My goal: predispose myself to be receptive to the gift of inner transformation. I have four words that resonate these days: wise, thoughtful, mature, sane.

My goal: predispose myself to be receptive to the gift of inner transformation. I have four words that resonate these days: wise, thoughtful, mature, sane. As a Catholic Christian, I see a good deal of unwise, unthoughtful, immature, and insane Christianity, and also, albeit less vocally, a good deal of wise, thoughtful, mature, and sane Christianity. I have personally spent a disconcertingly large amount of time in the first of those places. I do see moments, perhaps even a bit more frequently theses days, of being in the second of those places. Best I can tell, Sturgeon's Law applies to religion just as it applies to everything else: "ninety percent of everything is crap." That being said, I am convinced that the other 10% of religion is rich, sublime, beautiful, and worthy. The first ultimately amounts to nothing, and the second everything. For my daily practice, I read the day's scripture passages from the Catholic Missal, and then do 20 minutes of centering prayer. The Trappist monk Thomas Keating's work is my main guide, along with Thomas Merton, James Finley, Richard Rohr, and Cynthia Bourgeault. Centering prayer is a simple practice of wordless receptive awareness of being in God's presence, and an openness to God's ongoing work within and without.