Short Trip to the Edge: A Pilgrimage to Prayer (New Edition)

by Scott Cairns

Overview

Poet and literature professor Scott Cairns ran headlong into his midlife crisis — a fairly common experience among men nearing the age of fifty—while walking on the beach with his Labrador. His was not a desperate attempt to recapture youth, filled with sports cars and younger women. Instead, Cairns realized his spiritual life was advancing at a snail's pace and time was running out. Midlife crisis for this this Baptist turned Eastern Orthodox manifested as a desperate need to seek out prayer.

Originally published in 2007, this new edition of Short Trip to the Edge include photos, maps and an expanded narrative of Scott's spiritual journey to the mystical peninsula of Mt. Athos. With twenty monasteries and thirteen sketes scattered across its sloping terrain, the Holy Mountain was the perfect place for Scott to seek out a prayer father and discover the stillness of the true prayer life. Told with wit and exquisite prose, his narrative takes the reader from a beach in Virginia to the most holy Orthodox monasteries in the world to a monastery in Arizona and back again as Scott struggles to find his prayer path. Along the way, Cairns forged relationships with monks, priests, and fellow pilgrims.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781612617329
Publisher:	Paraclete Press
Publication date:	03/01/2016
Series:	Paraclete Poetry Series
Edition description:	New
Pages:	258
Sales rank:	1,121,298
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.58(d)

About the Author

Librettist, essayist, translator, and author of ten poetry collections, Scott Cairns is Curators’ Distinguished Professor Emeritus at University of Missouri. His poems and essays have appeared in Poetry, Image, Paris Review, The Atlantic Monthly, The New Republic, and both have been anthologized in multiple editions of Best American Spiritual Writing. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2006, and the Denise Levertov Award in 2014.

Table of Contents

Preamble ix

Setting Out xi

Part 1 The Far

1 Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief 3

2 Lord, he said, teach us to pray 17

3 So great a cloud of witnesses 35

4 In the early watches of the night… 47

5 In remembrance of me 57

8 Freely you have received 71

7 A reed, shaken by the wind… 85

8 I have called you friends 95

Part 2 The Far and the Near

9 Without a parable, spake he not unto them 111

10 The midst of the feast… 127

11 Peace, be still 143

12 This sickness is not unto death 157

13 Not without honor, save in his own country 173

Part 3 The Near

14 Accepted as adopted sons… 189

15 What I say to you, I say to all-Watch! 205

16 Watch, therefore, and pray… 225

Epilogue 229

Short Trip to the Edge 233

Acknowledgements 235

A Pilgrim's Glossary 237

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"In Short Trip To The Edge, Scott Cairns pulls back the curtain and gives us a glimpse of the spiritual energy present on the Holy Mountain. He approaches his prose with the soul and skill of a poet. It is at once simple and profound—accessible and ineffable. Scott has the boldness to confront the deepest parts of our human nature with fierce honesty and humor. It’s a place where “pilgrims are a mixed bag,” holy relics make the heart race and true spirituality is an “acquired taste." The reader, (or should I say pilgrim) is invited to travel along a beautiful and potentially frightening road into the heart of silence, repentance and prayer. There is a palpable sense of being there: surrounded by a timeless chorus of voices chanting on The Holy Mountain, praying for the life of the world. One slowly loses the desire to arrive and begins to embrace the possibility of “always becoming." Scott Cairns pours out his soul in this brilliant and much needed book. It is well worth the taking this short trip to the edge!" —Jonathan Jackson, star of the hit ABC show Nashville and author of The Mystery Of Art

“Scott Cairns is not only one of the most vital poets of our time but also a prose writer of uncommon vision, and in Short Trip to the Edge, his account of his pilgrimage to the Holy Mountain of Athos, in northern Greece, he weaves together a personal history of faith, a wealth of learning, and the wisdom of the ages to create a book for spiritual seekers from every religious denomination. What better guide, and travel companion, than Scott Cairns? I would follow him to the edge—and beyond.” —Christopher Merrill, author of Things of the Hidden God: Journey to the Holy Mountain

“Mt. Athos is 'the edge' in more ways than one, a place both beautiful and ruggedly challenging, alive with spiritual power that shares the same qualities. Cairns is the ideal guide—relaxed, invitingly conversational, and often amused, but always evoking the awe that these mysteries deserve.” —Frederica Mathewes-Green

