Some have called Sacred Harp singing America's earliest music. This powerful nondenominational religious singing, part of a deeply held Southern culture, has spread throughout the nation over the past two centuries. In A Sacred Feast, Kathryn Eastburn journeys into the community of Sacred Harp singers across the country and introduces readers to the curious glories of a tradition that is practiced today just as it was two hundred years ago. Each of the book's chapters visits a different region and features recipes from the accompanying culinary tradition--dinner on the ground, a hearty noontime feast. From oven-cooked pulled pork barbeque to Dollar Store cornbread dressing to red velvet cake, these recipes tell a story of nourishing the body, the soul, and the voice. The Sacred Harp's deeply moving sound and spirit resonate through these pages, captured at conventions in Alabama, Kentucky, Texas, Colorado, and Washington, conveyed in portraits of singers, and celebrated in the sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of all-day singing and dinner on the ground echoing through generations and centuries.

What’s the story behind all those feasts? It’s hard to know when you read about the Feast of Booths why exactly it matters for your life. What in the world is the Feast of Trumpets supposed to be teaching you? And, in this case, the text itself doesn’t tell you. You need a resource, a guide that can help you understand the cultural significance and how these feasts relate to the rest of the Bible. That’s exactly what Erin Davis does in this new 8-week Bible study, 7 Feasts. She’ll teach you: The significance of these feasts and why God wanted His people to celebrate How each of them point to Jesus and His work in redemption Why all of this matters for our lives today You will discover that passages you once skimmed over are now rich and meaningful in your life today.

In the period between 1200 and 1500 in western Europe, a number of religious women gained widespread veneration and even canonization as saints for their extraordinary devotion to the Christian eucharist, supernatural multiplications of food and drink, and miracles of bodily manipulation, including stigmata and inedia (living without eating). The occurrence of such phenomena sheds much light on the nature of medieval society and medieval religion. It also forms a chapter in the history of women. Previous scholars have occasionally noted the various phenomena in isolation from each other and have sometimes applied modern medical or psychological theories to them. Using materials based on saints' lives and the religious and mystical writings of medieval women and men, Caroline Walker Bynum uncovers the pattern lying behind these aspects of women's religiosity and behind the fascination men and women felt for such miracles and devotional practices. She argues that food lies at the heart of much of women's piety. Women renounced ordinary food through fasting in order to prepare for receiving extraordinary food in the eucharist. They also offered themselves as food in miracles of feeding and bodily manipulation. Providing both functionalist and phenomenological explanations, Bynum explores the ways in which food practices enabled women to exert control within the family and to define their religious vocations. She also describes what women meant by seeing their own bodies and God's body as food and what men meant when they too associated women with food and flesh. The author's interpretation of women's piety offers a new view of the nature of medieval asceticism and, drawing upon both anthropology and feminist theory, she illuminates the distinctive features of women's use of symbols. Rejecting presentist interpretations of women as exploited or masochistic, she shows the power and creativity of women's writing and women's lives.

Unlock the Prophetic Significance of the Biblical Feasts! The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, These are the appointed feast of the Lord that you shall proclaim as holy convocations; they are my appointed feasts.Leviticus 23:1-2 ESV The Feasts of the Lord have powerful and prophetic significance to Gods people, both Jew and Gentile. Each feast is a picture of Jesus the Messiah and represents one of seven phases of spiritual development in your life! In this intriguing and biblically sound study, Dr. Richard Booker takes you on a revelatory journey through the Bible showing you how the ancient Biblical feasts are relevant for your spiritual growth today. Get life-changing revelation of the significance of: Passover Unleavened Bread First Fruits Pentecost Trumpets Atonement Tabernacles From the new birth found in Passover and the Crucifixion, all the way to entering Gods rest found in the Feast of Tabernacles and the Second Coming, you will discover how the seven Biblical feast powerfully impact your faith journey with the Lord. Learn to encounter God in a fresh powerful way by unlocking the prophetic significance of the Feasts of the Lord!

For centuries, the Feast of Fools has been condemned and occasionally celebrated as a disorderly, even transgressive Christian festival, in which reveling clergy elected a burlesque Lord of Misrule, presided over the divine office wearing animal masks or women's clothes, sang obscene songs, swung censers that gave off foul-smelling smoke, played dice at the altar, and otherwise parodied the liturgy of the church. Afterward, they would take to the streets, howling, issuing mock indulgences, hurling manure at bystanders, and staging scurrilous plays. The problem with this popular account—intriguing as it may be— is that it is wrong.In Sacred Folly, Max Harris rewrites the history of the Feast of Fools, showing that it developed in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries as an elaborate and orderly liturgy for the day of the Circumcision (1 January)—serving as a dignified alternative to rowdy secular New Year festivities. The intent of the feast was not mockery but thanksgiving for the incarnation of Christ. Prescribed role reversals, in which the lower clergy presided over divine office, recalled Mary's joyous affirmation that God "has put down the mighty from their seat and exalted the humble." The "fools" represented those chosen by God for their lowly status.The feast, never widespread, was largely confined to cathedrals and collegiate churches in northern France. In the fifteenth century, high-ranking clergy who relied on rumor rather than firsthand knowledge attacked and eventually suppressed the feast. Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century historians repeatedly misread records of the feast; their erroneous accounts formed a shaky foundation for subsequent understanding of the medieval ritual. By returning to the primary documents, Harris reconstructs a Feast of Fools that is all the more remarkable for being sanctified rather than sacrilegious.