From time to time we ask the Gen AI engine ChatGPT to reflect on a spiritual topic. Today, I asked it to write a Catholic homily on the excesses of the Trump administration's immigration policy. While I'm not certain the result is exactly a homily, it's concise and it's good - in fact, more than good. What do you think?
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
Today, we gather to reflect upon the profound teachings of our faith concerning the treatment of migrants and refugees, especially in light of recent developments in our nation's immigration policies.
The Gospel calls us to recognize the inherent dignity of every human being, created in the image and likeness of God. This divine imprint bestows upon each person an inalienable right to be treated with compassion, respect, and justice. Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself was a refugee, fleeing with His family to Egypt to escape Herod's wrath. In embracing the stranger, we embrace Christ Himself.
Pope Francis has consistently reminded us of our Christian duty to welcome and protect migrants. In a recent letter to the U.S. bishops, he emphasized that "the true common good is promoted when society and government... welcomes, protects, promotes and integrates the most fragile, unprotected and vulnerable." This teaching challenges us to look beyond political and social divides and to see the face of Christ in those seeking refuge among us.
However, recent actions by our government have raised serious concerns. The abrupt suspension of the refugee resettlement program has left thousands in limbo, denying them the opportunity for a new beginning. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has expressed that such measures "eviscerate humanitarian protections enshrined in federal law and undermine due process, subjecting vulnerable families and children to grave danger."
Moreover, the cessation of funding for faith-based organizations involved in refugee resettlement hampers the Church's mission to serve those in need. These organizations have been instrumental in providing shelter, support, and hope to countless individuals fleeing persecution and violence. Their work embodies the very essence of the Gospel's call to love and serve the least among us.
As Catholics, we are called to advocate for policies that uphold the sanctity of human life and the dignity of every person. This includes urging our leaders to develop humane immigration policies that reflect our nation's foundational values of justice and compassion. Bishop Michael F. Burbidge of Arlington has encouraged "President Trump and Congressional leaders to develop a national immigration policy that reflects the Catholic commitment to human dignity and the common good."
Let us remember the words of our Lord in the Gospel of Matthew: "I was a stranger and you welcomed me." May we, as a faith community, rise to this challenge, extending our hands and hearts to those in need, and advocating for just policies that reflect the love and mercy of Christ.
Amen.
I dunno. I get that AI simply completes its assignment by cribbbing from what people have already put out in the ether. But saying '"Amen" to a machine generated homily makes me feel like I am contributing to the continued demise of human endeavor and care for others. I don't read the blog to marvel at what AI can do. I read it to find out what the rest of you real people think.
ReplyDeleteYep, I get that. But it's a pretty good research assistant. If I was actually going to preach on that topic (and it could happen), I'd make use of those references.
DeleteI agree with Jim that in this case unlike in previous homilies, references were provided. Perhaps that was because the request was very current, and the computer focused on those articles.
DeleteI think it was also good that the references given were to the Pope, the bishop's conference then a local bishop. Maybe AI has learned that is the proper hierarchy of quotes in a Catholic homily.
One of the reasons for the success of AI is that we now have very large databases. Computers are much better at analyzing those databases that we humans.
However as with all databases garbage in, garbage out. It is not simply the quality of the computer program it is also the quality of the database that the computer uses. That is the great unknown in most cases. It not simply a case of the more data, the better the answers.
If it does good documentation like in this example, it could give homilists an idea of what a homily might look like and allow them to adjust it depending on their congregation and additional information such as local media coverage of the impact.
For example, in a homily in Boston, the pastor was able to point at all the things that were going on in the city with regard to refugees, as well as church programs in places like Haiti. All these last things help a great deal in making the issue very concrete and local rather than media slogans.
Jack thinks literature is a waste of time, and Jim's got a big family and a full-time job, so I get where you're coming from.
DeleteBut: You can do all the same research and, in doing it yourself, gain insights and make more connections to your local situation than the machine can. You think it does a great job at research because you haven't bothered to do the research yourself and don't know what you're missing.
If you knew teachers trying to deal with students writing assignments in the classroom and learning nothing, if you saw how many writing jobs are now involved in "training" AI programs to replace humans, if you saw how publishers are using AI to "write" books to feed (and degrade) current lit tastes, if you saw how many customer service jobs are going to be replaced by AI and self-serve, you'd understand why I see AI as a bigger threat to Our Way of Life than Trump.
