2024-11-20 A Meditation on the Mental Game
“5 This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering— 6 since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, 7 and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels 8 in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9 They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, 10 when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed. 11 To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, 12 so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.” (2 Thess 1:5-12 ESV)
Constantly revising, the mental game is a game at once pragmatic and mystical: to circumvent today a trouble spot, is no concession to the devil but rather patchwork and day-by-day revision, reorienting, psychological advantage to the one who dreams, dares to dream in larger terms than these passing hither and such-and-such games.
That is, to address the general public as they Gawk, to address a devil the serpent who rarely if ever actually dies, but rather decides to go to sleep for a spell… these are the rubrics of the Game. These are victories, the generation Spared some horrific blight on the Church’s record, and grating against what time periods are reasonable within which to expect Repentance.
The Voice of the Lord, then, rings in the ears of each and every Living, Living Inspired, soldier. And plain Inspiration meets plain feet dragged and reluctance, gawking and a frustrated poking or attempt to make it all some awful joke. Today, we are those Called: we hear the Voice. We hear something that spells bright horizons, wide latitude, clear skies for the Mission. And yes, it becomes second nature—no scheme or cynical plan of Man—to hide a bit just how and why we are so over-the-top Inspired: no, the gawker will only weep and drag their feet. No, today we are those constantly revising and bending down to heal and mend the quilt. We propose no Overarching Magnanimity but patient Good Deeds, a spell of goodness that all comers can nod along to and get in the spirit of.
The secret things, these are in the hands of plain-spoken Evangelists, like us, who by second nature do hide what is secret, not because of caprice or cynical guile, but because the plain truth—of Christ who died for us—is the only route via which to make any sense of the deeper mysteries. We would be doing a disservice to break the Classified Seal. We would be selling unfelt answers rather than education. We would be victims of a bullying, yet see Today the pluck and composure of the one who stands up for what is just and right and true and ethical. I swear, that’s the sum of it: Christ for us, and we… we His people.
See today, that we can circumvent so much, in the good Name of mythological Certainty that God is for us. We hear in the common areas of our abode the same nagging thoughts that ring in our ears, some incompleteness, some plaintive claim that life is unfair, some self-loathing or frustrated inchoate nonsense. Because long ago the logical stages ceased to be what drove us. Long ago the get-as-good-as-you-give ceased to apply. Long ago the meticulous accounting: of good deeds that earn us salvation, this accountancy ceased to measure out sanity; it measured out some loony tune. Some horrific trauma. Some verite, as we like to call it, that invited all and sundry Today to be amongst the Blessed what-if of conversation with long lost friends and lovers and patrons and caregivers. It was no easy deed, to sign up for the Service, and therein to go on a long bender, really as long as we can handle, of patient Resolve, of pointing only to the Cross, of hoping in His Resurrection, that any and all things we struggle to name and to animate, God Himself Animates, seeing us as He does as deserving and good investment, recipients of His wild Power, Prowess, Headship in a world gone mad, carefully caretaking and making of a few souls such as these, their own brand of headship and of Coaxed, Energized, Invested qualities. So to the unknown soldier, goes the unembarrassed claim of Servant-mindedness, of Joint endeavor, of Faith… because we have been taught to take all “Real Things” on the basis of the unseen, on the basis of Faith.
To be ourselves living sacrifices, hearts aflame, is to discover in each and every heart some Capacity to undo sin, some capacity to be first to repent for the beautiful sake of what mending and wholesome Spirit does arrive. If we see by the eyes of faith, that is: God does not spoil us. In such repentance we financially see as things of no consequence the sins of others. We refuse to be self-righteous, but see strange compromises as something the Entire Body must address: we cannot just sit around waiting for someone to prove us right; the tragedy is a shared tragedy. And we serve up the King’s purposes by uncovering our own bareboned schemes and awfulness, those ways we can be self-centered and ignorant and callous. Here it begins. Here it heals. Here it honors the fellowship, and helps it out a bit by way of acknowledging: all have gone astray, including our Masterful Church herself; and we will not be those who finger-point but rather those who get on with the Master’s business of Reincarnation, of Second Chances, of a Healing “Sorry” eventually.