A Mennonite Woman: Exploring Spiritual Life and Identity

As Sara Wenger Shenk, President-Elect, Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, puts it, "Rooting Mennonite spirituality within the earthy settledness of her grandmother's story, Nelson lovingly shows the way toward a spirituality of pilgrimage, in the company of Jesus" In a book that is part narrative, part theology, part spiritual memoir, Dawn Ruth Nelson draws on a Mennonite background, encounter with Irish Catholic faith, and the spiritual life she discovers in her grandmother and her own everyday life to propose contemporary forms of spiritual formation and expression. "Although Nelson's six suggestions for contemporary spirituality are focused on Mennonite tradition and experience," observes Joann Wolski Conn, Professor of Christian Spirituality, Neumann University, "their transforming power make them applicable for anyone desiring Christian formation." C. Arnold Snyder, Professor of History, Conrad Grebel University College, comments that "Nelson's search leads from her grandmother's life in Mennonite community, through peace work in Ireland and engagement with the Roman Catholic tradition, and finally to the essential inner/outer balance of the Anabaptist spiritual tradition-a response of discipleship made possible by the spiritual connection to the living vine, Jesus Christ."