2024-08-17 A Meditation on the Hearth

“3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, 8 which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight 9 making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ 10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” (Eph 1:3-10 ESV)

All of us thrive when near to the flame. The hearth beckons and bubbles over with life. The hearth is the Doctor’s prescription. The hearth reaches and encompasses, majoring in Life and that more abundantly. The hearth gives back in tenfold or a hundredfold, impatient to bless, any and all deeds of service input in by we the populace.

Also the hearth has raring to go temptations near at hand. We do not thereby wish to be at a safer remove from the hearth—loving, as we do, Jesus—but instead to embrace a teaching of Mercy. Yes: the ways God blesses us do bring with them temptations and devilish binds, but rather than fleeing the overall cradle and womb, we repent and Accept the renewed Applicability and Relevance of that special place, time, and circumstance designed especially for our upbringing.

For the hearth is a lean machine, an event horizon, an auto-pilot Divine, a passed over wilderness, a burnt-over special place charred within the abundant forests of life. The hearth begins in our Acceptance of Christ’s Presence, and then His Mercy, and finally His Peace. We can go to war even from within our special hearth place, because it is newly-redeemed, feng shui and Calm, meditation and synchronicity, teamwork and reaction, that rules the day. We can fight the good fight from within our hearth space, because it is at a distance from our sinful and possessive, manhandling and owned, inner Present Dialog. We do not dialog so much as emote at a dreamy distance, the fighting spirit and the reactive thought. Life does what it does and we, saintly and in Prayer, in Dance, in Fellowship, at a distance do the Good Deeds of the shared Plight and shared Fight. By automation. By refusal to be interrupted while we pray over this the enemy and him or her the enemy. That the enemy, all this the enemy, but we: calmed and weaned, are nursing nonetheless still at a Fount called Mercy, much more Mercy than any immediate and present State of Consciousness would either allow others or request for oneself. We are terrible to one another at times. We try to make of our religion a shield and perfect response, to avoid any and all future hardship by plaintively repenting of or praying through it now: see how clever we are. But the promises of Scripture and New Testament writ, are that trials shall come, but that we have One who went before us to His Cross, whom we follow and understand has brought us near to dying, that the more we may live.