Emergency Medicine and Theology: Building Community Through Care

, by Porter's Gate Collective: 00:00:22

Farmer, you are working for a table full of bounty. Painter. With each color you are teaching us to see. Nurse. Yours are the healing hands that touch the poor and broken. May God's kingdom come on earth.

His will be done.

Joshua Noel: 00:00:56

Ephesians 4, verses 25 through 29 in the Christian standard Bible. Therefore, putting away lying, speak the truth, each one to his neighbor. Because we are members of one another, be angry and do not sin.

Don't let the son go down on your anger and don't give the devil an opportunity. Let the thief no longer steal. Instead he is to do honest work with his own hands so that he has something to share with anyone in need.

No foul language should come from your mouth, but only what is good for building up someone in need so that it gives grace to those who hear. In the book of Ephesians, St. Paul is explaining what it means to be the church.

So before this pericope, Paul's writing that the church is to work together in all our different roles. Then here he's insisting that the church builds one another up in word and in deeds.

And he even ties in this idea of our occupational work to this building up concept. Dr. Wesley Wallace, how do you think that we, the church, present ourselves in work ties into the idea of building one another up?

Wesley Wallace, MD: 00:01:56

Hey, I think, I appreciate. That's a good question. And I think what, for me, what St.

Paul had in mind was the work that we do or how we make our living should in some significant way contribute to, to the welfare of others. It shouldn't be just to make money. And that work should also have a significant component.

If I expand further, further into the Gospels, particularly into Matthew 25, it would mean that, as Pope Paul said, we need a preferential option for the poor as well. That's my understanding.

Joshua Noel: 00:02:37

Yeah. Yeah, I like that.

, by Porter's Gate Collective: 00:02:40

Be close to us, Lord. Have mercy on us, Lord. Please put your hands on us day by day.

Joshua Noel: 00:03:12

Hey guys, welcome back to the Whole Church podcast. Doing the whole church job fair. We're gonna have a blast today. It's gonna be a good one.

It's gonna have to be a quick one because of schedules, conflict stuff, but we're gonna be talking with Dr. Wes Wallace, who's asked us to just call him Wes so we're not being disrespectful. That's what he said. And Wes is in the medical field.

He's helped some of the churches in Chapel Hill during COVID come up with their policies, how they wanted to go about things and navigate the waters of what was happening. During the pandemic. So we're talking about some of that. It's going to have a fun time and you know, this is the job fair.

So we're going to ask how some of the stuff we're arguing in seminaries and churches actually relate to his regular day to day life. Dr. Wallace, thank you so much for joining us. Welcome to the show.

Wesley Wallace, MD: 00:03:58

Oh, it's my great pleasure. I appreciate the invitation to visit with you today.

Joshua Noel: 00:04:03

Yeah, yeah. And of course you guys also know the reason for all podcast is also here with us, my co host, the one and only T.J. tiberius Juan Blackwell.

Welcome to your show.

TJ Blackwell: 00:04:17

Thank you. Yeah, yeah.

So if you like what we do here or if you're just finding out what we do here, you should probably check out the Onazam Ministry podcast network website. The link is below.

Check out other shows like our shows we're affiliated with and we're just, you know, we just like to be associated with one another. It helps build the whole church. Isn't that funny?

Joshua Noel: 00:04:36

See what you did there?

TJ Blackwell: 00:04:38

Yeah, yeah. Get merch for the whole church on our store to support the show and the network at large.

Joshua Noel: 00:04:44

Yeah. And the stuff's comfy, so like also just get it for bedtime. It's great.

TJ Blackwell: 00:04:48

Yeah, yeah.

Joshua Noel: 00:04:50

But without further ado, you guys know that I have a favorite form of unity that we like to start things off with, which is the holy sacrament of silliness.

And for this particular series, you know, when we were on our Facebook group, we were asking them, we were like, hey, what are the biggest theological topics that are being argued about in our churches and seminaries so that we know what to ask about? And one person on the group, our good friend Samantha Perez, was like, I know what's an important theological idea is a hot dog. A sandwich.

And then a lot of people voted for that, so that became our silly question. And Dr. Wallace, we need your insight as an expert. Do you think a hot dog is a sandwich?

