2024-07-18 A Meditation on Hoping
“19 But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart.” (Luke 2:19 ESV)
The staying power of life, of yearning for it, of letting it well up, of being surprised by it: all methodological fears, all fears of technique, of coping, all arisen facts of getting started on the problems of our day; these sound out our best manners and duties, as we live near to that shared bedrock with no time to fuss or let negative vibes ruin the day.
No time to let the base camp see strange things peculiar to wartime, the Lord of the Flies devolution, the weird ways we assign value to things when on some other front, hypocritically, we are out to lunch, unable to affect any change, duty-bound or situationally forced to allow and to allocate resources of time and energy.
We cannot wish upon a star as though certain things needed not be stated to the tribe, certain things needed not be held up high, and saluted. We are strangely products of God’s love and His refusal to let us be seen in a negative light, seen as sinners, seen as ill begotten children, seen as hopelessly out of touch with more subtle vibes.
It bears repeating: these are good folk; these companions are the stuff of heaven sent Vision, patient and useful, servants and kindred spirits, the faultlines, the difficulty sharing or paranoid ideations that afflict all rank of personages: these return to that Bedrock wherein, no time to fuss, we note Affection and Space Dealt Out.
We note turning over a leaf that is uncovered not with masterful oversight of the Scene followed by judicious decision-making, but rather is borne out of a Dostoevskian long night of the soul, a Joycean existential revision, a Sartrean end times, a Biblical sounding heard: that Man is in dire need of salvation. That Man is going to wake up precisely in counterpoint to his or her totally defamed lives. That each is a tender soul, a precious ointment, a staid jar, and these certain All-In experiences are preciously preserved, avoided for a time of youth, until the knocking of Christ at the door is too loud to deny. Is too Personal to escape. Is too astonishing to dismiss.
Astonishing, the simpler gospel met with the tragic nature of a Life too hard to stare squarely at, because of our flaws and errors past and responsibilities for careless words spoken, for things we can’t help but fess up to when asked, are we all composed and held together. We are now as soldiers of an urgent League, who dare to live because One has dared to Die. We are hope-filled and spiritual precisely in contraposition to all time spent in the classroom, learning the ropes, in the school of hard knocks, not spoilt nor having robbed our right to Experience, to Knock-At-The-Door, to Life in Peaceful Commune. If it is astonishing the levels of degradation and faults we fear define us, it is all the more astonishing the potential and Promises we hold dear.