I've seen people on their knees, their heads buried in their hands, trying to connect with a God who can intervene in their lives. I've seen people praying with their hands extended in the air, their eyes closed, their mouths spouting a strange language. I've seen Muslim men kneeling on a prayer rug, bowing low to a God who asks for their discipline and devotion. I've seen Jews in prayer shawls and yarmulkes, bowing over and over to a God of love and faithfulness. I've seen Hindus praying to brightly colored replications of their many gods.

If you are a religious person, you more than likely have your own way to pray: head down, hands folded or eyes closed and your mind working the networks in the ether. Prayer is the one thing all religious people share.

In First Thessalonians, the Bible tells us to pray without ceasing. I think that means we should always be spiritually alert, morally fit and able to call upon our God for help.

In the 1960s, when I was in seminary studying theology, many of my classmates worked at praying without ceasing. And because they felt adept at this constant prayer, they stopped the organized ritual of getting on their knees, folding their hands, closing their eyes and getting into the presence of God. Many of them said that was their fatal mistake.

Now there are people, monks and lay people, who have been traveling all over the world teaching centering prayer to people who want to get into the presence of God but have never felt they were able or worthy.

I talked to Basil Pennington, a Cistercian monk from St. Joseph's Abbey in Spencer, Mass., about the centering prayer methods he teaches. For Pennington, it's really quite simple.

"It's an ancient form of prayer," Pennington said. "It's a simple method and probably goes back to the Lord himself. So we are trying to achieve an awareness of God -- we stay with God in love. And we repeat a holy word over and over to keep us focused. It could be the word Jesus, for instance. Or their favorite word for God. We recommend that people do this twice a day for 20 minutes and each time they should finish with the Lord's prayer."

Pennington said the result is a calmer, more focused person who can accomplish more because of his or her changed attitude.

The centering prayer movement dates to the fourth century, when a fellow by the name of Cassian founded two communities of Cistercian monks in France and taught them how to pray. Pennington said the monks at his monastery, St. Joseph Abbey, rise at 3 in the morning to begin their praying.

It was in the 1970s that Pope Paul VI called the Cistercians to Rome and asked them to pray and teach prayer all over the world. Since then, Cistercians have been meeting with lay people and priests in an attempt to establish prayer groups in every parish in the world. When lay people feel they have achieved the method, they begin to hold centering prayer retreats.

Pennington says the simple centering prayer has been repackaged for this generation but has been a part of the Cistercian tradition since the beginning of the order.

"Our aim is to help the parish find the freedom to be in touch with their own beautiful self and God," Pennington said. "Not everybody will be called by this, but at least they know it's there."

The three-day retreat Pennington has been conducting at Christ the King Retreat Center in Buffalo, Minn., provides some instruction about the prayer methods. He said the sessions include some centering prayer as a group and plenty of time to center individually.

So there you have a new way to pray. Pennington said the result is very satisfying for most people and will bring a new sense of well-being.

A friend told me about her grandmother who would sit in a rocking chair holding her Bible. She would rock for a moment and look out the window as if she were thinking or praying. Then she would read a passage in the Bible and then look out the window some more. She would spend an hour in prayer and Bible reading, then she would rise and move on to the next task in her life.

It doesn't matter how you pray, but it matters that you do.

Clark D. Morphew