Rohadi 0:00 Hey we're back, or I'm back. But I have a guest here we go. Live. No, it's recorded. Treaty 7 lads I am Rohadi coming at you. For the Faith in the fresh Vibe podcast Season 4, the author edition, you can support this podcast by throwing your money at it. Go and check out rowhani.com and we'll have all the details you need on how you can support the work that I'm doing on decentering whiteness and decolonizing Christianity and the church and all the different friends and new friends that I have come on the show. Check out that info at faith in the fresh tribe, podcast wherever podcasts are sold. This edition features my friend Charlotte Donlan. She lives in Alabama, I value her voice online. There is a level of vulnerability and honesty that attracts me to voices such as Charlotte's because in that honesty, in that leadership, I think there's a level of integrity. There's a saying that says don't follow a leader who doesn't walk with a limp. So vulnerability is the currency in our world. I think right now one of the currencies. Charlotte has a book that came out recently called on belonging. And it has a depth of insight on practices of vulnerability, but also her story on belonging and loneliness, the great belonging, how loneliness leads us to each other, now available wherever books are sold. We talk about this book in part one, part two, we go even deeper around the narratives of loneliness and her story, we unpack aspects of her story. And I think, depending on where you've been with the struggle with loneliness, and we've all been there, you're gonna have some moments here, we might have to pause the podcast and come back to it. Because there's just depth and an understanding of the human condition that comes out in both a portrayal of honesty but but Charlotte's story of vulnerability and what she's willing to share with us so that we can be vulnerable and honest with our own stories of loneliness, vulnerability and the chase to belong enough from me. Let's jump right in. so I have trouble with white people's names. Charlotte, do n l o n. Donlon? Maybe that's maybe that's to French. Charlotte Donlon 3:24 It's Donlon. Close. Donlan. Donlin. Donlon. Yeah, it's Irish. Rohadi 3:32 Irish. Yeah. Welcome to the show. Thanks so much for coming. Charlotte Donlon 3:37 Thanks for having me. It's good to be here. Rohadi 3:40 We're going to dive into your book here. But it's always important to draw near to the stories of where our visitors or guests on the podcast are from, what part of the land they are from, what city you live in, and who are your people? Charlotte Donlon 3:57 Um, yeah, so my husband is pretty much 100% Irish, his both of his parents families came over two or three generations back from Ireland. I have a little bit of Irish in me from my side of, you know, from my parents and ancestors. My maiden name is bird er D. And all of the birds are very proud of themselves. So I have done some ancestry.com work, you know, going back on both sides of the family, my husband's and men, but the bird work has already been done because all these birds are very proud. And so it's been interesting, just, I mean, I only started that during the pandemic, doing this research, I guess. It was one way I was trying to do Keep living and learning and I just got interested in for some reason I want to say around April of this year, and it was it was good. It was good to find out I'm kind of on pause now. But um it's interesting to see my husband's the research people have done on his side of the family because there's a lot more secrets, it seems like, you know, like family secrets. And, you know, was this person, the father or his father, and I'm sure that's in the bird side of the family too. But um, I think the birds are just better at covering this stuff up. Rohadi 5:43 Do you have anyone famous? Did you have a discovery moment? Well, Charlotte Donlon 5:49 we are related to the Colonel William birds that founded Richmond, Virginia. And there's a father and a son both named I mean, my dad was William Byrd. My brothers. Were there lots of Lambert's, I forget which one, but I mean, they all owned slaves. And one of them, there's like, diary entries about how he treated treated his slaves. And that was an interesting aha moment. I mean, a lot of people like historians are aware of this. But reading those entries, I would say I read those entries maybe five or six years ago. And just seeing how awful it was like it was like a normalised awfulness. And he just wrote about it, like, it was just like, you know, it was just normal, and it was infuriating and shocking. To see those words. Rohadi 6:54 How did you process them? Charlotte Donlon 6:56 Well, I it really helped me. I mean, I've always since I've been a Christian, you know, for 25 years or so. I've been very much struck by corporate sin. Okay. Like, it's not just an individual thing. It's a corporate thing and their systems and frameworks, and I didn't have the language for like, systemic racism five years