2025-01-08 A Meditation on King Surveyor

“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 survey the land, automatically we think our own gig supreme. If you give someone a hammer, everything looks like a nail. If you give someone a shovel, everything looks like dirt. Meanwhile, to make things just “go away”: the inconvenience; the demand on our time; the perceived joke at our expense: to thrive is to undercut some current of insecurity, some lack of domain-expertise, some proud or frantic haste around high Potency, Authority, Bravado. We seek Potency to cover the conceit, that our gig is supreme. That the world today is just a few folks, or a few “religious” (or name your domain, your crucible, here) squabbles; the seminarian’s pride that he or she, in submitted, meek residence, is nonetheless the listener to the world’s confessional, the community arbiter of all right and wrong, or let’s just say, all that is mastery and centrality.

Only then this: that we are those who are possessed by a conceit. The sacrament, however, is not around “Eventually” getting there: it is Here and Now; it is to be blessed and immediately Sent Forth, Authorized because life is a riddle and a moonshot. We needed that oomph Yesterday! We needed it last week! We say each day, all things new. We accept it Today! The consecrated soul’s, soldier’s, walk with Destiny! To fix the puzzle of how to show right submission, in a way that invites not disdain or allegations of wrongdoing. And to pony up with our own practice in the art of servant leadership: each soldier a leader, each hotelier or mayor, governor or community organizer, a host most Visionary, that the world teeters and… and we get in that business of “hearing the confessional” of the most qualified, who by this same token, are the most meek or slow to put their dog in the fight.

We err. We also however laugh at the punching bags our people have become: rocking the boat, and if that is the best charge against us, let it be: all people have rebellion in their DNA. All people have healthy protest in their bloodline. All people… if authorized, then questioned: then made over with a priestly criticism or corralling, with a priestly guide rail in place, because though leader, also Sinner.

The soldier wheezes and the soldier dies, as faux interpretations prevail: this and such authorized the bad behavior. This and so legitimized the murderous spree. Such and what announced the flagrant need to Punish, to Discipline (did it start as a game? Did it start couched in so-and-so’s plausible storyline?) And forgetting that to rock the boat… moneys are lost, power changes hands, and this time around, this next Civil Disobedience or Rights Movement: next time we shall go full speed ahead in Contrast and Opposition. Like before, only now wiser and more rambunctious, more threatening and more effective. So they say. They want it all to be more “normal”, even as the poor are robbed.

And therein to discover our own injured pride, the opponent even perhaps—this we allow—smarter than us, to put up a few invented signs or false honeypots. The enemy… this we pray… that insofar as we Understand the battle, we automatically come down on the right side. It is those who are proud, who would never dare concede to setting up a bit of a false front to test, a “draw” as in the chess move, a false flag flown: because their response to the War is merely frustration, exasperation, pride. They are too proud to test the opponent’s waters vis-a-vis friendly banter.

How about a little chit-chat, or is it sacrosanct that chit-chat will “tempt” you away from the “Cause”? Is it frightful that to engage may indeed prove oneself Wrong? At least on some things. And that to “rock the boat”: all of us have our brand of rebellion; to be on this side not that does involve fear and trembling, at the powers that be; and those without this fear and trembling, though superficially “friends”, ignore that they have no fear or religion around Authority: they schmooze; they bribe; they cheat; they feel above the law, but in fact are the enemy to the people. And we have a patient faith, that those—whom we approach with fear and trembling—will hear the gentle pleading, will make the right judgment call, will see in us meek citizens not rocking the boat, or rather, doing so with a Forward Vision that will be a blessing to all, even as the mountains become plains and the plains jut up as mountains and hills. Today, all life is in flux.