2024-12-29 A Meditation on Revision and Tradition

“24 Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church, 25 of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, 26 the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. 27 To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. 28 Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. 29 For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me. 2 For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not seen me face to face, 2 that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ, 3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. 4 I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments. 5 For though I am absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the firmness of your faith in Christ.” (Col 1:24-2:5 ESV)

Majorly revised, majorly inventive, majorly authorial, owned, taking-stock: the set-in-motion, accelerant, momentum: it jests a bit that near approach to the sun, that gladsome greeting and embrace around some Promise scarcely worded-out, as we majorly take stock and live in the moment around the Call to be near to the broken-hearted, relevant to those of dubious spiritual stock, germane to the shoes-not-fitting cohort.

That is, we approach the sun and majorly invent, because some Foundations can only be seen while in motion, while drawing near or shying back: we need be Religious if we are ever to take full-on Ownership and Inventiveness and Revisionist mindset. That is, again, that what we are is plain for all to see: God’s Faithful, Traditionally-Minded, Here Situated in no uncertain terms. And yet we live on wings and a prayer, inventive, revising, testing the spirits, checking the waters; we are close to so much that passes as ludicrous, as beneath us, as crazy talk. We are close to so much Urgent Today Call to revise and invent, making up as we go what comes Naturally, God’s mandate, God’s atonement, God’s orchestration, God’s induction as soldiers most gladsome, who wear that uniform in full awareness of its Momentum and Pride, its ecstatic movement-addled Promise and Composure: we are officers most sublime, most divine, most situated to be eyes and ears, mind and soul, to the gathering-in of intel, of Promise, of Kept Neighborliness, of wild-eyed fantastical career trajectories: you, O son, O daughter, shall be for the rise and fall of many.

So it may be, that to live Authentically, to live Religiously, is to open a cornucopia of Potential and of call to Revisit, to Author, to Invent, to live on wings and a prayer. Our pleasant day dream of a social engagement, family, near-to-kin, friends and neighbors, this leaves us Aware, of each other’s burdens, even as we put pedal to the medal and nose to the grindstone of our own Life Together, Life Employed, Life Busy, about the Master’s Business.

It all seemed so up kept, so kosher, so heartily expressed, that best friend—for lack of a better word than next-of-kin, sister, brother, spouse and so on—who grew into a role created by their better halves and alternate alternatives, is Today called to know our Creed and revise, revisit, remake, be the potter’s house and the stitchery, the loom of Life Together.

The Master then calls upon these His creation and soldiery, to Allow, to Reflect, to Awesomely be struck to the heart, by the wild-eyed family on patrol, wandering the downtown streets and the church sanctuaries. These are trying times, most bedevilled with false concerns, with pathetic likes and dislikes in contrast to Measurements and Qualities. Some things spell a wealth greater than anything the eye can fathom.

We had learned the ropes, and then commanded widely the ship, commanded because the path is new every generation, and every year of each generation. We were called upon to Live Into an inventive Otherness, no fuss around first principles, because in those principles we Thrived and Invented and Remade. The parents’ approval just in principle, that this tack shall pan out and play out as some Rational, Reasoned, or at least deeply Felt Embrace of the religious qualities of man. What they see as prophecy, we feel as the chitter-chattering souls of Promise, alighted upon, Inventive and stark, fit for much journeying, for the times they are hazardous.