This and That (#4)
Women & AI, writing conferences, and the bookshop you need to visit
In my undergrad years, I spent a semester abroad — back in the day when we still had film cameras and scrapbooking was all the rage. On one of our many bus journeys through the Italian countryside, I saw a friend gluing a cafe receipt into his journal. Right then and there. On the bus. He wasn’t collecting all the scraps of train tickets and museum entry passes and wine bottle labels, and organizing them by date, or theme, or making sure that he had a corresponding photo for each one. He wasn’t even being super careful about making sure the receipt was glued in perfectly. He just did it.
As the bus wobbled around a bend, I felt a pang of envy alongside my confusion. How did he do that? With no compunction, no second guessing how that page would live on for posterity with its uneven glue and mismatched edges?
I couldn’t step out of my own perfectionism to try the same approach, and you know what I have to show for it? Not an incredible scrapbook full of perfectly arranged pages, but rather a whopping two - count them, two - perfectly scrapbook pages and a medium-sized box of random receipts, tickets, photos and other fragmented memories that I could not now arrange ‘properly’ if someone paid me to do so.
I was starting to worry that this little substack is going the way of my undergraduate detritus – so many things I want to write about, so many things I have written about elsewhere, and would like to share, so many conversations I’d like to foster – but then I reminded myself that I can just glue some receipts to pages in an imperfect manner and keep going. Maybe if I’m lucky, we’ll all feel like we’re on a bus ride to Tuscany.
Speaking & Writing
“Women Are Being Left Out of the AI Conversation: Should We Care?”
In a different life I did some journalism, and I know well the challenge of incorporating people’s words in a way that feels authentic to them while weaving rather disparate ideas into a single piece. I think Solène did a great job in this article, which covers a lot of ground, and I was delighted to be included amongst the women interviewed.
For her, the decisive line runs between an AI that aids human beings and one that replaces them. The danger she most fears is the one Pope Leo XIV anatomizes throughout Magnifica Humanitas: the substitution of programmed responsiveness for genuine encounter, made visible in the rise of AI companions, AI therapists, and even avatars with which young people have begun to form emotional and romantic attachments.
Christopher believes that identifying this threshold is itself a contribution women are well-positioned to make. Much of what they have always done — in care, in nursing, in teaching or mothering — is, in her words, “intuitive, quiet, hidden and difficult to quantify.” She argued that women increasingly need to articulate why these forms of care matter and why some aspects of human presence remain irreducible.
As I spoke about the ‘hidden’ work of women, I had in mind the many, many life lessons I’ve gleaned from reading {variations on} ‘mom blogs,’ as well as Leah | Blessed Endurance’s more recent piece on caring for those at the end of life - it’s beautiful and profound, and well worth a read.
We’re All In This Together
My husband and I just finished giving a retreat in the medieval village of Walsingham, and it is always such a delight to spend time with people who really love the Lord. During one of the talks given to a group of young adults by a Franciscan friar, the resident toddler in attendance couldn’t stop giggling as he chased a soft basketball tossed around by a Carmelite brother, while his [the toddler’s] parents watched on smilingly.
There’s something really uplifting and encouraging when people from all different states in life get together, especially because in certain circles, delineating by difference can go too far. I’m all for specialized ‘groups’ (mom’s groups, young adult groups, retiree groups, etc.) in their right place, but too much emphasis on difference risks losing sight of the fact that we’re all in this together.
I found this essay on being single quite moving, as it articulates much of what I felt in my single years, and what I’ve seen friends continue to live out.
Single tired is still tired. Single busy is still busy. We’re still running entire lives over here. Often alone. Often quietly. Requiring a private stamina. You become the provider, the planner, the worrier, the fixer, the soft place to land, and the person landing there.
This isn’t a complaint, exactly. It’s a recognition. Single women are often discussed as if we’re floating around in silk pajamas with endless discretionary income and nothing to do but moisturize and meet friends for margaritas. And yes, sometimes. God willing. But we’re also carrying entire lives on our own backs, often while looking pulled together enough that no one realizes how heavy it is.
Discernment & Decision-Making
Over on my Cultivating Clarity newsletter, I’ve been writing a mini-series on quick questions to help in discernment:
What’s Underneath Your Discernment (Check Your Presuppositions)
Have You Checked Your Yes and No Lately? (Revisit Your Commitments)
Have You Checked Your Expectations (They Might Be Out of Date)
Reading
If you ever visit Oxford, you must try to make your way to St. Philip’s Books: it’s a tiny shop, books tucked into every nook and cranny, the two employees sat at desks overflowing with used volumes while a box fan blows (fairly uselessly) in the summertime. If you care for children’s literature, Oxford writers, theology, philosophy, or church history… you will definitely leave with your wallet lighter and your handbag heavier! I was lucky enough to find an old copy of Come Rack, Come Rope, by Msgr Robert Hugh Benson (brother to E.F. Benson of Mapp and Lucia genius), and have been slowly making my way through it.
In literature for youth, I’ve acquired copies of The Wednesday Wars (re-read) and Orbiting Jupiter by Gary D. Schmitt, in preparation for what feels like an impossible happening -- getting to study with the Newbery Honor winner himself!
Learning
Two years ago, when I saw a posting about the Winona Christian Writer’s Conference, I thought: that would be amazing to attend, but there’s just no way. This year, I actually voiced that thought to my husband instead of keeping it to myself, and he simply said, “why not?”
There were, of course, a million reasons why not, including financial ones. But being married to someone who says, “why do we need to have a ten year anniversary celebration? We’ve never done the expected. Just go. We can have a twelve year party instead,” is the kind of blessing I never dreamed of having when I was younger.
This is actually the second literary conference of the year for me, the first being a day at Pusey House in Oxford discussing what makes a novel Christian. I left that day feeling my mind abuzz (in a good way), and hungry for more.
If any readers are headed to Winona this summer, I’d love to meet up!
And I’d love to hear from you: If you were attending a writer’s conference, what kinds of questions would you want to ask experienced authors? What kinds of questions would you want to ask fellow attendees?
One of my favourite things about writing on substack is getting to learn from, connect with, and just chat to other people who are interested in the same sorts of things — or different things that I like learning about! So tell me, do you have any thoughts on women and AI? On being part of communities that include people in all walks of life? On what makes a novel Christian? What are you reading these days?
“I reminded myself that I can just glue some receipts to pages in an imperfect manner and keep going.”
I really appreciated that bus story! Thanks for that note. I appreciate your receipt-glue efforts.
Thanks for sharing the NCR piece on women and AI. I’m glad you were included. I found the example of a mom using AI to discern patterns in her children a bit sad — if it amplifies her feminine genius, it erases that of another woman: auntie, mother, friend. But I found the discussion interesting!
Thank you for the kind words about my piece. Human care is a privilege — whether in nursing, motherhood, marriage, friendship. I know I am/was not the best caregiver, despite all my best intentions, but there is so much to be gained by both sides in mutual love and formation when this care happens between two children of Adam. Last night I opened an old book and my bookmark was a handwritten note from a patient’s wife, which she had given with a hand-knit baby sweater (I was pregnant). There are not words to express the significance of knowing we matter to another person in those moments when souls are so close to the fleshy surface of things. (After all those words:) I’m thankful for your perspective.
And! I loved the note about your husband and the writing conference. How sweet. I hope you enjoy it!
That bookshop sounds lovely Kerri, and I'm guessing it resembles G.David in Cambridge... would love another trip to Oxford!