David: Without question, the greatest sadness in our lives was the passing of our youngest son who was in his early 40s.

Karen: Jeremy died from an aggressive form of lymphoma or cancer. He left behind a wonderful wife and three beautiful young children.

David: We’ll talk about what that was like and about another possible such death that hopefully can be averted.

Intro: Welcome to the Before We Go Podcast featuring Dr. David Mains and his wife, noted author Karen Mains. Here’s David and Karen Mains.

David: Life is a great gift that shouldn’t just be taken for granted. You never know because of an unprecedented pandemic or an accident all of a sudden or maybe just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. A life is snuffed out like that and there’s no way to bring it back.

Karen: Yeah, Jer, as I mentioned, was 42 years of age in the prime of his profession and life. And he was an immigration specialist. So our dialogue with him was always filled with information and insight about the immigration communities in America.

David: Yeah, he was excited. He had been accepted by the University of Chicago, which is a tough one to get into.

Karen: A tough school to get into for Bachelors or Masters. He was a wonderful artist, but very engaged with the people around him and was a great kid.

David: Because even extraordinary individuals can die prematurely. I think wise and loving people live with that possibility in mind.

Karen: You know, this hit me early because my father died when I was 33 years of age and then my mother died three years after dad had died. And so I’ve always taken that as a reminder that I’m not to take life for granted or that we will have a long life. I’m 77 now, so I’ve lived past the age of my parents. But particularly in relationship to you and our marriage, I think that their deaths had such an extraordinary impact that I wanted to make sure that our lives as a married couple were lived richly, that we really engaged and that I was part of that in the process of engagement with you in our work as a team and ministry and building our family and caring for other people. And I think that we have really done that not perfectly, but well. But it’s been because of that reality that there were no guarantees on tomorrow. And it wasn’t just an intellectual exercise with me. It was a deeply felt emotional reality as well.

David: Let’s say it hit me really hard. I’m a minister. I’ve seen a lot of deaths, been involved in the numbers of funerals, but it wasn’t until Jeremy died that it really smacked me hard. That life has no guarantees. Anyway, let’s make a transition. A fact that maybe not a lot of people think about is that nations also die. Maps get updated regularly. I say that quickly.

Then I say, well, can I give an example? I think the Crimea. Russia has come in taking that over in just the last several years. And now the whole area of is Ukraine. It’s going to have a different map, but that happens regularly. The map of the countries of the world say of 20 years ago is very different than the map that is presently there. America in my mind is going through a very stressful time. Some of that relates to leadership. The parties complain about one another, who the leaders are and so on. But it’s also Karen, this nation is going through a historic change. That’s a seismic size.

Karen: Yeah, and it’s a shift that is not talked about much in the media because they’re focusing on the obvious problems such as the pandemic. We’ve had what many people have called civil unrest with the demonstrations and some accompanying terrorism that went along with it.

David: Are you talking about systemic racism.

Karen: Systemic racism. A great conversation is systemic racism, but there’s another seismic shift that’s going on.

David: Well, let me see if I can describe it. When I was growing up, this country was predominantly, I’m trying to think how to say it was white and Christian. It’s no longer Christian, nearly to the degree that it was. This is a different world in that sense. And it’s also true that it’s going to be in another 20, 25 years not white anymore.

Karen: Not predominantly white anymore.

David: Yes. Thank you. That helps the way you said not predominantly white. So that is a massive change. And the new groups who are coming in, they want their share of freedom. They want their share of security. All those things which is a huge part of this.

Karen: But also political power. And that’s what we hear a great deal of today is vote. Vote. Vote. And a lot of voter registration going on and attempts to point out the places where there’s voter suppression.

David: Here’s one of the big facts of life. Those people who are the minority people for many, many years, they refer to this oftentimes, that you don’t get power just granted to you. You have to forcefully take it away.

Karen: Right. And I like Niebuhr’s work. He was a philosopher, a theologian. But a philosophical theologian. And in 1932, he wrote a book called Moral Man.

David: What’s his first name again?

