“3 The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. 2 Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, 3 not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. 4 He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, 5 for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church? 6 He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. 7 Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil. Qualifications for Deacons 8 Deacons likewise must be dignified, not double-tongued, not addicted to much wine, not greedy for dishonest gain. 9 They must hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience. 10 And let them also be tested first; then let them serve as deacons if they prove themselves blameless. 11 Their wives likewise must be dignified, not slanderers, but sober-minded, faithful in all things. 12 Let deacons each be the husband of one wife, managing their children and their own households well. 13 For those who serve well as deacons gain a good standing for themselves and also great confidence in the faith that is in Christ Jesus. The Mystery of Godliness 14 I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these things to you so that, 15 if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth. 16 Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness: He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.” (1 Tim 3:1-16 ESV)

The situational mood accompanies any sincere bout with the externalities, alongside the bout with personal inventory, internalities, taking stock. What “is”, what is the situational awareness takes due note of a new Grimace in the crowd, a more Belligerence in the packed crowd, and never worries for a second as to one’s own Shapedness, Created Nature, Orderly Training. We are immune to devilish curses and laughter unholy. And on some plain field there is Godliness, Persevering Recognition, the bout with demonic wars surfacing for Air and recognizing: Hey, we can go simpatico… together.

To take sincere inventory is to assess the situation from a bird’s eye view, something we rarely enact despite much fuss and conversation on the subject. But this “third eye” mentality goes low with the Decision unnihilistic to go Rogue for Christ, to have holy laughter and bedrock Peace… in the beautiful auditorium of studious souls, in the church pews filled with holy mirth, in the healing sessions whose only ticket to entry is leaving your Identity, your personal Boast, at the door.

Our Identity is much worked over, by said Training Up in godliness, by said Created Nature, by said Shapedness. Some angel presence must have preceded us… and said Angel, was Christ, who dared the enemy do battle with ones unafraid of the Cross, unafraid of the afterlife, unafraid of the Moral Repugnancy against rancid acts, against meats to be ashamed of, against some strange musical chairs or desert island New Normal, where all our comings and goings—the street-level belligerence or Dare meets the fact of Ultimate Victory via Ultimate Judgment—are comings and goings Measured and of late Assessed. The wonder worker comes up clean, even if named as a soothsayer or unholy spiritualist of foreign deities. The abusive come up meek and little in the Kingdom, to be trodden upon perhaps. Or perhaps not all make it to God’s Kingdom, but our hope is this: that our Testimony will come clean as a Good Deed, that we might have on record the apology… do we ever accept an apology, especially if it has already once been betrayed?

The New Normal, the brash belligerence, the collegial coming alongside of each other: anyone who lies and claims Grace has already won, is overlooking that Everything is measured by one’s fittedness and capacities. Everything is done on account of one’s right style or flirtatious appropriateness for the Scene. Everything… yet here is Christ… room for the second in command, room for the tertiary and quaternary in command, because some strange milieu of Peace abruptly Informs us, shapes us, when to others everything is gangster squad and efforts to be properly abusive. Gangsters… we are Soldiers for Christ. And we have enough of the missive of hate not to Embrace the missive of Peace. It is a beautiful thing, one can almost cut with a knife, the Community in lockstep, all endearing unto each other and Making as if automatically lead figures but whose leadership is not some morally corrupt luscious king or queen, but is Servant Leadership, Giving of the Self to analysis and to service. We are One Body, and that thing is a Mystery.

Therefore to the Question of the Day: our war is already in full swing, the battle being fought over things that no season of explanation or university lecture hall can ever hope to change in an enemy, their abuse, their Hatred of the gospel, their sense—real or not—of having been caught in the Act, and flat out denying their culpability, or rather, going belligerent rather than apologetic. No, life is ours to Indoctrinate in our personal sphere with Good Doctrine and with the Hope of the Resurrection. So our mirth in community, our peace in church, our daring—who even stopped to think—sojourns amidst wildly disparate spirits… these things are right and proper for a good Servant of Christ.