“9 As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” 3 Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. 4 We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. 5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” 6 Having said these things, he spit on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man’s eyes with the mud 7 and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing. 8 The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar were saying, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” 9 Some said, “It is he.” Others said, “No, but he is like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.” 10 So they said to him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” 11 He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud and anointed my eyes and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ So I went and washed and received my sight.” 12 They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.” 13 They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. 14 Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. 15 So the Pharisees again asked him how he had received his sight. And he said to them, “He put mud on my eyes, and I washed, and I see.” 16 Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.” But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?” And there was a division among them. 17 So they said again to the blind man, “What do you say about him, since he has opened your eyes?” He said, “He is a prophet.”” (Jn 9:1–18 ESV)

You may say all’s quiet on some front, but this neglects that Human Stock, Bodies Aggregate, Life of the Line Presence, Minds Morphing, as to prepwork, anticipatory lancing forth, hotspots, divine sparks, contretemps: all these, are gestating, formulating, sparking and kindling. All of the Christian Presence is at war. All of the frontline Defense is stark and alert. All of the line-in-the-sand Purveyors are nervously Reliant on an inducted Calm, a trusting Certainty, God is at the Helm.

In twos, threes, and fours Malleable and Marriageable-unto-Christ Personages walk and wake and Come Together: the tried Disciple of the Lord is Here and Today Ready for being called up. Here and Today Ready for mellifluous Word choice to flow from her or his lips, verbiage Conciliatory yet Stark, Engaging yet Boldly Front and Center, Dialog yet Prophesy, yet Alert Levels of Witness.

Witness to a King, a Queen, a Pontiff of the Reformed Lives, witness to so much that we received not passively as though any Human Itch is Aggression, rather the Itch has become the Purpose, the Heart, it has become the Boldness, no apology needed. We imagine some logical bedrock or way-of-things, but Truth Told there is no bargaining chip other than Christ’s life for my sins. And this, this is more reliable than all our refusals to bandy up, more reliable than all our Bargain Basement Hunting, our Looking for a Contract. We want a Contract that spells peace and freedom for the one who doesn’t rock the boat; truth is, we always need be Plucky and Pugnacious, always own the Fight, always go bally-hoo around that same Truth, Christ’s Lifeblood for my sins.

To induct, then, is a fine Notion if it is received Notionally: that we who are Large (in the post-basic training mindset) do well to coach just a bit those who are Small. Because it all becomes second nature, the mindset that is wise and Aware, taught of all manner of newfangled Devices impregnating the world we live in. All manner of Excellence therefore Called Forth, as this one or that with Evil Intent does query, “And what, you sinner, are you doing just this hour with your time? I call that laziness, sin, boredom unto death”. Only, they will never see the forest for the trees. We literally hallucinate sins (so we can go the “scout’s honor” route: that being the imagined contract that says, so long as you are sincere, you are talking to a loving parent figure; horrors! You are talking not to a revered parent figure but to society evil and sly, slimy and gossipy! Get with the program! Do a man or woman a solid! And spare us… O purveyor of sin, O sinless ones!).

We literally all need go the route of killing sin. It is something Pertinent and with Alacrity, the Decision this hour to nip something in the bud, because in our experience come half an hour it will have itself dispersed, dispelled, gone away. It was all an evil storm cloud but a passing one. And indeed, we can get so obsessed. We can forget to eat. We can obsess over wild interpretations of literal O.T. Law, as if it a sin to mix two kinds of breakfast cereal together; we can literally become that Hated prophesied one, who fasts in all manner of ways but neglects the weightier matters of love, mercy, healing and purpose.

We are all Agents now of the Crown, and as Agents our Basic Training was to undo “contract thinking” to a point: we undo and remake ourselves as Self Answering: we answer to ourselves. We answer… because we Know, that God sees, that a Father in Heaven peers in from time to time. And if we seem immutable, amped, wild-eyed without explanation, to others, that is their sleepwalk not ours. It is their Encounter with the Holiness of Sonship, Daughterhood, not ours. It is their sleepy indulgence or forgetfulness of what passing storm clouds do elevate in our mystique and our Body and our Personhood. We are Agents because we are All Means Available-minded, we use All Means and sly manners, and sneaky avenues and yet for all this being twice the saint of those who sit self-adulatingly in the pews. Our Good Deeds, these flow like rain over a parched land. We literally this Day, can resolve simply to do someone a solid, to do a Mitzvah, a good deed.