Reap remberance, sow silence
“I reprove and discipline those whom I love. Be earnest, therefore, and repent. Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me. To the one who conquers I will give a place with me on my throne, just as I myself conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne” (Revelation 3:20-21).
Happy New Year!
Today is the ecclesiastical new year. In a previous life New Year’s Eve was my favorite holiday, and I suppose to a certain extent it still is, but back then the meaning of the holiday meant getting together with friends–not family–and binge drinking until midnight. The new year’s celebration in December is a most liminal time of year, because we look back on the darkest days of the season and look forward to the growth of the sun and lengthening of days ahead.
But, maybe more so in September. The dog days of summer are finally catching a chill and there’s a stillness in the air following the harvest and projective nature of the summer season.
Kids, myself included, are going back to school and adults, myself included, count the days until the sequential holidays coming in the Fall come to break up the monotony of their lives.
In terms of liminal spaces this might be even better than a January dawn, because resolutions are made to be broken, sometimes immediately and sometimes in thirty days, but they are generally only our vision of a better life under the sweaty delusion of ham-drunk festivities. September, however, means we need to resow the field. This is not about what we are not doing enough of or at all. This time of year is about appreciating what the harvest has yielded and what we might want more of next year to get us through the winter.
What fruits have we born that we might want more of and what might compliment them? How many rows do we need to plow and how many turned out to be superfluous?
“Give us Lord our daily bread.”
“This is the thing which the Lord has commanded: ‘Let every man gather it according to each one’s need, one omer for each person, according to the number of persons; let every man take for those who are in his tent’” (Exodus 16:16).
There is plenty to gather, but how much do we need?
Furthermore, what is that we need?
We might need less than we think. Our neighbor might need more than we realize.
On another point, something on my mind lately–the topic of the next series of pieces I am editing now–the door that we stand at the threshold of represents a choice.
Discerning the will of God, loving God, trying to follow Christ necessitates us making choices. Walking with God means we sacrifice a lot.
We sacrifice everything.
God loves us, and in fact He loves us so much that He respects our personage enough that we are left to make our own choice as to whether we will walk with Him or walk according to our passions. This is free will, which I believe in, but it is almost nonexistent to me because we have free will not to do what we are “supposed” to do, that is surrender to the will of God and our role in His providence, but life is a lot easier when we do just that.
It’s like a release.
To accept our role and stand rooted in our foundation which is Christ Jesus feels like, and I can only speak from experience, it feels like all the noise of the world is obliterated into shining silence. This noise is not inherently demonic, but the way that it sets us adrift among the harsh waves and cruel sea, tossing us about leaves us open to being led by our passions and worshiping the things of this world, which is demonic.
I like thinking of that noise like the reporters in “Watchmen,” during the televised interview with Dr. Manhattan where he’s been delivered an atomic bomb in the news of his former friends and lovers have all succumbed to cancer from his existence’s fallout. He is swarmed by these reporters asking him questions, asking to justify his existence to them and, in frustration and fury, he shouts, “Leave me alone!”
And they all disappear.
Surrendering to the will of God, submitting to His call is what that feels like: shooting silence into the chaotic darkness. A “Hail Mary” play performed in prayer, as if to tap out and say to God, “OK, let’s do it Your way. I am clearly not capable of doing all this myself. Show me.”
Now, choice is generally debilitating which is why it is so hard being a Christian. Shoot, it’s hard enough being human. But God gives us a choice, and regardless of what the militant atheists like to claim is the nature of God, a totalitarian is not one of those things. He loves us and gives us a choice of how we are going to spend our lives. Sometimes I just want Him to tell me what to do so I don’t have to choose, but that’s not the life of a Christian, is it? That would be too easy.
He wants me to choose. He wants you to choose.
The New Year marks the beginning of a year-long process of choosing, everyday like the farmer. The saints talk about repentance in this way for this reason, it’s a constant, conscious effort to remain in repentance and remember God. So, not only does it mark the beginning of the process, but a reminder that we are always choosing in some way or another. We are always meant to, because we cannot escape the choices we make. We’re not Dr. Manhattan, the best we can do to get a bunch of pestering vultures and passions to disappear is choosing a direction and sticking with it. It is the same as being Peter on the water, keeping our eyes focused on the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
My friend and I just turned twenty-eight. So, we’re both in our own new year which is a way we can test our own fruits throughout our cycle through the sun’s phases. We were talking about this age, in particular, that in the waning years of our twenties this is the time, more than anytime we have either experienced so far, that our choices define what will be the next year, the next decade, and might even be defining our whole lives. This is the time we are in control of who we spend our time with, how we spend our time, and who or what we revere.
Choices might be debilitating with no vision of what we want our lives to look like, but it all starts at home in the field. What types of fruit do we wish to bear throughout the year? If you do not choose what crops are growing on your farm life has a way of choosing for you.
There’s no wrong choice other than the one that is made for you.
So, for the next ecclesiastical year, and beyond that, I will try my best to stand with God, choose God, and choose to trust Him more than myself knowing that my will is a passing grain of sand in the wind compared to His providence, which is eternal. Therefore, I will seek to cultivate silence amongst the reporters demanding my justification. The only one Who is good and the only one Who can justify me is Christ our Lord.
I’ll end with a quote from Elder Ephraim of Arizona from the book of his writings, “Counsels from the Holy Mountain”, may you remember God in all things, know that He loves you, and no matter what you choose during the next year, may it be blessed:
“How precious is the time of this life! Every minute has great worth, for within one minute we can think so many things, either good or evil. One godly thought raises us to Heaven, one diabolical thought lowers us to hell. So then, behold how valuable every minute in this present life is. Unfortunately, though, we do not think about this, and hours, days, and years pass with no profit–but is it merely with no profit? How much damage have we all suffered–and I, first–without realizing it! But someday, when our soul is about to depart from our body, we shall realize it. But alas, it will be too late; there is no room for correction then” (p. 59).
Si comprehendis, non est Deus
Witness, NM 