Calling a Stop with the Moving Center: Inner Task Series by Jeanine Siler Jones

Inner Task Friday (from our second month of Mystical Hope book circles)

“Centering Prayer, with its emphasis not on clarity of the mind but on surrender of the heart, leads straight down into the heart’s depths, straight toward the point vierge. It becomes a direct encounter with the Mercy.” (Mystical Hope, p.56)

Meditation invites us to dwell within Hope, to connect with Mercy, to sink down into the deeper waters of our being. Thomas Keating described it as ‘taking a small vacation from yourself”. Our inner task invites us to practice weaving our experience of meditation into our daily living, a ‘boots on the ground’ way to catch ourselves in our over reliance on ordinary thinking and wake up (!) in Mercy.

This month: Call a stop with yourself and notice your mechanical ways of moving, feeling and thinking. (You may want to experiment with a periodic timer during the day). Each week we will break this task down, beginning today with the moving center. There may be a gesture, posture, or movement that is habitual (crossing your legs, how you hold utensils, the way you stand in line etc..) that you to choose to alerts you to stop, or you may use a periodic timer. However you bring yourself to a stop, Notice and Pause.

As you are paused, connect with your breath. As you inhale and exhale, allow yourself to sink down into the deeper waters of your being for a moment. “…something of our being presses deep into the heart of God and begins to swim in the infinite ocean of God’s mercy.” (p.39) Sense and taste this connection with Mercy. Then begin again.