2025-01-30 A Meditation on the Beacon

“25 At that time Jesus declared, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; 26 yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. 27 All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. 28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”” (Matt 11:25-30 ESV)

Who can stand, and the one who does stand, what a beacon yet what infamy, what snowballs raining down, makeshift weapons of a softer brand of war, no less deadly but somehow sheer and bleary-eyed. Yet in this compass, this estate, this grand Stand, is room for each comer, those who once coveted the higher giftings, those who feel they are not “good people”, those who went on a destructive tear with nary a thought for the incommensurable new and awful deal thus formed.

The Christian soldier keeps open as long as possible, the broad Education, the spacious Civility, the spark of Inquiry, Inventiveness, Entrepreneurialism. Yet see the ranks marching in formation, and know that a wearier mindset is tempted, compromise this principle, that convention, this or another Point, points thus Entrusted to the individual soldier as much as to the drill-sergeant.

We are no fascists. No communists. No oligarchy. No plutocracy. We are no… name your demon here. Intelligence from a counterpart, this can frustrate and can leave in mock horror the mindset of the mostly broad and spacious Horizon formerly lived upon. An interlocutor! A fellow traveler! Oh, but they are Educating and Contending on some plane Bizarre and… Different! Different notions of the Good Family, the Christian Cohort, of the Good Corporation. And think, had they only melded minds at one early stage, the chain-rattling Progress—now undertaken without counsel—would nonetheless be Divine and Inspired: good people, all around, just in need of that Come to Jesus moment.

For, childlike, when accused they mock by imitating the fallacy: “You said I was such-and-such, so see me live that out!” They “adopt” the sins of an imagined femme or homme, awaiting the day when that sin is finally destroyed. Rotten bargain, they lose all certainty that the Good Woman loves on her man, the Good Man makes room and loves on his woman; the Good Lover does likewise with man or with woman, per their custom and preference.

We are that loving Gestalt. We are that wily and soothing cream of the crop, a menage of singles in spirit (per Pauline caution against marriage) who live up the day, celebrate the prayer time together, speak in bizarre tongues and watch the demons come out.