Charles E.A. Lincoln, IV
You wouldn’t expect J.D. Salinger, the author of The Catcher in the Rye, that quintessential portrait of 1950s Americana, to be the one introducing readers to the deeply esoteric traditions of Orthodox Christianity. And yet, there he is, in Franny and Zooey, unpacking the Jesus Prayer, a spiritual practice with roots in ancient monasticism, whispered in quiet monasteries on Mount Athos, and, somehow, shouted into the chaos of the protagonists’ family living room in mid-20th-century New York.
It’s a striking juxtaposition. Here’s the author who gave us Holden Caulfield, a character so rooted in the American experience of alienation and rebellion, now the same author turning our attention to something as ancient, mystical, and frankly unfamiliar to most Americans at that time as the Jesus Prayer in Eastern Orthodoxy. Somehow, Salinger does not make it feel forced. Through Franny’s crisis, Salinger gets at something more than literary cleverness. He shows a person who is tired of surfaces and hungry for something real, something holy, something that can survive the noise around her. Haven’t we all been this person?
What makes Salinger’s inclusion of the Jesus Prayer even more remarkable is how it draws directly from the hesychastic tradition, a deeply contemplative practice of inner stillness, originating from the early desert fathers of Orthodoxy. It’s the same tradition beautifully described in The Way of a Pilgrim, an anonymously authored 19th-century Russian spiritual classic that Franny herself clings to like a life raft in a sea of modern disillusionment. Clinging to such a raft feels like a poignant metaphor. The pilgrim, like Franny, seeks meaning in a fragmented world, finding solace in the ceaseless repetition of “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
As a Greek Orthodox Christian and a lawyer, I recognize a version of that same tension in my own life. In courtrooms, writing memos, and conference rooms, the Jesus Prayer feels almost out of place, an ancient phrase carried into a world of modernity with white washed walls and legal jargon on sterile sheets of perfectly aligned paragraphs on paper with zero room for errors. But, like in Salinger’s writing, that dissonance is precisely the point. For me, the point is not to make the prayer fit neatly into modern life. It is to let the prayer change the way I look at modern life in the first place. When life feels too loud or too quick, I often come back to the simple words: ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’
And Zooey also reminds me that the prayer is not just a hiding place from everything false or exhausting around me. It sends me back into the world, but with better enriched eyes. Those better eyes enable me to be aiming to be kinder and better toward the person I find difficult, the work I do not want to do, psychologically find difficulty in doing, and the parts of myself I would rather avoid.
It’s surprising that Salinger, so rooted in American individualism, found his way to a prayer that’s all about surrendering the self. Maybe this is part of why Franny and Zooey stays with readers. It shows that the search for God can appear even in a setting that seems far removed from monastic prayer in a feeling of literature many of us find so familiar. That, to me, is part of the beauty and paradox of the Prayer.
All of us, or so it seems to me, experience an existential crisis. Such a crisis may affect our religious beliefs or it may not. In my personal observations, I’ve seen how some people lose their faith during such times, overwhelmed by the weight of uncertainty in the silence of midnight assignments of shuddered and closed doors. But it’s not always so obvious. There are quieter ways anxiety and uncertainty hits people whether it is the kind of worry that does not announce itself but follows a person home. I recognize something of that pain, and I hope those who carry it are led toward healing and peace; the same healing and peace I seek. Again, in my personal experience, the Jesus Prayer has helped steady me when my thoughts become scattered and hope feels harder to hold. Like the pilgrim wandering through 19th-century Russia, or Franny sitting in that living room, I have found that this ancient prayer has a way of making even the most chaotic and stressful moments of modern life feel anchored.
I share this not only as a statement of faith but as a reflection of how it has helped me through difficult times. I share this specifically, because in the anxiety and chaos of being a lawyer that deeply affects me on a physiological level in such a way that like others I have spoken to, we can physically feel the stress through our work often through literal tears or hours in therapy. The anxiety of legal work, or truly any work, is not always abstract. Sometimes it settles into the body in sleeplessness, in a tightened chest, in the quiet exhaustion that follows a difficult day. I have found solace in silently repeating the Jesus prayer to myself, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
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Charles E.A. Lincoln, IV (baptismal name: Panagiotis (Greek: ΠαναγιÏŽτης), an OCAN member, is a tax attorney and Orthodox Christian writer based in Austin, Texas. His professional work has focused on federal tax law and international tax, and his essays often explore the intersection of law, faith, literature, and spiritual practice. He is a member of Transfiguration Greek Orthodox Church and writes on Christian reflection, symbolism, and the challenges of professional life. He is the author of the newly published book, Gods, Judges, and Presidents: Trifunctional Archetypes in American Law and Government.
© 2026. Charles E.A. Lincoln, IV.