker 2: all circles.
Speaker 1: Right, and not even that, I mean people who who
Speaker 1: are you know, followers of Jesus Christ or people who
Speaker 1: are Christians. You will have doctrinal differences, differences with them,
Speaker 1: and people get very you know, heated about that. Do
Speaker 1: you ever do you ever feel like maybe you don't
Speaker 1: want to bring it up?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 2: It goes back to that boldness that that I've had.
Speaker 1: From the Brownies.
Speaker 2: I was going to tell you that when I went
Speaker 2: to the movie. I went to the Billy Graham movie
Speaker 2: and it was over and I remember literally hearing the
Speaker 2: voice of Jesus again in my heart and he said, Kathy,
Speaker 2: I love you, and if you trust me, I will
Speaker 2: make something beautiful out of your life.
Speaker 1: That was it.
Speaker 2: You was the defining moment. I walked forward literally gave
Speaker 2: my heart, even though my heart was already his. I
Speaker 2: just made sort of the public statement, Yes, I am
Speaker 2: going to follow you. And that was the single greatest
Speaker 2: decision of my entire life.
Speaker 1: And you feel that, you feel that all adversity is
Speaker 1: coped because I'm fascinated by people of faith. I am
Speaker 1: fascinated you always happened, yeah, and of all doctrines, all faiths.
Speaker 1: So I'm fascinated by it. I think it's an interesting thing.
Speaker 1: And I'm fascinated by yours because it is unshakable, which
Speaker 1: I suppose that's what faith. Have you ever thought because
Speaker 1: faith is a gift.
Speaker 2: It's not because I have it innately, right, But the
Speaker 2: Scripture is very clear that faith, even even faith, I
Speaker 2: have to get from Him. So when I'm running out
Speaker 2: of it, I just cry out. The scripture is full
Speaker 2: of cry out to the Lord. He knows you, he
Speaker 2: created you, He knows you needed cry out and ask
Speaker 2: and we will receive.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you that, because we're talking about joy
Speaker 1: at some point, the idea of running out of faith. Yes,
Speaker 1: describe for me a moment in your life where you
Speaker 1: had to You had to do that because you talked
Speaker 1: about Frank passing, and that was clearly I thought, huge,
Speaker 1: yes moment.
Speaker 2: Yes, almost thirty years of marriage, right.
Speaker 1: But is there is there a time like I'm trying
Speaker 1: to think of something more, No, something more mundane, sure something.
Speaker 2: The times that my faith was most tried is the
Speaker 2: way I can answer it and took me to my knee,
Speaker 2: My knees more often than a normal day would. When
Speaker 2: I was accused of sweatshot violations, when I was accused
Speaker 2: of abusing children.
Speaker 1: In sweatshops was one of the most.
Speaker 2: Yes, it was one of the most. I couldn't really
Speaker 2: Lord really, Frank and I had just opened up a
Speaker 2: fourteen million dollar home for aids and crack babies in
Speaker 2: New York during the pandemic. Every bit of the money
Speaker 2: from my Walmart clothing line went towards building that home.
Speaker 2: When nobody would even hold an aid's baby, only Princess
Speaker 2: Diana was doing that. And then and so I'm now
Speaker 2: We've built a home from scratch. It was used to
Speaker 2: be the old Ronald McDonald house. It used before that,
Speaker 2: it was a woman's convent. And we just bought it,
Speaker 2: tried for two with two million dollars to renovate it
Speaker 2: for these babies couldn't because of the laws anytime yout
Speaker 2: dealing with diseases and babies, and you know, tried to.
Speaker 2: We had to tear it down and start from scratch,
Speaker 2: and it cost fourteen million dollars and that's where my
Speaker 2: Walmart money went. You know, I was taking you know
Speaker 2: that I earned honestly and put it giving it away.
