honest work: thoughts on ChatGPT & other bougie conveniences

It may be the drunken-like boldness that comes after several days of sickness, but I have emerged with sudden lucidity about ChatGPT.

I’ve been wrestling because I recognize one side of it as convenience and progress. But to be totally honest, I’ve also avoided it as a disgruntled snob, sort of like how professional cooks shun pre-made, canned spaghetti sauce.

honest work: thoughts on ChatGPT & other bougie conveniences | Shannon Guerra at Copperlight Wood

Convenience and progress are important. We have a tankless water heater and our family takes full advantage of the fact that not only do we not have to pump, haul, and heat every drop of water we need, we also enjoy unlimited hot water straight from the tap. It’s so magical.

And yet, there are many who have struggled to just have enough water to survive. In comparison to their fight to have just enough to live on, if they could see our ease they might think we didn’t earn or deserve what they’ve had to work so hard for.

It’s understandable. Times and places and cultures are different, though.

And also, while there may be some skill needed in gathering and hauling water, it’s not an ability that a person works for decades to achieve. It’s something they do because they have to, to survive.

So on one hand, we’re talking about convenience and progress, and I am all for convenience, and mostly even for progress, depending on how you define it. I’m grateful to have a clean, modern mattress rather than a straw-filled pallet. I love flushing toilets and electricity. And don’t get me started on the marvelous bliss known as espresso.

But on the other hand, there’s another kind of convenience that robs us, sort of like taking cold medicine when you really just need to let a fever and other symptoms do their work to heal your body. When you don’t do that, you become dependent on artificial medicine that just hides those symptoms, and your body forgets how to heal the way it was designed to. Eventually all sorts of bad things eventually result…like people dependent on a medical system that profits from illness rather than educates on healing, and eventually encourages people to do things like wear masks while swimming because their IQ has dropped to the level of a toaster.

This is not progress.

In that vein, we could also broach the issue of calculators, which were rarely allowed in class when I was in school but now are pretty much used by all of us for everything from budgeting to figuring out how much change we should be getting back from the barista.

Have we collectively been dumbed down, made lazier? Yes, for sure.

So that’s a thing. And it progressed with the advent of computers and smartphones and pretty much every advance in technology, really.

I use a laptop with the conveniences of Copy, Cut, Paste, Undo, Delete, and even CAPSLOCK for when I’m feeling particularly punchy. Dickens, Austen, and the Brontes didn’t have those. (Well, they had literal scissors and paste, and I’ve heard some of them used it, but that’s much more complicated than hitting a few keys.) Tolstoy, Mitchell, Dostoevsky, Scott, and all those guys inserted and crossed out and rearranged and rewrote by hand.

By! hand!

In junior high and high school, all of my papers (including the dreaded 5-paragraph essays) were written by hand. Even my earliest college papers were pre-computer. Draft after draft after draft, I’d finally put it all together as a final copy in the neatest version of my messy scrawl.

I cannot imagine putting together Pride and Prejudice, Little Dorrit, or (gasp, hand me the smelling salts) the 1100 pages of Gone With the Wind that way. Not only did these writers create such incredible stories, but they had the discipline, tenacity, and mental clarity to pull such projects together without the help of highlight, click, and drag.

Meanwhile, I get distracted if the cats start meowing for food while I’m trying to put a complex sentence together. I will never be the writers these guys were; my world and ability and culture is different. I use tools they didn’t have, and benefit from them…but I have also traded ability for the convenience of using them.

But here’s what seems to be the crux of the difference: I will never pretend to be those writers, either. I do not present my work as someone who has put the effort into organizing and writing everything by hand.

Did tailors and seamstresses feel this way when the sewing machine was invented? There were mixed reactions. It shifted (and in some ways destroyed) the careers and artisanship of those who had mastered the craft by hand, and yet many of them were grateful for the ease the machine brought in making production that much simpler.

