2024-01-14 A Meditation on the Breath of Life

“11 But after the three and a half days a breath of life from God entered them, and they stood up on their feet, and great fear fell on those who saw them. 12 Then they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, “Come up here!” And they went up to heaven in a cloud, and their enemies watched them.” (Rev 11:11-12 ESV)

Intake, outtake, the plus breath of life, added and helium-like: God fills the believer’s lungs with spark and verve. He or she participates in this solemn life-giving equation on a mysterious level: how, just how, does it all work?

Let us rehearse: all we once knew was that Man was dire in his or her circumstances; God forgave and God abided near, friend and Lord. God was tinker inside, wrench in hand and ameliorating Love the disarmament, disarming our natural defenses because This One loves. This One has a higher license, credential and odd fashion, to defend the base, to inspire the troops within the soul, to make up and make out, mandate of that intake and that outtake.

Getting personal yet? Carried aloft, rising air, there is scarcely any fright nor fear of a misstep, a confessional regret or abuse at the mighty hands of This One whom we trusted. He shall not harp on our failures. He shall not make us out as oddball nor as villain, rather as beacon and harbinger of Tomorrow’s Victory. See today the weasel entrapped, the crutch broken apart, the hate patiently worked over, the recognition unto one another: this one, this Brother, this Sister, at a time we shared that holy bellicosity, rather, anxiety spelt large, but now the helium-like response to a life experience we indeed righteously share. You and I, here and now, tomorrow’s parties all anticipated, expected as divine Gift and Searchlight for the soul. Together we Believe in a soul, in a Warmer Climate, in Reassurance that all shall be there for one another, rather, that we who know the devil’s guile shall put pen to paper, weapon to scope, hurt to vocalized sharing: we are creatures now copacetic, no tantrum nor tantric spirituality minus Personhood. We have a Person, no fools we aren’t. No illicit wild-eyed prophets are we. We have a God in Man, in Woman. In good form and Promise for all tomorrow’s parties. In the prophetic streams.

The patient workman, soldier and tender of the fields, the watchtower, the togetherness around a heightened state of alert, a situational level raised: it is a good way we therein walk and vibe and dialog and patrol; not blinded nor partially-obscured in vision, not subtracted from that Peace and that Companionship, that Joy in each breath we take: all these things are ours to live into and to delight in, the delight of the watchman’s patrol and the soldier’s alert manner of being. Somehow, tomorrow without crucible, without activity, without Watch, is boring. We are no warmongers, but rightly find our Eternity in the Here and Now; we rightly believe in a hereafter, while not denying what Good Gifts and Breath of Life is gifted us Today. When we die, who knows. Who knows, except that Judgment occurs then, just as the Lord visits a Woman, a Man, in the Today. Man receives in his or her body what was done in the flesh, by reciprocity. Mighty to forgive, also, is that Spirit of Judgment, for the sake of a few good turns or unexpected Intrusions we have brought into the good equation, intrusions of Peace and of Divine Sharing, of Compliments Paid, and of Shoulders to Lean On.

Where we have failed, God turns our decrepit halting speech unto Divine Testimony. Breathe in, breathe out. No anxiety and no hurried-up mutual competition or battle. Each of us having a special place we go to, apart from the crowd and the throngs. Each of us preserved through the storm and through the socially-accepted Denials of the Father. We do not deny the Spirit; we do not deny the Son; we do not deny the Father, but turn our own reluctant pristine or rather calm and cleansed Soul, unto its due waters and patiently-earned outpourings. We are cleansed and we are subtracted from the status quo, the group-think minus Christ, the competitions or fear of sins being revealed. When sins are revealed, we are no longer on the line: we must believe this. We must believe ours is a Heavenly Inheritance, provided for once we hear the waters stirred up. Provided for once we see our morality as so much rational gamesmanship or explanatory device. No, to be moral is to take an oddball approach to the group-think. It is to end the conceit that we are somehow reasoning our way through life in plain terms, in a boast of better maneuverings of thought. Sometimes it is our struggles that form the best moral blanket. We know not of a good reason to be truthful, except that such was our Lord. Such was our Jesus, Christ on earth, knowing all are on the chopping block for over-scrupulous waiverings. We are no longer fault-finders but see genuine love for the life of others, and a love that forgives many sins.

Finally, there are the summits we never shall quite reach in life, the fruits of a career or direction we passed up. It is a humbling Call, to know that others “out there” have mastered these things that are so mesmerizing yet troubling or puzzling to us as of today. How shall the one unpracticed compare to the elite or the professional athlete: they do things I can’t even think of quite! Yet God’s promise is of a Calling and Consecration deserving of a salvation come day’s end. We shall be judged faithful, even if our labors were joyous, untroubled, not obsessive nor reluctant. We shall be credited with Output and Bounty, with Productivity and Accomplishment, even if it was a peaceable and happy time we had of it. So life divides with vast distances between two people, yet we bridge that distance knowing that no hard work can save or better the soul, but rather all are murmurings and intimations, hints of God’s mesmerizing patterned upbuilding of the reasoning human Creature, a Creature equipped with discourse methods and flights of fancy, duty-bound to what knowledge each has brushed up against, what overarching Themes and Puzzles, or rather Solutions Found, Discerned, Celebrated.

To the dutiful laborer in the field we tip our cap. To the patient moralist we stand in amazement: all life tempts, and there is no perfect way forward. To the beleaguered policy-maker or head honcho at the workplace, we bless. To the soldier, we salute: we say that life is a mutual bequest, something we own yet for the sake of others we sacrifice, put on the line, become One Body and One Prognosis of a Way Forward. Here is the music of the spheres. Here is the strange Discovered peace and patience and inheritance.