2023-03-26 A Meditation on Resilience

“And he said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those in authority over them are called benefactors. But not so with you. Rather, let the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as one who serves. For who is the greater, one who reclines at table or one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at table? But I am among you as the one who serves. (Lk 22:25–27 ESV)

It is amazing the resilience built into the woman or man, yet also is the power of recollection, of being brought past haggard mind to a former time. For, it is no spiritual exercise to remember the former times, rather it is an occasional gift to go back in time and perhaps know something prior to this gestalt, this war, this unkempt state of affairs. Even then, a different war, a continuity with the present self; we occasionally break out of the existential flash-changes that suddenly and without recollection brought us here, and find coherence and continuity. We properly mourn decisions past, and see a linear track unto our present self and ecosystem, orbiting world.

For we fight as distraught, but at the ready. We are post-trauma, soldiering ahead and peace in our aging frames. We are held together by a responsive or reactive soul, ready to do battle and sharp in its hoard-nothing, save-nothing, clutch- and grasp-nothing, readiness. We are ready, and we are calm; we measure our days, and value every moment. Each moment is worth something eternal. Each moment is both that locus where we are fixed, and that exploratory foray into what may be, into what prayer teaches us, into the expansive reflection on our own deeds. So in the trenches comes unknown vision, dream, inspired assemblage of ideas. Just of ideas that pass the time.

That is, so long as someone is fighting on the line, all of us need go there in prayer. Else we become insensitive, in denial of our brothers’ and sisters’ plight, too cowardly or nervous to go there in prayer and too uncaring to feel the obligation. Therefore, any one prayer made out of our own entrenched and battle-worn heart, is a prayer that takes us there, and that vouchsafes our soul unto salvation. We do not choose the battle reality hefted upon us, but we do choose to keep mindful. Even if less fashionable. Even if less flattering of our baser self. Even if tedious and too basic or banal a task by some assessments.

The times of feasting will come. The wedding party of the Lamb shall recognize its proper guest list, and find our names there, because we cared. Because we mourned. Because we were in completely uneven ways lifted up: God caring for this one this day, and letting the other go by and by, not yet promised over unto salvation (but still, we hope, one day to meet their God). The leveling is no entitlement. It is not our “right” to be amongst the guest list. It is not our certain thing that God should deign to favor us. Rather, to each in season comes their hour of trial, and to each in season comes some miraculous quality of soul wherein they had a caring thought rather than a callous one, had a servant’s mind rather than a bossy one, repented in season and in good fashion. For to repent is to come at salvation from the flipside. It is to claim a heaven sent “right” we have to turn badness into good. It changes the woman or the man. It bears fruit.

Then the pain, the dreams, the breakups, the sad news that so-and-so won’t be seeing you. These are not future visions but rather insight into our deeper fears and the heart’s seat of pain and worry. For they may be followed by the reverse dream, of loving assembly and participation together. So we know in God all these things bear some resemblance to the truth, but it is our false emphases that turn the plan for salvation into a frightened moment of pain. Instead, let the positive spin on things take root. Let the truth added to truth be the message. Let the fears, instead of denying the dream, let the fears be aired out towards a recollection: “Oh yeah, that rejection or excusal already happened; this dream is just to strengthen me upon reflection whilst held in the bosom of the Lord”.