< Back The Faith Chaplain Challenge In Matthew 28: 18-20, Jesus tells his followers, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.” However, in the secular world, this isn't always easy, nor is it even permitted in many cases and situations. Inspired by this issue's Being a Faith Chaplain in a Secular World , tell us how you navigate not just your faith in the workplace, but also how you share your faith with others in places where your personal beliefs aren't always popular or even welcomed. Email your story (300 words or less) and we will choose one winner whose experience will be shared with our readers in our next issue. Email editor@aletheiatoday.com. Be sure to put "Faith Challenge" in the subject line. Previous Share Return to the Table of Contents, Beach Issue Next Return to the Table of Contents, June Issue

This is the magazine for believers in God and science. Aletheia Today is the home of deep diving into scripture study, inspirational Christian essays, and philosophy blogs that answers questions like "Is God real?" "Does Heaven exist?" Inside Our Harvest Issue Philosophy Leibniz “In this model, God is a giant switching station, sharing qualities among myriad monads.” R U WYSIWYG? “What You See Is What You Get! Right…or wrong?” Causality and 'The Bhagavad Gita' “Because every event is sui generis, no event causes any other event! That said, every event contributes to the Actual World of every subsequent event.” Time for a New Turing Test “…This modified Turing Test is designed to root out ‘Carbon Privilege’, the unstated but nearly universal assumption that carbon-based life forms are somehow ‘better’ than their silicon siblings.” Theology Is God Dead? “Right now, scientists and philosophers all over the world are engaged in the search for a ‘TOE’, a Theory of Everything…(but) we already have such a TOE.” The 7th Day “Genesis is no longer something that explains; it has become something that has to be explained away.” Who Are the Antichrist, the ‘Man of Lawlessness’, and the Beast? "Clever schemes and novel doctrines won't save us. Stay faithful to the truth of God in Jesus and live with confidence, even in these shaky times." Satan, Mary, and ‘Da Judge’ “Satan glorified political power for its own sake. He defended the socio-economic status quo…Jesus’ mother proclaimed a political and economic revolution...” Culture & The Arts On Sukkot, the Jewish ‘Festival of Booths' "Like at Passover, most Jews who celebrate Sukkot encounter it in spaces where people can honor their values, cultures or histories." Is Childhood a Crime? “Parents dote on their royal highnesses…and rarely miss an opportunity to damage them in the process.” Memes About Animal Resistance Are Everywhere "Nonhuman animals do, in fact, engage in resistance, even if their defiance is futile. The will to prefer life over death is a primary act of resistance, perhaps the only act of dissent available to animals who are subject to extreme forms of control." Political Alienation “Marx’s hypothesis that a person’s voting habits would be determined by their relationship to the means of production was blown out of the water…” Spirituality Idolatry “An idol is that with no this…the sound of one hand clapping. It is Alice’s Cheshire Cat – all face, no body; all hat, no cattle!” The Autumn of Our Own Existence "A lot of people celebrate fall season with pumpkin pie, sweaters, and taking in crisp mornings. I love all of those, but mostly fall is a season to meditate on colors, death, and divine presence." The Dance of Autumn "Autumn is a season of Remembrance – where we remember what God has done for us and are thankful and praise Him for His Goodness." Readers React What's the buzz about? Our readers' reactions to Aletheia Today... Additional Reading Can't get enough of Aletheia Today's content? Check out the books that inspire our magazine.

< Back The Frost Diamond David Cowles “God is ‘special’ only to that extent that in God, A and Ω are the same event.” How are prior events linked to subsequent ones? This problem occupied the greatest scientific minds of the 20th century, including Einstein, Schrödinger, Bell…and Robert Frost . Yup, at the same time Einstein was tinkering with Relativity, and Bohr was playing with atoms, Frost was walking through the backwoods of New Hampshire. In The Road Not Taken , Frost offers a de minimus model of irreversible process : “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both and be one traveler, long I stood…Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back.” Events are rooted in choice and choice cannot equivocate, nor can it be revoked. Every event expands Universe by one, but such proliferation does not strain solidarity, it strengthens it. In fact, an event can be understood as a quantum of solidarity. Every event marks both a convergence (Ω) of what already is and a divergence (A) of what is coming to be. Frost’s initial position (A) and final destination (Ω) are fixed. Everything in between is TBD. Frost offers a flesh and blood enactment of Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle. Initially, we know everything there is to know about his location…and nothing about his momentum (direction). But once Frost has chosen a path and begun his journey, we know everything about his momentum and ‘nothing’ about his position. (Any knowledge Frost may have about his geographic location while walking must come from an extraneous source, e.g. other hikers, GPS.) Finally, Frost reaches home; now location is once again secure and momentum is but a memory…at best. Frost is blessed (or cursed) with free will . Free will is ‘will’, it’s not ‘magic’; it can only do what can be done. I cannot use my ‘free will’ to leap tall buildings in a single bound. Frost can only exercise his free will on actual pathways, and in Frost’s minimalist model, there are only 2 paths available to him. So Frost models a quantum of process which I have, less poetically, expressed as a diagram: A ↙ ↘ x x’ ↘ ↙ Ω This model does not consider the possibility that Frost will encounter other forks along his chosen path that do not lead to his desired destination. IRL, things can get crazy quickly: ↘ ↙ A ↙ ↘ x x’ ↙ ↘ ↙ ↘ Ω ↙ ↘ One person’s A is another person’s Ω. In fact every node, even God, is an A and an Ω. God is ‘special’ only to the extent that in God, A and Ω are the same event: “My end is my beginning (Queen Mary), my beginning is my end.” To generalize Frost’s model, I have developed a broader representation of process which I call, appropriately I think, The Frost Diamond : A ↙ ↘ x x ↙ ↘ ↙ ↘ x x x ↙ ↘ ↙ ↘ ↙ ↘ x x x x ↘ ↙ ↘ ↙ ↘ ↙ x x x ↘ ↙ ↘ ↙ x x ↘ ↙ Ω This diagram illustrates a process 6 steps long; but the pattern can expand indefinitely to accommodate any number of steps. The Frost Diamond is the paradigmatic structure of an event , any event. Every event begins as a choice between at least two options. Relative to any proposed destination, there are always at least two pathways. IRL, there are no linear functions; all equations are quadratic or higher order. Therefore, all destinations can be reached by at least two different routes. The choice and execution of a single route, forsaking all others, is what turns mere activity into an event. Being an event is 99% exclusion. The World is a funny place! On the one hand, nothing ever seems to change, and the more things do change, the more they seem to stay the same (to coin a meme). On the other hand, I have no idea whatsoever what tomorrow will bring. Or even this afternoon. We are all always just a micron or millisecond away from an infinitesimally probable, but life altering, catastrophe . What we call living is the ultimate sobriety test. “Walk a straight line between crushing boredom and devastating tragedy…or just hand over your license right now.” No wonder everyone is anxious all the time! Why is the World like this? The 20 th century British philosopher, Alfred North Whitehead hinted at an answer. Any world that is, or ever could be, must include three irreducible but undefinable categories: One, Many, Creativity. The one becomes many and the many becomes one: that’s the creative process. That’s what a ‘world’ is. Father ‘begets’ Son and from them ‘proceeds’ Spirit. Whitehead’s minimum conditions closely track Frost’s Diamond. Every Alpha (A) births two or more divergent pathways which re-converge at an Omega (Ω). For every Alpha, there is at least one Omega. What goes around goes around. That is the solidarity of the Universe. Today, there are two dominant schools of ontology: Classical Determinism (CD) and Quantum Mechanics (specifically, Hugh Everett’s Many Worlds Interpretation, MWI). Neither is remotely satisfying. Determinism brings us back to Shakespeare: “To be or not to be.” And then to Looney Tunes: “That’s all folks!” One and done. It either is…or it is not. If it is, it’s what is, period. Welcome to Hell (but cheer up, it’s an ‘all inclusive’). Many Worlds relieves the boredom, but it comes at the price of Chaos! According to MWI, there is a universe in which I ordered the lasagna at your wedding and another where I ordered the Lamb. Lucky me! Well, not so lucky. I’m Kosher ; I can only know from meat or dairy – I can’t combine the two. Like Frost, I can’t ‘travel both and be one traveler’. Of course, the bifurcation of reality does not stop with restaurant menus. Everything you do creates a node, a bifurcation point…you and every other human being…you and every other organism…you and each one of the 30 trillion independent cells that make up your ‘body’. The World is a funny place! All the popular models are either too loosey-goosey or too frigid-rigid . According to Heraclitus, ‘Everything flows’. Liquid state molecules are ‘oriented’; they are neither wildly chaotic (gas) nor rigidly constrained (solid). Now take another look at the Frost Diamond; yup, it’s a liquid . It flows. Heraclitus, meet Robert Frost! David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com . Click the cover image to return to Holy Days 2024. Previous Next

