ad radicem

Greetings to all the friends of Ad Radicem, 

What are we up to these days? Good question! We are in the midst of four weeks of conversation about prayer. Prayer seems to be one of those things (like breathing) that everyone is “just supposed to know how to do.” Yet, so far as I can tell, despite the expectation, most of us pray infrequently, mostly when we are in trouble, and find prayer difficult and tiring. So this series of conversations is an attempt to pool our collective wisdom and experience—to share with one another our own praying practices, to give voice to frustrations or dead-ends, and to connect with new ideas (or new ways of expressing old ideas) that will deepen our practices of prayer. 

In this first week, (July 8th) four of us spoke for a few hours about what sort of activity prayer actually is. What kind of category should we use for thinking about prayer? What is happening while we pray? Is prayer communication? Is it worship? Is it labor? After talking through our own practices for a while, we used six different categories to brainstorm concepts for understanding what is happening as we pray—both on our side and with God. Here is the material that we used.

Next week, (July 15) we will look at Scripture as a source for our prayers—and specifically the sorts of prayers that we don’t often pray. God’s Word is full of prayer and praying through the Bible is one great way to learn more about how to pray, what to pray for, and when to pray. In particular, the Bible has prayers of lament and anger that give expression to the darkest emotions of human life. The points in life when we are torn with sorrow or rage are generally not times that we begin to pray, yet God is there too and praying can open us up to God’s healing at the point of our greatest woundedness.

Carolyn and I will be on vacation the week of the 22nd, so while folks are certainly free to gather in our absence, we won’t be around this week.

The third session (July 29) will focus on the lives and habits of a few mystics of the Christian tradition. We’ll tell their stories and talk about their prayer habits and then use their lives as the basis for a conversation about what we might learn from the mystics and what we might incorporate into our own habits. We’ll invite John of the Cross, Julian of Norwich, and Anthony of the Desert to teach us a little bit about their praying habits.

In the last week, (August 5) we will talk about a variety of different forms of prayer. There are a lot of strange fruits hanging on the Christian tree, and often Christians misunderstand one another’s practices. So we’ll all bring our own experiences and opinions to the table as we talk about many different ways of praying: intercession, ikons, tongues, praying with the saints, contemplative prayer, liturgical prayer, and more! 

I hope that you are able to join us for one of these meetings! 

Go well, 

Eric