At the Still Point

A Literary Guide to Prayer in Ordinary Time

“What a delight to find so extraordinary a collection meant for use in ordinary time! Any book that includes passages from The Wind in the Willows and Moby Dick, as well as poems by George Herbert and Christina Rossetti, is all right with me. Especially because each of the works chosen is meant to awaken me to the movement of the spirit in daily life.” —Kathleen Norris, author of Dakota and Cloister Walk With a title inspired by T. S. Eliot, this “literary” prayer book is for every Christian who has ever felt led to pray while reading a novel or a poem. These great writers know the things of God but speak in metaphor. They tell the truth, as Emily Dickinson put it, but they “tell it slant.” In not stating out loud what they know, they have left much to our imaginations—which is a way of saying they have trusted the Holy Spirit. Let those who have ears, hear. “Sarah Arthur's anthology of liturgically arranged devotional, literary readings is a creme-de-la-crème book. The passages lovingly collected and arranged are the best available. There is something here for every reader. This book is both a literary treasure store and a devotional feast.” — Leland Ryken, professor of English, Wheaton College; author of Windows to the World: Literature in Christian Perspective and many other books