Book Review: Praying with Body and Soul
reviewed by Maxine Clarke Beach
Praying with Body and Soul: A Way to Intimacy with God by Jane E. Vennard (Augsburg, 1998), is a very useful introduction to a wide variety of ways that we might encounter God through prayer exercises and suggestions. Dr. Vennard encourages deliberate attempts at getting beyond our "word and head" self into more lively, spontaneous actions. It is a very personal book with an incarnational theology of prayer. The author, a United Church of Christ pastor, teaches
spirituality at the Iliff School of Theology in Denver; she also leads workshops and retreats and serves as a spiritual director. We get to know her by sharing her own journey and the journey of those around her. We come away from the book confident that we have been with one who cares about her own and our relationship with God.
Although the book may be read for individual use, it would seem to be most useful with a prayer partner or with a small group of people who covenant to read the book together and to hold one another accountable as they try out the various forms of prayer described.
According to the introduction, "The purpose of the suggestions and descriptions is not so much to teach you to pray as to help you recognize the many and varied ways you are already praying." Often our prayer theology has been formed in rather limited ways, and the varieties of options offered here allow for experimenting and for finding the prayers already present in the ordinary moments of our life.
We are called to acknowledge that we yearn for God within a body and not just with our words and thoughts. This ability to see our bodies and their wisdom as our teacher will guide us to a more positive understanding of self. The chapter on "praying when our bodies betray" calls us to deal with the burden of our body and may open old wounds as the trauma of past experiences and thoughts surface.
Chapters on prayer through our humor, play, and laughter and the creative use of imagination challenge us to the lighter side of our knowledge of God. This call to merriment will not be easy for all.
An essential read is her work on sexuality, sensuality, and spirituality. As we in the church struggle with a seeming inability to move to a holy understanding of our sexuality, we can profit from the integration that Dr. Vennard gives to the discussion of sensuality and sexuality in relation to our knowing God. To pay attention to our senses and to see them as an integral part of our relationship to God is necessary if we are to move to healthier understandings of our sexuality.
Throughout the book, she calls on the ancient and not so ancient stories to ground her work. This interweaving of biblical narrative and contemporary experiences is an effective way to allow us to enter into her vision of wholeness. This wholeness results in action prayers that become acts of kindness and mercy and place us in situations that need justice and reconciliation.
The activities for reflection and discussion at the end of each chapter (particularly useful in a small group) are creative and practical: drawing, walking meditation, fasting, making music, dancing, praying in sickness and disability. We may need a system of accountability to stay focused on activity that changes how we understand prayer and know God.
Although Dr. Vennard is obviously talking to mature adult Christians, one wonders if we should carry some of this understanding to our work with children and youth. If we grew up with the knowledge that our whole being is our prayer, we might be better at it as adults.
Note: See 7 sample pages online at www.amazon.com.
Maxine Beach is the vice president and dean of Drew Theological School, Drew University, Madison, NJ, the first woman to lead the seminary as both dean and vice president. Previously she was Associate General Secretary of the General Council on Ministries of The United Methodist Church, Dayton, Ohio.