“As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.”  – Proverbs 27:17 

The recent headline articles about the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) and its potential impact on our culture has reminded me of something I had written several years ago, a quote from Joe Grano, the former CEO of the Wall Street investment firm where I worked for many years.  It was the late 1980’s, just when the internet was gaining traction in revolutionizing all sorts of commerce, creating fear among those in almost every industry that the new electronic age would render many human endeavors obsolete, and the financial services industry being at the leading edge of that fear was in desperate need of some common sense to calm those fears.

Thus, Mr. Grano’s message could not have been more timely when he reminded us all that, “people will always be in need of the advice and counsel of a fellow human being.”  In other words, the internet with its vast wealth of information, and now AI and its ability to assimilate that information much faster than the human brain into logical narrative, still cannot replace the value and impact of human relationships.  As one college professor noted in a recent article, “. . . though [AI] is a master of established, objective facts, it won’t ever be visionary . . . It’s clunky when it comes to subjective observations and nuances . . .”

Looking back, it is amazing how prophetic Mr. Grano’s message was all those years ago; for as much as the internet has become a fast and reliable source of information, and as AI becomes increasingly proficient assimilating that information into logical usage – prove me wrong on this – it is still lacking in one critical component contained only through a relationship with another human being, a heart – companionship, trust, compassion, love.

“It is not so much their subjects that the great teachers teach,” Frederick Buechner once observed about his most influential teachers, “as it is themselves . . . it is they themselves who left the deeper mark.”  While AI may be able to impart the same knowledge of the teacher, arguably even more, it cannot replace the impact of the teacher’s humanity.  As Mr. Grano said, “People will always be in need of the advice and counsel of a fellow human being.”  For, “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.”

“. . . seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”  Matthew 6:33 

We once had this rising star in our company, Will I will call him, who everyone had their eye on as someone who was going places.  Will was young, smart, and handsome with a magnetic personality, and the promotions were coming faster than they could print new business cards for him, moving his young family from one city to the next before they had time to unpack their boxes.  Being a bit older and more stable in my position at that point, I was aware of the hazards that come with such rapid rise of a young ambitious and capable person like Will.

Sure enough, my greatest fears for Will began to unfold one evening in a Las Vegas casino.  There was a company conference we were attending, and one evening as inevitably happens in Vegas a group migrated to a nearby casino.  Will stepped up to one of the game tables, and with his colleagues cheering him on, began placing bets that were way beyond his means, showing off to put it bluntly.  Although there was not much I could do to stop him, I do recall standing off in the shadows wanting to scream, “No Will, don’t do it!”  It paid off for him, though you might say, because soon after Will was offered still another promotion.  But then the wheels started to come off in his personal life as he became separated from his wife and children and eventually divorced.

Will’s downfall in his personal life can neither be blamed on his rapid rise in the ranks nor his long work hours or dedication to his job and company.  He simply got his priorities mixed up, something any of us can be vulnerable to.  Except by the grace of God, in fact, it could easily have been me.  That old joke we have all heard, “no one ever confessed on his deathbed that he wished he had spent more time at the office,” is really no joke at all but a wise proverb; or as Jesus tells it to us straight up, “seek first [God’s] kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”  In other words, first get your priorities straight, number one being seeking God’s kingdom.

It has been many years since I last had contact with Will, but I pray he is doing well and has gotten his priorities straight.  He was such a smart, capable guy with tremendous potential.

“But by the grace of God I am what I am . . .”  – 1 Corinthians 15:10 

If you were to walk in the master bedroom of our home one of the first things you might notice is a pair of photos, one just above the other.  The larger of the two is a professionally photographed portrait of my beautiful bride in her wedding dress.  Beneath it is a snapshot by the wedding photographer of the two of us exiting the church just after our wedding ceremony, arm-in-arm looking at each other laughing.  It is my favorite of all our wedding pictures, maybe my favorite picture in the whole world.

Glancing at those pictures, as I often do, from almost fifty-two years ago causes me to reflect on the life we started together back then with no clue where we were headed, except we had made a commitment to take this wild journey together.  As with most couples, I suppose, our journey has been typical of what wedding vows try to prepare us for, for better or for worse, times of financial struggles and times of prosperity, times of sickness and times of health, yet to love and cherish always.

While we have experienced all those to-be-expected ups and downs from time to time, our life together has been extraordinary, in spite of occasional misfortunes or blunders we have made – mostly that I have made.  In more recent years as I reflect on our journey it has occurred to me how often those misfortunes and blunders have been set aright, not by our own actions, but by God’s grace.  Why, the mere fact that we ever met in the first place and fell in love, could that have been anything other than God’s grace?

Grace, I think, is something that happens when we least expect it, or not paying attention, and maybe don’t even realize it for what it is until years later.  Anne Lamott, in her best-selling book Traveling Mercies, describes it this way: “I do not at all understand the mystery of grace – only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.”  Frederick Buechner calls it “a crazy, Holy Grace . . . Crazy because whoever could have predicted it? . . . And holy because these moments of grace come ultimately from farther away than Oz and deeper down than doom, holy because they heal and hallow.”  The one thing I know for sure is that “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect,” which I am reminded of every time I glance at that picture on our bedroom wall.

“Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth . . .” – Genesis 1:26 

Once upon a time when I was a younger man I would have lunch with my business buddies and the conversation was inevitably about how to make more money.  Nowadays when I have lunch with my pals we seldom talk about how to make more money, instead our conversations center around how to make a difference.

What a change in priorities, at least it has been for me; for once I had been convinced that it was by making money that one became empowered, until I realized that as a human being created by God that I had already been empowered, indeed it is my birthright, to have dominion over all the earth.  How powerful is that?  But there’s catch, I must choose how to use the power bestowed on me.  With it I can do good or evil, love or hate, be self-giving or self-absorbed, make the world a better place or leave it worse off.  It’s up to me.

Perhaps more than anything what has transformed the lunch conversations my friends and I have is the realization that we only get one shot and it is up to us to decide what outcome we want with that one shot, to make the world better or leave it worse off.  How will we use the power we’ve been given?

In his own day Joshua challenged the people of Israel he had been leading to “choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve . . .  But as for me and my household,” he declared, “we will serve the Lord.”  A time comes for all of us when we must choose and declare how and for whom we will use our God-given power.  What outcome do we most desire?  Will we use it for good or evil, love or hate, to be self-giving or self-absorbed?  Will we make the world a better place or leave it worse off?  Each of us as a child of God created in His own image has been empowered to rule over all the earth.  How will we use that power?

“Taste and see . . .” – Psalm 34:8 

For one of the meals when our family was gathered during the holidays Tee prepared a large casserole dish of lasagne, an easy one-dish meal that can feed a big crowd.  And besides, who doesn’t like lasagne?  It seems our five-year-old granddaughter, Eliana, didn’t, or didn’t think she did.  She wanted no part of it, not even a marcel, fearing it might contaminate her plate.  Eventually, though, after some coaxing from her parents, they convinced her to take a small bite.  And guess what, first she discovered that it was not poison, and that it was actually quite tasty.

Eliana’s resistance to trying something new is nothing out of the ordinary for small children, nor for adults for that matter.  Haven’t we all done it?  Her daddy, a life-long foodie, may be one of the few exceptions to that.  When he was about eight-years-old a large group of us were having dinner one evening in a restaurant where we were served raw oysters.  Now what little kid dares to try those slimy things?  But Marc did, and after being carefully instructed to swallow it quickly, what did he do?  He began to chew – and chew, and chew!  Napkins were being shoved toward his mouth from every adult at the table expecting the oyster, plus everything else he had eaten along with it, to spew from his mouth any second.  Much to our relief it was only the oyster he calmly spit back out.

I have no idea to this day whether my son has ever eaten another oyster, nor whether our youngest grandchild will grow up liking lasagne, but I give them both credit for trying something different.  For how else do we learn unless we taste and see?  “You should read the book I just read,” we suggest to one another, or “you should go see the movie I just saw.”  Otherwise, we are inadequate in explaining the content of the book, or what takes place in the movie.  Some things we must experience for ourselves.

John’s Gospel tells the story about Philip going to find his friend Nathanael.  “We have found the one Moses wrote about,” he tells him, “Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”  “Nazareth!” Nathanael responded, “Can anything good come from there?”  “Come and see,” said Philip. . . “Lasagne!” my young granddaughter might well have said, “Can this stuff be worth eating?”  “Taste it and see,” her parents coaxed, just as the Psalmist had, “Taste and see that the Lord is good.”  Indeed, taste and see, experience it for yourself.