Parabola's Summer 1999 issue: Prayer and Meditation I think that perfect meditation could be termed perfect prayer. A person in a state of purity, in a state of prayer, would be a person in meditation. There are no associations, the mind and the body are stilled, open to a force which might be called God. This openness to Godliness may be where one arrives after a period of the deepest prayer. --from "Inviting Heaven into Hell: An Interview with William Segal" Cover: Le Priv®re by Francois Cauvin, Haiti. Copyright 1996. In this issue:

• "Koans of Silence" by J. A. Taylor - Listening for the voice of oneness
• "The Life of Spiritual Combat" - An interview with Abbot Hugh Gilbert, O.S.B.
• "Going out of Oneself" by Father Bede Griffiths - Speaking the secret word
• "Praying in the World" by Marvin Barrett - A case history
• "Moses and the Shepherd" by Jelaluddin Rumi - No one right way to praise
• "A Blessing of One's Own" by Helen M. Luke - Selections from her journal
• "Why We're Here Today" - An interview with Chief Tom Porter
• "The Thanksgiving Prayer" - Adapted from the Mohawk
• "An Elevation of Our Soul" by Rama Coomaraswamy - The many nuances of prayer
• "You Will Find Only Darkness" - From The Cloud of Unknowning
• "Inviting Heaven into Hell" - An interview with William Segal
• "Canticle of the Sun" by Ikhnaton (Amenhotep IV) - An Egyptian hymn to the source
• ARCS: "Holy and Alone"
• "I Call You for Life" by Marion Kilson - Ways of the Ga People
• "Praying by Proxy" by Abraham J. Heschel - On the contemporary "house of worship"
• "The Highest Work" by Meister Eckhart - Raising a longing for the divine
• "The Inner Book of Psalms" by Jean Sulzberger - An esoteric teaching
• "Towards the Further Shore" by Frithjof Schuon - Meditations on life's certitudes
• "Playing with God" by Tracy Cochran - A child's response to religion

Epicycles - Traditional stories from around the world

• "Ev¥, the Drawing of the Lines" / Marshall Islands - retold by Daniel A. Kelin II
• "The Dream Assembly" / Jewish - retold by Howard Schwartz
• "A Good Beating" / Tibetan Buddhist - retold by Cathy Spagnoli