 Welcome everyone as we're still having others gather here I as I put in the chat, please feel free to say hello in the chat. I see a couple people from have already done so from here in Elkhart, Indiana. Wadsworth, Ohio, Spokane, Washington, Seattle and other places so welcome to you all, and welcome to this the second episode in a new webinar series, Anabaptist Witness Dialogues, which is a series by Anabaptist Witness Journal. I'm your host, Jamie Pitts, I'm here in Elkhart, Indiana along the St. Joseph River, which is also Potawatomi land, part of the Pocagan Band of Potawatomi territory. In today's webinar we'll be talking with Randy Halouza-Delay and Randy Woodley. We've been talking before we got on here about how we're going to distinguish among the Randy's I think I'll try to just maybe say their full names but we've got the two Randy's here. Randy or Randolph Halouza-Delay is a social scientist who was a faculty member at two Canadian universities for 20 years he was tenured in sociology. His scholarship is focused on environmental justice and religious responses to the ecological crisis in the contemporary world. And his article What Does Shalom Mean, Comparing Anabaptist and Indigenous Perspectives appeared in our most recent issue which you can find on our website and get in print. Randy Woodley was raised near Detroit, Michigan and is a recognized Cherokee descendant by the United Ketua Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma. Randy and his wife Edith co-sustained a lahay Indigenous Center for Earth Justice. A lahay farm and seeds in Yamhill, Oregon. And this word that I'm probably mispronouncing a lahay is a Cherokee Indian word meaning harmony. Randy and his wife Edith host a regenerative learning center farm and community that invests in people's lives teaching them to love and care for the earth from a holistic Indigenous worldview. Randy is the director of intercultural Indigenous Studies and the distinguished professor of faith and culture at George Fox Evangelical Seminary. He's the author of several books including Shalom and the Community of Creation and Indigenous Vision. And most recently I believe decolonizing evangelicalism and 1159 p.m. conversation, which he co-wrote with Beau Sanders, as well as living in color embracing God's passion for ethnic diversity. While you're on the Antibaptist Witness website looking at Randy Hallouza Delays article, you can also look up an older article from 2016 in which Antibaptist Witness book review editor Steve Heinrichs, who I see is here today, is in conversation with Randy Woodley. So I'm going to ask the two Randy's here a couple questions and allow them to expand. We'll spend probably around half an hour in this mode of interview. And then we're hoping to hear from you what has stimulated your thoughts what questions you have for Randy and Randy. And the way you can ask those questions is by using the little Q&A box. To the right of the chat. And if you have a question at any time in the in the next 30 to 45 minutes, please type it in there I will go through those questions and when the interview portion is done I will ask Randy and Randy those questions. So let's get started then with the interview. The next question is for Randy Woodley. Randy you've written extensively on the theology of Shalom from an indigenous perspective, and I wonder if kind of in broad strokes you can share your vision for Shalom theology and how it relates to indigenous communities and land. Thank you. So good to be here with you. Hello to everyone attending thanks for tuning in. If you can say that there is a central theme of scripture I think it's Shalom. As I understand it, it's, you know, from the beginning of Genesis and that that fine balance of everything and then the first 11 chapters then as the stories go as the Shalom is broken. There's a lot of harmony way that that I think are the sort of original instructions by creator to all humanity to live by. And then you have the laws that Shalom is very much connected to Sabbath and to Jubilee, of course, and you have the setting aside of a seventh of your land and why so that the poor or the needy the wild animals etc can eat in the edges of your field. The same reasons if you leave a bunch of olives or a bunch of wheat or, you know, a bunch of grapes out there just just let them be don't go back and get them because poor people need them. You know there's the safety nets that are in place and then you have the prophets calling people back to a way of justice and right living. And this comes on the scene, his kingdom, which, you know, I know it's a controversial word and not the word that he used, but his kingdom, if you want to use that word is very much a Shalom kingdom, and then the whole New Testament testifies to this way of living in which Jesus sort of reanimates the whole construct of Shalom. And so, for me, this is all about everything that Jesus had to say. This is the way that people from other religions, some things that they can agree on and some people who are just indigenous peoples all over the world can agree on so to me it's the most sort of universal construct of a right way of living that we've been given as human beings and so to miss that is to miss everything about what scripture has to say. Thanks, so it's a really expansive vision that deeply rooted