I made it through an audition and will be joining the Orchestra Iowa Chorus this year. In the spring we’re doing Mozart’s Requiem. I bought the score and did a first listen/read through the other night… I’ve got some work to do! 😯I needed a challenge. This will be a good one.
Ah, the typical library visit: return two books, borrow six more.
Looking back or looking forward? Reading Ivan Illich up against Ilia Delio
A useful maxim for me over the years has been to find out who my favorite writers are reading, and start reading those authors. As I wrote previously, I’ve benefitted quite a lot recently from Chris E. W. Green’s podcast. One of the thinkers Green has been referencing frequently is Ivan Illich, an Austrian Catholic priest and thinker from the first part of the 20th century. So, off I went to learn about Ilich.
It appears that a digestible canonical form of Illich’s thought is in a wonderful CBC radio series titled ‘The Corruption of Christianity’ as presented by journalist David Cayley. I’m only through 3 of the 5 hour-long episodes so far, but it’s fascinating stuff. Illich contends that the movement to formally establish programs to do good, even (especially?) church-run programs, is a horrible corruption of the original Christian call, because the benevolence then ceases to be a voluntary act of love on the part of the individual believer.
Frequently through the first few episodes of the program, Illich argues that the early Christian view of certain acts was different than we understand today because those Christians had a different scientific view of the world. For example, he says the ancients thought of “the gaze” as an act where the human eye actually casts a ray out to the perceived object, by which the viewer and the viewed interact. With the advent of modern science, he says, we now think of the eye as a lens through which an image is received, and now we have a more passive interaction with the representation of the object rather than an active interaction with the object itself. And this represents a “corruption” of the ancient understanding.
This is really interesting for me to set in conversation with Ilia Delio’s writing. Delio approaches the question the other way around. Given what we now know, she says, about science and cosmology, how should we update our understanding of God and Christianity based on that modern science? Illich seemed to assume that the early church understanding was the perfect, uncorrupted one, and that we should work to get back to it. Delio takes a more progressive revelation view that encourages us to look forward rather than back. I have been helped a lot by Delio’s work over the past few years, so it’s interesting to run up against Illich and interrogate some of her premises. I haven’t reached conclusions yet but it’s some fascinating stuff to think on.
2024 Reads: Die Trying (Jack Reacher, #2) by Lee Child 📚
Back when Lee Child was writing really good stories. Fun stuff.
2024 Reads: All Things Are Too Small by Becca Rothfeld 📚
Rothfeld dislikes the practice of mindfulness. And really, really likes sex. I found her essays tiresome.
Recommended reading: Excavating AI
I hadn’t run across this until today when Michal Wozniak shared it on Mastodon, but it’s an excellent read: Excavating AI: The Politics of Images in Machine Learning Training Sets.
One of the “standard” image sets used for training models to do image recognition is ImageNet, originally published in 2009. It contains more than 14 million images which were categorized by humans via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk project. The challenge, of course, is that when you use humans to create the training data, all the implicit (and explicit) bias of the human trainers is trained right into the data.
[ImageNet] provides a powerful and important example of the complexities and dangers of human classification, and the sliding spectrum between supposedly unproblematic labels like “trumpeter” or “tennis player” to concepts like “spastic,” “mulatto,” or “redneck.” Regardless of the supposed neutrality of any particular category, the selection of images skews the meaning in ways that are gendered, racialized, ableist, and ageist. ImageNet is an object lesson, if you will, in what happens when people are categorized like objects. And this practice has only become more common in recent years, often inside the big AI companies, where there is no way for outsiders to see how images are being ordered and classified.
While I don’t think the current AI tech boom will sustain in the long term, certain applications are very useful and probably will stick around. As we employ systems that are trained, we must always interrogate the assumptions and biases that have gone into that training.
There is much at stake in the architecture and contents of the training sets used in AI. They can promote or discriminate, approve or reject, render visible or invisible, judge or enforce. And so we need to examine them—because they are already used to examine us—and to have a wider public discussion about their consequences, rather than keeping it within academic corridors. As training sets are increasingly part of our urban, legal, logistical, and commercial infrastructures, they have an important but underexamined role: the power to shape the world in their own images.
It’s worth reading the whole thing.
Started the morning dropping my wife off at the airport; she’s headed to visit our oldest at college this weekend. Hit the gym, grabbed a little breakfast, got an early start at the office. Glad it’s Friday.
This Lynx-Liberty game, y’all… 😳 Most entertaining basketball game I’ve seen in a long time.
I see the WNBA just announced that next year their finals will be a best-of-7 instead of the current best-of-5. Unfortunately they’re not expanding the first round out from best-of-3, but at least they’re moving it to a 1-1-1 format. Indiana not getting a playoff home game this year was bad.
Too many sports choices to watch tonight! Two MLB playoff games, Stars hockey opener, an NFL game… and the one I’m actually watching: The WNBA Finals, Game 1.
A planned 5-day business trip last week rolled over into a family emergency which means I only just got home last night. Family situation is improving, sure good to be home. Gonna take my body and nerves a few days to recover, though.
