2023-09-10 A Meditation on Secretive

“2 We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, 3 remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. 4 For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you, 5 because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. You know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake. 6 And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit, 7 so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. 8 For not only has the word of the Lord sounded forth from you in Macedonia and Achaia, but your faith in God has gone forth everywhere, so that we need not say anything.” (1 Th 1:2–8 ESV)

Secretive, thankless, untold deeds of the soldier never bear a retelling. Too wonderful, too originating in faith, the soul whistles away the beauty of strength meets context, wondrous alleviation as portion docks with portion, mega deeds ascertained as Done by the soldier and the convert, who today signs her or his name to the dotted line.

For there is a friction, a refusal properly to honor our heroes quite as we might. Not everyone can enjoy the light of day. Not everyone labors in gladsome affairs, plain to speak of to the man on the street or the writer at the local newspaper. Somehow society’s storyline deintensifies and declaws rampant success stories, stories of battle met and victory joined, stories of things impossible to point to quite, yet that are received as True, hidden legions, supportive masters of the universe of some fashion, big name gamesmanship, and all this as society scrambles properly to tell the story, to have dalliance with secret operational gigs that reboot and rewire and represcribe all good things unto the receivers, the bequeathed, possessors of the Victory.

It is a victory joined as in the quiet peace of the day, an enemy knocking at the gate somehow appeased, defeated, and the sense of a rampant Success, the sound of wartime Principles somehow internalized, by community, in hearts and minds. The mourning of lost ones. The recollection of what future glint was in their eyes. The knowledge that they will be remembered perhaps as war heroes or perhaps as accidental wretchings and buckings of society, wrongly forgotten or dismissed as too quaint or meaningful a storyline. For there is much therein to meditate upon. There is much therein to allow into our hearts as instructive and upbuilding. That some went to be with another martyr to the faith, Jesus and the Spirit, the Father and the Trinity. Yes, for when our souls are safeguarded, held in trust, in toto cared for and prayed over and internalized by community, they—we believe a little better now—have become Eternal and Immortal. And such is each of us, in the knowledge that someone out there, Christ-like, prays for us.

The victory therefore immediately challenges us to a right reckoning as to how and why it came about. And therein to see challenge upon challenge as to what light and simple, maddeningly simple, things contributed: a right creed and doctrine of religion. A sense of camaraderie or companionship met out. Divine intervention, as a voice behind us says, “Go this way and not that” (Isa 30:21). Neat and perfect Visions such as Israel saw in the wilderness of manna and water from a rock (Num 20). An obviousness as to what our common religion is. A service of prayer and thanksgiving, worship and petition, executed. All this our operational heroism, no time to fuss, no time to claim accolades, but a rather sad on one level but joyous on another level, realization that we’ve about seen the varied and individualized reactions to our deeds of love, our deeds of operational secrecy at times, our Purpose and our Calling lived out; they see, and they demure. They see, and they scoff. They see, and they question. Yet here and now are we, strong for the battle, speaking a language that unintentionally makes secret and purposeful all manner of things that are easily overlooked, taken for granted.

Strong for the battle, hopeful about tomorrow, yet who can make heads or tails about what Truth is alighted upon in wartime, that is forgotten in the peace that follows? No, our secretive operational outlays will never be bland and commonplace. Never shall they be easily told and retold. Always shall we be those who saw big spirits fighting bigger spirits. Somehow churning with the times, and wrassling Satan to the mat. Someway and somehow not quite fit for primetime, yet fit for primetime if only because primetime needs unction, blood, heroism, confidence, poise, a martyr, would-be martyr, on the frontlines, with nary a scoffing voice in the audience nor a dubious bent in the interviewer. For a time we are properly told of, and for a time we are rightly remembered and prayed over. For such time rewards many secret and impossible-to-quantify acts of Love and acts of Patience and acts reactive to all-too-common War: “23 Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.” (Lk 6:23).