Novena for Order 2025, Day 2

 

Today my youngest child turns 8. I don't know what to say about this. I don't find it bittersweet. I don't have much nostalgia for the years of being pregnant. I love babies, but I don't have the energy to be raising them anymore, when it turns out that parenting young adults is a full-time job on its own. I am thrilled to watch my youngest grow up -- more thrilled than he is, perhaps, as he clings to some of the privileges and leeway granted to the youngest of a large family. He is an excellent young whippersnapper, and if only he'd have his reading click, I'd feel that I'd fully shepherded my crew out of the early childhood years. But I delight in reading aloud, and that's a childhood tradition that I'm pleased to maintain.

***

For Ordering a Life Wisely

St. Thomas Aquinas

O merciful God, grant that I may
desire ardently,
search prudently,
recognize truly,
and bring to perfect completion
whatever is pleasing to You
for the praise and glory of Your name.

Put my life in good order, O my God

Grant that I may know
what You require me to do.

Bestow upon me
the power to accomplish your will,
as is necessary and fitting
for the salvation of my soul.

Grant to me, O Lord my God,
that I may not falter in times
of prosperity or adversity,
so that I may not be exalted in the former,
nor dejected in the latter.

May I not rejoice in anything
unless it leads me to You;
may I not be saddened by anything
unless it turns me from You.

May I desire to please no one,
nor fear to displease anyone,
but You.

May all transitory things, O Lord,
be worthless to me
and may all things eternal
be ever cherished by me.

May any joy without You
be burdensome for me
and may I not desire anything else
besides You.

May all work, O Lord
delight me when done for Your sake.
and may all repose not centered in You
be ever wearisome for me.

Grant unto me, my God,
that I may direct my heart to You
and that in my failures
I may ever feel remorse for my sins
and never lose the resolve to change.

O Lord my God, make me
submissive without protest,
poor without discouragement,
chaste without regret,
patient without complaint,
humble without posturing,
cheerful without frivolity,
mature without gloom,
and quick-witted without flippancy.

O Lord my God, let me
fear You without losing hope,
be truthful without guile,
do good works without presumption,
rebuke my neighbor without haughtiness,
and -- without hypocrisy --
strengthen him by word and example.

Give to me, O Lord God,
a watchful heart,
which no capricious thought
can lure away from You.

Give to me,
a noble heart,
which no unworthy desire can debase.

Give to me
a resolute heart,
which no evil intention can divert.

Give to me
a stalwart heart,
which no tribulation can overcome.

Give to me
a temperate heart,
which no violent passion can enslave.

Give to me, O Lord my God,
understanding of You,
diligence in seeking You,
wisdom in finding You,
discourse ever pleasing to You,
perseverance in waiting for You,
and confidence in finally embracing You.

Grant
that with Your hardships
I may be burdened in reparation here,
that Your benefits
I may use in gratitude upon the way,
that in Your joys
I may delight by glorifying You
in the Kingdom of Heaven.

You Who live and reign,
God, world without end.

Amen.

translation by Robert Anderson and Johann Moser
from The Aquinas Prayer Book

Novena for Order 2025: Day 1

photo for the FB algorithm, which otherwise flags us as offensive content, go figure

Tempus fugit when you're having fun, they say, and so I am astonished (though not surprised) to find that a) we have not posted for three months; and b) the last Novena for Order was in 2022.

To address b) first, at the conclusion of 2022's Novena, a time when I was in a miserable quagmire of trying to do some paid writing, I said:

As I reach the end of my novena, I don't know if my life is approaching better order. If anything, I'm more aware of where I lack it. In general, I have a happy, easy life, in which our lifestyle is well suited to my inclinations: we have a gentle educational routine which seems to be bearing fruit; the house is pleasant, comfortable, and moderately clean; we like to be with each other. But as I try to write this paid piece, I am stymied. My habits of disciplined creativity are rusty. 

This is not the worst thing ever. Establishing a strong, stable foundation for my family will bear fruit in eternity in a way no personal endeavor of mine will do. But as I want my children to go from strength to strength, I'd like to grow from strength to strength, both creatively and spiritually. I would like my life to be ordered, not to my comfort, but to my flourishing. I want to order my life wisely, as the prayer says. This gives me plenty to think about as Lent nears, and one has the gift of actually being able to choose your own sacrifice.

Three years later, it seems that what indeed has endured, and has borne fruit in unexpected ways, is the happy and comfortable family life, and indeed my creative life has flourished to the extent that my family has been involved with it. This has been the case with a), and the reason that there has been radio silence in this forum. The entire family was involved in our community theater's production of Singin' in the Rain, which I directed. There's almost too much to say about the past three months, and the last week of production in general, but fortunately, I don't have to write it up because the local news already did, with photos:

 

DELAWARE, Ohio (WCMH) — A central Ohio theater company used all its resources to keep its production of “Singin’ in the Rain” from turning into a total washout.