Speaker 2: They never the people who came against me, never visited
Speaker 2: Cassidy's place or Cody House once. They just stood up
Speaker 2: like they're doing in culture, the culture now cancel culture
Speaker 2: and accused me of something so that they would. The
Speaker 2: guy that did it said he was a human rights activist. No,
Speaker 2: he was an attorney who worked for Unite the Apparel. Yes,
Speaker 2: and you know what he said to me later. Now
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna say that privately, I'll tell you. Okay,
Speaker 2: nobody knows this, but it's it's interesting. But anyway, we
Speaker 2: got laws passed. We got uh, we got I got
Speaker 2: legislation passed. I was suing the State of New York
Speaker 2: to a blind HIV testing because babies were being born
Speaker 2: who shouldn't be born with the AIDS virus or just
Speaker 2: UH with the full blown AIDS. We found out with
Speaker 2: all of our studying that if if a baby got
Speaker 2: a certain no, if a mother got cocktail of certain
Speaker 2: drugs while she would pregnant, Uh, it would go from
Speaker 2: lessen forty percent down to less than eight percent chance
Speaker 2: the child would be born with the disease.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: And I said then, and they had CDC, the wonderful
Speaker 2: CDC had blinded all HIV testing in the clinics so
Speaker 2: they could track it, not do anything about it, just
Speaker 2: track it. And we knew that that there was there
Speaker 2: was hope, There was.
Speaker 1: Hope, there was a treatment for women who were had
Speaker 1: HIV and were pregnant. Yes, And I say it was
Speaker 1: held being withheld.
Speaker 2: And there are all kinds of different privacy issues that
Speaker 2: were involved, especially with gay men who were legitimately were
Speaker 2: worried about if it's if their status was known, they
Speaker 2: might you know, And and I respected that, but at
Speaker 2: that time, you know, this was about dying babies. To me,
Speaker 2: I said, you guys can do with your you can march,
Speaker 2: you can do and you can fight your battles in court.
Speaker 2: But this is a great urgency. There's a way we
Speaker 2: can save lives, you guys, not just the men. I
Speaker 2: don't mean that I'm at the world. And so I
Speaker 2: sat night one night with the Governor, George Pataki at
Speaker 2: a swanky party in the Hampton's at the home of
Speaker 2: the Revlon Ronald. Ronald Proman's not widdow but divorced. She
Speaker 2: was a friend of mine, Claudia Coleen, beautiful woman. She said, Kathy,
Speaker 2: I know what you're doing. I'm sitting here next to
Speaker 2: the Governor. I said, Oh, the poor governor. He's gonna
Speaker 2: stuck with me for two I'm now I'm suing the governor.
Speaker 1: Understand, I'm suer soon sitting next to him apartment Yes, yes, okay,
Speaker 1: that's good. Yes, yes, yes, he must have loved that,
Speaker 1: you know what.
Speaker 2: He's such a good decent man. I'd met him before.
Speaker 2: And when I say I was suing him, the organization
Speaker 2: that I worked with, the Association to Benefit Children, had
Speaker 2: sued the State of New York two other times and
Speaker 2: won both times too, So we're an adversary to be
Speaker 2: dealt with. But I told him everything, And back then
Speaker 2: I knew everything about this. I knew every statistic. I
Speaker 2: don't anymore. This was a long time ago, but I
Speaker 2: remember it. Boys. I remember sitting in that and he
Speaker 2: sat and listened to me with such respect and so
Speaker 2: quietly asked a couple of different questions. I had the answers,
Speaker 2: and he said to me at the end of the evening,
Speaker 2: three things. He said, I never knew this.
Speaker 1: Really, A politician said.
Speaker 2: He said, yes, that's what I thought. I never knew this.
Speaker 2: Number two, sometime we're on the wrong side of this issue.
Speaker 1: A politicians said that. Yeah.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 2: Third one, I'm going to do something about that.
Speaker 1: No, no, you're crazy.
Speaker 2: Now Frank was sitting at a different table, and I
Speaker 2: remember driving home with him and I said, I think
Speaker 2: he heard me. He was, I think so, honey. I
Speaker 2: don't know if that if he's going to have the guts,
Speaker 2: the balls, whatever it takes to do the right thing,
Speaker 2: but I know he heard me. And within one month,
Speaker 2: Governor Pataki stood in the garden of the Kody House
Speaker 2: on ninety first Street in New York City and announced
Speaker 2: the unblinding of HIV testing for the state of New York.
Speaker 2: Long story short, For the first time in history since
Speaker 2: since the HIV AIDS started, it was the first time
Speaker 2: the death rate went down because the birth rate. It
Speaker 2: was you know, because the babies were living right, they
Speaker 2: were surviving, and within one year after that, every state
Speaker 2: unblinded HIV testing, not because I did the brave thing,
Speaker 2: but because Governor Pattaki did. There there are still people
Speaker 2: in this world who are there for the right reasons.