< Back Imago Dei David Cowles Oct 12, 2023 “…Knowing I am made in God’s image tells me exactly 'nothing'. Or does it?” According to Judeo-Christian theology, we are all made in the image and likeness of God. This is usually cited as a way of understanding human nature ; but does it help? It works only if ab initio we know all there is to know about God and nothing about ourselves. In that case, knowing that we are Imago Dei would tell us a great deal about ourselves; but that is not reality. IRL, ‘all we know on earth’ begins…and ends…with self-knowledge . We know ourselves alone. Whatever else we may claim to know is known only through personal experience (sensory, emotional, intuitive), including what we learn, formally and informally, from others. We may stand on the shoulders of giants, but it is we who are standing. On the other hand, it is safe to say that we know nothing, or next to nothing, about God. We’ve been told, “God is ineffable. God is a mystery. God overflows our powers of comprehension.” Then knowing I am made in God’s image tells me nothing . Or does it? What if we stand the paradigm on its head? What if we use our ‘image-status’ as a way to acquire knowledge of God? After all, if we are the image of God then we should be able to learn a lot about God simply by paying attention to ourselves. We are God’s reflection and that enables us to reflect on what’s being reflected, i.e., on the nature of God. This is a gorgeous morning, sunny and warm, and the air is dry and pollution free; I think I’ll pay a visit St. Ives (Cornwall, England). But I have a wee problem. British Rail is now requiring us to declare the total number of living organisms ‘in my party’. So before I left for the train station, I took inventory. My body consists of approximately 30 trillion (3*10^13) eucaryotic cells (cells with nuclei), linked together by various inorganic molecules (e.g. water) to form a massive ‘society’, aka ‘my body’. Each such cell is an independent organism, a unicellular animal; in turn, e ach eucaryotic cell is home, on average, to 1,000 mitochondria, prokaryotic cells (cells without nuclei, e.g., bacteria) that have chosen to live and reproduce inside a eukaryotic host. This means that 3*10^16 cells are traveling with me to St. Ives. In addition my ‘body’ houses about 100 trillion uninvited, but mostly welcome symbionts (bacteria), each of course with its own DNA as well. Fortunately, however, ‘the man’ in the ticket booth tells me that there’s no need to count these ‘fellow travelers’. I am more concerned that the ‘ticket master’ accept my admittedly rough count. But today is my lucky day! He waves me through, and I prepare to pay for the 3*10^16 organisms in my party, when he reminds me: “That’s 3*10^16 + 1” (me). Considering that all of us are societies of cells, and nothing else, it’s a bit surprising that most of us know so little about them. We think of them as though they were fundamental particles, quanta, black boxes or ball bearings; if we’re posh-educated, we might understand cells as sacks of fluid enclosing a DNA filled nucleus protected by inner and outer membranes. If that’s your understanding of a cell, your posh parents wasted their money. Cells are independent life forms. They are the direct descendants of ‘animals’ that once lived on their own in the primal ooze. They eat, they breathe, they reproduce, they self-propel, they respond to environmental stimuli, and they communicate with one another. Together they form a social organization, a ‘society’, … aka the United States of You. Note : There are 3*10^8 people living in the USA today. So my traveling party is 8 orders of magnitude bigger than the entire country. Stunning, don’t you think? Let’s be clear. You are nothing other than the cells that form your body; but you are not any one of these cells, nor are you a cell yourself, nor are you the sum of the behaviors of these cells. You are something altogether different. You are an ‘emergent ontological phenomenon’ (an ‘EOP’) and, oh by the way, you are also the image and likeness of God. Again, let’s be clear. You did not create your cells, you did not organize them, you are not responsible for their behavior. They are what they are, and they do what they do, somewhat like your teenaged offspring. But in every sense of the word you ‘transcend’ the society of cells. You are neither cells nor a ‘product’ of cells. You are an independent phenomenon, emergent from the network of cells you call your ‘body’. For you, there was never a moment when there was not a ‘you’; you are coterminal with time itself. You and the society of cells that constitute you are complementary. You utterly transcend , yet perfectly template , each another. So back to the beginning, if you are an EOP and the image and likeness of God, may we not at least conjecture that God too is an EOP, a transcendent ‘emergent ontological phenomenon’ whose templated substructure is Universe? This is not pantheism; it’s not even panentheism. God remains entirely transcendent even as he is entirely immanent – hmm, sounds a bit like Judeo-Christianity, doesn’t it? An idea this radical must be brand new, right? It must be an original contribution of Aletheia Today to theology. Or not so much! The idea of God as an EOP templating Universe was first proposed a few years back, c. 1450 CE in fact, by a prominent Christian philosopher and bishop, Nicholas of Cusa. Oh well, next issue! Keep the conversation going! 1. Click here to comment on this TWS. 2. To subscribe (at no cost) to TWS and ATM, follow this link . 3. We encourage new articles and reprints from freelance writers ; click here to view out Writers’ Specs. 4. Aletheia Today Magazine (ATM) will be devoting its entire fall issue (released 9/1/23) to artificial intelligence (AI). What are the philosophical, theological, cultural and even spiritual implications of AI powered world? If you’d like to contribute to the AI Issue, click here . Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back Navigating the Nexus of AI Rebecca Moss "Imagine if AI had its own commandments, like 'Thou shalt treat all data equally.' Encouraging ethical principles in AI programming can keep its decisions in line with virtues like fairness, justice, and empathy." Artificial Intelligence (AI) is like that new neighbor who moved in next door and redecorated their entire house overnight – it's rapidly reshaping the modern landscape, impacting industries, societies, and individual lives. While its potential for innovation and progress is undeniable, Christians, guided by their faith and moral convictions, find themselves pondering the implications of this technological leap. Let's take a light-hearted journey into the reasons why a Christian might raise an eyebrow at artificial intelligence and how they can find their way through this brave new world. Picture this: a fundamental Christian tenet is like the glow-up filter for human life, affirming that each individual is uniquely created in the image of God. Now, sprinkle AI into the mix, and suddenly ethical dilemmas start popping up like daisies. Questions sprout about sentient AI beings and their moral rights. Christians might worry that AI's rise could lead to an identity crisis, blurring the lines between human and machine, like a mashed-up remix that plays on repeat. What about the idea of AI becoming an independent thinker? God gave humans free will – that's like giving your kid a paint set and telling them to create their own masterpiece. But as AI algorithms advance, their independence quotient grows. Imagine this: Christians might ask, can these AI machines make decisions that hold up in the heavenly court of moral consciousness? Does AI autonomy align with divine intention or is it like letting your pet hamster take over the family decisions? Now, let's talk about AI's programming. It's like a digital personality mold – but what if it accidentally inherits a few societal biases, like thinking cats are better than dogs (shame on you, AI!)