At first glance, I wasn’t sure that Mysteries of the Jesus Prayer: Experiencing the Presence of God and a Pilgrimage to the Heart of an Ancient Spirituality would be a book that appealed to me.
Frankly, I don’t read much non-fiction so it needs to be really good to hold my attention.
The more I read about this book, though, the more I became intrigued. I was raised Southern Baptist, and had an ingrained distrust for anything that smacked of Catholicism or the like.
And, of course, it’s no secret that questions about faith and prayer have been on my mind and heart a lot lately. So I decided to give Mysteries of the Jesus Prayer a chance.
I’m glad I did.
All spirituality aside, I’m a major history nerd and I love to travel and this book is a lovely travelogue of the author Norris Chumley and Father John. I loved all the details about the different locations and the beautiful photographs.
I also discovered that this book was written to be a companion piece to the PBS documentary (I’m looking forward to watching this!).
You also can’t escape the beauty and devotion of the ancient monasteries and convents that the author describes. I don’t have a reference for faith that looks anything like that. At another time in my life I would have easily dismissed the way these men and women practice as archaic or ridiculous, but I found myself moved by lives so fully devoted.
Chumley’s main goal in writing is to bring “the Jesus prayer” to light for those of us who are not part of the Eastern Orthodox church. The prayer is a simple one:
“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
But he shows through stories and personal interviews, how this prayer is life changing to many.
There was one particular story of a monk at St. Antony’s Monastery, who had been an atheist professor in New Zealand and had, one day, felt a powerful call to convert and move to Egypt to serve at the monastery there in the desert.
I keep turning that story over and over, wondering what kind of person, what kind of faith that would take.
There were times when I got a bit bogged down in the details, but I found this book to be quite interesting and compelling overall.
I was happy to be a part of the tlc book tour for this book, and received an advance review copy. As always, my opinions are my own!
If you want to check out other thoughts on this book click here.
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i too was raised southern baptist. and for me being raised southern baptist means i had little to no exposure to other spiritual practices or religions. our way was the right way and anything that did not look like our spirituality probably wasn’t spirituality at all. at least that was what i thought growing up
so i love love love to read books and hear stories that give me insight to what others’ relationships with god look like. they do not all look the same. and we can glean from the experience of others to grow in our relationship.
sounds like a great book and i totally want to check it out:)
How wonderful of you to let go of misconceptions of childhood and read this book with an open mind. As a Catholic, I especially appreciate it.
I’m so glad you gave this book a chance despite being from a different religious background. I truly believe this prayer is applicable to Christians of any denomination. I hope I get a chance to see the show on TV – it sounds like it will be SO good!
Thanks for being on the tour.
is trekking your site! hug my blog and explore some trails! happy easter! …TREK… :]
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