2023-10-05 A Meditation on a Peaceable Place

“6 Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, 7 rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. 8 See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. 9 For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, 10 and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. 11 In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. 13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. 15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.” (Col 2:6–15 ESV)

The sum total of our life ricochets as calm and stasis meet utter regret and noisome frustration with our own deeds. The sum total must never rely on our own qualities and our own temperance, our own brisk walk and certain footing. For our footing falters. Our deeds go high octane, thereby leading a little further out on a limb that we are not quite sure how to reflect on: we cope by learning to laugh at ourselves a little, rather than to badger and critique.

If others preach calm via self-harm, via self-addiction, via self-coping, coping with anxiety, with an utter blessed arm held out to each and every lover of life, each and every patient friend obtained, each and every persona adhered to, then we too discern Love and discern Giving and discern an End to Selfish tropes. The selfish yawn, the way we say that all mankind is wrapped up in selfish sins… these are overturned by the one who gives to a fault. Who vibes off of the common shared table and the common shared dialog. Who takes no risk of being called standoffish. Who loves and jests at the faults or any visible self-criticism.

So to the soldier, who is bona fide promised unto discipline and unto a longing, a love for, service. Their tie-downs are translations unto good output, unto good fight, unto good self-utility. We are self utilized because all the angular and crimped faultlines, are no more yawned over or belittled: we are honest about a war going on; we are all-on; we are coping with the insanity of life by living an insane perch, a catch-22 so-called, a determination to thrive vis-a-vis militant Love for the country and home and brethren and sistren.

Yet not all learn to bring all and sundry to the altar. Not all know the personal fight as cause for self-congratulation for our chastities and our eagle-eyed sympathy for one another, yes, and sympathy for an enemy deceived, an enemy befuddled by our good cheer, our magnanimous outreach. So to the stations and to the battlelines. To be peace and astonishment at the trust already earned between two colaborers in the vineyard, two would-be lovers of life, two would-be trustees of a Trust beheld and uncovered, that these are Coping and Cogent, sharp and of strong mettle, to fall in love with the milieu, with the Christ-age we live into.

For we live into a Christ-age of amped up variants on our parents’ religion; their Bible on family stand, their Faith on sighing reflection and love, their Prayer at meals and at all times; we dare to announce what is happening here and now as Christ with us. We discover the pattern of self-harm, only so that we might chuckle and gape a bit, just a bit, at our foolish ways. That we might take the addict’s needle to a morrow rather than a Now. That we might embrace and disperse Love to all, no need to party quite. No need to falter on the self-control scale. No need to long for a different self or a different life lived, but rather peace and joy in Who We Are.