Toys That Are Real and Technology

This Saturday, I’m officiating a wedding for a friend I’ve known since high school. She and her fiancee have chosen to have a section from the Velveteen Rabbit read during the ceremony. It became the spark for my wedding meditation and I want to share just a bit of the reflection I’ve had around this beloved children’s story.

The section begins as the Velveteen Rabbit asks the Skin Horse, “What is real?” The Rabbit is curious about what makes a toy real. The Skin Horse responds with, “It isn’t how you are made, it’s a thing that happens to you. When someone loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”

As I’ve read this passage, I was reminded of a story I heard about MIT Professor Sherry Turkle taking her young daughter to a natural history museum. As she and her daughter observed 150 year-old, Galapagos turtles, her daughter remarked, “For what those turtles are doing, they could have just had a robot.” Professor Turkle noted that what surprised her most was how the fact that the turtle was alive, mattered to her daughter not at all. For her daughter, it was what the turtle was accomplishing, its function that mattered most. The fact it fell into the category of the living was not part of the equation.

Smart phones are the tip of the iceberg of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Today, there are robots who can follow your eye movements and gesture in your direction in response to your advances. Sherry Turkle says that neurologically, once robots can do these things we’re hooked. These movements are emotive triggers for us humans. Robots will continue to become more and more a regular part of our lives and existence. Prototypes of robots designed to meet basic needs for children and the elderly already exist.

So, what makes something real? Of course, it depends on what we mean by real. Is it how we are made? Is it based upon something’s function? Is it how well it meets our needs? Must something be loved, as the Skin Horse suggests, for it to be real? Being real, at least as the Velveteen Rabbit inquires, seems to involve more than mere existence. Existence and “realness” are separate. As AI continues to advance to meet not only our needs, but our eyes as well, how we answer the question, what is real, and a second, what is alive, could have particular consequences.

We have gained much from our technology. Great things that humans on our own cannot offer one another. So great in fact, perhaps we should ask, is technology more valuable than life itself? Do these benefits trump the value of what humans can innately offer one another? It might be easy for some to say, of course life is more valuable than technology. Particularly easy for adults. Adults can quickly dismiss that it was a child that suggested replacing an animal with a robot. She doesn’t know better. It’s also easy to forget that this child did not create any of the technology she knows as normal. It’s easy to take for granted that today we give birth to children who will never live in a pre-technological world. And for so many reasons, thank God. While we give thanks, we might also pause to consider the question posed by a simple children’s story, “what is real?” If we don’t, we may risk losing track of which, humanity or technology, is the chicken and which is the egg.

That's Divine

We us the phrase "I'm only human," as a way of saying, "give me a break, I'm not perfect."

What if saying, "I'm human," instead of using our nature as an excuse, became a symbol of excellence?

When we look at a magnificent piece of art or hear an awe-inspiring concert, we might say, something to the effect of, "That was divine!"

What if in the face of excellence, magnificence, and awe, we began to say, "Now that was human!"

This isn't one more attempt to make ourselves divine. In fact, I believe we have come to use our humanness as an excuse because we so often pressure ourselves and others towards some futile notion of perfection which is neither human, nor divine. This wouldn't erase our shortcomings, inabilities, and anxious tendencies towards cold-heartedness at all.

But perhaps if our language began to change, perhaps our humanity could begin to become a source of motivation, rather than an excuse for mediocrity.

Most of Us Don't Want Spiritual Growth

We live in a wants-based economy. There was a time when we used to purchase and invest our time, money, and attention into things we needed...because we needed them. We have become want-focused to a point that most of us struggle to know the difference between our wants and our needs. A needs-based economy has limited growth potential. A wants-based economy has an insatiable growth potential. That's why the market wants us to want things.

Not many of us want to do the necessary work to grow spiritually. Well, at least we don't want it in a way that we have grown accustomed to wanting things.  I believe we do long for spiritual growth and deep meaning in our lives. Somewhere inside us, something desires this deep meaning even to the point of needing it. One step towards spiritual growth (and church growth) would be to gain clarity about this vital difference between want and need. The next step would be to nurture what is needed. The church is in the business of spiritual growth, feeding the poor, building community...things we need. Leave the wants to retail.

Come on Folks, It's Jesus...

