How much does Alexa REALLY know?  As you could only imagine, I have my house, and my families’ houses decked out with lots of smart home devices.  Whether we’re using Nest thermostats, Ring doorbells and security cams, or plenty of Amazon Echo devices, our houses, like so many of yours, rely quite heavily on these items.  I enjoy rolling over in bed in the middle of the night and asking Alexa what time it is or asking her to call into our boiler units to tell me what the temperatures are in school; doing all of that without turning on lights or squinting at my phone because I don’t have my glasses on is a real joy.
 
At my house, I have plenty of “routines” set up, whereby I’ll issue a “command” and Alexa will carry out the tasks assigned to that routine.   I have one routine where the command is: “Alexa, I’m going to work.” With that command, Alexa will turn off any music that I’m playing and turn off all the smart lights that are still on in the house.  One time, Alexa misunderstood me and blurted out that my commute to work would be about 25 minutes because of traffic.  I chuckled because I wondered if Alexa knew somehow there was heavy traffic on Overlake because parents were dropping their kids off at school.  I remember looking outside my window at that moment and trying to figure out how Alexa came up with that conclusion.  After all, I walk to work!  Then I realized she was talking about how long it would take to travel downtown to the Chancery.
 
A few days ago, while I was on the phone with my sister Jackie, she asked what a pulsating yellow ring might mean on her Echo devices.  Her family IT guy offered some quick advice: the pulsating light meant they had some type of notification, and Alexa was eager to share it with them.  When I give advice to my family over the phone about what they have to tell Alexa to accomplish a task, I always have to preface my comments with, “Now … tell her whose name cannot be spoken …” because if I actually say her name and the command, then my own Echo units will jump into action and then EVERYONE and EVERYTHING gets confused.  So, I told Jackie, “Just say … ‘her name that cannot be spoken.  Notification.’”  Jackie immediately spoke the two sentence command.  After hearing Alexa mumble something in the background over the phone, Jackie burst into instantaneous laughter.  She was laughing so hard I couldn’t get in a single word to ask what Alexa said to her.  I assumed it was a notification about a package that was probably delivered, and then my brother-in-law Lonnie made some wisecrack about yet another package being delivered to the house.  When Jackie paused from her laughing spell, she said, “She just asked me if I needed to order more hairspray.  The answer is actually YES, but how in the world does she know I needed more hairspray.”  The fact Jackie needs a standing order for hairspray is something our family has always known, but the fact Alexa has learned this too is rather scary.  You have to wonder … how much does Alexa REALLY know?
 
Speaking of family members and Alexa, offering tech support to my mom with her Alexa issues is pretty funny.  My mom has little patience with Alexa when she doesn’t fully understand a command or gets confused with what was asked of her.  “If I tell her to turn on a light, why can’t she just turn on that light.  Why does she need to keep asking more questions?”  My mom has been known to talk back to Alexa at times and give her a piece of her mind when she acts up or doesn’t do what she’s been asked to do.  Right now, Alexa stands mute to these “conversations,” but as the artificial intelligence develops, I could only imagine what Alexa might say back to my mom in a few years!  Those conversations would be worthy of recording!!
 
Festival of Liturgical Ministries on Tuesday, February 18:  If you were at SJA this past weekend for mass, you heard me mention our upcoming Festival of Liturgical Ministries on Tuesday, February 18.  The Leadership Team and I have been working for over a year now on enhancing our Sunday experience.  What we do around the Altar of the Lord needs to be the ABSOLUTE BEST.  It is there that we are fed and nourished so that our relationship with the Lord grows.  It is there that we are fed and nourished so that we will have the grace and strength to accomplish our mission of helping to make disciples of others.  Let’s face it, poor liturgical experiences drive people away from a parish while strong liturgical experiences draw people in.  Preparing for what takes place at our Saturday and Sunday liturgies must be an absolute priority all week.  I look at my life as a priest.  If I don’t start working on a weekend homily very early in the week, it would be too easy to get caught up in the cycle of the needs of weddings, funerals, meetings, and other things and then find myself scrambling to put a homily together late Saturday afternoon.  And, if I’m scrambling last minute on a Saturday afternoon trying to put a homily together for the weekend, I’m not giving you my best.  As much as I’m expecting our various liturgical ministers to give their best at what they do around the Altar of the Lord on the weekend, I’m also expecting that of myself and the other priests and deacons of our parish.  No matter what ministry we are involved in, we need to give our best to the Sunday experience.  That means we need to be properly prepared, and then we must excel in carrying out those ministries.
 
The February 18 Festival of Ministries is intended for all those currently involved in any liturgical ministry as well as for those who may wish to get involved in any of our liturgical ministries.  The purpose of the evening is twofold: 1) to share the benchmarks we have identified as essential to us as we move forward to enhance our Sunday experience and 2) to do some formation/training about these individual ministries.
 
We will start with a brief talk at 6:30 p.m.  A light meal will be available beginning at 5:30 p.m.  We will then have two breakout sessions targeted for individual ministries.  These sessions will be repeated that night so that if you are a musician and a lector, you could attend a musician and then lector session that night.  If you are only an usher, you would attend the first session for ushers, and then you could call it a night.  The entire evening will be over by 9:00 p.m.  You are asked to sign up for the evening by going to sjascs.org/festival-of-ministries or by calling the Parish Center.
 
Enjoy the week.  Know of my prayers.
 
In Christ,
 
gmb
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