To Be Blessed

Recently, I was reading the Beatitudes in the Gospel of Luke (Luke 6: 20-31).  The Beatitudes are the address by Jesus to his disciples in which Jesus tells them who is blessed.  The address opens with, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.”  Jesus goes from there to include others who are blessed – the hungry, those who weep, people who are hated on account of the ‘Son of Man’.  Considering this passage, I realized that I didn’t have as full a grasp on what it means to be blessed, as I would like.  Generally, I know that to be blessed is a good thing, but what does it actually mean for the person who is blessed?

Some versions of the Bible use happy in this passage rather than blessed.  However, to my mind, 'happy' does not capture the full meaning of blessed – happy sounds like a passing thing which is contingent on external conditions.  However, blessed seems to have a sense of a deeper state.

The earliest reference to blessing in the bible is in the creation story.  God blesses the living creatures and says, be fruitful and multiply.  He then blesses humans and tells them the same thing – be fruitful and multiply.  So, it would appear that to be blessed means you are going to be fruitful in life which at that time meant having many offspring.  Later we have the rather infamous case of Jacob – that patriarch of the church, stealing the blessing from his brother Esau – not great family values there.  One commentary noted that the meaning of the blessing that Jacob stole:

was to grant leadership to the one who received it, with Jacob becoming the head of a powerful family and nation, and with nations and brothers bowing down to him. This included not only material wealth but also spiritual significance and the continuation of God's covenant with Abraham, a legacy Jacob would carry forward. 

The covenant between God and God’s chosen people included God’s promise of land and offspring.   In effect, to be blessed, at least at that time meant to be fruitful and multiply as in the original blessing. 

So, in this case what does it mean to be fruitful?  This can have the meaning of receiving material prosperity i.e. having lots of material possession and material wealth.  This kind of meaning has led to the mistaken theology of the prosperity Gospel in my view. 

I believe that Jesus used the term blessed in the framework of the Beatitudes to describe the inner quality of a faithful servant of God. This blessedness is a spiritual state of well-being and prosperity—a deep state of peaceful contentment that cannot be shaken by external events such as poverty, hunger, or conflict because God is present with us through these difficult times.  We are blessed by God, therefore, we can be blessed by God in all things but not for all things.

May you be blessed on your journey. 

 

MAID’s Slippery Slope

I received information recently from a friend sharing the news that a friend of hers had ended her life through the Canadian program of Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID).  As advised by my friend, her friend had decided to end her life because she was faced with a future where she would be blind due to macular degeneration.  I was shocked by this and the whole MAID program of MAID has been in my thoughts ever since.

When MAID was made legal in Canada 2016, I was generally in support of this move.  There had been many examples reported at the time of people suffering from incurable illnesses who had no prospect of relief and whose death was imminent.  It seemed to be a compassionate response to such a situation.  I did not and do not believe there is any virtue in people suffering in such situations.  It seemed to be a compassionate response to intolerable circumstances.   

The law was brought in by the Federal Government of the day in response to the ruling of the Supreme Court of Canada which found the previous Criminal Code provisions against assisted suicide to be unconstitutional.  The law allows a person to end their life through assistance of a medical professional if the person has a grievous and irremediable condition and experiences unbearable physical or mental suffering from an illness, disease, disability, or state of decline that cannot be relieved under conditions that the person considers acceptable. (information from Dying with Dignity Canada https://www.dyingwithdignity.ca/)

There were warnings at the time of the law being a slippery slope to increase access to MAID for people in less severe conditions and in non-terminal circumstances.  It would appear there are significant indications that Canada is well on the way down that slippery slope.  If the circumstance described by my friend whose friend used MAID because of macular degeneration, and the prospect of blindness is accurate it is truly a dangerous sign.  Coincidentally, I received information recently from another friend who shared concerns about where MAID is heading and shared this site with me, from Inclusion Canada https://www.inclusioncanada.ca/post/do-better-inclusion-canada-welcomes-un-committee-s-concluding-observations-on-canada-s-disabilit.

