Bringing Faith to Life
culture
Now that we have AI, do we really need God?
0I confess the AI conversation makes me a bit uneasy. It has for quite some time, but now that its general application and participation is rapidly advancing among us, it really has me shuddering a bit. I’ve always seen my physical nature as an essential ingredient in my learning and experience. The notion that I can “have” an experience without actually “having” it feels not only foreign but wrong. Life isn’t just a mind game, after all, it’s a people game. You, me and everybody else.
Yes, AI is coming. No, I can’t stop it. And I can see, by listening to the many arguments of its various “creators,” what a valuable tool it can be to “speed our workflow,” and “enhance our capability.” What a time saver it will be not having to search through all those references, or pour over all those documents in order craft the perfect paragraph, synthesizing all I’ve learned. All of this will be done for us! What a relief this artificial intelligence will be.
It’s not really artificial, though, is it? It’s hand-crafted by many hands, many millions of hands? All of us contributing to the vast store of human knowledge that is scannable — today’s podcast called it scrapable — and thus readily available for harvest. Now AI can ascertain all of this in the blink of an eye, shuffle it according to your personal instructions and deliver it to your inbox with a tone, a voice, a personality, suitable to your specifications. Pretty ingenious. Makes me look look like a genius. (which I just had to google because the one is not spelled like the other, go figure) All I could ever want is right at my own fingertips. The easy way — per someone else — and no one is the wiser. Heck, if everyone is doing it, it’s the only way to keep up, right?
Honestly, it is tempting right now to ask ChatGPT to go ahead and write me a Kinesthetic Christian post. Let’s see: write a 500 word blog post on … whether AI, umm, replaces the Incarnation… Geez, I can’t even come up with a proper query. My brain doesn’t seem to work right without my fingers at the keyboard or my pen on the page.
With practice perhaps I’ll get better at asking AI the right question. Then, of course, once I know what to ask, there will be no point in thinking about this, let alone writing about this. Those who are interested will simply have their say. We can debate, you and me, my bot against yours. I’m not sure how we determine who wins. I guess it’s always a draw.
But, if you’ll indulge me, let’s for a moment think about the Incarnation the old fashioned way. We read or perhaps we’ve read or we’ve heard that the “Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” Why? Here at the Kinesthetic Christian we’ve always understood that, it was to make God real to us, tangible for us, human like us. To allow us to see God in action: living, breathing, eating, sleeping, tasting, touching, speaking, listening, doing and not-doing. And somehow, even over and across the centuries, to do it with him. To feel with him, as he felt, so we can feel with him in our here and now, as we try to make sense of our circumstances and dwell among others trying to do the same.
I mean, don’t you catch yourself asking, why was I even created for this world — riddled as it is with difficulty, disaster and heartache. As I write, Turkey and Syria are reeling in the loss of 10’s of thousands from earthquake, yet they search the rubble desperately seeking lives to save. Ukraine is under deadly bombardment from ever more Russian firepower, yet they stand and fight, sustaining each other until overcoming their intruders is accomplished. People of Iran are risking their lives in protest over the treatment of a young girl by the “morality police.” And that is just scratching the surface of it all.
In each of these maybe our answer to the “why” is plain: everywhere there are people in need who need each other. Tangibly, heartily, physically, emotionally, and in all the ways a body can be sustained. With food and water, shelter and warmth, calls and comfort. With presence. None of this can AI supply. And, of course, it’s not meant to. It’s just a tool placed now in the hands of people. Flawed people. Faulty people. Misdirected people, yes. But also, in the hands of the best of us; there is the best of us in all of us. Perhaps that’s what the One Incarnated came to say. Even AI can’t put that into words.
Years ago I participated in a Bible study group where one of the participants attended only irregularly and, when he did, he brought some outlandish commentary and some off-the-wall suggestions. For instance, once he asked, “Why is the Bible scripture? Why not the newspaper or the comics? Couldn’t God just as well use these?” As I was quite new then to the faith, I shuddered and retreated from his questions, letting others manage these outbursts.
But, somewhat to my surprise, this young man was always welcomed back around that study table. In fact, his attendance was so sparce, he got applause when he showed up. And that got me wondering… what kind of a God would allow this kind of questioning?
And there was my answer: any Creator who would allow — no, create — creatures with the capacity to so freely and daringly question, explore, challenge and frankly to contend in the ring with the Divine, now THAT that was a God worth believing in. In fact, that was the only God worth believing in. And even getting to know — by the means I have available: my ears, my eyes, my nose, my touch, my taste, my thinking, breathing, feeling, heart-beating self. My only self.
