Splintered Grace 💠

The Blind Men and The Elephant

August 26, 2021 Bonnie Violet & Tina Frank
Splintered Grace 💠
The Blind Men and The Elephant
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Show Notes Transcript

This season we push the depths of our relationship even further. Tackling the difficult conversations that we fear may separate us.

Tina, a conservative christian woman and Bonnie Violet, a trans gender queer drag queen have an anti-cancel culture conversation. While many family members are choosing to no longer speak, we have chosen to sit at the table and engage in difficult conversation to find peace and restoration.

To learn more about Splintered Grace go to https://linktr.ee/aqueerchaplain

a queer chaplain 
Helping to lace one’s narrative with a spiritual thread.

Big shout out and Thank you to our monthly supporters. With your support we can continue to bring and upgrade Splintered Grace Podcast quality and reach.

To learn more or to join our Patreon go to patreon.com/bonnieviolet

a queer chaplain 
Helping to lace one’s n

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Book ME! - Keynote, Panel, Guest on Show, Officiate Wedding /Memorial in/out of drag.
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[Music]


0:14

feeling [Music]


0:24

will be [Music]


0:35

hey everybody guess what it's time for splinter grace i'm tina frank i'm a mature christian woman here to have a


0:42

conversation with bonnie violet hi everyone bonnie violet here i am a


0:47

transgender queer spiritual drag artist and digital chaplain and i am coming in from deep creek


0:54

maryland wow that sounds like a mouthful right


1:01

and i hope that our connection stays well this evening if for whatever reason just give folks a heads up


1:07

um if things go a little wonky we'll do our best to keep going and you might lose me for a bit but tina will


1:13

do her best to keep it going hopefully yeah i'll do my best


1:19

so how you've been ah i've been good i've had i had a good week


1:24

hanging out um i got to see a couple of my kids this week uh got to make some shirts for a wedding


1:31

for one of our friends coming up so that's all always a lot of fun um yeah it was was nice


1:39

nice yeah how about you you've been hanging out in a cabin it sounds like having great fun


1:44

yeah we're like we're on a at a lake house and um so we're just like a few


1:50

we're just like a hop skip and a jump to the lake um and uh i haven't been i've


1:55

never been much of a um lake person actually i've only been on a lake once before but i've been out on


2:01

the lake almost every day we've been here for almost wow almost a week now so it's been really great


2:07

did you get seasick no i didn't the most i got was a little sunburnt which is


2:12

why i'm wearing the hoodie to cover all my little pinks my pink parts i guess


2:18

it's funny um kayla is saying aloha hey kayla hello kayla glad that you could join us again and we


2:25

have hurting cats for you as well hey hey hearties happy birthday to you both glad you could join us um


2:33

yes i'm saying a little prayer on the connection is it telling you that it's it's uh not


2:39

strong yeah it's just like one little bar usually that's not a good sign but what


2:45

are you gonna do what are you gonna do we'll do the best we can


2:50

yes yes yes so yeah it's been it's it's been a really great time getting ready to it's been great spending time with


2:56

marcus and getting to know his family who they've just it's just been really fantastic


3:01

i'm so glad i can't wait to see the pictures yeah i i yeah you're gonna have to talk


3:07

to marcus because i probably will not give any of those away freely oh all right well i will definitely talk


3:13

to marcus and see if i can uh maybe put some up there on our facebook page that would be amazing


3:19

yeah maybe for that maybe for that take one for the team bonnie that's


3:26

right that's right so hey what do we have going on this week well so this week you know we're still


3:33

i'm still playing with the the you know the mouse and the elephant and all that fun stuff and so in talking


3:40

with my therapist a while back when i mentioned about the mouse and the elephant he was like oh do you mean the


3:46

blind man in the elephant i was like uh no but what's that and so then i looked it up and so


3:53

um i thought we would use that as a topic for this week


3:58

i actually do have a little video for folks who maybe aren't aware of the story um so if you're listening you can listen


4:05

to it if you're watching you get to watch it um and then we'll talk a little bit about it um once it's done how does


4:12

that sound sounds good to me all right well let's uh let's do it then


4:18

and here we go [Music]


4:26

there were six blind men who grew up in a village in india and the community kept them safe and shared with them many


4:34

stories the men were curious about many of the stories they heard but they were most