Speaker 2: And when we fight a good fight and we back
Speaker 2: it up with science, and we back it up with
Speaker 2: good will and prayer, miracles still happen every day.
Speaker 1: There's an interest in word you used. You use the
Speaker 1: word science, and a lot of people on maybe I'm
Speaker 1: I'm not going to say my say to the fence
Speaker 1: because that's not true. I don't have a say to
Speaker 1: the fancy on the fenceless. I'm kind of wondering, right,
Speaker 1: so your defense, yeah, defenseless, it's best. But a lot
Speaker 1: of people think that science and faith are in conflict.
Speaker 1: They are things that are in conflict. Do you don't
Speaker 1: see it that way?
Speaker 2: Well, science lives exactly alongside faith when you know what
Speaker 2: the faith is based on what it really says there
Speaker 2: is it's perfect. The world as what was created was
Speaker 2: mathematically perfect. I'm sorry, but that's not random. That's a
Speaker 2: that's a mind and a being that we can never
Speaker 2: ever comprehend. But we can we can bow to it,
Speaker 2: and we can, in our own ways be humble before
Speaker 2: it and say, Lord, I know I'm I'm not perfect.
Speaker 2: I know you created me for good things. You created
Speaker 2: me for something better than what I'm settling for. I
Speaker 2: need your help. All God wants, you know, he says
Speaker 2: in scripture, somebody says, I don't want your sacrifice. I
Speaker 2: want you to know me.
Speaker 1: And you think science is the knowledge of God.
Speaker 2: Well, God says in the Old Testimony, said look at
Speaker 2: the heavens they have they have all knowledge and all
Speaker 2: wisdom is there. But but, but, but religion came along
Speaker 2: and said, can't can't worship the stars. Can't worship the stars?
Speaker 2: You know I'm not. He didn't say worship them, said
Speaker 2: study them, study them, seek, seek, And it's just so exciting.
Speaker 2: That's what makes my faith more real every day. A
Speaker 2: couple of years ago, the Lord gave me something that
Speaker 2: I've tried to live as my my my mantra mantra
Speaker 2: ever since. And it said, Kathy, there's a scripture that
Speaker 2: says the joy of the Lord is your strength. Well, okay,
Speaker 2: that's in uh what is it Angie's uh Neamiah eight ten.
Speaker 1: I was going to say that, but I didn't want
Speaker 1: to get it wrong.
Speaker 2: I ate ten the joy of the or did your strength? Okay,
Speaker 2: I believe that. But later in life, maybe maybe when
Speaker 2: I was going through the really really rough times of
Speaker 2: Frank's infidelity came a year later, after the the all
Speaker 2: the terrible stuff with these sweatshops.
Speaker 1: It was it was a very embarrassing time, I would imagine.
Speaker 2: Mostly for him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, listen, I look, I know this.
Speaker 3: I know that.
Speaker 1: I remember seeing that at the time. I was working
Speaker 1: on the Drew Carrey. I remember talking to Drew and
Speaker 1: we saw it in the newspaper and he said to me,
Speaker 1: would you like to be Frank Gifford this morning? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's it.
Speaker 2: No, non men came up to him all the time.
Speaker 2: It's better you than me, Frank. I mean, it was disgusting. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and he was a good man who did a stupid thing.
Speaker 2: It happens, It happens, It happens, and women or after
Speaker 2: my husband, he was Kevin Costner of his day, you know,
Speaker 2: he was the Brad Pitt of his day, and they
Speaker 2: all and it was blatant right in front of me,
Speaker 2: And you know, I lived with that, But I really
Speaker 2: believed that he was. He was stronger than that. And
Speaker 2: it was also sixty six years old when that happened.
Speaker 2: It wasn't like he was, you know, twenty two, and
Speaker 2: he knew better. He knew better, but it was you
Speaker 2: know what. We can go into that another time as well.
Speaker 2: But I remember the Lord saying to me, Kathy, this
Speaker 2: is what I want you to think all the time.
Speaker 2: My joy is non negotiable. Oh boy, okay, I'll know.
Speaker 2: You know when you and I were doing our movie together,
Speaker 2: then came you available on Netflix.
