Monthly Archives: August 2012

Stained Glass Window, Chichester Cathedral

I’ve always loved those personality type quizes that tell you who you are. Then two years agao I came across Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and attended two seminars at Waverley Abbey.  I have spoken elsewhere in this blog about that but I want to revisit it as I have just finished reading Personality and Prayer by Ruth Fowke (available from www.cwr.org.uk). I realise now that I already possess this book when it was published by Eagle as part of a set of four on ‘Exploring Prayer’.  I actually had all four but only kept three (can’t remember what the fourth was about but I obviously didn’t feel I would be reading it again and now knowing a bit about personaility traits that could be because it didn’t appeal to a certain aspect in my make-up!).

Anyway, having read the book (for a second time) I then dug out all the stuff from the siminars to check it out because I was a bit confused between the Chapter on people who are sensing and those intuitives (the category I fall into). I felt from reading the book that I had lots of ‘sensing’ traits but having been through all the paperwork (like the ‘thinker/anayliser” I also am) I can see a conflict between what I want to achieve and the way I try to adjust.  The more I read the more things started to ring true.  I love exploring new ways of finding God. It’s like I am always searching (and partly this is what this blog is about). God seems so far off at times and I feel my faith is not as strong as it was.  I can actually pinpoint the moment doubts started to creep in. I took a course in Bibical and Theological Studies with Southwark Diocese.  This should have helped but I found more questions than answers and all that has been rolling around inside my head since. After that course I wanted to get away from the academic stuff and explore the spiritual side.  I always felt that I should be reading Bible Reading Notes and have a set time, place etc. and though I want to do this I get bored so I switch to different Bible Reading Notes but I get lazy and though I go through them I find they don’t work again.  I am constantly experimenting so I am definitely an ‘intuitive’.  I have tried meditation, a sort of taster, but I don’t think it is really for me but I do like quiet times and being on my own, I do like some routine and I am weird because change unsettles me but then I enjoy it!  I like tradition and I like modern.  The most spontaneous thing I have ever done (that I remember) is on my first visit to a retreat house near a beach.  I walked into the sea and starting praising God.  It was wonderful.  Yet I hate it when I am in a group and people pray out loud.  I cringe and am silent.  I’d love to be able to do that but I can’t.  When I am the only one not taking part I feel people are judging me so I avoid situations where I think that might happen.

The book offers some nice little ideas to the different personalites with features on the types of prayer for that ‘trait’, points to ponder, pitfalls to avoid and prayer exercises and how to cultivate or explore the side you are not so familiar with from other personality types.

Personality and Prayer is a small book (only 96 pages) and I read it in a couple of days but there is much to return to and try out even if you have never come across Myers-Briggs because it is all explained.  There is some crossover between types, no one is ever totally without other aspects but if you have struggled with prayer because you feel you should do it one way and can’t, this will be very helpful.