4:39

curious about elephants based on the stories that each of them had heard they argued about what


4:45

elephants must be like the community grew tired of these arguments and arranged for the men to


4:51

visit the palace for they were greeted by an old friend from their village who worked as a gardener on the palace


4:56

grounds their friend led them to the courtyard there stood an elephant


5:06

[Music] the blind men stepped forward to touch the creature that was the subject of so


5:12

many arguments the first blind man reached out and touched the side of the huge animal


5:20

an elephant is smooth and solid like a wall he declared it must be very


5:26

powerful the second blind man put his hand on the elephant's limber trunk


5:31

an elephant is like a giant snake he announced the third blind man felt the elephant's


5:37

pointed tusk i was right he decided this creature is as sharp and deadly as a


5:44

spear the fourth blind man touched one of the elephant's four legs


5:50

what we have here he said is an extremely large cow


5:55

the fifth blind man felt the elephant's giant ear i believe an elephant is like a huge fan


6:03

or maybe a magic carpet that can fly over mountains and tree tops he said


6:10

the sixth blind man gave a tug on the elephant's coarse tail why this is nothing more than a piece of


6:17

old rope dangerous indeed he scoffed the gardener led his friends to the


6:24

shade of a tree sit here and rest for the long journey home he said i will bring you some water


6:30

to drink while they waited the six blind men talked about the elephant an elephant is


6:36

like a wall said the first blind man surely we can finally agree on that a


6:41

wall an elephant is a giant snake answer the second blind man it's a spear i tell you


6:49

insisted the third blind man i'm certain it's a giant cow said the fourth blind


6:54

man magic carpet there's no doubt said the fifth blind man don't you see


7:01

pleaded the sixth blind man someone used a rope to trick us their argument


7:06

continued and their shouts grew louder and louder wall snake


7:12

spear cow carpet


7:17

stop shouting called a very angry voice it was the raja awakened from his nap by


7:24

the noisy argument how can each of you be so certain you were right ask the ruler


7:30

the six blind men considered the question and then knowing the raja to be a very


7:35

wise man they decided to say nothing at all the elephant is a very large animal said


7:42

the raja kindly each man touched only one part perhaps if you put the parts


7:48

together you will see the truth now let me finish my nap in peace


7:54

[Music]


8:12

good good story had you heard of the story before i not until you had shared it with me


8:19

i had it i hadn't heard it either how do you think it's relevant to us or is it


8:26

um oh i think it is because i think we all have have unique perspectives based on our own


8:32

experience and understanding and what we perceive to be in front of us so yeah i think it's very


8:38

relevant indeed indeed yeah i've i just yeah i mean i feel like


8:44

i'm bringing these little things like trying to force a like i don't know like if sorry if it's feeling awkward or


8:50

weird no no um but yeah i mean i think it's it just i think for me what it goes is like to i


8:57

mean and i think it's something that we're all you know we're all fairly aware of i think is that you know we we


9:04

all might know i i mean we all might know one part of something and it might even be true it might even not be true


9:12

um but it's it's not necessarily you know what i mean and so we can argue about it or


9:17

you know or or not i guess right right well i thought it was interesting that they chose uh blind men


9:24

for this analogy you know uh site site is a is a perceptor


9:30

had each of them seen and had a site perceptor it may have been a different it would have been for sure a different


9:36

outcome of the whole but i still think they would have all had a different perspective


9:41

based on their background or or or experience so


9:47

so yes i think there's a couple levels of discussion here if we if we want to go there


9:53

um so just in the sense just in the sense that even if they the individuals who


9:59

were talking about an elephant weren't blind they still would have a very maybe


10:04

different ways in which they would talk about um the elephant and the characteristics of the elephant and that sort of thing


10:11

right what you're saying yeah and i think they could probably relate to different characteristics based on their


10:16

experiences you know someone who's looking for strength would see a lot of strength there maybe


10:23

um you know a mouse i we know a mouse can destroy an elephant by running up its trunk


10:28

so you know there would be a different perspective there so i think if we can see or if we can't see we all


10:35

have a unique perspective that we bring to the table


10:40

yeah and and even and like like i guess even with the um like because they had never seen an elephant before right at


10:47

all so i think it would also i'm wondering kind of in thinking about my experience had i


10:52

did i maybe see an elephant and then not see an elephant in the sense of my spirituality or i think of god you know


