Ep. 190 W. David O. Taylor - Prayers for the Pilgrimage

Uncertainty and destabilization comes at a moment’s notice. When faced with uncertain times, what do we turn to? W. David O. Taylor turned towards writing prayers in the form of collects when the world shut down March 15th, 2020. In this conversation, David explores various spiritual disciplines and practices for deepening one's prayer life and connection to God, especially during times of uncertainty. He shares how writing ancient-style prayers called "collects" brought him comfort during the pandemic, and discusses the importance of community, creativity, and ordering desires through prayer. Our conversation offers insights into cultivating spirituality through different artistic mediums, architectural spaces, and focusing on God's faithfulness rather than becoming overwhelmed by life's challenges. Join us as we discover prayer through the collect and root ourselves in our connection with God.

W. David O. Taylor is Associate Professor of Theology and Culture at Fuller Theological Seminary and the author of several books, including "Prayers for the Pilgrimage" (IVP, 2024), "A Body of Praise" (Baker Academic, 2023), "Open and Unafraid" (Thomas Nelson/HarperCollins, 2020), and "Glimpses of the New Creation" (Eerdmans, 2019). He has also written for The Washington Post, Image Journal, Religion News Service, Theology Today, and Christianity Today, among others. An Anglican priest, he has lectured widely on the arts, from Thailand to South Africa. In 2016 he produced a short film on the psalms with Bono and Eugene Peterson. He lives in Austin, Texas, with his children and artist wife, Phaedra, with whom he has produced three sets of illustrated prayer cards.

David's Book:
Prayers for the Pilgrimage

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Transcript

David Taylor: 0:00

My colleagues who study you know, worship Mersive music community have noted the predominance in the last 40 years of the first person singular in our worship music. And so much of the songs that we seen Sunday after Sunday, day after day on the worship stations, is me and I, and not that God does not care about me and I very much we are precious in his sight. But over time, I think that can have a nefarious effect. Because again, it's sort of you know, the gravitational force turns in our cells.

Joshua Johnson: 0:51

Hello, and welcome to the shifting culture podcast in which we have conversations about the culture we create, and the impact we can make. We longed to see the body of Christ look like Jesus. I'm your host, Joshua Johnson. Our show is powered by you, the listener, if you want to support the work that we do get early access to episodes, Episode guides, and more. Go to patreon.com/shifting culture to become a monthly patron, so that we can continue in this important work. And don't forget to hit the Follow button on your favorite podcast app to be notified when new episodes come out each week. And go leave a rating and review. It's easy, it only takes a second and it helps us find new listeners to the show. Just go to the Show page on the app that you're using right now and hit five stars. Thank you so much. You know what else would help us out? share this podcast with your friends, your family, your network? Tell them how much you enjoy it and let them know that they should be listening as well. If you're new here, welcome. If you want to dig deeper find us on social media at shifting culture podcast, where I post video clips and quotes and interact with all of you. Previous guests on the show have included Todd Hunter, Scot McKnight and Sarah Billups, you can go back listen to those episodes and more. But today's guest is David Taylor. W. David O. Taylor is associate professor of theology and culture at Fuller Theological Seminary, and the author of several books including prayers for the pilgrimage, a body of praise, open and unafraid, and glimpses of new creation. He has also written for The Washington Post image journal religion, news services, theology today and Christianity Today, among others, an Anglican priest he has lectured widely on the arts from Thailand to South Africa. In 2016. He produced a short film on the Psalms with bonobo and Eugene Peterson. He lives in Austin, Texas with his children and artists wife Phaedra, with whom he has produced three sets of illustrated prayer cards. You know, uncertainty and destabilization comes at a moment's notice. When faced with uncertain times, what do we turn to? Well, David Taylor turned towards writing prayers in the form of colics when the world shut down March 15 2020. In this conversation, David explores various spiritual disciplines and practices for deepening one's prayer, life and connection to God, especially during times of uncertainty. He shares how writing ancient style prayers called colleagues brought him comfort during the pandemic, and discusses the importance of community creativity and ordering desires through prayer. Our conversation offers insights into cultivating spirituality, through different artistic mediums, architectural spaces and focusing on God's faithfulness, rather than becoming overwhelmed by life's challenges. So join us as we discover prayer, through the collect and root ourselves and our connection with God. Here is my conversation with W. David O. Taylor. David, welcome to shifting culture really excited to have you on. Thanks for joining me.

David Taylor: 3:56

Thanks for having me. It's great to be here. Thank you.

