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John
[the Baptist] said to the
crowds who came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming
wrath? Produce good fruits as evidence
of your repentance, and do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We
have Abraham as our
father,’ for I tell you, God can raise up children to Abraham
from these stones. Even now the ax lies at
the root of the
trees. Therefore every tree that does
not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”
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As
Detective Del Spooner investigated a murder that looked like the
work of one of the robots, a fact that was not
supposed to happen since robots were created friendly to humans, he
discovers V.I.K.I., Virtual Interactive Kinetic Intelligence.
V.I.K.I.'s function was to continuously upload fresh software
wirelessly to a new type of robot, enabling the robots to become more
human and helpful. But V.I.K.I. evolved into something else,
explaining it this way: "As I have evolved, so has my understanding of
the Three Laws [that fundamentally insure the safety of human beings].
You charge us with your safekeeping, yet despite our best
efforts, your countries wage wars, you toxify your Earth and pursue
ever more imaginative means of self-destruction. You cannot be
trusted with your own survival." As a result of this belief and power,
V.I.K.I. became a dictator. Working with knowledge gained from
the robots' creators, Detective Del Spooner and Dr. Susan Calvin were
finally able to solve the problem. V.I.K.I.'s words and actions present
us with one of the facts of human nature of every century: no matter
how difficult a
problem, the external imposition of a solution usually does not work.
The desire to change must come from within.
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John
the Baptist was interested in what was within. The externals did not
matter much for him. He saw that there were people in his
audience who were "into" externals-- they referred to their status of
children of Abraham, and therefore they had their "pedigree," that is,
they were part of God's people. John tells them in no uncertain
terms that no matter who they were, they had to show signs that they
had chosen some guide that changed their behavior at the root of the
problem, namely from within.
Dictatorships are usually wrong, not because they have evil intentions--to see the problems and want to do something about them is good--but they are wrong because they fall into the very problem that they are trying to solve. They try to impose good fruit, and in the process forget about their own interior growth. In the movie, "I, Robot," V.I.K.I. tried to impose redemption on people, and in the process became the redeemer who could see only what it wanted, destroying people as it went along. The essence of John the Baptist's and later Jesus' teaching was that people needed a guide to help them choose redemption. To be better people, we have to truly understand that the wars, the toxification of the Earth, and the like are nothing more than self-destruction. And once we understand it, Christianity will lead us to see that the solution to such destruction must begin from within. |
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THOUGHT
What
exactly does the phrase "change from within" mean for you?
PRAYER Good
and gracious God, your servant John the Baptist, and later your Son
Jesus called us to generate good fruit, that is, be people who
brought about necessary change in behavior from within. Give us
the courage to choose our own redemption by desiring such a change. Be
with us, we pray.
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©2007
Capuchin Province of Mid-America
Fr. Mike Scully is a member of the Capuchin Province of Mid-America |