Our storyteller is back and continuing to share real life experiences of grief, the lessons learned, and finding hope for the future! Dr. Joel C. Hunter, CEO and founder of Community Resource Network, in Altamonte Springs Florida continues our conversation from last week and Episode 11. Today, in Part II, Dr. Hunter takes us through the process of dealing with unanswered questions, the worry of salvation for our lost loved ones, and surviving grief during the #COVID19 global pandemic. Dr. Hunter finishes with a discussion on his commitment to social justice as a decades long civil rights activist, the death of George Floyd. and Black Lives Matter. If like us, you needed a little hope through all of what life is throwing at us right now, you won’t want to miss Dr. Hunter’s hopeful and uplifting attitude shares his heart for humanity with us!

Please don’t miss this special episode of Hope Thru Grief and share it with your friends and family! And, as a special bonus we are providing the video recording of Part I of our conversation with Dr. Hunter on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/oRFoTdzkYG4.

To find out more about Dr. Hunters current endeavors visit his website: https://joelhunter.com, on Facebook; https://www.facebook.com/drjoelchunter, and Twitter; https://twitter.com/drjoelhunter.

We welcome your comments and questions! Send an email to hopethrugrief@gmail.com and please share our show with anyone you know that is struggling with loss and grief. You can find us on the internet to continue the conversation!

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Website: http://hopethrugrief.com.

Subscribe & Share: https://hope-thru-grief.captivate.fm/listen

Jordan Smelski Foundation: http://www.jordansmelskifoundation.org

Tune in for new episodes every Thursday morning wherever you listen to podcasts!

Marshall Adler and Steve Smelski, co-hosts of Hope Thru Grief are not medical, or mental health professionals, therefore we cannot and will not give any medical, or mental health advice. If you, or anyone you know needs medical or mental health treatment, please contact a medical or mental health professional immediately. The Suicide Prevention Lifeline number is 1-800-273-8255

Thank you

Marshall Adler

Steve Smelski

Hello, this is Marshall Adler with my good

friend and cohost Steve Smelski.

And I want to thank you so much for listening to part two of our very,

very special interview today with Dr.

Joel Hunter.

We covered very many interesting things in our Part I of the interview, but Part

II, I think is going to be a fascinating discussion dealing with many of the

issues that are affecting society today.

Including, but not limited to the effect of the COVID-19 virus on

society and grieving and the effect that the Black Lives Matter movement

has had on society and grieving.

So again, I want to thank you so much for listening.

I hope you enjoy part two of our interview with our very special guest, Dr.

Joel Hunter, as much as you enjoyed part one,

...It's interesting that you say that.

Let me ask you this, I viewed grief as a individual journey and I think what

you and Becyk are doing is fantastic.

And I feel like Debbie and I are doing the same thing that we know we're grieving

as parents, but I also know she's got her journey and I have my journey.

Her journey as a mother is different than my journey as a father.

And I know Matt's brother David is on his own journey as a sibling.

He said something that I never thought about.

He said that when parents lose a child, the natural inclination is to have all

the empathy go to the parents, because obviously they lost a child, which is

true, but a lot of people forget about the siblings and he said something really.

He said that hopefully, we do hope this, that he's going to

outlive us by decades, obviously.

Because his grief is going to be decades longer than our grief

because he's 30 years old, I'm 64.

And he said that the loss of his, his children that aren't even born

yet, knowing his funny, hilarious, uncle Matt will never happen.

And he grieves that.

And I thought about that and I said that never was on my radar screen.

So how has your family's grief journey been different as a unit, you know,

from father, mother, and sibling?

Well, um, a couple of things, first of all, it has drawn

us um, So much closer to each other.

Um, my, all of my sons were each other's best friends.

They went to, they went to the same college, they roomed together.

Wow.

They, they lived in the same town.

They, they planted the same church.

They, they, um, I mean, I mean, they were just so close.

As a matter of fact, um, when Isaac, uh, committed suicide, it was his

older brother that discovered the body.

Wow.

