Normally priced at £7.99, this week, until 6 September, you can purchase Heaven Touching Earth at a 10 per cent discount, using the code HEAVEN10 when ordering the book from the Kevin Mayhew website. Just type the code into the relevant box at the checkout between the dates given.
Heaven Touching Earth is one of a four-part series I wrote that features also Touching Down, Touched By His Hand and Touching the Seasons. Subtitled ‘Prayers for daily life’, the aim of each of the books is to locate faith firmly in daily life – to bring heaven, if you like, down to earth. Here’s the introduction to Heaven Touching Earth, which makes this point clearer.
In my book Touched by His Hand I recalled the inspiration I gained as a young man from the prayers of Michel Quoist in his book Prayers of Life – prayers unlike any I’d come across before. Instead of approaching God in formal and stilted language, he seemed to be chatting with him, casually yet reverently discussing the ins and outs of everyday life. But it wasn’t just the language that was different – it was also the themes of the prayers, a bewildering variety of subjects being covered: ‘Prayer Before a Five Pound Note’, ‘The Pornographic Magazine’, ‘The Wire Fence’, ‘The Underground’, ‘The Swing’, ‘The Tractor’ and many more. Such an approach came as a breath of fresh air, blowing away the cobwebs in my devotional life, for suddenly prayer wasn’t limited to a few moments at the beginning or end of the day, nor an overtly religious activity conducted with eyes closed and tucked safely away from the world. Rather, it was part of being alive, each moment being touched by God’s presence.
This book follows on from Touched by His Hand in attempting to approach prayer from that down-to-earth perspective, relating it to everyday people, places, objects and experiences, and thus breaking down the divide between the sacred and secular, divine and human. Avoiding religious jargon as far as possible, and resisting the temptation to link prayers to particular passages of Scripture – easy though this would be in most cases – it comprises another hundred prayers rooted in everyday life. The commonplace provides a backdrop to an encounter with God, things as ordinary as a stale loaf, cup of tea, exam paper, packet of cigarettes, broken window, sleepless night or knotted hankie providing
inspiration for prayer. In each case the aim is the same: to ask how such seemingly ordinary things might point to God’s presence and what he might be saying to us through them.
It is my hope that this book will speak both to and for you, prompting you, in turn, more fully to recognise God’s presence in the routine business of each day, heaven touching earth such that all of life becomes a prayer.
And here’s the first of seven extracts I’ll be posting from the book, to run alongside this promotion:
The charity appeal
It was another appeal,
yet one more begging letter thrust through my door,
tugging at the heartstrings and seeking my support.
A worthy cause, no doubt,
as deserving as any other,
but I’d done my bit, hadn’t I? –
already given more than generously.
What more could people ask?
Is that true, Lord?
Have I done enough?
I’ve given, certainly,
but was each donation a meaningful gift
or a token gesture,
a response from the heart
or an attempt to salve my conscience?
I’ve offered a little
but not much,
what I spare for others over a lifetime
barely what I spend on myself in a week.
Forgive me,
and teach me to deal generously,
as you have dealt generously with me.
Amen.