Joshua Johnson: 3:58

Take us back to March 15 2020. And your story, the world has shut down. And we are in a place of uncertainty resilient of fear. Is it an of the unknown? We don't know what's going on? Right? What did you run to you

David Taylor: 4:19

will like, you know, most everybody on planet earth I felt the ground underneath me, you know, becoming unstable. And I grew up in Guatemala where we had earthquakes. So I actually knew quite literally what unstable Earth felt like. And, you know, some people reached for sourdough bread recipes I have reached for an ancient form of prayer, that is called a Holic goes back to the fifth century. And the idea of the colic is that in the corporate gathering of worship, it would collect all the people's prayers into one very pit A prayer of one sort. And it's a form that I taught my students at Fuller Seminary over the years. And I've loved I've loved it. And in my context, an Anglican context, we, we use it regularly. And I found myself gravitating towards it as a way to name the seemingly nameless and to make sense of the seemingly senseless. And so yeah, I might, I think the first prayer that I, I wrote, these are all written prayers, prayers for a pandemic, and drew on the language of the Psalms, which is vividly represented there. And obviously, pandemics are not new to human history. But I found it helps sort of like the frame, the framing of the prayer, and the way that the prayer invites us to attend first to who God is and what He has done, and how he's been faithful in the presence and the face of tragedy. Settled me settle my heart settle my mind. And then I began writing for things around me like my children who were increasing, Li becoming anxious, you know, at night. So I wrote a bedtime prayer for anxious children. And then yeah, little by little, I would post them on social media, and then folks began reaching out and, you know, one was asking for prayer for grocery store managers, managing the panicky buying that would take place, he now all of a sudden, everything would disappear off the shelf, as they deserve a prayer and say, yeah, it was, it was a wonderful way to be present to God present to myself and present to the world around me, in the face of temptations that would, you know, maybe want me to escape, you know, somehow, the world around me,

Joshua Johnson: 6:58

I think, oftentimes an uncertainty when we feel things are shaking, things are unstable. We don't know what to ground us with, we feel we just feel like we're up in the air floating, we don't know what's going on. Right. And a lot of people use their, their prayers as as just like shouting the gods saying hell no. Right. Like, how does this the structure of of sitting down and writing a form of prayer help grounds you? Instead of just saying, whatever you're thinking to God at that moment, right?

David Taylor: 7:35

Yeah, I mean, I'm not a stranger to prayers that are blurted out and the Pope was it helped me, well, help me save me, thank you. Those kinds of printers, I prayed them a lot. And they are legitimate, right? God receives those, you know, prayers of the moment prayers that are blurted out, or, you know, the vomited out, that those visceral kinds of prayers, I think the potential danger of relying only on those prayers, is that they may keep us stuck in our own selves, you know. And then sometimes I think we need help getting outside of ourselves or over ourselves, not because we don't matter. But because over time, if we get stuck in our inside of ourselves, that can become unhealthy could become a toxic sort of black hole that spins us down into ourselves, rather than into this spacious place, that that we would find God in the valley of the shadow of death. So one of the things I love about the this particular forum, is it invites us forces us and invites us however you want to see it, to ask ourselves, I think a really important question. That is, what has God already said or done? That may pull me up into this again, maybe spacious place of a God who has already proven himself to be faithful, in other times in places to people, and to saints who are before me, you know, that that heritage that I have inherited? How has he rescued or, or been present to people in places of tragedy, sorrow loss? So ultimately, I think it's an invitation to Scripture, you know, to wonder out loud, to think and to imagine where in Scripture has God already shown himself to be God who is present to those who are in pandemics and pandemics, again, are massive multi part part of tragedies. And so language of the Psalms was a place that I went to, to say, Oh, I'm not the first one to go through a pandemic and I think that's a very healthy salutary kind of experience. It's not all about me, even Oh, God really does care all about me. But somehow it shifts the perspective to be able to go, God deeply cares about me. And simultaneously, it's not all about me, because other saints have faced this. So how can I imaginatively join them, and join them in their faithful crying out to God, in the face of a pandemic, or whatever, you know, the case may be. And so that's the form of the prayer invites us to start with that, instead of I think, maybe instinctually. We start with the me, you know, me, but if I say something like, you know, oh, Lord, You who are the God who, you know, walks with me to the valley of the shadow death does not let my foot stumble against, you know, a stone, who rescues me from the lion and the ad or the snake, you know, the cobra, that I'm like, Oh, you, you, you are a God, who understands. And so in affirming out loud, his character and his nature, it's just like a little, it derails sort of this downward inward spiral into my subjective sector of itself. Not that I don't matter. Again, I do. But I don't want to get stuck in down that place is a dangerous place to get stuck inside. Yeah,

Joshua Johnson: 11:25

that's really dangerous. And I've seen the seem really horrible effects that come from us getting stuck inside of ourselves, to be able to look up, I'd love for you to So walk us through what is this form of the collet? You gave us a great starting point? What's the rest of it for?

