2025-02-06 A Meditation on Self-Worth

“14 What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! 15 For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” 16 So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. 17 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” 18 So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills. 19 You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” 20 But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” 21 Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? 22 What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, 23 in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory— 24 even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles? 25 As indeed he says in Hosea, “Those who were not my people I will call ‘my people,’ and her who was not beloved I will call ‘beloved.’ ” 26 “And in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ there they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’ ”” (Romans 9:14-26 ESV)

Apprised. Valuated. To know our worth, is to be unfazed by perchance commentary, by accidental encounters, by words in the wind. The soldier has a steel-eyed nerve unappreciated at large. The soldier nonetheless is a product of all that is hoisted their way, built up and when built up responsive, reactive, fulfilling the Promise and the Comment; when dragged down, self-critical, compromising, settling for less. We never settle for less, because we know an elysium, a fields of amber grain, a bare room with a friend: let’s spend an hour just free-associating, just sitting in a couple spare chairs and melding minds, intellectually let’s “get to know each other!”.

For our value, it is something we ourselves in former times did not know how to articulate, how to boast in, how to put up warning signs around: we got this! We are the careful soldier! We are the soup-to-nuts, top-to-bottom Package Deal! Our mettle was made in a crucible. Our elysium was rained down on us in a mystical friendship. Our coziness with each other was earned through times, by some accounts sinful times, but God redeems: by value-added times. Times of long hours spent together simply Because. Because there is no castle to retreat to. Because there is no Self-Worth, Ambition, Intent, Inheritance, to be cagey about. Because simply we Loved, and we saw ourselves in the meek Other. Because simply we did things in unison, the morning-after breakfast at the cafe. The all-night scampering about town on a rumor, on a whim, whatever our sins know this: we were in love and enthralled. We were honorific of the cipher, of the mystery, of the attitudinal “my lady”, “my man”. With a friend and with a lover. With all and sundry. With… with the streets we walked and with the seas we sailed.

You are Precious in God’s sight. Repeat this to yourself. Hear from she or he who can harbor no grudge, that the faucets are turned on Repeatedly, Always, Here-and-Now. The faucets of self-giving affection, of visiting each other’s “rooms”, of delineating, narrating, meeting minds around, all that is “going on ‘round here”. This is our worth! This is our valuation! That parents settled for a scampering, poverty-forged Estate for we the children. To have nothing by way of a silver spoon in our mouths, except a few night marches and barely-dodged gangland warfare on all sides. That we grew up in, the country folk (We love the music! We love them!) meet the hip-hop folk (We know the lyrics! We love them, too!) On some level all arms are laid down, because of a brash or ostentatious or radically-sinful New Front of the war.

O embedded one. O “man in Havana” one. Jesus was that Man. Jesus was embedded. Jesus was master of maintaining two radically opposed notions in mind at once: His time of prayer, expansive we must imagine, hugely prophetic we must suppose, utterly upbuilding and self-flattering, we must attribute. To the Father to whom He prayed. To the Spirit with whom we walked. Then, to that “other notion”: the people yawning and passing by uninspired. Under-amazed at who and what was going on in their midst. Bothering Him for a few beggarly things, but forgetting to ask: will you pray for me? He who could lay hands on one person, and inaugurate them to an eternity (two millennia: an eternity?) of echelon status, of Heavenly citizenship, of lore and of storyline. Scarce and furtive the mystical Spiritual Things dispelling, scattering, invading, getting “into everything”. Nothing is unaffected. No one is without being found in some posture, some memorable stance, towards this One. At the hour when it mattered, everyone was “Doing Something”. Either affirming of God’s Messenger, or denying Him. And when we get bored. When the faith seems like a strait-jacket, like a slow degradation of all the peace we’ve worked ourselves up to (“You must throw all that away, since it was accomplished during a sinful time in your life”), we believe in Redemption, in Resurrection, in God using our sinful experiences, to minus the sin and plus the Acquaintance. The two sides “getting along”. So our faith… it never becomes “boring”. It never becomes “nonchalant”. It never becomes “false”, “hypocritical”, “onerous”, “regrettable”. Because we have a light we are heading towards, never sitting still, but always on the offensive. To “Attack” the comfy works-based spirits. To “Embrace” the persecuted and testifying spirits. To live Together and in willing compassion, no matter our “Worth”, no matter how “Unappreciated”, to be content with whom and what the Father has given us. As mightily haloed people. As real stars. As astonishing geniuses of many-a thing.

We had so little, yet it made a fluff and a fuss from others who… did they have even less? Or is it a scorched earth response to a frustration, to a jealousy, to a raw nerve accidentally Touched. Life isn’t economical. Horrific responses can come about from a gentle poke. People do insane things, in the name of “I’ll never concede!”. And that can be us, as well. But we hope our refusal to concede has its origin in a Christ principle. In a principality of spirit. In a selfless sticking up for others.