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Joyce.
Some people might be thinking today we're doing a podcast on grief.
What is good about grief?
We're going to find out.
We are going to be a lot of good things, about grief.
But we're going to also hear, from past.
Absolutely, dear, dear friend of mine that we go way, way back.
A matter of fact, we've done many weddings together in the past
as well, where I've been a deejay and he was a photographer
and just been a great, great relationship with this amazing man.
New fellowship, church of the Redeemer, incorporated.
He's a pastor and his name is Fredrick Moriarty.
And Fred, it's just so good to see you here.
And, we appreciate you being here, John Joyce.
You know, it's a pleasure to be on this show.
You do such great work.
And, I'm glad that it's appreciated by so many people
and that so many people do tune in.
And that's very important in life that they learn the good.
Yes. What's good, what's right. Yeah.
We have to bring the good news.
We must, we must in so many ways.
And, you know, Reverend Marathi, I've known you a long time
and I've always felt so happy in your presence.
Thank you. You've always been connected to people.
You can walk in a room and you've always showed
such compassion and and and love and interest in people.
So I I'm so glad that you've gone down this path
now and you're opening your own church.
So God has a path.
God has a path for all of us.
And we, in fact, I use the analogy of, of a movie.
Which I don't know if I could mention the name of the movie because maybe
copyrighted, but, we're not showing it, so it's all right.
So it's a Pocahontas. Oh, sure. Yeah, yeah.
And she's going down the river, and then there's Mother Tree
in the middle, and there's two rivers, and she doesn't know which river to take
so she can go left, or she can go right, but she ends up in the same river.
So what's the analogy here?
What is the left river? It's free will.
What's the right river? It's also free will.
But what's the river that she ends up in?
That's God's plan for you in the end.
What is your plan?
And everyone has a plan in life.
Everyone has a book.
Their pictures on the cover when they're born.
There are pages in that book and that is your life.
So every day, if it's a great day,
say, Lord, thank you for this great day.
But if you're not having a great day,
if you know what, don't say, Lord, why have you forsaken me?
Say, Lord, what is the lesson I can learn today?
Should I be humble?
Should I be at peace?
Should I not be angry?
What lesson are you trying to teach me?
And that's the great part.
Once you could master that, your life will be so much better.
Yeah.
You will have such a more peaceful life in Frederick.
That is so important.
We have to be intentional about it, though. We can't let it happen.
We have to make that decision each and every morning.
Like we talked off camera about this waking up every day.
God, thank you for another day.
And the thing is, whether it's a good day or a challenging day, right.
Something to learn.
What do I need to learn about myself?
How do I handle this situation?
And we always say all the time, Joyce said.
Every setback really is a set up for something
better to come our way, and it takes maturity.
It's not going to happen overnight.
It's easy to get caught up in the world,
but we just have to really kind of train ourself to know that every day is such
a gift. Sounds cliche, but it's not.
No. As long as you look at it that way, it does show up.
It's really just a change in your thoughts about it.
Yes, yes.
And when you learn to do that, as John says, when you mature enough
to understand how to handle the situations and that, John, you know,
you have to understand that anger is is not God's way.
God doesn't want anger.
He wants you to realize that all things are for a reason.
And all people should be treated with equality.
All about respect.
And like,
you know I wake up each and every day and Joycean are in the same, same boat
that way I'll say father who can I help today.
Who could I be good to today.
And he always puts those people in my path.
More and more and it's good.
It's not always easy because we get caught up in our own stuff
and sometimes you don't want to talk to people or do this and that.
But when we get out of ourselves,
somebody told me a long time ago, if you're having a really bad day,
go out there and do something good for someone.
Yes. And all of a sudden your day is lifted.
Because we're each other's keepers. We need each other.
We're heard like we talked about before.
Frederick. We need each other.
The spirit of community.
And God wants us to love each other and not judge.
That's really what you're bringing into your ministry.
So yes, my church, it's kind of bridges the gap between conventional
and more modern in that we believe in fellowship and leadership,
the bonding of the community, the
the community of our parishioners.
And that if
one of our parishioners needs help, the community will be there to help them.
Well, I love it, and I want to produce
our sermon, to be real life.
I want to talk about how something affects your life.
For instance, how does stress affect your life?
What does the Bible say about coping with stress?
Or how does depression or even loneliness or in topics important?
And if we do that at the sermons at our, our, you know, when we have church,
I think people will walk away with more out of that than just reading
a particular passage.
You're giving them actual tools to leave with.
Absolutely.
Yeah, I Frederick, I like the fact
somebody told me a long time ago that facts tell, stories sell.
