2024-10-10 A Meditation on Sand Castles of the Mind

“3 For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end—it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay. 4 “Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by his faith.” (Hab 2:3-4 ESV)

Sand castles of the mind: the will to go on copes even as that fragile entity, the castle in the mind, is storm-washed and windswept. We are lagging in that realm called Consistent Pursuit, Thought, Heraldry of New World, Ordered and Sacrificial unto that field for every citizen and domicile for every family. We are lagging, but venturesome unto personal invitation to dare to believe, and to dare to build, and to dare to face the stormswept downward common denominator.

Because our dreams, they are guidepost and light, and in them we see waves crash and reform, steady no-nonsense Call to make haste while the sun shines. We make haste even when seemingly on a distant plateau so alien to the common status quo: this plateau is a Real Leveler, a place to seek out confidence though on our own recognisance and imagined Heights. We are heightened and look out over, because we are rebuilding each day that sandcastle that puzzles, that is illegal to the status quo, that is rare find and intricate development, that is populated, lights shining, the hum of day-in and day-out Work at large and in its windows.

Some balance is added to the Fact: Christ Died a mystically Important death, so that the buzz might go on, so that the hum might energize, so that the wan light in the window might be somehow Educated or Inspired, might know of a Day of Return, His Return, to the common place status quo to whom He was sent.

The human response to an “any day now” caution, is a response that never worries over the more tired hours, never worries over the fright factor that death and denial shall plunge forth precisely when we’ve forgotten for a moment our readiness. Our readiness, we may be sure, persists, and that constant back-and-forth: sand castle unto untold heights; beach awash and benighted of all constructions, all made into little furrows of water eeking out a river back to the basin; yet back to work again, to dream large and to build big of those materials that coincide with our internal Confidence, our internal Readiness, our internal distant Dream Vision, even though plagued with the status quo half our waking hours.

Plagued with depression or strange existential confusion: no worries, soldier! It is for real, your benign engagement with a Tomorrow Enterprise, an Edifice unseen or underappreciated. It is your Prerogative to be salt and light to a world drawing out depressive spirit either with its slowness to acknowledge, or with its “Obviously!” race through what should have required more patience and acknowledgment.

Acknowledgment that we are on a Special Course, unto sated peace rather than down spun spirit: our peace is our deep sympathy, and concomitant weariness, around the Headstrong and Purposeful endeavor called wartime. Called discipleship. Called Tomorrow Dwelling: we dwell in a reality Alert and Basic unto its duty to be Real. We are Real, though to dwindle down to society’s motives, is to go the slow and depressive route, the empty “What more is there to go on?” complaint. We go on a militancy determined to remain Alert and to Adopt, Plainly Love, the peace and the engagement: it was no dream, after all, but see here the roadsigns of a distant dream Invoked. When we dare to saddle up. Once we’ve dared to Engage. Now we’ve dared to Embrace.