Wesley Wallace, MD: 00:05:31

Well, Joshua, I saw that question on the show notes. I thought, is this for real?

Joshua Noel: 00:05:40

I also wondered that.

Wesley Wallace, MD: 00:05:42

The more I thought about it, the more I liked it is in a sense a Rorschach question. And you can talk about anything you want to, whatever this inspires. Well, so let me just start talking about, riffing about. Is a hot dog a sandwich?

My answer would be yes, because a sandwich is basically some food substance, usually a protein that is put between two slices of bread. And so for that it's, yeah, it's a sandwich. But the problem and the way this is related to my life is that sometimes what.

What is available as a sandwich is just legion. I mean, there's so many sandwiches available. That was.

Spoke to a lot about my life and my early career trajectory as I struggled to decide what was going to be meaningful, what did I want to do with my life? And just to be brief, to show you how I bounced around before I finally settled on my favorite sandwich.

college, finished up in about: 1969

But this was during the Vietnam era, and I was head of the draft resistance movement in my college in Texas and had the honor of having the Dean of Men call me the most dangerous student on campus. So I spent a lot of time doing that and trying to do well in my studies.

And finally, one of what ended up happening because of my existence, my involvement in draft resistance. Ironically, I failed my draft physical because of an old football that I had.

And so I had several alternative plans before that was in my back pocket. I had applied to Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, Berkeley, California, because I had some thoughts of entering the ministry.

I applied to their Certificate of Theological Studies program, which means that I would be able to study whatever I wanted in their curriculum for a year. And so I did that, and it really changed the trajectory of my life. I ended up, while I was there, working as a.

I guess you might call it a pastoral assistant or chaplain assistant in a hospital. And it was there I became interested in medicine. And after a few more sort of stops and starts, I decided to attend medical school.

And that's where I am today. So that's my riff on the sandwich man.

Joshua Noel: 00:08:52

Yeah, I like. It went full circle there. That was.

TJ Blackwell: 00:08:55

Yeah. And the right answer.

Joshua Noel: 00:08:57

Yeah, yeah, I like a comprehensive hot dog sandwich answers, you know. Oh, man.

But, you know, we've mentioned it most episodes, but in case this is someone's first episode, the reason we're doing this series is because a lot of our listeners to the show are pastors, theologians, church leaders, people who are in seminary and stuff like that. And we believe it's important for our church leaders to hear from and learn from people in other occupations. And we think they can benefit from that.

So that's kind of what we're doing for the purpose of this show. Yeah.

With that in mind, Wes, you kind of mentioned some of your own background, but could you tell us some about maybe the church you go to now or the faith community you find yourself Closest to.

Wesley Wallace, MD: 00:09:42

I live in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Chapel Hill is a modest sized city in the center of North Carolina and I go to University United Methodist Church.

It has the benefit of being right on the edge of the campus. It's on the main drag, Justin's church. That's Justin's church.

Joshua Noel: 00:10:03

I love Justin. Sorry.

Wesley Wallace, MD: 00:10:05

Well, so do I. Yeah.

And so it, it's a, it's a very welcoming church for people of all faiths and none for people of all identities, people who are struggling with their identities. It's, it's a multiracial chur. It's on the progressive end of the political spectrum, as you might guess, with Justin being the minister.

But on the other hand, we do have some people who I think would self identify as magna as maga folks. So it's an interesting experience to be a member of that particular version of the body Christ. The body of Christ.

And to work with with the folks that I'm in communion with there.

Joshua Noel: 00:10:55

Yeah, yeah. It's crazy.

And if people do want to hear more from Reverend Justin, because I have to plug it, he's does another podcast with TJ Me, the Systematic Ecology. He's one of the hosts over there, so people should check it out. Maybe I'll drop a link to all the Justin episodes down below. That'd be kind of cool.

TJ Blackwell: 00:11:09

That would be fun.

Joshua Noel: 00:11:09

Good idea.

TJ Blackwell: 00:11:10

So this is the whole church job fair. If you're not familiar, we're here. So before we get anything else, if someone never heard of what it is that you do.

Wes, how would you describe your job? How would you address anyone who might be interested in pursuing your career?

