Rachel G. Hackenberg is an ordained United Church of Christ minister and author of Writing to God and Writing to God: Kids’ Edition. She facilitates workshops on prayer and worship, clergy renewal and congregational vitality. She blogs at faithandwater.com.
Rachel Hackenberg‘s new book will change your life.
Not might. Not could. Not may. Will. Change. Your. Life.
Sacred Pauses: A Creative Retreat for the Word-weary
Christian is the rare book that is exactly as advertised. It
is a retreat in your hands. Each chapter guides the reader into
thinking beyond the words of our faith practice, our memorized
scripture, and our beloved hymnody. God is in these details-
nuances of sound and shapes, verbs and nouns, colors and
texture.
Creative praying is Hackenberg’s gift in execution and in
education. Sacred Pauses takes creative prayer beyond the
conversations into a lived quietude and spacious openness to the
Regal, the Roustabout, and the Rambunctious (my newly inspired
Trinitarian formula).
Many of us have had this thought as we work toward welcoming new
members into our communities. How do we explain the words we all
know? Hackenberg breaks into the presumed circle of understanding
and asserts in a brilliant way that none of us may be using words
that are meaningful to us beyond their long associations. If I am
using words in way that is meaningful to me because the structure
is how my grandmother taught me, how am I connected, in community,
to you who did not know my grandmother? We frequently wrestle with
the context of scriptural guides in terms of behavior, but perhaps
it would behoove us to set that aside and spend imaginative time
together wrestles with the scriptural guides to our vocabulary,
imagery, sensory spiritual experience, and lived reality of
encounters with the Holy.
I have never, to this date, reviewed a book I did not finish. I’m
breaking that self-imposed code now. I need time with this book. My
reading on Tuesday night made me rethink how I was
planning to teach on Wednesday night. Instead of the
question that I planned to start a discussion, we discussed what
images and experiences come to mind, our feelings and thoughts,
about the phrase “for the sake of the world”. What is the world?
What is “for the sake of”? The conversation, I truly, believe went
so much deeper because of the space that was created in which
the Ruach danced.
Thanks, Rachel.
You need this book. Not as an e-book, but as a tangible reality on
your desk, in your bag, and beside your bed. You need this as
little retreat interludes, little paths by still water, a pocket
moment of spiritual direction.
This book comes with my highest commendation: Get
it now because it will help you with Holy Week. —Julia,
RevGalBlogPals.
Sacred Pause: A Creative Retreat for the Word-Weary
Christian by Rachel Hackenberg is one of those books that
makes you breathe more deeply just flipping the pages. I
perused it in the dentist’s waiting room recently, and was so
immersed that I forgot the sounds of suction and dentist’s drill
wafting through the open door. No minor feat.
The book, with sections like “The Verb Became Flesh” and “In the
Shadow of Wingdings,” is an invitation to explore the language of
our faith in fresh and inviting ways, through impromptu poems,
images and even doodles. I liked the section in which she likens
Jesus’ words “my yoke is easy” with those elastic strings that tie
her kids’ shoes together in the Target shoe section. Lovely! So
much of the language of scripture relies on metaphors that aren’t
immediately accessible to a non-agrarian, technological society.
How can these words come alive again?
In the Presbyterian Church (USA), we have a prayer in our book of
worship that we pray before reading scripture. It says in part, “O
God, amid all the changing words of our generation, speak your
eternal word that does not change.” Over the years I’ve grown
dissatisfied with this prayer. Our lives our changing all of the
time. Our God is improvisational, I believe. So I’ve added a
phrase: “speak your eternal word that does not change and yet is
ever new.” Hackenberg’s book helps us hold those two ideas in
creative tension. — MaryAnn McKibben Dana
Sacred Pause: A Creative Retreat for the Word-weary Christian
Rachel G. Hackenberg (Paraclete) $21.00 I announced this just a few
weeks ago when I was listing some books that would make handsome
gifts, that were expertly designed and lovely to behold. This
is certainly one of those, with the artful design a wonderful
platform for the creative content, the beautiful invitation to
ponder deeply and experience God's grace, bit by bit, through these
guided readings.
Here is what I said: Leave it to Paraclete to once
again give us a splendid, rich, wonderfully made small book of
prayerful meditation, illustrated with good graphic design and full
color photography and artwork. Hackenberg is a UCC pastor and
the writer of the popular Writing to God, so you can expect a
vivid, colorful, aesthetic experience. Here, she invites us
to "reconsider and re-engage" with the words we typically use to
describe our faith. As Bruce Epperly notes, "This book will
awaken you to a sensational faith, encompassing all your senses and
enabling you to experience the holiness of God in the quotidian
adventures of life." Yes, this is inviting us to leave behind
stagnant faith and tired expressions, but it is light-hearted and
joyful, too. From grammar lessons to poetry, stuff on letters and
helpfully playful definitions, this is upbeat, making you glad to
be reading and pondering and doing such good stuff. She draws
on Microstyle by Chris Johnson, Finally Comes the Poet by Walt
Brueggemann, and so many more artists, poets, scholars,
pray-ers. Handsome, unusual, nice. This nice hardback
is over 215 pages, with 12 chapters, each with thoughtful
questions, stuff to do and ponder, and I could easily see it being
use over a period of weeks or months. —Hearts and Minds Books
Even through our lives are full of words, we rarely pause to attend
to them—to revel in the sights and sounds and dynamics of what we
too-easily say about God. Rachel Hackenberg (an ordained United
Church of Christ minister) offers the word-weary, the
writers-blocked, and the spiritually stagnant to explore the words
of faith anew and thereby meet The Word afresh. Through twelve
deceptively light-hearted chapters on letters and definitions,
grammar and poetry, “Sacred Pause: A Creative Retreat for the
Word-Weary Christian” sparks the spiritual imagination even as it
provides practical exercises for an inspired retreat
experience!
Exceptionally well written, organized and presented, “Sacred Pause:
A Creative Retreat for the Word-Weary Christian” is an informed and
informative as it is inspired and inspiring. Very highly
recommended and thoroughly ‘reader friendly’, “Sacred Pause: A
Creative Retreat for the Word-Weary Christian” is a delight to
study and is especially appropriate for the non-specialist
Christian reader regardless of any denominational
affiliation. —Julie Summers, The Midwest Book Review
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