ago. I mean, I wish I did, but I didn't. But that is what I was grappling with. And, you know, how am I connected to that? You know, that many years ago, like, you know, that some of that blood is in me, right. And, you know, I, it kind of made it more like, flesh and blood ish. For me, the idea of corporate sin and what I now know as systemic racism and white supremacy, it just made it more real. And you know, the idea story. Yeah, part of my story, and like, you know, is my DNA like, is that some of my DNA, like, not just my story story, but like my body and my, and then the body, you know, think about the bodies of those who were enslaved by my ancestors? And if I think it became more corporal, is that the right word like bodily, bodily? Rohadi 8:39 It's, that's really curious that you. So I picked up pieces of details, but I'll assume that you? Well, I shouldn't assume because then you kind of had more of a mainline presence in your book. But did you grow up in a in a church, but in a more of an evangelical kind of space? Charlotte Donlon 9:00 I actually grew up in the Methodist Church, mainland, but I was I was not a believer. I didn't understand the gospel, or believe the gospel until I was in college. And at that point, I did join a church that was more evangelical and like, you know, contemporary worship type thing. That pastor actually preached a lot about grace. And it was really good for me to have like robust foundation of a theology of grace at that point in my life, and you know, that has carried on throughout the last 20 years and it's still a huge part of who I am and like my theology, but now I'm in the Episcopal Church. We've been an Episcopal Church for about four years. We just left our local body a few weeks ago. And there's another hospital church that I'm kind of curious about. I've gone to morning prayer there, they do weekday morning prayer, which I love. But it's hard in the middle of a pandemic, to really, church talk. I mean, you can watch sermons online, which is good. Like, in some ways, it's easy to church to happen some ways it's not. And then I started feeling guilty about church shopping, and like, you know, what, I have all of these options, especially here in Birmingham, there's like churches everywhere and but, but there are very good reasons why we left that other church and I don't know, we stayed in a church. Let me think we helped plant a church, starting in 2001, maybe meetings might have started in the year 2000. But the first worship service was in 2001. And we were there until, like, we were there about 15 years, and leaving, like, we should have left sooner. It was there was a whole big story about that the founding pastor had an affair with an elders wife, and things fell apart, of course, but we, we stayed, we're very loyal. And we stayed through the transition and through a lot of other things. And by the time we laughed, I was like, man, we should have done that, way sooner. So I don't know. I mean, I could talk about all that forever. But um, so now I wonder like, Well, did we leave too soon? This other charge, but I don't think we did. I mean, the problem with Birmingham, Alabama, is that if you read Letter from a Birmingham Jail that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote many years ago, to white pastors in the city. Like everything is still the same. So I feel like there's this oppressive thing in Birmingham specifically, like, and it's every, I mean, sure, it's other places too. But I think there is this special kind of brokenness and blindness of the church is here. Rohadi 12:41 As always, you can feel a certain level of power, or a different kind of unique power in your place. Charlotte Donlon 12:53 Yes, I do think there are certain powers and principalities that are at work here that that are at work other places, too, but here in like, a unique way, and I have a lot of friends who have moved away from Birmingham, and they tell me, there are other church like there are, there are other ways to do church that don't exist here. And, you know, I am generalising. I haven't been to every church in this city. And I don't mean to slit I mean, I love Birmingham. I love this place. And I think that's why it's so heartbreaking, right? Because, you know, why can't we find a church, where we are hearing the gospel and people who really believe what Jesus said and who he is and who, who he came, who he came for, and who he exists for? So yeah, it's complicated. Rohadi 14:01 I was gonna say, Isn't that ironic, but sometimes that's just the reality in your place about how a place saturated with churches who could potentially be so far away from truth, of course, whose truth would be the next question, but, but, yeah, I asked that question because it struck me as your picture of how you approached sin as being from the get go really through the lens of, of or included. The corporate reality of that is certainly something that's countercultural to prevailing trends in the Protestant traditions, especially in