Within the past year or two, I’ve begun a habit of setting aside books to read on flights that I can get through in one sitting. On a trip to Seattle last November, I started reading Jeffrey Overstreet’s novel Auralia’s Colors as the plane took off from Nashville, and finished the last page, page 351, as the wheels touched down on the runway in Seattle. On the return flight, I read John Sweeney’s memoir, Born Again and Again: Surprising Gifts of a Fundamentalist Childhood. And more recently, flying home from the Festival of Faith and Writing at Calvin College in Grand Rapids back in April, I read The Bridge to Terabithia, which I’d bought and had autographed by Kathleen Paterson after her inspiring closing address at the Festival. It’s nice to be able to give your undivided attention to a book that you can’t give at home, where there is always something that needs doing.
As I was walking out the door to head to Seattle for a vacation a couple months ago, I saw Lauren Winner’s Mudhouse Sabbath in a stack of books I had recently acquired from a used bookstore, and decided to add it to the four or five other books that were already packed. I read Lauren’s memoir, Girl Meets God, last year, and it ended up being one of my favorite reads of the year, as well as making a great gift – I think I bought three other copies to send to friends – so Mudhouse Sabbath was quickly added to my to-read list, since I’ve read everything else she’s written at this point.
I found it to be a little more broad reaching than I had been expecting, dealing not only with the Sabbath itself but also with other Jewish traditions that have important implications/applications for our lives today. If you’ve read Girl Meets God, you’ll remember that Lauren converted to Christianity from Judaism in her early 20′s, and so in this book reexamines traditions she is intimately familiar with, in a new light.
In the introduction, Lauren gives us a rabbinic apology for traditions, for doing things we may not understand the reasons for. “This is perhaps best explained by a midrash (a rabbinic commentary on a biblical text). This midrash explains a curious turn of phrase in the Book of Exodus: “Na’aseh v’nishma,” which means “we will do and we will hear” or “we will do and w will understand,” a phrase drawn from Exodus 24, in which the people of Israel proclaim “All the words that God has spoken, we will do and we will hear,” The word order, the rabbis have observed, doesn’t seem to make any sense: How can a person obey God’s commandment before they hear it? But the counterintuitive lesson, the midrash continues, is precisely that one acts out God’s commands, one does things unto God, and eventually, through the doing, one will come to hear and understand and believe.’”
On the next page, Lauren writes, “In churches and homes everywhere people are increasingly interested in doing Christianity, not just speaking or believing it.” But she is quick to point out, “Practicing the spiritual disciplines does not make us Christians. Instead, the practicing teaches us what it means to live as Christians.”
I’ll blog through the rest of this book in the coming weeks. Stay tuned.