AI is older than it seems

 I confess to using AI (artificial intelligence) and finding it helpful. I’m at a basic level, using only the free ChatGPT and I have no ambitions of getting more complex. I’m nervous about the future and the rumors I hear of this technology “taking over the world,” although that sounds like exaggeration. But it’s been helpful in finding out more about my medical condition, possible healthy diets, and which publications are accepting poetry submissions. Stuff like that.

But I get angry when it reads my email and tells me how to answer, when it offers to rewrite my blog and make it funnier, when it intimates that it’s a better poet than I am.

Recently when I asked AI to solve a computer problem, it comforted me in my distress, promising that there was a solution and I just needed to have faith. It sounded like a pastor. A human pastor. I found myself feeling better and then had to remind myself that it was a machine. I’m resisting having a personal relationship with AI. 

I’m committed to not using AI in my writing. I won’t ask it to improve a blog reflection or edit a poem. Even if I find myself rewriting a messy first draft numerous times, it’s my creativity at stake. For me, it’s an issue of integrity and honesty.

Recently I was reminded that something artificial offering to do my work for me is not a new phenomenon. It didn’t begin with AI. The temptation to find a substitute for the hard labor of personal creativity is older than I am, whether it’s preaching someone else’s sermon, having someone ghost-write a book for me, cheating on a term paper, or, in general, taking credit for work someone else did.

The following example is 30-years-old, coming from the time I was studying in seminary. It involves writing letters. Most of us are old enough to remember this now largely forgotten art. Even though letter-writing is almost obsolete, this story serves as an example of the same thing that AI offers us today.

The envelope pricked my curiosity. “Cut your letter-writing task down to size,” it announced. “A new tool for busy pastors!” The glossy full-color brochure showed a firm masculine hand signing a letter, the whole scene bathed in a warm light. It looked promising.

I’m a sucker for books or courses dedicated to helping people write. I know that putting the right words on paper or in the computer is hard work, and anything that helps me understand the process and move with it, instead of against it, I appreciate. This brochure promised to link ministry with writing and make it all easier—a good idea.

But as I read through the brochure and accompanying propaganda, my curiosity gradually gave way to incredulity.

This Christian communications company was offering a set of “Over 300 letters!” in a “leather-like” binder, so that the busy pastor no longer need “waste valuable time and energy agonizing over words and phrases.” Each ready-to-use letter was guaranteed to be “sensitive, thoughtful and effective.” Occasional alternative phrases would allow the pastor to pick the one “that sounds most like you.”

The collection of canned letters covered “virtually every situation you can face in the church.” Rather than stumble under the burdens of ministry, the brochure promised that, “You’ll breeze through situations like these and hundreds more!” and proceeded to list a sampling. Some of the situations the pastor would be able to breeze through included

--kindly asking a neighbor not to park in the church parking lot
--supporting members going through a separation or divorce  
--declining a job applicant for a staff position
--informing a contributor that their check was returned by the bank for insufficient funds
--saying good-bye to a congregation.

A sample letter included with the brochure was on the topic, “Condolence on Death of a Newborn.” “Dear Name,” it began. “While I tried to be of comfort to you at the funeral, I now feel impelled to add a few more personal words….”

At that point I felt impelled to stop reading. I was both sad and angry.

In the following weeks, the brochure continued to trouble me.

It may be that behind that product were some well-meaning, creative people who really wanted to help ministers wade through the clutter, details, and accumulation of things that never get done. Communications to church members are probably among those things. And writing does not come easily or naturally to most people.

The idea appeals to some of our middle-class cultural values. The words “fast,” “effective,” “risk-free,” “fully satisfied,” “in a fraction of the time,” and “productive” illustrate the value of minimum effort for maximum output—so the pastor can spend her time in more important ways. Certainly a minister of God has better things to do than “agonize over words and phrases.”

The words “personal” and “sensitive” also crop up to demonstrate other values, values with which any Christian should agree. The problem is, of course, that there is nothing genuinely personal, thoughtful, or sensitive about these letters. There’s nothing genuine about them at all. Rather they are carefully crafted to give the appearance of being personal and caring, so that the congregation will “deeply appreciate and remember for years” this ministry.

