The refining of a precious metal such as gold or silver involves melting it down in its crude form, in order to separate out the impurities and prepare it for a new purpose. The the purified metal is then molded--recreated--into something altogether different. In its liquid state, that silver or gold perhaps most closely resembles itself as it was when the world was first created--molten, formless, and absolutely at the will of the Craftsman. The intense heat, the loss of one's familiar (flawed) form, is not a pleasant part of the process, but it is necessary.
Psalm 66:10:
For you, O God, have tested us;
you have tried us as silver is tried.
Isaiah 48:10:
Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tried you in the furnace of affliction.
2 Corinthians 5:17:
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
T. S. Eliot, "Little Gidding":
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
. . . A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything) . . .