Wesley Wallace, MD: 00:11:28

Well, let me tell people a little bit about what I've done in my career and what I'm doing now. I am by profession an emergency physician.

I was a practicing emergency physician and attending an emergency medicine for about 35 years at the medical school in the University of North Carolina. I retired from actually supervising residents and interns in the hospital when I was 70.

And since that time I've been doing several other things that keep me involved in medicine. I'm a medical officer in the National Disaster Medical Service, which means that periodically I'm deployed if there's an.

A bad hurricane or an earthquake to provide medical care for people. We actually can put up tents that are essentially a hospital and take care of sick. So I do that.

I work in periodically in a clinic in a small town in North Carolina that has a very large Latino population because it has a very large chicken processing plant. And I'm lucky enough to be able to have learned Spanish. And so I provide medical care to that population.

And I also periodically go to Honduras to work in a small clinic there.

But more recently and more germane to your questions, at the beginning of the pandemic, Justin was putting together a group of local pastors to try to help them deal with. With all the issues about church and worship together and a deadly pandemic.

And so we would meet periodically, initially quite frequently, and then monthly to try to wrestle with these issues.

And my job was to really update them on what was happening in the pandemic, how they could best keep their community together and yet at the same time keep their community safe. When was it likely safe to worship together? When did people need to mask.

What alterations could they make in the way their churches were ventilated that would help people? And so, you know, what vaccines were recommended? What kinds of things could people do to reduce their risk? Who was at risk?

So it was that kind of advice they gave them. And it's been ongoing even since the pandemic ended. That community has persisted, particularly the pastors in the Chapel Hill area.

And I've been very fortunate and pleased to be able to continue with that community as well.

Joshua Noel: 00:14:30

Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. It's awesome. Yeah. I know Will has told us a lot about that, and I think a lot of connections were made.

Obviously, we don't want pandemics to happen, but I am thankful for some of those connections made because the kind of, you know, I got involved with Will, and now I know Justin through all this. So God works mysterious ways, or so I'm told.

So in this series, we're doing a lot of, like, asking people something like, what are the stuff that we don't think about, people who aren't in your occupation, who maybe we just don't know about, or like maybe the language, you know, in the restaurant, you know, we yell sharp, it's hot pot. And usually concise words to just shout and communicate. And it's a whole different language when you're at the kitchen at home.

What are maybe some of the different lingo that you use, or maybe just what's different about your occupation that maybe other people wouldn't take?

Wesley Wallace, MD: 00:15:17

I think that one thing that some people don't know is the fact that, unfortunately, with the advent of computers and electronic medical systems, my colleagues and I are having to spend increasing amounts of time on the computer.

Toward the end of my career as a senior emergency physician supervising other doctors, when I was actually on shift I was spending more than half of my time interacting with the computer. That may be some things that are pretty productive, like checking medical images, a CAT scan or a chest X ray, or looking at an ekg.

All of those are now computerized and I access, would access them that way.

But part of it was generating a medical record that was partly so that other physicians could see what our thoughts were and what we had done, but to a large extent so it could justify the maximum possible bill for the institution and could provide medical legal protection. And it has just overwhelmed most physicians. But it's especially difficult for emergency physicians.

The other thing that people may not know is that emergency departments now are sort of like the Statue of Liberty. We take the challenges from everywhere and take care of them.

We cannot, and I'm thankful for this, legally under federal law, refuse care to someone who is in labor or sick or injured. They have to have at least an evaluation and then life saving care after that.

So we have become, as more people have difficulty accessing the really dysfunctional healthcare system in this country, they come to the emergency department.

And as many hospitals, because of various economic pressures have collapsed, especially in rural, rural regions, they come to our hospital and frequently the hospital is completely full. That particularly was bad during COVID but it was happening before that and now is really on steroids, as we say.

And so when the hospital is full, we keep virtually all the additional patients in the emergency department until a bed opens up.

And that's something people may not, may not appreciate and they may get some sense of that when they go and the place is chaotic and packed to gills and they feel like, they appropriately feel like they have not the privacy that they deserve.

Joshua Noel: 00:18:11

Yeah, right.

TJ Blackwell: 00:18:12

Hey, the way I see it, I don't need privacy. I just need to be alive.