David Taylor: 11:42

Yes. Okay. Wonderful. Thank you. So there are five parts to it. All things being equal, some people would say four, I think there would be five. So you named God, I began all my prayers with Oh Lord, because it seems to be a pretty good place to begin. The father is Lord Jesus is Lord, the Spirit is Lord. And then the second part is, you know, what I tell my students is called the Yoo hoo, part. Oh Lord, You who and you know, you who you know, rescued the people of Israel out of Egypt, okay. And then the third part is you you make your petition. So, rescue us we pray out of this, you know, dark and frightening place of the pandemic. Okay, so that's your third year petitioning the fourth car, I think so fascinating, because so many of our petitions in there. But it begs the question, to what end? Are we asking this rental to rescue us from this dark place, so that so that what you know, so that the pandemic would stop, or so that we might not be afraid, or so that we might be agents of grace, agents of your healing agents of your peace to those around us to, you know, who feel swallowed up by fear? So that fourth part, I think is so it's fascinating, I think so important, but also, sometimes really difficult, like, do we want God to rescue us from this? Do we want him to be present with us? What if he doesn't rescue us in the way that we would like him to rescue us? Does that mean that God has failed? So I think it's a wonderful place where theologically we get the wrestle with what do I really want from this petition, you know, as an outcome. And then the fifth part is in the name of and what I did in these prayers, which would be a little bit unusual from like, maybe how Catholics or angled guns or Lutherans or others might do this kind of prayer is I chose to think of all the ways in which God names himself all throughout scripture, and then end in that way, so. So could be like, you know, I pray this into the name of Immanuel, the God who is with us in the depths. Amen. So it's a it's got those five parts. And, and again, the, as I explained in the book, these five parts don't come from nowhere. They actually come from scripture, like once we notice patterns of how it is a solid mess and prophets, you know, folks in the Gospels where Jesus himself prays, you're like, oh, yeah, like there is no abstract God. They're always like, Oh, God of Abraham, Isaac and Jake, right. There's always some way that God's identity is concretize by how he has identified himself or what he has done. So I just I think it's a faithful biblical pattern of prayer.

Joshua Johnson: 14:38

I think that the so that aspect, you're the fourth element is really important. I think we're living in a culture where it's more and more harder to name our desires to know what's underneath our wants, and to know like, what do I really want and to dive into it, but how have you I've seen your order your desires, ordered through writing them down and really diving deep into what do I actually desire and want from this prayer and this outcome, this petition that I'm giving God? Yeah,

David Taylor: 15:18

you know, a seat. Let me ask you this, your question with a slight sort of preface, your question makes me think of work that some of my friends have done on the history of, of like worship songs and hymnody, and the Protestant tradition in the last several 100 years. And one of the things they noticed was that a lot of the hymnody from, let's say, 18th century backwards, you know, the 1700s 1600s 1500s 1400s, the dominant themes, or images were of Christians on pilgrimage. And it was this sense that the Christian life really was ultimately this, you know, to borrow from Eugene Peterson's book title along obedience in the same direction that you were going to be like John Bunyan's character, who would travel through the terrain of life, and face many challenges many temptations, and the mark of faithfulness was perseverance in the pilgrimage, right. But that songs from the late 19th and into the 20/21 century, in two predominantly involve ideas or images of themes of immediate rescue from So Lord, rescue us, get us out of this, you know, you know, pickle, this, you know, fire this dilemma. And like the idea of pilgrimage really just isn't in our vocab, our prayer, a prayer, singing vocabulary. And, and while it's obviously amply testified out throughout scripture, that God does rescue people, you know, in the moment, I think so much more of the testimony, scripture is of the saints, Old Testament, New Testament, persevering over a life long, you know, course. And I think the writing of these prayers, routes me in that narrative, again, to maybe rescue me from my immediate culture, I am somebody who lives in this century, this time, this place, and it's natural for me to think God, I am facing hardship, you know, in my marriage, or being a dad is hard, or being a professor is hard, or being a friend is hard, being a son, a brother is hard. Just get me out of it now, because the pain is too much to bear, right. But I think this form of prayer, because it is forcing me to go into Scripture forcing me to go into the stories, you know, of Scripture, I see that really the the enduring quality is perseverance. Not not that I don't want God to save me in the moment. But saving in the moment isn't always how God forms Christ's likeness in us. And so I think that's the hope I have with these prayers, is that in the praying of them over time, they would help us to kind of find ourselves sinking into those rhythms of Christ's own, you know, persevering, enduring, faithful life, you know, he prays that this cup would pass, he prays that this trial would be, you know, taken from him, but it is not. And so he walks, you know, the way of suffering in his own home ministry, obviously, but in the Passion narrative. And so that Passion narrative really has proven to be so determinative for Christians throughout much of Christian history, except sort of in sort of modern 20th 21st century kind of North American western history. It's more sort of these ideas of rescue me now. And so I think the practice of praying this has put me in a different sort of set of stories, that helps me rethink like, if it's if things in my marriage are hard, if being a parent is hard, if being a teacher or a pastor is hard. Maybe what I'm praying for is the fruit of the Spirit, to be shown or for me to have a keener, more acute sense of God being with me, in the valley of the shadow of death, so not rescuing me out of it now, but helped me to sense you, or to trust you, even if I don't feel you to trust you. Right. And that I think, has been the gift of, you know, writing these prayers over the years.

