EPISODE 77

rules vs. relationship

Alpha Reverence

ALPHA SHOT: One-minute Sample

PLAY FULL EPISODE HERE

Platforms

Click your podcast platform below or listen to the embedded file on this page.

077:

RULES VS. RELATIONSHIP

Alpha Reverence

The 18th century philosopher Immanuel Kant asked these questions: (1) What can I know? (2) What ought I to do? (3) What may I hope for? (4) What is man? These are the basic questions of philosophy.  The root of the word PSYCHOLOGY is  psyche, which is Greek for spirit or soul. An evolved man is many things, he is tender and he is tough. He is humble and he is confident.  He is grateful for what is and yet still constantly seeking.  Today we discuss REVERENCE. This is about deep respect.  This is about respect for life, respect for others, and has to do with the connections we can improve with a higher power, with other people, and even to the natural world. Reverence is about RECOGNITION of the purpose of life, the sanctity of life, the significance of life and it includes spirituality but not necessarily traditional religion. 

Questions answered in this episode:

  • What makes it so tough for men to have their connection with a higher power?
  • Is there any obligation following belief?
  • What is religious practice do you do that does help you find that connection to your higher power?

Topics discussed:

Reasons why men find it difficult to connect with a higher power:

  • Sometimes people find it difficult to have any concept of a higher power because they come from dysfunctional backgrounds such as having horrible, abusive, and distant fathers.
  • Some religious models have unhealthy perspectives. They do things to an extreme which is opposite to the biblical perspective of God wanting to have a balance.
  • When a person prays for something that didn’t happen, they don’t have the understanding of the purpose of prayer and that God is not a Santa Claus.
  • It all comes down to readiness of being connected to a higher power because nobody is going to be able to make you do it.

The obligation following a belief:

  • Find beliefs, systems, structures that work then study those and apply discipline towards them. It’s beneficial to people.
  • If religion is a vehicle that works for a particular man, apply with caution and be thoughtfully aware of how much influence it has on you.

Religious practice that can help men find the connection to a higher power:

  • Service (voluntary)
  • Offering
  • Efforts and Time
  • Giving and Sharing
  • Teaching the Fellowshippers

ATHEIST / AGNOSTIC

How can a person like that explore spirituality? How can a person not interested in the traditional view of God improve their spiritual life?

  • It depends on what they are trying to achieve.
  • You have a decision to make in improving your spiritual life.
  • It can also start on sublime experiences.

Final words, when it comes to a man trying to mend a relationship with God:

  • One of the things that God says is that if you seek me, you’ll find me. And if you want to find God, the first thing you do is look, and I think you can look in creation. Just like in Google, whatever you’re searching for in life, you’re going to find it.
  • We start with the rules, but eventually, in spirituality, things have to move beyond that.
  • There’s gotta be more to life than just me, even if it’s just others. We connect to God through relationships with others as well, because if he’s truly created everybody and we’re created in his image, then we can see him in other people. 

    Relevant Links:

    https://alphaquorum.com/
    https://tacomoto.co/
    https://bradsingletary.com

    FULL TRANSCRIPT

    Brad Singletary (00:00:00):
    The 18th century philosopher, Immanuel Kant asked these four questions. What can I know? What should I do? What may I hope for, and what is man? The root of the word psychology is psyche, which is Greek for spirit or soul. An evolved man is many things; he is tender and he is tough. He is humble and he is confident. He’s grateful for what he has and yet still constantly seeking today. We discuss reverence. Reverence is about deep respect. This is about respect for life, respect for others, and has to do with the connections that we can improve with a higher power, with other people, and even to the natural world. Reverence is about recognition of the purpose of life, the sanctity of life, the significance of life, and it includes spirituality, but not necessarily traditional religion.

    Speaker 2 (00:01:08):
    If you’re a man that controls his own destiny, a man that is always in the pursuit of being better. You are in the right place. You are responsible, you are strong, you are a leader. You are a force for good. Gentlemen, you are the alpha, and this is the alpha quorum.

    Brad Singletary (00:01:33):
    Welcome back to the alpha quorum show. Brad Singletary here, you guys I’m so excited. Number one, this is our 77th episode! It’s been such a such an amazing, awesome journey. I think what we’re doing here is very meaningful and I get feedback all the time about how men and even their loved ones, 20% of our listeners are female, but I get feedback all the time about how they are stronger because of what we’re doing. Today, we’re going to continue the series on the red nine. We’re talking about reverence. I’m here with my buddy Taco Mike.

    Taco Mike (00:02:04):
    Hello!

    Brad Singletary (00:02:04):
    And we have a guest that I’d like to introduce. He is the founding pastor of discovery church and has been in ministry since 1983. He’s a graduate of Bethany university and Santa Clara university. He has a master’s degree in counseling and psychology and is an ordained minister with the assemblies of God. He’s also a licensed marriage and family therapist in California and Nevada and a national certified counselor. He’s worked for a variety of ministry and therapy settings. He’s been a youth and children’s pastor a singles pastor and started a counseling center in Las Vegas that included several therapists and became an internship site for UNLV students in the therapy field. He has worked in a psychiatric hospital for adolescents and children worked in a church counseling center and taught at three different universities.

    Brad Singletary (00:02:59):
    He supervised students in university counseling centers as well. He is an AAMFT approved supervisor and supervises, Marriage and Family Therapy and Clinical Professional Counselor Intern. He volunteers at the, as the lead police chaplain for the Las Vegas metropolitan police department and works primarily out of the Northeast area command. His wife. Jenell is an analyst with Las Vegas Metro police department, and they have two adult daughters and three grandchildren. Dean and Jenell had been married for 37 years in his spare time. Dean loves to golf and fish. Welcome everyone to Dean Sanner. Thanks for being here, brother.

    Dean Sanner (00:03:41):
    My pleasure. Pleasure.

    Brad Singletary (00:03:42):
    I think we’ve been working on this for like a year to try to get you in. You’re a busy man for a while. Yeah. So 1983, you were a pastor. I was eight years old. I think that you’ve been a, you’ve been pretty busy for some time and, and I think this is also good news for Mike for once. He’s not the oldest guy in the room. I’m pretty sure.

    Taco Mike (00:04:06):
    I don’t know. Pretty close. Maybe. Dean, that’s a hell of a CV. Um, can you believe you’ve done all that stuff?

    Dean Sanner (00:04:07):
    I can’t, I’m sitting there listening to it and going, oh my gosh, it makes you sound old.