not just in one or two references in scripture, but you would see it as pervasive throughout the entire Old and New Testaments. And this is something that in a Baptist theologians have also talked about of course, and Randy who's a delay, you've written some about the relationship between the kind of vision that Randy Woodley has just shared to midnight theologies I wonder if you could talk a bit about that what do you see is the connections there. So taking the, when I consider the Anabaptist Charism or gift to the world or World Christianity, among those things we usually say is our peacemaking focus. And so I originally wanted to reconceptualize what does it mean to make peace with all creation, which actually comes out of Colossians one, that great Christological him right there. And it's, you know, the idea of making peace with all creation with all the creatures of creations is mentioned twice in there was done by Jesus, you know, by his death and his resurrection. What does it mean to make peace with all creation so that was kind of the genesis of my thinking about, you know, what is this and then I should say that I'm not a cradle man and I, in fact, I came to participate in Anabaptist fellowships because as I came to faith as a university students on like three decades four decades ago now, and I made a decision to follow Jesus. I saw the gospel message in a way consistent with a radical discipleship, a radical faithful ship and central to my understanding in those early years was to take Jesus seriously when he said such things as, you know, love your enemy. And that can't be done in the abstract. It has to be done in the practical. So, how do we do that and that was an American born there and moved to Canada around 30 years ago. And that was deeply troubling to love our enemies in the United States and even in Canada, it contests the way we think about things. And so that whole notion of contesting the most prevalent features of our society and our culture, I think is deeply part of Jesus's message and Christian discipleship. For over. Well, for quite a long time I worked in environmental education I worked for MCC and a voluntary stint and I worked in an indigenous community with MCC. And I'm not writing about Shalom is is probably often we talk about peace, but as Perry Yoder tried to explain in his book which I compared to Randy Woodley's book on Shalom in the community of creation for Yoder Shalom has multiple things. And in his book he really has a strong socio political assessment. So Shalom means like that personal piece that we seek and fellowship with the creator, but it also means that relationship with other, other humans other people, the social structures and Shalom also means to be an integrity. So again that good relationship with God to be a person of God, and I'm a Christian because the Bible has so many stories of failed relationships with God, you know, the and so forth who are like, how can you think about these people as men after God's own heart. And yet that gives hope I think so Shalom includes that integrity but also includes that socio political assessment. And what Randy did was he added two things in his book. Shalom is for the community of all creation, not just the human part of that. And actually to refer to something he just said in his book he says he thinks the word community is a way better word than the word kingdom, which I would completely agree with. What he does is he says that among the structures of our world is colonialism. Unless we make things explicit, we won't address the problem so these two inclusions I think that Shalom is for the community of all creation. And among the structure of our world is colonialism and therefore we need to decolonize those structures, and Randy goes further and says we need to decolonize our minds, because our society and our culture is founded on colonial roots, which have epistemic, social, political and ontological impacts on us so it goes right to the core of our being. Canada is a settler colonial country. And so all of us who are not indigenous have to come to terms with the fact that colonization has given us privileges and advantages as settlers, even if we didn't directly participate in it or don't come from those European roots. So, you know, Latin Americans have begun to think a lot more about some of these things that have come up with some ideas around how do we bring a decolonizing and environmental justice perspective together. And those insights try to understand how the persistence of colonialism colonial values and so forth, sustains the injustices, violence and oppression that we see. And that means recognizing, again, how deeply rooted those values are. And I would say to try to get beyond a Eurocentric notion of Christian faith and practice, and again Randy points that out in that book that I've been mentioning. And I've used that book in classes, both at a university level and in adult Sunday schools. And, you know, it's challenging to people because Randy's asking people not just to learn something new to acquire new knowledge, which is the way we tend to think about knowing in a Western way, but to to acquire new understandings of God to rethink our own theologies and our own discipleship. And so these are these are great challenges that some will rise to, but others will struggle