The Pains of Being Pure of Heart

Posted by Chris Breslin on February 10, 2019 in

02/10/2019

Isaiah 6:1-11

Chris Breslin

“Holy ground is dangerous ground. The holy is never, never something of God that we can take as if we owned it and use it for our own purposes” -Eugene Peterson, The Jesus Way

“I became a detective of divinity, collecting evidence of God’s genius and admiring the tracks left for me to follow: locusts shedding their hard bodies for soft, new winged ones; prickly pods of milkweed spilling silky white hair; lightning spinning webs of cold fire in the sky, as intricate as the veins in my own wrist.” -Barbara Brown Taylor, The Preaching Life

“We acquire readiness and perceptiveness for the holy by worshiping God, The Holy, and practicing the posture and rudiments of worship wherever we find ourselves…sitting in a pew or driving a car, reading a book or watching a cloud, writing a letter or picking a wildflower. Wherever we are, whatever we are doing, there is more, and the more is God, revealing himself in Jesus by the Spirit, the Holy Spirit. This more has nothing to do with cosmetics. Holiness is transformative, although rarely sudden. And the more is not often obvious, in fact more often obscure. The holy life begins in the times and places and lives that ambition and pride ignores or despises.” -Eugene Peterson, The Jesus Way

Tell all the truth but tell it slant —

Success in Circuit lies

Too bright for our infirm Delight

The Truth’s superb surprise

As Lightning to the Children eased

With explanation kind

The Truth must dazzle gradually

Or every man be blind —

-Emily Dickinson

“A door opens to me. I go in and am faced with a hundred closed doors.” -Antonio Porchia HT Henri Nouwen, The Wounded Healer

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February 10, 2019 slides