After several obituaries, serious diagnoses, accounts of my or Bill’s collapses on stage, videos of us dancing on the porch or of me playing the piano and guitar, Bill and I are still alive and well and living our ordinary lives in the same house we built sixty years ago in our small town in Indiana. Bill still travels and sings many weekends a year with the Gaither Vocal Band (who also are all healthy and joyful).
Welcome to the world of A.I. (Artificial Intelligence), where not only can you not believe everything you see or hear, but you can’t believe almost anything you hear or read if you spend your time on social media. Guy Penrod did NOT sing at the Super Bowl and none of the Homecoming family of artists are in arguments or confrontations with big TV personalities or super stars.
Today on this rainy day, I am home writing with our two Cavalier King Charles dogs, Windsor and Dorset, at my feet; all the while, Bill is in Nashville, recording several episodes of Homecoming Radio. He’ll be home later this evening. In my afternoon tea break from writing, I emptied the dishwasher and cleaned out the refrigerator. You probably won’t see that on social media, but, hey, it’s my real life.
I guess I am just asking you to not click on wild stories and certainly not forward them to anyone. Every click empowers A.I. and gives more impetus for generating more ridiculous fictions. And while I’m ranting, whose head is that on a person’s body that is supposed to be Bill, and whose body is that whose hands are wildly clapping for Bill as he plays an elementary chord as if it were some score by Beethoven? On the other hand, maybe A.I. isn’t so bad; it gives me a better body than I had at forty.
There isn’t a better Bible verse to quote and internalize right now than Paul’s advice to believers of his day:
“Finally, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.”
Ah, yes!