So it's, it's hard to say how that will affect Josh

the rest of his life, but it will.

There are some bad consequences to this, uh, because, uh, both of my sons now

are divorced, uh, because of, I think, uh, because of the grieving process.

Um, and, and, um, Um, I mean, they're, they're, they love their kids or,

you know, so, so it's not that it's not that it ruined their whole lives.

But what it did was, um, it made, because they live in the town, we live

in, um, it made them, uh, much more, um, we interact as parents, uh, and sons,

uh, more because of this mutual loss.

Um, and we process, um, more, um, openly, uh, because we all grew up

together, you know, so some people say, you know, um, you don't raise

your kids, your kids raise you.

And so they have been a part of our growing up, and our understanding

of different aspects of Isaac's life that we didn't understand

before, because they were so close.

So, um, your son's absolutely right.

They will carry this, um, um, into the future.

Uh, Isaac's children.

Um, they, they, they love his children.

Um, But there's this angst, there's there's I wish I could be the father

for him, for them that Isaac, what, but they can't, you know, so there's this

ongoing angst and, and, uh, and they, and the kids, you know, love their uncles.

There's some closeness there, but there's, there's this ongoing challenge.

We know how in our minds it should have been, but how do you live plan B?

You know, and so, and so that's, it is very much a challenge Marshall.

You know, it's interesting, you mentioned

that because I'm a news hound.

I love looking at history and Anderson Cooper on CNN, obviously his mother was

Gloria Vanderbilt, and some people may or may not know this, but yeah, his older

brother died by suicide on July 22nd.

1988, which is 30 years to the day before Matt's suicide.

And so whenever I watch CNN, he's not on TV on July 22nd, the day we're grieving

Matt's, in the Jewish religion, you light a yahrzeit candle, it's a memorial

candle at the anniversary of somebody's death and Anderson Cooper's not on

TV because I know he's mourning his brother's death, which was 32 years ago.

Wow.

And so I talked to Dave, after Matt's passing and I

knew of Anderson Cooper's story, and I read an article and then Anderson

Cooper's mother was Gloria Vanderbilt.

He didn't have to go out and do things, but he did.

He started trailing around the world to become a journalist

really in honor of his brother.

And I looked at Dave and what you said about your brothers is exactly

what I think my brothers were like.

As different as you can get.

Matt was this funny artistic he was a Wikipedia when it came to movies.

He was just phenomenal.

He wanted to be a movie director that's why he was living in California.

And Dave was always an athletic jock.

But they love each other and their intersections when they had the

common interest was just so close.

So, what I told Dave was that you have an opportunity to live your

life as a tribute to Matt, and that's what he'd want you to do.

And I look at Anderson Cooper as a journalist, has affected so

many people, different stories.

And I saw an interview with him where he was just talking, he goes, but

for his brother dying by suicide, he probably wouldn't become a

journalist and take a different life.

So, I know what you mean.

It's the flip side of the same coin where Dave is going to be grieving,

not having his children having this hilarious uncle Matt in their lives.

Yeah.

But on the other hand, I do think it's giving him impetus

to think that he's got mad on his shoulder every day and want to make

them want to make them proud every day.

Yeah.

That's exactly right.

Absolutely.

Right.

Yeah.

And hopefully that'll happen.

Yeah, absolutely.

I believe it.

I hope so.

Joel, we've had some people approach us and ask, um, they've.

So when Shelley and I started grief, a lot of the people had lost

spouses or parents or grandparents.

There weren't that many that had lost children.

And over the last few years, there's been many more that have come through and

they seek us out and ask us a question.

Their biggest fear is their child didn't know Jesus, and they want to

know if they're going to be in heaven.

How would you counsel that answer back to them?

God's got this, God's got this.

He made your kid you know.

Your child was fearfully and wonderfully made knit together in his mother's womb.

Um, and so, um, there's lots of people that don't know Jesus, uh,

but there's nobody, God didn't make.

And so, um, there's several theological things I could give you, you know.

