“4 Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, 2 so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God. 3 For the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry. 4 With respect to this they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you; 5 but they will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. 6 For this is why the gospel was preached even to those who are dead, that though judged in the flesh the way people are, they might live in the spirit the way God does. 7 The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. 8 Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. 9 Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. 10 As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: 11 whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.” (1 Peter 4:1-11 ESV)

Christian Conversion trades life learning and stages, whether gleaned in a night or over a decade-plus, for an eternal Joy combined with fearlessly staring down the fright of death. No longer can we be sent on that mournful long walk through the night, except that Pain remains, Hardship and Cruciform living remain. These old foes still rear their heads, life listening closely to see if each of us Citizens—Citizens desiring just to fit in, to escape in the blur of the crowd—is sufficiently hard-pressed. The tenor of our voice, the hope for tomorrow: these things betray us to a half-crazed Evil Overlord, it can seem at times.

Demon possessed, overlord via unscrupulous decision-making, the very rhythms and codes of Evolving Life Together are spied out and used precisely in the opposite sense as far as their natural courses and usefulness. Yet too the Soldier, the Prayer Warrior, holds out Hope over and against that Night Walk of despair, because he or she is certain of this: that nothing that has passed is minus Effect and Meaning. No, we do not mourn any longer the decades lost, the fateful Encounter or sense of here-and-now immediate Judgement. Judgement based on one Iteration, one Day, one Moment, and—oops—into the history books.

Indeed, the Convert’s marriage of Joy with Longsuffering, fulfills prophecies as to accepting an insignificant role in the community, yet somehow therein accepting a pivotal burden borne. To Convert… people die for as much; to Convert, still we will have our mournful occasions; still we will have our persecuted hours; still we will have our frustrations with people around us; but an almost Illegal—certainly Enviable—Joy does prevail and percolate.

Therefore the soldier does well to go minimalist, to go elementary, regarding myriad cadres of “lawyers” and “self-righteous Pharisees”. What is the chief turning point? What is the exchange, wherein no threat even of dying can stir or unsettle the leaves sprouting from roots that have taken hold? Almost too joyful, the Christian soldier speaks in tongues mellifluous and songbird-like. Because the Operation is underway, the Behemoth is under lock and key, the Spaceship glides and looms over yet one neighborhood after another.

The Operation is massive Acceptance of what we cannot change, sense of Duty unto that Christian family writ large, call of Honor around what dreams shall come. Honor around what a Tomorrow-Birth will bring to bear. Duty around what ecstasy is found in married life together, married to the Trinity, rather, two people with God Father and Holy Spirit, Son and us, all together. Acceptance that to a maddening level we let all things be held only lightly, ready to let go, small compensation to be accepted.

For it was ourselves we were fighting with. We prayed that some Higher Spirit would prevail. We hoped that some Inspired Beauty would transcend. We dared to invoke some Genius Imputation to spell our day’s experience. We wanted Something, and because of being Converts, we saw it rightly coming forth, sprouting from, a realm Spiritual, non-aggressive but Bold, inoffensive but Radical, sanguine but Flavorful. The future of Mankind is found when one’s flag, this flag we mournfully recall, is divvied up by Decisions made in wrong posture, as though rejecting a joke, with blindness to the Higher Purpose. So the land is divided, and one side goes with this nation, another side goes with that nation. Only this, that our battle is with ourselves, not to deny a fellow-traveler their right to be called “Child of God”. Not to resent a fellow-in-arms their hip response to Christ, or their cool Challenge to the Pharisees of our day. People speak different languages, even in the borders of one land. To go sublime, to go Rested, to go Patient, is to agree to Meet most winsomely and gregariously, on the turf shared, at the pow-wow Joined, in the marketplace soothed over and visited only partly to purchase; our markets they enable Community and Dialog. They build on a Trust. They reward to honest Broker. They tutor the one-day Leader.