Wesley Wallace, MD: 00:18:18

But it, I must say that, you know, there, there, the limits of what we can do are reduced when we're so overwhelmed with not only our emergency patients, but taking care of patients while they're waiting for a bed. We know from research that those outcomes, when patients are kept in the emergency department longer, they have poorer outcomes.

TJ Blackwell: 00:18:43

Right? So the meat of these job fair episodes, we're going to talk about those other big theological topics that are voted on besides hot dog sandwich.

And we're going to try to get through these pretty quick because we are short on time.

Wesley Wallace, MD: 00:18:57

Okay.

TJ Blackwell: 00:18:57

But you know, take your time. Don't truncate anything you're you want to say because that's what's important.

But we're going to go through these 12 big theological topics that get debated by theologians, podcasters, and pastors to see how these ideas actually impact everyday lives.

So we're going to go through the 12 that our group voted on, and we just need you to tell us if you find the topic somewhat relevant, not relevant, Very relevant, or if you've never heard of it. That's a fine answer. If you've never heard of it.

Joshua Noel: 00:19:27

Like multiple choice.

TJ Blackwell: 00:19:29

Yeah. So let's go through the 12, and you just give us that one or two word answer and then we'll go through the two that you wanted to discuss.

Does that work?

Wesley Wallace, MD: 00:19:38

That works.

TJ Blackwell: 00:19:39

All right. So.

Wesley Wallace, MD: 00:19:43

Really not clear exactly what that means. And because of that, don't have a word.

TJ Blackwell: 00:19:48

Perfect. Yeah, that works. Free will versus predestination.

Wesley Wallace, MD: 00:19:51

You know, I know what that is, and I'm not. That's not particularly a focus of my interest.

TJ Blackwell: 00:19:57

Right. Atonement models.

Wesley Wallace, MD: 00:20:01

Not particularly an interest of mine.

TJ Blackwell: 00:20:03

All right. Continuationism versus cessationism.

Wesley Wallace, MD: 00:20:06

Not particularly an interest in mine.

TJ Blackwell: 00:20:09

Christology.

Wesley Wallace, MD: 00:20:10

That would have some traction with me. But again, my interest is. Is. Is. Would be focused on what I understand to be the through line of the gospel, as is indicated by Jesus.

TJ Blackwell: 00:20:28

God's nature.

Wesley Wallace, MD: 00:20:31

Of some interest. But I'm. That's not an area I'm well read in or have strong opinions on.

TJ Blackwell: 00:20:38

Social justice.

Wesley Wallace, MD: 00:20:40

That's something that I really focus on. I'm. I'm what you might call a Matthew 25 Christian. That and the sermon.

Joshua Noel: 00:20:49

I like that. Yeah.

Wesley Wallace, MD: 00:20:51

Together really indicate to me how I should be living my life and how the church should be moving further toward the kingdom of God on earth.

TJ Blackwell: 00:21:03

So the doctrine of imago dei, that.

Wesley Wallace, MD: 00:21:07

Would be another one that would be of great interest to me because in my mind it defines how we should be treating one another.

That I think we're seeing a great problem now in othering others, making them somewhat less than human in enabling us as a society to diminish those people, to diminish their value, to diminish their presence among us. And we should be treating those people as if they are in the image of God.

TJ Blackwell: 00:21:41

The nature of Scripture.

Wesley Wallace, MD: 00:21:45

Some interest particularly would be focusing mainly on the gospels, which for me seem to have the most salience.

TJ Blackwell: 00:21:55

The ecclesiology and missiology.

Wesley Wallace, MD: 00:21:59

Not particularly interested in those.

TJ Blackwell: 00:22:02

Right. And demonology and angelology?

Wesley Wallace, MD: 00:22:04

Certainly not interested in those.

TJ Blackwell: 00:22:07

And what about eschatology?

Wesley Wallace, MD: 00:22:09

You know, the end times? Just if it happens, it happens. And I don't have a great interest in there.

TJ Blackwell: 00:22:17

Yeah. All right, so that's all 12. And then you said you already picked out the ones you wanted to discuss first?

