Proclaim Peace Episode 29 // Rejecting Violence: Mormon's Last Lecture on Peace

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In this episode of the Proclaim Peace podcast, hosts Jennifer Thomas and Patrick Mason continue their exploration of peacemaking principles derived from the gospel and the Book of Mormon. They share thoughts on the last words of the prophet Mormon, emphasizing how the Book of Mormon serves as a vital connection during turbulent times. The conversation highlights the scriptures' candid approach to conflict, illustrating a range of difficulties from familial disputes to larger societal issues. They reflect on the narrative of the Book of Mormon, focusing on the vision of a beloved community and the hope it inspires in addressing contemporary challenges. Join us as we delve into how these teachings can guide us in becoming better peacemakers.

Timestamps

[00:01:37] The promise of Zion.

[00:04:36] MWEG's annual conference details.

[00:09:29] Mormon's lament of lost opportunity.

[00:12:31] Embracing the way of Jesus.

[00:15:53] Peacemaking as active engagement.

[00:22:04] Gospel of repentance and transformation.

[00:25:01] Humility and peacemaking.

[00:28:36] The humility of Moroni.

[00:32:06] The path to peace.

Transcript

(00:03-00:05) Jennifer Thomas: Welcome to the Proclaim Peace Podcast. I'm Jennifer Thomas.

(00:06-00:33) Patrick Mason: And I'm Patrick Mason. And this is the podcast where we apply principles of the gospel and read the Book of Mormon to become better peacemakers. Hello, friends, and welcome back to the Proclaimed Peace Podcast, where we talk about what the principles of the restored gospel teach us about how to become better peacemakers. especially by looking at the Book of Mormon. I'm your co-host, Patrick Mason. I'm thrilled to be here, as always, with my friend and co-host, Jen Thomas. Jen, how you doing?

(00:34-02:15) Jennifer Thomas: I'm doing okay, Patrick, and I'm grateful that we are having this discussion after three really remarkable podcasts about Zion. I was at a convening of people last week who were people of faith who were unfamiliar largely with the Book of Mormon or sort of knew of it as our scripture, and they were talking about how we could work together to kind of address some of the problems of our society. They were across the political spectrum, like I said, many different faiths, And one of the things that I was able to share is that for me, the Book of Mormon has been a real tether in this time, and the fact that it did not shy away from conflict, but showed people in a range of really problematic and difficult situations, starting with trouble in their family, and as you say, ending in genocide, and all sorts of conflicts in between, political conflicts, social conflicts, religious conflicts, and that I was really holding onto the apex of the Book of Mormon, of that narrative of this beautiful time in which what this group of people is working for, the beloved community, came to fruition. I said, so I'm so grateful that in my faith tradition, as a member of the LDS Church, I have this narrative that I can draw on that tells me this is possible, that there are people who did it, that tells me the characteristics of the society where it was achieved. And so I'm just grateful that we've had a little conversation about Zion, and I hope that all of you, if you're finding yourselves in sadness or sorrow, or that it seems like it's a difficult, you're dealing with difficult things, I would just encourage you to really dig deep into that. It's a promise that we have, and it's something that we've seen that's happened, and I think we can count on that.

(02:16-02:34) Patrick Mason: Yeah, absolutely. I feel the same way. I mean, one of the things that doing this series has done is to strengthen my testimony that the Book of Mormon is a text for our time. And so it absolutely speaks to us just as powerfully in 2025 as it did in 1830 when it rolled off the press.

(02:35-02:37) Jennifer Thomas: And maybe more so, right?

(02:37-03:16) Patrick Mason: Exactly. Yeah, and it's, I mean, just like the, you know, people have been reading the Bible for 2,000 years or the New Testament, right, the Jewish scriptures before that, right, and always finding new meaning and new applications to their time, the Book of Mormon has that kind of depth and life. and wisdom and inspiration to it as well. And I have to say that I've heard from multiple listeners about these Zion episodes that we just did. And so thanks everybody for reaching out. We always love if you wanna go and post reviews and we always appreciate hearing from you. to talk about ways that the podcast is helping you.

(03:17-03:29) Jennifer Thomas: I'll just add to that that I have heard surprisingly from several people who are not members of our church who didn't know that this narrative was part of the Book of Mormon and for whom this has really resonated with them. So I'm really grateful we were able to share that.

