Hermitage Notes - Two Kingdoms

Something appears to be amiss.

So here we are waiting on the phone to ring. 

Last night’s after-hours call was from the cardiologist. This morning it will be her nurse on the phone informing us regarding the next step in this process of having a heart Cath; something that will happen as soon as it can be made to happen [Tomorrow or Tuesday]. 

Ideals. Life-ideals. 

What code do we live by? What ambition motivates us? What are we honestly living for? 

I awoke thinking about kingdoms. 

There are only two. 

There is the Kingdom of God. There is the Empire [kingdom of men]. Two kingdoms. Two entirely different rulers. One Divine Ruler. One diabolical ruler. Two entirely different sets of moral standards.

In our own convolutions, we want the benefits of both worlds and are taught [as modern-day Christians] how to live on the margins of both. The dangerous thing about these margins is that Empire ideals have encroached and overrun Kingdom ideals to a large extent, so blurring the margins that it is practically impossible to see any real measurable difference in this class of people that are comfortable living their lives in the blur. 

[I can say this because I spent years embracing the blur as a norm. I can say this, too, because there are yet areas of blurriness that I recognize in my life.] 

Blurry people fail to present an accurate image of either kingdom. 

Jesus began immediately defining the differences between these two kingdoms in what we refer to as his Sermon on the Mount [Matthew chapters 5-7]. 

We can read Scripture with a bent toward bending it to suit our enculturated preconceptions. Or we can read Scripture with an open heart and mind. It is impossible to read the words of Scripture with an open heart and mind [Saint Benedict calls it listening with the ear of the heart.] without seeing an urgent necessity in departing from any lifestyle in these 21^st Century times that does not resemble that of Christ and those who dared to follow him in those turbulent 1^st Century times.

Which kingdom does my life more honestly represent?