From the fore­word: ​”I has­ten to say that by cling­ing I intend to con­vey the expe­ri­ence of prayer, not any spe­cial sort of method or dis­ci­pline. Instead, what I have writ­ten is an exper­i­ment. I have set out to draw a pic­ture of prayer from the per­spec­tive of one per­son. The hope is that its very sin­gu­lar­i­ty will strike a more gen­er­al chord. With­in the metaphor of cling­ing I want to describe sev­er­al aspects of prayer. But these ought not to be thought of as stages or steps. Instead, they are facts of the one jew­el, some ran­dom gleams issu­ing from the pre­cious stone [that is prayer].”

2003