Biola University
Last year, five months after the terrorist attacks against Israel on October 7th, Simon Greer, a Jewish leader and social entrepreneur, assembled a diverse team of scholars and activists — pro-Israel, pro-Palestine, Christian, Muslim, Jewish and atheist — to study the Israel-Palestine conflict from the ground up. The group spent 10 days traveling through the region to hear from local leaders what has spurred this centuries old conflict. The goal was not to resolve the conflict, but to glean principles that would help with our own conflicts back in America. On today’s episode, Tim, Simon and Saad Soliman, reflect on their trip and discuss what they learned about how to engage diverse views.
Transcript
Tim Muehlhoff: Welcome to the Winsome Conviction podcast. My name is Tim Muehlhoff. I'm a professor of communication at Biola University, the Bible Institute of Los Angeles, right here in La Mirada, California. I'm also the co-director of the Winsome Conviction Project. This is a project that was started five years ago with a simple idea, can we open communication? Not close it. Can we reintroduce compassion, perspective taking? Can we seek common ground rather than just the things that divide us? Well, obviously most Americans feel this is really needed. From Pew Research, 98% of Americans ... think about that for a second ... 98% of us say that incivility is a threat to this country. 67% say we've reached crisis levels of incivility. So, what in the world should we do about that?
Well, one of the things about this podcast is we're not trying to figure this out all by ourselves. We actually want to cultivate perspectives, and sometimes those perspectives are outside the Christian faith. I think God's common grace is we don't just go to Christians to get good ideas. No, God's common grace is he's enlightened the world. I want to introduce you to two of our guests. If you've not gone back and listened to a podcast I did with Simon Greer and Saad Soliman about something called the invitation, about reaching out to each other, about hearing each other's stories, please go back and listen to that. But this is a standalone podcast. I want to talk about a very unique trip that all three of us went on.
So, very quickly, let me introduce Simon Greer. He's the founder of Bridging the Gap and the host of Courageous Conversations. He's known as a social entrepreneur who has spent the last 30 years in the front lines of contentious social change struggles. Saad Soliman is a consultant specializing in social justice and criminal justice reform. He is the founding executive director of the Peers Mentoring Center. He speaks all over the country and, Saad, if I remember this correctly, when you and I were in Israel ... I think I remember this, didn't Forbes Magazine pick you as one of the top 40 entrepreneurs under the age of 40? Is that true?
Saad Soliman: It was ... Let me clarify. It was a 40 under 40 watch list article and I was selected. That was simply what it was. It wasn't 40 best entrepreneurs. I wish. I think someday I might hopefully get there, but this was just a watch list of the 40 to watch.
Tim Muehlhoff: Yeah, it wasn't just a watch list, Saad. It was a Forbes watch list, correct?
Saad Soliman: Yes, it was [inaudible 00:02:50]-
Tim Muehlhoff: Yes. I'll take that all day long. I remember asking you in Israel, I said, "Did that include all bald communicators?" And you quite shockingly said, "It most certainly did not," which was very hurtful.
But listen, thank you both for coming back on the podcast. That was so interesting, the previous podcast we did. Simon, learning about bridge building, something you call the invitation. I'll encourage listeners to go back and consider how the invitation is something that you can use with family members, coworkers, neighbors. But Simon, after the October 7th, 2023 terrorist attack against Israel, you pulled together a unique group of people from very different perspectives, political, religious viewpoints, and we went on a 10-day trip to the region to engage diverse views surrounding this historic conflict. It was amazing.
Saad, I want to get your thoughts on this. When Simon approached me with this, he said something that really resonated with me. He said, "I know that you are an evangelical and I know that you're bald and should have been on the Forbes watch list." I really appreciated him saying that. But you said, Simon, you said, "Listen, I want you to be there as an evangelical, and I do not want you to water down your convictions. Not one inch do I want you to water down your convictions." That really stayed with me, Simon, because often evangelicals are not asked to be part of something like this, or if we are, we just feel like we're muzzled. So, Saad, why did you say yes to this trip? Pretty quickly after the terrorist attacks had happened, we're on a plane heading off to Israel.
Saad Soliman: Yeah, no, it was ... so, in the last podcast when we were last on with you, we talked about ... Simon and I, when we met, we were at a retreat for criminal justice leaders, meeting with directly impacted leaders. And in that retreat, Simon and I met. Well, that retreat happened in September of 2023. Two weeks later, the tragedy that occurred in Israel and Palestine with the terrorist attacks happened. And I woke up and I saw that headline, and I know, knowing my history and my connection to that region, the significance of that tragedy. And so immediately I reached out to Simon and he was top of mind. We had just made this great connection and now, oh, my goodness, tragedy has unfolded.
