Book Review: “Everything Could Be a Prayer” By Kreg Yingst
In Everything Could Be a Prayer, Kreg Yingst brings together art, contemplation, and the lives of those who have walked closely with God, not in abstraction, but in flesh and history.
Through hand-carved wood and linoleum prints, Yingst portrays mystics, prophets, and justice-seekers whose lives were shaped by prayer and poured out in courage. These are not sentimental saints removed from struggle. They are men and women who wrestled with God, endured suffering, spoke truth, and labored for mercy.
The artwork itself becomes an invitation. This is not simply illustration, it is prayer through image. The ancient practice of “written iconography” invites us to slow down, to look intentionally, and to allow the image to open something within us, a sacred seeing. The eye leads the heart. The heart leads the will.
Each figure becomes a teacher. In one, we encounter hospitality. In another, truth-telling. In another, freedom hard-won. In another, trust forged in suffering. These lives are not presented as unreachable ideals, but as witnesses, a great cloud reminding us that faith is lived, embodied, enacted.
Each print is paired with Scripture, reflection, and prayer, guiding the reader not just to admire the saints, but to examine their own life in light of Christ, the One toward whom all faithfulness points.
This is a book suited for personal devotion, for all the seasons of church and for communal reflection. But more than that, it is a reminder that prayer is not confined to words. Prayer can be carved. Printed. Seen. Lived.
To sit with these images is to ask a deeper question: What would it mean to live so attentively that even the ordinary moments of our lives became offerings?
In his beautiful book, Kreg Yingst asks each of us: “What if everything could be a prayer?” I ask, why not?!