2024-11-22 A Meditation on Odd Comrades

“35 And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed. 36 And Simon and those who were with him searched for him, 37 and they found him and said to him, “Everyone is looking for you.” 38 And he said to them, “Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out.” 39 And he went throughout all Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out demons.” (Mk 1:35-39 ESV)

High rates of oxygen, the gathering vis-a-vis Blessedness is no thing to take for granted, no cakewalk, no, say, affirmative towards Life, towards proper Reward and Punishment, towards blessed Relationship and paternal, maternal, bonds. We live into an Estate Blessed scarcely stopping to thank the heavens and acknowledge the God therein reigning. We live… because punch and pluck, persistence and patience, winnowing Cuts and Gestures, basic souls Entrusted to Thrive on their own dime, that is, as Heirs of an estate they could never earn up in a lifetime on their own.

Yet also it is no sum and finality, but rather life blossoms forth and zero-sum thinking ends: God has it in His purview to Bless without measure, to Endeavor without paucity, with Love without running on empty. It is these unacknowledged Voices in the community, these sit-back and marvel Eyes in the neighborhood, these wait and pray Job-like fixtures of the fellowship, who with a silent Investment do Sparkle and Percolate a reactivity, a verb-response dynamic, a Thrust into One Man’s idyll and could-have-been Exhortations.

Could-have-been: we could have been somehow even More Certain of the family’s estate being properly fussed over by its heirs, of the Right brand of pluck and composure being found Therein, of the Certainty that come-what-may, these fellow-travelers meant no harm. They, too, have an Estate. They, too, have some shared Gratitude and smiling Affection for the outsider, would it only be that we could agree on the Unspoken great Mass, greater than what is recollected and what is seen, but a Similitude and shared war against some lack of oxygen, some uptight and unhealed Commune.

The unhealed… life is no blase equivalence spelt round the table, but rather some crews of people literally have less oxygen, and are suffering. Some are simply less Dynamic and Encouraged, Beauteously posh and braggadocio insofar as it is appropriate and God-honoring, for the role of Heirs and princes and princesses, kings and queens. Or they are healed, in their own secret ways, and we only need to Discover their litmus tests and sense of home or of embrace. It changes everything when, in no simple affection just for our own kind, we love on a foreign Face, on a foreigner of Religious Creed or Sect, intrigued as we are by the oddball dichotomy: “Hey, those don’t match!”. And Today, while it is still called Today, we Practice to forgive and to Thrive as those balls of warmth that infect in positive ways all who draw near. We write no bill for this, no writ of lading, for the Treasures are already owned by one’s Father in Heaven, and we are merely the gladsome Poor, who have found Affection and Warmth Somewhere in the vast milieu, a call from halfway around the world that awakens us… even if only to pass on a blessing.