A Thinking Reed

"Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed" – Blaise Pascal

Prayer/Spirituality

  • Sane repetition

    I see that the Catholic webzine Godspy is up and running again (via Kevin Jones). One particular article I liked was blogger Eve Tushnet’s commendation of repetitive prayer. This hits home for me: In “falling back on” other people’s words I can admit that I can’t express myself very well, and I need help even Read more

  • Praying the Psalms with Luther

    Speaking of spiritual practices, I wanted to mention another little gem I picked up recently. Our Missouri-Synod brethren at Concordia Publishing have put together a little volume called Reading the Psalms with Luther. This consists of the entire Psalter (in the ESV translation) with each psalm prefaced by a short introduction from Luther’s work The Read more

  • Items of interest from the JLE

    From this month’s Journal of Lutheran Ethics: First, an article on the neglect of spiritual practices in the ELCA and how, if the church doesn’t offer pathways to intimacy with God, people will seek them elsewhere. I can definitely sympathize with this. As someone who (re)turned to Christian faith as a young(ish) adult I was Read more

  • Lord, teach us to pray

    This weekend we were visiting my family in my ancestral homeland of Western Pennsylvania. As is our habit, we attended the early service at the ELCA congregation in my hometown. This is a gem of a church and we always receive a warm welcome when we worship there, even though we don’t have a particular Read more

  • Office hours

    Derek of Haligweorc has a nice essay up at the new “Epsicopal Cafe” on the Daily Office and Anglican identity. I confess to having more or less fallen off the Daily Office wagon. What discipline I’ve managed to keep up has consisted of a Bible reading plan combined with a couple of Psalms each day Read more

  • Prayer as remembrance

    Liturgical scholar Paul F. Bradshaw’s Two Ways of Praying argues for a reconnection between liturgy and spirituality which he contends have been separated in the Christian West. One of the reasons for this, he thinks, is that Christians have often been unclear about what exactly they’re doing when they pray. This is partly because there Read more

  • A simple order of prayer to carry with you

    Recently I’ve been using David Adam’s The Rhythm of Life: Celtic Daily Prayer for, er, daily prayer. It’s a nice little easy-to-use office with certain “celtic” themes. But, unlike some attempts at celtic Christian spirituality it’s thoroughly grounded in Scripture and orthodox theology. There are four offices for each day of the week and each Read more

  • Praying with St. Francis

    The venerable Massachusetts Bible Society bookstore in downtown Boston is closing its doors next month, and, consequently, they’re selling off their stock at discounted rates. Despite what the name might seem to imply, the MBS is actually something of a “progressive” Christian outfit. Anyway, I was in there yesterday and picked up a copy of Read more

  • McPherson’s Grace at this Time

    Last week I read C.W. McPherson’s short book Grace at this Time, which is an explanation and commendation of the Daily Office as a form of daily prayer for Christians. The practice of the daily office – a structured form of daily prayer consisting of a prescribed order of psalms and readings with responses and Read more

  • Reading the Bible

    Whew! Things have been getting pretty grim around here lately: war, abortion, stem cells, etc. Let’s change the subject. Here’s a question for you: How do you read the Bible? Assuming that you do, that is. Lately I’ve been following the daily lectionary from Oremus. On the plus side, this, like the BCP lectionary, gives Read more