Wesley Wallace, MD: 00:22:23

Yeah, I think the, the, the two that really caught my attention, as I indicated in the quick rundown of the questions, would probably be Social justice and Imago Day.

TJ Blackwell: 00:22:35

All right, so why would you say that these two are more relevant to you than the other 10?

Wesley Wallace, MD: 00:22:42

Well, to me, the real capsule version of what I understand to be Christ's message to us is in Matthew 25. I don't know of a clearer place where Jesus explains what he expects of us.

And that explanation, to care for the least of these, particularly to care for the stranger. And by that, I think most scholars would think that really includes the word immigrant.

That, to me, is the thrust of Jesus message, and that's the way that I've tried to live my life is focusing more on caring for people in need, particularly the least of these.

And I think it's something that the church strays from with some frequency, and we get caught up in sometimes comfortably trying to count that number of angels that dance on the head of a pin rather than talking about what Jesus really emphasized in the Gospels and how we should be living our lives differently.

Joshua Noel: 00:23:59

Yeah.

So then as far as, like, which ones maybe are irrelevant to you, who maybe we're spending too much time talking about in our seminaries, would you say then angelology is probably the top of the list for you?

Wesley Wallace, MD: 00:24:13

I, you know, it's. If someone wants to study that, I, I think they should be free to do that.

That was something in my year in seminary I don't think was even offered at Pacific School of Religion, and I just don't.

Joshua Noel: 00:24:29

Yeah.

Wesley Wallace, MD: 00:24:30

Much interest in.

Joshua Noel: 00:24:31

Yeah.

Was there anything else that you are like, hey, we're spending too much time focusing on this as opposed to stuff that makes more of an impact on people's lives.

Wesley Wallace, MD: 00:24:42

I think sometimes we, as the, The. The small c.

Catholic Church, spend too much time struggling among ourselves on doctrinal issues that at the end of the day, don't contribute much to the creation of God's kingdom on earth.

Joshua Noel: 00:25:05

Yeah, I like that.

TJ Blackwell: 00:25:07

All right, so what do you think, or what do you rather the church, our pastors and our theologians should focus on?

Wesley Wallace, MD: 00:25:15

Well, I, I think it's important that they focus on a clear understanding of the Bible and that they understand not only individual verses and be able to understand the historical context of those and be well versed in exe.

Exegetic interpretations of the Bible, but they be able to impart through their good preaching, through their homiletics, what that means to the people in the pews.

And I think it's, you know, unfortunately, we seem to have drifted off into things like the prosperity gospel or trying to figure out how to have political power. And I understand that as being really antithetical to the, to the message of Christ.

TJ Blackwell: 00:26:16

Right. Yeah. We each see the world through different eyes.

But is there anything in your work that you see that you think that pastors and other church leaders might benefit from seeing for themselves or learning about?

Wesley Wallace, MD: 00:26:30

Well, I, I would hope that all pastors would have a chance to see the situation of the people referred to as the least of these, the people living on the streets, the people struggling to make ends meet. The, the people who are legally here in this country and, and terrified at the current moment.

Indeed, those who are, who don't have papers and are terrified. I think we need. I would hope they would have a better sense of that. I would hope they would have a better sense of society at large.

I think some of the work that's done by Robert P. Jones, I don't know if you're familiar with his work.

He is actually an ordained Baptist minister, but he has a PhD in Sociology and he does in Enorm, goes in, does a whole lot of work studying attitudes of Christians across the entire spectrum toward various topics. It's particularly helpful, I think, to people as we try to understand the political challenges we're facing today.

So I would hope that they would have that ability to kind of have a broader sociology, and I would hope something that we're neglecting generally in education in this country, have the ability to understand logic and how to make decisions and basic statistics so that they can analyze data that keeps being thrown up as a, as a means and to understand when something just doesn't make sense.

TJ Blackwell: 00:28:19

Yeah. Yeah, I agree. So one thing we usually do before wrapping up is we ask our guest, which is you today.

If they had to provide one tangible action to help engender church unity, what is one practical thing our listeners could do to do that?

But for this series, we want to know, what could anyone in the church, laity or ministerial do to help someone in your occupation in their daily life?

Wesley Wallace, MD: 00:28:47

Well, I guess, you know, in my current occupation of trying to help others and to help church communities stay healthy and stay together.

