Talk Stigma

Hello, everyone. My name is Pastor Seth Perry, and welcome to Talk Stigma. Like I said last week and every week, I am in recovery from addiction. I am also living well with bipolar disorder. And here I am meeting with you all today, live streaming, and talking about today's topic. And today I want to talk about us valuing people over places. Now, today, in my message, as I was sharing with everyone at church, I was talking about places that people have a lot of reverence to, that have a lot of value.

And I started talking about storied locations where sports were played, like the original Yankee Stadium that was there for, in, I think, about 80 years, or Boston Gardens that was there close to another 80 years, or. Or Wembley Stadium in London. Those are all places. Soccer, basketball, baseball championships were won there, and people really revered as amazing locations. But really, was it the location or was it the people and the things that happened there that were important? Because before Yankee Stadium was Yankee Stadium, all it was was a sawmill.

That's it. That's all it was. Just a lumber yard. And before Boston Gardens was Boston Gardens, all it was was a train yard. That's all it was. And before Wembley Stadium was Wembley Stadium, the people of London tried to build a copy of the Eiffel Tower, and they put it in a public park, but they only built it two stories before giving up, and they just left it abandoned. And eventually the city came along and said, we want to build a fort football stadium here. And they demolished it. And eventually 90,000 people in England in 1968 watched Team England win the World Cup.

That's right. So people over places. Do we value places? Sometimes over people. And so for me, the way that I look at it is sometimes faith communities do, you know, faith communities say, you know, this building is actually more important. The heritage of our building, where our people come from, is more important. But what I know is that the relationships we have with people are more fulfilling and more sustaining. And so here's where this all comes into play today. You know, I visit people in the hospital, and today I'm doing a real serious hospital visit.

And it's about people. I'm bringing together people from that family to support each other. And it's something that's more than important than religion. It's something that's more important than where you are from. It's more important than anything that we can build to that we would say is, like, glorious or, you know, that pumps our own ego. We're talking about relationships, and we're, you know, I'm. I'm bringing those people together so that they can heal. The only way to do that is through interacting with each other and holding space with each other.

And that's what I'm up to today. So it's a tough day as a pastor, but I really want to thank you all for tuning in, checking in with me. And just remember that the. The relationships we have with each other are more important than any property we'll ever own, more important than any place that you have nostalgic memories of people over places. So have a wonderful week. I'll see you next Sunday.