Speaker 1: Left.
Speaker 2: We had to go through a negotiation with you for
Speaker 2: the price that would be fair. You gave a little.
Speaker 2: It's a negotiation, that's our business. Yeah, and time off
Speaker 2: you wanted, you know, time to go back to your
Speaker 2: the most beautiful home in Scotland and visit your family.
Speaker 2: Don't like the wife, but that's another story and it's
Speaker 2: the process. So you understand negotiation. But he said, your joy.
Speaker 2: Don't let anybody mess with your joy, Kathy. And my
Speaker 2: joy comes from knowing every morning when I wake up
Speaker 2: that I am a child of the living God.
Speaker 1: Were you so you were you able to forget? Is
Speaker 1: that how you were able to forget?
Speaker 2: Frank the way I was able to forgive Frank Howard Stern,
Speaker 2: you everybody else has broken my heart.
Speaker 1: Oh come on, you're in good company. It's gonna say.
Speaker 1: These guys make a lot more money than me.
Speaker 2: Hey, wait till this podcast takes off anyway, Yeah, what
Speaker 2: was your question?
Speaker 1: That was? Was that? How you were able to forgive Frank.
Speaker 2: The way I was able to forgive Frank was at
Speaker 2: the minute I knew it was true because I believed
Speaker 2: him and he said it didn't happen. I had no
Speaker 2: reason not to because my husband stood by me through
Speaker 2: the sweatshop stuff. He stood by me through the uh people.
Speaker 1: Like when they're panicked.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's exactly right. And he realized he was caught.
Speaker 2: He had no idea that they had tape, you know,
Speaker 2: audio tape. He just knew that that until he found
Speaker 2: and he said, no, people were always trying to set
Speaker 2: us up, always trying to destroy us. First of all,
Speaker 2: that goes back to the ones who were fallen from grace.
Speaker 2: You know, God's grace is forever, but they choose, they
Speaker 2: chose to walk away from God Almighty and try to
Speaker 2: be God. That's never going to work out in anybody's life.
Speaker 2: You know, you've seen and I have seen a parade
Speaker 2: of people who who started to believe that they were
Speaker 2: God Almighty boy. And then where are they there business?
Speaker 2: From time to you know, Jesus said, you know, what
Speaker 2: does it profit a person if they gain the whole
Speaker 2: world and lose their very soul? Jesus didn't want them
Speaker 2: to lose their souls. That's why he came.
Speaker 1: And so, and I'm going to push you on this
Speaker 1: because the forgiving of infidelity for a person like you,
Speaker 1: who I know what you stand for, and I know
Speaker 1: what you're like, and I know how much you value
Speaker 1: loyalty and truth and friendship. Yes, that that that kind
Speaker 1: of betrayal would be horrendous and so for you that
Speaker 1: must have been a mountain to climb to get.
Speaker 2: No, it was instantaneous, really, yep. The minute I knew
Speaker 2: it was true, God showed me almost like a scrawl.
Speaker 2: I don't do a computer, but now that I've seen it,
Speaker 2: it was like a scrowl of everything that God had
Speaker 2: already forgiven me for. He said, Kathy, every time you
Speaker 2: asked for forgiveness, I forgave you. You cannot ask for
Speaker 2: forgiveness if you're not willing to give it. It was instantaneous.
Speaker 1: That's amazing. It's amazing, And that.
Speaker 2: The exact opposite with Howard Stern the story. He started
Speaker 2: saying the most horrendous things about me. I'd never met
Speaker 2: the man, never listened to his show, who never watched it,
Speaker 2: never met him, nothing, And he started just just I would.
Speaker 2: People would tell me, Gosh, I can't believe what Howard Stern,
Speaker 2: I said, don't tell me. I don't want to know.
Speaker 2: But the minute I heard that he was doing that
Speaker 2: kind of thing, I started praying for him. I said, Lord,
Speaker 2: he must be so hurt inside to hurt people he
Speaker 2: doesn't even know, to be so cruel to people that
Speaker 2: are you know, don't live cruel lives. You know, I'm
Speaker 2: not perfect, but I wasn't out there hurting people. You know,
Speaker 2: I don't understand it, Lord, but you know why he
Speaker 2: does it. Hurt people, hurt people. So I said, Lord,
Speaker 2: I'm just going to pray for him. I'm afraid that
Speaker 2: one day he'll come to know, you come to know
Speaker 2: how precious he is.
