Questions to ponder for the Formative Stage of Faith
1. Who were the people that helped form you in your faith?
2. What were the places that helped form you in your faith?
3. What were the events that helped form you in your faith?
In your silence let these faces, places and events surface. Then choose one or two to write about. Tell of ONE spiritual scene with a grateful heart. You may begin your sharing by saying, “I am grateful to God for/that...”

Questions to Ponder for the Transformative Stage of Faith
1. What thresholds have you been invited to cross on your contemplative spiritual journey?
2. Who were the people, places and events surrounding these invitations?
3. What did you discover when you entered this new spiritual place?
4. What struggles (inner and external) did you face as you deepened your contemplative spiritual journey?
5. How did these experiences lead you to a deeper experience of God, self, others and creation?

Questions to Ponder about the Dark Night of the Soul
1. As you have traveled your contemplative spiritual journey, how has God invited you to “let go” or “loosen your hold” on some of the people, places, and events of your Formative Stage of Faith?
2. How has this “letting go” or “loosening” deepened your contemplative experience of faith?
3. Who have your spiritual companions been in your dark night experiences?
4. What has been your challenge in walking through the Dark Night?
5. What gift has the Dark Night offered you?

Questions to Ponder about the Unitive Stage of Faith
1. When has God offered you a glimpse of complete union with God?
2. How do you feel God pulling you toward recovery (as Merton puts it) of your original union with God?
3. What do you feel you need to “give up” - “loosen your grip on” - “let go of” to move toward complete union with God?
4. Do you believe complete union with God is possible? If so, how do your personal spiritual experiences (as Thomas Keating puts it) give you confidence to believe it?
5. What is your heart’s deepest spiritual desire?

The term “Unloading of the Unconscious” refers to the process of inner healing and transformation that can take place as we practice Centering Prayer.

In this video recorded at the August 5th Zoom Workshop, Mark Rodel and Jody Reis Johnson explore this oft-neglected topic with insight and sensitivity.

by Jody Reis Johnson

Each year, at the beginning of Advent, I pray for eyes to see the Holy Child wherever He may appear. I believe my first sighting came early this year, the first weekend of the season, at our Advent Centering Prayer Retreat. A middle-aged couple introduced themselves to the group on the first evening by telling us that they had moved here from another part of the country seeking better services for an elderly and disabled parent.

Gathered by Christine Eaton, attempting to capture the collective movement of the Spirit

From the introduction circle
on Friday evening:
Gratitude, peace, yes, wow
Welcome, blessings, compassion, joy
Oneness, kindness, stillness, spirit
Quiet, still, nature, seek silence
Open, listening, community, presence
Hope, grace, love, overflowing
Thank you, all is well, abundance
Multiplication, and Beloved

From Pamela's opening talk:
Spaciousness, freedom, chosen, known, goodness

And from the closing conversation:
Delight, courage, heart, strengthening
Faith, faithfulness, wisdom

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.

We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.

We should like to skip the intermediate stages.

We are impatient of being on the way to something
unknown, something new.

And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through
some stages of instability--
and that it may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you;
your ideas mature gradually—let them grow,
let them shape themselves, without undue haste.

Don’t try to force them on,
as though you could be today what time
(that is to say, grace and circumstances
acting on your own good will)
will make of you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.

Give Our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.

Brothers and sisters:
May our Lord Jesus Christ and God our Father/Mother,
who has loved us and given us everlasting encouragement
and good hope through God's grace,
encourage your hearts
and strengthen them in every good deed and word.

Finally, brothers and sisters, pray for us,
so that the word of the Lord may speed forward and be glorified,
as it did among you,
and that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked people,
for not all have faith.

But the Lord is faithful;
God will strengthen you and guard you from the evil one.
We are confident of you in the Lord that what we instruct you,
you are doing and will continue to do.

May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God
and to the endurance of Christ.