Sacred Speech: A Practical Guide for Keeping Spirit in Your Speech - Softcover

Schaper, Rev. Dr. Donna

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1594730687 ISBN 13: 9781594730689

Publisher: SkyLight Paths, 2004

Synopsis

The complete guide to spirit-filled speech and speaking with spirit

"This book is a spiritual guide to using the holy gift of speech. It is a ... how-to ... grounded in a humble way of being, expressing an attitude of gratitude toward the tongue, in the knowledge that speech is a gift from God and we have a choice to use our mouths virtuously, in the most humble and searching sense of that word."
―from the Introduction

So much of our time is spent in conversation, yet little time is devoted to thinking about the words we choose to use, or the manner in which we speak. Taking the time to make our words count―to make our speech sacred―can lead to positive changes in our lives, and improve our relationships with others.

Sacred Speech is a personal, warm-hearted approach to a complex matter―how we can use speech in holy ways. Drawing support from literary and spiritual sources, Rev. Donna Schaper offers compelling advice from her own experience as a clergyperson, teacher, partner, and parent, empowering us to:

• Acknowledge the Divine in the words we use
• Use speech to maximize the possibility of love and care
• Use speech to minimize fear
• Link, connect, and contact with others through words

A clear invitation to improve our communications with others, Sacred Speech is ideal for spiritual and religious leaders, professionals who work in multifaith settings, the politically correct and the not-so politically correct, and anyone who wants to do more than simply "watch what they say."

About this title

About the Author:

Rev. Donna Schaper is widely recognized as one of the most outstanding communicators in her generation of Protestant clergy. A minister of the United Church of Christ, she is author of several books, including Alone, but Not Lonely.

From Publishers Weekly:

As a mainline Protestant minister and preacher, Schaper is sensitive to the demands of public speech in a diverse culture and to the need for private speech that can appropriately counsel or confront. She is especially good at understanding speech in the old-fashioned sense of it as rhetoric, with power to move, persuade or console. Many of her observations and chapter topics, devoted to these functions of speech, make good sense. Indeed, much praise is due to a book that helpfully distinguishes between whining ("a spoken form of despair") and lamenting (which seeks resolution); takes on the more absurd excesses of political correctness; and includes a chapter on the value of silence and when to say nothing. But the book is uneven and some parts are murky. Schaper's prose has a tendency to pile up metaphors ("Sacred speech knows we live in a vertical, not a horizontal, world") instead of clarifying what is meant. A neologism that looks like a typo in a chapter title ("glocal") isn't explained until the end of the chapter. The titular promise to be "a practical guide" overstates the case; the book is descriptive and reflective and filled with illustrative anecdotes, but those characteristics don't add up to a how-to guide on speaking with greater sensitivity, which is an ambitious proposition. While the concept is intriguing, this book about sacred speech too often lapses into unclear speech itself.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: SkyLight Paths
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 1594730687
• ISBN 13: 9781594730689
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 176