2025-02-07 A Meditation on a Hint of Tears

“12 When he opened the sixth seal, I looked, and behold, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood, 13 and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale. 14 The sky vanished like a scroll that is being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place. 15 Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, 16 calling to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, 17 for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?”” (Rev 6:12-17 ESV)

Platform hides bedrock tears. The action items, the day’s prerogative, the soldier’s outlay: deep in trance the vision still is interrupted, that tears shall be shed over an as-of-yet undetermined Cause. Our platform, therefore, and our action items, meld with a Spiritual Caretaking. We know a dream-world probing, connecting, reaching, unto the Utmost Things, Higher Callings, Patient Deliberation. We know as though tethered to those one-day Tears, that it will be like we were frantic and methodical, purposed and aggressive, even though the larger picture was incommensurable, was tearful, was Reminding us that we are but dust in the wind.

Our tears, our patient Labors: these are in mind of the Impossibility of the whole endeavor, after all. If it is Impossible, how much more shall we be in shock-effect, He-Man strength, soldier’s impossible Toughness, because we had the zeal and the prerogative to Fight.

To fight against the entire apparatus of feeling impossible, feeling flawed to the core, feeling happenchance or only here by coincidence. No, we had a heaven-sent Mandate here to fight. We had a heaven-sent bizarre oversight, beyond the frail trail of tears and crumbs, to fight like the Alert Level was heightened and we, we were simply Equipped, Muscled-Up, Capable, after all. Capable, though in gentler times we relished the therapist’s couch. Capable, though in simpler times we made mess of our giftings and our life’s purpose. Capable, though in quieter realms we doubted God was real, doubted His agency being in our best interest, doubted because we hadn’t, after all, met such a Father figure, Mother figure, heavenly Parent. Who heard us weep through those waking dreams, dreams stark yet curiously inviting. Dreams that interrupt us, and leave us to wander or bask in the Dream World suddenly recollected. To remember a Patient lifeline and to be Certain, if this is Judgment Day, D-Day, then God certainly saves us as though through a minefield, as though through a bastion of pitfalls and things that only scarcely do we overcome. Because we Believed. Because our theology was of Man’s utter need and dependence, no matter how “saintly” we are, look at our complicity in the starving of a person halfway around the world; look at our dream life melding us to a national tragedy, as though we were the hijacker. Now see things closer to home. All of us need that sense of being saved by Grace alone, not by our deserving. And this Sense, this leaves us comfortable to know ourself sinner. To know ourself Needful. To know ourself Reliant. Like a friend who has some mystical Ever-After role and calling, this is a shoulder we can lean on. We know these friends because we together celebrated some Life-Affirming Discovery, Uncovering, Reality-struck Tomorrow and Hindsight beauteous as to what we only just finished celebrating. Now, I am rebel except not rebel unto my own kind. Gladsome and willing, to step aside and see the friend or the lover attack, fight, Represent and Speak for us.