Jesus died for the sins of the whole world on the cross.

He said, father, forgive them for, they know not what they do.

In other words, ignorance, uh, really is a basis for forgiveness.

And so, but mostly just tell them not to worry about this because God loved

that child or that, uh, youngster or person, uh, way more than they did.

And so, um, it's, it's just this matter of, of trust.

You know, when I, when I was growing up and, and, uh, I would meet, um,

religious people that were very well meaning, uh, but again, very

mechanical, uh, in their understanding.

And, and had kind of this zero sum approach to life.

You were the winner or you were the loser.

Yeah.

Um, and, and, um, thank God um, um, he's not like that.

The Bible says his dream falls on the just and the unjust and, and,

uh, the sunshines on the just and the unjust so on and so forth.

So, part of believing is letting God be God.

You know, not trying to pretend that you're the judge that you can

figure out who's going and who's not.

You know, I, I, uh, I knew Billy Graham and, and, and Billy was, as a matter of

fact, before I said before, I said the benediction at the Democratic National

Convention, I called Billy Graham up and I said, Billy, should I do this?

Cause I was a card-carrying Republican at the time and Billy

said, you're a preacher, aren't you?

I said, yeah, well, when somebody has a preacher to pray, they pray!

That was quintessential Billy Graham, you know?

And I, and I tell you that because when George Bush became a Christian,

um, somebody made a comment uh, about the people who are not saved,

you know, don't make it to heaven.

And, Barbara Bush, I think this is how the story goes said,

we're going to call Billy Graham.

You know, we're just going to call him.

You know, now Billy Graham is the most famous evangelist in all the world.

He's the one who's given all of these, you know, come know Jesus and all of

that kind of stuff, because he wanted people to be secure when they could

be secure in their, their knowledge of salvation, so they call bill Graham.

And Billy Graham said seriously?

I mean, he didn't, he didn't, these are my words.

This is a paraphrase.

But you think you're going to figure out who goes to heaven and who, who

doesn't go to heaven, seriously?

And so even the people who are most earnest, to tell people about their

experience and their assurance of salvation should know best of

all, that this is all up to God.

This is not up to us.

And God knows our hearts.

And, and the Bible says he judges our hearts, not on the outside.

He judges our hearts.

So, um, so I, I I'm fully enthusiastic when it comes to giving

people peace about trusting God.

That's great counsel.

I always thought that it wasn't supposed to be an exclusive

group, he wanted everybody.

Yeah.

Oh yeah.

Oh yeah.

There's an old joke about people, you know, going to heaven and God's

or somebody giving him a tour.

Maybe Moses or somebody, I don't know.

And, and they keep going by this one section of heaven and the tour guide

goes, shhhhh, you know ,be quiet.

And, uh, and then they pass it like two or three times.

Finally, when somebody in the group said, why do we have to be

quiet when we pass that building?

He said, that's the Baptists.

They think they're the only ones here.

That's funny.

That's great.

You know, it's interesting that being Jewish, I've had multiple, very good

friends telling me that exact same thing.

And you talk about humor and again, my, most of my jokes are older than dirt.

So I'll tell you an old, old joke that I always try to use that to me,

shows you how wonderful humor is.

Cause I've had many people, even in law school and adults telling

me that their fearful for my soul because I am Jewish and not Christian.

And I would tell them, I said, well, you know, Jesus was Jewish.

And they say, uh, yes, I know that.

I said, well, do you know how you know that?

How, I know that?

They say, how do you know that?

I said, well, there's obviously three reasons.

I know Jesus was Jewish.

Um, number one, he lived at home until he was 33.

Number two, he went into his father's business, and number three,

his mother thought he was God.

So it's a real old joke, but I use it as humor and people say, I'm not

worried about your soul anymore.

And that to me is sort of Joel, what your life has been as such a tolerant,

kind, compassionate, clergymen, when the world needs more people like you.

But I'm going to ask you a personal question in the sense that you

were so beloved and so many people are going to look to you to help

them on their journey of grief.

