Transcripts For CSPAN3 Jim 20240706 : vimarsana.com

Jim is with us today, courtesy of mark and daphne murphy, as well as carol and joe young. Jim towey became a advisor and personal friend of Mother Teresa of calcutta. 12 years and did the First Reading at her mass canonization in st peters. He headed, the White House Office of faith based and Community Initiatives under w bush and, served as president of two catholic colleges. He was a u. S. Senate staffer, head of floridas 40,000 Employee Health and Human Services agency in, 1996 with Mother Teresas encouragement, he founded, the nonprofit Advocacy Organization aging with dignity and the five wishes, advanced directive, which has sold 40 million copies and is used in all 50 states, too. He met his wife, mary, and mother traces dc aids home. He continues to provide probono Legal Services for the missionaries of charity. Please give warm savannah welcome to jim towey jim towey. Welcome. Thank you, kathy for lovely introduction and so nice of you to be here today. I feel very much at home. I grew up in jacksonville, a little south from here and and so the Southern Hospitality was part of my life and i felt it since i got into this. Um, i want to thank the murphys too for sponsoring this morning and welcome coach Melinda Durham friends, coach and fsu and at georgia and zimbalist whos on the board at aging with dignity and his wife, terri look i know that the reason im here to speak is because of my longtime friendship and working relationship with modern day saint george bush. Im just its its just the same if youre listening now, this this book came about because of the kindness of god that i had the opportunity to meet Mother Teresa. And so im trying to repay debt. I was invited by Cardinal Dolan of new york city to come to a gathering of his media people, to do his radio show and his television. He sees from afar. And he goes to, how long are you going to milk this Mother Teresa thing . And i so i want to make clear that mary and i, we are indebted to mother and we are devoting the royalties to the missionaries of charity and to other charities with her lifes work. So were not a penny of that. Mary is not here with me today because. She didnt like that decision. Im kidding. Just. Yeah, shes great. Youll read her in the book starting on page 84, but i, i wrote this book, the occasion of Mother Teresas 25th anniversary of her death for a number of reasons i certainly wanted to record for my kids and grandkids and family members, friends for the missionaries of charity, the nuns, the religious order that Mother Teresa formed. I thought that was important. I knew when i met mother that she was saint, she just was different from id ever met. And so anytime i spoke with her, it was my regular habit to then write contemporaneous notes of what she said and. That was very helpful in writing this book. I, i also wanted to detail manner of her death. Its really beautiful. Its in chapter 14. Thats been published not only the run up to it, but the actual last 48 hours. Theres such sweetness to it, such beauty. And how she prepared herself and others for that inevitable. I. There was an important to me also to set the record straight on some of the critics that have come after in the years after her death those that trolled her on the internet and things that arent true. So theres a chapter 11 thats a defense of her and a definitive rebuttal hope. But really the most important reason i wrote the to me was to capture the woman, the remarkable woman that was the saint. Catholics have a way of taking saints and turning them into little plastic statues and ascribing all of ethereal qualities to them. And so focus on whether someone and in church or, you know, had the stigmata, so forth, some sensational things and. And in the process, it somehow leads us to think, well, theyre just supernatural, theyre different from the rest of us. Mother teresa became, a saint, not in spite of her humanness, but through it she a great woman, a great mother, tremendous. Mother. Mother loved life. She people. Its its its sad when you see people love god and dont love people, you know, to mother. It was the same she was enthralled by her sisters, those young women that joined her, they were her daughters. When i would her up to the church or to a convent where the would come out to greet her, theyd all stream out and mother would get out and grab their face like this and look in their eyes, just focus on them like they were the only in the world that mattered very. Maternal very much mother. She she liked to laugh. She liked to make her sisters laugh. She liked chocolate, you know. So there you have it. The surest path to sanctity is eating chocolate. Thats your take away. You know, she she wrote poetry. She loved to sing and her sisters sang together. She was very well read. Her formal education ended at age 18, but she she had a voracious appetite for reading. And so theres a collection of the books she read that filled shelves at back in taiwan at, the Mother Teresas center. She spoke five languages. She wasnt perfect. It does no good to remember her in a way that describes to her in a manner that says she was perfect. She wasnt had imperfections. She was famously stubborn. She was impatient. And those imperfections necessary for a woman who was going to need perseverance and conviction. And over god perfected those imperfect. And i watched her. And im going to talk about that a little bit, what kind of courage that required. But she she could get she got angry at me one time at an outdoor mass in mexico at the sign of peace