Episode Eighty-Eight: The Byte: Pastor D.G. Hollums

Pastor D.G. is a photographer, a member of the Rebel Alliance and an all-around storyteller. His miracle? His wife can tell when he's lying (well, most of the time). Listen to this shorter episode to hear how the people closest to us keep us on the straight and narrow and how being childlike will heal the world.

Transcript

Hello,

Hello,

And it's Sunday,

So that means another episode of Bite Size Blessings is dropping today.

This is episode 88 y'all,

And it's so exciting.

My guest this week is so funny and so self-deprecating,

And at the very end of the episode,

After the credits,

I have two additional stories from Pastor DG.

Hopefully both of them will make you laugh.

I couldn't find a place to put them in the podcast,

So I put them at the very end because I thought they were too great to be missed.

So yes,

It's episode 88 of Bite Size Blessings,

And my guest this week,

Pastor DG Holloms,

Is really such a creative and fun human being.

He is an exceptional photographer,

And you'll be able to see his images,

And I'm going to provide a link to his website so you can check out his work under the episode show notes.

But Pastor DG,

His photographs are more than that.

They're very contemplative,

And as he explained to me,

They're meant to encourage Visio Divina,

And from the trusty internet,

Visio Divina is translated as Divine Seeing.

It is related to the prayer form Lectio Divina,

Divine Reading,

But instead of Scripture,

This form of prayer uses visual elements to help set your mind on prayer.

It allows God to speak into your heart through the image,

And let me tell you,

I have looked at his photographs,

And they are so beautiful and so evocative.

I really urge every listener to go to his website,

Check out his art,

Check out his photography,

And see if those photographs speak to you,

If they lead you somewhere.

Maybe even into a more contemplative mood.

So now,

Episode 88 of Bite-sized Blessings.

And I really got into,

Ironically,

I really got into movies in home theaters,

Like home movies and stuff.

So I wanted to have the best TV,

I wanted to have the best speakers,

I wanted to have the best,

You know,

DVD player,

You know,

All this stuff,

And I would do research all the time when I was working at Lawn John's.

You know,

During breaks and stuff,

I'd just go to websites and read about,

You know,

The best movies,

The best sound,

The best picture quality,

Whatever else.

And I went and ordered from online a really expensive DVD player that was progressive scan.

That was the big thing.

I mean,

It was like,

This $400 DVD player,

And we're living in a seminary.

We're not making tons of money.

But I did spend that money,

And I did not tell my wife.

And then she said,

She found out,

Like,

She said,

How much was this?

And I was like,

Oh,

It was around $400.

And she's like,

$400?

Wow,

My gosh.

And I told her,

I said,

Oh,

Yeah,

Well,

You know,

It was my friend in college,

And he bought the chair that I left there,

And he gave me the money,

And that's what I bought it with.

It was a complete lie.

The closest thing I can think of that I just have no other explanation but God.

I guess that's the only thing I could come up with.

And it's not good about me.

It's like this bad story of me.

It's typical.

When we were first married,

My wife and I were first married,

We were in seminary.

I had a major problem with materialism.

And I really got into,

Ironically,

I really got into movies in home theaters,

Like home movies and stuff.

So I wanted to have the best TV,

I wanted to have the best speakers,

I wanted to have the best,

You know,

DVD player,

You know,

All this stuff.

And I would do research all the time when I was working at Lon Jon's,

You know,

During breaks and stuff,

I just go to websites and read about,

You know,

The best movies had the best sound or the best picture quality,

Whatever else.

And I just got really,

Really into that.

And I went and ordered from online,

A really expensive DVD player that was progressive scan.

That was,

That was the big thing.

I mean,

It was like,

This $400 DVD player and we were living in a seminary,

We're not making tons of money,

I was making decent money.

But,

You know,

I was still in the lowest rung of corporate America.

So it was not a whole bunch.

But I did spend that money and I did not tell my wife.

And then she said,

She found out,

Like she said,

How much was this?

And I was like,

$400.

And she's like,

$400?

Wow,

My gosh.

And I told her,

I said,

Oh,

Yeah,

Well,

You know,

It was my friend in college.

And he bought the chair that I left there.

