“2 And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. 2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, 4 and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. Wisdom from the Spirit 6 Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. 7 But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”— 10 these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. 11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. 13 And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. 14 The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. 15 The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. 16 “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.” (1 Cor 2:1-16 ESV)

Clamoring and posturing, evading and tying down, all of us operate within a framework of risk and reward: we fear to hear the music stop, to be portrayed as plainly human, proximate to death, short in time, aging. Likewise to the flipside: we adore Eternity and gestures Prolific and Multiplying, Fertile and Breeding Like unto Like. We adore the loving email from a friend or family member. We see in as much some Invite to be reassured that our Worries are not the only thing contagious about us: so, too, is our Warmth and our good Cheer.

And always we have occasion to reflect on those little things that, like a carrot on a stick, guide us and cause us to mutter oaths or biting words at a fellow traveler who is on the scene and not to be blamed. We mutter or we edge towards, some Nirvana or baser Prize. And to the fighter within, it no longer behooves us to Worry around those frightful encounters with temporality and finitude. Our coffee, it is a ritual that Entertains as much as the television does or the art house. Our friendly negotiations around Being There, Intertwined and Engaged, of accepting that some gestures, these are socially Genius, and we say as much because our personal space is still respected in some unimaginable basis.

Therefore we have no fear of being shocked or surprised to learn our sins: we need look no further than the risk and reward locus of our being. And why is this here being emphasized? Because somehow, to be more sure of sin, is to be more sure of the wild-eyed Gesture of a Saint named Christ, who took all this to the Cross. Yes, we learn, our soldiering Posture is informed, of deeper Principle and Long-Term plans. Somehow the cigarette or what-have-you, addictive beyond scope, is now Embraced and becalmed a bit, denied its Potency, embraced as a failing not too great for His unction, His breath, His Cross.

So we ebb and flow in and out of what the lauded physicist Feynman reported from a sensory deprivation tank: that our locus of self-awareness moves in and out of our body, in three dimensions: we laugh a bit at the aging or merely human take on our seat at our desk, in front of our bleary monitors and keyboards and mice. But also we Go Groovy around just loving on life a bit, on the Promise of a New Day (to quote a Paula Abdul nineties anthem). And so we are creatures, not “merely” but “partly”. Partly spirit, partly Art House or Physics Lab, partly cogitating Deep Thoughts on defending the Human Condition come what war may come, and partly marveling that Christ has a plan already being put into place. And it started with His Cross, a penurial death row sentence capable of Changing the World: as we Reflect on a perspective unappreciated by many-a passerby, but All Things to those who are initiated.

The shock factor of Deliverance appears on the horizon and immediately appears front-and-center, blustery and storm-like, it Engages our baser impulses with All-On attention. We stand at Attention because God has Entered the Human Sphere, has walked past the dope dens and drug houses, has observed the broken limbs and even more Exposed and Hurt emotions. And He has wasted no time but gone Deliberate, Rogue to the status quo, Purposeful and Meaningful towards a quiet Cry heard through the noise. From people who, for some brief instant, are inviting Him in, not because of grand principles of hospitality, but because He is that unction and Needful Thing. He is the carrot on the stick, patiently being thus in all humility, coaching us just to “go easy” on ourselves and to murmur a prayer, fashion a rosary bead, press a crucible piece of jewelry, because the crazed baseless roaming now has a Center unashamed. We are unashamed of our Rock, because He has made porridge from the Confused, Divorced sense of Time and Space, has been our head trip and our subdued injection. Yes, we can see All Things through this lens, because it soothes us in our consternation and shocked reaction to all He is bearing up under, like Atlas holding the world together. And we know our Tomorrow War… no longer do we worry about if we’re handling it right, because we see He has already pointed us out as Creaturely, sinful beyond measure, and therefore as Immediately forgiven, granted succor, and Encouraged to dream of a Peace and a Righteousness that dispels all doubt. We are encouraged to go forth boldly into the night, because He has borne up under the doubts and simple sins. If we are to see ourselves in detached light, it shall be as His People, as His Custodial, as His shining bright lights. No, it isn’t on death’s doorstep we need unction and last rites: we need Eternity Now, and in such Eternity to cease to worry about so much, about so much War and Strife, to see ourselves as on a fawn’s legs, no longer game legs, but taking the first steps of Life Together, of Readiness, of Mentalism coached by the King of Mind, by the storyteller and the E.R. doctor just soothing and calming the capricious air.