"A Short Trip to the Edge is an exceptional and compelling book. Scott Cairns has a poet’s eye and a story-tellers flair, so that mystical experience and profound theology are bodied forth in memorable images and vivid scenes, instead of being lost in abstraction. This book witnesses to the way ancient truths can become vivid, true and life-changing in the here and now. This is a short trip you will never forget." —Rev. Dr. Malcolm Guite, Girton College, Cambridge

Editorial Reviews

We have heard about pilgrimages of lands and terrains; distances and heights. What about the practice of prayer? In this book, Scott Cairns does both. Calling Mount Athos (Agion Oros) in Northern Greece a ‘Holy Mountain,’ Cairns has been making trips to encounter the meaning of being ‘inhabited by a holy presence.’ It is also the readying of the heart to encounter God not only in the speedy race of life but also the slowing pace of reflectiveness. Given time, even the slowest would eventually make the turn. Even the highest mountain would be climbed...I appreciate this creative description of the learning of prayer. By infusing prayer throughout the book and the humility to keep learning how to pray, this book enables us to read it prayerfully. Many times, we read with the purpose of mining information. Due to the constant rush for deadlines, busyness with many other activities, and the incessant demands on our time, we can fail to listen to that soft whisper of God. There must be a reason why Paul teaches us to pray without ceasing (1 Thess 5:17). As children of God, our heavenly Father often wants to reach out and touch us. When we pray, we are more sensitive to this outreach from heaven to earth. We are more open to sense the touch of the Spirit in our hearts. We learn best to pray when we let God lead and guide us. The way that Cairns describes his learning is something we can all learn from. For all the detailed descriptions of his pilgrimage, do not miss out on his reflective moments that leave him wanting more of God, more pilgrimages, and more prayer.” —Conrade Yap, Panorama of a Book Saint

“This is a revised edition of a book published in 2006, chronicling the author’s first three pilgrimages to Mount Athos in northern Greece. Since then, he tells us in the preamble to the new edition, he has returned 17 times (!). An adult convert to Eastern Orthodoxy, Cairns is best known as a poet, and he writes with a poet’s eye for luminous detail and impatience with cant. That adds freshness and a wry authenticity to his heartfelt account of the life of prayer. ‘It is not, finally, my prayer that I’m after,’ he writes, ‘but the prayer of the Holy Spirit in me, praying . . . connecting me to Christ and, as it happens, his existential Body, the church.’”  —John Wilson, editor of Books & Culture, Christianity Today

“In Short Trip to the Edge: A Pilgrimage to Prayer, poet and literature professor Scott Cairns recounts a series of trips to Mount Athos, a peninsula in northern Greece that has been home to a number of Eastern Orthodox monastic communities since the Byzantine era. The original edition of the book, published in 2006, described the first three trips that Cairns made to the Holy Mount. This new edition, which includes helpful photographs, maps, and an epilogue, confirms that the initial account was not just a travel narrative in disguise or a temporary solution to a mid-life crisis. As the epilogue reveals, these trips have become regular events in the last decade. A self-confessed ‘slow pilgrim,’ Cairns has developed a good amount of momentum by this point, having now made eighteen trips in his ongoing ‘pilgrimage to prayer.’
Most intriguing in Short Trip is its apprehension of beauty in terms that are both spiritual and physical. Cairns engages all of the senses in his pursuit of a life made prayer...Glimpses of metaphysical reality reveal God’s ‘appalling ubiquity,’ as Cairns discovers the irony that distance enables us to see what is already shockingly near (67). Such discoveries represent the benefits, as well as the challenges, of accompanying the pilgrim on this Short Trip to the Edge.” —Jeffrey Galbraith, The Englewood Review of Books

“Impressively well written, organized and presented, this new edition of ‘Short Trip to the Edge: A Pilgrimage to Prayer’ with its photographic illustrations is an inherently fascinating and consistently compelling read from first page to last. Informative, thoughtful, written with insight and inspiration, ‘Short Trip to the Edge: A Pilgrimage to Prayer’ is unreservedly recommended reading for all members of the Christian community regardless of their denominational affiliation. ” —Jack Mason, Midwest Book Review

From the Publisher