A Shorter Progressive Book of Prayer

Engaged.

We are nothing, if not engaged. We organize, we march, we speak, we occupy, we resist. Our days and nights, our thoughts and breaths, are filled with the stuff of engagement with each other, with our world, with a dire political, social, and cultural climate that threatens us all. Yes, we engage. We engage mightily, deeply, with every conviction of our heart. Our circumstance so demands. How can we do otherwise?

Prayer is engagement.

Prayer is surrender. Prayer is giving of self to God, to Creation, to the fullest reality of the complete and overwhelming Presence that can never truly be denied.

This book of liturgical prayer, a "shorter" version of A Progressive Book of Prayer, is for all of us. Unlike the Anglicans' Common Book of Prayer or the Roman Catholics' Liturgy of the Hours, there are no formal rules to which you must bend. You are free to use this book in any way that aids in your spiritual or secular or activist journey. This book is not only gender-inclusive, but inclusive of everyone standing for the Common Good. If you are out on the streets, fighting the good fight, if you are on the phone or on the Internet spreading the word about the dignity of all persons, if you know in your heart that discrimination and oppression are evil, that inclusion and respect are holy, this book is for you.

Though using format and terminology familiar to Christians, this is a book for all believers. If you like what you've read so far, if you have faith in a Higher Power, you will probably be able to extract much of value to you, your friends, and your cause from the pages of this prayer book, though some of this may be a tough slog for non-Christians. But again, there are no rules. If this or that part of the prayer is not useful to your journey, you are free to substitute your own way of praying. Plenty of empty space has been given throughout the text, allowing you to scrawl any bits and pieces of inspiration and prayer you find conducive to your journey.

We live in a time and place trying to the soul, posing greater challenge to the dignity of the human person than anything we have experienced since the Second World War. Great evil took possession of this continent on January 20, 2017. We are mobilizing, marching, assembling, and speaking out as we have not done since the waning days of the Vietnam War in the early 1970s. There will be pain. There will be disappointment. There will be exhaustion. But in the end, good will triumph over evil. Our God will prevail.

We shall overcome.

We invite you to engage every aspect of your being, including every faculty of body, mind, and spirit that may find nourishment, surrender, and perfect engagement in Creation, which is embrace and celebration of the Presence no one can deny, of the Love no one can escape, which is found in prayerful communion with our God.

One Week Psalter

56 Hymns, 4 written by the editor, Pearson Moore

148 pages of readings for the Office of Readings

95 Illustrations, including 4 pencil portraits by Pearson Moore

568 pages of prayers, hymns, illustrations, and instructions

Morning Prayer: 8 days

Evening Prayer: 8 days

Daytime Prayer: 7 days

Night Prayer: 7 days

Office of Readings: 3 days

Office for the Dead: Office of Readings, Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer