2022-09-11 A Meditation on Knowing Our People

“that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” (Jn 17:21 ESV)

Attributing, not forcing but attributing, this to one another, we come to know our people as we know ourselves. This one, we say, I do know and do take a moment to cherish that knowledge. It is to be cherished that I can think like they think, that I can know them as “of course” in this scenario or that, I am the executor of their estate, I am their disciple, even in cases where that relationship is reciprocal. So we take a moment to give thanks: knowing our people, recognition, holding up a picture of “the human”, is a gift well beyond the wretched estate of forced and unnatural lines of communication. We communicate with recognition, with a warmth and a productive outlay called fellowship.

I know that woman. I know that man. Who they are is apparent to me, though we may have just met or may have known each other for years and decades. I have intaken their decision-making, having good guesses as to what they would say about this-and-such. I know them as a knight at our round table. I know them as peer and confidante, okay to approach, okay to bargain with, okay to obey when such is the season and the Word.

Yet “my people” languish, unappreciative, unable to recognize that they can give thanks for the soul whom their soul knows and is knit to like that of Jonathan to David (1 Sa 18:1). We can go beyond rationalized doctrines of submission, and beyond those who make the church into a shop for barebones obedience. Such obedience, when it comes, comes joyously and with soul knit to soul, no reluctant nor confused submissive, but joy in knowing each other and thereby knowing the Lord, knowing a Father who loves us, knowing what we can get up to in that fact and Name of being loved. So, submission is a black box, useful both for good and for ill; which will it be?

To know our people is to know them somehow at the height of camaraderie and self-giving. It is the celebratory spirit in each other, that we recall and make into something eternal, at least, sufficient for the day’s trouble. We can be corrected, but if so then in a spirit of love; we have known who are the Lord’s people, and have rightly thanked the God who Created and Gave and Formed and Shared and was not reluctant but rather benevolent.

So the soul whom we know, is a soul searching just as we are, but this day happy to soldier forth in distant gaze and in that Promise, grateful for those souls knit to soul in some way beyond magical; these things are our bent knee and heartfelt gratitude; we can sally forth unafraid and certain of this, that we have the Lord in our hearts and He loves us for it prior to loving us for our correct deeds. He loves and He enables and He gives good counsel to the soldier on the brink, who is fighting a hoard, who knows that this day God came down from on high to elucidate and to illuminate, giving us a “strange to say, but I know this fellow, this gal” mentality. So spirit communicates to spirit, that a soul “out there” is doing the Lord’s work, hand to the plow, oxen at work, and we do come to subconscious deja vu mode, “I’ve met this one before; I knew this train of reasoning; this is all so familiar”.

Such is the aim of any proper churchmanship, any proper soldiering decree or step forward, any proper step forth into what tomorrow will bring. We know these our friends, and this leaves no room for regrets to languish, no room to fear making the wrong outlay, for He loves and He approves and cherishes and commands, beyond human capacity. We are the better for the Body, knit and beauteous Today, ready for Tomorrow, wealthy beyond measure in the intangibles, because in this day we have each other by our side, and we have the newfound soul whom we do recognize, whose testimony leads us, whose submission inspires us to do the same, who is an individual and decision-maker, yet one whom we do find familiar. So we do not fear to let others see us for what we are; we do not fear their mind-reading or any such magic or enmity, but rather we are courageous in being our plain self. The spirit in the Lord and in our fellow is upbeat and working, at work upbuilding and redeeming and making us laugh a bit at ourselves for our former doubts.

The world can worry itself silly about comeuppance and just deservings, just desserts. We are the mad and insane in adhering to a formula front and center of dancing in the spirit, speaking in foreign tongues, being those forgiven and knit unto a body wherein in prior life we were too sinful thus to be inculcated and imbued. We were myopically staring at our own slavishness; we were reluctant to let anyone in, because we feared what we ourselves consisted of. We feared our failure to be good and self-controlled. We feared our petty addictions and habits. We feared and clutched and coveted and were miserly.

Today, someone has met us as Enabler and Bishop to our souls, not fussing over our errors but rejoicing just in having us near and participating. Such is the ministry of a Christian army leader, to be that doctrine called forgiveness, called Love from On High, called faith that life change occurs when we first are treated as what we are not yet, when we are first treated as good people and as belonging. Then, and only then, do we begin to uncurl and look outwards and volunteer to serve a little more, if only it will mean more time in the presence of a Most High Spirit called Grace. Then, and only then, is there sensible continuity between what we once were, and who we are today.