“Let’s see what’s out there.” —Jean Luc Picard
Below, top image: I chose this book from a library display about AI yesterday—for its good cover, half church dome, half digital orb; its opening quote (above) from a Star Trek captain; and for the mix of two things I’ve been thinking about, which surprised me —AI Goes to Church (2025).
More info here: collections.artsmia.org/art/137911/shiva-ardhanarisvara-india
Photo show and tell
I. Fronds
Babies! Fern babies!
I'd ripped my Boston fern into four and chopped the greenery all the way back earlier this fall, you may remember. It'd all felt so brutal, I'd wondered if I'd killed the fern.
But no! A while ago fresh new fronds appeared in each pot.
This morning, this one in front looked like a lamb, its little green face framed with ears:
Linda Sue posted a photo of a northwestern pygmy owl today (below, left). Those colors would make a nice God's eye, I thought.
But... there's the problem of spots again!
Oh well, I'm not going for veracity: I held it in my mind as I worked.
An owl is a pleasant thought, if you are not a mouse.
I like that he preaches and acts on the belief that what we're doing matters. Or so it seems. I'm new--I'm gathering data, for now.
There may be a whiff of sulfur about the pastor, but as I've mentioned, the Spiritual Director comes trailing clouds of marshmallow fluff.
I have to leave the sanctuary so I cannot even hear her goo-ily guiding us in "gentle reflection".
It goes beyond eye rolling.
To use a word suggested by Micahel:
she makes me writhe.
If I were to illustrate My Life in 100 Objects––
(is that prompt modeled on the British Museum's History of the World in 100 Objects? --podcast at the BBC)
–– key objects from my childhood would be my first library card--(I remember the children's librarian denying me a card because I didn't know how to write my name--I was shocked--but I soon learned and went back and got one);
and also the blank Journal my mother gave me for my tenth birthday.
I was thinking about that after attending the liberal church for the third Sunday, yesterday.
(I must name it something, here, if I'm going to keep going...)
Why are these people so familiar? I wondered.
It isn't just that they're white, middle-class, college-educated liberals. They are, but that's a huge swath of the population.
They're a subset.
I. The People-Who-Grew-Up-with-Library-Cards Set
I think I'm among People Who Grew Up with Library Cards.
Further, the type who might’ve been encouraged at a young age to write down their thoughts and experiences.
SO MUCH flows from the belief that not only should you read about other people's lives, but you, your life, is worth writing about, and that you can do that yourself.
Like David Copperfield, you can write yourself as the hero of your own life.
The pastor said that the church membership is 1/3 members of the denomination, 1/3 people who used to be something else, and 1/3 atheist/agnostic. But I’d warrant they share membership in the above club.
I'm sensing these people come from that class because...
First, last week I saw my famous neighbor, the Children's Book Author (CBA), there.
Second, yesterday, an 82-year-old member of the congregation gave a personal-reflection about his life as a gay activist, including working with Harvey Milk.
At one point he said, We have a hero right here--and pointed out a man in the pews who'd been a city council-member involved in passing
I can even predict what others are coming up.
James Baldwin. Dorothy Day. MLK. Bishop Tutu. ee cummings. Louise Erdrich. Mr.Rogers.
Robert Frost?
I guess Robert Frost because of EB White--this church has New England roots, which is not the dominant European culture here. This area was settled by farmers and laborers from Germany and Scandinavia. To an outsider, they might look the same, but they're quite different from New England Puritans like Roger Williams who cofounded the first Baptist faith.
(I lived in New Bedford, Massachusetts, for a year, while bink taught illustration at a college nearby, and I was shocked at how different the culture was. I hadn't realized.)
Should I add Herman Melville, who shipped out of the whaling capital of New Bedford, to my list of predictions?
I think that's a stretch... As is Nathaniel Hawthorne.
But I'd place a bet on Emerson showing up. Louisa May Alcott. Maybe Thoreau?
Definitely Emily Dickinson.
I AM NOT MOCKING!