(03:30-03:53) Patrick Mason: Oh, I love that. Okay, we are gonna dive in. Today's gonna be a little bit different episode. Normally we have a special guest on to come and talk about their experiences and their insights. This time it's gonna be just me and Jen. So some of you may tune out at this point or stay here for Jen and you'll get a little bit of me along the way.

(03:53-03:58) Jennifer Thomas: If you come for the guests, which most of you probably do, you can just quietly leave the room.

(04:01-04:36) Patrick Mason: But you're just going to be with us for the next little bit. And before we dive in, we are going to talk about the Book of Mormon. Now, this is confusing because we're not going to talk about the whole like 500 pages of the Book of Mormon. We're going to talk about the Book of Mormon within the Book of Mormon. and, you know, the third to last book in the Book of Mormon. But before we do that, we actually want to talk about an exciting event that's coming right up that many of you will know about, some of you may not. And so, Jen, do you want to talk about MWEG's annual conference?

(04:36-06:46) Jennifer Thomas: Yes. So for those of you that don't know, MWEG every year hosts an annual conference in Provo at Utah Valley University. in March, and we have that coming up on March 22nd. And our conference is always designed to help the women that are attending, and men are welcome too, but I will not lie, it's mostly women, to meet the challenges at the moment. And we always want to offer them an opportunity and a vision that they can have of what robust political engagement looks like that is compassionate, effective, and peaceful. And I think that's particularly important at this moment as we are living in a time of significant upheaval and change. And we're all trying to figure out how we can respond to that change and how we can make our response productive and as helpful as possible to meeting the needs of particularly those who are suffering. We really hope this conference has been designed specifically to help women stay engaged and to sort of develop the personal capacity and the emotional, social, and spiritual skills that they need to continue to be very powerful, peaceful actors in our society. And we have three focuses on the conference. One is building your advocacy skills. The other one is developing your capacity as a peacemaker. And then the third is helping you strengthen relational bonds, because community is at the core of Zion, and it's the core of discipleship. So we hope you will join us. Please feel free to register. We are running low on tickets. We're going to definitely be a capacity crowd. We've extended our capacity this year quite significantly, but we still are probably going to sell out. So please feel free to, if you are interested in joining, please register soon at www.mweg.org. You can register there. And or if you can't join us in person, we hope you will join us virtually. Um, we have some fantastic speakers, including Sharon Eubank, um, who are going to talk to us and by registering virtually, you can enjoy, um, the, um, conference the day of, or enjoy, um, the recordings later.

(06:48-06:53) Patrick Mason: Awesome. Um, so yeah, I am super excited about this and Patrick is our special guest.

(06:54-06:59) Jennifer Thomas: He's the dude. Patrick is officially the first guy who's ever spoken at our conference.

(07:02-07:06) Patrick Mason: I don't think we wanted to advertise that. That's not going to help with ticket sales.

(07:06-07:07) Jennifer Thomas: Of course it will.

(07:07-09:14) Patrick Mason: But no, I'm very honored to have been asked, and I can't wait to be there and to learn. from all the amazing speakers and just to interact with everybody there. So that's exciting. So that's on March 22nd, right? Which is the Saturday coming up in just a couple of weeks. So, okay. So with that programming note behind us, I wanna turn our attention to the Book of Mormon. So we've spent, I don't know how many episodes now reading texts that were edited by Mormon. this prophet, general, and also compiler and editor of the large plates. And so he's really, in a lot of ways, kind of the dominant voice and the hand that shapes almost the entire Book of Mormon, with the exception of the writings of Nephi and then the Jaredite record. And so in some ways, we've been encountering Mormon for a lot of this text, but he's oftentimes in the background or giving us lessons, sort of jumping in and saying, okay, let me make sure that you learn this lesson along the way. But when we get to this book, now after 4th Nephi, we encounter him as a historical character. him and his prophetic ministry, also his military and political leadership with the Nephi people. And it's like, for me, Jen, this is like, just experientially, when I come to the Book of Mormon, within the Book of Mormon, it's like, for me, there's always this whiplash effect, like coming off of just what you talked about, like fourth Nephi, this incredible experience, and then the teachings of Jesus before that, right, in third Nephi, and… Gorgeous sermon at the… So much hope. So much like, oh, this is the way, literally. And this is what it can look like when an entire society organizes around the teachings of Jesus and the way of Jesus and the way of compassion and love and peace. And then it all falls apart.