Will AI make this blog obsolete? Perhaps. But as far as I can tell, God knows what God is doing. I wonder what that God has planned for AI.
Disclaimer: I did not ask AI to write this blogpost.
The unraveling
02 years
Doesn’t it seem like there’s a good bit of unraveling going on?
What if that’s necessary? for our expression. our growth. for exerting our purpose in the world. What if that’s part of our design?
This I am wondering as I consider the strands of DNA that are the message of my very being. A double helix of instructions, entwined, encoded, transcribed by the tools in place in every single one of my cells. A trillion different messages (or more? how many more?) who rely on an elegant but simple mechanism to be deciphered and read. They must be “unzipped,” unraveled, disentwined to expose their “base” patterns. So a simple train of partner bases can be aligned (job of the mRNA below) along their length, spelling out the message ripe for translating as the proteins necessary for the life work of the cell.
After the unraveling and transcribing, our single, separate DNA strands seek to return to their helical coil, finding their pair and resuming their partnership. This process is wholly dependent on the circumstance of the cytosol — the soupy environment of the cell. It’s highly regulated pH, is absolutely necessary — essential — for the bonds to reform, the reshaping to happen. For the DNA to return to its happy and successful life in the cell.
But what if the environment the unraveled DNA returns to is no longer conducive? if circumstances have changed. if the the pH is no longer welcoming. doesn’t recognize or remember its opposite strand. doesn’t extend its sites for binding because they are now hidden, tucked away, unavailable.
The magnificent DNA, with its elaborate coded plans, will now hover and float in the unforgiving cytosol, twisted but disconnected. It’s intended message mute. Searching for meaning. How hopeless that must feel. A strand of love. A strand of life. Gone their separate ways.
What if our DNA is trying to tell us something?
The undeniable evidence of your senses
02 years
Nothing is certain these days, it seems. Or perhaps one might say, nothing is certain except uncertainty.
That feels especially true when I put my trust in things I can see, hear, touch, taste or smell. Yep, the evidence of my own senses seems to betray me these days. Even old familiar things are tempting to disbelieve. Especially when our collective perceptions are so divergent.
But it’s always been so. And actually I find that reassuring. Because in the midst of differing opinions and the drawing of different conclusions, each has its own validity… in a way. And that might, if you go along for the unexamined ride, convince you that there is nothing to trust and no one to believe in.
OR … it might send you searching for understanding by diving deeper. For me, the resource that never disappoints is the human body. I never cease to find something enlightening, explanatory and remarkable, yet so astoundingly simple that it sits me down and shuts me up.
I mean, just consider how you see, hear, touch, taste and smell!
For times when the darkness around you makes it hard to see, God designed a pupillary dilation mechanism to let just the right amount of light in.
For times when the sound of confusion surrounds you, God designed a cochlear hearing system which resonates uniquely to every pitch.
For times when gentle caress feels distant, God designed subdermal pressure receptors so sensitive they leave you giddy at the touch of a ladybug or the tickle of a feather but alert you to a creeping spider.
For times when life’s bitterness threatens to spoil your table fellowship, God designed other tastebuds activated by sweet, sour, salty and savory for balanced seasoning.
For times when the stench of evil and injustice suffocates, God designed olfactory epithelium to compel you to seek refreshment and renewal by the winds of the Spirit of hope.
It’s amazing to think, isn’t it, that the complexity that is each of us could possibly have begun with just two single cells and 26 sets of information. But it’s so. Quite a Designer that must have been… must be…. and is even now as we go through life adapting and responding to what comes.
Who in the world would ever have thought of all that?
Do not believe me unless I do the works of my Father. But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.
John 10:37-38
Gun Violence: I’ve reached my breaking point
02 years
You can tell a lot about a culture by how it treats its children.
I don’t remember who first said that to me, but when I heard it I knew at once it was true. The children among us … Do we support them? Do we include them? Do we honor them? Do we fund their endeavors? Do we prioritize our work with them? Do we care for them and hold them close? Do we respect them, whether they are part of our family, of another family or of no family?
This question was foremost in my mind several years ago when I read an awful account of the inhumanity waged against a child in the name of religious warfare. Unconscionable, I thought, How can one who bears the image of God act in such a way toward another who also bears the image of God?
