2024-06-14 A Meditation on Innocent of Greater Ills

“6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7 not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. 9 As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. 10 For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.” (Gal 1:6-10 ESV)

Probably the scariest definition of grace is the hideout or unknowing aspect of where we make our abode. The average person on the street, wise, thoughtful, cognisant, empowered, is mercifully afforded a level of unknowing as far as “things too lofty”. That their reality will be mightily pinched in a coming Day of Judgment. That their friends are in some regard an accidental product of their poverty: who, after all, would stick together if some new wealth became part of the scene? That their very existence is absolutely hated by people with rather frightening spheres of influence?

All this to say, that our annunciating tone, our conversation starter, our “putting up a flag” in this life, in this world, is part and parcel of that same Divine Mystery: that rapport is found; that like speaks to like; that conversational affinity exists across tribes; that precisely in inverse proportion to our surety of footing, is our Blessed set of Promises. God sees a Trust Fall as the beginning of a more welcome form of hidden Grace, Mercy to the one who has so little to go on, group-mind in some measure Capable to take the helm, or at least to put a modicum of shook estate in that “Other Mindset”.

The mindset we abhor. The mindset we are blissfully innocent of: for even to comprehend the sins of others, is in some manner to be familiar—yes—and guily—that, too—of them ourselves. So like babes in swaddling clothing we are finding that the Hurt is absent now. The Fright is missing by the tomorrow. The Helter-Skelter is Not Phasing Us: we are all put together, safe and Ready to begin, just to begin, to Decide and Adjudicate and Plan and Delimit our life’s causes of focus and plans. But all this, in light of an absolutely frightening case of Humility: something we’ve earned, making apologies for one deed or lack of deed after another. All this in hope that those whose false confidence—they hoped in a fantasy, in a phantasm, in an imagined Strength—will ultimately reach Reality and begin perhaps to Live and Let Live. All this to say, what can we do by way of Educating the populace? Only this: that those who prayed patiently over our fledgling souls and bodies and minds, did so with legendary Patience, with Hopeful Promise, with Confidence, and the Courage to rest easy come night time.