A prayer, a plea, a bird
Julie Perrin
The title of Julie Perrin’s new book catches perfectly its style and its content. The words are as few as needed, and each of them is evocative. It contains many fine and chiselled prayers for all seasons and predicaments. They touch the heart and sit easily on the tongue and ear. The words are modest and direct. I was particularly taken by this prayer during Coronavirus that names unflinchingly the experience and yet moves into an image that can awaken hope.
God of Shadows.
Give shelter to hollow, shaken humans
bewildered by sudden closure.
Sturdy structures shattered, hopeful trade ended,
meaningful work gone.
In the shocking silence when nothing can be said
let birdsong be heard.
Each prayer is a plea, of course, but the whole book itself pleads to the reader to attend to the depths of experience and to the richness of the simplest of human meetings and of the world around us. It draws out the relationships between oneself and other persons and things. And the book is a bird: it takes wing and the reader with it into a world of spirit. Many spiritual books fail in this respect – though wise and perhaps authoritative they remained confined in words that have become stale. They don’t soar and play in the air. Julie Perrin offers new words and images, new stories to tell about ourselves and others.
This little book will be invaluable for personal prayer and for prayer services.
MediaCom Education
ISBN: 9781925722383
This review first appeared in the Autumn 2021 edition of Madonna magazine.