And he gave me the money.

And that's what I bought it with.

It was a complete lie.

Just a complete because I had a problem with materialism.

I'll do anything to be able to,

You know,

Whatever.

Welcome to the world of brokenness and sin.

It's just way too tempting.

And you have to tell a bunch of white lies to make up for it.

But anyway,

Nothing was said after that.

She totally believed my lie.

And I was like,

Okay,

Good.

I'm safe.

We're good.

We're all right.

And this is where first married,

Right?

I mean,

I was just like,

Okay,

This is maybe this will be a marriage that I can be able to throw a little a little white lie into every now and then it would be all right.

That happened like in January.

The next December.

This is like almost 12 months difference between this time periods.

We went to her family's house in Levington,

New Mexico.

For Christmas.

She was taking a shower and she called me into her parents bedroom after she took a shower.

She goes,

I need to talk to you about something.

And I was like,

Yeah,

What's up?

And she said,

Greg did not give you the money for that DVD player.

12 months afterwards,

Like we had not discussed anything since the last time in January.

And I was like,

What do you mean?

What are you talking about?

You know,

You know,

Back it up as much as I can.

And she literally said,

God told me in the shower that that was not the truth.

And I had I mean,

I was blessed that I had no and I and I saw it's like,

Yeah.

And so I just poured out my heart and said,

I'm so sorry.

Please forgive me.

But love love.

And it was great,

Though,

Because it's almost like God was like,

Hey,

I want to set a precedence for your marriage real quick.

You're not going to get away with anything because your wife has this wonderful innate ability to to have a conversation with me.

And she really does.

She can.

I tell people all the time,

I probably most miraculous stuff I know of is how she can be able to read people.

She just has this this unique connection with God.

And,

You know,

She can be able to say deep in your heart,

You're a good person.

You're not.

And she really does kind of have that.

I don't know how it is.

Then I have no explanations other than this is just God.

This is kind of God here.

And so just like that,

I have no explanation for that.

You can call it a miracle if you want to.

Maybe all the wives out there like,

Yeah,

That was a miracle.

Or the husbands are like,

Oh,

Dude,

That sucks.

But but I'm so glad,

You know,

I'm so I really am so glad my marriage is so much more richer because I know right up front.

I can't lie to her.

I don't I really never want to lie to her.

I didn't want to lie to her last time.

I just was so caught up in materialism and missing the mark there that that I was just blinded.

But there have been several times.

And so it's so funny because I'm the guy who wants to go talk to the people that she would say that person's bad.

So she's like,

That person is good.

That person is good.

That person is bad.

I'm like,

I'll make a beeline to that person because I love hanging out with those people.

I want to go see what like,

You know,

What makes them tick and let's hear stories from them and get to know them and get to love on them.

And it's funny because I'm the one who runs towards all the bad stuff because I love people.

And I feel like those are people that have not experienced love very much.

And they need to they need to experience it because it's it's a pretty powerful,

Amazing thing.

I don't think that God sees miracles as we see miracles.

I think that's just everyday things to God.

And so maybe maybe the closer we get to God,

The more we can be able to see miracles is not just,

Oh,

My gosh.

But,

Yeah,

That's good.

You know,

It's a difference.

There's a difference between being blown away by it or having it happen and say,

Isn't that cool?

I love that.

And that's it.

That's Episode 88 of Bite-Sized Blessings.

I need to thank my very,

Very funny and very self-effacing guest,

Pastor D.

G.

Holloms,

For sharing his story with me.

And as I said before,

There are a couple more stories at the very end of these credits.

So if you have the time,

Give them a listen.

They are actually pretty funny.

In one of them,

You'll discover how it's possible to actually fail at a conference about failing.

And that was the one that kind of took my breath away.

And I think will enchant you.

As well as thanking Pastor D.

G.

,

I need to thank the creators of the music used in this episode as well.

Chilled Music,

Music L Files,

Alexander Naccarata,

Taiga Sound Productions,

John Bartman,

Frank Schroeder,

And Kevin MacLeod.

For complete attribution,

Please see the Bite-Sized Blessings website at bite-sizedblessings.

Com.

