“2 You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, 2 and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also. 3 Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. 4 No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him. 5 An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. 6 It is the hard-working farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops. 7 Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything. 8 Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel, 9 for which I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal. But the word of God is not bound! 10 Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. 11 The saying is trustworthy, for: If we have died with him, we will also live with him; 12  if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us; 13  if we are faithless, he remains faithful— for he cannot deny himself.” (2 Ti 2:1–13 ESV)

Swirling idea spaces and the Saint couches all reality on some strangely-chosen simple Event, a Meeting of Christian Minds, a Neighborhood Group, a friend in the community once Seen. Somehow these “Christian experiences” remind us of Acceptable Behavior and we are couched post-Experience as reminded of Unction, of Brotherhood, Sisterhood, of no grandstanding but some Peaceful Belonging.

Tomorrow’s War is going to “call up”, “recruit”, “draft” all of us, in weird ways what we most feared slash got excited about, literally falls into our lap, becomes our Cause, makes us Front and Center for just some one Hour. It really is “All About Us” in the most modest sense, that we were the Citizen of no exalted community but a Ready One, a Sanguine Estate, a Calmer Bastion, and our Decisions they ricocheted and Mattered.

Tomorrow’s War drafts all comers, to Witness to the marriage supper of the Lamb vis-a-vis He Hears our plaintive apologies and acknowledgements of Mistakes Made: go gentle on yourself, O Sinner! You had all the world hanging on your shoulders, on your dinner-time words, and the fallout… it is simply some Testament to a devil’s desire to make everything Zero Sum: you Owe Us for the magical hour. You Owe Us for that brand of love we’ve perhaps never quite known like you know it. You Owe Us an explanation, call it your brand of Soldiering, of Intel Work, of Ambassadorship, of Ranking Officer on the Scene entrusted to do the honors, of Welcome, of Making Memories ourselves, that others may scarcely aware of it nonetheless Live There. In the love. In the simpler things. In the basic Truths written on the heart, two souls, who spotted each other across the room or found one sitting happenschance by their side.

Because Jesus is the Ranking Officer on the scene; Jesus is Our mild-mannered, taken-as-factual but never for granted, reality that we are living—no jealousy imputed to our colder-walking forbearers—the dream, living out the Christ Event as it seems magically here and there to happen in each generation. We have Work to Do! Our “ranking officer” on the scene, a long lost Friend of Sinners, who Became Sin so that we might self-correct and nod or shake our head in gratitude: I ain’t so bad, after all.

Jesus made for Himself a strange bounty or headspace or safety zone, safe remove, where we could weather the Storms of any and all outward appearances and reality of War. It is par for the course, a distant dull Roar, a Challenge to each of us to shelter in place, forgive the one doing the recruiting and forgive the frantic warmongering, not Couched in Christ.

In Christ we take no apple of intelligence, no Desire to Know, no Request For Information; we take that a whole congregation has first one then another, little flashpoints of Curious Souls, assigned to Jesus, to the ranking officer on the scene, to each of us as Draftees and Enlisted Soldiers: it really is, after all, all about these professional and cordial friendships! We are after all at the Center of Community-wide Hope, Progress, Promise, and Traction. For Tomorrow’s War. For Today’s Fellowship. For the Christ in the Room, who has just gently smiled our way to acknowledge our Ideas they are worthy of the Father, worthy of the Mother.