Doug Pagitt - BodyPrayer: The Posture of Intimacy with God

We are called not only to pray without ceasing but also to pray with our whole selves. BodyPrayer is a gentle guide to doing just that. Simultaneously subversive and traditional, the logic of BodyPrayer is holistic, anti-gnostic, and potentially transformative.

L AUREN F. W INNER , author of Girl Meets God and Mudhouse Sabbath

By sharing the rich prayer life of his Minneapolis church with the world, Doug Pagitt reflects a whole new way of looking at churchless in terms of what is your mission statement or statement of faith and more what are your practices and embodied rituals that are uniquely yours? BodyPrayer is one of the first books to appreciate that embodied mediation is a key process by which theology is communicated and lived.

L EONARD S WEET , author of Out of the Question Into the Mystery and the trilogy AquaChurch, SoulTsunami, and SoulSalsa

You cant get any more biblical than this! God created us to worship him with our bodies. Because of the Fall, God became incarnate to restore our worship of him. Because of a body that suffered on the cross and a body that rose from the grave, God redeems us to worship himnot in some disembodied soul but in, with, and through our bodies. BodyPrayer makes it real.

R OBERT W EBBER , Myers Professor of Ministry at Northern Seminary and author of The Younger Evangelicals

This small guide to physical prayer is huge in its message. Doug Pagitt and Kathryn Prill return the body to its original place in, and importance to, Christian worship. We should all be grateful.

P HYLLIS T ICKLE , compiler of The Divine Hours

B ODY P RAYER
P UBLISHED BY W ATER B ROOK P RESS
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Scripture quotations marked ( TNIV ) are taken from the Holy Bible, Todays New International Version TNIV. Copyright 2001, 2005 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of International Bible Society. All rights reserved worldwide. TNIV and Todays New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by International Bible Society. Scripture quotations marked ( MSG ) are taken from The Message. Copyright 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.

eISBN: 978-0-307-49999-8

Copyright 2005 by Doug Pagitt
Illustrations 2005 by Colleen Shealer Olson
Poetry 2005 by Kathryn Prill

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

W ATER B ROOK and its deer design logo are registered trademarks of WaterBrook Press, a division of Random House Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Pagitt, Doug, 1966
BodyPrayer : the posture of intimacy with God / Doug Pagitt and Kathryn Prill; illustrations by Colleen Shealer Olson. 1st ed.
p. cm.
1. PrayerChristianity. 2. Body, HumanReligious aspectsChristianity. I. Prill, Kathryn. II. Title.
BV227,P34 2005
248.46dc22

2005015528

v3.1

K ATHRYN S A CKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thank you, Doug, Colleen, Don Pape, and Ron Lee at WaterBrook Press for this opportunity.

Wonderful encouragement and inspiration have come specifically from Colleen, Jenny Jo, Eric, Tom, Melissa, Carla, Jenell, Rachel, Katie, readers of my blog, and my nephew Zachary. I am grateful to the community of Solomons Porch for willingly and literally being contorted in prayer for over a year.

Gracias a Cory para los desayunos, para el caf libre, y para las oraciones.

Sheraton, for all thats passed and all that will be.

In the simple and in the inexplicable, our Lord really is the Lord who reigns.

D OUG S A CKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am ever grateful to the people who lead me, love me, and pray for me. First, my family: Shelley, Michon, Taylor, Ruben, and Chico, you are the most important people in my life, and I am grateful for the time you allowed me to have my head in my computer as we worked on this book.

To the people of Solomons Porch, who are the most creative and faithful people I have known, I love you all.

Thank you also to the wonderful people at WaterBrook Press for seeing the value of new ways to pray. Thank you, Ron, for your wisdom and input in helping my words make sense.

C OLLEEN S A CKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thank you to my wonderful, supportive families: the Shealers, the Roberts, and the Olsons.

To my models, Maureen and Joy, for your patience and flexibility. To Stewart Luckman, for an ideal I will never obtain but will always seek. To my husband, Thomas Malcolm Olson, my gentle and true companion.