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Prayer Vol. 01
72 pages, ebook
Published January 1, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
January 15, 2025
“Father, help me to live right, and not just not-wrong.”
July 29, 2021
TLDR: listen to Strahan’s podcast first, then dive into this, and you will be changed through what you encounter.
Had I read this book in college, I would have listed it as “Milk and Honey for Christians:” short poems that are pretending to be deeper than they are. In the midst of my writing classes focused on craft, line breaks, imagery, and earned telling, I would have seen nothing this book had to offer. Beneath my artistic sensibilities, there also existed a long-cultivated cynicism. I had been growing this cynicism for most of my adolescence and young adulthood. This cynicism is a deeper feeling than a shallow marker on the pessimism/optimism spectrum. It was a soul-filled cynicism, full of distrust, anger, and frustration.
The reason that’s relevant is it is this cynicism which Strahan engages with in his work, whether it be his songs, writing, podcast, or online classes.
I was introduced to Strahan by a friend through his prayer class, and then I found his podcast, and then I listened to some of his music. Over an impressively short time, these things chipped away at and struck into the heart of this spiritual cynicism I’ve been describing.
Strahan is a voice who says - you can be biblically orthodox and still do things such as: enjoy God’s presence, feel him speaking to you, spend time with him and it be fun. If that’s not revolutionary to you that’s ok.
The biggest thesis of Strahan’s content lately is that the gospel’s justification of our sins is not merely about wiping the record: it is that, but it is not just that. The the record is wiped as a means to an end, which is communion. He uses the word communion and reconciliation more often than relationship, maybe because the platitude “not religion but a relationship” has been repeated so many times it has been diluted into the Christian culture, giving it less taste than soda water. What does it truly mean to have a spirituality that is relational with your God? This is what Strahan is about.
So, prayer volume 1. Strahan writes prayer poems. I don’t know what the American journal of best poetry or whatever would have to say about them, and I don’t care anymore. It’s not the point. Literary creations of the spiritual experience cut beneath craft, though they may use it, just as they cut beneath language, though they must use it.
Strahan speaks to loss, joy, communion with God, and the spiritual experience of a life lived with him with actual authenticity. Since reading him, I have become a more joyful person. I have become a less cynical person. I think I have become more of a person.
I cannot endorse this book enough, but my endorsement extends beyond this as a product. Engage with the work of Strahan Coleman. If you are a spiritually cynical person, this may just be the thing that comes in, softens your heart, and helps you feel more connected with God than ever before. I’m serious.
Had I read this book in college, I would have listed it as “Milk and Honey for Christians:” short poems that are pretending to be deeper than they are. In the midst of my writing classes focused on craft, line breaks, imagery, and earned telling, I would have seen nothing this book had to offer. Beneath my artistic sensibilities, there also existed a long-cultivated cynicism. I had been growing this cynicism for most of my adolescence and young adulthood. This cynicism is a deeper feeling than a shallow marker on the pessimism/optimism spectrum. It was a soul-filled cynicism, full of distrust, anger, and frustration.
The reason that’s relevant is it is this cynicism which Strahan engages with in his work, whether it be his songs, writing, podcast, or online classes.
I was introduced to Strahan by a friend through his prayer class, and then I found his podcast, and then I listened to some of his music. Over an impressively short time, these things chipped away at and struck into the heart of this spiritual cynicism I’ve been describing.
Strahan is a voice who says - you can be biblically orthodox and still do things such as: enjoy God’s presence, feel him speaking to you, spend time with him and it be fun. If that’s not revolutionary to you that’s ok.
The biggest thesis of Strahan’s content lately is that the gospel’s justification of our sins is not merely about wiping the record: it is that, but it is not just that. The the record is wiped as a means to an end, which is communion. He uses the word communion and reconciliation more often than relationship, maybe because the platitude “not religion but a relationship” has been repeated so many times it has been diluted into the Christian culture, giving it less taste than soda water. What does it truly mean to have a spirituality that is relational with your God? This is what Strahan is about.
So, prayer volume 1. Strahan writes prayer poems. I don’t know what the American journal of best poetry or whatever would have to say about them, and I don’t care anymore. It’s not the point. Literary creations of the spiritual experience cut beneath craft, though they may use it, just as they cut beneath language, though they must use it.
Strahan speaks to loss, joy, communion with God, and the spiritual experience of a life lived with him with actual authenticity. Since reading him, I have become a more joyful person. I have become a less cynical person. I think I have become more of a person.
I cannot endorse this book enough, but my endorsement extends beyond this as a product. Engage with the work of Strahan Coleman. If you are a spiritually cynical person, this may just be the thing that comes in, softens your heart, and helps you feel more connected with God than ever before. I’m serious.
July 30, 2019
A disclaimer at first: I worked on the editing of this book. So I have a unique relationship to it. Not quite the author, not quite the reader, I stand in a gap and, best case scenario, exist as an unobtrusive mediator between the two. I get to dip my feet in both roles, privy to the behind-the-scenes creative and craft process, and also able to step back from the creative object. This is a privilege on a project like Strahan's. But nonetheless, the editor's role is a particular one.
