Reviewed Book: Taylor, James. Everyday parables: learnings from life. Winfield, BC: Wood Lake Bks, 1995

Riegert, Eduard R.

Riegert, Ladona

English

Wilfrid Laurier University

ConsensusVolume 23Issue 1 Essays in the History of Interpretation Article 175-1-1997Everyday parables: learnings from lifeEduard R. RiegertLadona RiegertFollow this and additional works at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensusThis Book Reviews is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in Consensus by anauthorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact scholarscommons@wlu.ca.Recommended CitationRiegert, Eduard R. and Riegert, Ladona (1997) "Everyday parables: learnings from life," Consensus: Vol. 23 : Iss. 1 , Article 17.Available at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensus/vol23/iss1/1796 ConsensusEveryday Parables: Learnings from LifeJames TaylorWinfield, BC: Wood Lake Books Inc., 1995127 pp.When his own daughter, during a rainy drive in Ireland, failed to rec-ognize huddling sheep and took them to be “fuzzy rocks”, Taylor realizedas never before how meaningless a prime biblical image—and indeed, mostof the Bible—must be to her and to an entire generation and more of con-temporary secularized people. Pondering the fact that only 14% of personsbetween 18 and 34 attend church weekly (as overagainst 37% of persons 55and over), he concluded that “the more technologically complete the worldinto which people are born, the less likely they are to go to church” (7),because they are unable to discern God in about 90% of their lives. SoGod is irrelevant. And what we do in church, Taylor argues, doesn’t help,because the stories we tell there “reveal that God is not present in thisworld”, however much God may have been present in the biblical worldand perhaps in the world of our grandparents.One way of meeting this troublous situation, he decided, is to begin tolearn how to discern God in our world, too, and the place to start doingthat was by contemplating the insignificant daily stuff of our daily world.This is what Jesus did as he spun parables about yeast, salt, lamps, vines,and, yes, sheep. There was nothing “religious” about these items, yet underhis touch they became media for God’s presence.So Taylor conducted workshops in which he invited participants to cre-ate parables around ordinary things like potato peelers, felt pens, garlic,sandpaper, combs, waterfalls, staplers, casters, garbage, etc. He discoveredthat the parables created by these lay people focused on certain themes,and so the parables included in this collection are grouped into four sec-tions: (1) having faith; (2) the Bible; (3) the church community; and (4) thedeceptiveness of outward appearance, or, “the treasure in earthen vessels”.There was always, he found, great excitement and surprise as people beganto “reflect theologically” on shoe laces and fences and pine cones and madesurprisingly insightful and significant discoveries.“Parables” is too strong a word for these sometimes delightful, some-times humorous, sometimes dry meditations because most often they leadto instructional insights. For example, as a rope cannot be pushed but mustbe pulled, so “the best way to move people is from out in front, pulling”(91). Nevertheless, insights inspired by an ordinary object frequently takeus too by surprise and point us in new directions, e.g., doorknobs existonly to open doors; all that really matters for Christians “is that we opendoors—to life, to faith, to God— through which others may pass” (87). Andoccasionally a genuine parable appears in that it moves beyond analogy andsacrament alizes an object, that is, makes it redolent with the presence ofGod. An example: The coffee mug symbolizes socialization both at truckBook Reviews 97stops and in church parlors after worship. (Now comes the line which makesthis a genuine parable:) “If Jesus had lived in the 1990s, he would probablyhave raised a coffee mug, and said, ‘Each time you do this, remember me’”(125).I believe Jim Taylor is right. We need to be about the task of helpingpeople be aware of the presence of God in all aspects of life, not just inesoteric “spiritual” moments. Starting with shoe laces and fire extinguishersis basic to that task. But the art of making these into media for God’spresence is not very visible here.Taylor is editor of Wood Lake Books and of the ministerial journal,PMC: The Practice of Ministry in Canada.Eduard and Ladona RiegertWaterloo, Ontario’’Liturgy in a Multicultural Community.” AmericanEssays in LiturgyMark B. Francis, C.S.V.Edited by Edward FoleyCollegeville, Minn.: The Liturgical Press, 199178 pp. $8.05Another in the Collegeville Benedictines’ series of essays on liturgy,the focus of the monograph is on multicultural worship, specifically as itgrew out of studies and experiments conducted by the Catholic TheologicalUnion in Chicago. The writer, who has served parishes in Latin America,is presently on the faculty of CTU.The initial thrust of this essay takes us beyond the familiar theology ofthe “cultural adaptation of the liturgy”, as expressed in the work of AnscarChupungco, to fundamental anthropological issues. He adopts Geertz’s def-inition of culture as “a system of inherited concepts expressed in symbolicforms by means of which human beings communicate, perpetuate, and de-velop their knowledge about, and their attitudes toward life” (p. 11). Hethen points out the dangers and challenges of planning and leading liturgyin multicultural communities. His focus is on non-anglo North Americancommunities which are required to use the Roman rite. However, as we willsee, the application of his research can be taken beyond this narrow focus.There is a very helpful chapter on cultural diversity in New Testamenttimes and the challenges this presented to the early church, the problempresented by the great variety of languages in use; the Hebrew/Hellenisttension; and the issues of food. Subsequent chapters deal with the treat-ment of multicultural issues up to the time of the Council of Trent, and theSecond Vatican Council.

Everyday parables: learnings from life

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Everyday parables: learnings from life

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