Posted on by Michael J. Cunningham

Being and Doing: What Centering Prayer Teaches

Being and Doing: What Centering Prayer Teaches

If you practice centering prayer, you already know the dance between being and doing. You sit in silence, consenting to God’s presence. That’s being. But when thoughts arise—and they always do—you gently return to your sacred word. That’s doing. Not much doing, just a whisper of intention, a soft returning. But it’s doing nonetheless.

The practice works because being and doing aren’t opposites. They’re partners.

What Happens in the Prayer

In centering prayer, you’re not trying to empty your mind or stop your thoughts. You’re learning a different way of relating to them. A thought arises—your to-do list, a worry, a memory—and you don’t fight it. You simply notice it’s there, and gently return to your sacred word.

Notice. Return. Notice. Return.

That gentle returning is doing. But it emerges from being—from your fundamental openness to God’s presence within you.

This is what Thomas Keating meant when he said centering prayer isn’t about getting rid of thoughts but about changing our relationship to them. You’re learning that you don’t have to chase every thought, engage every worry, or solve every problem that floats through your awareness.

You can simply let them pass, like boats on a river, while you remain present to Something deeper.

What This Teaches About Life

Here’s what surprised me after years of centering prayer: the practice wasn’t just teaching me how to pray. It was teaching me how to live. That same quality of gentle noticing and returning? It works in daily life too.

You’re in a meeting and your mind starts racing toward the next task. Notice. Gently return to presence, to this meeting, to these people.

You’re washing dishes and treating it like just another chore to get through. Notice. Gently return to the experience—the warm water, the simple service, this moment.

Someone says something that triggers defensiveness and you feel the familiar reaction rising. Notice. Pause. Return to your deeper intention—to listen, to understand, to respond from love rather than react from fear. Sacred Noticing is centering prayer extended into the rest of your day.

The Same Gentle Movement

In centering prayer: Thought arises → Notice → Gently return to sacred word
In Sacred Noticing: Stimulus arises → Notice → Pause → Respond from presence

See the similarity? Both practices involve the same fundamental movement—a gentle returning to presence when you’ve drifted into autopilot. A soft choosing of being even in the midst of doing.

The miracle of centering prayer isn’t that thoughts stop coming. They don’t. The miracle is that you learn you don’t have to be controlled by them. You can notice them and choose something deeper—presence, openness, consent to God’s action within you.

The miracle of Sacred Noticing is the same. The tasks don’t stop coming. The to-do list doesn’t disappear. But you learn you don’t have to be controlled by the tyranny of productivity. You can notice what’s present and choose to engage your life from being, not just doing.

Both Require Doing

Here’s what people sometimes miss: even centering prayer involves doing.

You choose to sit. You choose your sacred word. You choose to return to it, again and again, with the gentlest intention. It’s minimal doing—a whisper, not a shout—but it’s doing nonetheless.

This is the integration: Being doesn’t mean doing nothing. It means doing from a different place—from presence, from openness, from consent rather than control. In prayer, you consent to God’s presence and action within. That consent is both being (receptive openness) and doing (active choice to return when thoughts pull you away).

In daily life, you consent to each moment as it is, bringing that same quality of receptive presence to whatever needs doing. The dishes still need washing. The email still needs sending. The difficult conversation still needs to happen. But you’re there; actually there, while it’s happening.

The Practice Extends Itself

Centering prayer taught me I could sit for twenty minutes in receptive silence, gently returning to presence whenever I drifted. That was revolutionary. Sacred Noticing taught me I could bring that same quality of gentle returning into the rest of my day. That was life-changing.

  • You’re making coffee—notice you’re lost in planning, gently return to the experience of making coffee.
  • You’re talking to your spouse—notice you’re formulating your response instead of listening, gently return to presence with them.
  • You’re walking to your car—notice you’re already three tasks ahead, gently return to the walk itself, the air, the light, your body moving.

Same gentle movement. Same patient returning. Same integration of being and doing.

The Gift of Both

What centering prayer gives you in the silence, Sacred Noticing gives you in the noise.

  • Both teach you that being isn’t separate from doing. Being is what makes your doing human, conscious, alive.
  • Both teach you that you don’t have to control everything. You can trust the gentle returning, the patient practice, the accumulated moments of choosing presence.
  • Both teach you that the spiritual life isn’t somewhere else, in some other moment when things are quieter or holier or more perfect. It’s here, in this moment, with these tasks, in this ordinary life.

The sacred word in centering prayer isn’t magic. It’s just a way back to presence when you’ve drifted. Sacred Noticing isn’t magic either. It’s just the same way back, extended into the rest of your day.

Notice. Return. Notice. Return.

In prayer and in life, being and doing dance together. And both are sacred.

Pause for Thought:
The gentle returning you practice in centering prayer—what if that same movement could inform every moment of your day?

