“Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words.” Romans 8:26 As we draw closer to ...

When I was younger, a nun told me that if I only prayed when I was in trouble, then I was indeed in trouble. That maxim was filed away and revived when I began reading Learning to Pray: A Guide for ...

Buried deep in the Norton Anthology, George Herbert’s little poem with the unpretentious title “Prayer” is easy to miss. Decorously contained on a half-page with regular rhyme and punctuation, it ...

Leave it to Woody Allen to give course descriptions the pasting they often deserve. Thus, “Economic Theory” turns out to be a “systematic application and critical evaluation of the basic analytic ...

Five years ago, Toni Morrison, the late Nobel laureate and prodigious novelist, wrote a short article for The Nation magazine on the occasion of the publication's 150th anniversary. The piece, titled ...

Volumes have been written about prayer and praying, but I didn’t learn to pray by reading what others have written about prayer. My parents taught me to “talk to God” before I learned to read. Even ...

“I prayed for 20 years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs,” said slave turned abolitionist statesman Frederick Douglass. His words give a sweet reminder of the dangers of believing in ...

Great figures from church history have much to teach about talking with God. Gary Neal Hansen used to think he had a peculiar prayer life, because his prayers were unlike those of people around him.

Imagine you love the sport of tennis. You watch every match you can on TV. You subscribe to Tennis magazine. You buy instructional videos and read biographies of famous players. Then one day you pick ...

I have always prayed at night. I always felt like God could hear me the best just before bed, in the stillness before falling asleep. When I was younger it was formulaic prayers (as many as possible, ...