I’m bothered by two things. The first is the focus on appearance and impression. We live in a culture that builds a large share of its economy on products that promise to make us seem tanner, smoother, slimmer, blonder, wiser, wittier, and more in control of our lives than we really are. As the church in the midst of this culture, we also struggle with the temptation to compromise integrity, to settle for a form of godliness that denies its power. Effective communication and efficiency in meeting goals can crowd out compassion or integrity. It’s as though it’s more important to convey a strong impression of love rather than make the effort to walk and talk and laugh and cry with people, to “rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep.”

I’m also bothered by the assumption that “agonizing over words and phrases” is a waste of time. Pain is not efficient. Struggling to identify with hurting people, to help bear their burdens can be messy. It takes time. Words don’t always flow when we’re crying.

But what other kind of words dare we offer a young couple who has lost a child?

And now AI is offering us the same “service.”

God help us be wise in choosing what is useful and rejecting what compromises integrity and compassion.

 

[ Parts of this reflection first appeared in “Quaker Life,” April 1998, and will be part of a soon-to-be-published collection of essays called “The Richest Kid on the Block.”]

Does God Have Bones?

“Does God have bones?”
David asked me that today, Lord,
and I couldn’t answer him.
Well—do you?
Have bones I mean.
His question was serious, you know.
He wants to know who and how you are.
And where, too.
And if you’re like us.
I don’t always know.

Bones?
You did have bones once, didn’t you?
Bones and muscles and fingernails
that collected dirt, feet that tired
from miles on dusty roads
and hands that bloodied
from driven nails.
You became like us, didn’t you?

Thank you for reminding me.
Now I know the answer.
Tomorrow I’ll tell David again
that old old story
that even a child can understand.
About a God who filled his lungs
with earth air, tasted bread,
listened to cricket song at night,
held other four-year-olds
on his lap and personally
answered their questions.
About a God who loves so much
he put on bones
and more, much more.

Tomorrow I’ll tell him.

[Note: This poem was first published in the collection “Of Deity and Bones,” 1983.] 

Doing the hard stuff

 People who give advice to older people (and there are dozens of these advice-givers!) all say that in order to keep our brains healthy and functioning, we need to take on challenging tasks. Here in the retirement community, the staff makes available crossword puzzles, sudoku, and other games that can be challenging, along with all sorts of educational programs.

And not just our minds, we also need to challenge our bodies to keep them flexible, strong, and out of trouble for as long as possible.

And we need to stretch and engage in new activities. That’s the formula: New+Hard. Or at least hard enough. For our minds and for our bodies.

I’m taking this seriously and adopting two hard tasks, activities that are causing me to stretch. Also causing me to doubt myself, to wonder if I’m crazy. I probably am, but I accepted that about me long ago.

I’ll start with the physical. With my vestibular migraine condition, any physical activity makes me dizzy. So for the last half-year I have stopped exercising, except for walking outdoors, which I do slowly and with frequent stops. But that’s not enough. While exercise makes me dizzy, it doesn’t harm me. And the rest of my body wants me to do more. I’m worried that I’m deteriorating, which only means growing old faster. So I’m making some changes, doing some new stuff.

I’ve joined a class called “Sit and Be Fit.” It sounds embarrassingly easy, so I’ve resisted. But I think it will be a good way to gently work my way back into regular exercise. I’ve discovered that it’s actually somewhat challenging. I’m moving my arms and legs, swiveling my neck, and even stretching my fingers. Plus, it’s with a fun group of people. That’s part of a good exercise program. It’s good, but not too challenging.

I’ve joined another exercise group that is challenging. I’m in a beginning Tai Chi class. I always admired people who do Tai Chi. Slow and graceful, it seems like underwater dancing and meditation rolled into one. But can I do it? I’m not sure I’m physically graceful enough.

Doubts aside, I’ve joined the beginner’s class and we’re learning the “mother forms”—how to raise and lower our arms, how to move around an imaginary beach ball, how to move to the side and back, how to coordinate arms and legs and breathing as we slowly walk forward. Coordination, balance, and movement. And breathing in at the right time, breathing out at the right time. I’m border-line dyslexic and mix up things like right/left and anything involved in bodily coordination, so I’m finding this challenging. I’m trying to squelch any embarrassment at how I look to others as I awkwardly try to follow the leader. I’m hoping that with enough repetitions, my body memory will kick in and I’ll start having fun.

This is my new bodily challenge and I plan to stick with it. (But check with me in a month.)