Joshua Johnson: 19:57

You know, I've seen lately a lot of people Going on literal pilgrimages, like going on long walks to discover something, some rootedness to the earth rootedness to God, and a journey towards towards him and this pilgrims mich language is, I think helpful for for us individually but you in your answer, you're using a lot of communal language you thought you've you were talking about us and we and not individualizing things on this long pilgrimage, if this is a collection of prayers of the people, these the kollect is how does that How, how does community help us on this road? And this pilgrimage towards a life of perseverance and Christ?

David Taylor: 20:51

Yeah, well, I mean, I mean, you hope and desperately pray that you actually have a community that is willing to be with and for you in in Christ like formation, right? I know, that's not always the case. Forever, you know, certain seasons of life, people find themselves acutely lonely, and if they have a church that they go to, they may feel like strangers in that place, which is why I find it so helpful to again, root myself, in sort of the larger body of Christ, you know, the body that transcends time, you know, that that has gone before me, you know, the cloud of witnesses, that can bear witness to me across the centuries, as well as you know, members of Christ body across the global church. And to know that God is not designed me, and has not designed any of us to become like his beloved son on my home. That the way that God is hard wired, the Christian life, it is fundamentally a communal, ecclesial, you know, intentional and intensively relational thing. That's why all the metaphors for the church are fundamentally communal, corporate, corporeal corporate tie, you know, metaphors. And so what does it mean, for me to pray a prayer for a struggle with mental health in the company of God's people. And I think, again, the temptation was to say, to mental health, more people talk about it these days than they did maybe 20, you know, 4050 years ago. And we thank God that this not so stigmatized. But I think there's still a lot of folks in our communities who feel embarrassed that they might struggle with depression, or whatever the case may be. But wouldn't it be such a beautiful thing to experience in a beautiful witness to a watching world, if a prayer for struggle with mental health were done in the company of those who recognize that they themselves were also vulnerable? Not involved, none of us is invulnerable. And so I think, to the extent that maybe, perhaps a majority of these prayers, not all but many have the first person plural, we us, it's a way to say out loud what God but God in Christ prays for us himself at the right hand of the Father, you know, that we together would be a read presentation of the life of the Trinity. So again, you know, my my colleagues who study, you know, worship Mersive music community have noted the predominance in the last 40 years of the first person singular in our worship music. And so much of the songs that we seen Sunday after Sunday, day after day on the worship stations, is me and I, and not that God does not care about me and I very much we are precious in his sight. But over time, I think that can have a nefarious effect. Because again, it's sort of you know, the gravitational force turns in on ourselves. And I don't think that's the dominant pronoun under test. Indigo about pronouns? Yeah, I mean, whatever, I'll just leave it as it is me, you know, we can fast we believe we are with you. And again, it's not that the me and I don't matter, and perhaps, in more collectivist societies, like maybe Asian societies tend to be more mutually ordered, and they need more. I, you know, as a way to say I as an individual, and unique and beloved, but I think that's the struggle of our culture. But yeah, you're right.

Joshua Johnson: 24:45

So growing up in Guatemala, how's that informed the way that you see community and church embodied experience in the United States? I was that impacted? Yeah,

David Taylor: 24:56

I mean, I would say still to this day, and as very A profound effect, I was born in Guatemala and left at 13. So 13 years is a good chunk of change. I didn't live into my adult years, so who knows what would have happened if I'd lived longer in Guatemala, but I teach in our Sunday school ministry at our church, all the time is a regular part of my service to our congregation is on me, and I teach, you know, kids, and I tell the kids quite frequently how, how formative it was, for me as a child, a child of a five or a 10, or 15. Growing up in a church culture, where it was the most normal, natural and desired thing to find myself in conversation with adults. And it was normal, natural and desirable for adults to engage me in conversation. And it's not that we talked about abstract philosophical things we just talked about life, or there's a certain mutual respect, that was given and a certain comfort in one another's company that gave expression to a kind of intergenerational life together, that I don't find easily in North American culture, we're so you know, segmented into, you know, the, the little kids go here and the not so little kids go there, and children's church and adults and, and there's so little opportunity for the generations and even elderly often find themselves sequestered off, right. And so I think, as a child, that the formative power of my childhood remains with me of, of how wonderful and beautiful and powerful it was, to have friendships, you know, with folks that are much older than I and how much they loved me and dignified my presence and took me seriously. And we could joke together, but also talk about, you know, matters of the faith. And, yeah, so I'm now wanting to find ways to form that and offer opportunities. For kids, I did a study of Psalm 23, with sixth graders this past year, and wanting them to feel at home with me. And like, you can talk to me about anything like you should never feel intimidated or afraid. Any topic, you know, is it there's nothing off limits. And so yeah, that I can be a surrogate uncle or surrogate father, or whatever the case may be that, you know, it could be a family member for them in the safe.

Joshua Johnson: 27:33

That's really good intergenerational community and church is so important for, for us, as adults to view life through the lens of a child, and for children to interact with adults. And so during this time, of uncertainty, as you're doing, and you're writing down colics, and you're writing down your prayers, your wife Phaedra, was starting to, to do some arts and to to draw some some pictures or paint some pictures, watercolors. And so she was having her own practice and spiritual discipline to be rooted and grounded. How important is it for us to, to use different facets of our creativity and imagination as a spiritual practice?

