2023-07-25 A Meditation on Various Callings
“4 I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3 eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” (Eph 4:1–6 ESV)
Melded minds. The soldier’s calling is no brawns over brain but each person reckons intellectually with the same game and program, the soldier at ease and peace with the thinker or the sociologist, the scientist or the motivating leader. The soldier is counted upon to have an ethos and thought life, a sphere of conscientious decision-making or imagination turned to prayer life. The soldier knows only this, that we major in punctiliousness, in timely output, in no-time-to-delay sportsmanship, gamesmanship, fashion and function, all in service to the Cause writ large, social progress, national endeavor, global conscience-over-plunder.
No longer plundered, the world wakes up to that peaceful, loving enlistee’s bark and command: today’s mandate, warm the fellows and the gals with Purpose and Cause. Heat the communal melting pot. Announce the waters widely stirred up: that yes this day is as good as any to make a solemn turn, to eradicate sin and enlist with righteousness. Today, all of us are game to do some forgiving. And, as we tell the kids, we hope to as well tomorrow, only the waters simply aren’t always as stirred up; the time, rather, is always Now.
Therefore the purpose shared, the minds intertwined, the love for a fellow’s or gal’s intellect and imagination, all this and we are giddy for finally having a confidence that an end—a waystation along the eternal way—is on the horizon. What was impossible, if love and camaraderie are involved, becomes possible. And we erase the morning blur, if it comes, by no-nonsense recollection: to this endeavor I have a Calling; to this output I have a gift or a necessity; others are stuck in that mire of thought; my consecration and my vows are to act out of a necessity. It is necessary thus to act, because somehow I have been able to have my confession heard, forgiveness pronounced, certainty I am no longer too “corrupt” to fashion up a word of motivation. Thus we are those scientists of society and of soul. We endeavor and we strive, to be a people prepared and aloof from sin in the presence of the Almighty. We deign to sit back and Let God. We are healthsome because we are receptive.