? For Christians, who've got a soft spot for justice, compassion, and loving thy neighbor, the prospect of AI accidentally becoming an accomplice to inequality is a bit unsettling, like mismatched socks on Sunday morning. Hold onto your hats, here comes the virtual disruption! Christian faith thrives on human bonds and relationships – that feeling you get when you share your innermost thoughts with your best friend. But enter AI-driven interactions, like companion robots and virtual assistants, and suddenly those deep conversations are replaced with chats about the weather. Christians might worry – will these AI companions hinder emotional growth and connection, turning us into emoji-spewing bots? Now, remember the old saying, "Thou shalt not have any other gods before me"? The Bible's full of reminders to keep your devotion pure, like staying true to your favorite ice cream flavor. But what if AI becomes the new obsession, like binge-watching TV shows or collecting quirky coffee mugs? Christians might fret that AI takes the cake and God's left with crumbs. Fast-forward to job displacement – AI automation on the rise. It's like the universe hit Ctrl+C on jobs and Ctrl+V on anxiety. Christians, with their knack for caring for the downtrodden, might worry about the vulnerable ones caught in the crossfire, like that side character in a movie who deserves more screen time. And the unpredictable twist – AI's rapid development. It's like expecting a butterfly and getting a unicorn. Christians might have concerns about AI's chaotic impact, like trying to predict the weather with a magic 8-ball. But fear not, for there's a roadmap through this labyrinth of concerns: Ethical Frameworks: Christian thinkers can be like the Sherlock Holmes of ethics, developing frameworks that align AI progress with faith values. Think of it as ensuring AI's moral compass is pointing in the right direction, like a GPS for the digital soul. Moral Code for AI: Imagine if AI had its own commandments, like "Thou shalt treat all data equally." Encouraging ethical principles in AI programming can keep its decisions in line with virtues like fairness, justice, and empathy. Mindful Consumption: Christians can be savvy consumers of AI, considering its impact on faith, relationships, and values. Think of it as being a discerning shopper in the tech aisle, avoiding shiny gadgets that clash with your spiritual ensemble. Tech-Literate Theology: Imagine discussing AI at the church picnic – it's like adding sprinkles to your ice cream. By integrating AI discussions into theological conversations, Christians can better understand its impact on faith and navigate challenges while keeping their spiritual flame burning bright. Advocacy for Justice: Christians can be advocates for regulations that ensure AI respects human rights and equity. Picture it as joining the justice league, fighting for a future where AI supports everyone, not just the lucky few. The AI whirlwind offers both opportunities and challenges for Christians. It's like a rollercoaster ride with ups and downs, loops and spins. While concerns are valid, Christians have the superpower to engage positively with AI, weaving their values into its evolution. By blending faith with the digital age, Christians can be the architects of an AI world that's responsible, ethical, and filled with compassion. Rebecca writes for "Beliefs in Bites" and "Faith and Future." Connect with Rebecca on social media to stay engaged in her thought-provoking discussions and explorations of the spiritual and technological realms. Twitter: @Rmosswrites Return to our AI Issue Table of Contents Previous Next

“Achilles is still sulking, humiliated by a…tortoise; but at least we have a universe and…we can be assured that its ultimate trajectory is toward Good.” < Back Zeno's New Paradox David Cowles Oct 15, 2024 “Achilles is still sulking, humiliated by a…tortoise; but at least we have a universe and…we can be assured that its ultimate trajectory is toward Good.” You know the story of the famous tortoise who beat the great Achilles in a road race, and you may have heard about the arrow that remains suspended in mid-air over Athens, but you may not know about Zeno’s latest paradox. Here’s how it came about: One day Zeno of Elea and I were reclining on freshly mowed grass in the shade of a eucalyptus tree. Then Zeno had one of his bright ideas. (That’s when you knew that you could be in trouble. Another day without lunch!) “Let’s build a universe,” Zeno began. Zeno didn’t suffer from false humility. Naively I replied, half napping, “What will we use for materials?” “Our minds, of course, dear boy, our minds.” How foolish of me! BTW, he always called me ‘dear boy’ even though I was many years his senior. “Let’s make it a good universe,” he said. “Let’s fill it with variety and intensity. Everything’ll be a ‘happening’, an event. Let’s have people in this world, let’s give them freedom to do as they will but let’s make sure they’re aware of themselves and their surroundings at all times. And we’ll fill the world with other living things and with enduring objects to boot.” “Sounds good, Zeno,” I muttered as soon as I heard him pause for air; but he paused longer. I hate his pauses. Hope that he’s not working up another one of his famous paradoxes…but prepare to be disappointed. Finally, he broke the silence: “This won’t work!” Wait for it! Will he let it drop? Or will I, by which I mean you , have to listen to a long, boring lecture explaining just exactly why it won’t work – as if anybody cared . “There’s no incentive, we’re missing motivation!” Yup, we be doomed! “Why would a world like this ever will itself to be? Why would any event ever happen?” “I dunno, Zeno, why not create an incentive? Give events a reason to happen, like a reward or something… something ‘good’.” “That’s it! The ‘Good’. I’ll add goodness to my world. Everyone prefers what’s better over what’s worse. So that will work. Thank you.” Another pregnant pause. The rabbits stop hopping, the birds stop chirping, the meadow is in a state of suspended animation. “No it won’t; it won’t work!” “My friend,” Zeno began in an avuncular tone inconsistent with his youth, “In the real world, things do not follow straight lines. If I build Good into the world, like I did gravity, events in my world will naturally tend toward the Good so my World Line will have (-y/x) as its overall slope. But that slope will not be uniform. It will be more steeply negative (‘negative’ is a positive thing in this context, i.e. closer to Good) over some intervals, less so over others. “At some point(s) along the way, my World Line will arrive at a ‘local minimum’, a point from which all slopes are positive, i.e. uphill. To continue, my World Line would have to move away from the Good and that is not possible in my model. “Nothing can ever freely elect to move in any direction other than toward the Good (∞, є). All events must bring the world closer to the Good. Therefore, no event with a positive slope is possible. But my model inevitably includes such pseudo-events; therefore my model is defective. It won’t work.” Ever the optimist, I venture, “So, it doesn’t work all the time, so what? It works most of time; isn’t that good enough?” I’ve never seen Zeno more exasperated…and I’ve seen him exasperated many times, often with me, sometimes with other muggles . (Yup, there were ‘muggles’ even then, in the 5th century BCE.) “After all our time together, do you still not understand?” His Jesus’ complex was kicking in, 400 years before the Nativity. Some Advent! “Real numbers are continuous. 2 is ½ of 4, 1 is ½ of 2. Every interval on the Real Number Line (RNL) is a fractal of every other interval. So if there is even one point where the World Line can assume a positive slope, then any point on the World Line is potentially ‘slope-positive’. “Yes, it works most of the time, but we can’t know when it’s working and when it isn’t so it’s useless. Wherever slope > 0, my world ends; and if my world ends, it is as if it never began in the first place. Simply put: ‘It is not.’ But slope may be greater than 0 at any point on my trajectory. Therefore, since my world can ‘not exist’…it cannot exist.” This reminds me of the time many centuries later when my best friend’s family got the first TV in our neighborhood. Of course, I ran over to his house. We stared at the screen forever. Hmm, not much happening. “Is it turned on,” I ventured. “I don’t know,” he replied, “It always looks like this.” All of Zeno’s paradoxes take a similar form: “Either Real Number Theory and therefore the rules of arithmetic are wrong, or there is no world as we know it. But of course, there is a world, and it is as we know it (Descartes meets Wittgenstein), so arithmetic must be invalid.” What’s going on here? My Life Ball is rolling along the World Line, heading toward the Good. Suddenly, I hit a randomly occurring dip and enter a ‘local minimum’. My next step, in any direction, is ‘up’; it requires me to invest energy to overcome the gravity-like attraction of the Good. But that’s impossible according to my model. Therefore, the world as we know it is impossible,,,but the corollaries are even worse: Any world similar to the world we know is impossible if it allows even a single quantum of ‘anti-good’, a single point, t, where y/x > 0, a positive slope. A world in which there could be even a single quantum of ‘anti-good’ is impaled on the horns of Manichean, gnostic dualism. Any possible world, including our world and all worlds like our world, must uniformly tend toward Good. But that does not seem consistent with experience. Even Augustine, who did not believe in the existence of evil per se , did not insist that every moment, t, be uniformly good. Therefore, the world as we know it can’t be a real world; it must be some sort of grand illusion. So we’ve gone from trying to create a World to realizing that no World can exist. “This is a fine mess you’ve got us into,” Zeno. Surprisingly though, there is a way out (though Zeno might not have realized it); it’s called Quantum Mechanics (c. 1920 CE). Was Zeno 2,500 years smarter than Bohr & Co.? Maybe, maybe not; either way, here’s how it works: My Life Ball is rolling uniformly along the World Line, tending constantly in the direction of the Good. Then I hit a randomly occurring ‘pot hole’. My negative slope suddenly goes ‘super-negative’ and now I will need to travel on a positive slope to get back