Transformation in Silence

Centering Prayer

I’ve been given a gift and I want to share it. It’s a practice that has transformed my life and has been around in various forms for a long time. The practice is called centering prayer. It is a receptive method of silent prayer that finds its roots in the christian contemplative tradition. Gregory the Great described contemplative prayer as “Resting in God.” I like this description because the essence of centering prayer is where we learn to rest in God as God rests deeply in us. If that makes no sense to you or you have felt no sense of this being a reality, this practice can be especially helpful.

I began practicing this prayer around 2016 and began noticing its benefits both during the practice but especially after. It is helpful to know it is not so much what is happening while you are practicing but it is the subtle and profound changes that happen over time in your daily life. One example of this is someone who had been practicing this prayer for around 5 months. They didn’t think anything was happening so they talked with their teacher essentially saying,

“I don’t think this practice is doing anything for me. I am sitting in my daily silence practice day after day and after all these months I don’t think anything is happening.”

The teacher wisely said, “Go ask those closest to you if they see a difference in your life since you started practicing.”

The man went back to his wife and asked her if she had noticed a difference, to which she replied, “Oh yes, whatever you are doing, keep doing it because you have changed dramatically.”

It’s funny how some transformational practices seem like they are doing nothing but those around us see transformation quicker than we do. This makes sense when in our busy, distracted, and noisy world, many of us live on the surface of life without even realizing the deeper dimensions of our being. Centering prayer works subtly in these deeper dimensions. The practice begins to heal our traumas and unconscious dynamics, while bringing us closer and closer to the center of who we really are. When that woman saw change in her husband, she saw change in his attitude towards life in how he was becoming more patient and more present. This is encouraging when we are blind to our own transformation even while the Light is slowly dawning in our hearts.

We would be wise to admit we are often blind to the gift of life right in front of us and especially right within us.

My own story of centering prayer drove this home when a few years into having a daily practice I had an experience where I got to see the fruit. I came home one night in the middle of winter and our furnace had been acting up. I was determined to figure out what was wrong to fix it so I sat down to search YouTube for possible ways of doing so. To the right of me my youngest son was having a meltdown in his room and my wife and oldest son were reading together in another room. So there I am distracted trying to solve a problem and my youngest’s meltdown went to a whole new level. He grabbed my wife’s brand new phone and threw it against the wall. 

I lost it.

Metaphorically, I hit my own wall as I sat up and began yelling.

I yelled at my son and then went to my older son’s bedroom to yell at my wife for not doing something to help our youngest while I was busy trying to solve the worlds problems. My wife calmly looked at me and said I needed to go sit down. I yelled, “You’re right.”

I turned and went to sit in the living room and as I sat down I noticed the strangest thing: I felt no shame, guilt, or condemnation. Typically if I allowed myself to get upset or angry like this, I would feel defeated and condemned. I would think God was mad at me because I struggled with a performance mentality. I would feel like I was a failure for days.

However, even though I was aware I didn’t like my reaction, I sat there with complete unconditional love resting in the depths of my being. It’s like there was this false self that had reacted to this and who I truly was in the depths was there with God observing all of this with gentle love and peace. I realized all those negative projections of condemnation or guilt were not coming from God or God’s displeasure, but were coming from my own false beliefs. There I was, resting in Unconditional Love where in the past I would have been resting in justified condemnation. I realized this was the fruit of my practice of centering prayer. It had been healing me at profound levels where unconscious traumas, endless justifying thoughts, and superficiality had loosened to give way to what was always deeper still.

That deeper still is God’s unconditional love in the depths of our being.

Centering Prayer has been practiced by thousands over the last 50 years but again, finds its connection to faithful practices much more ancient. I am reminded of a passage in Jeremiah that reads

“Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. But you said, ‘We will not walk in it.’” (6:16)

Many are at a crossroads today and when they hear of a practice of silence, it seems like something that sounds silly or would not work, so they refuse to walk in it. However, those who take up this practice usually begin to see profound changes after 4-5 months. They begin to find rest for their souls as they connect to an ancient wisdom of silence that has been around since the beginning of the world. In fact, one of the founders of centering prayer Thomas Keating says, “God’s first language is silence. Everything else is a poor translation.” In silence we are able to hear things our ears would never be able to understand. 

This practice fits well with the invitation to develop rhythms of rest and the promise of God that were highlighted so profoundly at the start of this decade. Centering Prayer is a simple rhythm you can incorporate in your daily life and the only way you can fail at it, is to not do it. Here are the simple guidelines:

1. Choose a sacred word or use your breath as the symbol of your intention to consent to God’s presence and action within.

2. Sitting comfortably and with eyes closed, settle briefly and silently introduce the sacred word as the symbol of your consent to God’s presence and action within.

3. When engaged with your thoughts, return ever-so-gently to the sacred word.

4. When prayer period is over you may remain in inner silence a little longer or slowly transition to your daily life.

​It is recommended to practice twice daily for 20 minutes.

You can get direct access to these guidelines along with some book recommendations about the practice by clicking here. I feel called to get this practice into the lives of as many as possible, so we host weekly meetings locally and will offer some via zoom. If you are interested please email us unconditionalhuman@gmail.com. 

All in all, I hope you find this practice helpful to you and give it some time to develop in your life. If you have any questions I would love to dialogue with you around the practice. May you come to find out that God, Unconditional Love, has always been closer than your breath. When you become aware of this, your life begins to be centered in ways that not even life or death could deny Love’s sustaining reality within you. 

Much Love,

Preston Hall