North America that tends to individualise all those things and internalise Charlotte Donlon 14:55 well, and I do have individual sense to Rohadi 14:59 say that Okay, Charlotte Donlon 15:02 in case anyone's wondering Rohadi 15:17 let's talk about your place just a little bit. This podcast is lots of folks listen to it from all across the continent, but it also is rooted in a Canadian context. Canada has this weird fascination with America, we get every American thing pretty much all your TV shows, and we're very much shaped by the same cultural aspects. So the, for example, the fear and the Yeah, the use of fear to set policy and hope is something that's very much akin and happening in our context, especially in my province, I live in the Texas of the North. Alberta's is, or maybe it's the Alabama is in North. Very conservative. And part of the realities of that is it's had the worst now, just now response to COVID. Trying to open the door to those individual liberties, because more libertarian, in that sense, paints just, again, broad strokes, but a picture of your place of your city. And what the reality is, he gave us a picture a little bit of the church reality, and also the racialized reality of what is what the feeling of oppression that is still lingering. What is the current reality on top of that, and the most acute piece, of course, being the pandemic in your midst? Charlotte Donlon 17:03 Let's see. So I live in Birmingham, Alabama, and I'm actually right now living in a suburb of Birmingham. Right next, like right on the border of the city of Birmingham, my husband and I moved to the city from this suburb when we had been married about five years, and we lived in the city of Birmingham for about 13 years. And then we came back to this suburb, my daughter has mild autism, and we needed a school system that had more services. And the public schools here are really great. And this particular suburb is more diverse than, say, some of the other suburbs. All of that to say it's very different living in the city of Birmingham and living outside of the city of Birmingham. Yeah, and so, but within our county, Jefferson County, we are a blue kind of diet amidst this red state. And by blue, I mean barely blue, like maybe 55 to 60 person voted for Hillary Clinton. And I think around that same percentage of this county voted for, for Biden. But with that there are, you know, plenty of people who would be at home in Alberta, it sounds like and it's, it's hard, because there are also some amazing people here and then I get stuck with some like the people who I disagree with politically and whatever, like, I don't want to demonise all of these people. But at the same time, I don't understand, like, I have tried for four years to understand how Trump got elected. And I can't accept from what you just said about this fear. I mean, I have you know, we there are all kinds of ideas about that. And you know, why people are afraid of losing power and influence and using fear to convince people that the crazy libs are going to take away their guns and everything and I I don't understand how Christians, okay. And look at the racism piece and the white supremacy and all of that and still vote for him. Like, that is like the that's where I stop, I'm like, this exists, right? So I'm not gonna vote for him. And I knew that from the beginning and when he was elected. And I realised that, you know, 81% of white evangelicals voted for him. I felt betrayed by the church because I had been taught all of these things about moral integrity and You know, the image of God and how we're all created in the image of God? And, and I'm like, what? You know, how can this many people vote for him? So I'm surrounded by people who vote for him who still go to church and have different ideas of what it looks like to live in light of the gospel, and to notice God's presence in their lives and in the world around them and the people around them. And I've had a lot of anger. And I think, you know, legitimate anger about that. But I don't, I'm still grappling with how to exist in that. And at the same time, I'm like, How did I simmer in these waters and not end up like that, like how? So? I don't know, it's complicated. I said that earlier about something else. But right now, people aren't wearing masks as much as they should kids at my, at my kids High School are getting COVID. And people are being contact trace. So if you are within a student who gets it for 15 minutes, you have to go home for 12 days, or whatever. And I don't understand why people aren't more concerned about the common good. Like, that's probably what it all boils down to. With regard to the pandemic, it's just not that tricky to me. It's, and I don't, I don't understand why it's hard to wear a mask or you know, why people feel threatened, you know, that their individual rights are being taken away. I don't know how much of that is, you know, media and social media and certain networks that in certain publications that don't publish