(Un)Mute Yourself: Day 24
Luke 1:51 He has performed mighty deeds virtually; he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
Have we been praying virtual prayers to a virtual God?
Has our virtual church provided virtual comfort?
Do we place virtual hope in a virtual Jesus?
Christ Virtual?
Was the greatness of Mary’s Lord virtual? Was her poverty virtual? A virtual blessedness of a virtual virgin?
Was God’s promise virtual? A virtual covenant with God’s virtual people?
Was our betrayal virtual? A virtual fall of God’s virtual creation?
Is God’s forgiveness virtual? Virtual redemption?
Virtual salvation from virtual sin? Virtual liberation from virtual oppression? Virtual freedom from virtual enslavement?
What of any of this is real?
Did your loved one die a virtual death?
Was your grief a virtual expression of virtual loss?
In your virtual graduation, did you experience a virtual transition into virtual adulthood, virtual professionalism, virtual mastery?
In your virtual court hearting, did the judge give you a virtual sentence?
Is the cell you sleep in virtual?
Was the diagnosis you received from your virtual doctor virtual?
How much virtual time do we all have left?
How much virtual time have we ever had?
The backdrop for the present coming of the Lord is an inability to discern the real from the virtual in every aspect of our lives.
The words we choose for our experiences of togetherness, remoteness, celebration, education, romance, reconcilation, grief, and gathering matter.
We have been categorically casual in our speech regarding matters of life behind the screen.
We have not developed definitions at the onset of this age of season after season of distance.
We have not made agreements about meaning, perhaps because meaning is devalued currency in a post-Trump world, or perhaps because shared meaning requires humility, and what of that do we possess anymore?
What example do we have for making meaning in the midst of the virtual? Who will help us take hold of the real and proclaim it to be true?
The answer is Mary.
It always was and always will be.
She is the Mother of the Realest of the Real.
She, who gave of her fleshiness, her substantiality, was approached by a messenger of the God Who Keeps Promises, who, in humility, asked for her consent.
And, in humility, she gave it.
And Meaning was made.
There is meaning to be made. Even still. Even after all this. Even with all we anticipate coming. There is meaning to be made.
And it is real.
It is not virtual.
It is real.