On the website,

You'll find links to groovy music,

Other artists,

Books,

And playlists I think will lift and brighten your day.

Thank you for listening.

And here's my one request.

Be like Pastor D.

G.

How can you be more childlike?

How can you incorporate more play into your life?

Because that play and that joining of the 501st or the Rebel Forces,

That's what's going to heal a broken world.

And if you want to join the Rebel Forces,

Contact Pastor D.

G.

He'll be happy to set you up.

So the first one with my wife was,

It was just so awesome.

It's so epic.

She's from New Mexico.

I'm from the panhandle of Texas.

So I grew up in a little tiny small West Texas podunk town,

All cotton farming and stuff like that.

And then she grew up in Levington,

New Mexico.

And her dad was a banker and her mom was a teacher,

Just like my mom was a teacher.

So we had kind of similar.

And her dad was in the Army.

My dad was in the Air Force.

We really have a lot of similarities going on.

I had told her that the reason that white sands had turned white was because of all the nuclear testing that they did,

That it caused a chemical reaction in the sand to turn it white.

And so she,

She,

She's really like,

Yeah,

Yeah,

Isn't that cool?

Oh,

That's so cool.

So anytime we met anybody and they found out she was from New Mexico and they ever asked about white sands or talking,

She would pull that fact up like she was so proud of knowing that fact.

It was a complete lie.

So then while we were in seminary,

We had dinner with a friend of ours who is from New Mexico.

He is a rocket scientist and he worked at white sands.

And of course,

We went there to eat.

And I was like,

Well,

What do you do?

And he's like,

I was like,

Oh,

No,

No,

No,

No.

Three years,

Three years,

Three years.

And of course,

Tiffany and her love of showing off how much she knows about chemical engineering and chemical reactions to sand said that.

And he said,

And you could just see his face like,

Who told you that?

That was not like,

No,

You're wrong.

He just basically said,

Who told you that?

And of course,

I'm sitting there at the dinner table.

I'm like,

Oh,

And and then,

Of course,

She she said,

Well,

Did you did?

And he was like and he looked at me and I was like,

I was like,

Yeah,

It was me.

And he was like,

Well,

What?

And I was like,

Well,

I really was giving her a hard time at first.

And then it just kept on snowballing.

And then she just kept on telling everybody for the next three years.

And everyone believed her.

And I thought,

Hey,

This is awesome.

So I actually had a gag,

You know,

A gig,

A lie that lasted three years before it was debunked by an actual rocket scientist that was going to seminary with us.

So that's the first one.

That's the most that's the hilarious one of talking like my wife does have that ability to know if you're lying or not.

But sometimes it doesn't come across for really close family members,

I guess.

Or maybe it was,

You know,

Maybe God enjoyed it.

You guys like,

Yeah,

Watch this.

You're going to do it for three years.

I don't know.

But but that was not you know,

That was just done out of not out of spite.

It was just out of love.

I love giving somebody a hard time.

The second story is just hilarious,

Because I was just got my first job at the global United Methodist Church.

Wait,

I can't even stop saying global because that's the that's the split that they're saying that the global Methodist Church,

It was globally wide.

But I worked at United Methodist Communications with U.

M.

Com,

And they're the ones who do TV ads and radio ads and and social media.

You know,

They just do all the communication stuff and they provide all the content for the websites and everything else.

And they work with an ad agency.

And that's kind of what I was doing when I was at Long John Silver's was working with an ad agency and helping out with,

You know,

TV spots or coupons in different markets.

Anyway,

And they hired me to be able to be the social media director of of Rethink Church,

Which was kind of like it was still a part of the U.

M.

Com,

You know,

I'm at this communications,

But it was like it's intentionally supposed to just focus on social media and really work on building relationships with people that were,

You know,

Gen X,

Gen Y,

Gen Z,

Stuff like that.

Anyway,

I got that job.

I moved from Bernalino,

New Mexico,

To Nashville,

Tennessee,

Because that's what the job is.

It was a decent paying job.

We live in a suburbia.

We had a nicer house.

Everything was great.

But the first week I was there,

The first week I was there,

They had a conference.

They were actually like doing a conference and the whole conference was talking about how to help.

