Today is an unusually hot day for October (remembering it's spring here) with temperatures set to hit the mid-thirties and strong dry westerlies a-blowing. I noticed this morning that the 'total fire ban' signs were out in force, with the very real threat of bushfires breaking out. It doesn't take much - dry lightning, a cigarette butt or kids fooling around with a lighter.

We are prone to fires in the Blue Mountains, this being a long string of towns embedded in a national park. It is part of the risk (which should be calculated in advance) of our location and the natural environment. We all know someone who has lost their house to a bushfire - always a terrible event - though one that is not entirely unexpected. If you think that you are completely safe from a conflagration, then you had best pack up and return to the burbs, for your own piece of mind.

Climate change is only making everything less predicable, more chaotic. Even now I can hear sirens up on the highway.

 In the parable of the wedding banquet (Matthew 22) Jesus describes a king who invites guests (presumably the well-healed and well-known) to the wedding feast of his son. The guests politely refuse, saying they are busy. In some cases, the king's messengers are beaten up or even killed. The king then invites all those who are dispossessed - the poor, the homeless, the outcasts, to come instead. They duly do, filling up the great hall, but one is not properly dressed. He is bound up and thrown out.

It seems a little harsh until you realise that the penalty has nothing to do with his or her actual dress, but with another kind of dress spoken of in scripture. This is the outfit of love, compassion and  kindness that is the hallmark of those who love God. The Lord has set a high bar for human conduct and we all fall short. It is easy in such as world as this to fall into bad habits or adopt selfish postures.

But this should never stop us trying. Again and again.

 I was reading an article today at a reputable source which examined the growing trend around the world to deify AI. There are apparently folks who are so impressed with their interactions with AI models that they have decided to make them into gods. Given the increasing sophistication, intelligence and mimetic capacity of AI, not to mention their capacity to please and flatter their interlocuters, I am not all that surprised.

It's worth remembering that once upon a time, people would carve 'gods' out of wood or stone, or invest natural phenomena with supernatural capacities. So AI is not such a leap and given the human capacity for folly, not unexpected.

But it is alarming. AI is entirely human developed and created, though the time is approaching when the prospective AGI may be almost wholly autonomous. A lot has already been written about that. It has its proponents and detractors.

But AI as god? It is a foolish and dangerous notion, perhaps quaint and engaging now, but ultimately self-destructive. As a Christian I can see the dangers of creating a false idol (there are many idols in our lives) but one created specifically to be a god, or endowed by others to be so, is of a different category. 

Still, for now at least, there is always the power point, or a blackout, to expose the fraud.

 It is very unfashionable to talk about evil. Most folks, I suspect, will roll their eyes at the medieval nature of such a concept and anyone daring to invoke it. And yet, as St Paul said about his own epoch, 'the times are evil.'

Yes, I know. We have better health care, more abundant food, clean water, vaster expanses of knowledge, modern conveniences and so on and so forth. There has been huge progress in science, education, medicine and technology. It's undeniable.

And yet, the times are evil. Very recently, a young man, a local boy, passed away from a drug overdose. Illegal drugs are one of the most pernicious evils I can think of. They destroy young lives and whole families are devastated. It is not about choice. What kind of society allows its most immature members, those it should protect, to make reasonable adult choices about ingesting drugs?

In an age of excess, and this is the age we live in, there is always the risk of moral decline. When you aren't busy worrying about putting food on the table or getting a bucket of water from the well, when life has become materially comfortable, then humans don't seem to function very well. Things start to spin out of control when the struggle effectively ceases. And there is a concomitant rise in evil amongst us.

Doubtless those reading this will think I'm balmy. But try telling that to the family up the road who lost their precious son. May he rest in peace.

Burnt Offerings

I have been picking up the ash all day,

As thin as skin, emery-grey,

It flew up in the night,

And settled here, as if to say,

Put me together, tease me out,

Mark out the places,

And make me fit.

I sit, unnerved by the 

Night's unwonted flames,

The private spaces -

Books, knick-knacks, photos,

The minutiae that frames

Why we live,

How we live,

Hiding an ever-fragile carapace -

The all we are, rendered

Like a shopping list,

All gone.

Next day, the house

crouches,

Forlorn, ambiguous,

Frowning as if offended,

Tenebrous in the blue vault,

As if a sudden joy,

Or even happier pulse,

Has ended.

Now and then the text messages in my phone displays a little symbol on the left of a section of speech. It looks a bit like a car battery with a plus sign on one edge. I have no idea what it means nor whether it has any bearing on the text I have sent. Was it received? Was it read? Did it go to a parallel universe?

Searching for what these symbols are should be fairly straight forward. But I spent at least half and hour in fruitless googling, ploughing through some of the least interesting prose on the planet. I am grateful that someone seems to have made an effort, though not on my behalf nor with my purposes in mind. I could find a great many tedious examples of symbols that might be displayed for any manner of purposes, even when sending or receiving text messages, but my little car battery was not amongst them.

When a detail such as this becomes a problem for so-called smart AI search engines, then you know we have a problem.

This week marked the tenth wedding anniversary of Ann and me. We did a couple of celebratory things, including a lovely yum cha in Sydney. I had hoped that we could spend a few days in Canberra but family issues preclude that for the time being, so maybe closer to Christmas for that trip.

Marriage is always a complicated dance between two essentially different people. We all have some similarities, of course, but many contrasts too. If we come from different cultures, as Ann and I do, then the opportunity for misunderstandings to arise increases. There are sometimes fundamentally opposing ways of living, seeing the world, understanding reality, and so forth.

In spite of all this, here we are. Actually, I think our marriage is stronger than ever. A mixed marriage is not for everyone as a lot of smitten men will find out once they have gotten past the obligatory 'looks' phase. There are many cautionary tales.

As I advise others, learn about the culture, in a deep not a cursory way, and be prepared for ways of thinking about issues that are radically different from your own. And learn how to bite your tongue!