2024-12-17 A Meditation on With Companionship

“22 This is the reason why I have so often been hindered from coming to you. 23 But now, since I no longer have any room for work in these regions, and since I have longed for many years to come to you, 24 I hope to see you in passing as I go to Spain, and to be helped on my journey there by you, once I have enjoyed your company for a while. 25 At present, however, I am going to Jerusalem bringing aid to the saints. 26 For Macedonia and Achaia have been pleased to make some contribution for the poor among the saints at Jerusalem. 27 For they were pleased to do it, and indeed they owe it to them. For if the Gentiles have come to share in their spiritual blessings, they ought also to be of service to them in material blessings. 28 When therefore I have completed this and have delivered to them what has been collected, I will leave for Spain by way of you. 29 I know that when I come to you I will come in the fullness of the blessing of Christ. 30 I appeal to you, brothers, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to strive together with me in your prayers to God on my behalf, 31 that I may be delivered from the unbelievers in Judea, and that my service for Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints, 32 so that by God’s will I may come to you with joy and be refreshed in your company. 33 May the God of peace be with you all. Amen.” (Rom 15:22-33 ESV)

The question is if we can do it without the people. Our plain observations about life, all these ring hollow in comparison to a mighty force called Society, that is a bit more curious and odd, angular and committed, than our plain-jane level playing field mentality takes us. We are in strange haunts. We hear familiar intonations and verbiage. But what is familiar to us, is like a deep mysterious impenetrable fortress to Someone Out There. To someone whom we scarcely recall needs an introduction. We can’t do it without the people.

And being flush with observations, we are of a more mature elderhood today vis-a-vis recognizing One Track mindedness around the gospel. So we can observe how pleasant thoughts of good deeds done to a parent or a friend, arise while deep in our thought work or labors of the day. We can observe how frustrating our work can be, but also the abundant cause to rejoice. But all this is a little off-kilter. What the Gospel teaches us is about a Reality more austere and dedicated, more firm and unforgiving, than anything “out there” with which we strike up a competition. We do well to focus on “our people”. We do well to count on a comet’s tail of implications, consequents, of that daily litmus test and hourly reassessment. We do well to make our offering, as though to be tested before the arrival of nightfall.

Today. Whatever we have done with our time, is itself a strange format: cue the jokes about Man’s labors, and how he or she accumulates though unable to take anything with them to the afterlife. Therefore to Encounter that society’s Pain, their Addiction, their astonishing plain speech about what is haunting the community… we have faith that a nip or a tuck somewhere in our Domain, will trickle down and spell fast relief. Some feel called at once: here is a youth, here is an addict in formation, and what are we doing with our time if not Hoping, that the world will strike up an orchestration that by-and-large is win-win. You win. I win. There is ample playing field for a duo or a trio.

But all this is a given, and familiar, and already well-trodden by all parties. Of course. Of course you will say it is time for mercy. Of course, you will witness the level of intelligence in the most blighted people in the community: astonishing game, intelligence, efficiency, and collegiality. Never pushing things too far: this is a safe haven. This is some magic of those same people we earlier spoke of, themselves utterly witness to strange things that would never have occurred to us: “Of course…”, “No, in fact the opposite…”.

What it all means is the confession dropped in our bucket, whatever it is, can be our Calling. And this is again a call to Experience mercy before preaching up a storm about it. Experience the mighty trickle-down economics of one or two tolerant and accepting, judiciously coping, souls at their respective helms. Experience the ability we have to snap out of a rut, to dig ourselves out of a coping mechanism, to face squarely life in the good and fast lane, because we are after all Major Leagues, and sometimes it takes more pressure not less, to hear us ascending to our proper perch. We need the trials. We need the doubts, including self-doubts. It suddenly dawns on us that some die is attempting—madly attempting—to announce itself “cast”: that our die is cast, and this we can shake off because we are not assessing our own profligacy or “power” as the world sees it, but are discovering induction into His Power, which embeds us in that collegial pungently severe Community, as being as good a place as any in which to Do Great Things. We can all do great things, because of that parent who shared their deepest thoughts with us, or that neighbor or youth who invited us in. Into their reality and reminder to us, it was never easy. We were always half-made and half-loser, half frustrated and half insatiable. And this is enough to honor and value the safer times, the precious times, the dreamy times, and the coping times.