Arena Fair Theatre Company, located in Delaware, found itself without a lead actor just hours before the curtain went up on opening night.

What happened next to get the production on stage was a feat of technology, talent and sheer willpower. David Hejmanowski, a member of the Arena Fair Board of Directors, explained to NBC4 that Kent State University freshman dance major Silas French stepped up to perform the physical portion of the role on stage.

The final piece of the puzzle came together when Brendan Hodge, husband of director Cat Hodge, became the voice of Don Lockwood, delivering the lines offstage on a microphone.The same day, Music Director Brian White traveled to the hospital with recording equipment in tow to capture Hawkins’s singing voice, bedside, to be synced with the music. The production also included prerecorded silent movie flashback scenes of Hawkins that the audience got to enjoy.

In an interesting observation, Hejmanowski remarked that the plot of “Singin’ in the Rain” is about the emergence of “talking pictures” in the 1920s, where a young actress is hired to dub the lines of a silent movie star to bridge the studio’s transition to the “talkies.”

Additionally, Hejmanowski praised Cat and the cast for pulling off the incredible achievement for all four performances. He shared his astonishment at how seamlessly the musical came together, noting that it “had no business working as perfectly as it did.”

The audience agreed, with dozens of social media comments lauding the cast and crew’s accomplishment and sending well-wishes to Hawkins.

“Amazing opening night!” an audience member wrote. “Great job, everyone—especially you, Cat Hodge 🥰 Now go get some sleep!”

“Reading this moved me to tears,” said another person. “There truly is nothing like live theatre. It’s all incredible every single night.”

“Sending best wishes to Ryan and the whole team,” added another fan. “’Singin’ in the Rain’ might just be the perfect show for pushing through challenges!”

During his hospital stay, Hawkins has been keeping the community informed of his health by blogging about his progress.

“I have Transverse Myelitis, or inflammation in the spinal cord, that is causing widespread numbness in both of my legs and limited mobility,” Hawkins explained in a CaringBridge blog. “The root cause is still unknown, but doctors suspect an autoimmune condition.”

In his post last Friday, Hawkins said he was “feeling much more awake and alert” and had “a level of confidence” that improvements would continue.

A GoFundMe for Hawkins’s medical bills was also posted.

Arena Fair’s upcoming productions include “You Can’t Take It With You” in September and “The Shawshank Redemption” in October.

(Since we're gluttons for punishment, that production of You Can't Take It With You will feature me, Brendan, and our daughter Julia.)

My chief takeaways from having about 24 hours to recraft an entire show with three people playing one role are 1) marry you a man with a fine radio voice who will step up when you beg him to read lines the night before the performance; and 2) although a weight loss of five pounds due to stress is neither sustainable nor desirable, I can actually be a person of constant prayer even without the impetus of sheer desperation. To that end, let's begin the Novena for Order 2025.

***

For Ordering a Life Wisely

St. Thomas Aquinas

O merciful God, grant that I may
desire ardently,
search prudently,
recognize truly,
and bring to perfect completion
whatever is pleasing to You
for the praise and glory of Your name.

Put my life in good order, O my God

Grant that I may know
what You require me to do.

Bestow upon me
the power to accomplish your will,
as is necessary and fitting
for the salvation of my soul.

Grant to me, O Lord my God,
that I may not falter in times
of prosperity or adversity,
so that I may not be exalted in the former,
nor dejected in the latter.

May I not rejoice in anything
unless it leads me to You;
may I not be saddened by anything
unless it turns me from You.

May I desire to please no one,
nor fear to displease anyone,
but You.

May all transitory things, O Lord,
be worthless to me
and may all things eternal
be ever cherished by me.

May any joy without You
be burdensome for me
and may I not desire anything else
besides You.

May all work, O Lord
delight me when done for Your sake.
and may all repose not centered in You
be ever wearisome for me.

Grant unto me, my God,
that I may direct my heart to You
and that in my failures
I may ever feel remorse for my sins
and never lose the resolve to change.

O Lord my God, make me
submissive without protest,
poor without discouragement,
chaste without regret,
patient without complaint,
humble without posturing,
cheerful without frivolity,
mature without gloom,
and quick-witted without flippancy.

O Lord my God, let me
fear You without losing hope,
be truthful without guile,
do good works without presumption,
rebuke my neighbor without haughtiness,
and -- without hypocrisy --
strengthen him by word and example.