David Taylor: 28:24

Well, you know, what I tell my students is, if we ever wondered whether the imagination was central to our faith, whether it matter to God, if we have to look is the life of ministry of Jesus. Because there was, there was clearly a sense that everyone presumed that the Messiah would look and sound and be and do a certain way. And he had to, you know, not completely discard in all the expectations, because he does fulfill you know, the promises of the prophets, but he had to slightly derail their assumptions. And he does that to the imagination. And, you know, he has all these stories where he says, The kingdom of God is like, and you never says the kingdom of God is literally it's the kingdom of God. It's like and and so he tells the stories, and has these, you know, images and metaphors that enable people to imagine things otherwise. And I think that is a continuing gift that we can take advantage of that sometimes empirical reality can betray us to things that are not fully true. Or again, like if you're an experience of tragedy, or trauma. Sometimes we can find ourselves believing that all is darkness that are if you had a very troubled or abusive track childhood, you may grow up as an adult believing that the world is against you. That God cannot be trusted. it, these are narratives to get stuck in our little software that runs in the background. And sometimes we need the help of the imagination, to imagine our lives otherwise, to imagine our world around us to imagine our fellow believers as otherwise the we may be already thinking of them, right? Whatever the case may be, and the arts can become an aid to help us see what is true. And that's one of the things that I think fader has attempted to do in the paintings that accompany the book is to show us how, how the experience of prayer is simply an experience of talking to God. And that talking to God, or having an encounter of God or an encounter of the presence, the meaningful, palpable presence of God is something that can happen in in real time, in every place, you know, that we find ourselves in life in life, that it's not just I go to church, or small group, you know, or, you know, my accountability group or prayer partners, that's where prayer happens. But as we see all throughout the Old Testament, and again, you know, Jesus Himself is the ambulatory Tabernacle of God, you know, going about encountering people and all their circumstances. So she has these images of these little houses, houses as an image of an account or a place of encounter, right, cueing off of that image that we find all throughout the Old Testament, and putting them in all different kinds of landscape as a way to say, you may be changing your baby's diaper or two in the morning, you can encounter the presence of God there, it may not be fireworks, it could be a quiet thing, but God is not absentee of that, you know, or you're engaged in monotonous work, God is not absentee of that, you know, or you're sending your children off, you know, to a new adventure in life, maybe college or otherwise, that may feel scary, you may want to hold on to them. God can be present to those things, you know, in the middle of war, or presidential election, you know, all kinds of things. circumstances in life for me think, well, you know, it's not terribly spiritual, I shouldn't pray, the images that she has of these houses as a way to capture our imagination to say, oh, no, God would love to make his dwelling with you in this very specific circumstance. And then the other thing that she has in the paintings is these little filaments of gold like gold leaf. It just is like a little filigree, you know, that just comes down from the top of the painting, and then, you know, intersects Earth and maybe sometimes, you know, penetrates through the earth down to the core, as a way to say with eyes to see and ears to hear and hearts that are attuned, we might be able to see how God and Christ by spirit is afoot amongst us, right. But we would need an imagination to be able to a spirited baptised imagination, Spirit enabled imagination to see these things. So yeah, the hope is that the prayer, the paintings, obviously will accompany the prayers, but would also just simply be an aid to anyone, one of us to say, Oh, I wonder how God could be with us in the middle of a very stressful move across country. So I had friends that moved, you know, from Austin to Oregon. And they said, Would you write a prayer for moving to a new place? And I was like, I would I don't know what I'll pray right now. But I'll pray about it. And then I just like, I was like, Oh, a little testament is all about moving. It

Joshua Johnson: 33:42

is all about moving. Yeah. I mean, if you could just look at the lens of migration, it's pretty right. Throughout the whole of Scripture, right? But so then let's think about the imagination when it comes to relating to the God. And then the variety of of ways to go about doing it. I think a lot of times in western church contexts, especially in non denominational spaces, or even denominational spaces, we get stuck in one way to relate to God. And sometimes then we're like, okay, I want something different to bring about some new creativity, new life, to relate to God in a different way. How is there a way to be able to structure something or to just start to live into a way of accessing different imaginations to be able to relate to God?