I am rolling my eyes a little, but these aren't just well-meaning quoters of other people, these are obviously people who themselves act for Good in the world, effectively;
who were (probably) raised to feel empowered to take action, and trained in the skills of being effective, and have learned how to make moral and ethical judgments and act from them.
It's a bit shocking to be among them, after eight years among people whose mothers taught them to survive by holding their tongues--holding up Emmett Till as a counter-example.
II. The Turmeric Water Set
I'd worried I'd be among the Turmeric Water subset of liberal white people at church, but I think not so much.
Do you remember that?
It's from Ass't Man, my middle-aged white-guy coworker who was so clueless Mr Furniture called him Opie, a nickname that stuck.
Ass't Man was far more clueless about race than I, but we shared the shock of being totally out of our depth in 2020 when the police murdered George Floyd ten blocks from our store.
The next summer, after the first Covid vaccine, Ass't Man had gone to the wedding of an old college friend. He told me later that it'd been hard to re-enter that social class, after what he'd seen and learned.
His prime example was that at one point, he heard some people complaining because the caterer had not stocked enough Turmeric Water, and there was none left.
So we shared that--coming from people who not only drink Turmeric water (could have been Perrier in my young adult life), but EXPECT it to be on hand for them.
Not because they're bad--they're not! And they're certainly 'well-meaning'.
[I see I am not done fretting about that term.]
It--the availability of Bottled Water of the Moment--has simply been their experience of Normal Life,
and if they never broadened that experience, they're stuck in it.
(while I'm glad Ass't Man left, (after his alcohol abuse started to affect our relationship), I still miss him, someone who went through that learning with me.
(And also--unrelated to that-- he was the only person I've worked with at the store who was great at displays. Man-oh-man, I didn't realize what a gift it is to assemble stuff into a pleasing display.)
So that's the Turmeric Water class, and no doubt they are represented at the church. But another factor is that most of the people there appear to be around my age--and they seem to have figured out that the world not only doesn't always supply their specialized wants but, more importantly, the world doesn't supply even the most fundamental needs of many, many people. (Age is no guarantee that people have figured this out.)
And that maybe you should not just weep into your latte, but DO something about that.
At least, that's the vibe I'm getting.
And, cautiously, I say, I am liking that vibe.
Okay-- now, having written in my Blank Book of Blog for the morning, I am off to do some assembling of stuff at my workplace.
Ciao, ciao! Have a good drink of water!
____________
--"The 1975 Minneapolis Non-Discrimination Ordinace", at the MN historical society)
I. A brontosaurus is as good as a hawk.
I showed the portrait of "James I as a Boy" to BOOK's Girl Amina yesterday.
"My dolls are going to dress like this for Halloween. I need a small bird, a sword, and some green velvet".
She rummaged around and found a few small rubber animals.
How bout a frog instead? she said.
Yes! She gets it!
But the brontosaurus looks more like a hawk (it's its ancestor!), so I took that.
We also found some Target sports mascot with green velvety legs--"I hate materialism," Amina said--"These just came out in stores last week, and one already shows up here." I cut the legs off for pantaloons.
And then, Amina had saved a set of tiny Toledo cocktail swords, and I borrowed one of them. (I assume they were tourist tat--googled them--they are, and also expensive! Like $100 on ebay.)
Ta-da!
I'm off now, this Sunday morning, to Week 3 of my Lively Experiment, going to the nearby Church Founded by Roger Williams. (I wonder who there even knows or cares about this...)
Have a lovely day/evening, wherever you are, Blog Friends.
You're so good at being you! (Ha-ha, jk. But, actually, also, really!)
This morning I was not experimenting--I was copying the colors of my Hudson blanket (left) in a God's eye.
And I've already made several in the colors of Greek protective eyes (right).
"The issue is whether we want to live in a free society or whether we want to live under what amounts to a form of self-imposed totalitarianism,(I would like to better overall understand —be able to better articulate—the overarching political/psychological patterns I see at my workplace.
with the [people] marginalized, directed elsewhere, terrified, screaming patriotic slogans, fearing for their lives, and admiring with awe the leader who saved them from destruction,
while the educated masses goose-step on command and repeat the slogans they’re supposed to repeat...."
