The Wily Tactician

It was intriguing to learn some more recently about that prized student of Aristotle, Alexander the Great.  Not only did he have a deep appreciation of science and an intuition for the unity of all things, but he was also a master tactician in battle, what you would expect of a world conqueror.  One of his tactics was still being practiced almost 2000 years later in England; and that was his strategy of striking decisively at the two flanks of the enemy’s line and then, while troops from the center of that line were being borrowed for reinforcement, a climactic charge was launched at the center position or heart of the force, driving a wedge between the  two halves of the opposing army.  He whose obsession was unity changed horses and thrived here on division, a stake in the ‘monster’s’ heart deeply driven.  It was then after some reflection that I settled my focus on another wily tactician, the one who thrives on distraction, scattering our powers of concentration hither and yon so that we are inclined to miss the heart of the matter, often that central marriage and master relationship that fuels all fruitful service anyway, and is itself the first of “services.” Separate that fellowship and the rest is child’s play.  I keep coming back to the fact that those cherubim over the arc were facing each other in intense relationship.  It was in the midst of that union that Yahweh God manifested. (While we are an example to the angels as it says in Ehesians 3 v10, they are also to be an example to us as they do so much behind the scenes and even on the scenes of our lives unacknowledged and are perfectly content that way.)