- Mass Market Paperback: 279 pages
- Publisher: Ivy Books,U.S.; Reissue edition (1 Jan 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0804111146
- ISBN-13: 978-0804111140
- Product Dimensions: 10.7 x 2.1 x 17.1 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 761,298 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
FROM BEGINNING TO END
Why "rituals"?
My thinking was set in motion by those who, knowing I was a parish minister for many years, have asked me for advice about ceremonies and celebrations. They wanted words to use at graduations, funerals, and the welcoming of children. They inquired about grace at family meals, the reaffirmation of wedding vows, and ways to heal wounds suffered in personal conflict. People requested help with the rituals of solitude, such as meditation, prayer, and contemplation. . . .
Rituals do not always involve words, occasions, officials, or an audience. Rituals are often silent, solitary, and self-contained. The most powerful rites of passage are reflective--when you look back on your life again and again, paying attention to the rivers you have crossed and the gates you have opened and walked on through, the thresholds you have passed over.
I see ritual when people sit together silently by an open fire.
Remembering.
As human beings have remembered for thousands and thousands of years.
FULGHUM
Why "rituals"?
My thinking was set in motion by those who, knowing I was a parish minister for many years, have asked me for advice about ceremonies and celebrations. They wanted words to use at graduations, funerals, and the welcoming of children. They inquired about grace at family meals, the reaffirmation of wedding vows, and ways to heal wounds suffered in personal conflict. People requested help with the rituals of solitude, such as meditation, prayer, and contemplation. . . .
Rituals do not always involve words, occasions, officials, or an audience. Rituals are often silent, solitary, and self-contained. The most powerful rites of passage are reflective--when you look back on your life again and again, paying attention to the rivers you have crossed and the gates you have opened and walked on through, the thresholds you have passed over.
I see ritual when people sit together silently by an open fire.
Remembering.
As human beings have remembered for thousands and thousands of years.
FULGHUM
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
While the actual passages of life may follow in consequential order: birth, adolescence, marriage, retirement, and death, the actual lives we live are seldom so orderly. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt
While the actual passages of life may follow in consequential order: birth, adolescence, marriage, retirement, and death, the actual lives we live are seldom so orderly. Read the first page
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Concordance
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Hardcover
This book is full of wonderful insights into the simplicity and order that can be found in the most traumatic and chaotic events which occur to all of us at one time or another in our own lives.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
16 reviews
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful
For the stories and the attitude...
12 July 2000
Format:Mass Market Paperback
The only parts of my own wedding I regret are those I didn't personalize enough; I wish this book had been around back when I was doing my planning. Fulghum doesn't provide concrete suggestions, so much as great stories, illustrations of the impact of ritual on our lives (in which he stands firmly with Jossepoh Campbell) and a wonderfully outrageous attitude toward making those rituals fit us, not the other way around. You won't take away exact ideas of what to do for your own ritual, but you will get the inspiration to make your own ritual fit you as perfectly as some of the ones described fit their participants.
On another level, the book is also worth reading just for the stories. As other readers have commented, the one about the second wedding is just beautiful.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
An inspired, jovial look at life by a man with perspective.
18 Mar 1998
Format:Paperback
This book differs from Fulghum's other excellent works in actually having a subject, and a fairly serious one at that. I therefore approached it with apprehension, afraid that this novelty might mar his jovial air and amusing style. I need not have worried: his love of life is as contagious as ever, and his church background (one of his many varied backgrounds!) offers fresh insights into the scenes none of us can really avoid. From the gruesome act of waking up in the morning, through weddings, and funerals, to all the little things in life we never seem to notice, Fulghum continually points out the lighter side of everything, and usually one we wouldn't think of ourselves.
This book, like any other Fulghum work I've read, made me smile the whole time I was reading it, and for a good while afterwards, and probably even raised my average amount of smiling per day for ever after.
It comes highly recommended.
18 of 22 people found the following review helpful
Read it for the stories...
12 Jan 2000
Format:Mass Market Paperback
...and not for any insight into the role of ritual in everyday life. Robert Fulghum is a sort of Winnie the Pooh of expository writers: he is the reader's loyal friend with a heart as big as outdoors, but when it comes to organizing his thoughts and presenting them clearly, he is 'a bear of very little brain.'
He tells great anecdotes and excels at bringing a tear to your eye. This book is almost worth buying for one chapter which describes the absolutely perfect nontraditional wedding. If you aren't sniffling audibly by the end of it, you aren't human. And there are several other narratives of equal sentimentality.
On the other hand, if you want advice on how to use ritual to add richness to your daily life, or your family's life, you won't get much help here -- just encouragement.
For a truly practical book on family ritual with many, many practical suggestions you can apply immediately, see Susan Lieberman's NEW TRADITIONS -- which Fulghum recommends in his bibliography.
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