2024-01-21 A Meditation on Ahead of the Game
“6 Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. 7 But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”— 10 these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. 11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. 13 And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.” (1 Co 2:6-13 ESV)
Fits of energy and bouts of calm, the staying power of the Gospel meets us way out ahead of the competition, way out ahead of the pack, of the status quo; and here, sheltered yet relevant, we grow and mold and shape around blessed Encounter and blessed Mercy. We are then not ones to worry as a time-out is called: wait for these others to catch up! Wait… it will be good for the soul! Wait… you do your thing, eking something out of the shadows and out of the game, and we’ll debate and ponder what, in fact, it all means! What it actually means.
The soldier is a package deal, circumscribed and modular, as lego brick fits lego brick or puzzle piece fits something Divine, and he or she has that Blessed Space to grow in unperturbed and not hindered. Not needing to wait for the status quo to catch up. Not apologetic for the lancing forth and hasty phone calls, accomplishments, peace-making, the fight within and dance without, Inspiration beckoning to Inspiration and Promise to Promise. We are then content and peace with what little gestures might trickle down, or what clear-thinking might Inform. Inform the rest of the pack. Inform the lazily or haphazardly half-asleep. Inform the ones beleaguered and pent-up, shackled to sin or to untold regrettable sins cast their way. Untold hindrances and wide-eyed reception of the damning would-be germination.
Tawdry rags become flashpoint and talking point: here, not in the higher realms, but here lies time and place for a Gospel relevance: the soldier stooping to do the deed unobserved, unthanked for, not earning high accolades. The soldier heroic in that way-out-ahead-of-the-pack Consignment and Mission, situational awareness a zesty intake, security clearance of the star thinkers and actors, who reflect and anticipate, react and make missives of, what Realities and Circumstances do present themselves.
Therefore, in league with those who celebrate the thought-sphere, we too add that we celebrate the soul-realm; taste and pattern-recognition bringing many sons and daughters to glory. We rely on that internal longing for pattern and reason, for elegance and symmetry, for chipping away at the edifice humbled, sober, that there are not enough hours in the day rightly to do the research. Yet to research is to have an inner pattern-matching sublime and unhindered by sins any longer. No longer angular and compromised, our thought world reveals both fears and jokes, yet all these only so far as to Enter in Upon the streams of real life, the currents of passivity-meets-reactivity, solemn submission, as in reaction, as in decision-making. In the circumscribed sphere and personal perimeter, in the boldness to lance forth way ahead of the pack, we are working an at times thankless occupation, to garden and to showcase ideas Beauteous and Formative, to nurture and to cultivate thoughts sublime and profitable.
In the womb, in the feeding troughs and lighter watering holes where we are planted, here we have a call to Thrive and to Glimmer. We glisten with group-thought or group-dance, feeling the A-plus spirit in the limbs and ligaments and heart and mind, a spirit of Contribution and of Making Hay while the sun shines. Planted and utilized, we are the utility arm of our Battalion, pruned and weened, mined and utilized, dispensed with on an elderly last day, for all is done in that forward-reaching Faith that another life is forming and mirroring, one day to be our Hereafter. So we gladly serve and contribute, gladly glisten and shimmer unto a delight or art more respectable than the dastardly gamesmanship or ambition or ugliness of Man’s lower realms. Yes, our society has its strong points. Yes, Man, Woman, is gifted some space to thrive in. Yes, we are upholding ideal communities even amidst a world that crucifies its prophets and shuns its submissives. Amidst a world tempting each other to war, over things that a better ambassadorial spirit does check and repent of. People matter, and is is a sublime or secret Peacemaking that does invest Totally in the Man, in the Woman, in the Community, in the Untold Gestures and Accomplishments of that Person afforded space and protection to lance forth into the realm way out ahead. And when called to patience, to busy oneself gladly with lesser ambitions but still important packaging-up and service.