Acting Mennonite for Gaza’s sake

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Earlier this week my husband and I and many of our friends took part in a Mennonite day of action to call for a ceasefire in Gaza and an end to US support of that war. Nearly 2,000 Mennonite demonstrators in the US and Canada converged on some 40 local offices of national representatives, in demonstrations instigated and coordinated by a couple of Young Turks who call this effort Mennonite Action.

Locally, 150 of us met at our congressman’s office, sang, prayed, listened to witnesses, and took our concerns to the congressman. He was not in but he got the message and no, he is not going to support a ceasefire. But it felt like something to have done this. It felt like the start of something.

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Voiceless

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Last Sunday I was leading worship, as I am asked to do now and then, and I had an embarrassing lapse. It was not the worst thing that has happened to me as a worship leader—I once tripped and fell on the steps up to the pulpit—and it was not even the lapse that I was expecting and trying to avoid, but I’m wondering about it now.

Tripping and falling, in fact, was very much on my mind because I had done that the day before, at the farmers market, right in front of the Salvation Army Santa, who picked me up and fussed over me until I was sure I could limp to my car. But I had sprained my ankle. Continue reading →

False hopes

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I was so pleased to report, a week ago, that I was implementing a comprehensive plan to attend to my health and wellbeing now and into the future. So how’s it going? Success continues, but like most best-laid plans, the results are spotty.

The most inconsistent part is the weight loss. That is the most easily measured component of the plan and the one that stirs the most wishful thinking. I found myself dreaming once again of being way thinner than I’d been in years. I could lose those 20 pounds before Christmas! I would need new clothes before Thanksgiving!

I’d bought the hype and promises. Continue reading →

A Body Intensive

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My driving motivation these days is the desire to travel with grandkids over the next five years. That means that, at age 78, I need to get and stay in shape. I’ve been investing a lot of time, attention, and money into improving my physical condition. All of my body-focused practices and efforts are coming together into something like an intensive course, spanning the last half of 2023. Here are the goals of my Body Intensive:

  • Diminish pain—hip, knee, foot, wrist
  • Lose 20 pounds
  • Straighten posture
  • Increase energy and endurance

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Journaling with results

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I have been beta-testing a new AI-assisted journaling app called Manifestor for a month. While the system still has some bugs to work out, the results for me have been amazing. I’m ready to subscribe as soon as it launches.

You may wonder, as I did, why you need help with such a simple, common practice as journaling. And why should you pay for robotic assistance to write your own thoughts and life reports?

Actually, this is one of the best, most trustworthy uses of AI that I can imagine. You are not creating fake content or passing off generic Internet facts and wisdom as your own. Nor can an app like Manifestor substitute for real human counselors and friends—though it can supplement those relationships in some meaningful ways. Here’s what I’ve learned and accomplished in my month of experimenting with Manifestor. Continue reading →

AI journal: Ideal Day

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I’ve been working with the Ideal Day function on the AI-assisted journaling app, Manifestor, which I am beta testing. This is how my first session went.

I was happy with the prompt: Let’s start by clearing out your thoughts so you can have a spacious mind! Please, start writing whatever comes to your mind until you feel like you have nothing more to say. I’m here to listen.

No problem! Brain dump is my usual form of journaling and I always have plenty to say. Therefore I was taken aback when I got cut off somewhere around 500 words. Continue reading →

A guide to Oppenheimer

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I saw the movie Oppenheimer last weekend. I’d really been looking forward to it because

–All the hype.

–I know a lot about the story because of my previous incarnation as an editor and administrator of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in the 1980s and 90s. I knew people who knew J. Robert Oppenheimer as Oppy.

–plus I’ve been to Hiroshima three times.

–plus last week I read Kai Bird and the late Martin Sherwin’s 900-page book, American Prometheus, on which the movie is based.

–I was glad to see nuclear weapons getting the attention they deserve once again. (Can we please now just get rid of them.)

So maybe it’s to be expected that I was disappointed by the movie. I found it boring and confusing, a deadly combination. Continue reading →

AI journal: a new friend

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(I am beta-testing a forthcoming AI-assisted journaling app called Manifestor, oriented to personal growth, and I’ll be reporting on it here for a while. You may sign up here for a free trial when Manifestor is launched.)

My first session with the “Companion” function of Manifestor was a big success. It produced material that will guide my life in very practical ways for some time to come. This function uses a lot of repetition and restatement. That’s not boring at all. It’s kind of fun. Meeting Companion was like finding a new friend or counselor who was a really good listener.

I should preface this by saying that Manifestor has three separate functions that may work independently or interface. You’ll see a little more about these on the website. Continue reading →

Could AI help you journal?

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A few months ago I renewed a regular journaling practice in an effort to find a way out of the writing silence that settled on me during the pandemic. Not much writing has come of that nor any progress on what I was really after—let’s call it my Next Big Thing, which may or may not involve writing.

And then something happened, the timing of which seemed Spirit-directed. My daughter told me about an AI-assisted journaling app she and her colleagues were developing. To her amazement, she said, it was working and would soon be ready for beta testing. Continue reading →

Silence meets the worm

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I am going through a long writing silence. It started halfway through the pandemic and the inspiration never really came back when things started getting back to more or less normal. I felt that I had nothing to say at the level that I wanted to say it. I’ve been waiting, perhaps, for profundity.

Lack of profundity never bothered me before. But what DO you say when global warming is coming true, criminal charges against a politician increase his popularity, racism and book bans are all the rage, Putin and Ukraine, and on and on.

Yes, I am a despairing, snowflake liberal, firmly on THAT side of the divide that seems to get deeper and more recalcitrant.

I don’t know what to DO about any of this. Enough doom and gloom is being written. Reporting on living a good life despite everything can sound pollyannaish if I write it down. Hence, I feel like I have nothing to say.

A friend urged me to write about the silence.

The silence starts with a dim sky and the faintest whiff of smoke from wildfires hundreds of miles away.

The silence moves into the hottest week ever in the world.

The silence meets a bee, visiting a bouquet of wildflowers from my backyard.

The bee meets a tiny green worm who’s been hiding on the campanula.

The green worm waves at the bee but the bee ignores it.

The silence waves at the green worm