Treasure in Earthen Vessels: Prayer and the Embodied Life

In Treasure in Earthen Vessels, Fr. Stephen Muse, an Orthodox priest and pastoral psychotherapist with four decades of clinical experience, offers not a manual of prayer but an invitation into its living practice. Drawing on years spent accompanying others through grief, trauma, and the search for meaning, he shows prayer as something we do not merely think but breathe: an embodied dialogue with the God who meets us in our own flesh, our own uncertainty, our own longing to be whole.

The book unfolds in two complementary movements. In the first, Fr. Stephen offers a series of intimate reflections, first given as talks at a Lenten prayer retreat, built around three simple verses he calls the “dia-Logos prayer,” tracing how breath, body, and heart become the ground where divine grace and human vulnerability meet. In the second, he steps back to let the Church herself speak, gathering a rich anthology of patristic and contemporary Orthodox witnesses, from St. John of Kronstadt to St. Paisios of Mount Athos, on the ancient neptic tradition of the prayer of the heart.

With a preface by His Beatitude Metropolitan Tikhon, this second edition returns Treasure in Earthen Vessels to print for readers, clergy and laity alike, seeking not information about prayer, but a companion into it.

"When reading this book, I felt as though I was eavesdropping on a prayer, reflective of the author’s life-long witness to God’s healing work with men and women of faith. Fr. Stephen offers a rare, intimate look at grace working through holy relationships in the Church. This book is a work of art, expressing the beauty, wisdom and healing of our Orthodox Tradition—a modern spiritual gem."
—Bp. John, Antiochian Orthodox Bishop of Worcester and New England

"From the very first lines the reader realizes that the book has been written by a heart deeply touched by the grace of God and a mind capable of understanding and organizing fruitfully the inner experience into a sound spiritual order, without reducing the theological dimension to merely human words. Indeed, the writer has attained eloquently a profound presentation of the Philokalic Tradition on prayer by a fresh, personal and at once ecclesiastical approach, which instantly invites and inspires you to pray."
—Fr. Chrysostom Gr. Tympas, PhD

"During my youth, there seemed to be little awareness in the Body of Christ of the wisdom and richness of one another’s traditions. In these, my older years as a Roman Catholic Sister and spiritual director, I rejoice whole-heartedly and am deeply challenged, as I drink from the wellsprings of the Eastern Orthodox Tradition brought almost poetically into the Twenty-first century for me by the life and writings of Fr. Stephen Muse."
—Sr. Christine Wiltrakis, MSBT, Blessed Trinity Shrine Retreat, Ft. Mitchell, Alabama

Fr. Stephen Muse is a bi-vocational priest, serving Holy Transfiguration Greek Orthodox Mission Church in Columbus, Georgia and as a pastoral psychotherapist and marriage and family therapist at the Pastoral Institute, Inc. where he directs Clergy-in-Kairos, a week-long intensive therapy and renewal program for clergy (and their spouses). He served as Director of Pastoral Counselor Training for 20 years and supervised and trained military chaplains, working extensively with persons and families dealing with combat trauma and related difficulties. He is a Board-Certified Chaplain, CPE Supervisor and Diplomate in Trauma and Complex PTSD. He holds joint appointments as clinical Professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science and Bioethics and Medical Humanities at Mercer University Medical School and is a faculty member of the St. Francis–Emory Healthcare Psychiatry Medical Residency program. He and his wife Presvytera Ioanna have 4 children, 5 grandchildren, 12 god children and have made their home in Columbus, Georgia since 1992. He writes an occasional blog that can be found on the Church website at: http://orthodoxcolumbus.org/blog/ Various talks may be found on Ancient Faith radio at https://www.ancientfaith.com/specials/ fr_dn_stephen_muse Children’s fiction books include • Isha’s Voice, 2019 [Greek Edition, 2018)] • Be Yourself: Amim’s Great Discovery, 2017 [Greek Edition, 2016] • The Peddler and the Disenchanted Mirror, 2016 [Greek Edition, 2015] Other works • Parenting in Repentance: Growing Together in Love, Gratefulness and Joy, 2021 • Words Into Spirit: Pastoral Resources for Confession. V. Thermos & S. Muse, eds., 2019 (Greek Edition, 2020; Romanian Edition, 2021] • Pain, Suffering & Resilience: Orthodox Perspectives, S. Muse, S, Berg, J. Woroncow, H. eds., 2018 • Treasure in Earthen Vessels: Prayer and Embodied Life, 2017 [Greek Edition, 2023] • Caregivers as Healers & Confessors, S. Muse, S. Berg, J. Woroncow, H., eds., 2016 • Being Bread, 2013, 2015 • When Hearts Become Flame: An Eastern Orthodox Approach to the διά-Λογος of Pastoral Counseling, 2011, 2015 [Greek Edition, 2014] • Raising Lazarus: Integral Healing in Orthodox Christianity, 2004 • Beside Still Waters: Restoring the Souls of Shepherds in the Market Place, 2000