with, but it's a really important thing that we all need to think through, especially as an abaptist who who try to try to claim that we're we're radically following Jesus, we're doing our best to do so. So, Randy Woodley, when you hear this account of an abaptist trying to learn from your theology of Shalom and put these theologies Shalom into conversation and this last comment that many men and women nights and churches, many Christian students find your work challenging. I wonder what kind of counsel you'd have for an abaptist as we try to do this work of thinking about Shalom that includes the whole community of creation, as well as includes a real critical examination and practice around the colonization. Yeah. So, yeah, well, not only does Randy get my name right, but I think he gets it pretty well right in the article so I think that's a really good article for people to read and really examine and understand. The only problem I have with it is, you know, Dr. Yoder wrote that quite a while ago and I don't know if that would be his end all statement of where he ends up I think he's probably moved. I'm not that far apart and you say that in the article I think so. Yeah, so, you know, I'm not. Not only not a cradle men and nights, a term that I forgotten that you folks use, but I'm not even occasional men and I so, but I do like to hang with the men and nights because they've been pretty good to me and a lot of them like talk about farming which I like to talk about so. Yeah, I think, given the right circumstances, most people. And I like to have times of dialogue. That's, that's what I really do to challenge our worldview so I'm not, you know, I'm not saying you know you people are bad people because this happened what I'm saying is, you know this happened for a particular reason it happened because of a particular worldview and it's very easy, I think to prove that that worldview is unsustainable. And that world. So, so we like to think that our theologies create our worldview but it really is just the opposite. Our worldviews create our theologies and and how we go about understanding that and so the reason I think men and nights understand a bit more about shalom just besides of the peacekeeping is because of the connection to the land. The land is the great teacher, it's the, you know, God has gifted us with creation to be our most continuous and probably best teacher. There is there with herself so you know when you have that connection you start to learn stuff right. And so what I would say it's like you're almost there. Not that I have all the answers or even any indigenous peoples have all the answers but there are some things you learn and live in a particular place for you know 13 to 28,000 years or longer someone say well we were here forever but forever it is it's a whole lot longer than settler colonialism. And so the land. We're not saying we're experts because we're indigenous we're saying we're experts on this particular land, because our people have lived with it so long and learn from it. It's the wisdom that I think that the indigenous people offer the men and nights and anyone else. And in sort of what I do is I just break down those worldviews and try to compare an indigenous worldview with a Western worldview and show how destructive the Western worldview is and how it will not sustain us in the future on this land. You know maybe it will somewhere else I don't know, but it's not going to sustain us in the Americas here. And so we really don't have a choice but the, the choice is that I can choose to look at the biblical record and the stories in scripture and see how they align with this with the indigenous ideas. I'm really intrigued by this idea that we learn from the land. We learn about the land. But the way you just phrase it and that's come up in various writings of yours, Randy Woodley and I'm. I'd be interested here both of you reflect someone what it means for Christians to learn not only again about the land but from it how does land really shape our sense of our calling in mission and let's. Let's go to you Randy who the delay of first and then over to Randy Woodley. I want to share that a lot of times we think of knowledge as something that you acquire. With the idea then in an enlightenment sort of way that new knowledge automatically leads to it being used and you know, it solves the problems if you learn things about whatever the problem is. There's so much research that shows that that's not the way it happens that people that new knowledge doesn't impact people I mean just look at all the evidence for for vaccines or for climate change or for you know, certain presidents being you know okay we won't go there. So worldviews shape. How we think worldview shape how we interpret scripture and how we practice our faith and how we live with others. My definition for sustainability is actually living well together in the land. And I like the flexibility of that because it forces us to try to unpack a whole bunch of different stuff in there. What does it mean to live well. Who is the way that is together to be living well. And I said in the land. I didn't say on the land said in the land. So I read the Bible with a sense of deep relationality and I think it's present there and one of my early influences in terms of Christian eco theology. I remember