Tag Archives: AI

The Truth Behind Country Living: Weeds and the Reality of Free Range Chickens

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We were doing so well. Spring had us thinking we were ahead of the game this year. Things looked cleaned up and projects were on task. Sigh. Fail. Again. You know those great Instagram posts of the pretty summer .porch with chippy paint and rusty pails with random chicken eggs in a rainbow of colours next to a few beautiful wildflowers that look so romantic? It’s a lie. Country people will tell you the chippy paint is because we have no time for painting and we forgot the pail so it got rusty in the rain and your wild free-ranging chickens lay random eggs everywhere now instead of neatly in the nest boxes and it’s a daily game of hide and seek to collect them… and the wildflowers are really weeds that grow like crazy and take over any available spot except for the places you sowed the wild flower seeds hoping the pollinators would be happy that you thought of them….

Romantic? It’s a lie I generated with A.I!! Pretty though, isn’t it?

There are always two sides of the story friends. I love my house. I love my chick birds. I love my life and the adventures it brings. Yet, today, I am feeling a little bit on the other side. The dream has been crushed and it’s overwhelming and hard and not fun anymore. Part of my trouble is my own head. I get inside it and romanticize. Now don’t get me wrong… we do the work. We try. The hubby does his best, and I have good intentions, but most days I get home from work too exhausted to care. Everybody is safe and fed and clean and that’s enough. Yup, we keep it real here at mittonmusings.

I watered the “garden”. It is now a patch of thick thistle weeds and grass with a few stagnant tomato and pepper plants. I have 4 strawberry plants flowering which likely the wild birds will get before we get any fruit. Peas, beans, and any form of salad ingredient have been snatched up by the chickens and stubby bits of cucumber vines are choked out by more weeds. It’s a disaster! And I am sad. We tried to pull the thistles. Now I think I am going to try chaos gardening. Who cares. Let’s see what grows among the weeds.

I suppose thistles can be pretty too. Perspective.
Photo by Orhan Akbaba on Pexels.com

New found friends have a beautiful garden. Perfect rows. Ne’re a weed to be seen. He has blueberries! Blueberries! I didn’t think they grew down here, only up north, where it was colder. Okay, so they are retired and spend all day out there. Okay, they did research and planned and dug and tilled and worked for the last who knows how many years to achieve this greatness. How the blueberries were dug in trenches, fertilized and babied for four years before a single bloom. Still. I am grumpy there is no country property fairy. Instagram lies.

Ah friend. Is my musing simply a rambling of complaints? Partially. Hey, it’s my blog, I am allowed to vent. Still, it’s self talk as well. A reminder that God never promised life would be easy. We were chatting the other day about the angel who stood guard at the gate of the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve got kicked out. Do you think they “drove by” every now and then to see him? To wish for the paradise? Or did they keep far away, ashamed to ever cross the barrier? Warning their children like Peter rabbit’s mom at McGregor’s garden gate… that’s where disaster struck, kids. Stay far away from the edge.

So what’s my point? I suppose it is simply this. Life here in our fallen world is harsh. Things are not fair. Time steals. Instagram really does lie. A.I is going to make it harder and harder to decipher Truth. Our children’s children will continue to struggle. Yet God is bigger and stronger than anything we can complain about. Weeds choke out wisdom. The Bible says so. Things get squeezed out and our minds get infiltrated with doubts and struggles and sadness. We go through seasons, like the natural world does. Eventually, something grows. Perhaps the wild flower weeds are the only thing, but it’s still growth. My chickens have been well fed by their foraging. It’s all about perspective. I’m learning. And I guess that’s where I must focus for this week. Thanks for coming along on the journey, friends. Let’s meet again soon to encourage one another one more time.

When Robots take over The Church

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Over the holidays, I started reading an interesting book entitled “The Inevitable” by Kevin Kelly. It claims to help us understand “the 12 technological forces that will shape our future.” Interesting enough. I am not quite through it yet, but am always up for learning something new, so what the heck. Kelly is a techno big wig, and I am not, so I am breezing through the jargon and trying to glean insight as I go. Grains of salt and all that…

I have already stumbled through Chapter 2, entitled “Cognifying”… a technical force involving artificial intelligence (that means machines that can think — for those of us over age 25… ahem…) and am stuck on the following quote from pg. 37:

“Every time you type a query, click on a search-generated link, or create a link on the web, you are training Google AI. When you type Easter Bunny into the image search bar and then click on the most Easter Bunny looking image, you are teaching the AI what an Easter Bunny looks like.”

2016. The Inevitable by Kevin Kelly pg. 37

And so, I muse… what are we teaching Google about GOD?!

Most of the visionary thinkers of our day say that technology is here to stay. We rely on it daily, hourly, even minute by minute in some cases. The next generation won’t know what life was like without the internet. Google, Alexa and Siri have become our best friends. I check my phone before I eat breakfast. Rightly or wrongly, the constant “feeds” are shaping our future… and our spirituality.

Kelly says that technology moves us forward by a force he calls “Becoming”. It is not that technology is driving us to something improved… but something entirely new. Our views are evolving and growing and eventually will change the present thoughts and opinions into something entirely different. Could this be true of our vision of God? Of the church? Of salvation? Of our morality?

Are you prepared for the technology that is changing our view of spirituality?

I am certainly no expert, and I don’t have any definitive answers to my technological muse, but I do know, through simple observation, that the average 7 year old has more knowledge of what Fortnight is than who Jacob and Esau are. So what are we to do? How do we catch the inevitable train and be sure to add spiritual insights to the list of stops?

Number one, I think we have to be aware. Be present. Try and understand. Know that the future will be shaped by this never ending force we call technology. Never stop learning. Unfortunately, our churches are way, way behind. We need to catch up. And Fast.

Perhaps your church has the technological budget and know how to be current in today’s fast paced world. Good for you! But do we then just go crazy with technology and let robots take over our pulpits… since they are going to anyway? Who’s idea of morality is correct? Who gets to make the decisions? No easy answer there, either.

Max Tegmark, an “expert” from MIT, says that before we let AI take complete control, we have to make sure we get it right — the first time. He says we need to certainly be pro active versus reactive. We must make sure that our moral and spiritual goals are aligned with what the robots are going to tell us (because, yes, eventually, they will indeed be smarter than us…)

For example, when technology advanced and we got cars, (and then faster cars) we learned from our mistakes and created seat belts, traffic lights and highway speed limit laws. According to Tegmark, we must think of the mistakes first and plan for them accordingly. I hope I am well equipped. I fear, however, that I am not.

What about you? Do you feel you are equipped for when Robots take over your church? Has your church taken steps to follow the technology movement? Let me know your thoughts….