“20 Brothers, do not be children in your thinking. Be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature. 21 In the Law it is written, “By people of strange tongues and by the lips of foreigners will I speak to this people, and even then they will not listen to me, says the Lord.” 22 Thus tongues are a sign not for believers but for unbelievers, while prophecy is a sign not for unbelievers but for believers. 23 If, therefore, the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues, and outsiders or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are out of your minds? 24 But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all, 25 the secrets of his heart are disclosed, and so, falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you.” (1 Cor 14:20-25 ESV)

Hunkered down, the fighting spirit of Man intends good, yet avalanches of long unfamiliar passions do ignite, of covetous desire do ignite, of Ambitions to ape the superiors do ignite. Any genuine reflection of sin must cope with the refamiliarized and repetitive Mantra: to do thus, to go down that route, I shall not do. Yet also Christ redeems the Sinner: discover your sins, in order that you may be Fully One, of Full Stature, Coping via His Blood shed.

We cope, and therein begins the Journey to full maturity, to manhood and womanhood. We literally bank All on His prevenient Grace, His grace to Saints, His passive Action-Minded influence over our lusts and passions, over our hegemonies and pride.

The world gone topsy-turvy is an invite to End Perfectionist thinking and Modelling in the stars just How and in what form it all comes together. No, we are recipients of the Day’s imperfection and inability in and of ourselves to Put it all Together. We are recipients of a dastardly End to our human Abilities to hold it in trust, to hold together in shriven justice, to model and see farsightedly the self-affirming (we did, after all, enter into this creation of our mind and heart) justice zone.

Collapse of structures leads to hunkered-down Mentalism and Physicality, to the Soldiers’ acceptance of New Models of Grace from the Head of the Church, from Christ Himself. Yes, to engaging with our mortality in firm Assurance we have done all we can do by way of contributing to the community. We have a Tomorrow blessed and promised.

Was it all just a bit precious, that hunkered down militancy, that sky-models of our best Coming Togethers and Thoughts? Yet the national interest as to hunkered down status, is that a more precious or precocious society cannot win wars against a dogged and determined lower echelon of society: just see a fight between equals; see a difficulty explaining derivative shock waves of the war on the home turf, to a lazing about public. Thus the Christian’s war is beginning with a meditation of being first of all in the Catacombs, hidden and consecrated, lives consecrated, to Him and people sheltering in place with those the Lord has given them.

The Christian is almost still an illegal entity, insofar as theirs is a church militant amongst a scoffing and excuse-making public. Theirs is a religion that Thrives on one prophecy of an aggressive (spiritually forward) Action, as being the Pentecostal Word for the Season, for the Hour, for the Age. That is, all that discipleship training and patient study and growth in the Spirit, all that is to the end of a Quaker meeting with One Persona standing up to say, Here is the Movement for the Hour. Here is the response most hated, but response nonetheless, to the War between these and those, between liberals and conservatives, a Vision prophetic and dastardly in its insistence: no fantasy, no easily-explained lust or fancy, but a set-in-stone Balderdash to some, unequivocal Stand in favor of judicious Applicability of the Scriptures, of the Gathering (the Church), of the group wisdom.

The Christian Prophet goes into the enemy’s lair Already, not because a Hawk, but because the war is already engaged, the people are already playing hard-to-get as if War wasn’t on the line, as if their dalliance was innocent, cute, and their humor was life-affirming and freedom-loving. No, the Prophet who dials the emergency number, is a Voice hated and maligned, marginalized and eschewed. You shall know them by their fruits: such is the prophetic call at the least, we might hope, to be slight of stature (fasted, submissive) and all words out of her or his mouth somehow contrite, appealing, flattering, Missional in intent, and Engaging. Only the fact of the matter is that prophets are Christs in their Experience of persecution and utterly astonishing, inexplicable, counterpoint and parries.

The goal of Christian community as a whole is to learn to pray, to learn to go utterly fasted-like submissive and bedrock, hunkered down, whilst also no stranger to the illnesses of life, to the warring Intrusions, Interventions, Incursions. That is, when we’ve put on our safety goggles and taken up our snorkel, we can dwell impossible to the eye, amongst the flatlined Bedrock of shriven discourse. We can be non-abrupt, non-reactionary, not easily dislodged whilst also easily led down the solemn path to the difficult Hour, to the challenging Place to Reflect: to reflect, I need hear the Lord, need hear the Spirit, need hear the Son. And dastardly salvos will amass and charge against us, because we had not sufficient a doctrine of War: we had not the knowledge of just how cut-throat society life together can be, be Bold O saint, to talk tough and with a song in your voice, because they will Kill the weaker spirits, they will amass on the front doorsteps of the kinder apologists. The women in our midst must take up their Dutiful manliness and personal decision-making; the men in our midst must take up their Dutiful sensitive femininity (Christ the mother hen) and personal faithfulness; all must take up All, and Expect to take on the group’s sins because we are One Mind, One Body.