I just came across this book (hidden under another) that I had been looking for by Sister Wendy, that whimsical and wise nun, art historian and TV Presenter. It’s called The Gaze of Love: Meditations on Art and in it she writes:

Books on prayer are dangerous, They take time to read and they demand attention. This is proof, is it not (says our subconscious), that we are serious, prayerful people? Does not our reading matter, the interest we take in prayer, differentiate us from the careless, the frivolous, the less committed? The answer is no. At some level that we do not recognize, we may well be reading books on prayer as a way to allay our guilt about not actually praying. The overweight, it is said, are devoted readers of diet books, the sedentary devour travel books. Reading about prayer, even writing about prayer:these are not useless activities but they are dangerous.

Mmm. Oh, oh.