2025-03-07 A Meditation on Comprehending the Heavens

“4 Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart. 2 But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God. 3 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. 4 In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 5 For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. 6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” (2 Cor 4:1-6 ESV)

Combatting all heaven sent Unction, the reasonable mind tries and make it all add up. Tries to explain simply “liking”—two people, a crew of people, who vibe, who just “get” each other—each other. Tries to explain simpler motives, or all being ebb and flow towards a ruder or more elementary stage of life. That we never actually “like” or “Commiserate” with anyone, except that it was some elementary need or rationale for being nice. For warming to the occasion. For putting on our best side. Yet ask the manic-one-turned despondent. Ask the soldier in the trenches. Ask the alert and stark Reflective One, reflecting on righteous and significant Decisions being made. For these, the warmth of Unction, the no-time-to-be-cynical Positivity; these things End all sophisticated “reason” or “thought processes”. Thought processes, like the Apostle whose “high learning” was driving him “mad” (Acts 26:24), in and of themselves… they are not our Eternity. These thoughts are not our ticket to Ride. They are not our Reliant, Go-To, reliable measuring rod or magical spell or adjudicator of what-all is Holy, Righteous, and True.

People therefore were designed to comprehend the heavens, while also told to remain “innocent of evil”: that it is okay when people “get” each other; it is okay when a long Fast is mocked by how vulnerable it makes us, to the end of explaining it all away: I was just hungry, so the food seemed Right. I was just longing, so the friendship seemed Reasonable. I was just vulnerable, so the affections Made Sense. On some level, are all of us compromised? Rather, does Love replace measured legalism?

Therefore we pat ourselves on the back as those Soldiers who Advance a creed and a doctrine, a mindset wherein we each Contribute: to the group-mind; to the group-sensitivity; to the group no-time-to-analyze Readiness. Warmth. Oh, someone from “Around the way”, that is neighbor hearkens to neighbor, because of an unwitting “Fast”, a legitimization of holy longings for Unction, for Compassion, for something Shared. Even whilst the removed one, the clutching and planning-out one, is aped and frustrated: No More Friend Requests! I have work to do! And the sense all of us share, of being post-Career in the sense of just wishing it would all one day Go Away. Go away, the sense all is measurement and that we are appreciated not for “us”, but for our deeds (if this, we honestly reflect, was after all what we signed up for! Laud me for my high learning!). That is, the most sophisticated in our midst are also living on a prayer, ebbing and flowing around just where the circumstances are too Dire to deny Plain Love, two people who just Like each other; two or more who just Vibe.

Because we decided to go All In: with the soldiering Call, you cannot make it up, no poet is denied a Window: the high-minded Bold and Courageous lifestyles found in the trenches. People inventing new manners of age-old Heroism. People alone but with a thought of something Grand worth fighting for: the party, where friendships are—with no cynicism—made and reformed. The pat on the back when we’ve done a friend a solid or made our career move a success. We are a works-based people, but in the heroic Soldier’s Mind, there is after all the muscle and courage, a grateful appreciation of life and love for it’s own sake. That people are found unappreciative, is no cause for concern: I forgive them, she, he, says. That the war has so bled out as to be found in the house party or the peaceful cityscape. We are, after all, suddenly amongst Friends, when that gavel drops, that gauntlet falls, the Judgment is made by people we half worried over and half lauded in our always-nervous and querulous Minds.

We shall be judged. We shall know Eternity in an instant. We shall resolve only this: that the Unction be cause for life upon life, to live into that personable gifting of the heart of hearts unto the crew. Unto those Needful in and of themselves. Unto those to whom we can be that Christ who is firm around Basics. Basic need, basic undoing of all that high learning, to appreciate and find out Somewhere needful of Spirit, of Overcoming, of those love letters hastily penned while Tomorrow beckons to a new face and a new Cause most divine.