Jinxed!

"I am not a number - I'm a free man!"
The Prisoner.

So, what's more annoying than having to fix a serious fault?
Discovering that the detector that said you had the fault was the fault (especially if you discover this after spending money to repair a fault that wasn't really there to begin with).

Think it doesn't happen?
Actually, it is a very common occurrence, but whereas it used to be just about fixing a brake light or changing your oil, now it can be far, far more serious.

We're talking, in essence, about algorithms, lines of code that determine not just how your car runs or your phone works, but whether you get off a criminal listing, are viable for benefits, or to be considered a social risk.

The problem is that much of this determination is made in a fashion that is incredibly naive and facile, purely because the character of the programing is often quite superficial, but that doesn't change the fact that people's lives are being decimated by the consequences.

Bad programming quite literally leads to dreadful consequences. The problems arise, of course, because the best these machines have to go on is what's been placed in them... by us.

Is what's true when it comes to A I systems also true when it comes to the way we 'do' our own thinking about the nature of truth? How often are we shaped in our conclusions here by poor or miss-placed notions of what matters?

I was recently listening to Sam Harris debate Jordan Peterson about various evaluations he'd reached and how they diverged on this, principally because Sam had a very telling (and common) view about 'God' informing his objections. This was expressed in various ways, but one popular notion expressed was how vengeful and capricious 'God' was because He required the extermination of those living in the land of Canaan when the Israelites arrived and began their conquest. Entire peoples, Sam noted, were to wiped out purely because Joshua and company were instructed to do so - all finished off, foom, in a heartbeat, because of the command of this 'just' God.

Sounds pretty damning.
Then I thought about it. This was actually a case of a false fault signal.

If you take a look at the prior 400 years of the history of the region (and there are various snapshots in Genesis, Exodus and Joshua on this), you begin to see that this wasn't a snap judgement by some violently-natured ogre. There's a series of jolts in these stories that say 'hey, what are doing being so corrupt that you're murdering innocents - stop it, or there will be a reckoning'.

The remarkable thing about this story isn't that judgement comes. It's how patient and long-suffering God is about this (so, now wait for the atheist analysis that says this shows God is evil because He's too s l o w in dealing with these people!). How long would it be if just one of these tribes set up on our back lawn before we'd be calling the authorities to have them arrested... but God is merciful towards them for centuries, so the usual analysis is just plain wrong.

That's something worth considering in 2019... How good is our thinking about this? Are we seeing the real picture, or just the piece that appeals to our personal whims?

Wholeness often starts right there.

Happy New Year.

Amidst the smuged scribblings of rascals

"The problem is not the problem. The problem is your attitude about the problem. Understand?" Jack Sparrow.


The festive season looms, so, pull up a chair, take a drink, and enjoy a story...

So, once there was a boy destined to be a king.
To prove his virtue, he was required to spend a night in the forest alone.

Amidst the strange and dark place, the boy found himself overcome by a striking vision.
A voice boomed out from a intense brightness and asked him,
"are you worthy to become the keeper of the sacred cup?"

Before he could answer, he found his mind abuzz with further images - treasures, victories, thousands honoring and serving him. He felt himself welcoming such ambitions, and as he did, a fire fell upon his extended hands and he felt his soul dreadfully wounded and undone.

As he grew older, the inner wound from that night grew deeper, so nothing could fill the void it caused. He found he had no faith, no true love for another, and without comfort and aid, he was surely enslaved to death.

One day, a fool entered the castle and found the benighted king alone. Being simple in his ways, he did not see the troubled soul as a king, only as one in distress and in pain.

"What's wrong?", he asked.

"I'm thirsty".

So the fool took a cup from near the king and filled it with water and gave it to the king to drink.
Instantly, the king's deep wound was healed, for the fool had given him to drink from the sacred cup he had glimpsed that distant day in the woods.

The king turned to the one who had given him aid and said "How did you find what I could not?"

The fool replied "I only saw one in need, and sought to end his thirst".

(The Fisher King).

What I love about this tale is it's truly about us. 

We like to think of ourselves resolutely on our way to better things, until of course something far more tempting crosses our path, and then, without exception, we will be pressed till we succumb to something  that, indeed, burns us, and however stout or noble we may then appear to others (equally covering their folly), we know, like this king, that we are truly torn and bleeding inside, and the wound is terminal.

The other great thing about the tale is that it takes someone deemed to be outrageously ill equipped - a fool - to see the malady and provide the remedy, purely on the basis of seeking to rescue another. 
There isn't any capacity or virtue in the king to change a thing - everything that counts is done to him from outside of himself.

That's the Christmas message.
We can dance and sing, make merry and play, but what's required is a 'fool's wisdom' -
The stable at Bethlehem. The birth of one to take our stead upon the splintered wood of a Roman cross... that's the balm that God wants us to find and drink this season.

The easiest thing is to remain right where we are.
Christmas tells us that we don't have to.

May such warmth warm us this Christmas.

Pointers

"He sighed deeply and asked, 'Why does this generation always seek for a sign?

 Truly, I tell you, no sign will be given".  Mark 8:12.

I watched a fascinating analysis this morning of one of my favorite movies. Taking several of the major themes and ideas of Villenueuve's epic venture, it seeks to examine what the tale says about ourselves - the way we seek to discover what we are in a world in which we can often feel divorced from what makes life meaningful and our existence worthwhile. Whilst the quest is true for each of us, the longing for that which is distinctively, immortally "us", notes the analysis, is a mistake, an internalizing of worth (fabricating a soul) which leads us, like agent K in the film, into foolishly believing notions about himself which were delusional and distractive, so apparently without worth of pursuit.

Like some pack of zealous assassins, the religious men of twenty centuries ago hounded Christ for something they could quantify and define so they could settle Him into their entrenched mental landscape and thereby revert to their business as usual routine. They called for an evidence to satisfy this requirement because they failed to see what was before them and what that meant to the entire world.

In Blade Runner 2049, K's first "conversation" is with another replicant, Morton, who he deems to be inferior because he is an older model. K's entire clarity in his actions ('retiring' Morton) derives from his ordered perception of what is - any referencing of something greater in respect to himself or other replicants was folly, so he certainly cannot, at this stage, "hear" Morton's reference to a miracle, and yet, what then proceeds to unfold, both in respect to his miss-understanding and the truth, will derive from this one cardinal truth - that a miracle has happened.

Jesus pointedly asks the "religious" mind why it would expect the truly spiritual to conform to its requirements - to just be something such a mind can unpeel and dissect. Like K in that first encounter, such believe they have the tools to unlock what counts, to be and do what is valid, but the lock on their blindness is secure. No sign, no miracle would ever be enough, for they cannot see, as the word is spoken, the action has already been performed - the reality is already, truly there.

The prison must be seen for what it is.

In the film, what is dead and lifeless (Rachel's bones) becomes the key to what is new and vital - the hope of a new humanity. 

Jesus tells His disciples to avoid the 'leaven' of the religious - those who can never perceive what counts, and our generation is certainly a time that needs to mark that warning.

In the film, K is finally able to look beyond his own illusions and delusions regarding what counts, and to give himself wholly to safeguarding the people who will take the redemptive nature of what is happening forward.

Christianity is about that very same truth - that the life and death of another is not only the true 'sign' of what must define us, but the true gift that provides that miracle.

This season provides us with two options -

Christ's sigh at the Pharisees inability to recognize what has happened, or God's sign in the incarnation.

May we not be blind to what truly counts.