Hamilton for Lent: Why Lin-Manuel Miranda's Soundtrack Resonates on Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday has a way of clearing the room.

The sanctuary is dimmer. The music is quieter. The words are heavier: “Remember that you are dust.” We come forward not for inspiration, but for honesty. Not for triumph, but for truth.

That’s one reason I find myself returning to Hamilton at the beginning of Lent.

If you’ve never listened to the musical, here’s the short version: it’s the story of a brilliant, ambitious man who refuses to “throw away his shot.” He is driven, talented, relentless. And for much of the show, that drive feels heroic. We admire it. We recognize it. In a city like Madison, the city I call home—full of energy, ideas, advocacy, and achievement—that kind of ambition feels familiar.

But as the story unfolds, the repetition of that phrase—“not throwing away my shot”—begins to change. What once sounded like courage slowly reveals itself as compulsion. What once felt like purpose begins to cost him relationships, presence, even peace.

That’s a very Ash Wednesday turn.

Lent is not a season for building on our strengths. It is a season for letting the story go far enough to tell the truth about us. The truth that our gifts are real, but so are our limits. The truth that our striving can serve good purposes, and also conceal vanity, ego, or excess. The truth that we are dust, and yet deeply loved.

Late in the musical, after devastating loss, the soundtrack quiets. The bravado fades. The characters walk through grief. And in one understated line, we hear something new: “I take the children to church on Sunday… and I pray. That never used to happen before.”

It’s not flashy. It’s not triumphant. It’s simply a turning.

Ash Wednesday is not about dramatic spiritual breakthroughs. It’s about that quieter turning. It’s about sitting in the stillness long enough to notice what has been driving us—and to let God name us something deeper than our achievements.

For ELCA Lutherans especially, Lent is not a self-improvement project. It is a journey with Christ toward the cross, trusting that the truth told there is not the end of the story.

Listening to Hamilton during these forty days can be a reminder of how ambition, failure, grief, and grace intertwine—and how even in the quiet uptown moments of our lives, God is still at work.

Dust, yes. But dust held in mercy. Ashes, yes. But ashes mixed with stardust. Thanks be to God.

AI and Accomplishment: Will ChatGPT Take My Job (Satisfaction)?

Why bother with writing?

It's not a particularly lucrative activity, nor does it magnify my "influence." If I wanted steady income or cultural clout I would make reaction videos on TikTok. I don't write because my work makes the world a better place or because society so desperately needs my voice. If I wanted either I would look towards organizations or movements with wider followings than I have (though I am grateful for each and every one of the 13 followers I amassed while still on Twitter).

Truthfully, I write for selfish reasons. I write because doing so gives me a clear sense of satisfaction. Completing a thoughtful paragraph or a clever phrase provides a sense of "job well done" that is difficult to attain elsewhere. Typical of an Enneagram "3," I have a bias for achievement. Writing, blogging, occasionally publishing, are activities that feed my bias and nourish my ego. Putting pen to paper or words to the screen helps me to feel an objective sense of impact and rectitude, scarce sentiments in a culture of speed, and subjectivity. Even the writing projects that ostensibly achieve nothing --- few views, zero re-tweets, certainly no monetization --- have a way of convincing my egotistical self that my work is satisfactory.

Over the last two years, I've added more technology into the creative process. I've increasingly started to work and to write alongside AI. I started slowly at first, apps like Grammarly and ChatGPT serving as high-tech spell-checkers. And then I learned what else LLMs could provide: post titles and content outlines, suggestions for the next paragraph and prompts for the next post, tables of contents, images, translations, and recommendations for further reading. I learned that AI could subtly adjust the tone of voice of an entire essay, reformat a course for a different set of learners, and polish scraps of notation in a message fit for a chief executive.

I've certainly become more efficient after hiring AI as my editor and co-creator. Projects that once took me days are now requiring hours. Tasks that were once tedious are now easy to complete. While I've stopped short of generating entire works from LLMs, I wonder how coherent my words would be if I were to start a project without the support and love of my preferred large language models. I should note that as I type these words, Wix, my site hosting platform, is nudging me to use its own AI to "generate a full-length blog post with a title and images." Do I dare click the magic button and end today's writing session?

Even with this artificially-generated efficiency, I've observed a change in how I feel—in writing, content creation, project development, even in emailing people with important job titles. Something seems off. And I think I know what's missing.

Thanks to AI, thee smug, self-centered satisfaction I used to feel in my writing isn't as strong as it used to be. The sense of accomplishment from a witty phrase or a creative expression isn't as evident since I started using OpenAI.

Our cultural dialogue around AI emphasizes efficiency gains and existential threats, environmental impact and essential regulation. It's a dialogue that is ever-sensitive to career displacement. But lost in this conversation is the topic of AI and achievement. AI might very well take my job. Must it also take my sense of job satisfaction?

We're all on a learning curve with artificial intelligence, but that curve is more complex than we imagine. It's not that we must learn to master ChatGPT or to work alongside these magical technologies. It's that we must also learn to do so in a way that preserves what makes the creative process worthwhile. The real learning curve for AI is to discover how to use these resources in a way that preserves that spark of accomplishment, that glimmer of a job well done, that visceral feeling that comes when I have envisioned, written, or brought to life something both original and useful.

