“13 Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. 14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. 15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.” (Rom 7:13-25 ESV)

The roaming crosshairs of a soul determined to Heal, the Good Doctor, the Cancer Expunged: emptiness, hues of liberation, false freedoms of the comfort zones most artificial; to indulge and Escape is to try in all sincerity to bring out a level of fabulous living, voicing the affections previously bridled, determined to shine and glimmer in a world most self-imaginative, artificial and lazily unsober to most any watchful agent. This is what we do to ourselves, with or without Stuff, Substance, Addiction. We long more closely to draw alongside Reality Unscripted but Passionate. We long somehow to find the middling soft center of unvoiced opinions and previously straitjacketed entailments.

To be on the front lines, then, is to draw out all manner of craziness. With or without our crutch or aid, we draw alliances and form passions around not just life for its own sake, but life or death in the name of the Cause. We foment internal Peace amidst internal Rebellion, sickened a bit by just how selfish we can be, but also meek and humbled to be reminded of our errors. Make it all just go away… yet no route seems capable of doing that until we learn of Christ who Died. And then… to counterbalance one ill deed against ten good deeds: are we ever actually Forgiven?

Because there is no substratum of Existence contrite enough or sinless enough to pass muster: we are cowards and we are self-satisfied. We admire our own chastity or our own apparent submission or patience. We say, “Look what a clever specimen I am here!” to whomever is listening. Because it is sickness in the crosshairs, attended to by the attending Physician, Christ the good Exorcist and Surgeon. Who despite our weird theologies of basic goodness or basic hearts warmed or basic purity, is teaching Total Depravity and wild hayrides of man against his or her fellow man. Of selfish grandstanding. Of impatient self-righteousness. Of resenting those only moments later we wish to laud and honor. For their witness to Him. For the fact: any proper Christian witness entails outlandish rejection.

Let this be our perch, then: that our dynamo rotates around a hub called Witness. A hub most beleaguered, because they go rancid because of our love. They go awol and harmful because of our sharing the peace. They go mad and antagonistic because of our patience. And never forget this, O Christian: be not self-righteous but pray the Lord will allow you innocence and ignorance of “their” sins. Lest we become puffed up. O, but what a sacrifice therefore is entailed! What a contract therefore sadly is signed! What a dearth, until we see: Resurrection Life! That the patient submissive, the non-judgmental, is afforded some meek corner to call their own, in which to thrive, on whose account to boast. Because any self-congratulatory angle is bespeckled with earnest prayer and assistance and interposed Grace. Mercy for the one so qualified as to have become so in danger of pride.