2025-01-11 A Meditation on Recognition

“12 “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets. 13 “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. 14 For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few. A Tree and Its Fruit 15 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. 16 You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17 So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. 18 A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.” (Matt 7:12-20 ESV)

There is always someone undergoing a greater trial. The ways we stay in touch with this fact, akin to safeguarding a vision, akin to Listening, being on Watch, for analysis, for insight, for wisdom, for… let’s call it Conviction. This is our Christian Walk. To mete out a loving communique, unto a father or mother in Christ, unto a brother or sister in the faith, unto the least and those lost whom the Lord has given us. These are ways we are Convicted, of sin, of lethargy, of greed, of jealous rivalries. We somehow warm up the kettle, unto a Fact of Togetherness, warmly greeting one another, turning Outwards the inward scheming according to the rule: my best, for him or her; my worst, for my personal discipleship and humble walk.

To remember: remade in Christ. Airy in cadence, in step, in meter and rhyme. Because we are taken to That Place… by the preacher, by the analyst, by the prophet. In hope, that the Vision will rally tribes and troops most disconnected by the natural course of things. Naturally disconnected, we communicate across compromised airwaves by a Prayer, a Spiritual Heft: to have once believed is to have seen the Victory lap already, the Dance, the praise giving occasion. This we saw, because a future war is averted; only this, too, that it is a good sign after all, when the hackles are raised. It means we alighted upon something. It means we coaxed a devilish scheme into open air, for all to see. And some to salute, others to cringe, and still others to get down to Game Day.

At once. Now and in the moment. We loved, because of first being Loved: it was us undergoing such trials as to be still meek, pointing to others before us; but a loving Caretaker took us in, healed and built us up. It was no strange day of newfangled worship, but newly-minted ways to hear that Vision, adopt that Prophecy, engage that Dynamic. We are dynamos of a world Motivation, Movement, Mystery, wherein strange friendships are made across untold boundaries. Not, after all, according to which Abrahamic or Eastern or ancestral religion; but, by virtue of our shared kinds of submission, in concert with each other: we recognize the pleading faith-filled warrior, in any guise. And we recognize the sin within our own capacities, only gratefully not in recognition of greater evils: these, by being ignorant of them, we attest to our own fidelity. We do not fantasize about how evil so-and-so is, but instead recognize the dynamic of starting with ourselves.

The Cause, then, of Today, is to await long watches through the night, for the first light or… for the headlight of a friend approaching, who shared some secret codeword or acknowledgment, causing us to Recognize. Causing us to cheer, that Humanity has once more proven herself, like a cadenced flock of birds, like a plains herd of wild animals, like a pride of such animals. Who knows how patient a thing is Inspiration, is Intelligence, is Insight. To have Insight in the community, is to shine in ways that cause Jealousy and Hatred, but that should instead Convict, taking us out of our inwardly-turned selfish thoughts.