Michelson in the 1980s wrote a book called a worldly spirituality, where at one point he does a comparison between Hebrew Testament and the term Native American worldviews and looking at the relationality that's present in the, in the Old Testament and I still find in the New Testament as well. So, both sociology and ecology point out that relationality that we are in this life altogether. We humans are in it with all the rest of creation, not on our own and so we live well together we have to live it with all the rest of creation as well and again the evidence is clear that we're not doing such a good job at that. But again it's not just all humans. It's particular humans who have the power who have created industrial cultures who separated humans from the rest of creation and our thinking and so forth like that so learning to live from the land means trying to to figure out what does it mean to live well together. Now what is the good, the flourishing that Shalom represents that would be a flourishing of all the created order, you know more in line with what what God seems to desire. And that Bible has has passages where the mountains in the trees praise their creator and where the rocks cry out when the creator in whom all things hold together went to his death. So again that that relationality is present right there. And I think humans I think learning from peoples around the world. Global Christianity is very diverse it has, you know, in the seventh century about 25% of the world's Christians lived in Europe, the rest were scattered across Asia the Middle East, North Africa. Well Christianity then collapsed down into Europe. So we're back to a situation at the beginning of the 21st century we're only about 25% of the world's Christians are in Europe and Africa is the most Christian continent. Right now, according to a recent article in the Guardian that I just read, or the economist actually I might have it wrong but so learning, learning we Westerners we North Americans learning from the rest of global Christianity and the ways that they see things as Africans with the concept of the mood to Maori peoples and those aren't just Christians those are all cultures because if we believe in a one God creator of all. That means that God has gifted all peoples and all beings with with something to share with us that we can learn from. And so that's, let's cut out what I mean by learning from the land, all the beings in the land in the land not on the land. So I mean something similar, and I talk about living with the land and be married to the land right Bula is this Hebrew scripture to talk about. And, and of course, no one in the scriptures wrote from a post enlightenment perspective. There might have been some Greek influence here and there but basically, these are people who were largely agrarian and in during the New Testament switching to a sort of urban centered existence but there's this resistance from that and so Jesus. There's a whole lot of stuff about buildings and chariots and crossbows and those kinds of things he he talks about plain stuff that we see every day seeds and birds and, you know, apparently he knows this, the habits of foxes and maybe a particular donkey that he had his eye on and, and fish and you know how to catch them and, you know, all these kinds of things that that clearly show that he's a person of the land right so we how many sermons do you hear about that. There's so much that people miss but I want to just draw attention I'm just, you know, as you ask that question, like what can you learn from the land like what can you not learn from the land the podcast people won't be able to see the, the virtual background before me but it's my backyard two days ago, and it's a sunset. You know as I'm just looking at that sunset there's so much I can learn just by watching that you know my wife and I sort of have this ritual of watching the sunsets and each one is different. Every night when we can see them, the clouds are different, you know, and clouds are this great fractal thing and there's a whole lot of discussion we can have about fractals and how human beings are really in some ways have a fractal type nature. I see an oak forest which was the original you know this was an oak savannah, and what happens is that the Doug fir trees come in and try to take over and eventually they do. But we got this property right when the oak trees which I would say are akin to the traditions right, the people who've been on the land all this time. The firs come in and they let a few in, but when they start to take over they kill them off right. All this happens underground with mycelium and connections and all these, you know, trillions and trillions of micro microbes underneath there and, and we don't really understand all that but what's happened but eventually if they just keep coming and no one does anything about it then the firs take over and there's no more oaks, the oaks die out. You know there's a lot I can learn from all of this I look at that sunset and it looks different and because the earth turns, it sets in just a little bit different place. You notice it after a couple days how it's changing and the sun rises in a different place and, and sometimes I asked my wife what she sees and we see something different, looking at the same sunset. And that tells me something