(09:14-09:18) Jennifer Thomas: And it falls apart rapidly. It goes right off a cliff. Yeah.

(09:18-09:51) Patrick Mason: Yeah. So when I read this book, when I read his book, Mormon's book, I have this sense of mourning, this sense of lament, of a lost opportunity, and and of what happens. For me, there's that great Robert Frost poem, The Road Not Taken. This is the road taken, but I know what the road not taken could have looked like because we just read it.

(09:51-10:26) Jennifer Thomas: Well, and I also imagine that he has been sort of secluded doing this work, right, of trying to record and condense. And he's seeing that, he's probably seeing, it's sort of like sitting in a movie where you're like, don't open that door, or don't, you know, don't. And he has seen all of these pivot points over the course of Nephite history where they could have done something different. And he sees this most spectacular success immediately followed by the most spectacular failure. And it just must be an enormous burden to bear. I agree.

(10:27-10:32) Patrick Mason: And he's living in it. It's one thing to write about history. It's another thing to live in history, right?

(10:32-10:34) Jennifer Thomas: Consequences, exactly.

(10:35-11:44) Patrick Mason: And you see in here, there's so much pathos in this book. He's fighting, he withdraws, he decides not to lead these people because he's so upset with their wickedness, but then he comes back to them because he loves them anyway. And so there's so much going on. So there's a lot to talk about, but I want to zero in on just maybe a handful of passages that we can think about. And again, our theme here is not to do a deep dive into every verse in the Book of Mormon, but rather to think about what are some of the lessons about peace building and peacemaking that we can draw from this text, even in its darkest moments, including the end of the Nephite civilization. So I was thinking maybe that we could jump in here in Mormon's own lament, in which he has seen the wheels come off. He has seen, and so if you go to chapter six in Mormon, he's reported, he's giving us the statistics of the death and the fallen and the tragedy that really this… People he knew and loved, right?

(11:44-11:44) Jennifer Thomas: Yeah.

(11:45-13:17) Patrick Mason: And so, he sees these faces, right? I mean, he's visualized, he's witnessed it, and he's writing about this. And then he says in verse 16, and my soul was rent with anguish because of the slain of my people. And I cried, O ye fair ones, how could ye have departed from the ways of the Lord? O ye fair ones, how could ye have rejected that Jesus who stood with open arms to receive you? Behold, if ye had not done this, ye would not have fallen. But behold, ye are fallen, and I mourn your loss." In verse 22, oh, that you'd repented before this great destruction had come upon you. But behold, you're gone. right? And that's it. And at this point, he can't turn back the clock, right? They've made their decisions. And I read this… I had always read these verses. I've heard these verses many times and read these verses many times. And I'd always thought about them in a kind of purely religious or kind of churchy way, right? That they'd sort of rejected their faith, that they weren't good church members anymore or something like that, right? And now reading it this time after applying this peacemaking lens to the Book of Mormon that we've done all year long, it's like, oh, this takes on entirely new meaning to me, that they rejected the way of Jesus, they rejected the way of peace, and this is where it left them. I mean, what do you think when you read those verses?

(13:17-15:42) Jennifer Thomas: Well, I feel the exact same way, and they rejected that Jesus. And so I was thinking, as I was reading a little bit earlier in, again, in Mosiah, about a similar situation in which Abinadi was looking at some people and saying, hey, you're a hot mess. And he gives these beautiful scriptures about publishing peace and basically talking about I'll just read this really quickly. And I think I'm thinking about this very similarly to the way you're thinking about the scriptures. in Mormon, which is, what does it mean to embrace the way of Jesus? And when I have read these scriptures of Abinadi talking to these people and calling them to repentance, I read it very similarly, I think, for years, the way you've read Mormon, that this was just talking about Jesus or declaring him. He talks about the prophets. But as I've been reading the Book of Mormon, I've been asking myself, what does it really look like to publish peace in the way Christ would have us do it? And what does it really mean to embrace the way of Jesus, the way Mormon was calling upon his people to have done? And I was thinking about that this week, just in the context of some interfaith work that I'm doing with MWEG. And I've come to realize so forcefully that I can take upon me the name of Christ. I can do that vociferously. I can do it with open declaration of my love for him. But if I am not acting in a way that is conducive with his way, absolutely not only will no one believe me, but I will do discredit to his teachings and to his path. So I guess I've been calling myself a little bit to repentance and saying, what does it actually look like for me to disciple in this moment? What does it look like to follow the way of Jesus? Not just declaring him, but being the kind of person he would have me be. And I'm thinking a lot about that. I don't know that I've come to any really good conclusions. Well, I've come to some, but I don't know. Tell me what you think. What does it look like?

