Short Trip Over the Edge

I will generally pick up any book about prayer to read and learn from. The passion for prayer began in 2003 when I attended a conference on deepening my prayer life, and it ramped up after my mother passed away. My mother was crippled and couldn't get around much at all. So she kept a list beside everywhere she sat in the house and on that list were the people she prayed for. When she passed, those prayers passed with her and it took me a couple of months to realize this is a legacy meant to be carried on. With that in mind, I chose to read and review Short Trip to the Edge: A Pilgrimage of Prayer.

Unfortunately, the book wasn't what I expected; I thought I'd read about how Scott Cairns came to a deeper relationship with God through his prayer journey. It was a journey of the monasteries of the orthodox tradition in Greece. Periodically, there would be a snippet of wisdom to glean, but the book was more about his journey through Greece and some interactions with the monks.

My favorite bit of wisdom in the book is one he quoted by Paul Evdokimon:

It is not enough to say prayer; one must become, be prayer, prayer incarnate. It is not enough to have moments of praise; all of life, each act, every gesture, even the smile of a human face, must become a hymn of adoration, an offering, a prayer. One should not offer what one has, but what one is.

I wish there has been more about prayer and less about travel in this book. Three stars.

My thanks to Paraclete Press for allowing me to read and review this book.