So, I reached out to Simon and just sent a quick note of my thoughts and prayers are with you and your family. I hope everyone's okay. If you need me for anything, feel free to reach out. Simon responds with a book. I mean, this long email about how meaningful that was and how his world is so scary right now and his family and he's concerned and just so much uncertainty and it touched me so deeply. A couple of weeks later, he reaches out and says, "I'm thinking about putting together a trip to Israel." And I'm like, "Right now? Now?" And then I was like, "Sure, I would go."
And the reason why I said, "Sure, I would go," I almost feel like the only person that I thought about at that moment was Farah, my daughter. What legacy would I, as a father, knowing the impact of my family narrative and how it's impacted me in so many ways, most being unpleasant, how would my fathering of this young lady impact her? And would that generational cycle continue or would it be disrupted? So, how do I show up in this moment? And that's why I said yes.
Tim Muehlhoff: Simon-
Simon Greer: Tim, can I-
Tim Muehlhoff: Yes.
Simon Greer: I just want to add a little for your listeners, just a little context here. So, Saad and I, as he said, met in September and Saad's uncles served in the Egyptian army and were killed in combat in 1967 fighting the Israeli army. My uncle served in the Israeli army. So, imagine on October 7th, 2023, Hamas launches this brutal terrorist attack in Israel, and one of the first people to reach out to me is Saad, whose uncles had been at war with my uncles. I don't know. That's enough to make your head spin right there. So, I was pretty touched by that. And then starting on October 8th, you began to see ... I think the first thing I saw was the 25 or 30 student groups at Harvard who said Israel was entirely to blame for what Hamas did. And so suddenly it felt like I wanted to sort of hunker down and hide.
There was this, to me, very bizarre, attacking Israel for being attacked, and blaming Israel for being terrorized. And so the people who reached out in those early days expressing their solidarity or just thinking about me really meant a lot. And so it was, as Saad said, about two weeks later after I kind of was licking my wounds, I was like, what do I know? I know it's better to be in motion than to be sort of locked in and rigid, and I know it's better to engage with others across lines of difference than it is to shrink from that even when it's scary.
And so I started making a list of who do I know who's in the bridge building world? And so Tim was high on that list and Saad was high on that list and our friend Tom Scott at the Nantucket Project and our friends at the Constructive Dialogue Institute, I just started reaching out to people who were bridgers and I didn't know where they stood on these issues, but I thought this is a moment to say we're not going to let other people drive this narrative, drive this conflict about the conflict. I'm going to pull the people into it who I trust, who I think will know how to hold nuance and might have the courage to go.
And so that was late October, and I think we started meeting as a group in November. We convened in person one time and then in February of '24, we were on the ground in Israel and the Palestinian Territories altogether. So, that's how we got rolling with it.
Tim Muehlhoff: I want to dive into a couple highlights from that trip that, honestly, when I say life-changing, I don't use that word loosely. It really was a life-changing trip. But Simon, are you not inviting chaos when you say to a diverse group of people, politically, socially, religiously, I don't want you to water down your convictions at all? Is that not inviting absolute chaos for this 10-day trip?
Simon Greer: I don't know if it's inviting chaos. I think it's inviting truth. And what's the alternative? Saying, "Hey, Tim, why don't you come on this trip and live in pretense with me for 10 days? Wouldn't that be awesome? You could tell half-truths and pretend what you believe. Wouldn't that be inspiring and, Saad, maybe if you come and hold back what you really think, we could have a really great time together." I mean, when I say it that way, it doesn't actually make any sense, right? You have deeply held convictions, so wouldn't you only want to take part if you could fully express your deeply held convictions? That doesn't mean you've got to be mean. It doesn't mean you have to attack other people. And I actually think what I see again and again is when you use the phrase "muzzle", when you invite someone to engage across lines of difference and you make it conditional, I think they're more likely to act out.
Tim Muehlhoff: Oh, I see.
