Tools for Prayer

Centering Prayer

Paraphrased and quoted from Thomas Keating, Open Mind, Open Heart

1. Choose a sacred word. This word is a “symbol of your intention to consent to the presence and action of God within.”
2. Sit with eyes closed in a comfortable position and “introduce the sacred word.”
3. When thoughts distract you, “ever-so-gently”return to the sacred word.
4. At the end of your prayer time take some time in silence for a few minutes to transition back.

For more information on Centering Prayer, see Contemplative Outreach.

Dedication Prayer
Leslie Singer
Member of Temple B'Nai Israel, Little Rock.

Lord,

We thank you today and tomorrow and for all the times now to come for the blessing of this house and for the blessing given to us by those whose compassion conceived it, whose talents designed it, whose skills built it, whose generosity paid for it, and to those who will now bring their hearts here to use it.

Help us remember that the earth we are mixing together and asking you to bless today, has already been blessed by you with its billions of wonders.

There is a Hebrew prayer that some Jews say before they eat and partake of the Earth's bounty:
Baruch atoh adenoi elohano melech a' olam, hamotze l'echem min h'aretz.
Blessed be the Lord our G-d, king of the universe, who gives us the fruits of the earth.

Today we are celebrating this beautiful new House of Prayer. A place for each of us to find peace, comfort, refuge and wisdom not so much within its walls, but within its emptiness.

It is called simply a House of Prayer, not a church or synagogue or a mosque or any other special name just a house, a home, a quiet place where we can be ourselves. To pray, meditate, to think, or just quietly listen to what G-d and his universe wants to tell us.