And when you sell that story, I shouldn't say sell,
but when you share it, that's how we learn. Yes.
Let's talk about your favorite teachers in school.
It wasn't the ones who said, read the book, do this and that.
They made the stories come to life.
Yes, yes. Right.
And that's what you're doing.
That's what Jesus did when he told the stories.
Yes. Right. Yes.
Good example.
Yes. And I just love what you're doing, Frederick.
And you just have a great way about you, a very neat way about you that I really
I know you're getting the message across, you know, praise God, praise God, praise
God. Yes.
So you have the calling and
and now you're really digging in and you're, you know, you've opened
your church.
How can well, we'll we'll put this on the screen afterwards.
But what's the best way for people to get in touch with you?
Well, we can put up my email and also my phone number for the church.
Okay.
So they can call they they can text or they can email.
Right. We have membership available.
I have a membership certificate,
a nice certificate and a card that you can carry, a nice pocket card.
That's a membership card to the church.
And right now we have a space that was donated to the church in Brantford.
And it is, ideal holds up to 100 people.
And we have everything we need there to conduct our service.
Now, somebody is out of the Brantford area
because we have a global reach with this podcast.
Will they be able to watch online
possible or will it be possible it will be okay
at some point in the future. I know it's still kind of new, I get it.
Yeah, we're still new.
We still have to get the technical people.
Okay to get out there.
Great to do and do the film side.
Yes. Yeah. But, we have the equipment.
I just have to get, someone that's technical enough to run the equipment.
Right.
And then we can certainly.
I have a YouTube channel. Right. So that's good.
That's good. I already have that.
And I've recorded, something about our church,
you know, all about our church on the YouTube channel I've recorded,
how we are all equal under God's heaven.
And I recorded that it's on my YouTube channel.
I also recorded, if you're getting married,
please make sure you get a professional wedding officiant
because that's your, your most important time.
Yeah. I wonder who does that use.
So you do that,
but I think you also mentioned to me that you do a lot of funerals
and that maybe you kind of feel that's your calling.
Joyce, I do, there's a great satisfaction
as a minister, to do the,
the funeral itself, but more importantly, to speak to the bereaved family.
I spoke to a gentleman yesterday.
His wife passed at 66.
Oh, he's not in a good place.
And I consoled him in that it's
not his fault he didn't do something wrong in his life.
He did not do something for his wife, like, see a specialist
or or whatever was wrong with her.
It was not his fault that this happened.
She was, by God's
design, finished with her task here on earth.
And now he's called her home to his right hand.
Yeah.
And after that I could tell because he would stop and listen.
And I could tell her that after the conversation, the one about the book
though explained earlier, he was lifted, his spirit was somewhat lifted.
He felt better about whatever grief he was grieving at the time,
and I find this more often than not when I speak to them about the,
you know, their deceased mother father, that was a poor woman.
She was in their 80s.
She was, I would say, fairly good health based on what the family said.
She fell, hit her head.
They never went to the hospital.
Oh, she passed from a bleed. A brain bleed.
So they were starting to left the.
Yes. The guilt. There's where the guilt comes in.
They were starting to blame themselves that if we only did this.
Yeah.
That's the old adage if if I would have shut up.
All right.
And I explained to them
that would not have made a change to this as God
had already planned her destiny,
and therefore she lived her life the way she was supposed to.
Frederick, what are the stages of grief?
There are so many I know there's anger, there's denial.
There's what ifs type thing.
I think the biggest one is blame. Blame.
I blame myself for not doing this.
I blame myself
for not taking my mom to this place or my dad or I wasn't there enough.
I was too busy with work.
I wasn't there when they needed me.
Any number of of reasons why
people in the course of their grieving, they blame themselves.
And that's the first thing.
So the first thing is they they tend to blame themselves for the reason why.
Then once
that that kind of clears up a little bit, then you've got stress.
Yeah.
What we've we've got to get this this done.
We've got to get this funeral done. We've got to.
But whatever it is and that draw stress now in a little bit, even younger
and older, if you lose a spouse now you're into depression,
and even loneliness. Yes.
Now, how does God treat that?
God tells us if we're depressed.
Just what you said earlier.
Find someone else who's in a state equal
or worse than your state and talk with them.
Talk out your your problem, your depression
with the state of loneliness.
Go to a, facility, an elderly facility.
Volunteer your time. Yes.
Talk to those people.
So there are ways that the Bible tells you that you can get through this.
Grieving has its own time and place based on each person.
Absolutely everybody deals with it differently.