Movement to AI in some areas is inevitable, maybe even desirable in time-sensitive areas of life. But I draw the line at clergy fobbing us sheep off on AI sermons cuz it's faster.
AI requires electrical energy. Good old NI only needs lasagna. Thinking of cars, feet in a rational living arrangement requires much less energy than using cars in a spread out suburban landscape. And it’s healthier. I agree with you, Jean. I’m a Luddite on this. And who’s to say the AI can’t throw a bias from some rich scumbag (we won’t mention names) into the research.
DeleteAs a preacher its easier for me to talk about theory and abstractions than it is to anchor my preaching in the concrete situations of real people's lives. But of course the latter is what people hunger for, if their comments to me after mass are representative. I don't know if AI helps or hinders in that respect. I think what GenAI spit out in the post was fairly abstract. It's not what I would aim for in preaching.
DeleteAI programs are already throwing bias--or perpetuating existing bias--into output. You don't have to search too hard to find stories from credible sources about how this happens.
DeleteAt this point, AI programs are trying to be broad, comprehensive, and credible. But it's just as easy to strain out certain viewpoints, types of people, and sources of info to skew what people see with AI.
AI may be giving you the sources it uses, but it is not transparent about sources it's leaving out.
It isn't the worst homily I ever read, in fact it's better than a lot of them.
ReplyDeleteBut the Luddite in me rebels. I guess AI is okay for research? Is there even any point nowadays for teachers to assign theme papers?
I am fantasizing what the Nicene Creed would look like if they had AI back then.
And I am halfway wishing we could stuff the AI genie back in the bottle and lock it in an abandoned uranium mine 500 feet below the ground.
Autistic Silicone Valley weirdos are coming up with all kinds of ways to minimize human effort and interactions. Great if you are "neurodivergent" or whatever we're calling the maladjusted these days. But most of us are not.
DeleteI think it's ironic that the reason some people voted for Trump was because they were afraid immigrants were going to steal all the jobs. Turns out AI can steal jobs a lot more efficiently.
DeleteMy mom used to cry every time she got routed to an automatic operator at the bank, Consumers, the pharmacy, etc. She could not follow the array of options, and she was sure that they had her number plugged into a computer that identified her as a "low priority person."
DeleteI will say that one of the most delightful tech support calls I had was with somebody in rural Southeast Asia, from the sound of the accent. She said, "Do not worry! I know just how to fix this, and you will be done in a jiffy." While she tapped away, I could hear kids playing and chickens in the background. She was quick, pleasant, had me double check to ensure things were working, and I was done in a jiffy! But in that moment I was in a little country house in rural Sri Lanka where a cheerful mom was helping customers while her kids chased the chickens. Sometimes I pray for them.
Betty's two children are neurodivergent. They have different fathers. Their neurodivergence is inherited from Betty. It is related to a genetic condition which among things you might say that it makes their nervous system faster and more computer like.
DeleteBetty is somewhat like that. If I am looking for something, she can tell me all the places that she has recently seen it. Her son is even more extreme. He rarely comes to our house. But one time I said I was looking for something (ever the absent-minded professor). He without looking or searching promptly told me where it was. His brain evidently had looked around my great room and stored all the information before the question was ever asked!
Both of her children have problems with social relations. The son has a great deal of problems in relating to people. His brain does not seem to function intuitively in this area. However, he can often come up with brilliant social insights about people because his brain has analyzed all the information in very computer like fashion. It just does not help him deal with people on a minute to minute basis.
The daughter is beautiful and popular. However she easily gets tired of people and jobs, and she is easily exploited by men. She abandoned a really good marriage. She did father a son out of wedlock. Betty ended up raising the son who was very difficult. He now has fathered a daughter out of wedlock.
Both of Betty's marriages ended up in divorce because the husbands were self-centered and not up to raising neurodivergent children. The problem for the older female daughter was made worse since she had cancer when in high school which she eventually survived.
Betty's only social problem is that she has spent her life living in dysfunctional families, supporting them by working much too much, and taking care of all their health problems as well as many of her own.
My life in the mental health system prepared me well for welcoming Betty into my life. There I became friends with some very talented people who had mental health disabilities. I never bothered to ask about their disabilities. I simplify focused on their talents, the things that they had going for them and we got along well.