moment in the mass, all these kids started rushing toward her. And i was to her left and i was going to protect her from these kids coming up. And so i jump up and tell the kids no, no, no, no point, no point. And mother, just stop let them come. And she just kind of looked glared at me, you know, i didnt turn into a pillar of salt. Thats the good news. But but would speak about the fact that she had someone with anger and she would go and apologize later. For those of you who are catholics and, you know, at confession is she availed herself of that sacrament regularly and she had to say in it, you know, she didnt just go in and say, bless me. Well, i havent said actually. No, she she understood along that she was a work in prague. Yes. That she was a lowly in a sense. I was asked at the time of her death what my thoughts were a by a reporter and i said, well, it was said of Francis Assisi that he was the most christlike since christ. And i said, i think Mother Teresa, the most mary like person since mary, that she was virgin and mother to, a world that needed a mother her compassion, her love, tenderness. You, i think, to really appreciate my mother, you have to place her in a Historical Context because its because she left her home at age 18, said goodbye to her mother at a train station she never saw her mother again went off to the loreto. First by train, then by ship, and arrives in january 1929. A couple of years of formation, takes her vows and then is teaching at the loreto compound in a walled area for the some of the privileged kids, calcutta, and then some of the poor bengali kids that were at the school and she was for 15 years history and geography other and of course india then becomes. Involved in World War Two. In 1939, the viceroy declares war on indias behalf without consulting the indians. This led to much gandhi and others oppose this. Gandhi was arrested in 1942 because of his opposition. Well, a lot of the sisters left calcutta as the war started to come closer to india and mother was there on the until the british it so mother and one other sister stayed with three girls and they rented two spaces one where they had studies and eight and one where they slept. And this is how her mother was living during World War Two, after the british had requisitioned then course as the war ends in 1945 india had promised independence and began to roil the country, particularly in northern india, where mother lived because of the hindu muslim conflicts that had been evident throughout indias history but were particularly acute at this time. So for during that period, 1945 to 1946, the war ended, of course, in august of 45, those tensions started to spill over to what was called the great day of killing in august of 1946. Now, mother, at this point, she had nearly died in 1942 from exhaustion. She was teaching so much, doing this other work, keeping things together for the girls. And then no sooner does she recover from that. And then shes made principal. 1944 of the school. So shes running everything then war ends and now the violence begins the streets. And then theres the great dead killing in 1946. Thousands in the streets. Mother had to go outside the compound to try to go get food, dead bodies everywhere. Heres this woman who had come to teach in india in the middle of this postwar for independence, 1946 is a seminal year in her life because it was on september when she finally left, not even a month after the great day of to go on retreat to get a break. So she gets on a train. Shes on the train and realizes that god is calling her to leave the confines of the convent and go and work with the poorest, the poor in the streets to the thirst of christ for love souls. This is what she felt clearly communicated to her. 1947 comes and shes back from her retreat and shes now sharing with the priest the intimate details of visions that she had of jesus telling her what to do to go and come my light go into the dark holes and claim these poor souls, love them and give them all the people. And you can imagine in calcutta now, its transformed greatly it had once been indias capital, real jewel, but overrun a series of dreadful developments famine 1940 243, owing in part to the war requisitioning of boats that kept the rice from being circulated the country. So she leaves. She has to deal with that. And the influx died. Many came from the villages scavenging for food and. Then you have the partitioning of india, which led to such violence in the display basement of 16 Million People in that area. So now youve got the area just roiled with violence. She goes on retreat, shes on the train and now jesus is saying no, now youre works about begin. You know, youve had it easy up till now. So comes back its january 47. Shes trying to understand jesus wants her to do. She knew where she was supposed to do, but she didnt know how to do it. How get there. How does this single solitary do this so shes talking to a priest the nuns suspect, her of having an inappropriate relationship with the priest because theyre having all these private conversations. And so they banished to asansol about 150 miles away to another convent. So she goes through those six months of difficulty being misunderstood and judged, but bears it. And during that period of time, she recounted in her letters and these intimate discussion that jesus had with her about what it was that he was asking her to do, and thats recounted in the book. All of this is to say how remark a woman could then at that point that im going to go out just because gods called me to go into this into the