Thanks for a book review that captures its essence for us.

One thing caught my attention: "Nothing I studied at the Seminary on the subject (i.e. proof texts, history of it being changed to Sunday) made me miss the Sabbath more."

Exactly what did the seminary teach about changing the Sabbath to Sunday and what were the "proof texts" used? Most Adventists have been taught straight from "Great Controversy" of how Constantine changed the worship day. What were you taught?

Thanks Shasta,

I am happy for Lauren's experience of accepting Christ.I also like your last sentence.

"Is it possible for religious rituals to produce significant spiritual experiences without degenerating into a list of “do’s” and “don’t’s”? Lauren Winner’s story answers with a rejuvenating and soul-rewarding yes."

However what generally begins to happen to "food and other
rituals" is one like your comment, "eating seasonally."
or...can we ethically eat meat out on the sabbath etc.

As long as one keeps these views to ones
personal "spirituality" and does not begin to compare or denounce others for not seeing the same "light" then I think IT CAN indeed be positive. That unfortunately seems to rarely be the outcome and was possibly the focus in part of Col.2.

Regards

Thanks for such a thoughtful and personal review, Shasta. I loved Lauren Winner's first book (Girl Meets God) and am looking forward to this one. I love the idea of learning fro other faiths, and obviously Judaism fits particularly well with Christians as a whole and Seventh-day Adventists in particular.

I know I've missed things that I've tossed aside or rebelled against, especially Sabbath. My immediate family never approached Sabbath as a list of do's or don't's, but the community I grew up in very often did (and not just Sabbath), especially some of my Bible classes. I vividly remember being scolded, finger in face, by my 10th grade Bible teacher in front of the whole class about the fact that I hadn't been baptized. He told me point blank that since I knew that I should be baptized and had so far refused, I would not be in heaven should Jesus come before I corrected that mistake. Naturally this resulted in my waiting another two years before even thinking of the topic again.

This sort of (immature) rebellion also happened after I graduated from college and had a few disillusioning experiences in local churches. I found myself questioning it all and not observing Sabbath except to sleep in (still a guilty pleasure sometimes). Gradually, and with the introduction of people (like you and Greg) into my life who helped me deconstruct my religion and then build it back up into something intentional, meaningful and driven by purposes other than fear and rebellion, I introduced practices such as Sabbath back into my life. I now treasure Sabbath rest and a space in time carved out to be intentional about my spirituality, but I observe it from an entirely different place and no longer think of "breaking" it--it's a place of gratitude not obligation.

I really am intrigued by the idea of Judaism having a better space for mourning. This really resonates with me. It seems that sometimes we are so focused on being positive about "the great hope" that it's almost unfaithful to mourn and acknowledge the loss.

Rituals that I miss: Like Lauren, I probably did not realize the significance of responsive readings in church in the past. But now that they are rarely part of the service I find that I really miss them. I miss the back and forth of the voices. I miss the extensive Scripture reading. I miss hearing the voices around me. To hear one's voice in church is a significant part of belonging. I also miss praying the Lord's Prayer together.

This book was significant to me, too, Shasta, for many of the reasons that you mention.
I now collect prayer books, because I love reading how others approach God. I've tried turning morning walks into prayer walks filled with praise and thanks. The book helped me long for the spiritual disciplines to put order into my life. Thank you for your review and question. It is good to think on these things together.

Growing up I generally found Sabbath pretty boring but I loved Friday night. My Mom would always make a homemade soup and we would put on beautiful sacred music. The house was fully cleaned and just seemed peaceful.

As a family, we made a conscious decision to leave the SDA church and we now worship at a Sunday church but we still try and keep Sabbath as best we can. I still make homemade soup Friday night, we light the Sabbath candles and we put on sacred classical music. The house is not fully cleaned but I just have to let that one go :) I love rituals and keeping Sabbath is such an important spiritual practice. Sunday keepers really miss out I think.

On the other hand, the Sunday church we attend now is just full of meaningful rituals. I love following the Christian calendar. Yesterday was Ash Weds, the beginning of Lent. I love celebrating Palm Sunday and Easter on Sunday. I love how they do communion emphasizing how everyone is invited to God's table. I love the standing and sitting, the liturgical reading, how every service we pray a prayer of confession and then a prayer of thanksgiving for forgiveness, prayers of intercession, the Lord's prayer, a prayer before reading the scripture and then a liturgical response when the scripture is done. All of it feels like home though I didn't really grow up with that. I never knew what I was missing until I found it. And yet it is just not complete because it does not follow the Sabbath rituals too.