In terms of Betty's children, I have made clear that I am Betty's best friend and companion. We are not going to get married. Betty's first marriage was annulled, and the second marriage has so many holes in it that a bishop could annul it without going through an investigation. However, I think friendship is the most important relationship in life. My parents were best friends, and I became their best friends.
While I will not be their father-in-law, they are welcome to be my friends. I haven't the foggiest idea of how to be a father, but I have a good track record of being friends with disabled people. Fortunately, the daughter is three thousand miles away and the son has disability, housing and case managers to help. But the daughter has a lot of health problems and may not outlive Betty.
So welcome to the world of mental and related illnesses. One sociologist has maintained that these are the poorest people because they not only do not have money (living on disability) but they have poor social networks, and poor self-esteem because people are constantly troubled by their atypical thoughts, emotions and behaviors.
I am thankful that God gave my professional life to them in preference to the Jesuits, or academia, and I am thankful for Betty's companionship in my old age.
God said that the rich will have a great deal of difficulty entering heaven. I don't think he will allow billionaires to make the excuse that they were mentally ill. I don't think he will allow them to live with all the poor mentally people in heaven. I think
God has a place reserved for all the billionaires far away everyone else.
Jack, I think you are right about friendship being the most important thing. Those of us who are married are fortunate if our spouses are also our best friends.
DeleteYou and Betty are lucky to have found each other.
I know some people who have autism or Asperger's. None of them are like Musk. They struggle to a degree, to do the things most of us take for granted.
Jean, I would much rather talk to a real person on a customer service line, than an AI voice, even if they are in a foreign country.
I had my time with behavioral/scholastic experts when The Boy was diagnosed with a learning disability. They are good diagnosticians. Sometimes they have a few practical tips. Sadly, there's a lot they don't know about how these things work and their solutions are pills pills pills.
DeleteNeurodivergent kids love the computer because they control it, it is completely predictable, it will indulge their obsessions with certain topics for hours on end, and it has no eye contact or body language to make them nervous. As such, the smart ones all go into computer game theory, AI, data mining, etc., and they build this stuff that appeals to their comfort level. And Big Biz loves it because any time you can replace people with machines, that saves $$.
So, imo, those of us who are not autistic are confronted with high levels of automation beyond our comfort zones, and we're getting frustrated, depressed, disoriented, and isolated in a society that relies on this stuff.
Jean, maybe you are just getting old like me.
DeleteWhen my aunt was in her eighties, after her husband died, I talked to her every weekend. It was always the catastrophe of the week, that something her husband used to take care of was malfunctioning. He had left her with a long list of numbers for problem solvers. My aunt was always a talker and good story teller. I wondered how much of this was just to entertain me. Now that I am in my eighties, it seems that I am always having a catastrophe, sometimes daily. There just seems to be too many things to take care of and not enough time. I marvel at all the things that used to do when I was seventy and even more what I did when I was sixty. How could I have possibly done all that.
I don't think all the young people who are at home in these things are truly neurodivergent. I think their brains just work faster like ours did when we were that young. I recently redid my line of credit on my house. You have to do that about every ten years, and I had done it several times before. But it seemed so long and exhausting this time about.
I do think the work world has unrealistic expectations of us older people. They are always wanting me to do away with paper trails. I have almost all my bank deposits and payments automated. But how would someone else be able to come into my computer and manage all that if I became incapacitated. I think the paper trail is needed.
I saw a lot of troubling things when I was still teaching re young people and tech. As a teacher for 30 years, I also know a little bit about how the state of critical thinking and how tech affects it. But if you feel I have merely become an old biddy telling tiresome stories and recounting catastrophes, there is certainly no point in my continuing to participate here.
DeleteNot entirely related but kind of, I see that yesterday Jeff Bezos made a change in the Washington Post's editorial policy. From now on its opinion articles will focus on being business-friendly and supporting personal liberty.
ReplyDeleteI wasn't going to renew my subscription anyway, but that pretty much settled it. Most of the opinion writers I used to read there are gone anyway, the last one left was EJ Dionne. The last article he wrote was about three weeks ago, a kind of call to arms to the resistance to MAGA. I can't imagine him caring much about the new approved topics, and he will probably be gone too.