10:58

in the sense of like i thought i knew i thought i knew this elephant let's say


11:03

um i knew what it was i knew what god was i knew it was all about all what it was


11:09

all about and then life happened and maybe um i don't know if losing sight is something i want to


11:15

say but maybe uh gaining new sight or a different vision if you will then you start i


11:22

started to see things a little bit differently um and you know maybe it's the same thing


11:30

but um i don't know but it's different and like you and i i think we had more of a


11:36

agreement if you will um and then it it kind of changed at some point in time because of maybe our


11:42

experience with different parts of god let's say this say or like how we interact with god or


11:48

what we've come to understand about um the purpose of life and you know all


11:55

that that uh fun stuff [Laughter] all that really easy stuff to to talk


12:02

about and ponder about and pray about yeah i think there's a lot of things that we can perceive from here so i feel


12:09

like there's some some definite conversations that you want to have i'm i'm willing to have those conversations


12:16

is there something in particular that this story brought to your mind that you're wondering about because i'm happy to


12:22

share well i think i think in light of i mean i we both are very you know like we both


12:28

are very grounded and are grounded in our spirituality and are um


12:33

our uh seeking of uh maybe more understanding and being in


12:39

alignment with um with god higher power creator whatever you know all those sorts of things um and yet we might have


12:46

i guess different ways of doing it which again we've talked you know we've talked about


12:52

a lot um and i don't i don't know you know it's like after our last conversation you


12:57

know and kind of i had that realization of like i was kind of like


13:03

okay with you believing whatever you wanted except for this one thing for some reason and it was like once i kind


13:09

of let that go and realize you know that doesn't really matter then to some degree it's like okay that


13:16

stuff doesn't matter but would it still be kind of fun to talk about what would we


13:21

what you know what what we what are we interested in talking about more specifically if if it doesn't um


13:28

if it doesn't um matter in this sense i guess not that it doesn't matter but


13:34

it it's not like it's not gonna change our relationship exactly it's not like um gonna be it's not like we're


13:42

we're i guess punching each you know like we're we're i don't know we're hitting you know what i mean like we're not being


13:48

impacted by the other ones yeah well we're just trying we're not trying to we're not trying to change anyone each other


13:55

we're we're willing to just love each other where we're at um and you know


14:00

pray for one another i mean at the end of the day that's that's what we can do i can't change you you can't change me


14:07

if there's a change it needs to take place um that's my i believe that's god's doing it's not


14:13

for me to change you or for you to change me um and i think that that seeking you know these guys didn't have


14:19

to show up over there they could have said no i don't want to see the elephant i don't want to touch the elephant


14:24

yeah i'm good i just got to believe what i'm going to believe and y'all we'll just argue for the rest of our lives


14:31

they could have chose that but they went and and i feel like we've decided to come we decided to come to the table


14:37

we've decided to bring our perspectives we've decided to lay him down and trust god


14:42

with the with the outcome of who we are but we want to be in relationship


14:47

and so i'm going to love you where you're at you're going to love me where i'm at we're going to choose to do life


14:53

together and if god changes us in the process yay if he doesn't yay


14:59

right it's it's a it's a win so that's kind of


15:05

my perspective um you know


15:11

that's right or wrong but that's that's how i how i see it i you know i i pray for you every day i care about what


15:17

happens to you every day am i worried about you wandering around the world yes


15:23

i pray for you i know i i know i shouldn't because god's gonna take care of you right but but i do so those are


15:30

all things that you can't change no matter if you agree with me or not so just like for you if you have any of


15:36

those things that you do for me i can't change those things no matter if i'm mad at you agree with you disagree


15:42

with you whatever none of that stuff matters yeah yeah i was i was kind of


15:48

noticed also like the um the uh the guy at the end that was like keep it down


15:54

i'm just trying to sleep you know like i'm like yeah i'm like i think there's a lot of people


15:59

in my life that i feel sometimes do that i'm just like they're like girl just go


16:04

to sleep like like i don't know just you know let me be or whatever it's


16:10

um i think i felt that way too right it's like just let me live my life don't come at me with like


16:16

whatever it's not it's not something we need to fight about you know it's really not it's it's


16:22

really not you know there's going to be a lot of things that we're going to disagree with with one another with other people


