2024-09-24 A Meditation on Emerging
“44 While Peter was still saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word. 45 And the believers from among the circumcised who had come with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles. 46 For they were hearing them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter declared, 47 “Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” 48 And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked him to remain for some days.” (Acts 10:44-48 ESV)
The whispered chancy words of a last confession meet the whispered joyful words of emerging. From a chrysalis of obstacles instructive and obstacles abhorrent: we emerge, as though via a dying day. Last words and testament made in those whispered tones that Still Believe. We Still Believe… that it is Satan, not father or mother, brother or sister, neighbor or teacher, who squats us down under a behemoth weight, who scoffs and mocks in our general direction, who intends things for us no right-minded Christian would even dream up.
These are careful words because it is all that our life amounts to, these few testamentary thoughts; yet a carefulness emerged and changed to fluidity, ease, soft spoken diatribe. Words that will save lives, and save souls, or that point to a Heavenly Father in whom is no guile nor deceit. This is our earthly father as well, whom we honor, and earthly family as well, but profuse are the wounds of a friend, copious the kisses of an enemy (Prov 27:6): what we boast in, in private we roast and rightly complain over and love on. We love on each other, yet the Obstacle then presents itself, and it is no alternate Reality of the Self, but one from a Satan, that needs overcoming.
To the ramparts, then, to the line of battle: we accounted so little as due ourselves, such that we came and went as a whisper in the night. We blessed this earth with our presence, and it being a presence falsely constrained, rather, lovingly vouchsafed to Thrive and to Flourish, by said father or mother and sibling or earthly commiserating friend, the constraint was lifted and the excited Youth Within blessed on those lovers of soul and of life.
To the line of battle, it is a nice solemn and curtailed a bit testament, that we are those Saved and Loved Upon, and that we are those who did hear in the hasty curtailed Witness a Personal Mandate: live the life, be grateful in all things, bless the soldiery and fellowship, no time now to revel in how Awesome and Wondrous God’s creation has proven to be, but rather Man the ramparts and Tend the watchtowers. See? We got by on less than the casual society-member of studied and patiently awaited Faith. We got by on wings and a prayer. We hurt for the sake of a Word in Season that Blesses, and for a something-in-the-air that silences a bit, that leaves jaws agape a bit, that changes the Temperament and the Cool Shade of our Life Together. Such is the Power of the Word of God. Such is our Heavenly Father’s loving Will for us. Such is the immediate banking on the pure quality of the endeavor, of the words, of the soldiering at large, of the grand entrance or patient, ongoing Presence.