Dance Lessons

Brief Description

For years, Jeanie Miley followed God by practicing spiritual disciplines and experienced enormous benefit from incorporating those practices in her daily life. In Dance Lessons: Moving to the Beat of God’s Heart, Miley suggests that instead of seeing a relationship with God as a duty to be fulfilled or a defense against trouble, what might happen if we see that relationship as alive and deep, life-giving and intimate? What if living the spiritual life is primarily about the experience of a vital and personal love relationship with God? What if we see our relationship with God as a dance?

In this book about the contemplative life, Jeanie Miley uses her experiences to explore the traditional contemplative practices that spiritual pilgrims have employed for centuries to facilitate their ability to move to the beat of God’s heart in this sacred dance of life.

About the Author

Jeanie Miley is a writer and columnist, a retreat leader, and speaker on topics of spiritual growth and contemplative prayer. She is the author of ten books and has written a weekly newspaper column, “Growing Edges,” for thirty-three years. Trained at the Spiritual Direction Institute in Houston, Texas, Jeanie has read and studied broadly in the areas of spiritual growth and is a spiritual director. Her work rests, as she says, on a “four-legged stool”—Bible study, the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, contemplative prayer, and Jungian psychology. Jeanie teaches a popular women’s Bible study at River Oaks Baptist Church in Houston, Texas, and at other sites in the Houston area. She is a frequent retreat leader for groups across the country. Visit www.jeaniemiley.com for more information.

Table of Contents

Introduction
1: Everyday Mysticism for Ordinary Saints
2: He Asks Us to Dance
3: Dancing to the Beat of God’s Heart
4: Following the Leader
5: Conscious Contact with God
6: Crosscurrents and Missteps
7: Trusting the Mystery
8: Lord of the Dance
9: The Delight of the Dance
10: The Inner Dance
11: Just Keep Dancing
12:With All Your Heart
13: Advanced Dance Lessons
14: Illumined by Love
Afterword
Resources