2024-10-18 A Meditation on Calm

“6 If you put these things before the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, being trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed. 7 Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness; 8 for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. 9 The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance. 10 For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe. 11 Command and teach these things. 12 Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity. 13 Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching. 14 Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you. 15 Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress. 16 Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.” (1 Tim 4:6-16 ESV)

Calm… probably the most unexpected fruit of Encounter is the bonkers way each individually reacts, not always at least at the outset with Calm, but with a hundred unanswered questions, with a hundred flip-flopping temptations, simply with puzzlement as to what to wear or what the Faith Statement, after all, means.

And Jesus hands us our combat boots then waits for us to debate and finally put them on. That is, we have to get used to our status as Saved, as Forgiven, as Company and Companionship. The shock factor of falling by the wayside into some “ultimate”, “horrifying” sins, is simply the birth pains: we are those Newly Born. And as Newly Born we are already possessed of radical and utterly rare mineral find of valuable simple proclamations. We are testament and witness to All Things encountering All Humanity. All Humanity’s foibles and flaws, All Humanity’s buzzwords of doubt or strange life lessons finally voiced, All Humanity’s quirky appeal finally—now that we’ve found Love—to lean in and lean on and generally to rise up newly Composed, Confident, Vocal, Petitionary, weirdly satisfied.

The soldier has his or her marching orders, only what and how do they mean something to the Individual? We ingratiate into luscious climes in part in total lack of gratitude or awareness of what a Beacon, what an Outpouring, what a bad side ruled out, we’ve come across: simply that our interlocutor is of a sane and intact modality; simply that our interlocutor was raised with simple innocence and a right way of “doing things” around here. The Vast Unknown is filled with ghost stories. The Vast Unknown is there for when we are ready, big leagues rather than semi-pro; and to couch our faith in no methodological “certainty” or logical “proof” but rather in a missional Trust Fall, a Finger Pointing unto His Cross, a strange faith in the day’s own projects: this one or that, who proposed a faith statement to share, this one or that, who said something lifelike and living, this one or that, who are and who become just whom and what we are Sent for.

Calm is therefore a battle, a duel until we correctly balance Novelty, a Novitiate’s Insight, a Newcomer’s audacity, with the sage Calm so hard-won and fought over. We fought, because we were alternating in our mind between that vision of heavenly angels ascending and descending, and that last manic puff of the nicotine or strange sense of something always doubted as to its sincerity: were we ambitious in our conversion? Were we trying to get out of a Duty or a Job? Were we engaged in some battle with another soul, and trying to find a winning hand? All this takes away from us that, if we doubt our first conversion, then well today we can convert just in case. We can today literally see the ten percent rule: ten percent of our soul is reliant and submissive, but the remaining ninety percent too can come to the Table and find a meal. Can find a path leading through utmost suffering, if we are all in. But utmost suffering only in wordly losses: our heavenly Gain is surprising and offensive to an observer, which observer wants all things to be measured and allotted and “fair”.

Backing off, then, the conversation in a chance Christian “encounter”—on the bus, in the street, at the home—may be Grace or it may be lack of courage, the courage to approach and to describe what God has done for us: each is in that conversion Freefall, battling fright over whether we are permissible and attractive, battling fight over whether our sufferings are for the good reasons, battling a tearful sense that this movement or gesture could even be our last “Christian deed”.

We are called to Convert, and in this Conversion to listen to the prophet in our midst, while also looking to the martyr in our midst: Christ. Who has more than a blanket outward appearance of faith, but rather has some soup-to-nuts going-all-the-way newfound Convert’s homestead: Jesus for us Today, a martyred fool for us Now, a simple offensive Testimony for us Instead. Instead of all thoughts that “Law” must sign the deal, ultimately. We need not do anything upright to earn salvation, we need no warnings about drifting away when once we’ve been Touched by Experience Divine and middling and central: once saved, always saved, and the fear over forgetfulness or self-branded successes in life, these all are insincere and false worries. We shall not forget just who raised a smile, called out our name in the throng, went with us to hell and back, in the interest of reshaping our souls and marking our hearts as Christ’s own forever. That we may have instinctively what we once had glad happily and eagerly, the convert’s fresh Courage and wondrous sense of Gift from Above. This is ours today.

Flip-flop, because we immediately—should have listened to the teachers!—set up a legalistic scale to measure ourselves in. We start a fast, we promise never again to do something, we make our apologies and promise a new and amended life. Forgetting the duties to society. Forgetting the promises to a friend. Forgetting the honor to our parents. So to have such endeavors broken anew: this is Conversion. This is deep certainty we’ve tapped into the Good Morals, yet they are not the substance of what saves us: we have learned the fasted or celibate life, but this is not what saves us, only it makes us more respectable or approachable in the community of faith—or more reviled. What saves us is simply that all roads lead to the same conclusion: Man, Woman is birthed in sin, and this is occasion for us to rise Triumphant in a New Teaching, in the Blood Shed, in a convert’s fresh and novel Insight. We are gift and substance of a Missional Outreach, one that has promised a New Reality and Kosher Community beloved from On High.