2024-02-22 A Meditation on Finding Calm

“27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. 34 “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” (Matt 6:27-34 ESV)

Tomorrow’s peace, Tomorrow’s legacy, scrappy to get involved in the Master’s business yet also no denial it is anything but poetic, the wandering, the forlorn or makeshift tentmaking business; we long and we bask, under scrutiny of our own devising, scrutiny that overwhelms with senses of anything but Normalcy, of having failed a task, a friend or parent, of having lost sight of what matters, of having let others down. That is, the gladsome opportunity to be busy about His business, is because we too well know those searching hours, not poetic quaintness or artistic depictions of life, but rather each day and hour, each year of our lives Seriously pent up and near failure, near the failure to self-assure, to be Normal and Engaged. We are engaged, yet at what price? What is our sanity check or measures needful unto overcoming what ghosts do haunt, what fears do unsettle, what recollections do mock?

Then there is no condemnation, it is repeated from Holy Writ, for those who are in Christ Jesus. Something of our deep certainty that in the end all is a hamster wheel or cynically bent, all this is challenged by a Word that has life in it, a Word that one-ups the cynicism with gladsome service, duty at our appropriate level and capability, that allows for a bright new day to greet the weary one, to hold us firm through the shifts and changes in life, to regale with blessed assurances of a gifted sort: we are assured, no matter our myriad failures, people let down, and complicity, a devilish brooding spirit now surrounded and tamed, tamped down by the Spirit, by the Saints, by the bastion of people unwearied and gifting their best hours unto shared Hope.

We hope yet we need Cause to announce all is kosher and copacetic, Cause to broadcast a new kind of electricity in the air, laughing at all the madness if you want actually to get down to what our days consist of; laughing at the temptations and the tests, the sense of being cornered or, for a precious moment, alleviated and lifted up. We are somehow Value-Added, and Useful; we are somehow coping no matter our outward demeanor and resume: we are worth the Master’s time and investment, because it is a personal Concern and Pragmatism He has, to uplift and to encourage, with a Word to challenge yet in good manner.

Warm feelings are no trivial feature of life: we warm to each other, and give thanks for what the day brings. We can scarcely explain just why some things have the power to reassure, and to unlock the puzzled locket around our hearts. We are on some level sincere. We are on some level genuine Seeker. We are on some level unapologetic about our choice of time spent, on tasks and distractions. We are in all these things both gently sheltered—for the Master knows what a cold world this one can be—and hastened to be built up and beneficiary of things too bold to dare wish for. God will surprise us with the morrow. God will see us both needful but also not disdained, not resented for our need, but rather ready and able to work and to learn, to be fit and certified as Laborers in His vineyard. All this is too wonderful to tamp down, too grand to approach cynically. It is an electricity in the air that spells relief and new beginnings, that spells dastardly thoughts ended, the sense of a futility that mocks us or of failure or of being off kilter with the strange ways and outlets of our life, strange pronouncements, a gently loving Friend who knows all this and yet is uninterested in our manic degradations or perennial obsession with our own sin. We are unenthused because Normalcy has become a new Fetish. It has become a New obsession, a new Fascination, a new all-in mentality. We are eeking more not less out of life. We are making peace and making hay while the sun shines. We are fascinated, not bored but fascinated, with the mainline Goodness spelt out in communal activities, in times not lost to the mockery or the time that robs and despoils, in times capable of getting things done, a jesting spirit done away with, new horizons discovered, crusading value-added miasma of Life in the good lane, in the fast lane perhaps, but in the provided-for lane.