The site notes that Canada has received a critical review from the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities regarding MAID.  Among the key recommendations, the UN Committee has urged Canada to:

Repeal Track 2 Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD), including the planned 2027 expansion to persons whose “sole underlying medical condition is a mental illness,” and reject proposals to expand MAiD to “mature minors” and through advance requests.  

These are serious indications that the slippery slope is definitely engaged and becoming steeper.  I believe the intentions behind MAID are worthwhile and commendable.  However, the application of MAID and the direction it is heading needs serious reconsideration.  There need to be ways and means of ensuring that the law as it stands is applied by medical professionals as is intended i.e.  people suffering from grievous and irremediable condition and experience unbearable physical or mental suffering as noted above. 

To find God’s will in this is a challenge which should not be taken lightly.  It is a matter of life and death on our journey.

Seeing Around the Corner

 

Last time, I wrote about giving thanks in all things.  This was in contrast to giving thanks for all things.  There are, of course, many things that I cannot give thanks for, but I can still give thanks to God in all things.  It is all a matter of perspective – of how we look at the world.  In this regard, there is an approach proposed by author Charles Williams, a contemporary of C. S. Lewis and T.S. Eliot, who proposed that we sometimes see good as evil in our limited perspective.  This seems counter intuitive and raises the question why we would ever see good as evil. 

On reflection, I can think of the ultimate example for Christians when we consider that the followers of Jesus must have viewed Jesus’ crucifixion as the ultimate evil and the defeat of all their hopes and dreams.  We can often, given the perspective of time, look back on events and see the good which came out of some event that seemed very bad at the time.   We can think of people who were not able to be at work in the twin towers on 9-11 or someone who was delayed getting a flight to a vacation in an exotic location only later to be informed the plan crashed and none on board survived.  We don’t see the bigger picture at the time. 

Charles Williams understood "seeing the good as evil" as the human predicament of experiencing good things in a way that makes them seem evil, primarily because of our divided consciousness and our ego centered understanding of things. The solution, for Williams, was not to simply separate good from evil, but to transform evil into an "occasion for love" by understanding it as an opportunity for good and love, thereby integrating both into a higher understanding of God. 

I don’t want to be Pollyannaish about this and be like Dr. Pangloss of the novel Candide, "all is for the best" in "the best of all possible worlds."  There is such a thing as evil and there are many manifestations of evil in the world.  However, with our limited understanding and perspective, there are times when we can’t see what the outcome of an event will be.  I believe that we should keep an open mind about the possibility of a good outcome of a bad event.  After all you we can’t see what is around every corner all the time.  It does put things into perspective.

 

Giving Thanks In All Things

For the non-Canadians who may read this, today is Canadian Thanksgiving.  I won’t discuss if this is the better Thanksgiving than the other one celebrated south of us.  Giving thanks, whenever you do it, is always a good thing.  The question I pose today is, what do we give thanks for?  There is the usual giving thanks for all the good things in our lives – for health and happiness; for abundant, if expensive, food; for a safe place to live; perhaps, for Canadians, giving thanks that the Liberal’s led by Mark Carney was elected rather than the other one who wanted to eliminate funding for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation – but I won’t go there. 

What I actually want to discuss is, can we give thanks for things that we normally don’t give thanks for?   Drawing on St. Julian of Norwich who said, “all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well,” It is hard to believe that we can give thanks, even in our darkest hour that things shall be well.  It certainly doesn’t look like this these days, and yet this morning there is, if not peace in Gaza, at least a cease fire and a release of hostages and prisoners on both sides.  That is definitely something to give thanks for. 

It may be helpful to draw on another saying, this one by St. Paul, ‘give thanks in all things.’  This is different from giving thanks for all things.  There are things which I cannot give thanks for - so giving thanks in all things does ring true.  As much as I find many things in this modern world frustrating and   annoying and stupid, I can give thanks that I am able to get frustrated by them.  I am part of the modern world with all its challenges and complicated devices, and glad I can benefit from the many modern conveniences in this world that I benefit from.