Karen: It’s Reinhald Niebuhr. He wrote a book, Moral Man and Immoral Society, A Study in Ethics and Politics. Not much of this is beyond my kin. I have to read and reread a lot of the things he writes. But one of the points he made in this book particularly is people in power do not willingly, in fact, I think he would have said never willingly give up their grasp on power. So that when that power is evil or ill intent or there has to be kind of a benign power, there have to be sort of cataclysmic events and efforts of all kinds. And he defines them in this book that will unseat that power because this point is power once attained is not ever easily given out over. People who have power do not give up power easily.

David: Now that’s true of I don’t care who you are.

Karen: It doesn’t matter what. It can be a business or yeah, whatever.

David: Yeah, I’ve seen a lot of times with people who should have retired four or five years earlier than they did because they were eventually forced out.

Karen: Oh, there could be owners themselves. We have a lot of stories today in the tech community where someone got something going technologically wise and then couldn’t give it up for better leadership. They were great innovators, but they didn’t know how to organize or run an organization.

David: Yeah, I’ve seen that in situations with friends of mine. You know, it’s just kind of a pleasurable thing to have that power.

Karen: It’s part of our human nature. Yeah, it just is.

David: And this has created a huge tension within our land. And I think that we need to recognize that we are part of the white group that has no in these privileges for a long, long time. Okay, suggestions. What do we do when that tension comes and it’s very palpable and it’s difficult to try to live during those transition times? I’m almost embarrassed to say this. I have four suggestions.

Karen: These are four David Mains principles.

David: Yeah. Well, I tried to take them out of the scripture, but my feeling is that people are going to say, what in the world? That’s the most preacher-sounding suggestion list that I’ve ever heard.

Karen: Well, you’re a preacher. I guess that’s that’s going to follow.

David: What do we do in times like this? When there’s a power shift going on and it affects everything.

Karen: Yeah, let me name that power shift a little bit more. So we’re really aware of it. Those of us who are benefits of the we don’t think of ourselves this way at all, but we are benefits of dominant white structure that has controlled the economics in the country and the political systems and the money. So When that begins to shift and we’re watching it shift out right now and we can actually go back 10 or 20, 30 years and look at the women’s movement It first started out as, and it took I think it was like 100 years for women to get the right to vote. And in order to do that they sort of had to exclude the black women. I mean the white women achieved suffrage, but the black women didn’t have it. I mean, it’s just a really interesting study. And there’s been a lot written about it because we are at the 100th anniversary of women receiving the right to vote. So that was one movement in fairly recent past that we have been studied that we can sort of say, “Okay. Well, that’s how power that was vested basically in the hands of white males. Was shifted as women moved into a point where they began to share that privilege.” So what we have now is we have particularly over this summer with the black lives matters movement. Let’s put it in that terminology. But it is really wanting to share power, share a powered decision making, sharing national and a corporate…

David: A place at the table.

Karen: Thank you. That’s great. That’s a wonderful picture a place at the table. But what we’re experiencing now is much more subtle because we are shifting from as you have said from white dominant basically religious based Christian nation to one that is multi diverse in its racial makeup. Diverse in its color because of that. Diverse in its religious orientation and affiliation. In fact in some ways the migration of Mexican people particularly into America has renewed our religious spirituality because a predominant amount of them are Catholic, or they are of the Protestant group, but in a different way than you and I have.

David: Yes. Let me just say what happens in part of the turmoil here is that once the dominant group knows that it doesn’t have the numbers anymore, then in a democracy like this what they do, is to begin to restrict the voting rights of the people who are in the minorities. So that even though the power group doesn’t have the numbers they figure out how not to let other people vote. And we’re seeing that go on in some ways throughout the country. But all this is to say, I don’t want to sound like we’re partial in one way, I’m just trying to describe some of the angst that is going on.

Karen: Well, this has happened through the centuries for those who are aware of the shifting culture that we’re going through. We see reaction to that shifting culture. But probably and maybe not even articulated or known by those who are adamantly resisting that shift because this one is subtle. It’s more subtle than some other shifts would be that we’re having. A shift out of the white being the dominating power in our culture. Not there yet, but it’s shifting.

David: I want to go back to where we started. I want to say that not only can people die. Nations can die right. That’s just a distinct possibility. Things can turn chaotic. Things can turn violent. What can we do as believers in this time? Okay. Now I’m saying here. I’ve talked about a huge problem How do I get into simple answers? Okay?

Karen: I think what you have to say, David, is extraordinarily important. Extraordinarily important for christians to hear. To prayerfully grapple with.