How has your journey of grief effected your ability to help others on theirs?

Well, um, let me, let me just point out a couple of things.

I think I've said this in a different, a couple of different ways, but,

but, uh, first of all, um, there's a difference between sympathy and empathy.

You know, sympathy is literally feeling, uh, with people.

You know, your heart goes out to them.

And I'm so sorry you're going through this.

Empathy is, um, I don't know exactly what you're going through,

but I've had my heartbroken, um, in ways I've been devastated.

Uh, I've been, uh, so broken that I, I just had to remember to brush my teeth,

you know, I've been in that much pain.

And so, when somebody faces devastating circumstances like that, you can't

say, I know what you're going through.

Cause everybody's different and you don't know what they're going through.

But you can say, I know what it feels like, um, to, um, to be in

such pain, you can't not only think of anything else you can't think.

And, so I just want you to know that my heart hurts for you.

The other thing that is different is not from your perspective,

it's from their perspective.

When people know that you have suffered, there's a, a credibility of

caring that they bestow on you that you would never bestow on yourself.

I mean, both of us, all three of us, um, because of what we've been

through, people will trust that we have a modicum of, um, understanding and

compassion and caring that people who had pretty much everything in their,

in their life go right, couldn't have.

They don't hold it against them it's just, they couldn't possibly

know what I'm going through.

But when they look at us, they say they can know a piece

of what I'm going through.

And there's a fellowship there.

There's a connection there, um, that I can have with them, because of that.

And so that's, that's increases your capability to care.

That's interesting.

I, never thought of it that way.

It's interesting you mentioned that because being a lawyer, I've had a lot

of interaction with people that I know through my professional life, but don't

really know personally, because you just see them nine to five in cases.

And what you said is so true.

I've had people that I've had maybe one case with 10 years ago, call

me up or contact me, or want to go to lunch, to talk about Matt's

passing and how it affected them.

And they'd be tearing up and I realized that they never met Matt.

But it's affecting them because they might be worried about a loved one in their

life, or they might've been, might've had a loss to that they're not telling me.

And definitely it sounds crazy, but it gets street credence to talk to me,

and I have some of these people I've known for years and they would call me

up and I'd assume it was about a case or something, farthest thing on their

mind about this conversation was work.

Matt's passing that just allowed me to connect with them on a human basis that

I never would have had, but from Matt's passing and for that, I'm thankful.

Yeah, absolutely.

I really am.

And it's just funny how you talk about unintended consequences and you have to,

again, Steve and I talk all the time that in some ways it's a gift to realize that

I think all of our sons are looking over us and giving us gifts to help others.

I think all Isaac, Jordan, and Matt spent their life doing that and their gift to

us is allowing us to continue that work.

I really believe that.

Yeah.

I know Jordan would be getting them in trouble, but.

He could instigate anything.

It's the challenge that untaken that's the problem.

Yeah.

He would challenge you to do anything.

Joel, I wanted to switch gears a little bit.

This year is unlike any other in the last 100 years.

I saw today, a lady survived COVID and she was a baby, and she survived 1918's flu.

And cancer.

I saw, she just had her a hundred and second birthday.

So we haven't seen anything like this in a hundred years, at least.

Grief is difficult enough in a normal year.

Yeah.

But when you can't go to the hospital to be

with them and hold their hand.

And it doesn't even have to be a COVID case.

They won't let anybody in for any case.

Right.

When you can't have a service after, to have all your

friends come to support you, you can only have 10 at a funeral.

Um, It's very difficult to, to try and help somebody through this process.

Cause grief is not, so it has to be done on its own and, and yet,

that's what we're ordered to do.

Yeah.

I don't know if you've got any, any hints of wisdom that

you could share that would, cause we try and we get on video with them.

We just started Grief Share last night.

Right.

I just talked to two people today who just lost loved ones since COVID

started and they went into lockdown and,

Yeah.

And they're all alone.

Yeah, gosh.

They have nobody with them.

They, they live by themselves.

They're working remotely and they're struggling.