things that are true, and, but, but I also think it's just exposing things that were already there, for so So Trump getting elected, exposed to things that were already there, I didn't see them, I should have listened to my black friends more. And you know, I should have paid more attention. And I should not have been as shocked in 2016 as I was, I should not be as shocked at the response to the pandemic is that I am. But at the same time, I think being shocked is like that thing inside of me that wants justice. And that wants goodness, and that wants all of us to flourish. So I don't know if I don't ever want it to be not shocked. And I hope I just said that sentence. Right? But but at the same time, it's exhausting, right. And there are other people here in my community in my city in this area that that agree with a lot of what I just said, a lot of people in the church who agree with that, I would say most of the churches here are like majority people who voted for Trump. And I don't think I've heard any pastor from the left to the right, the top, the bottom, the middle, like call any of it out, in a way that emphasises confession and repentance. Like I mentioned my robust theology of grace, right. So if we believe the gospel, we receive grace to be able to confess and repent right and and say, Okay, I have been a part of this framework of white supremacy. I have oppressed other people. And I want to confess that sin and I want to turn from it and do things in a different way now, and and that's corporate, and that's individual. And I don't hear any pastors anywhere, saying any of that. Rohadi 23:59 Why do you think that is? Charlotte Donlon 24:01 I mean, I have a hunch. I mean, I think one reason is because they you know, their tides come from people in members who don't want to hear that. Rohadi 24:14 They just want a medic one. They don't want Charlotte Donlon 24:17 to make certain people mad. They but I guess they're not worried about me being mad. They sanitise the gospel. And I think they're in the south, okay. And in Alabama, there's, you know, we're supposed to be kind, right? Or nice is probably a better word. Because if we're nice about our faith, then people will be attracted to it and they'll become Christians. And it's just not true. Like if you're nice, while dismissing the reality of the world around you, like no one No one is gonna be attracted to that. In my opinion. So I don't know. I mean, what do you think it is? Rohadi 25:12 I was just thinking, as you said, nice, nice. It's just guys to keep things the same. Yeah. Yeah, I think when as you were sharing that story to work backwards, we don't see it because we're in the white, Protestant, white Catholic traditions, you don't see it because they've never been taught how. And there's never been a reason to repent corporately, especially when the world matches your gaze, you assume that everything's operating just fine. And so as you crumble that world, that you realise that the your perceptions are wrong. You're just having had no capacity, have no trading, have no memory of what it means or looks like to repent? corporately. And I think that goes to works against the fundamental and Canada's the same piece of American culture surrounding individualism. So why aren't more Christians in the south and Christians really? Why aren't they more interested in the flourishing of all people? And I think it's because we don't care about all people. We care about ourselves. And that's the use another word, the common good. Like, why wouldn't more people care about the common good, that's because everything is rooted in in me, in the individual, manifest destiny, what's the other one, the American Dream, the American Dream is rooted in how far the self can go just just hard work. And you too, can make it and and just the roots of all the systems capitalism, for example, you just you race to the bottom to produce as much as you can. Under the assumption, the assumption of capitalism is that all goods and services are scarce, rather than a picture that God provides abundance. Right. And so I think culturally, it pushes in the gospel should against our fundamental assumptions of who we are. So it's a question of identity. That's not just a white Christian problem. I think that that stretches beyond. But it's certainly rooted in the primary narratives and our countries of which the voting so in your case, Trump, and still I looked at this yesterday, I don't remember the context. But so Biden winds up with the most votes ever, with 81 million or something like that. But Trump, if there was no Biden vote there, Trump would have had the most votes ever, at something like 70 something million, I think. And it's just like, it's still. So there's a slow shift, I firmly believe that. But when you challenge identity and white identity, that where there's nothing else, like you run out of things to cling to, and that's why so many cling to their, let's say guns or cling to their individual liberties being one or their