(15:43-17:11) Patrick Mason: Well, I think that's exactly, I mean, it's just hit me, and I've mentioned this multiple times, but it's hit me so strongly over the last year or two that in the Beatitudes, Jesus says, blessed are the peacemakers, not the peace wishers or the peace lovers. The peace talkers. Or the peace talkers, right? I mean, that's me too often, right? And here we are, proclaim peace, right? But it's blessed are the peacemakers. It's the only beatitude that is oriented around action in the world, rather than just the condition of your heart. And so it's really led me to think about how all of that other work that I do, that the heart work really matters. We've talked about that a lot. The inner work, the heart work, the soul work that we do. But if, as you say, if the fruits of that are not a peaceable walk with other people, and like the hard piece that we've talked about, not easy, passive, like conflict avoidance, but like hard peace, engaged peace, peacemaking, going into difficult situations and making yourself vulnerable and doing all those kinds of things, then somehow there's a disconnect, right, between what I'm trying to cultivate in my heart and then what I'm trying to produce in the world.

(17:12-18:26) Jennifer Thomas: Well, and I, this is maybe flows from my work, but I actually feel it quite powerfully that it also, Creating peace isn't just how I engage with you. It isn't just how I talk to you or try to work with you across differences. But if I really want to be a disciple-driven peacemaker, I have to be actively working to create the world that Christ called us to create in those great sermons, right? And that means caring for the poor. It means making sure that The world in which people live is one in which they can be free and productive and hopeful. And I can't, I have to be really cautious. It's very easy, I think, for us to just be indifferent to other people's pain and turn away from it for a variety of reasons. And to me, peacemaking not only means making like engaging with conflict productively, but it also means engaging with sorrow and sadness and, you know, the really hard things of the world, the way Christ would have us engage them. I need to be working to create a peaceful society where everyone can live productive and healthy lives.

(18:27-19:08) Patrick Mason: Yeah, that's right. And that's really, to me, this lesson of fourth Nephi and then its inversion in Mormon is that, yes, the fruits of the individual conversion that's wrought in third Nephi That only really flowers when people take that out into their society and create a society where everybody is included, right? Where there's no poor, not because they got rid of the poor, but because they took care of the poor, right? And there's no, not because they expelled people who are different than them, but they actually recognize that the unity that underlay all the other differences.

(19:08-19:25) Jennifer Thomas: And we see these moments where Mormon thinks his people are going to pivot, but they've always just pivoted in word, but not in deed. And it never holds, right? They never are willing to make the hard changes of creating a different, doing, walking a different kind of walk. And it never sticks.

(19:25-19:39) Patrick Mason: Can I think about the Lamanites differently, right? And can I think about the poor differently? Can I think about ites differently? Can I think, does it actually transform the way that I think about my politics, frankly?

(19:39-19:40) Jennifer Thomas: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

(19:41-19:42) Patrick Mason: and my economics.

(19:42-19:48) Jennifer Thomas: Because I think this is a political destruction. Yes. It's a political debacle.

(19:48-20:36) Patrick Mason: Yeah, this is not just an apostasy, right, where everybody leaves the church. That's maybe kind of where it starts in 4th Nephi, right? But our theology matters for our politics and vice versa. And so if we have bad theology, or if our theology, we don't let our theology fully flourish and touch all the other points of our life, then that will affect our sociology, our anthropology, our politics, our economics, everything. And that's what we see with the Nephites. I'll bet some of these people went to their graves. I mean, there is a general apostasy as well. They're turning away from the religious teachings as well. But some of these probably, most people don't wake up thinking, I'm going to be a bad person today, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so they all had narratives to justify the war that they fought.

(20:38-20:40) Jennifer Thomas: That they were fighting evil, that they were whatever it was.

