2024-11-24 A Meditation on the Pool of Life
“12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit. 14 For the body does not consist of one member but of many. 15 If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? 18 But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. 19 If all were a single member, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. 21 The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” 22 On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, 24 which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, 25 that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. 26 If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. 27 Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. 28 And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues. 29 Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? 30 Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? 31 But earnestly desire the higher gifts.” (1 Cor 12:12-31 ESV)
To flourish in this vast pool called Humanity, called One Body, called a biomass a therefore a zipping along spirit-mass, is always to live carefully, having our own cautionary tape and—as O.T. writ instructs us, a railing for our parapet, lest anyone should fall from it (Deut 22:8). We are Respectable and For Real, no longer living in that bleary-eyed hangover or question mark as to just where our simple ship has drifted off to.
We are for real, but still the regretted encounter, the face-to-face entered in upon in dread and certainty it will be like taking lumps, no camaraderie shall result; this is the fact Man lives in stages, and sometimes we can be—it feels—a little too fast and loose for the more stultified and stodgy.
Yet too the mensch, the friend who plops themselves down on some Line or Platform, and lets this and this alone be their Appearance and Invested Wealth. We call upon a far-off Day when the stodgy shall lighten up a bit, shall finally feel firm footing even if formerly we ourselves seemed to fast and loose. That is, the Established Church—this is a Harvest of the Lord frightening and due reverence in the minds of so many, and where is our self-flagellation, our self-imposed lumps taken, our fear and trembling, our Caution and Staid Stoic Wistfulness?
Because those New are those Minus the resentment and the flustered reading of the day’s Scriptures; sin invents itself upon any Body that does not approach in all sincerity, that does not regularly self-correct, that does not Embrace Today a Message for the downtrodden and the Outsider, for the struggling and the heavy-laden.
The new convert is fresher, upon opening those cherished Words. The new convert is so near to the fire, as to blossom and light up in Testamentary Witnessing. And we cherish, therefore, that Existential Leap that means Lives Saved, a railing to catch-all, a Certainty that if there is a way to fall, then falling shall occur. That sees role models mocked or spoken of irreverently. That Ends the illusion of even-handed Decision-Making: we are not assessors per se, but rather Go for Broke with the Cross of Christ: life shall not be a measure of how well we rationed out some give-and-take, but rather shall occur in the twilight of logic and fairness, a need for Zeal to replace even-handed rationality, a need for that Ouch of the first volleys of War to spark up and kindle a flame, a furnace or bonfire or masked charade where our camouflage face paint frames wild-eyed Severity and no-regrets new Tomorrows. If we err, we forgive, because the greater error has already taken place, Him on the wooden Cross, we left holding some few simple denials and distractions.
See, O soldier, the life oblong and misshapen, no time to pontificate and adjudicate per man’s reason, but time to be cultured and wild-eyed and Committed, Invested, Angular and Decisive, Fashioned, taking a platform because we cannot just sit around being level-headed.