The Contemplative Practice of Lectio Divina

In Christianity, Lectio Divina (Latin for divine reading) is a traditional practice of scriptural reading, meditation and prayer intended to promote communion with God and to increase the meaning of sacred text. It is a process of bringing life to scripture and scripture to life.

Lectio Divina is not intellectual, it is experiential and insightful. The focus of Lectio Divina is not an analysis of biblical passages, but on holding them in mind and allowing the Spirit to reveal their meaning. It is a contemplative practice that moves one from active (reading and thinking) to receptive (intuiting and feeling).

The roots of Christian scriptural reflection and interpretation go back to Jewish liturgical practices when the scriptures were proclaimed, interpreted and preached in the synagogue. Time was allowed for the spoken scripture to be savored and memorized by those present so that the wisdom imparted would continue in daily life. This “hearing” of the Word into memory involved the whole person, body, heart and spirit, so that even in the slightest moments in life, God’s direction could be revealed.

Before the emergence of the Western monastic communities, a key contribution to the foundation of Lectio divina came from Origen in the 3rd century, with his view of "Scripture as a sacrament.” Origen believed that The Word (i.e. Logos) was incarnate in Scripture and could therefore touch and teach readers and hearers. Christ as the "interpretive key" unlocks the message in Scriptural texts.

The monastic practice of Lectio Divina was first established in the 5^th-6th century by Saint Benedict of Nursia, and later, in the 11th century, a Carthusian prior, Guigo, formalized the practice of Lectio Divina, into 4 steps of deepening thoughtfulness:

Lectio (reading): An attentive, slow, repetitious recitation of a short passage of scripture.

Meditatio (meditation): An effort to understand the passage and apply it to my own life.

Oratio (prayer): Engaging or talking with God about the passage.

Contemplatio (contemplation): Allowing oneself to be absorbed in the words of God as the Holy Spirit draws us into God’s presence through scripture.

Where can I go from your Spirit?

Where can I flee from your presence?

If I go up to the heavens, you are there;

if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

If I rise on the wings of the dawn,

if I settle on the far side of the sea,

even there your hand will guide me,

your right hand will hold me fast.

If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me

and the light become night around me,”

even the darkness will not be dark to you;

the night will shine like the day,

for darkness is as light to you.

Psalm 139:7-12

Instructions:

Select a passage of scripture to read. You may use the Psalm printed above or find something in a book that touches your soul.

Lectio – In lectio we read slowly, attentively, gently listening to hear a word or phrase that is God's word for us this day.

Meditatio – Indentify a word or a passage in the Scriptures that speaks to you in a personal way, take it in and ponder it.

Read the scripture again….

Oratio – Lift up to God in prayer the thoughts and feelings that God’s word has evoked within you.

Read the scripture again….

Contemplatio - Rest in the presence of the One who has used His word as

a means of inviting you to accept His transforming embrace.

We can practice contemplation on objects as well as on text. In fact, just this morning I posted a Richard Rohr quote on FB about becoming "the other." And I likened it to Martin Buber's I-Thou or Thich Nhat Hanh's notion of Interbeing. Here is the quote: 

"When there is the encounter with the other, when there is mutuality, when there is presence, when there is giving and receiving, and both are changed in that encounter, that is the moment when you can begin to move toward transformation." 

- Richard Rohr

The process of lectio divina moves us from conceptual to consensual, from active to receptive, from objective to subjective, from without to within. This is the goal of all spiritual practices.

My you quiet your thinking long enough to receive the rich messages that are waiting for you! 

_/\_Peggy

History adapted from:

1. Opening to God: Lectio Divina and Life as Prayer by David G. Benner, 2010.
2. Christian Spirituality: Themes From the Tradition by Lawrence S. Cunningham, Keith J. Egan, 1996.
3. Meditative Prayer by Richard J. Foster, 1983, Intervarsity Press.
4. Teaching World Civilization with Joy and Enthusiasm by Benjamin Lee Wren, 2004.
5. The Way of Perfection by Teresa of Avila, 2007.
6. Reading to Live: the Evolving Practice of Lectio Divina by Raymond Studzinski, 2010.

