“38 John said to him, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.” 39 But Jesus said, “Do not stop him, for no one who does a mighty work in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. 40 For the one who is not against us is for us. 41 For truly, I say to you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ will by no means lose his reward.” (Mark 9:38-41 ESV)

The experience of haste, somehow time having passed regarding all preparations, peace-time settlements, entertained duties to friends and allies, due patient inquiries: haste calls home as to a Present Judgment, the fact of no more largesse and patient inquiry, the solemn understanding that those things that will be our judges, our deeds and the state of our heart: this is less malleable and less debatable than we might like.

“Let me make solemn testimony!”; I can explain!” It is a trust fall par excellence really to dive deep into His embrace as a thing Given and Certain, as war looms and as spiritual brush-ups languish, pester, interfere. And in the head trip of War, it is a new Looming Reality that promises to upend any and all calculations: who, after all, is the victor? What, after all, are the territories disputed? Charmed, we may be, by humor and back-and-forth in its season, yes, but terrified at the angst-ridden Encounter, yes, to have caught a would-be friend in a malicious streak or a drunken anger. If, after all, we all were operating with Largesse, well wouldn’t Peace be the calm response to broad lands to fill, broad energies to cultivate, broad humming Life in Community to bless?

Jesus was so much a warrior of the Cross, that His ruling-in-the-midst-of-His-enemies involved quite Peaceful means, even though His Word was like a Sword. He was so Futuristic as to be able to say, “Those not with us are against us”. He was negotiating a settlement with Man’s heart, with these poor—but they shall do—disciples. Forming aside from admissions’ test, hearts consigned to a bleaker tomorrow yet therein seen for bleak in the light of Energies most benign and futuristic and infectious. We, too, launch forth Happy and strangely balancing in mind, that these our Future Thoughts are benign and a blessing, we can think with Largesse and Affection, never doubting that our charade and escapade of Thought will devolve into a depression. It is nearly all True, isn’t it? That Man is actively pursuing all and any Promises Past, that friends are networking and checking in, that Pastor and church celebrity are moving beyond any and all haphazard comeuppance, error, obsessive fear. That all things are Peace and Progressive, unto tomorrow’s War, in a mindset unobsessed and Peace, a mindset nonetheless Able and Aggressive unto Well-Being and Calm. That we feel out the blank spaces in our day’s mentalism and prayer, unto the end of recalling the Urgent Pastime called Strategy, called Mild-Mannered Humming Along, called Copacetic unto our Place and Stature in the community. We are happy to be in our place, through having Tamed the ambitions and the desire for solemn Heights… these we gladly see to be filled by our Christ, our Leader, our Friends.