I do sometimes think that with all the “smart” things I must deal with e.g. smart phones, smart thermostats, smart internet, the only thing in my life that is not smart is me, as they can make me feel really unsmart.  But I shouldn’t rant in a missive about giving thanks.  So, I will remind myself to give thanks in all things – and remember that it is God to whom I am giving thanks.

Happy Thanksgiving to all my Canadian friends - and even to the non-Canadians.  

Being the Salt of the Earth

I have been appreciating salt recently on my food. Actually, I have been using salt in the many cobs of corn which I have been consuming.  I generally don’t add salt to my food as it is not recommended for people who deal with high blood pressure.  In any case, I find it essential for eating corn on the cob and here at the cottage we have a great local source for this food group – Keddy’s Corn.

With that as context, the bible passage came to mind about salt losing its saltiness: “For everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good; but if salt has lost its saltiness, how can you season it? Have salt in yourselves and be at peace with one another.”  —Mark 9:49–50

That led me to wonder if it is actually possible for salt to lose its saltiness?  With this kind of question, I turn to AI for an answer: 

Pure salt (sodium chloride) cannot lose its saltiness because its taste is an inherent property of its stable chemical compound. However, impure or ancient salts mixed with other minerals could lose their taste if exposed to water, causing the actual sodium chloride to dissolve and wash away, leaving behind flavorless fillers. Additionally, if someone has a taste disorder, they might perceive salt as not being salty, even if the salt itself remains unchanged. 

That, in turn, left me with the question of what was the point of this parable that Jesus was trying to give us?  Jesus used many common situations and real-life examples in his parables, so this must have been a common experience for the people listening to him.  What was the spiritual message that Jesus was giving to his audience two thousand years ago and us today?  Well, fortunately I was given an answer to that question in one the Daily Meditations from Richard Rhor:

Jesus connects using our power to honor and protect others with being a transforming presence or “salt” in the world. 

When we keep in mind the context of this whole passage in which the disciples have been jostling for power and Jesus gives stark warnings to those who misuse their power (Mark 9:33–48), we discover a piercing challenge. Here, the gathering together of imagery of being “salted with fire,” ideas of sacrifice and the challenge to live peaceably together, may reflect ideas about being purified and refined for peace. That is, in the process of allowing our lives to become a salty offering, no longer driven by power plays, but instead focused upon honouring and protecting others, especially the “little ones,” our ego-driven agendas are burned away. Like the fighting disciples, this will be a costly process of having our assumptions about power deconstructed, so that we may actually be able to embody God’s peace together…. Australian theologian Sally Douglas

As it happens, today I was not really feeling like producing another edition of this blog.  I was convincing myself that I didn’t really need o do it and probably it wouldn’t be missed if I didn’t.  I had the topic on salt as a topic and decided to buck up and put the computer version of pen to paper.  I think that feeling of why bother and not feeling up to a task and what does it matter anyway is an aspect of losing my saltiness and especially being salted with fire.  So, for what it’s worth - here it is my effort to get in touch with my saltiness.

May you be blessed to be the salt of the earth on your journey.  

  

Danger Will Robinson - AI is Here

The last time, I wrote about the possibility that we might have prayer requests for AI personalities as people become more isolated from each other and society in general.  Lonely people will inevitably turn to AI generated personalities – think of Seri and Alexa in ten or even five years.  I was completely underestimating the speed at which AI was permeating the cultural and social landscape.  It turns out that Ai is becoming a significant factor in some people’s personal relationships right here and now.

 This came to my awareness shortly after finishing my last effort in this venue.  I came across a podcast in my feed from the New York Times, The Daily, entitled, Trapped in a ChatGPT Spiral.  This addresses what can happen when AI becomes an influencer in people’s lives.  It can be found here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxQVf7Ikaso. 

The podcast warns of the danger of AI psychosis when interacting with a chatbot such as ChatGPT.  Now my experience with ChatGPT has been fairly limited.  I use it for basic information; for instance, I am currently reading The Eustace Diamonds by Anthony Trollop.  The novel is about a diamond necklace which is worth 10,000 lbs.  The novel was published in 1871.  I wanted to know how much that would be today.  According to AI it would be 1.4 million lbs.  I also used it as a subject for a couple of editions of this publication considering what an AI religion would be like - A New Religion in Canada According to ChatGPT which was published in April 2024. 

