PRAYERS FOR A THOUSAND YEARS: Blessings and Expressions of Hope for the New Millennium edited by Elizabeth J. Roberts and Elias Amidon

With the coming of the second millennium anxiety is rampant so editors Elizabeth Roberts and Elias Amidon selected words of hope as an antidote to the fearful rumblings of doom, apocalyptic predictions, and computer-induced chaos. They sent out invitations asking many religious people to offer a written message or prayer to the future. The final result is a body of work that offers a compelling and positive vision for the millennium. Contributors include Reverend Desmond M. Tutu, Poland's Lech Walesa, Thomas Moore, Judy Chicago, Alice Walker, death row inmate Jarvis Jay Masters, Rabbi Zalman Scater-Shalomi, and poets Gary Snyder, Mary Oliver, and Diane Ackerman.

THE DOUBLEDAY PRAYER COLLECTION: Over 1,300 Prayers for All Occasions compiled and edited by Mary Batchelor ($22.00, hardcover, 509 pages, indexes, Doubleday ISBN: 0-385-48847-5)

The recent resurgence of interest in all things spiritual has been accompanied by a renewed interest in prayer. People all over the world have been returning to prayer as a means of both adding meaning to their daily lives and deepening their communion with God. So while prayer has, of course, been with us for centuries, it is now time for a comprehensive Christian prayer collection to meet the growing interest in need for prayer.

THE DOUBLEDAY PRAYER COLLECTION is perhaps the most impressive collection of Christian prayers yet assembled. It will certainly meet the current demand for prayer resource books, but its diversity and thoroughness ensure that it will be a devotional classic. With over 1,300 prayers, THE DOUBLEDAY PRAYER COLLECTION is designed to be relevant in all aspects of life. To meet this end, editor Mary Batchelor divided the prayers into twenty-six different sections, each with a specific need in mind. These sections include: "A Time to be Silent," "Forgiveness," "For Home and Family," "In Illness," and "The Church in the World." These twenty-six sections are, in turn, broken down further into subsections, making it even easier for you to find a prayer to meet your specific needs. The "World Around Us" section, for example, includes sections such as "Animals," and "The Environment." Finding the prayer you need couldn’t be easier.

The prayers in this remarkable collection come from virtually every part of the Christian tradition. The contributors include; poets, Archbishops, Roman emperors, earls, scholars, and, of course, the Bible. You will undoubtedly encounter some familiar and well known prayers and contributors, but you will also be sure to find the unexpected in THE DOUBLEDAY PRAYER COLLECTION. There are other prayers which come from diverse sources such as the New Zealand Prayer Book and the Eastern Orthodox Church. It also includes prayers from different cultures, like Hawaii and Russia, and from mysterious documents like the Dead Sea Scrolls.