(20:41-23:19) Patrick Mason: Yeah, yeah. Okay, so it leads me to think here about, I think, one of the really powerful passages in Mormon's writings. And this is in Mormon chapter seven. This is his, literally the last thing that he's gonna write to us. And it's a little deceptive because there's two more chapters, but this is actually his son writing this. So Mormon chapter seven is literally the last thing that we have. from the prophet Mormon. After all these hundreds of pages, right, all of the record that he's edited, that he's compiled, this is now him speaking to the Lamanites, because there's nobody else left, right? He's now speaking to his own people, right? And what is his message? I mean, so, you know, I teach at a university, and there's a tradition at a lot of universities, what's known as a last lecture. of where a professor gives, you know, they're retiring usually or they're at the end of their career, they've taught for 30 or 40 years or whatever, taught thousands of students. What is like the one thing distilled in a half hour or 45 minutes that I want all my students to know? For me, this is Mormon's last lecture, right? After everything else, you know, that I've said and that I've taught and that I've presented to you, what do I want you to know? And to me, it's just remarkable. This is chapter seven, and this is what he tells the surviving Lamanites. Know ye that you're of the house of Israel. Know who you are, like you're special, you're not nobody, right? You're part of God's people. Know ye that ye must come unto repentance or you cannot be saved, right? This is the gospel of repentance. He's gonna talk about Jesus for the whole rest of the chapter, right? Come to Jesus, right? And change who you are, transform who you are. And "'Know ye that you must lay down your weapons of war "'and delight no more in the shedding of blood "'and take them not again, save it be that God shall command you.'" And to me, this is so striking that here's Mormon who has spent, what is his career? What does he list on the IRS form for occupation? It's general, right? He named his son probably after Captain Moroni. He spent pages and pages and pages detailing these wars. But in his last lecture, where does his mind, as he sees the destruction of his people, he says, turn to Jesus. That's what we would expect. That's what he's told us all along. But then he could have said, and then remember Captain Moroni, and remember how the gates of hell, you know, would shake at his presence. He could have said that. Instead, he says, remember, who are the only people who lay down their arms, their weapons? It's the anti-Nephi-Lehi's who are in his mind as he's dying his last breaths.

(23:21-25:01) Jennifer Thomas: So I love that for a lot of reasons. One of the reasons I think that I'm enough of a student of history to know that it is very, very rare that good people who have lived through the tragedy of war are eager to go back into it or take it lightly. And often the people that are leading us towards violence and leading us towards kind of war are people who are doing it for their own ends but are not willing to bear the cost or understand the cost. And one of the things that I love so much about this scripture is, like you said, this is a person whose entire identity and whole life's purpose has been around waging war. And yet he is basically having the courage to say, you have to reject this whole thing that defined my entire life, that I was in theory very good at, you know, that people called, that set me apart, that is what has made me famous amongst my people. But I am here to tell you that it is not the way. And I just keep wondering, Patrick, what does it take for us to be the kind of people that are willing to reject violence, to reject the contention that leads to violence? And one of the things that I just keep coming back to is over and over again in the Book of Mormon, the people that are able and willing to do it, the scriptures tell us over and over again, they were characterized by deep humility. That humility was the defining feature of the people that were willing to either lay down their weapons of war and trust God or to… And I don't know why that is. I mean, tell me why that is.

(25:01-25:47) Patrick Mason: I think it's humility combined with… empathy and true Christ-like love for another person. I mean, you think about the sons of Mosiah, right? The people who break the pattern in the Book of Mormon, they do it because they break the narrative that the other person is dangerous, evil, and out to get me, right? And that their flourishing comes at a cost to my flourishing. Instead, the people who break the cycle are the people who completely invert that narrative and say, I can only flourish if they flourish. That actually my humanity is lessened if I'm in ongoing contention with them and if I see them as something less than human.

(25:50-27:30) Jennifer Thomas: the characteristic that makes it possible for me to do that is humility. Is this a willingness to say, I am not at the center of things. I can get myself to a point where I can see the deep needs and the humanity of other people. And I just have been thinking, so I have gone through in the last couple of weeks, because we are in a very particularly contentious period in our nation's history. We just have been doing, gonna start to cry, we have been doing, always crying, a survey of our membership around peacemaking and what their needs are. And the point that people tell us that they're having the highest, the space in which they're having the highest degree of difficulty in terms of achieving peace is within their congregations. That's it. And it's followed closely by extended family, but it is the place that should be characteristic of the greatest peace and that our people need to go to to find Jesus and find peace, that they are struggling to connect with that. So I've just been thinking about what does it take for me as a person, what do I have to be willing to give up in a period of contention to be able to prioritize peace as Christ would have me. And to me, maybe I'm just a very proud person, but I really keep coming back over and over again that I have to be willing to humble myself. And it doesn't mean I don't stand up for what is right. It doesn't mean that I don't have my principles, but that humility will protect me from turning true principles towards contention, violence, and hatred.