One guilty pleasure I used to have was reading Carolyn Hax's advice column. But lately as often as not the columns have been past ones, and they pretty much say the same thing. Seems like she kind of quiet retired. Would we notice if AI started writing advice columns?
WaPo's comment section has also gotten rather weird, instead of their old "like" button, they now have "clarifying, new to me, provocative, or thoughtful" choices. No one seems to like those, and comments are way down in number.
DeleteOne thing when papers fiddle around with endorsements in elections. But this is now the White House calling the shots on content. Cancelled this morning. Moving to The Guardian.
DeleteI like the Guardian. Maybe I will do that too. I still have the NYT for now, and got back on the Omaha World Herald, even though they raised their price (LOL, they offered a special deal to re-up). Independent journalism is more important than ever.
DeleteI don't know much about Bezos, so I'm entirely sure what his motives are. I'm wondering if this could be a rational business decision along the lines of, "We don't have the same resources and footprint as the NY Times, so let's not try to occupy the same opinion 'real estate' it occupies. Let's find a different niche.' No idea if that's what's going on here, just speculating.
DeleteI’ve been reading the WaPo for more than 55 years. It’s the hometown newspaper. I almost cancelled when so many writers left after the endorsement refusal. . But this latest is too much. The suppression of freedom of speech is advancing quickly. First the Pentagon kicking out some of the mainstream media from the embedded press pool. Then the WH barring AP from events. No longer honoring the decades long practice of the WH press corps selecting the weekly rotation of the press pool. The WH will do it. Now banning words like diversity, inclusion. Climate change etc on all social media and websites ( government ones I presume but it will be everyone soon). Our son has been involved in programs to teach ranchers sustainable farm methods that are more efficient for grazing and rotations. Sustainable is another banned word.
DeleteJim, it doesn't seem to me that it's about occupying a different niche. For instance, The Economist has an economic niche. Likewise the WSJ. The Washington Post and the NYT are (were?) about about being news and general interest, independent journalism. Didn't seem like they had a problem
Deletebeing in the same general vicinity niche prior to Bezos. He had a weird comment, something about people getting their balanced news off the internet now (huh?)
Bezos' problem is he owes his soul to the company store, aka Donald Trump.
Jim, Bezos is MAGA. Now he’s being more open about his political leanings because he’s “ safe”. WaPo was always slightly to the right of NYT and had a range of opinion writers. Now I’m wondering if George Will and Catherine Rampellwill walk too. I think they might be the only two sort of conservatives left. Gene Robinson has stayed, but he’s been writing for decades. He might decide this is a good time to retire too.
DeleteAnne, as a resident of that area, what do you think about Trump's threat to take over the governance of DC? Can he actually do that? Of course he calls it a hell hole.
DeleteKatherine, I’ve traveled a lot in the US as well as overseas. I think Washington DC is the most beautiful big city in the country. Charleston SC is the most beautiful small city - at least in the historic district. DC has hell- hole neighborhoods just as every big city does. But it is mostly beautiful. It’s got a great quality of life. All of the Smithsonians are free. The Kennedy Center used to be great. There are other great museums as well. Art, music, culture, many great restaurants from every culture, etc. The Potomac River runs through it and there are great waterfront restaurants and attractions. Th climate is relatively tame compared to much of the country. Outdoor activities on the river and nearby. Skiing within two hours ( not great but close enough to day trips). The Chesapeake Bay is fantastic for boats of all kinds and for fishing, oysters, and the incomparable Chesapeake Bay blue crabs. The Bay is less than an hour from the city. Charming historic towns in both Maryland and Virginia. The ocean beaches are 3 hours away. Historic venues by the dozen within a few hours drive . Trump doesn’t like DC because the largest racial group is African American ( but they are no longer more than 50% of the population) and is 90%+ Democratic.
DeleteDC has had home rule for decades. They have no official representatives in Congress because DC isn’t a state nor is it in a state. The Nixon administration gave DC the right to elect it’s a city government- Mayor, City Council, Police Chief etc. It has an elected but non- voting representative in Congress who can try to represent DC concerns. A large part of the area of the city is owned by the Federal govt - office buildings, monuments, parks etc mostly. Its budget is controlled by Congress. The population is larger than several states , like Wyoming, that have two Senators and one Representative. So those states have a vote. With two senators and under a million people, they have the same representation in the Senate as Calif, with 40 million people.