streets to work. The bishop was terrified and he says, okay, you is this to take some time . And it did. And mother pestered her with him with a bunch of letters. And it led to finally his approval. She gets her approval from the nuns in ireland, the mother house, in the same month that gandhis assassinated, i found that mother never met, but i found it very interesting that there was a convergence at two points on the day of indias independence in august 15th, 1947, mother and gandhi were both in calcutta. And on the same week that mother got permission to leave to go into the streets, to go deal with all castes. India, the untouchables, zaharie john that the same week that she got permission, gandhi was assassinated it felt like almost a passing of the torch mother then has to get nurse training so that she could deal with the lepers and others that she would now be ministering to. And then december 21, 1948, with a muslim girl accompany her as she starts off in the slums. Think of the courage it took for this woman to do this. And now shes going to ask some of her old school girls she taught. Do you want to join me . And one by one, they did so. By 1950, there were of them in one room space in where there was a mother had a quote there. She said, im to want woody gives not what i prefer, kind of a assessment i think of of her life. You know, i one of the jobs i did for her as her lawyer was keep people from raising money in her name. She prohibited fundraising. She said, preferred the insecurity divine providence. You know beautiful dependance on god for, everything i know youre probably wondering why she had a lawyer president. Bush, when he would introduce me, say to his mother, lawyer, what kind of a world do we live in . When even she had to have had to have a lawyer, you know. But mother like to sue. Im kidding. Im just like kidding. I helped her with immigration. Other things it in the book theres a chapter on some of the very cases, by the way of, what i ran into these women join now theres six women living in this cramped space on the third floor, 26 women and one bathroom. Yeah, first miracle. So they move in 1949 to the motherhouse. They are to this day. So you look at the development of that. You look through her life and you see, how was it possible . How is it possible that this woman could have had. Attracted 3800 women to follow her into the worst places in the world by the time of her death, she was in 100, 120 countries and some of the worst slums in the world. She had 700 homes. You know, she an order of hundreds of men that to join brothers and dozens of priests and her missionaries of charity fathers. How did i end up meeting. Well i tell the story in the first few chapters, but i will simply say it was gods mercy and kindness at that time in my life i was a very disaffected catholic. I wasnt living my faith. Pascal described sin is licking the earth. And i had licked the and so i knew the taste of sin and i was very comfortable in my own hypocrisy and the beauty about being a hypocrite is that you can spot it everywhere. So i was judging everybody and, and, but i was watching this woman from afar. And i thought now shes practicing the faith. Shes shes living the gospel not but she is. And i wanted to meet her and the senator. I work for Mark Hatfield of oregon, newer and so he was sending me overseas a trip. And i thought, well, why dont i go by india . On the way back . The problem was i didnt want to be around poor people. Very hard to do. I no interest. And so i thought, all right, heres what im going to do. Im going to go into calcutta for one day. And then on the way home, hawaii for five days. And thats how i talked myself into doing it and, thats what i did. And i met mother, little, tiny. She came out. It was the week she turned 75 and just bristling with energy. She was everything. I wasnt intentional in love with god. This was a woman love with god so dramatic. See her. The tenderness of that relationship, though. Chapter 11 talks about the darkness that she experienced. Im sorry. Chapter 12 that she went through a period of darkness, but she never lost her faith. She had the conviction the core conviction of gods love, the poor. And she saw jesus, she said, in his distressing the size of the poor i was introduced to this in her home for the dying because mother that and it was such a brief meeting she said, have you been in my home for the. I said, no. And she said, well, go there and ask for sister luke, i had the rest of the to kill. Why not . So i said, sure, and she said, and say hi to my sisters in washington. So i go to the home for the dying and i walk in and my embassy driver out there, im a starch shirt and pressed slacks and just stepping over people that are laying by the entrance and just in states id never seen in my of poverty and misery. And i walked in. It was clean. There was peace. It was beautiful. And i asked for luke and she says, well, hi and i said, well, i was with Mother Teresa. This and that was great to drop her name. And i was with Mother Teresa and, and i said and she told me to come here and sister luke said. Great. Heres some cotton, heres some solution and go and clean that guy that has scabies in bed 46. And im like, oh, bed 46, you know, im like, im here for the tour. You know, it was last thing i wanted. So and thats why i feel comfortable to you today. And my friends, cspan, because it was the mercy of god. There wasnt one time he bit of me that wanted to go back to that man but i realized years as the years went by that when i touched that man that jesus, his distressing