2024-08-04 A Meditation on Calmer Times

“12 Now many signs and wonders were regularly done among the people by the hands of the apostles. And they were all together in Solomon’s Portico. 13 None of the rest dared join them, but the people held them in high esteem. 14 And more than ever believers were added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women, 15 so that they even carried out the sick into the streets and laid them on cots and mats, that as Peter came by at least his shadow might fall on some of them. 16 The people also gathered from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those afflicted with unclean spirits, and they were all healed.” (Acts 5:12-16 ESV)

Hair-raising brinksmanship meets patient words, as words have the power to calm and to acknowledge Christ. With words we attest. With words we honor and salute. With words we announce all those labors called good works, that fill our days: the inspired Saint who nods a bit with words to the spiritual disciplines of the day, and how that both has power to heal—their focus being on something Safer and Calming than the untold spiritual demons of the common classes—and have power to harm—the notions of yet another Practice to be done in light of some higher Echelon to reach and some Works-Righteous extent.

That is, it is rather curious in this Blanket Day of Grace being announced, to hear of “I just spent some time getting right with God in my thought processes”; “I went through a bit of solemn prayer time”; “It all calmed me to have some alone time with the Lord”. For, those sentiments proclaimed, are sentiments that immediately created race situations: we are racing against each other, to prove that we have not ourselves neglected to be Near unto the Lord, as it is called. Rather, we are racing without knowing it, against an Alternate Gospel—our Gospel—that says all need immediate Mercy; we do our bestest to ruin good things that come our way; we are futile and hopeless until God shows up unsought after and unpetitioned. That is, we are hopeful precisely because those “youth” in Grace, we can after all Love On them and proclaim a higher Mentalism that accepts and blesses and tolerates.

Yet to call it the crux of our war is an understatement. After all, to be “clean-living” and such, this is not our own fault if we feel we must after all fail on those terms of Approach. We only feel we fail—for, let the record show just how in fact “clean” we are, at least according to the rigors of Scripture and Tradition—because our Gospel starts elsewhere. Our gospel knows of the racial minorities onslaught of guilt trips felt and precursory judgments tossed their way. Of the lower and working classes. Of the “illegally” joyous poor youth in companionship with each other celebrating something they have no right to celebrate in. Our Gospel knows of a Calm not relenting nor conceding a single Thing unto the devil; all need Mercy, and this somehow strangely and illegally believes that Goodness will take care of itself. We need not nod to that totem. We need not invoke anything insistent or petitionary unto Good Works. We know: we always want to say, “And that was the last time I fell away; I promise never to make such mistakes again”. But we know Real Life to be more hit or miss, more come and go.

Friends in trying situations, friends judged though poor, still judged for being too elated or celebratory; hated for how their poverty convicts each of us as to our Estate so abundant and provisional. These we are pained if we cannot help. God’s economy means starting anew with Grace, starting anew with a Gospel not so much political as Effectively Grounded, down-to-earth and Rooted in the uncompromising Love of the Father and Son. Yes, for those brief few minutes of the drawing Nigh unto Jesus, in these moments trouble disappear and we End the rat race of Good Works. We End the false hopes and false claims. We dare to be Forgiven without being Perfected, for it is only in light of a Mercy Untold that Perfection begins to mean anything. Perfect in Experiential Grace. Perfected in Uncompromised gladness of heart. Perfected in Love despite horrific inequalities and hardships.