SHEEN TALKS: Judge Craig Mitchell

welcome i'm david deserto interim executive director at the archbishop fulton j sheen center for thought and culture the arts center of the archdiocese of new york i'm glad you're able to be with us today as we engage in conversation with the filmmakers and the subject of the amazing documentary you just viewed skid row marathon before we bring out our special guest though um i'd love to encourage you to like us on facebook to subscribe to our youtube channel if you haven't already uh and to go ahead and click that bell icon if you'd like updates for future videos that we post um and also lastly uh if you're able to to consider making a donation to the sheen center so we can continue uh to bring you meaningful uh online content uh like this film and this conversation so without further ado it is my pleasure and my distinct privilege to welcome the filmmakers gabby and mark hayes and the subject of today's film um la superior court a judge the honorable judge craig mitchell welcome mark welcome gabby and and welcome judge mitchell thank you very much um i guess we're at the sheen center we're not supposed to have uh favorites uh we love all the programs we do but i have to say uh this film has had a special place in my heart since it uh aired since we showed it at our justice film festival last year um and we were all set to do this event live here in new york at the sheen center but then obviously the the pandemic hit and we had to for obvious safety reasons we had to close for public gatherings but i'm so i feel so blessed that we're at least able to gather virtually like this um so let me just start off by asking how everyone's doing we're here in new york you're out in l.a i'll be doing actually very good i mean it's so nice out nice weather great sunshine as always great again david and yeah what a shame really we're looking so forward to coming back to new york it's a great uh facility you have there what can we do there's nothing we can do but hey it looks good on on on this uh software so we're looking forward to today thanks for having us oh my pleasure how are you doing i'm doing fine uh not what i would normally be doing in the afternoon in court so this is a nice diversion i appreciate it thank you uh let's start off with with an obvious question um you know gabby and mark your filmmakers um how did you first learn about judge mitchell and his work with the skid row running club um and and then also how when did you realize that this was a story that you wanted to tell cinematically yeah we actually read an article uh in a newspaper several years ago and uh it was just before the la marathon and uh mark and i were looking at each other over coffee and said this would make a good documentary maybe we should check it out um we have done other documentaries more about the cold war and east west germany and i said maybe this would be something different and um for us especially i'm a runner so i like the subject matter and the topic of homelessness was always on our mind i mean living having lived downtown los angeles for several years we felt i mean it seemed such a impossible problem to solve and we thought maybe it would be worthwhile checking out the judge and his running club and see if there's a story there uh mark you're uh you're the director of the film now obviously um many of the members that are profiled were were struggling with some some serious personal circumstances um what was the process of you um gaining their trust that allowed you to to to get them to open up about their personal stories well honestly it was pretty difficult because i'm from new york i have a i have a new york accent people immediately out here don't trust me especially people you know with your accent mark [Laughter] but judge you know the judge gave us good advice he said look guys you just can't show up here with a camera these people are down on the luck you know experiencing homelessness drug addiction the last thing they want is somebody sticking a camera in their face so gabi like she said gabby's a runner you know we we started running with the group twice a week three times a week and not just around the block i mean we would go six miles a pop i i went kicking and screaming but eventually i got into it and then slowly slowly but surely we built up the trust of these guys and they realized that it wasn't going to be a hit piece we weren't going to embarrass them and a lot of the naysayers from the powers that be at the mission or other places they were very skeptical of our intentions but we've outlasted them all we and all of us we're still down there gabby's a great baker birthday cakes this and that you know was still very much a part of the community so uh to answer the question i mean it was tough but not impossible i think when they see that you're showing up and and really interested in their lives even after the project is finished that uh they know that they their trust was not misplaced and a point that i i want to make david as well people often times well it wasn't as hard as it could have been because people uh in our club who are trying to overcome addiction trying to overcome homelessness i mean they see themselves as sort of the throwaways of our society and for mark and gabby to say not only are you not people who should be ignored but the fight that you are waging to reclaim your life is so important that we need to share that with the larger community and that point was not lost on our participants and so when mark and gabby wanted to tell their story a lot of them you know said boy i find