I have a few things on my mind so to speak, though I tend to forget them before I get the text open before me. Thus I brought my bathroom Bible to the table today, hoping that would stir the embers or awaken the flames, so to speak.
The thing that kept going through my mind yesterday when Mary and I were out on the Stevenson Trail with the dogs was what Jesus said at the very beginning of his three year journey: "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel." (Mark 1: 15). Mark is also the gospel writer with the sense of urgency: "immediately," which he writes perhaps forty some times, if my memory serves me, not that it does that well anymore. In Matthew, John the Baptist says it (3:2), and then that is virtually the first public thing that Jesus says: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." (4:17). Like Frollie with a bone, what I kept gnawing on was the "at hand" pronouncement. I think I understand what it means on the literal level, that is, inside the story, for Jesus is the King of the kingdom, and there he is, after all, at hand. The kingdom of God/Heaven is thus both present and also coming.
All well and good, but with DJT as our president, one might well be turned to consider ultimate things, apocalyptic things, end of the world things. (There is another word that belongs there, but I can not call it to mind). It just occurred to me, having mentioned "apocalyptic things," I could see DJT as the antiChrist or the Beast of Revelation. His pride and arrogance, his extreme cosmic self-concern make him an apt image of Satan himself. I have been through Dante's Hell numerous times and the image of ice for his character is apt, A cold and unforgiving man; or, possibly, one might see him at the bottom of the seven deadly sins circle in Purgatory, the circle of deadly pride, walking bent to the earth with the weight of heavy rocks on his back should the man choose to repent. "What, me repent? I'm a good person," as he said at his press conference yesterday. "What do I have to repent? I haven't done anything wrong. In fact I am the best person I know, definitely the most humble, no one outdoes me in humility. If things go wrong around me, it is not my fault! Not my fault!" Well, as long as one still has life one can choose.
The point I am moving toward at my usual glacial speed, is that on another level of interpretation the emphasis on "at hand" means "now" for us, me certainly, in this moment. The kingdom of heaven is present in this moment too, and of course Jesus is its center, historically and ontologically, now! The idea that finally came to me was that, as with Saint Augustine and the two cities, there is either the kingdom of God, Jerusalem, or there is Hell. And, we are known by our loves. Those who choose the love of God, choose Heaven; those, like Trump, apparently, who choose self love, choose Hell. What kept occurring to me these last few days is that heaven is immediately present, and that, I believe, God/Christ the Lover uses creation to woo us. Trump seems to see creation as a reflection of himself. He plasters his name on everything he owns and attempts to increase that ownership to our country now: The United States of Trump. He mentioned yet again yesterday, falsely as the news pointed out, that there has never been a presidential victory as great as his. California has a dam (no pun intended) crisis with a danger of catastrophic flooding in three counties, yet Trump has done nothing, as far as I can tell. Why? The state did not vote for him. If that is true for why he has not acted, we are truly in for disastrous times.
In any case, Beauty is at the heart of creation and following that beauty, pursuing it, leads finally, I think, to the creator who is Himself infinitely beautiful. The interesting thing about this idea is that in my Psalm-a-Day reading schedule, I was on Psalm 136, a Hebrew liturgical Psalm with a refrain after each assertion: "for his steadfast love endures forever." (26 verses; 26 repetitions). It begins, "O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever." It is a Psalm of tremendous thanksgiving, identifying that aspect at the heart of the divine for which we are to be thankful, "steadfast love." The Psalmist identifies God first, his goodness, then knows him as "God of gods" (2), then "Lord of lords" (3) . God is next identified by the Psalmist as Creator, whose wisdom made this marvelous creation, "to him who by understanding made the heavens...to him who spread out the earth upon the waters...to him who made the great lights...the sun to rule over the day...the moon and stars to rule over the night, for his steadfast love endures forever." God as Creator is present in the Bible, the Old Testament, from Genesis on, as well as the New Testament. The second aspect of the divine that is celebrated in this Psalm is God's relationship with Israel, "man"; God is not only the Lord of Creation, he is also the Lord of History, and the Psalmist then celebrates God's relationship with Israel, from Israel's formation in its liberation from Egypt to God's military triumphs over Israel's foes that sealed God's gift of the "promised land" for them. The final verses image God as savior, "it is he who...rescued us from our foes,...he who gives food to all flesh." The final verse, 26, repeats the central idea: "O give thanks to the God of heaven, for his steadfast love endures forever." Our response should be one of gratitude: what we have is all gift and at the heart of the gift is God's steadfast love. Everything from the creation to Israel's history reflects the divine presence and goodness. Even though we, 21st century people, have as in Hail Caesar forgotten the Faith and elected the essentially Self-aggrandizing Self, nonetheless the truth is still there to behold. Sometimes even the truth appears in surprising ways. God is always at heart the Lover.
That element is reflected, for example, in last Sunday's Mutts. As in Psalm 136, there is a refrain, obviously looking toward Valentine's Day: "Darling, I love you." The Mutts' universe participates in the revelation through its various recurring characters: in the first panel, Earl, the little dog, is on the bed looking at his newly awakened master, Ozzie. The balloon says, "Darling, I love you." That is also the title of the book created by the artist and the poet, the book from which the idea and images come, presumably. In any case, each panel has an image and the refrain. The bird in the tree above Ozzie and Earl, out for a walk, expresses it; the squirrel in the tree expresses it in the next panel; Earl's best friend, Mooch, the cat, and finally the sun itself, reveals it: "Darling, I love you." When I saw that the Sun also participated, "the sun to rule over the day," my delight was boundless, so to speak. In panel six Ozzie and Earl are back in bed, bringing the cycle to its conclusion as does the Psalm. Ozzie says, aptly, "All day I felt like someone was trying to tell me something." Yes! In a very real sense the idea that God uses nature to woo us, is undoubtedly remote in our culture. Our lives are dominated by the scary reality of Donald J. Trump, the bloviated, self-absorbed Self who at any moment might say or do something to bring on chaos and destruction. And yet, the Divine is also truly present, trustworthy and dependable: Beauty is real, out there in the universe, not just in our minds though our minds are made to perceive it. Goodness is real, present in the acts of many people in the world around us; Truth is real, regardless of the many politicians' inability to speak it, in their hopes that the Lie might prevail to their benefit . After all, however, as Ozzie seems to recognize, "someone is [indeed] trying to tell me something." The still small voice whispers in Nature and in History, The Kingdom of God is truly at hand. Sometimes though, the still small voice has been known to shout!