“1  Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge. 2  I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you.” 3  As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight. 4  The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply; their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out or take their names on my lips. 5  The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot. 6  The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance. 7  I bless the Lord who gives me counsel; in the night also my heart instructs me. 8  I have set the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken. 9  Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure. 10  For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption. 11  You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” (Ps 16 ESV)

Momentum around grace is the facet of finding some forward thrust wherein our sins past, our animosities, our my ways or the highways, dissipate. Is there some level of excitement, wherein all is water under the bridge, all is forgotten discord and amnesia around unforgivables. Indeed, study the eons of time, in the history books, and all petulant or aggressive Here I Stands… they largely murmur little and amount to minor prophecies, in the grand scheme of History.

That is, there is a cognoscenti “out there” and this mind is Aware of your mistakes and sins. This mind is both Aware, and capable of Forving. Nothing is swept under the rug, all sins are portrayed and discussed. Whether you are more ashamed of your petulant animosity towards a race, towards a gender, towards a career-calling, and this petulance is borne in a past wrong unavenged… time is past, already due, to Grow Up and meet the more “evolved” other half, those who have gone the full hundred yards no fifty, no twenty-five. The more “educated” other half. Who are strong in that gentler spirit of the Educated Ones. However inept or unaggressive the fifty-yarders whine about: “we need Aggression and Assertiveness”; well, truth be told says the lover of the one targeted, my friend, my girlfriend or boyfriend, is ten times as aggressive, if only you Knew. If only you could See. If only you could Love the safer and more agreeable forms of Lancing Forth, of Aggressive Jaunts, of Sallying Forth one step forward, one step back, two steps forward, one step back, three steps forward, one step back. Indeed we not only are not accused of kneading the dough of social fabric, we are credited with hallmark rock-borne Steadfastness and Reliable Witness, Reliable Attestation: here, this is what is happening (all ye witnesses do declare).

But to that Jaunt that saves us from our hangups: it is a brand of Ecstasy, or if not ecstasy then some Missional Certitude wherein we have the grace to laugh off the past wrongs and the past Demands. Our desire, to have what in the limelight of another’s Halo or Mantle looks like just the most beautiful thing in the room, meets the Judgment Day, the Calling this day to be capable of accepting it will take ten years to catch up. It will take twenty years to catch up (can you believe it? Can you cope? Can you mosey right on down to the starting gates to “do your time”?). It will take three generations to Regain what was lost (Can you… Can you even Begin to cry your eyes out and accept this Judgment as not only Right but Merciful, and immediately to take up your starting gates new Career and Attitude?).

Any social Net is immediately poised for infection from all manner of Communism, of Totalitarianism, of Fascism, of Libertineism, of you-name-it Danger Zones: it takes prophecy and historical patience and time in order to discern what is the Danger Zone of each generation. And our Way Forward is so often counterintuitive: we relax Control and relax Firm Rule in favor of weird and wonderful Ideas enshrined in founding documents, in capitalist Doctrine, in Liberal Society credo. 

In the light of our social Net we can suddenly see no lives are wasted, that All are called to Discover this Mandate of Joy, this Traction of Peace as enacted in Warring Readiness and Attack: we have actually made our Peace with so many whom we were debating with. Each life is Precious and the soldier on the front line, Here I Stand, indeed! To the Friends of yore, of old, of yesteryear: it wasn’t two of them, or three, or five, but hundreds and harems of loving women and men, and to this day and hour we do not indulge the Desire for companionship even over coffee or a film, rather we are stoic and Servant-Minded, stronger than most, than most would guess, even as we try and keep the church’s fabric compartmentalized just a bit, here these of this grouping go with these, and these others… only let the awkward moments be assuaged and the hasty departures be healed.

The soldier is Discovering again that so many questions of our middle decades nominally peaceful ones, are Answered and Meaning, Existential Quandaries, are resolved and Forward Mission… let the historians determine, that this one not that was the Casus Belli, the one initiating War. But always we are on a precipice wherein we were too belligerent or, what is more likely in our little inklings of freedom, our last Stands of social levity, that we were not belligerent enough. What we seek, in peaceful intent therefore, is not War but coming together and Missional Meaningful Foray. To turn the swords to plowshares and the shields to reaping tools. To know the Halo and concomitant Power of each sainted individual, their Aura and Ability to hasten our own judgment, both as a judgment merciful and stern. And to the rumors… only tell us what you know! So that we might repent in each scenario as presented. And in repentance may truly Experience the Joy of a together-now, newly together Mantra, Creed, Mission.