integration paper

Date: 01/22/2018

The Way Back Home: An Introduction to Centering Prayer is a Basil Pennington is a book about our father and our home. Pennington expounds on the home of humanity and explains how we can get there and stay with our Father in friendship, peace, and happiness. From my analysis, I have understood this book as both a guiding and counseling tool and a source of ‘spiritual food.’

The “Way Back Home” is very educational and informative regarding leading a happy and righteous life. I have myself learned many things that I never knew or perhaps had the wrong version of them. The main of all concerns the dwelling place of the Lord. Honestly, I never knew that the home of our Lord is within us as the author affirms. The fact that he draws substantial evidence from the scriptures and sacred books makes it difficult for anyone to argue against his point. In this regard, ‘within us as the home of the Lord’ comes as new knowledge, not only to me but also to the majority of audiences of this book and the public. In real life, I have heard so many people, mostly in prayers while in trouble asking, “Lord, where are you? I am sure you now have an answer.

The book is also a source of correction. About the ‘true self,’ Pennington warns that majority of us have fake identities. He gives an example of the trending way of introduction in which people announce themselves by their titles or what they do. I have personally experienced these scenarios. At my home, I have a very conservative, inquisitive, and competitive grandmother. She is always interested in knowing what the parents of my friends do for a living. Recently, she mistook my friend Joel’s father for another person. Joel told her he is Harrington’s son and then my grandmother asked “Harrington, the priest?” Joel had to tell her, “No, Harrington, the mechanic.” No reality exists in this kind of thinking. They are all struggles to impress others, and we are so wicked in that we have transferred the same mentality towards God. We think he is the big one out there whom we have to worship to receive ‘win’ his goodies. According to the author, this attitude represents a false sense of self, which he warns that is the source of frustrations and even violence. He corrects us that God is not the big one outside there to trade his goodies with our appeasement of him but a true friend that lives within us and teaches us his love.

The Way Back Home is also a good source of motivation and courage. Pennington assures us that no one is perfect. Indeed, we all make mistakes, and we are not the first ones to do wrong. My high school class teacher often told us “making a mistake does not matter, what matters is how you respond to the mistake after you realize that it is a mess.” Pennington informs us that God is the Lord of forgiveness. He forgives all those ready to admit and repent their sins just the way the father of the prodigal son forgave the boy and accepted him back. Through this example, the writer gives us hope of reuniting with our Creator. The hope comes with the courage and motivation to get back home within ourselves where our Father is waiting for us.

Definitely, from the above analysis, Pennington wrote this work to correct people and give them motivation, courage, and direction of living in righteousness. He warns against such issues as having a false sense of the self and encourages us to be the true self. The author calls upon us to repent our sins and go back home to the Lord like the prodigal son. There is no better spiritual food than the hope and motivation of getting the Lord’s forgiveness to live in friendship with Him again.