Book: When Prayer Doesn't Work

Source: Wild Goose Publications

A new book asks what prayer really is, and finds answers in unexpected places.

In an age of spiritual fatigue and unmet expectations, Margaret Somerville's new book, When Prayer Doesn't Work: Reimagining our understanding and expectations of prayer (Wild Goose Publications), offers an honest and refreshing reframing of prayer, not as performance or formula, but as presence woven through daily life.

With a deeply personal and interfaith approach, Somerville explores how prayer can transcend words, formulas and traditions to become a grounding force of connection, presence and peace in our lives.

With wisdom rooted in her Celtic Christian heritage, Somerville draws on a lifetime of pilgrimage to the Isle of Iona and her engagement with Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim and Jewish traditions.

Through stories as simple as her granny lighting the morning fire or the contemplative kneading of bread, she shows how holiness is present in the simplest gestures of everyday living. Her book is a call to embrace the holiness of every moment and the voices of all who cry out in pain, isolation and invisibility.

Readers are guided along six pathways - Sacred Space, Release, Naming, Wilderness, Nourishment and Peace - that invite us beyond disappointment and unanswered petitions into deeper communion with ourselves, one another and the divine. Together they act as an invitation to rethink, reframe and reimagine our understanding of prayer.

This isn't a book of quick fixes or formulas. Instead, it offers a way of seeing prayer as nourishment rather than disappointment, as a practice that embraces silence, struggle and surprise. Both memoir and spiritual guide, the book speaks to seekers who are weary of rigid traditions, or a perceived silence from heaven, and to anyone who longs for prayer that feels real, rooted and renewing.

- Arun Wakhlu, Executive Director, Foundation for Peace and Compassionate Leadership said: 'A deeply moving, paradigm-shifting guide for our times.'

- Belden Lane, author of The Great Conversation: Nature and the Care of the Soul: 'At last - an honest book about prayer.'

Heidi Barr, author of Collisions of Earth and Sky: 'An essential companion on the journey created by allowing the holy to rise from the ordinary.'

LINK

Wild Goose Publications: www.ionabooks.com/

*Note to readers: When Prayer Doesn't Work should be available by the end of this week.