disguise touched me back. I want to stress a couple of things about mothers life that i think are are important. One was how she aged mother saw as a blessing, not a curse she saw it as a momentum in her life where she was drawing closer to god that she was home to god when mary was pregnant with our our third child, we living in tallahassee and mother was coming to washington. So we wanted to have her bless the baby. So we leave the two little ones behind and we fly up to washington for the day. Mother comes out. Mary, youre pregnant. What you do . And mary says, well, due august eight, but i think ill be early and mother says, no youll have that baby on my birthday and i mother i hope not because your birthday is august 26th and if shes 18 days late my life be a living heck so long story short. The night of august 25th, mary into labor. Were like, oh my gosh, the angels at work are going to have a little girl. Were going to name her teresa midnight strikes 120 in the morning and and now comes our baby. And the doctor says, congratulate and you have a little boy. And my wife goes, are sure . And he said, yeah, heres how we tell this is how we how they train us and. So but while mary was still in the hospital we got Sandy Mcmurtrie mothers very close friend got a call from sister priscilla and suggesting that sandy and i try to get back there because mother was dying and she was in the hospital and so with marys blessing i went to calcutta with sandy when we arrived at the airport the sister met us said well need to go straight to the hospital because mothers on oxygen so were racing there please can we get there before she dies we get to the hospital sixth floor of woodlands we go to the area where her room is. Theres a buzz of activity. I see sisters that. Oh, please know. She didnt just, did she . And the sister. No, no. She said mother was laying and she was pointing up and she just was looking and they were all looking. What is she looking at . And she just said im going home. Im going home to god. You know, mother had that orientation that shed come from god and was going to god and that she really believed that god with her. She said the greatest need of a person was to love and to be loved that this was greater than food, shelter and clothing. And she lived, in fact, engraved on her tombstone in calcutta is the passage from. Gospel love. One another is i have loved you, mother, that it was as simple to her as matthews gospel that whatever did to the least of my brother and you it to me, i remember once when she met with janet reno, she took her by the hand and opened up janets hand. Janet, this tall, tall woman, she was u. S. General and mother her hand. And she said, you did to me. She called it the five finger gospel, but she it wasnt just bread that would feed starving man. It was also the bread of friendship for people that are feeling unloved. You know she was asked what the worst disease was shed ever seen. Was it or was it aids . And she said, no, it was loneliness and that gnawing sense that people have rich and poor that often feel unloved unwanted, unneeded. And mother has spent her life in service. She said, a life thats not lived for others is not living. And i think she really spent all of her energies loving god in the poor and loving life. She was truly and it was a privilege to see the beauty of humanity and how she allowed herself to be loved at the as she aged, you know people. I met her the week she turned 75 and some will say oh by age 75. You know your best years are behind it. It wasnt true for mother at all . They evangelical there was a power to them because people watched her. They had heard what she said, but they watched her as she aged, how she bore illness was a tough woman. Five heart attacks, a stroke, tb malaria dozens of times broken arms, ribs, legs, you name it, that she went through. She was in a plane crash and survived. The Mother Teresa had an interesting life. Its recounted here but but she saw aging was a blessing that knew she was getting closer to god she knew that god if was asked to suffer she said she would accept and offer it and all of these things. She truly showed the beauty of her humanity. And i hope that this little book gives some reflection of that and honors that remarkable woman who really the 20th century. Id be happy to answer questions that you have now leave some time for questions. Dont be shy. You can come up to the microphone and ask anything you can ask about. My hairdresser if you have a question about that. You know where she she was born and scope which is the question is where was she born she was born scopa which is northern macedon near she interesting childhood, very prosperous family. Her dad was a merchant, very successful. He was also involved in the Movement Toward albanian independence. And when she was age eight, her father was poisoned. And so she then was cast. And then her fathers Business Partner appropriated all the assets of family. And so she was then cast into poverty. And her mother to work. She had two siblings and so thats why when she felt the call from god to be a missionary and to go to india it was a real sacrifice for her mother, for her to leave her. And i write about that with her mother in the book, but its mother tried to see her and this early 19, in the late 1960s and and it albania was under an atheistic communist dictator who had the country locked down and if mother went in, they were going to let her out. So that was a real cross. Mother always said that she when she died shed be judged by her mother to see whether she had honored the