Simon Greer: When you make it unconditional, like, "Bring your whole self, Tim." Well, then you want to bring your whole best self. I've said, "Just come as you are." And I think when these programs of bridge building or interfaith or dialogue, when they're sort of based on you have to have already passed a litmus test, you've got to stipulate to these four things before you can be at the interfaith table or the diverse inclusive table. I don't know if we're allowed to say that anymore, or at whatever the dialogue table. Well, then I think we kind of miss the people who really would benefit from being at that table and we miss the wisdom that comes from the margins, the extreme point of view. Bring that one too. Let's have it. I think you know what did Dr. King say, "Darkness can't drive out darkness. Only light can do that. Hate can't drive out hate. Only love can do that." I believe that so deeply, and so I think you invite people to come as they are.
Tim Muehlhoff: That's so powerful. Let's talk about a couple moments that just really stand out to me. We had a unique opportunity to go, obviously, to some of the iconic sites, and one was the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, and there right there is the Dome of the Rock, which is a holy site for both Muslims and Jews. Saad, can you explain a little bit the unique moment that happened that you, as a Muslim, could go to the Dome of the Rock, but Simon on that day could not? Explain what was happening that day between the two of you when you could go in, but Simon could not go in.
Simon Greer: And explain 2000 years of theological, sociological, and political history while you're at it, if you don't mind.
Saad Soliman: I'll take a crack at it. So, there's this place in Jerusalem where the sky seems to lean just a little closer. The Dome of the Rock with its golden shimmer and ancient stone. It sits not just in the center of Jerusalem, but at the heart of two faiths, two deep sacred lineages. For Muslims, it's the site of Al-Isra' wal-Mi'raj, the miraculous Night Journey where the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, ascended to the heavens. It's where heaven met Earth and divine revelation for Muslims touched the heart of a man, and through him his entire community, the Ummah.
Simon Greer: Preach, Saad, preach.
Saad Soliman: It's the third-holiest site in Islam. For Jews, and I have this written down so I don't mispronounce it, this is Har haBayit, the Temple Mount, the First and Second Temples. It's where Abraham the patriarch was tested, where the Holy of Holies once stood, the beating heart of Jewish worship and longing. I learned all this mostly from Simon. For millennia, Jews have been facing this spot in prayer whispering next year in Jerusalem. Like, this is deep. So, when people ask-
Simon Greer: Amen.
Saad Soliman: I'm sorry, go ahead.
Simon Greer: I said, amen.
Saad Soliman: When people ask why the Dome of the Rock matters, the answer isn't political, it's spiritual, it's soul deep, it's generational. And so being there, it was a soul fulfillment moment for me. And I was there only through Simon's bringing me there, right? Let's be clear. During a war between any conflicts, Hamas and the Israeli IDF were in a war, very deep war. There's still in this major conflict. They're not letting an Egyptian American named Saad Muhammad Soliman travel there just generally like, "Yeah, I'd like to just tour the Dome of the Rock during a war." It's just not going to happen.
So, let's be clear, had it not been for Simon and this journey, us together learning, going to experience growth and education, it's highly unlikely that I ever would've been able to be there. And the fact that I wasn't able to share that moment with him felt very empty for me. It felt like something was significantly missing. And so that's kind of ... How'd I do?
Tim Muehlhoff: So, Simon, it's a Muslim holiday, but what does that matter? Why can't you go into the Dome of the Rock which equally has importance to Judaism?
Simon Greer: Yeah, it's complicated, Tim. So, the Temple Mount complex, which Saad described its centrality to both traditions, is under the Status Quo Agreement since 1967 between Israel and we'll say the Arab world, the Jordanians, through what's called the Waqf, control access to the Mosque, Temple Mount, Dome of the Rock, the Al-Aqsa Mosque up on the complex. And so only Muslims are allowed to pray up there, at any time. Jews are allowed and Christians are allowed to visit as tourists, not as worshipers, at times that are permitted by the Waqf, the Jordanians.
Now, I want to be fair that if you try to, if are Muslim and you try to enter from East Jerusalem, the Israeli Defense Forces and Border Patrol and the police also control access to the old city, and so some listeners will say, "Simon, you're focused on the Jews and Christians would've a hard time accessing it because of the Waqf. You should be honest." So, I want to be honest that not every young Muslim man who wants to enter the old city and go worship has an easy time doing it. And that is one of the tragic outgrowths of the conflict. Let's be blunt about that.
Having said that, I sort of stipulate to that being true, there's only one entrance through which non-Muslims can enter and it's heavily regulated. And during Ramadan, it's generally not allowed. Exceptions are made. And this year during Ramadan, I was able to go up there, but the point being when Jews are up there, they're not allowed to pray up there. And this has only become ... I should also say there is a subset of Jewish community today in Israel and in the diaspora who talk about this idea of building a third temple up there, and it is a very provocative idea. It could be a war ... it's a fire starter proposition. So, I'm not arguing for that at all.
