Automated Gardening and Missionary Work
At church today, at the start of elders quorum “In addition to the group worship that happens during Sunday services, every congregation of the Church has an organization for men called the elders quorum. The name comes from the Bible, where men who served in the priesthood were often referred to as elders. A quorum is another word for a group of people united by a shared purpose. In the case of the elders quorum, that purpose is to come together and help each other serve as better sons, brothers, husbands, fathers, and members of the community. Members also work together to fulfill congregational assignments, build unity, and learn about Jesus.” (source) 1 , the instructor opened the floor for people to share questions that have been on their mind. As I mentioned in a previous post, I’ve been thinking about the idea of automated gardening. While it might not seem immediately related to a spiritual discussion, here are some of the thoughts and connections that I shared.
- There is very little that I’ve put into practice or started really experimenting with.
- I enjoy the idea of gardening automation, but actually getting started will probably be even more rewarding
- “be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only” (James 1:22)
- A deeper joy and fulfillment comes from putting into practice the teachings and doctrines of Jesus Christ
If you’ve read another post of mine, it will probably come as no surprise that missionary work is important to me. After all, I spent two years as a full-time volunteer missionary in a foreign country with the primary purpose of helping others come unto Christ. While my full-time missionary service came to a close, my desire to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with others has not. This starts in my family, as N learns to pray with V and myself, and it extends to close friends, acquantainces, neighbors, and even strangers. Like how I’ve had trouble getting started with the gardening automation hobby that I’d like to try out, sometimes I have trouble bringing the desire to be a missionary into practice. Some of the reasons are shared:
- My schedule is flexible, but often packed to the brim; how can I spare the additional time?
- The efforts might result in (at least a perceived) failure. What if I get started, and this is the case?
- What if others think or act negatively in response to my actions? (in the case of gardening, theft/vandalism of the equipment is a real possibility, while in the case of missionary work, I worry about becoming a social pariah, losing friendships and opportunities)
Recently, I felt impressed to post on Twitter:
All three of the above concerns were at play here. Can I spare the additional time to decide how/what to post? The post might get ignored or go unseen. What if this spurs contention rather than mutual understanding and respect?
It did take some time for me to consider how to act on the impression to write the post; however, this was well-spent time reflecting on my personal beliefs. While it isn’t (and certainly wasn’t intended) to be a viral post, it also didn’t go unnoticed. I wasn’t speaking to an empty room, nor was I in an echo chamber where most everyone would already share the same perspectives. Some people may have been offended, put off, or felt uncomfortable in response to my post; however, so far, it doesn’t seem to have stirred up contention. By contrast, I was impressed by a colleague’s later remarks and open, respectful sharing of his views on the subject. This helped me to consider the disentanglement of two complex, intertwined topics and fit very well with one of the discussions in church today about filtering out the signal(s) from the noise in divisive topics. Noticing parallels with DDPMs denoising diffusion probabilistic models anyone?
Circling back a bit, I was reading a a hackaday post about a TacoBot which led me to another post about FarmBot (!) I’ve been talking with V about it, and we’re seriously considering purchasing one within the next couple years 👩🌾🌾🌱🍃🌿🌳🍅.
