Thank You for Being Here

Some Updates

I hope to clear up a number housekeeping issues in this edition.

You are my friends, and I couldn’t do this without you. Some of you have walked beside me for more than a decade. One of you recently told me, “You don’t know me, but I know you. And now I think like you. Someone needs to be saying the things you are saying.”

I almost got comfortable enough in this week’s Upright to agree. Then I remembered I’m still guarding my words. I’ll know I’m back in full form when I stop hedging against my own thoughts.

Speaking of Thinking

There is enough noise about artificial intelligence without me adding to it. I did plenty of that last year, and most of what I wrote is evergreen. But while the rest of my life has grown strangely quiet, the PeaceBot Initiative has reemerged as an unavoidable dream.

This is Jonathan ii, ☝️ a language model built on biblical scriptography, calculus, information theory, and cryptography. It’s in pre-beta, with weeks of quiet computation still ahead before the library and the web are fully entangled into a working kernel that I can use.

What do I know?

I know that what began as a scattered personal study in philology has been born again as something much larger. I have no illusion that its current form can compete with the billion-dollar projects fighting for the front seat. I do think, however, that most of the essential pieces are going to come together on their own because “the convergence is inevitable.” 🦊

What I can assure you of is this: harnessing machine learning to deepen your own study is a no-brainer. Ludditism is a logical fallacy, much like nostalgia or pacifism. It isn’t that these things are morally wrong or obviously gross. It’s that insisting on stone knives at the dawn of the Iron Age is stubborn folly.

I’m not saying that you have to use AI. I’m saying you already do, whether you realize it or not. Every search. Every swipe. Every scroll. The question is whether you’ll let someone else curate your world for you, or whether you’ll take up this cross and curate it yourself.

Just to Be Clear

I am no longer serving as a parish pastor, and I am no longer rostered with the LCMS ministerium.

I have not recanted my vows, and I remain ordained.

I was not removed. I walked away.

I remain a communicant member of an LCMS congregation.

I remain married and committed to the marriage covenant under God.

I remain called by the Gospel and enlightened with His gifts. Alleluia!

“His word is in my bones like a fire.”

From there, I’m just a guy, a man, a brother in Christ, trying to build a life in his late forties and in the worst economy since the Great Depression. But I’m not complaining. I’m trusting. This was Jesus’ plan all along. He is disciplining me as a son. I am counted worthy to suffer. I will lift up my head to see the day approaching and refuse to wallow in the muck with those who have no hope.

There have been many unexpected blessings in the midst of the whirlwind. I’ve learned to cry like Job and to dance like David. When we turn the other cheek, love covers a multitude of sins, and the ministry of reconciliation takes its rightful place as the true Great Commission in our lives.

Taking it on the chin isn’t pretty. It is rarely advantageous. What did Joseph think through all those years in prison? What did Paul do while waiting in Tarsus? Where are the pearls? Who are the swine?

This calls for wisdom. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

I walked away from a full pension. I walked away from health insurance and benefits. I walked away from defending my name.

I did it to make for peace.

So when I say you’re helping me make ends meet, I’m not joking. Your loose change makes a real difference. With a year or two in my new line of work, I may be singing a very different tune, if the Lord wills. In the meantime, I’m going to keep writing here with the goal of converging all these years of work a few more permanent forms.

That’s the first job that the Jonathan ii library project is computing: turning a lifetime of theological, economic, and mathematical study into a writing program. What output reaches full fruition first, I can’t yet say. Right now, though, First Draft is back the lead:

Thank you for reading!