about, you know, unity and diversity and, and how every human being and every people have something to contribute that's different than the others and just how big God is and, you know, like I said what can't you learn from the land. Thank you. That's a question that I'm going to carry with me for a while. I want to turn to a question from our one of our listeners and I just remind you that if you have a question for either or both of the Randy's here please go ahead and put that in the q amp a box. This first question comes from Sarah Gurley, who's a student at ABS here in Elkhart. She says, thank you both for your insights and reflections as a young theologian who cares deeply about creation. I'm grateful to learn from a great many elders. My question is this. What are some, maybe. My question is this, what are some ways that a young person can share this rich wisdom with elders who align with a more conservative perspective understanding conservative can mean different things but here in the US. Next, there's some general understanding, someone who would be pretty resistant likely this is my elaboration on the question someone is likely to be pretty resistant and elder who might reject out of hand some of these insights that you're bringing what would, what would the two of you say to to encourage a young person who really appreciates what you're saying but wants to know how to communicate it with resistant elders. So I think my answer be real short I'll go ahead and then Randy look forward to hearing what you have to say. You know, take a cue from Jesus. Jesus also talked to his elders but what he did mostly is he asked him good questions. He understood where he was coming from he understood it well you have to understand it well enough to ask good questions that end up leading people to some answers they might be uncomfortable with. And so I would say, you know, rather than just challenge them you sort of subtly challenge them with the questions that you ask. Yeah, I make similar kind of comments. I did a lot of workshops on climate change and faith based communities. And I just moved out of Alberta with, which most people know it's a very oil and gas dependent province. So doubling down on on its dependence even further despite you know, both the evidence for climate change but also the evidence that gas companies are seeing a certain writing on the wall and and trying to make their own shifts. So in those climate workshops, I often had people who were questioning resistant or even outright hostile. There's also some change over the, you know, say last four years or so and doing those workshops as people were getting less and less resistant to certain forms, kind of the evidence and so forth but I didn't rely only on presenting the evidence. The science doesn't convince people what what works better is to try to connect our values, you know, what do they value that I also value and things like that. And, and sometimes that means asking that question is what do you value or what kind of world do you want for your children, or even, you know, in a couple of decades, you know, where do you think Alberta's economy is going, and how can we, we go there with the changes that are happening around the world. You know, stuff like that. So what that does is says hey we have some common ground. And that's so important. Again, that's a shalom approach. That's a conciliatory or a conciliation sort of approach. Back to topics of indigenous peoples. And we talk a lot in Canada about reconciliation. But we haven't done very much other than talk we haven't done a lot of practical work on reconciliation because reconciliation means writing whatever wrongs are there. So we also need to, whenever we disagree with other people try to figure out what kind of wrongs need to be righted and how are we all participating in the wrongs the systems the structures, because you know I'm still doing all of the things that add to changing climate. So I'm relying on the colonial appropriation of indigenous lands for my, my income and stuff like that. So we're all part of this we're not so none of us are completely separate from that and therefore, if we if we work to try to figure out what kind of common values we have, you know, people want to be respected by others people want nobody very few people want to do to do you have to continue injustices. So in those all become ways of saying okay well, how can we have more justice for everybody how can we help shalom flourish in ways that God desire. Thanks for those responses and we'll take other questions as they come up but I have a question for you kind of coming out of Randy he was at a lay you just say that you just said that the language about reconciliation or even shalom maybe and so forth. There's a problem when it remains just at the level of of talking about it. And there are efforts within the course, not only the anabaptist circles but including anabaptist circles. The efforts are led by native men and nights and others allies to try to get the church to face some of these questions to really examine the doctrine of discovery. The church's historic participation in that the benefits, you know, short term benefits that has reaped from participating in that. And of course the incredible violence that it has participated and, and even for, you know, community