“34 When the herdsmen saw what had happened, they fled and told it in the city and in the country. 35 Then people went out to see what had happened, and they came to Jesus and found the man from whom the demons had gone, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid. 36 And those who had seen it told them how the demon-possessed man had been healed. 37 Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked him to depart from them, for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned. 38 The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him, but Jesus sent him away, saying, 39 “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” And he went away, proclaiming throughout the whole city how much Jesus had done for him.” (Luke 8:34-39 ESV)

To scope out the boundary lines, this is the strange way we float amidst, carried betwixt by currents, the various sentinels and congregations of life. Various bodies, and we all the better by some measures, for change and amendment of life. Various sentinels, congregations, camps made up and made over for each one’s peculiar Mission in life.

And we, to scope out and to ebb and flow this way and that, are astonished at the lifeforms most prevalent, the strange Excitement and notion of upbringing, of training an agent or a creation most animalistic yet human: we are peculiar observers of bright and blooming things in the world.

Because we wandered. Because we scoped out this sentinel’s purview and that one’s fort of hastily assembled walls and tents. What gives us any license whatsoever thus to be found Observer and Participant? To Belong and to Jibe or Meander this way or that? To know of countries and their borders, mystically wandered across, as here endeth one rule and beginneth another rule.

The Christian strives therefore to be inoffensive at large, while knowing and harboring the Offense of the Cross. That all our bargains with life, all these are sublimely answered on a wooden Tree. That all our licenses, our coming and goings, our hopes and felt promises, all these are Convicted by the sort of life Christ lived. To be somehow Available to the right sort of folk, and busy to the other sort: to wander amidst this fortified city and that fortified city, carrying news of a Blessing, yet inoffensive in our personal desires and needs. We are like that philosopher Socrates, who would disputate all night and when morning arose rise up and go about his day.

To then see that life tries to make mediocre and to muddle through depressive spirits, this is to see that anything is preferable to a devil but the Cross. Anything, less offensive is asked for, middling notions and solo distancing, disappearing, into the fog. The Christian is a bit more Alert and Alive, to the offense of the Cross, license as it is to live joyously and boldly. We were, after all, the late arrival because of having tried to do it all on our own. We were, after all, checking in to a camp, a sentinel’s purview, of those who have gone before us, who are no worse for the wear, who love on us and Accept us, because in any number of strange ways all along all of us have been serving Something God knew how to redeem. So the early risers, and the later arrivals, all these hold no grudge, having known their morning cup of tea was Sublime and Wonderful, for it being a participation in His somber trajectory of life. Trajectory to the Cross. Trajectory so offensive, so unmentionable, as to light up the Day with its flourishes and brilliance.