2023-01-17 A Meditation on Getting it Done

“We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work.” (Jn 9:4 ESV)

“I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.” (Ec 1:14 ESV)

In the time it takes us to live out our days, we see our own knowledge central, and we see or anticipate our own eventual passing of the buck. There will come a time when our centrality ebbs, and we will not be the purveyors of fashion and knowledge. Is this a fate more scary than death?

Hiding out in theological frame helps not a wit, all that helps is that we know the Person, possessed of largesse towards all comers, named Jesus. His largesse is a design, or sociological phenomenon: unashamed of being central in matters of thought, of religion, of social structure, of authority (rather, butting heads with the authorities), yet not becoming proud. We try to imitate.

More than that, largesse spells celebratory spirit, again not according to logic (for all shall die, and all face a disconnect between that celebration and the cold facts of life). The connection is a doctrine that is true enough, a doctrine that faces the stark realities while also resolving to celebrate.

So the roommate in good cheer, the careful scientist at their office hours, the parent or witness to a challenging burden, an unfair burden, on these whom they tutor, yet instilling some spirit of joy, of celebration, of largesse.

All this resolves into focus around the portrait of the man or woman embarking on a sortie or journey or forward sojourn. Here one’s life is greater in value than all knowledge or fashion, yet it is put on the line. It is of such high value that the newsreels write themselves: so many dead, this many injured, however many dying. And the time will come when we can, in this life or the next one, rediscover and relive the central tenets: in some sense, eternal life promises us that we who were fashion in thought and study, always will be fashion in thought and study. Others have settled for a lesser bargain, and therefore they will always reside near those lesser fruits; but all things in contentment. In celebration. In largesse.

So our “homework” is not cause for nightmare (“How far behind I’ve fallen!”). We have embarked on this journey knowing that life itself is the mode and fashion, to speak of being the first signing up to die for the sins of an enemy. Take that! See that we are sharing the victory (for, after all, your inimical life is preserved…) while also sharing the defeat (see the life of the one who, victorious, died for cause…). So we converse on a plane that merges celebratory spirit, largesse towards the lesser socialites in our midst, with the truth that this joyful one may be dead tomorrow. This spirit of grandeur may, in utter blasphemy against the value of her or his life, go the way of the river Jordan to an afterworld. So in these things we keep the spirit flowing, the fire warming, the warmth a blessing that is shared for these few moments.