I'm not particularly worried that AI is going to take jobs - mine or yours. But I'm becoming increasingly concerned that AI is going to remove some of the agency and autonomy that fuels so many of us in our creative pursuits.

Will AI make us more productive? Most certainly. Will it diminish the delight we take in our efforts? Perhaps. Will it make the creative process a slog? It remains to be seen. What's at stake is more important than a temporary occupation. What's at stake is our intangible yet foundational sense of purpose and meaning. As AI development accelerates, the very human challenge in front of us is to retain the joy of creativity as AI makes us increasingly productive.

How to Write a Church Newsletter with AI and ChatGPT

If pressed to identify which weekly message is the most important and formative, some church leaders would identify their sermons. I suspect that many more would cite their email newsletter.

Each week, only one of three American adults attends church. For better or worse, the vast majority of us will connect to our faith communities through digital communications rather than Word & Sacrament. Setting aside the obvious theological issues, it is increasingly clear that a ministry's digital communications aren't just any ordinary calendar. Newsletters are how countless parishioners connect with the mission of the church - and with one another. That quick glance at a pastor's letter, that quick scan of a sermon summary, that cursory glance at events for the upcoming week - might be the only moment of faith community some of us experience week in and week out.

AI tools like ChatGPT can help us to be more effective communicators. They can improve our newsletter content in both style and substance, exporting our proclamation to a dispersed faith community.

Use AI to open the newsletter with theological reflection from a recognized leader

The opening section of your newsletter is your opportunity to articulate where God is showing up in your context. It should precede the logistics: specifics on Bible study start times, quilting group meeting dates, VBS registration processes.

Think of that first block of text as a sermon in miniature, a chance to collate readings, liturgies, and seasons with the particulars of your ministry context. And this is where AI can be so useful. ChatGPT and other applications can help you to consolidate, contextualize, and organize your ideas.

To write a theological reflection using AI, write a prompt that instructs the bot to create a succinct summary of your most recent sermon. Explain that it will be used to open your weekly email newsletter. You may even prompt AI to connect that summary with local, national, or global events.

Recently, I preached a sermon on Mark 5:21-43 (the healing of Jairus' daughter). If I were to repurpose my sermon for an email communication, I would prompt AI to do the following:

Repurpose the following sermon on Mark 5:21-43 for use in an email newsletter. The summary should be no longer than 250 words. Connect the sermon to the back to school season, including a reference to families returning to fall routines.

Here's what ChatGPT recommended based on my input:

As families gear up for the back-to-school season and adjust to fall routines, it's a perfect moment to reflect on everyday heroes and the lessons they teach us. In Mark 5:21-43, we encounter Jairus, a synagogue leader whose life is turned upside down when his young daughter falls gravely ill. Despite his privileged position, Jairus faces profound fear and desperation. He approaches Jesus with a plea for help, showing remarkable faith even in the midst of uncertainty. However, his journey is far from straightforward. Jesus’ response is delayed as He attends to other needs, including healing a woman with a hemorrhage. Jairus is left waiting, grappling with his fear and frustration.

This story highlights a powerful lesson for us as we transition into the school year. Like Jairus, many of us face periods of waiting and uncertainty, whether it’s navigating new academic challenges, adjusting to family schedules, or dealing with personal struggles. Jairus’ experience reminds us that faith involves trusting in God’s timing and being patient through the process.

As we dive into the fall season, let’s find inspiration in Jairus’ quiet strength and unwavering hope. His story encourages us to embrace our roles as unsung heroes in our own lives, managing the highs and lows with faith and perseverance. Just as Jairus waited for Jesus to show up, we are invited to wait expectantly for God’s presence and guidance in our daily routines and challenges. May this season be a time of reflection, renewal, and recognizing the extraordinary in the ordinary.

Not a bad start to an email communication for late August!

Use AI to summarize your events

One of the best ways to use AI for your newsletter is to format and organize your calendar.

After your theological summary, it's time to organize the dates, times, and locations of events in your community. AI accelerates the process by organizing unformatted, disorganized inputs into a coherent message.

Use AI to generate images

If you're going to take the time to send a weekly newsletter, you need to take the time to include an image. Newsletters with an image have a five percent higher click through rate than emails without an image. But congregations without a media team or graphic designer may not have a source of consistent images and illustrations.

Thats' where AI can help.

From promotional images built with Canva, to sermon illustrations built with ChatGPT 4, AI accelerates the image generation process to boost the visibility of your communications.

Image generation often requires a paid subscription to an AI application. I've found ChatGPT's paid models create the most engaging images (including posters to promote an upcoming event), though Canva's free image generators are't a bad substitute. Canva helped me create this picture of Martin Luther using an iPhone:

When prompting AI to generate an image for a newsletter, be specific about the theme and the intent of the newsletter. Provide clear guidelines on the desired style, color scheme, and content of the image to ensure it aligns with the overall message you want to convey. The image should complement the written content and enhance the overall impact of the newsletter.

Be prepared to provide feedback and iterate on the generated images as needed. By engaging in a collaborative process with the AI, you can ensure that the final image meets your expectations and effectively serves its purpose within the newsletter.