“13 For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, 14 saying, “Surely I will bless you and multiply you.” 15 And thus Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise. 16 For people swear by something greater than themselves, and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation. 17 So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, 18 so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. 19 We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, 20 where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.” (Heb 6:13-20 ESV)

All peoples represent themselves with a portrait: themselves at prayer; themselves laboring at the grindstone; themselves resting. That portrait, somehow it persists even as the heavens fall away and the earth splits open in war. Somehow we hold to these truths, as our national identity, as our measuring rod for citizenship in the world so voraciously debated over, fought over, treacherously laden with spiritual bombs and arson, is borne. We bear the flag, we bear the assessing measurement, we bear the individualistic sense of “Home”, what constitutes Peace and Companionship.

This is no flag of surrender, but rather a hoped-for end to the militancy for its own sake, a faith that once Equipped, there is after all that headache or cancer in any society, that we pursue aggressively. That we pursue Principled and Staunch. That rides on wings and a prayer, to defuse the mechanics for their own sake, the AI that is allegedly responsible—”we’re no longer culpable”—for a destructive or racist or diseducating or sexist or totalitarian regime.

For, see the good cheer that carries the day, the loved ones met over a special day, yet all this in sheer contrast to Utterly Impossible, too harsh even for the historians, reality of a theft, of a Shove, of a Get Out! Yes, the truth is stranger than the stories later told. The truth is, to wage the good fight is every person’s Right and Certainty: we cannot hold high our own Suitability any more directly than can some personal attestor, recommender, second, vouchsafer. On our own we flail. To be strong amidst War is to hear again the heavens above and the earth beneath, ring out that Jesus is Lord; that we are ourselves the first to cast a stone at times, but also that we do not make idols of “getting along” or “peace at any cost”. Life—we can say this if we fight our own good fights—is not all that is at stake. At stake is the dying Will, the hurried Promise, the loving Martyrdom. For our families. For our communities. For our self portrait, represented and held high.