2023-02-23 A Meditation on Glimpsing the Holy

“And he arose and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mount of God.” (1 Ki 19:8 ESV)

Glimpsing into the beyond, we each find cause with cheer to go to the battle. Glimpsing something holy, glimpsing what lies just beyond, not yet out of reach but left to be in its holy element, we are cheered and have good countenance. One day. One fine morn we shall wake up to a life in the hereafter. We know what it is to Encounter, and it ends the scheming, cynical rat race. Betrayals, panicky gestures, all these things are moot when we’ve seen that Holiness is no factor of living the right kind of life, but rather it is a factor of being gifted from above, with faith, with assurance, with patience, with solemn loyalty and devotion unto the Vision.

Jesus walked the periphery with us. Jesus together with His prayer life, opened the place beyond the veil. Jesus broke us down with plain speech, that we might rise up together into that vision of God, that holy space, that place fit for longing and inspiration for the fight. So we see the glimpse of the Holy in companionship, in a liminal waking moment amidst sleep; in a word patiently heard, that changes the temperature in the room, in the field, in the campfire circle.

We keep our own vision secret from the hoards. They won’t understand. They will resent us our sharp tack amidst generality and bland public. Our sharp decision. Our sharp statement that, wasn’t just we who were prodigal, but that we bequeath that blessed estate, that estate with holy glimpses, unto our partner or peer or friend. All three, then, blessed as themselves deserving of what we are here to claim, eternal life, “no need to worry about me! I’ve got arrangements and history!”. We boast sometimes too quickly of not needing anything more. We are the elder brother, along with being the younger prodigal, who by nature nurtures and protects. Yet none of this is to our credit if it doesn’t lead us to bended knee upon a vision opening up. Holy glimpse. Patient wonder. Broad exploration. Let us see what this new world consists of. Let us see that our vision is peace and joy, almost a belligerent delight, so that today we can in mundane things fight with good cheer and happy basis.

Happy foundation, to have each of us our one date, with the “wrong” person according to some, who announce their disapproval with a glaring “hello”. But we have our uniform and our patience. “Enough, I can subsist on what I’ve seen. Take me to the lines!” To the battlelines. To the occasion to be valiant and unmoved. Taken up, no longer wondering if our enemy is simply a figment of our imagination, but putting aside all charges of imagination, we accept new friend requests, ones that supercede any prior arrangement. That supercede any history unpleasant. That speak to us because we guessed rightly that things were both more innocent, and less innocent, than we had thought.