Craving The Cup: Logos Reignited

The other night I had a brief but remarkable dream. I was speaking out against a proud propaganda artist regarding a poster he intended to give out to his fellows. He was peddling the sort of agitprop that one would expect to find in our fallen world and I wasn’t having any of it.

Now normally I would remain silent on such matters in the waking world, but in the dream I was boldly speaking out against the worldly misinformation.

I was ruminating on this dream for the greater portion of the morning, and while being careful not to read too much into it, I started thumbing my woolen knots in order to calm my spirit and try to discern which prayerful meditation may have inspired these feelings of mutebreak within me. Then it hit me, these words from my newly discovered patron that I chanced upon in an icon:

“Brothers: it is later than you think. Hasten, therefore, to do the work of God.” – Fr. Seraphim Rose

What explicit conviction these words bring to the humbled heart! Too careful I have been in the past few years of wavering unbelief to speak out against anything. -Lord have mercy-

Despite an entire lifetime spent in the shade of the shadow of the cross, I could not make declarations outside of echo chambers for fear of being wrong, cancelled or sounding a neophyte. -Lord have mercy-

The wanderings through culture secular and sanctified, all to sound well-read and enlightened, and yet I was fooled by a prelest-like false peace. -Lord have mercy-

No more. And so here we are, how can I begin to describe the wellspring from which words become intelligible and articulated again. This much I can relate: it is not for me to boast.

Those familiar with the epic animated film “The Prince of Egypt” 1998, will remember a particular scene that can make a man cry. From the Burning Bush, the LORD answers a shying Moses thusly:

  “…Who has made man’s mouth? Or who makes the mute, the deaf, the seeing, or the blind? Have not I, the Lord? 12 Now therefore, go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall say.” Exodus 4:11-12 NKJV

Moses has been thought to have had a stutter or some other sort of speech impediment, more reason to have been reluctant than I. Yet by heeding the voice of God he went on to become one of the most important figures of the faith, remembered and venerated for generations after.

What is the point of saying all of this at all? Why speak up now, after years of suppression in a feigned humility? In my zigzagging back towards the light, I have remembered what is truly essential to be spoken and shared, more so than any political opinion, any scientific declaration, any sign or wisdom or identity or nationality: “We preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness” 1 Cor 1:23 NKJV.

This, the entire reason behind the repetitions ’round my rope (Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Have mercy on me, a sinner), the one thing so worth saying that it has reignited the logos within me.

This supreme truth, from which all other conversations and creations may follow, and by which I would have a solid foundation to begin again using my talents, is the essence of what is at all worth saying, or gabbing. 

In this little dark age we have all been living through, let all of us who have been called and gifted with the ability to speak, write or sing, do so.

May we use our God-given talents to build for the Kingdom of God by participating in the re-creation of our fallen world remade in the image of His Son Jesus Christ.

I pray that this short post becomes a sort of rallying cry for all of the “little-c” creators out there and I can assure you that there will be much more to come on this subject. That thrilling adventure of the escape from stagnation and silence and towards a pursuance of beauty & truth, or, a craving of the cup.

in Christ,

-a pilgrim