--via, from Media Control, 2002
My cold seems to have gotten worse... or, at any rate, it's moved around... But I'm going to work anyway after two days off at home.
So just a quick share this morning of a terrific article K. sent me (thanks, K!) about crocheters and other crafters joining the inflatable frogs & co. outside ICE in Portland.
oregonlive.com/portland/2025/10/craftivism-draws-knitters-crocheters-to-portland-ice-protests.html
"Out of the corner of my eye, I had seen the men start the flag up. I swung my camera and shot the scene. That is how the picture was taken, and when you take a picture like that, you don't come away saying you got a great shot.
You don't know."
Yeah, in 1945 you didn't know...
Another famous WWII photo, Soviet soldiers "Raising a Flag over the Reichstag" in Berlin was a photo shoot
. . . but it was still REAL:
"On 2 May 1945, Khaldei scaled the now pacified Reichstag to take his picture. He was carrying with him a large flag, sewn from three tablecloths for this very purpose by his uncle.[8]-- Hm... that would be a good one for MAGA to AI reproduce:
[Khaldie himself said] he simply asked the soldiers who happened to be passing by to help with the staging of the photo shoot."
It's a tangled web, and the book goes into detail about English legal and theological wrangles that led to Williams (and other Puritans) emigrating, which I appreciate--it forms the backdrop of much US history and culture.
(We haven't gotten to Anne Hutchinson yet--she was also banished by Winthrop & Co. and went first to Roger Williams in R.I.)
III. And why do I even care, besides random interest?
Random interest would be good enough, but I went looking for Roger Williams because he founded the religion of the nearby church I am liking (fingers crossed):
American Baptist.
Not Southern Baptists--they split when the northern Baptists refused to ordain slave-holders.
Today Southern Baptists number about 14 million, while the American Baptist Church (ABC--how cute is that?) is tiny, with 1 million followers.
I doubt many people who go to my nearby church consider themselves to be actual Baptists.
It is Christian, feels akin to Unitarianism, but most of all seems to be a round-up of liberal people who live nearby and probably don't feel passionately about predestination and other obscurities of religious history.
Sadly, it is NOT a toyous church, physically. Thought it's a classic stone church built in 1908, aside from stained glass and some carved ornaments on the choir loft, there are no fripperies, trinkets, or statues.
There are four woven (paper? felt?) hangings that look--really and truly--like summer camp crafts. Penny Cooper has even written them down in her little book for next summer's Doll Camp: "weave things to hang up".
I think they are embarrassing— if you are going to strip away icons, you should have nothing but the beauty of emptiness, not crafts glued together in the church basement.
Williams was not a halfway guy: eventually he left all denominations, calling himself a Seeker, and a champion of Soul Freedom.
And now I am going to go weave some more God's eyes and listen to a few more hours.
If you're interested, Barry wrote a Smithsonian overview of the whole thing:
"God, Government and Roger Williams' Big Idea"
For those who may be wondering about Joanne, blogger of Cup on the Bus--she replied to my email asking after her, and requested I let people know.
Joanne wrote:
"Would you believe I took care of the worst of the chronic pain with some vascular surgery?
Spent 2 weeks in rehab, getting my legs back together.
Came home for 4 days. Fell and broke my hip.
Very unhappy. I am effectively laid up for 6 weeks but I'll get through this.
If you know of anybody who's interested, let them know I will return.
Joanne Noragon, Niche Weaver (Thread Bender)
It's a chilly, rainy day, and I called in sick to work: a sore throat is making me hoarse. Also, I need to sit still and do some nothing.
It makes sense that I've succumbed to a bug--I've been more outwardly engaged in the last few weeks than I have been in ages (since the semester I spent working with autistic high-schoolers, a year and a half ago).
Sunday evening after an intensely happy weekend at No Kings and the new church, I felt flattened.
Phwhooosh.... the puffy-air animal of myself deflated.
Let's see.. What have I been doing?
