Just the other night I attended a meditation evening with some local practitioners in Vernon, BC. 

The weather was so mild it was a great chance to ride my bike, in the dark.

There is a lovely couple in Vernon that introduced me to this group who noticed me taking off into the dark after the mediation or what the famous Father Thomas Keating called "Centering Prayer".  Thus, the Buddhist Monks who call it meditation and the Christian Monks that call it prayer are clearly talking about the same thing. Silence. 

What the caring couple noticed about me riding in the dark, while no doubt shaking their heads with concern, was that I have no lights on my bike and was dressed in only black. The perfect scenario for an accident. 

In the morning my friends dropped off the safety vest pictured here with my wife and insisted that I wear it when riding. 

Pure love for others grown in the silence of their hearts. Thank you so much to my dear friends!!  

So, lets talk about love and prayer. 

Here are some thoughts taken from the work of a few great monks. They are dead now. We all must die, and all that will remain is the words of the wise. 

Centering Prayer or Meditation is a method designed to facilitate the development of contemplative prayer (silence) by preparing our faculties to receive this gift. . . . It is at the same time a relationship with the over self (nicknamed God by some) and a discipline to foster that relationship. This method of prayer is a movement beyond conversation with anything super supreme but is more of a communion with the supreme that is already there within you (nicknamed God by some).

Centering Prayer is based on the wisdom saying of the great sage Jesus who said: “If you want to pray, enter your inner room, close the door and pray to your Father in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” 

Notice that “Father” refers to a personal relationship, whether you call it father, mother, brother, soul-friend, spouse, or anything else.

My soul-friends are proof that it is you, and you alone, that has the capacity to act as God by loving all things, no matter how silly they may seem. 

Sherman Dahl 
The Emily Dahl Foundation 
December 6 ,2023