Monday, October 13, 2008

Meditation

There is a word I am to speak. And it is the word I persistently fail at time and again. But it is, as persistently as I fail it, the one word that I am to speak. It even takes up my failure into the resolution of its countenance - and makes an even more demanding proposal.

The word is impossible to speak, for it is about the impossible that happened in our world. It is a sacred extension of that impossibility which really happened. It is about the Absolute becoming perfect man, not donning the form of man as a cloak, but becoming man incarnate - once and for all - and that Love extenuating Himself so much that His love went down to the floor of hell - and floored it.

In the rising flood of desecration, blasphemy and outrages against God and His ordinances, there are two reactions, which are hence mistakes. One descries, not completely wrongly, a coming Justice and coins that Justice as one's own personal retribution, or vindication. But that justice cannot be our own vindication unless we give ourselves to long-suffering, and intend to keep suffering long. The other which is worse is the lukewarm presumption that God's mercy justifies one's own complacence and ingratitude - that somehow, because of God's love, such blasphemy and outrage make no difference to God.

There is a third which is not reaction, nor inaction, and it is the best way. It is the one word I am to speak, and which I fail at time and again.

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