sacrifice mother had made by by letting go be a missionary. So a very interesting childhood and and its very interesting like because she stayed in calcutta after she started the missionaries of charity, she didnt leave calcutta for 30 years after shed arrived and. So her first speech in the united anybody know where it was . I was in las. Vegas, the National Council women. She spoke at their convention was her first public speech, 1960. And so if you want to make a religious to vegas in honor of mother, you know just tell your wife. Yeah, its a calling and. Yes. Question, i, i your presentation is fabulous. Was raised catholic and had the infant prague in my window on the day of birthday. Well, every year and so your mention of statues. Well i something caught my ear when you mentioned. Yeah. Or cathy when they introduced you the the five wishes. I worked for a hospice care in boulder, colorado for almost ten years. And we used we when it first came out, we used five was wow a so id like for you to can you just touch on your development of that and happy to thank you. Five wishes in is an advanced directive i tell in the book after that moment in college got, i then became more and more involved with the sisters and ultimately one is one of the most important things i was doing for mother was running interference her while she was opening aids homes in the 1980s that disease was spreading like wildfire and people died precipitously and so the poor had nowhere to go. And so mother opened aids homes. So i worked in one and i was and mother asked me to again. I was shamed into it because i didnt want to do that. But i was seeing women do it. These sisters were doing im like way theyre doing it. I can do it, you know. So i ended up i ended up living in the aids and from those experiences i wrote five wishes, which is an directive that helps you plan for and discuss end of life care, not just your medical needs. It is a legal document, but also your personal, spiritual needs. How you want to be remembered. You want your loved ones to know so that you can have a peaceful vision for your end game. And so theres 40 million copies out in america and its in 30 languages. And so you can do five wishes, dawg, not doing a commercial it but yeah, i love it and. Five wishes has helped a lot of families avoid family feuds and the wishes. If you want to be a Good Daughter son for your mom, dad, when they need you the most, know what their wishes are, and especially medical wishes. Because sometimes medicine doesnt know when to stop and the last thing ill say is im a little worried about. Assisted suicide and those because you should have a better choice between pain and poison we should managing pain better and i watched mother did it and so five wishes was developed with help of a couple other people too. And i created it just for the purpose helping educate people about a how they could have a beautiful death like mother has thats described. 14 yes, sir. High grade presentation. I recall a speech she gave at the National Prayer breakfast in washington, which where she spoke a culture of life versus a culture of death, which resonated with me. Yes, i was there it was february of 1994. It was the first time she had met the it was them. She met them backstage. They talked afterwards, but gave a speech that cspan think carries to this day a very powerful speech, you know, and she spoke unabashedly about her views and unflinchingly with president clinton sitting there and i described breakfast in the book. So mother i met them afterwards and and then i met mother back at the convent afterwards. And i described that in here, too, mother had, you know, access to leaders, especially the nobel peace prize, 1979. She you know, she was access to leaders to her just simply meant can bring my sisters to come serve the poor like castro she met with castro and then was able get into cuba. Castro, of course told her he said we dont have any poor in cuba. Thats what hes told her. And she says, well, you have old people can. I come and care for them. And thats how she got, you know, so very clever. Yeah. She loved president reagan. Had a very you know, i wrote about that in the book that she she could call him from a payphone in india and get into the oval office. So thats stories in there. So yeah she was evolved around politics, but she tried not to be in it. She was there for jesus, was there for the poor. She recognized she had great judgment, but she recognized that her focus was to to touch jesus in the disguise of the poor. Yes sir Mother Teresa spent an awful a lot of time communicating with people. She has also communicated with with my brother john. Oh, yeah. And i personal letters back and forth to each other. My question is how, many people did she actually cast bond with in that way . Wow during the process, after her death, where catholics look at making someone a saint, they collect all of the materials of that persons life. And so had to turn in all my handwritten letters and all my legal i was of the 113 witnesses that the vatican under oath to testify and because i had dealt with mammon you know i had dealt with Worldly Affairs mother many could talk about her sanctity and her prayer fulness so i could talk, you know, how she dealt with government leaders and some corrupt people to and so they collected all this. Thats where they came up with mothers her own personal letters because priests that had them that were her confessors that was part the collection process my guess is of regular she used to stay up late at night doing her own correspondence. This is a