like the anabaptist community, even as we talk about and preach peace so again that disjunction between word and deed. And so, for those, for those folks who are really are trying to engage and are trying to to move from just talking about it. Do you have any words of encouragement or counsel that you could give to them. And here, we'll start with Randy Woodley if you have something you'd like to share. Yeah, a couple things come to mind. In chapter five of my book Shalom in the Community of Creation I talk about that difference between belief system and actually doing stuff and and why European peoples are able to understand that what they believe is actually what they do. So I don't want to go into all that now but it's very much a endemic to the Western mind that if you have the right knowledge, then that means you know it as opposed to actually doing it. It's a little different thing and Jesus taught the latter he didn't teach knowing cognitively, but cognitively knowing means that you have to embody it. And, and that's why so much of our theology is disembodied, you know, it's a Western problem. But besides that, you know, I'm, I just tell me the crust of the question got lost in my explanation. Sorry, just if there's words of encouragement for people who are really trying to engage this work. Yeah. So, so we met last year last July, no, a year ago July, because it last summer was COVID. Oh, my gosh, where's the year gone. I met with a group of national reconcilers in the United States, very famous people who everybody knows. There were 20 of us. And, and we were able to talk about some things and we, we made a commitment to one another that we would no longer. It was at my wife's and I junk encouragement, I would say that they would no longer talk about reconciliation without reparations. Because not because like native people need something, but white folks need that healing that it takes to get rid of this stuff and admit it. And then, and so my little I have a little chart that I use and, and it goes through sort of four areas and it's a circle and it starts with awareness. And it talks about being made aware by cultural guides. And then it talks about lament, which is both a very public and speaking truth to power about what's been done. And then the idea of reparations and before relationship because what happens with often with settler colonial folks is they build a relationship with indigenous people and then they never feel like they need to do reparations right. And so, and so this reparations is extremely important part this is the, the how Zacchaeus received salvation right. This is the healing that has to come to white folks as they begin to actually manifest what's happened. And then I talk about memorialization codifying the markers, recreating physical representations of what is actually happened and the healing that happened so that generations down the line can know hey this was the problem. And this is how our people came together and solved it. And so, I think what we have to do is just be sure to take this out of the abstract realm and make it real. That's my main encouragement is if you're a young activist and you're a person who talks about reconciliation that you no longer talk about it in an abstract way, but you think like if I'm going to talk about it what are we going to do about it. And Randy in his in that book, and that chapter actually is pretty much about the place where the university students they taught if they're going to have a problem they started to really voice it that because it was what Randy is doing in that book is challenging people to change. And at that point they're not thinking about what they can do to act but change is an action itself. So, to rethink the ways we have always thought things especially about our faith about our, our religion which is the more churchy sociological form of our faith. And this is our faith, you know those, those are big actions to begin to take. But Randy there talks about, he makes a comment that about placelessness. So this goes back to the learning from the land he says that if we are placeless, we will have a hard time embodying Shalom. Shalom can't be lived in the abstract it has to be lived out in practices things that we do and things that we make a shared regularized things that's what a practice means. So it goes beyond just being in action but it's something that becomes regular so Randy I really like that idea of not talking about reconciliation, unless we talk about reparation as well. I really think that the giving up of things, you know the giving up of privilege you know we talk a lot about the underprivileged or the disadvantage well that automatically means somebody else's got more advantages and more privileges. And so it really behooves me to ask, how do I give up some of that advantage how to give up some of that privilege. And that's really fundamental to the salvation process in our everyday lives not ultimate salvation that's kind of a different thing but you're really being faithful to the Jesus way is to share our privileges or advantages or gifts and all that kind of stuff. I guess I don't know if that answers the question. Go ahead Randy. Let me respond real quick there's a that that idea of change is there's a biblical word that this actually describes that but people don't