“9 The next day, as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the housetop about the sixth hour to pray. 10 And he became hungry and wanted something to eat, but while they were preparing it, he fell into a trance 11 and saw the heavens opened and something like a great sheet descending, being let down by its four corners upon the earth. 12 In it were all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds of the air. 13 And there came a voice to him: “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.” 14 But Peter said, “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.” 15 And the voice came to him again a second time, “What God has made clean, do not call common.” 16 This happened three times, and the thing was taken up at once to heaven. 17 Now while Peter was inwardly perplexed as to what the vision that he had seen might mean, behold, the men who were sent by Cornelius, having made inquiry for Simon’s house, stood at the gate 18 and called out to ask whether Simon who was called Peter was lodging there. 19 And while Peter was pondering the vision, the Spirit said to him, “Behold, three men are looking for you. 20 Rise and go down and accompany them without hesitation, for I have sent them.” 21 And Peter went down to the men and said, “I am the one you are looking for. What is the reason for your coming?” 22 And they said, “Cornelius, a centurion, an upright and God-fearing man, who is well spoken of by the whole Jewish nation, was directed by a holy angel to send for you to come to his house and to hear what you have to say.” 23 So he invited them in to be his guests. The next day he rose and went away with them, and some of the brothers from Joppa accompanied him. 24 And on the following day they entered Caesarea. Cornelius was expecting them and had called together his relatives and close friends. 25 When Peter entered, Cornelius met him and fell down at his feet and worshiped him. 26 But Peter lifted him up, saying, “Stand up; I too am a man.” 27 And as he talked with him, he went in and found many persons gathered. 28 And he said to them, “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation, but God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean. 29 So when I was sent for, I came without objection. I ask then why you sent for me.” 30 And Cornelius said, “Four days ago, about this hour, I was praying in my house at the ninth hour, and behold, a man stood before me in bright clothing 31 and said, ‘Cornelius, your prayer has been heard and your alms have been remembered before God. 32 Send therefore to Joppa and ask for Simon who is called Peter. He is lodging in the house of Simon, a tanner, by the sea.’ 33 So I sent for you at once, and you have been kind enough to come. Now therefore we are all here in the presence of God to hear all that you have been commanded by the Lord.”” (Acts 10:9-33 ESV)

The books that could be written… legal Bliss arrives on our doorstep unexpectedly, the awesome confluence of new friends at some distance, yet gladly and warmly engaged and encountered, an intertwined set of particles, love—man-to-man warmth—at a distance, what-could-be now Here and Present. Man in his and her conceits overlooks the plain waiting nature of Prayer, wherein we arrive Living and Alert on the doorstep of Giftedness, wherein some infinity-plus mechanism harbors us as Fresh-Faced recruits, new Entrants to the Tomorrow Service, drafted yet also willingly, into God’s Army, and no worries any longer that the Right Man shall prevail, the Right Side shall win, the Right Cohort shall achieve unto Holy Rest come day’s end.

We are that Right Man, and if there be doubts, then hear the music of the spheres pray tell, hear the Encouragements benign, rather, aggressively Benign, positive, victorious, tell and retell how our nation of Faith was opposed, stood contested, and Reared Back to strike at the foul central soul or animus of a demon. Stood and reared back to take out the grimacing plagiarist of God’s good deeds, stolen notions of Goodness, illegally Borrowed ideas of Fittedness, people unfit for the role of new friend, even, because they have yet to repent of the malicious or unjust murder and hegemony. And then, to see that our own shriven patience, does warm our souls to those near to the enemy, to her or his housemates and servants… we do not hate along racial lines nor along gender lines, not along even religious lines, nor socio-economic lines. Our own Faith system is well-enough understood, that we can with meek eyesight and bleary-eyed morning assessment, Bless the enemy and pray for those who persecute.

And then to age-old questions, who shall “win”. Is it not already a loss to have lawsuits against each other? Is it not already a reluctant, peace-loving, posture that hates war and resents the invite to do battle? However, we are at the elysium of conjoined particles and the sense: out there, a dreamt of “new spirit”, a bit like an age-old—friend of the family—spirit, whose taste and personality struck deep as Unique and New to our dreamland adventures. Someone one day we shall work alongside. Someone who in said dream may have heard our confession, our confession that we Love, that we have erred but largely strike Victory bells and head off the onslaught with such overabundant Joy as to be illegally built up, almost.

Because flipside to exalted status, is sober assessment of devilish, drugs and smoke and liquors and demons, of a portion of life as of yet Unsolved. We cannot heal those who tumble down the stairs of sobriety, unsober, aggressive, rambunctiously unsafe. Those high on the dope of Aggression or pinched refusal, hatred, frustration. Indeed, as their teachers, we have a duty to protect ourselves… almost. To be that helicopter who drops a line to the drowning man or woman, not ourselves in the water, not ourselves vulnerable to going down too. So cheer wins the day, because our friends who are “Self-destructing” in all sorts of ways of self-harm, are built up—we hope—by their stark refusal to steal from those who care for them, their own lives and livelihoods. We can face the Demonic, because we ourselves know the wistful cadence or walk past the barroom, and the Temptation to fight a lot more than necessary, to make enemies of what prayerful fasted patience teach us are our nominal friends. Let them be our friends. Let our special sense of Home and the Homefront, be preserved, because of the upbeat Suffering One, Christ who resented but still preached to the Pharisees, only that in a liberal and loving society, He could rest day’s end with His disciples, in strange uneconomical conjoinedness and intertwined particles. Indeed, He judged no one. He had a forlorn Vision that all would lead to the Cross, and do so with several important people in lockstep with Him, not those merely of physical connection, a wife or husband, but those Met on some Respected, Beloved, Excited, and Conjoined Natural level.