this incredibly affirming and i think that helped considerably as well wow you know hearing you uh talk in those terms it reminds me of of uh pope francis's whole theology against you know what he calls the throwaway culture about going to the margins and encountering those people on the margins uh obviously many of the members of the club that were profiled were the were people who were existing on the margins um judge mitchell it's it's so apparent in the film uh of of the the affection that you have for them and they have for you uh did you have any hesitancy at the beginning about bringing a film crew uh or or was there sort of a moment where your sort of a protective instinct kicked in no i mean the film i think is as good as it is because mark and gabby are who they are as human beings um you know you don't have to spend much more than 20 minutes with gabby to understand that she is a deeply compassionate caring person a little bit longer with mark okay but you know gabby was out there for a few times you know and the folks would talk to her and people would talk to mark um they established their legitimacy to be there and tell the story quite quickly wow you know the stories and that really makes up the heart of this film uh their personal stories um in a recent uh appearance that that you you had on the uh the kelly clarkson show uh you talked about how before you uh before you entered your legal career uh you were a school teacher for many years and you were so eloquent in speaking about how your time in the classroom really um enabled you to to look past stereotypical assumptions about people and to see the true potential at the heart of every human being how did that experience in the classroom uh impact uh both your current roles on the bench and your role as as a mentor uh in the running club me spending 17 years teaching high school in los angeles is just something that i draw on every day my 17 years teaching here in los angeles was largely in south central um i taught at sarah high school catholic high school i taught at a couple of public high schools but you know again the student population at sarah high school i would say probably at least half of our students were coming out of single parent families many of the kids were living in projects many of the students had deficiencies in terms of their academic backgrounds and you know but as a catholic high school you know you're required you're compelled to see every student who walks into that room as a divine creation you know i would always refer to my students even when i wanted to quiet them down at the beginning of a class session you know children of god okay please sit down we need to focus on the lesson for today and just that casual phrase you know made me understand that i was dealing with a very precious commodity um even if it was rough around the edges wow that's that's it's that's so beautiful and uh it actually leads into a question i was asked a little later but let's get to it now uh in the film your wife juliette says that at one point you would actually i guess as a younger man had just learned in the process of discerning a possible vocation as a priest and she said that you still uh to use her phrase have the heart of a priest uh you know as as a catholic art center uh and that we try to infuse all the programming we do with at least some semblance of a sort of a faith focus uh can you share how your catholic faith has informed your work as a judge but maybe even more importantly your your ministry uh as part of this running club well you don't have to be a biblical scholar to take away from the gospel um jesus's profound love and affinity for everyone i mean and oftentimes for those who are as you referenced earlier at the margins or broken people you know be it the the roman centurion be it mary magdalene you know pick your bible character um people who were repudiated looked down upon etc christ had a special affinity for those individuals and you know it always struck me that if i was going to be true to the faith that uh i proclaimed then i had to be true to to that larger reality and and so in terms of dealing with people on skid row in the running club or dealing with people who are accused of very serious crimes in my courtroom you know i am still i don't care if you're accused of a sex crime if you're accused of murder you are still in terms of my religious perspective you are still a child of god and uh i try not to lose sight of that fact uh that's that's that's wonderful um gabby mark as as filmmakers of faith how do you bring similar your your your faith into the the craft of filmmaking uh specifically in the world of documentaries where you're you're dealing with real life subjects well i would first start by saying that um when we started our project we had seen this we needed help we knew we needed help we made short shorter documentaries as gabby mentioned about cold war subjects we saw this film and we approached this filmmaker and we told them the story that we wanted to the story about this judge the running club on skid row guy says i'll help you i'll help you no problem we started we did the first interviews at the courthouse with with this guy dana his name was then we needed a more permanent cameraman a guy named uh james stultz he said i'll help you i have some time on my hands after we told him the story about the judge helping people on skid row the sound guy he said he'll help us only years later did it click in my head everybody was catholic dana was a catholic the judge is a catholic we're catholics my dad used to think abby