David: Okay, I’ll get it out quickly because you’ve encouraged me. Okay. I’m almost hesitant to say it again because this is the first thing. Number one: I think we should live righteously. Now I’m almost hearing the response of people. What did he just say?

Karen: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

David: To live righteously. Here’s my point. Righteousness exalts the nations. Sin is a reproach to any person. That’s from the Proverbs. But I’m going back further than I’m going way back to the book of Genesis with the story of Abraham who’s had it revealed to him by God that the city of Sodom is going to be destroyed. He’s concerned because he has a relative. Lot is living in Sodom. And Abraham begins to wrestle with God and he says, you know what? This is not fair. There’re some righteous people there You can’t destroy the righteous with the ungodly What if we could find 50 people who are righteous in Sodom? And God says, okay, if you can find 50.

Karen: Do you have any idea how large the population of Sodom was? We don’t really know do we? Say thousands at least.

David: Then abraham begins the negotiating in prayer. He said what about five less? 45? Okay says God. What about 40? And then he goes down by tens after a while and he gets it down to “if there would be 10 righteous people.” God says he will preserve the city. But they couldn’t find 10. You know 10 were not there and sodom is destroyed. The righteous just get out in time. You know, they’re digging out. But I look at all that’s going on in that story and i’m thinking it’s very important for me, and for you, and for all who bear the name of jesus to live righteously because I think nations are destroyed. All through history, you go in the bible, if you read the whole of the northern kingdom, it’s gone. You know, people talk about the lost tribes of israel. Those 10 lost tribes. They’re lost. Why? Because the nation fell.

It’s not that long afterward that Judah, the southern kingdom, falls conquered by Babylon. It’s not all that long and Babylon is gone. And the persians who take over from the Babylonians, they’re gone. You know, this is the story of the world. So in that time, today in my life, I say, why do I sin? I’m not perfect. I got all kinds of flaws. But I live, not perfectly, but I do live righteously. And part of the reason I live righteously is because I want to be one of those who God can find when he looks at the nation and he says, “Do I show favor to these people?” If there can be this many righteous found in as nation of hundreds, you know, of millions of people. I feel that’s important.

Karen: So what we’re saying to the folks listening to us who are believing and practicing Christians is that this may be confusing times but in God’s eyes you have a crucial role to play.

David: Yeah Jesus says you are the salt of the earth. If the salt has lost its savor wherewith will the earth be salted? It sound like King James, not only preachers but King James preachers. But these are important things. And for me it’s not just a personal matter but it’s a matter in terms of even my role as a citizen in America. I want to be a righteous person. Lots of times I say I’m not going to do that. I’m not going to talk that way. I’m not going to think that way. I’m not going to get into even verbal violence.

Why? Because it’s important that there be righteous people who live in the way God wants us to live in this land. And we are the preserving element in terms of society.

Karen: There’s this wonderful concept called positive deviancy and when I was working on the board of an international faith-based development organization.

David: Go back and see what that was again.

Karen: It’s positive deviancy. They are positive deviance.

David: So they’re not like other people? Is that what you’re saying?

Karen: I tell you a story. There was this little village I might have been Southeast Asia or maybe in South America, I can’t remember, where there was a common pot of food that the women would prepare and then the whole village would eat out of that common pot of food. And the village was very malnourished but particularly the children their growth was stunted. They were skinny like you see malnourished children and their height that health workers measured their height than the span of their upper arm. You can tell right away how malnourished they are by those two measurements. Their height indicated malnourishment but there were a few children who were healthy and thriving. Same village, same pot of food. Then NGO workers, those are non-government organizational workers just couldn’t explain it. Because they’d seen it so much, they were not positive deviants. They didn’t come in with an outsider’s eye.

And there happened to be someone traveling with them. I think it was someone studying malnutrition who looked at these children who were healthy and thriving in this village and said well something is causing this. Let’s figure out what it was. So they watched the mothers feeding their children out of the common pot and so everyone was getting the same food except here are these children also being fed out of the pot who are thriving. When the outsider looked at the situation he or she saw that the mothers whose children were thriving dipped their ladle into the bottom of the pot and scooped up the vegetables that had fallen to the bottom of the pot. So the children weren’t just receiving the broth off the top of the pot. So there are two examples of positive deviancy there. It was the outsider who was looking at it whose eyes had not become so familiarized with poverty that person couldn’t see what was happening.

