Attentive Living and Centering Prayer

This morning at First United Methodist Church, we continued our discussion of Leighton Ford's The Attentive Life and talked a good bit about distractions (“those ‘many things’ of a busy life [that] pull me away from the ‘main thing’ that I should be paying attention to (Luke 10:41-42)?” (100). Ford discusses distractions at length in Chapter 5, stressing how difficult it is to pay attention to what matters in a world of hyped-up information, “events communicated at warp speed,” and multitasking. We expressed some curiosity about the Ford’s comment that distractus (the Latin origins of the word) literally means “to draw or pull apart” (101). My old Latin dictionary agreed with Ford, saying that distractus is a participle derived from distraho which means to pull asunder, tear into pieces, divide, separate, and remove. Its root traho means to drag.

If distractions prevent us from paying attention, Ford suggests that they are negative influences in our lives. In retelling the story of Jesus' visit to the home of Martha and Mary wherein Jesus tells Mary that "only one things is essential," (Luke 10), Ford interprets the story so as to suggest that "we all have 'Martha' and 'Mary' parts in us, and we all are called to pay attention both of action and contemplation" (107). We are, as Mother Teresa explains, "contemplatives in the midst of life" (qtd. 107).

The topic of contemplative living, essentially one of "paying attention," brought us to a discussion of contemplative practice. Sharing some of my previous effrots at Buddhist-based meditation at a Zen monastery, I described at some length the mentally difficult effort expected of me in Renzai koan study, extended efforts designed to break down my overly intellectural apprehension of reality. During such meditation, I was encouraged to do zazan and focus on koan work and avoid mental distractions at all costs. Even lwith help of an experienced Zen master, it was difficult work. As I look back upon that set of experiences, I am grateful that God helped me, with the aid of my Buddhist friends, to learn a good bit about quieting the inner life.

After the death of my son in 1993, however, I was (by the grace of God) given an introduction to contemplative practices within the Christian tradition (notably Centering Prayer encouraged by Thomas Keating and Basil Pennington, among others). With the help of Christian friends, God showed me how not only to “settle” myself interiorly but also to settle into Himself. With the continual help of the Holy Spirit who cries "Abba, Abba, Abba!" even as we pray ever so weakly (Romans 8), it was given to me to realize that mental, emotional, and memory-based distractions within Silent Prayer are not disasters. With God nothing is a disaster, not even distractions, not even those times when we seem to be coming apart. When one realizes that he or she has been distracted within foundamentally "wordless" prayer, one simply returns—ever so gently--to the “sacred word” that signals an intention to be in God’s presence. Distractions are thus presented to God for his blessing, care, and healing.

While this description of what happens in centering contemplative prayer may sound simplistic, the overall dynamics of Centering Prayer are profound, best left for a fuller exposition by Thomas Keating in Open Mind, Open Heart, Basil Pennington in Centering Prayer: Renewing an Ancient Christian Prayer Form, and Murchadh O Madagain in Centering Prayer and the Healing of the Unconscioius.

For more on Centering Prayer, visit

• Centering Prayer


• Centering on the Presence


• Contemplative Outreach Ltd


• Kyrie: Centering Prayer Index


• Centering Prayer: Uniquely, powerfully Christian meditation


• Introduction to Contemplative (Centering) Prayer

For an eight-minute introduction to Centering Prayer, listen to Fr. Thomas Keating:



Near the end of our discussion Mason asked us to look at Psalm 131; it surely sums up most of what we were trying to say this morning:

1 My heart is not proud, O LORD, my eyes are not haughty;
I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me.

2 But I have stilled and quieted my soul;
like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me.

3 O Israel, put your hope in the LORD both now and forevermore.