The Sacred Journey: The Ancient Practices
Dec 2010 · Thomas Nelson
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About this ebook
“When Yahweh became a man, he was a homeless vagrant. He walked through Palestine proclaiming that a mysterious kingdom had arrived...He called people to follow him, and that meant walking.”
— Charles Foster
Humans are built to wander. History is crisscrossed by their tracks. Sometimes there are obvious reasons for it: to get better food for themselves or their animals; to escape weather, wars, or plague. But sometimes they go—at great expense and risk—in the name of God, seeking a place that feels sacred, that speaks to the heart.
God himself seems to have a bias toward the nomad. The road is a favored place — a place of epiphany.
That’s all very well if you are fit and free. But what if you are paralyzed by responsibility or disease? What if the only journey you can make is to the office, the school, or the bathroom?
Best-selling English author and adventurer Charles Foster has wandered quite a bit, and he knows what can be found (and lost) on a sacred journey. He knows that pilgrimage involves doing something with whatever faith you have. And faith, like muscle, likes being worked.
Exploring the history of pilgrimage across cultures and religions, Foster uses tales of his own travels to examine the idea of approaching each day as a pilgrimage, and he offers encouragement to anyone who wants to experience a sacred journey. The result is an intoxicating, highly readable blend of robust theology and lyrical anecdote — an essential guidebook for every traveler in search of the truth about God, himself, and the world.
When Jesus said “Follow me,” he meant us to hit the road with him. The Sacred Journey will show you how.
The Ancient Practices
There is a hunger in every human heart for connection, primitive and raw, to God. To satisfy it, many are beginning to explore traditional spiritual disciplines used for centuries . . . everything from fixed-hour prayer to fasting to sincere observance of the Sabbath. Compelling and readable, the Ancient Practices series is for every spiritual sojourner, for every Christian seeker who wants more.
— Charles Foster
Humans are built to wander. History is crisscrossed by their tracks. Sometimes there are obvious reasons for it: to get better food for themselves or their animals; to escape weather, wars, or plague. But sometimes they go—at great expense and risk—in the name of God, seeking a place that feels sacred, that speaks to the heart.
God himself seems to have a bias toward the nomad. The road is a favored place — a place of epiphany.
That’s all very well if you are fit and free. But what if you are paralyzed by responsibility or disease? What if the only journey you can make is to the office, the school, or the bathroom?
Best-selling English author and adventurer Charles Foster has wandered quite a bit, and he knows what can be found (and lost) on a sacred journey. He knows that pilgrimage involves doing something with whatever faith you have. And faith, like muscle, likes being worked.
Exploring the history of pilgrimage across cultures and religions, Foster uses tales of his own travels to examine the idea of approaching each day as a pilgrimage, and he offers encouragement to anyone who wants to experience a sacred journey. The result is an intoxicating, highly readable blend of robust theology and lyrical anecdote — an essential guidebook for every traveler in search of the truth about God, himself, and the world.
When Jesus said “Follow me,” he meant us to hit the road with him. The Sacred Journey will show you how.
The Ancient Practices
There is a hunger in every human heart for connection, primitive and raw, to God. To satisfy it, many are beginning to explore traditional spiritual disciplines used for centuries . . . everything from fixed-hour prayer to fasting to sincere observance of the Sabbath. Compelling and readable, the Ancient Practices series is for every spiritual sojourner, for every Christian seeker who wants more.
Ratings and reviews
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March 14, 2011
I haven't.
But if I had, I wouldn't have gone as a pilgrim on a spiritual journey. I would have arrived as a tourist, and that wouldn't have been right.
Now that I've read this book, I feel like I'd get more out of the experience.
Charles Foster shares many personal stories about pilgrimage, as well as an overview of the many pilgrim routes in Europe and the Middle East.
The last line of the book sums up its contents well: "[A]s a summary of the four Gospels, 'Let's go for a walk together' is not bad."
If you'd like to take a walk with Jesus, then I recommend you read this book.
Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an unbiased review.
About the author
Phyllis Tickle was born on March 12, 1934. She received a B.A. from East Tennessee State University in 1955 and a M.A. from Furman University in 1961. She was best known for launching the religion section of Publishers Weekly in the early 1990s. She also wrote dozens of books on American religion and spirituality including Re-Discovering the Sacred: Spirituality in America, God-Talk in America, The Great Emergence: How Christianity Is Changing and Why, and The Age of the Spirit: How the Ghost of an Ancient Controversy Is Shaping the Church. She died months after being diagnosed with lung cancer on September 22, 2015 at the age of 81.
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