We live in a delight-deficient world, one where we, as adults, are driven to be productive and where play is seldom prioritized. The Rev. Tyler Strange reminds us that soul care means living from the inside out and that by rediscovering joy, we can unlock a playful spirit.
Guest: The Rev. Tyler Strange
- Strange is a pastor in the South Carolina Conference of The UMC.
- He is the author of "What I Want My Kids (and Me) to Know: Building Better Humans One Napkin at a Time."
- Learn more about Strange at TylerStrange.com.
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This episode posted on August 2, 2024.
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Prologue
We live in a delight-deficient world, one where we as adults are driven to be productive and where play is seldom prioritized. The Reverend Tyler Strange reminds us that so care means living from the inside out and that by rediscovering joy we can unlock a playful spirit.
Crystal Caviness, host: Tyler, welcome to “Get Your Spirit in Shape.”
Tyler Strange, guest: Thanks for having me.
Crystal: I'm excited about the conversation we're going to have. I think it's going to be a fun conversation and also really impactful. Before we get started with that, I'd love for you to just share a little bit about who you are and your work within the United Methodist Church.
Tyler: Sure. So I am Tyler Strange. I'm just turned 40, this God been actually a big year all around turned 40 in February. I found out in early March that we were moving to start a new United Methodist Church faith community in what is a Myrtle Beach address, but it's the Carolina Forest community. I've been appointed as associate pastor to first UMC Conway and so being appointed there, it's really neat. I work with some clergy who are friends and we're connected to the Wesley Foundation at Coastal Carolina. They're an anchor in the Conway community and they have a few people who are in the Carolina Forest community where I am been sent to serve as an extension of first GC Conway. So I am a cradle to now United Methodist and I am one of those people who are relentlessly optimistic about our future together and what we are becoming together in Christ.
Crystal: Well, Tyler, I love hearing you talk about that You are in the South Carolina Annual Conference. For those of you who, for those that people who may not know where Myrtle Beach is or that you're in South Carolina, you're a South Carolina native as well, grew up in, I believe you said traveler's rest South Carolina and also you failed to say that you are an author, first time author.
Tyler: Yeah, so I am a first time author and it was interesting that the book came out a month before I moved, and so my wife has to remind me, Hey, you had a book come out in the middle of all this. So yes, we did have, I said it was my daughter and I, in essence started something together called What I Want My Kids and Me To Know Being Better Humans one napkin at a Time, and it was just a fun thing I did with my daughter when she started second grade and it is just one of those things you talk about joy and fun and just finding meaning in life. It just started as that and as things do sometimes when you just start from a very pure way, it just took a life of its own. So yeah, I had a book out in May and it's out now. So yeah, thank you. Thanks for reminding me of that. Yeah,
Crystal: Of course. We're going to talk about that book. We are recording this in the summer of 2024. As you've mentioned, you have just made a move and for me in the summer, I guess it's the longer days here in the US I'm on the east coast. Our days, our daylight goes to almost nine o'clock before the sun starts setting and I feel like I have more time outside, I have more free time, and I got thinking about what that might look like spiritually, what does that look like for opportunities to play And as an adult, I'm not sure we use the word play a lot with our activities and I'm really not sure we use the word play a lot when we talk about our faith. In fact, playing in our faith might even be frowned upon because it tends to be something that we want to be very reverent about and it's a sacred space.
But as I was reading your book, there were lots of things, well, there's 45 napkins that you have kind of little essays about, and they were all so impactful. And I shared with you earlier from the very first one, it was as a mom, it was really emotional for me. It's like things to learn in second grade. No one sits alone in the lunchroom. I was like, oh my goodness, such wisdom. And that just continued on. But a couple of things you said in the book really kind of caught my attention as we were talking about this topic. One was when you live from the inside out, you become much more invested in the things you can control and the value this brings to your soul. And when you have good soul care, you will always be surprised by how this naturally radiates out. And I love that thought about SoulCare and I'm going to go to the second thing, but I want us to kind of hold that there because we're going to talk about SoulCare.
