“13 Let brotherly love continue. 2 Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. 3 Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body. 4 Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. 5 Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” 6 So we can confidently say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?” 7 Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. 8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. 9 Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, which have not benefited those devoted to them. 10 We have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat. 11 For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp. 12 So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. 13 Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. 14 For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. 15 Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. 16 Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God. 17 Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you. 18 Pray for us, for we are sure that we have a clear conscience, desiring to act honorably in all things. 19 I urge you the more earnestly to do this in order that I may be restored to you the sooner.” (Hebrews 13:1-19 ESV)

The native decision to sensitize and be available, in no way is anathema, contention with, the strong exterior. The world around us implodes: excellence means our best executables and hope are marred precisely by the good job we’ve done. Stranger days levy stark reminder, that world is dog-eat-dog, marred, impossibilities met with blind ambition, things we’ll never know that we long for down pat answers to. Yet simply to Be: to Be There; this is the way we inadvertently lean on one another, and an inexpensive Invite to make our native decision Sensitivity and Hope.

Hope, the non-flattering Inbox that we just feel we deserve; this is Christ’s costly way of subtle Encouragement. It is a last lesson simply in no more despair, in non-recklessness and the fact: someone is always listening. To be this for one another, it is to Hope and in this Hope to Thrive; to learn to get our game day wings on, stand tall on our game day legs, and bleat a bit: Here, I am Here; I am starting to stand. Like the foal’s innocent-enough Bleat, we are surrounded by prayer, surrounded by a laying on of hands untold, prognosticated to go far, but today simply rejoicing in new things learned.

The fact is, we have a Patronage on high, and there is nothing to accumulate or hoard or despitefully use. Any and all Decision, we spare no moments for goodbyes but lance forth strangely Freed and Dutifully salute the friends past and the friends present, friends soon and future. Altogether, we are after all still on Working Terms, and an enemy seeks to turn our own sad goodbye’s into some liability or to see them as some accidental Reveal: Aha! I’ve Caught you! You say you once had a friend who… did you mention Strife, War, Discord? Well, I shall imagine that you did!

Such are the waterless streams Christ speaks of: addicted to Discord, they see their own embarrassing Warring and impute it, retroactively fit it, to others: to those who are merely being sensitive and not being Revelatory of Strife. We cry a bit over discord, but in no way are we submitting to naked War without Cause. The enemy scoffs and bellows, but we go forth Meekly and Purposefully only to fight where we are called to fight.

And too, we Concede a certain Other-Mindedness to the plateau, the new plateau where we—goodbyes having to wait—we find ourselves. We concede that this or that woman or man has something Personably and Responsibly entrusted to them. To represent, where we have spent embarrassing hours lost in the wintry woodlands instead of studying, lost in the screening room instead of theorizing, lost in the wards and shelters instead of Earning: this Counterpoint and Alter-Person rightly drives a hard bargain, of what Intrinsic and Sensitive Modality they represent. Only this: that some respect for educational attainment, be put into place, because it is ignorance (call it childlike; I call it Ignorant) to claim excitedly to be on mission to half the country trying to rewrite the relationships between, say, men and women.

Christ already did this, and there is neither male nor female in Him, for all are One. Where people feel slighted or shunned, degraded or dismissed, we plead No! Don’t lean on my words, on my “Authority”, on my remove, but know you are Beloved of God already, on your own, without crazy concessions and frantic attempts to do what “he” says”. Your “he”… he is a person you’ve never met before, whether literally or in alter-costume, in another form. That being Education. Being a couple years of tutelage in the things, or a romantic few months in the things, things that Inform and Shape us for life.

Soldiers work around the clock making up for concessions foolishly made by the peacetime masses. Sadly work around the clock, for it is a lack of some Education or Sensitivity to War, that thus has lost so much ground. But no matter, Christ is not measured in borders or land, but in Spirit and Truth. All the rest, it flips on a dime. All the rest, it surrenders to ingenious denouements. All the rest, it Rewards the family members of the Ambitious Ones, the near neighbors of the Striving Ones, the local denizens of the Crying Progress. The contract we have with life, with each other, is that we shall discharge our Duty in all integrity, in all Sensitivity, in all Tutorial most Patient: learning to work and guide self-sufficiently, learning somehow whilst deep in meaningful work, to enter and cope with the dying generation previous. In our long bouts of Labor, we can see further, because we know: no time to waste, work to be done ‘round here. And if we exist in existential Bliss called Prayer, that too is a labor to shoulder, a duty to those otherwise Called, called into some other vocation.