Oh, my goodness.

Well, you're right, Steve, this, this is one of the greatest

challenges, um, of our lifetimes.

Partly because we are social animals.

We are, we are meant to live life together and that's just how we're wired.

We are people of physicality.

I mean, I love Zoom, I love the time it saves me but, it doesn't

replace in person presence.

I remember, um, talking years ago I was a senior pastor of one of the largest

United Methodist churches in Indiana.

This is like 40, almost 50 years ago now.

And we had a person on our staff that was a, um, she was ahead of

our counseling staff actually.

She was brilliant PhD, clinical psychologist and her husband was on

the mound, this was a church softball league, on the mound pitching,

drops dead of a heart attack.

Young guy, young guy that she was, she was in her thirties, I think, early thirties.

And so I, I wanted to learn what was valuable in a time of grief

and after some distance, after some time, I asked her if I get asked

her a question and she said, yeah.

And I said, when you were going through that with your husband, I

said, was there anything that was said that was particularly helpful?

And she paused for a minute.

I'll never forget this.

She was trying to think back.

She must have taken two or three minutes in silence.

And she looked at me and she said, I don't remember anything that was said.

I just remember the hugs.

And I thought, oh boy, there, there it is.

Now there was, there was some things that were helpful that were said

to me at Isaac's passing, but, but honest to goodness, when you

take away the hugs, it's tough.

And so all I can do is pray for a vaccine, um, because nothing can replace

actual physical presence and just being with people, being with people.

And so, I, yeah, I don't know how to do that other than,

um, and, and golly, Steve.

When, when our, um, elderly are set up in nursing homes and

can't be visited by their kids.

I can't, I can't get my arms around that.

So, anyhow, no, there's, there's no real good word I can give you

on that because nothing replaces the physical touch, or the physical

presence of somebody who loves you.

Right.

I think that is so true.

And it's interesting you gave that answer because Jordan was a hugger

and he taught our whole family to hug.

My family was not huggers until Jordan came along.

That's awesome, awesome

You know, it's, it's so difficult to be on this journey

because as we know it's not linear that I am amazed how I will get hit with a

wave of grief that I never saw coming.

Like I tell people that it's two years since Matt's passing and I say that

the waves of grief are less frequent, but the wave height never changes.

When I get hit by that, it's just like, I got the call.

Like Matt was 3000 miles away when he passed away and I got a call

from the coroner in San Diego.

And obviously I'll never forget that and I'll be driving on I4 or

Yeah.

Something and a song will go on and it's just like, I got

this Thunderbolt of grief from left field and doing this in the age of a global

pandemic, it is tough because obviously the only one I could hug here is Debbie.

Debbie's my wife and Matt's mother, obviously.

And we talk about when we have pangs of grief and sometimes we'll be watching

something like, at Matt's funeral, I did a eulogy that I wanted people that

didn't know Matt to know about him.

About half the people that were at the funeral were Matt's

friends, half the people were our friends that didn't know Matt.

So I quoted a lot of famous movie scenes cause again Matt was just phenomenal.

He was like a savant when it came to movies and I quote the scene from

the Wizard of Oz where the wizard is giving the Tin Man the plastic

heart, because he didn't have one.

And he, the quote that he makes is, um, "a heart's not practicable until

they're unbreakable, but a heart is not judged by how much you love, but

by how much you're loved by others".

And I closed the eulogy by saying that the life that Matt led would

have made the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz proud because he was so loved.

But when I see anything about Judy Garland or Ray Bolger or the Wizard of Oz, I get

hit with a Thunderbolt of grief because forever, you know, Matt was so funny,

these little things laugh because, he was just such a amazing person when it

came to movies that I never knew this.

Like everybody knows wizard of Oz, Somewhere Over The Rainbow.

I'm a Jewish guy from Buffalo, New York.

Matt, as a young person told me, do you know, Harold Arlen, that wrote

the song Somewhere Over The Rainbow was a Jewish guy from Buffalo?

And I go, I didn't know that.

