“22 So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. 24 The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. 26 And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, 27 that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, 28 for “ ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, “ ‘For we are indeed his offspring.’ 29 Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. 30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” 32 Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, “We will hear you again about this.” 33 So Paul went out from their midst. 34 But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them.” (Acts 17:22-34 ESV)

The notion we are largely okay encounters the pleading Need for sustenance, our safe places and getaway zones. Ideally this is found not in compulsive behaviors and substance abuse, but in the Word of God. We are thirsting, God has the answer. We are hungry, God has the dinner. We are forlorn, God has the companionship. We are guilt-ridden, God has the brighter Tomorrow.

It is also possible to find our Chutzpah, our Sanguine Temperament, our Fighting Posture, in the wild-eyed excitement of Service, of War, of Passionate duties discharged. This is no bellicose faultline, but the New Normal for so many, who grew up not with liberal monied educated Sins (the ennui, the wistful “cute” searching, the frustration at life not giving us more), but grew up Honoring God’s labor as given to Adam, the first man. Honoring God’s urgency for the birthright, the birthing, the large with child, as God so bequeathed to Eve, the first woman. And in modern times, with modern conveniences, the flipside of that, the woman working and the man tending the home front.

But to the soldier’s prayerful evening time come evening time: did we this day Serve? Did we give it our all? Is the soldier’s life enough to draw away from the abuse of substance or drink or brinkmanship and edge-of-seat risk-taking? Think, if you will, of those who landed the job of lauding the Gospel before us: prophets and sages. Were they always “kosher”, “normal”, “largely innocent and largely okay, grandiose”? Rather, what Scripture—honoring a respected Book with radical contents, nonetheless Preserved and Passed Down—talks through of Suffering servanthood, life not “okay”, no-man’s-land of prophetic Madness and Persecution of the faithful.

Is it possible to find our satiety, our thirst-quenched, our escapism—some see this in their lust or other escapes—as a mouse in a maze or before a button, “more Ovaltine, please…”. Our Sacrament is one of “yes, sir, ma’am, you may have the second serving…” And, “if others could see me now, how worthless my decision-making, my breaking point, my indulgence of the flesh…” Even as we “grow out of things”, we are always lustful, hungry, thirsting, yawning-unless-entertained, capricious, and strangely odd beings.

That is, except we be Saved by Christ. By the First Soldier, who addicted His disciples to His companionship come evening time, the “where else would we go, you have the words of Eternal Life?”. And then, no sin can separate us from the Father. Whatever our get-up, our sins are washed away, even before we’ve “made solemn Hajj, solemn Fast, solemn Abstinence”.

Because God loves the cheerful giver. We cease to Calculate, and therein become those untarnished by the errant Word, the errant Thought-Process-as-Revealed, the submission to wild spirits of discord, perverse willfulness, caricatured habits. God loves the selfless, self-abasing, right-on Wholesome and Appropriate male, female, gender neutral one.

To the soldier, then, channeling his and her passions into Right-Forward service, service on the front-line, service because… I’d be lost in a ditch of insobriety, somewhere, had I not met Christ, more, met Grace alongside a Job, Duty, Perseverance. The traumatized ones, did they nonetheless—despite the poverty of upbringing—did they get “Shaped” and “morally taught” as much as the prep school kid? Yet see them with poor-man’s sins, not with the wealthier class’s sins of ennui and entitlement, but with deep brokenness around—yes, thank you Lord for a job, but I need a “fix” sometimes, too—getting by clean and startlingly Wholesome. We are a wholesome community, rich or poor, even as—walk your own streets and see Nothing, let the addict walk those same streets, and name your sin, there it is. Intermingled. Conflated. Fought by those who are thus serving, thus called, but largely hidden from the polite gaze.

The soldier, then, is kept upright and Clean by virtue of his or her “addiction” to the Cause. Sometimes we are rewarded—for skipping a meal, skipping something escapist—with an immediate word of Prophecy. An image. A distinction. Sometimes to have the meal, we are rewarded with the fact, God feeds us in order that we may rise up Manifestly Servant-minded. That we might make good decisions (strange how many days the human body can go… but the mind… please feed yourself, O saint!).