by David Adam

SPCK  £7.99 (0-281-05220-4); Church Times Bookshop £7.20

IN HIS northern fastness, David Adam prays, each day, the biblical Psalms, and each day he writes a psalm-prayer of his own. In this book he offers us an anthology of the latter — tied into that biblical discipline, as also into the Celtic tradition that he has done so much to promote among this generation.

He reminds us of the essential need to remain in touch with God by remaining in touch with the realities of this world. Our Celtic ancestors called this use of our five senses “playing the five-stringed harp”. These psalm-prayers should encourage us to do just that. They might well also encourage us to try writing our own psalm-prayers.

Adam’s 21st-century psalms are brief and to the point. They use the repetitive style of Celtic prayers, are aware of natural phenomena, are often explicitly Trinitarian, are frequently rhymed, and usually consist of short lines. (I found the terser prayers more powerful.)

They are grouped under six headings — though, as the author acknowledges, these divisions are somewhat arbitrary, and not always very precise. (Some of the prayers under “seeking”, I thought, were more about finding.)

If I have an anxiety about the collection it would be that this David may be more reluctant than the David of the Bible to leave queries hanging. Doubt is mostly rounded off with faith. Even the prayer inspired by the biblical Psalm 22 finishes — too quickly? — on an upbeat note. Yet I recall that one of the most (numerically) successful prayer-times we started in my last job was one that did not close down on people’s experience of uncertainty and ambiguity, but allowed them to lay their searching and longing alongside the gospel without comment.

That caveat apart, this is a book I am glad to have.

Canon John Armson is a former Precentor of Rochester Cathedral.

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