Meredith Bury and Ernest Kelly

[00:03] MEREDITH BURY BURY: My name is Meredith Bury It's not my last name. My name is Meredith Bury I'm 34 years old. Today's date is September 13th. I'm in Columbus, Georgia and I'm here with my partner Ernest Kelly

[00:20] ERNEST KELLY: And I'm Ernest Kelly I'm 66 and 2/3 years old. Today is Friday the 13th, which takes me back to a whole series of terrible movies. I am in Columbus, Georgia, River City, and I'm here with my one Small step partner, Meredith Bury

[00:39] MEREDITH BURY BURY: This is Ernie's bio. Ernest Kelly is retired, working part time. Born in Orlando, one of four children, very conservative. Father, alcoholic mother, older sister in South Carolina has Alzheimer's, Two younger brothers still in Orlando. Very active in my church as a Bible study teacher, deacon and volunteer. Happily married for 40 years. Two stepsons, two, six grandchildren. Love Jesus, aviation, laughing, barbecue, beer, scotch and dogs. Enjoy travel with my wife, spending time with friends and family, stories, reading, meeting people and all sorts of music.

[01:25] ERNEST KELLY: That's almost all true.

[01:34] MEREDITH BURY BURY: All right, Ernest Kelly do you want to read Meredith's bio?

[01:36] ERNEST KELLY: Okay. It just showed up. This is Meredith's bio. I'm a follower of Jesus. Wife, mother, breast cancer survivor, physical therapist. I'm from Texas, but Columbus is my home now. I met my husband at my best friend's wedding here in Columbus. We dated while he was deployed to Afghanistan and our friendship blossomed into love. My engagement ring is from Afghanistan and it's my most treasured possession. Six years later, we have two little kiddos and we just finished a year and a half of treatment for breast cancer. We made it through by our faith and counseling.

[02:17] MEREDITH BURY BURY: Why did you want to participate in the One Small Step program?

[02:21] ERNEST KELLY: Oh, I was not bullied into it, but strong armed. I had two friends who participated in it very early on and they could not say enough good about it and they said, Ernest Kelly you really need to do this. You're going to meet someone who you're going to think you don't have a lot in common with, but you're going to end up as friends. I can always use friends. So that's why I said I'll do that.

[02:44] MEREDITH BURY BURY: I love that. I decided I saw one small step come up on my Instagram social media, right? And I've seen their post for a couple months now and each time I leave inspired or with a smile on my face, like watching their stories and their post on Instagram and, and then I think I just realized that I would want to be a part of connecting with someone and especially when it just as things heat up as it's getting closer to the election, things just feel more and more hot and tense, and I just wanted to take a breath of fresh air and be a part of this joyful friendship conversation that I think one small step is doing.

[03:33] ERNEST KELLY: Great. So who leads on this, Justin? Does it matter? No, not at all. Okay, well, I'm gonna go with question number two. Based on my bio. What was your impression of me?

[03:51] MEREDITH BURY BURY: That you are love your family. And it sounds like you like gathering and meeting people as well. Let's see. I'm so curious what church you go. Church is super important to us or more like faith. It's not just about going to church. It's about faith and relationship with the Lord and community. So I'd love to know more about what your community involvement is. Yeah, my impression is that you love family.

[04:25] ERNEST KELLY: Well, my wife would be. I have been a facilitator of a variety of training tools, and one of them we do is called the Disc Assessment Tool. You familiar with it? I'm like an off the chart eye. I love meeting people. I love interacting with people, and then I'm done. So with my family, I love having them here for about 35 minutes, and then I run out of juice. So I tend to be very exciting. There's my text, so I need to send a thumbs up. So. One second.

[05:06] MEREDITH BURY BURY: Ted puppy.

[05:08] ERNEST KELLY: Yeah, let me see if I can. She's down here looking out the window, figuring out why am I still home? What are you doing here? But so, yes, I love meeting people. I love hearing their stories, and I want to see people happy sometimes to a flaw. And so I will do all sorts of things, which. And then when I run out of juice, I'll go sit in my room and recover. So let me send this message real fast.

[05:40] MEREDITH BURY BURY: Yes.