I have recently become music director at an ELCA Lutheran church. Born/raised SDA, I have "done" Presbyterian, Baptist, and Methodist choir directing before, but never a "liturgical" church. I feel like one of the previous responders: the richness of the liturgy, totally revolving around central texts of the day, and culminating in the weekly reminder of what Christianity is all about (the communion time)--I wish Adventism could incorporate a few of the "forms" and "structures" of liturgical worship within its worship practice. I don't find it theologically threatening in the least, and, for anyone with a bent towards the arts, the structure, rhythm and flow of the service are an absolute delight. And all the hymns we sing.....!

Yes the hymns! The church I attend now is a pretty large Presbyterian one set in a beautiful gothic style building. It has an attendance of around 500-600 a week and a gorgeous organ with a music director committed to beautiful classical sacred music. When we get to singing a good hymn it chokes me up. My soul is fed every single Sunday.

But back to the hymns. It's funny because I'm proudly singing along with the familiar hymns not even needing to follow the words and suddenly I'm tripped up by a change. It always tickles me to see what is different in the SDA hymnal and the Presbyterian - gives you a bit of insight into theological differences. I do like the more inclusive language of the Presbyterian one though.

My six year old daughter had an interesting insight into changing religions the other day. She said, "I think it would be hard to be a different religion than your Mommy and Daddy. You would learn all these things from them and then you would have to learn all sorts of new things all over again. It would be like learning a new language." I told her the Dalai Lama's comment to a woman who told him she wanted to be a Buddhist after being a life-long Christian. He told her to instead take what was good from Buddhism and use it to be the best Christian she could be.

This is a bit off-subject, but I used to belong to an Adventist high-church congregation, where my husband and I sang in the choir and we loved it. I find the hymns much richer spiritually than most contemporary music.

But when we moved to another part of the country we chose to join an "inclusive" church over another that had a great music program. I truly miss the music, but I also appreciate the fact that my current church has a great sense of "family" and embraces not only people of every ethnicity and economic status, but allows all to find a blessing from various styles of music - from the Faure "Requiem" to praise songs (and occasionally worse!)

Since my gay son has become a Catholic and I have attended mass with him a number of times, I also appreciate and enjoy the liturgical services and especially the Gregorian chant that his choir does.

Any more and John Hagee might pop up here!

Not all traditions are God-ordained, no matter the "rationale" behind them.

Now, about liturgy vs. spontaneity. Did she mean that she ended up talking to herself? Or about herself?

Anonymous@11, I'm really not clear what you mean by your post at all. It seems that sarcasm is intended, but I lost you early on.

I wanted to respond to Beth and those who have talked about high church. I remember being in Australia a couple of years ago and visiting the oldest Anglican church there. It was evensong, and afterwards the reverend came to talk to us. I told him how much I loved the service--the liturgy, the prayers, the sense of ritual that so many had done before me in the same space seeking God. He said he was glad, but that all of their youth were now going to contemporary services with praise bands (I was more "youthful" looking at the time!). I wondered if I liked high church so much because I'd been raised in a "low church" tradition, just as those Anglicans seemed to be rebelling by heading to the praise bands.

Thank you for sharing this review Shasta. I have a new book to place on my reading list.

Carrol, I find it interesting that you miss high-church hymns and have settled for a church with a variety of musical styles including (gasp!) praise songs. I am looking at things from the other side. I miss modern worship music and have also settled on a church with a variety of musical styles.

Along with two other couples, my wife and I helped to start a praise and worship service at our last church. One skeptic who attended our simple gathering commented that they were pleasantly surprised by the spirituality and depth.

In our current church, we have experienced and shared a variety of musical styles and I too have been inspired by the richness of hymns, as well as by the mournful hope of spirituals, and the familiar comfort of old favorites. And yet, I find myself looking back with nostalgia on our tradition of gathering in the evening to worship through modern worship songs. I miss the focus, community, and even the powerful emotion of those gatherings.

Come to think if it, I may miss the intentionality of those gatherings as much as anything. Thank you for the reminder.

Happy Sabbath Spectrum folks.

I liked both this book and Winner's "Girl Meets God" a lot. I found many of her thoughts really insightful. Whatever my questions about the SDA church I am never NOT grateful for the gift of Sabbath, which to me is amazing. I have learned a lot from incorporating worship practices of other, more liturgical, denominations (such as observing Lent) into my own practice over the years. I do think the chapter on mourning was the one that impressed me most in "Mudhouse Sabbath" -- the idea of a ritual that recognizes the fact that grief is an ongoing process, really makes sense.