What about photography? Even though people like my husband went to school to learn the nuances of it, I can now easily take a beautiful photo with my phone because the technology does all the work. But I’m not fooling anyone about poring over images in a dark room – everyone knows that all I did was aim and click.

We enjoy these conveniences and we do not lie to the public about how we achieved the works derived from them. So in that sense, ChatGPT and its cronies are perfectly legit as tools to help lay people. For example, if you need help creating a legal document, or checking grammar for an email, or you need a few lines of code for your website, no shame, I get it.

So that’s one side.

On the other side, though, there’s so much more.

With many conveniences, tasks are simplified. For example, in using calculators, we relinquish our ability to solve a simple problem. But with AI doing our creating for us, we relinquish our abilities to express, communicate, and innovate.

We were made in the image of the Creator, so we were made to create. He spoke and things happened; and life and death are in the power of our words, too. We have no business abdicating our expression to AI, casting off our reflection of God and the partnership we have with Him in creating.

It’s not just writing, but art, film, and all sorts of media are being replaced by this cheap coin-slot alternative. Do we really want our humanity replaced, made obsolete?

Dear Kingdom-minded professional content creators: The breath of God within you is worth something.

It cost Him something for us to be able to express what He put within us. Are we so indifferent to the price He paid that we’re willing to trade our expression and reflection of Him – our honest work – to present an inflated offering?

There’s a story about this in the Bible, and it’s a formidable warning to those who would offer up a dishonest sacrifice.

It’s the time of the early Church, and the cool kids (well, Barnabas, at least) have started a trend of selling large assets so the proceeds could be used toward expansion of the Kingdom. So far, so good.

But a man named Ananias, with the consent of his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property; with his wife’s knowledge, he kept back some of the proceeds and brought only a part and laid it at the apostles’ feet.

– Acts 5:1-2

He wanted credit for giving the whole thing when he knew he hadn’t given it all.

“Ananias,” Peter asked, “why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back part of the proceeds of the land? While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, were not the proceeds at your disposal? How is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You did not lie to us but to God!

Now when Ananias heard these words, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard of it. The young men came and wrapped up his body, then carried him out and buried him.

– Acts 5:3-6

Contrast this with King David, who said, “I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God that cost me nothing.”

When used by professionals on the sly, ChatGPT and other AI tools are bougie conveniences: Big hat, no cattle, declaring to the world that something was created when it was merely…faked.

In a precious few places I’ve seen Christian content creators preface their work with, “I used ChatGPT to help me with this,” and I appreciate their honesty. But if the writer/artist doesn’t do that and they use these tools to do the work for them, they are saying, Look, I did this, even though they didn’t.

Maybe they wrote part of it, or started with the initial ideas, or even plugged in a draft for the program to polish. But none of that is equal to putting in hours upon hours of work – not to mention years of study and practice – to put forth a piece that is cohesive, creative, and well done. In that sense, it is much like athletes cheating by taking performance-enhancing drugs to get an advantage over their competitors who are doing honest work.

So ChatGPT is not just a new convenience, like a word processor. ChatGPT is also a hired hand, a ghostwriter who does the work while the name on the cover takes the credit. Additionally, it makes even genuine writers suspect, because if ChatGPT and other forms of AI creation become the assumed latest modern conveniences that everyone uses (even when we don’t), gone are the days when any of us gets credit for truly creating our own work.

As someone who has spent decades on this craft – and it is a craft, a skill that is developed with much practice and earned to some degree – the sudden rush of anyone and everyone cranking out books, posts, or even slews of social media promotions just by plugging in a prompt into a program feels like theft to me.

Oh, you told ChatGPT what to do, and it just…did it? That’s how you wrote your posts, and finished your book? That’s cute. Here are my shelves of books on writing that I’ve studied, and here’s my fourth laptop – I’ve slogged away on it until the characters are blurred on seven keys, and the left Shift button is cracked.