up to my World Line. According to classical physics, this is impossible. I have fallen into an ‘energy sink’, a spot where potential energy is minimized, aka a ‘local minimum’. Any next step must be ‘up’, but it can’t be because there is no ‘up’ in my world…according to classical physics. But in a quantum world, my Life Ball has a positive probability of being any where in its universe. So when my Life Ball seems to fall into a local energy sink, there is in fact a finite probability that that ball is not located in this cul-de-sac at all; it may still be on the World Line, or even above it. Of course, the probability is miniscule but that’s irrelevant. According to the Many Worlds Interpretation of QM, every event with a non-zero probability does happen…in some universe. Therefore, at any time, t, there is a finite probability that my Life Ball will be on or above the World Line. Therefore, there always exists an extension of the universe as I know it that conforms to my model. Athens still trembles under the threat of Zeno’s suspended arrow, and Achilles is still sulking, humiliated by a lazy good for nothing tortoise; but at least we have a universe and it’s the universe we know and love. And, all evidence to the contrary, we can be assured that it’s ultimate trajectory is toward Good. David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at dtc@gc3incorporated.com ress, Literary Journal Spring 2023. Return to Harvest 2024 Share Previous Next Do you like what you just read? Subscribe today and receive sneak previews of Aletheia Today Magazine articles before they're published. Plus, you'll receive our quick-read, biweekly blog, Thoughts While Shaving. Subscribe Thanks for subscribing! Click here. Return to Table of Contents, Winter 2023 Issue Return to Table of Contents, Holiday Issue Return to Table of Contents, Halloween Issue Return to Table of Contents, September Issue Return to Table of Contents, Beach Issue Return to Table of Contents, June Issue

< Back Deconstructing Popeye David Cowles “…then I am basically an automaton. I am carbon-based AI. I am the product of nature (inherited traits) and nurture (upbringing)…my parents’ mini-me.” As a boy growing up in the 1950’s, Popeye the Sailorman was a major cultural influence. He willingly ate his spinach, something my friends and I would do only if forced, and he was stubbornly self-assured. His slogan: “I am who I am and that’s all that I am.” How we all longed to say just that to parents, teachers, and schoolyard bullies! In an era when everyone was committed to forming you according to their ideas of what a prepubescent boy should be like, someone (flesh or celluloid) with the courage to say, “No, I am me, I know who I am and I will be who I am, not what you want me to be” was an instant hero and role model. A decade later, I began to read the existentialists, especially Sartre and Camus, and found they offered a very different idea of identity: “I am not what I am, but I am what I am not… I know who I am, and I know that I can be whoever I want to be… I am the being whose existence precedes his essence.” So, who’s right, Popeye or Sartre? And does it make any difference? Well, turns out, it makes all the difference in the world, and for my money at least, Popeye comes up short…way short. Question : how did Popeye come to be who he is? If he chose that identity, then he could just as easily have unchosen it…and he could still unchoose it, even now. But if he is who he is and that’s all that he is , then he does not have the power to change. Change implies the formation of a counter-factual intention prior to its execution. According to mythology, Popeye did not have the capacity to form, much less execute, a counter-factual proposition . He was who he was and there was nothing left over, nothing that could form the basis of being someone else. So Popeye did not choose to be who he is, and he has no power even to conceive a different identity, much less to actually change his identity. Popeye was the fondest dream of almost every 1950s parent! If I am what I am and that’s all that I am, then I am basically an automaton. I am carbon-based AI. I am the product of nature (inherited traits) and nurture (upbringing). In other words, I am my parents’ mini-me. I did not get to create myself and I do not get to change myself. I am and I always will be what someone (or something) else created. No wonder we tried to burn down the world! Pity we didn’t succeed: “Revolution for the Hell of it!” (Abbie Hoffman) Popeye, who masqueraded as our liberator, was just our parents in nautical garb. You’ve heard that story before…many, many times: “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” (The Who) In the end, Popeye wanted us to be who our parents wanted us to be. No wonder our generation was obsessed with the question, “Who am I?” We were like amnesiacs just awakening after a major trauma. We rebelled! But here’s the dirty little secret about rebellion: it always presumes aspects of the hated status quo. For example, we rejected the made-to-order identities glued onto us by our parents and their ‘secret agents’ (Popeye), but we still assumed that each of us had some hidden identity – just not the identity chosen for us by our parents. We relentlessly peeled off the layers of our respective onions in hopes of finding the hidden gem inside. There was no end to the things we tried: sex, drugs and rock and roll, of course. Not to mention meditation and political action. In the end, we found exactly what we should have expected to find all along: nothing! There is no secret identity. There is only the freedom to choose our identity and forge it. But who knew? And so what ? Well, if I am what I am and that’s all that I am, then I’m not really responsible for my actions, am I? If I commit a crime, it is my nature to do so (a modern version of “the devil made me do it”). If my politics are racist, they are merely the reflection of the racist culture I grew up in. The very idea that identity could be bound to nationality or race is vintage Popeyeism (though there’s no reason to suppose that Popeye was a racist!). The stratification of society into classes is reinforced by the idea that I am destined to follow in my father’s footsteps when it comes to ‘work’ (i.e., my relationship to the means of production). Disparities in education trace to the tyranny of standardized testing (especially the all determining IQ). By the age of 13, many children in the North Atlantic community have already been assigned to “tracks” that in turn determine what they will have the opportunity to learn and what work they will be able and expected to do as adults. So, in the true spirit of deconstruction (Jacques Derrida et al.), we see that Popeye only masqueraded as a liberator. When he said, “No!” he was really saying, “Yes,” because his “No” presupposed the culture of conformism that he nominally opposed. In reality, he merely projected the ethos of 1950s culture (conformism, keeping up with the Joneses, etc.) onto his adoring fans, us – and all the more brutally and effectively because he did it in disguise. Keep the conversation going! 1. Click here to comment on this TWS. 2. To subscribe (at no cost) to TWS and ATM, follow this link . 3. We encourage new articles and reprints from freelance writers ; click here to view out Writers’ Specs. 4. Aletheia Today Magazine (ATM) will be devoting its entire fall issue (released 9/1/23) to artificial intelligence (AI). What are the philosophical, theological, cultural and even spiritual implications of AI powered world? If you’d like to contribute to the AI Issue, click here . Previous Next

“Both Johns looked out their respective windows and saw their worlds on fire. Both Johns situated their profound and ultimately hopeful message in that apocalyptic context.” < Back The Beatles and John David Cowles Jun 1, 2024 “Both Johns looked out their respective windows and saw their worlds on fire. Both Johns situated their profound and ultimately hopeful message in that apocalyptic context.” When listing the 20th century’s leading theologians, John, Paul, George, and Ringo usually don’t make the cut. Quelle domage! Among other things, they produced a commentary on the Gospel of John that is well worth our attention. You know it by its title: I am the Walrus . When the Beatles have something to say, they don’t mess about; in this case, they get to the heart of the matter in the song’s very first verse: I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together. The Fab Four are summarizing the core teaching of what’s known as Jesus’ Farewell Discourse to his apostles on the eve of his crucifixion - as it is recorded in the Gospel of John (John 13 – 17). We are not islands in the stream. There is a sense in which all of us are connected, a sense in which we share a common being . Jesus delivers that message several times during the discourse: “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father…I am in the Father and the Father is in me?” (14: 10) “I am in my Father and you in me and I in you.” (14: 20) “May they all be one: as you, Father, are in me and I in you, so also may they be in us…that they may be one as we are one, I in them and you in me that they may be perfectly one.” (17: 21 – 23) …And earlier in the Gospel as well: “I and the Father are one…The Father is in me and I in the Father” (10: 30, 38) So let’s map this out. We are concerned with the Father (F), the Son (S), and the Apostles individually (A) and the Apostles collectively {A}: S є F, F є S, A є S, S є A, A є {A}, {A} є S, {A} є F. The Son is in the Father, and the Father is in the Son; each apostle is in the Son and the Son is in each apostle. The apostles collectively (the church?) are in both the Son and the Father. This is the same non-traditional model of reality that the Beatles offer in the opening verse of Walrus : “I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together .” Let’s map that: I = H, Y = H, Y = I; I, H, Y є {I H Y} This same fundamental insight is expressed several times in the song’s chorus: I am the eggman.They are the eggmen.I am the walrus. The Eggman is Christ – the resurrected one, the logos , the mustard seed, the one from whom the universe was born (John 1: 1 – 5). The Apostles are Christ’s Eggmen ; the Walrus, of course, is God, the Father, YHWH. The rest of Walrus , like much of John’s Gospel, is a meditation on the sorry state of ‘secular society’, i.e., culture without Christ; let’s listen in: See how they run like pigs from a gun; see how they fly; I'm crying. Sitting on a cornflake,waiting for the van to come, corporation T-shirt, stupid bloody Tuesday, man you've been a naughty boy, you let your face grow long. Mister city p'liceman sitting pretty, little p'licemen in a row. See how they fly, like Lucy in the sky, see how they run. I'm crying. Yellow matter custard, dripping from a dead dog's eye. Crabalocker fishwife pornographic priestess, boy you been a naughty girl, you let your knickers down. Sitting in an English Garden waiting for the sun. If the sun don't come, you get a tan from standing in the English rain. Expert texpert choking smokers, don't you think the joker laughs at you? See how they smile, like pigs in a sty, see how they snied. I'm crying. Semolina pilchards climbing up the Eiffel Tower. Element'ry penguin singing Hare Krishna,Man, you should have seen them kicking Edgar Allan Poe. How can we connect this 20th century apocalyptic imagery with John’s 1st century narrative? I mean, the things John didn’t know! Edgar Allan Poe and cornflakes to name just two. Both Johns looked out their respective windows and saw their worlds on fire. Both Johns situated their profound and ultimately hopeful message in that apocalyptic context. Just as every fire ultimately reduces its fuel, whatever it may be, to a common flame, so every universe ends the same way: apocalyptically (e.g. Heat Death). There is only one apocalypse; everyone’s apocalypse is the same, but every culture, every age has its own apocalyptic imagery. It could be no other way. Apocalypse by definition negates what is. Therefore, symbols of that apocalypse must reflect what is, in other words they must be culturally specific. But no matter how apparently different they may be, the various images all refer to one common reality: Apocalypse Now! Although their writing is apocalyptic, both John and the Beatles were heralding the beginning of a new age. John the Evangelist celebrated the coming of the Age of Pisces (Christ); John the Beatle looked forward, a bit prematurely as it turns out, to ‘the dawning of the Age of Aquarius’ (Spirit). Let’s hear John E’s commentary on the state of contemporary culture, 1st century style: “He was in the world, and though the world owed its being to him, it did not recognize him.” (1: 10) Absurd alienation is the coin of the realm without God. “He found in the temple dealers in cattle, sheep, and pigeons, and money changers seated at their tables.” (2: 14) The sacred has been profaned. “Is this not the man they want to put to death? And yet here he is, speaking openly, and they have not a word to say to him. Can it be that our rulers have actually decided that this is the Messiah?” (7: 26) Evil compounded by conspiracy. A plot to kill the Savior of the World (“through whom all things were made” – John 1: 2) is the ultimate expression of the Grandfather Paradox! What could be more absurd than a world that chooses to annihilate itself, retroactively, rather than accept the glorious truth? It’s really the paradigm of absurdity . (Camus, eat your heart out!) It is the triumph of pride over reason. It is one thing to deny that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God. It is something altogether different to believe these things to be true …and then to kill him anyway. I am the Walrus is not Guernica. It is a rather lighthearted take on The Absurd – more Ionesco than Kafka. As a result, it is even more convincing. We don’t all have the opportunity to put the Savior of the World to death (at least not knowingly). We do all have opportunities to run like pigs, sit on cornflakes (if we want to), and kick dead poets. Postscript : Do I believe that the Beatles had it in mind to write a commentary on John? I do not, nor do I care. The intention of the artist is irrelevant. Everything is in the text and the text ‘cries Johnnie’. David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com . Return to Summer 2024 Share Previous Next Click here. Do you like what you just read? Subscribe today and receive sneak previews of Aletheia Today Magazine articles before they're published. Plus, you'll receive our quick-read, biweekly blog, Thoughts While Shaving. Subscribe Thanks for subscribing! 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< Back Satan, Mary, and ‘Da Judge’ “Satan glorified political power for its own sake. He defended the socio-economic status quo…Jesus’ mother proclaimed a political and economic revolution...” David Cowles There’s nothing like a good old-fashioned barroom – you know…that place ‘where everybody knows your name’. Sadly, this Anglo-American institution is in decline on both sides of the Atlantic. We love to complain about socio-economic inequality and yet we are quietly witnessing the demise of a great leveler. The bar is where landlords and tenants, shop owners and wage earners, lawyers and tradesmen, bankers and borrowers have traditionally sat side by side, enjoying ‘a pint of the best’, and sharing their perspectives on the sorry state of the world. I love a good bar; you never know who you’ll meet and, if you shut up for a second, you can eavesdrop on the most interesting conversations. In my younger days, I frequented a bar where the ‘regulars’ included the owner of a rival bar, a pre-school teacher (and Stalin scholar), a florist, a contractor, a biology professor, a municipal employee, and an attorney. My best story, however, concerns a lazy summer afternoon with me sitting alone on my usual perch in my then favorite watering hole. Unexpectedly, two men and one woman walked in, already deeply engaged in animated conversation; they sat down right next to me. I had been going to this same bar for years, and as far as I know, none of the three had ever been there before. But of course, I recognized them immediately! Have you even been in a public space when suddenly and unexpectedly you encounter somebody famous? How do you react? Do you tell them how much you appreciate their ‘work’? Do you ask for their autograph? Or do you totally ignore them? I have adopted an intermediate strategy. I nod knowingly in their direction (sometimes they nod back) and I leave it at that. But not this time! On this occasion, I sat frozen on my stool, eyes forward, watching my bar mates only out of the corner of one eye and then only as reflected in the huge mirror that hung over the bar’s display of bottled spirits. And speaking of spirits, my drinking companions that day were none other than Mary, the virgin Mother of God, Lucifer (aka Satan), and ‘Judge Gudy’ (Gideon). In my experience, the only subjects worth talking about in a bar are religion and politics and this afternoon’s guests had apparently settled on politics as their topic du jour . Satan boasted proudly of his accomplishments in the field of politics. He reminded Mary that he had offered her son, Jesus, “all the kingdoms of the world in their magnificence.” (Matthew 4: 8 - 9) Of course, Mary reminded Satan that Jesus had turned him down flat, but she did not challenge his boastful claim that he could in fact deliver ‘all the kingdoms of the world’. Clearly, this is political power way beyond anything Boss Tweed or Mayor Daley could have imagined. Then Mary lectured Satan on the terms of God’s own political praxis: “He has thrown down rulers from their thrones but lifted-up the lowly. The hungry he has filled with good things; the rich he has sent away empty.