“13 Therefore, one who speaks in a tongue should pray that he may interpret. 14 For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays but my mind is unfruitful. 15 What am I to do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will pray with my mind also; I will sing praise with my spirit, but I will sing with my mind also. 16 Otherwise, if you give thanks with your spirit, how can anyone in the position of an outsider say “Amen” to your thanksgiving when he does not know what you are saying? 17 For you may be giving thanks well enough, but the other person is not being built up. 18 I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you. 19 Nevertheless, in church I would rather speak five words with my mind in order to instruct others, than ten thousand words in a tongue. 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 14:13-25 ESV)

Embracing the pain, sometimes we like ourselves a little more when hindered, unsafe, in pain, compromised. But this mystery, it is resolved in the mind of the Christian by the adoration of a Man pinched and tormented, hung on a wooden Cross, in all this keeping in mind—He kept in His mind—that the wages of sin is death and the price of free living is sacrifice.

We like ourselves a little more knocking on the doors of tomorrow, when will this pain go away, I haven’t the patience or inclination to bob my head and say yes to everything; I am subdued, meekly so, and who knows whether it will be better or worse by Tomorrow.

Yet the sting, the pain of life in any sense of verite, is nothing we’re too smart about, rather it is the Emblem dynamically-won of everything from the pink hair in the one feeling less than beautiful, in the Napoleon complex in the one muscled-up and compensating for their shorter stature, in the fashionista “at least this one came to the game prepared!” (Note how a fashionista likes someone of radically different taste and style, if only they share a love for the game, a love for the promenade and the catwalk.)

Legit Demonstratives: Christ’s “Tattoo” of Duty, of Service, of Sacrificial gifting, was unheard of, for a Ruler to be so humbled and ashamed of how He had died. We claim nothing more, no avant-garde new Style or Framework, other than that we Claim Him: do not get a tattoo, says the Hebrew Scriptures, and, cursed is him who is hung on a tree.

Changing the pace, the new Cadence is the soldier’s half-crazed but secretly and calmly Monitored, Righteous, swirling forth in the great unknown, stride. He or she is simply alive with the Good News, alive with the impaired Fact of his or her Savior captured and Crucified; he or she simply knows a Determined Fact: this war… it seems we of all people are most to be pitied, for He died… but this War: see the saints in two millennia Proclaim: Christ is Risen!

The strange spook stories, the Evidence “in the community” of a fear of one another as much as a willingness to Appreciate and Get to Know one another, is rooted in the Soldier’s backing, as missionaries of a flag, of a nation, of a military. He or she is pensive, patiently-peace-making, waiting on Orders from Above, or God’s own “borrow you for a moment, as the ranking officer in the room”, to pass on Evangel and discipline, mostly Peace and Invitation.

And then to the fright zones, that an enemy simply collects little scrupulous details and overlooks the broader frame: you, a dweeb like you! No one, apparently is at the helm! So, let us—wink, wink, nudge, nudge—let us create a nation and people of our own design! Good, if that is your stated purpose, but bad if it is the contagion of sickness spread throughout, collecting little notes without a sense either of humor or of fear of the unknown. If the Almighty has chosen one over another, for a season, also the Almighty sees that this One—call Him Jesus—is tasked with the ultimate sacrifice. We do so well to figure out how to work together, because there are legions of would-be Christ’s in our world and our nation, but One Church, One Spirit, One Father, One Son. Our gig is not, emphatically not, spoilt by the sincere entreaties of an evangelist and reform-oriented Patron of Church. Nor is anyone minus the need of a friendly reminder, hey, see your sins, see your need to repent. Gladly, we then say, as if convicted by the patient and loving person of a father or mother.