PageGuide: Here is where you can ask questions, make annoucements, and discuss topics of interest. To do so just edit this page as you would any page on the wiki and save the edit.

 

Please include a Subject, Date and your Name with each initial posting and your Name if you're replying to an initial posting.

 

 

 

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DATE: 1 March 2008

SUBJECT: Newcomers to the Group

When someone attends your group with little or no experience with Centering Prayer how do you introduce the prayer to them? Does their presence change what is typically done in the group? - Ron Barnett

 

• We've used two approaches in our group. In one the person is taken to a different room and the prayer is introduced. Afterwards both the newcomer and the presenter rejoin the group for prayer which has already begun. In the second the prayer is introduced very briefly in the group while all listen and then the prayer begins. We normally pray for 30 minutes. When there is a newcomer this is reduced to 20 minutes on their first visit. Both approaches seem to have advantages and disadvantages. Of late the second approach has been used. - Ron Barnett

 

• When I joined a group, I was asked to come 15 minutes early. The group facilitator gave me a brief explanation of centering prayer and a contemplative outreach brochure. We also discussed group dynamics and guidelines. - Jean Joklik

 

• Another tact to take is to have the newcomer read the brochure on the method of Centering Prayer before the first night - its online. That way they see the guidelines, etc. and are in a better position to raise questions on the first visit and move right in to things. - Ron Barnett

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DATE: 9 April 2008

SUBJECT: "Pearls Before Breakfast"

 

Do you love a good story? Last year Joshua Bell, the world class virtuoso classical violinist played incognito as a busker for 45 minutes at a Washington DC subway station during the morning rush to work.

 

Would people stop to listen? Would a crowd gather? As Gene Weingarten, Washington Post writer who with Bell staged the performance and who just won a Pulitzer Prize for it said, “Would beauty transcend?” – would people stop in recognition of what was present in the ordinariness of life?

 

Of the 1,070 people who rushed by, 7 stopped to listen, 27 gave money ($32 total) and no crowd gathered. Here is the complete story and video of Bell playing at the subway station http://tinyurl.com/32a32w.  -

This story could be a metaphor for God's presence in all and everything 24-7 and of the opportunity for consenting to that Presence. The story brought to mind the statement of Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas: "The kingdom of the father is spread upon the earth and people do not see it."  - RonB

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DATE: 30 May 2008    

SUBJECT: Advanced Study

 

I just returned from a two week advanced study retreat on Centering Prayer led by Fr. Thomas in Snowmass. Here are some images from the retreat. - Ron Barnett

 

 

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