[05:41] ERNEST KELLY: They can't be here till 1245. We can wait for lunch. Let me see. Wait. Sorry. All right, done. Thank you for your patience. As for my church, love my church. I was raised Presbyterian. My father was an infantry commander. He played his faith very close to his chest. My mother was raised Baptist and was an alcoholic from about. At least I knew she was an alcoholic from about the time I was in sixth grade. So she didn't keep anything close to her chest. She wore her emotions on her sleeves, which led to a lot of challenges between the two of them. But I became a Baptist in junior high for all the wrong reasons. One of my best friends was a Baptist. In Orlando, the church is kind of like in Columbus. The downtown churches are all within the same block. In Orlando, the churches were across the street from each other. I went to First Presbyterian, he went to First Baptist. And they were having a Sunday school membership drive. Best friend said, Ernest Kelly please come to Sunday school. We're having a membership drive. You can come and visit. And you know that girl Kim you have that giant crush on? She's in my class. You can sit next to her. So I went and I was like, I could hardly talk. I was sitting next to this girl who I thought was the cutest thing in the universe. But I actually listened to what they said. And I had already been through communicants class in the Presbyterian Church, so I knew I had a heart. I mean, a brain knowledge of Old Testament, New Testament, God's promises, you know, the gift of grace and all of those things. And I had gotten, quote unquote, my learner's permit to be a Christian as a Presbyterian. But it didn't touch my heart until I was in junior high and I heard the description of the crucifixion. And when I heard that, I went, okay, this guy who, 13 year old mine remember, said, didn't even know me, was willing to die for me. How can I say no to that? And it changed my life. It changed my life. And so I went home. I was so excited, talked to my dad. Dad, I can't. I got to tell you what, what's going on. And I'm so excited. I've accepted Jesus tonight and I'm going to get baptized and have. I want to know about you. If you died tonight, do you know where you would go? You know, all those things that you come home and he was reading his book in his bathrobe and, well, son, my relationship with me and God is between me and God. Have a good night. I went, well, then I'll just go back to my friends. So it was a fascinating thing. But God has been really kind and merciful. I made just about every mistake you could make, and God still forgave me and had mercy on me. Is a Reader's Digest is. I'm going to try to make this as brief as possible, but I joined the military, did all the things that teenage guys do, and then, you know, drinking, carousing, carrying on all that other stuff. And the joke is that at one point I thought I must be gay because I was in love with Jim Beam. But God still had mercy on me and put this woman into my life who I would never have picked in a million years. She didn't line up with any of the stuff that I would have picked as My type of woman. She already had children, she'd been married. She was 10 times as smart as me. And I literally, in fact, I was dating somebody else and went to my brother's house and just sobbed. Okay. Everything I've thought about who I loved was wrong. I met. He goes, what are you talking about? You met this girl tonight? I went, yeah, but. But there's something. And that's when I went back to God and said, okay, if you would put this woman in my life after I have behaved, obviously it is me who has turned my back and not you. And it changed my life from then on. So we've been married 41 years in January.

[09:57] MEREDITH BURY BURY: 41 years.

[09:58] ERNEST KELLY: So that was a whole lot of stuff.

[10:01] MEREDITH BURY BURY: I love that. So that's kind of more about your life story or your kind of the big picture. I like hearing. Yeah. What was it like growing up in a. So growing up, for me, I. My parents were Baptist when they were younger, and then we grew up later. They went to a non denominational church. So that's. I grew up non denominational, but my parents grew up in a very, very, very Southern Baptist in Texas. And so I could imagine the, like, personal internal conflict your mom would have had being a Baptist and struggling like alcoholism is a disease. Right? Like struggling with the disease of alcoholism, with the outlook of, you know, very strong, especially probably back in the, you know, 70s and 60s of anti alcohol with Baptists. So I wonder how that was for your mom and for you growing up.

