Christianity – Jason W. Triplett

September 8, 2025

Subtly Not Human

My wife was gone for a week long conference a few weeks ago. I was flying solo with the three youngest, the nine-year old, three-year old and the nine-month old. The older four are either grown and gone or at college. The baby is growing up quickly. Baby food and bottles are giving way to bits of the meals we are all having. Yet, he is still on the verge of popping those first teeth. In this particular landscape of child development, there seems to be a great deal of fluid involved. With all seven of our children, I’ve always been amazed what teething does to babies. Nasty diapers, ear infections, extreme drooling, irritability, chest congestion and sleeplessness are all on the menu. Well, after three relatively sleepless nights, I decided he might be developing an ear infection. Upon conferring with my wife, it was my job to contact the doctor and get an appointment for the little guy.

I decided to get ahead of the phone-call rush family practice staff members usually have as soon as their offices open. Information I had because my wife has worked in a doctor’s office in her own nursing career. I reached out to the number on Google and called around 6am. As expected, I got the call center and not the office. I would get a message in with my number on record and hopefully be in the queue for a call-back as my own morning was developing. I navigated through the prompts until finally the phone rang through and someone answered. At least I thought it was a someone.

I’ve had my share of jobs dealing with the public on the phone and I am pretty good at customer service. The courtesy, responsiveness and tact of the receiver of my call was perfect. Absolutely flawless. For the first two thirds of the call, I was trying to figure out what was happening. Was this a person? Why were the answers so generic and scripted? It could’ve been a person, there were keyboard clacks in the background. But there was something subtly not human about the voice on the other end, something unreal about the consistency and regularity of the keystrokes I was hearing.

No sighs, no stutters, no click of gum being chewed or background office noise, no sniffles or sign of impediment. And then I realized the exact problem. There was no sign of impediment. No struggle or difficulty in the receiver of my call, no taking a beat to think while making sense of an office schedule. There were no points where the voice and I went to talk at the same time and accidentally talked over the other. The program on the other end was doing it’s job flawlessly, and worse, I was following along the whole time, wanting to return the politeness and respond as expected.

I had heard that AI operators were beholden to tell you their system ID and function when asked, “Are you AI?” But I couldn’t do that. The risk of being wrong was too great. Two things. First, if it wasn’t AI and this was a person who’d worked really hard to just be a great operator, I would be embarrassed and maybe offend the potential person on the other end. Second, what’s the big deal, right? It’s just another system in place to make life easier and save the health care system money. Why couldn’t I just use the system, get in line for a call back and go on my way? I’ve now been thinking for weeks why the whole interaction bothered me.

The efficiency and capability of AI in general along with employed AI systems are predicted to do one of two things. The final stage of AI development has the possibility of becoming gods over us. Or, AI’s growth will not outgrow the bounds human beings have placed around it and in the end AI will help us in our quest to become gods ourselves. According to the Bible, human beings desire to supplant God while being unable to match Almighty God in any way. We are like Him, for sure, as we are made in His image. But only in the same way that a statue of my dog is not really my dog. We are statues that long to be the model from which our design is taken. I wonder if AI will be the same. Will a fully self-aware AI then decide to overthrow the image bearers who made it? Or will AI give more glory to a creature who’s pursuit of glory tends to know no boundary itself?

In the end, the AI operator I encountered caught me off guard. I wasn’t expecting it, was initially taken in by it and felt shaken by my indecision to confront the possibility while on the phone. I guess I like my human interaction, well, human. It’s unnerving to me that a machine can pose as human more perfectly than a human can.

July 5, 2023July 5, 2023

A Year Ago I Discovered a Key to Patriotism

crop unrecognizable patriot celebrating memorial day showing american flag

One year ago today, our daughter Emma left the safety of home to begin her process of becoming a member of the Air National Guard. She was truly headed into something life altering, her first big decision beyond high school. Her mother and I were left to only pray, hope, and wait while she underwent her initial training for the Air Force. Eight weeks later, a batch of family arrived at Lackland Air Force base in San Antonio to celebrate her graduation from Basic Military Training.

I will never forget the anticipation from not having seen her since she left. The first glimpse we would get of her would be during the great tradition of the “Airman’s Run”. This one-and-a-half-mile run, one of the first since COVID, finished on the training grounds surrounded by grandstands. The stands were packed with anxious families also waiting to see their child or loved one for the first time since they’d left.

Waiting in the stands, we were told to look to the end of the concourse where in the distance we would see the trainees jogging in our direction. The PA announcer invited the families to head down into the infield of the jogging track. Cheri, our daughter Evelyn and I darted for the infield. We got to the infield and claimed a spot in the front so we could see Emma and shout her name as she passed. We had a huge red, white and blue banner printed with her name and squadron on it. Then more waiting. I took deep purging breaths to assuage the nervousness as we searched the far end of the grounds. Then after what seemed like an hour, we heard faintly in the distance…

“One! What’s it feel like, Two! To be bitten by, Three! A Bulldog! Whoooaahh!”.

