Letters of Prayer

An exchange of letters on prayer between British diplomat Mark Allen and Carmelite nun Ruth Burrows.

''I had to read some books, looking for help. Some set out to teach how to pray. I was very interested in these because they appeared to offer to take the problem head on. But somehow they didn''t. They offered techniques about how to sit quietly and about some people finding it helpful to create a "praying corner" in the home.

All this seemed like other people''s Christmases - nice, of course, but happening at arm''s length. At a deeper level, I had a horse sense that concentrating on creating a state which I might enjoy and be able to say I had mastered, I could not accept that there wasn''t something more than this to prayer.''

Thus Mark Allen, on his own view of the problem of prayer at the time when he first met Ruth Burrows. The friendship that followed led to a correspondence and, in due course, led to this book - to these Letters on Prayer, in which cant and technique and simple nostrums are eschewed, but prayer and faith are discussed both in depth and in a language we can all understand.