was a communist because she was from east germany everybody it just was a total coincidence that everybody happened to be catholic so just what does that tell you it just says that i think that we're all drawn the thing that we're drawn to is you want to be of service you want to help you want to you want to try to to try to do something so i don't know if it's catholic per se because it's not a religious film at all but i think that all of us and the fact that it's resonating with the the audience at the sheen center it just tells you something that there's something about what the judge is doing he's giving up himself that you you grow up with that belief that you you need you need to help so what what a crazy coincidence really yeah three four years later i said god everybody's catholic so people have got this along the that yeah well we'll we'll circle back to that conversation because i i want to dig a little deeper on that um but sort of a a another aspect that comes out in the film uh judge mitchell and i'll pose this question to all three of you um judge in the film you talk so lovingly um about the uh the the formative role that your mother played and uh at one point you you recall a childhood memory of your mom taking you and i believe your sister to the uh the site of the uh the watch riots and how uh later in the film your your your own son uh talks about how when i guess when he was graduating eighth grade uh part of the advisor from college i was well he was graduating but he was talking about a story oh yeah absolutely you're right when he graduated eighth grade uh you would give him some advice and i'm paraphrasing here basically uh in moments of great moral crisis you can't stand on the sidelines um and um you know obviously we find ourselves as a country right now in the midst of multiple crisises um do you think uh from your your respective perspectives that a film like this that really encourages small gestures of kindness about extending yourself to others even if those others come from different backgrounds different points of view uh that that idea of those small acts that small extension of self uh is really a critical part of the healing solution i think so many of the challenges we face as a country you know are not going to be solved by legislation passed by you know congress or state legislatures i mean of course what we're dealing with right now is you know trying to address the systemic racism that has been a part of the american fabric uh since the very foundation of this country and you know you cannot legislate racism out of existence it has to be something that is addressed internally by each person and you know i how do you combat racism in a meaningful manner in that level you experience people who are of different backgrounds and ethnicities you know i think racism would be dealt almost a death blow if every american could say okay x number of hours i have or i have x number of very meaningful relationships with people who are very different from me now in terms of the running club we have people from all different religions all different ethnicities socioeconomic backgrounds and the wonderful thing is you know when you share a common experience you prepare for a marathon you share meals together those superficial differences become absolutely meaningless in terms of being an impediment to to good solid relationships you know that's one of the takeaways that i hope people take away from watching this gabby and mark were in any thoughts i mean for me especially growing up in east germany everybody was in the same boat and we couldn't travel we couldn't read what we wanted and um what the only thing we had was the human contact and the human relationships and this meant a lot to us we would help each other we would you know exchange goods we hadn't we didn't have money that we could use but um the the relationships were the most important parts of our lives and that coming now to skid row to los angeles where the perception of you know rich and poor and phony and honest the whole different differences we have here having relationships with people that are real mean to me a lot and i could see and i know mark probably too you could see those people that are on skid row and that we followed that they're real and that really brought me back to my roots to make this film and to finish it and i i would just say also i mean i agree with what everybody's saying and judge when you're saying you're talking about the systemic racism and all the movements black lives matter what's going on it's it's heart-wrenching but i think at the end of the day also that we think it's so important to be part of what's going on you know we african-americans are away over represented down on skid row and but we're down there we try to volunteer to try to serve lunch and we do it very quietly we don't make a big deal about it i mean now excuse me but but you know what i mean it's it's not about a bumper sticker or saying this or that we're down there we're down there and we're giving our time the judges down there three times a week no no i absolutely agree mark and you know it's one thing to you know make certain representations orally um to try and toe the critically correct line it is a very different and far more impactful thing if craig mitchell um with a welsh irish background to go down onto skid row and say okay for three days a week you're going to have my undivided attention if you call me up at midnight i'm going to answer the phone and respond to a crisis that you bring before me i'm going to do my best to take you to some