2024-02-14 A Meditation on Plain Measure of Days
“8 But I will stay in Ephesus until Pentecost, 9 for a wide door for effective work has opened to me, and there are many adversaries.” (1 Cor 16:8-9 ESV)
Antes upped, labors not lost, our feelings no longer play tricks on us but rather we warm to the more basic situations. Life is colored by ways and means Pastoral and Intentional; to recognize these is to hear a call to live together and to often under-appreciated service. We serve, we rise up, we labor because of the sincere shade and love, the friendly gesture, the day’s conclusion to hard labors, the mentalist’s wrestling match with so much fodder and ammunition for a heart more warmed, more rising from the weary ashes. The feelings of weariness are met with souls valid and righteous, souls uncovering the outward look after a day of inward contemplation.
Service preps and affirms a basic resolve not to think lightly of each other but to see each with a Cross to bear, and somehow we are Intentional and find a purpose not all identify with. We find a service not all, in the random wanderings of life, have accommodated or made part of the equation. So to the soldiering and to the awareness, to the giftedness not resenting others their more selfish walks, rather, not resenting others what ways we do judge and assess; it is a dynamic at once easy and scarce, easily lost sight of to the crowd but to us Means and Circumstance, a right living together and appeal to accept a final resolve that no manner of labor or exercise can earn. We dwell near to a rare company of people who are value-added, who in themselves hold no selfish bargain but are the hands and feet of Christ in the world today. A rare or special crowd. A small percentage; any attempt to quantify meeting with immodest attempts to judge each other; this we put aside and scarcely measure the time between the head bowed and the solemn dedication to task.
We dedicate to task because of a hope in the stars. It is a strange peace that allows us to accept some love from On High. It is a strange uncertainty as to whether we are ourselves among that good crowd called Holy. It is a view on life that assumes the best in others, and the worst in ourselves. It is no matter, a rush to more holy time and measure, to more holy fermenting of a readiness and a heightened alert. We are alert because of the knowledge, the education, in intrusion, in the unwanted devil’s parts found where we were just working up the courage to believe in ourselves. The devil once studied and acquainted with, prompts us very strongly to Rise Up, no bones about it to Serve, no shock at the warmongering but to Fight, no humility as to our better qualities but Certain Resolve that Christ has acquainted us and familiarized us and made us once and for all over as servants. We serve, we find readiness, we stare down a legion. We do all this prompted by a spiritual war already in the early stages around us, that is, to the soldier all life has become plain and relevant to some one or two experiences not lost, not forgotten, and no more clamoring or greed for length of days or quantity of possessions; we have already made bargain and signature to a Fight we are determined to own. We own our fight and rest with our eyes half open, to the endless debacle called Mockery, and called Futility, and called Forlorn Days. All those are ended by the Purpose-Driven rising up, not halfway confident but all Composure and Certainty.
We needed some reminder in order more gratefully to be that staid Certainty at days’ end, to have the affection and the love that comes from some head-down labors. Some head-down awareness and insight as to what war has alighted upon the community. All this is lonesome, and all this is in good company, no stranger to Recognize, to adore and show affection to a cohort Plain, Faithful, laboring under the sun with no sense of resentment or any sense of time lost; we labor and we fight because of an innate drive undeserved and unplanned, just finding we do well around these parts to Serve.