A Table of Delight: Feasting with God in the Wilderness

A Table of Delight invites us to explore the wilderness places in our lives, both the unintended times of barrenness and the chosen ""desert times,"" as opportunities for holy encounter. We can learn to recognize grace-filled moments when God does provide sustenance in the wilderness of our lives. Elizabeth Canham's personal sharing and questions for readers encourage reflection, journal writing, and creativity as pathways to deepening prayer.

In A Table of Delight: Feasting with God in the Wilderness, Canham explores the way desert experiences give substance to our spiritual journey rather than offering the instant satisfaction of a momentary spiritual high. Canham's narrative style offers the details found in good story-telling with a thoughtful, gentle friend as the narrator.

As she tells these stories from the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures and two significant movements derived from them - Desert Mothers and Fathers and Celtic Christians - she offers a practical vision of relinquishment that carries hope for those feeling consumed by a culture that endorses busyness and surrounds us with stuff. These stories encourage contemporary Christians to recognize the grace of their own desert experiences, both the unbidden times of dryness and the chosen times of solitude for prayer.

This book includes useful tools for individual or group study. Canham ends the chapters with journal entries that further personalize the coaching and offer examples of the journal practices she suggests. She then offers suggestions for Scripture reflection and journal writing. The book includes a helpful guide for adapting the study to group use, as well.

Rev. Dr. Elizabeth J. Canham lives in North Carolina and offers her ministry in teaching and spiritual formation in an ecumenical context as priest, teacher, retreat and workshop leader and spiritual guide. Through Hospites Mundi, a pilgrimage ministry, she invites others to join her on sacred journeys to Celtic and other Christian sites. She is founder of Stillpoint Ministries and has served parishes in London, New Jersey, New York, and North Carolina.