The people of DC have been pushing for statehood for years .DC license plates say “Taxation without Representation” on them.
Unfortunately if trump and his cronies decide to take away DC’s Home Rule for city government they can do it.
I've never been to DC, but when I think of it I don't think of hell hole scenes. I suppose the picture that comes to mind is the one with cherry blossoms reflected in the pool in front of the Washington monument.
DeleteIf Trump thinks DC is so bad and unpleasant I wish he would have stayed in his dime store paradise at Mar a Lago.
I'd have to think if he seriously tried to take away DC's home ru!e he'd have serious pushback.
Interesting Guardian story about AI vs People. Possibly some interesting points for the tech fans here:
ReplyDeleteAI is ‘beating’ humans at empathy and creativity. But these games are rigged | MJ Crockett https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/feb/28/ai-empathy-humans?CMP=share_btn_url
I thought this paragraph was good: "Techno-optimism is more accurately described as “human pessimism” when it assumes that the quality of our character is easily reducible to code. We can acknowledge AI as a technical achievement without mistaking its narrow abilities for the richer qualities we treasure in each other."
DeleteYes, goes along with that whole autistic notion that people are pains in the ass, and life is way better if we can just talk to the computer who lives to serve. It aggregates lots of info and spits out EZ solutions--medical diagnoses, orders at the Olive Garden, homework assgts, work memos, thank you cards, speeches for all occasions, research summaries, and sermons.
DeleteWhat does "autistic notion" mean? It seems to imply something about people with autism that makes me uncomfortable.
DeleteIs there such a thing as an autistic notion? Autism spectrum seems to be a very broad category, when they don't know where else to classify someone. I do know some autistic people, they are nothing like Musk. He is trying to pull the rug out from under the social safety net programs that these people very much need.
DeleteUsing "autistic" as shorthand is clearly offensive and not conveying anything meaningful. I will stop saying it. There is, however, a tendency to promote individuals, especially in tech, with certain traits associated with neurodivergence--obsessive focus, preference for working alone, logic free of sentimentality, etc.
DeleteMaybe Mr. Spock of Star Trek was autistic?
DeleteI knew a couple of those type of people at work, they seemed obsessive about working with tech stuff. They were helpful if you needed assistance with tech issues (which I did sometimes) but were not very social and it was hard to engage with them on anything else. I guess one just accepted them on their terms.
DeleteJean,
DeleteAutistic and neurodivergent are both clearly offensive to me. They are the equivalent to referring to mentally ill people as crazy.
The problem occurs when people begin to use a medical category in a negative way to classify people and their behaviors.
When I use neurodivergent for Betty's family, I am using it in a very precise scientific way. It is genetically based, there are real changes in their physiology. They are part of a scientific database, and there is ongoing research which is evolving. It is not simply assigning a label to a bunch of behaviors and then inferring some internal trait responsible for all these things. The genetic trait in fact expresses itself in many different ways depending upon the rest of the person's heredity and environment.
I have no doubt that some people like to work alone, some people like logical thinking, some people avoid dealing with their emotions, and some people tend to be very focused. Why not accept people as they are? I can understand why some people might be unhappy with some of the behaviors. But isn't using autistic or neurodivergent to express our unhappiness with such people very similar to ethnic slurs of the past, e.g. dumb Polacks.
And if these people find jobs in work environments that are favorable to their preferences, why should we criticize those work organizations?
There are professionals, both in mental health and education, who make a living by offering people the possibility of change. As someone who has worked in both mental health and higher education, my practice was always to begin with the positives in people lives, preferably positives that are accepted by the person and other people in their environment and build upon those. I think people need dignity and worth above all else.
However, I have encountered many people, perhaps even the majority of professionals in mental health and education who have some very negative attitudes toward clients and students. They tend to focus upon the problems not the talents of the people involved. They often engage in derogatory language when among colleagues. (By the way so do the clergy with regard to laity).
WE ARE COMING UP ON A NEW MONTH. IF YOU ARE NOT A COMMONWEAL SUBSCRIBER PLEASE SAVE YOUR FREE LINKS, I AM GOING TO BE POSTING A NUMBER ARE ARTICLES.
