Prayer is central to the Christian life, but how and where do we pray? And could our prayer life benefit from fresh ideas from other traditions of prayer?

Most of us pray in our churches, some pray in cathedrals and retreat houses, others in quiet gardens or in specially designated 'prayer rooms' or 'prayer corners' in our homes. But what about praying in our commercial centres, our banks, shopping malls, fitness clubs and cinemas, factories, offices, schools, colleges and pubs?

As a nation, we spend a great deal of our time and money on our gardens. On Sundays, large numbers go and visit Garden Centres. Is this, I wonder, linked to a wish to improve our own little bit of space and tranquility in a stressful and troubled world? That may be part of it. What is certain is that if we do not take time to be quiet, to reflect, and take stock of our lives, we lay ourselves open to burn out, depression or one of the many stress-related conditions to which we are all becoming prone.

Thus ran a popular song many years ago. The world is going even faster now, or perhaps it is we who are going faster. We want to fit more and more into our twenty-four hour society, and the south-east of England where we live is faster and more complex than most places. We drive rather than walk (in spite of higher petrol prices), we do several things at once like speaking on the mobile phone while we walk the children to school. Television, computers and radios, as leisure activities, make sure that our stress levels remain high. The danger is that we do not realise that we are living on overload until symptoms appear – too well known to list here.