Praying Dangerously: Radical Reliance on God

By Regina Sara Ryan

Book Overview

Readers of the first edition (published in 2001) were enthusiastic in their praise, calling it a brave and useful book. Prayer groups and church congregations in around the U.S. have used it for study, and it has been translated into Dutch, German and French.
The message of the book is more relevant now than it was 10 years ago. The world has changed radically since 2001. As more people worldwide candidly admit to their reliance on prayer, the number of books on the subject has dramatically increased each year. War, economic instability, environmental and weather-related disasters----many factors draw us inward or back to our churches. In prayer groups and retreats of all kinds we are looking for comfort and consolation, for spiritual direction, or for answers to the eternal questions that have always challenged humanity.
Praying Dangerously instructs us that we can grow up spiritually, leaving behind a childish relationship to prayer as a superstitious ritual or mere plea for favors. It encourages readers to recognize the difference between prayer that asks only for reassurance, and prayer that asks for God and stands for transformation. The author invites us to assume greater responsibility for our inner lives by choosing the "not-knowing," the insecurity, the difficult circumstances as potential blessings and means of purification and inspiration. We can cease being "victims" of God's Will, while at the same time embracing genuine surrender and reliance on the irrefutable power of love.
This 10th anniversary edition is fully revised, with several completely new chapters including: "The High Cost of Forgiveness"----a subject that challenges everyone, and "Praying on the Subway," about how our travels and other activities in public places can provide us with a constant impetus for blessing others.
Praying Dangerously draws from many sources and many traditions, from the Orthodox Christian classic The Philokalia, to the writings of ancient Sufi saints Rabi'a, Rumi and Abil-Kheir to contemporary treatments of prayer by Thomas Merton, Thomas Keating and others. Topics include: the prayer of transformation; building a life of prayer; lessons in prayer from people who prayed "dangerously," and the use of prayer-writing as a means of building and nourishing the inner life. This dynamic approach expands the possibilities of prayer, invites a renewal of the inner life, and inspires us to abandon superficial, safe notions of prayer in favor of the Real.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1935387200
• ISBN13: 9781935387206
• Release Date: June 2011
• Publisher: Hohm Press
• Length: 276 Pages
• Weight: 0.84 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.6" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

Joe

this is a great book - well written and to the point - I would recommend this book to one who is ready to take their spiritual life seriously -

This book can change your life

I am not kidding - for me, it is one of the most relevant books I have encountered in ages. I am so glad I found it. Every word rings true, and every sentence opens a door.

Praying to Live

Regina Sara Ryan's book Praying Dangerously calls to my heart. Ryan, a former Roman Catholic nun and modern mystic, encourages me to open myself to what she calls "transformational prayer." In calling me to "pray dangerously," this book invites me to consider the possibility that God's will is nothing more--nor less--than life as it is, embraced fully and passionately. Ryan establishes this context in a poem that opens the book: "Let us say Yes, again and again and again./and Yes some more./Let us pray dangerously,/the most dangerous prayer is Yes." That great Yes, said "again and again and again," has the power to crumble all the edifices we have carefully and painstakingly constructed to keep life out. In praying dangerously, Ryan says, we "dare to pray our real heart's desire . . . we dare to ask for something we are totally unprepared to receive, because somewhere in our hearts we know that this is what we were created for." This book has lifesaving potential in the truest sense of the word, and I highly recommend it.

Maturing into Prayer

"Praying Dangerously" is not for the casual practitioner who seeks solace in God's benevolence. The consideration of prayer that author Regina Sara Ryan puts forth will challenge all of your preconceptions. She rips away the covers that keep us like small children. What her book demands is a radical recognition that we are not in control. She invites us to pray dangerously, not for what we want, but for what God's will asks of us. "Praying Dangerously" cites unusual yet noted sources such as the Russian mystic G.I. Gurdjieff whose principles of work on self have influenced many great spiritual traditions. She also cites the examples of Philip and Daniel Berrigan in their willingness to put their prayer into action. This book is not for the faint-hearted. It is dangerous to read, and for that reason, all the more appealing.

Compelling, thoughtful, occasionally iconoclastic

In Praying Dangerously: Radical Reliance On God, Regina Ryan draws upon her more than twenty-five years of studies in contemplation and mysticism as practiced in the religious traditions and lives of great women from Hinduism, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, and Sapphism in order to reveal an age-old and universal tradition of prayer as an expression of a radical and total reliance on God in the face of a secular world that can range from the seemingly indifferent to the actively hostile. Included are "dangerous prayers" from Jesus, Simone Weil (a French philosopher and mystic), the Sufi Saint Rabi'a, Tibetan teacher Chagdud Tulku, and others. Praying Dangerously is compelling, thoughtful, occasionally iconoclastic, and highly recommended for serious students of religion and spirituality.