Praying with Our Hands: 21 Practices of Embodied Prayer from the World's Spiritual Traditions
A spiritual guidebook for bringing prayer into our bodies
The power of words is nowhere more evident than when we use them to pray, but prayer is also the place where we most often come up against the limitations of words. In this intriguing book of reflections and accompanying photographs, we see how our bodies, in particular our hands, can give meaning to our prayers in a way that words alone cannot.
Here are twenty-one simple ways of using our hands to speak to God, presented in word and image. These spiritual practices are from a broad range of religious traditions—from Anglican to Sufi, from Buddhist to Shaker. Some may be familiar, some new; all demonstrate the universal importance people of all faith traditions have given to embodied prayer. They teach us to experience the unique spiritual enrichment that can be found when we pray with our hands.
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Book details
- Author
- Jon Sweeney
- Imprint
- SkyLight Paths, an imprint of Turner Publishing Company
- Published
- Formats
- Paperback
- Subjects
- Religion › Prayer
- Topics
- embodied spirituality · hand gestures · spiritual practices · world religions · contemplative traditions · interfaith
- ISBN-13
- 9781893361164
About the author
JON M. SWEENEY is an independent scholar and the author of more than forty books on spirituality, religious history, and theology. His recent books include The Pope Who Quit and works on St. Francis of Assisi.
Sweeney co-founded SkyLight Paths Publishing in Vermont in 1999, serving as associate publisher and editor-in-chief, before moving to Paraclete Press and later becoming editorial director at Franciscan Media Books. He is currently religion editor and associate publisher at Monkfish Publishing and edits Living City magazine.
When he’s not writing, Sweeney works as an editor and publisher across multiple religious and spiritual imprints. The Pope Who Quit was optioned by HBO, and his books have been translated into many languages.
Jon lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.