I think the most important thing that people could do today, especially given our political climate, is to learn to listen to one another and to listen not with the intent to reply or to rebut what someone has said, but with the intent to understand what someone else is saying.

TJ Blackwell: 00:29:19

Right.

Wesley Wallace, MD: 00:29:20

I Think that's how we develop relationships.

And it's through those relationships that I think we can better come together and hopefully eventually have informed and compassionate discussion about the church and about our faith.

TJ Blackwell: 00:29:39

Yeah. Yeah, that's a good answer. So what would change in the world around us if we all start doing that?

Wesley Wallace, MD: 00:29:45

If we all start doing that? I think politics would look a whole lot better.

I think there wouldn't be the kind of schisms that we're seeing within denominations and within the church, within the body of Christ at large. We wouldn't have.

I mean, it's just so polar now that we have some Christians nominally described as Christian nationalists, who are saying that compassion is actually a sin.

It's not a value that feel like that caring for the poor and the children, that programs like SNAP and Medicaid, which provide medical care for the poorest among us, are not Christian values. And I clearly disagree with that. But I think we should be able to have a discussion about that.

Joshua Noel: 00:30:45

Yeah, right.

TJ Blackwell: 00:30:47

So right before we wrap up, we like to do this one little thing where we ask everyone to share a moment recently in their life where they saw God, whether that be in a blessing or a challenge or a moment of worship. I always make Josh go first to give us plenty of time to think. So, Josh, do you have a God moment for us?

Joshua Noel: 00:31:06

Yeah. Yeah. In my workplace, to keep it, you know, relevant to this.

My boss was the other day telling me about this nosebleed she had for hours in the middle of the night, and then while she was telling me, all of a sudden started gushing blood from her nose in the middle of the workplace. And then she had to run outside, and she ended up having to go to urgent care.

And she eventually got the inside of her nose cauterized and is still kind of recovering. That's a long story.

But I just had a day where I happened to be able to stay late, where I was able to, like, kind of help clean up the mess, help the next shift kind of start, because we have a lot of new managers coming in, set them up, and I don't know, it was, in a weird way, it was a blessing that I was able to be there for the moment when I know everybody else who works there, and I don't think anybody else would have been able to a see what I saw, clean the blood and be fine and then be. Actually hold the shifts together. So I don't know. It was a blessing, but also scary, you know?

Wesley Wallace, MD: 00:32:15

Josh, tell me, what kind of work do you do?

Joshua Noel: 00:32:19

I work In a restaurant.

Wesley Wallace, MD: 00:32:21

Okay.

Joshua Noel: 00:32:21

So.

Wesley Wallace, MD: 00:32:22

Yeah, I understand.

Joshua Noel: 00:32:23

Yeah, sure. Yeah, it was, it was something. Yeah, very. Blood is unexpected.

TJ Blackwell: 00:32:30

Yeah. Blood is a real deal in a restaurant.

Joshua Noel: 00:32:33

Yeah. We don't see blood that often. It's like, I don't know what I'm talking to. He's like, ah, that's not that big a deal.

But yeah, there was puddles and I was like, I'm not used to seeing puddles of blood.

Wesley Wallace, MD: 00:32:44

I can understand how that's a shock the first time you see it.

TJ Blackwell: 00:32:47

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So for me, and I'll go next, My God moment is just generally going to be about my family.

I just, I found out the other day that my dad, you know, bless his heart, he's 68 or 7, one of those two numbers. And he still, he still pays for my, you know, little sister's like taxes on her car and the registration, all that.

And I just never even thought about it. And he still working and he's willing and he's not questioning why he's doing that for his 23 year old daughter.

He's just doing it because he loves her. And I, you know, that's really special to me and that's how I want to live.

Hopefully one day I would like to do that and be like my dad, you know, I'm not jealous.

Joshua Noel: 00:33:35

That's cool. Not jealous. Yeah. So I'm sitting here at like 33. Like I can't, can't imagine walking at 68 at this point. Like I'm already aching so much.

I'm like 30 more years. Really?

TJ Blackwell: 00:33:47

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But Wes, do you have a God moment for us?

Wesley Wallace, MD: 00:33:53

Yeah, it went a bit different. I was late to church the other day to a Sunday service, and was walking down Franklin street where University United Methodist is in Chapel Hill.

And this guy was. We have a fair number of homeless people that hang out on Franklin street. And he was laying on the sidewalk and people were walking by.

He's kind of a regular there in my experience, but he seemed to be completely unresponsive. And I thought, oh, he's probably all right. And so I started across the street and I said, wait, now this. And.

And reminded myself that this guy is in the image of God. And so I turned around and just shook him and said, brother, are you okay? Do you need help? And he said, oh, no, I'm fine.

But that was an important reminder to me.

Joshua Noel: 00:34:53

Yeah, yeah. West is doubling down on that Imago day being an important daily doctrine to remember.

TJ Blackwell: 00:34:58

It is. That's how I do My job.

Joshua Noel: 00:35:01

Yeah. That's good stuff, you know, Me too. I feel like so far that's probably the most relevant one for everybody. Yeah.

TJ Blackwell: 00:35:10

But thank you so much for your time today, Wes, and thank you, listeners, for listening. We couldn't do this without you. Naturally.

Wesley Wallace, MD: 00:35:16

My pleasure to be here.

TJ Blackwell: 00:35:18

Yeah. If you like the show, please consider sharing with a friend, share with an enemy, share with your cousins.

And if you're listening on the YouTube channel, hit like hit subscribe, please. That would be very nice. You can do it for our birthday.

Joshua Noel: 00:35:30

Ever since, like, one point you said hit like hit, subscribe, Hit, Josh. And now every time you say hit like hit subscribe, I, like, flinch a little, you know?

TJ Blackwell: 00:35:38

Yeah. Everyone on YouTube is on their way to hit you right now currently.

Joshua Noel: 00:35:41

Yeah. But guys, make sure you check out the other shows on the Ozalp podcast network. You know, we mentioned systematic ecology.

Reverend Justin's over there. We love him. I think I mentioned Pastor Will. He has the homily. He's about to start another one. We'll laugh about that later. And we got a couple that.

I'm trying to get them over to the network. We're converting some people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what we're working on now. Yeah.

TJ Blackwell: 00:36:05

But we hope you enjoyed it. Next week, we're going to be joined by Josh Patterson, longtime friend, guest on the show.

He's going to discuss his careers as a brewer and as an energy consultant.

Joshua Noel: 00:36:14

Then we're going to be joined by Brandon Hazard, Mitigation. Sorry, I just never.

TJ Blackwell: 00:36:18

Mitigation. And then we'll be joined by Brandon Knight to wrap up our series discussing his job as a ninja coach.

Joshua Noel: 00:36:25

That's a really normal job, relatable to everyone.

TJ Blackwell: 00:36:27

Super normal.

Joshua Noel: 00:36:28

Yeah.

TJ Blackwell: 00:36:29

And we're gonna do an encore episode for the series on comic book writing. And later we'll have a roundtable of pastors and professors join us to reflect on the series.

Joshua Noel: 00:36:38

That line drawing again, instead of comic book writing, Andy Walsh will be. And we'll be doing science Scientist.

TJ Blackwell: 00:36:45

Yeah, yeah, scientists. And then we're gonna have pastors and professors outline.

Joshua Noel: 00:36:49

Sucks.

Wesley Wallace, MD: 00:36:50

Yeah.

TJ Blackwell: 00:36:51

And they're gonna be on to discuss the things we learned during the job fair.

Joshua Noel: 00:36:55

Yeah, that part's correct.

TJ Blackwell: 00:36:57

At the end of season one, Francis Chan will be on the show.

Joshua Noel: 00:37:01

Yeah. He doesn't know about it, though. So for this to be correct, you guys have to tell him.

TJ Blackwell: 00:37:06

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've done enough of the work.

Wesley Wallace, MD: 00:37:08

Yeah.

, by Porter's Gate Collective: 00:37:21

Lord, have mercy on us, Lord. Please put your hand on us day by day.

TJ Blackwell: 00:37:43

Lord.

, by Porter's Gate Collective: 00:37:51

Lord, have mercy on us Lord, please put your hand on us day by day.