I know it sounds like a measure of superiority and bitterness, for sure. But I don’t think I’m a better person than someone who uses AI to write their posts. I just know I’m a better writer, because I’ve done the work.

Many of us have paid a price to achieve this. And some are taking credit for paying that price when they have not in fact done so.

After an interval of about three hours [Ananias’] wife came in, not knowing what had happened. Peter said to her, “Tell me whether you and your husband sold the land for such and such a price.” And she said, “Yes, that was the price.

Then Peter said to her, “How is it that you have agreed together to put the Spirit of the Lord to the test? Look, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out.”

– Acts 5:8-9

The sacrifice itself was good on its own. It became cheap and sinful when it was passed off as being more than what it really cost the giver.

If the intent is to use it as a tool, we can be honest about that. If someone needs the help, there’s no shame in taking advantage of it. We use electric drills, laptops, crock pots. I use a thesaurus, concordance, various Bible tools, and about 32 other tabs on two browsers. Tools are meant to be used.

The problem comes when the end result is faked, and offered as something it is not. If I sew something on a machine, I’m not going to represent it as something I stitched by hand. If I buy pastries from a bakery and bring them to potluck, I don’t take credit for making anything more than a purchase.

So it’s the misrepresentation that is meant to deceive and take credit that is the issue here. When we take credit for something we did not do, we cheapen the work of those who actually do create authentically.

So then, putting away falsehood, let each of you speak the truth with your neighbor, for we are members of one another….And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption.

– Ephesians 4:25, 30

We still have amazing photographers and seamstresses and tailors, even though technology has changed. But will we still have amazing writers and artists if anyone can fake it, everyone is suspect, and eventually people won’t even notice the difference?

I hope so. We work solo Deo gloria, not solo AI gloria. We’ve been given so much to say, and we will not trade the breath of God in our work to gain applause for a cheapened sacrifice.


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clear the room: how worship changes the atmosphere around us

After about four years, I still don’t have a great relationship with our wood stove. Because of our home’s configuration, the stovepipe veers horizontally out the exterior wall before going up again, and this jog creates issues. If the fire isn’t prepped right (more on this in a minute) the smoke floats out of the vents and fills the house, rather than going pleasantly up the chimney like it’s supposed to.

So when the kids ask if we can light the wood stove, I generally put them off. Not this weekend, maybe another time, I don’t really want to suffocate on smoke right now. Let’s save it for an emergency power outage in winter, okay?

clear the room: how worship changes the atmosphere around us

Right, like that’s the perfect time to open the windows to air out the house. In the middle of winter on those really cold days, the temperature rises to 2 above in the sun. If someone opens the door, frosty air billows in and visibly rolls across the floor…so that’s definitely not when we want to open all the windows to clear the smoke out.

But now that it’s May, it is the perfect time to mend my relationship with the wood stove. I want to be storm ready, and maintain a cozy atmosphere in every part of the year. So we need to be in the habit of prepping the wood stove, which entails preheating the back area of it with a mini blowtorch – maybe you can see why I’ve been stubborn about this, because the irony of needing to preheat a wood stove annoys me for some reason – so the air gets warm enough to rise up the pipe and create a current strong enough to push past that sideways jog. It’s just basic science. (But also, annoying.)

When the fire is lighted in the fireplace, the air contained in the chimney is warmed, becomes lighter, and rises. The hotter the air and the higher the column of heated air, the more powerfully it rushes upward.

– Jean-Henri Fabre, The Secret of Everyday Things

I was thinking about this last Sunday, about the atmosphere we create – or rather, partner with God and others in creating – as we worship. The songs, the prayer, the attention goes up…or they’re supposed to, at least.

At the same time that the hot air rises, cold air, which is heavier, flows toward the fireplace, accelerates combustion, becomes warm in its turn, and joins the ascending column…To this incessant flow of air through the fireplace we give the name ‘draft.’

