2023-04-12 A Meditation on a Mentality
“Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.” (1 Ti 4:7–8 ESV)
Out of a mind fumbling and seemingly inept, God grants the day of simple things. God grants the measured Day One, Day Two, ad infinitum, by which we approach God-things insofar as we are granted an education in Faith. In the Gospel, we are today reinforced: the tenets are learned, the fine structure graces chaotic minds, personal sorts of parables prepare us to think out loud and in radical fashion.
For we know our thoughts are of high caliber if they are found in Christ, trained by great teachers, overcoming the empty cage of individuality, and shaped around factual encounters with what we might as well call the Truth. Man’s best endeavors to capture, what the Scholastics of Church History thought of theologically, what the Reformers thought of as cause to live and die for, and what has been reworded and brought to the present day on the shoulders of so many.
For we languish left to our own devices. We reappraise the edifice, the mountain we intend to climb, in gentler attitude. We do what needs to be done, not burying talents, because we have grown up and are serving in a mature and responsible way. We startle at what focus God gives.
Out of a mind curved in on itself, patient labors through the music of the spheres, patient praxis around a Teaching, is startlingly, today, this very day, calling on us to testify. It is no slog through more and yet more of this education, but “But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim);” (Ro 10:8).
No time to fuss as to the experienced one coaching the inexperienced, no time to attain to a third-eye kind of enlightenment based on works: God’s love is immediate and coaches itself to the one willing to be humbled by it. There is a hasty immediate need for us to witness: all this is a fait accompli, already, and in the here and now.
The Christian soldier has already fought in the war, has already encountered the initial battle, has already formed trust networks and simple friend requests, in this desire to serve. To serve is to hold a high ideal, questioned in the off hours but never quite lost sight of. The soldier knows a Gospel handled well by each of her or his peers, who delight in an unimaginable factuality of the whole matter: it is resonating as Truth. It is harkening as Plain-speech. It is prepping via the good intentions of those further along, to help all present to be children of a living God.