I struck up a conversation the other day with a local pastor who belongs to a more conservative denomination than my own. I'd overheard him talking with another colleague about the other's successful new church start. We somehow came to the topic of missionaries he'd visited in India. He traveled there and worked with them for a couple weeks. The mission of these missionaries, a husband and wife team, was to literally pick up the handicapped of the under caste off the streets, bring them into their home and feed them. Once they established a relationship, they taught these "outcasted" computer skills. These once casted out human beings were eventually able to obtain employment and bring income to the very families that had left them in the streets. This rehabilitation was inconceivable, primarily because no one else would have risked investing the time, energy, compassion, and love into these folks for them to know their potential.

This other pastor and I paused after he finished his story. Both of us shook our heads when we compared this ministry to the institutional ministries we led. That missionary work is where Jesus would have been we agreed. That work in India was a place where Jesus' words, "well done, my good and faithful servants" would have been heard. 

We acknowledged that we each knew enough about the other's denomination that if we had gotten into a discussion over doctrine, church governance, stances on abortion or homosexuality, we would have disagreed bitterly. However, both of us agreed a successful, flourishing new church start was a good and beautiful thing. We both agreed that subverting India's caste system by welcoming the stranger, feeding the hungry, and caring for (dare I say healing) the sick were good and beautiful things.

Why does it seem ironic to me that we - both liberal and conservative - could agree about Jesus' teachings? Certainly this conversation would not play out the same in all situations. But surely both literalists and those who aren't, can agree on how Jesus asked us to treat the poor? It's right there in the text. Why do we spend so much time on everything else? Perhaps we have too much at stake? Perhaps we are not as willing to take risks as these missionaries?

However we answer these questions, it seems the key to this ecumenical interaction was Jesus. Particularly how Jesus asks us to live our lives in relation to the poor. My experience is that Jesus also gets the attention of the unchurched, de-churched, and secular humanists, folks of all generations (even the generations missing in our churches). Not the died for your sins Jesus, not just be nice and mind your manners Jesus, but the radical boundary crossing, counter-cultural, love and compassion at any cost Jesus.

Ecumenism, pluralism, church growth, and spiritual growth can all begin with this Jesus.

How long will we make these things about something else?

It's Time

Somewhere within the infinitesimal moments of time between this moment and what is now the past we made a choice. We have made and are making a series of infinite choices to do precisely what we are doing this moment. The choice may not have been deliberate, intentional, or precise, but it was a choice that eminated from within the almagamation of thought, experience, emotion, spirit, and instinct that we know as our self.

Knowing this does two things. First, it correctly places the responsibility for our self within our own capacity for choice. This by no means makes the element of choice simple as some in our culture would falsely make it out to be. Our choice is also always indelibly formed by the external forces that come from the people we know as lovers or call strangers, as well as the group of people we know as society. It is impossible to remove the external or internalized impact of these forces from our decision-making process. Nevertheless, we are responsible to claim the responsibility of decision-making - however convoluted that responsibility may be - as our own.

Secondly, this means that we can choose to do something different at any time. The trick is the discernment of making those decisions based upon deliberate personal values. We can make a different decision in the time it took to finish reading this last word. Or this one. Or. That. One. Some of you know the decision you need to make, but haven't yet and should not read another word of this and go do that thing you've been putting off. Stop wasting your time reading my blither blather. Go do something. Make the choice. It's yours. Others will will tell you it's not. They'll tell you it's theirs. They're wrong. Go do something that matters. Waste not another nanosecond...because it's already passed.

Unworthiness...Nurture, not Nature

None were born feeling unworthy, inadequate, insufficient, weak, or dumb. We each came into this world screaming, breathing, trying to take in every movement, touch, bodily sensation, color and sound ready to learn all this world has to teach. We did not know the meaning of inadequate. At some point though, we looked around and saw others afraid, shamed and shaming. We learned this fear and this shame and when we were old enough we began to practice it on others. We didn't know any better. None of us desires to feel unworthy. None would say that feeling unworthy is something they freely chose. We were taught it. We were shown it. We experienced it. So we learned it. And as much as we'd like to let others keep it, some of it always gets on us. It's impossible to shame someone else without knowing shame yourself. But it's ok, because baby, you were not born that way.

How often are we waiting for the next shaming, the next reminder of inadequacy and unworthiness? In my experience, always. All the time.

We want to connect, but when our only tool is shame, we use it and only get distance. We use it because we desire connection and often don't know what other tool to use. We've had the most practice and experience with shame. No wonder we're so confused about desperately wanting to connect, but rarely experience meaningful connection. Our primary tool for connection is a tool of unworthiness.

Use love.