I mean, Joyce and I have suffered loss with our with our spouses,
but the show is called What's Good and the Things we've been able to move on.
We mourned.
We still miss,
yeah, our loved ones, but we honor them by the way we live our lives.
And to me, the whole thing is to go out there in life.
We only have an extra number of days here and go out there,
inspire the other people,
let them know that, wow, if they can make it and thrive, so can I.
But be there for them.
And I think sometimes God allows things to happen because,
you know, Joyce and I can go and say, listen, I know how you feel.
Yeah, I've been there.
But I found that boom, you know, you're able to thrive and move and
and respect people's grieving.
Some people, it takes years. Yes, months.
Sometimes it's weeks, sometimes it's forever.
But meet them where they're at. Yeah.
And respect them.
Now part of my sermon with with funerals says,
how am I going to remember that person who passes?
Maybe we listen to a favorite song
and we get together and we talk about the good times. Yes.
We take a walk in the park and we see the birds flying free,
and we remember how no God has that person flying free like the birds.
And we take something that we remember them by.
We put it somewhere we can see it.
So that keeps that person with us. So what's the good out of it.
The good is you're going to move forward.
You're not going to walk forever in the shadow of the valley of death.
You're going to move forward in your life.
And that's what what's good God, knows your grief.
And by the way, if you have that grief, you should go to God.
You should go to your church.
You should go to your minister.
And God's with you.
He feels your grief because remember Jesus.
That's right. Was human.
Jesus were human skin at the time.
And and like we were talking about off air before when Lazarus passed away
he grieved. He cried like a baby.
He cried like a baby. Like a baby over his death.
Yeah.
And, so he knows our grief, but he doesn't want us to live in that grave.
He wants us to learn from it and to move forward our lives.
To go to what he has designed for us
as our final future.
Everyone has a path, and you may go through 4 or 5.
Different, points in your life.
You may be this or that or something else,
and eventually you'll end up where you're supposed to be.
Like the Pocahontas.
No matter what road you take, you're going to be where God wants you to be.
The right road, the right road. You can't make a mistake.
And you know what else?
Those things in the past
where as we go to college, we say we need a prerequisite, right?
Right.
Those were perhaps God's prerequisite
to something we were supposed to do that's bigger. Yes.
And those are the learning stages, the building blocks of life.
I really believe the gods are progressive.
God doesn't want us to be in the same spot year after year.
He wants us to be in a better spot next year.
So I'm always praying, God, please bless me in such a way
where I could be a bigger blessing in people's lives
and the days, weeks, months and years ahead.
How can I become better so I can be a better person,
a better disciple, a brighter light in the world?
I believe the moment you, say a prayer,
just say I need guidance on this.
The guidance is sent if you pay attention.
And I think that's where people could get themselves in a little bit of trouble
that they keep saying. Where is it? Where is it?
I'm not getting it.
But if you pay attention, someone like Frederick shows up or John shows up
and says something which is really coming
from a divine presence,
but you're not paying attention that it is because you're expecting.
I don't know what you're expecting, you know, but something so.
Right. Yeah. I said, I think they're expecting it on the board.
Well, yes.
You know, the the blackboard will start writing by your side saying, go do this.
Yes, yes. You know. Yes. That's not how it works.
That's still small voice.
And you have to get yourself quiet as a whole.
There's just too much noise in the world.
Like Jesus would go into the closet and Jesus
couldn't heal everybody because there were times in his human form
he was tired, tired, and you would go into the mountain
and just meditate or have conversations with his dad.
And there certain times Jesus even had to say, no, I can't help you at this time.
Yes, because there were times where, he couldn't heal forever
or he couldn't breathe.
The air couldn't heal in his own hometown because they didn't believe in him.
He was the carpenter's son.
There's nothing special about him. So he. Yeah.
He had to leave his hometown. Right, Frederick?
To be able to heal because they didn't believe in him?
No, because they remember him when that.
And even when he healed, they still were doubtful.
I didn't believe that he actually did that.
So it was magic trips.
That's exactly what exactly they thought it was. Magic.
Right?
But, you know, sometimes you have to listen
to what's in your your mind.
You hear this thing that says, do this, do this.
As God's way of kind of pushing you in a direction like, you know, you should do.
As I said, my wife was very ill
and I prayed to God to save her and he did.
And more voice came in my head that says, you should do what
you can to help people, more so than what you ever did.
So what would happen if you prayed to God
for your wife to be healed and she wasn't healed?
Then I and as I said right along to said
earlier, God's plan is set.
You have to learn to accept it.
You have to learn to accept.
Yes, what God's plan in life is. That's it.