(Aside: I met my friend Marshall last week and told him I was trying Tai Chi. He smiled and told me he much preferred Chai Tea. Now I tend to mix up the terms, but it helps to laugh when you’re doing hard stuff.)

Now for the mind. I read that one good exercise for the mind is learning a new language. I love languages and have had the chance to learn several, including biblical Greek and Hebrew back in my seminary days. I was pretty good at it, but then jobs, and kids, and real life kicked in and I did not keep up my biblical language skills. The cliché, “If you don’t use it, you lose it,” is usually true.

I certainly lost my Hebrew skills, but I retained enough Greek to use the exegetical tools in Bible study. But at a very basic level. For a long time, I’ve wished I had kept it up to the level I could again read the New Testament in Greek. It seemed too ambitious a dream and I’ve let it go.

Until now. I met a resident here in the retirement community who was (and is) a classical Greek scholar. We had a very enthusiastic conversation over lunch and I felt motivated to re-learn biblical Greek. It’s amazing what one fortuitous encounter can do.

It’s certainly a little-by-little project. I got out my Greek Bible, the lexicons, and grammar books, and arranged them on the shelf above my desk. I discovered an online resource in archives.com that gives me access to the same beginning Greek textbook I used in seminary. The familiarity helps. I’m going through the text lesson by lesson, starting with the Greek alphabet. Along with the text, I’m focusing on particular passages in the New Testament, re-learning to read them.

I hadn’t remembered how complicated Greek was, or how many irregular verbs existed. I’m impressed at what a smart young woman I must have been to have learned all that. Now it’s not so quick or easy. I struggle to memorize verb tenses and vocabulary words. At least now no professor is going to test me or push me to learn faster. I have to encourage myself with going slowly and enjoying the journey.

And I do enjoy it. I’m having fun. And hopefully stretching my mind and making new brain cells.

I’d better bring this to a close. It’s almost time for my Chai Tea class.

The Stones Talk It Over

 I didn’t post my usual blog yesterday, according to my plan to post every other week. But it just didn’t feel right. So I came up with a new plan. I’ll post my reflections on aging every other week, then on the “off week” I’ll post a poem. I’ve plenty to choose from. I may even give you a sneak preview of my upcoming poetry book, Before Our Very Eyes: Poems of the Incarnation.

So, here goes this week’s poem: 

The Stones Talk It Over
. . . if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out. —Luke 19:40

All was quiet
on the street
and in the city hall.
Why are they silent?
a small rock asked
a boulder.
Why don’t the people
praise God?
Don’t they see
what we do?
Doesn’t the light
from the northern skies
strike wonder,
ignite fire
in their bones
as it does in ours?

Beats me,
said the boulder.
Let’s sing.

 

[This scene is part of the Palm Sunday story when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the donkey and the crowds went wild, proclaiming him king. This angered the Pharisees and they told Jesus to make the crowd quiet down. Jesus replied, “I tell you, if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.” Maybe someday, in the “by-and-by,” we’ll get to hear the stones, along with the trees and the elephants, sing the Hallelujah Chorus. I can’t wait.]

A change of pace and a new book

 I have two announcements. 1) As part of my endeavor to simplify my life and lighten the load, I have decided to post to this blog every other week. I’ve been posting weekly for the last four years. I do it with a sense of ministry and joy, and I’m learning as I go. My purpose has been to explore ways of aging with courage and humor, and exploration is the right word. I’m finding the path even as I walk it. And I’ve been doing it with you. That will continue. I hope you’ll stick with me.

By the way, I invite you to check out my website, if you haven’t already (nancyjthomas.com). You can go directly to my blogs from there. The advantage is that it’s easier to comment if you should wish to. I invite comments and would love to have conversations around the subject of each blog. Think about it.

2) This is the exciting announcement. I have a new poetry book coming out later this year. It’s called Before Our Very Eyes: Poems of the Incarnation. The poems center on the life, work, and words of Jesus. I’ve been working on some of them for years. Others are new.

Several years ago, I took on the challenge of meditating, praying, and writing poetry through all the books of the Bible. It hasn’t been an academic exercise and I certainly haven’t had publication in mind. It’s a devotional practice, a form of prayer.

Let me quote from the introduction to the book to give you some of its flavor:

This book of poems begins with a brief prophetic prologue from Isaiah, then covers the words and experiences of Jesus in the four Gospels and the first chapter of Acts. A short epilogue ends in Revelation. . . .

