“35 And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed. 36 And Simon and those who were with him searched for him, 37 and they found him and said to him, “Everyone is looking for you.” 38 And he said to them, “Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out.” 39 And he went throughout all Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out demons.” (Mark 1:35-39 ESV)

Each day, to rediscover, to become elated anew, to Receive from the Master’s table: ying and yang, up and down, figure and ground, all these collaborate to summarily punish with sadder dispositions in immediate relief against the warm and welcoming Morning. We are warm and welcomed. We are greeting the brothers and sisters in sincerely Gladsome fact of seeing one another, encountering, sharing that blessed innocent hour of the day before the emails start to come in, before the chitter-chatter on the prayer oscilloscope starts to pick up, before the day is long and wearying.

Because we are made One Body through Him who took Eternity as a justification and comfort as He went to the Cross, we are therefore post-sadness, of a determined reality called Doing Likewise. Yes, the work is already done by He Himself. But wouldn’t we also love to thus contribute, via some fashion of a spiritual analog to His Cross. Yet crosses we have many. Simply to elate, to greet the day: this is in contrast to the worrying hours, the “when will answers come” hours, the hours of anticipation rather than of immediacy.

The warm and welcoming Morning, posits an Existential Question around whether all life is bound up in some contemporary brand of Original Sin: what happened in the Garden, now occurring in the cities and towns all around? How, then, does anything ever get done? From whence come the news hours and cinema displays, the books and the sidewalk cafes full of chatter? Are these, after all, a better time than the tragic dark ages past? Yet in all this, where is the upward mobility, where is the unhidden class warfare set aright? Where is the pressure valve that regulates a sudden New Morning called War?

Christ came one for all, to teach and show a way called the Cross. This way… like a game of musical chairs, does ask: what burdens are you suddenly in stark relief left bearing when the music stops? It all seemed so jolly and effusive, only then the music stopped. And we were left in stark relief, holding onto sin or onto excess.

Christ came to Heal the individual who believes. He came to wake from lagging sleep and horrified self-realization, self-understanding, the would-be Acolyte. As acolytes we strive to live in the fast tide and current of Leading Witnessing. We strive to have lost all things, in order that we might actually do a Christian deed or two around here. See, only having lost our points of pride and our points of self-reliance, can we for once rise up Inspired, Beneficent, Contributory.