A few months after publication, I decided to revisit the book, this time purely as a reader (as much as I was able), engaging with it as it was designed to be engaged with.
Shifting yourself out of, stepping down from, the role of being the editor of a text actually involves a different relationship to the text; it involves humility. Now you're the intended reader. The recipient.
(That shift spotlights the potential power dynamic of editing and critique. And the importance of humility. Maybe we need to be aware of this as readers in all our engagements with meaningful texts.)
Strahan and I first met when he visited Tauranga on his Prose to Poetry tour. As he spoke, my soul (not to get too romantic about it) spotted a fellow traveller, someone who was bringing poetry and the contemplative life to bear on the struggles and joys of life. A seeker of the Presence. Somehow, through our circuitous routes, we had ended up on similar ground and now our paths were crossing.
Now here I was again, in what felt like another burnout valley, noticing Strahan's Prayers Vol 1, the finished book, sitting on my bedside table waiting for me to engage with it in this new way. I was in need of it.
I started reading, two or three poems/prayers/meditations per morning, encountering them and letting them interact with my stuttering start to each day, as the flow brought them to me.
The words are born out of struggle, not washed clean with platitudes or been-there-done-that bravado, so they feel at home in difficulty. They foster kinship. Speak peace to the storm, with just the right mix of realism and romance, and the acceptance and hope dynamic of faith.
The book also has some lovely wordless moments... selah stated or implied. The non verbal - the visual functions as meditative in the book. The colour pages, including one lovely full spread, evoke sunrises or sunsets, while a thin, inscribed line tracks across each page:
A torn edge, a mountain range, a coastline, a thread. A meandering thought or pathway.
I'm not sure how we quantify these things, especially for art (word and silence) like Strahan's, which deals so much in depth and mystery, but I sense that this book works.
I think I need more, and thankfully, "Vol 1" implies a "Vol 2". Meanwhile, I've begun to read it again.
A few months after publication, I decided to revisit the book, this time purely as a reader (as much as I was able), engaging with it as it was designed to be engaged with.
Shifting yourself out of, stepping down from, the role of being the editor of a text actually involves a different relationship to the text; it involves humility. Now you're the intended reader. The recipient.
(That shift spotlights the potential power dynamic of editing and critique. And the importance of humility. Maybe we need to be aware of this as readers in all our engagements with meaningful texts.)
Strahan and I first met when he visited Tauranga on his Prose to Poetry tour. As he spoke, my soul (not to get too romantic about it) spotted a fellow traveller, someone who was bringing poetry and the contemplative life to bear on the struggles and joys of life. A seeker of the Presence. Somehow, through our circuitous routes, we had ended up on similar ground and now our paths were crossing.
Now here I was again, in what felt like another burnout valley, noticing Strahan's Prayers Vol 1, the finished book, sitting on my bedside table waiting for me to engage with it in this new way. I was in need of it.
I started reading, two or three poems/prayers/meditations per morning, encountering them and letting them interact with my stuttering start to each day, as the flow brought them to me.
The words are born out of struggle, not washed clean with platitudes or been-there-done-that bravado, so they feel at home in difficulty. They foster kinship. Speak peace to the storm, with just the right mix of realism and romance, and the acceptance and hope dynamic of faith.
The book also has some lovely wordless moments... selah stated or implied. The non verbal - the visual functions as meditative in the book. The colour pages, including one lovely full spread, evoke sunrises or sunsets, while a thin, inscribed line tracks across each page:
A torn edge, a mountain range, a coastline, a thread. A meandering thought or pathway.
I'm not sure how we quantify these things, especially for art (word and silence) like Strahan's, which deals so much in depth and mystery, but I sense that this book works.
I think I need more, and thankfully, "Vol 1" implies a "Vol 2". Meanwhile, I've begun to read it again.
October 10, 2022
Strahan Coleman’s ministry has deeply impacted me through his work as a musician and then Commoner’s Communion through developments of sickness. This little book of prayers contain several of his best early episodes that helped me through the deconstruction, reconstruction, and following pandemic of life in 2019/2020. Coleman’s perspective on prayer, stillness, and beauty are excellent as they remind me of a modern monastic with a tinge of classical Christian theism. My only potential critique is how most of the prayers neglect calling out sin or evil for what it is in our lives, though he does describe the deep distaste for looking away from the transcendent Christ.
January 1, 2022
Fresh, imaginative, beautiful prayers, many of which drew fresh blood of faith. Very grateful for these writings.
February 5, 2024
Coleman’s book is a nice little book on prayer. I found that the prayers contained within felt like they were Coleman’s personal prayers, which I’m sure would have great depth and meaning to him, but I unfortunately found them hard to pray myself. In that sense this book seemed like every prayer needed a far longer commentary explaining the prayer rather than the prayer speaking for itself and truly allowing “communion with God” as such. Accordingly, I found it a little disheartening to know each day that I wouldn’t simply be able to read the prayer and pray along with immediacy, but would have to read the author’s commentary to truly understand what he was trying to pray before actually engaging with the prayer.
