Robot love

From an article on the changing attitudes toward robots and consequently toward humans:

Children, in turn, play with more and more robotic and electronic toys. Many, like the Tamagotchi digital pets of the 1990s, and the later robotic dog Aibo, require nurturing, which encourages kids to take care of them, and therefore, to care about them. Some kids say they prefer these pets to real dogs and cats that can grow old and die.

"People used to buy pets to teach their children about life and death and loss," Turkle said. We are now teaching kids that real living creatures are risky, while robots are safe.

Also, this:

In her interviews with people of many ages and backgrounds, Turkle has found that many now are coming to fantasize about robots that could serve as friends who would always listen to us, who would never become angry, who would never disappoint.

"What are we talking about when we're talking about robots? We're talking about our fears of each other," she said. "Our disappointments with each other. Our lack of community. Our lack of time."

This is technology as a replacement for character. With sophisticated enough tools, we won't feel the pains of our lack of patience, compassion, love.

It brings to mind a (favorite) C.S. Lewis quote:

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. [Instead, get a Tamagochi!] Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries [such as robot-"friends"]; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.

God willing, when I have kids, they will have real pets that scratch and bite if you hold them wrong; shed fur everywhere; chew through your computer cables if you leave them in the wrong spot; sit on the couch with you and eat from your hand at the dinner table; and don't require batteries. My kids will have paper books, which have weight and texture and can be lent to friends. They will not watch TV every day. They will eat vegetables, and not know what french fries are or what coca-cola tastes like. They will be vulnerable and they will learn real love.

Personhood and Compassion

[These are thoughts from a sleepy brain. I hope they are not too abstract to be convincing or useful.]

To love people, you must first see people. If you cannot see people as people--or rather, as persons--then deep compassion will be impossible.

It is difficult to recognize another person's personhood. The other person is all wrapped up, in clothes and flesh, in attitudes and posture, in language and culture. Maybe the other person thinks in radically unfamiliar ways, and so acts in ways that are unpredictable to you, and therefore disturbing.

Otherness tempts us to judgment. It is easy to look out from the familiar windows of my own perspective, and think that I see the world outside me as it really is. The Other outside doesn't make sense, seen through my lenses, except as rude or deceptive or stupid or lazy or cold. It is easy to look out my windows, forget the glass is there, even forget the frame is there, and think: what I see is what is. I see that person, and he looks deceptive to me: he is deceptive.

But the windows are there, and they are made of imperfect glass. It is dirty, or streaked from being imperfectly cleaned, or between its double panes it holds a film of water vapor mixed with dust. Or the glass itself is lumpy, or curved, or contains bubbles. Moreover, the frame is there, limiting the extent to which I can see even a distorted view of the Outside and the Others who inhabit the Outside. The frame, the walls, the windows themselves all limit the accuracy and completeness of the view from inside. And so as long as I stand inside, looking through the glass, I will never see the Outside as it actually is. I need to step outside and look directly at the people around me and the world around me if I want to actually see them.

Compassion is the thing that opens the door and enables me to step outside. Compassion comes from knowing or trusting that that Other being is a Person, exactly the way that I am a Person--no more and no less. Without putting faith in the Other's Personhood, it is extremely difficult for me to have compassion for them. I need to see (with the eyes of faith) that the Other has a story, a mind, a heart; a language, an experience, a culture; thoughts, feelings, memories; a soul. Then I can humble myself to imagine their perspective, and to guess at their motivations with a charitable attitude. Then I can have compassion. Then I can begin to love.

[Credit: I first encountered the idea of personhood or Christian personalism in Thomas Merton's Seasons of Celebration, which I very much recommend.]

Accusation

This week, I've been accused of many things. By default I react with fear mixed with guilt, which sends out roots to squeeze my conscience. This unhealthy seed produces sickly fruit: self-justification wrapped in a rind of indifference. Inside the fruit nestles the same seed that sprouted the whole plant--guilt and fear. The fear of man, which must be the beginning of folly.

What I need is the fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom.

When I spoke to a wise friend about these feelings, she said, quoting a recent sermon, "The devil attacks people in two ways: temptation and accusation.  Accusations are never from God. 'There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.'" When she said this, I felt the relief of truth. Do you know that feeling?--when a truth settles over you and your chest opens up and you breathe in deep, involuntarily, and your shoulders drop and your jaw relaxes. "... Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free," Jesus said (John 8:32).

Accusations are not from God. --Of course, I thought. Satan is called the Accuser. God is not an accuser. God judges, God convicts, God speaks the truth, but He does all these things in love. I have an Advocate, "one who speaks to the Father in my defense--Jesus Christ, the Righteous One" (1 John 2:1). I have a Counselor, "the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father and testifies about [Jesus]" (John 15:26). And "God is light: in Him there is no darkness at all" (1 John 1:5)

I want to be free of accusations, to know the truth, to be set free in the truth. How? How?

"If you hold on to my teaching, you are truly my disciples," Jesus said. "Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

What does it look like to hold on to Jesus' teaching in the midst of accusation? How do I love my enemy? What do I pray for the person who persecutes me? In high school when everyone condemned me for being a Christian, I thought I learned the flavor of persecution. But that was nothing. This is what it feels like to have my character condemned. This is the place from which I must pray for my persecutor, and love the one who attacks me.