16:28

but you know that doesn't change um that god created us to be in relationship together


16:34

if he if he didn't we wouldn't be in the same family yeah you know and


16:39

so i just i don't know i figure one of my first steps to honoring who god created me to be


16:45

is to honor the relationships and the people that he's put in my life you know they always say you have a


16:50

family or are people you don't get to choose friends or your family that you get to choose


16:56

i i i don't know that makes me a little uneasy because i think the family or the people that intentionally put in our


17:02

lives to help us to move toward our purpose those friendships that we have along the


17:07

way can enhance that or they could steer us away from that depending on how we let those influences


17:13

um align with us so yeah it can be really tough with me


17:19

bonnie that's it well and it's you know it's interesting because we don't get to choose our family and i think sometimes being in


17:25

relationship with families or family members is probably not healthy and and it could be toxic and maybe not even


17:32

safe so i think it's a like you know i think that's like a real thing to


17:37

like to consider to think about but i think also like one of the things that i've been looking at is kind of like


17:43

because regardless of somebody else's behavior to some degree to some degree there are


17:48

some situations where you know violence like that's


17:54

that's more out of your control right but i like for me the way that i get to try to


17:59

be okay if i choose to be okay with people or one of the things that i was noticing


18:04

is that i was um there in a way i was i was like kind of


18:10

like we talked about last week like i was being hurt by something


18:17

that i was in like i was control of or like i was


18:23

like allowing kind of to happen um because and it wasn't about like oh so-and-so can say this but the way that


18:30

it impacts me is in my control and and that was something that i think a


18:36

lot of us do and i think it's very easy for us to do with family members or


18:41

maybe even if it's bosses or else like other people that there's these certain roles where you know it's it feels a


18:48

little bit harder to um not give them that power or um to to to understand at


18:55

least for me to know what my power actually is in that particular uh situation or circumstance


19:02

yeah i totally get it i spent i spent a lot of my life worried about that kind of stuff


19:08

and i i just decided not to anymore i saw kayla put a period i don't know if


19:15

that meant period to what we were saying or maybe there's more i'm not sure but maybe i thought we just couldn't read


19:20

the writing it was white or something no yeah i wasn't for sure either once i put it on the screen but


19:28

so yeah so i i learned a long time ago that i i get to respond i get to i get


19:33

to manage those things that come at me in a positive or negative way however i want to


19:39

um i also got to choose that i can choose to still love this person or not


19:45

and so i i always take that into consideration before i get offended because i've i've decided um over the


19:52

years that i am not going to be offended end of story i believe that every interaction that i


19:59

have with people is is intentional it's ordained it's it's part of of


20:05

my opportunity to become a better human being and so i want to take every one of those


20:10

interactions positive or negative into consideration and i want to respond


20:16

the best at my ability correctly now people can say rude things to me and


20:22

i can choose to fight back why would i do that in my experience that just fuels


20:27

whatever it is that's already infuriated then a lot of times it's not even furious at me they're just furious at a


20:32

title that i chose to carry it's not even about who i am as a person it's about a title i chose to carry so


20:38

why would i feel that um i can also choose to contin pursue that person in a kind loving way or not


20:45

you know people close to me my family i'm going to pursue that in a kind living way because i believe that family


20:52

is meant to be together now someone physically smacks me i may not


20:58

i may not go to your house i may go to a family reunion and say hello but i'm not going to go to your house for dinner


21:03

and i'm certainly going to send you a christmas card still i'm certainly going to pray for you still but i'm not going to have that give you that opportunity


21:10

to physically hurt me again but i i'm just i don't know life's too short


21:16

i i think people are valuable all people all people are valuable


21:22

and if there is something i can say or do to encourage someone to be the amazing


21:28

creature they've been created to be the amazing person they've been created to be man i want to do that and and go ahead


21:35

and yell at me i don't care i i got pretty thick skin over the over the years i choose to not be offended


21:41

sometimes it's hard not to be offended but i just try to walk it out sometimes i have to take a deep breath disappear


21:48

for a day or two work through that whatever thing that just got me and then come back at it but yeah


21:54

anyway side road nope no no it's good and kayla says uh


21:59

in some circumstances power is also knowing your value and i think i


22:05

think for me that was the key part was not again not understanding my power or my value in a particular circumstance or


