Every Eye Beholds You: A World Treasury of Prayer

Rating:
Summary: All paths lead to the same source.
Review: If you accept what William Blake said, that all religions are one, then you should have no problem accepting that all prayers seek to accomplish the same goal: communication with the divine. For me, there is no distinction between monks singing a Gregorian chant and a group of individuals in saffron robes chanting Hare Krishna. Both strive to evoke God's presence, although they choose to address God by different names. If people realized that there is essentially no distinction between religions, except the names chosen to address God and different messengers teaching the paths to enlightenment, the world would be a better place.

My one critique on this book is that it contains a disproportionate number of Christian prayers. Personally, I would have preferred it to be a little more balanced.

Rating:
Summary: Praying with every heart
Review: This is a wonderful collection of prayer, which I use on a regular basis to bring in fresh and refreshing prayer forms into the standard Sunday service.

The book's title comes from a prayer offered up by Akhenaten, the monotheistic Egyptian pharaoh who might be described as one of the world's early ecumenicists (although, as a historian, I can argue strongly against that, too).

The book is divided functionally (something that I as a service-constructor appreciate) -- Prayers for Days and Seasons, Prayers of Contrition and Atonement, Prayers of Praise, Rites of Passage, etc. Within each functional category, there are examples from many different religions and time periods. There are indexes both by religious traditions and by first lines of prayers. There is a brief pronunciation guide for those prayers included in their native tongues, and a brief introduction by Karen Armstrong. 'To expect to have faith before embarking on the disciplines of the spiritual life is like putting the cart before the horse. In all the great traditions, prophets, sages, and mystics spend very little time telling their disciples what they ought to believe. Indeed, it is only since the Enlightenment that faith has been defined as intellectual submission to a creed. Hitherto, faith had been seen as a virtue rather than a prerequisite.'

Prayer and meditation, including silence and reflection, has been an integral part of all spiritual practices and almost every religion in history. They all seem to reach for similar things ultimately, even if the particulars are different.

'These teach us that our words cannot define God or the divine mystery, no matter how eloquent our prayer. They can serve only as springboards to the sacred, helping us to open ourselves to the deeper currents of existence and thus to live more intensely and fully.'

In the first section of prayer, entitled Essential Prayers we are given the text of those prayers considered essential by various religions, including the Sh'ma Yisra'el, the Lord's Prayer, the Azan Call to Prayer, Hindu and Buddhist mantras, Native American prayers, Simple Gifts (an essential Shaker prayer), Ein Keilo-heinu (Sephardic Jewish daily prayer), Mayan texts from the Popol Vuh, and Psalm 23.

Other chapters are equally rich in given word to the unspoken mysteries that have been pondered by people everywhere in every time. Masterful scripturally-based prayers are combined with brilliant original prayers; traditional prayers rest side-by-side with modern prayers; the similar cries to God can be seen in the unity-in-diversity that is the role of humanity before the divine.

Sit nomine Domini benedictum,
Ex hoc nunc et usque in saeculum,
Adjutorium nostrum in nomine Domini,
Qui fecit coelum et terram.