Part 13: Transcript of Paulie's Sabol's In Search Of Heroes Interview" by Ralph Zuranski
Ralph Zuranski: That is a wise position to take. One of the things that a lot of people experience in their lives are people that offend, oppose and upset them. Do you feel that it is important to forgive those that upset, offend and oppose you?
Paulie Sabol: I do think it is important. I think it is exceptionally important. First, we wouldn’t spend so much time thinking about what others think about us, Ralph, if we knew just how little they did. One of the areas where I’ve had great success and wealth is in real estate.
In real estate we have tenants. That’s where I found what a lack of forgiveness to be like. It is like somebody being a tenant inside your head. So I do make it an effort and a habit of mine to not long hold upon grudges. But I do want to be completely candid and frank and transparent with all of your listeners.
I still get hurt very easily. I do get offended at times when people don’t intend it or mean it. That is the other good reason to forgive them. Very often, it wasn’t even what they were going after. Some of your smartest listeners, who catch more nuance and subtlety, some of your marginalized listeners who are aware of hatred and bias and different aspects of judgment and prejudice, they are going to have moments when they get hurt and offended.
People oppose them. I don’t think that is a failure by any means, but it is an opportunity to get quickly back towards your future through forgiveness.
Ralph Zuranski: Do you experience service to others as a source of joy?
Paulie Sabol: Totally. I think that opening the car door for my passenger before going into my own door. I really get a joy out of that because it is so rarely done. People are so rarely in service of one another in those very small ways.
This is another one of those arenas, at least for me, I’ve found some of the inspiration, in this case in the Christian sacred text, where it says, “Whoever will be of service to the least, and in the smallest ways, they will become the kings of the riches.”
I told you that I still have the dream and vision, the light to imagine that we are all kings and priests, queens, and leaders of our own kingdoms.
Ralph Zuranski: It is so true – being a servant to others and thinking about others before ourselves, makes a big difference, a big impact on the lives of others. When was the lowest point in your life, and how did you change your life path to one of victory over obstacles that you were facing at that time?
Paulie Sabol: I was an active member of a church at a point and time. I began to read and understand different truths from our common sacred text, our common basis of our seemingly shared belief systems.
My views changed very, very dramatically in those periods of time. Even though I could make my case of where I felt like this was my inspiration, where I felt like it was soundly based doctrinally, that group of people rejected me.
They rejected me in a very formal way. There is actually this kind of secret language within this worldview. Basically the language is that they cast me out of the church in the name of Jesus.
What that was communicating to me and to every other member of that community that was full of friends and people that I cared about, is that they were basically saying and treating me like I was in their mind, an evil, malevolent spirit, just because I saw things differently.
Just because I believed, for example, that from my reading of their text, there was no eternal hell that anyone went to, because I didn’t see any reason that somebody could not be a person who expresses their sexual orientation as a same-sex orientation and be a servant to many, and in this case, at that time I would have said a child of God.
It was a very, very difficult time because at that point in my life, that was about 70 or 80 percent of all my social relationships, all my contacts, all of my sense of identity and importance and self-worth, not to mention all the residual fears I had at that time, because it was a place that really saw the universe and God as an angry, spiteful, demanding authoritarian, patriarchal, sort of character.
So it was very, very difficult. It thrust me into a lot of uncertainty. The way that I was able to turn it around was simply through time. I found new relationships. I found other people had believed the same thing I had at other points and time.
I found out that some of the others were treated much worse than me. Jacques DeMolay, the head of the Knights Templar, was burned at the stake for similar beliefs. So the first thing I started to realize was that I didn’t quite have it as bad as some others had had. I wasn’t alone, and it was huge to realize I was not, in fact, alone.
Then finally I was really able to turn it around because of something that happened very recently. I was very resentful. I was very oppositional. I had a lot of struggles with people who were members of organized religion.
One day, a person who was actually a minister of a church, we’ve had discussions, and he certainly challenged and took some exceptions, and had some questions about what the role of homosexuality is as it relates to spirituality, as it relates to blessings, and all of these things.
He lost his luggage on a plane, and we were at the same place. He asked me if I would pray with him? I will, but you’ve got to know I’m not really a prayer person, I don’t really believe the same things you do, I would actually consider myself an atheist, an agnostic, but I can certainly call upon my overall belief systems and your language patterns and pray.
I sat down and prayed for him. I prayed what I knew were some of his scriptures. I prayed that he would have a peace that passed all understandings, and keep his heart and his mind through these tribulations. I did the whole thing.
Afterwards he came up and talked to me. The cool thing was that he hadn’t been able to get through, he couldn’t even talk to anybody who could find his bag, or would even acknowledge that it had been on the plane. Right after our prayer, he picked up the phone, he got through to the airport, and one hour later he had his bag.
But even before he had his bag, he told me he had a lot of rethinking to do because your prayer bore witness to my spirit. For me, that was like coming full circle. You have to understand what it was like to be in this environment that you considered your social and protective cocoon of making it as a young adolescent.
Here they are basically saying you are a child of Satan, not a child of God, and sending you away so that at the end you might be saved as though by fire. Now here we have this person who is a religious leader, and he’s saying, “Your prayer bore witness to my spirit.”
May I share one other down time with you, too?
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