We used this book for my very first seminary class, and it has served to set the tone for my entire seminary experience. This book is one of those very rare finds, that you wish would be infinite in length because both the content and feeling of the book leaves you wanting more.

Bass and her team of contributors have managed to speak uniformly in diversity -- it is evident there was much conversation going on here. The book is divided into chapters devoted to particular practices of faith (as opposed to practices of religion); faith practices can be religious practices, and vice versa (in fact, one hopes!) but this volume is written broadly enough to appeal to a wide range of 'faithful' readers, and indeed, to those who are looking for a faith-full way of acting and being.

Chapters are devoted to such topics as singing, hospitality, illness, discernment; I cannot think of a major life topic or event that isn't covered here. The writing and reflections are personal and broad-based simultaneously, a rare achievement.

This book would make an excellent guide for a spiritual workshop; indeed, our course, entitled 'Spirituality, Autobiography & Ministry' is intended at our seminary to give a divers collection of people an introduction into ways of examining their own practices. I was fortunate enough to be a teaching assistant for this course during different years of seminary (and thus got to use the books several times, with different groups of people).

Currently the Practicing Our Faith project is developing separate texts on each of the topics covered by chapters in this book, so groups that use this as a base text for spirituality groups can choose which areas to develop, and stay within the overall culture of this text.

I cannot praise this book too highly. There is a genuine spirituality that permeates the book and expresses itself so well to the reader who devotes attention to the practices.

A searcher of many years, this book kinda popped out of the shelf at me. My biggest peeve with Christianity: Sunday Christians, that is people who only act Christian one day a week. This book gives me hope that ALL people claiming to be Christian can learn how to live a Christ like life. There is truly a piece of mind that comes with this books. Practicing Yoga everyday gave me a piece of mind, but with these simple suggestions for daily living, my joy has been doubled!

We are using this book currently for a class at my seminary entitled Spirituality, Autobiography & Ministry.

The care and depth of thought that permeates this book is apparent from the first pages, and it has been a struggle to resist the urge to "read ahead" of the rest of the class in this book.

While the chapters are written by different individuals, it is apparent that they have a common understanding and it is quite an achievement that they speak in this book with a common voice.

If you read no other book this year, read this one!

Everyone with a body should read this book. After reading Paulsell's book "Honoring the Body" you will never bathe or dress, eat or drink, run or walk, rest or make love in the same way. You will look with care into yourself as embodied and find the sacredness that God put into you and your body from the moment of your birth. Armed with this new experience of God as intimately with you in your embodied life, you without a doubt will experience sacredness in the everyday tasks of living an embodied life. The intimate journey through embodied life Paulsell's invites you to take I guarantee will change you to the point that you will revisit this book often because the truth of which it speaks is remarkable and as I have said life changing.

Paulsell's down-to-earth language and vivid imagery make it immediately accessible. And her way of talking about everyday bodily activities draws you right in as a reader and makes you feel wiser, as if you've just had a wonderful conversation with a close friend. I recently used this book in leading a retreat for college students. They connected deeply with every chapter we explored, from "Clothing the Body" to "Honoring the Sexual Body." I've given a copy of this book to my 80-year-old mother and plan to give my 14-year-old son a copy as well. "Honoring the body" is a full-orbed practice that offers young and old people alike so much more than well-intended slogans such as "Just Say No" or "Practice Safe Sex"!

you have an incorrect title of this guide, it's not "conservation" the correct word in the title is conversation and there should be commas after conversation, learning, growth. Just a suggestion!

This book offers much more than ways to live. It provides a way to survive - for teens, families, youth pastors and lay leaders -by giving those in the trenches of everyday life a practical way to live that puts Christian faith into action. Combining ancient practices of faith with contemporary realities, it offers an invitation for us to try something new, deliberate and life-giving. As a long time youth pastor, I've seen many resources. This one is outstanding. "Way to Live" isn't just a way to live, it isn't just a way to survive, this book offers us all a way to THRIVE.

The most striking point made in this book, from my perspective, was the notion that the Jewish concept of day from sundown to sundown reflected the creation story of Genesis in the sense that first God acts, later people are drawn into the equation. If insights such as that excite you, you will enjoy this book.

The book is written in a very personal style - how Dorothy C. Bass has come to see and use time. This results occassionally in some reader disconnects e.g. her assumption that a church could not refrain from Christmas carols during Advent - I come from a church that does not use Christmas carols until the Christmas vigil. But these "disconnects" also are a strength for the book - she is not giving you a list of how-to's, but rather inviting you to reevaluate time in your life ... with a recognition that that will have similarities and differences from what it means in her life.

This book is recommended for everyone - and especially needed by individuals planning liturgical season.

Without a doubt, this little book is one of the most helpful spiritual books of the new century. Bass takes a careful look at how we view and use time. Her citations of other authors, especially poets, are well chosen and lyric. This is a book to savor, to stimulate meditation, and to return to. May I suggest it as the perfect Christmas present for someone who is not too superficial to appreciate it?

Bass doesn't preach at us from on high, but rather bears witness to her own struggles to keep sabbath and receive time as a blessing and gift instead of as a problem or enemy. Bass describes how "receiving the day" can become a way-of-life practice, and she relates this activity to other core practices that give life character and integrity (see "Practicing Our Faith: A Way of Life for a Searching People," which Bass edited.) Bass grounds her analysis of time in contemporary research from a social scientific perspective, such as A.R. Hochschild's "The Time Bind" and R. Levine's "A Geography of Time." Bass's deeper grounding, however, is in the practical wisdom of the Jewish and Christian traditions for living faithfully in the rhythms of days, weeks, and years. Drawing on the biblical story of the creation of time (Genesis 1), Bass invites us to consider what difference it would make in our lives if we viewed dusk instead of dawn as the beginning of each new day. Observing how digital clocks now synchronize our global economy, Bass notes with irony how Benedictine monks invented the clock to call the community to prayer at set hours during the course of the day. The challenge for us today is not to "turn back the clock," of course, but to learn how to live freely and humanly within a 24x7 society. I enthusiastically recommend "Receiving the Day" to anyone who cares to ponder how we dwell together as creatures within time. This book prompted deep personal reflection about the ways I spend my time, and it also inspired the design of a playful worship service for our congregation's annual Family Camp. A great book for adult study groups and sermon ideas. To open "Receiving the Day" is to open a thoughtfully chosen, carefully crafted gift.