Michael Cunningham, OFS
spiritualbreak.com

Posted on by Michael J. Cunningham

New Year, New Energy

New Year, New Energy

Well, here we are again. We are at the threshold again. The calendar has turned, the confetti has been swept away, and here you are—perhaps carrying more of last year than you’d like. The resolutions are there, waiting like unopened packages. But something feels heavy, doesn’t it? The list of changes you want to make feels less like possibility and more like one more thing you don’t have the energy for.

We get tired in place. That’s a phrase that keeps returning to me, one I hear frequently. Not just physically exhausted, though that’s real enough. But spiritually tired—when the very thought of moving forward feels like too much. When the familiar groove, even if it’s wearing you down, feels safer than the risk of stepping out.

Last week I talked about the carousels we ride—those repeating patterns that define us, the comfortable orbits we trace again and again. Family roles we’ve inhabited for decades. Professional identities we’ve polished until they shine. Spiritual practices we can perform without really showing up. Round and round, the music playing, the world whirring past.

But here’s what I’ve learned: the carousel doesn’t lock you in. You can step off. But another question arises, do you believe you have the energy to do it.

The Lie of the Empty Well

At time, we tell ourselves we’re running on fumes. That whatever reservoir of grace or vitality or spiritual fuel we once had has gone dry. And so, we stay put, conserving what little we think we have left, afraid that any significant movement will empty us completely.

But what if that’s backwards? What if the very act of staying “tired in place” is what’s draining us? What if the energy we need doesn’t come from hoarding what we have, but from opening ourselves to what’s already being offered?

Noticing—and I mean really notice—how your body feels when you think about making a genuine change. Not a surface resolution to exercise more or read more books. But a real shift in how you show up in your life. There’s probably resistance there. Fear, maybe. Exhaustion, certainly. The truth of leaving or staying will fulfil itself.

Instead … pause. Don’t rush past that feeling or argue with it. Just let it be there. This is important information about where you are, not where you think you should be.

Grace Isn’t Waiting for You to Be Ready

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: if we wait until we feel energized before we begin, we may never begin. The gift of new energy doesn’t usually arrive before we need it. It shows up when we take the first step without it.

This is what true faith looks like—not certainty, not feeling spiritually charged and ready, but willingness. Just willingness. Diving right into the smallest crack in your resistance.

St. Francis understood this. He didn’t rebuild San Damiano because he felt full of energy and vision. He was most likely suffering from PTSD. He started picking up stones while still confused, still broken, still unsure of what he was doing. The clarity came later. The energy came from the doing.

What spiritual gifts position us for this kind of movement? I keep returning to three:

Poverty of spirit—admitting we don’t have this figured out, that we’re not in control, that we genuinely need help. This isn’t resignation. It’s the opposite. It’s saying: I can’t do this alone, and I’m willing to receive what I need. Be ready.

Present-moment awareness—not getting lost in the weight of all the changes we think we need to make, but showing up fully for this single breath, this one choice, this particular moment. Sacred Noticing isn’t about fixing everything. It’s about being awake to what’s happening now.

Trust in abundance—believing, against all evidence of our tiredness, that we are not operating from scarcity. That grace is not something we have to earn or manufacture, but something we’re swimming in, whether we notice it or not. It is there, waiting inside to be released.

The Disposition of Beginning

You don’t need to change your whole life today. You don’t need to feel ready. You don’t need to have energy you don’t feel.

You just need to be willing to notice differently. To pause before automatically saying yes to the familiar pattern. To respond from intention rather than from habit, even once.

The carousel is still there. Its music is still playing. But you’re standing still for a moment, aware that you have a choice. That awareness itself is grace. That pause itself is energy you didn’t manufacture.

What if the “new you” isn’t about becoming someone different, but about allowing yourself to show up as who you already are beneath all the tired patterns? What if the energy source you need isn’t something you have to generate, but something you have to stop blocking?

The New Year doesn’t care about your resolutions. But it does offer something more valuable: this present moment, empty of expectations, full of possibility. The question isn’t whether you have energy for the year ahead. The question is whether you’re willing to receive what’s already being given.

Right now. In this breath. On this ordinary day. Today.

New energy doesn’t announce itself with trumpets. It whispers: take one step. That’s all. Just one.

And then, unexpectedly, you find you can take another.

What carousel are you ready to step off of? What would it mean to stop being tired in place?

 

Copyright 2026 Michael J. Cunningham OFS

 

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The Carousel of Our Own Making

 

A Reflection on Freedom and the Sacred Noticing of Our Patterns

Notice

We ride the carousel of our own lives—round and round, the painted horses rising and falling in their predetermined arc. The music plays, familiar and comforting. We know every note, every rhythm, every moment when the brass ring appears. For a time, it’s delightful. The lights flash, the world blurs into pleasant motion, and we feel the rush of movement without the risk of actually going anywhere.

