Today’s find: Rakish

It was with a smidgen of heart-rend that I pitched in to tidy up the back yard this past week.

Two strapping, rakish Grandsons – the eldest, 7, and his brother 5 – were a wonder to behold as they scurried about wielding their multi-tined implements to gather up an impressive array of fallen leaves.

The pair had energy to burn, as if somehow they had tapped into what was left of a spring-and-summer’s worth of photosynthesis…drawing fuel from all the biomass detritus at their feet.

Thanks, Grandsons: You truly are a help!

I was glad for the help. In fact, the rambunctious boys made the work a joy. I was aware, too, that it was actual help this time around – not mere earnestness on the part of the young-uns.

And so, the smidgen: Seems like just a second or two ago that the eldest was a toddler, helping to fill my kraft bags one leaf at a time. (Cue the sappy sentimental musical score.)

Of course, the Grandsons had an ulterior motive for working so hard: They wanted to create a pile. And not just any pile, but the World’s Tallest – the better to cushion their subsequent onslaught of burrowing and pile-dives.

Gramps took a pass on all that extracurricular activity after the raking was done. But the pause gave him a chance to consider how this might be something of a Kingdom moment for him.

We hear this week, on the feast of Christ the King, about the coming reign of the strangest king the world has ever seen. Our king, the Lord of the Cosmos, doesn’t seem interested in building the World’s Tallest anything. He’s not into power or possessions. Rather, he exhorts us to tend to “the least” among us – the hungry, the naked, the thirsty, the imprisoned.

And this is work done not just out of pity, I notice, but out of identity:

‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of the least brothers of mine, you did for me.’

We can assume rakish airs all we like, I suppose. We can puff ourselves up with the feel-good that comes from extending assistance to someone in need. But that means we’re missing at least part of Jesus’ point, it seems to me – for it is in diminishment, not power, that we grow to become Christ.

We are called to help, yes. But even more importantly, we are called to surrender our rakish selves…ever seeking somehow to become one in Him and with Him.

That’s one impressive pile…

…all the better to burrow in…

Let us pause now…to recall that we are in the presence of the Holy & Merciful One.

IHS