What I've tried to grapple with ... and there's also a large contingent within the Jewish community that says, where the Holy of Holies were ... like, the heart of the First and Second Temples, only the high priest was allowed to enter, and so Jews shouldn't go up there, religiously speaking, anyway. So, this is complicated. We could have three podcasts on it to try to make sense of it.
The thing for me, just personally speaking, and I'll admit it's a funny and ironic feeling, my son for his bar mitzvah, his Torah portion, which is what he studied and interpreted as part of becoming a man in the Jewish tradition, was the binding of Isaac, which happened at that spot. And so you can imagine, I'm in Israel, I'm in Jerusalem at the Western wall, and I look over and there it is up on the Temple Mount there, on the Dome of the Rock, the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Haram al-Sharif, however your tradition names it, and it's like, that's the thing my son studied. Wouldn't it be cool to go check it out?
And I don't know what I make of all these stories, so I'm not saying I have some divinely granted right that I should get to go there that the Jordanians are violating. I'm just saying it's a big part of my family's story and my people's story. And it seems like if we're ever going to have peace there, Jews should get to go there too. And there should be a way that Muslims could still control access to that site. I'm not saying it has to be taken from them, but it would be great if there's a way that Jews and Christians could also express themselves up there without that seeming like a declaration of war, which is how it feels.
And the craziest thing happened. I don't know if you ... I mean, probably I know Saad will never forget it. Tim, I don't know if you recall, but when Saad approached the entrance to the mosque, the Jordanian Waqf representative who grants or denies access, he approached Saad, and then an Israeli soldier or policeman raised a rifle and pointed it at Saad. And when I finished that sentence, people are often like, "See, see? That's Israelis discriminating against Muslims," and there is discrimination against Muslims. So, I'm again, not trying to ignore that. But in this case, the Israeli soldier was concerned that Saad was not Muslim and that he was going to create an incident by trying to enter the mosque over the Waqf's objections, and that the soldier would have to prevent that.
So, talk about a twisted geopolitical moment. You've got a Jewish soldier pointing gun at a Muslim American who wants to enter a mosque because the soldier is afraid that if he isn't Muslim, this is going to cause an incident. That's the complexity of the moment we live in.
Saad Soliman: Totally.
Tim Muehlhoff: And this is the power of ... yeah. Thank you for that. Now, listeners might be thinking ... okay, listeners might be thinking, "Okay, that is a lot, and it's obvious it affected both Simon and Saad," but then Simon, you did something. Now, I know I'm asking you to do this off the cuff, but you did a perspective taking exercise that starts with the word imagine. And I hope you remember this because I actually wrote it down.
Simon Greer: Yeah, of course.
Tim Muehlhoff: It was so powerful. But you looked at us and you said, "Okay, I want you all to imagine something and imagine United States' arch enemy, let's say the Russians, conquer our country." Now, can you finish that with the-
Simon Greer: Yeah, of course.
Tim Muehlhoff: Okay.
Simon Greer: With the disclaimer that I want ... maybe at the end you'll explain to me if I was doing good perspective taking or if I was doing good propaganda.
Tim Muehlhoff: Oh, done. Okay, done.
Simon Greer: So, yeah, what I said was, "Imagine you're the United States and you've got a capital in Washington, you've got a White House, you've got the Capitol, you've got the Washington Monument, and imagine the Soviet Union, Russia, conquers the United States and takes over our country." And a thousand years later, we get our country back, right? We get the United States back, we liberate it, and now we've got Washington, D.C. again. And Tim and Saad, good Americans, come to Washington, D.C. and they want to go see the Lincoln Memorial. They want to go see Jefferson. They want to go see the White House. They want to go see those things. And they're buried underground. It's been a thousand years, right? They're deep down, and for some strange reason, the Russians still control access to those sites in Washington, D.C., and Saad and Tim show them their American passports, and they're like, "We'd like to go down and see those sites."
And they're like, "Nope, can't do it." Because now they sit under Red Square under Lenin's tomb, which we built over the last 500 years, and they're like, "Well, wait, this is our country now." "Nope. Russia still controls these sites. And so, no, you can't go down to deep down antiquity of where the White House is and all those things. But not only that, you can't stand up here in Red Square and honor your tradition. You can come as tourists when we say you can, but you may not worship the thing down there and you can't express any of your American patriotic values or traditions while you're here. We still control this space." So, I think what I was trying to do was invite everyone on the trip to think about how weird that would feel for Americans because that might give them some insight into how weird it felt for me, as a Jewish person. So, in that way, I was inviting you guys to perspective take.