Recommended podcast: Chris E. W. Green's Speakeasy Theology
Lately I’ve really been enjoying Bishop Chris E. W. Green’s podcast called Speakeasy Theology. Green is a bishop in the Communion of Evangelical Episcopal Churches and Professor of Public Theology at Southeastern University in Lakeland, FL. Green’s background is Pentecostal, but his move into the CEEC has put him in an interesting place where he is deeply invested in the Episcopal tradition while still embracing a strong Spirit-filled embodiment of faith.
His podcast isn’t particularly fancy or polished. It does have theme music, but generally consists of Green in conversation with one or two others, delving into some aspect of theology and/or practice. I particularly appreciate his humble approach to these conversations. While many podcast hosts and theologians would work to make their own points and push their own agenda, he is very willing to just ask questions and let his guests provoke the conversation in the direction they want to go.
A couple recent episodes that stuck out to me: first, God Is More Exciting Than Anything with Dr. Jane Williams. Dr. Williams talks about loving theology, loving prayer, loving God, and serving the church. Green doesn’t do extensive introductions of his guests on the podcast, so as I listened all I gathered at the beginning is that Dr. Williams is a British professor of theology. As the discussion went on, Green asked some questions about advice on the life of a Bishop, and the impact on the Bishop’s family, and what a Bishop should prioritize, and as he listened to her advice with great esteem, I thought wait, I need to connect some dots here. So I Googled Dr. Jane Williams, and found that in addition to being a professor of theology, she’s been married for more than 40 years to Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury. (Lightbulb!) What stuck out to me about this interview, beside the wonderful conversation and counsel from Dr. Williams, was that she was presented (deservedly) entirely on her own authority and merit, with no reference to her husband. This felt like a beautiful and, sadly, remarkable display of respect by Dr. Green.
The second episode I want to recommend is titled The Difference is Doxological, Green’s conversation with Richard Beck. Beck is a professor of experimental psychology at Abilene Christian University and a long-time blogger. (I’ve read Beck for a long time and blogged about his thoughts frequently enough he has his own tag on my blog.) Beck’s specialty is the intersection between psychology and theology, and his discussion with Green is a wonderful hour wrestling with how we think about the acknowledged work of God in people’s lives vs. the work that God does through the common grace of psychological practice. Beck also talks about his own faith journey of deconstruction and rebuilding, giving his long-time readers like Green and me some good background for his blogging.
I’ve recommended Chris Green’s books here before, and I’m happy to recommend the podcast, too. It’s worth a listen.
This is my first trip traveling with my new personal MacBook Pro (after years of traveling with work Dell laptops) and the experience is just lovely. Enough battery for all day, iPhone mirroring means I can leave it in my pocket, remote desktop back to my work PC, easy to juggle all day. Love it.
Wow, Verizon has been down for me all day. Thankful for wifi on airplanes and in airports to help my travel go smoothly. I won’t be wandering far from my hotel, though, until I have cell service back!
2024 Reads: Extinction by Douglas Preston 📚
Over and over, Preston has his characters saying “This isn’t Jurassic Park!”. And it’s not. At least not quite exactly. Preston knows how to write a brisk, entertaining thriller, though. Fun stuff.
Nebraska in the second half looked like a different team. Relied on the run game and just pushed Purdue around. It was an ugly win, but we’ll take it. #GBR
Through one quarter, Nebraska looks like a team with great potential but no polish. False start while going for it on 4th-and-1, then they miss the FG. Frustrating.
2024 Reads: Airframe by Michael Crichton 📚
I’m sure I read this years ago, but it’s interesting to re-read after spending a career in aircraft certification. Crichton did a pretty good job getting the details right.
You can become more holy by becoming more merciful
Fr. Matt Tebbe is one of my favorite writers at the moment. A former evangelical turned Episcopal priest, Matt has a keen eye for the systems at work in our world and a voice for calling them out clearly. The other day he turned his thoughts to God’s mercy:
You can approach God’s holiness in your sin because God’s holiness moves towards you first. Any suggestion that God can’t look upon you or is far from you or doesn’t want to be with you in your sin: what do we see in Christ?
In him the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. And Christ moves toward- not away- from sinners.
You can become more holy by becoming more merciful: with yourself and others.
In my previous evangelical life, it was always the other direction that was emphasized: God, in his (always his) holiness, is offended by you and your miserable, sinful, inept little self. When Jesus touched a sick person, they said, that sick person must’ve been miraculously healed an instant before Jesus hand actually reached them, because Jesus could never have broken the law by touching a sick person. (Such mental gymnastics!) Then I read Richard Beck say that Jesus was so full of life and health that of course he touched the sick person because Jesus' life and health overwhelmed and pushed that sickness right out of them.
What a blessing to finally see God’s love and mercy and goodness in a restorative and healing way! And thanks Matt for reminding us of it.
My HS sophomore got the job shadow hookup that she wanted, which means that in a couple weeks she’s going to spend a morning shadowing at the local FBI Field Office. 🤨