Monday, November 12, 2018

Centering Prayer-- a great practice

Last week I went up to Sewanee for a continuing education course sponsored by the Beecken School of Theology: A New Spirituality of Leadership: Using Family Process to Deepen & Revitalize Congregational Life.

One of the books on the reading list was by Paul David Lawson: Old Wine in New Skins: Centering Prayer and Systems Theory.  (By clicking on the link you can read some of the book.) As it was the shorter of the two books, I was able to read it while there.

I found this book interesting and informative.  Though I have practiced Centering Prayer for quite a few years, I have not seen it shared in this context.

Since I was reading about centering prayer and how that might be helpful to leaders and congregations, I decided it might be a good idea to practice some centering prayer while there.

Friday morning I opened up my Centering Prayer app from Contemplative Outreach on my phone.  I needed to change the background since summer is now gone (that tells you it has been a little while since I last used it) and I also changed out the prayers I use from the ones I had been using.  Once I had all the settings in order, I embarked on my 20 minute journey of centering prayer.

Below is the background I chose for now (fire), along with the new prayers and the beginning and the end of the session.




Centering prayer is one of those practices that brings calm and quiet to my soul.  It gives me peace and strength.

I miss not being in group centering prayer and hope to get back into that too.

For now, I'm grateful for the app that allows me structure to focus on my own.

In case you didn't know there was 'an app for that', you can find information on it on the Contemplative Outreach website here or on your phone's play store.

If you want to learn more about Centering Prayer, click here.

Peace and blessings on your journey, 

Debra

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