Yesterday on my travels to see an amazing friend, while sat on the tube, I managed to finish reading Cynthia Bourgeault‘s classic ‘Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening‘

Ive both loved and be challenged buy this book … as well as wish I had read it back in 2004 when she originally wrote it. There are lots of books around on ‘Centring Prayer’, but in this book Cynthia has developed an amazing guidebook on how to actually practice centring prayer, and what to expect and how to deal with things when they crop up.

In her introduction, Cynthia says ‘I hope it (the book) will get you up and running in the practice itself. For me, after talking lots about it over the years and dabbling here and there, the reading of this book has been the catalyst and the help I have needed to change from my normal style of meditation to attempt centring prayer instead.

In particular, I have found the ‘bring meditation in your everyday life’ practice of the Welcoming Prayer to be helpful … in only a few weeks. The Welcoming Prayer is a method of consenting to God’s presence and action in our physical and emotional reactions to events and situations in daily life.

Cynthia explains this as a tool to help us make the transition from surrender as a meditative practice to surrender as a underlying attitude and practice in our daily life. It may not work for everyone but I have found it powerful in my daily living and dealing with situations. I could write out in more detail … but Pastor Katherine has written a good account here … and you could always go and buy the book.

As I say, the method may not work for everyone, we are all diverse and wonderfully made … but I have found that., for me, the practice of letting go through the welcoming prayer has been personally transformative in a very short space of time.

So … centring prayer …. this is a pretty powerful book …  why not go check it out!