1 Kings 19:15-16, 19-21
Proper 8 (13) - Year C
What mantle, large overgarment, do you play with these days. Under what aegis do you find yourself protected and authorized to act?
I still operate under a vision of Roy Scott, camp director, where I first heard that I would always be cared for. This has given me permission to enter into the prophetic world because, what could I lose, I would be cared for even if particular folks objected.
I still operate under the title of pastor clarifying the choices of life such as which field to graze and which not. In choosing comes the strengthening of living in fullness.
Titles and visions and mantles all lead to burning our oxen behind us that we might stretch out to touch the barriers before us and part them, throwing up "either" on one side and "or" on the other in order to wholly walk through the middle.
The time has come to pick up a mantle and employ it. It is time to chose life, and be persistent in that choice. In so doing we will choose against war, choose against the idolatry of economy or market forces, and choose against passivity. In so doing we will choose for the hungry and the diseased.
What mantle has seemingly chosen you, what mantle are you living under, what mantle will you pass on?
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/june2004.html
A mantle of power (covering term is "spirit") is very attractive and addictive. It is an equivalent of a ring in Tolkien's major work.
Of course the implication is that Elisha would use a mantle of power for good, while Golem would use a ring of power for ill.
The first use Elisha makes of the mantle he "earned" by keeping his eye on it, is to ease his own travel, to make a way where there wasn't a way, to have dominion over the waters. In so doing he effectively tests whether the power is a residual one (left-over G*D, unused by Elijah) or has become his that can be used without the mantle (can Dumbo fly without his feather).
Like it or not we all have more power (whether vested in mantle, ring, money, position, or whatever) than we like to acknowledge. A key question is what are we doing with the power we have, even before a potential of doubling it?
- - -
tricks and techniques
are still an order of the day
to implement
to demonstrate
to accumulate
power and more powerslogans and mantras
motivational posters
focus our attention
blocking out questions
transforming everything
into a tool my tool