“2 So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, 2 complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Lights in the World 12 Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. 14 Do all things without grumbling or disputing, 15 that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, 16 holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. 17 Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. 18 Likewise you also should be glad and rejoice with me.” (Phil 2:1-18 ESV)

Fawn legs, bleating of sheep, on our first baby steps: duty has called the Christian, the Soldier, rightly to think Divine thoughts, yet our outlay is compromised and seemingly broken. Seemingly, we harp on issues pertinent, perhaps to ambition, no, rather, to Personal Dreamland, Personal life Designed, unambitious longings for some things to startle us with the Fact: they are finally Real! Long awaited, now Real!

Because Duty has a solemn flipside, that to study our own passions and heartache is to see a Person more qualified than how we feel hour to hour, moment to moment. Somehow, innate cleanliness refuses certain temptations and heals around others. More, as we wonder why the nagging thoughts, the mind on overdrive, the study on repetition, is a mind attuned to a few Precious Souls “out there”: why do we worry about friends and family, when we are tasked and imputed to be thinking on “Deep thoughts”, “Right comeuppance”, “Love for the mankind”?

Yet somehow in God’s timing all things work together for Good, to those who love and are called according to His purpose. If we are a broken record, a bit, in our day-to-day, well so too we are Christian Perfection a bit, in things we cannot take credit for. In our passing dialog with a friend about the house. In our Intention towards another creature, even if an accidental “click” or “like”. Society rightly Honors the brethren, sistren, who Contribute, even if they themselves are first to point out: I am a broken, deeply flawed, being.

Yet the fantasy life and the Purposeful Living, it stays Clean and circumspect, but all this why? Precisely because we know Immediate Forgiveness, Immediate Mercy, when in fact we do err. It is precisely when we feel the heavy hand of Judgment, that we begin to be cajoled into sinning. We need Judgment met with Mercy, to know the girlfriend’s, boyfriend’s laughing prodding, you are such a silly one! To worry so much, when truth be told you are Saint numero Uno. Someone like you… they’d be first out the gates… to help a friend in need, to be Mom’s pride and joy, Dad’s hope and prayer. Somehow, life comes down hard on us, and the question poses itself, am I after all this “kind of gent, lady” or that “kind of gent, lady”? Are we all things told Perfect in Christian’s sense? That is, are we fellow laborers with the likeminded, with the Inspired, with the Soldier Dutiful unto a perfect end?

Because we are pinched and slandered, yet buoyant and life-affirming. We are hated and tempted in entirely new ways each day and hour, yet to study ourselves… there is some passionate Apologeia even as we munch the inter-meal crackers and food stuff: should be fasting, O friend! Should be proving—with food intake as a sign—as to Proper and Good discernment of the spirits. Prove you are capable on the spirit-realm, by what you do outwardly, right? Oh, no, and I’ve fallen away again. Or, Oh, yes, all things told this is a Proud Son, a good egg, a nifty flora come fruition.

Why, then, we live in that both-and of Yes and No, both Encouraged unto the stars whilst rightly dreading pa’s voice, ma’s voice, of rebuke. Oh, don’t be hurt, O soul, life is a broken record at times and the violence done unto one’s Personhood, this is but the birth pangs. It is just a little corrective, because you were sailing well. What hindered you? If not things rightly to submit to Authority? Authority as to winning the long war, a war with Rightly Able soldiers as ourselves at the helm, on the stern, in the barracks, aloft in the skies. We were after all flawed beings, but beings both-and being also Perfected in a way not proud, not self-aware, just a little juice once in a while to reassure ourselves. Because our paucity of words… this is Divine. It spells the friend’s or roommate’s Confidence in us, their willingness to sit at our feet or let us sit at theirs. The ways everything in its season, family will be Okay, friends as well. Because of innate mellifluous and plaintive, non-beggarly and non-self-aware actions and lifestyles and engagement. We engage on Christian terms, forgiving but also mourning when it is called for.