[11:10] ERNEST KELLY: Well, it was. It's interesting because mom became a bat, a Presbyterian pretty much as soon as she married my dad, I think, because she liked drinking. So she was raised here in Columbus. She and my grandmother and my great grandmother were all born here. And so she was kind of the darling. She went to University of Georgia. She was a sorority girl, you know, Alpha Delta PI, and kind of the darling of society. So when she met this young lieutenant infantry commander and he swept her off her feet and took her to Germany, I don't think either of them had any idea what they were getting into. My mom was essentially an only child. She was born 16 years after her brother and had never been denied anything. So now she's imagined being married to an infantry officer who's stationed in Germany, living in base quarters when she's used to having anything she wanted. And so there was a lot of conflict there, but the parties were good, and my mom was always the life of the party. So being Presbyterian or being Baptist was not as much a conflict as it was that My father was super, super conservative in every way, fiscally, emotionally. He just did not express emotion. And part of that, you know, is probably the way he was raised. He was an only child and his father was in the Army. In the Army? In the Army Air corps, World War II. And they moved a lot, so he never had any close friends. And a lot of times when my grandfather was restationed or even after the war when he had a job, he would leave my father with relatives and take my grandmother. So the two of them would travel and leave my father. So he just never learned how to do that. And that came to be a huge trouble between the two of them. The great thing is they both had wonderful senses of humor and they used that as a defense and as an introduction. I'm grateful. I inherited that.

[13:13] MEREDITH BURY BURY: Yeah.

[13:14] ERNEST KELLY: So tell me about you. What is, what happened when you were growing up? How was your family? Have you had Southern Baptist, Texas, Southern Baptist, Most Southern of Southern Baptists.

[13:26] MEREDITH BURY BURY: So my family historically was Southern Baptist. Growing up in the 80s, my parents chose to go to a non denominational church. So it's more charismatic. So I grew up in a more. Yeah, I grew up in more charismatic church. I had a relationship with the Lord since I was, you know, four or five. And it's one of those stories now that I'm older. So I'm 34 now and older in quotes. But now that I'm older, I think in my 20s and socks older than that, my 20s, I was like, I don't really have a story. I don't have a testimony because I didn't, I didn't have a big turn. I'm the youngest of four. So you're, you're one of four. I was reading. I'm the youngest of four. And each of my siblings have had seasons of life that have been hard where maybe they made not great choices or maybe just things happened to them. And being the youngest of four, I'm younger by like 10 years on average than my siblings. And so I feel like I kind of had the advantage of watching and learning my siblings, you know, and so, you know, I would see these big hard things. I was like, I don't want to do that. So at some point I think I felt like, you know, if you didn't have a hard story, then it wasn't much of a testimony. But now that I have little kids, I have kids, they're four and one and a half. And now I know the weight and responsibility that like my parents felt of pouring in, you know, pouring into their lives, and you're shaping them. And so now I know how hard my parents work to pour in, to shape and encourage and uplift. And so my story really is that I fell in love with the Lord when I was a little kid. And I. After high school, I danced in a Christian ballet company. I moved from West.

[15:45] ERNEST KELLY: That's not Baptist. Baptist. We don't dance.

[15:48] MEREDITH BURY BURY: That is so true. My granny. When I first started dancing, I was 8. And then by about middle school, I knew that I wanted to dance professional. And I think, yeah, my granny, very Southern Baptist, was. I remember her distinctly, like, saying, you know what? I don't think it's so bad, like, because I was doing very classical ballet. And she's like. I remember her, like, giving me her blessing.

[16:14] ERNEST KELLY: And.

[16:15] MEREDITH BURY BURY: But then my granny ended up becoming my biggest, like, supporter. She came to every ballet performance I ever had, big or small. And so after high school, I moved to Jackson, Mississippi, and I danced in this huge. Yeah, I lived in Ridgeland.

[16:37] ERNEST KELLY: Oh, yeah.

