The
Vol. 1, No. 9 -
Diving for pearls in the endless stream of books (Eccles. 12:12B)
Chris Smith, editor
“Fixed Hour Prayers
for (Young) Children”
A Review of Phyllis Tickle’s
This
Is What I Pray Today:
The Divine Hours Prayers for Children.
By Chris
Smith.
I imagine that it will be a pretty rare event for us to
review a children’s book here in The Englewood Review of Books, but this week’s
book, This is What I Pray Today by
Phyllis Tickle, was one that I was really excited about when I heard that it
was available. For awhile here at
Englewood Christian Church, we have thinking about ways that we could introduce
the Divine Hours cycle of prayers to our children. I had even considered doing my own adaptation
for use with our church’s children. So,
you could imagine my delight when I heard that a children’s version of the
Divine Hours had been released. However,
once I ordered the book and got my hands on it, I was rather disappointed by
what I found in its pages. I had been
expecting a robust prayerbook that could be used – as
its title seems to imply – with all children.
What I found was a skinny prayerbook
consisting of only 21 prayers – three prayers a day for each day of the week –
that was clearly aimed at very young children, probably 2-6 year-olds. The three prayers of the day seem to fall at
natural opportunities for prayer: morning, mid-day nap, and bedtime, which
coincide with three of the major prayer-times of the original Divine Hours series. This is
What I Pray Today is formatted as a picture book, and the rather mundane
watercolor illustrations of mostly nature and family scenes seem to blend into
the background. The overall feel of the
book seems to be indistinguishable from the host of other books of prayers that
are available for young children. This
overall schmaltzy Christian bookstore feel was indeed a letdown, but this
disappointment was nothing compared to the content of the prayers. According to the book’s dustjacket,
the prayers are “simple and sweet,” and are comprised of “gentle verses.” These descriptions are pretty appropriate,
and the wording of the prayers does work well for 2-6 year olds. As a father of three children in this range,
it seems that the language has worked well with our kids in the few weeks that
we have been using it. The book’s
structure is good for introducing the practice of praying at fixed times
throughout the day. However, since its
cycle is one week, it lacks any hint of the seasonal rhythms – of the natural
year or of the church year – that in the Divine Hours give form to our
experience of time. It seems like much
more could have been done with this rhythmic nature of fixed hour prayer, even
while retaining the simple, picture book format. For instance, there could have been a week of
thrice-daily prayers given for each major season of the church year.
Another
major flaw of the book – in my opinion – is that it lacks the distinctive
Christology of the original Divine Hours books. In fact, Ms. Tickle in her brief afterword, explicitly states that these prayers were
written with an inter-faith (or at least inter-middle-eastern-faith: i.e., Christian, Jew, and Muslim) audience in
mind. Indeed, all the prayers are based
on Psalms, the biblical prayerbook that is honored by
Christians, Jews and Muslims alike.
While I appreciate the broadness of this intent, it seems a bit non-sequitur to put the Divine Hours
label on this sort of effort, since the original books were very Christian in
their purposes. It seems that children
need to be introduced to the specifically Christian prayers as well: the “Our
Father,” the “Gloria” and the “Lord, Have Mercy,” for instance. Granted, it would not be difficult for
families to augment the prayers of This is
What I Pray with some of these basic, traditional Christian prayers.
If
you are looking for a prayerbook to introduce the
full, robust rhythms of the Divine Hours books to older children or teenagers,
this is definitely not the book for you.
In fact, there is, to the best of my knowledge, still a need for that
sort of book or at least a plan for adapting the original Divine Hours books
for a youth audience. However, despite
the above shortcomings, this is really a delightful book for young
children. If you are prone to buying
books as gifts at times of celebration, this book with its focus on introducing
the daily rhythm of prayer cycles, would be a
wonderfully thoughtful gift for a baby shower, or a toddler’s birthday or
Christmas. But, of course, the bigger
gift would be not just the book, but the commitment to toddling through these
prayers daily with your child. For
Christian churches and families, I would encourage supplementing these prayers
with some of the traditional Christian prayers.
For instance, the “Gloria” could be said with the morning prayer, the
“Our Father” with the mid-day prayer and the “Lord, Have Mercy” prayer with the
evening prayer. As I argued at the
beginning of Lent, in my review of Scot McKnight’s Praying with the Church, we need to return to the Church’s
historical roots of a life formed by prayer, and as Ms. Tickle reminds us in
the afterword to This
is What I Pray, “none of us are too young to rejoice [this way in God’s
gift of time].”
This is What I Pray Today: The Divine Hours Prayers for Children.
Phyllis Tickle. Hardcover. Dutton Books. 2007.