22:12

feeling less than right um is kind of often times what it comes down to at least for me and that was


22:20

that was the stuff it's like okay i might not fight you but i'm going to like i would be


22:26

offended in my head and with myself and my experience with that like i would be bothered by it and i still am and so i


22:33

think when you you've often said you know like i don't get offended um and i'm like


22:38

yeah right um because i was still like like but i understand how


22:44

um how like i can work toward that as well


22:49

because i feel like over um the last year so i have


22:55

uh been able to see maybe as kayla says more of my own value i've been able to


23:01

to understand the power that i've given people um that they don't even really know about


23:08

half the time or you know what i mean and so um in doing that i can


23:14

i i not getting offended as much but to be honest with you i feel like


23:19

and i don't again it's like these have to's but for whatever reason i came


23:24

or am coming to that understanding and that way of being through unfortunately


23:30

being offended or hurt or harmed to the point where i had no other choice but to like


23:39

get rid of it you know what i mean like because i could not not


23:44

you know i couldn't i just i couldn't not not um let it hurt me anymore you know like i


23:50

had to find a way to stop being hurt by it um you know and i was being hurt by even


23:57

when i wasn't in the same room with people you know what i mean and that was something i also had to come to realize


24:02

too and oftentimes it was worse actually you know it was actually better once it


24:08

wasn't as bad once we were in the same room yeah you know it's it's amazing how we allow offense


24:14

of it gives its control over us when we allow someone to offend us we're


24:19

actually giving control of ourselves over to them because they're dictating how we respond you know i i in my past


24:26

i've been offended to the point where i wouldn't go places that i wanted to go because this person who offended me might be there and they might say


24:32

something to me or or whatever and i i've just i'm just done give i was just decided i'm done


24:39

giving up that kind of and i'm not going to be mean to them because i realized you know what maybe they've got an issue they're


24:45

trying to deal with and i just seem to be the closest target to make them feel better right and so i'm deciding to give them


24:52

the benefit of the doubt go ahead yeah no one of the things that i'm sorry that


24:58

was just kept like going through my head is that you know like i mentally knew that so like if people are like


25:04

struggling with like i knew that like i i got it i understood it but my emotions


25:10

like took over and my feelings or whatever just like it they just took


25:16

over and i um i i think that's something that maybe


25:21

has been part of my healing is to be able to to i guess deal with those emotions more or to not


25:29

like um i don't know i think that's part of it maybe even to just even go through some


25:34

of those emotions um rather than kind of i think i avoided avoided a lot of


25:40

that stuff for so long that it it kind of built up a little bit


25:46

um kayla says yes exactly stop letting them have free rent in your head


25:52

uh that's a good way to put it yes yes i know right because they don't


25:57

even know they don't even know they're there a lot of times they don't have no clue yeah and i i hear it all the time and


26:04

i've like it's just just like with a lot of things you just come to for me i come to understand like a whole another level or


26:12

layer of the exact same thing it's just like somehow i see it broader or deeper or


26:18

bigger in some ways dominique says it's like the pieces


26:24

can't make themselves whole that's a true statement [Music]


26:31

yes that makes me think of i think we're always whole we i don't think we ever


26:36

break and we're not ever separate um and that's just like a um


26:43

however we experience being broken we experience being in pieces because


26:50

that's how we see it right um but i don't i i think the truth is is that we're always whole


26:56

um just like in the sense that like we're always in god's you know we're always in god's


27:02

care and we're all connected always and we like and we can pretend that that we're not connected that what


27:08

i do doesn't impact you that doesn't impact you doesn't impact you um or i can acknowledge the fact that oh


27:14

actually we are connected and and try to be try to honor and respect that um rather than trying to like


27:22

and and in this i guess in the in the process of doing that as well it's just a much better experience


27:29

do you know what i mean like yeah yeah so my wholeness comes from my


27:34

relationship with god um and and i i feel like i'm complete in


27:40

him and him alone and that pursuit for me is finding those areas that he hasn't been able to


27:47

fully uh reveal himself to me yet yeah and dominique says agreed but society


27:54

cuts us up and i think you know i think society the world does but i think also part of it


28:00

comes down to like are we gonna let them cut us up as individuals you know yeah i i


28:07

think that's for me something that's been more of like what i'm trying to um


28:12

understand and uh and that's just what comes to mind when you say that dominique i don't mean to


