“7 A good name is better than precious ointment, and the day of death than the day of birth. 2  It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart. 3  Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad. 4  The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth. 5  It is better for a man to hear the rebuke of the wise than to hear the song of fools. 6  For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fools; this also is vanity. 7  Surely oppression drives the wise into madness, and a bribe corrupts the heart. 8  Better is the end of a thing than its beginning, and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit. 9  Be not quick in your spirit to become angry, for anger lodges in the heart of fools. 10  Say not, “Why were the former days better than these?” For it is not from wisdom that you ask this. 11  Wisdom is good with an inheritance, an advantage to those who see the sun. 12  For the protection of wisdom is like the protection of money, and the advantage of knowledge is that wisdom preserves the life of him who has it. 13  Consider the work of God: who can make straight what he has made crooked?” (Ecc 7:1-13 ESV)

The ability to feel emotion: predictions of emotionally trying times; hard zones to live into; premonition of despair. These things remind the warrior of their creed that will survive and become all the more emblematic as the foundations shiver, as the peace shatters, as the night turns chaotic. They remind of some balancing act: we ally with each other on basics of recognition, a style of speech, a sense of fashion, a “belonging”; but in church, being now Blessed Beings and Sooth Thinkers, we ally around what one says about themselves. A creed. A sermon illustration. A gladsome Celebration of something Divine and Worded out, invisible but heartwarming to Encounter.

As the foundations tremble, our Creed will light up regions of the heart under attack. Regions of the heart susceptible to an enemy’s propaganda and weakening assaults. Regions of the heart that Create a fighter, Create a soldier, Create a hero. We are heroic around a dispensation, a commonly-shared Epoch, wherein no life is wasted; all death and dying is In the Service. Each is alit in heart and mind with their Creed and thereby with their Ethos, with their Fighting Cause.

Tickle me and see if I don’t roar! The enemy’s bargain strikes a curious tone as we are coaxed to be the ones to make the first blast. We are coaxed to shoulder the blame for war, generally. We are coaxed to put aside Principled Defense Mechanisms and ally with Preemptive Strike. The latter, however, we first of all do not deny… and then, like Christ, we seek the forward move and stratagem that does indeed strike first, but does so with some loving gesture. That strikes deep in enemy territory with some Incarnation of our creed, some Faith lived out, some Invite extended. To be the gladly invaded Countryside: Oh, there really was a loving and “together” way forward, after all. We do not bemoan the “enemy” their entreaties into our land, because see what they have sacrificed, see that a sister or a brother is gifted to us, as a peace offering, as a promise of a voice box, vocal agency, within our own ranks. You make me a character in your organization; I will get the acceptance letter for my own labors, you implicitly included in the bargain.

We bargain, and the soldier is not so naive as to think that the “hawks” out there are somehow sated, sedated, fallen asleep. No, the enemy is clever and hawkish as well, but let there be jesting! Let there be Humor! Let us first of all, also, list all the ways our present countryside, national scene, is compromised by foreign agents. The pundit who will trade their country itself to make a point. The irresponsible ones in authority positions. The innocent youth trying, without doing too much murder, to create a movement.

Our movement is respectful of some give-and-take notwithstanding the belief in chain of command and authority. Some way that say a layperson and his or her pastor communicate, no prone demonstrations of “submission”, but still a respect for another’s area of expertise. Our movement envisions armies of clerics, perhaps, but only insofar as their ministries were prophetically correct and their creed wholesome. They marched in the communities of origin with Christocentric banner raised high. They intended thereby to announce: Jesus is in this territory. Jesus, the peacemonger, is reigning here. There will be no doubts that Christ is proclaimed, and it comes so close to being sinister. It comes close, because it is an outlandish truth claim the pastor is making: that Christ is King, that we His people are forgiven and healed and treated as children in the Master’s courts. But good people… society ensures that Good People… are in this role. With all the community support they might need.

The foreign mission, then, is just as fraught with heroism, with lives on the line in order to avail the communities served with that give-and-take, with that human-encountering-human, with that plain loving gesture of riding atop the tank in full camo but vulnerable, as the community is reached and its walls heroically, willingly breached. Because of respect for the local mythology. Because of desire to share the Christian summary judgment on all foreign religions. That Christ is proclaimed whether in the Trinitarian Spirit or in the foreign religion. And we are heroes for the sake of what He has done in our hearts, to encourage the faint, to strengthen the dying, to surrender on some level, as though already defeated, precisely that we may Discover that plane, that playing field, on which we are also already Victorious.

To have made the right concessions, this is no defeatist or demoralizing agenda, rather: we take a moment to Mourn the society divided, knowing that the alternative to our own agenda is a lightning rod and honey pot for an enemy to latch onto. In this sense we are already defeated: “When there are divisions amongst you” (1 Cor 11:17ff). We already have seen our own worst. We already have come to the confessional saddened by what opportunities were squandered, what beauty was trampled upon, what mistakes were made. Yet tomorrow’s War is bigger than all this, and more inviting to the heroes no regrets mentality. We do not therefore absolve our enemies with blanket evasion, we do not evade their own guilt and corruption; but we Forgive, and this is different from ignorantly ignoring. We forgive, even though our own battle lines are compromised by internal ruin and discord. Ours will be stronger if we can indeed first forgive each other, then forgive the enemy, then launch forth as One Body and a Healed One. Emotionally raised up in Resurrection Strength, because after all our hearts were in it. Our hearts Cared. Our hearts Sought… and they Found.