And these little obscure facts sort of make me laugh.

So when I get a hit of grief, I'll think about Harold Arlen.

I didn't know Harold Arlen wrote that.

I didn't know he was from Buffalo.

I didn't know he was Jewish.

Matt knew those things.

So, let me ask you, how do you deal with your thunderbolts

of grief and you get hit?

I cry.

You know, I just cry.

A lot of times we have pictures, obviously of Isaac still in the house, there's a

picture of Isaac in my office and I can pass that picture a hundred times and the

hundred and first time I just look, and it all comes back and I just, I have to

have a time where I just, I just grieve.

And I talk to him, say, I miss you.

Um, and, uh, but, um, but there's, there's no way to, I don't share it with people.

I don't talk to people about it.

I just, I just miss him.

I just set for a while and I hurt, um, because, um, I

really, you're exactly right.

The waves come less frequently, but they're just as high, just as hard, so you

just gotta take it in and that's a part.

You know, hurt is the price of love.

If we didn't, if we weren't hurting, that means we didn't love.

And to the degree that you love someone is the degree, which

you will always miss them.

They can't be replaced.

There's always going to be that hole.

Um, and, um, you can that, one of the things that, that, that were,

um, that helped me when, when Isaac passed is somebody told to us.

You know, the pain will never get any less, but you'll get bigger around it.

And it was so helpful for me because you do, you grow in your perspective

and, and, and you grow in your ability, but that pain never gets any less.

Wow.

It's intellectually, I always think I could have, my defenses ready on certain

days, like Father's Day or Matt's birthday or the day of his passing.

I'm sort of, of the mindset now I shouldn't even continue that delusion.

My defenses are going to be wiped away by the tears and the

Yeah.

Feeling of grief in about two seconds.

Yeah, absolutely right.

Absolutely right.

Father's Day is absolutely the worst day of the year for me first.

I mean, I can, I'm okay on his birthday.

I'm okay on holidays.

I'm okay on, even on the day of his passing, but Father's Day, I just sit,

I sit in my chair in the cemetery.

And we just spend time together on Father's Day, it's

just, it never gets better.

As a matter of fact, it's maybe a little tougher.

But the rest of the life, the rest of the year, gets better and I've, and I've, and

I can, I can put things in perspective.

Um, but yeah, I'm with you.

No defenses.

No

deffenses.

No.

Nope.

Father's Day is the toughest.

Its almost like the other ones pushed it all to father's day and they're

a little easier and that's tough.

Yeah.

Yeah,

absolutely.

I wanted to ask you, you mentioned president Barack

Obama and he had given you a call.

Most people don't get any insight into that part of the world.

Do you have a story or a favorite story you could share with us?

Oh, golly.

Um, I've got lots of them.

Um, I don't, I don't know that, um, Uh, well, first of all, just let me say this.

President Obama is a wonderful and decent man and loves his family like crazy.

You know, when Michelle came down to Northland, for one of her, uh,

um, yeah, there was the exercise thing she did, get healthy events.

I spent quite a bit of time with him, didn't spend as much time with her.

But in my introduction, I said, whenever I talked with the president and I

said, how's Michelle and the girls?

His eyes just lit up.

I mean, this was a man who so genuinely loves his wife and his

family that it just shows on his face.

It's just remarkable.

He was always building her up and always giving her credit for everything.

So, um, so he's a man of tremendous humor.

I mean, he made me laugh out loud.

Um, and, uh, but, but the main thing about him is I don't know that I've

ever met a man with the depth of attention to others instead of himself.

And the depth of compassion.

I remember one time, I just have to tell you one story and I'm

down to 17% on my, my computer.

Um, I, it, it was at the very beginning of, uh, the, um, Or toward the

beginning of the presidential debates.

And there was a debate held at Messiah college and I was to ask the

first question to Hillary Clinton.

And I knew Senator Clinton from before and I had asked her before

and other debates questions.

And so I'm asking her this question and she's answering the question

I'm, um, out in like the first row of people who were asking questions.