June 17, 2021
I experience so much intimacy with God when I read these small prayer books. So much of God’s anointment on his words.
“ A knot is an intentional tangle. In the middle of it, we can feel like we’re being flipped around folded in on ourselves. It’s hard to see the endgame when it’s heavens hands that weave our futures path. Seasons of disorientation are part of learning to give up control- one of the most freeing and important journeys in building intimacy with the father- we may feel we’re all tied up but a knot is an intentional way of strengthening a single strand.”
“ A knot is an intentional tangle. In the middle of it, we can feel like we’re being flipped around folded in on ourselves. It’s hard to see the endgame when it’s heavens hands that weave our futures path. Seasons of disorientation are part of learning to give up control- one of the most freeing and important journeys in building intimacy with the father- we may feel we’re all tied up but a knot is an intentional way of strengthening a single strand.”
October 31, 2020
Balm to my soul.
December 19, 2023
Good for reading slowly and pondering - maybe a page a day (which is what I hope to do after reading through it quickly).
Quotes that stood out to me the first time through:
I used to imagine that there is some kind of higher spiritual plane we’re all trying to reach. And un-earthiness ___ But the more I look at God, the more I wake up to the fact that if He is so ordinary that He can be mistaken for a man, then maybe His work in my life can he so ordinary that it looks like nothing in particular to anyone else ___ My prayer today is to learn to embrace the earthiness in the way the Spirit chooses to move through me, and to see the menial, mundane and unseen parts of my life as the wonder of God to redeem every human thing. (P. 15)
The priority of God on the cross was not behavior management — it was reconciliation.[…] Without honesty, there is no intimacy. So speak freely and let God be kind to you today. (P. 44)
Quotes that stood out to me the first time through:
I used to imagine that there is some kind of higher spiritual plane we’re all trying to reach. And un-earthiness ___ But the more I look at God, the more I wake up to the fact that if He is so ordinary that He can be mistaken for a man, then maybe His work in my life can he so ordinary that it looks like nothing in particular to anyone else ___ My prayer today is to learn to embrace the earthiness in the way the Spirit chooses to move through me, and to see the menial, mundane and unseen parts of my life as the wonder of God to redeem every human thing. (P. 15)
The priority of God on the cross was not behavior management — it was reconciliation.[…] Without honesty, there is no intimacy. So speak freely and let God be kind to you today. (P. 44)
May 16, 2025
I am entirely convinced that Strahan Coleman is one of the most gifted spiritual poets of our time.
I am incredibly thankful for the hard journey that led him into this deeper reflection of God and so changed by the work he has produced from it. It has just left me praising God for all that He is and all that He has meant for me.
Thank you Strahan, for being such a transparent gateway into the heart and character of God.
I am incredibly thankful for the hard journey that led him into this deeper reflection of God and so changed by the work he has produced from it. It has just left me praising God for all that He is and all that He has meant for me.
Thank you Strahan, for being such a transparent gateway into the heart and character of God.
February 16, 2026
Beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful.
Prayer, poetry, reflections. Just beautiful.
I really enjoyed reading this after scripture each day, and often before bed. Strahan has a great gift in this space that he stewards beautifully.
Prayer, poetry, reflections. Just beautiful.
I really enjoyed reading this after scripture each day, and often before bed. Strahan has a great gift in this space that he stewards beautifully.
February 24, 2022
Not only prayers but poetry that so beautifully capture relationship with God.
May 19, 2022
A collection of beautiful and intimate prayers. Incredible book!
January 26, 2023
Such real and honest communion with God, a creative way to pray and reflect
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July 6, 2020I follow Strahan Coleman on Instagram as commoners_communion, and received this as an e-book when the author decided to give it out for free during COVID-19. I think that this short book of devotional poems probably would have benefited from being read in a physical form, as I can tell it was put together with great thought about the spacing and formatting.
The thing I appreciate about this book is that it feels quite genuine and without pretentiousness--more or less just a book compiled out of one man's poem/prayers. And there's something uniquely powerful about that.
The thing I appreciate about this book is that it feels quite genuine and without pretentiousness--more or less just a book compiled out of one man's poem/prayers. And there's something uniquely powerful about that.
May 6, 2023
My first dive into poetry outside of the psalms for assistance in prayer. Such an honest and compassionate companion for exploring deeper spaces of prayer. If you’re looking for new language in the Spirit, start here, I am certain something beautiful will start to happen within you.
Read at the beginning of the year, so a full review will come when I re-read in the future, which I can guarantee will absolutely happen.
Read at the beginning of the year, so a full review will come when I re-read in the future, which I can guarantee will absolutely happen.
September 7, 2024
I loved these poem/prayers that I found very helpful in nurturing my relationship with the God I'm in relationship with. Throughout my life this relationship has been an unfolding mystery and continues to be, but gifts such as these prayers are a source of nourishment providing glimpses, sometimes very clear ones, highly recommended. Thank you Strahan!
February 29, 2024
Profound. Tender. Genuine. Restful read.
September 12, 2024
Such beautiful prayers!
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews