Nora Gallagher. The Sacred Meal. Nashville: Thomas Nelson. 2009.

    This book is one in the series entitled “Ancient Practice Series” edited by Phyllis Tickle.
Others include:
Finding Our Way Again by Brian McLaren
In Constant Prayer by Robert Benson
Sabbath by Dan B. Allender
Fasting by Scot McKnight
The Liturgical Year by Joan Chittister
Pilgrimage by Charles Foster (I have shared this one in my blog.)


From the dust jacket~

    “Unlike every other Christian practice, communion is meant to be done together—as the Gospel of Matthew tell us, where two or three “gather in my name.” You simply can’t do it by yourself. You can pray alone and fast alone. You can even go on a pilgrimage alone. Communion, on the other hand, forces us to be with others.
     “But like these other practices, communion has the same intention to gradually move us out of one place and into another. Author Nora Gallagher says it’s like taking a journey to a foreign land, and she divides the trip into three parts: waiting, receiving, and afterward. While we wait, we sort through our baggage, filled with worry, guilt, anxiety, and pain. Communion teaches us how to receive—that god’s gift of grace comes to us by doing nothing. Finally, we surrender our invisible baggage and now lightened, are free to reflect upon and understand the journey we have shared.
       “Gallagher writes, ‘Every time is the same, and every time is different.’ This is your family, your table, an act of community—the gathering of the body of Christ.”

From the author~

      Holy Communion was a web, a web of people being stitched together. And tomorrow, we would need to be stitched together again.

     A practice is meant to connect you with what is deeply alive, to stir in you the same kind of aliveness that the disciples of Jesus must have felt around him.

     Transformation occurs in encounters, sometimes better named collisions, either with the self or with others or with the holy.

     If you make up a bunch of rules about who gets to take Communion and who doesn’t, then Communion is reduced either to a special club with only certain kinds of people who are allowed in, or magic.

     Jesus practiced a radical faith: everyone was welcome at his table.

     Maybe in the soup kitchen, we were re-creating the original Eucharist, a feast for the marginal.

      To be exalted by heavenly standards is to urge others to be exalted, too, to share in the bounty of being loved and loving.

     Christ is everywhere, especially in bread and wine, where, as Luther says, he binds himself and us to each other.

Charles Foster. The Sacred JourneyI. Nashville: Thomas Nelson. 2010.

From the dust jacket~

     “Jesus was a homeless, itinerant preacher. And when he said, “Follow me,” he meant it perfectly literally. Because between life-changing sermons, Jesus was, of course, walking. And walking. “He left that place”… “he departed”…”he left Galilee and went to the region of Judea beyond the Jordan”… and so on. He then walked to his own death, carrying a burden heavier than anyone has ever carried.

      “The well-traveled Charles Foster has long been fascinated by nomads and people who choose to become nomadic in pursuit of God. By the idea of traveling to sacred places (whatever they are). By the notion of pilgrimage.

      “The wise men, he says, were the first Christian pilgrims. They were astrologers who’d traveled for weeks to find Bethlehem. They set the pattern for all subsequent pilgrimages: they left, they traveled, the arrived, and they went back home. And they experienced something life-changing on that journey. Similarly, a stockbroker on pilgrimage for one short week will know better what it means to leave everything and follow Jesus. The mere decision to go will snap some of the cords that stop him spreading his wings.”

From the author~

      All the great religions have acknowledge this fundamental relationship between man and his feet, and his place in the universe. The acknowledgment has taken many forms. One of them is pilgrimage….Judaism was forged on the march, in the wind and blazing sun of Sinai.

     In order to follow Jesus, you have to stop sitting and start walking That’s what Matthew did, and so the wanderers multiply and the wandering goes on: “Jesus went on from there,” “Jesus went about all the cities and villages,” and so on.

      But what sets the pilgrim apart from the list-ticker is that he hopes, and at some level believes, that someone will hear his footsteps coming from afar, and as he approaches the threshold, that person will open the door and bid him come in and eat. The pilgrim probably has no very clear idea about what the person will look like; but he knows that when the door is opened, there will be an ecstasy of mutual recognition, that it will be home, and that from inside will come music that he has heard somewhere before—music that he was desperate to hear again and that was the siren song that called him to whatever Jerusalem he’s in.

       The pilgrim’s prayer, to be spoken as a mantra in time to each step, is, “Make me a child; make me a child; make me a child.” The intention and the road will go a long way toward making it happen, but there is always a shortfall. You need new eyes. That demands an act of creation, not just rehabilitation.

      It is the ancient conflict of the sower and the herdsman, the settler and the nomad, Cain and Abel. The settlers came out on top, but they did so by killing the nomads….The denouncers of pilgrimage are all (at least by the standards of their times) advanced urban intellectuals who have the most to lose. They are Cains, terrified of being reminded of what they have done, scared of the superior gaze of that favored, carefree, whistling boy as he walks past with his goats , mocking ever so slightly the serious, planning, budgeting older brother.

     Yes, you’ll be guided, but not necessarily to the destination you mapped out on the coffee table at home.

     Above all, do not let anyone, least of all the writer of a book on pilgrimage, tell you where to go. It is nothing to do with anyone else.

     The Buddha’s last words to his disciples were “Walk on.” The first words of Jesus to his were rather different: “Follow me.” Jesus said some other things, too, but as a summary of the four Gospels, “Let’s go for a walk together” is not bad

This is your new blog post. Click here and start typing, or drag in elements from the top bar.

Robert J. Wicks. Everyday Simplicity: A Practical Guide to Spiritual Growth. Notre Dame, IN: Sorin Books. 2000.

“Seeking as much clarity as we can is an act of respect for God’s gift of life. When we open our eyes and stay ‘spiritually awake,’ we can be alert to both the subtle and dramatic graces we are offered each day. And that is the purpose of this book, to build a sanctuary within from which we can better sense the gestures of God each day and find a sense of peace and joy that we can effortlessly share with others we meet.

Part I. Softening the Soul: Nourishing a Spiritual Attitude
       “A sound spiritual attitude is the fertile ground in which we can cultivate and nourish a simple, strong prayer life and a compassionate presence. With these we can joyfully greet each new day.”
       Spiritual themes include: faithfulness, openness, simplicity, gratefulness, remembering self-esteem and being in the Now.

Part II. Forming ‘A Little Rule’: Developing a Practice of Prayer
      “This separation (between our life with God and our practical world) cannot remain if all our life is to be filled with real meaning, peace, and awe, no matter how violent or stormy our days may become. When we are truly prayerful we join both worlds.”
       Building blocks of a prayer may include: silent reflection, conversations with God, reading sacred scripture, faith sharing, and the practice of sacred reading.

Part III. Completing the Circle of Grace: Fostering Simple Compassion
     “When compassion joins an attitude of awareness and the practice of prayerfulness, ‘a circle of grace’ is formed. And, at the center of this circle is self-knowledge, healthy self-love…and love of God. “
      Hearts of compassion: living a life of nobility and involvement, offering balm for tears in the souls of others, welcoming home, performing simple acts of kindness, completing the circle of grace.

Part IV. Creating a Simple, Strong Prayer life: Common Questions on Forming ‘A Little Spiritual Rule'.

Part V. Relaxing with God: A Month of Reflections, Questions, Suggestions, and Prayers.

Part VI. Spiritual Tenets