Left Brain: Right Brain...Knowing:Experiencing

“The way we know God is through God’s self disclosure, and the medium of that self disclosure is prayer”  ~Urban Holmes, History of Christian Spirituality

An ongoing discussion among church people: How do we bring experience of God to our congregation? Lots of suggestions for sermons and teaching (all good left brain approaches)...here is the answer! -"When religion does not give people an inner life or a real prayer life, it is missing its primary vocation." Thank you Fr Richard Rohr - Breathing Underwater!

Church, teach your people to pray....teach that prayer is not all one way and that there is a developmental/maturational progression of one's prayer life. In the same way as exercise for the body, or math for the intellect, prayer is the growing medium for the spirit.

Here is a very simplified explanation. Humans should be a balance of left brain rational/intellectual and right brain creative/experiential. We in the West are way biased to the left brain side. We think we can rationalize and

compartmentalize everything. But still we yearn, and long for, and sense that God is among us, within us...that there is "meaning" to all of this! This "feeling" is realized through right brain experience. Left brain

sees matter. Right brain experiences energy (atoms and space where left sees matter). In order to unite the two - to make the realization that both are the same thing, both left and right brain must engage. (This is also how one may understand a Trinitarian concept for God).

 If you want to left brain intellectualize what happens in prayer you talk about the inner senses - intuition, empathy, compassion;you talk about subconsciousness and what becomes available in quiet prayer through the inner senses. But this is imposing left brain construction on what is understood and experienced by the human as matters of the spirit. You cannot tell people how to intuit, or empathize or love, or forgive, or experience grace. These

attributes of the human can only be developed and matured through experience of them. The way you open yourself to these experiences is to pray - meditate in quiet with God. In this way you grow your capacity for love, forgiveness, compassion, grace...nondual thinking (oops! there is my left brain again!).

 

The church's job is not to left brain intellectualize people in order to help them grow in spirit and experience God. It is to give people the tools - the prayer tools to experience God. This is why other religions spend worship time in meditation...not intellectualizing. I am not saying don't teach, but we do plenty of that. I am saying, what we lack, and what we are looking for so desperately, is God experience...and it comes through maturing the spirit in PRAYER.

 Jesus spent as much time praying ALONE in prayer (or in the wilderness, or climbing up the side of a mt) as he did healing (maybe more!). He had to because this is how he deepened his unity with the Father and drew trust and energy from Source in order to give it to the world. This is our example! We are a society of DOERS....We must learn to BE. Then we will be mindful in the doing. We will be energized for the doing. Right humanity will flow from each right heart that is full of God experience -mature in God experience - abundant with compassion, filled with great love - ever restoring its Love conviction from the eternal source of Love. Balance - Being and Doing, Contemplation and Action, Right and Left Brain, Intellect/Body and Spirit.

We learn about humanity and how humanity has thought about God through teaching. This will not give us experiences of God, in fact it keeps us thinking we are separate. The only way we can analyze something is by setting it apart from us. BUT We experience our humanity and our unity with each other and with God through moment experiences of transcendence - learning to pray is THE WAY to grow the spirit's capacity for Moment experiences of God.

Prayer/meditation is the vehicle all religions use to experience GOD.

Your intellect watches God in a movie. Your  intuition/empathy/compassion, all cultivated in prayer, are in the movie with God. 

With you in prayerful, amazingly rich and deeply understanding peace of Christ, 

Peggy _/\_

Originally published September 17, 2011 

Awareness ~Eyes that See, Ears that Hear

Awareness is always present. We cannot function 

without it, but we can function without recognizing it. 

~ Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

In the Christian tradition, illumination (also called enlightenment or awareness) is named, “being made in the Image of Christ.” Paul of Tarsus called this having the Mind of Christ. The title Christ is derived from the Greek term Khristós meaning "the anointed one." The symbolism of anointing in this sense is recognition of something spiritual, sacred and Godly. Khristós is also related to Keres, associated with anointing to purify or heal the body or rid the self of negative influence. Thus, as is the case in Paul’s writings, anointing can be understood as a state of mind (and body) in which both negative influences are dispelled and sacred Godliness is assumed; or in the context of "re-ligare" or reconnecting (the meaning of the word, religion), to perceive with an illuminated or enlightened awareness. The notion of awakened mind or anointed perception was understood across sacred traditions preceding the first century. Thus, the Christ-mind may be called Buddha-nature (“buddha” literally means, “awakened one”) or bodhi in Buddhism or moksha in Hinduism. Enlightenment is the threshold of nondual awareness, a singular or ongoing perception of unified thought, in which subject and object are not opposites, but one and the same. Enlightened, nondual awareness reconciles opposites and is a benefit of contemplation.

“The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in... parables so that,

“‘they may be ever seeing but never perceiving,

and ever hearing but never understanding;

otherwise they might turn and be forgiven.’"

~Mark 4:10-12

This enlightened/aware/Christ mind is one that thinks conceptually, intuits and feels with appropriate balance between the three. Richard of St Victor  (12^th century mystic) wrote that humanity was given three sets of eyes: the eye of the flesh (for seeing without), the eye of reason (for thinking and judging) and the eye of true understanding (for creating wisdom by using seeing, thinking and intuiting simultaneously).(1) The third eye as enlightened consciousness is an ancient concept predating Christianity.(2) The New Testament authors use this language all the time, Let he who has eyes see. Let she who has ears hear. (Matthew 13:9-16; Mark 8:18, Revelation 2:7,11,17,29, for example) Everyone has all three eyes, but we don’t all use them to their capacity. Contemplative practice can cultivate the use of these in balance.

May you take the time to be still. Allow your mind to rest in the present moment, setting aside plans, concerns, all thoughts...Open to your inner wisdom, but don't try to name it. Allow it to rest with you and you will receive it. Awaken to that which is beyond thought and feeling. Breathe...Open...Allow...Receive.

_/\_Peggy, from Promoting Reconciliation Through Contemplative Christian Prayer Formation  

___________________

1.  David Berreby, Us and Them: The Science of Identity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005). 

2.  Richard Cavendish, Man, Myth and Magic – Volume 19. (New York, NY: Marshall Cavendish, 1994), 2606.

Meditation at Compline

Burrowed deep in my bed

I hear the rain fall

weightily in the garden,

sweep the roof with galloping gusts,

indifferent to my plights.

I fall asleep with poems

dropping from the sky,

caught beyond my eyelids

by nocturnal leafy arms.

All night long they murmur.

In the morning I awake

with poetry on my lips.

~Antoinette Voute Roeder

_

May the peace of night time rest in the fold of your eyelids, the still of your lips, the laxity of your sinew, and may you drowsy dwell this night in the quiet comfort of the arms of  love. Peace be with you, Peggy

Contemplative Mind - the Integrated (or Reconciled) use of Objectivity and Subjectivity

Mohandas Gandhi said, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”

The value of contemplation is an integrated, well-rounded person, whose values, emotionality, ideologies and behavior are reconciled in benevolent and compassionate relationship. The prayer path has been a means of reconciliation for centuries in the Christian tradition, as in other religious traditions, contemplative prayer being equivalent to meditation.

Western culture holds a definitive value bias toward objective perception that greatly impacts our economy, ecology, social equality, and religious understandings. With the Age of Enlightenment (a paradoxical term for what came to be), came a Western cultural bias toward objectification and rational reductionism. The creative, intuitive, imaginative, subjective mind was, and still is, downplayed for what we can objectify and make factually logical. But strictly factual learning carries no influence from affective or meaningful inner volitions. For facts to become wisdom, just as for circumstances that cause suffering to become opportunities for renewed hope and healing, the inner subjective must come together with the outer objective mind. We must know how our thinking determines who we are. Enlightened wisdom makes balanced use of both objective and subjective mind. This is the self, reconciled. This is, in Christian terminology, the path to union with God.

