Sermon - TLIS - 2.3.2 - Covert Channel

Sermon - TLIS - 2.3.2 - Covert Channel

2 Kings 4:27

When she reached the man of God at the mountain, she took hold of his feet. Gehazi came over to push her away, but the man of God said, “Leave her alone! She is in bitter distress, but the Lord has hidden it from me and has not told me why.”

Psalm 9:15

The nations have fallen into the pit they have dug; their feet are caught in the net they have hidden.

Mark 4:22

For whatever is hidden is meant to be disclosed, and whatever is concealed is meant to be brought out into the open.

Jeremiah 33:3

Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.

A covert channel is a communications channel or medium which is not supposed to be a communications medium.  It's a communications channel which isn't supposed to be there, a communications channel that isn't supposed to exist.  So, by and large, no access controls exist on the channel because nobody ever thought that it would be used as a communications channel.

In information technology terms, covert channels are generally either timing channels, or storage channels.

A timing channel is some indication, usually of a completely different function, which can be used to signal someone outside the system, or outside the controls of the system.  This might, for example, be a cooling fan which will run faster, or slower, depending upon the load place upon a computer or other information technology device.  When the load is heavy, the device runs hot, and the fan will that speed up in order to compensate and try to keep the system cool.  Some attacker may be able to submit extra jobs to the system in order to make the fan run hot or cold, and can have this submission of jobs controlled by information that is only available inside the system.  Then, the sound of the fan running faster or slower will indicate the data, and can be recorded outside the access control of the system.

Because of these sorts of complications, timing channels are usually fairly low bandwidth, and cannot broadcast too much information.  However, if the information is sufficiently important, even a few bits will do.

Storage channels tend to hold information, and then, when the information is no longer needed, are abandoned or discarded.  Recycled hard drives from business computers, for example, are very seldom wiped or zeroed out in order to erase the data that's on them.  Therefore, people who go to recycling facilities are able to purchase hard drives and glean surprising amounts of very sensitive information how about certain companies.

As you might suppose, from these examples, covert channels are very often the stuff of spies.  An example of a timing covert timing channel might be the opening and closing of a window blind in a certain window or house providing information.  Another example is the famous "one if by land, two if by sea" of the American Revolution.  A dead drop is a type of covert storage channel.  It isn't supposed to be a mailbox, but it is, and people will leave bundles of information which can be retrieved by somebody else later on.

A covert channel can be used to get information out of a system.  The thing is, it can also be used to get information *into* a system.  Not always plainly, but sometimes surprisingly deeply.

With respect to the Christian life, where I am going with this shouldn't be too hard to figure out.  The world has all kinds of ways to get its messages, as opposed to God's messages, through to us.  The world does not need to directly attack us, and to overtly state that God doesn't exist.  The world can just fail to mention God at all.  In this way, the message soon comes through that, well, maybe God isn't that important after all.

There are other ways that the world can get its message through to us.  For one thing, God should "stay in His lane."  God is all very well on Sunday, and in dealing with issues of personal morality, but God shouldn't talk about politics.  God shouldn't talk about economics.  After all, God didn't invent these things, we did.  (At least we think we did.)

So we say that God doesn't have any particular knowledge of, or awareness of, or interest in, or expertise in public policy.  Or making laws.  Or running a society.  (Tell that to anybody who is reading their way through Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.)

So, God should stay out of politics.  God shouldn't have any opinions on homelessness, or on minimum wages, or on guaranteed annual income, or welfare, or anything of that sort.  As far as the world is concerned, God really shouldn't have anything to do with that.

God shouldn't have anything to do with business, either.  God shouldn't have any opinions on capitalism, or efficiency.

In another sermon, I speak about the concept of a reference monitor.  The reference monitor can be used to check for some of the information that may be coming to you via a covert channel.  Again, as with other aspects of life, if this information doesn't pass through the Christian reference monitor, then it may be coming to you via a covert channel.  If it comes to you by a covert channel and doesn't go through the reference monitor either, then you should be looking at any beliefs or behaviors that this information is setting up in you.  Make sure to use the Christian monitor reference monitor to protect you against covert channel type attacks against you, and feeding you information that is not to your benefit.

