Splendor in the Ordinary: Your Home as a Holy Place

Rating:
Summary: The most important book I read on my journey to Orthodoxy
Review: My greater conversion was not to Eastern Orthodoxy but to sacramentalism, which can be defined as the physical means God uses to convey His Grace or unmerited favor. I was raised Protestant, which is sacramental in some respects, and sacramentarian (against a sacramental view of life and creation) in other respects; in other words, an inconsistent sacramentalism. Howard's book would best be subtitled "Sacramentalism in Everyday Life". He systematically goes through each room in a home, starting with the doorway, and ending in the bedroom. He shows how each room incarnates the sacramental principle at the heart of the universe: My Life for yours. Example: in the kitchen, he shows how Rice Krispies daily give up their life so that one can derive life from them. I read this book in an earlier edition, before Howard became Roman Catholic. Since then, he has revised many of his earlier books to make them more tendentiously Roman Catholic. As a result, what were some of the best ecumenical extended essays have partly become somewhat screechy Roman Catholic tracts. Despite those drawbacks, there is no other book I'm aware of that does what this book does. Highly recommended. (Also published under the title Hallowed Be This House.)