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Article: The common word: Recovering liturgical speech.(prayer)
- Article from:
- CrossCurrents - The Journal of Addiction and Mental Health
- Article date:
- June 22, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 Association for Religion and Intellectual Life. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The Unbearable Lightness of Praying
Not many people today would be willing to accord liturgical writing the status even of a minor art form. For art's sake that would not matter--art will survive either way--but for prayer's sake it does matter, because so many levels of prayer are now inaccessible in English. There is something quixotic and risible in walking into a present-day religious service in search of profound language; one is made to feel out of place, ridiculously demanding, as if everyone knows that liturgy is mere propaganda to comfort the simple and keep children in the tradition. Nothing is really wrong with liturgy geared toward a child's ...