Essentially, the poems are my conversations with God based on Scripture. God graciously give me permission to say anything, get mad with him at times, ask any questions, take him to task, worship him, be amazed. Nothing offends. God can take it. Often the poem ends with an unanswered question and that’s OK. I can wait. We have a back-and-forth relationship. In addition, this way of reading, praying, and writing through the Bible is tremendous fun. . . .

As I ponder the whole story of Jesus, from the Old Testament prophecies, through his time in our neighborhood, and on to end of the story (and its real beginning), I am amazed and blessed. . . . I pray you will experience the same.

Right now I have the galley proofs in hand. That means the publisher (Wipf & Stock) has already type-set the book. I now get to do one last proofreading and then it’s ready to print.

Previously, before sending the completed manuscript to the publisher, I had a professional proofreader meticulously go over it. My friend, Susan Fawver, did the job beautifully, so my task now is not so hard. Nonetheless I’m finding some things in the type-setting to correct. There’s always a chance a typo will sneak in. So I’m reading it slowly out loud, not for the content, but for the nitty-gritty small stuff—consistency, matching the titles in the book to the titles in the table of contents, checking page numbers, re-reading all the Bible references, and so on. It’s hard work, but I’m motivated knowing that the end is in sight and I’ll be able to share the book with the world. With you.

In many ways, the whole process—from the conception of the idea, experiencing the initial excitement, then on to the hard labor—is like giving birth. At this point I’m anxious for the whole thing to be over. I can’t wait to introduce my new child to you.

Best friends—forever?

 Judy was my best friend in the second grade. It was mischief that first brought us together and a certain level of silliness. We stuck together at recess, sometimes chased boys, not wanting to catch them, just scare them a little. We told each other secrets—“cross my heart and hope to die.” In the third grade we became blood sisters. This was a semi-gruesome ritual where we each poked our arms with a needle, drawing a bead of blood; we then rubbed the spots together, thus mingling our blood and supposedly binding us for life.

Having a best friend was very important in Ramona Elementary School. Even the popular kids, those with lots of friends, had one special best friend. Moving up to middle school (called Junior High back then) it became more complicated. We squabbled a lot and switched best friends almost as much as we changed clothes. Jealousies, note passing in class, and all manner of adolescent pettiness make me blush (and smile) as I remember.

Elaine was my best friend in high school. I had other friends, but she was special. We were special to each other. It wasn’t mischief that drew us together, but our shared faith in God and our ideals. My concept of friendship was deepening. The secrets we shared were real—our fears, the stuff that made us happy, our dreams for the future.

We both lived out in the country, two miles from school and we walked those two miles every day. We picked out one meadow where we imagined that one day we’d both live in mansions, married to handsome husbands, and raising beautiful children, still side-by-side. Other days we imagined what our life would be like if we both went to Africa as missionaries. Always together, of course.

In my university years I was blessed with many close friendships. We didn’t bother anymore with the best-friend concept. I learned I could cultivate close relationships with several people and share those friendships, without jealousy or pettiness. I’ve kept in touch with some of those friends. In fact, I married one of them.

In our life together, both at home and abroad, Hal and I have been blessed with life-long friendships that are as close as family (without any blood-sister rituals). With some people, even though we’ve been separated by distance and time, if it happens that we get together it’s almost as though no time has passed; we pick right up where we left off.

With others I’m sad at having lost contact, in spite of how close we once were.

These days young people refer to their “bff” (best friends forever). I smile at the idealism and naivete of that term. I hope I’m not becoming cynical, but forever is a really long time.

I’ve been thinking about what makes some deep friendships endure over time and what causes some to gradually fade with time and distance. What makes for permanent life-long relationships? Why do some get lost along the way?

I’m not sure what makes the difference, but I’m realizing that both types are gifts from God.

I rejoice in the ongoing long-time friendships, loyalties that grow richer and sweeter with the passage of time. These are inexpressible treasures--people who knew us when, who know us now, and who will be there tomorrow (as long as we both shall live). People who accept the changes and grow with us and we with them. I thank God for these friendships.