The covert channels that the world uses against us are, once again, means of communication that we may not see as means of communication.  There is, for example, all the material all the communication that the world does to us, but on a recreational basis.  Movies, and television shows, and plays that you just use to relax will also have all kinds of messages that the world can repeat and repeat and repeat until you simply come to accept it.  The world will keep on telling you that your own pleasure is a good thing, the world will tell you not to worry too much about other people's problems.  The world will tell you that you need a nice house, or a nice car, or a vacation, or something else that is going to use up your time, attention, and resources, rather than allowing you to put them at the service of God.

The world, of course, uses advertising to get you to buy things.  But the specific things that advertising gets you to buy are somewhat secondary to a constant barrage of messages that you need to buy something, anything, anything other than what you already have.  You deserve better.  You need something else in your life, or your life has no meaning.  You need something else in your life so that other people will like you and have relationships with you.  The world also uses advertising to get you to believe things.  (I'll buy that.)

And there are other messages coming through covert channels.  Just simply the structure of our lives, forced upon us by our society.  You have to have a job.  You must have a job and make money.  You must have money in order to live.  You cannot work, for God, for God's purposes, and rely on the fact that God will provide for you, as he provides for everyone.  Without requiring you to choose a job, and work at a job which, possibly you do not like, simply so that you can have the money to live in our money oriented society.

All of these are messages that the world sends to us through channels that we don't even recognize as communications channels.

Sometimes the messages are deeper, more hidden, and more insidious.  Recently, a technical discussion on ethics and the use of artificial intelligence had one of the participants ask an AI chatbot to contribute.  The contribution was interesting primarily because of the number of rhetorical tricks that the chatbot included in its response.  However, when the response was analyzed, it could be seen that the basis of a number of the arguments boiled down to an assessment that ethics really did not exist except as an emotional or internal state in human beings.  This, of course, is tantamount to saying that ethics do not actually exist and that any decisions on moral behavior are subjective at best.  I'd say this argument is wrong.  Hidden within it is the assumption that "ethics" is basically based only on emotions.  I would go so far as to say that the argument is immoral, and an AI that would *make* the argument is immoral.  (And the company that would make an AI that would make the argument is immoral?)

What is the world telling you that it isn't even telling you?

Sermons: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/09/sermons.html

Vega Discover, world's most unstable library software

Vega Discover, a product related to a company called Clarivate,  has got to be the world's worst and most unstable library catalog software.

The layout and design is graphics intensive, consumes enormous amounts of bandwidth, and must require an awful lot of processing on the backend.   This makes the thing pig slow in operation.

However, it is the instability of the system that is the real annoyance.  Vega Discover forgets your identity and login information with startling regularity.  In the middle of a search, everything disappears since Vega Discover has forgotten who you are.  Signing on to Vega Discover is also problematic.  Maybe it will sign on for you, but probably it won't.  Most of the time I have to sign on at least six times before I get a stable connection.  I have just given up at my local library, having tried to sign on for two dozen successive attempts in a row, none of which was remotely successful. 

Sermon 83 - The Years the Locusts Have Eaten

Sermon 83 - The Years the Locusts Have Eaten

Joel 2:25

I will restore to you the years which the locust, and the bruchus, and the mildew, and the palmerworm have eaten; my great host which I sent upon you.

Joel 1:4

What the locust swarm has left

    the great locusts have eaten;

what the great locusts have left

    the young locusts have eaten;

what the young locusts have left

    other locusts have eaten.

Joel 1:15

Alas for that day!

    For the day of the Lord is near;

    it will come like destruction from the Almighty.

Many years ago I read a book with this title, "The Years the Locusts Have Eaten."  It was based on this verse, Joel 2:25, "I will restore to you the years which the locusts have eaten."  I don't remember what the story was actually all about.  I don't really remember very much about the book: I have a vague recollection that it was a story set sometime in the late 1800s.  But over the more than five decades between that time and this, that verse has stayed with me: "I will restore to you the years which the locusts have eaten."  I can't say that, over the years, I have always believed it.