In the Christian tradition, we read Paul’s words, “So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view [objective only]. …Therefore, if anyone is in Christ [the anointed/ enlightened mind], the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled [re-ligare, "binds-back"] us to himself through Christ [See etymology for"Christ" below] and gave us the ministry of reconciliation…” 2 Cor 5:16, 17, 18

So let's get contemplative for a moment.
What are you thinking as you look at this picture? Don't ask what you see, but what you feel. Ask what it means and why it illustrates the points of the words above. What is it's symbolism? We forget that images, words, numbers...they are symbols. And symbols have (subjective) meaning. An object, like a symbol, is not simply and only an object. Objects, concepts, symbols...they carry more than face value. They represent something intangible. Always. Now, after you have looked at this image for a few moments, questioning what it means and how it makes you feel, you have established a relationship with the image. It speaks to you...what do you hear? ("Let those with ears, let them hear." Matt 13:9) This exercise allows your inner subjective, that which is beyond thought, an opportunity to inform your outer seeing and factual thinking. Contemplation is receptive.

Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me,
~Peggy Beatty, Promoting Reconciliation Through Contemplative Christian Prayer Formation

Note: In the Christian tradition, illumination (also called enlightenment or awareness) is part of a process, “being made in the Image of Christ.” Paul called this having the Mind of Christ. The title Christ is derived from the Greek term Khristós meaning "the anointed one." The symbolism of anointing in this sense is recognition of something spiritual, sacred and Godly. Khristós is also related to Keres, associated with anointing to purify or heal the body or rid the self of negative influence. Thus, as is the case in Paul’s writings, anointing can be understood as a state of mind (and body) in which both negative influences are dispelled and sacred Godliness is assumed; or in the context of re-ligare or reconnecting (the root of "religion"), to perceive with an illuminated or enlightened awareness. The notion of awakened mind or anointed perception was understood across sacred traditions preceding the first century. Thus, the Christ-mind may be called Buddha-nature (“buddha” literally means, “awakened one”) or bodhi in Buddhism or moksha in Hinduism. Enlightenment is the threshold of nondual awareness, a singular or ongoing perception of unified thought, in which subject and object are not opposites, but one and the same. Enlightened, nondual awareness reconciles opposites and is a benefit of contemplation.

Prayer and Subjective Well-being

Researchers at the University of Illinois studied the correlation of prayer type with subjective well-being.

Participants were assessed for the types of prayer they engaged in: adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication, reception and obligatory prayer. They were also assessed for subjective well-being, using measures that included spiritual support, optimism/pessimism, meaning of life, life satisfaction and self-esteem.

Prayers of thanksgiving, adoration and reception were statistically significant predictors of positive subjective well-being, while prayers of confession, obligation and supplication were significantly correlated with negative well-being.

 Prayers of adoration, thanksgiving and receptivity are aimed at allowing things to be as they are without referring to needs and outcomes. Prayers of obligation, confession and supplication are aimed at a desired outcome or an obligatory measure to avoid an outcome. With relationship to the Self, the latter (negative well-being) prayers are self-focused versus the prayers associated with positive well-being are God-focused. The authors noted, “To a large extent, these egoless forms of prayer are an attempt to give something to God.”

In the Abrahamic traditions, prayer is the medium through which union with God in the Spirit of love and adoration takes place. Many of the non-Abrahamic traditions, Buddhism and Hinduism for example, include meditation/prayer practices with an objective of negating ego-self. Meditation and mindfulness practices are being widely used in behavior therapy as a means to reduce anxiety and treat certain cognitive disorders. Neurophysiologic studies are demonstrating  physiological evidence of brain activity during stress and during meditation that correlates with awareness and emotional arousal and  inhibition.

