Margaret Therkelsen

Margaret Therkelsen was an unknown to me and I have read far too many books on prayer. I bought this book at a library book sale solely because it was published by Wipf & Stock. W&S has a history of rescuing great, out-of-print books from oblivion. PLus it only cost me about sixty-five cents.

The thing about books on prayer is that sometimes the author is too deeply spiritual for a worldly guy like me to feel like I can get much practical use out of it. Other times, prayer is de-mystified and treated like a formula, commended to a reader as 'easy.' My first impression of Therkelsen was that she was of the overly spiritual variety. On the first page of chapter one, she shares what happened to her one day as she practiced her regular hour long prayer time. I can't sit still to watch TV for an hour!

However as I read and tried to practice her "method," I appreciated how it forced me to express my love for God, and to take time to receive love from Him. She gives steps and has a method, but this isn't formulaic. This is about making space for mutual sharing of love between God and me. This is a practical guide to contemplative prayer as part of devotional practice (she suggests doing this after your daily scripture reading). I particularly found a slow meditative (and personalized) reading of John 3:16 as suggested by a exercise at the end of chapter one to be quite meaningful. Great stuff.

On a aesthetic note, there is a bit of editorial awkwardness. A later chapter particularly refers back to the contents of chapter two, when chapter three is in mind. I do not know if this because this edition is a facsimile of the Baker edition and therefore not copy edited correctly, or if the original order of chapters changed.… (plus d'informations)