– Jean-Henri Fabre, The Secret of Everyday Things

Our attention toward Jesus creates the momentum of a current. My eyes are on Him, your eyes are on Him, the smoke rises. The room is warmer, vision is clearer.

But our distraction – wondering what others think of us, what our kids or other people are doing, wondering how we sound or when the song will be over – is cold air that blows attention sideways and down, disrupting the draft and pulling smoke into the room, distracting us and others.

In that case, we choke and stifle on what God is wanting to do. Rather than joining in with the worship that is actively and always occuring, we hold back…and in so doing, we hold others back, too.

Maybe I sang too loud. She’s clapping off rhythm. I hate clapping. Ugh, this song again. If our attention isn’t vertical, it’s sideways.

This cold air necessarily lessens the draft by mixing with the hot air and lowering its temperature, or it can even blow smoke back into the room.

– Jean-Henri Fabre, The Secret of Everyday Things

And it’s not just worship during church services, but in our everyday abiding we also create a current and shift the atmosphere. Our spouses, kids, and coworkers know when our attention is directed upwards.

[Exhausted Parents. Photography by Kavanagh, age 6]

Over the years, especially in hard seasons, I’ve noticed with my kids that if I’m in a funk, they follow. Or, if they are dwelling in gloom or malaise and I’m not attuned to it, I follow them and get sucked into it, too – thus abdicating my leadership in setting the atmosphere.

On those really difficult days I have to find small things to strengthen the draft, like drinking a few gulps of water, memorizing a short verse, washing a couple dishes. Picking up a tiny area. It’s how Holy Spirit taught me to retake authority, take back the land, in small increments at a time. We redirect our attention to what He is doing and what He wants to do – often in creating beauty and order – and the smoke starts to clear again.

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

– Philippians 4:8

We make room for Him. The thorns, cares, and distractions of the world are clutter in our minds that overflow around us, choking out space, focus, and simplicity. So we surrender them: Lay them on the altar, let them pass through the fire. Some can be picked up again after our vision has cleared and we know what to do with them, and others need to burn entirely.

This is how we redirect the current upward, and clear the air, the congestion, the smoke in our eyes that prevents us from seeing.

So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on the things that are above, not on the things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

– Colossians 3:1-3

Ephesians 4 puts it this way:

…to put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

– Ephesians 4:22-24

The things we’re stubborn about can get in our way and prevent us from creating the environment we really want and were made to live in. So we burn the old, earthly things so they can no longer stir up the current and blow smoke around, and thus we clear the room:

Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry). On account of these the wrath of God is coming on those who are disobedient. These are the ways you also once followed, when you were living that life. But now you must get rid of all such things: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language from your mouth.

Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practices and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator.

– Colossians 3:5-10

Ephesians 4 parallels that, and gives us more heat to draw the current upward:

So then, putting away falsehood, let each of you speak the truth with your neighbor, for we are members of one another. Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil.

Those who steal must give up stealing; rather, let them labor, doing good work with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy. Let no evil talk come out of your mouths but only what is good for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption. Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.

– Ephesians 4:25-32

I know this is a ton of scripture. But Ephesians is on one side of the room and Colossians is on the other, and both are shouting the same refrain: Make room and prepare the way of the Lord.

They praise God from one wall to the other, proclaiming the atmosphere we’re made to cultivate and walk in:

Therefore, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.

Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

– Colossians 3:12-17

Now is the time to prepare, wherever we are, so we and those around us encounter Him continually. To mix my metaphors, we are not thermometers, but thermostats – we’re not just here to read the room, but to shift it. So are our eyes, thoughts, and attention directed toward Him, toward His works, toward His will? Have we cleared the room so we’re not making ourselves or those around us choke on smoke we’ve stirred up?

We’re learning to set the atmosphere so when someone walks in, they’re not entering a cold space. We’ve prepped the wood stove, the fire is lit, and the current is already strong and headed upward. You’re here to worship, to see Jesus? Great, join us, it’s already happening.

