2023-11-16 A Meditation on Mental Training

“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 Ti 4:6–16 ESV)

Ears trained, there is a certain suitability, an acculturation, where to go deep is to go strong, ideas the remnant plethora of more than scraps from the master’s table: our remnant is bound up in our duty, vivid dreams, vivid life upon life, vivid insight.

Ears trained, the uniform worn, the soldier’s get-up, today calls each of us to go a step or two, to more than dabble, finding treasure that surrounds all we get up to. There was a time, a nigh exchange, of Savior’s blood for our inspiration. For our remission of sins. For our discovery of a patent Church amidst a overwhelming false church, a Church real and vivid that hears, that absolves, that gives that one-shot opportunity, yet not once but rather if and whenever we need it: to testify. To point heavenward. To appeal to our fellows and gals in the pew beside us. To claim that society is ill-made as a confessional. Society will judge. Society will exclude. Society will complain. But Church! Church is mercy upon mercy. Church is strange accolades for strange men and womenfolk. Church is not knowing anyone else’s sins, but being front and center about our own.

The ears we are born with become the ears we are reborn with: strange that some see us odd or hemmed up, aging or asleep. Yet God is not sleeping! Christ is not dozing! And in each of us this God, this Father, this Christ, is in self-defense mode, a sleepy attentiveness to our immediate faux peers and an eager love and desire for our legitimate partners in the fight. Who go near us as much as they, as we, send each other forth. Into the world. For ears dutifully to hear and to have transcribed and to unfurl sail or unbury map, to alight upon the wings of duty calling. To be for each other a gladsome testimonial, what is heard in said staid confessional now heard loudly for, pastor being our friend, the church is ready and willing to forgive if only we are gifted an advocate, a preacher, someone to speak up in our defense. For, when Christ forgives us, people and society forgive us. Yet we need that story that gets passed on. And some things… some things are passed over with a bless, that is, until found out is the story of a city on a hill, a lamp that cannot be hidden, a humored reaction to man’s certainty that he, she, is going southward unto the depths of immorality and unforgiveness.

For it is a moral thing to forgive. It is a mind attuned to the need for some semblance of goodness, we need some way to contribute it can feel like. It can feel we need don uniform and sword, shield and helmet, winged feet and armor, simply to have a mission that we simply haven’t the time to worry we’ll mess up. Simply to distract or reassure or to sacrifice our own lives because we’ve come to hate ourselves, rather, come to question our repose or socially-acceptable routine. Our routine lacked the pluck and the alacrity. Our routine made us feel like bursting with Something to share, yet silenced or cornered, hidden and hiding from those judges that waltz about the scene.

Today we are suited and vested, invested, with investiture, to go forth gladly and with full-on Belonging, Duty, cause for Gratitude, Help, Aid, Healing, Salvation, Rescue. Our rescue pup is our clarity thinking and our good-folk inside of each of us. We are in fact good people when once we’ve let that be a borrowed goodness, borrowed from Him who loved us. Not relying on ourselves but on God who favored us, we can go marathon distances; we’ve found our groove, our Calling, our Commission, our cradle.

Yes, at times our cradle. For the healthsome corporation and platoon has ceased to be a miser who counts out good deeds. Instead we flourish in the community that Accepts and Loves Unconditionally. We flourish when insecurity and idolatry is diverted unto a sacrifice literal and theoretical, who once walked with us, unto the recipient of all our doubts and failures, unto Christ the Lamb who Died. Someone today is in His role, loving on us because no one else wanted to pipe up or talk to us. Someone today is legitimizing us by the news: God loves this one. And therein, near to the tomb as each soldier is, we find a quality of life about which books could easily be written to untold length and purpose. We find something mystical, causing all cynicism and accounting to fall by the wayside. We cease to see life as miserly and rude, cruel and short, but accept Today a seat at a gladsome and willing table, our Head made so out of not our fear but our genuine Love for Him. This Love has power and wins wars.