“3 O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. 2 Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? 3 Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? 4 Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? 5 Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith— 6 just as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”? 7 Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. 8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” 9 So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. The Righteous Shall Live by Faith 10 For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” 11 Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” 12 But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them.” 13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”— 14 so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith” (Gal 3:1–14 ESV)

Theology does not go flat, run dry, empty of meaning, but rather our cage fight, circling about, staredown fest, with Sin and the Devil, inspires and clears the muddle for us to See, rightly to See, that God is for us, that the Gospel shall be preached, that hope is found in Christ Jesus.

Elements sublime, elements ostentatious, elements Rugged, these startle Awake the soldier to See and to Experience tangibility and manifest Destiny. God works in bricks and mortar, in created order, in manufactured Bread and Wine. God works… that the soldier might alight upon Divine Strongholds of sheltered wealth, of protected plunder, of normalized Excitement. It is Normal to get excited. It is Normal to play host to some music in the air, some weight of glory, some about-the-camp Chutzpah, some Buzz most sublime. That the Spirit does Intend to bolster—as if we needed to do some good deed, some wartime pluck and fight, to earn our forgiveness—to bolster our inanity, our innate Dependence on God as an I.V. of fighting duty and spirit.

Who earns the big bucks? In whom is the Investment made… investment of angels “in the milieu”, “in the city”, “in the countryside”, who in secret and silent fashion do Shelter in Place God’s soldiers and favored ones. Because the “clockwork God”… He has set in place a mechanism via spoken orders, once and for all, not to disappear completely, but in so checking in, yearly, hourly, moment-to-moment, to Encourage and Recognize publicly, sons and daughters for what they are. People Called… called to Preach the Good News, to form friendships most non-tempting and sublime, to walk out on sin and devil’s fare, and walk into “already consummated”, “already committed”, “already inducted” fare: we need never see our Father in Heaven again—Moses saw Him once, it can seem, only this: that He speaks to us in a dream, in a waking Vision, in beeps and boops most subtle and—is it all in the imagination of the saint, the soldier—inductive, incorporating, Saints’ decisions and sensibilities into a group mind and Trinitarian faith.

We are trinitarian in the ecstasy and Mania of life together, dreaming big that so-and-so is a second Person of what goes by the name of Us. Third person, most sublime. And so on. Somehow, in some fashion, God has gotten down to business, the business of hotspots, flare-ups, military occasions for Intervention, where indeed people Inspired and Hoped For, Prayed For, are in lockstep and in unwitting, even, Trinitarian assembly.

The bricks and mortar Certainty of today’s Soldiers’ department of friends, not of war, not of hate, but of Friends Across the City, across the townships, across the fields and elysium grasslands, is a Concrete Outlay that weathers the storm and gives forth Fruit in its season. The fight is ours to win. More, the right players one day will win Everything. The church as witnessed in the wild may be humbled, pillars may wobble and give way, but the Victory, the un-proud, the frontline Cohort, is not dismayed nor left without hope.