And then the second thing, which is directly related to our conversation today was something you wrote on one of the napkinsL Never miss a chance to play in a rain puddle. And then you added, I think this is advice from Mommy because this was a napkin for your daughter when she was going through school. So never if we take a piece of that, never miss a chance to play period. What does that look like for us? Kids are so good at this. One of my favorite memories, I have granddaughters and the younger one said to her older sister one night after dinner, let's go outside and run around like kids do. And she was exactly right. Kids do that, but we become adults and we don't get up from the dinner table and go outside and run around and catch chase lightning bugs like kids do in the summer. How do we reenter that space?
Tyler: Yeah, I think about the idea of playing in in the rain. And for me growing up, rain was an opportunity to go out in our backyard with my brother who's three years younger than me. I'll name him Trev Trev, you're in a podcast, congratulations. But if it rained, it was not, ah man, it's rained, it's raining. Let's go put on old sweatpants and go in the backyard and whatever sport was in season, whatever ball was in season, we did that. And so the rain was an opportunity to go in the backyard, get as muddy as possible, doing what we played called great catches, and then somewhere along the way moving into adulthood, we just get too cool for it. I don't know. And we just gravitate away from fun and we are a delight deficient culture, just that's it. We're delight deficient. And I'm curious, I think sociologically, I would love to find some research on this.
I got to think somebody's done it, but it's like we grind, we think we have to grind so hard in life that if we're awake we have to be productive. And I'm in Enneagram three and I suffer from that in a really hard way. I took renewal leave last year for five weeks and three weeks in, I drove my wife crazy. She was right. I was trying to journal during renewal leave and I was journaling so that when I got done with renewal leave, I could talk about renewal leave. And it was driving me crazy to her crazy because she was seeing that no, no, no, you're not being healthy right now even when you're supposed to be on renewal, you're trying to prepare to produce something for somebody else. And so as a Enneagram three, I have to learn at my healthiest. I'm at my best when I'm living.
You mentioned earlier from the inside out when I learned to find joy, to schedule joy, we schedule everything else on our eye calendars. Why don't we schedule moments for play and joy if I don't do that and then I am rotting. And I think for me as an adult that there are things that as an adult become harder. One is cultivating friendships. I think doing this, especially not that we are any more righteous or worthy more than anybody else, but United Methodist clergy, when you move, it's hard to make. You are people's pastor and you're like, I just want to be Tyler. I just want to be, when I am being Tyler, I can still be pastoral. And so learning how to be uniquely me and how to play within that is when learning to live from the inside out, that's what that is for me to go out and play like, hey, it's okay.
Let the dishes sit in the sink an hour after dinner, go outside and play. Yeah, it's hot. Trees are melting down here in Myrtle Beach right now. It's so hot. But go outside, sweat, go play. Go run around. Find those songs with your kids that just make them pop and light up and go and dance with 'em. And a couple of years ago at my last appointment in Aiken, South Carolina, I encourage our congregation to have a summer of joy. And it was from John chapter 15 verse 11, where Jesus reminds you that I have said these things to you so that my joy will be in you and your joy will be complete. And one of the most simple things I tell people is if you want to know if you're following Christ, can you find any of the nine through the spirit present around you?
If you're not sure what to do, look for those and follow that. Well, joy is one of those and joy and peace are significant to that. And Jesus had a lot to say connected to that because so often what he would do is he would meet human needs, physical needs that would then when those are met, it allowed the spirit to be free. And we get so bound up in almost getting just gridlocked in things that really don't meet our soul where they are, that we kind of box out joy, we box out opportunities to play. And being a parent, the secret to being a parent is that there is no secret. Nobody ever really tell people who write books on parenting. It's really good advice. But until you do it with your kids, you really have no idea what you're doing. I still don't know what're doing with a nine and almost 4-year-old.
And so it's the same thing with being an adult. We think I'm an adult, I have to act like this, this, no, go have fun. Go do that thing that your soul longs to do. Go do that thing that you mentioned. Your grandkids said, Hey, that's what kids do. Go do that. Just because you did it as a kid doesn't mean you have to just forget it as an adult. And it's almost like we need permission to be human again. And that's where, for me, theologically, the fruit of the spirit lives when we play. When you're now, again, there are things you need to go and do play wise that don't harm you, don't, don't harm your body, don't harm others, and also don't do things to other people that are not helpful. But we need to play. I think discipleship includes play and churches should be a part of that. In our community, we get so worried about looking right, being right that we just forget to be. And so I think that for me is where all this is rooted in just it's very much who God's made us to be is to be people who seek joy through play. And there is nothing wrong with that. And I think Jesus would have a little bit to say about that today.