Give to me, O Lord God,
a watchful heart,
which no capricious thought
can lure away from You.

Give to me,
a noble heart,
which no unworthy desire can debase.

Give to me
a resolute heart,
which no evil intention can divert.

Give to me
a stalwart heart,
which no tribulation can overcome.

Give to me
a temperate heart,
which no violent passion can enslave.

Give to me, O Lord my God,
understanding of You,
diligence in seeking You,
wisdom in finding You,
discourse ever pleasing to You,
perseverance in waiting for You,
and confidence in finally embracing You.

Grant
that with Your hardships
I may be burdened in reparation here,
that Your benefits
I may use in gratitude upon the way,
that in Your joys
I may delight by glorifying You
in the Kingdom of Heaven.

You Who live and reign,
God, world without end.

Amen.

translation by Robert Anderson and Johann Moser
from The Aquinas Prayer Book

AI Art is the Insincerest form of Flattery?

What feats would humanity achieve if it networked together the largest amount of computing power in history? 

Found on Twitter

A day or two ago I suddenly noticed a ton of memes re-done in a Studio Ghibli style, and I figured some new AI tool was to blame.  Sure enough, this turns out to be the result of a new feature put out by OpenAI's image generation tool.

It apparently hit the right spot of images people will enjoy enough for half a second to hit share or like, and so they exploded all over social media.  Someone even put what must have been many hours and some actual money into redoing the Fellowship of the Ring movie trailer, shot for shot, in this AI generated Ghibli-style.

A number of people were also pretty angry about it, pointing out that Ghibli's hand drawn animation style is one of the few artistic bright spots in a movie landscape over the last 20 years increasingly dominated by formulaic and CGI fare.

It seems to me this actually underscores the sense in which "AI art" is different from what humans can do.  After all, the way that this type of AI works is it ingests a huge number of examples of something, whether that is writing on various topics or images, and then on command it puts together elements which it associates with the request.

So in respect to images, what AI can do pretty easily is put together elements that are commonly found and easily identified.  I pretty commonly use AI generated images to illustrate my pricing substack posts.  If I didn't have that option, I'd be using free stock photos, and the only reason I illustrate the posts at all is because LinkedIn and Facebook are show a post a lot less if it doesn't have an image.  But one of the things I've found in generating those images is that AI really is only good at combining very simple existing concepts.  So, if you ask it to show a Starbucks cup of coffee sitting on a counter, it can do pretty well.  If you ask it to show a traffic light with a dollar sign imposed on each colored lens of the light, it's a little shaky. Ask for an airliner leaving a jet trail made of dollar signs and it completely fall apart.

This is why trends like these Ghibli style images underline now the replicability or artists but how much they are needed.  AI can rip off Ghibli's style because it already exists.  But AI is not able to generate a new style.

And indeed, something like the AI Ghibli Fellowship of the Rings trailer attempt just ends up underscoring how little this is like anything Ghibli would do. After all, Peter Jackson films have their own visual palette, whether done moderately well as in Fellowship or with utter silliness like in the Hobbit movies.  Ghibli has a whole different design ethic. The Ghibli movie of Wizard of Earthsea (not one of their best efforts, honestly) underlines that Ghibli is not just a drawing style, it's an entire approach to visual imagination. That AI Fellowship trailer is not how a Ghibli LotR movie would look, because Ghibli does not imagine the way that Peter Jackson does.

To be honest, I think this is something that most people who consume images (whether on their phones or in the movie theater) don't consciously think about. For a lot of people, seeing a Ghibli style image results in a quick "Oh Cool!" reaction, and they move on.

That's a bit unfortunate, but probably pretty universally how things have been. Most people do not think deeply about how the things they enjoy seeing come into being.

But underneath, the thing that draws people into a piece of art for more than a half second is that it has some originality. Indeed, real originality of vision is special enough that even copies of it can fascinate at least a little bit.

You can't have derivatives without originals.

And similarly, if you don't have original writing and original images (both art and photos) you can't generate these probability-based AI blends which put together several concepts and produce some new thing which draws on various sources but doesn't truly create.

This means that AI image generation is necessarily pretty ephemeral, and if you want anything with real creativity or quality of vision, you need to have a human create it for you. So, for instance, while I use throw-away AI images to illustrate posts so they'll show up on social media, when I wanted a logo for Pricing Evolution I went to two different artists and commissioned original drawings. Both, I think, ended up having a personality which you would not get at all from AI, because they're originally created by humans.

In the realm of writing, I've heard several writers joke that they're now "writing for AI". The sense in which they mean this is that while AI is very useful at searching the wide world of writings available on some particular topic and putting all of that information together, what AI is not able to do is provide original insights and research. So they mean that they are focusing on writing original work, the sort of thing which will be synthesized and summarized and linked to even as the swarm of bots continues to serve up information to people.