[16:39] MEREDITH BURY BURY: So I love Jackson. That was kind of my growing up from, like 18 to 22, dancing this Christian ballet company. And then I went to college. I went to Texas A and M and then started going to PT school in the meantime, like, my whole life is, you know, living on my own for about 10 years. And then my best friend got married here in Columbus at the Bibb City Event center and introduced me to Dave and she. He asked me to go out with him and his friends after the wedding. But I had never dated again. Very conservative, little 24 year old. I had never dated. Just a little sheltered bubble ballerina and just started college. Like, I just quit dancing and I was in college. I was like, I can't go out. I have to clean up for the wedding. And he was like, okay. And then three years later, I saw on Facebook that he had just come back from Korea. And I texted my best friend. I was like, is he still single? And she's like, yes. And so they set us back up again. And that is. So where was that going? My. I still have a little bit of chemo brain. I did chemo this last year. So, like, you kind of lose your bunny trails. I'm like, where was it going, Faith? I've had a relationship with the Lord since I was little, but going through cancer this last year and a half has completely changed my mental health, my spiritual health, our family, in really positive ways. Actually, it's made me have a slower life. I tend to be like a type a structured planner. If this is good do it better, like very type. And I think that comes from ballet, being a professional ballet dancer. But cancer has taught me it's okay to slow down and it's okay to rest. And cancer has taught me to just enjoy time with the Lord, like actually sitting and reading my word. The word or studying the word instead of just being so busy and being involved in so many things. And so cancer has actually given us a lot of gifts of growth in our faith, growth in our family, improved mental health. I put on my bio that we've done counseling. Dave and I wanted to kind of preventatively do counseling this year through cancer because the amount of the statistics of couples that go through medical hardships is tough. Like couples that go through medical hardships have a high rate of divorce. And so we wanted to fight that. And so we started counseling early on in cancer last year. And so I really say it's by faith in our counseling that we've gotten through the last year and a half and just finished treatment. Sorry, that's a rambling.

[20:02] ERNEST KELLY: No, no, that's wonderful. And I have. That touches my life in another way. After I retired from Synovus, I'd worked there 18 years. I had this. You know when you're working and you build this thing, when I have enough time, I'm going to do this. Well, I had a list, big list. What I didn't realize when I retired was you're supposed to not do all of that as fast as you can. And so I literally worked 40 hour weeks on my task list. And in about six weeks, I was done. I got bored. My wife thought that was dangerous. And I have a friend who works at Direct Services here in Columbus, and they were desperate for drivers to deliver Meals on Wheels, so I started doing Meals on Wheels both makes you grateful for every single thing you have, from your house to your family to your meals. It's just does that. And then somewhere along the way, my pastor found out that I had retired mostly because I walked down steps. Says, I'm finally retired, I'm doing Meals on Wheels. He's on the board of directors of the Pastoral Institute here in Columbus. And they needed someone in a sales. I had never done sales, but he said you'd be perfect for it. So I quit my job delivering Meals on Wheels as a paid driver. I'm still a volunteer and I've been working there since February. So your counseling, your faith based counseling coming together is exactly what we do. So I was going to say, where did you have your counseling done? Was it through your church? Was it through an outside agency?

[21:33] MEREDITH BURY BURY: So you're. You're working or helping at PI?

[21:37] ERNEST KELLY: I am. Where's the card? I can show you a card. I have a card. Yes. I'm the congregational outreach coordinator. I'm the one who manages relationships between the pastoral institute and churches, which is a great sales job because churches are nice to you even if they don't want to see you.

[21:53] MEREDITH BURY BURY: Okay. So Dave and I actually did. It was online. We did. So it's called. If you see the advertisements for get help or better help, it's called better help. And then that connects you for couples counseling, regain. And it was just something quick and simple that we could do. So we did regain dot com. And I cannot speak highly enough about the counselor we had. She's based in Atlanta. Her name is Misha Lipscomb. She's incredible. She is. Truly loves Jesus. And, like, you know, sometimes you think, oh, it's gonna be a Christian counselor. Like, they're just gonna check the box. But she truly provided counseling and, like, faith encouragement and scripture. And like you, we knew that she was praying for us. And. Yeah, but my husband works at Mercy Med.

[22:52] ERNEST KELLY: Does he?

[22:53] MEREDITH BURY BURY: Yeah.

[22:55] ERNEST KELLY: So Jay, dearest friends, works at Mercy Med. Jay, Billy.

[23:05] MEREDITH BURY BURY: So, yeah, Dave is one of.

[23:07] ERNEST KELLY: Are you talking about Jay Hearn?

[23:08] MEREDITH BURY BURY: Yeah.

[23:09] ERNEST KELLY: Jay is a counselor at PI. He's not one of my dearest friends, but I work very closely with his daughter, who's also a counselor.

[23:17] MEREDITH BURY BURY: So Kristen. Kristen and I just recently became friends. Our kids go to daycare together. Jay and Karen had us over to swim like our little kiddos. When I was finishing my treatment, they were like, come celebrate. And so we went to their neighborhood and swam. And then Kristen and her little kiddos came, and this is where it gets so weird. So with physical therapy, I do women's health physical therapy. So I do, like, pelvic health. So women that are dealing with, like, pelvic pain and bladder and bowel issues, and Kristen has a little. A bit of a heart for women's health, perinatal counseling as well. And so Kristen and I and another gal, Katie.

