“26 And when he had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples. And they were all afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple. 27 But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles and declared to them how on the road he had seen the Lord, who spoke to him, and how at Damascus he had preached boldly in the name of Jesus. 28 So he went in and out among them at Jerusalem, preaching boldly in the name of the Lord. 29 And he spoke and disputed against the Hellenists. But they were seeking to kill him. 30 And when the brothers learned this, they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus. 31 So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied. The Healing of Aeneas 32 Now as Peter went here and there among them all, he came down also to the saints who lived at Lydda. 33 There he found a man named Aeneas, bedridden for eight years, who was paralyzed. 34 And Peter said to him, “Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you; rise and make your bed.” And immediately he rose. 35 And all the residents of Lydda and Sharon saw him, and they turned to the Lord. Dorcas Restored to Life 36 Now there was in Joppa a disciple named Tabitha, which, translated, means Dorcas. She was full of good works and acts of charity. 37 In those days she became ill and died, and when they had washed her, they laid her in an upper room. 38 Since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples, hearing that Peter was there, sent two men to him, urging him, “Please come to us without delay.” 39 So Peter rose and went with them. And when he arrived, they took him to the upper room. All the widows stood beside him weeping and showing tunics and other garments that Dorcas made while she was with them. 40 But Peter put them all outside, and knelt down and prayed; and turning to the body he said, “Tabitha, arise.” And she opened her eyes, and when she saw Peter she sat up. 41 And he gave her his hand and raised her up. Then, calling the saints and widows, he presented her alive. 42 And it became known throughout all Joppa, and many believed in the Lord. 43 And he stayed in Joppa for many days with one Simon, a tanner.” (Ac 9:26–43 ESV)

To dwell close to the flame, one steps back to take counsel and just begin perhaps to awaken: Christ has called us to elysium, to Peace, to refusing always to go the bleary-eyed, never quite safe, risk-taking route. For, our Reality is some brand of imperfection, something always stressing and us: us the troopers who are flawed on all sides, from any angle, yet Merit good things in ways humbling, ways we don’t see, things we pass over in underappreciative personal reflection.

The canonical Prayer Life of the Saint is therefore becoming adept, very good, at praying through the discord, so good, in fact, that to lose Everything… we almost self-destructively seek this route or irrationally fear it, or go hog-wild to Preserve our Wealthy Status updates. But to the Christian, to the Master’s Vineyard and Laborers, our Elysium, our Reality, our Posture is received rather than hoarded, mandated from above rather than clutched close from within ourselves, provided rather than thirsted for unrelentlessly.

Bleary-eyed, yet having Seen heaven on earth, the Godhead perambulating with a manner both assured, calm, and invigorated, vicious to sin, Placating and Appeasing the would-be nerves and Imperfect tenor of voice. We are imperfect, “Sin”: it is heard in our very voice. Yet God works in This World, in This History, in massive Global Movements wherein the dutiful Prayer Warrior beseeches Some Divine Intervention and Aid.

Indeed the soldier sees this Aid, because it is above his or her pay grade to worry unduly, yet worry we do: all would go to Pot, were not God evoking and manhandling, handling and assuring, the Evolutionary tropes, the Facts of offspring both spiritual, mental, and literal. We are Offspring of a pool of genes, and the Logic therein defies Human Efforts to perfect and go the Ambitious Route. Our ambitions… we put first of all the ambition for Sanctity, for Holiness, for Getting One Thing Done around here. And they mock, for we are those having lost all things. But the Mission, the pinched nerves which have in the saint’s arsenal been turned into a Roar and a Fighting pugnacious Forward Jaunt: these are no laughing matter rather Frustrated and Aped, that we Go Full-In.

Because we can grapple with both Truths: that God is rest for the weary and really quite a decent, nice sort of folk after all; and God is interested in the stark grimace, severity of it all. And in This Life, on This Planet, in Our Highways and Byways: real Factual holiness is found, no longer a pie in the sky, but Factual and strangely convicting to all our fly-away prayers and foreign Hopes: Christ is young at heart for the wearily aging. Christ is here and now for the escapist and beleaguered soul. Your labors in Christ are not in vain.

To the ramparts, Keeping Watch on behalf of His mandate and His stern reminder—see us wander the streets asking if any of it is Real—that Decisions lie in the purview and duty of each and every Soldier, that Miracle meets the Fact: genuine together labors and concessions to the team, are Needed, before it all willows away as a pipe dream. Strike now, the saint is told, the soldier is told. Go Full-In Now. Stop your anxious worry, because the Mandate is both too stark and the rest too available: we live no longer in the moment as far as our Worries, but in the moment as far as a Peaceful—like Father, like His sons and daughters—certainty: stop your Error-Thinking, stop your addiction to impossibility and scary concessions. Stop your manic labors, if that leads to sin, or begin your new tome of good deeds if that leads to Discovery, Evolution of Ideas, Fighting Posture, Attestation: God is Real and we, His children, are Sincere, severe and calm, peaceful and firm.

God mocks the proud; half our output, is it even rightly Cruciform? Is it rather Works-Righteous? Well, allow that to the Holy Ones, everything is tainted with the joy of His warmth, His embrace, His special place. And they will always Question, why the fuss, why is this one made out or made over and not that one? Because of that Wealth the absence of which suddenly launches us into the Stratosphere of God-Reliance. Or, if we have things we covet and hoard, God educates us, demonstrates to us, our strange Horizons of accumulation rather than of offloading. We offload, and look ahead to each meal as a horizon in itself, peaceful rather than angsty, Content rather than dubiously planning. His Works, His righteous Deeds, are that Testimony most unplanned yet regaled, that we never—like the gene pool—saw the genius of the corners and crevices within.