Bringing Faith to Life
current events
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?
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.
In a mirror, grimly, and yet
0If there’s one thing I like, it’s a clean bathroom mirror. Toothbrush splatters, water spots and the random dust and debris just don’t belong there. I like my reflection unimpeded. I shouldn’t have to squint through all that.
So I, like my mother before me, keep cleaning supplies close at hand. An under sink wash rag stands ready for the counters and sinks. A spray bottle of glass cleaner and a hefty roll of paper towels are tucked a little further back. OK OK, I know. I was a bit hasty recently applying the wash rag (it was clean, I swear!) to the offending splatters. Lesson learned: efficiency leaves water-splotched streaking behind. But they were nothing several spritzes of window cleaner and some healthy swoops with the pristine paper towels couldn’t handle. Voila! Pretty darn sparkly.
Until the morning came. And with it, the sun’s rising brilliance blazed in the transom window. Something about that beam delivered from just that angle at just that moment — a picture-perfect framing of my magnificent mirror handiwork. Which was, in a word, embarrassing: overlapping swipes and smudges that were simply a re-distribution of the mirror dirt I hadn’t removed at all. By this light, it was as if my pristine paper towel was nothing but a greasy rag or a re-purposed cloth working overtime.
Nary a clean speck to be seen.
And here I had been admiring it so … from a distance. Under careful examination, it was a mess!
Isn’t it glorious to know that our Maker, though seeing us through and through in that examinating and illuminating glow, doesn’t despair? Even as we spiff ourselves up to present our best, He neither chuckles nor dismisses. Oh what self-restraint it must take to look upon my grimy presentation, I think.
And then, in the fleeting flash of a spirit-ignited moment, I think better.
For just that moment I see that illuminated square of mirror in a dazzling display of sparkling pure reflection. Nary a hint of dust, dirt, smudge or swipe. Pristine. And in that split of a second I am immersed in gratitude for a Savior, the gift of God, who has offered himself that our mirror might actually be clean. A clean that our best efforts could never achieve.
Reflection, how I stand before you, unsatisfied with what I see. And yet, the crystal clear view from the other side sees me differently. Yes, as I am, but also as one day I may be. When, through the eyes of Love, I am able to see Thee for myself just as now I am seen.
For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. 1 Corinthians 13:12
What a good, good thing is Good Friday, that we may look fully upon the anguish, the ugly and even the evil perpetrated on humankind by humankind and let it invite us to call upon the One with the power to cleanse even this.
Thanks be to God.
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.
The Good we can do… together
0Have you ever read the parable of the Good Samaritan? Yeah, me, too. At least a billion times. Well, nearly.
But I’m not sure I understood it until today.
When my twenty-something daughter, who has traveled to Berlin on a Fulbright award, contacted me to say, “Mom, I’m getting ready to go to the Berlin central train station… to bring stuff for the Ukrainian refugees coming in, who are mostly women and children. If anyone wants to contribute you can send me money to get some more stuff. Here’s the items they need right now.”
And I looked at that list. And I cried. Some things are listed as “urgent.” Some things are “just important.” baby bottles. wipes. diapers. shampoos. detergents. hand cream. combs and hairbrushes. panty liners and tampons. lip balm. toothpaste. shower gel. disinfectant. coloring books. matchbox cars. plushies. sketch books. stickers. URGENT.
Oh, please someone buy so many sketch books and plushies.
The former me thought that it was a cop out just to send cash. Today’s me is waking up to a world that needs all I have to offer. Whatever I have to offer.
Oh, but that Good Samaritan from Luke, Chapter 10, on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho … he set a very high bar. he stopped to help the man who had been robbed and beaten and left half dead. He dressed his wounds. He transported the man to safety. where he took care of him. and then he could be cared for. and he could rest and recover. And, after covering expenses, he told the caregiver, whatever it costs, put it on my tab. I’ll be back to settle up the expenses.
When I read the parable of the Good Samaritan, I “hear” this is what you need to be. This kind of good neighbor. who does it all, going above and beyond for his neighbor, whom he doesn’t even know.
Today, I am a continent away from one who needs my help. Who needs me to stop and look, treat their wounds, attend to their needs, deliver them to safety, ensure their care, and provision them for the journey.
All I can offer is, “any expense you have, I will reimburse.” But my understanding today says, that is enough. Because I know someone, who by the happenstance of circumstances, can provide for the one who has need and can reimburse the innkeeper for the kindness he or she is administering.
