2024-10-03 A Meditation on Memories Sufficient

“4 Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, 2 so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God. 3 For the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry. 4 With respect to this they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you; 5 but they will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. 6 For this is why the gospel was preached even to those who are dead, that though judged in the flesh the way people are, they might live in the spirit the way God does. 7 The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. 8 Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. 9 Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. 10 As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: 11 whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.” (1 Pet 4:1-11 ESV)

Cashing in for gratitude, cashing in for thoroughness and completeness, cashing in for satisfied status: life’s mysteries, lessons, jaunts, endeavors, and enigmas coalesce to the end of juxtaposing, readiness and no hanging on, no miserly holding on, we dive bomb and jump at the tether, and make the plunge, content and letting that or this wedding feast and friendly party go into the history books. That was all, that dream, that knowledge source, that mesmerizing what-if, and that in turn brand of gratitude that solo travels, solidifies around sacrifice, the war front, our role in it, and no more parties for this precious servant hour.

No more parties, as though that were a burden when Tomorrow Outlook is ours today. As though it were a burden that are fabulousness and shine became instead of a yawning height attained, becomes a casus bellum: we fight for the sake that others might have this experience untainted, unimpinged, intact and door-to-door delivered. The Tomorrow Party is here and now, in the uniform, in the creed, in the strange lessons that Patience has afforded and adopted into our thought-mechanism: we learned patience, and then ceased with such stark assessments. The religion may go the way of the gypsies, for all we know; but our own role, our own Tomorrow, may instead not toss out with the rejectamenta a primarily Good Thing: any Good Thing has compromises to patch up and mend. Any Good Thing has weaknesses, points of failure, to reconcile and correct. Any Good Thing bedevils with its very opposite, people simply herded by group mind, unto assessing a New Thing evil and tempting: “Let’s do purgatory” say the religionists, but worse, “I deserve purgatory” in the lips of the newfound faithful. We do it to ourselves, regardless of friendly blessed invite and belonging ministered to us by so many souls.

We do so much to ourselves in the name of making logical the ways we be moral and upright. We instead learn not to ask but to Announce: I am of the brand called Saved; no doubts here, no long-suffering prescribed here. And what is okay in dream and landscape divine is also no cause for separation from our Christ Himself, our Patron Saint and Friend whose means and parties were tantamount to blasphemy, so indulgent and anointed with ointment and patiently observing were they. He lived with people deeply Moral, whether Jew or Roman, there were societal structures: and in Christ we can dispense with all that, only some things—see the ten commandments—it behooves us with a little wisdom to indulge some law: no adultery, if that can quite be quantified or expressed in tangible terms (the more we avoid certain tracks, the more they themselves—the very act of avoidance—can push us back on our heels) but no joke, simply saying that we go no farther than a conversation (private? Is private permissible?) with the married one, or with we ourselves married.

We can dispense with all that, only the football is found in rather uptight and pent-up churches, where we discern a question around Law and Gospel. Where we begin to hear the drumbeat and the marching orders spelt out: O servant of the Cross, O militant torch-bearer, be so patient with these who have not satiated the desires; be so patient, like with children, with these who have not moved on from childlike flirtations and gasps so holy; be so patient with these who are no less—no less at all—sinful than every large crowd, but only this, that they acknowledge and point to Christ. For that sake, have pity on them. For that sake, dream of a Tomorrow when the sins that plague and infest be gone. Christ will do that. He can. She, our Holy Parent, can wipe away every tear, and dynamically change the pent-up nonsense to lived-out unction. We are peace and safe in believing. We are not frustrated nor petulant and judgmental towards the Grace-Bearer. We are letting the last be first. We are begging, or rather, prayerfully beseeching, God on High to rescue today Someone; Some People, and please may it begin with us? Or may it begin—we concede—with some other party, only eventually alight here with us?