Prayer, or the process of being in quiet reflection, give us time to let go. It provides a space for us to bring our presence of mind and receptive heart together in alignment in a way that can limit thoughts that impose negative energies, opening to a thoughtlessness that allows God or Ultimate Reality to hold a benevolent and positive space with us. It "heals." It facilitates “right relationship,” whether you perceive that as being with God, or with Self, it is the elimination of ego-barriers to positivity. 

True orthodoxy or “right ideas” is akin to the Wisdom (Panna) and Concentration (Samadhi) aspects of the 8-fold path in Buddhism. It is not about correct doctrine or intellectualism, but about correct holistic thinking or non-thinking, using both objective and subjective mindfulness in order to attain “right relationship.”

1 Corinthians 2:10-16

¹⁰ these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.

The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. ¹¹ For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. ¹² What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. ¹³ This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words.¹⁴ The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. ¹⁵ The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, ¹⁶ for,

“Who has known the mind of the Lord

    so as to instruct him?”

But we have the mind of Christ.

What does it mean to "have the mind of Christ?"

May your mind and heart find comfort and serenity in the stillness of your prayers. 

Peace and all goodness to you, Peggy _/\_

Notes:

Orthodoxy -from Greek orthos ("right", "true", "straight") + doxa ("opinion" or "belief", related to dokein, "to think."

Whittington, BL and Scher SJ. Prayer and Subjective Well-being: An examination of six different types of prayer. International Journal of Psychology and Religion, 20:59-68, 2012.

Knowledge, Love and Suffering - the Paradox of Passion

The image of the cross to Paul is what opens the mind to the spirit. Richard Rohr says there are two things that lead us to transformation (that is, redemption/metanoia/changing the way we see things) love and suffering. Love opens the heart space and then the mind space. Suffering opens the mind space and then the heart space. This latter path is what Paul describes – 

“But the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are saved (enlightened), it is the power of God. 1 Cor 1:18.

The goal of spiritual life, according to John, was more about agape (love) than gnosis (wisdom) as with Paul. This is not affective emotional love, however. It is the love exemplified in the cross, the washing of the feet, the caring for the unlovable. It is compassionate love.

One thing we will discover is the way in which knowledge and love vary in importance as the manifestation of the presence of God in the person opens to his grace. In the 3rd, 4th, and 5th centuries, knowledge will prevail. In the 11th through 14th centuries, love will take over.

New Testament Images:

Metanoia = Mind of Christ

Cross = Love in total Humility

Purity of Heart = Logos – emptiness (poverty) which allows for enlightenment and union (apophatic explanation) OR Kierkegaards definition, the ability to will one thing – to see the light of God (kataphatic explanation); these can also be likened to transformative suffering (opens the mind, then the heart) and love (opens the heart then the mind).

As I reread this, I realize that both the Cross image and the Purity of Heart image can converge the concepts of suffering and love or receptive (apophatic) and active (kataphatic). Truly, one of the most profound interpretations of the Cross is the union of love and suffering, the two occurring at once, the reduction of paradox into one symbol that includes everything!

One Christmas while writing an advent devotional on Joy, I discovered paradox. I realized the unity and the paradox of love and suffering, and the word, Passion, that captures both. We often think of passion as romantic, ardent love. In Latin, the verb patior means "to suffer."  I then understood the Passion of Jesus the Christ. Love in humility suffering willingly for the greater good. These mingle all the time, every day. They are. And they are not. All of reality is paradoxical (the point of parables and koans). 

When Ireneaus said, "The glory of God is a human fully alive." He was referring to the paradox of being human. Everything exists as both positive and negative, good and bad, matter and energy, what is seen and what is not. We coexist like particles and waves. We tend to see objects and concepts linearly and either one way or the other. But they are exchanging places all the time. And our awareness simply catches them at one point in time and another and another...indeed, how would we know light without the darkness? 

In part, adapted from Urban Holmes, A History of Christian Spirituality

If I remain silent, paradox will reveal itself to me. It is in silence that I can hold the tension of either - or. And once I realize that either/or is both/and, I have discovered something very special. I have eyes to see! I have discovered the Unity of Life, the Oneness of all things.

Blessings, Peggy