individual liberty to worship, which is our problem here. And it's very rare. In comparisons, so we don't have the gun problem, necessarily, but we have the anti maskers. And the churches who insist on gathering. Again, very small minority, but it's a revelation of this undercurrent of where your identity is rooted. And, yeah, I echo that makes me mad. Charlotte Donlon 29:20 Well, it makes me mad too, especially because it's like, I really believe what these people were preaching to me. Right. Like, I do believe that my theology and who I am today has been formed by the teaching and preaching, you know, in part, by the teaching and preaching, have heard and learned. And I'm like, Why y'all aren't? Y'all aren't believing what you preach to me, or you or it's not as important as you made it seem or like there's a disconnect, you know, and it makes me I feel very isolated from the church. You know, I think a lot of people feel very isolated from the church because of this stuff. And we, we don't really know what to do with it, you know? Like, I want to be in a church, I really do. But I look at the whole thing. And I'm like, Why do I want to be a part of this? And, you know, you mentioned identity, you know, it's not just the white individual identity, it's our white Church's identity. And I need to learn more about this. And I have some books on my list to read about it. But like the idea that the white American church is rooted in white supremacy, and how can we be as a church, something we've never been before, which is what I think you were touching on just a bit ago. Rohadi 30:55 And I'm sceptical that it can shift. But I don't have God sized vision, perhaps that's why but the witness of the church, the first go around with Trump, even prior to that it's just slowly been eroding the mainstream witness of the church and America, the conservative branch is far more powerful. The religious conservative branch is far more powerful than in Canada, but it's still a little bit vocal. So these are, these are factors that have reared itself over and over again, and I think it's losing both demographically just in a normal shift, but also the witness. More and more people are realising and more and more Christians to inside and outside of the church, that this church is not standing for the things that should like there's enough nascent understanding in in popular culture that knows that in the very least, the church is not supposed to be about these things, in the very least, right? Outsiders even know that. And so I think it is the, and this has been going on since the boomers. So if you want to track church attendance, and the high watermark of church attendance being in the 50s, of which Canada, Canadians, attended church more as a percentage of population than Americans, which is weird, only in the 50s, though, at that high, and then ever since then, both countries have been, it's just been falling straight into the pavement. And in Canada, it's like, eight to 12% maybe are evangelical now, and people go to monthly services have to pull up with that status, but it's around that to 12% Maybe. So it's it's a small amount, and more and more people are just leaving, because they feel either isolated, or they don't believe in that God anymore. I don't blame them. Charlotte Donlon 32:59 Same. I mean, I, when I read about the black Jesus, I'm like, okay, that's, that sounds like Jesus to me, right. But um, and I, you know, I follow a lot of blog theologians and read Black theologians, I'm trying to read more. But I, you know, I've had black friends tell me, we don't want you to come into our church. And I'm like, I get it. You know, you want a space where white people aren't coming up in there. But what what I think we can receive from the black church is a theological perspective, that gives us a broader view of the gospel that is rooted in the truth. So Will White people listen to that? I mean, I think like you said, I think more people are. Even think more people are since George Floyd was killed, like I do know, people who have been transformed since then. Because of the Black Lives Matter movement and the protests and seeing things that have been hidden from some of us, and hearing things that have been hidden from some of us. So I think there are reasons to hope. But it's it's just the brokenness of the current moment is so big, it's very overwhelming to me. Rohadi 34:46 I have a sense of the same hope that that or share with that you have but I think it comes in a different package now. As their as there's an iteration of a new imagination of what both As faith in this church can look like, it's going to take some work it's going to take some aspects of, of returning to your words of of common good and and the flourish ment of my myself, my community, but my neighbour the other as well. And a sense of of just a vulnerability and a humaneness to it all that kind of segues us neatly into your book. Your book, The Great belonging came out this year, when it came up in