I’ve always been a pretty regular churchgoer. I’m somewhat more familiar with the passages from the Bible that appear in The Book of Common Prayer I read my prayer book often, and my Bible only on holy days-the prayer book is so much more orderly. I’m not very sophisticated in my knowledge of the Old Testament, and I’ve not read the New Testament since my Sunday school days, except for those passages that I hear read aloud to me when I go to church. I make no claims to have a life in Christ, or with Christ-and certainly not for Christ, which I’ve heard some zealots claim.

I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice-not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother’s death, but because he is the reason I believe in God I am a Christian because of Owen Meany. Without somehow destroying me in the process, how could God reveal himself in a way that would leave no room for doubt? If there was no room for doubt, there would be no room for me.Īny Christian who is not a hero is a pig. Not the least of my problems is that I can hardly even imagine what kind of an experience a genuine, self-authenticating religious experience would be. Have no Anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. An Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers DEDICATION

A prayer for owen meany by john irving