2024-09-15 A Meditation on Mudslinging

“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37 Now Barnabas wanted to take with them John called Mark. 38 But Paul thought best not to take with them one who had withdrawn from them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work. 39 And there arose a sharp disagreement, so that they separated from each other.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.” (Acts 15:36-41 ESV)

“8 Accordingly, though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do what is required, 9 yet for love’s sake I prefer to appeal to you—I, Paul, an old man and now a prisoner also for Christ Jesus— 10 I appeal to you for my child, Onesimus, whose father I became in my imprisonment. 11 (Formerly he was useless to you, but now he is indeed useful to you and to me.) 12 I am sending him back to you, sending my very heart. 13 I would have been glad to keep him with me, in order that he might serve me on your behalf during my imprisonment for the gospel, 14 but I preferred to do nothing without your consent in order that your goodness might not be by compulsion but of your own accord. 15 For this perhaps is why he was parted from you for a while, that you might have him back forever, 16 no longer as a bondservant but more than a bondservant, as a beloved brother—especially to me, but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord.” (Phm 8-16 ESV)

Mudslinging, classic discomfort zone: the reality of caution zones around what any proper devil would wish to be an enmity, is a reality that we are in lockstep even with our purported enemies to a point. We are suggestible. We careen this way and that, pretending to be aloof but in fact being compromised just a bit. And we then wake up to remind ourselves: this I must put aside. This I must extract from. This I must more than that, tap into that great power called Prayer, not resisting the inclination to work in unison, together, but bringing glad happy greetings and taking any and all suspicions upon our own conscience. Our own responsibility. Our own laundry list. It was we who smirk, we who belittle, we who are in trance around a duel mode none rightly can survive: all destruction, omni war, total hindrance.

That is, comfort zones can forget the highlight reel of our gladsome exchanges, is a highlight reel that goes way farther than anyone can ask or imagine, and in that exchange we can forget to lock down the more basic elements. We must pay attention to the particulars. We must avoid writing legal tomes against each other and instead invest in that legal chess move called Together Creation. Together Invention. Together Shine. See who isn’t warmed to the heart to see a joke or an initiative shared. See who isn’t secretly rooting for anyone who has taken the beating we ourselves, in words so tender and careful, have been victimized by.

That is, to find the monster in ourselves, is to warm to that Equation, that Quality, Criteria, of flipping the enmity into a possibility: we having nothing to lose. We having more than nothing to lose, courage to sacrifice and to Attest Unto a reality sublime. We strike up the battle band, the war cry, the helter-skelter mad dash to the front, relocating the enmity unto an actual Love also present: these after all were but flashpoints amongst friends; we have actual fighting Cause somewhere Out There, and it too—did we learn nothing?—it too attempts to paralyze us, to suggest to us, to leave us incomplete and only half of what formerly we were. Our punch and bravado curtailed, curtain call on our Together Advance, calm Peace punished with that fact: enemies are real, and we can go from the most gladsome celebratory mindset, to despair. Yet, the mind turning over within and upon itself, is in creative fashion going to win this war: it is a mind sublime and creative, powerful and inventive, societally magically aware and companionship widely evoking. It evokes social structure and peaceful mutual jesting in each other’s direction. It critiques behind the scenes, but publicly blesses. It repays any brash words emitted, with a gift that can never be repaid: the Patience, the Justice, the Peace, the Principled Resting Place. God repays us, and we marvel at the giftedness of our most persecuted friends, who it is true do take us away from the warmer climes sometimes: we are taken to a point of doubt because of the reality of ugliness, and of enemies. Yet we believe these to be but life lessons unto the end of Invention and Genuine Forgiveness for our amped up self-proclamation, our boast, our pride of place; we sacrifice all this so as to begin at last to hear what each says to each.

True, we have coped with sins and boasting. True, we have through all this found our Jesus’s and suffering servants, our anxiety-ridden partners in crime the first to be attacked when once we lost sight of the watchful prayer. That is, those closest to us suffer at our hands sometimes. Those we love we sense something vulnerable in that love, and attack the weakness. But it is only an imagined weakness: love is stronger and a bond none can take away.