“2 First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, 2 for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. 3 This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, 4 who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. 5 For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time. 7 For this I was appointed a preacher and an apostle (I am telling the truth, I am not lying), a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth. 8 I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling; 9 likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, 10 but with what is proper for women who profess godliness—with good works. 11 Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. 12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. 13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve; 14 and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. 15 Yet she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.” (1 Ti 2:1–15 ESV)

Nimble maneuvers, the core mentalism of the soldier lies in the caring arms of theological childhood, a loving Parent, and a mandate to Decide. Each soldier must Decide, to come clean, to repent, to Follow. This Moment of Decision stands in counterpoint to those loving parental arms, it is the deeper jaunt and soul-searching that forms our nimble Core. Not the loving arms, but Nimble dialog with the Spirit in Prayer.

That our interests revolve around meager fruits, simple looking ahead to our next meal, our trip to “heaven” being a chance to purchase or see something new, our dorkish ways of becoming masters of numbers and stats, of ways we discount the plain learned Human Encounter, think too late or at the wrong time of what loving words we “should have said”. One Word, and call it a day. One Word, and brace, train, cringe through the silence. Because someone of many off-kilter words, they are immediately dismissed as irrelevant.

That Center of Being, to the mentalist or psychic, to the ones looking for Emergent Phenomenon on the nation’s weather radars, those who marvel to see Prophecy as in action, as vouchsafed by a dream or a vision muttered through or journaled, well of course you can’t “measure” such things: by virtue of basic twentieth century physics, the “observer” taints the formula. But mentalism and psychic phenomena are… real? Truly to reach Decision, to reach Repentance, it opens up a new level of depth-first-search, as if using the parable of a computer program, we can go one level more sapient, deeper, unforeseen. From presidents to pundits to plebeians, the flipside of Decision and of Repentance, of Conversion and of Coming Together, is a plateau unrecorded, unmapped, un-journaled. 

Emergent Phenomenon, then, asks us plain and simple, to deduce inductively: no one will fess up to trying and make our days special, except that we begin to see emergent phenomenon, that the Spirit is Real yet mocks any drawing near on a basis other than Repentance and Faith. Any other basis—our longing for yet More, our demands for yet Heightened Experience—and it becomes a flippant Game, a Rohrschach blot that mocks us or—in our conceit, that we are revealing a cleaned subconscious nonetheless—still makes labyrinthine our personal faults and conceits and false interpretations.

God will be there when we are in need. God will open the heavens to a dying martyr like Stephen. Loved ones passed on, they are watching us from Heaven. The nimble maneuvers are a comet’s tail of Goodness in the community, to break out of our strait-jacket is to wander a bit, and vibe off of the smiles or the patient community spirit as found on the forbidden side of town. We need to get out of the house. We need to come to terms with our own complete inanity and childlike Blame-Playing game, and we as Christians face the other Christian who seems to shun us or look at us critically. We immediately sense and concede a bit, to that “other”, “alternate” spirit. It suddenly makes sense: he or she wants some fantastical knees bent Repentance. Anew. A second time. To them, ha! It is just so plausible we are steeped in sin: hey, answer this, what are you doing Right Now, they ask, oblivious to respecting your elders, oblivious to the factual Hard Labors we are in fact doing! It is the offense of the Cross, that pricks the self-righteous with a zany personal Crusade of fault-finding. And if we err, it is in part due to their hypnotic glaring at us.

All told, responsibility is ours to stake out and lay claim to. We are personally responsible for long absences and the Sins that crept in while we dallied or wandered. We are also personally responsible for our excesses and for the familiar zones, particularly we’ve come to learn, as pertain to the male-female dynamic; but a congregation with only the goal of avoiding manifest sin, who is terrified of any insinuation of falling into sin, doesn’t “get” the full gospel: that we are only living right if we are living close to the nimble and peekaboo game of On Watch, of staying Pure through the swimsuits and life jackets and life saving routines. We all fall away. We all need some loving Other to hear through our laughter our tears; we laugh at how Comical God’s plan was, to humble the proud, to lift the forlorn or meek; we expect a little Gratitude, even, directed our way for our Presence in the dinner party or the hour otherwise spent.

God is in the business of Elevating those consumed by mental traps and whether Lust is dealt with well or poorly, some Sin is always knocking at the door, some sins are far less “warm” or potentially Tamed unto some great goodness; when we learn to recognize the Lust or the Pride, we literally pattern match and familiarize our thoughts, so we can literally Proclaim some day or year later, I really searched my subconscious, and by-and-large so much has become Clean. And this Game-Day nimble readiness is a matter for Security of our Nation, because we shall decide big and decide Small. We shall Lead and Inform and Model the community. We are the rare find of Intelligence amidst lay people, and like a good cop, imagine everyone we meet carries a gun, but also learn to Give a bit, personally answering and personally recognisant, to do the Right Thing, because God the Father does look in, and does value each and every child’s commitment and activity.