And, I feel this presence just creeping up the aisle, its like doing an army crawl.

She's answering, she got done answering the question and I feel

this tap on, on my, on my arm.

And, uh, and I looked down and there's a guy down there, he says, Senator

Obama's wondering if you'd like to come and pray with him before he goes on.

And I said, sure, I'd be glad to do that.

So, after the attention shifted to the other part of the room, I slipped out.

We went down to the catacombs that are under Messiah college.

And I'm just thinking to myself, okay, there's going to be, it's going to be

typical, there's going to be 50 of us.

We're all going to be laying hands on him and, you know, taking turns.

It was just me and him in the hallway.

And, and, uh, and I re I remember that week, especially, of course, every week,

he had just gotten beat up by the press.

I mean, just pummeled by the press.

And so I went up to him and I said, Senator, thanks for the

opportunity to pray with you.

I said, I know, I know you've had a rough week.

Uh, he, um, and he said, no, he said the single mom, who's trying to feed

her kids and just had a rough week.

I'm fine.

And I thought that's him in a nutshell.

He was, I could never, you know, when I said, what do we pray about, it was always

about somebody else, never about him.

So anyhow, that's just kind of, that's kind of who he was and who he still is.

Two hours before my last sermon two hours for my last sermon, I

said, that'd be the last story.

You know, preachers, we always got another one.

Two hours, two hours he had before he, before he went into politics.

He was a community organizer.

When he came out of Harvard, he was a community organizer.

And so two hours before my last sermon at, uh, Northland, I had already determined

I was gonna work with the homeless and become a fake community organizer.

So he calls me and he said, what are you doing?

And I said, I said, I have no idea.

You were a community organizer.

What am I doing?

So it was just, it was one of those kind of relationships

that just was a friendship.

Nothing pretentious.

We didn't try to, I never tried to talk politics with him.

It was very personal, uh, mutually supportive.

Uh, but I can tell you he's a wonderful man.

Wow.

It's a great story.

That is a great story.

Quick question.

I know my computer runs out of juice and it drives me insane,

looking at those little numbers go down so I'll try to speak fast.

I'll just say this, you know, growing up in Buffalo, New York, everybody

was a Democrat, just the way it was.

I remember when I was six years old, I went to see John F.

Kennedy at Buffalo city hall on my father's shoulders, I was six years old.

Wow.

And when he was assassinated, I was seven years old

and the crossing guard at my school told me, he says, Johnson's president.

I go who's Johnson?

And I look back now, but that was my first introduction to grief.

Because I just knew Kennedy was always president during my life.

And so.

It sort of got me involved in social issues and I know you, your

life is such an exemplary life.

And I did some research how, in the sixties, did Martin

Luther Kings passing affect you?

And how was that dovetailed into what's happening with Black Lives

Matter and George Floyd and I'm very interested in how this affected you.

Absolutely.

I grew up in an all white town in the Midwest.

I did not know at the time that we had an ordinance that no black

or colored people could be in that town, could live in that town.

Wow.

And that was, that was not unusual in

the Midwest back in that day.

But when I went to college, it was in the sixties and I immediately got

involved in the civil rights movement.

And when Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated, I came to a crisis of faith.

And because I was trying to make things right by getting the right people

in office and, and then it hit me.

It's not about getting the right people in office.

It's about who we want to be as a people.

And it's about including those who have been left out.

And so on the occasion of his assassination, I gave my whole life

to following Christ and including people who had not been included and

its kind of been my story ever since.

And it's why I'm involved today, uh, with the rebirth of the civil rights

movement, uh, hopefully in a new way.

I was just on the phone the other day with Congressman Clyburn, Jim

Cliburn and he was reminiscing about John Lewis and hit some of their

last, their last conversations.

He was with him very close to the time he died and they were reminiscing

about, um, the civil rights movement in the sixties, which I was a part of.

And I can remember, um, many of the things he was saying.

Um, but I have great hope that the horrible circumstance of the killing of

George Floyd will set us on a path of becoming a nation that includes people,

um, because of their differences.