If someone opens the door on a cold day and frosty air billows in, there’s a strong draft already in motion to carry it toward the fire, warm it, and send it higher. We’ve taken on the new life that continually rises. And with our attention drawn to Him, every moment is worship.

undo, redo: the answer is repentance

My old crossword puzzle book is a magnificent doorstopper with over 200 puzzles in it. I’ve taken it up again, and whether they want to or not, my family inevitably gets roped into helping me with it.

“What’s fish-eating bird that starts with E, only four letters?”

“Kingfisher!” our youngest hollers.

Four letters, starts with E,” I repeat.

“Eagle!” says a kid who shall remain nameless.

Four letters…”

“Emu!”

“Four! Letters!”

“Oh…how do you spell emu?”

Headdesk, headdesk. Are they even listening?

Sort of. They are doing what I do, what you do, what we all do: Taking the little bit we know and running with it, rather than attending to the full picture.

undo, redo: the answer is repentance | Shannon Guerra at Copperlight Wood

I do this when I think I have the right answer to a crossword clue based on only one letter. Dateless, four letters, starts with S? SOLO, easy. It works perfectly with the S but not so much for the other letters, and after a while I peek in the back (don’t tell) and realize the correct answer is supposed to be STAG.

Duh, of course. Erase, erase, erase, brush the rubbings away, write the correct answer, try again.

Next clue! Crescent-shaped – six letters, the second one is a U.

If you, like me, thought it should be CURVED…you, like me, would also be wrong. Sigh.

None of the other letters worked with their corresponding clues, so I stole another peek in the back (that answers section really is quite handy), and found the correct answer is LUNATE. (What?! So fancy.)

I think the lesson here (other than that I need to expand my vocabulary) is that when I am faced with a problem, my first response isn’t necessarily the right one. Sometimes it is good – sometimes I remember to pray, to trust, to worship. But other times, my first response is to rifle through the cabinet and eat a handful of chocolate chips.

The real answer, of course, is about abiding and proximity. I know that one. Knowing and doing aren’t always the same thing, though, which is why we’re also talking a lot lately about going back, undoing, and redoing – or maybe what we really mean is repentance.

Let’s go back a little farther than that, though. Repentance comes later, after something has gone amiss.

We usually talk about sins in a big, broad, generic way, but the Bible often specifies between ways of, shall we say, blowing it. Like so, real brief:

  • Sins: These are basic mistakes. Whoops, I tried but I messed up, I’m sorry. You probably know that it literally means “miss the mark,” which means we aimed and intended to do the right thing, but got it wrong. SOLO looked like the right answer, but it was actually STAG. Drat.
  • Iniquities: This goes back to the root word avon, meaning “distortion or bent.” It’s more like a learned misbehavior, often (but not always) generational. They can be defense mechanisms, wrong beliefs we grew up with, or bad habits and coping skills (see also chocolate chips). It is a perversion or distortion of what is otherwise right. CURVED seemed like the obvious answer, and I’ve never even used the word LUNATE in a sentence until now.
  • Transgressions: This is outright wrongdoing and rebellion – and ironically, it’s what we usually mean when we use the word “sin.” This is when we know the right thing but refuse to do it, or we know something is wrong but we do it anyway. The intention itself is willful disobedience. Who cares what the clues and corresponding letters are? I’m going to write GFYXRT in the boxes because I want to, so there.

Wasn’t that fun? So now we know there are several ways to get the wrong answer in life…and that explains a lot.

But here’s some good news:

He does not deal with us according to our sins
nor repay us according to our iniquities.

For as the heavens are high above the earth,
so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west,
so far he removes our transgressions from us.

