Customer Reviews

Weave a Garment of Brightness

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Wayne Lee Jones is a fine categorist. The book,in three parts, is composed of, Prayers - Of Petition, Of Praise, Of Thanksgiving. The work falls into these divisions well, and is highly inclusive of Christian, Jewish, and Moslem prayers/poems of varied denominations. Also included, are a number of wise words from Native and African elders. Langston Hughes, Carl Sanburg, and e.e. cummings, are presented alongside Tagore, Hafiz, Dinkar, Namdev, and a poem by painter Marc Chagall. "Psalm 23 For Busy People" by Toki Miyashina is slightly humorous without disrespectfulness. Parts of Syrian Clementine Liturgy, Mozarabic Sacrementary, a prayer by Dr. Albert Schwitzer, and a prayer written by Lady Jane Grey prior to her execution, are so rarely anthologized in the same volume! Jones loses a star for: including Alex Carmichael and Black Elk who are over-anthologized in my opinion, and for not including backgrounds on the authors. His own writings are fair, but can't hold a candle to those works he has selected. HIGHLY SUGGESTED, with one warning: if you aren't already settled into your own faith system, this won't help you. It is for spiritually settled people who are interested in understanding the spiritual expressions of equally settled individuals in different faith systems and historic periods. There is no running commentary to give context, but all said, one rarely finds such a qualitative volume for this price -- and with such well-met intentions.