Comments for page "Christian Prayer Beads"

Rosaries

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 16:49:35 +0000

I just sent you an email with some questions. Did you receive it?

Re: An intelligent writing on prayer beads

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 07:43:36 +0000

Suzanne, thank you for your kind and encouraging words. Please feel free to print the booklet and use it in any way you find helpful.

You might also enjoy Basil Pennington's book on the Rosary entitled Praying by Hand. It's out of print now and a little hard to track down, but is a good resource on that particular tradition.

I have more or less shelved this particular project while in India, although India probably uses more prayer beads than the rest of the world combined. And I did buy a nice (very large) rosary made out of rudraksha, as I found it interesting interreligious artifact.

But perhaps it would be something worth revisiting when I return to the US.

An intelligent writing on prayer beads

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 05:05:56 +0000

Nathaniel - I've only read through your booklet briefly but I'll be reading it again much more thoroughly. My professional interest, jewelry, led me over the past year to a personal interest in the prayer beads of various traditions, because they are so like jewelry but are for such a different purpose than simple personal adornment. I was really pleased to come across your booklet this evening. It fills in many of the gaps in my understanding of Christian prayer beads. Your treatment of the different Christian traditions with balance and fairness is quite striking, as in your introduction to the Rosary - Christians all too often polarize over the points that you discuss.

By the way, your good writing and overall presentation of the material was the icing. I'm trained as a technical writer and editor, and my former work was in science and engineering documentation - manuals. It's a way of thinking I'll never get away from. I can't tell you how cool it was for me to find a topic I'm so interested in laid out in a format like this. Your respect and love for the topic really show.

May I print out the booklet to share with my mom? She and I were talking about this subject the other day when we were looking at a family heirloom rosary, and since she's nondenominational she felt she was missing a lot of the meaning.