I think the thing that I'm still questioning, Tim, is that ... is a pretty strong play on American patriotism and on the idea that the Russians took it from us, as if the Muslims are the arch enemies of the Jews, which I don't want to believe. And that America would liberate that land like the Jews liberated it from the Muslims, which is kind of an aggressive posture. So, there's a part of me that, even as I recount it, I feel a little hesitation about whether, as I said, I was doing good propaganda, but was I really doing good perspective taking and bridge building? Although, I will admit that I think I did a nice job inviting people into a different perspective. Does that hesitation make sense to you?
Tim Muehlhoff: It does make sense to me, but I want to get Saad's opinion as well. But what I walked away was after hearing that was utter frustration at a deep level. It would be so ... a crazy maker for me and frustrating. Like, wait a minute. Wait, what? Red Square is right here? Even though you're no longer controlling my country, and I have to ask permission or go by your rules to see some of the most iconic parts of my American history. So, Simon, I guess it could be debated the ins and outs of it, but what really happened was I stepped into your perspective and felt some of the emotions of it and shared that. And then we can talk about all the historical ... was that a fair way to say it? But I think mission accomplished. I felt the frustration, especially when you brought your son into it. That this is a thing you would've loved to be able to participate in. Saad, how did it strike you?
Saad Soliman: So, it's very, very interesting what happens in the context of this subject matter inside me. There's an initial knee-jerk reaction to just plug your ears and dig your heels in the ground, right? That's just an initial reaction. But hearing it relating to my Americanness, my unique fundamental love for my identity, because we all travel between a multitude of identities, and, in this particular instance, it resonated with my American identity, and it gave me insight into what Simon was feeling. And that again, is the whole point of facilitating a bridge for understanding. I mean, it doesn't necessarily have to be something that's going to resonate deeply and transform positions and opinions and beliefs. No, no, no. It's simply enough to say, "I hear you and I feel the passion of your position, and I still hold that sacred."
And so that, in and of itself, is what was accomplished. Now, I hear Simon talk about it being propaganda and how it could be inciting and all of the different postures that can be interpreted from it, and I thank him because that is the sensitivity that allows holding all of what he says to be so safe for me to do, because I know the considerations are there. But I'll tell you, more importantly, the thing is that this place holds soul deep connection for so many people, Jews and Muslims, and this one place holds so much love, so much trauma, so much yearning. It can't help but become a mirror, a mirror of our deepest hopes and our deepest divisions. But just maybe if this single hill can hold both of our truths, maybe we can too, without buckling, without being cowards, without shying away from the hard stuff.
Is that something that we can superimpose in macro international policy? Probably not. I would not be the one to take that to any congressional and/or global dialogue. However, internally for me in my development as a brother to Simon Greer, I absolutely will.
Tim Muehlhoff: See, I think there's a communication principle here. There's two broad ways to look at communication. One is called the transmission view, where you and I sit down and we talk facts, statistics, authority figures, and we hash out truth claims. The second one is what we call the ritual view is we recognize the things that unify us: deep emotions, virtues. And I think what I love about that, Simon, is I think we could start with the ritual view, to feel the frustration, to identify with each other, and then we move to the transmission view to say, "But I do have some questions and hesitations the way you framed it, but I'm first stepping in to recognize the deep emotions that are attached to seeing it in that particular kind of way." I think in America, we've become so transmission-based, facts, figures first, and we forget that we're neighbors trying to understand that we see the neighborhood in very different ways based on a lot of different things. Maybe we could do that.
Simon Greer: Yeah, I totally agree. And I think actually the exchange we had just now is a good example. I was thinking as I was telling the story the way I told it, that that's got to trigger Saad's knee-jerk ... like, what? You haven't taken enough? Israel hasn't taken enough? Really? Oh, you're the ones who don't have access? What's it like to live as a Muslim in that country? You know what I mean?
Even though he can reason through it, and he can look at the big picture and he can see how small Israel is relative to the Arab world and how few Jews there are compared to how many Muslims, like, he can get there rationally. But it's like you're poking the bear here on this one. And so I think it's just really important to when ... I think you're right, completely. The transmission stuff is, I don't know, it's kind of tired. We're running on fumes with that. I think the storytelling, the perspective taking, all that, it's the way to go and just to bring with it a hyper awareness that I'm sharing in this case a deep truth, but it is tapping into something deep for other people.