    Brad Singletary (00:04:12):
    And Dean, I got to apologize if, if throughout this, if I call you Dave, I, I don’t, I think you look like Dave Ramsey. And so if I, if I say Dave, all right, so tonight we’re talking about reverence, you know, we’ve talked about so many things about what it means to be an alpha and of course we are not talking about the traditional worldly, you know, the animal kingdom alpha, where you’re just out there spreading your seed and, you know, showing off your six pack abs, we’re talking about being the highest version of you in bringing forth the best that is within you. And I don’t think that you can do those things without taking care of your spirit. You may be going to the gym. You may have tons of money. You may be successful in many areas of your life, but if there is no regard for what is within you, I don’t know that we can really fully become all that that we’re meant to be. So I want to start with, I guess, the big topic and that is about a higher power. I have a higher power. I’ve had a love-hate relationship with him, honestly. And I feel like I’m in a pretty good place with that right now. It’s been a little bit up and down. Maybe we’ll get into some of that later about why, but let me just throw out the question. First of all, you guys, why do we need a power greater than ourselves?

    Dean Sanner (00:05:33):
    Well, I guess if I was going to answer that, one of the things that I would throw out there is that if we had everything together, if we have life under control, if we ourselves are independent and fully capable of managing everything we face, some might say, well, I don’t really need a higher power then I know myself. I’m not capable of doing that. I’ve got a lot of flaws. The CV made it sound good, but not as good as I sound on paper.

    Brad Singletary (00:06:10):
    All right. So we, we may tend to think we don’t need that if everything’s going well, maybe we humble ourselves a little bit when they aren’t going well, I know that’s been true for me when I had a kidney stone. I never prayed harder either. That’s like that will, that, that will bring you to your knees for real. Mike, what are your thoughts about the need for a higher power?

    Taco Mike (00:06:34):
    I am a jerk. I will all, I continually work to replace God with myself. I think I can do a better job than a creator. And so I want to, my natural default state is to try to run my own affairs and to, to be the God of my own little head in my own little universe. And when that, when I’m in that state, I am the kind of person that nobody wants to be around and I can look back at my life and see that the greatest deepest mistakes and tragedies that I have created my own hand have come from me being in that head space. So I have a life lived. I have lived life experience now that I can see very dramatically, a black side of me and a white side of me, or a light and a shadow side of me and the shadow side wants to gravitate towards extreme ego selfishness at the highest possible level.

    Taco Mike (00:07:32):
    And then the light side of me wants to gravitate outside of myself and then to something else. And for me, investing that energy into a air quote, higher power, God deity, Buddha, whatever it is that you know, I think one of the things that I think is good to in this conversation is we, we may be approaching this topic from our own particular spiritual or religious context, but our audience may also have their own with their own vocabulary. So I may use the word God, and you can just insert some other word there. Higher power is a real good generic term. The universe, you know, there’s a lot of ways to do this. I think it’s a human it’s, it’s a through line of humanity throughout all time to come up with a higher power and then seek that connection to that. So I’m clicked into that too. And I’m tapped into that and I’m a different person. When I live my life outside of my own head space, aimed at a higher power.

    Brad Singletary (00:08:34):
    What makes it so difficult for people? You know, some of our audience are believers in the traditional kind of thoughts about a higher power or some deity, but for those who just struggle with it, what do you, what do you see? I mean, maybe even a Dean, should I call you Reverend or no? No, no. All right. I didn’t mention that in the introduction Reverend Dean Sanner. So, you know, you may even have parishioners or members of your congregation who tend, and there are there and they show up and they sing the songs and they participate, but still may struggle in their connection to God or a higher power. What makes it so tough for men?

    Dean Sanner (00:09:15):
    Well, I think there’s a lot of things. And I think Mike tapped into one and that is that our own ego says, Hey, I can handle it. I can take care of it. I’ll be God. And so we replace God with us as long as things are going great. And then when we get the kidney stone, when our kid gets sick, when our marriage is on the rocks, that’s when we start looking for something outside of ourselves, because quite frankly, we can’t control the world. And when you can’t control everything, you start losing. And when you get out of control, you reach to attempt to gain some control. And so I think part of what men do, men by nature, you know, name of this thing is alpha. You know, want to be in control, want to be in charge, want to run things.

    Dean Sanner (00:09:58):
    And a lot of the guys that I deal with, that’s what they want to do. And my work with the police officers are that way. In fact, their job is to be in control when they go on a scene and then when they go home, what do they want? They don’t want to be, have any control. They want to crash. They want to let that thing go. But when you talk about traditional, you know, traditional church type settings, yeah. There’s people in my church that, you know, come participate, et cetera. Most of them know they don’t have it together. That’s why they’re there. They’ve been able to acknowledge the fact that they don’t have that control and they submit that to God or God is they, they know him, but the struggles come in a variety of ways. People that come from dysfunctional backgrounds, people who’ve had horrible fathers, abusive fathers people have had distant fathers. There’s a whole variety of different ways and different filters through which we quote unquote, see God. And most often, you know, we tend to create God in our own image.

    Brad Singletary (00:11:01):
    Interesting.

    Dean Sanner (00:11:02):
    Instead of allowing us to see God, the way he tells us who he is, and sometimes that creates problems.

    Brad Singletary (00:11:12):
    It’s interesting. You mentioned about not having a good relationship with a dad. I found, I guess just kind of informally had done my own little survey in my head over the last 20 years or so when I’m talking to people about this, it seems like one common denominator. One common situation is that a man who struggles with a belief in a higher power did not have the masculine role model in his life. We were talking about, you know, in the Judeo-Christian sense of father in heaven, so to speak. And they don’t even know what it’s like to have a father right here in this place, or that was an unhealthy dynamic in some to some degree. So yeah, we’re talking about now, we’re this invisible father who lives in the sky, right? That’s, that’s difficult for some guys to really have any concept of if they haven’t had healthy modeling from, from male role models what are the things make it difficult? Maybe people were raised in some faith tradition and they they’ve been around it. They’ve had the, they went to Sunday school and they had some foundational things that were shared. Where do they lose it? Where do they lose the connection to that?

    Dean Sanner (00:12:24):
    Well, I think there’s probably a lot of ways you can lose it. You know? I mean, if you look at the prodigal son, people want to go out and do their own thing, and everybody wants to do their own thing. I don’t care who you are. I don’t care if you come from a religious background or not. You kind of want to say, Hey, I can do this thing. Now you’re 18. I can do what I want. I can drink. Now I can gamble. I can, you know, I can whatever. And I’m going to show you that I can handle this and it’s fine until you can’t handle it. But

    Brad Singletary (00:12:53):
    I think been there, I’ve done that stuff.

