A String and a Prayer: How to Make and Use Prayer Beads

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 160 pages
• Published by: Red Wheel/Weiser September 2002
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 1590030109
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-1590030103
• Book Dimensions: 7 x 6.3 x 0.5 inches
• Weighs: 6.2 ounces

About The Author
Eleanor Wiley, a former speech pathologist and gerontologist, began making jewelry about seven years ago. Nearing age sixty she faced a vocational and spiritual crisis and began making prayer beads. A fossil ivory "Goddess of Transformation" came her way and her first set of prayer beads was born. She teaches workshops on making prayer beads as a spiritual practice all over the world.

Maggie Oman Shannon is the author of The Way We Pray and editor of Prayers for Common Healing. She is a writer and editor whose work has appeared in numerous publications.

Reader Reviews
I found that there were a couple of nice ideas I hadn't seen before: one was the idea of making a string of beads to memorialize some occasion or person. A woman who had lost custody of her children, for example, made a string for each of them and told them when they held them she would be holding their hands. Another woman whose cat had died made a string using the colors of her cat's fur, and little charms that reminded her of her cat. The other idea I liked was making a strand that was not in the form of a circle, but had a loop on one end and a pendant on the other, rather like a button and buttonhole. The strand could be buttoned into a circle around the wrist as a bracelet or around the neck as a neclace. But beyond that I was a little disappointed in the book. It seemed mostly to be about prayer beads as an art form, rather like any other book on jewelry art, but there wasn't much about their actual use in prayer. There was a little lip service to prayer beads in world religions (including modern uses), but not much detail on the subject. I've found that sites on the Internet have a lot more information than her book did. There was a nice compilation of prayers at the end, but nothing about how to arrange them for use with prayer beads. The beads shown in the photos were in random arrangements, chosen more for length than number of prayers. The instructions would talk about using enough beads to make the necklace two feet long, for example. Anyway, just my reaction. I've found so very much great information on the 'Net that the book just seemed to fall short. Actually Basil Pennington's book on the Catholic rosary ("Praying by Hand") had more information on prayer beads in world religions than Wiley's book did.