2025-01-22 A Meditation on Re-centering

“12 While he was in one of the cities, there came a man full of leprosy. And when he saw Jesus, he fell on his face and begged him, “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.” 13 And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, “I will; be clean.” And immediately the leprosy left him. 14 And he charged him to tell no one, but “go and show yourself to the priest, and make an offering for your cleansing, as Moses commanded, for a proof to them.” 15 But now even more the report about him went abroad, and great crowds gathered to hear him and to be healed of their infirmities. 16 But he would withdraw to desolate places and pray.” (Luke 5:12-16 ESV)

Rediscovering the command, the impetus: shorn hourly, asked to berth in some prearranged mess, talked down to; we rediscover the mandate by prayer. It was, after all, a noble vision. It was, after all, an earnest vision. It was, after all, a daring vision.

We dared: to embrace broad appeal in our Faith, that is, to Appeal to man’s better angels, longing as they do to “be Christian”; “set up the game, I’ll play!”. “Sign me up!” Yet the truth on the ground is, spiritual assassination, or general plague-like malaise, and men, women, go under. They go down for the count. They are shorn of their Courage and their Edge. They go absentia.

We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak (Ro 15:1). More, we Believe in some tantric Coming Together where all rank and order, all alignment and submissions or superiorities, matter Naught: where it is a conjugal dance most sublime, most divine, most aligned. We were, after all, called upon to be the foot. Or the hand. Or the heart. Or the frontal cortex of the mind. Or the memory. Or the sympathy. Or the lungs.

To pronounce, therefore, Peace on this front alongside Patience on that front, Humility on this other front: these things are still yet edgy, still yet sharp and pugnacious, but also Peace. No limelight peace or fuzzy edgelessness, but an alacrity, a wokeness, a germinated Momentum. We are seeded and momentous. We are Ambitious and calm. We long to aspire for the higher gifts (1 Cor 12:31). Because our converted life is a transposition of our pre-converted life. It is no basket of little rubrics, tests, joking tit-for-tats, jesting comeuppances, but rather a longing, a sad at times, further Vision for a day when all wrongs shall be made right. When all our sins have been re-channeled, composed anew, into Qualities. And if this one, or that one, is a bit far afield, off the beaten track, and so on: who are we, still youthful in education, to judge? Who are we, still too jocular in the sense of sinful, to flail aggressive? Who are we, still too proud, to assault?

The church sees herself as a benign presence, ignoring the quantum mechanics: the observer him or herself affects, influences, changes the image seen. The church cannot just say, “Go here, do that for a season, invite others to church why don’t you”, without a careful look at herself in the mirror. We each of us are either tainted with the church’s sins, or hopeful in the church’s firm Mandate. The church is Church Militant until that fine day Church Triumphant. The militant church, this one is principled and audacious, proud and fighting, scornful and trustee to great things.