“9 I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit— 2 that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3 For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh. 4 They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. 5 To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen. 6 But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, 7 and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” 8 This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring. 9 For this is what the promise said: “About this time next year I will return, and Sarah shall have a son.” 10 And not only so, but also when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, 11 though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls— 12 she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” 13 As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.” 14 What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! 15 For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” 16 So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. 17 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” 18 So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills. 19 You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” 20 But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” 21 Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? 22 What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, 23 in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory— 24 even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles? 25 As indeed he says in Hosea, “Those who were not my people I will call ‘my people,’ and her who was not beloved I will call ‘beloved.’ ” 26  “And in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ there they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’ ” 27 And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: “Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved, 28 for the Lord will carry out his sentence upon the earth fully and without delay.” 29 And as Isaiah predicted, “If the Lord of hosts had not left us offspring, we would have been like Sodom and become like Gomorrah.”” (Ro 9:1–29 ESV)

Some of the wisest work happens without accolades and without ceremony. Indeed, taking stock, setting the accountant’s line items… some Horizon of Immediacy has been obtained by the Rising Up to the Call to Serve. We who have gumption and certainty, do well to be grateful for that unrelenting Horizon called Duty.

Called Service. Called Participation… in the Ceremonial, in the Harrowing Taking of Stock in the bunkers and trenches. Why did I… was I ever simply Acceptable and A-Okay in my own skin prior to the Call…? Mankind longs for Proof of her and his Relevance and Fittedness… belonging and Taking Part in All of it, truth be frankly told.

Longs for an end to Worry about Tomorrow: oughtn’t I be lancing forth on one Perfect Measure or another? Saving up the money, ratcheting up the CV, Proving myself both meticulous towards details and accounting, and fun-loving, unaccountable, escapist with my peers and girl or guy friends. Indeed, it is a wild Duality we are tasked with.

Wise work spells one Token and another, of Contribution to the teamwork and to the individual Prayer Life. To lose, a friend, a lover, a revered Elder, this is to face the Insurmountable, it can right-well seem. But our Confession, our Prayer that Absolves, Heals, Fixes Up, and Makes Ready, is one Malleable to the circumstances but perhaps simply stated as: Remind me who I am in your Eyes. Remind me of my Service-Mindedness. Remind me that dastardly sins aside, there is no Time to wallow in what has been lost.

Indeed the tragedy so unspoken, is the breakage and reforming of lifelong animosities. Indeed, every Player on the field has past regrets and grasping, clutching, embracing of the Air minus any Contact Made. Times when Urgent Need to rapprochement was simply passed over in silence. Times, too, when Simple Resolutions already were in place, minus the Expedition Benign and Together: expedition Enough has taken place. We are like those who fall into affection or love in two seconds, and then are Hard-Pressed for ages to Remember, minus Reassurance, minus Re-situation in the same room, minus playing Catch-Up with a devil who Hates, who longs her or himself for that same Rapprochement, as if the Mystical can be bandied about, levied upon this soul or that soul: no, we levy our Solemn Affections on one another via an Intangible brand of commiseration.

We commiserate, and the world… finally, our “B” average (where was the challenging material?), our lack of scholarships and trusts, of family lineage and Heir-dom, all this is mystically Absolved by fact in chief, fact number one: we served the Crown of Christ Well: well done, thy good and faithful servant. And the jealousies invoked, are because the Gladsome Tidings, the Joy, isn’t up for grabs to be stolen and what-not: one must go their own route of Penance for ambitions and making-the-grade-mindsets, until it behooves and Pleases God’s Spirit to Bless, to Ameliorate, to Induct… to land named Joy.

Wise counsel and work is taking place all around us. The malaise, on the other hand, the end to the Joyous Spell of Prayer with foreboding sensations of “is this all”, “I’m tired”, “I’m sick of obsessively praying through the same ‘what-if’s’”, all come together in an un-hallucinatory Reality called Meeting Christ. We who claim to believe… to us it is most pertinent, actually to Believe: in a Plan from On High, in a Future for the Children of God, in a Mystical in the Everyday, in friends we will see again, before all hell breaks loose and before we botch it up any further with our manic spiels or bouts.