Praying Simply: A Book and Year of Prayer

The Reverend Andrew Highway, vicar in the Taff Wenallt Ministry Area, has written a collection of 88 straightforward prayers intended to help readers have a conversation with God about all the things that can occur throughout daily life.

About the book ‘Life’s Complicated Pray Simply’, Fr Andrew said, “they're very simple prayers. I hope they're very honest prayers. But they're about the things in life that people maybe think they can't pray about. You can talk to God about anything in prayer, so, the idea with this book simply was to write prayers about daily life. Things like computers, coffee shops, decluttering, rainbows, opticians, town centres.

It was about anything you want to talk to God about. You can use these prayers as the steppingstones to enable you to pray when you can't find the words. Maybe use the prayers as a starting point to have that conversation. Maybe when the words just won't come, and you want to pray. These prayers just help say something that maybe you wanted to articulate in a prayer.”

Fr Andrew reflects on the style of praying simply and short, saying "I was recently on a beach and there were thousands of stones that have been placed on top of each other and there were prayers that were really simple because they were written on the stones. We may be a society doesn't go to church as much as previous generations, but we're still very spiritual people, and there is still a great longing to spirituality and to express that spirituality. That's why when you go into churches and look in the book at the back or at the prayer request board there are lots there because people still believe in the power of prayer.

“There's a really nice quote from St. Benedict who said that ‘prayer ought to be short and pure’. And I really liked that because if you think that somebody that's founding a monastery that's advising monks who are giving their lives to prayer, says, ‘actually your prayer should be really short, pure’, I think that's a really nice way to look at prayer. And it doesn't matter about the language we use, because often we get caught up with theological words, and we don't have to use theological words; we can just talk in a very straightforward way and our prayers can be as short as we want.”

Prayer ought to be short and pure

Having a ‘prayerful disposition’ is demonstrated in the Bible. That is, “The Apostle Paul talks about always praying continuously, and it's not necessarily using words all the time, but being conscious that God is in all the things we do and all the places we go,” as Fr Andrew puts it. Even Jesus prayed.

Setting out on maturing in prayer or starting with the basics can be daunting for a new Christian but Fr Andrew suggests “Just start just talking to God about whatever's on your heart, because that's what he's interested in.”

The Church in Wales began a Year of Prayer in September 2022. Each month introduces a new prayer and reflection which has a different seasonal theme and style of praying which can be conducted alone or in a group.

Access Year of Prayer resources here.

The Rt Reverend John Lomas, Bishop of Swansea and Brecon who is leading the programme said, “Prayer not only help us to deepen our faith but takes us beyond ourselves to the wider world. To sit quietly at home in prayer has been shown to help improve our general wellbeing. It is a time to bring to God whatever we feel we need to say. The prayers offered [in the Year of Prayer] will be a mix of prayer for our personal journey, and prayer for the wider community in the world. Importantly, it is to pray in the way that you are most comfortable with.”

The varying styles of prayer so far have included meditation, confession, singing, drawing and walking.