2024-02-27 A Meditation on Life That Beckons

“7 For you always have the poor with you, and whenever you want, you can do good for them. But you will not always have me. 8 She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for burial. 9 And truly, I say to you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.”” (Mk 14:7-9 ESV)

To the curious all life is beckoning, and to others there is rather lazy cynicism or typecasting: what to some is an entire milieu or state of existence or moral laxity (in the finest sense of what passes for upright life in community) is to the naive, to the innocently blissful, a foreign concept. No, the naive, innocently so, is not opposed to going the distance, not resentful of the lazy proud nor the cozy church member. And somehow in that exchange, in the daily nothingness, having no things and being accounted no worth, there is a determined trend of Life More Abundantly. We are abundant, in our strange little haunts and in habits or gowns of something Radical if a little silly about ourselves, some way that Grace is the ability to make fun of ourselves yes, but also it is the strange Persistence of quality love, life together, no political give and take but rather all things up for grabs, all life a Loss, all inquisitive spirit blissfully ignorant of the abuses of the more titled members of society. And yet are said abuses even real?

To be sure the poor person on the street corner, even in the very moment of receiving a sympathetic glance, is pilot and author of their own world and its world view; they are sinners, too; they have accepted obstacles we would never allow for ourselves; on principal they may shine, but the truth is all people rich and poor alike are in some manner of speech sharing a burden. Called sin. Called ease and entrenched disregard for the more subtle aspects of a moral cause. Called pride and ignorance.

And yet if it makes us feel good about ourselves, do not go too near to the bargains made by the poor, for fear of being rather convicted ourselves. Rather shown up, would you say, by the making-do-without. So to the strange perch, forgiven finally for our wealth and ease, because somehow landed, alit upon us. Something made this lethargic showboat or entitled lazybones actually Wake Up. Something brought honest perusal unto what sacrifices others make. Something justified—that is the word—their ambient walk on this Earth.

Miracles do happen. The rich learns of a dynamo or system of weights and measures not nearly so onerous as the fears announce. The fears are that we stand not a chance over and against the perilously in love, the ones in love with life and partying like there’s no tomorrow yet also doing so because nothing stands to be lost. Reputation gone, friends few and far between, all these things showing God does not have any trouble with the sliding scale afforded to All People. All People tidy up good and there is intrinsic Verite in stories of coming to Jesus. It offends the comfortable and causes pause for a murmured prayer to the fellow traveler: what chance does this one stand? Why, if some are gifted in ways measurable, are others asked to prove their insight and worth on less quantifiable levels? How are we to face the two-fold reality of life Unbearable, and life Merciful?