“9 Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. 10 Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. 11 Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. 12 Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. 13 Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. 14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. 16 Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. 17 Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. 18 If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. 19 Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” 20 To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” 21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” (Ro 12:9–21 ESV)

To embed, to go incommunicado, to draw Near to the lion’s roar, indeed, to be that Lion at times: these things pressure the soldier to compromise, entreat her or him to concede, startle him or her with the alacrity, severity, sharpness, and modicum of a very well-couched, self-congratulatory, miasma of the Enemy’s composure. The Enemy really looks at things with a gaze we roundly reject, but that does seep in, or try to: what Courage, what Composure, what Discipline, what Nerve-wrought Decisiveness does counter the Assault and the hypnosis?

We embed and we cheerfully salute one last time for the time being, because all channels may be compromised, all communications overheard, all Strategems money to an Enemy though easily we go loose recollecting, encountering, living in the situation, of Friendlies, for whom Basic Intel is a given, how our crew operates, how we joke and cajole each other, how we Push and what our Totems are. We have One Totem, which is Christ, and He we share vividly, fastidiously, earnestly with the Enemy. To love on the recipient. To Beseech the Observation Deck to state, Christ led to peace between brothers and between sisters, Christ was a Mohammed to some and a Buddha to others and a Krishna to a third, but name Him what you will, He is our all-sufficient respite, our all-encompassing flailed and tormented Friend. What He bore, we dream steadfastly in terms never uncertain, that He bore up under torment and solo crossing of the fjord.

We dream of ice and morgue and unbeeping heart monitor, in anticipation of a Resurrection of the Body. We dream of His solo jaunt in anticipation of a Message earned incommunicado, in the Field, on the hillside, of His hard work wrought out to Mankind. And the best, they have no eulogies. The movers and shakers, some at the very helm get no encomium. Because immediately as soon as we Announce a Cause, it goes route Boring and route Trite, route Pedantic, route Terse and Unvoluptuous. Our Cause stays right on message as Christ for us, as a trickle-down effect wherein His gospel… some called to preach, others to serve at table; does Inspire just basic Goodness in the three-stages-past-conversion Disciple. We are stage one, converted by Encounter; stage two, marvelling at all we missed out on; stage three, shocked there is no time in this life to bask and ponder, but All Hands! On Deck!

To embed, therefore, is to shoot from the hip around Intel as wrought, as demanded or ingeniously queried in the Field. We never worry to be expending the Crown, the Mullah, the Heart of it all, because we shoot from the hip and there’s always something Purposefully Shared, some little play intelligence, some thoughts Sacred and for the reason called Sacred, shared. That Christ is friend to sinners, that we can lay hands on a friend, on the shoulder and in mock embrace, heads bowed, to pray for each other. We are never overdone, overcooked, overplaying our hand; we are Agent and Scene-Master severe, sublime, surreptitious and served cool. This Agent in our hearts, he or she Recollects each and every communion service attended, as Promissory of a future Approach to the heavenly. Each time with the gals or guys, a slice and foretaste of Heaven. Because of a Fast, perhaps, that makes things suddenly more appreciated and Special, or because just of the Certainty, I can be content alone, or content in a crowd; all things are ours through Him who strengthens us.