One is very appropriate to this issue. The new psychiatric diagnoses have a label for people who grieve for longer than a year. These diagnoses have effects on our culture. Will people who grieve longer think they need help? Will others begin to treat them differently? Will we begin to have all sorts of drugs and therapies for this new disorder? Will it change how we view relationships? This article could be applied to a lot of things, e.g. gender dysphoria, autism, learning disorder.
I have blind spots and a lot of resentment when it comes to addicts and the mentally ill.
DeleteIn seeking to expand my understanding of the neurodivergent and the extent to which our tech culture not only accepts but prefers the neurodivergent, I found this really informative story in the Harvard Biz Review:
Deletehttps://hbr.org/2017/05/neurodiversity-as-a-competitive-advantage
From the article:
(Snip) The tech industry has a history of hiring oddballs. The talented nerd who lacks social graces has become a cultural icon, as much a part of the industry mythos as the company that starts in a garage. In his book NeuroTribes, Steve Silberman points out that the incidence of autism is particularly high in places like Silicon Valley (for reasons not completely understood). He and others have hypothesized that many of the industry’s “oddballs” and “nerds” might well have been “on the spectrum,” although undiagnosed. Hiring for neurodiversity, then, could be seen as an extension of the tendencies of a culture that recognizes the value of nerds. (End snip)
I guess I could reveal that The Boy's learning disability that put him "on the spectrum" years ago, though autism was never suggested by any of the shrinks and experts we consulted. So I'm not totally untouched by this issue. But a lot of the nomenclature and treatment protocols are diff now ... though likely just as useless and stigmatizing as they were then. Bottom line is that all the experts made a lot of $$ off us and the resulting help ranged from useless to outright harmful. But that's my personal beef and problem.
I know little about autism or neurodivergence ( a word I had never heard until fairly recently). I have never known anyone who has been diagnosed as either. I tend to trust your experience Jean. I am an introvert. I never knew that introverts are a minority and that some companies don’t want to hire them until I read a couple of articles about the psychological profiling some companies do - like DISC and Myers Briggs. Maybe the techies are just introverts.
DeleteI am an INFJ on the M-B chart, for whatever that's worth. I also have a high number of Virgo traits for anybody who puts any stock in that: bossy, undemonstrative, introspective, good in an emergency, loves making contingency plans.
DeleteI like people in small groups for about 2 hours. Big parties give me headaches. In the last two years, I have become more isolated than I like. But getting ready for an outing tires me out.
I’m an INFP and a Gemini. I always prefer small groups. I realized last year how important my small group of friends in Maryland are to me. I was so lonely. I felt so isolated in San Jose where I had no friends. We’re isolated here too because of my husbands paralysis but not nearly as isolated as we were in California. I can’t easily make new friends for my old age because of my hearing problems. So my friends of decades are even more important than ever. We are very sad because our French « daughter » who lost her USAID job and her German husband are moving to their cabin in Maine, selling their house in DC ( Katherine, she said she will not live there with Congress running the city) and they think they may have to move back to Europe. We will miss them terribly. They came every two weeks or so and we really have always enjoyed their company. They can’t afford to keep the cabin in Maine and the DC house anyway now with the loss of her income. They have quite a bit of equity in the DC house so that eases the financial crisis.
DeleteOne more loss.
Luckily, my friend was able to retire yesterday. She probably would have survived the chaos but she said it would be like staying in an abusive relationship. Also, it might save some younger person’s spot. And she hated witnessing the mass maltreatment in her workplace. Odd for her, she has been having sleepless nights. She is glad to be clear of it. Of course, nothing is certain anymore. She has job offers already so is in better shape than most. Anne, I’m sorry to hear of the displacement of your friends. What angers me is the shadenfreude of the Trumpers over cruelty to people they don’t know but judge remotely as “bureaucrats”. I am ready to explode if I encounter this in person. At the minimum, I’d probably tell them to eff themselves. Now that my eyes are fixed, I’ll be returning to social gatherings but I’m wondering how that will work out. I don’t see how I can meet with my relatives at this point. I am very angry. If there were enough people like me, none of this would be happening. Maybe there are enough.
DeleteShe has also stopped going to her Evangelical Lutheran Church. Permanently, I don’t know. But she can’t take the insouciance of the Trumpers toward what is happening.
DeleteJean, I found a quick and easy comparison of INFP and INFJ.
