Praying for Others: Powerful Practices for Healing, Peace, and New Beginnings [Paperback]

Birrell Walsh (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2003

To help guide people in their prayer lives, Walsh brings together the practices of many religious traditions, including the wisdom of Buddhism's "keeping company," shamanism's traveling to other worlds to retrieve healing power for others, and the Chassidim's tradition of using "Kabbalah" to heal the world.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Praying for others is something all people do. Whether you are a devout believer, an atheist, an agnostic, or somewhere in-between, at some point in your life you've prayed for another person, probably without even thinking about it. You may have used the formal "intercessory" prayers heard in churches, temples, mosques, and synagogues, or had a spontaneous moment hoping for someone in need to find health, spiritual comfort, or blessing. Praying for Others guides us through many dynamic prayerful ways we can help a friend, husband, child, business associate, or anyone else in need of support. Birrell Walsh draws us into the wisdom of prayer by showing us such diverse practices as energy work (practiced by Jesus), keeping company from far away, entering into unity with God, looking for guidance, learning from hard times and failure, and bringing joy. Dr. Walsh 's compelling and insightful narrative inspires us, while it leads us into and teaches us about these spiritual practices. Finally, a book on intercessory prayer for everyone, no matter what our religious tradition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: The Crossroad Publishing Company (July 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0824519493
• ISBN-13: 978-0824519490
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,123,515 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The author says, June 14, 2003

By 

Birrell Walsh (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Praying for Others: Powerful Practices for Healing, Peace, and New Beginnings (Paperback)

Hello, I'm the author of *Praying for Others.* It is a how-to book, written to help people find a form of intercessory prayer that matches their own temperament.

This book comes from the experience of people who pray for others and who told me how they do it -- a Franciscan nun, a Hasidic rabbi, an energy healer, a Southern Baptist minister in Tennessee, a Buddhist teacher, a Mexican shaman, a Christian Science nurse and others -- as well as from scriptures and the writings of the pray-ers of the past.

Most traditions have somewhere in their history used many different forms of intercession. It is possible to learn about a form of prayer from outside one's community and then to discover that same practice (dusty and half-forgotten) within one's own heritage.

Healing by the flow of energy, for instance, is common in New Age and Spiritualist practices. Many Christians might be surprised to recall that Jesus also spoke of it, and that the fact is recorded in three Gospels (most fully at Luke 8:43). Similarly, prayer for others by carrying their concerns into "Emptiness" sounds (and is) Buddhist, but it is recorded as well in Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Intercessory prayer can also be based on finding the spiritual pattern, singing, the sacrifice of suffering and merit and delight, joining with others, "disappearing into the Divine," and many other methods.

The book is conversational and full of stories, but there are eleven pages of end-notes and six pages of bibliography for those who want more information.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Potluck of Prayer and Healing, August 25, 2003

By 

Deborah Klingbeil (Franksville Wisconsin USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Praying for Others: Powerful Practices for Healing, Peace, and New Beginnings (Paperback)

Birrel Walsh hits it right on the money when he begins his book by stating that, "Vocations are funny things." He then describes the vocation, or sense of purpose, which came to him in the "red-rock country of western Utah" and resulted in the writing of this book.

Books written because of a vocation are different than books written for fame, money or recognition. They have a certain flavor to them that is as authentic as country cooking. Walsh uses many cooking analogies and says of his book "It is a potluck on purpose because it is at potlucks that you learn new recipes to try in your own home".

The book is based on interviews with healers from many religious traditions, healers willing to share their recipes for prayer.

"You don't have to like them all or even to try them all any more than you need to cook everything in 'Joy of Cooking'. May you find a blessing here that matches your temperament."

My own vocation is more of a love story. My relationship to the holy One and to the religious tradition which defines my life has been stormy like most love affairs. It has also offered me an intensity of joy and enduring purpose which cannot help but be a little isolating.

To mix metaphors Walsh's book also reminds me of the intergalactic tavern in an early Star Wars movie where creatures from many worlds could come to relax before going back to fight their wars. It's a place where I have met some people from other religious worlds. It's a place I can relax.

This book is only indirectly about being in love with the holy, or about vocations. It's only indirectly about adoration, praise and contemplation. Instead it is what it says it is, a book about praying for others. To pray for others (which is not much different than loving others) you must know a little about them. It helps to sit at the bar and listen to the stories around you. This book helps you do that.

Love is willing to give up its own spiritual blessings if by doing so it can help others. In this book you will read about that kind of love specifically manifested in different forms, traditions, prayers, stories, and people.

I had only one criticism and its one I know the author would understand.

Walsh (who was raised a Catholic) attributes the following quote to the Catholic Mass, which is where he would have heard it frequently while growing up.

"Lord, I am not worthy that Thou shouldst enter under my roof. Say but the word, and my soul shall be healed."

A liturgist did not author these words. They are the spontaneous cry of a real live dad seeking a blessing for his family, with all the anguish, self doubt and emotional pain of any parent in a crisis. The words are a quote from a Bible story, and the man who first said them got the help that he needed. The minor mistake in crediting the source is the sort of mistake I might have made myself for I often attribute things to my own religious tradition not realizing that they have a wider origin.

Walsh understands the tendency. He reminds us that what we believe belongs exclusively to a particular tradition might not. He suggests, "If you find yourself attached to a practice that seems to come from another tradition, please examine the history of your own faith. You are likely to find that there were once people in your own history who prayed in very much this way. This is a book about those other varieties of blessing, to add to what you already have."

The book is filled with unusual quotes, prayers, blessings, and true experiences. It's a convivial book, with an aroma of community and fellowship. The book is like the pies at the potluck picnic of a country church. You may not be used to every flavor you taste, and you may have your own personal favorite blue ribbon prayer style, but you won't be able to resist sampling a little of everything anyway.

When you're finished reading you'll know that this book really is like the homemade pies at rural church potlucks. Its filled with explanations that you can't find easily in a fast-food world. You've stumbled onto the real thing. Once you've tasted that who knows? You might even want to learn how to make pie. And better yet, to share your new prayer skills by blessing and praying for others.

Note: The book has created it's own online "potluck" community

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars At Long Last, June 23, 2003

By 

Julie Henderson (Napa, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Praying for Others: Powerful Practices for Healing, Peace, and New Beginnings (Paperback)

If I had had the good fortune to come across Birrell Walsh's book, Praying for Others, in my 20's--or 30's or 40's or 50's--I would have gobbled it up and wolfed it down in a day, then gone through it again slowly, savoring the stories and examples, trying out the exercises from various traditions. (As it was, I wolfed it down on a long plane ride and have been nibbling ever since.) This book has marvelous qualities: it is fun and easy to read--whips by like a superior summer novel; at the same time, it is rich with example and detail--a well-planned, delicious--and digestible!--meal of fascinating background information and practical tools. If you have any interest in being of help to those you love, as well as to broader situations that touch us all, this book can give wings to that wish.