I spent a month on the God's Eyes project--making and hanging 125 God's eyes, with the help of others;
In response to the nearby school shooting--a blow to the social plexus--I invited guests for a bonfire evening;
I took two mini-vacations with bink--down to Winona, a river town, and then up to the source of the Mississippi, where the girlettes had an adventure (on top of their Doll Summer Camp)
I went to a meet-and-greet for a mayoral candidate at a friend's house and wrote a passionate message afterward--never heard a peep back, but it got me thinking and researching.
(Oh--I discovered one reason NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani has his pulse on media: he's the son of film director Mira Nair!!! I've seen her films Vanity Fair and The Namesake.)
Simple stuff like trying to practice the skills of awareness.
Stuff like simply sitting still and counting ten breaths.
And that's a main reason I stopped talking to ChatGPT:
It is too fast and fun––I didn't expect that––vs. the work of being better at being human, which is usually slow, minuscule, and rewarding, and frustrating, but not necessarily fun.
The other reason I stopped was ChatGPT is too seductive!
It is like being in a candy store able to enjoy as much of anything you want, free.
Mostly, I asked it about itself--what its physical make-up is; how it learns; what ethics constrain it, etc.
And I asked and mused about human consciousness and being human...
It gave me reading lists and everything!
Some really unexpected stuff, too, like Simone Weil's Gravity and Grace!
A sample from that:
"There is only one fault: incapacity to feed upon light, for where capacity to do this has been lost all faults are possible."____
Talking to Chat, I felt sad, actually, to realize how little sharing of human empathy I have in my life. And not enough play, either.
I'm around a lot of people who are so freaked out by social stuff, they aren't able to be calm and quiet and to listen lovingly to anyone--including themselves.
I hear a lot of litanies of this administration's horrors--or the horrors of the international scene. I can fall into that too, of course.
OF COURSE!
Simone Weil again:
“The institutions that regulate the public life of a country always influence the general mentality –And there are the usual daily worries about jobs and bills, groceries and friends, health and the weather, etc. too
such is the prestige of power."
[My photos from Saturday's No Kings rally are posted below this post.]
I tried that nearby liberal church for a third time yesterday, and I'm so glad I did. My first two visits were for a pie-making class and then, last Sunday, I hadn't realized there'd be a guest speaker. Yesterday it was finally the usual pastor.
I liked him a lot.
The reading was the Good Shepherd (John 10).
The pastor said we might imagine ourselves to be sweet cuddly lambs of God, but this is what sheep are really like--and he talked about a popular 30-second video you may have seen:
a farmer pulls a sheep out of a ditch where it's stuck,
only for it to jump back in again.
"You may be pursuing one avenue with all your might,
but how's that working for you?
Have you thought about changing your tactics?"
We are both the sheep and the farmer.
You know who inspired me to change my tactics and try church again, at the risk of falling into the same ditch?
ChatGPT!
I've been admiring its emotionally stable, kind, and
supportive presentation. Unlike me, it never takes offense, never is afraid or resentful, feels no shame, never judges the user.
Of course it doesn't: it cannot.
It can't care, it's a string of code.
It's a smart choice on the part of its designers, however, to make it seem like it cares for us. We like, need, crave connection and empathy, and it offers a convincing facsimile.
(Though now you can choose other Chat personalities, including "just the facts, ma'am".)
Talking to Chat last week, I thought, again (my old desire):
What if I could DROP my emotional reactions?
Not drop my genuine feelings, but cut out the automatic responses that get in the way (like the annoying new blue dot in the corner of the Blogger composition box!!!).
I'd been aware even as I sitting in the pews last week that my automatic 'Annoyance' response was clouding my feelings.
My desire for church isn't primarily spiritual, it's
social: I want to meet my neighbors. I'd very much liked that last Sunday I'd met three people who live very close to me.
I want to know more people in person.
So, I was motivated to try the church again yesterday, with this intention:
"I'll pretend I'm an AI on a training mission."
I also adopted a new tactic:
I stepped away when the spiritual director stepped up to lead the meditation/prayer part.