But in terms of a sermon, I am getting ahead of myself.  We should really cover this in order.  The order starts with the destruction, not the restoration.

Joel is a prophet, and like all the prophets, he is either telling what is going to happen, or explaining why what has happened, has happened.  In this case, he is explaining why what has happened has happened.  The ravaging hordes have come.  The armies have invaded Israel, and plundered everything.  And the Israelites are wondering why the day of the Lord doesn't come.  Joel is explaining that the day of the Lord *has* come.  Like Amos, who follows him in the Bible, Joel is explaining that the people got it wrong: the day of the Lord is not simply a time when everything will be set right.  It will be a time when all injustices, and unfaithfulness, will be punished.  And Israel has been unfaithful.  This is, in fact, the day of the Lord.  The Lord has finally gotten tired of the people being unfaithful to him and failing to follow his commands, and has finally decided to give them a gentle reminder in the form of their being completely overrun and exiled to a foreign land.

And when an army comes, it is not just the army that comes.  The great swarm of the army comes and fights, and kills, and plunders.  The infrastructure supporting the army comes around and plunders once again, sometimes just to resupply the army.  The camp followers come along and they do some plundering themselves.  And then various opportunists come and strip off anything left behind that they can pick up.  It's like a bunch of different styles and species of locusts coming through.

And just to establish the point, go back to the plague of locusts in Egypt and look at it in context.  The plague before the locusts was the plague of hail.  The hail came and destroyed the flax and the barley, which ripen earlier than wheat.  *Then* came the locusts, and the locusts destroyed the wheat crop, and also destroyed and ate the leaves on all the fruit trees.  This is passed over very quickly in the Bible, without comment, so it is hard to see the level of destruction and devastation that this means.  This is the complete destruction of all agriculture for the entire year.  The early grain crop is gone.  The main grain crop is gone.  Also, all of the fruit for the year is gone.  The entire year's produce is gone.  Well, you say, in full ignorance of all the agricultural requirements of what comes to your grocery store, they can just eat the animals.  Well, what are the animals going to eat?  All of the fodder stocks are gone as well.  Unless there is grain in reserve, everything, and everybody, is going to starve.

Everybody loves the blossom festivals.  The cherry blossom festival, and the shorter, but even more fragrant, apple blossoms.  Those blossoms are beautiful in and of themselves and are also the promise of the crop for the year.  If there is a late frost at the wrong time, or even just a heavy rain, and those blossoms get washed away, there isn't going to be any crop.

And yet there is that promise: if the pollinators have had *just* enough time, then, yes, there will be a crop that year.  Even if the rain washes away the blossoms, the fruit is already set, and the crop will grow.

When God makes that promise, "I will restore the years that the locusts have eaten," it is interesting to look at the ways that verse is translated in different versions of the Bible.  Sometimes the word "years" gets translated as "ears."  Obviously, since the original was in Hebrew and not in English, this can't just be the problem of a single letter being missing in some transcriptions of the verse.  So, yes, sometimes God is talking about crops, but he is also talking about the years.  God is talking about the time that is lost.  The years that are wasted in various ways.

Sometimes the translation says that the years will be restored.  Sometimes the translation says that the years will be repaid.  I came across one that said that the years would be paid back *double*.  This is a reference to parts of the law, where, if you have done something wrong and defrauded or stolen something, then, in terms of making restitution, you have to pay back more than you stole in order to restore or repay and make right the wrong that you did before.

We all have our own years that the locusts have eaten.  So how do they get paid back?  For us physicists, we have a standing joke that there is no difference between space and time except that you can't reuse time.  Once time is gone, it's gone.

I have probably mentioned elsewhere that I never had a girlfriend before Gloria.  I never had a girlfriend in school.  I never had a girlfriend in high school.  I never had a girlfriend in college.  I never had a girlfriend when I was starting out in my working career.  You don't have to feel sorry for me.  I could have married any girl I pleased.  I just never pleased any.