It's ok. You can give up shame. It's not you. You learned it. You don't really feel that way about yourself. It's not really how you want others to feel either. You are worthy. It's ok. Show others they are worthy by connecting and loving them. Don't worry when they're surprised. They aren't used to others showering them with worthiness. Most of us aren't. We're more accustomed to shame. It's ok. Don't lose heart. Keep loving. Keep showing worthiness. Keep connecting. Others will catch on. They'll catch on when they feel worthy. One day they'll like it better and let go of their fear. And so will you. You are loved. Keep loving.

Weakness of Prejudice

The bully isn't strong. The bully feels the weakest, the most scared, and the most resourceless. That's why the bully bullies. Without any resources, or enough resources, to feel as though they are worthy, the bully shames others to take another's power and worthiness from them. If others lose the resources of feeling worthy of love, honor, and connection, then the bully no longer has to be alone in their unworthiness.

Unfortunately, we have infantilized bullying. Something children do. Something we grow out of at a certain age. "We're adults now, we don't bully. We just get even." Unfortunately, it's not true. If somehow by turning a certain age, we were able to feel worthy with a sense of self and purpose, that would be a wonderful thing. It often seems to be the opposite. The more pressure we feel to accomplish, know, achieve, and be more by some other personal or social standard - no matter what our age - the greater the chance we will know the bitterness of shame. The more shame we feel the more likely we are to bully others - again, no matter what our age.

Bullying is the emotional process behind prejudice. Just as bullying is not an expression of strength, neither is prejudice. Prejudice is the shaming of others because of our own sense of shame. This is not necessarily a direct relationship. We can feel shame at home, as a child and bully others at work or be prejudiced as we walk down the street, today. Our prejudice might have little to do directly with those whom we discriminate against. Shame is transferable. Fear is contagious.

Just as prejudice is not strong, prejudice is not confronted by muster enough strength, but by risking the vulnerability of being seen. It was not by strength that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. marched in Alabama and Washington D.C. It was taking the risk of vulnerability to be courageous. It was courage that gave him strength, not the other way around.

We cannot go to the Klan and simply teach them about their own sense of obvious shame and fear and unworthiness and expect the prejudice and violence to stop. We can however, begin to see the shame and fear and unworthiness in ourselves and begin to work through these with people we trust and love and who trust and love us. By addressing our own shame and sense of worthiness (or lack thereof) and theirs, we become less likely to perpetuate the personal, interpersonal, institutional, or societal shame/prejudice that we all tacitly or intentionally participate. We might have less personal and interpersonal work to do in terms of overt prejudice, but in a democracy we all have the obligation to address institutional and social discrimination.

Remember bullies join together under the mantra 'it's us against the world.' This joining together does not alleviate their loneliness or sense of unworthiness. No one becomes worthy by pooling feelings of unworthiness. This is what groups of bullies do. Pool their feelings of unworthiness and shun all vulnerability. Sometimes they're called gangs, sometimes they're called a Board of Directors. Worthiness comes from mutual vulnerability, compassion, and courage - the willingness to be seen and to see others as we truly are. Broken, beautiful, full of doubt, full of excellence. All of us human.

Bad Business

Church boards and councils do not suffer from too much business talk.

They suffer from too much talk about bad business. Thriving companies do not spend large portions of meetings nitpicking line items of large (or small) budgets, making decorating decisions, micro-managing, complaining about how the customers just don't get it. For that matter, they don't spend large portions of time in meetings.

Thriving businesses have a clear vision. They focus on two things: high-quality products and excellent customer service. Everything else is at the service of these two things. If staffing inhibits these, staffing changes. If the institutional structures inhibit these, structures change. If marketing and branding inhibit these, they change. All of these changes and all efforts are at the service of the clear vision for product and customer. Boards give direction to this end. Staff carries it out.

Thriving businesses do these things. Businesses that don't die or are dying.

These changes might happen slowly, they might cause pain, they will certainly cause anxiety. Even slow incremental change in the right direction is a sign of life. More clarity and more nerve can bring more speed. It will likely bring more anxiety, but it will be worth it. That is one thing about being dead: no anxiety.

For now, I prefer the alternative. I don't like anxiety, but I believe possibilities are more powerful. Whether it's doing church really well or running a business really well, a clear, compelling vision makes all the difference. Spend time on that. Forget everything else. Everything else won't matter if the vision isn't right. Once that's in place, find the right people to run the race, then go. Change the world.

