3 May 2023 CITW
3 May 2023 A Candle in the Window Peter Millar
Words to encourage us in these times.
“The Kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it is grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches” (Matthew 13:32-33).
God of azure sky, and broad horizon
God of sandy-creek and shady gum,
God of weathered broody, silent ranges,
God of quiet, evening billabong.
God of searing heat and drought dry dust bowls
God of lightening strike and raging fire,
God of fearful, howling tearing cyclone
God of swirling, muddy, inland flood.
God of ancient calm let your peace still us
God of fearful storm fill us with awe,
God of lonely plains touch empty spaces
Within us,
Where we are vulnerable enough
To meet you. Uniting Church in Australia
Don’t be afraid – I will save you.
I have called you by name - you are mine.
When you pass through deep waters, I will be with you;
Your troubles will not overwhelm you.
When you pass though fire you will not be burned;
The hard trials that come will not hurt you.
For I am the Holy One, the God who saves you. (Isaiah 43:1-3)
Keep us:
Firm in mind,
Wise in heart,
Indomitable in spirit. Matt Lamont
The age of AI (Artificial Intelligence)
Recently I have been reading about the possibilities contained in AI and came across an interesting article by the British author and journalist Ian Dunt entitled “New Age of AI – and what it means for loneliness”. I would like to share with you some of Ian’s insights... “In the 1950s Alan Turing developed his test for the intelligence of a machine: can it fool a human into thinking that it, too, is human? It is mentioned a lot now because of artificial intelligence (AI). But, in fact, we made the test much easier to pass by reducing ourselves to the status of machines. Anyone working in a call centre or in a fast-food chain or even for a charity has often been pulverised into a script so limited that they barely sound human at all. I have friends who have thought really quite hard about AI for a long time, certainly longer than I have. They reliably inform me that, yes, it will probably cause economic havoc by replacing some jobs and inventing others. It will also do many magical things which will improve our lives. Perhaps we were programmed with fear of this stuff from an early age and struggle to think of it any other way. I get all that, but it is not about practicalities - it’s about emotions. My main sense, when questioning AI is more about a deep sense of loneliness. Until now we were surrounded by humans – in our social life, in our work life, as workers, as consumers, as people consuming art. Good interactions, bad interactions, social interactions, market interactions. And that contact was not just immediate and personal, it was also conducted at a distance, through the recognition of what other humans had done. I have spent a lot of my life admiring Judge Dredd’s original design, by the legendary Spanish artist Carlos Ezquerra. What if the next character design I fall in love with is developed by a machine? That feels emptier somehow. It feels like a connection has been lost, between me and someone I would never meet, but whom I had nevertheless interacted with in the most beautiful way, through the interplay of creation and appreciation. We are just at that point where we are realising the full extent to which this technology will change everything. It will probably make the world we live in now as primitive to our grandkids as the pre-internet world currently is to our kids. I am sure it will do many amazing things. But for the first time, I realised how much lonelier it seemed, how a deep and fundamental assumption about human interaction, and human admiration, was being eradicated. This isn’t about us celebrating the advances in AI, nor about closing it all down. It’s simply about recognising that something big is happening. We are only just starting to realise how big it truly is, and how acute the ramifications will be”.
The newborn lambs:
We drove over the picturesque rolling hills. The car jolted from side to side on the craggy treacherous ground. We came to a stop at a farm and a farmer greeted us with a warm welcome. We went across the yard to see the two dominant male sheep. It was feeding time, so the farmer poured feed into buckets as they nudged her legs. She then fed the younger sheep in the opposite field, throwing them pellets. Suddenly, her phone went off like a siren, warning her that a baby lamb was being born. She ran off and instructed us to stay where we were. But soon she beckoned us into the barn. We ran carefully towards her and went in just as her husband pulled the lamb out. Slippery slime slithered down its body before it was laid down on the soft straw next to its mother. He then pulled another lamb. My eyes opened in shock - I had never seen one lamb being born, never mind two! (Written by Levi, aged 10).
Our amazing universe:
An ultra-massive black hole, billions of times bigger than the mass of the Sun, has been discovered by scientists from Durham University in the UK, who have published their findings in the monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Lead author Dr James Nightingale, of the university’s physics department, said: ’This particular black hole, which is roughly 30 billion times the mass of our Sun, is one of the biggest ever detected and on the upper limit of how large we believe black holes can theoretically become, so it is an extremely exciting discovery. Researchers used a method called gravitational lensing to detect the black hole, and supercomputer simulations and images captured by the Hubble Space Telescope confirmed its magnitude.
We ask you, dear God,
that just as the Southern Cross
guides our people as they sail
over the Pacific at night so may the cross of Jesus Christ
lead us through this night, and guide us safely into a new day.
From Papua New Guinea
