{"id":1333,"date":"2012-06-15T21:27:50","date_gmt":"2012-06-16T04:27:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/gc2012\/?p=1333"},"modified":"2012-06-15T21:48:12","modified_gmt":"2012-06-16T04:48:12","slug":"devotional-songs-of-ascent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/devotional-songs-of-ascent\/","title":{"rendered":"Devotional: Songs of Ascent"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p><em>I was glad when they said to me, \u201cLet us go to the house of the LORD!\u201d . . . \u00a0Pray for the peace of Jerusalem . . . For the sake of the house of the LORD our God, I will seek your good. \u00a0Psalm 122: 1, 6, 9.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>A week away from the opening of Annual Conference, I finally sat down to read through my Pre-Conference Handbook. (Well, I did skim a few things.) It\u2019s kind of thin this year, fitting into a small binder with room to spare. That means there will be time to spare. Less business means conversations can go beyond a passing hello. We can catch the excitement of ideas from our speakers, and begin imagining their application here. We can come to worship without our energy drained and our relationships strained. We\u2019ll have differences, of course. But I expect a kind of spaciousness this year \u2013 a space we can inhabit as our common house.<\/p>\n<p>That image took me to the Psalms called \u201csongs of ascents,\u201d the ones that were sung by pilgrims walking up the long grade to Jerusalem and the Temple. At its best, Annual Conference is our movable Jerusalem \u2013 the place our hearts are joined together in worship, our voices raised in conversation and song, our ears opened to listen and learn together. May we gather in God\u2019s peace, seeking the good of our common house.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Prayer:<\/strong> As we gather in Pasco, give us pilgrims\u2019 hearts, glad to come together in your name. Give us holy conversation, true worship, and delight in our fellowship as disciples of Jesus. Amen.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Daily Practice:<\/strong> As you read conference materials, pack your suitcase, and plan your travel to Pasco, sing a hymn or song you know by heart. Like those dusty pilgrims singing along the way, we\u2019re going to our holy gathering place.<\/p>\n<p>__________<\/p>\n<p><em>Devotional written by the<strong>\u00a0Rev. Pat Simpson<\/strong>. Simpson serves the Seattle District of the Pacific Northwest Annual Conference as District Superintendent.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Image Credit: &#8220;Jerusalem &#8211; The Road to Station&#8221; by Flickr User\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/14599621@N02\/\">Chatham University JKM Library<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was glad when they said to me, \u201cLet us go to the house of the LORD!\u201d . . . \u00a0Pray for the peace of Jerusalem . . . For the sake of the house of the LORD our God, I will seek your good. \u00a0Psalm 122: 1, 6, 9. A week away from the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1335,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[93],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1333","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-devotional"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/ascent.jpg?fit=640%2C446&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2l75j-lv","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1333"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1337,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1333\/revisions\/1337"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}