Flee, Be Silent, Pray

Short Review: I believe this is my sixth book by Ed Cyzewski. He is one of the many younger authors that is piecing together a living by publishing books independently and working as a freelance author for articles and other pieces.

What I like about the ability for independent authors to publish their own work is that many of the traditional constraints on publishing have been removed. Ed does not need to be famous or put out a book a year or have the traditional 180 or 208 pages. Many of his books are on the short side for traditional books, but they are also not free of fluff to expand them to the necessary length. Free, Be Silent, Pray is only 130 pages. A couple of his books are even shorter (several are longer.)

Ed grew up nominal Catholic, but left the Catholic church when he came to faith via an evangelical ministry. In many ways he and I are fairly similar. We are roughly the same age. We both went to seminary but are not pastors. We are both stay at home Dads while working part time. We both have pursued serious spiritual growth. I identify with his style and method.

I started reading this immediately after Jan Johnson's book on contemplative prayer. And I thought the two of them fit together nicely with almost no overlap. The two books come at contemplative prayer from very different angles.

Ed is very personal in his writing. He is talking about what he does and how he has come to find contemplative prayer helpful. Jan Johnson also talks about herself, but she is a bit more distant. She is older and further along in life, which I think is part of the distance.

Theologically they are not very different, but Cyzewski has appreciation for his previous Catholic faith and Johnson has never been Catholic, so when she approaches the ancient church she does so as an Evangelical, not as an Evangelical that used to be Catholic. And that does matter.

My slightly longer review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/flee-be-silent-pray/