[24:06] ERNEST KELLY: Yes, Katie.

[24:08] MEREDITH BURY BURY: Yeah.

[24:09] ERNEST KELLY: Who's a delight.

[24:10] MEREDITH BURY BURY: We're trying to connect so we can work on building community. That's. I mean, again, that's kind of what I want to do. 1. The one small step, because I just love community, and so that's why I want to connect with one. I've even heard of Lindsey Resnick. Resnick. And I'm drawing a blank on her name.

[24:32] ERNEST KELLY: I'm not positive. Just moved on to another job. I don't know that for sure. We've had several counselors whose husbands are in the military and when they relocate, we lose the counselor. I don't interact with her much.

[24:48] MEREDITH BURY BURY: So there's some people at PI that also have a heart for women's health. And so my goal is to create community here in Columbus for physical therapists, mental health counselors, medical providers, lactation consulting so that we can better support women, whether that's through pregnant, postpartum, postpartum mental health or oncology. Like I've gone through. Like you've got mental health issues, you've got physical health issues. My goal is to create community here in Columbus. So we, we have the same heart.

[25:25] ERNEST KELLY: That's so great. I'm Grant Scarborough is the son of my. One of my best friends. Friends and I've been in Bible studies with Grant. We're huge supporters of Mercy Med. Emotionally, not financially yet, but it's a small world, I think if I'm, I mean, Justin's muted, but I think I hear him pounding his head going, wow, how small a town is Columbus is. It is. It's a tiny little town with a lot of people in it. But this is great. Well, this is. We have so much in common. I hate to put a stick in this and stir up a stink, but I'm going to go ahead to question five.

[26:07] MEREDITH BURY BURY: Yes.

[26:08] ERNEST KELLY: Who do you believe has influenced your personal beliefs the most person event place. What I have a in the ground in mind. Please, you go first because Jackson, Mississippi.

[26:22] MEREDITH BURY BURY: Really?

[26:23] ERNEST KELLY: Jackson, Mississippi. I was raised Republican. I voted Republican. I'm super conservative and my wife and I, through something that only God could have orchestrated, put us in Jackson, Mississippi. The short version of that is she was divorced, her ex husband was being a buttocks and we got stories of what was going on. They had shared custody and during the time they were in custody with the husband, several of the neighbors said, you need to get back. We were in Orlando when we met. You need to get back to Mississippi where she had been married and worked. Said, your ex is doing crazy things. He's gone for days at a time and found your younger son wandering the street at six in the morning. So we how I didn't know where Jackson was, but through a series of events, we ended up living in Jackson, Mississippi. So I got a great job, Susan got a great job. Long a lot of good and terrible stuff happened. But while I was there, I'd never been in a society that was so this was 1984 and it was still terribly, terribly segregated. In Orlando, the minority population was. The minority population there were 15 or 20% African American and some Hispanic. Jackson, when we moved there was 50% black, 50% white. And so Susan and I went into a store, shoes or something. We were sitting next to an African American couple and some cute, cute little kids. And we started talking to them. And the mother took me by the hand and she said, where are you from? I said, well, we live here. She goes, no, you're. But you're not from here. You're not from here. I said, what makes you think that? I went, well, because we're talking. I went, what are you talking about? Anyways, we were here and I started looking around and the Republican Party in Jackson, Mississippi in the 1980s was very, very. It was anti black. It was, it was a racist party. And they had set up a bunch of schools. They supported business things that kept white children from going to school with black children. And it was such a shock to me. I started thinking and hearing and all the other stuff. And at the time, even the Democratic Party was not as far left as they are now. But I said, okay, I believe more in the greater good than in the individual good and not self serving. And so I changed parties in Jackson, Mississippi, and that led to all sorts of stuff and it only could have happened in Jackson, Mississippi. The governor at the time was a guy named Ray Mablis. I was working for a film company and he hired us to do project on adult literacy. The Republican Party was totally opposed to it. It was too expensive. They didn't learn when they were in school, they shouldn't learn now. And so we did this and it changed really how I felt about a lot of things. As my wife's family says, I'm still a Republican, I'm still super conservative as far as they're concerned. But my brothers think that I am, you know, basically should just get a Hillary Clinton tattoo. So I live in a Netherlands.

