“17 Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. 18 They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. 19 They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. 20 But that is not the way you learned Christ!— 21 assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, 22 to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. 25 Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. 26 Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, 27 and give no opportunity to the devil. 28 Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. 29 Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. 30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 31 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. 32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” (Eph 4:17-32 ESV)

The mechanical nature of Forgiveness: Christians are in the business of an automated reply, a mechanistic sojourn, a Reliable mercy seat, wherein who we are, what business we are in, our Intentions, both original and Today, are both understood, contemplated, and are like so much water under the bridge: Forgiven.

Because, no cynical rationale but a pragmatic Observation, if we do not forgive others, our Father in Heaven will not forgive us. Some “pattern-matching” entails, some “psychological mystery” finds purchase, some “equation of reciprocity” delineates that Today, if you hear His voice, harden not your hearts like the Israelites in the desert.

Any backwater can be a Tyrant. Any juvenile or sideling can be a Miscreant. Any Actor, state or religious, market-based or ideologically-based, hereditary or creedal, is an Actor we each must Invest In, on the forgiveness front vis-a-vis not that we patronize so-and-so: “ Oh, you need forgiveness”, but rather that we gift each other, “God’s greatest Assurances are His welcome and His sense of deservedness, of Belonging”. We all know the feeling of being Left Out, out of upper-crust society, out of middle-class plugging away, out of no-holds-barred lower-deck partying it up. We all do well, also, to be Grateful for what digs we do find purchase in, as our Lot in life, our Giftedness, our Meaningful Employ: the Father has His or Her sons and daughters, and Remarkably these children of God, are themselves counted upon, invested in deeply, left to make or break the mark on their own two feet: because God is not a Father who can be accused of patronizing or doting, yet Dote He does once in a while, because He is Love. Dote He does when the legions of angels swoop in to fulfill the prophecy or to warn the eavesdropper as to rumor-mongering—a no-no—and personally Signing Up oneself, giving our lives to the Lord of Scripture. Of the Book. Of the Presence. Of the Kingship.

More, present-day Reenactments of the adages of Old, the old Scriptural caution signs and well-intentioned Signposts, these beckon to church folk and folk everywhere of Good Will, to understand Forgiveness, to understand standing in Error with the Father but accepting His no-time-to-tarry Mercy Seat most untethered and unhindered. That is, His roar, His gaze into Tomorrow, His psychological Impact, does for the Son, for the Daughter, what God would have done for all Mankind: no-nonsense Aptitude and Forgiven Status.

The soldier who works for Upper Echelon HQ, the looming threats of mechanized warfare, of robotic avoidance of the human capital, of insensitive Upper Echelon HQ that murders the soldier with useless tasks, unmourned, unrepented of, unfelt: these are Times for God personally to bear in the eye a tear, to shed said tear, even while owning and delighting in the Resurrection of our Lord. Of His story. Of His influence. Of His impact.

The cross-national coming-together, the strange ways individuals become Emblems of an entire society, the marriages and baptisms, dinners and confessionals: Tomorrow’s War, our declaration Today of good intentions, of Peace, these things are handily passed around the circle of Influencers, nay, of Heads of State, of Children who thrive at the Helm, of fill-in-the-duty-here of What, Whom, for which Agency, and How, we get proper moral and ethical Work Done this milieu. This era. While the women or men of the equation are studied and gossipped about, betrayed for their Good Will and Good Cheer, turned over to a paranoid and schizoid war room that, lacking teeth in the ground, lacking simple Experience with life’s beautiful suppers and inductions, marriages and last rites, go Army, go Militant, go Aggressor. To these we submit not for a second, knowing our Soldiering began on wings and a prayer and on a simple Excursion, together and in Company, to the merry-making and the party-central or to the social place and community coming-together. To the family dinner table and the shared Witnessing of beautiful art or storyline, of the Book read and inwardly digested, of New Moses’ rules for strange ways modern technology, starting with the car or even the printing press, has called up New Rules, to extend and Interpret what is in Scripture. To keep the fellowship Unbroken, the schisms somehow as eagerly undone as they were critically begun millennia ago.