woman by the way got up every day of her life at 440 you know thats in all of her sisters all over the world to this day do that know you know they wash their clothes by hand no computers you know very simple how theyve kept its amazing how these 25 years my guess is of regular correspondence and she had all her sisters writing her and regional and you know her Organization Im guessing she had hundreds of regular correspondence with people you know she would only write a few lines sometimes but sometimes it was like i had a three page letter from her so she was remarkable in that penmanship know she was a schoolteacher you know as is perfect and she she used to sign her name god you Mother Teresa. Mm teresa. And she said those were 17 acts of love. Each letter. So she tried to offer that up, but yes she your john was lucky. Have a letter from her. Its a relic number of. He has a number of them. Put them up on ebay now. I mean i did i made a fortune i met. Thank you. Im your publicist but i would like you to recommend that people buy your book for reasons and i talked to you before so i understand you dont want to get into the politics of Mother Teresa. But one reason i would like you to recommend people buy your book so that can read pages 110 and 111 and also so they can read about all the opera tuners that some evil people took toward the end and demonize her and showing or those are really very interesting stories. So tell people thank you and you can be my publicist any time feel free to. Hi. Hi. Mother teresa has always been one of my all time heroes, so its such an honor to get to be able to hear you talk about your experiences with her. So thank you so much for coming. But i have a question about your life. You said when your child was born, if it was a girl were prepared to name her to raise teresa and was a boy. So my question is, what did you name your son was it terry. Well named him maximilian. Go figure. But in honor of a priest who died during World War Two had given up his place for a family man. They were to execute people who had escaped from a concentration camp. And they asked they randomly pick a bunch of people. And one of them was a father who was begging because he says, i have a wife, have children. So this priest up for maximilian colby and said, ill take his place. Whats interesting about it is when i got to mothers hospital room and showed her the of little baby maxima and unbeknownst to me she then relays she said i was at his canonization. I sat next to the man whose life was saved. And so i thought that was wild. Naming our kids was always a challenge. We also wanted to name one after john paul the great you know john paul too. And but the problem was that would have made him john paul to he and. So we thought thats a bridge too far that kid will be hell be in fights his whole time at every Catholic School so so we went we didnt we just went with john so any other questions has been great. I think we were supposed to break soon. So again, cheerfulness can i talk about the cheerfulness of mother . Sure. One of the characteristics of all missionaries of charity that join is, they three care isms, total surrender loving trust and cheerfulness. Mother was very about cheerfulness. She felt like i was with her one time in San Francisco when was giving a talk to these young women who were about to take their vows and they were sitting these were girls probably in their twenties 30 may not even like twenties and theyd been three years of formation now theyre to take their vows and mother was standing there just remember shes going now if you cant be cheerful with the poor, i want you to go home right now, just like that. Go home. And i just remember she started imitating a grumpy nuns and she she walked back and forth and they were all laughing. But they all got her point, you know, because you know, theres nothing worse than grumpy christian, you know, its contradiction, right . An oxymoron because theres the joy of the gospel. Theres a happy ending to all this, right. All right. Well, thats. A one let. Yes. Do you ever ask yourself why so i ever asked myself, why me . Yeah i do. I do. I mean, i feel like i won the lottery. Its the kindness, the mercy of god. You. Yeah. I mean, every i one time said to mother, i said, wish youd read me my rights when i met you, because it did change. You know, im in an aids home now working. Didnt see that in my five year plan when i was in jacksonville. But i would a debt i cant think i mean its been 37 years i spend every day thank trying to pay back debt thanking god for because yeah was its a privilege of a lifetime to meet a woman like that and implications in your life and then tell the story how in that memory i owe that to mother. She sent 35 sisters to our wedding. But i met her. I met my in an aids home. Not your standard to meet someone, but. So, yeah. Have a well we all have our stories we of how god touches us and invites us to to love one another as he loves us. Hopefully this book will encourage and inspire lives of service to to reach out to people who are lonely, to people who are poor in spirit or materially, and to to spread that love and the joy of the gospel in world that needs it. In a time when we know whats true and what isnt. With all this air thats creeping in and were talking about shooting down balloons while there are these grave issues facing our country and theres only way i know of that can bring people together. And thats love of god. And love of neighbor. Its time tested and true. And it worked for Mother Teresa. God bless you and thank you for coming out