“12 Now concerning our brother Apollos, I strongly urged him to visit you with the other brothers, but it was not at all his will to come now. He will come when he has opportunity. 13 Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. 14 Let all that you do be done in love. 15 Now I urge you, brothers—you know that the household of Stephanas were the first converts in Achaia, and that they have devoted themselves to the service of the saints— 16 be subject to such as these, and to every fellow worker and laborer. 17 I rejoice at the coming of Stephanas and Fortunatus and Achaicus, because they have made up for your absence, 18 for they refreshed my spirit as well as yours. Give recognition to such people. Greetings 19 The churches of Asia send you greetings. Aquila and Prisca, together with the church in their house, send you hearty greetings in the Lord. 20 All the brothers send you greetings. Greet one another with a holy kiss. 21 I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand. 22 If anyone has no love for the Lord, let him be accursed. Our Lord, come! 23 The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you. 24 My love be with you all in Christ Jesus. Amen.” (1 Cor 16:12-24 ESV)

It’s very holy as the soldier Engages, coping with repercussions and many false moves, wrong-headed steps, reckoning even with “end of all things” bad moves because she or he is a Warrior of Spirit, and is under attack. Under attack not from man but from powers and principalities in high places, powers and principalities we do engage and experiment upon, our “Depth-first search” (referring to one what-if after another in sequence of implications down the chain) has revealed to it a New Level of consciousness and awareness, New Level of manifest destiny, New Level of “got it”, “aha” moment.

Because only in directly having wounded Satan, do we first glimpse the stronghold satanic. Only then do we, in affirming Life and that more abundantly, do we intuit the Repercussions for Old Falsity, Old Misguided Prince, Old Hater of souls. We intuit some Life-affirming courageous chutzpah, and the crystalline ice castle falls in a sprinkling cackle to the ground.

Because we hold this to be First and Most Evident, that Christ was a soldier like we are, and that His Father in Heaven: literally the God who created in seven days, is not a Deity responsible when Man goes errant. God is not the one who ought to be blamed, when Adam takes the Apple, Eve takes the Apple. No, though He created, He has bequeathed to us “in the field” that ability to do right and to do wrong and… for the pundit of War, the Thinker and Doer, any safe Remove sitting smugly in the church pews or the mosque’s place of reverence, is a smugness gone too far: we must Engage, and if we err, we must not blame the Father, but take responsibility ourselves, because He created us “a little lower than the angels”, full of Agency and god-like self image. And then He made us anew, New Creations, Creatures sublime and agentic, as those Creatures Beloved and Forgiven. Not by our test scores. Not by our diligence and persistence. Not by our self-coached hours engaged in study. But because He works with big and small, He is servant-minded to king and queen, as to prince and princess, to regnant ones and soon-to-be Focal Point ones.

So we lance out in the dark. We have gladsome internal Joy that rightly Imagines… the implications of the jaunt, the repercussions of the gesture, the fact of the well-humored ones talking a safe and friendly language most divine together. Because soldiers do err. Soldiers… they are front and center to Take the Blame from the smug pew-sitter, mosque-dweller, synagogue-patron. Those unaccustomed to War, to these we concede not for a moment though it is cute a bit how they charm and go offensive on the engaging social front. They reveal to us, even, some chutzpah, lion-heartedness, lioness-pride, that only a hater of life would try to crimp and talk down a level or two.

Judgment is ongoing, Revelation is a sail that unfurls, we approach beauty hidden in plain sight with Reverence and a nod in the direction of any and all Religious Coaches who thus created the beauty. Maybe it was someone else’s religion. Maybe it was instead the confluence, the international City of God, of gods, of Deity. Like Christ as the Jew meeting the Roman, confluence and Beauty emerging. So to our errors, to our warring and wartime Lunges: thanks be to God for the casual spirit who interrupts with polite and well-humored Questions. Thanks for the simple approach and subsequent parting of ways most ritualized, as people of high octane, high caliber Attitudinal Nature do gesture and observe, do engage and circle about one another, with humor on the tongue, with affection even between those who are simply friends on a platonic level.

Because to Reckon with a fellow traveler, the spy meets spy, the officer of some foreign deity, hidden in plain sight, right in the cosmopolitan bustling City, is to Engage on the basis of a Trust or Reliability, some innate “if that ain’t human, I’d die rather than concede to the devil that it isn’t human nature on display, of the most lovable kind”. Because even the soldier in the hustle and bustle is coping with errors so great that only a fellow-traveler in the force might appreciate error zone meets wondrous lancing forth. No more polite back-and-forths as though errors or Important Decisions aren’t being made. Every soul is in possession of a 9-1-1 or a line right to the top, to see society sometimes “just works” (to ape the cynic) but also that original sin is “manifest” as to our own self-fascination or obsessions.