Course Summary:
- 8 self-paced sessions (I did about one per week)
- Session topics are: Prayer as Relationship, The Method of Centering Prayer, The Indwelling Spirit, Thoughts and Use of the Sacred Word, The Human Condition, The Future of Inter-Spiritual Relationship, Deepening Our Relationship with God, A Lifelong Journey (i.e. how to continue after the course
- In a given session there are some short text readings, videos to watch and reflection questions.
- Overall as a beginner it was a very useful start: you begin the practice (2 20 minute sessions daily) almost right away
- Much of the teaching is done by video, and there is often a lot of information being conveyed, especially in Fr. Thomas Keating’s sessions. So if you’re like me and don’t always learn best from a “lecture” then just note you may want to watch some things more than once.
Lately with the pandemic I’ve been all about online courses, so I decided to take the Sounds True Centering Prayer Course to get started with the practice — it didn’t hurt that it was on sale at the time! From the course description on the Sounds True site, the course includes opportunities to:
- Define the history and nature of Centering prayer with roots in the Contemplative Christian tradition through online video, audio and written presentations.
- Practice the formal method of Centering Prayer utilizing online practice sessions, inspirational poetry, and music.
- Utilize, reflect upon, and answer online questions pertaining to the relevance of Centering Prayer as it relates to one’s own life.
- Discuss and outline the psychology of Centering Prayer, including the “seven moments” of Centering Prayer along with the four levels of awareness.
This is done via:
- Eight sessions of personal training in the path of Centering Prayer
- Guided video teaching sessions with Contemplative Outreach instructors Gail Fitzpatrick-Hopler and Father Carl Arico
- A private journal to track your progress and deepen your practice
- Downloadable audio, video, and printable written lessons
- Personal reminders and notifications to keep your practice on track
The course description is pretty accurate “syllabus” in my opinion. I really liked that we got to the practice in Session 2, so the rest of the course was done in the context of actually experiencing Centering Prayer daily. Some of the concepts in the psychology portion were fairly dense; the session on the Human Condition includes a 1.5 hour video lecture from Fr. Keating that I definitely ended up watching in chunks just so I could absorb the wealth of material (for a synopsis of Fr. Keating’s teachings on the False Self in particular, you can go here).
The list of course components didn’t seem to match, however. We got the 8 sessions including the guided video teaching all of which were indeed downloadable. But the “journal” was a series of prompts, which I would not describe as a “private journal to track your progress and deepen your practice.” And if there were reminders/notifications I wasn’t able to locate them. However, neither of those two things were much of an issue for me — the prompts were great and I get enough notifications (is anyone else absurdly bothered by those little red circles on app icons? It’s like I can’t relax if there’s one visible. Must. Click. Now).
Overall, I thought the course was a good collection of material, especially if you like learning from video. It set some clear expectations of what my practice would look like initially, and did a good job of addressing both the practical and theoretical in a (mostly) layperson-accessible way. I will say I’m glad I got it on sale. The purchase price at the time of posting is $147 USD and that feels quite steep to me compared with other online offerings of similar material. As a comparison, the Spirituality and Practice course (advertised on the Contemplative Outreach Online Courses page) is only $49.95 USD. Now, I’m not going to take another course, but if you’ve taken something else please let me know in the comments!
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