[29:58] MEREDITH BURY BURY: Okay. I. It's very comforting to hear someone else say that. I grew up in a very Republican household, very conservative West Texas. I'm actually from Midland, Texas, where George Bush is from. Like the Bushes are from.

[30:17] ERNEST KELLY: Bush fan?

[30:18] MEREDITH BURY BURY: No, I love. So grew up. I mean, that's the only way you think. Like this is the only acceptable, you know, norms. If you don't. If, if someone was not a Republican, then they must be bad, right? Like, or they must not love Jesus.

[30:38] ERNEST KELLY: I've been accused of that, right?

[30:40] MEREDITH BURY BURY: Yeah. But then I would say I think 2020 actually is kind of really what changed things for me, it's interesting. I think we both have a very similar heart to just love people. I love community, and I love people. And I think I. When 2020 happened and more and more Republicans, really and. Or just white people in general were denying or refusing what was going on with, like, George Floyd and the treatment of black people and discussing systemic racism, which to me seems pretty apparent. Like, you look at health care, I'm a health care professional, so I see things through health care. Right. So I see health care disparities. It's statistics. There's a difference in outcomes for black and white people. Like, how can. You can't really make that up. And so. Or education, looking at what you're talking about with literacy. Just seeing these disparities and differences. The more I, in 2020 was like, yeah, I am seeing these differences. And the more I saw white people and Republicans and conservatives push, resisting that narrative, I like, well, don't we want better health? Like, don't we want them to have everybody to have good health care and education and food? So I think that for me, kind of began the turning point of being frustrated with these. I thought what Christians were supposed to believe are loving and caring and supporting. So that kind of became the separating of, or maybe just kind of untying this ball of yarn that I grew up with of faith and politics. And so I think over the last four years, I've kind of been working on unraveling this ball of yarn that. Unraveling the faith from the politics and seeing. I don't really want to be a Republican. I don't really. That's not what I want to be identifying. But then it's like, well, you know, like, you were kind of saying far left things. I don't feel comfortable with far right things. I don't feel comfortable. So I think maybe I am falling into the millennial category that's like, I don't. I don't. I don't identify with either party. And I kind of feel lost. Maybe that's how I would describe myself right now, is like, I don't really have a political party that I identify with because I would rather find ways to serve and love people in the middle.

[33:52] ERNEST KELLY: Yeah, I agree. I feel like an unfair choice to make. You feel like you only have two choices.

[33:59] MEREDITH BURY BURY: Yeah. Yes. So that's why, you know, I think Dave and my. Our heart is let's find ways that we can serve our community. So, you know, through a pregnancy clinic. Dave volunteers with the pregnancy clinic, which is about serving Women. Right. Like helping them through a really hard choice, whether they decide to have an abortion or to be pregnant and to either keep their baby or give it up for adoption. This is a medical facility that provides free care for and education for mothers, young women and young men. So it's like, well, instead of having to be mean and being a bully about being pro life or pro choice, why don't we just serve the women, you know, and love them exactly where they are or at Mercy Med. Mercy Med makes no discriminators of who you are. They just want to love and serve people. And so I think that's kind of my heart. That's where I kind of feel lost in politics. I know what my faith is, and I know that my faith says to love and to love others. Serve them like you would want to be served. Serve them as Jesus served. Jesus said, you know, you didn't. You didn't clothe me or feed me. And that was the least of you or the. Didn't clothe and you didn't feed. You didn't clothe and feed me. And that's pretty convicting.

[35:41] ERNEST KELLY: Yeah, it is. It is. Well, this is amazing and fascinating. I'm going to take the question that Justin put out there and I'm going to blend it with another question and see if we can put it together. How has your faith influenced what you see? What your politics and your definition of patriotism? Or has it.

