February 19/Thursday after Ash Wednesday
Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked,
or take the path that sinners tread, or sit in the seat of scoffers;
But their delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law they meditate day and night. ~ Ps 1.1-2
With the advent (or intrusion?) of AI into our lives, we may find ourselves turning to Claude or Chat GPT for advice or guidance as we make decisions. Sometimes these are inconsequential: Which type of socks shall I buy? Which bus or train will get me to my destination on time? What shall I have for dinner given the contents of my refrigerator? But when it comes to the more consequential moral and spiritual decisions — that is, what kind of life we are going to live — Claude and his ilk will be of no help. For every choice we make in this realm will set us on a path either towards or away from God. In his classic apologetic work Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis elucidates the binary with his usual clarity: “Every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different than it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing into a heavenly creature or a hellish creature.” Or as the psalmist puts it, we will either take the path that sinners tread or we will stick with God in trying to live out the divine will. Or as Moses presents the stark choice to the people of Israel in today’s first reading from Deuteronomy, “I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life, then. . .” The choice before us is to flit after the latest shiny object or to ground ourselves in God’s love. Which will we choose this day?
O God, Master of all living things, Help me to absorb your teaching, and in all my daily decisions to choose life for you and with you and in you. Amen.
For today’s readings, click here: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/021926.cfm
To hear Thomas Tallis’s “Man blest no doubt (The First tune for Archbishop Parker’s Psalter)” performed by ORA Singers and Suzi Digby, click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bhgf1cpBz1c