28:18

be like arguing with you what came to me was just that um


28:23

that i'm not gonna let them i'm not gonna let myself be created by


28:28

that which cuts me you know like i'm not gonna let that which cuts me like separate me


28:34

anymore i'm gonna heal it and i'm gonna you know kind of move on i'm not gonna i feel like i can't completely keep it


28:41

from happening but i feel like i know what to do hey we can't


28:46

we can't we can't manage other people's actions the only thing we can manage like we talked about already is how we respond


28:53

to it great do you want to read kayla's sure


28:58

um kayla says sometimes our self-talk also makes the situation worse oh that is so true


29:04

some people can make us offended a lot and if we let it happen if we let it happen before they even say


29:11

something to us we are building up our defense in our head and ready for a battle that isn't even there that's true


29:18

yep yeah you're looking for you're looking for the the problem


29:25

like it's like i remember i was dating i was dating this guy i won't say who just for his sake


29:32

um but i was really struggling with him uh we were struggling with each other


29:37

probably i was struggling with him and i was doing everything i could to like fix


29:42

our relationship like there would i was just like i i really wanted to make it work and i felt like uh putting so much


29:49

energy into this and i remember we were at dinner one night not too long before we broke up and we were at dinner and he


29:55

said he said you know what you're half-assed in this relationship and i was like


30:01

are you kidding me like i'm putting so much work into that like i am the one


30:06

trying to like make us work and then i was like i i was like yeah but if you're worried


30:14

about the two of you like if i'm focused on us


30:20

instead of focusing on me and then i can bring my best self to the


30:25

situation i i am half-assing it i am half-assing it i'm only bringing part of


30:31

myself i'm only bringing the part of myself that's looking for the problems um in him or the


30:38

relationship instead of like bringing my best self to the table and then that allows me to


30:44

be in a place to say you know what no i don't think this this relationship isn't working for me


30:50

sorry but you know and that that's basically kind of what happened i was like i was shocked


30:56

um he was like in that moment he's not somebody i was expecting to get such


31:02

wisdom um which was maybe quite the statement to say but i was really shocked by it


31:08

and once i like really thought about it i was so wait you're totally right yeah


31:15

that's good that's good insight yes relationships are hard


31:21

you know family relationships uh marital relationships boyfriend and girlfriend relation friendships


31:27

relationships are hard they're demanding on us but i think they're we're made to be relational on


31:34

purpose like you said we're connected we're relational on purpose and it's that ability to


31:40

grow from the relationship encounters that we have that moves us forward like you know i'm not the same person i


31:46

was my poor husband's been we've been married 20 years and he's been probably married to 10 different women in 20


31:52

years he never knows he comes home he's like okay what do we have today


31:58

so it's not that bad anymore but for a long time i'm i'm really surprised that we're still married


32:04

i'm grateful because he's awesome but it took us it it takes time and and


32:09

effort and one of the things that i had to do i had to and i used the word fast


32:15

because it it's a quick word for me to to check myself um negative thoughts


32:21

anytime i had a negative thought about my husband i'm like well nope i'm fasting all those negative thoughts i'm not going to speak


32:27

that and then i'd make myself speak a positive so just audibly so that i could overcome that


32:34

that negative thought even if it was true i was not going to give it any room in my head so i'm like no i'm not going to speak


32:40

negative this is the guy that i chose to do life with he agreed


32:46

and seems to be showing up every day even if i don't think he's showing up the way i want him to he's showing up


32:51

every day so i'm not going to be negative i'm going to turn that to a positive and i'm going to work really hard


32:57

to see those reasons why i decided that he was the one anyway caleb it was a game changer for me


33:04

kayla says oh i like that um kayla also says congrats on 20 years oh thanks


33:10

we are very excited we feel like newlyweds still right and some and somebody on uh you know on


33:17

twitch is wanting to make us famous it's just spam


33:24

wow right 20 years


33:30

i know i'm not old enough to be married 20 years especially for my second marriage oh my goodness


33:37

well yeah i mean it's unbelievable to think that we've been able to do anything for 20 years right i know


