Making Friends With God
Praying The Bible by Elizabeth Canham
Fr John Wijngaards
NOTHING is more important in the life of a Christian than having deep, personal relationship to God. Such a personal friendship expresses itself in moments of prayer and is nurtured by reflection on the Scriptures. In these inspired writings, after all, God allows us to enter into His own thoughts and intentions.
The author, who is obviously a prayerful person herself, suggests a number of ways in which the Bible can help us pray, In a chapter on Praying the psalms she shows how these ancient texts, in spite of differing so much from our own situation in contextual circumstances, can become a powerful vehicle of expressing our feelings.
In other chapters she shows how we can penetrate more deeply into the meaning Gospel stories by a mixture of imagination and analysis. I like her treatment of centering prayer explained in her chapter on Hearing the Lord. Becoming acutely aware of the presence of God and integrating a biblical word combine to deepen our experience of prayer.
The author reflects on her own painful journey from a fundamentalistic acceptance of the letter to a scriptural understanding based on academic study. She tells us it has deepened her faith. Her inner struggle is still evident in a number of conflicting passages. It makes her witness all the more convincing.
The reviewer is the director of the Housetops Centre which works to promote prayer and reflection through videos and other materials.