2023-07-22 A Meditation on Heart for the Battle
“29 Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. 30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”” (Ac 17:29–31 ESV)
Into the gray, time was we thought and had space to deliberate. Only then came the madness. Then came the awakening to a war already underway, no time to delay. It behooved us to go great distances on initial testimonies alone. It recommended itself to us, the sage march and the hope against hope: this faith cannot be held in a safe remove, but informs each and every action; it is a trust fall, a leap of faith, all-encompassing, and our Identity in the Lord.
In precise and exact terms, to make a Christian confession is to Decide against a myriad of alternative thought-spheres. Warring battalions, headspace surrounded and under almost sadness were it not that there was little time to mourn. Mourning our all-surrounded and blotto visions of chariots and footsoldiers, of a people facing loss and whole new environs. Of a people no longer possessed of their gifted, inherited, implemented freedoms to think, to design, to create and parry, to have the conversations and the purposeful nights on the town, eating and drinking and somehow dutiful even in former times of peace, dutiful to a platform and stance that we enrich, that we mine and salute, bearing allegiance to its Call unto all who shall hear: today, join up; today, fight on; today, end the hounded rat-races and the beleaguered maze runs. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light. For terrible things and more ye shall see. For, we seek a people converted and under conviction, not some pie-in-the-sky remove and distance from anything truly felt.
We feel, and we submit at once to the truth claim that this is no war to sit out in yawning remove. It is one that calls us Today to have a testimony and a Creed. It disturbs waking thoughts with waking dreams: that we in our igloo or cocoon are in fact part of a vast wargame and battlefield. People are suffering, and only the Gospel of Christ has the power to speak a word louder than death. Only the Gospel of Jesus has the staying power and audacity to put to rest all fear of the grave. Only the Gospel of Trinity has the power to gift us that cocoon and solemnly obtained personal space of peace, to research and to think, to put life on the line in each day’s march but also to thrive in the good humor of our ticket.
Our ticket to life is one greater—in service and belonging—than anything powerful we might covet. God has met us right at that space of entering in upon a Divine March and Simultaneity of Step. We are dancers. We are group-mind and servants unto a Brain and Soul who feels each and every pain of his or her members even more, perhaps, than we hardened and brazen foot soldiers feel. Therefore our Call is plentiful, rich in nutrition and visually easy on the eye. It is our cocoon and our prize-laden maze. It is our solemn journey this side of Eternity, in certainty we have upon envisioning that battle joined, seen precisely on what terms Judgment individual and team-wide shall entail: yes, a struggle; yes, a stark vision; and, yes, a delight finally in being held in the palm of His hand as we so journey forward and into eternal life.