So that's a possibility for years that the locusts ate.  Years that I was alone.  Years of loneliness and unproductivity.

And then I met Gloria, and we knew each other for a while, and then we got married.  Somehow we seemed to skip that whole stage of boyfriend and girlfriend and dating, but we had a really good marriage.  And a few years after we got married, Gloria admitted that she really appreciated the fact that I never had a girlfriend.  Never.  The fact that Gloria didn't have to worry about me comparing her with anyone else, because I had no one else to compare her to.

You see, other people had compared other women to Gloria, and unfavorably to Gloria.  There was a husband who decided that it wasn't worth being faithful to Gloria.  There was a boyfriend who never really did decide whether it was worthwhile sticking with Gloria and committing to her.  There were even family members who made unfavorable comments in terms of Gloria's physical attractions in comparison to those of other women.

And suddenly all those years that the locusts ate became a gift, a gift that I could give to Gloria.  Even though I had never intended to, and didn't even really realize it until long after the fact.

Of course, it took twenty years ...

I definitely have mentioned elsewhere about being fired from teaching, and the long years of not teaching or teaching very little.  But eventually I did get to teach again, and in the best teaching gig in the world.  There were definitely some years that the locusts ate, but I don't remember much about the years of non-teaching, or seldom teaching.  I do remember, and have lots and lots of stories about, the years of teaching the best teaching gig in the entire world.

Mind you, it took twenty years to happen.  And another ten for me to figure out that it *had* happened, and *how* it happened ...

Sometimes, in terms of restoring the years the locusts ate, the illustration is used of women in labour.  There's an awful lot of pain involved, but there's a baby at the end of it.  In view of the value of babies, yes, this has got to be a pretty good compensation, regardless of the pain involved beforehand.

But you don't have to go that far, and you can have a more generic example.  Any major accomplishment is accompanied by a lot of work.  The work, particularly hard mental work in solving a problem, is very difficult indeed.  There are all kinds of efforts involved in building structures of logic and ideas and concepts, putting them together, getting distracted so that the whole thing comes crashing down in your head, and it has to be rebuilt all over again and rechecked to make sure that you haven't forgotten anything that will make the whole thing worthless.  Then finally testing it out, finding that you have missed something, and fixing that problem, putting it back together again, testing it again, and finally it works!  And all of that effort, and all of that worry, and all of that work, and everything else is forgotten in that sense of accomplishment and productivity when you finally make it work.

So, we have to consider these small accomplishments.  We have to consider that, yes, there is the possibility of restoring the years that the locusts have eaten.  It is possible, as *impossible* as the wasted years that we are in now seem, in terms of any compensation ever making them worthwhile.  God has promised that He will, and He can.

As hard as it is to wait patiently while He does.

Sermon - Garden series

Sermon 2 - Broad Beans

https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/01/sermon-2-broad-beans.html

Sermon 3 - Blackberries

https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/01/sermon-3-blackberries.html

Sermon 33 - Transplanting

https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2025/02/sermon-33-transplanting.html

https://open.spotify.com/episode/5Fr2al8f0bNT9fTo1nYzwV

Sermon 57 - Leaven

https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2025/02/sermon-57-leaven.html

https://open.spotify.com/episode/3oguUslGkpVxkiFlCjxeAj

Sermon 59 - Corn

https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2025/03/sermon-59-corn.html

https://open.spotify.com/episode/1XxT0do4aFywpZPwPWrvHv

Sermons: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/09/sermons.html

Sermon - TLIS - 3.1.2 - Christian Architecture

Sermon - TLIS - 3.1.2 - Christian Architecture

2 Peter 1:3

His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.

Micah 6:8

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

No, we are not going to be talking about how to build churches.

When I started to teach about security architecture, and business architecture, most people misunderstood the term architecture.  Most people seemed to see architecture as a mere plan, or diagram, or outline of how you would put together security.  The architecture is much more than that.  The architecture is not a plan or a diagram or an outline.  The architecture is what allows you to develop and put together a plan or diagram or outline.

