Darkness and Light

Friends,

Every year I am so deeply moved with the wonder of springtime and the assurance and bounty it provides, and I am always so grateful for this profound, annual miracle it manifests as I look over the verdancy of new growth and full-bodied blossoming rhododendron.

My heart this evening, however, is also focused on the disconnect between this beautiful springtime and the Trump administration's effort to provide an alternative universe that sometimes feels like an attempt at dissolution of the life force of goodwill and nature itself. And so it saddens me to have the promise of life-giving springtime in the same mindset as the burgeoning world of AI’s (Artificial Intelligence’) stark, impersonal metrics and efficiency. I recently read a huge sign in a New York storefront promoting AI that read “Don”t hire humans!” (Yes, I had to pause over that, too, when I first read it!) Clearly we are entering into a new existential reality that threatens and denigrates personal value. I saw a portion of an interview with Elon Musk who pointed out that in a governmental bureaucracy (or most likely in most democratic institutions) any decision goes through all manner of committees and regulations, when finally, he concluded, it could be so easily solved after all through an AI process that takes only seconds. There is something appealing about this, of course, because we all like a certain amount efficiency if possible. But then I have been asking, what is missing in this Muskian scenario of hyper efficiency?

My simplistic answers include the miracle and wonder of springtime! The personal and environmental relationships of the heart. Meetings in which co-workers and friends wrestle with a problem as they seek creative and inspired solutions from their training, experiences and commitment to the common good. The dailiness of communities sharing lives of birth and death and all points in between. If our lives become divorced from communities to share both the grievances and hardships as well as the joys we will not reinforce the sense of belonging and mutuality that constitutes the heart of life and relationships. It is possible, of course, that all this can be accomplished while also living in a world facilitated by the efficiency of AI. 

But I do wonder how these two paradigms of Musk efficiency and the relational values I have tried to hold during my lifetime will mesh over time. All our children now growing up with their computers and the lure and demands of AI will surely impact national, if not planetary, life in the not too distant future - if it doesn’t already exist beyond my imagination. And my concern about the influence of AI leads me to also wonder what responsibility I have to leave a legacy of compassionate, creative, cooperative relationships that are the bedrock of my life’s journey that I consider crucial for the next generation to provide them the spiritual and soulful orientation necessary for a fulfilling life. When I die I am certain I will not be dwelling on my professional career or my successes and failures in my life - and certainly not my efficiency quotient! I expect to focus instead on whether I loved enough, whether I truly fostered and maintained close relationships with my family and friends. Did I bring a spirit of kindness into the public arenas of my life such as the supermarket and, more recently, my frequent encounters with the stressful world of medical visits? Did I learn to foster a loving relationship with myself, with forbearance for all my faults, that I could then offer the same acceptance of the shortfalls of others?

I am assuming that those of us in the last third of our lives will only partially adapt to the ever-rapid waves of cultural changes that threaten to just wash us ashore while a younger generation takes on the leadership. And so it should be, of course. But our task now is to cherish our creative and loving capacities and then share them liberally with the next generations who will be living through ever more challenging technologies in their search for meaningful lives in the midst of it all.. 

The contemporary struggle between the competing paradigms of technology and the primacy of relationships is particularly poignant for us within the context of the Trumpian revolution. But there is a long history of societies often pivoting toward a new moral enlightenment following a severe disruption of the status quo, such as the ascendence of a revitalized religion or the fall of an empire. So if history has any merit for contemporary life, I want to believe all this threatening chaos can and will find some positive resolution even beyond our imagination,  Quakers often reflect on a quote from our founder, George Fox, who in the midst of a bloody English civil war and forty years of brutal oppression of the Quaker movement, wrote: “I saw that there was an ocean of darkness and death, but an infinite ocean of light and love, which flowed over the ocean of darkness…and I had great openings.” Fox’s faith provided an image of eventual redemption, even though at the time he did not know the eventual resolution of the dark time surrounding his world. I pray for each of us, and for our nation and world, that we, too, can hold a similar level of hopeful assurance that “great openings” will somehow evolve from our own devastating period of history.

Peace,
Tom