And then there were the mothers who had the instinct to give their children not just save that food, for the workers for the men who were doing hard work but they had the instinct to dip off the bottom so that their children had more substance in their food. So we have positive deviancy in both of those areas. I think in our culture we need to think about righteousness as being a positive deviancy.

David: I like that very much.

Karen: A positive deviancy. And so what we need to do is to really act out the two great parameters they define who Christians are. Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. Do we do that?

David: For the sake of the nation.

Karen: For the sake of the nation. Do we do that? Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbors as yourself. As yourself. And so we get out of that then, you know, treat others as you would have them treat you the golden rule. This is imperative understanding. This has to be actualized understanding. It has to not only capture thinking with a verbal and intellectual ascent but with a passionate participation in it. I will be a positive deviant in my culture. How is the culture going? And what is the scripture way of being? I’m going to choose the scripture way every single time I can.

David: I’m going to live righteously. Tell me that phrase again.

Karen: Positively deviant. I have friends who just have picked that up like crazy going around doing their home. I’m a positive deviant.

David: Okay, well we got one. Here’s my second one.

Karen: Okay, good job. That was great.

David: I have four of these. We pray passionately. I think by the word passionately I’m almost saying it’s not enough just to pray by yourself. This is a day when we need to learn to pray with one another.

Karen: And regularity. There has to be a regularity not just a one time.

David: Yeah. And it just that as soon as you say pray passionately that’s hard to do and sustain it just by yourself. You know I’m a minister so ministers should pray a lot and I do pray a lot. I have two extended prayer times every day. If I miss it’s not as though the world has fallen apart. But I don’t get into that passion like I do when I pray with others. I have a group I pray with every week and we pray for the nation. Have cried over the nation. And say Lord preserve this nation. It’s a unique place.

Karen: Been in the room. We’ve had the prayer group on speaker. I have to come in and put a paper in your desk or pick something. I’ve heard those people weeping their tears. I mean it just is so touching and so moving to hear Christians who are praying passionately who get deep down into the emotional meaning of what they’re saying. And I think God gives them that gift of tears.

David: You understand all of a sudden you have a relationship with someone else that goes very deep not only as your friendship but into the whole history of the cause of God. From the beginning of the world we’re the people who have strong feelings about this. And we encourage one another. Live righteously. That’s important. During times of turmoil. Pray passionately. Next one is to vote intelligently. I’ve talked with people you know you’re gonna vote. I may I may not. You know you have to. And people say I don’t like either side. Right. You know that’s not your option.

Karen: So how do we help them. I think that you say what’s not just a vote. It’s an act of righteousness. Can we say that.

David: I would say you don’t have an opportunity in this kind of a day to refrain from voting. You are a participant. And the truth is you’re never going to find the perfect candidate. And if you do they’re going to be people whom you don’t like anyway. You know so look at it. Don’t just vote rather to vote but vote intelligently. You say of these options this is the one that I think is the best option.

Karen: Yeah. I’d like to lift this act above just being a civic duty. I think that we live in America and we take for granted the great benefits this country offers to us. And we’re in a season of very negative discourse. But you talk to the internationals who come to this country or want to come to this country. And it’s a totally different story. Our son and law and daughter Doug and Melissa Timberlake are teaching English through a program called I Talky. So they are to giving English lessons to people from all around the world. It’s the most darling thing I’ve ever heard. When they talk about the people they’ve talked with. So they have young kids. They have students and they have professionals that they’re talking with. Every single one of them amires America.

David: Yeah they’re free to live here.

Karen: That’s why we have such an immigrant population. And I remember when I was doing the book on the refugees when I would ask people who had come over the border been taken out of the South China Sea because their boats have sunk. Why have you come and all they have is a little bag in their hand. You know for corner time. That’s all of their possessions. They’ve left everything history, family, country, all the familiarity their language. Why have you come? To be free. To be free. So let us as Americans step up to vote even in an imperfect system because that’s what we’re voting for really. We are voting to be free and to offer that freedom who come here to this country.

David: Let’s add one more. Ok. I am doing relatively well on the first three this next one. I’m not doing that so well.