And I think similarly, when it comes to any kind of art, original styles and creations will continue to come from humans, even as AI allows people to throw up quick imitations or fusions which hold the eye for a moment. 

Without humans, there would be nothing to imitate.

π with Jesus

Enjoy our annual repost of 2017's π with Jesus, and eat yer pie tomorrow. 

It's the second week of Lent, which means that observance has lost its zest. I don't know about you, but I'm yearning for a bit of chocolate. Not a bright, hopeful yearning; a dry, intellectual, arid yearning, because I know I'm not going to eat chocolate anyway. I just want it because it's better than not-chocolate.

So we search for a reason to celebrate, and not the corny-beef celebration of St. Patrick's Day dispensations (which St. Patrick would have disdained) but something rounder, to bring us full circle. And lo! It is Pi Day, 3.14. But we cannot fudge on Pi Day without bringing it into some greater religious context. And not just the context of "God made it, and it is good," because God made chocolate too, and we're not eating that.

Of course, the key question is: would Jesus have known about Pi? Not known-known as God knows all things, but as a person growing up in a first-century Jewish culture, in the course of his human knowledge would he have been likely to encounter the concept of Pi?

Dr. Google offers us thoughts on "mathematics in ancient Israel pi", presenting The Secret Jewish History of Pi:

The relationship between a circle’s diameter — a line running straight through cutting it into two equal halves — and its circumference — the distance around the circle – was originally mentioned in the Hebrew Book of Kings in reference to a ritual pool in King Solomon’s Temple. The relevant verse (1 Kings 7:23) states that the diameter of the pool was ten cubits and the circumference 30 cubits. In other words, the Bible rounds off Pi to about three, as if to say that’s good enough for horseshoes and swimming pools. 

Later on, the rabbis of the Mishnah and the Talmud, who knew that the one-third ratio wasn’t completely accurate, had a field day with the Bible having played fast and loose with the facts, arguing in their characteristic manner that of course it depended on whether you measured the pool from the inside or the outside of the vessel’s wall. They also had fun with some of the Gematria – the numerical value – of the words in the original passage, which when you play around with them a bit indeed come a lot closer to the value of Pi, spelling it out to several decimal points.

"Secret" here might be a bit sensationalistic, seeing as 1Kings is not exactly an occult piece of literature. The Journal of Mathematics and Culture May 2006, V1(1) offers us a more scholarly explanation via Lawrence Mark Lesser's article "Book of Numbers: Exploring Jewish Mathematics and Culture at a Jewish High School":

A value of π can be obtained from I Kings 7:23: 

“He made the ‘sea’ of cast [metal] ten cubits from its one lip to its [other] lip, circular all around, five cubits its height; a thirty-cubit line could encircle it all around.” 

It appears the value of π implied here is simply 30/10 (an error of 4.5%) until a student asks if we need to consider the tank’s thickness -- given three verses later as one-handbreadth, so the inner diameter is 10 cubits minus 2 handbreadths. (Of course, this is also a chance to discuss issues of measurement!) Using the Talmudic value of 1/6 cubit for one handbreadth, the inner diameter becomes 9 2/3 cubits and dividing 30 by 9 2/3 yields more accuracy (error: 1.2%). Applying a more subtle and technical approach to I Kings 7:23 (see Posamentier & Lehmann 2004 or 20 Tsaban & Garber 1998), the ratio of gematrias for the written and spoken forms of a key Hebrew word (for “line”) in that verse is 111/106, which when multiplied by 3 yields a very refined approximation for π : 333/106 (error: 0.0026%). Very few words in the Torah have different oral and written forms. 

By Jewish Encyclopedia [Public domain or Public domain]

Jesus was well versed in the law and the prophets, and it is not a stretch to assume that the account of the building of Solomon's Temple and the fashioning of the great pillars and vessels of bronze was known to him. Could he have known about pi? Could he? Should we doubt his scriptural knowledge? Listen to this.

After three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions, and all who heard him were astounded at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him, they were astonished, and his mother said to him, “Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety.” And he said to them, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” But they did not understand what he said to them. (Luke 2:46-50)

Do you not understand? Jesus, in the Temple itself, astounding the teachers with his knowledge and his answers, and talking of his Father's house -- the very house for which the bronze vessel was created*? Even his parents could not understand Pi, as happens with so many parents dealing with their children's math.

My friends. The Scriptures themselves proclaim Pi. Take and eat.

*Not actually the very house, since it was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC, and not the very basin, since 2 Kings tells us that the Chaldeans destroyed it. But still.