In June of 1967 I was just finishing my sophomore year of high school and was already something of a news junkie. I remember well watching with eager fascination the news reports coming from the Middle East during what would come to be known as the Six-Day War between Israel and a consortium of Arab states. I’d read the latest stories from the front each morning in the San Diego Union and then watched each evening as Walter Cronkite moved model tanks and aircraft across a 3-D map of the region.

The war was over in six days, and we knew the good guys had won.

As we come to the sixth day of the war against Iran, we have no such sure knowledge. Some wonder who the good guys might be in this conflict, and in our wired world there is no Walter Cronkite whose reporting we believe to be implicitly true. For many of us, the conflict and our view of it have become a litmus test of other partisan sensibilities – or insensibilities.

An accurate assessment, let alone understanding, of what is happening is shrouded in the fog of war, to use an often-repeated phrase. The New York Times tells us “fog of war” has “come to be used by military experts to describe the often imperfect information that officers and troops must process in the thick of battle.”

The fog is thick today.

By the way, if the skies are clear of all fog where you live and think, please feel free to email or private message me with your accurate and completely reliable opinion of what is happening in the Middle East right now.

The fog is thick where I live and think, and events are unfolding rapidly.

But I have been contemplating the fog of war and the difficulty of coming to a clear understanding of what is happening around us in our everyday lives. As the events of our lives unfold, we long for a trustworthy explanation of what it all means. We rip words of Scripture from their context to assure ourselves that confusing and hurtful things have good meaning and purpose. When lacerated by cutting disappointment, we quote Isaiah 29:11: “I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord to the people of the Babylonian Exile, “…plans for a hope and future.” Surely this applies to our not getting the promotion at work or failing to make the team at school.

Surviving a bad accident or serious illness becomes a sure sign that “God is not finished with me yet.”  We numb the sting of death by the hideous thought that “God must need another angel.”

But like weeping that tarries for the night until joy comes with the morning (Psalm 30:5), the fog of war – the fog of confusion – will not lift until the day dawns and the morning star rises (2 Peter 1:19). Now we see as in a mirror dimly, then face to face. (1 Corinthians 13:12)

I asked one of our Afghan friends what he makes of the war with Iran. He was cautious and offered nothing definitive about the political and military situation. But then he added, “I always hate war… Because we have experienced the bitter taste of war…”

Yes, so much truth is shrouded by the fog of war. But this we know: war is never sweet.

Many of us are aware of last week’s tragic news of the deadly avalanche in the California’s Sierra Nevada not far from Lake Tahoe.

The heart-rending story reminded me of the much happier story from 40+ years ago when Becky and I and a group of good friends set off on cross-country skis from Badger Pass in Yosemite National Park for a couple of days at Ostrander Ski Hut, ten miles and 3,000 feet in elevation gain away.  By the time we reached Ostrander, we, too, were caught in a winter blizzard and our two-day trip ended up being a four-day trip. We weathered the storm in the protection of the old stone hut and by the time we skied out through three feet of new snow, the sky was blue and the sun was bright.

Good times and a story we have told often. On that trip and other wilderness expeditions, one of our friends, who was also our leader, made wise decisions – at Ostrander to hunker down, and on other expeditions to turn back. I thank God for his wisdom. Continue reading →

Becky and I are planning a return trip to Brazil this spring and we are thrilled to be able to be a part of the thirtieth anniversary celebration at Igreja Presbiteriana no Jardim América! But the getting-there part of the trip can be a bit of a downside. Even with good connections, a flight from Fort Wayne, Indiana, to Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil, is 22 hours, 13 of those hours sitting on a plane – 10 hours overnight from Atlanta to São Paulo. I suppose we could be flying to New Zealand, but by any count, 10 hours is a long time on an airplane squeezed into an economy class seat. Well worth it, however. So I found a good itinerary at a decent price and booked our seats.

A couple of weeks after confirming our reservations, the airline began to tempt us with upgrades to premium economy and even first class. At first the price of the upgrades was ridiculously high and even the thought of being comfortable for those 13 hours was not enough to click “buy.”

But then it appeared. An upgrade to first class that was cheaper than the upgrade to premium economy. I checked the travel blogs and on a per hour or per mile basis, the price was deemed exceptionally good. I booked it and began to dream about that glass of champagne as we boarded our flight and ten hours in a lie-flat seat. Continue reading →

Our friends are concerned about raising their young children in the digital world, particularly the world of artificial intelligence. Yes, we know that AI is going to make all of us rich and heal every disease, but what if there is a downside? What if artificial intelligence, fake knowledge, makes us less human? What if it obscures the image of God inherent in our creation?

Since talking with our friends about AI a couple of months ago, it seems like I see an AI-related news story or commentary almost every day.

My curiosity was piqued, then, when I saw this Wall Street Journal headline earlier this week: Meet the One Woman Anthropic Trusts to Teach AI Morals

The column begins by telling us that the one woman “knew from the age of 14 that she wanted to teach philosophy. What she didn’t know then was that her only pupil would be an artificial-intelligence chatbot named Claude.

“As the resident philosopher of the tech company Anthropic, (she) spends her days learning Claude’s reasoning patterns and talking to the AI model, building its personality and addressing its misfires with prompts that can run longer than 100 pages. The aim is to endow Claude with a sense of morality—a digital soul that guides the millions of conversations it has with people every week.”

There is no such thing as a digital soul and there cannot be such a thing. Continue reading →

I have just finished reading a new book by Joseph Loconte, The War for Middle Earth. The subtitle is “J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis Confront the Gathering Storm. 1933-1945.” It is a good book and I recommend it, though this will not be a book review.

As Loconte points out in a recent interview, for a generation of readers Lewis and Tolkien are not just authors. They are teachers and mentors. We remember when and where and why we first read The Chronicles of Narnia or Mere Christianity. We recall the thrill and the fear brought to mind by The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

The works of Tolkien and Lewis have helped countless Christians make sense of our world. We hear the call to go “further up and further in” as we come to our “real country” (The Last Battle). When tragedy or trial crash into our lives, we join Frodo as he laments the ring having come to him. Gandalf’s wise words answer our fear and anxiety as they answered Frodo, “So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to you.” (The Fellowship of the Ring). Continue reading →