Prayers of a Secular World

Poems of faith and doubt, signs and wonders, epiphanies and longing, poems that lift you through the darkness. This exquisite blue book finished with gold foil is a collection of poems that are prayers for our time.Rising from a fresh modern spirituality, these meditations and contemplations from more than eighty contemporary Australian poets offer wisdom and consolation on today's moral issues. They elaborate on everyday misgivings, the discovery and re-discovery of a mysteriously undeniable and often irresistible force; they include blessings, petitions and charms and prayers of transition. And most importantly they offer forgiveness for the innate cruelty of human nature, our complicity in climate change, and our everyday sins.'An inspiring collection. Poets, new and old, offer us immediate glimpses of what it is to be one of the creatures in a world that never ceases to surprise us simply by being there, both outside us and within.' —David Malouf'A great sadness descended on the Western spirit when the Church announced that God had been exiled to heaven. But the truth which doctrine denied, poets still proclaimed. This collection represents a wonder full embodiment of poetry's ancient immersion in earthly grace. Thank God for secular prayers.' —James Boyce is the author of Born Bad: Original Sin and the Making of the Western World'Prayers of a Secular World is a warm and wonderful rest along the way to the new secular liturgy.' —Bob Brown, Former leader of the Australian Greens'The imperfect is our paradise', wrote Wallace Stevens. This volume, a beautiful series of secular prayers, honours the idea that the only heaven we will know is the one we make ourselves. Our Eden is in these pages, tended by some of our finest gardeners - the kind who dig with words.' —Geordie Williamson, Literary Critic, The Australian