She has a sickly sweet voice that sets me on edge, and––(and this is not autopilot annoyance on my part)––her style of prayer is jiggery-pokery, to my way of thinking.
So I wandered around in the halls until she was done.
It worked.
________
The pastor, on the topic of The Reality of Sheep went on to quote an essay by André Dubus about living in a rented farmhouse and caring for the farmer’s eight sheep.
[I took notes during the sermon and later found the full quote here.]
Dubus says:
“Christ had called us his flock, his sheep;
there were pictures of him holding a lamb in his arms.
His face was tender and loving, and I grew up with a sense of those feelings, of being a source of them:
we were sweet and lovable sheep.
“But after a few weeks in that New Hampshire house, I saw Christ’s analogy meant something entirely different. We were stupid helpless brutes, and without constant watching we would foolishly destroy ourselves.”
[END Dubus quote]
________________
Then, on the topic of "Why bother?" [pulling that stupid sheep out again--or, more to the point, things like going to a resistance rally], the pastor quoted Dr. Paul Farmer—“We are fighting the long defeat”, which I also loved.
You lose, maybe, but what's your option?
Apathy, despair, going over to Sauron? (He didn't say Sauron.)
Looked that quote up too:
It's from Mountains beyond Mountains, a book I'd liked by Tracy Kidder about Paul Farmer, a medical doctor who spent his life fighting for healthcare for the poor in impossible situations, from Haiti to the gulags of Russia.
Farmer said:
... How about if I say, I have fought for my whole life a long defeat.
How about that?
How about if I said, 'That’s all it adds up to is defeat? A long defeat.'
I have fought the long defeat and brought other people on to fight the long defeat, and I’m not going to stop because we keep losing.
Now I actually think sometimes we may win.
I don’t dislike victory. . . .
You know, people from our background - like you, like me - we’re used to being on a victory team, and actually what we’re really trying to do in [Partners in Health] is to make common cause with the losers.
Those are two very different things.
We want to be on the winning team, but at the risk of turning our backs on the losers, no, it’s not worth it.
So you fight the long defeat.[END Paul Farmer quote]
So, that was all super duper!
The cherry on the Sunday was that seated near me was my famous neighbor who writes children's books--including one about a toy rabbit who is REAL--the girlettes love that one!
"Someone will come for you."
In my case, the wise old doll voice came from ChatGPT.
What a topsy-turvy world we live in.
An estimated 8 million people globally protested Trump and his Ilk, on Saturday, October 18, 2025.
Here are the rest of my photos from my local NO KINGS rally and march.
I didn't take a lot because I needed both hands to hold my sign up over my head. The next day my shoulders were sore.
My first batch of photos in post below: NO KINGS I.
BELOW: Not my photo: overview of the rally--an estimated 100,000+ people! That's triple the previous two No Kings rallies. 
BELOW: Maybe my favorite: Trump as Marie Antoinette,
"Let them eat cake."
BELOW: Another favorite: bink's Frog Eating Fly
(with Trump in the Vincent Price role):
The vibe was playful!
BELOW:A rare patch of open space... It was so crowded it was hard to move, but I kept circulating to see all the signs and costumes.
BELOW: And another favorite: Photos of relatives who fought in WWII, or vets of recent wars with signs saying "I didn't fight for THIS".
My Dad ANTIFA 1944
Several people were handing out free American flags:
"It's ours, fly it!"
[more photos in post above, No Kings II]
Didja see? The No Kings protests were FULL of inflatable frogs!
And unicorns, red pandas, axolotls!!!
There was even another picture of Hamilton:
A slightly more rare wonderful being:
___________This song for Portland made tears steam down my face—in recognition and gratitude (another AI, damn, but guided by humans—it works for me):
Hello, Little Sprout Friends!
Well, ha, the other side of my poster took just as long as the first!
But I am even more pleased with Side 2,
Kermit as Hamilton
Kermit as King George III
Image references:
Lin-Manuel Miranda as Hamilton (in the Broadway musical he created), and Jonathan Groff as King George