    Dean Sanner (00:12:57):
    I think, I think from my perspective and a lot of what I’ve seen has to do with extremes, when you get anything to an extreme, whether it’s religion to an extreme or non-religion to an extreme, any extreme seems to be hazardous. And even from a biblical perspective, God wants to have balance. Balance is healthy, extreme is unhealthy. So when you go to any extreme brings unhealthiness, unfortunately some religious models have that. They have the extreme side and it, most of it’s law based, right. Got to do this. It’s the rules. You got to go here, you gotta do this. You got to do that. And when that starts happening, now you go back to, you know, the people that Jesus had, the biggest problem with who were the Pharisees, the religious leaders, why? Because they were putting all these laws and regulations and rules on people. And then that’s where Jesus came into the picture was to say, Hey, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, I’ve come to give you life and give it more abundantly. Come to me, all you who are weary and I’m going to give you rest. And the weariness was from all these rules and regulations that people couldn’t live up to. And quite frankly, there’s a lot out there that we can’t live up to today.

    Brad Singletary (00:14:11):
    You know, that’s so interesting. I, and I, and I’m curious your thoughts on this too. But when I, when I have had difficulties, I said, I had a love-hate relationship with God. What I really have had a love-hate relationship with, with his religion. And I realized, honestly, this has only been in the past year, that where I struggled was that I was worshiping religion instead of worshiping God and I, and it, and they were just, they almost seemed synonymous that, well, this is, this is the vehicle to get me there. And so this must be, it must be the same thing. I’ve been trying to change that for myself. I still use religious practice as a method to connect, but curious your thoughts on, you know, the demands on people, Mike, the, you know, people are turned away. They were raised in some form of, of a religious type of group. And then they’re associating a bunch of demands with their connection to a higher power. They’re maybe they’re separate and very separate, but what have you seen as you worked with guys about that being stuck in that way?

    Taco Mike (00:15:17):
    Well, so I think the good pastor here just completely, I feel like you and I have had a hundred conversations where I’ve said the exact same thing, and I’m on record on this podcast, on this show, having really said very similar things to what we just heard and that, and that is a, that was a personal experience of mine, where I created a God in my image, in my own image, because, well, firstly, I wanted to replace God as often as I could. I only used him or went to him when I realized I was a stupid, simple, foolish child and could not wipe my own butt. And so I needed him to come do that for me. But as soon as my pants were on, then I was a, I was a scream. I was a, I was a loose baby wrecking my own habit until it was too much.

    Taco Mike (00:16:11):
    And then I cried again, desperate again. Yes. So I had this relationship with deity that was this push pull, go away, come here, go away, come here. This just really schizophrenic relationship. Okay. The other thing I did, so there’s that that’s a piece of data. Then another thing that happened was I, I was invested in a religious model Mormonism where that is a street. That’s a system, as all systems are now, let me be, let me just throw something here that’s that I think is worth noting. You can be in a family and that is a system and a, any church is a system and a school is a system and your job, your career, your company, the government everywhere, every time two people get together and have an idea about how to do a thing. They create a system and a hierarchy and complexities.

    Taco Mike (00:17:03):
    And then there are, there are that it’s off the rails. Whenever two people get together and say, oh, we should do a thing. It’s broken, it’s bad and it’s broken and it’s flawed. And there’s only some slight glimpses of greatness and true purpose. But for the most part, I don’t want to what percentage to assign to it. But for the most part, a lot of it is just garbage and nonsense and stupidity and off the original intent and the original focus of what it was trying to do. It goes, it goes out in the weeds and my religious community is such that it rewards performance and conformity. And it, it praises people who have enough serotonin in them to sit in the chair and do what you’re told and smile and sing and be polite and color in the lines. It rewards those people. And, and, and if you me, if I went, I couldn’t do that.

    Taco Mike (00:18:11):
    Then I would flip over to this. Well, then it’s all for you. You know, the Pharisees lived 633, 600 to 633 rules, right? The Levitical order was like 663 or 33. Somebody correct us in the, in the comments later, laws. Well, I would become very fatalistic. And when I broke, I just made up an arbitrary number in Mormonism. There’s you know what, X number of laws, we have X number of standards. And when I personally felt like, well, I’ve, I’ve broken X percentage that just F the whole thing, Chuck it all. And then I would do this really big swing saw back and forth, back and forth. I would try, try, try really hard to get God to love me again cause I just screwed up all this other stuff. And then I would try to earn it, earn my place back. And then I would just I’d know, I couldn’t make it.

    Taco Mike (00:19:02):
    I couldn’t do it. And I, so I was worshiping at the throne of religion, believing that it was religion, that would bring me to God, that would bring me peace, that it was my observance of religion and practice of religion that would get God to love me. And the most beautiful thing that is that happened in my religious career was to be disfellowshipped from it to have, I was sat at my own and this, I have no animosity towards this happening. I, in fact, this was the best thing that could have happened to me. I’m so happy this happened. And I’m so grateful for the people who were involved and that it did happen. I have the highest of thanks and regard and praise that it happened. What it did was it broke the unhealthy attachment that I had between my higher power and this earthly construct it smashed it apart.

    Taco Mike (00:19:58):
    It broke it because I had created a link that shouldn’t have ever existed. I morphed God into this human system and I polluted and corrupted a relationship that I could have had with him with this weird Morphy thing. And by getting disfellowshipped, it was the most brilliant thing that ever happened because then I could just say, oh, I don’t want to, I just closed the book of religion and opened the book of heaven of spirit of connection. And it’s been the most beautiful part of my, my spiritual sanity is now based on only pure connection to Kevin and the rest of it. And I’m a practicing Mormon, but it is only like I’m wearing these pants. And I have on this shirt, that is to say, it’s just, and people could maybe recognize you. Maybe you wear a lot of shirts like that. Maybe you wear a lot of golf shirts and then a lot of blue jeans and some of the well, that’s kind of his thing.

    Taco Mike (00:21:05):
    That’s his look. And so I look at the practice of my religion as if it’s like, this is sort of, you know, I always wear these shoes or shoes like this, and I wear pants like this. It’s just sort of a part dial. That’s part of my style. It’s sort of like my jam. It’s like who I am, but these clothes don’t make me who I am. Right. They don’t define who I am. And there is no, there is no eternal significance to whether I wore these pants or another pair of pants. What matters is who I am underneath these clothes. It’s a weird analogy. Take them off

    Brad Singletary (00:21:41):
    Those shows. We don’t need to see,

    Taco Mike (00:21:43):
    It’s a weird analogy, but who I am is who I am irrespective of the pants and the shirt, but the pants and the shirt do that is symbolic of who I am. I don’t wear leather jackets with spikes on them because that sends a message that that’s you know, do you just follow it?