But sit with this long enough, really notice it, and something shifts. The delight becomes duty. The music, once charming, becomes the soundtrack of our confinement. We realize that we’ve ridden this same circuit a thousand times—the same conflicts, the same compromises, the same carefully constructed identity spinning in its grooved track.

And here’s the uncomfortable truth that Sacred Noticing reveals: we are both the rider and the operator. We bought the ticket. We climb aboard each morning. We hold ourselves to the painted horse even when our legs ache and our spirit longs for solid ground.

Pause

St. Francis of Assisi knew something about carousels. The whole courtly world of Assisi was one—the merchants spinning in their pursuit of wealth, the nobles in their pursuit of honor, the church in its pursuit of power. Round and round, each carousel maintaining its own illusion of progress while going nowhere at all.

His genius was the pause. That moment in the cave. That kiss of the leper. That stripping away of his father’s clothes in the public square. Not a rejection of the world, but a rejection of the wheel.

In that pause, in that stepping off, he discovered something radical: we have freedom of movement. We always have. The carousel continues spinning, but we need not remain on it. We are the only ones who lock ourselves into the patterns of our lives—into jobs that drain us, relationships that diminish us, identities that no longer fit the people we’re becoming.

But here’s the deeper truth that Francis embodied: the only thing truly spinning is the world itself. We’ve mistaken the world’s motion for our own. The earth turns on its axis, seasons cycle, circumstances rise and fall—but we, at our center, can be still. We can be home.

And home, Francis teaches us, isn’t a place we’re spinning toward or away from. Home is the ground of our being, the presence of God that travels with us. He made home in a cave, in a leper colony, on a mountain, beneath the stars. Home was wherever he stood in awareness of the Divine presence.

The Franciscan insight is that this freedom isn’t found in acquiring something new. It’s found in the poverty that lets go. It’s in the simplicity that walks away from the most recent, irrelevant call. It’s in the humility that admits: this ride isn’t serving me anymore. It’s in the recognition that I can plant my feet anywhere and call it holy ground.

Respond

So what does Sacred Noticing call us to do?

First, notice without judgment where you’re spinning. What patterns have become prisons? What familiar circuits have you mistaken for the journey itself? Be gentle here—we don’t climb onto carousels because we’re foolish, but because they once brought us joy, or safety, or belonging.

Then pause. Really pause. Step off the platform even if just for a breath. Feel what solid ground is like beneath your feet. This is the contemplative moment—not thinking about freedom, but experiencing it. Recognize that while the world spins in its endless revolution, you don’t have to spin with it. You can be still. You can be centered. You can be home right here, right now.

Finally, respond. Not with drama or self-recrimination, but with the simple wisdom of someone who recognizes they’re free to move. Maybe you walk away from the carousel entirely. Maybe you return for one more ride, but now as a choice rather than a compulsion. Maybe you invite others to step off with you. Maybe you simply stand still and let the world do its spinning while you rest in the unchanging love that holds you.

Francis would remind us: the creation is vast. God’s playground extends far beyond our small mechanical circles. There are fields to walk through, lepers to embrace, birds to preach to, a sun to call brother, a moon to call sister. And wherever we stand in that vastness, we are home. Because home isn’t a destination. Home is the awareness that we are held, we are loved, we are free—no matter what spins around us.

The carousel will keep spinning. The world will keep turning. They always do. But you—blessed, beloved, free—you can notice where you are, pause in the awareness of your own stillness at the center, and respond with the wisdom of one who knows: I can make home wherever I am.

The question isn’t whether you can step off.

It’s whether you’ll notice that you’ve been standing on holy ground all along.

Reflection Copyright 2026 Michael J. Cunningham OFS

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The Guest

The Guest

I met her at a Christmas party this week, sitting quietly among the seasonal chatter. Tall and elegant in clothes from another era, she spoke about her work, her influence, and her many connections. The words came easily, practiced, filling the space with accomplishment.

But underneath it, something else seeps out.

That’s what the moment taught me—not about her specifically, but about all of us. How we construct these careful presentations, these compartments where we store our longing, our unfulfillment, our desire for something more. We believe we’re containing it, managing it, keeping it properly hidden. And then it seeps out anyway.

Because vulnerability isn’t something we can permanently bottle up; it finds its way through the cracks. It shows itself in the pause between sentences, in the way our eyes drift when we talk about success, in the depth of a look that’s almost a stare, and in the reaching for words that never quite capture what we’re actually feeling.

She made a statement with her elegant bearing, her bygone fashion, her stories of influence. But the vulnerability came anyway, uninvited yet somehow essential. Like a guest we didn’t mean to welcome but who belonged at the table nonetheless.