Buy now from: [ Doulos Christou Books $14 ] [ Amazon.com
]
[ A note on buying books: We offer you the
opportunity to buy the books listed here, either directly from our little
independent bookstore (Doulos Christou Books), or through amazon.com. The prices listed for our bookstore do not
include shipping or
Used
Book Finds
The
bread-n-butter of our bookstore business is the sale of used books, and we do a
fair amount of scouting around for used books each week. In this section we will feature some of the
interesting books that we have found in the past week. Generally, we will only have a single copy of
these books, so if you want one (or more) of them, you’ll need to respond
quickly.
The Garden Primer. (A
Wonderful Resource for Every Gardener!)
Barbara Damrosch.
Trade Paperback. Workman. 1988.
Good
Condition. Clean Pages. Moderate wear.
Buy
now from: [ Doulos Christou Books $7 ]
Galilean Journey: The Mexican American
Promise.
Virgilio Elizondo.
Trade Paperback.
Orbis Books. 1983. Very Good.
Clean pages / Moderate wear.
Buy
now from: [ Doulos Christou Books $7 ]
John Milton. Edited
by Merritt Hughes.
Trade
Paperback. 1985
Printing. Very Good.
Clean pages / Moderate wear.
Buy
now from: [ Doulos Christou Books $5 ]
Reviewed
Elsewhere
“Fathers and Sons”
Os Guinness reviews
Frank Schaeffer’s Crazy for God.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/bc/2008/002/1.32.html
“If
asked what is the deepest relationship imaginable,
many people would say it is between lovers, or between husbands and wives. The
case can be made, however, that from a Christian perspective, no relationship
is more mysterious and more wonderful, yet sometimes more troubling, than that
of fathers and sons. The depth and wonder begin with all we know of the relationship
of God the Father and God the Son, while the troubled aspects stem from the Fall. Consider Absalom's rebellion
against King David in the Old Testament, Edmund Gosse's
exposure of his father Philip, the Oedipal drive in the writings of Sigmund
Freud—and now Frank Schaeffer's Crazy for God, a memoir that is his
personal apologia at the expense of his famous father, Francis
Schaeffer, who was the founder and leader of the worldwide network of L'Abri communities.
Frank
Schaeffer unquestionably adored his father, just as his father passionately
adored him. Having lived in their home for more than three years, I have
countless memories of this, including the sight of the two of them wrestling on
the floor of the living room of their chalet, and ending with a fierce hug. Yet
no critic or enemy of Francis Schaeffer has done more damage to his life's work
than his son Frank …”
Read the full piece:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/bc/2008/001/22.44.html
Frank
Schaeffer. Crazy for
God.
Paperback. Carrol &
Graf. 2007.
Buy now from: [ Doulos Christou Books $20 ]
[ Amazon.com ]
Heifer International’s magazine WorldArk
recently interviewed Wendell
Berry
http://www.heifer.org/site/c.edJRKQNiFiG/b.3916289/
The New York Times compares Upton Sinclair’s novel Oil!
with its recent Oscar-winning
film adaptation There will be Blood.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/24/books/review/Essay-t.html
“The best moments in Paul Thomas Anderson’s film
“There Will Be Blood” and in “Oil!,” the 1927 novel by
Upton Sinclair on which it is loosely based, are identical. They depict the
fiery immolation of an oil rig. ‘There was a tower of flame,’ Sinclair writes,
‘and the most amazing spectacle — the burning oil would hit the ground, and
bounce up, and explode, and leap again and fall again, and great red masses of
flame would unfold, and burst, and yield black masses of smoke, and these in
turn red. Mountains of smoke rose to the sky, and mountains of flame came
seething down to the earth; every jet that struck the ground turned into a
volcano, and rose again, higher than before; the whole mass, boiling and
bursting, became a river of fire, a lava flood that went streaming down the
valley, turning everything it touched into flame, then swallowing it up and
hiding the flames in a cloud of smoke.’
Anderson’s
magnificent film fire bursts with the same kind of destructive energy — and the
fascination with the hard, gritty detail of social and industrial processes —
that marked Sinclair’s writing at its best. …”
Read the full review:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/24/books/review/Essay-t.html
Upton
Sinclair. Oil!
Paperback. Penguin Books. Dec 2007 Printing.
Buy now from: [ Doulos Christou Books $12 ] [ Amazon.com
]
Upcoming Event
Bill
McKibben will be speaking on Saturday March 15 here
in
topics related to his recent book Deep
Economy: The Wealth of Communities
and the Durable Future.
When: Saturday, March 15,
Where: Basile Auditorium,
This event is FREE, but in order to attend you need to sign up on this
website:
http://www.smallerindiana.com/group/deepeconomy
Save-the-Date!
Englewood Christian
Church will be hosting a conference on
“The Church and the Redemptive Practice
of Agriculture”
on
Ragan Sutterfield, farmer and writer from
has been confirmed as a keynote speaker.
Save these dates on
your calendar
and more details will be coming in the near future.