2024-06-12 A Meditation on Human Interaction

“12 Now concerning our brother Apollos, I strongly urged him to visit you with the other brothers, but it was not at all his will to come now. He will come when he has opportunity. 13 Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. 14 Let all that you do be done in love. 15 Now I urge you, brothers—you know that the household of Stephanas were the first converts in Achaia, and that they have devoted themselves to the service of the saints— 16 be subject to such as these, and to every fellow worker and laborer. 17 I rejoice at the coming of Stephanas and Fortunatus and Achaicus, because they have made up for your absence, 18 for they refreshed my spirit as well as yours. Give recognition to such people.” (1 Cor 16:12-18 ESV)

Really laboring, the obvious puzzle in human interaction is to assess some magical or mysterious way, just how people—who don’t scarcely begin to identify with each other—still do love simply butting heads or embracing or staying at respectful friendly distance. That is, we each have a cavern of thoughts, and each of us also can experience a soaring sensation in which our deepest faults or ill memories, by some divine equation, we can laugh or reason through: such was just my love for so-and-so; such was just my stirring the pot a bit, our folk needed it; such was just covered by the gladsome exchange: my sins for His hard work.

But to the point: we each of us warm to the presence physical or virtual, of a friend; we delight to do good by one another; we intrigue to have a bit of embarkation, repartee, gifted our way; we thrive to know hey the mystery is revealed: God has made friends for us to joust with and to dance with and to bounce ideas off of.

But to the rare find, us flying high perhaps but at same instance in the trenches: it is good parenting, breeding, education that teaches us: one sentence at a time; work yourself up to the task; soon ideas will be flowing just plainly and comprehensively. Soon, you will understand a bit more—because you were taught humility—about the unknown of another soul. Another presence. Another aspect of the cipher, of the equation. Thus the mourning—but hope in the Resurrection—when someone is taken from us. Thus the certainty the Good Deed is done and effected, made real: that deed called Resurrection. So we only mourn so far, and then turn to one another as those folk we will going forward make do with.

Therefore flying high, but simply-minded, we can envision—use whatever models, parables, dance moves, sequences come to your special and individual mind—ways people gestate this way and that, what Jesus called “birth pains”, as strange New Alliances suddenly form or dissipate, ways those deeply invested are asked for their entire holdings to be sacrificed in the interest of actually making amends. For wrongs, perhaps, but only if done so willingly: each party has brought their brand of ruin to the equation (we humbly ask forgiveness). Entire holdings loaned out or handed over in the interest of doing One Christian Deed. For, the equation is blurred as to who exactly is the guilty one in the mix, and who the Jesus-imitating one, who is just as happy to bear that sin as any one other sin.

Flying high, warmth percolates and benign expenditures accumulate. We see a future war, perhaps, seeded in the most exasperating encounters: others, with we say ill intent are madly doing anything and everything possible to malign or degrade. Yet we can see too their trustworthiness and likeability; their “sphere” wherein no longer a weakling or needy person, they afford to themselves a poise and respectability we had forgotten to attribute their way.

All this to say, no distractions from the onset of Christian War, but rather that near to the flame suddenly all manner of Choices present themselves. All manner of, no not distractions but rather heightened alert, do demand our attention. And in this we live and thrive, because that State called War does endear us one to another for the sake of the trench camaraderie, the bunker hospitality, the zany life under pressure: we long for and love this camaraderie and heightened state, until it arrives and then we invent other future hopes. But for now, let us be content to know the overflowing goodness of our digs, and the One who made it all possible with a wild-eyed Prophecy called Death and Resurrection.