Karen: Not so well. Tell us what it is.

David: Yeah. Fast occasionally. I don’t like to fast. And I don’t even pretend that I’ve done it nearly as much as I should. But when you come to critical times that’s one of the areas where you say, “Ok, this is where there is great meaning.” I’m thinking of again a biblical illustration of this the story of Esther in the Old Testament where a whole nation is in danger of being eradicated. Esther in God’s providence has been put into a high level situation as the bride of the king. Nobody can go in and talk with him unless he holds out the scepter. But now the Jews are in real trouble. Is there a very existence going to be taken away. Esther has been told she’s supposed to go in. But she says to Mordecai who is her uncle. You know I can’t do that unless he puts out the scepter. So here’s what I want you to do. I want you to gather together all the Jews who are in Sousa and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days night or day. And I and my maids will fast as you do. And when that is done I will go to the king even though it is against the law and if I perish I perish. But she’s saying okay we’re at the end of things now. It all rides on this. I need you to call a fast and we’ll join with you in the fast. And they fast for three days. And of course you know the rest of the story. There’s a huge time of victory when God in his providence just sets up one thing after another and the whole situation is reversed and the Jews are put on top.

But I think we’re at a place where in the church it’s going to be the need to call for fasting. Fasting and prayer for this land because the land is in trouble. I hear it all the time. And the strange thing is I hear it from supporters of one political party and I hear it from supporters of the other political party.

Karen: We all recognize this common truth.

David: Yeah. So now the question is where do we go? And I think it’s a time for you know in East Tennessee there were these marvelous times of a moving of the Holy Spirit recently. It hasn’t gotten the press as much as other stories.

Karen: This is a movement of God in our current history.

David: Yes and part of that is because the people were fasting. They were fasting and praying. I think in terms of my life if I look at the simple things that I’m saying here’s what we could do. This is a time when the Lord is saying to me David you need to take it a step further. You need to start fasting. Especially in these times until there’s some kind of a resolution to this struggle that we’re going to. Too simple all of this?

Karen: No. I think it’s complex. Not that it can’t be understood but there aren’t simple answers. Let’s put it that way. They’re not simple answers. This is going to require focused attention. We’re going to have to wake up every morning and saying what is the role I’m supposed to be playing in the preservation of the best ideals of American democracy.

David: Yeah. Let me see if I can put it into a sentence. Because extraordinary nations can die before their time, wise and loving people do all they can to see that this doesn’t happen. It would be an absolute tragedy beyond anything you can imagine for this country to fall. Because of outside nations against us or because internally we just were so divisive that we couldn’t pull it together and we destroyed each other. So just like our son could die, an extraordinary young man. So again here’s that sentence because extraordinary nations can die before their time. Wise and loving people do all they can to see that this doesn’t happen. And basically what I’ve said is can I get those four simple suggestions? Live righteously.

Karen: So we’re asking our listeners to examine and say how am I living righteously and what do I need to change so I can say I’m living righteously.

David: Yeah. Pray passionately.

Karen: So am I praying passionately? Do I pray? Do I give myself to substantive amounts of time in prayer? If not, then how do I begin to change that?

David: Yeah. Vote intelligently.

Karen: Right. If I’ve done the research, I mean it’s easy just to read one side that you agree with. But do I understand why other people feel the other way? Am I voting intelligently? Am I making that decision to inform myself and educate myself?

David: Yeah. Fast occasionally.

Karen: I can’t fast.

David: Well, I’m saying, yeah, you’ve lost all the way.

Karen: I’m so underweight. Coming from a couple of days in the hospital. Couldn’t even find a place to give me a needle shot for pockets of fat in my body. But I can fast in other ways. I can find other ways to manage.

David: That’s exactly what I was going to say. Yeah. I hope this is helpful. Yeah. It’s always good to visit with your friend. Thank you for taking the time to listen to what we have to say.

Outgo: You’ve been listening to the Before We Go podcast. And if you would like to write to us, please send us an email at the following address: hosts@beforewego.show. That’s all lowercase letters. hosts@beforewego.show. If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please remember to rate, review, and share on whatever platform you listen. This podcast is copyright 2020 by Mainstay Ministries, Post Office Box 30, Wheaton Illinois 60187.