I’ve spent this week thinking about these compartments; how we divide ourselves into acceptable pieces—the competent professional, the accomplished friend, the person who has it together. We present these pieces carefully, keeping the messier parts tucked away. The desire for another person, another life, another experience, another meaning.

But here’s what I see: when we live compartmentalized, something vital goes missing. We become a collection of presentations rather than a whole person. The vulnerability that seeps out isn’t a failure of our containers—it’s our wholeness trying to break through.

What if vulnerability isn’t the problem but the path? Not something to manage or hide, but something essential to feeling fully human? Yes, it might hurt us at times. Yes, it exposes us in ways that feel uncomfortable. But without it, we’re just elegant performances, telling stories of influence while the real story—the one about longing and searching and not having arrived—goes unspoken.

The party continued around us that evening. Christmas music played. People moved from conversation to conversation, everyone presenting, everyone containing. And I sat there recognizing something I’ve known but keep forgetting we’re all carrying desires that will not abate. We must continue seeking, reaching, and being vulnerable.

The question isn’t whether vulnerability will emerge. It will. It must. The question is whether we’ll make room for it, acknowledge it, let it be part of our wholeness rather than something to resist and store for another day.

Maybe that’s the real gift of the season—not the wrapped packages or the seasonal gatherings, but the moments when our careful containers crack open and something truer seeps out, when we stop long enough to be present with our unfulfillment, our reaching, our very human desire for more.

Vulnerability keeps showing up like an uninvited guest.

Perhaps it’s time to set a place at the table.

 

 

 

The guest

She sits quietly,

Telling stores of her vast influence,

Without boastful words,

Unaware of her pain exposed,

In her unfulfillment.

 

Tall, elegant and beautifully dressed,

She is slightly out of fashion,

With clothes from a bygone era,

Yet making her statement.

 

Here she moves amongst the guests,

At the Christmas party, yet underneath,

With something else,

Yet underneath it seeps out.

 

This desire for another,

Another person, life, experience, meaning;

That will not abate.

 

She must continue …

 

 

 

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“AWAKENING TO THE DIVINE WITHIN” – Advent Week One

 

Dear Lord,

In this season of waiting and wonder,
let us see ourselves as you see us.

Help us to discover who we truly are
in your loving presence.

For it is in knowing ourselves as your beloved
that all other belonging begins.

Give us eyes to see the Divine that dwells within us,
ears to hear your still small voice,
and hearts open to receive your infinite love.

We ask this in the name of Jesus,
who came to show us who we truly are.

Amen.

THE EXPERIENCE OF UNBELONGING:

Let me tell you a story. Picture this: You’re standing in line at the airport during the Christmas rush. The terminal is packed with holiday travelers. Everyone around you is on their phone—scrolling, texting, checking in, checking out. The person next to you is video-chatting. Behind you, someone’s playing a game with the volume too loud. Across from you, a woman is frantically typing an email.

You look up. You’re surrounded by hundreds of people, and yet… you feel utterly alone.

Have you ever experienced that feeling of unbelonging—even when you’re in the middle of a crowd?

A few years ago, I traveled to Singapore during the Christmas holidays to visit my daughter and her family. Singapore is one of the most densely populated places on earth—18,500 people per square mile. From the 16th floor of my daughter’s apartment, I could see thousands of lit windows each evening. I would stand there at dusk, looking out, knowing that behind each glowing window, families were sharing their lives together, just as we were. Thousands of families. Tens of thousands of people. All so close.

But what struck me most was something else while riding the MRT, Singapore’s metro system. It’s efficient, clean, crowded. One evening, I boarded a train car with easily a hundred other passengers. I looked around. Of those hundred-plus people, only two of us weren’t staring at our phones. I was one of them.

It was surreal. We were all traveling together through this city, our bodies inches apart, swaying with the same movement of the train. And yet everyone was somewhere else—somewhere inside their devices. Disconnected from where they actually were. Disconnected from each other. Disconnected from themselves.

I call this strange phenomenon unbelonging. That feeling of being surrounded by people yet feeling completely separate. Present in body but absent in spirit.

I wonder if this is how we often experience our own lives. Present but not truly here. Connected to devices but disconnected from our deepest selves. Surrounded by activity but separate from what matters most.

 

REFLECTION MOMENT:

I’d like to invite you into a brief moment of reflection. Just sit with this question quietly in your heart. You don’t need to share anything aloud right now. Just notice.

When have you felt that sense of unbelonging? When you’re with people but not truly present with them—or when you’re not sure who you are in the midst of the crowd?

This feeling of unbelonging isn’t just about our disconnection from others. It’s often a symptom of something deeper: we’ve forgotten who we truly are.

And Advent—this season of waiting for the Incarnation—invites us back to the most fundamental truth about our identity.

About being with God. Being present. Being aware. Being.