Speaker 1: To you, and you two became friends, right, Well.
Speaker 2: You're my friend, right he became Thirty years later, he
Speaker 2: asked me to forgive him. And he said yes, and
Speaker 2: he said, will you forgive me? And I said, I said, Howard.
Speaker 2: Of course, he's a remarkable I don't know him still
Speaker 2: to this day, but.
Speaker 1: He's a I think he's a fascinating man.
Speaker 2: Oh he is, and is brilliant, and he's used his
Speaker 2: communications skills, I think for in a dark way, when
Speaker 2: God always intended for that brilliant mind and that brilliant
Speaker 2: sense of humor and all those things to be used
Speaker 2: for his glory, not his own, not his God's glory, Okay.
Speaker 2: And so anyway, what I just would, I would pray
Speaker 2: for him every day. I just did. And so I
Speaker 2: sent him a note when he got divorced front from
Speaker 2: his wife, and I hand delivered it because he lived
Speaker 2: across the street, so he lived in Regis's building. And
Speaker 2: I said, I'll just take it over. I didn't trust
Speaker 2: it getting to him otherwise, you know, And I left it.
Speaker 2: And the next day he's talking on the air about
Speaker 2: you know what, I got a note from you know.
Speaker 2: And I didn't hear this either, but I was told.
Speaker 2: And he goes the nicest note, just the nicest note
Speaker 2: from of all people, and he says and then they all, oh,
Speaker 2: she's just doing it so you'll like her. Just no,
Speaker 2: that's bullshit. She's the phone of you. I'm so whatever.
Speaker 2: And so he said yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right.
Speaker 2: So that was years and years years later. Now I
Speaker 2: won't go through the whole story unless you want to hear.
Speaker 2: But I look up one day at the studio. I'm
Speaker 2: at the Today Show now, and I look up and
Speaker 2: downstairs there's a monitor. But downstairs, one floor beneath me
Speaker 2: is where you've been there, Craig, where you walk in
Speaker 2: and you go to the studio. I'd never seen anyone
Speaker 2: with an entourage as big as this, because he was
Speaker 2: there to announce that he was going to be a
Speaker 2: judge on America's So he's making that announcement and it
Speaker 2: was going to be on NBC and all that. So I, oh,
Speaker 2: there's Howard.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: I didn't think anything of it, just said another prayer
Speaker 2: for him. Probably, I don't know. I'm getting hair. I
Speaker 2: just come in from from Greenwich, so my makeup's not done,
Speaker 2: my hair is wet. I'm in my little schlap shows.
Speaker 2: But like when we're on sete you've seen me like that,
Speaker 2: and I'm hot, aren't.
Speaker 1: I absolutely, It's an amazing thing to see.
Speaker 2: Anyway, so the Lord says, Kathy, I want you to
Speaker 2: go downstairs right now and say hello to Howard and
Speaker 2: welcome them, and tell and wish him well with the show.
Speaker 2: And I went, okay. Lord, Now that they had made
Speaker 2: huge effort at NBC to make sure that I didn't
Speaker 2: run to him and he didn't run into me, because
Speaker 2: there was a lot at stake, and they and my
Speaker 2: hair and makeup people have been don't don't let Kathy
Speaker 2: out of your sight. All of a sudden, I get
Speaker 2: up and I say to my hair and makeup people,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna I'll be right back.
Speaker 1: We're n she's walking, she's walking, she's walking.
Speaker 2: It was just like that, and so Sarah I started
Speaker 2: singing again, and anyway, I would just go downstairs. Nobody
Speaker 2: tries to stop me. I walk in and and I
Speaker 2: walk right up to Howard, who's six six. I was
Speaker 2: five six at the time. I've shrunk a little and
Speaker 2: I and I'm flat footed, and I look up and
Speaker 2: I'm going Howard, Howard, and he's looking around because he's
Speaker 2: got good foot toler than I am. And all of
Speaker 2: a sudden he looks down and sees his little elf
Speaker 2: in front of him and he goes, whoa. He just
Speaker 2: I remember him just sort of physically backing up and
Speaker 2: going rarely is the man speechless. He was speechless. And
Speaker 2: I put my hand out to him, said, Hi, Kathy Lee.
