Every month I gather on zoom with colleagues from the Philadelphia Baptist Association for a spiritual formation group. After beginning with a silent centering prayer, we read and contemplatively listen to a passage from scripture or a spiritual writer. 

This past month we read a passage from the American Catholic monk Thomas Keating. Keating was one of the principal developers of Centering Prayer, a contemporary method of contemplative prayer. In his book Invitation to Love, Keating writes: 

As prayer becomes more intimate, grace reaches into the depths of our psyche, empowering it to unload the damage and debris of a lifetime. In time we will transition from going to God through reason and particular acts of the will to going to God more directly through the intuitive faculties. Then God will relate to us through them instead of through the external senses, memory, imagination, reasoning, and acts of the will… 

Once the intuitive level (of consciousness) is established, all our relationships change—toward ourselves, God, other people, and the cosmos—and we spend a significant period adjusting to a new way of being in the world. 

The beatitude that corresponds to the intuitive level is the beatitude of the ‘pure of heart,’ and the promise is, “They will see God.” …With the eyes of the spirit purified by faith…Everything begins to speak to us of God. Happiness arises from the perception of God’s closeness and our sense of belonging to the universe…and alerts us to God’s presence in daily life, events, and oth-er people. 

As I pondered the reading, I thought of an experience I had that morning. The day before one of my children had lost a drone, I decided to walk around the neighborhood to look for the drone the next morning. I didn’t find it, but I experienced an “intuitive level of God’s presence.” A large group of loud, cawing crows, perhaps over 100, had gathered on nearby treetops, and I saw on a lower branch a beautiful bald eagle which soon flew through the stand of trees and out of sight. It was a marvelous sight to behold. As I turned to walk, I met and had a brief conversation with a new neighbor. 

As I walked up the hill to our street, I thought, “It’s funny how one thing can lead to another. If the drone hadn’t been lost, if I hadn’t decided to take the time to look for the needle in a haystack, I wouldn’t have been out walking the neighborhood to witness the eagle’s flight or converse with my new neighbor. I appreciated the awe, wonder, and sense of God’s presence.” 

As Keating writes, “With the eyes of the spirit purified by faith…everything begins to speak to us of God. Happiness arises from the perception of God’s closeness and our sense of belonging to the universe…and alerts us to God’s presence in daily life, events, and other people.” How do you cultivate an “intuitive level” of God’s presence? What practices do you use to encounter God’s presence so that God’s grace can reach down into your life and unload the damage and debris of a lifetime? So it can transform your relationship with yourself, God, and other people?