(27:31-27:36) Patrick Mason: Yeah, it protects us from ideology. It protects us from idolatry.

(27:36-27:42) Jennifer Thomas: Protects us from admitting we were wrong, the inability to admit we were wrong. It's just very protective.

(27:42-29:43) Patrick Mason: Which to me, and this is the thing I want to kind of land on here, is I think one of just… It's an incredible verse in all of Scripture. There are very few verses like this at the end of Mormon's book, but this is actually his son Moroni writing. And he thinks this is like the last of his writing. Moroni thinks he's done like three or four times, right? Poor guy, he has to keep lugging those plates around and keep writing more. So, he thinks he's done, and so he thinks he's giving his last message to readers. And in chapter 9, verse 31, this is really just so remarkable. Here's a prophet who's been called, who's seen the destruction of his people, seen all of this, echoing his father's message, knows Jesus, and he says, condemn me not because of my imperfection. neither my father because of his imperfection, neither them who have written before him, but rather give thanks unto God that he hath made manifest unto you our imperfections, that ye may learn to be more wise than we have been." This is incredible. This is a prophet, you know, who's inscribing scripture and preserving scripture for all of us, who's saying, do better than me, do better than my father, do better than all of the people who wrote on these plates. Why? Because this is where it ended up. We didn't do it well enough, right? Don't disregard our teachings. Don't disregard our testimony of Jesus. That's not what he's saying, right? But we collectively, I didn't do well enough. And so this, I mean, it's the ultimate humility, right, of Moroni saying, don't look to me, don't look to my father, don't look to Captain Moroni, don't look to Nephi, don't look to any of these other people. Look to Jesus and do better than we have done.

(29:45-31:00) Jennifer Thomas: So I will just add my very small mite to that. And we have a few more episodes for you before we wrap up this book, but I think I'm almost positive that I speak for you, Patrick, when I say that reading the Book of Mormon this way for us has been absolutely transformative, I think, for both of us in terms of reorienting and really strengthening our disciple hearts, right? It has made us committed, I think, to peacemaking in a way that we both have been committed peacemakers. Both of our work is grounded in that. But for me, Reading the Book of Mormon this way, it's done exactly what you say that Moroni is calling us to do. It has called me to just look laser focused at Christ and say, what does he look like? How does he act? What is he really telling me? What excuses am I making for not following him? And how am I going to rid myself of those excuses and align myself better with him. And I just, I feel so strongly that we have the capacity to do that. And the more we do that, the greater we'll be our influence for good in the world.

(31:01-32:22) Patrick Mason: Yeah, I love that. So as we wrap up, it's strange to say that I feel like Mormon and Moroni are kindred spirits because their lives are so different than mine, right? And I don't identify with their profession in the same way. But But I actually identify deeply with them in the sense of wanting to do exactly what you just said, of recognizing where I fall short in my own professions and professions of peace. professions of Christianity, and the constant desire to do better, and the hope and confidence that I can and that we can. That's why Mormon says repent, because we believe in a gospel of repentance that is fundamentally a gospel of hope, that no matter what circumstances we find ourselves in, no matter how much despair, lament, mourning, difficulty, or on the other side, pride in our accomplishments and a sense of the rightness of our cause, whatever those kinds of feelings are swirling around in us, the prophets are always calling us to do better, to look beyond my own inclinations, to look to Jesus and the way of peace.

(32:23-32:28) Jennifer Thomas: Amen. He is the path to peace, but it only runs through us.

(32:30-33:05) Patrick Mason: Yep. So, Jen, thanks for this conversation, and we'll be back next time with another special guest as we look to the last few episodes before we wrap up the Book of Mormon. Thanks everybody for listening today. We really appreciate it. We just want to invite you to subscribe to the podcast and also to rate and review it. We love hearing feedback from listeners, so please email us at podcast at mweg.org. We also want to invite you to think about ways that you can make peace in your life this week. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next time.

(33:10-33:26) Jennifer Thomas: Thank you for listening to Proclaim Peace, a proud member of the Faith Matters Podcast Network. Faith Matters holds expansive conversations about the restored gospel to accompany individuals on their journey of faith. You can learn more about Faith Matters and check out our other shows at faithmatters.org.