    Brad Singletary (00:21:58):
    It’s a uniform,

    Taco Mike (00:21:59):
    It’s a uniform. Or it’s sort of projecting who I am as a person. That’s not who I am. And so that’s not how I dress. So for me, my, the practices in my religion, they do define me and they do shape me, but they don’t. I am firstly, connected to God. And then secondly, connected to a religion and only one of those anchors me. The other just helps me navigate my way through this life.

    Dean Sanner (00:22:29):
    That’s a powerful, that’s a powerful story right there.

    Brad Singletary (00:22:31):
    Dude, you got some feelings about that. Share them with us. I know that Mike’s been on this real journey. Had a similar experience. I was ex-communicated from the same church and I was, I was not bitter and angry, but I, but I kind of became that probably because I went, like you said, the other direction completely. I had a client the other day who talked about her sister had done some shady thing to her. She said, I’m going to kill her. And it hit me that day. Just last week. It hit me that, that’s what I thought I was doing. I had, I had some really unfair things happen in my life, in a, in a marriage, my first marriage. And, and I felt like, okay, so I was angry at God because I thought I was in the right place and why should the rain fall on me? And it did. And I think I was, I kind of had the attitude like this client, I’m going to kill you. It’s like I had the, I’m going to, I’m going to do everything you told me not to do. I’m going to go. I’m going to go down every path you told me not to do because I’m mad at you because you let this thing happen to me. And this has been 10, 11 years that I’ve been kind of working myself through that. And so that’s why this topic, we’ve, this is probably maybe the fourth time we’ve discussed reverence. And I feel like this is, I’m just now only now ready, really ready for this conversation because I’ve got my heart in a better place. But other reasons that men find this difficult Dean, what do you see? I mean somebody, you know, they prayed for something and it didn’t come true there can’t believe there was a flood, you know, and Noah and the animals. I mean like this is some, these are some colorful stories and things.

    Dean Sanner (00:24:17):
    They are no doubt. And there’s basically a lot. There’s a ton of reasons that we can have why we might not believe in God. And the whole idea of when I prayed for something and it didn’t happen. Understanding the purpose of prayer. God’s not a Santa Claus. So basically the bottom line is a lot of people they’ll get taught. Well, you just pray to God when you need something. Well, that’s only one piece of prayer. Yeah. God tells us to ask him for things because he wants to be in a relationship with us. And, and what, what you were talking about Mike was the whole idea of the difference between religion and relationship and religion is man’s attempt to find God relationship is the fact that God has found us. And when we’re trying to create constructs and I’m a believer in the church, see, I think the, I think God created the church.

    Dean Sanner (00:25:17):
    In fact, if he wouldn’t have created the church, it wouldn’t exist because man is so horrible at running things. It would have died by now. It’s bad enough. And in fact, what they’ve said about my organization I belong to the assemblies of God, is that I heard this one professor I had in, in Bible college, he basically said yeah, he says the assemblies of God. How did he, it, it’s a, it’s kind of like Noah’s Ark. It’s really stinky. That’s the best thing a float. That’s a good one. And and all of them, you can say that about any of them and, and, and vehicles are one thing. But here’s the problem. When we begin to say, and you alluded to this, worshiping the church, when you start doing that, now you’ve come away from relationship. God wants relationship.

    Dean Sanner (00:26:11):
    And what Mike talked about earlier was what king David said, man, looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart. And that’s what God’s looking at. He’s looking at the heart, but what do we do? We create these things on the outside, these boxes we can check off. And when we do guess who feels good about it? We do. That isn’t what God feels good about. Yeah. He’s fine with behaviors, et cetera. But when it starts turning into all these things are saying, Hey, I’ve got to conform to this. I think all men rebel against that. And you’re not going to tell me what to do. I’m in charge. I’m a leader here. I’m running the program, not you. So I think the tension between, okay, where are the parameters in a relationship with God? How much freedom and autonomy do we have?

    Dean Sanner (00:27:00):
    And then how much does God have? And I think if you start looking in God’s word, he gives us guidelines, his guidelines and his laws aren’t to keep us away from things it’s to protect us. But a lot of times our perspective is, oh, what about this? What about that? Hey, some of the stories can be difficult to believe. Quite frankly, a lot of the liberal theologians don’t believe some of them. However, the key is what’s happening in your own heart. What’s happening in your own life. What’s God saying to you, I come from an organization that says, God wants to have a relationship with you. And he wants to talk with you. He wants to commune and connect and interact with you. And I think there’s a variety of ways that that happens. You know, there’s old spiritual disciplines disciplines of solitude, where you get alone, you settle yourself, you quiet meditation. Some might even call it. There’s a variety of ways to connect with a God, but you have to ask yourself, Hey, am I ready for that? Is that something I want to do? Nobody’s going to be able to make you do it. No, one’s going to, nobody’s going to be able to make a man do it for sure.

    Brad Singletary (00:28:11):
    Is there any obligation following belief? Like let’s say there’s a man out there and he thinks, you know, maybe, maybe, you know, his grandma took him to church as a kid and he thinks maybe there’s some higher power out there, but he’s afraid of what he’s going to have to do if he starts believing. Is that a valid concern? Are there things that you have to do? Do you have to clean up your life? Should you, because one of those the questions of philosophy, like basically how should I conduct myself? That’s a question where I think a lot of this, even the manmade part is graded. Like, okay, here’s how you should conduct yourself. I mean, even the alpha quorum is we’ve got the red nine. Here’s the way you should conduct yourself. And maybe this is priest craft. We got going on over here. I’m hoping it’s not, but we’re so to, to have a framework for, how am I supposed to behave? Are there duties? You become a believer. You find some connection to a higher power. And maybe that depends on this Eastern religious thought or is this Judeo-Christian stuff or whatever, but do we have to do something?

    Taco Mike (00:29:16):
    Can I jump on that? I know. I want to hear what Dean has to say, but something that Dean actually said earlier may just makes me want to say this really quick extremism. I know people who worship the Bible. I know people who reject the Bible. I know people who were worshiped Jesus and those who reject him extremism in any, in any of the ends of belief. I think that when a person devotes himself to the flawless outcome of some anchored belief, that person is, is set up for disappointment. So if a person says the Bible and I know people like this Bible is everything about it. Cover to cover true. The whole thing like, oh, that kind of, that kind of mindset prepare for disappointment. Someone who says, I believe in my spouse, they are the, the, you know, they hung the moon and they cannot fail. A lot of us are bad spouses ourselves, me included. But I think the broader picture I’m making is anybody who anchors themselves so completely on anything that is of this physical world. A person was involved when a man was involved, prepare for disappointment. The beauty that for me, transcends that. And, and again, this is something that you would, that Dina just touched on, and this is what I think a man can do. And this is what I would recommend a man could do.

