“31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? 33 Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Ro 8:31–39 ESV)

The hazy horizon of Victory comes with an accelerant, compunction and guilt played out; the implosion of a house, and the New Tomorrow for a house. New Tomorrow in a gritty, grim and teeth-locked grimace, why did so much have to become up for grabs, why the suffering and losses of human body and to some thinking soul, why the Allowance from an alleged God of all things, for this course of action?

Little enclaves of Productive peace dialog, blossom forth in a world of a backdrop Warring. The new normal, it is war. It is lack of peace behind those grimaces, those clenched fists of how Robbed and Mistreated we have become, our people have become, by a fancy high-flying Enemy. Yet the privilege of Genius-Accelerant, Recombinant DNA of the Spirit, talking and back-and-forth dialoguing, means Something Special occurring Here and Now.

The humanity of Christ, it behooves us to Reflect that He did not wave a magic wand and spell predictable forced calm, forced illusion of Peace, into a clockwork universe. No, we know Him who became just like us but for a season, to demonstrate that the Price was Blood, the Shalom was Presence on Earth, the Catalyst was inspired teaching, preaching, healing, baseline Occurrence.

We had to Understand, that He is both Almighty, and plagued by the sins of His own fallen Creation. Those sins mean Time and Human Capital Expended, they mean a winning course, hazy horizon and everything, that will descend on us like fine wafting aroma of Something New. Of a New Tomorrow, of Fresh Hope (not that we resent the war, only that we’ve learned it to be the New Normal, and therefore all-the-more appreciate Peace).

Just a little longer, and you will see, you will look for your enemy and not find him or her. Just a little longer, and a Complete Victory will be yours. Just a little longer, and Forgetfulness, Forgiveness, Fresh Starts will be yours.

Actionable Items meet situational awareness meets enveloped posture: we are enveloped by Love, by all our childhood ne plus ultra senses of “Cool” ever dreamt of, an imagined—they say imagined—working routine and headship, a non-imagined in fact Enveloping and Carrying Forth by great strides of the Spirit, because we work for little, for peanuts in fact, and in the blessed (sacred) church as gathered to dialog, we ask for help with the right level of severity to our diagnosis. We ask for help, did I go a little too far, scatter-brained and pushing for too much, or too little… the soldier cannot ever Forget that a mantle and weight of glory is bandied about for all Present: we are the Church as envisioned, as Gathered, as Proactive and In League with the Holy Spirit.