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Talk a bit about what you're learning in this area of prayer as it relates to your Jewish tradition.

I was schooled in liturgical prayer, as a Jew, and then have spent my entire Christian life in liturgical communities. The concern, I think, that people have about liturgy, or the fear that people have is that it gets boring and rote. And I'll be the first to admit that sometimes it does. I can sit down with my prayer book to say my morning office or my set of morning prayers, and I can realize 10 or 15 minutes into that that I've been mouthing the words but thinking about my grocery list or something.

So the danger of liturgical prayer is that it does become habitual and can become rote. But I find that when I don't have to think all the time about what words I'm going to say next, then I am free to enter into reverencing God in prayer. The other great gift of liturgy is that if you have a set of liturgical prayers your prayer life is not going to be subject to your own emotional whims.

I love the chapter on weddings. And since you're a recent newlywed, what is it that enriches your understanding of marriage from the Christian tradition?

I think the Christian marriage and wedding tradition so clearly speaks to the fact that marriage is a covenant. It is not a contract that we can get out of because something goes wrong, but it is a covenant that is possible because it's not just two people up there getting married, it's two people and God. And God will sustain them through the strains and pressures that may be put on that covenant.

I think some aspects of the Jewish wedding ceremony articulate quite well that the community is involved in the process of sustaining marriages. We see that in the Christian wedding service in The Book of Common Prayer. There is a place where the minister says, "Do you, the congregation, promise to uphold these two people in their vows of marriage?" And the congregation responds, "We will."

It seems to me that if we want to get the divorce rate [among Christians] down, one of the things we can do is recognize that the community is involved in people's marriages at every step of the way.

Copyright © 2004 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Mudhouse Sabbath is available from Christianbook.com and other book retailers.

Also posted today is a review of Mudhouse Sabbath.

An excerpt about hospitality from the book was published in CT sister publication Today's Christian Woman.

Last year, CT published a review of Girl Meets God.

More information is available from the publisher.

A contributing editor, Winner's articles for CT include:

meetingGod@beliefnet.com | I thought the high-powered, heady world of dot-coms—even dot-coms devoted to religion and spirituality—was far removed from my own walk with Christ. (Nov. 16, 2001)

Solitary Refinement | The church is doing better than ever at ministering to single people. But some evangelical assumptions still need rethinking. (June 4, 2001)

The Wright Stuff | Vinita Hampton Wright is leading a quiet transformation of Christian fiction. (April 20, 2001)

Truth, Suitable for Framing | Before there was the Internet, there was the Talmud. And they have a lot in common. (Feb. 20, 2001)

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January (Web-only) 2004, Vol. 48