Occasional Prayers
26th September, 2019
During the 80’s and 90’s Tom had a regular practice in meditation. As a result of this he began to write poems which were prayers about the everyday challenges he faced. He began to gather these into a book which he called Occasional Prayers published in 1998.
To quote Tom:
I began to write my prayers in 1984, at a particular moment, after a particular set of experiences which I describe in “How I Found My Way to God”. Since that moment, I have been on a journey and my prayers are an essential part of it. My hope in publishing them is that they may help others to realise some of the things that have come to me, and that they may be encouraged to find their own way to have a discourse with their God.
At this point I should explain the intention of my prayers. To me, prayer is never for the purpose of supplication, or to ask for something. For me prayer is fundamentally a declaration of trust, a thanksgiving, and an affirmation of the things I have realised about my relationship with God of which I need to be constantly reminded.
There have been many request for the book and people use them for personal medication or as a source of peace and inspiration at times of crisis, rites of passage or turning points in their lives
We have decided to make these prayers available for anyone who may want to access them through the attached pdf. Please highlight or copy the poems individually or print out the book in its totality
A recently produced film about Tom’s work can be seen here