    Taco Mike (00:30:49):
    Look through that. Look past that, find beliefs that work, find systems that work and find structures that work, and then study those and apply discipline towards those like the alpha nine, like 12 step, like a church, like a system. I believe systems are beneficial to people. They are beneficial to behavior. They’re beneficial to help me manage my thoughts. This is the point I was going to circle back to a Dean said earlier, this is what I think it behooves a man to do find a way to connect through meditation or centering or calmness or breathing or whatever it is so that a man can find a way to soothe and calm the inner animal that is inside of us. And if religion is, is a vehicle that works for a particular man, then, then I say with caution, I would suggest anyone pursue religion, comma with caution, anybody going into any system should apply caution and be thoughtfully aware of how much he’s getting sucked into that. And I know people in 12 step who have turned that into a cult, and I know people in all kinds of systems, they have become a cultist to their system. And I know people who politically there are political cults, there are scientific cults. We are saturated with cultism.

    Taco Mike (00:32:26):
    I would say red flag, red warning, caution to all of that. What is true and what is real for me beyond any of that, it is am at peace. Can I sit in a quiet room in a, in a, in a chair and let my mind just settle on something beautiful and something peaceful and something that brings me calm and joy that, and I think Dean just did a really lovely job when he kind of met, brought that into the conversation. I’m glad he did. To me, that is the heart and the key and the core of, of a practice flavored with whatever, whatever the sign out in front of the building says, I don’t think it matters, but if someone’s sitting in a pew and they don’t have that, there’s work to be done and there’s there’s work that can be done. This is a thing that can, that every man I think can and should do.

    Brad Singletary (00:33:27):
    It’s. So you’re a fascinating guy when it comes to your spirituality and I’ve looked up to you for that a long time, because you’re very much involved, but kind of hated at the same time. And you’re, and you’re a little skeptical, but you’re showing up at all the things, you know. So what tell, talk about, if you don’t mind some of the things that you do and maybe you too Dean, like what in religious practice do you do that does help you find that connection to your higher power? What are the, what are the activities that you can throw yourself into and say, yeah, I like this one, this one right here. This brings me peace. This is totally good. This enlarges me and helps me feel connected to God.

    Taco Mike (00:34:06):
    For me. Dean had said something too earlier about the church. God gave us a church. I look at the church, there’s a small C church and a capital C church. The small C church to me is the system. And the construct to me, that’s the small seat I bought participant in a construct and I willingly do I willingly do it because I think there’s value to that where I put all of my efforts is in this capital C church. And that’s the body, that’s the believers. That’s the, that’s those who present themselves. And so for me, I am all in, when it comes to service and an offering of my money and my efforts and my time and capacities to the body of fellowshippers with a capital C that’s for me, the capital C church, the small C church. It’s just the sign out front. And, you know, we sing these songs and we do things this way. I’m fine with that. I’m happy to go along with that. That’s, that’s my piece.

    Brad Singletary (00:35:14):
    So service seeing donation, you know, contributing, being a part of that, giving of yourself, mainly the youth, the youth connect,

    Taco Mike (00:35:23):
    Maybe that there, there it is. The kids I’m all in with. So in my, in my congregation, I’m sort of like the youth pastor to 14 and 15 year old boys, I’m all

    Brad Singletary (00:35:34):
    In, take them on trips. Do Sunday school type lessons have, have ice cream events and whatever, whatever you can come up with. And it’s all centered on trying to help them grow spiritually. Okay. So giving is a part of where, where you find that that’s, that is a spiritual practice. And do you think you could find that same activity and the one down the street? Could you find that same benefit if this was at Dean’s church, it’s about what your sacrifice and then giving to share with other people. How about you Dean? I mean, you’re running the show at your, at your church, but what about traditional religiosity increases your spirituality?

    Dean Sanner (00:36:15):
    Well, see, I don’t see myself as a real religious person and that’s because again, my, my view, my perspective of God is that we have a relationship. He’s my father, I’m his kid. I’m going to blow it sometimes, but there’s nothing I can do that’s going to cause him not to love me because the scripture tells me that nothing can separate me from his love. So it’s not based on performance. And so what I do is I base my perspective of God on who he said he was. And I have to, I have to work sometimes at getting my own construct or thoughts of who I think God is. I have to be able to push those to the side in order to know who God truly is. And I believe that God reveals himself in his word. You asked me something earlier, or you ask, Hey, what about these people?

    Dean Sanner (00:37:19):
    When they, they want to have some kind of connection with God, higher power, et cetera, but they’re afraid, oh my gosh, if I start going to the church and they’re going to start telling me, do this, do that, do the other thing, what we believe. Yeah. There’s some guidelines. The 10 commandments. Okay. Those are, those are clear guides. Nobody’s probably going to argue with those types of things, right? In fact, they’re in our current laws in our country. So those are universal. What we believe is that, yeah, God’s word gives us some guidelines. But beyond that, we believe that the holy spirit, the third portion of the Godhead, if you want to go father, son, and holy spirit, that there should be some conviction from the holy spirit telling us what to change. I’ll give you an example. There was a guy I know that pastors, a church in Colorado and they ended up somehow or other this this lady that was a dancer at a club, topless dancer.

    Dean Sanner (00:38:15):
    She ends up coming to their church, making a commitment to Christ, and everybody had heard about it. You know? And in fact, she gets this pastor’s phone number, calls him up at home. After he preaches this message out of Corinthians about how our bottle it body is the temple of the holy spirit. She calls him up and he’s like, he’s all worried that his wife’s going to be upset and all this stuff. And she says, Hey, is what you said true about our bodies being the temple of the holy spirit. Like God lives like lives in us. And he said, well, yeah. And she goes, so God might not be really pleased with some of the things I’m doing right now. And basically what was going on was she was feeling some kind of conviction. It was the holy spirit that was saying, Hey, I want to help clean you up and change you because I’ve got something better for you than this.

    Dean Sanner (00:39:21):
    And so my perspective is that it’s not the church’s job to impose something on people. When you have a relationship, you have a relationship with somebody, you have influence with them. And I have a relationship with God. So he should be influencing me. That change comes from him and it’s from the inside. And when it’s not imposed by an organization, it’s different because now I want to please my heavenly father, because he did something that I could never do. He gave me the power to overcome, to change, to be who he wants me to be. And does that mean I’m perfect all the time? No, but basically I look at it as, Hey, God wants to change me from the inside out. Not from the outside in, not just the clothes, not wearing things, not going through the motions. That’s the out, that’s the outward side. God, that’s what man looks at. God looks at the heart. So he’s got it narrowed down to a few things, you know, love God and love others.