At first the trainees were a mass of bobbing heads as they jogged almost 300 yards away from us. They moved in sharp unison with their training sergeants next to the columns. A pair of trainees in the front held a banner stating their “Training Squadron (TRS) Number” and designation. They were “The Bulldogs”. The trainees would get to the end of the concourse and begin to circle the training grounds in front of the stands. They’d do three laps on the track and then head back off the concourse to their barracks. It was our job to search the sea of heads and find the one belonging to our daughter.

The group was bearing down on the training grounds. When the trainees entered, all jogging in formation, all wearing the same PT uniforms, all shouting the same cadence, I had to catch my breath. I realized in that moment our daughter was part of something far, far bigger than herself or any of us. I hadn’t even seen her yet and it came to my mind that she was about to graduate from “The United States Air Force Basic Military Training”. It hit in that moment that she was now a member of the best military force in the world.

As I thought about my daughter, the commitment she’d made, and how proud I was of her in that moment, something unexpected began to happen in my heart. It swelled to the point of not only being proud of her and being proud to be her dad, but proud of every single trainee I was seeing. I was even more proud of my grandfather who was in the Navy during World War II. In those moments I became more patriotic, and somehow, I was more proud to be an American that day.

Then my wife grabbed my arm and said, “Jay! Jay! there she is!”

My eyes darted back and forth from face to face. Then I saw a sandy blonde ponytail flipping back and forth among the mass of trainees. She looked focused, eyes forward, shouting firmly and loudly the cadence of the group. I scanned her head to toe. She was trim, strong and squared away. Tears welled in my eyes. My breath quickened and all I could do was cry. Then I heard my wife in the highest, loudest voice I’ve ever heard from her, “Emmmmmaaa!” I startled and broke off my tears then began shouting along with my wife. As we called to her, her training seemed solid, and she looked as if she wouldn’t break comportment. My daughter argues that what I say happened next, indeed never happened. But I swear I saw, for what looked like nanosecond, Emma’s eyes dart left and the corner of her lips curl into a grin at the sound of her mother’s voice. Or maybe that’s just what I wanted to see.

I’ve thought deeply about that day and my freshly bolstered patriotism. I’ve been around hundreds of veterans in this country who still proudly wear the designations or stations of their military units from the past. I’ve seen veterans who wore hats or jackets that say “101^st Airborne” or “USS Arizona” among many others who are members of the American Legion or who host tours at America’s Armed Services monuments. The two-day graduation at Lackland that began with the Airman’s Run stirred something in me that I think I’ve come to understand. The closer you are in proximity to what makes the United States of America the extraordinary country it is, the prouder you are that you’re a part of it. That day Emma’s commitment to military service drew me nearer to those who serve, those who’ve died and those who’ve held up the original values that make our country what it is. And for that I am blessed.

May 30, 2023May 31, 2023

Last Snuggles, Last Smiles, Last Sighs

1 Samuel 1:27–28 (ESV) “For this child I prayed, and the Lord has granted me my petition that I made to him. Therefore I have lent him to the Lord. As long as he lives, he is lent to the Lord.”

You are not bone of my bones, or flesh of my flesh, but you are heart of my heart. My prayer, as you go, is that your life will become one with God in the Spirit of Christ. I love you little boy, you are my son. You are loved no less than any other precious son we have.

We prayed for you. For two years, we thought of that first foster placement. Not knowing that God had you in mind all along. He’s used you to answer all my questions about being a foster father. Could I love someone else’s child like I love our biological children? Would I accept you as part of our household? Would I be able to graft you into the tree of our family? I’ve been reminded of 2 Corinthians…

2 Corinthians 1:20 (ESV) “For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory.”

The answers to all my questions were yes. I think this is because my questions all find their foundation in God’s promises to us in Christ. Does God love us, born of men, as He would His own children? Absolutely Yes. Does He accept us as part of His household when He adopts us? Absolutely Yes. Is He able to graft us into His family, as blood brothers with Christ, so that there is no visible line between us and Him? Absolutely Yes. And so God’s spirit has moved in me with you, little boy. And today we enjoy our last snuggles, last smiles and last little sighs with the ache of letting you go safely to your new family.

Little boy, our Heavenly Father has used you to teach me about His heart. I pray He’s used me to teach you likewise. In creating us, God knew the risk. He knew His heart would be broken. In welcoming you, for all the hope we had of maybe not needing to say goodbye, we now know the similar aching affection I’m sure God has felt repeatedly. I know it’s not exactly the same. For our Lord’s grace has given us a glimpse not of pain, but of loving people through His eyes. Yet, I’m staggered by the heart of God, the depth of His never-ending love for all of us. I pray, little boy, that one day you would be able to celebrate and proclaim the same.

It’s to a good family and to a good place you go. A place of love and belonging. I believe that. We will lay you in your basket upon the waters, with hope and joy at having had you for a little while. We’ve prayed for you to come and we will pray for you daily as you drift on your way. We hold to the belief that we’ve at least changed your life by a degree. We hold to the Lord’s varied angle, that God’s slight alteration of your course will accumulate over your life to a very different destiny than you would have had. And for now, knowing that through God’s Will, by His Word and in His Way, we’ve held you, we can say goodbye and always know, you are most certainly loved.