Discerning God’s Presence

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I’ve adopted a practice called “Centering Prayer.” My brother, a priest in Kansas City who died in 2008, was an enthusiast and teacher of Centering Prayer but I tried it several times and could never get the hang of it.

I started trying it again, first thing in the morning, a few months ago. I’ve been thinking of writing about it but am still a rookie and don’t feel ready to describe my experience in detail or recommend it to others. If you want to know more, my “teacher” is Thomas Keating, a deceased Trappist monk, who has a series of videos on YouTube. Just go to that online site and type in his name to gain access to the videos.

In general, Centering Prayer is a way of attempting to come closer to God through relaxation and “emptying oneself” of all the usual thoughts and distractions, allowing God to fill the void. Practitioners recommend doing it for 20 minutes, twice a day. So far, I’m doing it for 20 minutes only once a day. The idea is to rid the mind of all thought, and that’s not easy.

"Cultural Conditioning"

What I can say about my experience so far is that the practice has helped reduce the prevalent feeling of God’s absence, which Keating says – I believe rightly - is “our cultural conditioning.”

Indeed, in our thoroughly secular society, God’s absence seems assumed. Even many of us believers live as though God did not exist. Finding God, says Keating, requires openness, a willingness to change and rejection of our “unquestioning acceptance of our cultural values.”

The acceptance of God’s “absence” is not just a contemporary problem, by the way. The author of Psalm 42 agonizes that his enemies taunt him “while they say to me all day long, ‘Where is your God?’" The psalms are thought to have been written during a 1,000-year span, ending at about the time of Israel’s return from Babylon in 538 B.C.

Centering prayer, according to Keating, is a way of “overcoming the deep-seated habit of thinking that God is absent.” But it does not deny the value of other kinds of prayer. When Jesus’ disciples asked him to teach them to pray, he proposed the “Our Father.” But he also advised them to “go into a room, close the door and pray to the Father, who is unseen.” And he gave them an example of how to pray with his practice of withdrawing to “the wilderness to pray,” as reported in Luke’s gospel. 

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Centering prayer is a way of letting go of what Keating calls the “interior noise,” the continual silent commentary on events, people and their attitudes and beliefs, and even of self-reflection.

As I mentioned, it’s hard to think of nothing. The mind is meant to think, and no matter how you try, you can’t avoid thinking about what you have to do, who you have to see, the traffic going by, the airplane overhead, the sound of the furnace starting, the spider in the corner.

To help counter this tendency, practitioners suggest use of a “sacred word,” which you use “gently” to return the mind to God. But this isn’t a “magic” word or a mantra. It’s simply a symbol of our intention to clear our minds and allow God in, according to Keating. It’s sort of a reminder of what you’re about.

“Generally, sacred words fall into one of 2 categories: “God” words/phrases such as “Abba”, “Jesu, “Mary”, “Reality”, “Come Lord” or “state” words/phrases such as “love”, “peace”, “be still,” according to an online site of the Contemplative Society.

Hocus-Pocus?

I know that, for some, this all may sound like hocus-pocus. But for people searching for God, it seems to me valuable to listen to people like Keating, who have spent their lives in the search for God, perhaps finding a technique that allows a closer relationship to God.

What can I report after several months trying Centering Prayer? First, it has helped me focus on God in the other types of prayer I practice. Second, even though I still have my life moments of impatience and frustration, I believe they’re less frequent and less intense. Third, I really do feel closer to God since engaging in Centering Prayer.

Oddly enough, though I still sometimes feel impatience during the 20 minutes I sit alone in a quiet room, I don’t feel relieved when the alarm goes off on my phone indicating that the 20 minutes have passed. The peace and quiet is physically and spiritually energizing and helps prepare for whatever the day may bring.