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A Book of Uncommon Prayer: An Anthology of Everyday Invocations
An anthology of invocations by 64 authors edited by Matthew Vollmer, with prayers by Dan Albergotti, Kate Angus, Hadara Bar-Nadav, Jensen Beach, A. K. Benninghofen, Nathan Blake, Gabriel Blackwell, George Bishop, Jr., Wendy Brenner, Nic Brown, Scott Cheshire, Jaime Clarke, Sean Conaway, Stanley Crawford, Michelle Kyoko Crowson, Christy Crutchfield, Weston Cutter, Chad Davidson, Gabe Durham, Mieke Eerkens, Clyde Edgerton, Matthew Gavin Frank, Amy Fusselman, Jonterri Gadson, V. V. Ganeshananthan, William Giraldi, Ani Gjika, Eve Grubin, John Haskell, Bob Hicok, Caitlin Horrocks, Marie Howe, Leslie Jamison, Lauren Jensen, Will Kaufman, Rob Kenagy, Lee Klein, Catherine Lacey, J. Robert Lennon, Ariel Lewiton, Nate Liederbach, Samuel Ligon, Robert Lopez, Courtney Maum, Aaron McCollough, Charles McLeod, Erika Meitner, Brenda Miller, Rick Moody, Liz Moore, Dylan Nice, Brian Oliu, Alicia Jo Rabins, Dawn Raffel, Wendy Rawlings, Ryan Ridge, Joseph Salvatore, Benjamin Samuel, Scott Sanders, Ravi Shankar, Susan B. A. Somers-Willett, Amber Sparks, Sasha Steensen, Sarah Strickley, Ian Stansel, Christian TeBordo, Robert Uren, & Matthew Vollmer
254 pages, Paperback
First published April 15, 2015
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April 11, 2023
I invited potential contributors without regard to--and, in most cases, no knowledge whatsover of--their religious inclincations; I simply wanted to see what happened when writers confronted the assigning of writing a prayer. I encouraged them to write about topics that were "uncommon"--that is, things and people and places that might not usually be prayed for.
from Preface by Matthew Vollmer
O GOD, whose merciful wisdom reaches to the uttermost parts of creation, including social media, please watch over and guide our friend Haley who as of last night or very early this morning deactivated her Facebook account and none of us know why. Assist us, O LORD, as we seek to understand the reason for Haley's vanishment from our news feeds, and strengthen us so that we might bear the burden of grief, worry, and confusion her absence inflicts upon us, even though we haven't actually seen or spoken to Haley since our senior year in high school...
from "For a Friend Who Has Deactivated Her Facebook Account" by Wendy Brenner
Matthew Vollmer’s A Book of Uncommon Prayer: An Anthology of Everyday Invocations is a wonderful concept. Matthew Vollmer’s execution of said idea is a bloody mess. Rather than really tweak and expand the concept of a thoughtful prayer about an “uncommon subject,” many of the contributors use it as a poor excuse to print second-rate drafts with a possible “Lord” or “Amen” tacked on. Some don’t even write anything resembling a prayer—they just rant a few pages and collect their pittance.
The type setting is cheap, the editing is abysmal so that no authors can be found for some contributions despite the elaborate indexes in the back.
While there are some decent moments (“For the Unseeable Child in the Rear-Facing Safety Seat,” "For a Friend Who Has Deactivated Her Facebook Account"), there is too much fluff and poor writing weighing down the material.
Someone with editing abilities and better writing buddies should tackle this concept. It has possibilities. I’ll pray about it: “For the Ability of an Editor to Practice Proficiently” or something akin.
…but I thank you, too, LORD, for this glimpse of Hell, for showing me a place so shitty and crooked and mean that I now understand just how bad it can be…
From ”For Lubbock” by Charles McLeod
from Preface by Matthew Vollmer
O GOD, whose merciful wisdom reaches to the uttermost parts of creation, including social media, please watch over and guide our friend Haley who as of last night or very early this morning deactivated her Facebook account and none of us know why. Assist us, O LORD, as we seek to understand the reason for Haley's vanishment from our news feeds, and strengthen us so that we might bear the burden of grief, worry, and confusion her absence inflicts upon us, even though we haven't actually seen or spoken to Haley since our senior year in high school...
from "For a Friend Who Has Deactivated Her Facebook Account" by Wendy Brenner
Matthew Vollmer’s A Book of Uncommon Prayer: An Anthology of Everyday Invocations is a wonderful concept. Matthew Vollmer’s execution of said idea is a bloody mess. Rather than really tweak and expand the concept of a thoughtful prayer about an “uncommon subject,” many of the contributors use it as a poor excuse to print second-rate drafts with a possible “Lord” or “Amen” tacked on. Some don’t even write anything resembling a prayer—they just rant a few pages and collect their pittance.
The type setting is cheap, the editing is abysmal so that no authors can be found for some contributions despite the elaborate indexes in the back.
While there are some decent moments (“For the Unseeable Child in the Rear-Facing Safety Seat,” "For a Friend Who Has Deactivated Her Facebook Account"), there is too much fluff and poor writing weighing down the material.
Someone with editing abilities and better writing buddies should tackle this concept. It has possibilities. I’ll pray about it: “For the Ability of an Editor to Practice Proficiently” or something akin.
…but I thank you, too, LORD, for this glimpse of Hell, for showing me a place so shitty and crooked and mean that I now understand just how bad it can be…
From ”For Lubbock” by Charles McLeod
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