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     This book is a collection of essays by a remarkable group of people: M. Shawn Copeland, Craig Dykstra, Thomas Hoyt, Jr., L. Gregory Jones, John Koenig, Sharon Daloz Parks, Stephanie Pausell, Amy Plantinga Pauw, Ana Marie Pineda, RSM, Larry Rasmussen, Frank Rogers, Jr., Don E. Sailers. These authors write about spirituality as it is practiced in the day to day life of families within the context of Christian practices such as hospitality, household economics, keeping the Sabbath, forgiveness, healing, dying and hymn-singing and others.
     This book is a collaborative effort. After having met, prayed, talked and worked, they went home and wrote attempting to convey the way the church is meant to do its work. As the title suggests, this book is not just theory, but it lays out the practice of a Christian life. As Parker Palmer writes, "this book can help us understand what it might mean to become 'the Word made flesh' in the course of everyday life."
     People talk about 'spirituality' but are uncertain about what it means or how to 'live like a Christian.' These essays talk about how we are to conduct ourselves in our everyday lives.
     In this time when people are not attending church but still proclaim that they are searching for spirituality, indicating that the church is not fulfilling this void they have in their lives, this book is an excellent resource. In an effort to fill this need, Dorothy Bass and others have included A Guide for Conversation, Learning and Growth, a fourteen session discussion outline for small groups who wish to delve deeper into the material in this book.

I was particularly impressed by two of the essays: HOSPITALITY by Ana Maria Pineda and HEALING by John Koenig. In HOSPITALITY, Penida writes about the ritual of Las Posadas, where a family each evening, eight days before Christmas, walks through the neighborhood carrying lighted candles, knocks on doors asking for poseda (shelter) and being turned away as Joseph was. On the ninth day, Christmas Eve, a neighbor, moved by Joseph's request, opens his house, and there is singing, dancing, food and drink celebrating the birth of the Christ child and the generosity of the innkeeper who has given poseda to Mary and Joseph, recalling how the stranger at one's door can be God in disguise.
     In HEALING, Koenig writes, "We live in a society that defines healing as an activity that takes place largely and usually objectively between patients and their physician or nurse." We have lost touch with the Christian understanding that the practices of healing is much more than just cure. It is wholeness, the Jewish concept Shalom, a right relationship with God and our neighbors. This means that the central part of the reconciling activity of God in the world as Koenig quotes Paul Tillich is, "...that salvation means healing and healing is an element in the work of salvation." We can participate in this process if it means taking a hurting person a bowl of chicken soup, sitting with someone is a hospital room, or laying on of hands in a service of worship.
     This is a very practical book on how to practice our faith while finding our spirituality as we conduct ourselves in a spiritual way. 

Reviewed by Rev. Earle Sickels of the Spiritual Growth & Leadership
Development Committee.

REVIEW: Celebrations of Discipline

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