understand it anymore. It's called repentance. Yeah. So, and repentance is what it's to turn the opposite direction to say that everything I've entangled myself in and all the systems and structures going this way which were wrong. I need to turn around and go the opposite in entangle myself in those systems that that move towards Shalom and move towards good. And in those ways as reparations and the scriptures very clear about it. There is no doubt scriptually that reparations as part of our lifestyle as Christian people as people who follow Jesus. Yeah, to write the wrongs can't just think the writing you have to do the writing. We've got a couple more minutes and we've got a couple questions up so I'm going to get into these here. I don't have time for all the questions but I do invite people to keep asking. So the first is from Justin Isinga, who identifies himself as a graduate student in theology at Canadian Mennonite University researching and he notes that Randy who's a delay you talked about giving land back as a practice that institutions can take as they learn to live in Shalom. And I, and Justin here asks do either of you have any practical steps that any institutions can take in this regard or their examples of how land can be returned with reciprocity and strong relationship at the center. Wow. How long do we have. We just have a couple minutes so if there's any kind of at least even just directing Justin and other listeners to some resources, but any any thoughts that you would want to share at this point. Randy. Yeah, well, there's there's in especially some of the mainline churches you got churches closing all over the place and people selling their buildings and, and to me the first thing that they should think of as justice to the people who's stolen land that they are on right, but in the minute I maybe not so many churches like that there's a lot of there's, there's really many, many a myriad of ways that people can create land returns and land uses and access to sacred land and places for homes and you know all kinds of things. But those there's no one prescription, I don't think that says ABCD, you have to work those things out on the journey toward reparations and reconciliation so that's the main thing is to find cultural guides that can help you walk through the process. So the final question, there's two questions where they point in the same direction from Darren Dirksen and James Crable they note the urban character of many, many nights and other anabaptists today and as James says, the vast majority of global anabaptists today live outside of your North American context and many if not most are in urban settings so how do you articulate the good news of Shalom. The people in Jakarta or Kinshasa or I'll say here in Elkhart, Indiana, we're cut off from the land and as James puts it cannot remember the last time they saw a beautiful sunset on the horizon. Okay, but the people aren't cut off from the land because they always live somewhere. So you always live in a place we don't again we don't live in the abstract we live somewhere so figuring out what's going on there what's what's the deal with the ecologies of Jakarta, both the social ecologies and the natural ecologies and the way those all interact I mean Jakarta. If I remember right is is is either sinking or the sea is rising or maybe there's a combination of both as the water percolates into the underlying ground so it's a capital of Indonesian it's about to move because the city is sinking into the ocean. So that's just an example. I actually wrote an article years and years ago but it's still online called remystifying the city to find wonder in the city and to recognize that, you know, the natural world that our fellow beings still exist in the city maybe not in the same ways but they still are there. I mean, a great, great sunsets when there's polluted air. There's so many things to do with urban based environmental education and and again if we take this combined socially ecological approach, then there's so much to do even in urban environment so yeah I just reacted really strongly I guess to that question. So, I think, again, there's a lot of creativity that can go into this and there's a lot of people models that are actually occurring, but I have to say I was in Elkhart, you know, a couple years ago for the rooted conference and I have a hard time comparing it with Jakarta and Shasa but but anyway you know to each their own but in Elkhart you have the Mary Lee Center out there if you need to get out there and connect you know that that's one way to do it you have cities only take up so much space. We build we need to rebuild our cities differently. This is something that's one of the most important things that we can begin to do and I always talked to young people about you know getting on your city council be a city planner being a city attorney. You know, you know, getting a place for a mayor of your city, so that you can make decisions to rebuild your city in a different way in a sustainable way and you can do sustainable cities. One of the examples of course that people always use is down in Brazil. Oh the name of the place I'm. It's slipping my mind right now but but there are models all over the place. There are people who do what they call gorilla gardening in cities. And of course all the