“36 As they were talking about these things, Jesus himself stood among them, and said to them, “Peace to you!” 37 But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit. 38 And he said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? 39 See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” 40 And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. 41 And while they still disbelieved for joy and were marveling, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” 42 They gave him a piece of broiled fish, 43 and he took it and ate before them. 44 Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” 45 Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, 46 and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, 47 and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things. 49 And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”” (Luke 24:36-49 ESV)

Empty ethos, wilderness wanderings: the cultivation of dreamland Relevance strikes up against the crime of empty minds, the struggle to Reflect and Atone in words, the self-same, inter-reflective, pursuits. We go empty, on a bender called glum, called consigned, surrendered, sleepy. Only then to be Awoken: Christ is already carrying His Cross; we are already reminded of the struggle amidst the seemingly warm embrace. We flirt and warm to milder climate, but in fact our Die is cast: we are to soldier forward, we are to continue nevermind the ghouls and ghosts, nevermind the faux calm, nevermind the fanciful realization: such folks as these, too, are babes in swaddling clothes, suffer the same temptations, are no less “righteous” than the unholiest in our midst. Each of us somehow unholy, yet too the thankfulness to the On High for such a one, such ones, as these.

Who read the Good Book. Who strive to be of good cheer, though our time and our patience is being taxed. Who remind us of a long familiar mother or father figure. We are after all rather humbled to think through our own outlay, perhaps, only then to realize it was Wartime, and wartime called for Modica most radical. Rumors, pained attributions, the fact indeed to be of mentalism unguilty, unspooked, undenied Peace: the only consternation being that such-and-so wasn’t in that same Hour forgiven. For we think with our feet, and to have avoided a temptation… isn’t this the Mark, the Scout’s Badge, the solo Crossing sublime?

Therefore the radicalized Soldier walks through the day rather post-trauma, post-alert, post-individualism. He or she seeks not the milder climes of concessions made, but rather is of firm constitution as to the fact that, though post-trauma etc., that the mentalism is Alert and Relevant and Correct: Christ for His people, and we the harbingers of a more strife-filled time, a more militant time, a Church on Earth so radicalized and known for its people’s loving strife.

Because after all the good name of “People of the Book”, of “Christ-follower”, of “Believer”: this has cheered our forlorn soul, and made of us people certified, triumphant, radically-opposed. It has cost us at times all semblance of good order and sanity. Indeed, rare temptations… so long avoided… these we come clean to the realization, are rampant in the community: to unthinkingly indulge a pastime long ago abandoned for the Cross, to talk through some tempting scenario, to take a risk all in the Name of Together, Married, People Unhindered.

Unhindered because it is an Army of One, who approaches the Altar and who is rhyming, ripe, and composed in the News that theirs is a contagious Mindset, a goodsome Intellect, a wide-eyed Soul; it is a New Tomorrow daring to be ushered in, and we its loving peoples know immediate Forgiveness for any and all the “noise” that proximity to the Bold Claims brings with it. We are proximate, near and Relevant: to a claim most Audacious and Loving, and the people gathered, no mere public gathering but a crew of consenting lovers, do raise the Standard of a shared Blessing, Christ for us, sleepy-eyed wanderers, teetering to fall out of the window as the apostles speak, all these Composed and Relevant for words and Encounter to live by, to wake up to come Morning, to be of good courage since our lives are of milder, meeker, courageous Soldiering effect and reason.