incredible place around the world on a 20-mile run i'm going to talk to you about what it means to deal with family issues now that's where people understand if you're really genuine or not yeah and where where actions speak louder than words you know that we try to take real action we're done with the project but we still go and and at the end of the day we're doing it for ourselves you know i mean we we feel good about what we're doing we need the contact we need the relationships and the friendships well it's important yeah it's certainly apparent in the film that you know you uh as the filmmakers and and certainly you judge uh mitchell get as much out of these relationships as as you ever give um we actually have a question from one of our viewers and it's for the judge uh this viewer says that obviously your compassion and humanity uh are evident and the question is does does does your compassionate uh sense translate uh to your work on the bench in the sense of uh that feeling uh spreading to fellow judges and affecting maybe how they uh sentence uh do you do you feel that you have also impacted just by the way that you model your compassion and your humanity that it has affected some of your fellow judges i think it has i mean certainly the limited feedback that i received from some of my colleagues um would suggest that what i am doing on skid row is something that they've thought long and hard about um it certainly informs what i do on the bench uh you know are there some people that need to be permanently removed from our community because they pose simply too great of a risk of harming um others yes um i mean that's that's the really hard thing to do as a judge is to say you know while this person may be a child of god this person has had such a chaotic upbringing this person has had such little guidance this person has been influenced by so many negative influences that at this point their ability to act humanely towards other is horribly compromised and it's something that weighs upon me i struggle to deal with on the other hand there are countless situations where a defendant will come in front of me and i'll look at their criminal history and i see a common thread being drugs or abuse as a child and you go okay is there something short of locking this person up for a long time that the criminal justice system can do and i think that's what our society is clamoring for at this point in time when they're talking about criminal justice reform luckily in the state of california you know we're finally understanding that the solution is not always impose a longer sentence maybe there needs to be some other meaningful intervention and so in los angeles we have mental health court we have veterans court we have drug court we have a whole host of options short of locking someone up that hopefully will allow that person to get back on the positive footing wow yeah that that struggle that you speak about and that conflict is is evident even from the first scene where you're reading out the sentence to the young man and he's breaking down in tears and it called to mind um uh the quote from st thomas aquinas that mercy without justice is the mother of dissolution but justice without mercy is cruelty and i guess you really have to uh try to balance those those two uh it goes back to saint paul talking about the law and grace and and both seem you know worlds that you have to have one foot in um and i want to point out david that the sentence that i imposed on davon williams in in those opening scenes that was the statutory minimum that the state of california would allow me to impose i begged the prosecutor in that particular case to honor their initial initial offer of a 15-year sentence to davon williams because that was fair that was just for what he did and i want to point out in that shooting that took place davon williams didn't fire a single shot and even his other gang companions nobody could shoot straight nobody was hurt and to send somebody to prison for 73 years to life when no one even gets hurt and this particular defendant never fires fires a single shot i find that troubling today as much today as i do back when i sentence devon well it's you could certainly see that uh that that emotional uh conflict even you know in that scene um you know you um so many of the lessons that you talk about with the running club whether it be you know focus or discipline or or commitment to just showing up the phrase you used before are so applicable just to life in general um can you talk about the lessons that you've all learned as as runners at one time or another about how those life lessons are not only important for your your running but just for you know life in general absolutely i mean you know i the whole showing up thing you know ben shirley just show up things will happen you know if if you never get out there you know i oftentimes encourage people to go to church how can you tell me you don't want to go to church you don't even know what's going to happen at church okay maybe this particular sunday the priest is going to have something that speaks personally to you you don't know the discipline i mean who would get a four-year degree who would get an advanced degree if you didn't learn how to deal with setbacks and disappointments and taking classes that you didn't particularly enjoy not every run is enjoyable you know much of about long distance running it's it's not fun at all but you know if you commit to accepting that then of course you know on marathon day you're having an incredible experience and you're you know once a year with