“3 Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, 2 to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people. 3 For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. 4 But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, 5 he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, 6 whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. 8 The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works. These things are excellent and profitable for people. 9 But avoid foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless. 10 As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, 11 knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned.” (Tt 3:1–11 ESV)

Probably the most truthful assessment of the scene, the caustic scene, the unwieldy scene, is bedrock brotherhood and sisterhood makes no traitors. Makes no Judases until such time as victory is breathing down the necks of the freedom fighters. Makes no moles until such time as cash and largesse begin to promenade. Makes no unscrupulous revenge tactics until such time as elation has been the response to the edicts demanded. We become an angry mob, after being first a principled idealist. We become those Owning and Proud rather than anonymous faces in the working-class crowd.

To be aligned with Rulers, then, in scriptural duty as to kings being instituted by God and operating in His reign, meets the king of this world, Satan, whose hegemony and plunder is widely borne on the backs of the people. We march, we sing hymns, we Protest loudly because very real subjugation is not just the name of the game some centuries of societal evolution past, but Today here and now. While some enjoy blanket Freedoms… freedom to make and ingest Art, freedom to create and Invest in entrepreneurial activity, freedom just from so many errant and misbegotten political ideologies, where not the “rule of the proletariat” but rather the “rule of the capitalist” somehow is more Loving and Caring for the common Man.

Strange days reveal therefore, and we make analogy to the Fear of Aging, Fear of Dying, fears generally about all life being disappointment and fright zones… so, too, the In the Zone Soldier of Christ really takes to heart that there is No end to Eternal Remission of sins, no End to Life in the Spirit, No End to the genius and possibility, the centrality and Purpose of This fair battleground’s fight. We are living In the Zone. We will Always live, in the Zone, and though plows turn to swords and grazing horses to warring steeds, both the Eternal Fight of the soldier and the wistful Dream of the soldier, are compatible. We somehow don’t know what we’d do with ourselves if there weren’t Severity and Unhumored War before us, yet in fact we also know that Forged Peace, forged in a furnace of affliction, of one Micro Gesture or another Sample of Love, family love, love of a cousin or aunt or uncle, love of a brother or sister, mother and father. That is our Intake, and it blesses us vis-a-vis our role—would Mom approve?—as Soldiers.

Eternal Decision-Making, therefore, punctures through the heart the Claim of some depressive moratorium on Good Cheer. We are not “getting older”. We are not “flimsy as to reliability”. We are not “dwelling in cloud-cuckoo land”. Our Mission is to Serve as boots and eyes of Christ, on the Ground, in the Milieu, in the Stead of ransomed Mankind. God don’t make no junk, and we everyday debate, should I partake in the services of the Church, is it a forsooth and comely Submission I thereby show, or is it a Protesting certainty God is at the helm though sinful man makes his mark on the show. 

We do therefore submit to “all earthly authority” as “God-given”, and yet we, endowed by our Creator with unalienable rights, do Attribute to said authority the fruits of a life chastened by repentance, curated by Prayer, inspired by Fresh Eyes as to Mankind’s sins. We approach our rulers on bended knee, perhaps, but do so because we Know: their suitability for the job precedes them, their years of education, of service, of royal lineage precedes them. Who are we to fuss and be the rabble? Yet too we are Modern and forsooth do Know of the self-divination and self-determination of the Individual Soldier. We need no formal priesthood to celebrate our Sacraments. We need no kings or queens to keep our inner animal at bay.

It is therefore to a mystical Kumbayah moment of crafts of this kind of spy or that kind of militant or this kind of agent, provocateur, analyst and sleuth, that we Live into the War while not being Enamored of it. It is our Career and Calling, yet easily those swords become plowshares, not jestingly but because as Intel Officers of Christ we always see the field Rife for the Harvest. We always see a need to Push, lacking humor even at times but not lagging in Coming Together and Love.