Sticking Around

 

I never noticed before, but the Daily Office Readings for All Saint’s Day don’t include any reading from the Gospels. Not a one. I thought that was strange, and I was surprised that I hadn’t ever observed that before, since All Saint’s is the anniversary of my baptism.

I also thought it was ironic that the first reading is taken from pseudepigraphal 2 Esdras, and most of the other readings are apocalyptic as well. I am not a fan of Revelations, and I confess I was immediately somewhat suspicious at some of the wording in 2 Esdras.

That leaves me with Hebrews 11:32-12:2

“Roaming around in sheepskins and goatskins, they were left behind, crushed and harassed. (The world was not worthy of them!) They wandered, lost in the hinterlands and the mountains, hiding out in caves; living in holes in the ground. Every last one of them bore witness to their integrity— without getting what they’d been promised— but God already had provided something more useful with us in mind, so that they wouldn’t reach completeness apart from us.”

(My adaptation from Mounce Reverse Interlinear)

 

 

They sound like bodhisattvas to me—

those Awakened Ones

who stick around in order to be helpful,

because they know that completeness

isn’t complete unless it includes everyone else.

They are the “cloud of witnesses,”

always showing compassion;

holding fast to integrity;

practicing skillful means;

being useful.

 

Just ‘sticking around’ turns out to be

all the completeness anybody could ever need.