And I don't like the term third world country,

But how to help really low income countries deal with whatever their issues are.

And especially when it comes to massive natural events like earthquakes and tsunamis and stuff like that.

But it was all about how technology is used to help support those kinds of things,

Which is a really cool conference.

One of the things that they had at the conference was a fail conference.

And I don't know if you've ever heard of a fail conference.

But the idea of a fail conference is to be able to say,

Here are the ways that we fail,

And we're going to celebrate these things instead of poo poo them and throw them under the rug.

Because the only way,

You know,

It's the whole,

There's a 2020 episode talking about design work.

And they said,

You know,

Our motto is to fail often to succeed sooner.

And that's kind of the model I kind of the term I use when I was doing the church plan stuff,

Which is like,

You know what,

We're gonna fail,

It's just part of it.

But we're just going to fail as often as we can,

So we can actually get to the success piece.

So that's kind of the mentality of a fail conference.

And so they were having a short fail conference.

And this guy was leading it.

And he was telling people,

You know,

Like,

Hey,

Well,

When you're trying to,

When you're trying to teach countries,

You know,

The importance of getting a malaria shot,

When they don't want to do that.

What do you do?

And they were,

And there's all these people were saying,

Oh,

Yeah,

We had a lot of failures in that because it was mostly communication failures.

Because,

You know,

We realized,

Oh,

The only person that they would actually listen to would be like a bishop of the church on the radio waves,

Not just the Methodist church telling them they need to go get,

You know,

A shot or need to wash their hands for Ebola or something like that.

And so they talked about all these,

You know,

Mistakes that they made that were communication errors,

And not being able to do those,

Those communication thing,

And they had to fail before they figure what's going on.

So,

And then the person was like,

Okay,

This is great.

This has been great.

Does anybody in the audience want to share any fail stories,

Maybe even fail stories about communication or something like that,

That,

You know,

That you've experienced personally.

And this is the first week at work for me,

Okay,

And all I was supposed to be doing is live tweeting the conference.

So I'm just looking for good,

You know,

Quotes and putting it in there and saying who said it and sending it out,

You know,

Kind of thing.

And,

And I really felt God was like,

You need to get up and tell them the stories.

And I was just like,

No,

I don't want to this is crazy.

And I just,

I didn't God's like,

Nope,

Get up there.

And I was like,

Okay,

So I went up there.

And of course,

Now you have to also understand this was a global wide conference.

So we had people from Africa there,

We had people from super,

Super conservative,

Like Georgia,

You know,

Southern states,

Kind of thing.

And so when I got up there and told two stories,

And I said,

The first one was that I had a really good friend of mine in seminary,

He was Korean,

His name is John Choi,

One of the most brilliant people I know of,

Passed away due to brain cancer,

Which was just so heart aching,

Because he was just such a smart,

Smart,

Amazing man.

But anyway,

He and his wife,

Sylvia invited us over to eat because I kept on saying,

Man,

I want to eat real Korean food.

I we were in Kentucky,

I really don't know if there's anything around here that even has that,

You know,

Cincinnati area,

Maybe,

But,

But I just said,

Man,

I want the real stuff.

And he's like,

Okay,

All right,

Come over.

I'll cook you some bulgogi and my wife will make you some food.

And he said,

We'll do it.

Let's do it.

I was like,

Oh,

That's awesome.

I'm so happy because I'm the fat white guy.

Like,

Yeah,

Yeah,

I want to eat.

The best way I know of to love another culture is to is to actually eat with the culture.

If you could cook with the culture,

Man,

It's even better.

If I can cook with a grandmother of the culture,

And then eat,

And then be all together.

That is the best way of ever learning a different culture,

I think,

In my personal opinion.

But anyway,

So they made this the meal.

And I was eating foods I had never eaten in my entire life.

I mean,

I'm born and raised in West Texas,

You know,

This is not Korean,

It's not the food you're going to be eating.

And so I was eating it.

And I was like,

Wow,

This is amazing.

And I said,

I said,

This is this is really good.

Now.

What I didn't know is john invited the entire Korean youth group,

The Korean Methodist Church youth group over to that night,

Too,

Because he kind of was like,

Yeah,

Let's meet the white guy night,

You know.

