2023-12-19 A Meditation on Purpose
“17 The seventy-two returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name!” 18 And he said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. 19 Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you. 20 Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” (Lk 10:17-20 ESV)
Land. Ideas. Efficacy. With the dignity due the office, Jesus nimbly worked over and programmed a social movement. Jesus was operating in a high and airy realm, His goal things like ultimately, Ideas, ultimately Place and Land, ultimately Getting at the Heart of the Matter, Getting Things Done: Efficacy.
Each conscripted soul finds a delightful boon of Modus Operandi, flattered as the mind and intellect of Christ, the body and frame of His efficacious being. No cheats, we nonetheless dwell in rarefied air, the dignity of our offices part of that Gift of which we are humbly endeavoring to honor. To remember just to whom we write or speak or gesture. To get at the infiltrating and efficacious heart of things. To be those intelligence and operational urgently wrought citizens and denizens, appropriating, promoting largesse and generosity, yet cunning and certain, wise and no-nonsense operating liminally, just legal, or cause for horrified angst in the enemy, in the one aped or horrified: here, see and Be, what Christ was and what each of us are. Concerned with that rarefied air called the human heart, that land, that dominion, that outright borrowing—which is a euphemism for taking the helm—of any and all ways we explain ourselves, situate ourselves, reassure ourselves, tackle the day, and be peace through each and every angst-ridden loggerheads, frozen things, and addiction to the freeze.
To share with a friend exactly the brand of comfort and accomplishment that will produce a healthy desire to participate, produce a meek covetous—rather, goal-oriented—excitement. A truth we know is somewhere out there, in the cipher, in the guild, in the End of our frustrated mania, our maddened reaction, our screaming at the walls. These things are Love, again a prime negotiating point, point of attainment, goal, of the man or woman of intelligent workmanship. We think, and imbue, not so much infiltrate as hold out a patient and loving hand. We invite, not so much take over as to invite to the table. We approach a turf war not any more clever than our partner or enemy in the dispute, but dogged and determined, heart on the sleeve, intangibles our “higher ground” that we win on: being the Peacemaker, being the Early Adopter of a new reality, being the wise Caretaker of the copacetic and teambuilt human heart.
No businessman’s approach to the New Era quite honors the deep-fought turf battles; business language may be lacking, or rather, has its own logic and manner, its own linguistics, so we do not deny these our partners in the Goal. The Ambition is nonetheless a little more cut-throat vis-a-vis the Spirit, a little more sly and simply-directed: we are directed around promoting Christ and Him Crucified. We are shaped around the Image of a wheezing and limping Lord unto the Cross, known for an hour to all, yet no time to put on our finery: He suffered to make us glimpse and adopt a Divine Vision.