Roberta Bondi
Prayer through the Seasons of Life

Aug 31 - Sept 6, 2008   

Roberta Bondi begins her book, To Pray & To Love this way:

Paul tells us, “Pray without ceasing.” What does Paul mean by this, and how ought we to pray? For the desert fathers and mothers of the early church, the right answers to these questions depend upon the needs and personality of the person asking the question. . . . For Abba Macarius prayer would appear to be a simple, straightforward asking for God’s help in the face of temptation. Abba Joseph, however . . . gives – and demonstrates—very different advice to one of his disciples, who was also a teacher of prayer. . . . Abba Lucius . . . presents us with a third way of prayer.

Indeed, definitions and descriptions of prayer abound, perhaps because in all parts of the world, in every age, in all spiritual traditions, people have yearned for an intimate connection with God – as they have understood the Holy One. How people pray depends on many things: their concepts of God, their needs, education, and in particular the season of their life.

One rather simple description always worked well for me when I sought to explain prayer: Prayer is awareness of God and response to that awareness of the sacred in all our life. Even so, my awareness of God has changed over the six decades of my life and my responses have changed as well.

Roberta Bondi has written eloquently about a life of prayer – really in all of her books in one way or another. Highlighted here are two books that specifically treat prayer. I look forward to Roberta’s session at the Ranch because she will lead us in discernment about how our prayer changes in the seasons of our life. I’ve begun to understand that and am looking for further understanding that will come during the discussions with Roberta, a wonderful guide for this central subject on our spiritual journey.

Roberta has been a frequent presenter at Ring Lake Ranch precisely because she has so much to offer us. We welcome her back for Prayer for the Seasons of Life in 2008.
—Carl Koch

To Pray & To Love: Conversations on Prayer with the Early Church

“Drawing on the vast riches of early monastic writers, Roberta Bondi’s book on prayer is real, salty, loving, and wise. She invites us to keep such company with early Christian sources as to illuminate a way of praying, living, and thinking about life in mutuality with God. Amid the welter of books on prayer and Christian spirituality, this one shines like Epiphany and will empower like Pentecost.” – Don E. Saliers, Emory University (Don will be offering a session at the Ranch this summer, too)

”Bondi offers a beautifully simple and profound account of prayer as the desert fathers saw it: integrally connected to love of God and neighbor, but also leading to introspection which facilitates spiritual growth. She begins with the teaching of the desert fathers about St. Paul's injunction "pray without ceasing," and discusses monastic prayer and life.

Next she discusses how prayer can help develop the image of God within the individual. Bondi then addresses current concerns about prayer, how to approach it, the need for self-development, and the need for deeper human relationship through prayer. She concludes by discussing the desire for God as fostered and fulfilled through prayer by God's grace.” -- Library Journal

A Place to Pray: Reflections on the Lord’s Prayer

In many ways the Lord's Prayer is the most fundamental of all Christian prayers. It was given by Jesus in response to his disciples' explicit request that he teach them to pray, and throughout the period of the early church, along with the creed, it was regarded as a basic catechetical text. For a large number of people in our own period, however, trying to pray this prayer in any meaningful way is fraught with difficulties.

Roberta Bondi contends that Christians are called to love God and our neighbors as ourselves, and that the Lord's Prayer, prayed honestly from the places we really are, is a basic tool to help us do it. A Place to Pray: Reflections on the Lord's Prayer is not an exegetical book; rather the reflections in it, which draw from the author's own experiences, teaching, and study of the early church, are presented in a series of letters to a fictional friend.

In these letters Bondi addresses many of the issues that make praying the Lord's Prayer difficult. At the same time, she helps readers use the prayer as a means of helping them love God, neighbor, and self. An excellent resource for personal spiritual growth and development, this volume is also well suited for adult study groups.

“If you know the Lord’s Prayer so well that you can recite it without ever letting one word of it penetrate your consciousness, then Roberta Bondi has written a book for you. In it, she handles each phrase of Jesus’ prayer as a hologram of Christian life on earth, without skirting any of the difficulties inherent in words such as ‘Father,’ ‘forgive,’ or ‘temptation.’

Serving up rich helpings of desert spirituality along with stories from her own experience, she delivers a meditation on the Lord’s Prayer meant to arouse both mind and heart.” – The Reverend Barbara Brown Taylor, author of When God Is Silent and God in Pain: Teaching Sermons on Suffering.

The following is an enlightening interview with Roberta.

Learning to Pray:
An Interview with Roberta C. Bondi

In her work as a church historian Roberta C.Bondi has sought to make the wisdom of the early church and the insights of monastic spirituality available to contemporary Christians.

Her books To Pray and To Love and To Love as God Loves (both from. Augsburg Fortress) explore the life of prayer as exemplified by Christian monks of ancient Egypt. Bondi, who teaches at Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta, recently wrote Memories of God (Abingdon) and is now working on a book about prayer titled In Ordinary Time.

The complete interview is available here

Other Roberta Bondi Books:

To Love As God Loves: Conversations With the Early Church

Memories of God: Theological Reflections on a Life

Nick the Cat: Christian Reflections on the Strange

In Ordinary Time: Healing the Wounds of the Heart

Night on the Flint River: An Accidental Journey in Knowing God