We live under the Curse of the Fall. For all our efforts, there is absolutely nothing we can do from here to get out, except to die. Meanwhile, we live with the misery of having no purpose, and most people have to grow up and get somewhat older just to figure out that much, so that something like suicide becomes attractive. People in despair are close to the truth.
Those who come up with all kinds of false dreams of changing the world are the farthest from the truth. Yet people who think they have something to live for will strive against the despair and keep trying one way or another to extract some kind of victory. But it’s all an illusion, because anything they gain will be forgotten all too soon.
While people in despair are closer to the truth, they still lack one thing, that one key that makes them able to strive for a purpose that isn’t part of this world. It’s something no one can give you and it cannot be taught, but it can be caught if God breathes His Spirit into yours. For all that is included in that, one critical element is that your spirit receives mercy and learns mercy, and gains a purpose on sharing mercy. At any given time, in any given context, precious few are the souls who have that mercy, so that the simple truth of having it means sharing it with the majority who will never get it any other way.
No, we cannot make this logical, but we are equipped to understand how it works. That’s the good part, because we sure as hell cannot change it. The only thing we can change is ourselves, and should we find others granted mercy, we can share the task of magnifying that mercy. We who have received mercy are obliged by that mercy to make it as big as we can, to make its presence felt in this dreary and nasty world. We don’t make it less dreary; we simply introduce the awareness of an alternative, a connection to another world.
Scripture sums up that other world with the word shalom. While it translates into English as “peace,” it most pointedly means “peace with God.” It’s not what you have, but it’s who you are. And it cannot be who you are unless it is shared. Granted, at the lowest default level, you are the peace of God with His Creation. That’s what Paul meant in Romans 8:17-25, saying that Creation cries out for the revelation of the Sons of God. Creation eagerly waits to see us manifest His shalom in fellowship with it and with each other. So the way to begin a shared mercy shalom with others is manifesting it against the background of Creation actively encouraging it.
Taking hold of God’s mercy creates an identity of shalom that others can sense. We don’t want to be confined to mere words, because words cannot hope to capture the whole meaning. So we make sure to turn it into a state of existence, an identity that opens a portal into the Spirit Realm. Our mere presence in this world becomes a touchpoint that others can sense one way or another before we even open our mouths. It transmits on that invisible wavelength of the heart, and people receive it even when they are not heart-conscious. It calls and beckons to them.
Those others who are also spiritually awakened will sense it, too. They will know it is their duty to affiliate on some level, drawn to communion and fellowship. The purpose of divine revelation is to express the character of God in ways that help us breathe life into that communion. It becomes a node of power that shakes the world, because it introduces things this world cannot sense or understand. It restores just a taste of Eden, something everyone knows painfully well they have lost. They know they belong to it.
The primary and practical manifestation of shalom is in the social stability between two or more people of faith. It becomes a primary sense of identity. It is Biblical Law, not merely in the concept, but in a living existence. It is also the blessings that pour out from obeying that call to divine justice — appropriate prosperity, safety from threats, resistance to disease, and the ability to live in peace with others. It becomes the very essence of social stability within the boundaries of those who engage that divine dominion.
It does not yield to the classical Aristotelian query of being or doing; it’s far more than what we are or what we do. It’s who we are. It’s personal and cannot be objectified. It’s also who God is, and by extension, it’s who Creation is. It’s an identity that escapes this dreary world, this prison existence in shadow and deception. It is dying to this world and coming to life in another, even as the locus of our existence is here.