This is what I've been memorizing and this is what I pray for you, my accuser:

that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and in depth of insight, that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ--to the praise and glory of God. (Philippians 1:9-11). 

O God, give her love. Give her knowledge and depth of insight. Enable her to discern what is best. Make her pure and blameless, all the way till the day of Christ. Fill her with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Your Son. Transform this situation into one that brings praise and glory to Yourself.

Amen.

Medicine

This morning I woke up 45 minutes before my alarm actually went off, but I hallucinated that I'd woken up to my alarm, and I never did get back to sleep. A headache and a new batch of colored nose-fruit greeted me. On the other side of the window, the trees were writhing. Rain battered the glass and the wind sounded angry.

My morning improved once I got out of bed: Tulsi tea, Nutella sandwich (I need to find a fair-trade alternative to Nutella), comfort from John 17. And it was better when I got back in bed and read Poetry 180, and journalled, ink bleeding through the lined paper, the notebook almost full.

But before I actually got out of bed the first time, and in flashes of sorrow throughout the morning, discontentment pervaded me. Sick sick sick, and all alone. I wanted someone to take care of me, be with me. Actually I didn't want just any someone, I wanted the person who holds me, the person whose presence reminds me--life is sweet. I thought: I am tired of sleeping alone. I want to wake up with O. (109 days...) I want hugs in the morning.

And I thought: Waah, I don't want to be sick.

But I got through the day (cancelled almost everything but made it to my German test; drank at least 5 cups of tea).

Then around 6pm, O. called. "I was partly calling to ask if you've had dinner?"
Me: "No..."
O. "I was thinking about coming by and making you dinner and trying to take care of you."
<3

So he did. He improvised dishes from ingredients I'd been worrying about cooking before they went bad, and it was all very unplanned and it was all very sweet, and much better than chicken soup or Tylenol or breathing steam or all the honeyed cups of tea.

Ring

It felt strange at first. My fingers are used to being free. Even nail polish is a burden. And this, could this really be mine? This shiny thing, this sparkle ring? Me in my thrift-store clothes, my five-year-old shoes, jeans with the hem rolled up: everyone will wonder at the incongruity. It was too big for my ring finger. It wasn't that it didn't fit me but that I didn't fit it. It was beautiful, gorgeous, fantastic, and I was an unpolished little girl. It caught in my hair, on hand towels, on stockings. I couldn't decide if I should take it off to wash my hands and to cook and to do anything, really, with my hands. What if I damaged it? But I didn't want to keep slipping it on and off, as though a promise and a dream could slide on and off again.

(The sun fell on it, and sent pricks of light dancing on the page, and even on the walls and ceiling. I could see the rainbow condensed into a point within the diamond.)

My hand didn't know what to make of it. As my feet carried me about, every so often my finger would comment again to me: I'm encircled by a ring! Sometimes it was just a comment, sometimes it was a complaint. Let me out!

Eventually, we took it to be resized. We handed it over to a lady behind a glass counter, and walked out of the store full of flashing stones.

My left hand had returned to its old, familiar state of ringlessness. My hand was exactly as before, but now it felt naked. What had happened?

School started, I carried books, I cooked for myself, I walked back and forth on the salted paths between snow mesas. Every so often, in the midst of the movement, my finger would comment to me again: I'm not wearing a ring. Something is missing. I feel unclothed.

And now, the ring is back. It is snug on my fourth finger. Now it just feels right, like it belongs there--which it does, the way I belong in the circle of O.'s arms.

Perspective

Sometimes I see myself through your eyes. I stand straighter; I move like a leaf or a tree, blown by the wind. My skin is smoother, softer. I smell like spring, like flowers pushing through the dirt, like the soft rain. My smile comes like the sun bursting through clouds. It dazzles.

Or my smile is the horned moon when it has slipped sideways--light through the latticed trees. And when I look away, I am an image like a painting on the wall in a museum, in a gilded frame. My face is the object of admiration, not analysis.

And all of this is a reflection of a reflection -- the reflection in your eyes, reflected in my words. I see myself in a dark window-pane, as I sit inside this lighted train, speeding through the night.

Sleeping on the red-eye flight

I am not a child
anymore
but in your arms
I am a baby still
and sleepy

When I cry out
from my dreams
I know you
will be here
to wake me

Books: recent past, present, and near future

The good way to do this would be to comment on each book and talk about what it said to me, but that would take an eternity. Besides, I'm still digesting content. Ideas from these will be showing up (have been showing up) in my other writing, I'm sure.

• Four Loves by C.S. Lewis. I got pointed to it yesterday when I was trying to find writing about the Christian theology of the body and desire. Besides, I've been meaning to read this book (and all of Lewis's other stuff) for ages. As befits C.S. Lewis, this book is deeply insightful and surprisingly practical--or perhaps "relevant" would be a better word. At any rate, it is shedding light on the emotional ecology, shall I say, of a number of relational environments. . . I'm about half-way through, having just finished the section on Affection.