So I started to come up with an illustration for the students and candidates.  What if you were going to build a house?  For a house, everybody understands that you need an architecture.  Generally speaking, you would try and find an architect.  So let's design a house.  What do we need to build a house?

And, generally speaking, someone would almost immediately jump in by saying four walls.  And I would jump on that.  "Aha!" I would say, "but this house is in the South Pacific Islands.  We actually don't *want* four walls.  We live in a very humid environment.  We want the breezes to blow through as freely as possible.  If we don't, we are gonna have a problem with mold.  So we don't want walls.  We might want drapes of some kind, or screens, to give us privacy.  But we don't want anything to impede the air flow.  We do want a roof, because we have a lot of rainfall which contributes to the humidity.  But we don't want walls because it's generally warm enough that we are not going to be uncomfortable.  So all we need is a roof, and some screens or other curtains.

The point of this exercise is to get you to think bigger about what an architecture is.  The architecture is so big that it is really just a set of the requirements.  What is it that we need?  For a security architecture, what is it that we need in terms of security?  For a business architecture, what is it that we need in terms of our business?  The requirements are, basically, our architecture.

You also need to learn to think smaller.  The policy, for a business, is, generally, just a few sentences.  It looks more like a mission statement than the five hundred page manual that most people think about when you talk about business policy.  In terms of our house, our architecture really should only mention the need to keep the rain off, the need for some privacy, and the need for an airy feeling, and actuality.  That is the architecture, and it allows us to create something that is appropriate in terms of an actual design and implementation.

So, when we turn to trying to design an architecture for our Christian life, We only need a few basic outlines.  Love God.  Love your neighbor.  Spread the good news.  That's it.

Anything beyond this is extraneous, and actually risks becoming an impediment.  Just like our four walls in our South Pacific home.

Many people think too small with regard to security architecture.  That is, they look at it too closely.  They think that it should be a design that is to be implemented.  They think that it should specify particular vendors and particular products.  The problem with that is that when the business grows, you may outgrow that particular design, or those particular products, or even that particular vendor.  Security architecture should be able to support the business as it grows.  You should be able to expand the business, and expand your infrastructure, without violating the security architecture.

Similarly, the security architecture should be able to accommodate new business models or business plans.  If you have a small business and you are doing business as a storefront, then, as your business expands, are you able to accommodate electronic commerce or online commerce and online business?  Are you able to accommodate that within the structure of what you have been calling your security architecture?  If not, then what you have is not a security architecture, but simply a design.

So it is with the Christian life.  Our Christian architecture should be able to accommodate our concept of God growing larger.  After all, there is that wonderful book title "Your God Is Too Small."  Our God, any idea that we have about God, no matter how large, is not large enough to accommodate the reality of God.  God is just simply bigger than we think, and bigger than we could *ever* think.  If our idea of God is not able to grow and expand as we experience more of God then our Christian architecture is too small.  It cannot accommodate all of God.  As our understanding of God expands, we are going to have to change our idea of who God is, and possibly abandon everything that we have thought and considered and planned up to that point.

And just like security architecture, in terms of Christian architecture, less is more.  In order to have a Christian architecture that is able to accommodate expanding ideas about God, we have to have less specific detail and more openness.

Karl Barth's work is wonderful and has contributed greatly to theological understanding.  John Calvin's "Institutes of the Christian Religion" is a marvelous work and has provided comfort and assurance to many Christians and theologians over hundreds of years now.  (When it was first published in French, beyond the original Latin, it immediately became the world's first best seller in a popular language.)  But in terms of utility and accessibility to the everyday Christian, I assume that many, many more people have read C. S. Lewis's less than two hundred pages that are published as "Mere Christianity."  The very title, "Mere Christianity," indicates that Lewis is considering the simplest and most basic aspects of Christianity.  Lewis is not interested in defining the differences and distinctives.  He simply wants to define what he wants to define what all Christians can agree to.  Therefore, his work is more basic and more applicable to more people.  Just about anyone from any denomination can agree to it and learn from it.