cooperatives and rooftop stuff and so you have to get creative and there has to be work and you have to use empty city lots but you can build community and you can build healthy. And kind of get rid of food deserts and and build healthy living situations and start to move towards more shalom in cities although it does seem more difficult at first but people in cities tend to be tend to be really creative anyway so there are ways to do it. Since you both answer that question passionately. Nicely I'm going to ask this last question from Laura Rhodes. And she's saying, and thinking about learning to live with the land and sustainable and rooted ways that a body shalom do you have any thoughts for those of us who have a strong desire even seem to feel the spirit calling to leave our homeland and participate in a culture and far from our own, and thinking especially about the ecological ramifications of such travel, like with visits back to see home family as well as the colonialism privilege that seems to be inevitably embedded in white folks taking opportunities to go live in majority world countries so this is a question about mission and shalom cross cultural or intercultural mission and shalom. What would you have to say to that question. You can learn from other cultures and it's probably a good thing. You can also learn from the experiences of other people who have traveled or lived elsewhere, or people who have traveled to us we often see their immigrants. So, I mean, a big thing to do is to see that there are many ways of being human, and many ways of sharing many different forms of economics or politics or living with the land and so forth so these can be good things. But also may not be that necessary because you can do that all that kind of work where you live. So that might be mission also, and maybe even more important mission since the global north really uses the vast majority of the world's resources even though we're much smaller part of the population. Yeah, I would say, you know, if you have a virus, stay home. And if that virus is the Western world view and you're still working your way through decolonizing and all of that it's better not to spread that virus to other people. But there comes a point when you probably with enough humility can get out and begin to actually do some good. If you're ready to learn from others as much as you are to teach others and serve as much as you are to sort of take the pleasures of. And then I don't know if we're talking about short term mission or long term mission but you know there's there, there are things that need to be done and there's empowerment that needs to be made. But it, we really need to stop doing it from this sort of Western hegemonic worldview. It's a really rich conversation. And I agree with Steve, Steve Heinrich, who puts in the chat. If the two Randi's ever coach each of course I'm signing up. This has been super helpful. I agree I've been taking notes. There's just a lot that you have offered that I think we could talk about for hours and I'm really grateful for the two of you so thank you so much for joining us here. Yeah, I've enjoyed it very much. Thank you. Thank you, Randy for your wisdom and insight. Well, thank you for giving me excellent material to work with students with. So that is all the time we have for today, we will be posting the recording of this interview. So you'll be able to watch it later share with your friends, you can find that on our anabaptist witness social media accounts as well as on the events tab of our website. So please do share it. If you're interested in an about this witness again check out our social media we've got Facebook Twitter and Instagram accounts. And our website www.AnabaptistWitness.org. And that's where you'll find Randy Halooza delays article and the earlier interview with Randy Woodley that I mentioned before. So the Anabaptist witness is a project of an about this midnight biblical seminary midnight Central Committee midnight Church Canada and midnight Mission Network. And so thanks to those supporting institutions and a special thanks to my assistant Marcos at Costa, without whom we would not be able to do this he's the one who's handling the publicity, all the social media and all the technical aspects of pulling this webinar. And in fact, if you're interested in learning more about Marcos which I hope you are. You can hear him in conversation in our next webinar on March 11 with his father Louisa Costa, and they'll be actually talking with Linda Shelley from midnight Mission Network about work that Louisa Costa Linda Shelley and others were a part of in the Argentine Chaco, accompanying an indigenous local V community in land buyback. So this will be of interest to to many here it's interview will be in Spanish. So if you speak Spanish or want to test your Spanish abilities this will be a great chance to join in and participate in in our webinar series. So this is our final webinar series, webinar for this initial series in April on April the eighth, I believe, with the guest editors of our worship issue. Katie Graber and Annalie Leptison and so that'll be in English. So if you are looking for another English language opportunity to connect, please do so then. Thanks to Randy and Randy and to all of you for being here. We'll see you next time. Bye. Thanks everybody.