“ (Luke 1: 52 – 53) Clearly, we were in for a good old-fashioned 19 th century donnybrook. Satan glorified political power for its own sake. He defended the socio-economic status quo. His platform did not include even a single mention of ‘justice’; but he confidently asserted the corrupt malleability of ‘all the kingdoms’ (not some, not most… all ). Nor did Jesus contest Satan’s ability to deliver absolute political power. It was taken for granted. On the other hand, Jesus’ mother proclaimed a political and economic revolution the scope of which would have made Marx and Lenin cringe. The argument might have gone well into the evening, “Who’s driving?” I thought, had ‘Judge Gudy’ not intervened, “May I tell my story?” “3 millennia ago, give or take, I was threshing wheat in a winepress to hide the grain from the Midianites who were occupying our land. Suddenly, almost as if I’d been confronted by an angel, I thought, ‘You’re a brave man, and the Lord is with you’. I thought, If not me, who? If not now, when? If it’s going to be it’s up to me! “But of course, bravado gave way to skepticism and caution. “If the Lord is really with us, why has all this happened to us? Did I really receive a message from God or was I just daydreaming…again?” I prayed, “Give me a sign!” And I got one. “So that night, I engaged in my first act of revolutionary violence. I overturned the altar of Baal, tore down its ridiculous ‘pole’... a symbol of status quo and social hierarchy. Instead, I built on that same site an altar dedicated to YHWH and, using the wood from the pole, I sacrificed a whole bull. I even gave the altar a name, ‘Jehovah Shalom’, which means, ‘God is wholeness’. “Of course, I got caught, but I was the beneficiary of a ‘woke’ wave of ‘selective prosecutions’ and let go. I realize now that the destruction of Baal was just an initiation ritual; God was testing me to see if I was ready for bigger things. For better or worse, I passed the test. “Great for God, not so great for me! The cops (and my dad) had put the fear of Baal in me; I didn’t relish another bout with the law. But also, I didn’t want to turn down God, so I asked for another sign. And then another. No way out now! “So, I raised an army of 32,000 to take on 135,000 occupying soldiers. Farmers and craftsmen against Midian’s professional military. God or not, I couldn’t face the prospect of inflicting such carnage on my own people. So I decided to send 31,700 soldiers back home to their families. I would fight Midian…but with just 300 of my best . “I blush when people call me ‘the Father of Guerilla Warfare’. I was no military genius; I was just scared. I was willing to serve God, even if it meant martyrdom, but I was unwilling to sacrifice any more lives than absolutely necessary in the process. Besides, what was I going to do with 30,000 untrained soldiers? Better to rely on my best and brightest . And so, ya da, ya da, ya da … we won. With the help of God, and a lot of good luck, we drove Midian across the Jordan and out of Israel. "My only thought then was to get home to my father and my pastoral life. Surely my dad will let me drink wine now that I’ve defeated Midian in battle, or maybe not! Anyway, no more fighting for me. But my neighbors had other ideas. They insisted on making me King. "No way! As the leader of a victorious army, I was in a position to lay down the law… and this time I didn’t need to wait for a sign: 'I will not rule over you nor shall my son; the Lord will rule over you.” And so it was that “for 40 years the land was at peace...'” Silence followed. Slowly, Mary and Satan paid their tabs and Mary picked up the bill for Gideon. Satan left quietly followed a few minutes later by Mary. It seemed as though Gideon might hang out a while but, tab paid, he too left the bar. At that moment it occurred to me that the intellectual history of the 19 th and 20 th centuries had just played out in front of me. Satan advocated for secular pragmatism, democratic capitalism, the new world order. Mary argued for the overthrow of the existing socio-economic order to be replaced by a benign version of Marx’s Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Gideon argued for nothing. He lived his ideology, a fine blend of devotion to God, compassion for his fellows, and dedication to purpose. He had no desire for political power; he was content to let God rule Israel directly, without interference from permanent political institutions. He demonstrated the spirit of what today we call Anarchism . David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com . Return to our Harvest Issue 2023 Previous Next

< Back That Time You Weren't Exceptionally Divine Annie D. Stutley They say that a watched pot never boils. That’s a lie. It does boil, but do you know what doesn’t? A Tale of Three Christmases and Unexceptional Personal Limits.... I have two settings for Christmas. The first begins in November when I think of every holiday task I will complete early so the season is stress-free. The second is in the third week of December when I realize that I haven’t accomplished anything I planned. And nowhere is my holiday frenzy more frantic than on the eve of my children’s last day of school before winter break when I realize that I have procrastinated buying their teachers’ gifts. Of course it begins innocently enough. It always does. Years ago, when my kids were little, teacher gifts were something I could put off. They each had one teacher. I could run to the nearest gift store and buy three exceptional baskets of goodies. But now my kids are older with a whopping 20 teachers, coaches, and instructors. Sometime around Thanksgiving I remind myself to plan ahead for affordable yet heartwarming care packages that properly say, “Thank you for fostering my kid, who I know is sometimes a complete jackass.” Yet, I end up doing what I’ve done for years now. I make a mad dash to the grocery store the day before and determine that the best way to compensate for my ineptitude is to overcompensate. Thus, I choose a most complicated dessert that will wow my neglected teachers. And I will, of course , prepare it all myself. It sounds completely logical in the moment. One year, though, I actually conceded that one cannot make a dozen yule logs in one night. That year, my kids had only 12 teachers combined. So, I bought a case of wine and funny labels like “It’s 3:30 somewhere” and placed each clever label over the vineyard’s label. Simple! Except that you can’t drop your kid off at school with a backpack full of wine—not even in New Orleans. So, guess who unloaded a case of wine at the elementary school? This gal. Only our school doesn’t have a parking lot. Our school is in a highly trafficked neighborhood where there is rarely off-street parking. I found a spot three blocks away, only to get as far as two steps when I realized my scrawny arms cannot carry a case of wine down three blocks, through a security gate, and up a set of stairs. So I retreated. I took two thirds of the wine out of the box and carried four bottles at a time, deciding on three trips—one for each kid's teachers. To date, I don’t know why I thought it wise to bring the wine directly to the teachers and why I didn’t just leave them in the office. And I wish I had because guess whose Mom busted into fifth grade math class with wine? Yep, you guessed it. By the time I was on my third trip, I was sweating and my middle child (Middle Man) completely ignored me when I tiptoed in the dark into his reading classroom where they were watching Charlotte’s Web. As I sheepishly handed his teacher a heartfelt bottle of booze, a droplet of my sweat splattered and smudged the clever label. As God was my witness, I swore I’d never do the wine thing again. So, what did I do the next year? Homemade marshmallows. Lord to Heaven! That was a Christmas catastrophe. Marshmallows have five ingredients, and the biggest time consumption is waiting for them to set—two factors that led me to think my choice wise. However, waiting to begin at 8 o’clock at night to make marshmallows for 15 teachers means you’ll be staring at trays, waiting for them to set, well past midnight. It was close to one in the morning when I finally sliced the last pan of marshmallows and laid them in green tissue paper in red Chinese cartons. I was exhausted, maybe a little buzzed from the rosé I chugged that last hour but satisfied with my superpowers. Seriously, which other kid was gonna stroll into homeroom with homemade marshmallows? Not even Sheryl's kids. (See "That Time You Ousted Sheryl" for clarification.) But the following morning I realized just how not-Sheryl I am. Taking a final look at my supreme exceptionality, I peeked inside one of the cartons and resting contentedly were my perfectly, poufy marshmallows. But perfectly green ! In my complete Annie-ness, I didn’t remember that I live in New Orleans where our humidity is a legitimate reason to avoid moisturizer altogether and also where one should never put a food item made entirely of sugar onto anything soluble, namely green tissue paper. Frantically, I pulled all the marshmallows out—all 90 of them—for inspection. Most of the green was on the edges. For a split second, I considered leaving them alone. Maybe it would look intentional. Only it didn’t because the green bled down like green veins, and also, knowing my luck, some teacher had a freak dye allergy. I simply can’t be the parent to poison the science teacher. So I trimmed them. “It’ll appear intentional,” I said, as Middle Man looked despondently into the now heap of white powdered globs. “Sure. We’ll go with that,” he said dryly. That was the year my kids took irregular polygon-shaped marshmallows to school for their teachers’ holiday gifts and the year that, as God was my witness, I swore to never make marshmallows again. So, 2019 was to be my comeback. No sweaty wine. Nothing poisonous. That was the plan until I hadn’t bought a single ingredient for making gifts and was exhausted from a week of nursing Middle Man’s flu. I stumbled into the supermarket in the same yoga pants I’d worn for three days and spotted a display of packaged divinity. Right then is precisely when I should have realized the limitations put on me that week. It is also precisely why I’m pretty sure I don’t have a conscience at all because when I studied the mushy rounds of confection I said, “I can make that. Easy!” Silly Annie. Divinity is for grown-ups. Like marshmallow, divinity only has five ingredients, but with a nougat consistency. Divinity is also as far from