Crystal: I think that we have this image of Jesus and the disciples as just very, very serious, always studying, always teaching and preaching and doing really serious work which had happened. But I like to imagine, I mean they were living together all the time. I like to imagine they were lighthearted moments. They were laughing together, they were living life together, which I hope included these joyful times that were about just being. But do we have evidence of that? Are there some places in the Bible where we see Jesus playing or being more lighthearted?
Tyler: Yeah. I think it's sprinkled all throughout just in his character and his nature. I think the way that I was telling my daughter this today, we were talking before they went to camp, something about as a preacher or as a pastor, do you ever get bored because all the stories. And I'm like, no, absolutely not, because you're always answering what am I missing? What am I seeing differently here? Especially maybe as an adult or as a parent of that my season of life brings me to read to a text that I didn't previously read. And so many of Jesus' parables are contextual and I mean half the parables he does. If I told you the first time I read those, I knew what they meant. I'm lying. And if somebody tells you that they're lying, and he was so I think to be able to speak with people in a way that he was a little bit sarcastic.
He calls people out. Sometimes he calls 'em out in very clear ways, otherwise very subtle ways in his character, in his nature, he's empathetic and I think about his looking for fun. He looks up in a tree and sees Zacchaeus, and if I'm walking by today and I see somebody up in a tree, I'm probably going to pretend like I didn't see him. There's some whimsy there to stop and go, huh, there's a guy in a tree up there. I think I'm going to go have dinner at his house. I mean, there's a certain whimsy that he has to stop with a tax collector, Matthew to tax collectors people. They were scum of the earth to people to stop and talk to a tax collector, to be whimsy, to live his life in such a way that all the things we look to at Jesus were interruptions, play can feel like an interruption to us.
I struggle with that because heaven forbid you take me off a task I have in my mind that I have to get done. And I think with Jesus, we see that in his character and in his nature. He's never running places. I tell people. So a lot of times we have to move at the pace of love and sometimes love moves at a pace that we don't want it to because we want to go fast and we want to do it instantly and he's never in a hurry. I think about, of course there's the story, it's the one about the wedding and Cana turning water into wine. That's being at a party and turning it out with some wine. That's not the point of the story. It was a miracle, but I think Jesus also knew what he was doing. I just think there was a whimsy about Jesus that when you and I try to tell people we want to look at a collection of stories, we don't want to just pull one story and say, well, that's him.
We want to look at the full mosaic of who he was and he was whimsy. He's whimsy because he wasn't in a hurry. And when you're not in a hurry, you're able to be empathetic and you're able to be empathetic with people. You're able to sit at a table longer with people when you're sharing play together because when you're playing with people, when you're enjoying something, you get to know each other like fairly quickly. I just think moving at a pace that is not hurried, moving at the pace of love and being whimsy. Those are things about Jesus I look at and go, God, I want that so bad. But I think that's the totality of who he is, that we want to use him as evidence to make a point instead of looking at him and going, no, no, that's the mirror I want to hold my life up against. That's what I want to become, that character, that nature. I wish we did more of that, more of becoming the character and trying to become the character nature of Jesus rather than turning Jesus into three bullet points that support some evidence for an argument that's going to make no difference tomorrow.
Crystal: I've never considered the adjective whimsical when I've thought about Jesus, but when I do, it does add another layer to his character. And we know that we have imagination and I believe that. And creativity is something that's innate in us, that is part of the being that God created. How can we become that childlike person and kind of reach back inside of us and discover that play that that's going to be joyful and have us being rather than doing
Tyler: Right. I think a thing for me that I think about in my life, it happened last year when I was on renewal leave. We were on my brother and I and one of two of his best friends from college. We started a guy's golf trip six or seven years ago, and I remember getting to a point where my feet were with these guys who were on Lake Russell, in Georgia, in Alberton, Georgia. And I remember looking up at the trees, picking a deep breath and just staring at the breeze, just kind of whispering through the tops of the trees and just kind of getting lost in that for 30 seconds and going, I wonder how that happens like that. That's interesting to me. And realizing I had never, I've spent a lot of time on golf courses and that was the first time I had thought that.
