22023-01-06 A Meditation on A Wider Sphere

“I must go on boasting. Though there is nothing to be gained by it, I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord. I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows. And I know that this man was caught up into paradise—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows— and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter. On behalf of this man I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses— though if I should wish to boast, I would not be a fool, for I would be speaking the truth; but I refrain from it, so that no one may think more of me than he sees in me or hears from me.” (2 Co 12:1–6 ESV)

The unknown is too great for any of our minds, as things ratchet about and landslides of boon or harm move into place. Wild unforeseen circumstances we remain ignorant of, as our cave or sphere is in flux, at least, in flux just beyond our line of sight and our limits of thought. So we all will reap the fruit of our deeds on some judgment day. Yet the measuring rod is not the lazy and trite set of moral rules we associate with “goodness”, but rather “goodness” is like a two-edged sword, enchanting and fascinating, apropos and humble, near and heartfelt.

Goodness is a moral act that wildly supercedes basic refusal to jay-walk across the street in front of a police officer or rote tribute paid to parents and the elderly. Goodness is found in the cesspools of society, or so-called cesspools. On the last day, we will be astonished at the exacting and aware nature of God’s Eye, as we are saved for simple outputs, not anything fancy or lofty. Our simple output is found in our reaction to the encounter with Christ. It is in how our nuclear core, atomic center, blustered this way or acquiesced that way. It is how we shot off in a mad fury of self-effacing talk or service-minded thinking of others, or how we dug in, entrenched, refusing to acknowledge Jesus just yet, if it will cost us our hoarding and covetous self-image.

That is, we can all meditate on the wider world, where all our goals and labors seem moot: we were working on a lesser sphere of cognisance. We labored, gifted response came our way, and either we worshipped the living God or we hunkered down, terrified if all our punctilious fasting and differentiation from “those people” amounts to nothing.