Prayers for the Pilgrimage: A Book of Collects for All of Life

Prayers for every aspect of life

During the pandemic, priest and theologian David Taylor began writing collects (an ancient form of short prayer) as a daily spiritual exercise. It was a way for him to offer back to God his own fears and anxieties. As time went on, he began to receive requests for written prayers from friends and even strangers for a wide variety of circumstances and needs. His collection of prayers grew until it numbered in the hundreds.

Prayers for the Pilgrimage is a compilation of Taylor’s prayers, arranged by topic and accompanied by a series of paintings by his wife, Phaedra. Here are prayers for morning and evening, work and play, public life and private life, doubt and faith--from Advent to Lent, from birth to death.

The Christian faith invites us to pray all of our lives back to God, lest we begin to believe that there is any part of our lives that God doesn’t see or isn’t interested in seeing. Prayers for the Pilgrimage gives us not only specific prayers but also a model for understanding our whole lives as prayer.

Phaedra Taylor (BFA, University of North Texas) is an artist whose work has been exhibited in juried, group, and solo exhibitions, and is held in private collections around the globe. Together with her husband, David, she also makes creative liturgical resources for families and churches.

W. David O. Taylor (ThD, Duke Divinity School) is Associate Professor of Theology and Culture at Fuller Theological Seminary and the author of several books, including A Body of Praise, Open and Unafraid, and Glimpses of the New Creation; he is also the editor of For the Beauty of the Church as well as co-editor of Contemporary Art and the Church and of The Art of New Creation. He has written for The Washington Post, Image Journal, Religion News Service, and Christianity Today, among others. He serves on the advisory board for Duke Initiatives in Theology and the Arts as well as IVP Academic’s series, ＂Studies in Theology and the Arts.＂ 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 with his family in Austin, Texas.