That I would say, God, she has completed her mission here on earth.
She has given us what we have.
Now, God, you want to take her home to your right
hands, to be at peace and to be a patient with no pain, to be at peace.
All right. We have to learn to accept that.
Yes, yes.
The thing is, no matter what happens, like with with Wayne,
your late, great husband, my first wife, Darcy, who passed away,
they were both healed,
but not the way we wanted to, and with our own ego here on earth.
But they were healed.
They're there with our maker where we're going to be someday.
And they're probably ecstatic.
As Father Edna Donnelly said on a previous show, they graduated.
Yeah, they were promoted. They were promoted. Yes.
Right. Yeah.
And when you really think about it that way, I mean, I right?
I have a deep faith that this is not it.
And we've talked to some people
where they think this is it and there's nothing after.
Again, I respect where they're coming from, but I just
and my belief system, I believe our best days are ahead of us. Yes.
Absolutely. Yes.
I have three boys that really depend on me and, and I've said to them many times
when it comes my time to leave, don't grieve me, you know, be
happy for me because I'm going to be done with everything.
I want to move on to higher ground
so I get them prepared, even now, you know, just talking about it
so they're not hit with
something sudden like this is the paperwork where it should be.
This is my belief.
This is how I want to be buried.
This is.
I've laid out the whole thing just to make it easier for them.
And I think that's important to do, as you know, dealing with people
going through grief like, don't be sad,
you can be sad, but don't mourn forever.
Don't feel guilty.
We all had a great life together.
And to say it now, a lot of people are afraid
to talk about death when it's so inevitable.
You know, children die, people 102 die.
So you don't know when.
But if you can accept it now, your life on earth is just so much easier.
Now, Fred, I have a gentleman that I see
at the gym all the time, and he's really soured on God.
And, he's been living out of a truck for a while, lost his big job.
And, I saw him at the gym the other day in the locker room, and,
he just said, I'm praying for you.
And he says, John, I'm done with God.
I don't I don't believe in God.
I don't know if God was real.
Why would there be, you know, people with muscular dystrophy?
Why would there be people dying?
Why would 911 happen?
You know, why would this, this and this happen?
All legitimate points.
And I said, hey, listen, I don't know the answer to that.
His name is Ben.
I don't know the answer to that, but I don't believe God causes all that.
I think it goes back to the fall,
if you will, with Adam and Eve and, you know, in the flesh and all that.
But nevertheless, he has is one way of thinking.
But I said, Ben, nevertheless, I love you.
I love you like a brother.
I'm still going to pray for you.
But even if you don't believe, God believes in you,
and let's just agree to disagree, because you've been sending me
a little texture about religion and how this and this and this and that.
And I said, you know, Ben, let's just agree to disagree.
You're not going to change my mind about God. My faith is deep.
But I continue to pray for you and you're my friend.
And I will honor you no matter what.
So that's the whole point of it is.
Yes, we can agree to disagree.
I'm going to I'm going to act with love because he's entitled to the way he feels.
Exactly right.
Well, I just pray for God to soften his heart.
Yes. Because you want him to feel better. Exactly.
Because he's angry. Yes.
And I understand. Understand.
And and he hasn't found a couple of things.
He hasn't found his purpose.
Right? Right.
And he hasn't found the lesson.
He's still not getting the lesson.
Yeah.
He's living in his truck, isn't gotten the lesson he should seek.
Right? Maybe he will find the right.
He should knock. Maybe that door will be opened.
That's right. And he may not be doing that.
So he's got to be looking further Joyce getting back to what you said that opening
to all of my funeral services says
we are here to celebrate the life of Emma.
I love the celebrating the lighthouse.
We're not celebrating the death of we're not here to mourn the death of.
We're here to celebrate this life. Right.
And what do we remember about this particular person's life
that we could smile about, that we can laugh about,
that funeral service should not be about death.
It should be about reliving the life of that person
who brought us much joy and much light to our own lives.
You're going to kick off my service.
Just play Celebration by Kool and the gang and get ready to go, baby.
Yeah, let's get out there and dance and have fun.
Because I say it all the time.
If I pass away, you know, celebrate my life.
Don't mourn because I've got really good life.
And I know where I'm going. Yeah.
And you'll be there dancing. They just can't be there.
That's exactly how I know John will be there.
I'm going to. I'm harsh. Right? Absolutely.
But but that's that's what we should be doing.
Okay.
And, and I try to convince people we have to look at the good.
We have to look at what?
What was what's good, what's good, what's good.
A father called me once about his son, who died
early.
Yeah.
