New Practice

I have started doing "centering" or "contemplative" prayer as part of my faith journey process. I'm new to this in some ways; old to it in others. Thus far, the experience has been very much like times when I would do sitting meditation in massage school. There would be the "noise" that would try to grab my attention and keep me from quieting down my inner being. But at some point, there would be a shift, and I would find that all the extraneous matter had fallen away and I was in a different space.

I'm working with Thomas Keating's "Open Mind, Open Heart". I've also glanced at some parts of "The Cloud of Unknowing" which is fascinating and dense with thought-provoking concepts. Keating is very accessible, and I like the way he presents the practice. I am taking this addition into my prayer life as a way of doing some of what I would call "spiritual strength building".

I doubt I will chronicle here all that I experience during my "work out" sessions. I'd rather let what I garner from this practice feed into how I perceive and write on the blog. However, I will share that one of the marvelous kernels that popped out at the end of one of my sitting experiences was a simple prayer: "Tune my ears to your Word."

Let the music begin.