“3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, 9 obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. 10 Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, 11 inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. 12 It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look. Called to Be Holy 13 Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, 15 but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, 16 since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” 17 And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, 18 knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. 20 He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you 21 who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God. 22 Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, 23 since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; 24 for “All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, 25  but the word of the Lord remains forever.” And this word is the good news that was preached to you.” (1 Pe 1:3–25 ESV)

Tempo and contretemps, the military mind walks a minefield and Searches, Finds an angle to put the knife in, an imperfect sword of Damocles, a circumcision not made according to precise hands but Chainsaw, Vicious to sin, circumspect and self-encircled, self-contained. The military mind is leading with the Acceptance of Jesus Christ into the Heart as Lord and Savior of our Souls, but this Angular vantage point… lived Faith, practiced Religion, rehearsed Spirituality, these money and platitudes from the helm cannot purchase. These give us the ability to Shoot from the Hip and Decide by the Gut, in wartime scenarios.

In situational experiments, awareness of boots on the ground numbers, along with strange Other Measures, spiritualists happy to know electronics are Attempting to Measure, the strange spiritual Facts. A more evolved Humankind will take all this Spirit Measure for granted, as being just as delineated and nailed down as bodily humors were formerly handled by blood-letting.

More, we learn of Spiritual Symbiosis: so-and-so may not ever have even interfaced literally with an Agent of the Far Side of the earth, but they are still in lockstep, conjoined particles at a distance, and that Agent, nevermind the Far Side of Earth, nevermind East Versus West, that Agent is actually, the agent influencing, is actually just down the road a bit from our Outpost.

Because we believe, not to make religion out of society’s giftings and outposts and portals, we believe there is a Portal called Repentance and Faith, that the purring and deep breathing would-be Saint, in his or her prayer closet or sitting on her or his Persian rug, or You-Name-It rug, is suddenly alit, as if a fly was distracting the line of sight, evading swatting, but no, awakened by no Fly but by a New Reality, achieved through the spiritual ducking game, limbo game, of getting beneath the Bar. And now Awakened… and now Enabled, Spiritualized. And the T-Shirts they wear, they say “Ours”. Ours is the city, ours the countryside. Ours is the braggadocio shifty-eyed-no-longer glance askance at our Peers and Friends in Arms. We got this. Healthy self-confidence, and We Got This. We are now Apt and Game to Rise Up, anointed and Set Apart as the Master’s specially-trained (cue electronics measuring all the spiritual auras and influences) Pedigreed and Unconstrained Spiritual Guides. We are Guides, after a Spirit forsooth and winsome, Present and half-cocked, half-crazed (they might allege) by a standing tall posture amidst the bogs and foot-drenched shallow lakes, evolutionary lakes, with forestry and amoebas growing unto some as-of-yet taken-on-faith End Purpose. Would that we could save Everyone and Everything, bring it all under the Saving Grace of our Lordship, Head Man, Jesus Christ. Would that the churning smokestacks would somehow Go Renewable, and the earth would be layered with New Growth supplanting the Old Growth.

Some broad conscientiousness teaches and trains the mind on some Awareness and Measured Sadness about these economic or environmental numbers. More, some opaque quality of social interactions spells silence on so many needed Fronts. Who knows who is talking to whom? Who knows, if the cause of rainforests in Latin America are reversible? Who knows but that we have Chosen to put the knife in, to Make the Cut, around a man’s, woman’s Testimony, personal Encounter with the Living Jesus Christ, Resurrected of Nazareth. And we will, pray tell, be found Accepting of all manner of alternative Expressions of this Living Faith, because we have gone through our respective Portals of repentance and Faith, to Arrive quality and invested, worthy  and on some Head’s Balance Sheet as nodding  over, purring over, Quality of Spirit Found Therein. To win a sad war, in full Hope God will prolong our stay on this Green Planet. Through means we don’t know, in panicky Coming Together We Don’t Know, but this: that the Death of His Son by the Cross, and the subsequent Resurrection, was an environmental Boon of untold Import, yet scarcely—but for a few Jewish Prophets—foreseen. Not what the doctor ordered, except Exactly what the doctor ordered.

We have this Patience within us, that Christ Came for Sinners, of whom we are the foremost. That in this brand of Humility some portal opens, to Emerge Enabled and Credentialed by the Spirit. To Emerge with a new Third Eye and Higher Consciousness that somehow just “Feels Right”. We live into the New Modality and New Parables and New Discoveries: explore! Find the world, map it, transgress it, walk its roads and high places. Find its low valleys and Marvel: a beautiful Museum piece here, or artwork there… a manor, and nothing but Certainty our Estate is Intact, passed on by the Love of a parent for their child, a Love Decisive. God’s Love for His people.

The soldier is Embedded and Entrusted that theirs is and was a training to the Utmost, to walk a New Line for a New World Order. To decide how to “measure” a person’s citizenry, ours being in Heaven. And this Measure, confidence that this Measure is the fruit of a shot-from-the-hip “I like this fellow or gal”.