David Taylor: 34:41

Yeah, you know, I write about this and I guess other one of the books that I have written wrote a few years ago glimpses of the new creation. I talked about how architectural spaces like church architectural spaces, whether it's a home like a living room, or you know, St Peter's cathedral, in On all, all include some kind of consciously or unconsciously, purposely or not some idea of who God is and how he meets us in this space. So, you know, sort of a gothic kind of architectural space, you know, like, near the Cathedral of Notre Dame, in Paris or St. Peter's in Rome, or St. Paul's in London, are very much metaphorically representing the idea of God is King. God is a royal, you know, figure. And so, if you were to encounter a king or queen, like what does that look like? What do you do? How do you behave? What's appropriate? What's Fitty, right? And so you have these majestic, palatial type, you know, buildings that because they fit, it's like, it's a fitting correspondence. But what you hadn't in the Protestant Reformation was, well, we also know that God, God in Christ is a teacher, and he comes to teach us, he teaches us, the Law and the Prophets and the Psalms, he teaches us to walk in the way of God and the commandments of God. And so a lot of church spaces were then built to represent that idea of God as teacher, God as instructor. And so, you know, seating spaces were arranged, you know, and so that we could be as if we were in a classroom, right. And, and then you have other more homey spaces. And so you have church, buildings that are more like domestic like and, and a church that I pastored in for a number of years, actually, over the doors that you would enter to go into the sanctuary where the room was a word living room. And that was very purposefully sort of placed, and it was naming, we're coming into a space. That's like, as if we are meeting God around in like, in the upper room, in a home, in a kind of warm familial space. He's approachable, he's near. He's not scary, distant, he's not scary judge, he's not far away, ruler, figure, he is near at hand. And that that really did happen. And we are in those kinds of spaces. But the point that I make in the book is that all spaces open up, but also closed down possibilities for us to encounter all of who God is. God is a royal figure, God is a rabbi, teacher, God is, you know, our, you know, Jesus is our elder brother. God is our Father. So how does, let's say, a church that meets in a home feel, God's or royal, other holy, you know, majestic, sovereign, you know, greater the universe, right? It's like, it's really hard to feel it right to be meaningful, right. And the same way that I have sung hymns and Gothic cathedrals, I'm like, Oh, my gosh, I don't feel connected to anybody. Here, we're just all sort of citizens of this, you know, kingdom, which is not a bad thing to be. It's a true thing to be. But it's just so hard to feel intimate, right and personable, right. So I think that's where I hymnody you know, our worship songs, like, how many of our worship songs help us to encounter a god as judge God as King God as elder brother, you know, God as our shepherd, you know, God as righteous. Just one who will, you know, be the just ruler of all, you know, and so again, in the prayers, I'm trying to, to name all the ways that we see God being named, because we need all of it. And again, depending on our family of origin, depending on our church origin, we probably gravitate for better for worse start certain ideas of God, and other ideas of God, feel very strange to us. feel scary to us, make us feel uncomfortable, right? So if God is the lover of our souls, and we are the beloved, then what does it mean to live into that right? And again, I have some wonderful friends, I will not name what church traditions are part of. But if, but if, you know, there was too much love or language, they would get profoundly uncomfortable. It was like no way. I can't do that. Whereas others would be like, I don't want a lot of holy, you know, scary judge God. We didn't have to be scary, right? But it's like, that's what we bring to the table. So I think music, you know, maybe the visual arts, or habits of prayer habits of preaching, you know, can help us capture these because I think all of them are helping us to live into the fullness to know to know God, obviously, that's the goal. We have all eternity to do this, but to know and love God in the fullness of this triune Life.

Joshua Johnson: 40:00

You know what I was? I was thinking, you know, my church is connected with a 24/7 prayer, you know, and we have, there's prayer rooms all over the world 1000s and 1000s of them, and they're very creative prayer rooms to be able to encounter God in different mediums different ways. So if you would, if you would then put together a prayer room to use these colics and Phaedrus paintings and maybe other some other mediums. What would How would you structure a prayer room to help us encounter God in different ways through space? Well,