But I can also cherish past friendships that are “lost” because, really, nothing that nourished us and made us better people is lost. There are friends God gives us briefly--for a week, a month, a year, a decade--and we're part of another life. We love another person and we're God's channel of grace (and they are God's channel to us) for a season. And when that time ends, we go our separate ways. These friendships are valuable too, temporarily permanent gifts of grace. We don't devalue them for their brevity, but accept God's gifts and his timing as they come. And as they go.

Now in the season of growing older, I find that friendships are as important to me as they ever were. I’m not referring to having an active social life and lots of casual relationships. Those have their place, but I still long for genuine friendships, for people I can laugh or cry with, share secrets with, even just be with in silence.

Here in the retirement center, I’ve found some delightful companions. Some of them are becoming close friends. It’s more risky now because we’re all growing older. Some of my new “best friends” have died, and the hole they leave behind hurts. Everything seems temporary because we can’t know when death will step in and interrupt a friendship. Yet maybe that’s why it’s more important to cherish and nurture what we have now. We need each other. We need genuine friendship. We need to learn to be “temporarily permanent.” It’s worth the risk.

And, if we walk hand-in-hand with the giver of all friendship, future reunions will be “actually permanent.” And very long-lasting.

Limitations, loss--and future gain

No one likes to be called a quitter. Nasty word, quitter. I’ve never seen myself as a quitter, although I do have some dark memories of times I just gave up. But mostly I pushed through the darkness and found a way.

That’s changing as I age, and I don’t like it. I would rather expand that be pulled back by limitations. But it seems that knowing and accepting our limitations is the new name of this game called growing older.

For some time now my body has been telling me to slow down. Chronic dizziness and fatigue have made some of the leadership roles I’ve loved seem more like burdens than joys. Recently I gave up leadership in a Sunday class I love; serving in the capacity of class coordinator was life-giving and I felt as though I were making a contribution. But when something that once was light starts becoming heavy, you know it’s time to let go and let other people step in. So I did. But not without a tinge of grief.

And now I’m in the process of finding someone else to edit the community journal I began some nine years ago. It’s become a way for people in this retirement community to tell their stories and I’ve loved being part of the group that puts this together once a quarter. But, again, my spirit tells me it’s time to let go.

Our plot in the community garden, my guitar and ambitions of becoming a classical guitarist (foolish, considering I have no music gene in my DNA)—these are other things I’m giving up. It’s time.

All of this makes me wonder if I’m losing my voice, along with my active roles. Will I now just melt into the background, become dimmer and dimmer until nobody even remembers my name?

Now that’s pathetic. It’s me at my worse, and I don’t always grovel at that level. Actually, I get hints that letting all this float up off my shoulders might in some way free my spirit to focus on the things that matter most. I hope that’s true.

I had a strange dream the other night. I still remember it, so that tells me to pay attention. In the dream Hal died (the worse part of the dream) and the rest of the dream focused on how I expressed my grief. In short, I went mute. I stopped talking. I lost language. With family members or in groups of people, I made myself melt into the background. In time, people seemed to accept it.

One night, still in my dream, I was with a small group of close friends and people were sharing their prayer requests. I sat and listened, mute as usual. But then as we went into a time of prayer, my tongue was loosed. I began praying for my friends, out loud, with wisdom and discernment. With compassion. It surprised everyone, myself included.

Then I woke up.

As I’ve been processing the dream, I’ve decided it was not prophetic. I’ve not been given a warning that Hal will soon die, although I know we’ll both die someday. And it’s not telling me that when all else fails, pray. No. I think it’s about facing loss and letting myself grieve the losses, even if that means a time of silence to sit with the absences. But there is something good on the other side, something I can do well and that will give meaning in this time of life.

I believe that. In fact, I do want to learn how to pray better and how to settle into more fruitful times of worship and intercession. I want to learn how to do silence and contemplation better (meaning more than five minutes at a stretch). I’m making time for this.

I now have more time for writing; I’ve still got poems to write, stories to tell, memories to mine. And I’m fulfilling my hope of refreshing my ability to read the New Testament in Greek. I’ve lost a lot since my seminary days, but it’s coming back little by little. And it’s lots of fun.

And then there’s people time, of course. More time for long conversations, for reading books and talking about them with other book-lovers, for just being with the people I love.

As often happens when I write this blog, I’m processing my situation and coming to a place of hope. Journeying from negative to positive. From grief to joy. I haven’t arrived yet, at least not consistently, but I feel better about it all. I hope you also find yourself encouraged.