Abundance

The only thing in life that we do not have in abundance is time. No matter how we cut it or have it cut for us, each of us will have a finite number of days on this planet. But even with a discreet number of days, we can still live in abundance. Abundance does not mean or imply endless. We have other words for that. Like endless. Abundance is simply having more than we know how to use. How many of us live day to day as though there are more hours to a day that we can possibly use? Not many. Most of us run frantically from one thing to the next, anxiously addressing each person we pass as though they might be the person to use up our last minute. Someday that will be true. For most of us though, that day is not today.

Living in abundance is living as though we can not exhaust something. Perhaps this is eternal life. Not an afterlife in some other heavenly realm, but this life, lived in abundance. Jesus said he came so that we might have life and have it abundantly. Not that we might have life and have it eternally. I do not and would not pretend to know what happens after we each take our last breath. I know that I have fanciful hopes of what might be next, but nothing on which I'd wager my next paycheck. Call me faithless, if you must. I guess, as they say, that is above my pay grade. 

Whatever lies ahead, I am convinced that this life is not limited by the quantity of our days. The power of memories and of love prove this. We do not end, others have not ended, with their last breath. We remain changed. Our love continues even as their lives have not. Whatever gives us breath, gives it to us abundantly. Not in quantity, but in quality. We can focus on the quantity of this life and live lives of dread, scarcity, and anxiety. Or we can live into the quality of this life and know its abundance. If only, we choose to choose it. Choosing abundant life - living abundantly - is to choose joy. To live abundantly is to live joyfully.

Choose joy.

Religion, coffee shops, and magic

I spend a lot of time in coffee shops spending more money than I should on expensive coffee. There was some movement in the recent past where coffee shops became the hip place for Christians to come talk about their faith. At least, this is true for Grand Rapids, MI. Every time I come to read or do some work I inevitably hear friends, colleagues, couples, or the women's bible study group from a local church near me discussing something of their faith. Today, it was two college students. The one was telling the other how God's providence works. That's not the word she used, but us theological types would call it that. She told her friend that "He (God) will put you right where you're supposed to be...He's not just going to leave you..." Then I heard her talk about grace with irrepressible exuberance. I appreciate the enthusiasm on one hand, but on the other, the way the words mixed with her excitement, grace seemed to be synonymous to magic.

This bothered me. But then I wondered, is grace supposed to be magical? Depending upon one's definition of grace, it might. I suppose even the definition of grace I use could sound magical. Blessing that comes from God unbidden and unearned. But, what happens when grace becomes too much like magic that we assume God to be our private personal magician? What do we think of our magician when tragedy strikes? Certainly all goodness does not stop when tragedy strikes. But too often magical grace is used to whitewash devastating grief, terrible suffering, and unspeakable pain. What do we do with tragedy when God was supposed to put us and everyone we loved exactly where we were supposed to be? What exactly does this include? If we say everything, what about degenerative diseases, car accidents, and suicide? Where is God in these places?

These certainly make discussions about providential placement more difficult. Some would shrug their shoulders, and particularly us good Midwesterners might say, well life isn't fair, leaving God out of it entirely. Some would retreat and say, well, God can't control EVERYthing.

I guess what really concerns me at the moment is not the theodicy problem - the problem of God's justice. My concern here is the reality that many Christians (even good liberals) often attribute magical powers to God in some way or another. We all can take an intellectual step back and refute our own magical beliefs, but most of us in a moment of fervor, anxiety, or desperation can believe there are some things God just does. Some things God just blesses, ordains, or somehow makes "better".

I believe magic is when something is made out of nothing. God doesn't make something out of nothing. Not even the miracle stories are magic. The feeding of the five thousand is not a story of mountains of bread and fish appearing with a wave of Jesus' hand. There was simply enough in the passing of the baskets. It was only after they had had their fill that those gathered realized what had happened. Jesus simply declared it was enough. Jesus never said, "Let there be bread." "Let there be fish." Simply, "it is enough." No magic required.

Whatever we believe, let us each be leery of making God a magician, particularly our magician. There are things we do not understand. Amazing things. Tragic things. No matter how desperate we are to understand, we do not need magic. Grace is enough. Grace that comes unbidden and unearned. Grace is that sliver of hope that is visible through the darkness. Wherever we are, God is there, too. When our hearts break, God's heart breaks, too. There are times we unfortunately do not feel this, but that does not make it less true. Surmising God's intentions will not provide better understanding or heal our hearts faster. We do not need magic. Sometimes the only thing to do is take one step and remember God is there. Then another step. God is there. Then another. God is there. Then another...God?

...still there.


God, we don't need all the answers. We do not need magic. No matter how much we beg. Just remind us of your presence. Remind us we are not alone. And, may that somehow be enough. Amen