Books of Note

Bead One, Pray Too by Kimberly Winston is not your average DIY beading book. Along with historical and technical information, it provides a guide for incorporating prayer beads into your own spiritual practice.

From a dedicated bead lover's perspective, it's an interesting, new way to look at our treasured sparklies. For people who use prayer beads but have never beaded before, the book may give them the push they need to get started beading.

Chapter Four begins: "To pray with any set of prayer beads is to embark on a journey. It will be a journey full of paradoxes and contradictions. We will be traveling by ourselves, but on it we will never be alone. We will be going somewhere, but we will sit almost entirely still. It will be a journey of words conducted in total or near silence. We will travel far, but go only in circles. When we return, we will have gone away without ever having left where we are."

This poetic paragraph jumped out at me as I was reading the book. My other favorite passages are the author's personal accounts of her various struggles and successes with prayer. She has a way of inviting the reader to try it out without making any judgments about exactly how it should be done.

For more info about this unique book, check out the author's blog and a recent CraftyPod review.

Books of Note is a new recurring feature on my blog. I hope you'll enjoy it!