I had always set the Good Samaritan as the highest of bars: Stop. treat. Deliver. Care. Provide. Reimburse. All of these in order to fulfill my obligations. The “what more must I do? clause.” By this standard the Kingdom is very far off and always will be.
But today, by the grace of God, and amidst the disgrace of mankind’s behavior to his own kind, I see the Good Samaritan not the work of just one man, but as the work of all of us together. For you who are bold enough and brave enough and whose circumstances have placed you in the midst of this fray, you can be the stoppers, the treaters, the deliverers, the carers. And may God bless you and protect you. We, whose circumstances place us at a distance, can be the providers, the reimbursers and surely, oh surely, the prayers of prayers.
Together, not alone, not separately, but all together, we can be The Good Samaritan: not just proclaimers, but demonstrators, purveyors and benefactors of those who are being the Good News. News you can believe and believe in. Because you see it in living color. In the person next to you. In the one far from you. And inexorably in the deepest version of you.
Together, let’s believe the good news of the gospel as we live it out.
In Jesus Christ, we are forgiven. Thanks be to God.
We play who we are
13 years
There are always a few loud ones. Have you noticed? And we were sitting at the table next to them.
Since it was also the night before the community pickleball tournament, my husband pointed them out to me. “That’s Tim sitting with Sheila (whose names have been changed to protect the innocent). You’ll see them playing tomorrow.”
I sure did, but before I saw them, I heard them. And when I saw them play, it confirmed what I have often observed about how we play: we exhibit who we are — especially when there’s something on the line… like a pickleball championship (!!) There was absolutely no quietness to Tim or Sheila, both of whom slammed the ball full out, every chance they got.
So this had me wondering, who am I … when I play? when I compete? when it’s all on the line? Because, if I’m honest with myself, I’m probably pretty much the same in every venue. And truthfully, the days’ news of Russian troops and rolling tanks into Ukraine has me pondering this. Who would I be in the face of missiles launched, bombs dropped and miles and miles of incoming tanks? For these people it is most certainly all on the line.
I have the luxury (for now) of considering this in a speculative way. If we’re calling this a contest, what are my tendencies? How do I play when it’s merely this year’s trophy on the line?
***
I am endurance. I'll wait you out. Wait until you make a mistake, hit it long or wide or into the net. I won't capitalize on your mistake. I'll let you make the unforced error. I am endurance. Built to last. At least to outlast you. That's the way I win. The only way I win. I am willing to suffer the indignities of the assault in the hopes I am sustained for the win. I am endurance. My goal is to finish the race -- not necessarily first -- I'm not aiming to beat you. Just running with you ... until I can push the pace and can run ahead. Don't be fooled, I'm fiercely competitive, just not aggressive. Never "for the win" at all costs. That costs me too much. Never "by any means necessary." That would cost me my very soul. My soul's not for sale. I am endurance. I'm playing the long game. Because that's my strong suit. It's who I am. It's how I wake up in the morning. Surely, it's how I'm made. Just wondering here, who I'd be if it was all on the line. Could I wait for you to falter? Could I hope for you to desist? Could I trust you to come to your senses? Could I endure in the face of all this? I am endurance, but endurance does falter. Endurance doesn't always win. Could it be that God is endurance, too? Willing to lose so many while He waits? Sometimes I wish God would just use that mighty put-away shot, you know?
Climbing down from my control tower
0Control … such a buzz word. Who has it? Who wants it? Who’s in it?
Don’t be so controlling! we say. Because we want to have our say. We want to have our way.
What if,
instead of loose-ing our control,
we climbed down out of our control towers?
down the steps from the platforms
where we otherwise attempt
to play God with our lives?
"But..." I say, "from here I can see it all!
All incoming traffic
All outgoing traffic
What approaches and what departs..."
From here I can see everything!
It's clear. I'm clear for take off.
"You're clear for take off," I advise myself.
"Runway 4-9, four-niner, clear for take off."
Oh my, why?
You're not cut out for this kind of work, Wendy.
It takes a cool head to be an air traffic controller.
Confident.
Detailed.
Conscientious.
Certain.
Make a mistake and people die!
Lotta heart disease in this profession.
Lotta cardiac arrests,
Lotta blocked arteries,
bypass surgeries,
early retirement.
Who in their right mind would willingly assume
control tower duty over their own lives?
Me,
I'd rather listen for instructions
from a voice I recognize and trust.
Wendy, you're clear for landing on runway 2B.
Roger that.