“3 Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you, or from you? 2 You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all. 3 And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. 4 Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. 5 Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, 6 who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. 7 Now if the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses’ face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end, 8 will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory? 9 For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness must far exceed it in glory. 10 Indeed, in this case, what once had glory has come to have no glory at all, because of the glory that surpasses it. 11 For if what was being brought to an end came with glory, much more will what is permanent have glory. 12 Since we have such a hope, we are very bold, 13 not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face so that the Israelites might not gaze at the outcome of what was being brought to an end. 14 But their minds were hardened. For to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away. 15 Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their hearts. 16 But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. 17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” (2 Cor 3:1-18 ESV)

Jesus validates the notion of a wingman, because alone we can do little, but in company, our letters of recommendation alongside our Character and Submission visible, make for warm tidings. Giving it a second go around. An email, or patient appeal to the Christian’s trust levels. A weeks-long evening discipleship cohort. We are all in apostolic ministry when once we’ve experienced strange confluences of spirit and metaphysique.

More, Christians cope with their own atheistic Bullheadedness, the ways we negotiate some chutzpah and even rebellion rather than go strong and able on the Forgiveness tip. The motif called Forgiveness. Instead of being brash and devil-may-care, we can light up the switchboard with Christ’s Call to acknowledge a few things ‘round here. To acknowledge we are sinners saved by grace. To acknowledge we would left to our own devices invent some way to be either stoically removed from the equation, or unapologetically enmeshed in the equation.

No, the truth is… what our Christs and our Apostles teach us, is that so many near misses are on the Christian soldier’s radar. The near miss that equates Christianity with—at times “Cute”—appeals to the logic that anything by way of judgment lofted our way, any accusation (we call it a “warning”) must be indulged, because God has ordered us not to judge each other. So the sinner feels an accusation and uses it as license to do the very thing abnegated and denounced.

Likewise the blame game wherein—”cute”, again—so-and-so is personally responsible for ill tidings, for said “Blame game”, for art and artifice that, truth be told, is as foreign to each of us as it is to each of them. That is downmarket, O patron, citizen of the Church! Let the kids play, they will get some things right and some things wrong, but You, O Citizen, are a higher breed, a more moral entity, a cleaner and more fasted, spiritual Being!

To the soldier’s meek confession, then, that Christ Died for sins, ours being the foremost. And He died… we need not equate Ministry with becoming like Him in death, at least not that alone. We sit at the feet—on Zoom, in person—of an Apostle, of a Christ, to Learn and be solemnly gleeful that Christ has come and gone… for us. Some deep Spirit is present, in the Unity, in the Brotherhood and the Sisterhood. Friends, they get the second go of it correct: “Dear so-and-so, you know me as the brother or friend of someone who got off on the wrong foot with you, but from what little I know of Christianity, you and I can still make a sincere, no guile, effort—your accomplishments notwithstanding—to be friends…”

Then to our Dreamworld and to that plain Fact of ecstatic comings-together, you call it Submission, we demure and insist all is society, all is polite entreaties, all is self-denying, genuflecting approaches and distances made. Goodbyes and hellos. Because we see in ourselves the desire to be brash and bold-headed around our Posture in the world, when in fact some Contrition is needful. More, that others fault us for words carelessly spoken, and our first response is, “There are two sides to every story, I was just representing the alternative…” while at the same time that Urge: punish her or him with the very pain he or she is illustrating… this we brook not for an instant, but do apologize yet again for anything Sinful comprised, but bold that sin and the “other way of looking at things” is forgiven.

Front line and worth every penny, the soldier’s Mind and Spirit is just as needful as his or her boots on the ground. The soldier is tasked with endeavors both spiritual and physical, in deep faith around a gestalt or spirit of Calm that bequeaths and spreads. We are of one fabric, O friend in arms! We have Heard the good news, and at each sentence we were super excited, More Please! Please finish that thought! Please… when you say mankind is Broken, please do Illustrate with examples! Because this is more and most of what I want in life, that Narrative most cruciform! That Headship most Christian! That prayer time most salient, sanguine, simple!