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The word gradual comes from Latin word for stair. A famous papal sanctuary located adjacent to the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome, the Holy Staircase is believed to be the actual steps that Jesus climbed the day He was sentenced to death. Tradition holds that the stairs were ordered sent from Jerusalem to Rome by Saint Helena, mother of the Emperor Constantine in 334 A.D. Though not completely documented, this has been believed for over 1,200 years, since it was first mentioned in papal documents in 844. The stairs are known as the Scala Pilati (Pilate’s stairway) or the Scala Sancti (holy stairway).

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Worship and Paschal Identity p. 38 “My primary claim is that Christian faith is paschal in character, that the paschal movement is expressed and effected in Christian worship, and that Christian worship and daily life must mirror each other.”

“At the most basic level, for the Christian paschal itself connotes Jesus’ passion, his suffering and crucifixion, and his resurrection.” p. 39 

Sacramental Ethics: Paschal Identity and the Christian Life.

 Tim Sedgwick

The Inevitability of Gradualness

Creativity is not magic. Creativity can be nothing more than wishful thinking if it is not captured by discipline. A concrete record is necessary or creativity is pleasant but useless. Ideas must have shape and testing to become real. The creative moment is just that without hours of work testing and producing a real product.

It is the inevitability of gradualness. Staying in there taking step after step even when it is no longer fun is the way creativity really works. As someone has said, “if you do it one night it’s romantic. If you do it every night it’s work.”

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A MATTER OF MOMENTS

Actual creativeness is a matter of moments.  One has to piece together the minute grains to make a lump.  And it is so easy to miss the momentary flashes.  It is like sluicing in placer mining.  He who lets the flakes float by has nothing to show for his trouble.

Eric Hoffer 1956