“16 Now concerning the collection for the saints: as I directed the churches of Galatia, so you also are to do. 2 On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper, so that there will be no collecting when I come. 3 And when I arrive, I will send those whom you accredit by letter to carry your gift to Jerusalem. 4 If it seems advisable that I should go also, they will accompany me. Plans for Travel 5 I will visit you after passing through Macedonia, for I intend to pass through Macedonia, 6 and perhaps I will stay with you or even spend the winter, so that you may help me on my journey, wherever I go. 7 For I do not want to see you now just in passing. I hope to spend some time with you, if the Lord permits. 8 But I will stay in Ephesus until Pentecost, 9 for a wide door for effective work has opened to me, and there are many adversaries. 10 When Timothy comes, see that you put him at ease among you, for he is doing the work of the Lord, as I am. 11 So let no one despise him. Help him on his way in peace, that he may return to me, for I am expecting him with the brothers. Final Instructions 12 Now concerning our brother Apollos, I strongly urged him to visit you with the other brothers, but it was not at all his will to come now. He will come when he has opportunity. 13 Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. 14 Let all that you do be done in love. 15 Now I urge you, brothers—you know that the household of Stephanas were the first converts in Achaia, and that they have devoted themselves to the service of the saints— 16 be subject to such as these, and to every fellow worker and laborer. 17 I rejoice at the coming of Stephanas and Fortunatus and Achaicus, because they have made up for your absence, 18 for they refreshed my spirit as well as yours. Give recognition to such people. Greetings 19 The churches of Asia send you greetings. Aquila and Prisca, together with the church in their house, send you hearty greetings in the Lord. 20 All the brothers send you greetings. Greet one another with a holy kiss. 21 I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand. 22 If anyone has no love for the Lord, let him be accursed. Our Lord, come! 23 The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you. 24 My love be with you all in Christ Jesus. Amen.” (1 Cor 16:1-24 ESV)

Life was constructed in the limelight of friendships, support networks, the fact: existential plea, is is hit or miss, the loss of bedrock, ground rules, touch point, and the Phenom of who and what we are, not perhaps rightly an addict to drink or drug but just as good as one, for our existential normative ungrounded nature. And to the Friendship, because life… and we thought we’d graduated from the school of “pain… please go away one day”, but Today somehow Spirit tests Spirit for the absolute Limits of what we can sustain, imbue, tolerate, coach ourselves through.

Stop apologizing. Start honoring the Lord as majesty. The loss of a friend, like the loss of a limb… we rightly Start on the bedrock and touch point called Peace, Patience, Sustained Life for Life’s sake. And today… look at me a sinner. Look at me wild-eyed in the field. Look at me, am I grounded enough to do the coaching, to do the teaching, to write the missive, to be the family member, unto a rising generation and unto a musical confluence of parental back-and-forth?

Because to self-absolve is to get our day in court regarding apologies made… but the Existential, look at me now might as well be that addict or Failed Ones. Some outcomes… we pursue Game Day, Catch All, Limelight Efficacy: we want as soldiers rightly hired, to do Lord’s work while it is still day and gosh darn it, let them remind us we are sinners. Let them remind us that Heightened Alert, Chatter, Gameday effluence, and down goes the saint, for the count it might seem. But we are not those hemmed up in sick wards, self-hating, wishing it would all just “go away”. No, we are rugged and know of some fates actually feared, even if death itself starts to seem hit or miss, tolerable, not the worst outcome. So they say, teach a man or woman about Eternal Life, and see they literally Believe it, ceasing to fear dying perhaps, but to those other fates… Lord abide by me.

There was music to be made. There was just plain Loving on each other, to be reminded of. Early prognoses do implicate and cure with death the Saint of prophetic pre-war Gambit. They are in a better place, sad as it is to us who remain. No, in the final issue, most heroes of the cloth and of the uniform, they were in a kind of personal Zeal immeasurable, not tied for all appearance, to a known Cause. The war was in their mind, prophetically Anticipated and Acted upon while all the world was going glib and habitual. The heroes of the Present Distress, they had no rock of encouragement beyond that Rock called Christ. They had no amped mindset beyond that Mind called Him.

We plead and we walk quaintly through the city, but Alert and Heavily Minded is our cause. That we are Recruits of a Saint Above. That we are leaning at times way over the top risk-wise, into forays and Expeditions most salutary. There is simple gratitude for the healthsome years, when we could bide the hours late into the evening in conversation unmonitored, not jumped all over, simply and patiently Learning About each other. Man to woman. Woman to man. Each to its own.

The present distress, therefore, calls up a zeal and existentialism most sanguine: devil may I care if I go down right now, I have better fears to worry over. We literally experience Aging, as our facial greetings and responses seem to self-adulate and reform into newer, older ones. Because so many are hemmed up by an unforgivable abuse or because of a simple error made. Take me in, for all I care, I already apologized… more, is there really anything I can “do” about my sins; of course not, other than to apologize and that once. Yet the Zany Reality calls on us both to self-absolve, and to Dream Bigger, to see loving Correction, but Correction not setting the tone or setting the stage for our Mind’s Actions. Our Mind, it acts on three steps ahead thinking, it acts on Certainty that out of any special circumstance, we go glib ourselves and Quieted at the Beauty of the evening, of the affair, of the touch stone. Nothing… evil lies close by to Good. We can abuse and ruin the magic of the Hour. We can talk of things too holy to put into words, quite yet.

The soldier is therefore Party to a Situational Awareness really quite vulnerable and abused. His or her awareness, it really can go bottoms up and careen the would-be saint and soldier into unknown terrain, into a mindset depressed (as a first encounter with that spirit), into a mindset hopeless (as a first foray with that spirit), into simply… is it just because I had a late night last night? Or is it a new Reality, a reminder where half the world lives, that the Actionable Soldier with Actionable Intelligence, does go glub and dispirited? No, we are Heightened in Alert status, and Eager to see the affairs go full steam ahead. We are eager to see that we of all people are consecrated and Authorized on behalf of the depressed, dispirited, hopeless Masses.