Each newsletter includes a short reflection for the week to come, articles published the previous week, a short curated list of content that was meaningful to me the previous week, and more. Subscribe today!
Building Depths of Grace · Deepening our Christianity #20
Deepening our Christianitythe Monday Newsletter of Paul PrinsEdition #20 · 30 October 2023 |
Blessings Reader, These last four weeks, I have been busy. The website for Urban Monastics was under a major overhaul as we prepare to fundraise. With the first major milestone reached, I'm back with the weekly newsletter. Check out the new homepage! Building Depths of Grace Let us build on the previous reflection - the way, truth, and life (you can re-read it here - it’s been a few weeks). The thrust of that reflection is this: that the way of Jesus should receive priority over the impossible task of perfectly understanding truth. A life following Jesus will be full of decisions between good things. There can be no other way forward in our limited, brief, and finite lives. Even Jesus in the gospels regularly chooses between good things. He chose to focus his time on Judah and not the surrounding peoples. Even this choice was messy. He regularly loved, blessed, and spoke with these other people (the woman at the well immediately comes to mind). Our God could barely wait to bless these others, with the first baptism after Pentecost being a person from Ethiopia. In between these good things, there is no right way. There can be no right way. There is no true way. For truth encompasses more than I can or you can. That places our feet on a path of possibilities and openness. A way of life into the love of God that opens us to all of creation. The way of Jesus builds in us a love that resonates and dances with God’s love. The same love that animated and moved the feet of Jesus. Our destination is death. It is there, waiting for us. Even now, it waits for me. It is there, whether I carry my cross or not. It will be there, despite all the ways I have erred in truth. Yet it is the way of Jesus that leads us to life and the kingdom. To know that we have erred, with no ability to know where. Humbling. In this humility, let us choose love. The love spoken of so beautifully in the epistles. The fruit of the spirit, which sounds like a grasp at the infinitely loving person of God. This is not to diminish the work of Truth but to orient ourselves with God. With Jesus, who called us to follow his example. With the Holy Spirit, who moves us with gentleness to stay on the path beneath our feet. Finding our way back when we must rest, sit, or wander. Each day brings fresh grace. More grace. Grace that covers the days gone and sustains us in this moment. Grace that doesn’t build me up but takes me to the depths. Building depths of grace that attempt to hold all I’ve been given. Out of which grace flows up and out. How can I not be gracious to everyone? Grace leavened with the tender love of God. A grace that makes us meek. A grace that rejects hatred, violence, and oppression. A grace willing to grieve with the crushed, sick, and oppressed. Grace that makes a way for us together in the discord of our truths. The depths of grace that we build to hold the grace given to us. So let us, the people of Jesus, be the first to give grace to others. That they might long for depths to hold it. Building depths to hold the grace lavished upon them. Until Next Week Posted since the last Edition Unpublished Photo for this Edition
Curated Goods just for YouIt has been too many weeks. So I'm gonna skip over on this section this edition. A Prayer for the Week to ComeJesus help me follow you. To see you in glimpses and glimmers in the fog of today. Let the sweet scent of your grace leavened with love beckon me onward. Grace that transforms my eyes to see with compassion first. Let me become meek. Walking in the humility of Jesus and so many others who have followed Him too. When it feels impossible let me find comfort in the crowd of the saints who were and will be. May I be among them. |
Deepening our Christianity
Each newsletter includes a short reflection for the week to come, articles published the previous week, a short curated list of content that was meaningful to me the previous week, and more. Subscribe today!
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