Mystically Wired: Exploring New Realms in Prayer [Book]

Product Description

We are designed to make connections to God through prayer in more ways than we can imagine.

Prayer can be so much more than a simple conversation. It can be a wordless connection with God, a step beyond the boundary of the separated self. It can be a way to listen to the silence. And it can be learned. We can learn how to pray in ways we never thought possible. It doesn't take more effort; it takes more understanding.

Wilson's book shows how the brain is designed by God

* To calm itself
* To relax into love
* To become increasingly aware of how connected everything is in God
* To experience a deeper intimacy with our creator

Prayer is something that our brains want to do with a little help. Ken Wilson tells us how.

Pages: 192
Hardcover

About the Author:
Ken Wilson is Senior Pastor of the Vineyard Church of Ann Arbor. Ken is active in national environmental initiatives and efforts to open new dialogue between secular science and people of faith. His church is noted for serving the poor; engaging those beyond the reach of contemporary Christianity; and exploring contemplative prayer disciplines, serving as online host to The Divine Hours. He is also the author of Jesus Brand Spirituality.

Review:
In a footnote to his book “Mystically Wired: Exploring New Realms in Prayer,” Ken Wilson admits that the word “mystical” makes some in his faith group uncomfortable. It is because the word “mystical” has some unsavory connotations to many evangelical Christians in the Western world even though the word “mystery” is found many times in the Bible. But Wilson points out that Christianity is a mystical religion. In fact, it began as an Eastern religion, intent on connecting earth-bound creatures with transcendental (i.e., spiritual) realities a connection best accomplished through the discipline of prayer, a discipline Wilson learned only through effort. He writes: “Through a series of unfortunate events, I ran out of energy to pray in a disciplined—that is to say a daily, intentional, and focused—way. Oh, I wanted to keep praying, but the effort required was more than I could muster.” (At this point I nodded, “I can elate to that.”) Wilson continues: “So I worked out a compromise with my praying self: I would find a prayer book, so that I could at least say some prayers even if I wasn’t making them up from scratch.”

Wilson discovered that “prayer with these aids was easier than prayer without them.” But, he says, “this discovery came with a twinge of guilt. I felt like I was cheating. I feared that my aided prayers were somehow less authentic than my spontaneous ones” and he hoped that after a while he would slip back into “a more arduous prayer style.” Only he didn’t. What he discovered was that “instead, using these aids, I began to slip into a mode of prayer that was too lovely to dismiss.” Prayer began to work for him. He no longer had to make himself pray. In fact, he began to look forward to praying and began to do more of it. “Prayer,” he said, “began to feel less like mental activity and more like going somewhere.”

Despite its title, “Mystically Wired” is not what Western minds have come to consider “mystical,” that is ethereal, abstruse, arcane, cabalistic. In fact, Wilson offers us an intensely useful book on prayer. Perhaps the most practical part was where he offers this advice: “Try believing something about prayer other than ‘prayer is hard.’ Try believing that prayer isn’t just for an elite few who happen to be spiritual. Prayer is for everyone. It is the art of the humanly possible. When God is involved, it is more than that, but it is not less. Prayer is something our brains are wired to do. We just haven’t been very good at teaching each other how to pray. We will get the hang of it, with a little help from our friends.”

While I found “Mystically Wired” an enjoyable read I cannot say that I found it all that easy. As well-written as the book is it has such a wealth of instruction that I found myself reading a couple of pages then laying the book aside and reflecting on what I had read. I kept thinking, “Why haven’t I thought of that” and “I think I can do that.” What Wilson has done for me is to set me on a new adventure in prayer.

Reviewed by Vineyard Pastor, Jim Miller