Customer Reviews

To Dance With God: Family Ritual and Community Celebration

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a wonderful book. It offers beautiful methods of maintaining and enriching family rituals. Advent,Christmas, Lent,Pentecost, Thanksgiving, Halloween etc. It is all here. The first section of this book discusses ways people can approach all celebrations. Then the second half focuses on specific holidays. My copy of this book is well worn and well loved. The author is Catholic, but most of her ideas work well for any Christian faith. She offers fresh ways of responding to the liturgical calender. Included are crafts, prayers, games,the history of each holiday as well as family and community centering activities. While families without children will respond to a lot of what she has to say, families with children of all ages will find their copy of this book as well worn as a treasured family cookbook.

I have had this book for 20 years. I came upon it when my children were small and felt it tapped into something deep within me. I was not raised Catholic so many of the traditions were new to me, but delightful. Over the years I have used them with my own family and introduced them into my church community, as well. The projects are simple and noncommercial. I would count this book as one of the most formative to my role of parent; creating a home rich with meaningful rituals and traditions. I love the simple illustrations too.

Wanting to develop traditions in your family? This is a great starting point. One of my favorite books. Fun to read, too

Scholars and psychologists have long noted the value of ritual in religious worship. There is something comforting in reciting the same story, in re-enacting the same events, in singing the same beautiful music, in receiving the same bread and wine at Communion. This is particularly the case when we enter the truly meaningful parts of the liturgical year: Advent, Christmas, Lent, Pentecost. One need only read through the appropriate pages in the Book of Common Prayer or the Lectionary to have his or her thoughts returned to moments of candlelight, prayer, incense, hymn and light.
Thus the value of Gertrud Nelson's "To Dance With God." Ritual is such a dance; it is part and parcel of worshiping Something or Someone much Greater than ourselves. The Early Christians coined the word "liturgy" from two Greek words, "laos" meaning people, and "ergos" meaning work. Liturgy was the "work of the people" in worshiping God.
This exquisite little book brings liturgy into the home. We want to make memories with our families and friends, but too often we lack the creativity and imagination to rise above the trite or mundane. As the book says, "she manages to escape the trap of many writers on this subject--superficial piety--and makes relevant for the modern reader the importance of ritual for connecting us to the meaning and flow of life." Neither is Ms. Nelson preachy--she has no theological ax to grind, only a thirst for God's presence in her life.
We live in an age that has trivialized and secularized the holidays--the Holy Days. Ms. Nelson invites us to sanctify those Holy Days, not only in our Churches, but in our homes, with those dearest to us. Life has a rhythm--that rhythm calls us to dance with God. This wonderful book is an outline of the dance's basic steps. If you yearn to experience the sacred in your home--be it mansion, coldwater flat or studio apartment, I encourage you to peruse this slender volume. Perhaps, like me, you'll find that once you start dancing, you can't sit down.

Nelson's excellent book offers not only a spiritual perspective to family celebration but wonder-filled, seasonally-oriented practical ideas for enriching your family life. Those who have wandered away from their childhood family rituals of celebration will be delighted with "To Dance With God" as a rediscovery tool for communal spirituality. For another book on the spirituality of family life together, look up the recently published, THE FAMILY CLOISTER: BENEDICTINE WISDOM FOR THE HOME, by David Robinson (New York, NY: Crossroad, 2000). Blessings upon your home this season.

This is a marvelous book leading its reader to 'dance' with spirituality & ritual. It honors the historical connections of ritual as well as its personal focus. I enjoyed the feeling it imparted related to the richness of the human spirit.

This book helps you to create important traditions with your family, but it is more than that. Your faith is opened to new and exciting possibilities and Mueller-Nelson teaches us how to live in the world and with God.