the fall 2020. Charlotte Donlon 35:48 Yes, November 10 2020, just one week after the election, okay, Rohadi 35:54 we were dating this, this will come out a couple of months after but so that's brand new. And I just kind of saw your postings along the way leading up into the release of, of the great belonging, how loneliness leads us to each other. The first thing that struck me about this book, as I as I was going through it was there is a level a picture of vulnerability here, of of refreshing, honesty, with your words that is lacking in so much of, of contemporary Christian literature. So thank you, for opening your heart and letting us in, even if it was just a little glimpse vignettes, as they were. Charlotte Donlon 36:50 Well, thank you for reading and receiving my vulnerability. Rohadi 36:55 Let's talk let's talk about Yeah. Let's talk about this book, because it's close to something that's going to come out from me, at least along the sense of belonging, I don't dive however, into the, the aspects of loneliness. And that's a space where I don't think I've read very much, if anything around loneliness, maybe dabbled pieces of it and spiritual formation. But this is certainly a topic that is not widely written about, and I'm willing to bet it's because of the fear attached to it. I love your opening line. And this is I know, this is like an author, Geek thing, that the intro, and that chapter one was like, Whoa, oh, my. If this is where the rest of this book is going, then then you're speaking my language, your opening line in the intro and chapter one. If loneliness were placed on one side of a scale and belonging on the other, we might discover they carry the same weight. And in that just line one, when I read that, there was a moment of trepidation. Because if that's true, Oh, no. There's a little bit of fear that kind of crept in, like they're the same. Oh, and that was just a pause. And I left it at that. Charlotte Donlon 38:44 Yeah, because if we want to belong, you know, the equal and opposite. truth to that if loneliness is the opposite of belonging is that we're also lonely. Rohadi 38:56 It seems as though this is a curation or of your collection of vignettes on loneliness. Charlotte Donlon 39:08 Um, I think so. The way I usually describe it is, I explore various angles of loneliness and belonging in this book. And I think it came, I think this book exists the way it exists. Because I knew I couldn't solve the problem of loneliness. And I knew there was no like 10 steps to not be lonely anymore. So my approach with all of my writing and just about everything I do, is to inhabit a posture of curiosity. And I became very curious about my loneliness about others loneliness, and the writing process just kind of takes swing in different directions, as a question comes up or as I read something, and these are the chapters that made the final cut. I feel like I wrote three or four books, and this is the one that got published. Rohadi 40:17 So you have a part two waiting in the wings. Charlotte Donlon 40:23 No, some of those things got thrown away because they needed to get through. But I do I think I have more podcast episodes waiting in the wings possibly Rohadi 40:32 think that you could Oh, I wonder, Are you the brainy bout of loneliness? You can take that coin that loneliness is almost taboo. Culturally, I think, what did brandy BROWN What was her thing? vulnerability? I think to characterise loneliness is something that we don't really like to talk about. Why is that? I think Charlotte Donlon 41:07 we are ashamed of it. Right. And especially as Christians, we feel like there's something wrong with us, you know, it's evidence that I don't have enough friends, or I don't have the right kind of relationships, or I'm not as close to God as I should be. Or, you know, there's something wrong with me, I can't connect to people or I mean, I think there's all kinds of things people could say it's evidence of, and I disagree with all of that. I mean, some of that may be true for some people, but it's pretty clear, based on my own experiences, and people I've talked to about loneliness is that people with all kinds of great friendships and partnerships, and, you know, intimacy with God still can struggle with loneliness, and their, you know, their different kinds of loneliness, and we experience it in different ways, based on our season of life or our circumstances. So it's this. I think we feel shame. And then I think we're afraid of it, because it's not in a box, right? If things aren't in boxes, we we might never have answers for them. And I think we all like to have answers for things, I have moved away from that, because that's the only way I can exist. And I'm more comfortable with not having answers or letting questions result in more questions. So when people slow down and look at their own loneliness, it would take it will take them into different directions about all different kinds of things. And I don't know if a lot of people really want to go