Home at last and back to challenge soon

An Invitation to Centering Prayer --M. Basil Pennington

Monday February 15, 2010

From the time we are born we start to develop a sense of self. We learn to act in certain ways to get what we want. We learn we can make people happy or sad depending on our actions. We learn if we are good rewards are forthcoming. We become what we have, what we can do, what others think of us. And this is a false sense of self, but it’s all most of us have or get to. And we get competitive.

I think in some ways that I am above or beyond all this. That I understand my immeasurable worth and value, which God has placed in me and no one and no experience can truly tarnish or touch or ruin that part of me. I like to think I’m becoming or being reborn and recreated continually and each time getting closer and closer to these truths and understanding them in more intimate ways.

I think I know how or am learning how dwell in God’s creative love. I like to think that I am living from my center more and more, from a place where I need very little, where I am full, very full and satiated with God’s love. And I don’t have to get hung up on or worried about what others think. Their opinions pale in comparison to what God thinks anyway.

I want to be this person. In some ways I think I am... In other ways, I’m realizing now, I am not there at all. In so many ways I am still trying to earn, deserve, be worthy of love, friendship, intimacy, admiration, etc. based on what I do, how I behave, what I have to offer.

How do I get there? I want to be there so badly. The rest! The peace! The love...

Centering Prayer? (worth a try anyway)
Simple instructions from the book:
sit relaxed and quiet
1-be in faith and love to God, who dwells in the centre of your being
2 -take up a love word and let it be gently present, supporting your being to God in faith filled love
3 -whenever you become aware of anything else, simply, gently return to the Lord with the use of your prayer word
at the end of your prayer time, let the Lord’s prayer or some other prayer pray itself from the centre of your being