Deletehttps://clickup.com/blog/infj-vs-infp/
Stanley is her church an “ evangelical” Lutheran church that is part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America or is it part of the Missouri Synod? The ELCA Lutherans are usually more
DeleteProgressive than the Missouri Synod churches which are actually more like what most refer to as “ evangelical”..
Whichever is more conservative, I believe, Anne.
DeleteThey can both be pretty conservative, depending on where they are. Most of the ones here are LCMS. Their liturgy is a lot similar to ours. One of them here is a historic church with a lovely pipe organ, I went to a recital there once.
DeleteThe most conservative of all is the Wisconsin Synod. There is one of those in our county, clear out in the country. The Missouri Synod people say they wouldn't go there, way too grim.
My paternal grandfather was Danish Lutheran, apparently they are different than the ones with German roots. He never did find a congregation he was comfortable with here.
We have a Wisconsin Synod church near us and our neighbor belongs. The minister used to do weekly Lent sermons in the local radio. Altho the Wisconsins are conservative, I really enjoyed the sermons. Based on the neighbor, a rabid Trumper, I prob would not enjoy the congregants.
DeleteAnne, thanks for the link. I see the M-B thing as basically a parlor game. Fun, but can be dangerous in the hands of a boss who puts too much stock in them. And not always accurate. I've always preferred fiction to non.
Katherine, my friend’s church was founded by Scandinavian-descent folks. Regarding neurodiversity, I think cell phones and the internet have done it to everyone, especially youth.
DeleteI hadn’t heard of the Wisconsin Synod.
DeleteJean, I worked in a project with a woman who was very big on having all the team take the Myers Briggs. She claimed it would help the team know the strengths of each person for assigning tasks and understanding one another better. Make the team more efficient. Everyone but her did look at it as a parlor game. I have taken the MB several times over the years, starting about 25 years ago, and several years between retaking it. I was a little surprised in a way that I got INFP every time - in my 50s, 60s, and 70s - because I didn’t remember the questions.
I did think that your profile was wrong on the reading preferences. But, without knowing you in person, I thought it might be pretty on- target. Analytical, great insights, an introvert, organized. My profile does fit me reasonably - I dislike structure, have always been spontaneous, love to read both escape fiction and non- fiction. We often took trips on a day or two notice. We flew to Europe twice with our sons and a car reservation, but no hotel reservations or itinerary. People thought we were nuts but we hated to be locked in to hotels and timetables. Most of our best memories are of the unplanned diversions we made after meeting locals on our trips. The only time we arranged tours was in Japan. After a couple of them we packed our stuff on one, got off the bus and told the guide we weren’t getting back on so her head count wouldn’t worry her. Then we just started walking. This was in Kyoto. After leaving the tourist area ( signs in English) we found the best of Kyoto. We knew because all the signs in the stores and streets were only Japanese characters. We adhered, had dinner at a great restaurant in a gorgeous park where we were the only westerners. It was a great afternoon and evening. The cab drivers knew the hotels so we got back ok because we had no idea where we were until later, looking at a paper map.
We really miss being able to leave the house on a moments landing for day trips.
Stanley, my cousin retired from NOAA a couple years ago. Said his sanity could not risk going thru another Trump administration, plus his health took a turn when he was sent to the Gulf to help monitor that Deepwater Horizon oil spill. He also had long-term projects going in the Arctic, and he became more and more depressed about the state of things up there. If you want some fodder for a post apocalyptic eco dystopian, call up anybody at NOAA. Dimwit politicians who think the biggest issue in the Arctic is changing the name if MT Denali back to Mt McKinley will figure prominently in any scenario. Meantime, I'm waiting for Elon to dismantle AirNow.gov, which gives you the AQI by zip code. I use it in summer to track forecasts for when I can be outdoors without having a breathing episode.
DeleteRe M-B, think most of my traits were hardened by living in a nutty and chaotic family, and I have a sneak feeling that a lot of INFJs lived with addicts and mentally ill people.
DeleteBeing able to pick up on slight changes in the emotional "weather" in our family was the only way to survive. I still pick up on a lot of the emotional static in groups, which can be exhausting in addition to following a conversation.
As a kid, I knew when to move to a heightened state of readiness because a situation was going sideways or to withdraw and deflect, usually with a book in my room for distraction.
