I got in a twit and said I would never set foot in a church again nor post in this forum. I hereby retract those words, and am sorry that I got upset, but I don't know where I will go from here.
A priest I liked very much offered to teach me centering prayer. A red flag went up, but I was open to talking with him about other things (lots of issues). I even had the book. Maybe I read something somewhere negative about it around the same time. I can't remember.
I don't know how we are supposed to pray and I don't like to climb all over anyone who does it differently than me.
I try to pray like Jesus taught us in scripture, in His name, in my own language, sometimes mentally and sometimes out loud.
Do I think God will send down lightning bolts if you don't get everything just right? No. Do I think certain religious practices can be dangerous. Yes. Do I know who is right and who is wrong? No.
Centering prayer has been crossed off my list for a long time as an option. That's one mistake I escaped. I made many, many others.
At a retreat run by the local parish priest (who is now teaching at a seminary!), he led us in a "centering prayer" (CP). Being VERY naive, I thought it was 'cool'. Fast forward a few years, and I found out that CP was TranscendentalMeditation with the word "Jesus" spray painted over it - like grafitti on a highway overpass.
I confess that I felt cheated and violated after I found this out. I still do.
Dreher said something very profound:
"Centering prayer differs from Christian prayer in that the intent of the technique is to bring the practitioner to the center of his own being. There he is, supposedly, to experience the presence of the God who indwells him. Christian prayer, on the contrary, centers upon God in a relational way, as someone apart from oneself."
How to pray?
Jesus gave us the model (not a formula) in the Lord's Prayer.
On thinking about the CP controversy I'm having with this friend, I reviewed the Lord's Prayer line by line.
It is VERY -other- directed. The 'other' is "Our Father in heaven".
Thanks for your note! Your honesty and frankness is refreshing.