I could only conclude that the one didn’t recognize this image in himself and thus didn’t recognize it in the other. If he did, I supposed, he could never behave so.
And that, naively, was the initial impetus for my book whose working title was taken from this blog, the Kinesthetic Christian, and which was ultimately titled Made to Move: Knowing and Love God Through Our Bodies. If people knew what a miraculous masterpiece they were and all of humankind was, how could we hate? How could we kill? How could we do other than honor all those we met?
Yet, here we are. Killing the other who is different, who is defenseless, who is innocent. Each one, created as a masterpiece and gifted with a life over which to discover and display it, denied it. God help us.
And God has. Through Jesus, God issued instructions, to seek to “Love God with heart, soul, mind and strength and to love our neighbor as ourself.” Our lives are our practical exam. Our place to chisel away all that is not loving in order to uncover the masterpiece within.
However…
O Lord, we don't trust we are loveable. We don't believe we are a masterpiece. What we see in ourselves, we often don't like And too often we take it out on others. We say things we don't mean. We act in ways that are "not us." Confirming what we believe about ourselves, not the truth of who we are, at least who we are truly meant to be. O Lord, today I recommit to your life's work in me. I acknowledge and accept your assignment as my instructions, trusting that the world you created and the circumstances in which you placed me are designed to chisel away the ugly and leave the lovely. My charge: To seek to act in ways which show my love for you and the whole of your creation: with whole heart, whole soul, whole mind, and whole strength for the good of my neighbor because of Your Good in me.
If the life I am leading is the practical portion of my life’s exam, I pray there is still time for me to earn a passing grade. And I pray the same for you. Each of us are commissioned into the work of our lives. Surely, in our day, there is enough work to go well around.
Today, I took my first step in addressing the gun violence being perpetrated in my country. I learned that my church denomination passed a resolution to end gun violence at its 2016 Conference. I will be participating in a group pledged to respond and to act on these measures. Not only is it way past time to do this but our very lives may depend on it. So many lives have already been given for it…
Perhaps, the same Spirit is prompting me that inclined the rich young ruler of scripture to fall on his knees before Jesus and inquire, “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life? ~ Mark 10:17
It is probably no accident that in the moment just before the encounter above we’ve just read, People were bringing little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” And he took the children in his arms, placed his hands on them and blessed them. ~Mark 10:13-16
If you would like to join the group we are gathering to learn more about the gun violence issue and ways we can address it, please send me an email here or leave your contact info in the comments below.
How do you expand a mind?
03 years
Mind you, I’m not plotting to expand yours. You may keep reading free of the fear of that.
What I am considering here is my own mind who wants expanding regularly, but rarely gets the chance. Because I am very busy confounding its attempts by confining it and pointing it in its rightward direction. Any veering off course is met with a swift kick to get back on track…This you know. This you do. This is yours and not theirs. This is the pattern we have established here. Stop being silly and get on board.
So, I am asking myself, what expands a mind? And while we’re thinking about it, how about its alternative: what constricts one?
Oh, I’d like just to invest in a prescription. Dole me out some prednisone to reduce the inflammation, and NOW the blood will flow more freely to those cerebral spaces. But that’s too chemical. Too controllable. Too directed. Can a constricted mind even unconstrict itself? No, I think expansion desires a different way.
One might consider, here, today’s popularly proffered solution: seek out “opposing points of view” and listen “with an open mind.” This generally doesn’t work for me. My sit and listen tends to spin off and spiral into ways I can defend my position just as soon as you are through.
Clearly, this is no recipe for expansion. Expansion, I fear, has more to do with letting, and perhaps with its calming companions, lessening and releasing. Instead of breath-holding, these three invite me to blow out that old dead air in order to accommodate some refreshener. To make ample room in my mental meandering for question-asking, what-iffing and perhaps even a bit of wit and whimsy.
Like…
What if gravity didn’t hold? What if humans could walk through walls? What if magic was real? What if stars could speak? What if (gasp) I didn’t have to abide by all the rules of best behavior? I know this is NOT a mind expansion for many of you, but it’s a biggie for me. And it’s my mind we’re investigating here, so come with me …
What if we could be issued an exemption from always having to behave according to expectations? Even a momentary exemption, say the moment when a foul ball came into my possession at a recent pre-season baseball game and everyone in the stadium expected me to hand it over to a kid. No respectable adult would KEEP that ball. Heck, the guy in the NYY hat whirled on me and shouted, “Give it to a kid!”
