“When my spirit is faint, you know my way.”
(Psalm 142:3)

It’s early. The last remnant of the cool night air scampers away from the early morning light as I slip through the chapel door to practice Centering Prayer. Soft chants are gently dancing on the chapel’s vaults. Votive flames flicker on icon faces and altar cloths. Golden lights shimmer on the dark brown pew.

I settle into its soft cushion and feel its smooth hard wood. Gently, I fill my lungs … exhale … relax. After a while, the music diminishes into silence. Like a rolling ocean wave, a deep and gentle gong crescendos out, then settles back into the silence. I accept its invitation and follow it into physical … emotional … mental silence. Ever so slowly, the chatter in my mind becomes irrelevant then subsides. Flashes of deep and quiet intimacy spring into my consciousness like heat lightning on

a moonless night.

I am Known.

Time stops …

the gong signals the end of this very special time.

The chants resume their vaulted dance. I rise into the ordinariness of life renewed … refreshed … alive.

** 2 Samuel 19:24-43; Psalm 140; Acts 24:24-25:12; Mark 12:35-44

–reprinted from COCFL News