2024-08-22 A Meditation on Dual to the Enemy

“11 Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others. But what we are is known to God, and I hope it is known also to your conscience. 12 We are not commending ourselves to you again but giving you cause to boast about us, so that you may be able to answer those who boast about outward appearance and not about what is in the heart. 13 For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. 14 For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; 15 and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. 16 From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. 20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Cor 5:11-21 ESV)

Right on the ball, our haste it may seem recognizes a cruel dual to the engagement: enemies also being pluck and oil for the joints, because they—we—each have a full-bodied life. That is, we bless each other; we see the societal upheaval when two denizens naturally, suspected to be, at odds with each other, man up and attend to the plain-spoken mutual dialog: are we, after all, two pinnacles… and if so, are we, after all, living into the dream? Are we after all Company to one another? Are we, after all, loving on each other and engaged upon each other, in light of mutual Respect, Headship, Total Placement as in Honor and Duty and Citizenship and Drafted or Enlisted troop mindset?

We literally fight our best friends. We literally respect our alter-ego, differing in nationality or Cause, Creed or History, differing in brand of God-fearing religiosity, differing in let’s face it, the land or geld we are asserting, owning, and protecting: we protect what is entrusted to us; we live and die for what space and mind-spell is encroached upon; we self-sacrifice for what Omni Peace Goodness Morality and Inspirational Icons are present.

That is, good people populate that Land. Good people live into that Thought-Space, the wealth of a testimony equal to the wealth of a farm, cottage, an urban estate, the wealth of a parable or history or story asserting no cynical impingement on those Wealthy souls, but rather unabashed Love for the Owned Estate, the Homeland, the Front and Backyard, the Public Square, the Office Park, the School. People are unabashedly Good to the fleeting but recurring Good Vibes of a lover of souls, of a plethoric wealth overflowing in good deeds and charitable giving.

Therefore to the Respect for the combat: to whom, after all, and why and how, after all, do my inimical-to-the-death opponents relate to, engage with, style themselves unto? Then the miasma of War, that we go on feeble signposts and instincts, the ground under our feet—if the war were a sure thing, then there’d be no war—shifting and at question. The calm and the restful repose becomes a muddle of self-doubt, of longing, of feeling at times immoral or questioning our religion: can I rightly go on this, and this alone? Can I rightly put my foot down, as though I knew better what the good cause is, the good land, the good bank and estate? Or is it all tainted by my own corrupted nature as a sinful Creation out of the dust?

We emerge to know a Trauma and Wizened Distant Gaze unfamiliar to those for whom we lived and served and died. It makes sense so many former soldiers could not ease into community life, but were homeless and ill-at-ease: they had drunk the Kool Aid, and learned things spoken of only in hushed tones, things of plain life together and in service to the preservation of each other’s fighting ability through self-sacrifice; the thousand-yard stare of war, the Question as to our own selfish impulses, combined with our own heroic tendencies: dying on a grenade for the sake of the troops, is almost a prefiguration of making a faith confession, that is, the former is heroic but literally comes naturally to the soldier; the Jesus faith is an analogous, perhaps with subtlety, thing to adopt and pray into. The quality of Code of the soldier sacrificing him or herself is a reminder of what our Jesus tried to do, and of our own—not wishing to die—willingness to die for the Cause. With the willingness ebbing and flowing, coming and going, but always there and Present for the betterment of our Being.

And then: to the Church! To the study! To the witness shared! To learn the highest Image of such sacrifice in Christ and in His servants and disciples as they Observed and later themselves repeated. It was a subtle thing, a forlorn night of watching for a few, a loving gesture, a book ending written in nothing but endearment and affection, bought at a price. And to this the soldier has already signed up, is already Holy and Saintly, is in hidden places owning of All Things, All Righteous Judgment, of the Winning Side. We see this in each other in the readiness of the barracks, and are amazed: what Moral Code is the one making a sacrifice. What a Principle is the gladsome tidings on each other’s faces who woke up this morning knowing it may be their last! What all-society-sinfulness is Absolved because the Soldier lays down her or his life for the Spiritual Estate of Christ. We become good people, because we counterbalanced lethargy with go-to Courage and Pluck and Beauty. Indeed, we awoke already Good People because Christ, one for all, had already and with utmost efficiency summed up the Game and Won an Eternal Victory. Society now may Evolve and Progress. Society now may become more tuned to the Spiritual. Society now may rebuke a church found unrepentant, but know the True Church is ours to grow eagerly into.