“5 This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. 6 If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. 8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” (1 John 1:5-10 ESV)

Experience heaves and hos to a rather maddening drumbeat: ups and downs, a devil who mocks, a saint who shepherds, Christ who lightens the path, lights the path, alights upon the path. Because of all things, today’s ennui, today’s malaise or maddening question marks, the ways we begin to come apart at the seams… all this meets Radical Courage, to Dare, to Talk Ourselves into a fine circumstance. A brush against the depressive spirit, a brush against the ennui, a brush against the plain Impossibility for us—for Man in his or her element—to accomplish anything minus Receiving, Weaning from His nursing teat, Excitable around a post-Sabbath reunification with the Gospel; this brush up we Own and Command today relevant and purposeful Worship.

Because it wasn’t all in our heads, the strange heights, the lofty climes. More, the precursors to War are duplicitous false fronts, false calms, the fact our Victory as owned up to, immediately tosses out a sacrificial lamb called Alarmist. Why the alarm, it is asked. Well, because had not Jesus intervened in the form of His saint in the land, the enemy would have gone brave and gone aggressive. Would have fallen into that belligerence scarcely self-aware, but hurtful to the community “internationally” around Spiritual nation building. It would have been a hurtful Attack that we would have seen, minus the insight and Peacemaking of said Saint in the land. And that Attack… it would have been unfortunate because of Pride and the fear of losing face if there is even the slightest backtrack: “Oh, you only meant it as a talking point, you were sincerely just as calm and reasonable about My Perspective, but all I heard was your selfish boasts as they seemed to me”.

Because the Christian prays she or he will be found Calm and Reasoned around even the most boring or un-sexed up dwelling places. The Christian indeed is Marked, by recollections of a gathering in the Name of Christ, by a “Special Place” recalled and modelled, used to prophecy and to advocate, to advocate for Reward to the saint in the land, whose enthusiasm—amidst all manner of people saving and heroic deeds—is unfazed, unbridled, unmitigated. We hear Yes… from the saint we hear Yes, as if it was her or his special prerogative always to go low and go Elementary towards whispering as if speed and dope-addled—almost—reassurances to Everyone encountered.

That is, our rather infectious Joy is something we learned at the teat of a fellow man or woman in the congregation. It spells out Victory for a doctrine so elementary as not to fuss around creed and Naming Names, rather, to emphasize the Incarnation as an Experience. As the Fact of meeting with someone whom we respect but more, whom we fall into the arms of. Because of basic similitudes: Christ sent to the Jews, first. Christ sent to a few brave and troubled souls, demon-possessed and screaming out hurtful things.

The ups and downs are because of hooks that try and remake us as Respectable, but God Himself was not respectable. True, He was likable and magical in comport, serious in demeanor, but… respectable? No. We, too, are asked: why the fuss and strange days surrounding your aura, your personage? Because it is all True, that the Church of Moses was the main sticking point to our Christ. And we… the Spirit humbles us as we draw near… we are rightly bearing in mind Terror of the living God. That is, that He uses poetic justice at times to humble even and especially those Sent with a living Word. But if our prayer is in peace with Him, it has Power to lift up and to Save.