I didn’t want to. And I didn’t. Yep, that’s what this is all about. Me, reconciling that moment. When my mind — normally constricted by guilting, shaming and shoulding — broke out of that mold. No guilt, shame or shoulds here. Everything dilated to allow a little breathing room. And it was okay.
What, I’ve been wondering since, what if this expansive moment could last?!! What if we could activate it ON PURPOSE?!
Really is this such a stretch? I mean, our eyes do it all the time. When darkness descends, our pupils dilate to help us see. That’s hard-wired into our subconscious. So, why not will ourselves to let more figurative light in to our cerebral spaces? Intentionally, invite our minds to skip freely down new paths opening doors to new ideas, and new ways accessed by new passageways? Dare we suspend the mathematical and equational, even the sensational and emotional, in service of the … mystical? supernatural? Let’s call it super-rational… where, a bit more light might help what’s been hidden to show itself?
Ah, try as we might, we humans only have meager success at controlling the subconscious by intention. A few may be especially capable, but alas I am not one of these. Try as I might to pry my eyes open to let more light in, my reflexes resist and my eyes slam shut, smarting from the effort.
I have more success actually in the darkened room when I shut my eyes tightly, excusing them from trying to extract visual input where there isn’t any. Don’t waste your time; just let yourself see. Somehow that “letting” allows perception to travel through different channels creating a new inner dialog.
Something like… you won’t die if you keep this baseball. (Who told you, you would?!) and… If you let yourself, a giddiness will overtake you every time you look at it. Go ahead… And when you hold it, it will transport you to long ago memories of major league games your mom took you to.
Games when your 8-year-old self wished the big-leaguers would hit it right to you so you could catch it in the mitt you hauled all the way from home. Games at 10 years and 12 years old, when, as a consolation prize, you brought home the game-day-give-away, a Dal Maxville signature bat. (You weren’t bold like the other kids who asked for bats signed by the heavy hitters instead of the light-hitting shortstop. No, you would never ask; you took what they gave you.) Oh, you brought home memories for sure.
And you brought them with you to tonight’s game, so that when you gripped that ball, you tucked it deeply in your pocket. When kids surrounded you awaiting their handout, you didn’t comply. You broke the rules and kept that ball. And gave it, sure as day, to the kid in you who’s been waiting decades for that catch.
Light. A veritable blooming.
There’s a light in our darkness
0I didn't see the light left on.
It was such a small beam directed downward.
A task light, meant to illuminate
what was cooking, to give a
progress report on the scrambled eggs
which had been long since consumed.
I didn't see the light left on.
What with the sun's rays drowning it in their showy display,
splashing their way across the fingerprint-streaked kitchen appliances and reflecting onto the floor,
where yesterday's crumbs mixed with this morning's paw prints all clamoring to be cleaned.
I didn't see the light left on.
The overhead luminescent so immediate and far-reaching.
The days' news face-up, unwilling to wait with its urgent communications,
and night-before items strewn, awaiting retrieval,
while two impatient hounds whine their displeasure
from sleeping quarters half-a-room away.
I didn't see the light left on.
Those perpetual under-the-cabinet LEDs so unforgiving!
Every corner exposed, every surface uncovered.
"Coffee's ready!" insists a tiny green light, dismissing its "2:00 AM" digital display.
Little liar. Pay no attention to the coffee pot clock.
It used to brew on command, back in the day.
I didn't see the light left on
until it was time to leave; and I
switched off the overheads,
extinguished the LEDs and
bid the sun's rays farewell as they moved mercifully
onward taking their attentions and affections elsewhere.
"Excuse me," beckoned the light,
its beam still focused on its solemn assignment --
standing sentry over the cooking coils,
long cooled and fully forgotten.
until the darkening dared it to proclaim itself.
"I'm still here."
I wonder what else I am not seeing,
drowned as it often is in the invading ambient light.
I wonder what else I am not hearing, quenched as it often is by the parading ambient noise.
I wonder what else I am not sensing, habituated as I've become to the pelting of ambient turmoil.
I wonder what I might discover, if
I let myself attend to the light left on:
Its dedicated beam
Its resolute stare
Its stalwart attention
Its deep concern
What is it trying to show me?
what is it trying to tell me?
What is it dying to say?
Perhaps only darkness could bring this to light.
Who took the lane lines?
