“26 And when he had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples. And they were all afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple. 27 But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles and declared to them how on the road he had seen the Lord, who spoke to him, and how at Damascus he had preached boldly in the name of Jesus. 28 So he went in and out among them at Jerusalem, preaching boldly in the name of the Lord. 29 And he spoke and disputed against the Hellenists. But they were seeking to kill him. 30 And when the brothers learned this, they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus. 31 So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied. The Healing of Aeneas 32 Now as Peter went here and there among them all, he came down also to the saints who lived at Lydda. 33 There he found a man named Aeneas, bedridden for eight years, who was paralyzed. 34 And Peter said to him, “Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you; rise and make your bed.” And immediately he rose. 35 And all the residents of Lydda and Sharon saw him, and they turned to the Lord.” (Ac 9:26–35 ESV)

Some dual perspective leaves the Soldier both burrowing in, successful, on the brink, and compromised, mocked, doubted, and maligned. They cajole the Soldier to some new levels of comprehensive Neighborhood Structure or Totem Pole but mostly Submission… to the wrong spirit, to the man’s or woman’s Junior. The more we Love on and Contribute, the more they Retreat into a deuced hovel and the more they Sue.

We all of us do well to reflect that as they do to us who have earned or arrived at the Full Knowledge, Maturity of the Faith, so too we do or have done to God the Father. It is with brotherly, sisterly Love that we observe our Juniors as they Grow, as they cease to Sin, as they learn to Discern personal and corporate Sins.

To the point: vulnerable to the extreme, on the Doorstep of Transferal, the Doorstep of Death or Next Steps, the Doorstep of heinous New Designs directed our way, in all this we warp and woof, ebb and flow, in Tandem with God’s Spirit. Who got in any case God’s own Son crucified, but no matter: we will face the arrow or Cross just as well and with gladsome Spirit, as He did.

Because half the congregation “Gets it”. Half or two-thirds Observe and see the fledgling new priest as he or she cajoles about and seeks remuneration in “spiritual terms” for being the one to cry Wolf or the one to Convict and Gossip about so-called imagined Sin. The lack of humor, the lack of appreciation, hey, that tent set up in your backyard… that was a joke. But they mock tents and complain bitterly about so-called Lack of New Testament biblical living, themselves having in self-righteous fashion stolen the tent and not returned it.

Sadness precludes Militancy: we had our hour of tears, now we have our hour of Suiting Up: because we were Witnesses to the very first seeds of discord, and all of us… we all need Repentance if we were careless or unmotivated to Act. The enemy… he or she lies in the Cipher of Failure to Forgive, of Designed or Architected Sins, sins of demanding some weird unbiblical Submission that titillates and soothes the false priest’s ego. Yes, flattery, just a bit, would go a very long way, but we are not those who come with flattering words but with the Power of the Spirit. Learn! Grow! If you feel called, Submit!

Yet we have no time nor space, being seedlings and solo crossers in so much so many years of this Life, for tag-alongs, for Disciples, rather for worry-warts and self-righteous unmalleable. Disciples, sure, if only it is known we prefer them not because they flatter us as a Head, but because we love to be able to Love, glancing downwards. 

The Motivation, after hearing from a panel of discussion around Class War… this is Call to go Love and see after all, this was the first world insofar as it juxtaposed and confronted the Second World: two worlds Colliding. And in one we are mellifluous and conversational, in the other we are spilling secrets it can feel, or awkward or “on the spectrum”. Some stammer. But: How is God at work in your life? Well, darn it, He is coaxing me out of my shell! He is loving on me. Do you accept God loves me? Of course we do!

The times are already changed, changing as of Yesterday and New Tomorrow or World Order now arriving, ushered in. Where we can make the surgical incision, or love on the verbal and the mellifluously dialoguing, where we can, as of that Stripe of Religion called Militant, the offering of Spirit-led yet unreligious Care for the poor and for the marginalized… this earns our trust and whatever efficacy we have, why not direct it that-a-way?

Christ is not found in a dispute between “my God” and “your God”, we demure and perhaps should outright Reject any discussion of “God” that is simply thinly-veiled thuggery. Not that we ourselves can’t be pushy, but that our God is spiritual, and evokes something deep in our heart of hearts, and so the Dialog revolves around simply due Reverence: we Recognize, this one has been with the Lord! This one, he or she mimics Him who came to be with Sinners! We grow through expertise in counsel, into Agents of one another, because we Witnessed God taking this “other” person off the spectrum, and into full language development and carousing dialog that Heals, that remains Clean, that Shocks for its Faith in that for-now unseen and spiritual Father Above.