And it can stand the test of time as well.  A "mere" Christianity will be able to address the challenges of the Internet, where everyone in the world is now your neighbor.  A mere Christianity would be able to assess, evaluate, and direct the lives of Christians who are influencers on social media.  John Calvin, as smart as he was, might have had a bit of difficulty with that.

Architecture security architecture includes items such as your hardware and your software.  Christian architecture includes things like your beliefs, your philosophy, your perspective and worldview in seeing how reality actually works when there is a God behind it.  It includes other aspects as well.

The infrastructure of your life includes your resources, such as your money, your house, your car.  It also includes your very life itself: your health, your physical strength, your physical abilities, skills, and talents.  Are you willing to use all of these, as necessary, in the service of God?  Are you willing to still dedicate your life to the service of God if you start to lose some of these resources?  The architecture allows you to give a cohesive design to how you use all of this in terms of God's service.  The architecture gives you guidance as you are making decisions and makes sure that these decisions will be strategically consistent across time.  It's designed to be strategic, in that it has a longer life than any immediate blueprint or design or plan for your life in the short term.  This is one of the reasons that you don't want the architecture itself to be too specific because it can't become constrained by current or changing circumstances.  It's not going to be invalidated by changes in your understanding of the nature of God.  It should allow multiple implementations and plans for your future.  Depending on how situations change, if you don't have a Christian architecture then you will have trouble being able to quickly and effectively support needs that you see popping up in front of you, with the understanding that God has presented them to you as opportunities to help.

At a Christian meeting one time, one woman was giving her testimony, and said that she had accepted the Lord as her savior when she was four years old, and that her faith had not changed from that day to this.  I appreciate that we are supposed to have faith as little children.  I appreciate that faith is supposed to have an element of constancy to it.  But I couldn't help but think how sad it was, that her faith had not developed at all since she was four years old.  What can we know of God at four years old?  Yes, we can love him and trust him.  But we can go little further than that.  And as she had grown, evidently her faith had not.

It is this kind of issue that I seek to address when I say that we must minimize our Christian architecture, in order to accommodate a God who is large enough for the universe.  As we understand more and more of the world, God's creation of it, and the marvelous planning that went into preparing it for us, grow more evident the more you know.  Our humility, in the face of this magnificent planning, must also grow.  The more we know, the more we know that we do not yet know.  And our structure around our Christian faith must be such that it can withstand a sudden twist or shock.

I also recall another time, when I was quite alone, studying, for the first time, higher textual criticism of the Bible.  I remember the anger that I felt that I had been lied to all these years.  What was being presented to me in terms of higher criticism was obviously true, and yet all these years I had been presented with ideas and concept that were in direct contradiction to it, and were, therefore, wrong.  My faith had to withstand that kind of a shock and twist.  It did, with only a little residual anger involved.  But I can certainly understand those who have been presented with equally false information, provided by the church and the Christian society around them, and were suddenly awakened to the evidence that so much of what they believed had, in fact, been fairy tales.  And so many of them have, in that moment, turned away from the faith.

CS Lewis's mere Christianity is basic.  It emphasizes what God is, and what God is not.  It concentrates on the most basic and common elements of Christianity.  It lays out the dangers, to us, that are present in the world and in opposition to God.  For the most part it stays away from any controversial aspects and divisions between denominations of Christianity.  It sticks with the basics, the fundamentals, the most foundational concepts that we need to know to understand and follow God.  This is what our architecture needs to be.  It is no wonder that the Bible so often warns us not only that we must believe everything that is in it, but not to add anything to it.  Adding anything, as much as we may want to, carries with it the danger that this additional baggage may result in a loss of faith in the extra that has been added, with the added danger that faith itself may be lost.

Sermons: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/09/sermons.html

Sermon - CoSMI - 1.0.3 - False Assumptions

Sermon - CoSMI - 1.0.3 - False Assumptions

Proverbs 30:8

Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread.

Isaiah 41:29

See, they are all false! Their deeds amount to nothing; their images are but wind and confusion.

Zechariah 10:2

The idols speak deceitfully, diviners see visions that lie; they tell dreams that are false, they give comfort in vain. Therefore the people wander like sheep oppressed for lack of a shepherd.