Speaker 2: I think it's about time we meet, don't you think.
Speaker 2: And he put his hand out and I said, I
Speaker 2: just want to wish you well and uh with the
Speaker 2: show and with your life, and you just take care
Speaker 2: of yourself. That was it. I turned and walked away.
Speaker 2: He was one thing. He just sid said, yeah, crazy, right,
Speaker 2: the show. That was crazy. I said, it's crazy, and
Speaker 2: I just left and went upstairs. They go, what did
Speaker 2: you do? I said? I said, I wished him well
Speaker 2: with the show. Let's get my hair and makeup on
Speaker 2: him a little behind. And I left that day for
Speaker 2: La because the Cody was graduating from usc Film School
Speaker 2: that the next day. So it's flying into to be
Speaker 2: a family for a while. I land and turned my
Speaker 2: phone on and there's a message. My friend Jill Martin
Speaker 2: had given him my number because she knew it was important,
Speaker 2: and it was him saying, can I say bad words
Speaker 2: on your podcast?
Speaker 1: Thank you?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean, obviously I raised it, but it was
Speaker 2: it was a million fuck words. It was like, I'm
Speaker 2: so fucked. This is Howard Stern. I'm sorry, I'm just
Speaker 2: I'm such a fucking He's just I can't tell you
Speaker 2: exactly what he said, but there I could tell the
Speaker 2: man was in great pain. And he said, I'm so,
Speaker 2: I'm so sorry. I need you to forgive me. I
Speaker 2: need to talk to you. He was so nice to
Speaker 2: me today and I've just been wrong and I'm just.
Speaker 2: He was so contrite, he was so he broke my heart.
Speaker 2: But there was no number I couldn't call. It was
Speaker 2: just a caller idea unknown. So I said, well, Lord,
Speaker 2: it's in your hands. I thanked God. I said, wow, incredible.
Speaker 2: Thirty years later, Lord, you're answering this. This man is
Speaker 2: seeking people. He has hurt to say I'm sorry, forgive me.
Speaker 2: Every person needs to do that in their life, all
Speaker 2: of us do to have peace. Shalom, God shaloon. So anyway,
Speaker 2: that night, we're at dinner at the Beverly Hills Hotel
Speaker 2: and I see no caller idea and I'm going, oh,
Speaker 2: it's him, he's trying again. I got up. My husband
Speaker 2: was not happy, and either was Cody. You're not going
Speaker 2: to talk to him, mom, I said, oh, yes I am.
Speaker 2: I'll be back you guys continue at dinner. I went
Speaker 2: into a private room there and I guess for about
Speaker 2: a half an hour, maybe not that much, maybe twenty minutes.
Speaker 2: I don't know. Those things are surreal anyway, you don't
Speaker 2: really know. I don't check my phone if I knew
Speaker 2: how to. And he was so incredibly contrite. He said,
Speaker 2: I cannot believe how kind you were to me. And
Speaker 2: I said, well, of course I was. You were, and
Speaker 2: I said, and so do you forgive me? He said, Kathy,
Speaker 2: I've just I've been I've fucked up my entire life,
Speaker 2: my whole life, and I'm getting cat counseling. You know,
Speaker 2: I'm trying to be a better person, trying to go
Speaker 2: to everybody that I've hurt. And I know what I've
Speaker 2: been horrible to you, and I keep hearing wonderful things
Speaker 2: about you, and I just kept doing it. And I said, why, Howard,
Speaker 2: why did you It was because I hated you? And
Speaker 2: I said, but why we had never even met. He said,
Speaker 2: you were everything I wasn't. You're Jewish, but you believe
Speaker 2: in Jesus, how's that you're a musician, but you just
Speaker 2: sing old songs like that? Your father likes you just
Speaker 2: I just found a million things to make fun of you.
Speaker 2: For I didn't. I thought you were a complete fun
Speaker 2: The only way I could deal with somebody leader like
Speaker 2: he was to write you off as a phony. And
Speaker 2: he had a group of minions, of course, and yes,
Speaker 2: people who just fed into that. That's okay anyway, I said,
Speaker 2: do you forgive me? I said, Howard, of course I do.
