Mudhouse Sabbath

I'm currently reading a book called Mudhouse Sabbath by Lauren Winner. It's a slender little book that I picked up yesterday in Barnes and Noble and decided to use my Christmas gift card on (Thanks, Mom). Reading it now, I wish I had picked it up the day before yesterday, just so I could have had it in my possession sooner. I'm pretty sure I've only stopped reading it to shower, pee, and drive... and to write this.

The point of the book is ingeniously described by a phrase found directly underneath its title: "An Invitation to a Life of Spiritual Discipline." The phrase is printed in pink lettering and means what it suggests (as most phrases by Winner do). The fact that it's in pink means nothing, but I thought it was pretty and worth the mention.

When I'm done reading this book - which will probably be around the same time I'm done drinking this latte - I'm going to seriously reconsider the intentionality I give to certain "ordinary" things in my life... things like sabbath and food and candle-lighting... and doorposts. (I haven't actually gotten to the "doorposts" chapter yet... but I bet I'll reconsider the attention I give to those.)

It's a book about the link between spiritual practices of Judaism and the formation of our responses to God in Christianity. It is about "the rhythms and routines" that, as Winner puts it, "drew the sacred down into the everyday." It's a book that shows you you are practicing things everyday, but, how are the things you're practicing forming you to respond to God? Are they at all? Mostly, it's one of those books that asks if you'd like to pay a little more attention...

I'd like to pay a little more attention.


Mudhouse Sabbath... Let me know if you want to borrow it. Maybe we'll read it for lifegroup.