Tuesday Prayer: 11

I continue my 'Tuesday Prayer' series on this blog with a very contextual and relevant quote from C.S.Lewis. I spent yesterday, and will spend today, in Oxford, at the Society for the Study of Theology's Postgraduate conference, the topic being 'Bodies: Bridges and Boundaries'. I am presenting a paper on Thiselton and the Imago Dei, in discussion with 1 Corinthians 6:12-20, but am looking forward to a presentation on C.S.Lewis' mythic fiction and embodied theological discourse.

Now the prime way, perhaps the only realy way, of doing theology, is prayer. Of prayer, and the involvement of the whole self/body, Lewis writes this:

“When one prays in strange places and at strange times one can’t kneel, to be sure. I won’t say this doesn’t matter. The body ought to pray as well as the soul. Body and soul are both the better for it. Bless the body. Mine has led me into many scrapes, but I’ve led it into far more... And but for our body one whole realm of God’s glory - all that we receive through the senses - would go unpraised”

I love this quote. I think it is fascinating, as it reveals both Lewis' personal preference to kneel, but suggests too that there is more to prayer than mere intellect. I am challenged to orient the whole of myself to prayer - but perhaps for some of us it is a challenge to focus wholly on God in prayer: close our eyes, put down the iPad, focus away from revision. But what do you think?

___________________

Don't forget to check out the previous posts in the series, featuring quotes from Tom Wright, John Wimber, Richard Foster and Don Carson, the great J. C. Ryle and theologians Alister McGrath and James K. A. Smith. Since then, I've shared quotes from Justin Welby, E.M. Bounds, and last week Vineyard Pastor Ken Wilson.