33:45

i know exactly yeah i was like the other day was like realizing that


33:50

early 2000s was like 20 years ago which oh my gosh i know


33:56

what is what are you saying i know and yeah it's crazy


34:02

one of my kids turns 33 tomorrow ooh she's energies jesus here right yeah


34:09

she is jesus here uh see sabra sabre oh


34:16

good memory good memory it was a lucky lucky crab


34:24

well it's hard to believe that they've gotten older too you know oh my goodness i know that all of my


34:31

kids are over 30. what just happened i'm not old enough to


34:36

have kids over 30. well you you are but i don't feel like i am yes yes yes


34:44

yeah well when you're young and you already have your kids out of the house and now you have grandkids and yep


34:51

i'm still young enough to go kayaking which is what i'm doing this weekend how are you yes i am going kayaking this


34:57

weekend with my honey and some friends so yes so you're right i am young enough to still have fun


35:03

oh right right right oh kayaking that's yeah yeah


35:09

i've been i've been you know i mentioned earlier like i've been on a lake i i think i've only not like


35:15

water like this only one time in my life that i can recall and i normally haven't been i


35:20

don't enjoy water um especially like reverse lakes um i don't enjoy being in the water


35:28

i don't enjoy water sports like and mostly it's like the cold and all that


35:33

that i don't like but i like told myself like stop again stop


35:39

with those those things and give it a try and you had a great time right i've had a really


35:46

great time i've gotten some bumps and bruises and some burns and but it's been really great i also


35:52

learned how to like tie knots and how to it's just been really like um i remember


35:58

like there's been plenty of times when i've just like been sitting in the boat and like oh my gosh like this is


36:03

this is really cool you know and um i think there are times in my life when i would have thought that that was like um


36:11

not i don't know like it didn't matter it wasn't a good use of time or something


36:16

and it's just like are you kidding me like this is great i understand why people do


36:22

it yeah that's awesome i i votes make me a little bit you know nauseous


36:28

so i'm hoping the kayak will be better yeah it i haven't had that problem with like being on the boat i've actually


36:35

it's been really great that's awesome i i expected for you know something but no it's been a really good time


36:41

uh kayla says i am young enough to still have fun but definitely not in any shape to kayak


36:49

plus there there are no bathrooms on a kayak that's true that's a good point that's a good


36:56

point and so yeah i it'll be a first well not


37:02

a first i've been in the kayak it's been years ago but we have some friends that have been kayaking and they're in our age group


37:09

and um they invited us up and they said you guys want to go kayaking i'm like no rapids please so we're just going to


37:16

kayak around the lake but i think it'll be fun i'm not i'm i'm looking forward i'm like okay kayaks are pretty skinny


37:22

okay i'm not little any anything either so i don't know if i have to


37:28

order the right if there's a size involved or or what but i will tell you next week


37:33

how this goes and if i get flipped over and um ever go kayaking again


37:38

well you're you're in good hands you're with your are you will you be sharing a kayak with your house with your hubby


37:44

nope individual kayaks nice i think i think it'll be fun


37:50

yeah yeah kayla says i am i'm of the age when you walk past the bathroom you say well i


37:57

might as well while i'm here hello well


38:03

that's funny yeah all right well now i'm gonna ask them if there's any bathrooms even at the


38:09

like where where do i go yeah i'm gonna go before i get in this boat like there's a little cup where there's


38:16

a little hoe oh jesus yeah well there's a little hole in the bottom


38:22

of the kayak it's like right thank you right yeah


38:27

yeah it's so fun well we are like 40 minutes in so


38:33

we have i know it went i can't believe it i went by so we just have five five more minutes


38:39

to kind of begin to wind her wind her


38:45

i thought you down gonna say something what did you think i was gonna say


38:53

no what did you think never mind anyway okay


38:58

after the show i'll tell you after oh i want to know now i'm sure our


39:03

listeners want to nope you're not going to play that role


39:09

so where are you headed next bonnie um i i yeah i mean next week when we


39:14

when we get on i will be in dc i'll actually be in like


39:21

on awnings awnings awnings um hill or something like that it's just 30


39:26

minutes outside of dc so i will be coming in from there


39:32

um we i'll we get we go back to baltimore on saturday and then sunday


39:38

monday i will head to the dc area uh to spend some time with


39:43

my friends anthony and katelyn that is awesome are you gonna be flying or driving


39:48

um we'll be driving it's like um not far i guess like this place is also kind of


39:54

a suburb of baltimore so like on the east coast everything is like super super close so yeah see i don't know my