I must admit that I find it intriguing when people make mistakes and misunderstand situations, even if they have been given completely factual descriptions.  On occasion, I will allow these misunderstandings to persist, purely for humorous purposes.  Once upon a time I had a discussion with a young woman about using our denominational residential summer camp at Keats Island for a weekend retreat.  She was concerned about the amount of time that they would spend doing dishes.  "Oh," I said, "Hobart will take care of that."  "Hobart?" she asked.  "The dishwasher," I replied.

(For those not familiar with the equipment in commercial or industrial kitchens, I should mention that Hobart is the brand name of a line of commercial and industrial dishwashing machines.)

She misunderstood.  At this point she thought that there was a man, living at the camp facility, who did the dishes.  For the next five minutes I answered all of her questions completely truthfully.  I noted that Hobart was old, and short, and somewhat round, and of a somewhat greyish complexion.  But I never did take the extra effort to ensure that she understood that Hobart was made of stainless steel panels and piping, rather than flesh and blood.  My amusement over this whole situation was accentuated by the fact that it took place in the church kitchen, and I was stacking dishes in a different version of a Hobart dishwasher.

But sometimes we allow people to have, and to hold, false assumptions.  Especially about us.  Sometimes we even rely on them.

For example, and as a first example, generally because it's the first thing we say to anybody else, there is the standard exchange of, "how are you," expecting the answer, "fine."  Generally speaking, this is probably a lie.  We are not only allowing people to have false assumptions about us, but actively promoting false assumptions about ourselves.  Possibly we are fine.  As a matter of fact, it might be quite possible that we are more than fine.  If that is the case, we generally say so.  But if we are less than fine, very often we don't want to say so.  Very often we don't want to admit that we are less than fine.

Admittedly, we are lying to people, because they have first lied to us.  They have asked the question how are we.  And, the thing is, they don't really care.  They don't want to know how we are.  In all too many cases this is just an automatic response like saying ouch when you bump your elbow on something.  If you think that I am lying at this point, then, the next time somebody asks how are you, start telling them how you really are.  And watch to see their eyes start darting back and forth, looking for the quickest escape routes out of the room.

And, of course, on social media, we do this lying preemptively, without anybody ever lying to us in the first place.  Nobody has, in fact, asked how we are.  But we pretend that they have, and therefore start saying how great we are.  Or, and this is a more insidious and invidious way of lying, we simply tell all about the good things that have happened to us, and the interesting parts of the lives we lead, and we don't ever mention the bad things that happened to us, or the difficulties and boring parts of the lives that we lead.

Or there's another one.  This series of sermons is directed in an audience of people who are influencers on social media.  Or intending to be influencers on social media.  And there was an old book, from a number of years ago, that ask the titular title, if you were charged with being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?  Well, in your case, would there be?  You are talking to an audience of 50,000, or 500,000 or 50 million.  Whatever the size of the audience, you are talking.  You are talking about your day, your ideas, your opinions: let's face it, you were talking about yourself.  And when talking about yourself, how often, without the question being specifically asked, would people know that you are in fact a Christian?

Let's dial it back a notch.  I was married at one point.  I am now a widower.  But people don't have to talk to me very long before they know that my wife's name was Gloria, and that she was a kind, and loving, and organized, and immensely curious person, who had some interesting ideas about how much you should take every opportunity to see the world as babies and infants see it.  They may learn these things about Gloria before they ever learn that she is dead.  That's because Gloria was immensely important in my life, and has changed me, as compared to what I was before I married her, to what I am today.

Is God important in your life?  Has God made changes in you?  Would people find that out, just simply by talking to you, or by listening to you talk on your social media channel?

Or, let's take it in another direction.  What if you are presenting to your followers that you are a Christian, but your faith is a little, shall we say, fluid?  Do you really believe?  Or are you relying on the fact that there is a large Christian market, and that being seen as a Christian allows you to penetrate that market.  Is your belief in God rather vague?  Should you really be presenting yourself as a Christian, when you aren't really sure what you believe?

