What is the point in saying no, what is the point in not saying no? The questions make sense as long as there is a point toward which the questions are moving.
If I say no, and there is a point at distance, at which someone is saying yes, then it makes sense to say no; for my no is transfigured, hastening into that yes.
If I do not say no, and there is a point at distance at which someone is saying yes, then my not saying no also makes sense, as long as I am attentive to that yes, and want my not naysaying to echo and be included in that yes.
I may however say no in a void, just as I may refuse to say no, in a void. In which case my no saying and my non no saying are lost in a void.
We look for land marks, we look for sea marks.
“When we are seated in a moving vessel and our eyes are fixed upon an object on the same vessel, we do not notice that we are moving. But if we look further, upon something that is not moving along with us, for instance upon the coast, we notice immediately that we are moving. It is the same with life. When the whole world lives wrongly we fail to notice it. But should only one person awake spiritually, the life of all others becomes immediately apparent. And the others always persecute those who do not live like them.”
(Pascal)
We must come from somewhere if we are to go somewhere.
We must go somewhere if we are to remember that we come from somewhere.
There is only one word in all creation. 'Jesus is the YES of God.' (Paul)
We however dwell on the other side of that yes; the grave side, the dark side, the death side, the under side.
So it is important not to say yes too soon, too easily, too often, too cheaply. This would be to debase the currency of life itself which is not a money, but the blood of our brothers and sisters, the blood of Christ.
Just as it is important not to say no in a void. This would be to join our voices to the despairing wail of the damned.
It is important to say no in view of, in the direction of, a yes which is forever distant, forever nearing.
Because we are hungry for fullness, for non death, for life, for non suffering.
Because we cannot merely stand by or bystand or spectate or grandstand or freeload or grimace.
Because a because joins us, life to life line, to the cause of goodness, of love, of truth in deed.
Because the distance between the no we insist on and the yes that insists on us, is constantly narrowing, reaching, almost touching.
Therefore our word to all systems of this world, right, left, center, imperial, colonial, fascist, racist, capitalist, marxist, maoist, castroist, reformist, is
Not yet, not enough, not quite, not at all, not by half, not by a long shot.
Ours being an ethic of the promise, implying that we keep our promise; to say no until the day when our no is swallowed in His yes; until then we await and press forward and trust to His keeping of the promise which is to say a payment no power or form or arrangement of this world can estimate or hand over to mint or hoard or bribe us with a war payment but more a blood sacrifice and more a livid stigma and more
His payment coming due on His day; nothing less than the substance of His promise which is our rising from the 'body of this death'
life unimaginable to the degree that our misery, our moral stagnation, our spiritual and corporal and social plague, is beyond healing any healing but one; maranatha,
come Lord Jesus.
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