Tag: Self-deception

A Fortunate State of Existence

Rita Sommers-Flanagan4 Comments

In Montana, we have 5.6 million square feet per person, slightly more than the 4.8 million square feet per person for the whole United States. In India, there’s just over 100 square feet per person. That’s smaller than most bedrooms in our middle-class lives. Selah.

This bit of trivia was provided by something called Artificial Intelligence, or AI for short. AI is a voracious information gathering machine, still in its infancy, but rapidly gaining ground. Since I made these inquiries, I’ll be deluged with ads for birth control or real estate.

And if you’re wondering what Selah means, AI will explain it to you, and your ads will have a distinctive Hebrew flavor for a while.

How does it feel to be that well-known? I don’t like it. Sure, it’s helpful to be alerted to a smarter route for our romantic date to Fishtail. (Seriously? Construction delays getting to Fishtail?) AI is market-driven and ostensibly helpful, but there’s a lot more to it than that.

I cross my arms, and do a little Selah-ing myself. Scriptures are always being rewritten under the auspices of the great and powerful Oz. I wonder how the AI algorithms might edit the beatitudes for our times. I think I’ll give it a try.

The Creator crowds into my brain. I push them aside and write my draft:

  • Blessed are the wealthy, for they can purchase great swaths of the kingdom and eat what they want while others starve.
  • Blessed are those who avoid mourning. There is little reason to focus on loss.
  • Blessed are the aggressive. They will obtain power.
  • Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for the bodies of the young. If they are rich, they shall have them.
  • Blessed are those without mercy. They can thus dehumanize the poor and displaced.
  • Blessed are those who lie to themselves. Their hearts will be darkened, their shame erased.
  • Blessed are the makers of war. It is the essence of human history.
  • Blessed are those who deny hard truths. There are alternative facts in abundance.
  • Blessed are the sadistic. They shall be satisfied.
  • Blessed are you who deport your neighbors. Who avoid looking in the mirror. Who refuse to forgive. Rejoice in your momentary existence. Assuming the earth survives your terrible ravishing, you will die leaving it tragically damaged.

The Crowd clears their throats.

“Step away from the keyboard,” they command. A bouquet of holy hands reaches for me.

“No!” I yell. I unplug the charger and dash for the door.

“We have a runner,” they declare gleefully.

I fall down. This is painfully funny. We all laugh.

“Thanks,” they say as they help me up. “We needed that.”

Rock Saw

Rita Sommers-Flanagan6 Comments

I have a functional rock saw. It’s dusty, rusty, and ugly, but it has one fancy feature: the blade–which has diamond chips on the edge. It can slice a rock in two but if I accidentally touch it, it won’t even scratch my skin. I know this in my head, but my neck muscles tighten to the point of popping when I flip the switch and begin guiding the chosen rock through the process of coming apart.

It is with reverence and holy anticipation that I open and explore the inner workings of stone. Some have nothing hidden and remain a steady brown or gray, but others have intricate interiors—patterns of color and luminosity, suggestions of scenery, stories of minerals and the workings of water. When the slabs first separate and emerge from the murky waters, they shine like newborns. The one has become two. A beautiful but sudden breakage has taken place—much different than the geologic forces that diminish stones slowly into smoother, more humble surfaces.

As it turns out, God doesn’t like my rock saw all that well. The Three-in-One stand alongside, frowning. They don’t approve of the primitive deconstruction of density and coherence. They don’t fully understand my all-too-human sequence of raw apprehension followed by awe. Maybe I don’t either. But as always, they are patient and kind.

“Having an audience doesn’t help,” I told them last evening, as I worked on a particularly hard specimen. Something deep inside that amalgamation of jasper and flint was so dense it repeatedly grabbed the blade and stalled out. I kept trying, but the motor reached the shut-down temperature, so there we sat, waiting for things to cool.

“Want something to drink?” I asked, hoping they’d say no and go somewhere they’d be more appreciated. They glanced among themselves, mentally conferring about the status of their hydration and the needs of the universe.

“Don’t let me keep you,” I added. “This could take a while.”

Again, they conferred. And laughed. A flock of sparrows landed on their outstretched arms which had blackened to coal. Then diamond. Then jasper, blood red and mustard yellow. The sparrows lifted the inextricable threesome, dropped them in the river and updrafted into numinous air I could only hope to breathe someday. A very high place. Heaven, if you will.

As time came back into focus, the motor had cooled enough to let me start again, working slowly through the recalcitrant hunk of greatly compressed life. “It has to be beautiful in there if it is this hard to cut,” I thought to myself. I often think things that turn out to be mostly wrong . This is an insight that often brings a surprising amount of peace.