– Psalm 103:10

You’ll notice, of course, there’s a stipulation here: This is about those who fear Him. Not just anyone. It’s for those who look to Him in obedience and abiding, for those who trust and surrender, for those who repent and go back to undo and redo. Without abiding and surrender, we miss who God really is and we fall for Churchianity that is generally either harsher or fluffier than a genuine relationship with Jesus.

Because He deals with us differently depending on whether or not we find our answers in Him:

I dealt with them according to their uncleanness and their transgressions and hid my face from them.

– Ezekiel 39:24

But then there’s this interesting contrast:

Once God has spoken;
twice have I heard this:
that power belongs to God,
and steadfast love belongs to you, O Lord.
For you repay to all
according to their work.

– Psalm 62:11-12

Okay, to sum up: He removes the sins, iniquities, and transgressions of those who fear Him — and this requires our repentance and surrender. But He deals with (unrepentant) transgressors according to what they’ve done. And He repays all according to their work.

Huh. How do we reconcile all that together?

To the Hebrew!

Maaseh: Work, deed, act, labor, product, accomplishment. Meaning: an action, a transaction, activity, a product, property.

Did you notice the word “transaction?” I think this is our clue. Something is given in exchange for something else. We repent, we get forgiveness…and so much more.

Could it be that at least part of the work He pays us according to is repentance? Because this is the turning that keeps our eyes on Him. This is the surrender that admits we don’t know what we’re doing and we need His answers. This is the humility that confesses we get it wrong on our own.

Repentance – undoing, and redoing – is hard work. It requires attending to things we’d rather not deal with.

When I started this afghan a few years ago, I didn’t know what I was doing. There was no pattern in mind, just a basic seed stitch and stripes to keep my hands busy. But as I went, I loved what it became more and more. And as I loved it more, I liked the beginning less. It didn’t fit the rest of the pattern, I didn’t like the sequence of colors, I hated looking at it. In iniquity this blanket was conceived…and when we know better, we do better.

But do you have any idea how much work it is to un-knit 250 stitches to create a new edge? So much work. Tedious, annoying, repetitive, and you can’t read a book while doing it because your eyes have to be on it the whole time lest you drop a stitch and revive the phrase “swears like a knitter.”

It had to be done, though.

After deciding which row should be the new edge and where the old stuff should be removed, I wove another cable needle into the new “first” row, and un-knit all those stitches, pulling the old yarn through each individual stitch in increasingly long lengths, casting it across the couch over and over and over, and pulling it through the old loops and stitches all over again. You can’t just rip it out knitting; you have undo it a stitch at a time or else the loose (“live”) stitches will run like a gigantic hole in pantyhose.

It takes about four times as long as the original process, and yes, it is as miserable as it seems. It took me two weeks to undo it all.

But now the new edge matches the rest of the pattern…and I’m happy with it, now that I know what I’m doing. I don’t mind looking at it anymore – in fact, I love it.

If we are avoiding looking at something, it might mean we need to attend to it all the more and do some repenting. That area we’d rather not deal with is probably the one that most needs undoing and redoing…or at the very least, a little more maintenance.

Untangling, realigning, reordering. Life is messy and repentance is a lifestyle, not a checked off event.

But the redoing comes with great rewards, because since He repays us according to our repentance, we can ask for bold things:

My mouth is filled with your praise
and with your glory all day long.
Do not cast me off in the time of old age;
do not forsake me when my strength is spent.

O God, from my youth you have taught me,
and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds.
So even to old age and gray hairs,
O God, do not forsake me,
until I proclaim your might
to all the generations to come.

– Psalm 71:8-9, 17-18

And here we start to see some of the reward of stewarding our days, attending rightly, learning better and doing better. We realize what we missed, and we pick up on what we were oblivious to before.

We draw better boundaries, we go from glory to glory. Whatever happened in the past, we’ve moved forward from. And when we’ve done that, we have stewarded our days with glory, filling them with praise.

P.S. That fish eating bird, four letters, starts with an E? ERNE. Who knew? (Not me.)