    Brad Singletary (00:40:26):
    If we’re watching you on TV, if we’re, if we’re following you around with a drone camera, we’re watching Dean Sanner and we’re saying, oh, he’s doing it. He’s doing his, he’s doing his spirituality right now. I mean, you, you you’ve talked about the word, which means you’re reading. Yeah. You’re reading. I’m guessing that includes like prayer. Yes. I’m guessing there’s music, you know, that’s a, is that part of your, you know, your whole individual and into congregation worship stuff, music, reading service, Mike mentioned giving, you know, sharing of yourself. Sure. Teaching other people. Absolutely. We were just talking before the show. Dean is a, is a licensed marriage and family therapist. He talks about, you know, people that, that come to him with help with their relationships and so forth. And he’s basically talking with them about, you know, the, the, the, the, the spiritual side of things. So you’re not only, you know, you’re leading this thing. You’re hopefully trying to be an example to other people you’re reading, you’re using music, prayer, and you’re teaching other people.

    Dean Sanner (00:41:30):
    Yeah. And serving, sir. And Mike jumped on that. My service, my volunteer services with the police department, try to help officers to try to connect with them, knowing that they have to deal with a lot of trauma and trying to help them see, Hey, there’s, there’s ways through this stuff.

    Brad Singletary (00:41:50):
    I want to talk for a few minutes about the atheist, the agnostic, an atheist, maybe that’s the prefix a means not or without. So atheist means without a theistic belief, you, you have no belief in God agnostic. The A means not or without and that means, I think that means like knowledge or something like

    Dean Sanner (00:42:18):
    That from gnosis. Yeah. Yeah.

    Brad Singletary (00:42:20):
    So

    Dean Sanner (00:42:21):
    I believe there is a God, they just don’t have a faith in him. That’s

    Brad Singletary (00:42:25):
    So, I mean, there may, maybe there guys listening to show they’re intrigued by the title. They’re intrigued by Dean’s picture. They want to hear what Mike’s up to these days and maybe they’re atheist, but they want to have some sense of spirituality or they’re not ready, or they’ve had some, we’ll call it a spiritual injury. Maybe that’s what I’ve thought that I was dealing with it at one time, agnostic, atheist, a little bit bitter. How can a person like that explore spirituality? How can a person not interested in the traditional view of God? How can they, how can they improve their spiritual life?

    Dean Sanner (00:43:07):
    I would say it depends on what they’re trying to achieve. If you know, somebody is an atheist and they’re like, I’m not, I’m not really even interested in that dimension then what are their goals? What do they want to achieve in life? I think they have to find some sense of something outside of themselves that could define in some way, shape or form. What do I want to be? Do I wanna be a better dad? Do I wanna be a better husband? Do I want to be a better professional or worker wherever I’m at? And so I think they have to define or decide, Hey, what are my goals? And that’s going to move them toward that. Typically it’s something outside of yourself, but I’m probably not the best person to talk about the whole atheistic side, better with the, you know, the person who’s been injured.

    Dean Sanner (00:44:06):
    That’s a different thing. Cause a lot of people don’t understand that, you know, God can handle your anger. God can handle your emotions. He created them for goodness sakes. And so I encourage people, Hey, have it out with God, God can handle it. Not some kind of wimp. He can handle this stuff and let him have it. In fact, if you look in the book of Psalms, that’s what David did all the time. He’s constantly holler and hammering. And why are you doing this? What’s going on? My enemies are after me. What’s happening? We have this kind of American culturize view of God sometimes that we’re supposed to be somehow insulated from problems. Bible says the rain falls on the just, and the unjust. It comes to everybody. I don’t care who you are. Are you going to have a faith or not? It has to be a part from what happens to you, because what happens to you, isn’t as important as what happens in you.

    Dean Sanner (00:45:04):
    God wants to do something in me. He may use something that’s happening to me in order to change me again from the inside. But it depends on how we take that. Do I take this situation where I was in a situation where I had to foreclose on a condo I had in California lost my jobs. The economy went in the toilet and that’s what ended up having me move back to Las Vegas here. And I was mortified. I was like, I’m a need to get out of the ministry. That I’m a bad testimony. I can’t even pay my bills. I kept paying on that thing while I was living down here. Nobody’s in it. Finally, this person told me, Dean, stop paying on it. And long story short, we lost this place. And I was, I was like, ah, maybe I need to get out of the ministry, man.

    Dean Sanner (00:45:52):
    This is a bad testimony. Then other people were like, this happens to everybody. What happened? You lost your jobs. You went through, you know, you had to relocate and you can’t pay on something if you’re not living in it. And I walked away from that, with what I called my $25,000 refrigerator. I got a refrigerator that out of that place, that was my down payment and this $25,000 refrigerator it’s gone. But all, all that to, I think say this, Hey, a lot of things happen to us in life when things happen to us and those bad things happen to us. My perspective on that is, that’s when I say God, what are you trying to do in me? And as a result of that situation, when we went through the 0809 crash here in Vegas, I could identify with lots of people in my church that lost their homes. At the time when I lost mine, I’m ticked at God. I’m frustrated. What’s going on. I’m a bad provider, all this stuff, but what happened in the end, in the end, God used that situation for me to be able to identify with others that went through it.

    Brad Singletary (00:47:00):
    Now you have empathy now. Yeah, I can sympathize.

    Dean Sanner (00:47:02):
    Exactly. And I can relate. I can connect. I can minister. I can serve.

    Brad Singletary (00:47:09):
    It seems like you’re saying you have to make a decision. What is your decision about your belief? You know, what, what is, what is your goal? What is it you’re after? And at some point you have to make a decision. Am I going to pursue this or not? And if so, there maybe there are other decisions to make Mike the injured, the person spiritually injured thinks he should have some spirituality. That’s, you know, wellness. That’s a balanced person. That’s the man trying to, to be whole and trying to grow up, but just feels like he can’t do the God thing.

    Taco Mike (00:47:46):
    I think that a lot of American men are believing in a feminized deity and it is not serving them very well. So let me, so let me explain that in my religious practice, we had to, we had to speak with God in these reverent hushed tones. And there was a, there was a specific vocabulary that I was taught to approach God with. And I would be disrespectful if I addressed him as any, anything outside of these, these, these Anglican, your, these, these, these things, English Kings English terms that I would be disrespecting the creator of the universe that he couldn’t hang. If I didn’t address him, thusly, the debt that’s garbage. And then I had to read the only way I could read what he said was it was in it’s the same kind of language that I, the Shakespeare had to read God in Shakespeare nonsense.