And so for you, you could feel my frustration. I want Saad to be able to feel my frustration too, but I also have to acknowledge that it's going to trigger in him some protectiveness, some defensiveness, some story he's lived with for his whole life that is deeply held and matters to him, right? I'm not saying ... and I wouldn't let the Christians off the hook here because the binding of Isaac, as the story goes, is where the foundation stone is. It's where God created the earth from. So, you guys are... you have a role here, and if you look-
Tim Muehlhoff: No, no, no.
Simon Greer: ... at a certain gate, that's where Jesus entered Jerusalem. This is not ... the Christians aren't just happy observers on this one. You have a dog in this fight too.
Tim Muehlhoff: No, sorry. This is Simon and Saad and I'm trying to help you two understand each other. Thank you.
Hey, one thing I want to say though, that what made this work, this exercise in perspective-taking, is the invitation and, Saad, you had mentioned the previous podcast we had done, and I encourage listeners to go to it, but, Simon, you had already offered an invitation to us, which was ... I'm going to take seriously the things you take serious. I'm going to be curious first before I start to go with this analogy, and I start to really question parts of it, and then I'm going to seek to find common ground first before I begin to talk about is that a fair characterization?
So, I think that could have led to some really unproductive conversations, but under the umbrella of the invitation, which you need to be reminded of over and over, no, this is how I'm going to approach the story rather than a combative way of approaching the story. Like, you'd like to say, Simon, lead with curiosity.
Simon Greer: Yeah. Can I just add one thing, Tim, which I think is important? And Saad-
Tim Muehlhoff: Yeah, yeah.
Simon Greer: ... I think he'll remember it this way. We were up there getting toured around the Temple Mount or the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Dome of the Rock complex, and I leaned over to Saad and said, "You should go pray. Like, go, go. The rest of us can't go, but you should go." And we had come in through the ... I'm going to call it the Jewish or Christian or American entrance, not the Muslim entrance. So ... because Saad came in as an American, and so there was a little bit of an awkward ... like, if he was Muslim, he would've come in from East Jerusalem through those entrances.
And so anyway, it was a little bit of an awkward, and it wasn't clear he was in our group and could he just walk away? But I was like, "You go pray. This is pretty holy special moment for you." And with no hesitation, I wasn't like, "You go pray, Saad. I can't." It was like the last thing on my mind. It was like, I want this special moment for him. And when I saw the footage later of him saying, "Oh, it was like a spiritual fulfillment moment, and I was a little bit sad that Simon couldn't be there too," I was really touched because I hadn't conveyed to him that I resented him going and of his own volition, he did it. It was fulfilling. And he had this little bittersweet feeling, which was so touching for me. And so I think there's also something in all of that that's really important to the story because I could have begrudged him or I could have not ...
I opened the door for him. I was like, "You go. Take this." And that's something ... I don't know. I feel like that's really important to understanding the nature of the relationship and wanting the best for the person who you care about. Even if it's a little bittersweet for me to offer. It's bittersweet for him to take it advantage of it. But you still want that for the person. You know what I mean?
Tim Muehlhoff: That's so good. That's second grade commandment. Love your neighbor as yourself. Love your neighbor. And that means opening doors that you can't walk through, but I'm going to open the door for you. Boy, we're going to have to leave it right here on ... Oh, yes, go ahead. Saad, go ahead.
Simon Greer: I just want to add that I remember it exactly like that. I remember Simon coming over, leaning over and telling me, "You should go pray," and me responding with, "I can?" And then going, right? And in that instant was his facilitating this journey for me, and it was so genuine and so sincere and so selfless, right? We hear now the grief that comes from being so close, but not being able to touch and it was a very powerful moment. One that I will never forget.
Tim Muehlhoff: And we know that from persuasion theory. We know that when I put another community's needs above my community's needs, that there's this bond that is created that is really powerful. I'm not just looking out for my needs or the needs of my community 24/7. No, I'm also looking at you saying, "No, no, no. Here's something that I think would be fulfilling for you. Please go do it."
Listen, I wish we could talk about this forever. We honestly can't because we're at the end of our time. So, let me just say, if you've enjoyed what you've been listening to, then please go to winsomeconviction.com. You can check out the previous podcast Saad mentioned, where we actually talk about the invitation, we talk about how to maybe apply it to our own lives. So, I hope you've enjoyed this. We don't take your listening for granted. So, thank you so much and we'll keep the conversation going.
