Almost Peaceful: My Journey of Healing from Binge EatingFriendship, Listening, and Empathy: A Prayer GuideDraw Near: A Lenten Devotional Two Hands: Grief and Gratitude in the Christian LifeSabbath Keeping: Finding Freedom in the Rhythms of Rest Fasting: Spiritual Freedom Beyond our AppetitesA Renewed SpiritualityNurturing Hope: Christian Pastoral Care in the Twenty-First CenturyThe Power of ListeningJoy Together: Spiritual Practices for Your CongregationPrayers of the New TestamentPrayers of the Old TestamentPersonality Type in CongregationsSabbathA Garden of Living Water: Stories of Self-Discovery and Spiritual GrowthDead Sea: A NovelDeadly Murmurs: A NovelDeath in Dunedin: A NovelBeating Burnout in CongregationsReaching Out in a Networked WorldEmbracing MidlifeFriendingAdvent Devotional

Prayer in solitude

Lynne Baab • Tuesday July 25 2023

Prayer in solitude

I learned to pray in communal settings. As a child, the majestic and eloquent prayers I heard in the Episcopal worship services I attended with my family moved me. One of them helped the congregation approach God, and despite the old fashioned language, I loved the words as a child, and only as an adult did I realize the prayer evokes Jesus's interaction with the Syrophoenican woman in Mark 7:24-30:   "Almighty God, unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid: Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit, that...

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Silence, solitude, and prayer

Lynne Baab • Thursday July 20 2023

Silence, solitude, and prayer

I knew I wanted to write a blog post about the Christian myth that the most spiritual form of prayer is prayer in solitude. Throughout much of Jewish and Christian history, many believers have done a lot of their praying with others, and many passages in the Bible show the significance of communal prayer. I wrote an article for Christianity Today about this. And yet Christians also pray alone in many diverse settings, including in the “prayer closet” (literally “storage room”) that Jesus mentions in Matthew 6:6. I wanted to write some thoughts about these equally valuable places for prayer.

I wasn’t sure which language to...

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Prayer and Pilgrimage

Lynne Baab • Tuesday July 11 2023

Prayer and Pilgrimage

“Pilgrimage is the practice of walking to a holy site with prayerful intention to be more than a tourist, as well as prayerful attention to the Holy Spirit’s movements within.” —Adele Ahlberg Calhoun, Spiritual Disciplines Handbook (italics in original) [1]

Example 1, which felt like a pilgrimage. I lived in Hampton, Virginia during my three years of junior high school, in three different houses. I attended two different junior high schools. In 2000, my husband Dave and I took a trip to Virginia, and for the first time since I was 14 years old, I saw the three houses and the two junior...

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Prayer and Practicing the Presence of God

Lynne Baab • Tuesday July 4 2023

Prayer and Practicing the Presence of God

“We can ignore, but we can nowhere evade, the presence of God. The world is crowded with Him. He walks everywhere incognito.” —C. S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer

I read the beautiful little book, The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence, when I was in my twenties. In my memory, the book is about trying to stay aware of God’s presence in everyday life as described by C. S. Lewis above. I wanted to write a blog post about the difference — if there is one — between being aware of God’s presence and actually turning to...

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Meeting God in Grief and Gratitude

Lynne Baab • Wednesday January 22 2025

By Lynne M. Baab, author of Two Hands: Grief and Gratitude in the Christian Life

Nurturing a contemplative stance for navigating challenging times

Lynne Baab • Friday August 11 2023

By Lynne M. Baab

Yes, Jesus Told Us to Pray in Secret. But He Also Prayed with His Friends.

Lynne Baab • Saturday October 9 2021

By Lynne M. Baab. Originally published in Christianity Today, July 8, 2021