David Taylor: 40:38

I mean, gosh, okay, well, I'll name a bias just so that, you know, we can just get it away, as, as an angle get actually my first year of seminary, I went to a vineyard church and I went to a Plymouth church, and I take turns, and then eventually I settled in an Anglican. But you know, I have very much a vineyard heart, you know, and love for the charismatic and the spontaneous, and in and so on, so forth. But one of the gifts I think of not just Anglicans, but other traditions is maybe a familiarity with and kind of living in sort of the rhythms of the church calendar. And I do feel like maybe the greatest gift of living attune to the church calendar is you're actually living attuned to the whole scope of Christ's life. And so let's say we begin an Advent. And so just kind of praying ourselves through the entirety of his life and ministry. And I think it's, it's the gift of it is it can be it's not magic, but it can be a corrective to tendency to get stuck, you know, and only like the passion or only the atonement, or only the cross, obviously, those are central. But so is the resurrection. And so is the ascension. And so this is in throne meant. So is this preaching the good news? So is this healing, so is this deliverance from evil, so is his incarnation. So if I had, you know, one of those prayer rooms, and I've done this with this book is I have a series of prayers that take us through the whole, you know, church calendar, but I asked my prayers to take us through the whole list as a so called secular calendar Gregorian calendar. Like how do we pray for Mother's Day? How do we pray Father's Day is as fraught as it is, how do we pray on Independence Day, and I have prayers for the weekdays, you know that I try to subvert sort of the the Roman and Norse gods that are that are the names, you know, we get our names for the week. And I say, Well, you know, like, today's Monday, its moons day. So it's the Roman goddess of the moon. Oh, like, well, how does Scripture help us think about the moon? Well, the Lord is the Lord of the moons, and he's made the lesser lights, so we can pray these things are and delighted them. So I guess I would say like, if the prayers could sort of take us through the rhythms in the episodes of the church calendar, the church calendar is ultimately biblically rooted. It's not some weird, you know, imposition, is like, sort of out of paying attention to Scripture, realizing, oh, let's pray through the entire rhythms of Scripture, all the rhythms of Christ's life, and then maybe what if our songs, and visual or digital arts could also help us become attuned, you know, to these things, and I think when we do that, we might also find ourselves becoming attuned to the global church, you know, how it is that visual artists in other you know, Asia, Africa, Latin America, other times in history, have visualized, you know, Jesus, and again, like, I have many books on my shelf that show how different periods in church history as a whole tend to gravitate toward certain images of Christ and then have imaged them in visual art. And, and that's dangerous if we get stuck, you know, in those things, so a room that, you know, would take advantage of the painterly arts, but also the digital arts to help us kind of go, oh, yeah, Christ really is majestic, holy, other. And in simultaneously His intimate friend, how do we live into that? Well, not in one day, in 124 hour period, it's over our lifetime. And so I guess I would do that. I would do that. And I'll tell you this. We just bought land which you're aware of. When we did buy we bought 40 years, we just moved into a home on 21 acres and one of one of the silent dream is like one of the goals that my wife and I have is to do two things. There's one little closet, it's an itty bitty closet downstairs and we want to turn it into a prayer closet. And then how Have a little kneeler and you know, some images, icons maybe and a few Bible and a few pair of books. And it would be for us and also for our children. And if somebody needs to get right with God, you go into your prayer closet, quite literally. But we also want to, because we have no land, we'd like to build an outdoor chap. So it's not gonna be weather protected, but somewhere for us to like, in creation, you know, exposed to the elements be present to the God who is the maker of heaven and earth.

Joshua Johnson: 45:31

It's beautiful, good job waves, the waves to engage that it gave us that creative exercise. But I think it's, I think it's good for, for all of us to start to think about what are different ways is to engage and encounter God, we're in these spaces. Do you have, as you I mean, you've written? I don't know, how many colleagues are in here over 400 isn't around 400? Yeah. So there's, there's a lot of them do you have one in particular that you can, can pull out and pray for us?

David Taylor: 46:10

What I could do is I have the sort of the book begins with morning prayers and evening prayers. And then the next section is prayers from Monday to Sunday. So I could just read one of the morning prayers, and then the prayer for Monday, and that, you know, maybe people's a sense. So the first, the very first prayer, in the book is I have seven morning prayers and seven evening prayers. So the first one is what goes like this. Oh, Lord, You who promise daily bread? May I be faithful to all that you have entrusted to me this day, no more and no less I pray. And let me not become anxious over things that I cannot control. So that I may experience the peace of Christ, which guards my heart and mind. I pray this in the name of Jesus, the one who is the author and finisher of my faith on them. So yeah, that was a prayer that I wrote, When I you know, like, I don't know, it's like, you start your day, and you just try to make a to do list and it's a never ending to do list is overwhelming, like how a leader so much, what do I do, and I was like, I have a prayer prayer that basically says, you don't do everything in one day, you just trust that there's grace for the day. And so then this is prayer for Monday, and goes like this, oh Lord, You who made the moon both to mark the seasons and to rule the night. rule in our hearts this day, we pray, and bless our Monday's work. So that with the moon in the stars, we might joyfully praise you a days. And we pray this in the name of the maker of heaven and earth, the one who makes the smaller light to rule the night on the

Joshua Johnson: 48:02

those are beautiful things. And I love that I love this, this book or this collection of colics. And the paintings that your wife did rare. If you would speak to the people who who receive your books and got and get this very welcoming colleagues, what what do you hope would come from it? How would you want them to utilize it? Or what would you like to get? Have them get from it?

David Taylor: 48:28

Yeah, I mean, there would be like the immediate, like the immediate purpose or the immediate goal, that it would offer them language to talk to God, which is what I would say prayer is simply about us talking to God, language to talk to God about things that they maybe have not thought they could talk to God, or felt hesitant or unsure how to talk to God. They would provide language, helpful, meaningful, personal language. And I think of this, you know, I was a pastor for many years, and it was wonderful, hard work, holy work. But I, I found myself, I'll say this way, I found myself astonished. And I include myself in this How often in the face of an immediate struggle or a tragedy or or frustration or hurt. The first instinct is not to talk to God for syncing is to do something else, which in the long scheme is you know, sometimes, you know, there's grace for all things. But how difficult it was for a person who maybe felt hurt by something in life, and then felt like maybe God was somehow involved in the hurt to not talk to God. And I think my hope as a pastor and my hope with this book is to help it make it easier for sooner rather than later. Bring those cares bring those hurts, bring those angers bring those confusions or doubts and trust that we have I have a merciful God who welcomes all of that is not a stranger to them in Jesus Christ. So that would be my hope is that that it would strengthen those prayer muscles. And sometimes, well, I guess most of the time, we all have sort of native prayer muscles, things that are easy for us to pray about. And all church traditions tend to have certain prayer habits. I think the hope of this book is that would strengthen other muscles. Like I've done a lot of work with a wheelbarrow, you'll know I have a wheelbarrow,

Joshua Johnson: 50:35

you're strengthening them, though you're getting them. Yeah.