Excellent comments Shasta. While we must embrace the changes that come in life, there is value to making a special place for Sabbath rituals.

While we have a piano in our home, neither myself nor my wife play the piano, and gathering around the IPOD to welcome the Sabbath just doesn't have that same rich feeling, regardless of what CD I have downloaded. However, Lorie put on a candlelight dinner last night that peeled the hustle of the week away. Music and piano aside, this was an excellent way to start the Sabbath.

There are Sabbath rituals we are keeping hold of, like calling family members on the Sabbath, or a new "Webb" family ritual we just had this morning where the man cooks a full Sabbath breakfast!

In regards to the other rituals, I miss the emotions that are interwoven into the traditional hymns and even the praise songs that we sang at my childhood church. I think the hymns were less redundant and more thoughtful than many contemporary songs.

All in all- an article well enjoyed! Thank you Shasta!

I found myself receptive to Winner’s comment on prayer:
“...I wind up talking to myself about my emotions du jour... I bop up and down with excitement about good news… but I never get much further than that. It is returning to my prayer book that places me: places me in words that ask me to confess my sins, even when I can’t think of any red-letter deeds recently committed; words that ask me to pray for presidents and homeless Charlottesvillians and everyone in between; words that praise God even on the mornings when I wonder if God exists at all.” And the reviewer sums it well: “The power of not having all my prayers based only on my moods but based on something bigger—the need to sometimes have the prayer leading me as opposed to me always leading the prayer.”

For 13 years I was head elder of a small church (Greenwood, IN), planning and leading Sabbath worship. The worship I led there included much scripture reading and some prayers that were read in unison by the congregation. The succeeding regime found the practice of reading prayers together as a congregation offensive—for some reason, many people think that a prayer, to be “sincere”, has to be made up on the spot. But that misses the point, which is made well by the author as noted above.

I had at one time cherished a hope that I might be part of a “liturgical movement” within Adventism—which has already differentiated itself into quasi-pentecostal, evangelical, and mainline middle of the road fundamentalist wings—and maybe some others. I didn’t get very far with this. I was not charismatic, nor did I try to build a cult by telling people that this was the only way and the rest of the church was wrong.

Ah, liturgy! I have recently moved to a rural area with a small SDA church. I'm missing the quality music of all varieties from college. To ease the homesickness, I've joined the Lutheran choir. Many, many times, I've stayed for church after singing, feeling I hadn't experienced "church" on Saturday with our sincere, traditional members. The Lutheran liturgy has provided a sense of rhythm to life, a connection to others and God, a truth deeper and broader than myself.

Paying attention to life's rhythms, whether that be slowing down to be aware of breath, celebrating the cycles of my body, being in a natural world of seasonal change, or keeping Sabbath, makes us more human. And that's not a bad thing. Sabbath helps us sink into our roots, our is-ness, just being. The individualistic mode of our church and society has its pros. But we need the timeless fellowship of a rich liturgy, icons, traditions. We are part of something bigger--namely God. In Him we live and move and have our being. Sabbath is just one of the things that calls me back to awareness of my life source.

I picked up this book 4 years ago in a Borders bookstore in Redmond, WA. I couldn't put it down. What a joy to read and a reminder to a life long Adventist to cherish the formality of a religion and church that was handed to me from parents who had know idea of the consequences. Lauren reminds us to appreciate the gifts that God gives us in various forms that we don't recognize as gifts. The chapter on mourning should be read by all Adventists and non-Adventists alike. I have two employees who have experienced close family deaths recently. I shared this volume with them and they both were comforted.

If this is HK John...hello to you and Margo

pat

Friends, I don't know if I understood correctly, cause I don't have a very perfect English but, the writer does not live near by a Beth Benei community.?Here in my country we have worship with a lot ceremonials for Jews that believes in Jesus.Here, they have one of the best ministers, so sometimes I went there,not for the ceremonial that is beautiful but always de same, but for the message gave by the Pastor.

This book is a pretty quick, easy read... but it could end up taking a big bite out of your current allotment of "free time." That is if you decide that you want to implement any of Winner's suggestions, especially in relation to Sabbath or Lord's Day observances. I admit I am intrigued by her description of Jewish Sabbath practices.