Robert Jones is an ordained Presbyterian minister and Adjunct Professor of Preaching, Pacific School of Religion, Berkeley, California. In this creative and accessible collection of prayers, he hits the mark again and again bringing our ordinary and everyday activities to God the Creator and Active Listener. Our lives are enriched by the animals around us and Jones has prayers for puppies, a stray cat, a dead duck, a Christmas cat, and a whale. There's a prayer for being stuck in traffic and one for a beat-up car. In the ladder, he laments a battered and abandoned car:
Now this car sits beside the road,
every window broken, every fender bent.
Every part of it has been hit
with a rock or bullet or stick.
What makes us attack an abandoned car?
Why do we whack at whatever's there?
Why do we love destruction so much?
Creator and lover of matter's many forms,
renew our attitude toward forsaken things.
Instill in us respect for all that is.
And thank you for this fine old car,
for the journeys that it made,
for the people it brought together,
for its swiftness and precision when it was new.
There are many other innovative prayers including ones on popcorn, a school board meeting, a class reunion, a three-foot putt, and being in a crowd. Jones is a master of everyday spirituality and we are the beneficiaries.