Flow

There must be a good amount of output proportional to the input.

The Gospel says that through Christ, who is the Water of life, our bellies burst forth with rivers of living water. Therefore, we are vessels, channels of water and life. On the contrary, we are not dams that swell up and burst when too much water accumulates.

In this day and age where information tsunamis are not just regular but literally rife, we desperately need as much means to output as we can. Writing is nice. It’s for clarity. Reading, again, makes me a whole person. Speaking it out makes me a ready person. Now that I mention it, there are two outputs for every one input, at least in Francis Bacon’s point of view.

This is why we have social media, I suppose. They are social in the sense that they in themselves are effective channels to share whatever any of us have flowing in and through us, whether it be the clear waters of life or just bullshit. What annoys me, though, is that it is what it is: it’s social media, with all its stigma.

There have to be other ways, but for the moment, we can write, and we can speak. But let’s expand on that. We can teach before a class. We can share through one-on-ones. We have conversations, welcoming and addressing discourse. We can take a picture, which may very well be worth a thousand words.

Well, maybe we don’t need social media. Could it be that all that we do that isn’t input, is automatically output? Could it just be that have life itself serving as the message we disperse, the sum total of what we take in, infused and enhanced by Christ, who, while being one with us already, has placed eternity in our hearts?

It’s certainly something to meditate and to marvel over. For the Gospel of John continues by proclaiming that in Christ is life, and this life is the light of men. We shine this light, as it is our life. Christ is our life, and therefore our light. We are the bush, and He is the flame, ablaze and alight, yet we are not consumed.

Light in itself is something that shines. Naturally darkness, in all of its strength, cannot hope to compete because of its nature. Instead of shining on its own, it can only thrive by snuffing out of the light.

Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness could not comprehend it. I believe it could never contain it. Darkness and death are temporal, while the light we possess is life, and true life is everlasting. Limitless. From the perspective of eternity, the light will always overcome the darkness. This appears to be a parallel to perfect love, which is also a limitless love, always casting out fear.

But today I remind myself, that the absence of fear in my life is only one side of the coin. Through the finished work of Christ, His eternal and everlasting life is my life to live, and His perfect and unconditional love is my love.

Previously I spoke of the superiority of Christ and His finished work putting everything – sex, power, and money – in its place. Today, I speak of the absolute humility of Christ seen in His finished work, absolutely putting us in our place. Christ, Creator, born into creation, lay His life down, yet not to push for His own agenda, but to guarantee that creation would be reconciled with its Creator, not for a moment, but for all eternity.

He who was infinite suffered the fate of the finite, and in a twist of fate, all that was finite was ushered into infinity. By Christ we now possess an infinite Truth, a word literally alive in us. The risen Christ is the sole guarantee that we are also seated in a new order, a new infinite reality, through whom we live and move and have our being, especially in this finite realm.

Because fear could never have a hold on me, I am free to live in love; that is, practicing limitless power through absolute humility, and vice versa.

Christ in, Christ out. Christ out, Christ in.

Ad infinitum.