During a recent trip to see my father, I perused (who uses that word!) his bookshelf and found Robert Wicks’ Riding the Dragon: 10 Lessons for Inner Strength in Challenging TImes. The book made its way back home with me to PA and I’ve been reading this little gem over the past few weeks.
A bit of backstory. I’ve been a fan of Dr. Wicks’ spiritual books for many years. When I was writing The Five Habits of Prayerful People, I brainstormed a way to incentivize pre-orders. I thought it would be neat to offer an interview with Dr. Wicks about prayer.
After a cold-call email to him, he agreed to the interview. As an author of over 50 books, he had no “reason” to grant me this request. After all, he knew that I was using the interview as a way to motivate people to buy my book. I’ve never forgotten that act of generosity towards me, a new author.
Bottom line: I’m a fan of Dr. Wicks’ approach to prayer and spiritual growth.
Riding the Dragon is wonderfully easy to read. I would offer this to someone searching, to someone who finds organized religion hard and to someone who has a reflective side of themselves. In other words, it’s a book for a lot of different types of readers.
One chapter deals with the difference between worry and concern. Christ is quite clear, worry is prohibited. It’s dangerous to our soul and strips us of peace.
The counterpunch, according to Dr. Wicks is concern. “Simple concern is quite powerful because it involves us in the problems of life without allowing us to get trapped by them. A little concern goes a long way. A lot of worry takes us nowhere.”
Prayer expands this ability to bring our concerns to the Lord, producing inner strength more consistently in our day. A prompt that I often use at the start of my prayer is this, “how am I feeling?”
This inventory of feelings is very powerful. It immediately brings some relief, a whole-body sort of exhale. Additionally, and this is where even more value is, it reveals our vulnerability before the Lord. As Merton says, sincerity is the key when it comes to prayer. And, it seems to make sense, sincerity is closely related to vulnerable self-awareness.
As Catholics, we build a lot of religious thick skin over the years. This is unfortunately not the spiritual grit that Dr. Wicks writes about. Rather, it can descend into a religiosity that only shows God the “good” sides of ourselves.
Vulnerability and sincerity rely on our honesty before God. This approach brings concern rather than worry and produces inner strength and freedom.
In your next time of prayer, how can you be more vulnerable and bring your concerns before the Lord?
-Mike
A bit of backstory. I’ve been a fan of Dr. Wicks’ spiritual books for many years. When I was writing The Five Habits of Prayerful People, I brainstormed a way to incentivize pre-orders. I thought it would be neat to offer an interview with Dr. Wicks about prayer.
After a cold-call email to him, he agreed to the interview. As an author of over 50 books, he had no “reason” to grant me this request. After all, he knew that I was using the interview as a way to motivate people to buy my book. I’ve never forgotten that act of generosity towards me, a new author.
Bottom line: I’m a fan of Dr. Wicks’ approach to prayer and spiritual growth.
Riding the Dragon is wonderfully easy to read. I would offer this to someone searching, to someone who finds organized religion hard and to someone who has a reflective side of themselves. In other words, it’s a book for a lot of different types of readers.
One chapter deals with the difference between worry and concern. Christ is quite clear, worry is prohibited. It’s dangerous to our soul and strips us of peace.
The counterpunch, according to Dr. Wicks is concern. “Simple concern is quite powerful because it involves us in the problems of life without allowing us to get trapped by them. A little concern goes a long way. A lot of worry takes us nowhere.”
Prayer expands this ability to bring our concerns to the Lord, producing inner strength more consistently in our day. A prompt that I often use at the start of my prayer is this, “how am I feeling?”
This inventory of feelings is very powerful. It immediately brings some relief, a whole-body sort of exhale. Additionally, and this is where even more value is, it reveals our vulnerability before the Lord. As Merton says, sincerity is the key when it comes to prayer. And, it seems to make sense, sincerity is closely related to vulnerable self-awareness.
As Catholics, we build a lot of religious thick skin over the years. This is unfortunately not the spiritual grit that Dr. Wicks writes about. Rather, it can descend into a religiosity that only shows God the “good” sides of ourselves.
Vulnerability and sincerity rely on our honesty before God. This approach brings concern rather than worry and produces inner strength and freedom.
In your next time of prayer, how can you be more vulnerable and bring your concerns before the Lord?
-Mike