“16 “Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. 17 Beware of men, for they will deliver you over to courts and flog you in their synagogues, 18 and you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them and the Gentiles. 19 When they deliver you over, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say, for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour. 20 For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. 21 Brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death, 22 and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. 23 When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next, for truly, I say to you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes. 24 “A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. 25 It is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household.” (Matt 10:16-25 ESV)

Any eagle eyes on the ground are laden and grow into a Mantel called secretive, called classified, called Knowledge-Based: the lowly member of the neighborhood suddenly prime with ideas and understandings, stratagems and simple “here’s my best guess…” mantras. Thus we turn perhaps to physicists who have talked of innate creationism, spontaneous life, the Invention of a spy behind even enemy lines, minus any line to the friendlies, self-instantiating, and likewise the prospect of “false believers”—the moles that Paul the Apostle speaks of—simply allying with forces of evil by their own pluck and creativity. Wicked creativity. Sinister pluck.

Because the siren call is to join the side of evil, the dark side, the repugnant-to-goodness side. The siren call is just to concede one ill-begotten deed, only one is never enough. The siren call somehow misappropriates some artists amped-up Offering, their cathartic Depiction of violence and vengeance, and calls it an illegal License to do violence: on the contrary, let the sacred remain sacred and let the secular remain secular! We who profess to walk the Church walk do pray, “Help us be the Church”.

Because we serve what we take the time to honor and revere. If some fledgling peekaboo brand of Life, well then Life! But if some ill-begotten fantasy surrounding one or two personally puzzling—fascinating—societally non-spoken-of things, some lustful or murderous intrigue, etc. We also fashion our tools and thereafter our tools fashion us (McLuhan). Likewise our Deity, as we—if we should listen closely—hear a Patient Man, Woman at the helm, a loving and deeply conscientious Man, Woman at the helm.

All eagle eyes on the ground remind us to Honor the mystical facets of Life and of Life more Abundant. The walls that listen, the lowly wage-earner who talks us up, the community revolving and ebbing and flowing, gestating this way and that, sometimes society just works. Notwithstanding society has her sickly and infirm, those in pain and those living out a life we in times of sobriety dread: is it necessarily the case that all will come to some Golgotha and Cross? Are we of the same mind as the one who goes on a suicide mission to save lives, jumping on a hand grenade at the spiritual cost of appearing themselves sinful? Death by infamy! Death by guiltiness!

To meditate, to be on Retreat, is to have Deep Thoughts that are in fact secret and others beg for their disclosure. Others seem to pin the fascination on things other than Christ’s Kingdom Come. Others want to know how, just how, one proves themselves to be an Elder in the Church of Christ (so they can mimic and do likewise, minus authorization). Others want some trip and fall aspect, they want to see us join the forces of illbegotten gain, of murderous intrigue, and more. No, our fascination with the sublime, this is already Met and Gratified—non-fleshily gratified—in the Mantra of our faith, in the Creed and its denouement. In all things, we are secretive and sneaky already, wise as serpents already, even as those “serpents” in the trenches monitoring the heartbeat of a life in utero called Beloved, called Us, called Die For, called Tomorrow’s Generation.

We serve a Master whose intrigue is shared, we are shareholders in the revenue of the vineyard. We are shareholders in the peaceful intrigue and simple Justifications of life and that more abundantly. We are shareholders in a pruned sort of tree, a vineyard cultivated and rich in the borders, growing all the more vigorously because of the gardener’s clippers. He disciplines us for a season, that we might be Right Properly Presented gentlemen and ladies of the Cloth, of the Layperson’s duty, and of our innate, God-given boots to grow into.