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Informationen zum Autor Desmond Tutu Klappentext Prayer, our conversation with God, needs no set formulas or flowery phrases. It often needs no words at all. But for most believers, the words of others can be a wonderful aid to devotion, especially when these words come from faithful fellow pilgrims. An African Prayer Book is just such an aid, for in this collection all the spiritual riches of the vast and varied continent of Africa are bravely set forth. Here we overhear the simple prayer of the penniless Bushman, the words of some of the greatest Church fathers (Augustine and Athanasius), petitioning and jubilant voices from South Africa's struggle for freedom, and even prayers from the Africa diasporas of North America and the Caribbean. Here are Jesus's own encounters with Africa, which provided him refuge at the beginning of his life (from the murderous King Herod) and aid at its end (in the person of Simon of Cyrene, who helped Jesus carry his cross). From thunderous multi-invocation litanies to quiet meditations, here are prayers every heart can speak with strength and confidence.Adoration All of us are by nature worshipful. We may worship God to whom we ascribe his due, his worth. That is true worship. Or, we may give a false worship to money, to status, etc. When we listen to a superb Beethoven symphony, or something out of Handel's Messiah , we are often speechless with wonder and awe. Are we not often awestruck before the grandeur of some imposing mountain range, or when we behold a glorious sunset, or a still, moonlit night with the stars winking in a dark blue sky? I once heard a venerable professor of gynecology, who must have delivered countless babies, confess that he was always overwhelmed by the wonder and mystery of a baby being born. I have heard that scientists wax ecstatic and break into poetic utterance because of the aesthetic qualities of some scientific experiment and the truth that it will have proven. Archimedes ran naked out of his bath when a new scientific truth struck him, shouting "Eureka, eureka" ("I have found it!") In the presence of a good and holy person most of us will be overcome with awe. Standing near Mother Teresa, or Helder Camara, or Nelson Mandela, or Mahatma Gandhi, you know you are standing on holy ground. On such occasions words are often so utterly inadequate. The story goes of a farmer who used to sit in church for long periods of silence. When he was asked about this practice, he said of our Lord, "I look at him and he looks at me and it is enough." We too have moments when we are struck speechless, as when we are stunned by the beauty of the snowcapped Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, or the majestic roar of the Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. Our instinctive worshipfulness then comes to the fore with all these created things; how much more when we encounter the Source of it all--God, who is Beauty, Truth and Goodness? Then we want to fall down to worship and adore the one whose glory fills the heavens and the earth. "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts." O all ye big things of the earth bless ye the Lord . . . . . . all ye small things bless ye the Lord . . . Isn't that beautiful? All shall be Amen and Alleluia. We shall rest and we shall see, We shall see and we shall know, We shall know and we shall love, We shall love and we shall praise. Behold our end which is no end. Somebody remarked that our praise will not end, because we will for ever discover new aspects of God's beauty, holiness and goodness; for God is infinite, and we are and will always be finite, and so we will be "lost" in wonder, love and praise, as the hymn puts it. In adoration we begin where we should--with God--by putting first things first. Our Lord taught his disciples a special prayer and it began with God, "Our Father," and then proceeds to glorify and adore him: "hallowed be thy na...