Making contingency plans, doing research, and being hyper-organized is part of my m.o. I distrust emotions because they could turn on a dime when somebody was drinking and pill-popping. If somebody says "I love you," I have to bite my tongue from asking, "Have you been drinking?"
I can be dismissive of other people's ideas if I believe they haven't put enough "work" into them. I loathe surprises, spontaneity, physical clutter, people wanting to cancel or change plans at the last minute, or anything distracting or out of my control.
I had to give up a lot of rigidity when The Boy came along. It was good for me. Now that he's on his own, some of it has crept back.
I enjoy being around cats.
I always forget exactly what Myers Briggs category I am, I lose the piece of scratch paper or back of an envelope I wrote my answers on so I do it again months or years later. It is always IN...something. I know who I am but sometimes that last letter floats around.
DeleteRe NOAA.
Deletehttps://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/28/climate/noaa-trump-staff-cuts.html?unlocked_article_code=1.0k4.-bC0.Fsk_y-4t6m7M&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
So apparently staff cuts at NOAA are revenge for talking about climate change. My older son has a couple of meteorologist friends. One is a fed employee, the other is a contractor. I am also concerned about my great-niece, who is majoring in astrophysics at Penn State. Wondering if she'll be able to find a job when she graduates.
DeletePerhaps it’s also revenge for sharpie- gate when they refused to change the forecast for where the hurricane was headed at trumps direction.. Between embarrassing the king and climate change ( a banned phrase I believe) poor NOAA was in for it.
DeleteThis conversation is much more interesting than the original post!
ReplyDeleteJim, at my sister's recommendation I listened to the last 10 minutes of your state's governor's state-of-the-state address. I was impressed.
Deletestop him fromHe's smart, articulate, competent, effective. Too progressive for me, especially on abortion. I am sure he'd like to run for president in 2028. He and other blue state guvs now have to deal with the gusher of COVID-era federal money being turned off, so being a spend-y governor is going to be a lot harder going forward. He's quite overweight, which doesn't stop him from being an effective governor but I am not sure how it will play with the American public.
DeleteI'd still like Pritzker better than Newsom. Maybe someone like Shapiro would be best.
DeleteIt didn't seem like Trump was running on an austerity platform, but that's what we got with Musk/DOGE in charge. With austerity for everyone but oligarchs, all state governments are going to be stress-tested.
Your first three words, "stop him from" are a little puzzling. Stop him from what? As far as I know, nobody has declared to run in '28. First we have to get through the next few weeks/months/years without our democracy being fed into the wood chipper.
Jim, other than apparently being pro- choice, how is he too progressive? I know nothing about him.
DeleteI just got off the phone with my son. He thinks that trump will try to provoke a court case that allows him to run for a third term. The argument will be that the 22nd Amendment doesn’t apply.
This article explains how trump could end run the second Amendment
https://cornerstonelaw.us/22nd-amendment-doesnt-say-think-says/
22nd not second.
DeleteGiven Trump's age and state of health and mind right now, I think it would be a stretch for him to run in '28. He'd be 83. People were sure Biden shouldn't have stayed in the race as long as he did. Trump would be dealing with the same or worse limitations.
DeleteMy last word on AI and sermons:
ReplyDeleteSomeone in my Old English group posted AElfric's homily for this Sunday preached over 1,000 years ago. The text is Mark 10:46, Jesus's encounter with the blind man. It is loaded with metaphors and similes and the kind of poetic contrasts Anglo-Saxons loved.
But it also spoke directly to Anglo-Saxon sensibilities--the yearning for home, for peace, for cessation of suffering.
Aelfric also understood that people in his time struggled with the story of Jesus's violent death: If he was God, why did he die? In AElfric's sermon there is no substitutionary atonement, but a narrative in which Jesus's miracles prefigure his conquest of death. He is teaching his disciples to trust his goodness and power so that they won't be quite so afraid when his time comes ... or theirs.
Feel free to see if AI can come up with anything half as good.
https://aclerkofoxford.blogspot.com/2015/02/now-pure-and-holy-time-draws-near.html. (Old English excerpts are all translated.)
Jean, the link didn’t work for me. I would like to read it.
ReplyDeleteMy bad. Period on end of link: https://aclerkofoxford.blogspot.com/2015/02/now-pure-and-holy-time-draws-near.html
ReplyDelete