“19 Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, 20 by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. 26 For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, 27 but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. 28 Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. 29 How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace? 30 For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.” 31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. 32 But recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, 33 sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. 34 For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one. 35 Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. 36 For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised. 37 For, “Yet a little while, and the coming one will come and will not delay; 38  but my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.” 39 But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.” (Heb 10:19–39 ESV)

Moral compass, moral fiber. Jesus makes mud. He makes mud to treat our eyes to the rather salutary experience of this mud placed and rubbed in. Jesus, from a happier time in our lives, perhaps, we feel and experience the Mud as a passing spectre in the air, to the end of the mud washed away, we are of moral fabric and moral compass now.

Whether anyone can step up and “make mud…”, this is a question that precludes mud fights, mud slinging, mud wrestling. We would, after all, do well to invent a Reality around All of Us doing Christ-like things. Around All of Us healing the myopia, the blindness, the lost far gaze. Sometimes it takes a little plain speech to teach us to See again. Sometimes it takes a little “hey, that’s Messed Up!” dialog to learn us to See again. Sometimes it takes a little poignant storyline to have us See again.

Able-bodied and now Able-Envisioned, Able-Visually, Able-plethoric, we Dare to think in terms of the Unseen, the Received by Faith, the Far Reaches of our personal spacecraft, already relating News of a Tomorrow War and a Tomorrow Manner of Fight. We have firsthand experiences and only suffer the lack of Ambition, lack of Faith, lack of The Unseen, towards ends of Bellicose Readiness. We are punctilious, bellicose, and Ready. We hear of wars and rumors of wars, but the end is Not Yet.

We lead via a surgical strike and concomitant Collapse of the edifices of Sin. Domino-style, each Soldier is readied by their mindset muddied and now cleansed of that salvific Mud. We went awful for a moment. We went muddied for a moment. We went grotesque for a moment. Suddenly we were Gifted—as from above—with Mandate and Vision: here, O Man, O Woman, here O Soldier, is the call to Repent, happily presented as no tall order off moping about in sack cloth and ashes, but a manly “I did it, I fess up, please forgive”.

The mud was a titillating Dialog or Sermon. The mud was a conflagration of sad stories. The mud was an inflammation of the Sublime, the less-oft Spoken Of. The happier times as being somehow quite Free of Sin, the chance encounter of one from a former life and… I half preferred Not to engage, to stay in my moping shell, because the love is too Strong. Happier times, because just as we will look back on Now and ask, why not more Bold, why not more Certain this is a level and attainment of Freedom from Sin, of simply Living (being called to live Forgiven, not guilt-Ridden), of a free society and yet: the Call to Tomorrow War, the lanced corpuscle that cascades the fall of Many edifices of sin.

Some people cannot help but Do Good. Some people, they cannot help but Serve. Some people, they have a Midas touch of Prayer: really Caring prayer, and we… we try to be amenable and available, tank-forged, tank-built, as we may be. In fact we are indeed hardened but not unappreciative, the Leave me to age and die in Peace, meets the Call to rally back home the troops, to engage in some mud, to Accept a homecoming, to be Prize Fighter for the day. Such is the Testimony in season, of the Saint.