the skid row running club you're getting aboard a plane and you're going to jerusalem you're going to vietnam uh we just got back this past year uh running in the amazon and took the runners for a week in the galapagos islands you know that's worth a long-term commitment wow i have to i have to ask that's a perfect uh jumping off point in the film towards the end uh after they've you run the marathon in rome uh i felt it was the most powerful moment in a film with many powerful moments uh your you recount a an anecdote from pope francis where you talk about that he had when he was bishop down in buenos aires had brought uh hit several of members of his flock to the uh to the ocean because they had never seen it before and it was it was really a way to just tell them that they had dignity and you said that everything that you do uh whether it's the running club or these trips that you arrange for the members to go on is in some small way just trying to uh let them know and affirm their their dignity as human beings uh can you talk a little bit about that and then i have a second a question aligned with that for the filmmakers uh before you do i just want to be respectful of time we're coming up at the 30 minute mark could we just go for maybe another 10 15 minutes or is that okay no that's that's fine yes great so i judge if you could respond first and then i just want to tweet that question slightly for you mark and gabby okay integral to the definition of giving another person dignity is to impart a sense of self-worth and for the skid row running club to be able to tell a person who is not long past heavy drug use who has been sleeping on the sidewalk that you are of such worth that we're going to have anonymous donors give of their own resources so that you can have a life-changing experience uh halfway around the world you know that sends an incredibly powerful message to our runners that you are worthy um that there is a dignity in you as as a human being that needs to be acknowledged and you know one of the moments when we took our runners to jerusalem and then we took them to petra and jordan following our experience in jerusalem they stood on the valley of moses wadi musa and they overlooked the valley and at the far edge of the valley you could see aaron's tomb on a hilltop and many of our runners they watched the sunset they were in tears because it gave them a sense of their worth that people that they didn't even know wanted them value them to the extent that they were to have this experience that's uh it's it gets chills just just listening to that story and isn't at the heart isn't that the heart of the whole christian message that every human being is infinitely valuable um mark and gabby staying on that topic of of the dignity of the person um uh pope pius xii had written a uh an exhortation that is commonly referred to now as the ideal film and it was addressed to members of the italian cinema community and in it he outlined his thoughts on what he felt would be the criteria for an ideal film uh and it it's it's a wonderful uh uh document to read but if you want to boil it down to its essence it talks about a film is ideal if it affirms the dignity of the human person uh made and created in the image and likeness of god and also affirms the ability of the human person to keep getting up and to keep returning to the right path no matter how many times they fall um that seems like that is really so essential to the message of this film uh even your tagline is um redemption one step at a time the idea of not only second chances but in some cases second third and fourth chances uh can you talk a little bit about uh how you approach this uh and the stories that you tell from that that lens yeah uh it's you're right and it reminds me of a scene in rome this was not in the film but rebecca the one of the runners the day of the rome marathon it rained cats and dogs everything was going wrong people didn't feel good i bumped into her at about mile six and she said mark mark she was screaming can you lend me 20 euros i said yeah sure what's everything okay she goes i need a pack of cigarettes and a pizza i promise i'll pay you back the money i said okay sure but she went she had a couple of camel lights i think she bought she had some pizza left it there finished the marathon so it's this this whole journey it's it's not a straight shot you know i mean you're like you were saying you're gonna fall down there's so many we saw so many relapses i mean it wasn't even funny but that the the road to the finish line is not it's not a straight line it's it's not you know there's gonna be ups there's going to be downs there's going to be disappointments but what we really learned i mean especially gabby 2 so many times we thought of quitting yes if if they can finish if rebecca could finish that marathon with a bum knee feeling lousy had to have a smoke had to have some pizza and then finished 26.2 miles we would always tell ourselves if she can do it we can do it so uh that's what we really learned i mean um we had many challenges i mean getting fi i mean financing the documentary i mean filming first at the beginning we had crews we had people that helped us then later on i mean it was just mark and myself and you know following that through over four and a half years it was quite a challenge and then we came to a point that how can we pay for all this editing color correction sound mixing and yeah we always find a way it's just like keep pushing keep pushing it's worth telling the story and at the end it all came together but it was just not