2025-02-23 A Meditation on Spirit-Led

“3 And as he sat on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter and James and John and Andrew asked him privately, 4 “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign when all these things are about to be accomplished?” 5 And Jesus began to say to them, “See that no one leads you astray. 6 Many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray. 7 And when you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed. This must take place, but the end is not yet. 8 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. These are but the beginning of the birth pains. 9 “But be on your guard. For they will deliver you over to councils, and you will be beaten in synagogues, and you will stand before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them. 10 And the gospel must first be proclaimed to all nations. 11 And when they bring you to trial and deliver you over, do not be anxious beforehand what you are to say, but say whatever is given you in that hour, for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit. 12 And brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death. 13 And you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.” (Mark 13:3-13 ESV)

Flipside to the examined life, the battlement gear in situ, as discovered, for what it’s worth: we self-analyse another day; we try and go soup-to-nuts, eagle’s perch another day. We cannot in self-awareness Master the many stages of life, the graduation or matriculation from this or from that, the induction into a more “Knowedgeable” set. Along the way, what elementary life lessons were lost or gone hazy? Each of us then knows Jesus and His Gospel, as a wake-up call to simpler times. Or a wake-up call to friction against sin and uncouth or not going with the flow deeds. We greet one another; we try and celebrate the moment… together.

The soldier, therefore, has cashed in all Ambition and Tactical broadsheet: our hunch, we’ve concluded in the final issue, is more than gold: it is the way war works, that tomorrow’s Battle… we’ll have no luxury of quite proving our outlay and demeanor to be Correct; we trust that Nazarene named Christ that our instincts are Informed and Educated, catechised and tutored, to a sincerity that breaks into disinterest when once the temptations start to voice themselves. We are disinterested in all sincerity; we scoff and look away: “Guide me, O great Jehovah… but see that as far as these vestiges, I am healed in situ, already!”. Indeed, we are after all creatures Instinctual, yet with copious Education easily forgotten or looked at with queries: what was it all, after all? Only see that we are thereby distinguished from our less educated peers, and it falls to us never to climb the rafters, but rather to find a Copious output or work program each and every day: to share. To understand. To inspire. To lead, broadly understood: for we lead in the intangibles, in things any noble soul demures from mentioning out loud.

Then the rudimentary Appeal, heard anew, called upon when we employ the professional Pastor, to understand His embrace, and His bedrock. We are of a gentler kind, in our wild shenanigans now come tired and peace unto His courtrooms. We cease to judge one another. We only can thus do, by coming to see our own wild side and unforgiven gestures past. Hearkening to the Times, we hear Life, and that more abundantly. We hear a sidelining of what is vicious, what is distracting, what is calculating, and a front-and-center playroom, jungle gym, and playpen. We are, after all, Beloved Children. We are, after all, hated on for our reclaimed Innocence. We are finally Praying, for the sick and for those whose inner monolog or dialog esteems a different sort of preaching. Our teaching spirit, our instinct, is on a world stage that lauds, that esteems, that legitimizes, this Dichotomy or Distinction, because after all: you go broad on your zany thoughts, but see them just as legitimate in the half-crazed statesperson meeting statesperson. Statespeople of Religion. Half-crazed or luminous, in the sense of it proposing, outlandishly, to answer Deep questions about Man’s edge-of-the-cliff inner Dichotomies. Man’s weird sense of vocab that ebbs and flows vis-a-vis its ability truly to Express the inner Man, inner Woman.

We are inner thinking beings because what we most want to say is, life is gregarious, copacetic, wonderful. Yet our tongue and lips speak whatever zany counterpoint comes to mind. We have after all graduated from the school of basic shield and vocation; we are a few stages beyond simple Giftedness unto intelligible speech. We speak… we try and allow, to allocate, the time and attention unto those most Basic life lessons, such as Availability, to the suffering neighbor or to the enthused peer. In all this our inner thoughts are celebratory, almost to a level not permitted.

And the flipside, then, is this feeling of wandering, of lostness, of big questions unanswered. Only this: that when the Vocation of Soldiering finally arrives claiming “This is the day!”, we will be the first to Hear; the first to Respond; the ones gladsome that the pre-war stage was a war in itself, and that as one won. We won, because we saw all life as this prelude to War, all life as an Immediate Call-Response, and we dared fuss no more as to our fittedness to Answer in Prayer, in Diametrically-Opposed, in Stand and Bold Attention to the Nazarene friend.