Phyllis Tickle: Divine Hours

Phyllis Tickle: Divine Hours

“Prayer is a nonlocative, non-geographic space that one enters at one’s own peril, for it houses God during those few moments of one’s presence there, and what is there will most surely change everything that comes into it.” —Jon Sweeney, ed., Phyllis Tickle in Phyllis Tickle: Essential Spiritual Writings (Church Publishing, 2018), p. 93.

Phyllis  Tickle’s birthday is March 12th. She died in September 2015. Every year, I try to remember this outstanding writer who took time out of her amazing schedule to help me with my writing for so many years.

Phyllis Tickle, founding religion editor of Publishers Weekly, was a prolific writer and incredible lecturer, rarely speaking from notes. She was also a great mentor and friend. My thank-yous to her are feeble attempts to continue the kindness and encouragement she showed me.

She is remembered for her analysis of the Emergent Christian Church, but I most treasure her Divine Hours, a series of books that observe the fixed hours of prayer for spring, summer, fall, and winter.   

I know she not only wrote about it, but she also practiced it. I remember seeing her slipping away at meetings for a few minutes to pray at one of the fixed hours: morning, midday, vespers, or compline. Phyllis’s books allow us to follow a set prayer time, no matter where we are in time or place. She brought an ancient rule of life into the modern world and reminded us how this would change our lives. She taught us that we would never be the same after experiencing the practice.

I am not as faithful as Phyllis, but I practice the fixed hours of prayer at certain seasons of the year, sometimes for only a week or a month, and sometimes for a whole season.

Lent is an excellent time to start.

Joanna    https://www.joannaseibert.com/

Praying Lectio Divina

Praying Lectio Divina

 “Lectio Divina means Divine Reading. It is a prayerful way to read scripture or any spiritual writing.
 Read -- Read Deeply
 Read a scripture passage slowly and profoundly and hear every word’s sound and meaning. Imagine that God is speaking to you through these words. Listen attentively to see which word or phrase catches your attention and speaks to you and your life.
 Meditate – Think, imagine deeply
Take what caught your attention from your reading and think deeply about it using your imagination. Imagine what it meant to those at that time who first heard it. Why is this important to you, your tradition, your experience, and your life today? What about it particularly moves you?
Pray -- Pray from the Heart
If your heart is moved or your emotions are touched, go with those feelings and offer them to God in prayer.
 Contemplate -- Rest
Fall into the love of God and the love from God that was generated. Rest in silence. Just be.
Finally, memorize or copy the thought that moved you, and try to remember it from time to time during the day.
Journal, if possible, about what happened during the prayer.”

Modified from the Community of Reconciliation at Washington National Cathedral and the Friends of St. Benedict.

 Lectio Divina is an ancient Benedictine practice of reading the scriptures, similar to centering prayer, which cultivates contemplative prayer. It was practiced in monasteries during St. Benedict’s time. This is a time-honored way to connect with God through reading scripture, prayer, meditation, and contemplation, or listening for God. If your tradition has fixed lectionary readings for Sunday, practice Lectio Divina with one or all of the readings daily as your discipline or in a group.

In her book, A Tree Full of Angels, Seeing the Holy in the Ordinary, Macrina Wiederkehr writes extensively about Lectio Divina, calling it “plowing up the field of the soul.” As her guide, she uses a quote from Benedictine Abbot Marmion: “Read under the eye of God until your heart is touched, then give yourself up to love.” She uses imagery in the process and waits for a mantra, a holy word, a phrase, or a sentence that may stay. She then carries that word or phrase with her during the day. Finally, she describes giving yourself to God as surrender, melting into God.

We will study how to practice Lectio divina using Praying in Color during our Diocese of Arkansas Daughters of the King Prayer Retreat at Camp Mitchell on February 28th.

Joanna    https://www.joannaseibert.com/

New Doors Opening

Change and New Doors Opening

Kidd: Spiritual Whittling
“There’s an old Carolina story I like about a country boy with a great talent for carving beautiful dogs out of wood. He sat on his porch whittling daily, letting the shavings fall around him. A visitor, greatly impressed, asked him the secret of his art. “I just take a block of wood and whittle off the parts that don’t look like a dog,” he replied….

In spiritual whittling, though, we don’t discard the shavings. Transformation happens not by rejecting these parts of ourselves, but by gathering them up and integrating them. Through this process, we reach a new wholeness. Spiritual whittling is an encounter with Mystery, waiting, the silence of inner places—all those things most folks no longer have time for.”—Sue Monk Kidd in When the Heart Waits (HarperOne 2016 )

This is also my experience of transformation. I constantly realize that parts of my life that keep me “together” or connected to God are helpful at one time, but later, they grow tired and worn and need to rest. Our ministry, or what we have to offer, changes.

 One of the most challenging changes for me was leaving my medical practice. That was my identity. But I wanted to do so many other things. It becomes more challenging to keep up with the constantly changing technical and medical world if we do not stay current.

I learned that just because we are good at one ministry doesn’t mean we should always keep doing it. We may be keeping others from the joy of that ministry, and they may even do it better! Also, the wisdom we gain from one career or ministry is always useful in the next one.

Nothing is ever wasted.

I am also learning to be more vigilant about habits that kept me safe during some parts of my life, which later became destructive.

What am I trying to say?

Life is about constantly giving up control, or the illusion that we are in control. It is being open to change, letting doors close, but being available to enter new doors, or not being afraid to sit in the hallway for a while, waiting to hear the squeak of another door opening.

Finally, it is about trusting, avoiding getting stuck or stagnating, and not thinking we are out of options.

What new doors will be opened to us this Lent?

A group of us is studying during Lent, Sue Monk Kidd’s new book about spiritual writing, Writing Creativity and Soul.

Joanna   https://www.joannaseibert.com/