03 years
I thought I was just too early for Master swim when all I saw were four bright orange rescue rings floating on the surface of the pool. It turned out the absence of lane markers was on purpose. Today’s workout would be free-form. “Choose a direction and swim outside the rings. Pull a few, kick a few, swim a few, whatever you feel like.”
Today we were doing the pool imitation of an “open water swim.”
Actual open water events are pretty much free-for-alls, with every swimmer fending for him or herself. There’s climbing and clawing and a sprint to the front in order to avoid the same. And if the dark, choppy water doesn’t provide ample challenge, there’s the matter of keeping your bearings… and contending with cramps, hypothermia, injury or exhaustion. Of course, for those swimmers who cannot continue, rescue boats are close at hand.
None of this happened at the neighborhood swimming pool today.
At least not to me. Because, after jumping in, swimming a few strokes, looking up every two or three to be sure I wasn’t gonna clobber another swimmer, then taking extra irregular breaths to gauge my bearings per the buoys, then preferentially stroking with right arm to navigate the turning radius, I completed one lap and climbed out.
“This just isn’t my thing,” I apologized to the guy who set up the course. “I come here more for the Zen.”
But what I really meant was, “This is totally nuts!” There’s no way I voluntarily subject myself to an hour of dizzily circling the pool while hyperventilating in fear of ramming somebody. All that just because nobody set up the lane lines…
One of the guys called to me as I was leaving, “What’s the matter? Don’t like the waves?”
Nope. It wasn’t the waves. Effort I am okay with. It was the tight turns and uncertainty I objected to. It felt… debilitating.
Wow. As soon as I named the feeling, it all made sense. This open-water swim felt like the year and a half we’ve been living. Our orange buoys — pandemic, climate change, injustice and cultural division — have set us a-spin. They’ve changed all our rules. Boundaries we thought were fixed have now moved. Truth may not be true. Our friend may not be our friend. The system we thought was fair, isn’t. Temperatures trending upward may not be temporary.
What we thought was unchangeable isn’t; the world can change in a minute.
Life right now feels like an open water swim, and even if you’re a good swimmer, it’s disconcerting and dizzying. Our opportunities for collective Zen have gone missing.
I need to inject more of my life with stuff like organized Master Swim. I need lane lines, a planned workout, the right equipment, a clean, well-kept space and some hearty companions. Because in that space, even and especially after supplying maximum effort, I find peace — the peace that settles my mind and clears my head, the peace that trains my heart and uplifts my soul.
How I am longing for structure, discipline, order and clear expectations where I can be free to supply my effort, my skills and my talents to contribute to my world as it is and make it better. To find a bit of good news and amplify it. To uncover a good idea and inspire a group to pursue it. To lift up the work of others who are on track toward something great. And to lend a hand where I can.
Because this head-spinning time needs a-righting. And getting out of the pool isn’t an option.
Last to Lunch: No one deserves to be first
03 years
Honestly, I’m not used to lagging behind when things get physically demanding. I’ve always been more of a front-of-the-pack, encourage-people-up-the-hill kind of a person. But this week was different; this week of bike touring in Columbia Gorge and Willamette Valley, I was the last. Always. Everyday, I was last to lunch.
When my cycling group whizzed by me, I’d shout, “I’m slow but I’m coming,” trying to sound upbeat (and hide my frustration). “Have a great ride!” I would add, as the last of them passed me by. One bemused farmer called out, “Yur falling behind. Better catch up.”
I would have if I could have. But in the rolling hills and quite steep regions of Oregon, I was no match for any of my companions. Neither the “older” cyclists zooming by on e-bikes (motorized bicycles you dial in your level of assist) nor the younger set who barreled through unconcerned about preserving their knees or conserving their energy, were waiting around for me.
The younger set who were traveling together all hailed from Chicago. We called them the Chicago-7, although there were actually 8 of them. Four couples, each with elementary and middle-school-aged children attending the same private school and, at present, all enjoying time away at camp. Good for the Chicago-8, I thought, taking time away as couples and time away from demanding jobs and schedules. This was a high-achieving bunch. Even on vacation, their morning ride was a full-on sprint to lunch at the daily winery, followed generally by a van shuttle back to the hotel for a dip in the hot tub before dinner.
All of my tour-mates were extremely friendly, even when they had to wait for me in order to load the shuttle we all planned to take up the big hill. One brushed aside my apology for slowness saying, “Oh Wendy, you’re in great shape, for your age.”
Oh those words… “for your age.”
