“4 I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: 2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. 3 For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, 4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. 5 As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. 6 For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. 7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 8 Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.” (2 Tim 4:1-8 ESV)

Resilience as a trait, the soul needing no editing; mensch-like finger to the winds of time and Note: these are vivid times, vivacious and hurrying along, only can you tune in? Resilience Accepts the persona unedited, unvarnished, strangely Warmed, Belonging, put to Work.

Because Mankind always edges by just barely, it can somehow seem. As if Dead on a Cross, but edging by ever so slightly with a Resurrection. As if becalmed and far from land, but edging by with a cover from the sun and a fresh catch of fish, water in abundance… nothing needing worry. As if helter-skelter gameday play with Ideas and Output, as if ideas come and go in order to Mock us, but edging by because the ideas all of them play into a tangible Whole.

We are of a tangible Wholeness, unedited, and Prime for the Day’s warring madness. No, we are not All Things—Christ was that—but we are of strange personage unedited and jabbering forth as if inducted magically into these Currents so Vivid, these Stallions at Gallop so Intrinsic, these Warday Readinesses so Involved.

And then to the unilateralism of typical perspective, the way we entirely deny or entirely bless any one person, and should we instead learn Nuance, practice Up and Down, incorporate Blessing and Rebuke? More, we have a Home Base unvarnished and unadorned, but strangely Receptive to our desires to live in abundance. We have a Moral Prerogative these days, because an enemy—all things seem of a cut from one fabric—has gone rogue, disregarded the charters of War, tried and misbehave so abundantly as to drive mad, to drive to Righteous War in response, vivid retaliation, anything to curtail the madness. Yes, we are no longer of a mind to worry over numbers, rather over Fighting Spirit and Hope that stays alive.

One day we will glide down from the Heightened Alert to our homes and farms, our day’s peaceful labors and evenings around the family dinner table. But Today… Today the alert is indeed Heightened, because of that age-old game of “touche” (some never even say touche) is so far from a surrender, as to be a joking—almost—rebuke or one-upmanship. We one-up. We do not know, any longer, if the enemy comes at us always flying a dastardly flag. More, our own flag… it is appropriated and misused. But we know this, that one half is a soldiering cohort Ready and Tuned In, Living vividly and carrying out Actions, operations, surreal and He-man like. The other, some mouse has spooked them. Some resentment has despoiled them. Some lethargy has reclined them. As for us, our Flag is dutifully raised in the Name of whatever is our basic Hope, whatever our Religion, whatever our Determination as battle lines—in mock peacetime—come and go, hither and thither, as foreign adversaries suddenly think it behooves them to command a domestic Entity; these things, again, are of a cut or quilt gone Mad. Mad at the levity, the humor, the unfortunately Precious or Sensitive foray of potency. We accidentally were too sharp, or our humor or beauty was too sincere. It aped them. It drove “them” crazy. It was met with strange recompense so dastardly as almost frightfully victorious. Only it was not victorious. If any sense remained, then for the sake of some One Principle or Religion, all life on earth would be sacrificed like Christ was sacrificed. Only this: that what we see in black and white, in calculation and warring madness, Christ sees as Mission Field, and blanket Forgiveness of a would-be Enemy, of a diametrically-opposed Foe, of a back-and-forth that will be unrelenting until kingdom come, until utter annihilation, until any and all claim to a sensitive heart will be mocked and denied.

Whether we live on, our our spiritual heirs, it is secret society and protesting Mensch-like attitude, that Preserves, that pulls off the Incredible, that stares down plain all-out warfare, and does Love, does Persist, does Bless, does Refuse to concede warring madness and loss of Principle. We see it in the day’s intrigue and labor, in our workplaces and our city life, our country vividness. Yes, all of us may be compromised. All of us are up for grabs, almost, until something of said Secret Society or protesting Principle, does Inform and gently Guide us. And if the opposition stands too mighty and tall, then we nonetheless refuse to concede. It will be a beautiful thing, when diverse Spirits stare down the same tank of war, or the same clarion demoralizing Invite from lips too sweet for words.