How Dayspring reflects, and what it won't do

Some of Dayspring’s reflection is done by software that reads your entries. You should know exactly what it does.

The rule

Facts are counted, never guessed. It only chooses. Quotes are exact.

When the Ascent tells you something ran through your autumn, it was counted from your entries — not guessed at. When it shows you a line that carried the season, that line is one you wrote, reproduced exactly.

What it actually does

• Chooses which of your sentences to show you.
• Groups related things — prayers about the same subject, entries about the same thread.
• Turns your spoken words and your handwriting into text.
• Interprets a filter you typed in plain English into actual filter settings. It sets the criteria; it never decides which entries match.

What it never does

• It doesn’t write summaries of your spiritual life in its own words.
• It doesn’t tell you what your writing means.
• It doesn’t assess, score, rank or grade anything about you.
• It doesn’t invent a quotation, an event, or a pattern. If it can’t point at something you wrote, it stays quiet.

That last one is the whole discipline. A journal that reflects your life back to you is worthless the moment it starts making things up — and worse than worthless if you believe it.

Your writing and training

Your entries are never used for training. Not by us, not by anyone.

Why not more

We could build something that wrote you a warm paragraph every Sunday about how you’re growing. It would be easy, it would feel good, and it would be fiction.

The whole promise of Dayspring is that what you see is what was actually there. Anything invented, however encouraging, breaks it.