These are relatively small things on the macro-economic scale, but there’s something beautiful about the smallness of mutual aid.  When the twelve apostles gave their blessing to Steven and the other six, they weren’t charged with restructuring the economy of the Roman Empire.  They were charged with seeing that those in their own community, fellow-Jesus followers, were cared for.  They were charged with collecting the gifts of God

The first kind of mystery is one where we can still keep the subject at arm’s length – however much we think we know or don’t know.  This second kind reaches out its arm and pulls us in to itself.

This “working out of our salvation” day-by-day can be hard work, and we need reminders that this hard work is good work, that we are caught up in and connected with something greater than we can think or imagine. We need glimpses of transcendence to break open our imaginations and leave us wondering, beyond simple answers, beyond understanding, beyond 12-point plans and tidy social boundaries.

Apocalypse, and apocalyptic times are revealing times.  They tear away the veil, remove the façade, expose the mechanisms previously hidden from our eyes.  They help us see more truthfully.
Kind of like a good poem.