Hilton challenged this man to stay in his profession and to embrace “a third way, a mixed life combining the activity of Martha with the reflectiveness of Mary.” Hilton concluded that “such a spirituality needs to be consciously modeled and taught.”

Patience [is] the basic constituent of Christianity . . . the power to wait, to persevere, to hold out, to endure to the end, not to transcend one’s own limitations, not to force issues by playing the hero or the titan, but to practice the virtue that lies beyond heroism, the meekness of the lamb which is led.2

The only thing that makes the church endurable is that somehow it is the body of Christ, and on this we are fed.”7

Both involve discipline and ritual. Both require that we cease relying on our own effort and activity and lean on God for his sufficiency.

There is nothing magic about any particular church tradition. Liturgy is never a silver bullet for sinfulness. These “formative practices” have no value outside of the gospel and God’s own initiative and power.6 But God has loved us and sought us—not only as individuals, but corporately as a people over millennia. As we learn the words, practices,

We naturally greet these moments with gratitude. But more than that, we respond with adoration.

Food has so much to teach us about nourishment, and as a culture we struggle with what it means to be not simply fed, but profoundly and holistically nourished.

I need a human voice telling me, week in and week out, that they’re lies. I need to hear from someone who knows me that there is grace enough for me, that Christ’s work is on my behalf, even as I’m on my knees confessing that I’ve blown it again this week.

We grow in holiness in the honing of our specific vocation. We can’t be holy in the abstract. Instead we become a holy blacksmith or a holy mother or a holy physician or a holy systems analyst. We seek God in and through our particular vocation and place in life.