That was the promise at the beginning, you know, of our country, all men are

created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.

And so I just, want to spend the rest of my life, um, including people who weren't

being included, which was the story of Jesus, and is the story of how I think

we can become a great nation again.

I'll speak out of turn here.

I want to thank you for doing that on behalf of a grateful nation,

because I'll just say that, you know, I, you, you recently wrote

an op ed, um, That amazed me.

It was titled have courage to intervene against racist aggression.

And you made a comment in there that it's historial malfeasance not to

address the issue of George Floyd.

And I was so impressed that you wrote that and put that publicly.

And again, I think your life is just a testament of the best of

religion, America, and humanity.

And as we talked about, I think Isaac's really proud of you.

I hope Matt's really proud of me.

And I know Jordan's really proud of Steve.

But for those three wonderful people, we've not had this wonderful

opportunity to talk and I hope your computer's not running out of juice

as I'm saying this, I don't want to get kicked, get cut off here.

I'll say that because I want to thank you so much for talking to us today

because it just meant so much to me personally, because from afar, I've always

respected you and getting a chance to meet you even through the technology that

exists, it's really been a experience I'll remember the rest of my life.

I want to thank you so much for doing it.

Thank you, Marshall.

And thank you, Steve.

It's been wonderful talking with both of you.

Joel, I just wanted to say that you've helped Shelly and

I so much, and we really appreciate you taking the time to meet us

and you put us on the right path.

And I don't know, I think Shelly shared with you, you turned us on to

Grief Share at Northland now we're leading it at our church at Journey.

I love that.

And we owe it to you and we'd like to say thank

you for actually taking the time and understanding where we're at.

Well, thank you.

Thank both of you.

You made my day.

Well, thank you so much again, but for Grief Share,

I never would have met Steve and we never would have done this.

So again, it's the known and the unknown and I'm thanking you for all of them.

Thank you very much.

Alright.

Have a good one y'all.

You guys too.

Stay well.

Wow.

I would just like to thank Dr.

Hunter for coming on today and actually sharing his heart and

opening up his thoughts with us.

All of the things that we discussed, we actually discussed

a lot of different things.

Death of his son, death of his granddaughter, focusing on

completing the journey for them.

I really feel like he helped Shelly and I get on the right path after Jordan died.

He took the time to meet with us and, um, I think his, his thoughts that he shared

with us, the questions he answered for us just got us on the right path, uh,

for healing and going through our grief.

How about you, Marshall?

I think the amazing thing about Dr.

Hunter is not only the totality of the wonderful, purposeful,

life that he's led helping others.

But the fact that throughout his whole life and the present time he's shown

incredible bravery to speak out for what he felt was right in general,

and in particular dealing with basic human rights and basic civil rights.

And Lord knows our world needs more people who are willing

to show the bravery that Dr.

Hunter has to do that.

And the world is a much better place because of his actions.

And for that, I cannot thank him enough.

I agree with those comments.

And we'd also like to thank him for his thoughts and insights into a completely

non-normal year of 2020, as we've all been dealing with COVID for the last several

months, we've got to hear some of his insight on that and some thoughts for us.

I would just like to mention all the different things that Dr.

Hunter is involved with, um, including being the founder and chairman of

the Community Resource Network, which works to support all of the homeless

organizations throughout central Florida.

He's the author and creator of the Devotional Minute, which

airs every morning on Z88 radio.

He and his son, Dr.

Joel Hunter do a Bright Side podcast, which is released once a week.

Shows run 20 to 30 minutes.

He's the leader of Power Talks on TV 45 and the idea of Simple Help, and for

all of the good things that he does for all of us in central Florida, we'd both

like to say thank you very much, Dr.

Hunter, for joining us and sharing your heart today.

Absolutely.

It was an honor to have Dr.

Hunter as a guest.

We really appreciate it.

Thanks everybody for joining us on Hope Thru Grief.

Thank you so much and look forward to talking to you soon.