But I knew that already, didn’t I? I knew it for SURE when my quads refused to keep pedaling and my gasps of breath barely drowned out the pounding of my heart. Several times over the 6 days of cycling I (gasp!) got off and walked my bike up the hill. This would include on the last day, after riding into a stiff head wind all morning, when I struggled up the pebbled path toward lunch at the Keller winery. I was last by far.
Cresting the hill, I scanned the scene: checkered tablecloths adorned picnic tables which welcomed us into the shade of towering beech trees. Rows of sunflowers bent shyly before the expanse of rolling hills covered with Willamette Valley vines.
My biking companions took no notice of my arrival; they were fully engaged, enjoying each other’s company, smiling and laughing, wine freely pouring, the tables now littered with empty plates, the only remnant of the luxurious buffet lunch they had enjoyed. By the time I got a plate (I had to ask for one because they had run out), my choice was a picked-over cheese plate, some greens and whether or not to challenge the half-dozen bees greedily enjoying the only salad left — chicken salad or tuna — I couldn’t tell.
I took my mostly empty plate to a seat at the last table and guzzled from my water bottle, warm from the morning’s ride. As no one approached me with an offer of wine for tasting, I ventured to the “happy” table to examine the bottle of white everyone seemed to prefer. There was hardly a swish in the bottom, which I declined. The guy looking on drained it into his already full glass. Waste not, want not, I guess.
After the obligatory group photo, they called “First shuttle leaving!” As I boarded, I heard one of the tour leaders ask in a sheepish voice if they could possibly have 2 more bottles of white for the Chicago Table, who would be taking the second shuttle back.
Before you shout SOUR GRAPES, let me say that I don’t begrudge these young professionals their success, good fortune and fun. They work hard, get their kids to all their activities, and still manage to dress in style — showered and put-together — their affect proclaiming their readiness to take on the world. Bike trip or home: same status.
Oh, and my goodness how they danced with technology! Multiple notifications managed, emails caught up, scanned through daily camp photos, even ordered text books for the upcoming school year — all while shuttling to the the morning’s ride. “Look how productive I’m being,” one adorable woman cried with glee. And you couldn’t disagree. She had the most infective laugh I’ve ever heard, and she was a surgeon, to boot.
Clearly I have fallen waaaay behind this group. It’s no wonder I’m last to lunch. But the view from behind turned out to be quite eye-opening, for me who normally leads the way. No, I do not begrudge these “youngsters” their due; rather, I see myself in them. I see the me who was proud of my accomplishments, felt deserving of my rewards, and eager to celebrate my self-sufficiency and productivity.
Graciously, on this occasion, God allowed me to see myself through different eyes.
The me who is often oblivious to the last and the least The me who, amidst the plenty, helps herself to more than her fill The me who allows my joviality to dull my sense of proportion The me who becomes too easily absorbed in my own revelry
Suddenly these words from the Gospel of Matthew take on new meaning: “So the last shall be first and the first shall be last.”
I have often interpreted this verse as the promise of a God-assist, proclaiming that in the end of times God will lift the poor suffering ones to the front of the line. This, I presume, helps me feel better about their plight and my distance from it. But in this, my week of perpetual Lastness,* I was introduced in the smallest sense to the nature of Last.
The Last don't want to be "encouraged" with hollow qualifying words. ... ie. You're good in spite of your obvious incapacitation. The Last don't want to cut to the front of the line. The Last aren't looking for a hand out or a hand up. The Last just want us to leave them room. ... a fair share, ... a proper portion, ... a helping of what we ourselves have helped ourselves to.
Because NO ONE deserves to be first. Hard work may earn you a blue ribbon, a gold medal or first prize but it may not. Some are too young to keep up; some are too old. Some have been supplied with extra resources, while others have to pay their own way or pave their own path. For some, every step is a struggle. Others have circumstances holding them back. Some started further back so they have further to go. Some are just unlucky.
But NO ONE one deserves to be first. This may be the primary lesson and not-so-hidden meaning of “the last shall be first and the first shall be last.” When those who arrive first leave room for those coming behind …
... when we notice, ... when in our plenty we pause, ... when we quiet our reveling to listen, ... when we emerge from our self-absorption to see ... and we say, "Please, you first." Then, the last will be first and the first will be last. And we will all enjoy lunch together at the Kingdom Table.
*My brief experience of Lastness, of course, does not even approach the plight of the last and least that is the day by day of so many in our world. Please forgive my pretense of this here. I was offered a simple and indicting God-glimmer and it was surely a means of grace.