2024-03-20 A Meditation on Outed as Strange

“16 Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. 17 So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. 18 Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him. And some said, “What does this babbler wish to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities”—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. 19 And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20 For you bring some strange things to our ears. We wish to know therefore what these things mean.” 21 Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.” (Acts 17:16-21 ESV)

Attuned, recognisant, individually trying to advance our cause mindful of hindrances, of what is triggered in others through no fault of our own, points of contention, points of concern. It is a strange attunement wherein triggered in our own frame of mind is some plainspoken confession or strange and rather awkward self-realization: we realize, when loved on, the things we never talk about, or have not talked about up to today’s stage. We are in strange ways like the leper or the demon-possessed, that is, vis-a-vis a place genuinely peaceful we come to know, we come clean, we remember and take full advantage to stun the Christ-like listener with an awkward vision… one coming to an end if it is indeed true we are Loved.

Minding our own lonesome, and keeping to our own prerogative, it is a rather sad state of affairs that we should even have any enemies. It is a rather sad state of affairs that anyone should take issue with those unfortunate unintended trigger points: the sense of our own Peace Discovered being reason for Hatred directed towards the penitent or towards the Lenten-Inspired. We are inspired, today’s good idea may cost us everything; it is a strange furlough we are on when we can work day after day, ourselves triggered and headache-ridden because of perceived slights, strange ways we do emerge from a potent depression or meaningless bout with slight or lack thereof, with lack of focus or rather a pressing compulsion unto staring in to space. It is cause to give thanks for what plain meaning we in times past have truly found in labors, those labors we long not to lose sight of.

That is, for once our internal battle simply with getting anywhere beyond base camp, getting anything accomplished romance-wise or career-wise or otherwise, has made mockery of us in impoverished state, and then when receiving something we never knew we had, namely, the Legacy of Christ, we innately and insanely cultivate—never intending to—what are plainly enemies. All this is a bit of the stuff of humor were we not hindered by what strange trigger points our peer did hear in our let’s be honest sincere voice. We were sincere, and forgot that it would trigger a gulf, a broad hatred or uptightness, a lashing out and sense of personally also being convicted in unwanted measure. We saved all we had for the Christian Soldier’s benevolent Duty to mankind, until it became Cause for a strange hiddenness, us needing some scope and place and environs unto the end of recuperating, of coping with the weight of another’s disdain, until it turns out half we imagined and the other half we can loan to Christ, lean on Him, know we are not called to be all things to all people, but rather our personal Quest leading to Discovery has borne fruit untold, and it is to be expected it will meet with ignorance and disdain. Such is the wanderer. Such is the explorer. Such is the pent-up enemy whose deeds past are already causing them to blanche and get priggish and uptight.

For, it was no easy time to be the “Christian” in the secular fold. It was no easy time to have parents who refused to allow us to go out with the crowd, who set unfair expectations, who didn’t truly preach to kin and friend plain speech of The Cross, as cause for persecution—yes, persecution even in the simply-striving, endeavoring, youth amongst us—and hastened to the Reward, our souls actually Content, Grateful, Peace and Joy in an adult faith. It may be too much for the child in each of us. It may leave many questions for ma or pa unanswered, especially if our moments inspired are never aligned with the moments Together, in place to ask and in place to explore, experiment with hazardous-like speech, with upsetting the forced calm and apple cart, with insisting we never go down the route of frustrated and hateful obedience but rather do learn and self-discover that Christ is For Us, the One who went to the Cross is our legacy and place in this world. And all shall be put to the bonfire of time and of leapfrogging new testimonies, only let us do the labor and the work simply because we love it Now and in the Moment, not for some future exasperated concession to some reward, an ice cream or pizza night or any of those things that have trained up the Child to do the loathsome and awkward Christian Thing. For the Christian is awkward and leperous at times, demon-spelt and strangely sick. The Christian is in touch with the Cross of Christ as a dying shame, a dying ugliness, a dying turn-your-eyes-away Moment. The Christian, yes, is more than what a child can and should bear up under, until we learn that the yoke is easy and the burden light, that the Christ’s messages are readily understood by that same child who knew simple genuine tears at the Cross seen, who was not cynical or perplexed or conflicted like their less simple parents. In all these things we are the Victors because we loved on all Peoples as God-given and were found soldiers At the Ready Today, for Tomorrow’s unneeded reward. We need no reward, being content with today’s Peace and Discover upon Believing.