“11 Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others. But what we are is known to God, and I hope it is known also to your conscience. 12 We are not commending ourselves to you again but giving you cause to boast about us, so that you may be able to answer those who boast about outward appearance and not about what is in the heart. 13 For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. 14 For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; 15 and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. 16 From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. 20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Cor 5:11-21 ESV)

As the eagle ventures forth, you can’t make up the stuff whereby men, women are falling by the wayside. A headache, a compromised (sinful) situation, bleary-eyed and distracted, moral compunction not rooted in Christ’s message of carrying on, any guilt notwithstanding. We are to Carry On because our Being is rooted and grounded in the Present Moment. All our ambitions and dreams, all our heroic social engagements, labors at the grindstone, or cues acted on in right and fitting moment; all this has come down the wire to the Moment of Decision. And, somehow, we refuse to Concede to that Satan that the time is now for lackluster falling away.

We refuse to Concede, because it is all in the head: anyone can pray, can exhibit Joy, can show firm resolve to rise up, come their personal Hour, to the Occasion. There is wave upon wave of soldiering; your time will come. You, who are confused, dalliance undivine to distract, you who see the strange beleaguered and hot repercussions of someone else’s lustful or loving Encounter, the way all the community “Feels” it a bit; you are hereby to Rise Up, untouched, unambiguously Perfect (“ye must be perfect as your father is perfect”), yet too we hear the voice that says, “worst decision of the century”, and, lost in confusion as to whether it was us or “them” who made said decision, we forget that together we must Bear Up under that decision. We must Bear the burdens of each other. We are One Body.

It is a rather vicious counterpoint, the dull roar at a distance, of metal met with metal, cold steel met with cold steel: an enemy indeed has done this. Also we soar in the netherworld or in the stars, surrounded by a Personal quilt of License and of Coached Output: we have learned to be Spirit not Flesh. Who or what dies, well the spirit is not to be mocked; humor solves the riddle; love equates the disparate sides; strength carries the moment. We simply have no Time for the despondency, for the metaphysical and classical debates between atheism and Faith. Those debates… there was a time we understood the Atheist’s viewpoint; today, we are Advancing on a cause Forward and Tenuous, that Christ died for us, the worthy for the unworthy. That He attained to Christian Perfection, and was led by the Spirit notwithstanding that He was owner and decider of His decisions. No Spirit “did it all” for Him. He lived and breathed, rose and fell, engaged and curled up, at the Experiences gone through. Therefore our Perch is high and lofty, daring and salvific. We attack, because Christ attacked Sin. We get courage to go a step further, because the hospital bed was a false resolution; it had not the honesty that Now is the time us soldiers are needed. The malaise can wait. The hindrance can step aside. The prayer warrior is mightily acknowledged whether in sick ward or in Fighting Readiness.