Dangerous Prayer: Being Vulnerable to God

Dangerous Prayer by William O'Malley, sjWilliam O'Malley has taught religion to high school boys (Fordham Prep in New York City) for years and it shows: he speaks to get your attention and he keeps the message short and sweet. The introduction to this book is wonderfully entertaining all by itself, dusting away the cobwebs of what many of us learned about prayer, and it helps us re-orient ourselves if need be. And then Fr. O'Malley gets serious describing a wide variety of ways to pray, each explanation followed by an exercise, where one tries this particular approach to prayer on for size.Unfortunately, when I read this book, being a good girl, I did exactly what I was told to do, and so I felt that I had to actually do each exercise before I went on to the next section. I almost never finished. For many people it would probably be better to read the book completely through, without stopping to "do" . Mark somehow those prayer-forms which look promising and then to go back and practice those sections. ( If you are borrowing this book from the parish library, just xerox or take notes on the section you are interested in.) A prayer exercise which I found personally fruitful was to physically put a chair in front of one, and to visualize Jesus sitting there. Talk to him. Listen. What might he say to you? It took me a couple of days to get comfortable with visualizing Jesus, knowing that this was "just" my imagination and trusting that imagination is a part of our prayer life. Talking to him? No problem. Listening? How do I know what I am hearing? Fr. O'Malley guides one through these difficult questions. Some of the prayer exercises bored me; some were exciting. There certainly was something for everyone. What a teacher! What a topic! This is a man who believes that prayer is a real force and power in our world. Dangerous, indeed!