And so Timmy and I both went over there because we're really good friends with john and Sylvia.

I love him to death.

And,

And so he just brought all the youth over there.

He was like,

This guy's hilarious.

He's fun.

He's hanging out fun to hang out with you'll enjoy.

So we're sitting there eating this traditional Korean food.

And of course,

The youth are like,

Oh,

My gosh,

I haven't had this since my grandma cooked,

You know,

Kind of stuff.

And I turned to Sylvia.

And I said,

Sylvia,

This coachee is the best coachee I've ever had in my entire life.

This is so good.

And I was trying to say kimchi,

But it came out coachee.

And it was really good.

And I looked over and Sylvia is like,

And I thought she was being a very typical,

You know,

A very typical No,

No,

No,

I you know,

Humble and sweet,

You know,

Woman or whatever.

And,

And I was like,

No,

Sylvia,

I'm not gonna let you take,

You know,

Just the the humble road out of this.

This is,

I just want to eat more and more coaching and put more and more coaching my mouth is the best coach you've ever had in my life.

And I look up,

And then all the youth that were there are literally on the ground rolling left.

And in silly,

A couple was like,

Stop,

Just stop.

And I was like,

What?

And john whispered in my ear,

He said,

It's called kimchi coachee means penis.

I had no idea that I was doing that.

But But I told them out with that failure.

And the youth actually respected me more.

John and Sylvia love me even more because they knew I was trying,

Even though I've failed miserably.

They knew I was trying.

So I prepped.

I saw I said that at the conference.

That's what I said.

And I said,

And the second story I have is when I was with my wife.

And I just we had just been engaged to be married.

And Tiffany's grandmother is was born in Mexico City.

So she is full on Mexican,

And has a very thick accent.

And I was trying to show her that I was a woman.

And I was trying to show off,

You know,

That I love to speak Spanish when I can.

I'm not great at it.

But at least I'm trying,

You know,

Kind of a thing.

And so I was trying to tell her,

You know,

And she kept and she was asking questions like,

How do you think you're going to live on a pastor salary like that?

Is it?

You know,

She was really worried that I was not going to be able to take care of Tiffany.

And that's so hilarious,

Because Timmy usually takes care of me financially that we take care of her.

She's making more I think where she's at right now is the associate pastor.

And Albuquerque,

I am the senior pastor at this church.

But anyway,

And,

And I was trying to say,

You know,

I'm very large.

And so I held up my hand straight in front of my belly.

And I said,

Yo soy muy largo.

And large is grande.

Largo is long.

And I'm holding my hand out as hard as far as I can hold it out,

Right in front of my crotch saying how long I was.

And I had no idea.

I said,

You know,

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah.

And her grandma was like,

And so I told those two stories.

And of course,

Everyone's laughing.

And I said,

But you know what,

I really think I won Tiffany's grandmother's heart that day.

Because again,

She knew I was trying.

And she knew I was not scared to try and knew that I was probably going to be able to get through things and support her granddaughter and things like that.

And I said,

That's really the importance of failing often is so that you can be able to number one,

Eat your own mistakes and eat some humble pie.

And then you can move on.

So you're not as you know,

Nervous about it.

But it really did help me grow a deeper relationship with all those people through my failures.

And then I got down,

And I stepped off the stage.

And I said,

Well,

As soon as I sat down,

The conference kept on going on.

And my boss comes and sits by by me.

And she said,

What part of that did you think was ever even remotely appropriate as being a as being a,

You know,

An employee of the United Methodist Communications?

And I was like,

What?

It was a it was a it's a fail conference.

You're supposed to tell stories of where you failed.

And,

And I said,

And honestly,

I was praying about I didn't want to go up,

But God told me to go up.

And so anyway,

The joke is,

And she said,

Okay,

Well,

You're not allowed to do any more interviews at all.

For social media for us,

It's gonna have to be this other person that we just hired.

You can walk around with him if you want to.

But and now in everything you do in social media has got to go through another person before it can ever be approved to be gone online.

And I was just like,

Okay.

So I was literally written up the first week at my job at a United Methodist Global Communications.

You know,

General conference level thing,

Because I failed at the fail conference.