I had the most wonderful opportunity to speak to a group from Contemplative Outreach of Indianapolis on Saturday, January 14 on how contemplative prayer contributes to moral integrity. We had a wonderful day of centering prayer and conversation. If you have read some of the past posts, you get a good sense of what I focused on - St. Augustine's conversion as a model for how we are moved from dis-integration to self-integration through offering ourselves to God.

I'd like to revisit one idea in particular: Augustine's assertion that we become like that "upon which we gaze." If we focus our intention and attention on wealth, power, sex, the latest in technology, and other things that can grab and keep our attention diverted from God, we become like those things: shallow, empty, not lasting, not reliable. Not that these things are inherently evil but if they divert us from God then we are misusing them.

What suddenly came to me in preparing for this presentation is that the key way in which centering prayer contributes to moral integrity is that centering prayer IS "gazing upon the beloved" and that in so gazing we become like the beloved. So, if through centering prayer we focus our intention and attention upon God and sit in stillness before God, we become more like God: patient, kind, peaceful, loving.