easy at all well the film was a marathon in itself well you know obviously uh this film was was filmed several years ago um and and we now find ourselves in this in this ongoing pandemic um is i was talking with the uh the judge before we the stream went live that um it was so wonderful to hear that so many of these stories people were able to get their lives back on the right track but i i assume many of the members particularly many of the residents of the uh the midnight mission uh you know are still in a very precarious uh situation and i'm sure that's only made infinitely more complex because of the pandemic uh you know dealing with homelessness and recovery uh do you still keep in touch with many of these people and uh you know without getting into you know personal information or is everyone still doing okay or yeah yeah you're doing all we see we see ben all the time we just heard from ben yeah ben is uh is an active musician and he's employed uh writing classical music uh rebecca is working at a hospital in a maternity ward in seattle a fine hospital uh rafael's doing great we see rafael maybe even more more than we want to he comes by like unexpectedly he'll say like let's eat let's do something uh so everybody's doing pretty good but i mean some of the people that we followed uh you know they're they're having a difficult time judge wright with david what's the latest with david we haven't seen david lately he was the painter david david is back in the mission okay entered into a relationship and that relationship was problematic he picked up another criminal offense and uh it really set him back and so his original employment came to an end he encountered some financial difficulties and so he's sort of back at square one yeah luckily he's not using again um but you know and i just think over the weekend who did i hear from i heard from jerry i heard from dominic you know dominic has been a work in progress for the last seven years dominic can't find his his way to sobriety you know at this point to save his life you know and you know to those people who are you know in in a different experiential area you know methamphetamine is the drug of choice in los angeles and one thing i have learned is methamphetamine is an incredibly difficult drug to separate yourself from it gives you an incredibly good high it is cheap of course it destroys your brain but you know i i have really gained an appreciation of the struggle that is confronting people who are addicted and you know otherwise i as a judge i i would have an academic understanding of it but boy you know when i can put a name to it when i can tell a particular run on a particular runner on a particular day you can't run with us today because i can tell that you're high and since you're high you're likely to engage in conduct that is going to endanger your own safety and that's you know that's an understanding on a completely different level yeah and you were saying also judge that uh part of the layer of complexity uh with the the pandemic and the quarantine is that so many of the individuals that you you run with and and care about um you know that sense of community is so important uh to to to sort of uh keeping them on the right path that uh this this this these necessary uh quarantined protocols have just added another challenge to to that recovery it does i mean you go to any 12-step aaa meeting you know of course you're going to listen to speakers and they're going to give testimonials but what is equally powerful in terms of a person being able to maintain their sobriety is just the people that you are around to be in a room with other people laughing sharing stories what are you going to be doing tomorrow how is work going all those mundane conversations they're not mundane if you are an isolated recovering drug addict they are human connections that this person is talking to me and sharing what's going on in their life and that communicates a sense of value to me and you know in this age of quarantine and virtual meetings uh it's it's really far less efficacious than the in-person interaction and judge you know we didn't really talk about the fact that i'm i'm not a runner gabby's a runner marathon one of the judge of course the judge run how many marathons judge 70 marathons thereabouts i came to this whole thing not a runner i don't enjoy running but i have to say doing the morning runs we would go six miles at daybreak we start in the dark we finish and the sun is rising after like the third or fourth time you start saying wow this is this is pretty good i feel good and we'd go for a little breakfast maybe bring some of the runners with us we'd go have some coffee and bacon and eggs uh this is a big thing also where when you're running in a group there's just this dynamic that this group has and look i hope i didn't give the impression like this is a catholic project many of the people are not catholic but they they're all coming together uh people who are not addicts who are not homeless and they come and they get up early and we meet at 5 45 in the morning and they're there just to to be a part of this club that the judge has started that there's something good about it and there's a certain peer pressure that i think helps people stay clean you know i want to run the next time because they they shame me into it they make fun of me because i'm not running and it's all it's all in good fun but you know there's this little dynamic of being part of a group that helps you stay clean and sober i would imagine i i don't know what that's like but but this is a part that that the