Press Pause

by Anne White

One of Frederick Buechner’s last published books was titled The Remarkable Ordinary: How to Stop, Look, and Listen to Life. Near the beginning, he wrote:

…art is saying Stop. It helps us to stop by putting a frame around something and makes us see it in a way we would never have seen it under the normal circumstances of living, as so many of us do, on sort of automatic pilot, going through the world without really seeing much of anything.

This passage is about the purposes of literature, but I think it also applies to the way the world suddenly seems to stop for Christmas.

Kermit: Yeah, life would just pass in a blur if it weren't for times like this. (A Muppet Family Christmas)

There's a rightness in that. 

For the little child is the true St Christopher: in him is the light and life of Christ; and every birth is a message of salvation, and a reminder that we, too, must humble ourselves and become as little children. This is, perhaps, the real secret of the world's progress––that every babe comes into the world with an evangel, which witnesses of necessity to his parents' hearts. That we, too, are children, the children of God, that He would have us be as children, is the message that the newborn child never fails to bear, however little we heed, or however soon we forget. (Charlotte Mason, Parents and Children, pp. 281-282)

 Let's all make time to stop and see.

Turkey Soup

by Anne White

My husband was watching a video by Rick Beato, called "How AI will slowly destroy the music business." Beato did a little experiment with his teenage son, who said that he could pick out AI-created songs, because they just "sounded different." He put together a playlist of five AI songs, and five non-AI, and played them for his son and some friends. Beato's son was able to pick out the artificially-created songs, but the other teenagers could not. Beato's wife also said to him (on another occasion) that a song being played was "obviously" AI-created--she said there was a "weird sound" to it. Beato has quite a bit more to say in the video about the threat of our being flooded with AI content, but one of the most interesting, and ominous things is something else that his son said to him: that "in six months I probably won't be able to tell the difference." He meant that the technology will keep improving to the point where even a pair of good ears can't pick out the true, the original, and the soulful (I am using that word deliberately). The human from the mishmash-of-human that AI draws from, or, possibly in the future, the mishmash-of-AI-and-more-AI. Kind of like roast turkey that becomes a leftover dish and then another leftover dish until there's hardly any real meat left in it.

One of the commenters on Beato's video referred to this quote from George Orwell's 1984: 

The tune had been haunting London for weeks past. It was one of countless similar songs published for the benefit of the proles by a sub-section of the Music Department. The words of these songs were composed without any human intervention whatever on an instrument known as a versificator. But the woman sang so tunefully as to turn the dreadful rubbish into an almost pleasant sound.

What does Charlotte Mason have to do with any of this? I'm guessing that most of you reading this can already pick out several things. Here's one thought: if we are born Persons, our education needs to celebrate that Personhood which is not so much about our nature as individuals as it is about our status as human beings, and our relationship with the One who made us in His image. The books, the music, and the art that touch our human spirits must come from other whole human spirits, not from something run through the blender until it is unidentifiable.

For the matter for this intelligent teaching of history, eschew, in the first place, nearly all history books written expressly for children; and in the next place, all compendiums, outlines, abstracts whatsoever. For the abstracts, considering what part the study of history is fitted to play in the education of the child, there is not a word to be said in their favour... (V.1, p. 281)

No one knoweth the things of a man but the spirit of a man which is in him; therefore, there is no education but self-education, and as soon as a young child begins his education he does so as a student. Our business is to give him mind-stuff, and both quality and quantity are essential. Naturally, each of us possesses this mind-stuff only in limited measure, but we know where to procure it; for the best thought the world possesses is stored in books; we must open books to children, the best books; our own concern is abundant provision and orderly serving. (V.6, p. 26)

Like Rick Beato, we may worry that, first, our own senses may become dulled to the point where we can't tell what is real; and, second, that the blenderized versions of things might get so perfect that even the keenest eyes and ears can't tell the difference. And what then?

First, we learn to sing. With our voices. 

Second, I think, we learn to laugh. There is a deeply human (or deeply God-reflecting, if you prefer) understanding of humour that cannot be created by digital means. Why else would C. S. Lewis have titled a chapter in The Magician's Nephew "The First Joke and Other Matters?" Uncle Andrew and his magic rings don't understand the kind of laughter that fills newborn Narnia, that causes Aslan to say, "Laugh and fear not, creatures. Now that you are no longer dumb and witless, you need not always be grave. For jokes as well a justice come in with speech."

Third, we learn to cook. With real food. Because that sense of connection with the Real can carry over into a lot of other things we do. There's a difference between good turkey soup and a frozen turkey T.V. dinner.

And, finally, we try (at least we can try) to turn off the full-powered faucet of all that's coming at us, and spend our time listening, maybe, to fewer (but better) tunes; reading fewer (but better) books--you know what I mean. When "almost pleasant sounds" make up most of what we hear, maybe it's just time to turn them off. Maybe less is going to have to be more. 

May your holidays be seasoned with all these good things.