40:00

way around the east coast much i i don't either but if it feels like you just like i don't know trip and


40:07

you're like in another state like it's everything is just so especially like in this part this area


40:14

yeah you know like i think a few minutes here in west virginia or in maryland now you know like


40:20

so i think everything's relatively close that's awesome are you going to do any sightseeing while you're in d.c


40:27

um i'll do a little bit i know i'm going to go get my nails done with anthony and then like


40:33

um next weekend i i'm hosting a i'm with some people who are hosting that recovery conference that we've been


40:40

working on for a year so that's over labor day weekend so that weekend i'll pretty much probably just be stationed


40:46

since it's a virtual um conference yeah yeah so speaking of conferences how do you if


40:54

someone wanted to book you for a conference or for a speaking engagement is that something that you're going to be doing while you're traveling around


41:01

yeah i'm always i'm always open to that um you know i actually spoke with


41:06

um an individual earlier this afternoon just before we came on who um she actually reached up to me she wants to


41:13

have me on her show um she also wants to um i can't think the name of the


41:19

organization right now but i'll be sure to share it but they're um they're gonna have me on their show they're also gonna


41:24

um share um a queer chaplain uh research on part of their research um


41:29

or their resource um arm for their they're like a non-pro lgbtq um well it's not lgbt it's mostly


41:37

like femme uh like femme focused kind of queer femme focused um


41:42

lgbtq center i'm totally chopping this off i should have looked into it a little bit more but


41:47

basically they want me to um they want we're going to collab a little bit um i have to do the podcast maybe um


41:54

i'm going to moderate maybe some panel discussions and stuff with them and we're i don't know they're going to have


42:00

a magazine soon so maybe we'll be able to do some writing or something but it sounds like there's a lot of really um


42:06

great opportunities though i'm definitely like that's something i'm really um hoping


42:12

uh that will will happen you know yeah yeah i put together like a little promo on my


42:18

instagram and stuff to with like the tour if you will of all the places i would like to hit


42:25

over the next uh few months um so um my hope is to get


42:30

folks um in those areas to say hey i'd like you to i'd like to talk with you and have


42:35

you interview me about my drag um persona and my spirituality or my transness and spirituality or i'd like


42:42

you to come talk to my church or my church group or my um i don't know my support group um


42:49

any of that sort of stuff either while i'm in the area or even i can do it virtually too because i know like


42:55

a lot of places are closing back up again or yeah i've been here definitely limiting their um


43:01

in person kind of space again so i'm willing to kind of work with whatever um works with folks but i'm really hoping


43:08

to continue to do more and more of whatever


43:13

whatever you know whatever this looks like that's what god wants me to do would have me do you know


43:20

that's awesome wow i'm excited for you i'm praying for you and um yeah i can't wait till next week


43:26

when i get to see what's happening in dc oh my goodness i don't feel like go along i know it's like time


43:33

lapse i know i know it's like what just happened


43:40

and how how are um how is things going are you doing a bible study right now i am um if you want to go out to i


43:47

identify as christian that's my group that i have we're hosting i'm


43:52

hosting or my friend actually is hosting allowing me to teach uh on the book of john


43:57

so it's been fun we have a pretty good group there uh we're only on chapter 12. so you're not late we're gonna hit go through the


44:04

whole book so however long that takes so you can come and go it's online open to the public


44:10

absolutely yep absolutely if you have questions about anything before you jump in just let me know it's a zoom meeting


44:16

um but all that information is out there on my facebook group yep so always feel


44:22

free to reach out to either of us um we have lots of cool stuff going on and we'd love to be involved with


44:27

your cool stuff too i don't know what that was but [Laughter]


44:34

all right do you want to send us off sure you guys have a fabulous week um think about us


44:40

through the week as we're always thinking about you guys and again reach out to us we are available to answer


44:45

questions have conversations and just i don't know what be in your cool stuff as bonnie said


44:52

so have a fabulous week all right love you all bye-bye


44:57

splintered grace podcast is brought to you by a queer chaplain


45:04

follow us on all of our social medias instagram youtube and facebook at the queer


45:10

chaplain listen to us wherever you listen to podcasts [Music]


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45:22

bonnie violet and support monthly on patreon the song is original by stephen sandov


45:29

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45:37

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