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Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer by C.…
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Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer (1964)

by C. S. Lewis

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I listened to this on audiobook and so there were frequent interruptions. Nevertheless, out of the 15 CS Lewis books I've read, this is probably my least favorite. The book primarily consists of speculations and musing on prayer with very few conclusions. I certainly differer from Lewis on praying for the dead and the existence of purgatory both of which he referenced but chose not to defend.As anything written by Lewis does, the book contains flashes of brilliance and a heap of great one-liners, though fewer than usual. Recommended only for those who like reading the monologue letter style that Lewis uses in Screwtape Letters or for those who intend to read all of Lewis' works. ( )
  nathan.c.moore | Oct 1, 2012 |
This was my second time reading this. The book just gets better! Lewis is still the most articulate and sensible writer on prayer. A must read. ( )
  robinamelia | Feb 7, 2010 |
Interesting insight into Lewis's mindset and spirituality, as well as relationships. ( )
  Mialro | May 30, 2008 |
Insightful, as always. ( )
  wktarin | Apr 23, 2008 |
I read through this in the Episcopal Church at Yale
prayer group and found in helpful. ( )
  antiquary | Aug 13, 2007 |
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I am all in favour of your idea that we should go back to your old plan of having a more or less set subject - an agendum - for our letters.
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Nothing makes an absent friend so present as a disagreement.   [p. 3]
We have no non-religious activities;  only religious and irreligious.  [p. 30]
And this, you see, makes the choice between ready-made prayers and one's own words rather less important for me than it apparently is for you.  For me words are in any case secondary.  They are only an anchor.  Or, shall I say, they are the movements of a conductor's baton: not the music.  They serve to canalise the worship or penitence or petition which might without them--such are our minds--spread into wide and shallow puddles.  It does not matter very much who first put them together.  If they are our own words they will soon, by unavoidable repetition, harden into a formula.  If they are someone els's, we shall continually pour into them our own meaning.   [p. 11]
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Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0156027666, Paperback)

"We want to know not how we should pray if we were perfect but how we should pray being as we now are."

What are we doing when we pray? What is at the heart of this most intimate conversation, the dialogue between a person and God? How does prayer—its form, its regularity, its content, its insistence—shape who we are and how we believe? In this collection of letters from C. S. Lewis to a close friend, Malcolm, we see an intimate side of Lewis as he considers all aspects of prayer and how this singular ritual impacts the lives and souls of the faithful. With depth, wit, and intelligence, as well as his sincere sense of a continued spiritual journey, Lewis brings us closer to understanding the role of prayer in our lives and the ways in which we might better imagine our relationship with God.

"A beautifully executed and deeply moving little book." —Saturday Review

"[Lewis] is writing about a path that he had to find, and the reader feels not so much that he is listening to what C.S. Lewis has to say but that he is making his own search with a humorous, sensible friend beside him." —Times Literary Supplement

(retrieved from Amazon Thu, 14 Feb 2013 13:36:08 -0500)

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