And it was sudden, and the grief
had been ongoing, and I shared with him.
I said, well, what if you started to say,
wasn't I blessed to have such a great son?
Wasn't I blessed to be in this young boy's
life for this long and be his father?
Why don't we flip the script on this?
And that helped him tremendously.
So. And I know that's what you do with people by celebrating their lives.
Exactly.
Yeah.
And it, you should see, we're offering something a little different.
I ask the family, is there a certain song
that mom or dad or whoever loved in their life?
And, this one woman, she goes back to the 60s.
She loved rock and roll, and, she loved John Denver.
And they were playing.
And they want us to play Rocky Mountain. Oh, sure.
The Rocky Mountain high.
So, we have a little player.
We played it, and the people that were there,
and it was full of people that was probably 30, 40 people there.
They were singing the song love that
and enjoying the fact that she was getting her favorite song.
She was there, they were there, and it brought,
it brought that joy to the celebration of life.
Yes, yes.
And we started doing that to find more and more people now.
Oh, we can have a song.
Yes, of course, that healing music is very healing awesome.
I have one tonight. They're.
They want a spiritual song by a certain artist that does Christian music.
Yeah. It's beautiful.
There was another gentleman who was, who wanted Gaelic, right? Music.
And it was in Gaelic.
Whatever that language.
I may be wrong, but I think it's Gaelic about.
And, that's the whole point to the celebration.
Yep. Celebrating life. That's a whole thing.
And that's, you know, the premise of what's good
with John and Joyce today about grief, that it doesn't have to be the end all.
It doesn't have to be dour.
It doesn't have to be so like macabre.
It can be something that's really uplifting.
Looking at that person.
They were here.
They blessed your life for X amount of time.
They were here and like you said, their time here is done.
They accomplished their assignment.
God called them home, greeted them with open arms.
I mean, that's that's joyful.
Just the thought of it just gives me, you know,
even if some of them would say, I thought, I'm in a hurry, you know, don't I'm not.
Okay.
All right.
Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to go right now, right,
right, right.
Certain days.
No, let's,
let's take me now.
Right? Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yes, yes, yes.
But, if if a person doesn't have that belief
and maybe could say, do you believe in the universe, right?
Do you believe?
Because I believe God's created everything.
And as I said to father and personally, because we've known each other
a long time, I said, are you upset because I wrote about Buddha
in my first book, Starving Your Fears?
And he said, why would I be upset?
God created Buddha, but I created all so.
So that's the way, you know, we can look at that.
But if someone can't embrace God or religion, yeah, like your friend,
you can say, well, he can believe in the power of nature.
You can believe that there's something maybe bigger than us.
Whatever you call that, hang on to that and let that grow
and start to be thankful.
Because I'm more thankful for trees.
They're the sunshine. Yes.
Yeah.
Doctors that care for whatever it is.
It starts to expand within you
and then you'll be surprised at what shows up exactly.
Gratitude is riches. Say, I learned that a long time ago.
They created. What are you grateful for today? Yeah.
I mean, I work with a lot of folks that I know.
You two choice.
I counsel with a lot of folks, pray
with a lot of folks, just like you do for everyone.
And I'll just say, sit down at your at your kitchen table, your desk
with a piece of paper, old school
and a pencil, and write down what you're grateful for
and just say pros and cons in your life.
And I guarantee you you're going to have a lot more pros.
You may have to dig a little bit deeper some days,
but we have so much to be grateful for.
But, but, but I'll tell you a last word there, pastor.
Reverend, last word before we have to wind up here.
Well, I think the last words of more important thing in our life is kindness.
Hmhmm caring. Who's being kind.
Please be kind. Please be kind.
Yes. Care about one another again.
We're all God's creations.
All created under one God, whatever your belief is.
And by the way, our church is non-denominational,
so I don't care what religion you are, you're welcome in our church.
But kindness is a key word for today, right?
I love that. Thank you so much. Be good to people.
Hey Frederick, so so great to see you and many
so great to be here and continue success with your church as well.
Yeah, you so much and we'll give everyone your information and I appreciate that.
And again, I thank you on behalf of myself and the church.
I thank you for having me here today.
And lots of prayers for your bride and, your wife.
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much for tuning in to What's Good with John and Joyce.
And we were dealing with grief here.
And there are some positive sides of everything.
It's all about how you look at it.
But if you're going through a really tough time right now,
we want to let you know that we're praying for you and your family.
And, thank you so much for having
what's good with John and Joyce as part of your routine.
We appreciate you as a scribe wherever you get your podcasts from.
And God bless you and your family and friends.
I know I.