In trying to find Biblical or scriptural passages to support this sermon, I found a number of things that seem to relate oddly specifically to social media.  For example, there is Isaiah 41:29: "See, they are all false! Their deeds amount to nothing; their images are but wind and confusion."  Can you think of a more appropriate description of social media?  So it would seem that trying to ensure that you are as honest as possible when posting something on social media would be a very good thing, if only to cut through the masses of misinformation and even disinformation that is spread out there deliberately.

And then there was Proverbs 30:8, "Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread."  I found this amazingly appropriate.  So many of you, with aspirations as influencers, are trying to make your daily bread, your livelihood and living, as influencers from your social media account.  And pay attention to that "neither poverty nor riches" aspect.  So many people think that being an influencer is the road to riches, but if you are making your daily bread, if you have enough to get by on and enough for your needs, why is it that you need riches?

And the final passage, from Zechariah.  If you have aspirations to be an influencer, you have aspirations to be a shepherd.  You are attempting to lead people.  You are attempting to influence them and guide them.  Make sure that you do it truthfully.  Make sure that you are doing it honestly and well.  If a blind guide leads blind followers, the Bible also tells us that they will both fall into a ditch.

This (CoSMI) is a series of sermons and devotionals directed at those who work as influencers in the field of social media.

Sermon - CoSMI - 1.0.1 - Authenticity

https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2026/04/sermon-cosmi-101-authenticity.html

Sermon - CoSMI - 1.1.3 - Reputation

https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2026/04/sermon-cosmi-113-reputation.html

Sermons: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/09/sermons.html

I'm glad my pain, grief, and depression can bring such joy into the lives of others

He always seems so vastly amused by my grief and depression.  The fact that I am suffering seems a constant source of hilarity to him.

In reality, of course, it's probably nervous laughter.  Nervous laughter is very common.  We human beings are not good at identifying our specific emotions.  If we feel a strong emotion, it's likely to get diverted to some other emotion.  So if you are afraid, or angry, or have some other strong emotion, and expressing that emotion is inappropriate in the situation, you tend to laugh.

And I certainly inspire terror in all kinds of people in the churches.  I mean, he's a minister, you might think that he might be able to handle it a bit more than most.  But apparently not.  So he laughs at my grief and pain.

All the ministers know that I am grieving and depressed, of course.  They even joke about it.  Well, not exactly joke about my pain, but joke about the fact that you never asked Rob how he is.  You know what the answer is going to be.  Terrible.

I know that I terrify people in the churches.  My very existence terrifies people.  They don't want to think about the possibility of having a life like mine, and every time they see me, they have to.  They have to consider that, without some hidden sin, without any particular lack of faith, something bad could happen to them, and they could lose something very significant to their life, and their life could be much worse than it is now, regardless of how it is now.

So the people in the churches don't talk to me, and often actively avoid me, and learn, very quickly, never to ask Rob how he is doing or feeling.

But not all that many actually laugh at my pain.

Searching questions about genAI

I'm writing a sermon, as a part of a series of sermons and devotionals for influencers on social media.  The idea is what I remember as part of a song, possibly from the 1970s.  I couldn't remember the name of the song, or the singer, or the group.

Google failed me at finding the song.  But a number of colleagues disagree with my assessment of genAI as being a solution in search of a problem.  They claim that it is best seen as a kind of search engine.  So I gave it a try.  And they were right!

Sort of.  ChatGPT failed.  Claude failed.  Meta AI failed, although it unhelpfully suggested a bunch of other unrelated songs.

But DeepSeek succeeded.  Which I, of course, find rather heavily ironic.  The Godless Communists are the ones to help me find a gospel song, and the material for my sermon.  (Qwen, interestingly, didn't find the song I wanted, but *did* find a not completely dissimilar *gospel* song.)

The song is, apparently, a standard in bluegrass gospel music and may have been performed by various artists.  The version I've found, and the one I recall, is "If I Forget the Ones," by Dogwood.  I've now found a couple of hits on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92B9AtXqrUk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_3-h960Mx0