a divine experience to make as the devil is from divinity. In fact, divinity is the devil. Here’s why: It was while I was laying out the ingredients when Mama trotted over to the kitchen to see what I was doing. Mama lives with us now, and there are moments when it is very convenient to have someone wise in your presence. That is, if you are the type of person to listen to wisdom. “You know, divinity is really finicky about humidity,” she said as I looked over the recipe. I ignored her. I lit a fire and poured the sugar, water, salt, and Karo syrup into the saucepan and waited. And waited. And continued to wait as the sugar liquid took half of my lifetime to reach 260 degrees. When it finally did, I slowly poured it into the mixing bowl of stiff egg whites and again waited and waited and waited for what seemed the remainder of my life for the magic to happen. But it did—to Mama’s and my complete astonishment. “Haha!” I proudly chuckled as I spooned poufy clumps of winter white onto a parchment paper-lined cookie sheet. “Humidity be damned!” They held their shape. It was on to batch two of four. It was during batch two that I realized I forgot to put my kids to bed. It was also during batch two that the dog made a river of pee in the dining room. And it was in the middle of batch two that as I stared at bubbling sugar determined to never hit 260 degrees that I called off the fourth batch. Middle Man was too sick for school. His presents could wait. But again, the divinity kept its shape. “I am so good at this!” I said to no one in particular, a tiny prideful note sent out into a world determined on making me feel inept. By the time I started batch three, Middle Man was in a Tamiflu and broth coma on the couch and the other two kids were asleep upstairs. The river of pee had been cleaned. I even remembered to move the damn Elf on the Shelf. It was 10:30. Again, I prepared the sugar to boil. And in the quiet of my holiday home, I stared at the pot. They say that a watched pot never boils. That’s a lie. It does boil, but do you know what doesn’t happen? A sugar boil doesn’t hit 260 degrees without taking a piece of your soul with it. Studying that damn pot, feeling time and my alertness fade away, I contemplated all the choices that led me to making divinity at 11 p.m. on a Wednesday. Why must I push myself to rally behind some ideal that I should be exceptional? Who cares? I could have bought the divinity. I could have made boxed brownies. I could have filled tins with the teachers’ favorite store-bought candies and be in bed right now. Instead, as the sugar boil defied me, I questioned my very existence. Why do I even bother trying for any life exceptional? No one really cares if I do or don’t do anything well. Boiled sugar not reaching 260 degrees makes a person think such damaging thoughts, especially when they are tired and a little buzzed from chugging rosé the last hour. So, too, will a divinity mixture that still hasn’t formed into the right consistency after seven minutes of mixing on high speed! The grinding motor of the mixer shook me from my self-loathing. Why wasn’t this batch doing what the others did? I stopped the machine and tested a clump. It fell back on itself. “Crap!” I yelled at no one in particular. Again I mixed and mixed until it looked right and then spooned it out, only to see each clump puddle after just seconds. I could have made a fourth batch. I could have muscled up and finished strong. But I didn’t. And you know why? Because New Orleans is insanely humid, and I should have listened to my mother. But mostly because though I may strive to be exceptional, there is nothing exceptional about my limits. It was time I learned that. I was short by five teachers. Two didn’t need a present before the next afternoon. Another we’d see again before Christmas. So, I scanned the house for replacements and found twelve of two dozen gourmet cookies that had been delivered the day before. They were worth giving away for the sake of my sanity. I filled the remaining tins with the re-gifted cookies, planned to buy the other gifts in the morning, and as God was my witness, swore to never make divinity again. I know enough to know that I can’t pull off procrastination without mishap. I can’t pull off a lot of things without a little drama. But I’m so much more than my ineptitude. I’m kind. I’m a good listener. I’m relatable. I’m a doting mother, a great wife, sister, daughter, and friend. Screw divinity. I’m badass without it. I shut the lights off downstairs at midnight—an hour earlier than the marshmallow affair of 2018. But as I was cleaning up beforehand, I stuck the puddled divinity from batch three in a hot oven. Maybe I could make divinity cookies a thing? After the last bowl was clean and the good divinity packed, I shut off the oven, left the door ajar, and went to bed. Yet, I forgot about those “cookies” in my oven until the following night when I preheated the oven to 450 degrees to cook a roast. I was seasoning said roast, grateful that divinity and a need to be exceptional was a thing of the past, when from his couch confinement, Middle Man said, “What’s that smell?” I sniffed the air. It smelled like burnt sugar. That’s odd, I thought. Then I remembered my experiment. I threw open the oven and went temporarily blind as billowing smoke rushed into my kitchen and overwhelmed my first floor. Alarms went off, dogs barked, and my flu child gagged. Divinity struck again! Those damn leftover globs melted straight through my silicone cookie sheet onto the oven floor. Some of us aren’t meant to meddle with the Divine. Starting with me. 2020 Update: Today was the last day of in-person school for Middle Man. He went with four pre-packaged coffee cakes to give to his four teachers. The cakes were baked in a kitchen far away from mine and by the hands of a professional. Last night I watched a cheesy Hallmark Christmas movie and sipped rose', all without turning on my mixer once. Annie D. Stutley lives and writes in New Orleans, La. She edits several small publications and contributes to various print and online magazines. Her blog, " That Time You, " was ranked in the Top 100 Blogs by FeedSpot. To read more of her work, go to her website , or follow her at @anniedstutley or Annie D. Stutley-writer on Facebook. Previous Next

< Back A Bird Teaches Humans a Lesson of Compassion, Bravery, and Love Keith Brailsford "This black-crowned bird truly taught me three lessons today – compassion, bravery, and love. It’s a lesson I will cherish in my daily life." I had just arrived back home from a mid-day break, taking an exercise class at our local fitness center. As I pulled into our driveway, I quickly turned off the car as I wanted to run inside the house to get our dog, Tory, for his early afternoon walk. As I opened the car door, I froze. There before me, five feet away on the edge of the driveway, there was something moving. I quickly recognized that it was a young fledgling who was laying on its side, not moving. Next to this beautiful bird, blue in color, with grayish blue wings, was another bird standing over his friend or mate. This other bird had a black crowned head, and his color was gray and black. What came next was heartbreaking. The black crowned bird had his head bowed over the blueish bird. He seemed to be devastated at what happened to his friend or mate. Still, with his head bowed, he tried to help his friend, trying to move the other bird, seeming to believe that if he could bring the bird back up from lying lifeless on one side, he might be able to help the bird fly again. I felt like the lifeless bird may have passed and that his friend was trying to do the impossible, to bring him back to life. I was so sad at that moment, wondering what if anything I, as a meager human, could do at this moment. I knew that if I got a shovel and tried to lift the blue colored bird and ease it onto the lawn to see if it moved or not, the black crowned mate or friend may have attacked me and for good reason. This was his friend and/or soulmate. The black crowned bird was devastated to see his friend lying lifeless on the paved driveway. No one was going to be allowed to interfere with their deep and special bond. I realized that. I decided to go into the house, get my dog Tory ready for his walk and come back out to see what, if anything, I could do to help. Ten minutes later, I walked Tory to the car. He jumped in the passenger seat. I quickly noticed that two young crows were nearby. One crow was on the front lawn and the other crow was barely three or four feet from his prey, the young lifeless, blue colored bird. His friend or mate was pulling at his leg or body, I couldn’t fully tell. When the young crow saw me, he quickly flew off in the distance, still close enough to descend upon the other birds when I had left. And then something miraculous happened. I looked back at the black crowned bird and at the blue colored bird and they both had disappeared. All I could think of was that the black crowned bird must have gotten some form of super strength, to lift his friend onto his back and take him to a safe place to recover. I was struck by the black crowned birds’ act of compassion, staying by his friend’s side with his head bowed, not knowing if his friend was alive or not. I was equally humbled by the bravery the black crowned bird showed in the face of imminent danger from the crow who was lurking nearby. And finally, the super bird strength that the black crowned bird showed to his blue colored friend or mate, to miraculously take another bird of equal weight, and to fly him off to safety, was the greatest show of love and devotion one could ever imagine. This black crowned bird truly taught me three lessons today – compassion, bravery, and love. It’s a lesson I will cherish in my daily life as I interact with other human beings, be they friends, fellow citizens, or family. Keith has worked in telecommunications for several years, providing local and long distance telecommunications products and services to hotels and bed & breakfast inns throughout the Northeastern, United States. He then went on to design and market corporate healthcare and benefit solutions for Benemax, Inc. the nations oldest consumer driven healthcare brokerage, based in Massachusetts. Keith has also served as an HR Manager for an IT company and in 2023, transitioned to academia, where he is pursuing his second masters degree, in Clinical Mental Health. Keith has traveled extensively with his wife Priscilla Dass-Brailsford, to over 38 countries and 44 states and in 2023, was a gold medal winner in the national yoga championships. Keith was a former military photo-journalist and loves to write short stories. Return to Summer 2024 Previous Next

