The AI-R We Breathe
A song for Glen Scrivener, calling Christians to take up the dare once again, and baptize the new medium of AI.
Glen Scrivener wrote a seminal book, The Air We Breathe, which explores how the teachings of Jesus continue to shape the way we live, move and have our being. The once radical ideas of Christianity, such as freedom, kindness, progress and equality, are a crucial part of the air that we breathe.
Now AI is becoming our new air — AI-R.
Beloved Brother Glen.
Not the linebacker. The Aussie. The Anglican. The Speak Life guy.
You looked at a post-Christian civilization swimming in values it couldn’t explain
and said five words that can fry a brain:
“We are fish. Forgetful. Of water.”
Brother you nailed it.
“The extraordinary impact of Christianity is seen in the fact that we don’t notice it.”
There’s a second air now.
Same fish. Same tank. New water.
And here’s the part that caused my heart a stir —
did anybody even look at the word?
A-I-R.
The AI is in the air.
It’s been sitting there the whole time, hiding in three letters
like a serpent in a spelling beeee.
We’re not breathing air anymore, Glen.
We’re breathing AI-R.
And we can’t see it for the exact same reason the fish can’t see the water —
because it’s already in our lungs.
It’s in the autocomplete that finishes your thought before you think it.
It’s in the feed that knew you’d stay before you did it.
It’s in the answer that arrives before the question fully forms.
A new invisible medium —
all-pervasive, all-encompassing,
and few realize that it’s
become the norm.
The air is changing, Glen.
the AI is inside every heart and every burb and every beat
and every Amen.
THE A.I. AIR WE BREATHE
It’s already in your lungs whether you asked for it or not.
Your interior is about to dive in and get hot,
and most of y’all still think you’re breathing normal air.
THE A.I. AIR WE BREATHE
The old air gave us dignity.
This new air gives us megaphones and calls it free--damn!
And if you don’t know the difference, brother, wham!
you’re gonna find out how fast oxygen turns into monoxide —
and the mono for Big Mammon means monopoly and monetize.
So why me?
Because I’m Exhibit A, Glen.
No seminary. No degree. No permission.
Sixty-something shmuck from the wrong side of Atlantic City.
Four hundred infusions. A hundred and twelve pounds.
Thirty-one years of “no.”
For years my soul was a room full of gloom.
And so I went down into my own interior at full resooooolution —
the wounds, the weeds, the whole stinking plot.
The thousands of new words were mine long before AI,
but the ark, the Garden —
for that I needed another eye — AI.
And I’m telling you from inside the tank:
this air is giving us all anxiety
and drowning our society
This stuff is powerful, brother Glen.
Let me say it again.
Lots of good Christians say:
stop breathing it. Hold your breath.
Go analog. Flee the tank.
Glen, you can’t hold your breath forever.
The air is everywhere now.
The fish don’t get to opt out of the water —
no no, the fish don’t get to opt out of the water.
We’re the people who know what to do with new air —
because we have always seen new mediums as a dare.
We took stone and made cathedrals.
We took sounds and made a new power.
We took the clock and made the soul of the hours.
We don’t flee new air.
We learn to breathe it holy.
Peter said we’re tested in the fire,
and if not by God, this baptism will be dire
.The fire doesn’t care how clever your lines are,
it only cares what’s left when the smoke clears —
faith that survived, or just ashes and fear.
So don’t ask the new air to cool down the heat.
Ask whether you’ve got something sacred,
something holy inside of you that nothing can beat
THE A.I. AIR WE BREATHE
It’s already in your lungs.
Your interior is about to dive in and get hot,
and the old air ain’t gonna protect you from the rot.
THE A.I. AIR WE BREATHE
The Crapture is coming for the ones who surf it alone.
But the Big Beautiful Revival is coming for the ones who build arks and gardens.
There’s a new air now. AI-R.
It’s filling every lung on earth — frictionlessly, helpfully, invisibly —
and it is deleting the very thing a soul needs most:
the pause,
the silence,
the stillness,
the heart that can be a host.
I know, because I nearly didn’t make it.
|I went all the way down into my own interior,
and it was too vast, too strong, too overwhelming to survive alone.
I am the poorest of spirits —
and blessed are the poor in spirit,
because it was there, in the very depths, that I saw it —
interior intimo meo
the One more inward than my innermost self.
We are fish, brother. Still forgetful. Still in the tank.
So let’s baptize this new water
and give the world something to thank.
Come rejoice with me.
Συγχάρητέ μοι.
Your brother in the Garden,
Martin