[36:16] MEREDITH BURY BURY: I think I was sharing just a moment ago, is that for me, faith has almost made me not identify with the Republicans or Democrats. More so because I feel like the anger and divisiveness, the rhetoric, you see, I don't feel like that's what Christ actually wants. I feel like. So for me, when it's asking about, you know, your faith influencing your political views, it's. I feel like I really believe that Jesus wants us to have kind words, gentle words, gentle. Gentle and kind words with patience and respect. And that's what he modeled. I don't really think we're probably that much different 2,000 years than, you know, 2,000 years ago versus now. And so for me, that's what I was kind of sharing. I feel like I've. I'm kind of untying my faith with my politics in that I don't think Jesus identifies as a Republican or a Democrat. No. And I think it's. That for me is where I'm try. I'm dividing those where. And so as far as politics, again, I kind of feel lost about. I don't really know what to do this fall or just write in a candidate. I don't know because I don't know. I feel lost in politics right now because I feel like my faith doesn't match, because our faith, Christian faith, is about kindness and caring for the poor. So patriotism also a hard topic because Before, I love 4th of July, 4th of July is one of my favorite holidays. Dave served in the Army. I'm extremely, extremely proud that Dave served 10 years in the Army. I'm very proud to say that was an army wife. We, our whole story. We fell in love while he was deployed to Afghanistan. That's our whole story. We've lived in Georgia and Washington and Georgia for Army moves. And so to me, patriotism is serving your fellow man. It's laying down your life and serving. And in that capacity, it was when he was deployed or Dave was an army physician. And so it was serving his fellow soldiers and their families. To me, that's patriotism is serving others. So, again, I love Fourth of July. I love red, white, blue, and I love our Army. And I feel sometimes now in the last two to three years, I feel nervous or uncomfortable with, like. Because I feel like patriotism sometimes is now going into nationalism, and that scares me. Yeah. So it's like, I am very proud of. I love America. I love red, white and blue and 4th of July and our. Our family's service in the military. But I feel nervous about identifying with nationalism because I don't. Because, again, that becomes that elitism of we are greater and better. And I just don't think that's what Christ says.

[40:22] ERNEST KELLY: Oh, I agree.

[40:24] MEREDITH BURY BURY: What about you, with your faith and politics and patriotism and. Did you say you served in the military as well?

[40:32] ERNEST KELLY: Well, served would be a generous term. I was very blessed to be accepted to the Air Force Academy. So I was there until I figured out, or actually they figured out for me, that I was about three years behind the rest of the country in mathematics. And so they were kind of funny about saying, okay, if we're going to put you in one of our aircraft, that we spent a gajillion dollars, you know, then you probably need to be able to do enough subtraction to know when it's going to quit flying. So, yeah, I thought I was hot shot. You know, came out of high school, top of my class, et cetera, et cetera, and got to the Air Force Academy and literally was put into remedial math. So the public schools in Florida were not doing anyone any favors in the 70s. So yes, I served. Delighted to serve. It led. My dismissal on academic grounds was devastating to my father, the infantry commander, who saw me in a long military career, and it hurt me, too. Long list of failures. We'll probably cross paths at the pastoral institute while I get counseling for that. But, yes, I did serve. And my idea. I feel like it's critical that we distinguish patriotism from Christian nationalism, because I am worried that that particular movement puts a country above God that we are commanded 1. Love your God with all your heart, all your mind, and all your soul. Everything that is you, everything you have, everything you're about, Love and then love your neighbor as yourself. And when we start creating a faith or a model of faith or a model of patriotism that excludes others, it breaks my heart. So my feeling of patriotism is, I love this country. I've been blessed that Susan taught world history and has worked at private schools and now at First Baptist, where she is able to lead people to other countries about every other year. And to be able to see what has happened in other countries with different forms of government makes me recognize the miracle that is the United States and that it. And so I'm very grateful for that because I'm a private pilot. In other countries, you couldn't fly from state to state. Like, I can just get in our plane. I'm a part of a flying club. We could get in a plane. We could fly from here to Florida, fly from wherever we want to go. And we don't have to stop at the border of every state and pay a fine because it's all covered by one big thing. And in other countries, you just don't have that freedom. Not all of them, but many of them. It's a hugely restricted thing. You can't drive from country to country. In Europe, we were on buses, and when we went from Germany into Italy, they stopped the bus. We had to show our passports, you know, and it was like, what is going on here? And so what. I am incredible. Excuse me. My dog is deciding. She wants to tunnel out. Come up here. Come here. She's not good. Come here. Okay, here's the dog.