    Taco Mike (00:48:59):
    And then, and then, and then I had to sit in a chair and put my, I had to wear a costume, my church costume. Right. Cause he wouldn’t, I would be disrespectful if I wore anything other than a business suit. Right. I had conducting business like Sunday business. I have to put on my business suit and go do my God business. Right. Wearing my church costume. So, and then the whole construct in, in a lot of American men’s mom was that it’s. And then the pictures of Jesus in the buildings that I would go to was this very gauzy, soft lit Fino Hallmarky Jesus. Right, right. The kind of Jesus who would like, just be, well, his hands would be soft and he’d be like, you know, exfoliated and lotioned up. And like, that’s the kind of Jesus imagery, the whole the, the American imagery that goes along with God and Jesus, in my opinion, is utter rubbish.

    Taco Mike (00:50:09):
    It’s mostly nonsense. And I don’t know where it started. And I don’t know whose perpetuate, well, I do know is perpetuate again, but it doesn’t serve me. It doesn’t work for me. And so for me, the the Lieutenant Dan guy in Forrest Gump, Dina talked about God is able to handle your anger. And some of us are pissed at the dad that we have, you know, we’ve, you know, we, we taint our relationship with him with all of this, this pain that we had that I have. And then I make it his fault. And then I can hate him for it. Cause he didn’t rescue me. When I had my little prayer moment, please rescue me from the stuff that I did myself or that just I’m in, I’m a broken person in a broken world. And I want it to be better than this.

    Taco Mike (00:51:00):
    And you’re not making it better than this, your fault then the IHU for it. So these like deep, dark angry resentments are in so many men. And then they’re offered this like, you know, this delicate, like this Jesus and this God and this heaven, who’s like, he can’t have like a lot of, I know a lot of people, a lot of men who don’t go to church because they don’t want to, they don’t respect that kind of deity. And I don’t either. I don’t respect the sweet, delicate I have to approach you and I will piss you off. Unless I, unless I say the words that I was supposed to say, I don’t respect that God. And I don’t want that God. And that’s not the kind of God that is going to work for me. So if you’re listening to this in your, as mad about the way that your church or your religion handed you, this nonsense imagery of what God is and who God is, and you’re as mad as I am about it, then reject it and ignore it and move on and find a way to connect with the, with heaven that is on that is, Dean has said this so wonderfully relationally, dig in to figure out who heaven is, who the higher power is for you call it whatever you want, form an image in your own head. Here’s something that was shocking to me, I guess, not shocking, but that was this wonderful discovery is Jesus was kind of a dirty guy who lived with dirt bags and hung around with people who had body language. They, they cost and they were kind of foul and gross and they were working men and they were kind of trashy. And they were kind of hard people. And they were the low, they were the lowest of the low, in many instances and Matthew, a tax collector was just a cheat. He was a, he was a criminal cheat. He was a cheater, scumbag, loan shark. He was despised. Jesus had with hookers. He now with transvestites, I’m putting that in there because that’s what I think. I think he hung out with people who had needle tracks in their arms at tattoos and tear tattooed the tears on their eyes, on their cheek.

    Taco Mike (00:53:13):
    I think he hung out with just people who were, who all there they’re really all there are. That’s all there are in life is people that have lived experiences and most of what passes his religion projects itself as the sanitized version of humanity. And I don’t respond to that and I don’t resonate with that. And so that’s my answer. That’s a long answer. So your question, maybe the general topic is what is it about men? What is it in men that causes them to find it hard to go to church or to believe in God? And I think that sums it up for me because the God that was presented to me didn’t resonate in my heart. And it’s, I don’t know if it does, if it does listen, if I’m offending you, I’m sorry. I apologize if that’s the God that you, if that all, if everything I just said, shat on, if that’s what is working for you, then please forgive me.

    Taco Mike (00:54:05):
    I mean, you no offense, but none of that works for me. And so it required me to pursue my own relationship outside of that. And I found it and I am on fire for it. And that’s why my religion is not meaningless. I don’t want to say I don’t want to be that strong. My religion is meaningful, but yet at the same time, it’s rather meaningless. It’s just an appendage to who I am as a, as a spirit centered man, comma. Oh. And I also happened to go to this church, but it’s just this right? You follow I’m saying, if any of this resonates with any man out there and you don’t have to go to church to find this Dean said this, and I’ll repeat back to it. You can find this in your, in the forest. You can find this kind of connectedness on a motorcycle, on a trip, watching a sunset.

    Taco Mike (00:55:01):
    You can find it holding the hand of your child, walking along the beach. You can find it looking at a painting. You can find this little spark of this can grow and it can, it can expand and consume and grow into your whole heart. And it’s all over. It doesn’t have to be in a pew. It doesn’t have to be in a church. It doesn’t have to be in front of some sacred holy book. It can be as simple. Like I just said, it could be as simple as sitting on your surfboard and a dolphin swims by. And it could be something that a client says to just shake something loose. That was never these two wires that never touched. And then just zap and they touch. And nothing else is the same from that moment forward. And however, that happens for somebody when it does, it’s just transcendent and so beautiful. It’s so meaningful. And I urge every man to have that. And however, that looks,

    Brad Singletary (00:55:53):
    I call that sublime experiences, you know, that we should seek those. And I think the truth is they’re everywhere. One of my most spiritual experiences in the last five years was floating on my back in lake Mead. I was there with my kids and I realized I’m in a gigantic cold, clear lake in the middle of the desert. And I’m looking up at the sky, no clouds. And it just that was a very spiritual in a way. I want to wrap this episode up last thoughts as it comes to Finding God, forgiving God, using religion as a means to connect. Tell us, I guess your, your final words, when it comes to a man trying to maybe mend a relationship with God, we’ve talked a lot about relationship, find a relationship for the first time with God and how religion plays into that.

    Dean Sanner (00:56:47):
    Well, I would first say one of the things that God says is that if you seek me, you’ll find me. And if you want to find God, the first thing you do is look, and I think you can look in creation. There’s a lot of different places you can look. And for some people like Mike was saying earlier, the church provides a construct that is able to guide certain people toward God, for others, their color outside the lines type of people. And they don’t tend to fit in to certain constructs. And one of my professors in graduate school, he was an Episcopal priest. He came up with these different levels of spiritual growth, if you will. And part of what he talked about was initially, and he kind of paralleled them off of Lawrence Kohlberg’s model of moral development, which you may be familiar with.

    Dean Sanner (00:57:39):
    Yeah. And he basically says, you know, yeah, we start with the rules, but eventually in spirituality, things have to move beyond that. And he talked about the, well, I shouldn’t say they have to move beyond that. For some people, they stay within the rules and the guidelines and that’s them. But for many people, it goes beyond that. And he related to different types of people, including, you know, Gandhi who would have been up at the upper echelon of spiritual development, if you will. I think it depends on the person. And that’s where it always comes back to me, have a relationship with God. And I think people have to, the seek and seeking can happen at a variety of ways. And we were talking about it. How does that happen? Well, for me, it happens with some solitude. It does happen with the Bible. I believe God speaks to me through his word. So he does, it has to be in a language I understand though it can’t be the Shakespearian stuff. And so we forget that the Bible wasn’t written in English anyway. So if you really want to get to the real you know, if you want to call it the inspired scriptures, it’s inspired in the original language. Hey, take those steps, move in that direction. And it becomes between you and God.