judges bought with this club that it just happens to really work with people that are suffering from addiction yeah it really it doesn't matter what religion can be any religion any culture you know well it seems far less and a club than a family i mean watching the film it almost seems like it's a family um well you know i i could keep talking with the three of you uh but i do want to be respectful of everyone's time and the generosity of time that you've you've showed us um and maybe uh if we can get together again at some point we can uh i can ask you about the uh the story of of mark you and gabby meeting in east germany because i know that's a wonderful story in itself which you told me when you were at the sheen center that's a a conversation unto itself um but maybe before we uh before we sign off if we could just uh let people know who may be interested in supporting in whatever way how people can support uh the skid row runners club and how people uh can have access to the film if in case they want to watch it again or maybe have some sort of a group screening so maybe we'll start with the new judge about the uh how people can help the the runners club and then uh gabby and mark tell us about how they can access the film mark and gabby yeah well you can people can donate skid row running club dot skidrowrunningclub.com it's easy to remember and they take donations it's a 501c tax-free tax-free uh uh non-profit so people can donate there and then i mean people have seen the film and they erased quite some substantial money for the skipper running club and uh so it doesn't fall on the judge's shoulders anymore that he has to pay out of his own pocket yes kids and if you want to see the film you can stream it on amazon prime or on vimeo or on google play uh or you can also buy your dvd if somebody who's watching this and they're connected to the sheen center we will send them a dvd if they want one no problem free no no no costs just email us to skipper marathon at gmail.com yeah that's good now website is skippermarathon.com and all the information is on yeah but people if they have amazon prime it's free anyway it's included but if people want to see it we will make it available to them at no cost you know no problem we admire what you're doing and see coincidentally where you're located right on the bowery this used that was like one of the original skid rows the bowery i mean when i remember when i was a kid we would drive down the battery and it was like it was like it's changed so much so you see change is possible but uh you're right down the street from the valerie yep absolutely it's uh it's a different neighborhood now no more bowery boys like in the old movies yeah absolutely um well you know i guess i just end by saying that the the metaphor for running is just woven throughout scripture and you know one of my favorites is is in saint paul's letter to the hebrews where he says run the race with endurance or perseverance depending on which translation you're using uh i would just want to thank the three of you for for running the important race of your life not just with endurance or perseverance but with with dignity with class with empathy and humanity um with faith and hope but most of all with with such genuine compassion so i want to thank the three of you um and uh it is to say an honor to put it lightly it has been a blessing and an inspiration uh to spend this time and and just to uh to share with you so so thank you very much uh continued blessings on on your your ministry of film and your ministry of justice judge and um um you know best of luck with the runners club and hopefully at some point we will be able to gather together in person yeah i have a dream actually one one of the things that all of our runners are clamoring for they always ask me judge is there any way we as a club could run the new york city marathon together so if there is anybody listening that uh might be able to effectuate that uh you would have our eternal gratitude well that i i hope there's someone out there listening i know that this year i believe it's been canceled but hopefully next year um and if you do uh the door to the sheen center is always open and uh let's get together i would i would love to meet you in person that would be great to come back thank you we loved having you the first time so thank you david thanks very much oh no no thank you all very much uh and thanks to our viewers uh thank you for tuning in today on uh facebook or youtube uh again we encourage you to uh like us on facebook subscribe to our youtube channel and uh click that bell icon if you want notifications justice film festival we premiered this film last year this year the justice film festival obviously will look a little bit different uh it will be a virtual film festival but i'm sure the films uh will be you know just as top notch as ever and the guests and conversations we will have so thank you very much again encourage you if you're able to to make a donation to the sheen center we love bringing you content like this uh infused with faith hope and love uh but we can't do it uh by ourselves uh as you know gabby mark and the judge said it takes a community it takes us all running together so please if you can we appreciate it no matter how big or small the donation will be deeply appreciated um until next time stay safe be well god bless

Channel: Sheen Talks

Views: 484

Rating: 4.8400002 out of 5

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Id: z7DmRTjqrjU

Length: 47min 20sec (2840 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 02 2020