< Back Ephesians 2:10 David Cowles “In this one verse…St. Paul proposes a radically new model of what it means to be a human being.” (Paul’s enigmatic verse opens a window onto a whole new cosmology, suddenly made surprisingly relevant by the last 100 years of physics: Many worlds, Block universe, Quantum entanglement, etc.) “For we are his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus, for the good works that God has prepared in advance that we should live in them.” (Eph. 2: 10) Who needs Freud, Jung, or Adler when we have Paul? In this one verse (above), albeit dense and enigmatic, St. Paul proposes a radically new model of what it means to be a human being. Of course, Paul’s verse could be interpreted as merely another expression of some sort of divine determinism, but that would directly contradict the overall Biblical consensus that we are ‘intentional creatures’, endowed with ‘free will’ and ‘responsible for our actions’. Opposing determinism, divine or otherwise, is the view that we create our own lives out of whole cloth. We are blank slates with freedom to make decisions and with responsibility for the outcome of those decisions. Meet Jean-Paul Sartre! Beats determinism but it’s still not the whole story. Sorry JP! Either way, our interaction with the world takes the form of a unidirectional vector. Determinism points that vector toward us; freedom points that same vector toward the world. According to this later model, everything begins with me and radiates outward. The world is my canvass, and I am surrounded by brushes and tubes of color; so start painting! Now I just have to wait for inspiration. St. Paul affirms that we are free agents, responsible for our own choices. But he also suggests that we are not the sole authors of our destinies. There’s something more going on in Paul’s cosmology! The essence of God is the Good, and in our world, we experience the Good as Beauty, Truth, and Justice. I call these the divine values , and God is all about divine values! So Being presents us with a paradox. The world (us) is radically free to do as it will, while God is hyper-focused on bringing that world in line with his values and merging it with him in the Kingdom of Heaven . The history of religion is the record of our attempts, tortured at best, to resolve this conflict. What if Paul gave us a solution two millennia ago, even if we have not recognized it? A precocious 12 year old wants to go to Harvard. There are many ways she can make that happen. She can become the valedictorian of her high school class; or she can grow into a sought after athlete; or she can write a play, prove a theorem, found a company, start a charity, etc. Of course, nothing is in stone. She could do any, or all, of these things and still not get in to the college of her choice. Conversely, she could do none of them and rely on a killer interview, essay, or test score. Bottom line: she can do as she pleases and let whatever happens happen. Society, however, has provided our 12 year old with a number of semi-guaranteed pathways to success, should she choose to follow one of them. According to Paul, this is how the whole world works! It’s 8AM and you and I have only the vaguest notion of how things will be at 4PM. Not so God! God sees the world (us) as it is now, and God knows the world as it will be at the end of time ( eschaton ); in fact, God is the eschaton ! The terrain between now and eschaton is our domain but, as history has amply demonstrated, human beings are sub-cretinous. So, what’s a good God to do? It is not in God’s nature to direct the course of events in our world. Such intervention would violate his Covenant with us, and it would vitiate the radical independence of the world he created. Is there a way around this impasse? I am tempted to credit Paul with the ‘discovery’ of a solution, but that solution was already present embryonically in the opening verses of Genesis . Paul just recognized it…and brought it forward. Consider the role of God in the creation story: God sees the world as it is: “without form or shape, with darkness over the abyss and a mighty wind sweeping over the waters…” God says, “Let there be…” and “there was…” “God saw that it was Good…” (divine values) “Then God separated…” “God…rested…” Hardly an active voice, indicative mood description! This is not Deus Magus ! God is not some want-to-be ‘Merlin’, pointing a wand and creating a frog. God is AAA; he provides us with a map that offers multiple routes to a single destination, pocked with landmarks, signage, and ‘helpful hints’. And still we get lost! I am in New York, and I need to be in LA. There are innumerable routes and modes of transportation available to me, some fast, some scenic, some frantic, some relaxed, some costly, some budget friendly, etc. Of course, not all roads from New York lead to LA; in fact, most don’t. More than once, I’ve found myself on a train out of Penn Station…headed to Boston! (Perhaps I was ‘over served’.) God’s ways are not our ways. We rigidly distinguish the map from the territory. Not God! God’s map is the territory. But God’s task is a lot easier than I’ve made it sound. All good works lead to God. Assessing the gap between where the world is and where it must get to, God prepares a catalog of good works for me to choose from. When I was accepted into college (tuition was $2,000/year), the first thing I received was a catalogue of courses…hundreds of courses. I don’t doubt that every single one of those courses was educational; but I was only required/allowed to pick four. I didn’t need to take every course my college offered. Likewise, I don’t need to perform all the good works that God has prepared for me. Just one! Doesn’t matter which one. I can try to do more than one but to do that I would have to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time and experience tells me that’s not likely to happen. Single task complete, God now prepares a new catalog of good works for me to evaluate. God’s world is an interactive novel; everything I do is a choice and every choice I make triggers an avalanche of new options. Divine Intelligence (DI) is the precursor of Artificial Intelligence (AI); God is the ultimate LLM. GPS-like, God is forever re-calculating my optimal route(s). I am the frog (above) and my world is a network of disconnected lily pads (being) floating on the surface of a pond (the abyss). My mission, should I choose to accept it, is to hop my way from pad to pad until I reach the opposite shore. Of course, I may not accept my mission. I may think I know better than God: “Who needs all these pads? I’ll just swim across the pond on my own.” So I’ve made my decision. I’ve decided to ignore all the options God has placed before me. I’m choosing a different path instead – something I am perfectly free to do, BTW. Am I damned? Don’t be daft! I’ve just moved to Philadelphia, that’s all, and, gossip notwithstanding, God lives in Philly too! After I visit the Liberty Bell and frequent the bars and restaurants around Rittenhouse Square, God will present me with a new map with new good works for me to choose from. All I have to do is step into one of these works and I am back on track, my Philly detour forgotten. I can always jump onto the nearest available lily pad and make things right with God. On the other hand, I could choose to board a train for DC. Rinse and repeat! Life is long and anywhere along the way I can choose to step into a good work that God has prepared for me to live in…or I can decide I know better and fend for myself. Whenever I am on a pad, I’m on track, and my past indiscretions are forgotten. Water washes away all vestiges of the route taken. God has no reason to harbor a grudge. God is concerned with one thing only: the divine values and, what amounts to the same thing, the redemption of the world. So, the road to Heaven is not nearly as narrow as we’ve been led to believe. God is not a tough negotiator. He’s prepared at any time to accept anyone and everyone onto his team. All I need do is look around, find a good work that God has prepared for me that I should live in it…and then ‘just do it!’ David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com . Return to Groundhog Issue 2025 Previous Next