2023-02-01 A Meditation on Backwaters

“for a wide door for effective work has opened to me, and there are many adversaries.” (1 Co 16:9 ESV)

Probably the most corrective comment on standard thinking is to recognize the backwaters: just because we are free and liberal in advancing the cause of Faith, does not mean that it is a useless endeavor. Just because the enemy on this front is quiet, does not mean we are laboring in vain. The soldier believes in a step beyond just tit-for-tat and measured give and take. Just because we can do something doesn’t mean that it is a futile effort. Just because we meet all stripe of opposition does not mean our outlook is hopeless. There are indeed other venues, where peace does reign.

That is, one tends to assume progress of any sort is always met with an equal and opposite reaction. But in fact we have idylls, sanctuaries. The stupid dialog we can have with evil, is not needed. We don’t need to ask permission, to set up shop in a backwater or in some unobtrusive place. So we labor on, not boastful because, after all, it is only a backwater. But hopeful, because Jesus came from a nowhere place.

Our elite notions of finding mainstream society, of finding a place rife with competition, are sadly discouraged because the enemy, if discovered in the wild, is overwhelming. Today we announce such thinking, however, is flawed. We no longer invite opposition, even though we know our God is stronger. We no longer play those kinds of dice. The soldier is fighting a quiet war, even as life goes on all around us. People assume today’s war will be with big bombs and technological fallout, hacking, manifest newsreels of trench upon trench upon trench. But the soldier is aware of those places of flashpoint, and the hidden front, and the thankless endeavor. Some give their life for a war not broadly acknowledged.

Such the Christian understands as a holy call unto a post-dying life: we have died in our own plans and self-righteousness. We have finally given up and thrown in the towel regarding all we wanted to earn in life, and all the life experience we wished to notch up. We were ready to say, “No more: I am content simply with my meek prayers of contrition”, but a rejuvenating and resurrecting Spirit Holy said this and more shall be given to you: you were once entrusted with a little; now it shall be with a lot. Cancer and decay is washed over with a healing that does rely on those backwaters, those creases and ligatures, those empty wastelands. Then, neighbor to neighbor, our Gospel does spread, proclaiming that the same peace found here can be found in your zone, in your heart. We capitalize, cash in, on the great boon and years of capital gains, because of that momentum that is begun in the wastelands and backwaters. Somehow, society is healthier for the sake of a few well-placed souls, and a precious few see this and begin the brigade of investing once more in a future of hope.