Mighty Stories, Dangerous Rituals: Weaving Together the Human and the Divine

Lutheran pastor Herbert Anderson and Roman Catholic priest Edward Foley thoughtfully examine the importance of connecting stories with ritual in worship and in pastoral care. They believe that our storytelling and ritual enactment can be both mighty and dangerous: "mighty" because human stories and ritual-making are "potential windows to the story of God"; "dangerous" because stories and rituals can also conceal reality and isolate us. This book explores how bringing storytelling and ritual enactment together can enrich baptisms, weddings, and funerals. It also explores the need for new rituals during such crises as miscarriage and divorce--as well as during such transitions as adoption and leaving home. Pastoral caregivers, worship leaders, and others will find the authors' points thought-provoking and their suggestions for joining story and ritual helpful.

Anderson and Foley do a wonderful job of collecting stories and demonstrating how important these stories become in the lives of those who have shared and or experienced them. The beauty of this book is that they allow the reader to see themselves in the stories, these are not only the stories of the people mentioned in them, but they are the stories of all of us in one way or another, to one degree or another. Finally, they relate to the reader how the stories of us help to define ourselves. This is a wonderful book, a joy to read, and provides insight to how our stories become ritualized in our lives.

My husband, a part-time youth minister introduced me (a priest) to this book. We both *loved* it. It says a lot of stuff that makes sense in ways we might not every have realized before. It will change the way I do both baptisms and marriage preparation--and I'm not even finished with it yet.

Anderson and Foley have really produced a master piece in the area of pastoral care. They have been able to bring to light the stories and the importance thereof in our postmodern culture. Their dealing with events on which which our church tradition is silent is also most helpful.It gives one the tools for exploring effective pastoral care.

This book is an insightful examination of the very human tendency to look at our lives through the stories we tell and the rituals we share. Using the two perspectives of story telling in the form of myth and parable Anderson and Foley explore how our stories motivate the rituals we perform both liturgically and in our day to day lives. In doing so we find how our humaness can weave with the divine. Understanding this is what can lead effective pastoral care. They review corporate rituals of baptism, marraige and funeral, but also discuss the need for ritual in the context of divorce, miscarraige and chronic illness. They also discuss reconciliation as an honest process of listening to the stories of others. This book is highly recommended for pastors and Christian lay persons.