2024-08-07 A Meditation on Observance

“13 That very day two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, 14 and they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened. 15 While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. 16 But their eyes were kept from recognizing him. 17 And he said to them, “What is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk?” And they stood still, looking sad. 18 Then one of them, named Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?” 19 And he said to them, “What things?” And they said to him, “Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, 20 and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him. 21 But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened. 22 Moreover, some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning, 23 and when they did not find his body, they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels, who said that he was alive. 24 Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see.” 25 And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” (Luke 24:13-27 ESV)

Duty, observance, ever mindful: some avenues, simply there but simply closed, are no garden home for flourishing; and some others are white for the harvest. They are ready and we, we who are what we eat, chalk up a Win to a spirit we ourselves even have adopted, a spirit that is not proud and not conceited, not vainglorious and not tyrannical; a Spirit of needfulness, though not of obsequiousness nor of petitionary blathering. We are available precisely because a Good Spirit on High has kept us vulnerable. We are Invested in the hour, precisely because someone else we know made mint in such a brief time as one hour… one hour, together… one hour, available, vulnerable, invested, compassionate, listening, hope filled, and duty-bound.

When what we eat is madness of fasting and Law, then we find ourselves going out of our way in the surroundings of Desire; we lust for the sweet tooth or the fancy lunch sandwich, all this as a parable of what strange Creatures of Desire we can be, if our self-chosen Meal is one of Law and of self-improvement via perfectionism. Instead, therefore, let us return to a neo state, holding our youth, neonatal, neo youthful, neo adolescent, and all these things in no wise better than our best Intentions, only this: that when finally we gave up on the slimmer outline and shadow, when finally we gave up on the Law as a means to Holy Approach; some things, we were by good breeding and custom simply immune to, but others… here the Sin lies crouching at the door… others tempted us and created within us a dialog, for more of the forbidden nourishment.

Then too the preacher of foreign divinities, that is, the preacher so obsessed, so focal, around Man’s Depravity, that he or she creates a flux or fetish or fascination with the Ill, with the Malignity, with the Malformed Soul: some things, to some things, we prescribe only Good Thoughts: “it is shameful even to speak of the things they do in secret”. That is, we coach ourselves through the valley of shadow and death, through the long night of the soul, to be Winsome and Positive, to be no harbingers of a new Political Scene, one that licenses Behaviors Ill-Begotten and Maligned, but instead to cope with what State and Society has bequeathed to us as a political milieu: here, and no farther, shall your vain Theologizing go; here, and no farther, shall your Demands and Justifications undo artisan life together; here, and no farther, shall your pecuniary obsessions spell a harsher night of the soul.

Kill not the messenger but rather do due haste unto the Hour, unto the winning Exchange, unto the coached or self-led Evocation of some spell and some charism and some discovery, shared; life Together, life in Unison, life in Choreographed strange outlay, as such wartime thinking does license certain Together-Deeds, calling forth some Principled-Who-Woulda-Thought? Christian thinking triumphal, tantamount unto a world thinking it need compromise on some basic life morals. We discover going Deep rather than going pathetic or going plain; our Faith is a Discovered Agent of leading Ideas and Together Mentalisms. We discover that Cross; we discover that Jesus was intended to be a proper Leader, of a militant Judaism in the minds of some, finding its foraging through Peaceful miracles and Healings, but still Present and Judicious as a Force to be reckoned with. Only this, that His time came, and nothing was lost but only a greater Prophecy was inaugurated, Christ’s life for our salvation, Christ’s blood for our Betterment, Christ’s will for our Dutiful Embrace and Move, choreographed New Scene, as we together arrive at a better Politics and a better Measurement of Man’s, Woman’s, worth and duty.

Together Arrive and together spell out something of Holiness Shared and Togetherness wrapped up in how we live out better dreams of Tomorrow. Tomorrow, here and now. Tomorrow, wept over in some places too touchy or difficult, and celebrated over in some places just Life-Giving and Fruitful unto Hope.