[43:58] MEREDITH BURY BURY: Turn around.

[43:59] ERNEST KELLY: Hope, I want you to meet Meredith Bury She is a mini Labradoodle, and we have had her for. Off and on for several years. Her. Her parents are missionaries, and so they were in Jordan, I believe. And they. When they retired, they inherited a lot of money through a tragic death in their family. And now once a year, they go somewhere in the world and visit someone they met as missionaries. And they Leave this sweet dog with us. And her name is Hopi, which is Ethiopian for eggplant. So that's really not much to do with patriotism other than the fact that I'm very grateful for what this country offers us. And I will defend it. I will fight for that, and I will even fight against other Americans who think that it only means one thing. It's very broad.

[45:07] MEREDITH BURY BURY: I feel. I feel, oh, well, this is perfect, because this is exactly what I was going to say. Something taking from this experience is I just feel encouraged. I feel like I'm not alone. I don't like to talk about politics because it feels so uncomfortable. So I'm just that person who, like, doesn't want to talk about it at all. So it's just really encouraging to know there's other people who love Jesus so much and have taken steps away from these divisive political ends and have a similar feeling of loving America and just gratitude, genuine gratitude and patriotism and also caution and fear for putting our country above actually above the Lord and above serving our fellow man. And it's just surprising and encouraging that someone else feels that way and someone in their 60s like. It's very encouraging.

[46:34] ERNEST KELLY: I got a few years left.

[46:37] MEREDITH BURY BURY: Encouraging. Very encouraging to know I don't feel alone.

[46:42] ERNEST KELLY: Well, Meredith Bury it has been an interesting experience to me because I have a lot of American lapel pins, flag lapel pins, and there are times when I've been afraid to wear one because people who know that I'm a Democrat have accused me of not being authorized to wear that flag. So I'm getting over that. But I want to say that something I got out of this, number one, is, wow, there are so many of us in the middle. And even though I have friends, people I work with, and my flying club who jokingly paint me to the far left, I'm not. And I feel better about that. It's been a really, really good experience for me. Number one, incredibly small world. And we can ask maybe a little more after this, but does your husband. Is his last name also Barry?

[47:35] MEREDITH BURY BURY: Yes.

[47:36] ERNEST KELLY: Okay. I have not met him. I will have to do that. But anyway, I am grateful for this. I think this is the one small step is really, really important. I think it's a delight for me, but almost a shame that we weren't farther apart because we have so much in common. Yes, we were. And we just realized we have more in common. What a gift. This is just going to be something I can talk about for months.

[48:05] MEREDITH BURY BURY: I can't wait. Thank you so much for doing this. Thank you for setting it up and thank you for being a part of this with me. Just, I really appreciate it. Thank you.

[48:16] ERNEST KELLY: Thank you. Are you done with chemo? Have you rung the bell?

[48:19] MEREDITH BURY BURY: Yes, I have rung all four bells. I've done surgery, chemo, radiation, immunotherapy. I just finished three weeks ago and so, like, done with all cancer treatment. And next week I get to have reconstruction as kind of, you know, a personal step in victory in cancer treatment that I get to finish having reconstruction surgery.

[48:45] ERNEST KELLY: So Susan and I will be praying for you.

[48:49] MEREDITH BURY BURY: Thank you. It's next, next Wednesday, so thank you.

[48:52] ERNEST KELLY: Here in town or Atlanta.

[48:54] MEREDITH BURY BURY: Here.

[48:55] ERNEST KELLY: Oh, great.

[48:56] MEREDITH BURY BURY: We've done everything here at John B. Amos has been incredible.

[48:59] ERNEST KELLY: Great.

[49:00] MEREDITH BURY BURY: Yeah, we've done everything here. So thank you.

[49:05] ERNEST KELLY: Oh, my honor. And thank you.

[49:06] MEREDITH BURY BURY: I hope to meet you at a coffee shop.

[49:08] ERNEST KELLY: Yes. I'm going to have to come meet someplace and have some strong coffee. I love coffee.

[49:14] MEREDITH BURY BURY: Yes.

[49:16] ERNEST KELLY: Justin going. Wow. I took two people in the middle and made them in the middle.

[49:23] MEREDITH BURY BURY: Thank you. Is there.