Beyond Centering Prayer

You’ve tried centering prayer, but you don’t have a current practice. It didn’t seem to be for you. It was too dry, or too painful. Or maybe you have a current practice, and you wonder how to deepen it. Where is the life, light, and love? Or maybe you haven’t tried it, but you have a strong desire to know God more deeply. You have heard of centering prayer as a deeper kind of spirituality. You wonder whether you should give it a try.

I recently participated in a group studying and practicing the prayer exercise of The Cloud of Unknowing, on which centering prayer is based, and it became clear to me that centering prayer is not the same as the prayer exercise of The Cloud, let alone as contemplative prayer.

So I decided to offer at my church a series of exercises exploring some of the ways in which the prayer exercise of The Cloud goes beyond centering prayer. I will link the resources used by that group on this page.

One interesting thing about this series of exercises is that they include reflective journaling, and there are two options: a traditional paper journal, or an online, AI-powered interactive journal called Journee. The resources will try to answer why an interactive journal might be useful.

The exercises are organized into 5 weeks. Week 1 is centering prayer. Weeks 2, 3, and 4 add to the exercise elements from The Cloud of Unknowing symbolized by Life, Light, and Love. Week 5 is about bringing the practice into daily life.

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Introduction to the exercises