“61 To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments. Of David. 1  Hear my cry, O God, listen to my prayer; 2  from the end of the earth I call to you when my heart is faint. Lead me to the rock that is higher than I, 3  for you have been my refuge, a strong tower against the enemy. 4  Let me dwell in your tent forever! Let me take refuge under the shelter of your wings! Selah 5  For you, O God, have heard my vows; you have given me the heritage of those who fear your name. 6  Prolong the life of the king; may his years endure to all generations! 7  May he be enthroned forever before God; appoint steadfast love and faithfulness to watch over him! 8  So will I ever sing praises to your name, as I perform my vows day after day.” (Ps 61 ESV)

Very little “Law” persists when considering the saint expelled into the world and tasked with matters of life and death, war and peace. No more trying to just “toe the line”, to “be perfect”, to “rest all cagey and sinless”, the soldier of Christ acts with an urgency recollected by his or her dalliance with Heaven, yet not resenting nor questioning God’s judgment. That we are now to listen closely and learn our status, our personal role, our calling, our heights now soberly reimagined.

Post-discourse. Post-sudden spotlight. Post-application. What we are is plain for all to see, the ones expelled and careening into a world in dire need of Salvation Story, History anew, Total Love, Total approximation unto those saints in the land, with a gospel of Peace, of Camaraderie, of just loving on one another.

That now, to envision high spirits as they act, as war amounts in heaven itself, simple deeds exercise our discerning capacities, our decision-making angles, our fitness and our patient allotment of the Review from On High. We are each Reviewed around notions of trustworthiness, yet our “Ambition” to receive the highest marks and accolades, this “Ambition” also meets finally our Converted Self, who wants Any brand of situational placement, no higher hopes, and in fact quite a bit of fright around being elevated too much.

So to the Soldiering religion: so long mistreated with the sinners, so long doubted and with aspersions cast our way; it is a strange Coup to try to emerge Together and Composed, ready to pick up the hammer and the shovel, ready to pick up the yoke and the bridle, ready to Lead and to Manage and to be Fabulously down-to-earth… only in this we fail, having the pleasant taste and smell of Christ’s Abode having changed us for life. Into those rather silly but prophetic. Into those rather post-mortem, but Alive. We no longer need go the way of the saints who predeceased us, rather to hear that they would will for us to Be Strong. Life invents mourning rituals. Life invents strange timelines of shock, denial, mourning, and hope. But in all this, the key fact is to end our nervous doubts and finally to Live as those set apart, Consecrated, unto Holy Service. Not because we are some magic trick, or mentalists. Not because we surprise even ourselves with occasional fits of inspiration. Not because of our ancestors. But because in us, in healthsome days and living nights, in hours at the grindstone, we are Human and Formed in the cauldron of Love. And this we can share, we do share, we prove to the doubters that it was a good work and decision to Love and Tolerate and Accommodate even such losers as we ourselves. We rise up when good things are asked of us, and we curl up in distress when it is suggested we are anything less than Fit and Desirable.

We feel wry, sly, cynical, self-serving, but our tears are real. We feel like showboats, but our actions are sincere. We feel resistance to being the lowest of the low, but our willingness to be humbled is patently seen. In all things, strange dalliances suggest all temptations and all accolades, yet these are owned in trust, in group, while our personal experience is simply of being sinners in need of five minutes of dialog. A little way in which after all God has formed us not to need a shoulder to cry on. God has formed us in nearly cruel, if not Effective, refusal to hear out a lazy complaint, however heartfelt. God wants us to grow into the people we in our pride long to be, even if in simultaneity with longing to curl up and be loved and patronized. We therefore hope for better habits, that our conscience thinking may rest a bit and go on cruise control at times. What we are is plain for all to see, those sentenced to “die”—quoting Paul (1 Cor 4:9)—or sentenced to “serve”, as those last of all seen with bedazzling, stunning, dying wreaths and plumage of Heroism, of Taste, of Service, of Helpmeet to all and sundry.