    Brad Singletary (00:58:57):
    If you want to find God, you have to seek him. And I think just like Google, whatever you’re searching for in life, you’re going to find it. In fact, Google that type in Google, how to find God. I promise. You’ll find that you’ll find a billion websites that could lead you somewhere. Go outside, look into the eyes of your children. Think of what it feels like when you’ve done a good deed. Those are some of the ways that you can find God. So as we wrap this up, I just want to talk about, go back to our original question. Should we have a higher power? I think, yes. I think we need that. I think I’ve needed that. My worst mistakes, my most miserable times in my life have been when I was kind of directionless. I wasn’t seeking answers. I wasn’t looking for any inspiration.

    Brad Singletary (00:59:45):
    I wasn’t reading any Staker texts wasn’t asking for help. I just thought that I had it under control and that I was going to be in charge of my own life. We had a guest early on in the, in our show David Brownstein, who was a Jewish rabbi. We asked him about the yamaka and why he wore that. And he said it was to remind him that there’s always something above him. That that is God. There, there is a God. And it’s not me. That was what he, when he talked about taught me that taught me something there. So I think we need a higher power. I belong to AA, alcoholics anonymous, and there are a lot of atheists and agnostics there. And some people talk about God as a good orderly direction. Some people talk about the higher power. What is the group?

    Brad Singletary (01:00:33):
    So together this group of people trying to be sober together, that group is higher than me. There was a time when, in my angry phase with God, I just couldn’t. I could not pray. I just could not read anything. I just didn’t want to. I realized one of the ways that I got sober was to realize that these people cared about me. They wanted to hear what I have to say. And they came to share their own stories and their own inspiration. And so I kind of connected to that a good orderly direction, or just that the higher power was this group of people that were better than me, collectively better, stronger than me. And I could lean on something better, stronger than me. I’m not alone. And I could have some guidance

    Dean Sanner (01:01:17):
    When the word gets stalled means that the whole is greater than the parts. I think we have to realize that we’re not all there is. There’s gotta be more to life than just me, even if it’s just others. We get, we connect to God through relationships with others as well, because if he’s truly created everybody and we’re created in his image, then we can see him in other people in others. And so for some, God’s going to be, the group is going to be someone else. But I think getting us outside of ourself and in therapy, you you’ve heard of the term reality testing. Sometimes you’ve gotta have you gotta bounce things off, somebody else, someone else, other people in order to get some perspective. And I think that leads it to, Hey, I’m looking for something higher for something greater than myself, something outside myself.

    Taco Mike (01:02:14):
    [Inaudible] I was thinking about when you’re on a sports team or you’re in some group and AA is a really great one, you are pulling for the group you’re pulling for the team you’re playing for yourself. You’re, you’re always trying to put in your best performance, but ultimately it’s for the team. It’s for the banner. It’s for the mascot. I don’t mean to say you’re playing for the mascot, but it’s for the, the like go go red tide or go rebels or go Knights. You know what I mean? It’s like, that’s your rally cry. And you’re all aligned around that banner and you’re moving the ball forward for that reason. And that’s a higher reason than just me. Number six. Okay. I think we have been created and evolved to be a creature that looks elsewhere outside and beyond when we’re in a tribe, we do things for the tribe when we’re in a club, when we’re in a team, when we’re in a family, when we’re in a church, when we’re in anything, when we’re policemen in a, in a unit, when we’re in the military and a platoon, yes, you are an individual and you have the needs that you have and the goals and desires that you have.

    Taco Mike (01:03:18):
    And you click that in with everyone else. And then the sum of that is much greater and more powerful than it is as just me. Number six on the team, Sebastian younger wrote a book called tribe. I suggest everyone read that. He talks about one of the reasons why one of the main vectors in PTSD is that when a man, when a soldier leaves the platoon he’s key goes home. There is a profound emptiness inside of him because he is no longer with that band of brothers. With that family, with that community who was, who was so focused on that higher power and the higher power. And I don’t mean a political mission, like who cares, who cares really? Like who cares? What the mission was? The mission was today. We’re going to go do this tomorrow. We’re going to go do that. But those are just missions details.

    Taco Mike (01:04:13):
    Everything about that. Platoon was say, it’s we save each other. We are in this together. We only succeed if we all succeed. And any group that has a mission is clicked in. We want to be sober. We want to do the thing. We want to do that thing. We’re together in this band. That’s our power not to replace God, but, but there is a power in that. And so what I’m trying to do is paint a word picture for somebody who has maybe has previous woundings about, I had a bad father and I can’t conceptualize God as a father because I had a really garbage earthly father. I totally am empathetic to that and understand that. So for some of us, we can start somewhere and we can start with some of the things we’ve talked about, just finding peace and beauty, connect to the nature, look at your, the eyes of your children, float in your back in the lake, look up at the sky.

    Taco Mike (01:05:12):
    There’s so many ways that you can just feel some peace and feel some ground in us. And then I think the second step is then to look for ways to connect yourself with someone else in some way that then you have synergy and then brotherhood, and to do something else. I believe if a man, or to begin the journey, at least with that, then he’s well on his way. And what that, what that turns into the, I believe that the higher power will sort of direct steps and, and direct influences and people will bump into that person and something beautiful will come from that. And I think that every man should be seeking that in some way. I think it’s essential. I think it’s, it’s in your red nine. I think it’s part of the human wiring. I think it’s in our DNA. I think it’s who we are as a created and evolved person to seek that and want that and need that

    Brad Singletary (01:06:10):
    You guys are so awesome. Thank you so much for being here. Dean really appreciate you here. I’m definitely going to have you back. Our next episode is going to be about just more generic kind of spirituality, things, humility, gratitude, forgiveness, and those kinds of things that don’t necessarily have to do with any religious practice, any higher power talk. So if anybody has given up on us because of this conversation stick around for the next one, because that’s what we’re going to talk about things that are very much of a spiritual nature. They may come from the teachings of religions, but it’s really things that have to do with your individual walk. Appreciate you being here, all of you until next time. No excuses, Alpha Up.

    Speaker 2 (01:06:55):
    Gentlemen, you are the alpha and this is the alpha Quorum.

     

    Platforms

    Click your podcast platform below or listen to the embedded file on this page.