Father Thomas Keating

I love to read and I spend a lot of time browsing in my favorite book store. It was on one of these browsing excursions many years ago that I just happened across a series of audio cassettes by a man I had never heard of before on the subject of contemplative prayer. The man's name was Father Thomas Keating, a Trappist monk from St. Benedict's Monastery in Snowmass, CO. At the time I had a meditation practice, Transendental Meditation, which I had been doing for over a decade, but as Ken Wilber has said, "the Judeo/Christian Tradition runs in my DNA", and I was searching for a Christian version of meditation if any such animal even existed. Indeed it does. The cassette tapes were a summary of what is now called Centering Prayer as it is taught by Fr. Keating and described in detail in his book Open Mind, Open Heart: The Contemplative Dimension of the Gospels I purchased the tapes and later the book and listening to them for the first time was one of those wonderful experiences of "coming home". Centering Prayer was the practice I had unconsciously been searching for most of my adult life, and it was delivered to me in a most articulate and compassionate style by a man who now has a special place in my heart. Since that encounter in the book store I have met Fr.. Thomas many times, dined and prayed with him at St. Benedict's, read most of his writings and attended many of his seminars. I once impetuously tried to express by thanks to him with the gift of a sweater which he graciously declined. But I can't think of a living person I am more grateful to and who has played a larger role in my transformation than this special man!