Speaker 2: But I just need you to know that I forgave
Speaker 2: you thirty years ago, and I've been praying for you
Speaker 2: every day since. And and he goes, what I said, yeap,
Speaker 2: I knew this day would come. I didn't know when
Speaker 2: you've certainly taken your time. We'd said a little lad,
Speaker 2: And I said, would you like to come to dinner
Speaker 2: at my house? He goes, you'd have me for dinner?
Speaker 2: I said, of course, I'm not sure Frank will, but
Speaker 2: I will. You know that kind of thing. And we
Speaker 2: never did do that. But I've run into him several
Speaker 2: times since, and it's very warm between us, and there's
Speaker 2: no tension, there's no none of that. It's forgiven. It's
Speaker 2: not forgotten. It was a huge thing. But the how
Speaker 2: you forgive is immediately because you realize that that's what
Speaker 2: Jesus did. He said, you're not supposed to forgive once
Speaker 2: you forgive seven times seventy times, which is in the Bible,
Speaker 2: the perfection everything.
Speaker 1: It's all all the Mathema.
Speaker 2: Every if Jesus turned six pots of water into wine,
Speaker 2: there's a reason that's six pots. I've written a book
Speaker 2: called The Rock, The Road, and the Rabbi with one
Speaker 2: of the great biblicals Ribbon scholars, and every single number
Speaker 2: he knows the meaning of because the rabbis do, and
Speaker 2: when you find out what it means, it is so
Speaker 2: mind boggling, and it just confirms and affirms your faith.
Speaker 2: This is not a random thing. This is sovereign God
Speaker 2: being sovereign God in spite of whatever else happens in
Speaker 2: whatever realm. And I believe there's many realms, you know,
Speaker 2: Who the hell do we think we are to think
Speaker 2: that there's just us in this world? You know, I
Speaker 2: don't believe that. I don't know what else is there.
Speaker 2: But I'm not going to put God in a box
Speaker 2: and say he only created us. You know, no, no,
Speaker 2: I don't believe that, and I think that's what eternity
Speaker 2: is all about. Once the next step comes, and you
Speaker 2: asked about that earlier, it's we're going to be learning,
Speaker 2: we're going to be growing. We're not going to be
Speaker 2: sitting around on clouds playing the harp. I don't want
Speaker 2: to go there. You know. I get tired of the
Speaker 2: harp in about five minutes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a hotel lobe vibe about it, harp. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna be honest. I love that you're talking about time
Speaker 1: because we are out of it.
Speaker 2: Well, why are you dying?
Speaker 1: I really hope not. But what I mean is, but
Speaker 1: what I mean giving me the hook, I'm giving you
Speaker 1: the hook for no, nan, I'm going to take care
Speaker 1: and we're going to get something to you.
Speaker 2: Okay, my darling.
Speaker 1: That sounds great, but nobody else can come to that. Well,
Speaker 1: you can tell me the stories that you weren't going
Speaker 1: to sell.
Speaker 2: I've told you lots of stuff that will never, you know,
Speaker 2: never be said publicly because I trust you.
Speaker 1: That's right, that's right.
Speaker 2: I trust you, and I love you, and you've let
Speaker 2: You've always let me be me, and I do adore
Speaker 2: your wife and she's the one who said, I sent
Speaker 2: her to you the script you gave it to her.
Speaker 2: And she does have a beautiful name. Name is me. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and she's a beautiful woman from New Hampshire originally. But anyway,
Speaker 2: I know all of this. I know. I'm telling you.
Speaker 2: You're your listeners who may not know. And she she
Speaker 2: did not didn't she turn to you and say you've
Speaker 2: got to do this.
Speaker 1: She said that. She said, you got to do this movie.
Speaker 1: She also said, and I'm going to cuss a little here,
Speaker 1: but you're going to like this. She said, that is
Speaker 1: Kathy Lee Gifford. She's a goddamn American treasure, and you're
Speaker 1: gonna do this movie. She did, She did.
Speaker 2: She never told me that. You told me. I'm serious,
Speaker 2: I'm not doubting it. But that's so nice. But you
Speaker 2: told me, she said she And boy does she have
Speaker 2: you down.
Speaker 1: That too. We gotta go.
Speaker 2: I love you what you've heard about this man. He's awesome,
Speaker 2: My baby
Speaker 1: Episode Part two coming soon.