Buechner on “Meager Prayer”

Do you ever worry about your prayer life? Actually, let me phrase that another way. When on those occasional moments that you think about your prayer life, do you feel like it’s inadequate?

If so, then you’re in the same boat that I am. And, as it turns out, with Frederick Buechner as well. I take some comfort in that, as Buechner is one of my favorite authors and theologians. (His book Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale is one of my favorite reads of all time, any genre, and absolutely my favorite book on preaching.) And so to hear him describe his prayers as scattered and as mumbles and to confess his own sense of the meagerness of his prayer life was incredibly heartening.

I won’t say more, but simply invite you to watch the two-minute clip on prayer from a longer interview. (You can find more such clips and other information and resources from Buechner at the Frederick Buechner Center.) As I’ve said before, you don’t have to understand prayer to do it, and it turns out that you don’t have to feel like you’re doing it especially well to profit from it. In any event, I hope Buechner’s words encourage you as much as they did me.

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