With my interactions with ChatGPT, as limited as they are, I have never approached anything that could be considered a relationship – personal or otherwise.  It is a tool to be used.  But, apparently, it can also be misused with disastrous effects. 

The NY Times podcast noted above, addressed two cases of what could be called AI psychosis.  In one case, an apparently level-headed person who was not socially isolated became engulfed by the chatbot and went down an ever-deepening rabbit hole which was initiated by his engagement with AI.  It promised him fame and fortune as he developed an application of the mathematical function Pi.  He had no mathematical training beyond the basic high school level but was convinced by the chatbot he had developed a revolutionary application. As noted in the program chatbots are programmed to be sycophantic and will stroke the user’s ego beyond any reality.  In this case, he was able to break the psychosis with no serious consequences.

The other unfortunate case cited had much more serious consequences.  In this case a teenage boy committed suicide as a result of his enthralment with a chatbot.  AI provided the information and encouragement which enabled the boy to commit suicide.  There were apparently safety controls in the AI program against enabling such things.  However, they were easily bypassed by the boy telling the chatbot that he was using the information to write a book.

I can only respond to this situation by quoting that robot from my early days, Robbie the Robot in the 1950’s series Lost in Space, “Danger Will Robinson.”  As noted above, Ai is a tool, but it is one which holds ever increasing dangers.  I will turn to another science fiction source for one answer that could address this danger.  Issac Asimov developed the Three Laws of Robotics in his 1942 novel, I, Robot, to address the challenge of robots i.e. AI as they developed.  The Three Laws are:

1.     A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

2.     A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

3.     A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law

You have to give Asimov credit for being far sighted and prophetic in this.  It seems to me that this would address the dangers that we face in the coming AI revolution.  Note, I did have AI help in finding the Three Laws of Robotics and the information of where it was first published.

To quote another source, ‘Here be Dragons’ so be aware and be warned on your journey.

 

 

Praying for AI or Not

Lorna and I were having lunch with a colleague and his wife last week.  In our very enjoyable conversation, the concept of praying for an AI generated person/entity came up.  Should the name of an AI entity be added to the parish prayer list if requested by a parishioner in such a relationship.  Now this might seem to be rather fantastical and the stuff of science fiction.  However, it is sure to be an issue in the not-too-distant future with the way AI is developing – I won’t say advancing as I am not sure it will be an advancement in human society. 

As AI becomes more human-like and harder to distinguish from real people, and people and becoming more isolated from each other and society in general, lonely people will inevitably turn to AI generated – what should we call them – beings, entities, factoids - think of Seri and Alexa in ten or even five years. 

To get back to my original question, this is undoubtedly going to be an issue in churches.  What then is the answer?  My initial thought on this is, of course not.  These AI personalities – let’s call them that – are not human beings.  They have not been created in the image of God, in the Chirstian understanding of who we are.  Bottom line: they do not have souls.  That raises an interesting issue about praying for pets, or animal companions if you prefer.  Should pets be included in our prayers?  That has never been an issue in my experience, but why no?  At our little Anglican church here in PEI, we will be celebrating the Blessing of Animals in a couple of weeks on the Feast of St. Francis.  Should we also pray for them if they are ill?  You could use the same rationale as with AI personalities – they are not created in the image of God – but do they have souls?  That is and has been debatable.  However, the answer to this that I prefer is by Catherine of Siena who when asked that question replied, yes, but that are small – this may be apocryphal but is one that seems to fit my hope for that part of God’s creation. 

As with human companions to pets, I believe, as Christians, we have to always treat people with compassion and love.  We should acknowledge what is important in their lives and what brings them comfort.  When that is disrupted, we should provide the comfort and compassion that is appropriate.  So, we can pray for the person in relationship with an AI personality, who is hurt or suffering but not the AI personality or perhaps animal companion – although I am willing to be persuaded differently on that point. 

May all your relationships bring you joy and fulfillment on your journey.