CENTERING PRAYER: A POWERFUL PRACTICE
Connect with Mary:
Centering prayer is one of the “spiritual disciplines“ that can be powerful in your experience with God. It’s actually an ancient practice within the Christian church from centuries past. These practices are described in detail in the wonderful book by Adele Calhoun, Spiritual Disciplines Handbook. Here’s my recent experience of this simple and profound practice.
To summarize:
1. Set aside 15 minutes.
2. Quiet yourself before God, then choose a word that you want to dwell upon regarding your relationship with God: something like peace, love, shepherd, safety, etc.
3. Choose a Scripture verse that describes the word you chose in #2. (Or you can reverse the order of #2 and #3.)
4. For 15 minutes, quietly sit in God‘s presence thinking about the word and verse. Your thoughts will inevitably wander all over the place and when they do, gently bring them back to that word/verse as you abide in God‘s presence.
5. You can also pair your word with an image in your mind that represents the word.