2023-06-11 A Meditation on Making the Most of the Hour

“6 Now as a concession, not a command, I say this. 7 I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another.” (1 Co 7:6–7 ESV)

“36 And after some days Paul said to Barnabas, “Let us return and visit the brothers in every city where we proclaimed the word of the Lord, and see how they are.” 37 Now Barnabas wanted to take with them John called Mark. 38 But Paul thought best not to take with them one who had withdrawn from them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work. 39 And there arose a sharp disagreement, so that they separated from each other. Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus, 40 but Paul chose Silas and departed, having been commended by the brothers to the grace of the Lord. 41 And he went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches.” (Ac 15:36–41)

To compete, to give expecting nothing in return, to dwell in a future-space, to make the weary investment and live into the malleable personhood: this defeats the ways that society judges. We move a step beyond the plain and the ordinary. We love for the sake of loving. We jive for the sense of the dance. We receive, not able to repay in return. We act as one, and Believe in a final practice round for life, a.k.a. for the real thing.

We practice and commit and adore that spirit which puts up with our random presence, that actively loves, that fears not to make jealous but rather understands the day is young, before the hastening night we take a moment for a bit of gratitude. We are the ones giving and plain-spoken: we shall do this and more, regardless of the coaching and the zero-sum measures.

Regardless of the question mark: shall there be some officialdom, some commitment, some earnestly sought unknown. We are grateful for the day’s tidings. We are bleary-eyed from the pure extent of fellowship, going strong unto the waning hours, doing it all up proper-like. We are soldiers, making the ecstatic fun of a party prior to deployment. We are equals and worthy, deserving a friendship not marked with its celibacies but rather completed and certain: this and more shall do. We shall no longer resent. We give no quarter to false senses of couthness. Life is uncouth and what value is found in the hour, such value is ours for the remainder of this brief life.

This, and no more. No empty sense of promises that were not founded upon the Rock. That Rock is a better guarantor than empty words. That is no call for chaperones and oh yeah, how close comes the weary regression. To a former self: is it nothing but pure ethics that protects from the indulgence or the unfaithful jaunt? What would it mean to go down that admittedly real avenue? As if it were even a possibility; yet anything imaginable is possible. Can we make today’s penitential pose as though we were so weak in the flesh? That is, finding bedrock without finding transgression? Can we dismiss the drink or the flesh, or do we have an “Oh yeah” moment: here I am again, back in my former sins and longings?

Therefore friends make better promises than might be expected: friends are a greater gift and boon than mere vows. Friends know a thing or two about the candle burning at both ends, and unafraid, unsubmitted to society’s assumptions: apostolic in being sent. Together in thoughtful exploration. Gifting each other with legitimacy and untold benefit: this just may have been therapeutic, reviled as it was. This just may have been strengthening, cynically as it was received. This just may have been unveiled truth.