2025-02-15 A Meditation on Availability

“32 And they went to a place called Gethsemane. And he said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” 33 And he took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be greatly distressed and troubled. 34 And he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and watch.” 35 And going a little farther, he fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. 36 And he said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.” 37 And he came and found them sleeping, and he said to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep? Could you not watch one hour? 38 Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” 39 And again he went away and prayed, saying the same words. 40 And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy, and they did not know what to answer him. 41 And he came the third time and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? It is enough; the hour has come. The Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. 42 Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand.”” (Mark 14:32-42 ESV)

To be available, to coax a response from lifestyle more hazardous, more extreme, more sleep-deprived and flailing: this is to put aside cozy climes and go no-holds-barred Extreme unto the Service of the Saints. It is to put weak knees aside in favor… not of cynical Machiavellian calculations, but in buoyant, exuberant, Right-to-Life heavenly celebrations.

To have missed the boat. To have yearned a bit too sinfully. To have put aside scope and caution, in favor of inviting back in those spirits belligerent and of calculated attack: we are attacked, for our genuine sympathies; we are attacked, for our self-giving friendship; we are attacked, when all seems sleepy regarding Faith’s Teachings, and all seems copacetic and warm around the yawn of disengagement.

Tomorrow’s war is therefore Today’s war: that somehow Death itself is defeated, swallowed up in Victory, that we mosey about town and in our hoped-in, anticipated, loved upon, engagements and journeys, only self-cautioning: today may be our last! More: the nonchalance may perturb our better angels, we becoming somehow reclusive or morose. That is, go for the gold! Go for broke! Go for the all-things-yes mentality of a Pauline enchantment. A Christian ecstasy. A Believer’s gladsome victory dance. God has won the Victory. We are likewise Victorious because oppressive labors have birthed beauteous repose. We repose, rested and in all things timely, in good time, when the Spirit so wills, unto a timeless Refusal to be morose or overworked.

So it is a calculated Victory lap we do, because our inner spirits are not defeated, not sullen, not wearied beyond repair. More: the days give way to Prayer. What once was glimpsed, this was a Christian, Spiritual, Trinitarian Availability and Presence unto a life ruined and eeking out a subsistent living. We don’t need Jesus any more, when we’ve got all things going our way. We don’t need His brand of Presence, when our life is unquestioned, unexamined, unchastened. That is, His ability to be colleague and friend even to the self-composed, is a Miracle: but His secret Cause surrounds matters of the penury, poverty-stricken, ruinous self-assessment: when we are Hungry, properly, Thirsty, rightly so, gone and broken, ruined and self-harmed. We harm ourselves, or would, would that Jesus were not right there to calm and to compose us. He magically, mystically, equates that friendly pat on the back to the Winner’s soul, unto an embrace and True Friendliness to the haggard and wearied soul.

Each of us can be this for each other, only we pray—if ambitiously—for that Pauline thorn in the side, lest we become too self-made and yawn over the poorer sort of pains and owned melancholia. We are pinched, we pray in silence even as the rest of the platoon has raced out the door to celebrate. We seek… and find… the hunger Met, the thirst Assuaged, the ruin gently Repaired.