Honest to God Prayer, livre ebook

Maybe you're praying and you don’t even know it.

In this unique and encouraging guide to prayer, Kent Ira Groff, a longtime retreat leader and inspiring writer-poet, explores how to engage in spirituality that blesses your soul—and the world. Whether you’re advanced or just starting on your spiritual path, this practical prayer path breaker will lure you in with its novel combination of touching, real-life stories, pithy thoughts and inspiring prayer practices.

For those turned off by shopworn religious language, it offers innovative ways to pray in four metaphorical movements that parallel both Native American traditions and Ignatian spirituality:

• East—Morning / Prayer as Awareness
  Waking up to reality—opening
• South—Noon / Prayer as Empowerment
  Embracing your dreams and possibilities—expanding
• West—Afternoon / Prayer as Relinquishment
  Letting go of attachments—emptying
• North—Night / Prayer as Paradox
  Uniting the opposites of life—integrating

Prayer practices for each of the four "movements" provide for personal and group enrichment at home and work, in formal programs and informal friendships. They interweave the author’s own experience to say: “This is honest to God spirituality and I’m seeing myself.”

Index of Prayer Practices vii
Orientation ix
Prologue
Integrating Native American and
Ignatian Spiritual Streams xvii

Theme I Prayer as Awareness: Opening
Chapter One. Waking Up to Reality
The Grounding for Awareness 3
Chapter Two. Living Awake to What Is
The Process of Awareness 13
Practices for Cultivating Awareness 27

Theme II Prayer as Empowerment: Expanding
Chapter Three. Claiming Possibilities
The Grounding for Empowerment 33
Chapter Four. Embracing Dreams
The Process of Empowerment 51
Practices for Cultivating Empowerment 65

Theme III Prayer as Relinquishment: Emptying
Chapter Five. Negative Capability
The Grounding for Relinquishment 73
Chapter Six. Shedding Attachments
The Process of Relinquishment 85
Practices for Cultivating Relinquishment 101

Theme IV Prayer as Paradox: Integrating
Chapter Seven. Rediscovering Mystery
The Grounding for Paradox 107
Chapter Eight. The Active Contemplative Life
The Process of Paradox 123
Practices for Cultivating Paradox 141

Bring It All Together
Morning Prayer in Four Directions 145
Acknowledgments 151
Notes 153
Resources for Further Reading 157