Rather than doing a 'critical review' of Yancey's excellent ('research-heavy') new book, I thought I'd post instead these 'Ideas to Ponder' I collected as I slowly read it over the last couple of months:

* Hans Kung's theological tome 'On Being a Christian', 702 pages long, did not include a chapter or even an index entry on prayer... (My response: Why not?)

* When a journalist asked Thomas Merton to diagnose the leading spiritual disease of our time, he gave a one-word answer: efficiency. Why? 'From the monastery to the Pentagon, the plant has to run... and there is little time or energy left after that to do anything else...' (How does that apply to the pastoral vocation?)

* Ole Hallesby settled on the single word 'helplessness' as the best summary of the heart attitude that God accepts as prayer... 'Only the one who is helpless can truly pray'. (Where does that leave self-starters/ Enneagram 5's/ INTJ's like me?)

* Yancey: 'If I had to answer the question "Why Pray?" in one sentence, it would be "Because Jesus did".' (Reminds me of Jacques Ellul's answer to the same question in 'Prayer and Modern Man': 'Why pray? Because Jesus told us to...' Is that a better answer than Yancey's?)

* A spiritual seeker interrupted a busy life to spend a few days in a monastery. 'I hope your stay is a blessed one,' said the monk who showed the visitor to his cell. 'If you need anything, let us know and we'll teach you how to live without it.' (I took several books to read on my first (eight-day silent) retreat in a monastery).

* 'Lord heare! / Shall he that made the eare, / Not heare?' (George Herbert). (Good question, addressed to God 'From [whom] all pitie flows...' Read the whole poem, it's very moving - http://www.ccel.org/h/herbert/temple/Longing.html ).

* Twelve-step groups sometimes toss around the saying 'Coincidence is God's way of protecting his anonymity'. (I don't think Yancey used William Temple's famous quote "When I pray coincidences happen; when I don't they don't", probably because Yancey is mildly agnostic about very many purported miracles happening as a result of prayer).

* Richard Rohr, founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation says 'I have often told folks that the most important word in our title is not "action" or even "contemplation" but "and". (And why did he put "Action" before "Contemplation"?)

* C S Lewis sums up the drama of human history as one 'in which the scene and the general outline of the story is fixed by the Author, but certain minor details are left for the actors to improvise. It may be a mystery why He should have allowed us to cause real events at all; but it is no odder that He should allow us to cause them by praying than by any other method.' (Calvin mightn't agree...)

* As the books of Job, Jeremiah and Habakkuk clearly show, God has a high threshold of tolerance for what is appropriate to say in a prayer. (Emotionally/spiritually mature people can 'forgive God' and deal with their anger against God - http://www.case.edu/pubaff/univcomm/disappoint.htm )

* One of the masters of prayer, Teresa of Avila, admits to shaking the sand in her 16th century hourglass to make the hour go faster (so there's hope for the rest of us)

* Yancey: 'I know of no recorded healing of cystic fibrosis' (nor of pancreatic cancer which has a 100% mortality rate, nor the replacement of an amputated limb). Dr Paul Brand devoted his life to the treatment of leprosy, and never met a single patient who claimed to be cured miraculously of leprosy... and 'No case I have treated personally would meet the rigorous criteria for a supernatural miracle.' (Why not, if Jesus raised the dead and healed someone born blind...? Evangelical leader John Stott gets into trouble with Pentecostals/Charismatics by suggesting we are not meant to expect those sorts of miracles today)

* Someone asked Gandhi, 'If you were given the power to remake the world, what would you do first?' He replied: 'I would pray for power to renounce that power' (now, honest, would that have been my response? Nope!)

* George Chen, arrested for his 'barefoot evangelism' activities in China, found a most unlikely prayer closet while serving an eighteen-year sentence with hard labour. Guards forced him to work in the prison cesspool, where he spent his days knee-deep in human waste, turning it with a shovel to make compost. 'They thought I'd be miserable, but actually I was happy,' said Chen. 'It smelled so bad that no one could come near me, so I could pray and sing aloud all day.' (May God give us ears to hear persecuted Christians singing in prisons today/tonight in 40-50 countries. See eg. http://www.breakpoint.org/listingarticle.asp?ID=2513 )

* Yancey: 'When I pray for another person, I am praying for God to open my eyes so that I can see that person as God does, and then enter into the stream of love that God already directs towards that person'. (Yancey finds some aspects of praying hard work, but that idea is his best, I reckon).

Buy this excellent book for someone to whom you wish to give a belated Christmas present! Copies available from Ridley College Bookshop, http://bookshop.ridley.unimelb.edu.au/bookweb/

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Shalom! Rowland Croucher

December 2006