This is the setting from which we began to reach out to the disciplines, because we somehow realized they had a ring of authenticity about them. They suggested how, through concrete steps, we might “redeem the time” relentlessly flowing past and how by strenuous engagement we might “be redeemed from fire by fire.” The disciplines promised to give our lives a form that would serve as a receptacle for the substance of the Christ-life in God’s present Kingdom. To undertake the disciplines was to take our activities—our lives—seriously and to suppose that the following of Christ was at least as
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