there. But what I've discovered and writing and reading and speaking about loneliness is the more I am open about it, and the more I voice, you know, my experiences with loneliness, the less power it has over me. And I think that's connected actually. Brene Brown talks about that, with shame. You know, when we bring it out into the open, it kind of dissipates. And we discover that we're not as alone as we thought we were because other people struggle with loneliness, too. So, you know, that means we're not as isolated and as different as we think we are. Rohadi 43:34 I think we'll come back to that piece of isolation, because that's very acute right now in our world of pandemic of, of the feelings that you have in isolation. I don't know if they've cancelled Christmas by you, but they just did that yesterday, here. You're not alone. In that struggle, the feelings that you're feeling. You're not alone in those feelings, other people, we're all being confronted with the still voice in our minds and in our hearts. And it's really calling us to that falsehood of we're not enough. You just gave the example of what was the word? We'd like to put it in a box was it sounds because we do you think it's because we want to find a formula to fix? I know, that's kind of where I'd go. Something's wrong. No, I have to fix it. Charlotte Donlon 44:41 I mean, I would say most of the at least white American church, that's the approach. And I think people who aren't Christians, I think it's, you know, this human thing to want to fix the problems and make everything better and be comfortable and Don't make all the bad stuff go away, or all the hard stuff, all the suffering go away. Rohadi 45:06 I mean, your premise here, isn't it. You're rooting in the notion loneliness is not a problem. Charlotte Donlon 45:15 I would say loneliness doesn't have to be a problem is not always a problem. I do think loneliness can be a problem. And it can be a sign that some things are wrong. And you know, you might need to think about I mean, it can you know, if you're lonely in your marriage, which I experienced loneliness and belonging in my marriage, but certain types of loneliness in your marriage are certain circumstances around that might mean that like, you need therapy, and you need to maybe, you know, if it's an abusive marriage, and you feel alone, because you're being abused, maybe you need to leave your marriage. So I loneliness. Because it's not in a box. Like, it's connected to so many different aspects of life. I can't put parameters around it and say, loneliness is not a problem, or loneliness is a problem. Like I don't mean to escape. A definition, I just said, there are so many definitions of loneliness out there. And there's a lot of mystery around it. And I mean, I think that's part of it, too. A lot of us don't like this. Oh, I Rohadi 46:32 like that. I like that word. Let's hang on to that. Here's a tweet for you. Mystery that's so good. And perhaps it's a matter of that we each have our own experience and encounter with loneliness in a unique way. Charlotte Donlon 46:50 Yeah, and I think I think the same is true for belonging, right? I think there's mystery and belonging, there are some things that make me feel the lung that made me feel like I belong to myself or others and God, that I can't explain. I love that, you know, like, a taste of, you know, a meal with someone and I take a bite. And it sparks a memory of belonging. And I may not even know why, you know, maybe it was a meal I had 15 years ago. You know, I mean, if I want to get really woowoo on you, maybe it was a meal my mom had 15 years ago, or had when I was she was pregnant with me. I don't know, like, I do think there are ways we're connected and ways that we belong, that aren't explainable. Easily, or at all. Rohadi 47:44 Have to sit with your the mystery, there is mystery and loneliness and mystery and blogging. I should write a book on that. Charlotte Donlon 47:54 You know, I'm just I'm like, I wish I had a chapter on you so write a chapter about it. Rohadi 48:01 I think part of why people don't write on loneliness or mystery is that it will it will force you to confront your own stories on those. And and who wants to do that? That's it. Part one was Charlotte Donlin. She is coming at us from her home in Birmingham, Alabama. I just finished reading one of Dr. King's book about his time there. 60 years ago, hey, there's a lot of history in that space and place for us to learn from and so much to learn from Charlotte. I really value her vulnerability and her story. There is depth and wisdom. In both pick up her book, find her on Twitter as well. You can find Charlotte at Twitter and Instagram. Charlotte, just her name Donlin at Charlotte Donlin. Part two is coming up right now. Don't miss it. Because we go even deeper. We start talking about the intricacies and the depths of her narrative which is really her story that she shares in her book. So that's available right now on Facebook, fresh five podcast. Don't miss it.