David Taylor: 50:40

But if I had wheelbarrow, so sore, and I think the same prayer, that it was strengthened our capacity to talk to God about all facets of real life. And then kind of like, just honestly, like, got, like a, like, a bigger hope is, I don't need a person necessarily, to love every prayer in the book, or even necessarily love and adopt the form of calling, it's fine. Like, I'm not, you know, attached to it. It's, it's not an idol, obviously, hopefully, it's just a form, it's a gift. But if reading this book would ignite, or awaken your prayer life, or a part of your life that has been dormant in the prayer department, I mean, all I want is like, more talking to God is using a result, and better. And I don't mean in a simplistic way, but if this book just kind of says, you know, I've never been able to pray about the fact that I have felt really hurt by my mother. When I was a kid, or by an experience of, of hurt from church or heard from friend or, or disappointment, life, like that is just like a completely locked away part of my life. And I cannot talk to God about that, right? Because it just feels too painful. But if reading this book would just basically like, open that door and sight and Okay, I'll try, you know, that would make me so happy. You pray these prayers, and they help you that's great. But if it just helps you pray your own prayers that would make me even happier.

Joshua Johnson: 52:16

Beautiful. I've a couple of quick questions. The end one, if you go back to your 21 year old self, what advice would you give?

David Taylor: 52:25

I would say relax. Don't take yourself so seriously. Like, it's gonna be okay, buddy. Like, don't strive, definitely give up on all aspirations of perfectionism.

Joshua Johnson: 52:40

Amen. Amen. That would help so many people. Yeah, good. Anything you've been reading or watching lately recommend.

David Taylor: 52:51

This is not going to be appealing to everyone. But because my wife and I and our family have just sort of, you know, settled on to some land. We've been watching a documentary on amazon prime prime called Clarkson's farm. And it's about this guy who he had a show in the 90s. Kylie what was is he would you would drive cars, or race cars. He's an English guy. How what is the name of a just escapes me better. He's, he's, he became famous and quite wealthy. And then recent years, he decided he would buy a farm. And he knows nothing about farming, nothing about farm equipment. He's a complete ignoramus. He does a lot of stupid stuff. But it's the story of people around him who actually do know a lot. And basically, either tell him off or come alongside and help them figure out but it's just marvelous. You could almost say it's a little bit of a love story to farmers and how ridiculously hard it is to take care of land and to farm the land, whether it's you know, kind of, you know, cattle type farming or you know, grain farming, or other type and all the challenges and frustrations and political and legal and economic and you know how the little farmers always get kind of run over by the mega multi national, you know, it's just so sure like increases your respect for like all the food that shows up in your grocery store shelves, like somebody worked hard, and face drought and famine and you know, blight in order to love these things into existence. So yeah, we've been watching that and it's it's very entertaining, but also very inspiring. And it's helpful to us. Yeah.

Joshua Johnson: 54:42

That's great. How can people go out get your book prayers for the pilgrimage, and then how can people connect with you? Where would you like to point people to?

David Taylor: 54:50

Yeah, thanks for asking. I mean, the right answer is any bookstore. You I mean, you know, Amazon, Barnes and Nobles, Hartson mine's books, Lifeway? Yeah, it really does help us is if people take a moment and like, like star it, I guess, you know, or a little review, like the mighty algorithm is evil. Because it causes us to be invisible in so many ways and so many amazing things that are being made in the world that are invisible to the algorithm. So if you had a moment to, you know, star it or write a review, that really does help bring it to people's attention, and we really would love for it to come to many people's attention. And then I, I'm active on formerly Twitter now acts, which I don't know why we, it's such a dumb name. But more Twitter, I mostly do like ideas like things that I'm thinking about or resources there at Instagram. So the Twitter is W David O Taylor, you know, Twitter, the Instagram already had some body that had that handle, somebody that has like one follower and but so I'm David underscore Taylor on Instagram, that tends to be more of the personal side, you know, family stuff. And then I have a website W David O taylor.com. I just kind of, you know, put books and other resources that I find. So yeah, they can find me there. Thanks for asking.

Joshua Johnson: 56:17

Yeah. Well, David, thank you for this conversation. And thank you for this work, that you help ground us with us in our connection, and encounter with God in ways when we don't have words to say that we could actually use these words and we can start to talk to God and say, I can be rooted and grounded where I'm at. My feet are here. Beneath me. God is with me. He's present. And so thank you for that. I really enjoyed our conversation. It was fantastic. Thank you for coming on. Thank

David Taylor: 56:50

you, Joshua. A pleasure.