Today, Grace Church celebrated the Feast of the Ascension….this amazing and absolutely crucial feast in the church’s life and practice. I think the Orthodox describe it–imagine it best: that in the Incarnation, Divinity was brought into humanity in Jesus Christ. And, that, in the Ascension, Jesus’ glorified humanity was brought into the Divine reality. I love the flow between these two…a flow that describes God’s exhale and inhale within our own created existence.
It is a flow that our practice calls us to embody…this greater realization of God’s purpose for us, God’s dream, as Archbishop Tutu so often says…
And, then this evening in my Lectio, this was the passage, the pericope that “hooked me”
From Psalm 12 NRSV:
“The promises of the Lord are
promises that are pure,
silver refined in a furnace on the
ground,
purified seven times.
You, O Lord, will protect us;
you will guard us from this
generation forever…”
And again, I love putting the NRSV alongside Nan Merrill’s reflection. (I’m going to add in Norman Fisher’s work on his Zen-inspired Psalms next!)
“The promises of Love are pure,
like silver refined in a crucible,
like gold purified seven times.
Be our safeguard, O Blessed One,
Stay close by throughout these dark days
where unloving hearts seem to abound.”
Crucible….being forged….what wonderful images (and oh so challenging) for how we understand our Christian practice.
S+
Thoughts on a Contemplative Reformation 
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