• Hopefully I'll make some headway in Holy Trinity this break. I've been hiking through this book for, what, 4 years now? If I had realized it was a seminary textbook when I first picked it up, I don't know if I would have bought it...


• Mudhouse Sabbath by Lauren Winner. I read it New Year's Day, en route from St. Louis to JFK. I really liked this book: meditations on living intentionally, on structuring your life and thoughts around God, on living ritual and tradition.


• Hearing God by Dallas Willard. Finally finished it, two nights ago! I started that book in August and I kept reading it in really small increments because it does take a lot of, hm, chewing. Definitely worthwhile. I intend to go back and reread the section on the "still small voice," to properly absorb. (Does that make me a cow, if I chew the literary cud?)


• Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell. I finished this around Christmas, and I think I'm going to go back to the beginning of that book, too. (Thanks so much, Finney!)


• A Wrinkle in Time and A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L'Engle. It had been a long time since I read those books, and I am so glad I reread them. I hate describing things in superlatives, so I'm just going to tell you to READ THEM if you haven't already. (And read the middle book too! I just couldn't find it on my bookshelf!) One of the major themes, painted beautifully, is the interconnectedness of all things, from the stars down to the mitochondria. We all need each other, L'Engle says.

As for what I'm reading next, here are 3 from the top of my mental stack:

• Adger's Core Syntax, because sentences are fascinating!


• Kingdom Without Borders from Urbana, about the church around the world. I'm excited to learn about different cultures and how God works in different places.


• A commentary on Hosea, lent to me by the pastor at church, in preparation for Bible study next semester.

There is a lamentable lack of fiction on this list, despite the glorious exception of Madeleine L'Engle. Any suggestions for novels for me to read?

M.

Scream to me, wave your hands. Grieve out loud about the injustice of it all. You apologize for being upset and I tell you: No, you should be upset. This is wrong. They are not being fair to you, they are wronging you. This is not the way the world is supposed to be.

Stand up and reach out for me. I'll wrap my arms around your thin body and hold you tight, as you cling to me, collapsing, bent. Your head is heavy on my shoulder. You shake in my arms, in this storm of sobs. I will hold you as long as you need. . . Come, sit with me.

Tell me. Tell me your sorrow, your dreads, the grief that stalks you even in the sunshine, the fury that throws you directions you don't mean to go. You end up on unfamiliar paths, unsure of your footing. I don't know where to turn, you say. I feel so stuck. All I can do is listen, twine my fingers through your hair and hold your hand. Lean on me, cry on me, hide your face in me: I'm here with you.

I want to say I'll always be here for you, but only God can do that.

And God, where are you in this? If your eye is on the sparrow, why does the sparrow fall in the first place? What good is it to be watched by your loving eye, if your hand doesn't reach out?

Dear one, cry, it's all right. Selfish? You? We all are, I suppose, but to rage or grieve over injustice and brokenness, over betrayal of someone you love, over betrayal by the ones who are supposed to keep you safe, that is not selfishness. Grieve. Let it go. . . Release the guilt, please. It's not your fault. You're not in the wrong.

I want to rescue you but only God can do that. But I can hold you and love you and whisper truth to you as God gives it to me, and that is enough. The best I can do is enough. The best you can do is enough, I tell you, and you cry some more. Eternity is in this moment, when we cling to each other. Touch is the most fundamental language, and I am telling you: It will be all right. I am with you. I will not abandon you. You are loved. I love you. (Is this enough?)

There is hope. But how can I make you see it?

I can't. Only God can do that. But I can love you, and that is enough. By the grace of God, we are both doing enough.

Sunday

Sunday morning is always for church. But what is church for? Sometimes I just go and evaluate, and nothing real happens in me. I fidget: twist a strand of hair, look up semi-relevant Bible verses, pick at my fingernails. I can't keep my body still, much less my mind. I'm not really there, I just wake up for a couple of good songs and then fade back into restlessness.

But there are other days when the reverberation of the organ infiltrates my bones, when my gaze clings to the stained glass windows, when a word from the pastor takes root in my thoughts. Stillness seeps into me. I wake up.

Sometimes I open my eyes to joy that I have been rushing past. Sometimes I wrench the blindfold off and my eyes burn in the light. Sometimes, instead, they burn at the darkness in my heart. But tears wash away the scorch marks, because the whole church reminds me: love is not a function of my achievement or failure.

The sermon today was about unresolved conflict. I am very good at avoiding conflict by forgetting what I want and need. A day or a week or three months later, I finally understand that I can't go on like this, and then I have to unwrap the conflict, deal with it. Another quarter of the year later, I finally begin to realize how much I am hurt from that season where I folded up my soul and put it away in a drawer. I had to face that hurt today. I don't like that I am still hurting from things that (I think) shouldn't be on my mind anymore. I don't like that burying pain hasn't made it disintegrate and sprout into something new and beautiful. Instead it is still lying under the surface. When I try to plant something else, the shovel runs into it.

But I don't have to heal myself. My survival is not contingent on doing everything right. God is not contingent on anything. We sing in church, "Your love, O Lord, reaches to the heavens. Your faithfulness stretches to the sky." I need to keep singing that song.