If you'd rather place an order by talking to one of our cheerful order desk clerks, please call 1-888-232-4444 (USA and Canada only) or 250-383-6864. From Europe, ring our UK order desk clerk at local rate number 0845 230 9601 (UK only) or 44 (0)1865 722 113.

Prayers from the Nave

by Clifford E. Swartz

87 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #05-0512; ISBN 1-4120-5614-4; US$15.00, C$19.00, EUR12.50, £9.00

Here are 52 poems in the form of prayers that would not be heard from the pulpit. They have been presented in church evening entertainment as rehearsed readings.

Read more!

About the Book      About the Author      Excerpts      Catalogue Information

About the Book

Here are 52 poems in the form of prayers that would not be heard from the pulpit. They range from skepticism to acceptance, and deal with sin, doubt, happiness, family, frustration and death. They have all been presented in Church evening entertainment as rehearsed readings.

---

About the Author

Clifford Swartz is Professor Emeritus of Physics at Stony Brook University, New York. He has been married for almost 60 years to a beautiful History Professor. They produced six happy and productive children. Also, over 35 books, including physics, math, history and four books of poetry.

---

Excerpts

What a misunderstanding there has been, Lord!
When I was young I thought that original sin
Meant sex. Perhaps it was my own innate concern,
Or perhaps me Sunday teachers thought it best
To establish first things first.
At any rate, the close alliance of those topics
Enhanced my interest in them both.
Religions have always ahd a grim concern for sex.
The propogaion of the faith, if not
The species, is at stake.
The more babies baptized, the more souls saved,
And hence the greater rejoicing in heaven
As well as at the collection plate.

Perhaps I wouldn't have been so misled
By those children's pictures of the Garden
If Eve had been wearing clothes
While fooling around with that snake.
It turns out that the seduction
Was on a much higher plane than I could have imagined.
The snake was trying to make humans out of zombies.
The forbidden fruit was knowledge of good and evil
And eating it meant the end of innocence,
Which is to say, the end of being just animals.
Adam and Eve committed the true primordial sin
Of wanting to be like their creator
In the only way that matters for thinking creatures.
For that noble and proper attempt
They were condemned by the strange and jealous
God of primitive religion.
No offense meant, Lord. I know it wasn't you.

Most religions have a cautionary tale
About how our human troubles began.
The plots are distressingly similar;
man presumes upon the prerogatives of god
(Frequently led astray by Eve or Pandora
Or some other conniving woman).

Thus winged Icarus plummets to his death,
Prometheus is forever chained,
The staircase to the stars becomes a Babel
And in Adams fall, sin we all.
The moral, as Job learned to his sorrow,
Is that we are weak, and He is strong.
What pitiful and revealing legends!
Here is this marvelously intricate universe
With humans who have the wit and passion to explore.
And throug the misty generations our priests,
In order to maintain a privileged mystery,
Have told us, "For god's sake, don't look."
Now here's a triumph of brain washing --
The chief virtue of humans turned into their chief vice.

I must say that the Garden
Seemed a more attractive place
Before I realized that Adam and Eve
Were missing out on more than just their clothes
With its smarmy comforts, Eden
Must have been something like a warm bed
On a cold but invigorating morning.
Snuggling back down is all right for children,
But grownups have a world to discover.
Theologically speaking, I think it's a good thing
We took those apples and got the hell out of there.

---

Catalogue Information

---