And I think that dialing into that imagination is, again, it goes back to the whimsy. The unhurried pace of life is looking around with wonder. Like I'm sitting here talking to you, looking out in our new backyard and looking at trees that we didn't have in our yard at our previous house we were living in a week and a half ago, and just thinking, that's interesting while that's here, but moving at a pace that invites curiosity and imagination. I think when we live with that perspective, it invites a whole new discovery of life. I think something, and this connects to life in the churches. We've lost prophetic imagination. We have an access today. We have access to the church has never had access to as many resources and mediums ever as it does today, which also means we have some of the greatest opportunities to cultivate discipleship pathways than we ever have had before.
But it takes imagination. We don't swing open the doors anymore on Sunday morning and people just come. That's not it anymore. But it's that thing about that prophetic imagination. The fact that if we had the DNA of the creator, well, what does the creator, what is the verb of a creator to create? If we're missing out, the invitations that are unique to us to create, whether it's go create a drawing, go create a walking path in your community, go create a neighborhood happy hour where you drink sweet tea in your driveway with your neighbors from five to 6:00 PM once a week we limit create to being something that we can go and display in a gallery or we limit the idea of creating to thinking something somebody can buy. No, if that's solely what we're thinking about, we're thinking about making something somebody can consume.
I'm talking about creating and that's bringing something out of us that I think inspires what is good and holy in other people around us, whether it's to come together in community, whether it's to come together and inspire the imagination of other people, like curiosity and imagination are contagious, so is wonder. And when we lean into that, I think we kind of set this spark that just is a chain reaction. And I just think today we've lost, we have to reclaim that thing inside of us that creates and to realize we all have this thumbprint of God, this eternity on our heart, this thing what Proverbs four tells us, guard your heart. That's the wellspring of life. What do you think that wellspring does? It's a fountain. It's not a drain. And so we are creating things, but the creative process, you can't just sit there and go, all right, it's time to create something.
It's a life, it's a rhythm. And you can't schedule when inspiration hits, but you live a life that cultivates creativity, that when it's time you're ready. But I think it's going again, I'm realizing this in our conversation, it goes back to that whimsy nature of Jesus and the DNA of the creator of God who puts all this in order. Creators create. And we need to understand who we are. And I think that's part of discipleship is to understand who we are. I'm entering my, I am 40 now. I'm coming into about a four or five year process of learning who I am, being in this crucible, which I write about that a little bit in the book, but I wasn't as crucible. That was brought upon our family with our daughter's birth and a pandemic and all that. And in those things, you can either be formed or you can let them just burn you up.
And what came out of that was seeing like we don't have to live this way and we want to invite others to spaces to be curious to create, but to do so in a way that is unique to them. Do that to know who we are, we have to understand the way God's made us. And that's a maturity thing as well. And to me that's an important discipleship thing is understanding how do you play? Some people we love coloring. Others don't want to color at all. I mean, again, it's understanding who you are so you can better understand what kind of fuel your engine takes, which is again, that's a creative process.
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Crystal: As you were talking, I was thinking about when kids go out to play, there's no goal. We're not out there for a specific result. We're just out there to be, which you had said that earlier too. There's no really doing, there's just being, and I think we are all children, and I hope that we had the kinds of lives where we could go out and have that freedom and that whimsy and that space. So it's inside of us, but I think it gets blocked as we age because of responsibilities. And I mean things that are valid, and we certainly can't play every day because there's things that as adults that have to be taken care of. But when you think about a spiritual discipline, my thinking of it anyway is that it's something I'm going to do that's going to draw me closer to God, that's going to impact my faith journey. So for yourself, Tyler, how have you seen that happen? How have this changing? I hear you, it sounds almost like a shift you've had and it is intentional because as an Enneagram three, you're naturally drawn to achieving and goal setting. So tell me about that shift that's happened and how you feel like that's really impacted your relationship with God and your journey of faith.Tyler: So part of my learning is over the course of the last year, I was so fortunate to be a part of the Reynolds program for church leadership, which is launched out of Western North Carolina, but it serves five or six states in the southeast of the United States. And one of the things that we did there was we learned, it was the first time where I got to take all these different assessments. I mean, we've all been assessed, but nobody ever takes your assessments and you never get to sit down on a table with somebody who is trained and can take the assessments and put them together. It's like pouring basically the best way I can say. It's like pouring all these ingredients into crockpot and then seeing what comes out of it. And so learning about that, learning all these different assessments, Myers-Briggs, disc profile, all those things, how do they work together?
That helps me understand that because when I understand that I understand what I value and when I understand what I value, then I can understand how to make these decisions and how to discipline myself. So for me, I've learned, so the way I'm wired is I need values to guide me. If I know values and I know a direction, I'm set you, I'm good. And so for me, my values that I've learned, my top five were health, higher purpose, lifelong learning, creativity and generosity. And discipline for me means those things are my, they're not so much my guardrails. They're my GPS. And when I'm rooted in those five things, I am going to be my, well, my healthiest. And the discipline for me that comes out of that is that I understand where I need to lean into and where I need to not. I'm creating this, I'm basically creating my own culture for what I need to be.
So the way that my sort of shift with play and with my relationship with God is that God has called me to be human. And it's the bumper sticker thing, right? You're a human being, not a human doing. That's so cliche, but it's true. And when I am human being, it's because I am first taking care of those things inside of me. Those things that I have determined that I value. When I'm building my life around those five things, then I am being who God is calling me to be. And I am in a rhythm where I'm seeing the presence of God more around me. I am more open to the invitations of God, and I am more curious about going deeper in the way of Christ. But I can't do that if my value system is being discombobulated because I start as an Enneagram three, I start drifting towards trying to please people.
One of the worst things for me is unclarified expectations. If I don't have unclarified expectations, I'm going to be an anxious ball of just mess. So for me, discipline comes in my value system. And so the way that I play in that is it's being whimsy. I've done this before at my first appointment. I remember cutting somersaults in our conference room, just need to get up and move around. Hey, y'all go cut Summersaults. No way. I'm too old. Well fine. Go do a barrel roll playing. I have been known in my life, I had a Bluetooth speaker. One of the best things I discovered was I found a Bluetooth speaker at my last appointment, put in my office, and I have a very wide ranging music taste. And it was nothing for me to just randomly cut on something that you got to move to.
And so for me, just cutting music, I have a soundtrack for everything. It is a running joke that I have a song for everything in life, and I have a gift, a gift, GIF for every text in life. But it's that fun thing that reminds us, hey, we don't have to be so buttoned up. And so when I am enjoying people and when I am enjoying them in a way that we're just sharing in the experience together, I'm not enjoying it because I'm trying to create something or produce something or it's something I need to do for my job. I'm just enjoying people. That is me delighting in God because I am delighting in somebody else who has made the image of God, and as a result, I'm probably learning something I didn't know. And so being with people, being in an unencumbered way, if that, I know that sounds unencumbered, could be snooty or whatever, but it doesn't mean that at all. It means my agenda is being present. That's my agenda. Doing that, playing something like our church, my new church, we have a softball game tonight. I'm so excited to get out there and do that. But playing with playing sports, I enjoy playing golf. I enjoy playing softball. I enjoy moving around with people. But that for me is when I'm delighting with people in such a way that I'm just delighting in sharing this experience with you. Stop. That's the agenda. I feel deeply connected to God. And again, that's because I'm staying on my GPS.
Crystal::I love that. And I like what you said about, I mean, understanding what really makes you tick or what these core values are. That's going to be unique to each of us. So it really is. I mean, we could probably sit here and come up with five to 10 ways that you can play that could build your spiritual discipline, but it really is, what is it for me and what is it? These are going to be God created us all as individuals. And so those places where we find value or those places where we find connection are going to be unique to each of us.
Tyler: One more thing, as you're talking about this, I'm reminded there are things that we do as a family that my wife is fantastic at celebrating people I'm not because that means I got to change my schedule and what I was set out to do that day. But I want to be so good at celebrating. And so that's the other thing about, not just that I forgot to add, was it's not only just being with people, it's celebrating people, it's seeing people, it's acknowledging people. And she is fantastic about that. And so I've learned how to have we kind of budget in a way that our budget has room to celebrate people. If that means you got to go buy balloons and show up at their house, or we've been known to fill up an office, church office with balloons on birthdays, like celebrating people, seeing people is another way that I find myself, which sounds weird, but it's coming from a healthy place, not a let me please you place. But I want to acknowledge that too, because also for me, having people around me who contribute, that's a blind spot for me. But when I trust them to see that, oh my gosh, it just makes things so much more fun.
Crystal::Yeah, that's great. Well, as we finish up today, is there anything else that you wanted to add? And before you answered that, I will note that we will include a link to your book on the episode page. It's just so rich with wisdom and play and fun. And so I just think it would be really, it's just, well, it was really special for me, so we'll definitely include that. But is there anything else that you wanted to talk about that we haven't yet discussed?
Tyler: I would love, I just wish there was a way, matter of fact, maybe I'll do this later on social media. I want to hear what brings people joy and how do we all, what does play look like for each of us when we hear from other people and we go, oh, I'm not the only one. I think that is so encouraging and there is such momentum in that. I think that would be the thing. The one more thing I would say is I go back grief, right? Nobody talks about grief yet. It's something we all have in common. Well, we all desire, whether we admit it or not, to be a part of play and of joy creating. And we don't talk about it enough. And so I would just be to encourage anybody that hears this to go and talk about joy. What's the one thing you want to go do that you want to go do that you just haven't done? Go do it. Who's the one person you need to go and invite who say, Hey, I got this really just whimsical idea. Can I tell you? Tell 'em. And then who can you talk to about creating a list of things to go and do to enjoy that are playful, do that, bring people in on the, we need a better word than play process. But that's what I would say. Share that with people and invite people into your life to help you do that.
Crystal::Oh yeah. That's great. That's great suggestion and a really great way to open yourself up to what play looks like in your own life as you're asking other people what it looks like for them. And now, Tyler, I'm going to ask you the question that we ask all of our guests on get your spirit in shape, and how do you keep your own spirit in shape?
Tyler: Right. So I have heard this years ago it was called RPMs, and it's the acronym RPMS. And it stands for me, it's health metrics, relational, physical, mental, spiritual. And I have sort of this way that I gauge it. Do I feel like my tank in each four areas it's growing? Do I have to pour from or is it fielding almost parts in each one? And so I gauge that. So for me, relationally, if I feel isolated or if I don't feel as creative, I usually just got to pick up the phone and call one of my best friends or one of my really deep friends who I know will speak life into me or will bring it out of me. That's one of the things I do. The other one is the physical one. I got to go exercise. If I go, I've tried to take up running more because running allows me to see things I don't otherwise see in a car.
When you see things, you tend to see things differently and process them differently. And so that's a good one for me. And then mental, having a therapist and a counselor got to stay on top of that and take care of that, especially with anxiety and that sort of thing. And then of course, the spiritual one. Play for me is so important for the spiritual component of my life to be outside because I'm not going to have a problem reading scripture and studying scripture. I have to do that. It's a part of my calling and it's a part of who I, but it's that part about love, the Lord your God with everything you have, not just your mind, that's your body. It's your schedule, it's your budget. And that includes play. And so if I am feeling spiritually parched, it really is usually because I'm not doing enough playing. And so those four, the RPMs, that's such a wonderful filter for me to gauge that. And usually I know, like I said, with each letter, I kind of know what that correlates to for me. And so we try to keep those front and center for me as I move through life.
Crystal:: Thank you for sharing that. That's a great way to keep check on it, for sure. Well, Tyler, thank you for being a guest on "Get Your Spirit in Shape." I just appreciate you and your ministry and all that you do for The United Methodist Church.
Tyler: Well, thanks for having me, crystal, and I look forward to hearing this when it comes out and just continuing to see our connection thrive through platforms like this. This is such a wonderful avenue that you've provided, so thank you for doing this as well.
Epilogue
That was the Reverend Tyler Strange discussing how to find joy in a delight-deficient world. To learn more, go to umc.org/podcasts and look for this episode where you will find helpful links and a transcript of our conversation. If you have questions or comments, feel free to email me at a special email address just for “Get Your Spirit in Shape” listeners: GYSIS@umcom.org. If you enjoyed today's episode, we invite you to leave a review on the platform where you get your podcast. Thank you for being a “Get Your Spirit in Shape” listener. I’m Crystal Caviness and I look forward to the next time that we're together.
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