Praying Lectio Divina

Praying Lectio Divina

listen with the ear of your heart

 “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 touched, go with the feelings and offer what you are feeling 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 community in monasteries during the time of St. Benedict. This is a time-honored way to connect to 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.

New Nursery Rhymes

Altering with Intent: The Case for “New” Nursery Rhymes

Guest Writer: Isabel Anders 

“When words and pictures work well together, they form something new, something greater than the sum of its parts.” —Lynne Barasch.

“The teaching of children … is where the story of the transfer of knowledge truly begins.” —Simon Winchester, LitHub (4/25/23).

Winchester goes on to explain that the very earliest means of transmitting knowledge “are primarily oral or pictorial in nature: they tend to involve stories, poetry, performance, rock carving, cave painting, songs, dances, games, designs, rituals, ceremonies, architectural practices, and what the aboriginal peoples of Australia know in their various languages as ‘songlines,’ all passed down through the generations by designated elders or specially skilled custodians of each form of cultural expression.”

Some people feel we shouldn’t mess with iconic nursery rhymes. But in fact, many different versions of our children’s classic lullabies and folktales have already been reshaped and shared through the centuries as nighttime comfort and the carriers of new ideas. 

 

However, some story-tale figures familiar to us that meant one thing in earlier times can now signify something totally unrelated in a modern, meme-rich context. In light of this realization, another look at nursery rhymes is reasonable.

 

Often, a new take on a familiar trope starts with a revised caricature.  Political cartoonists frequently draw on the legacy of familiar characters to strengthen their visuals as they make their points. And it usually hits home.

 

For instance, Humpty-Dumpty sitting on his wall instantly signals vulnerability; George Washington, pictured with a cherry tree, will have something to say about honesty. Biblical themes such as Noah and the Ark (being rescued) or Moses parting the Red Sea (exerting great power) are also shared memes that have retained widespread agreed-on significance.

 

The reviser of familiar rhymes and their potential messages starts from there. Picturing iconic figures can facilitate a visual “shortcut,” bringing children into a familiar frame or story to convey practical wisdom.

 

I have turned to writing children’s picture books of “refreshed” nursery rhyme versions to convey values in a culture of sensory overload. I’ve also tried to include some flexibility in the application to show that the child has a choice in how to respond to a situation. 

 

For instance, the older “morals” or intended teachings attached to folk tales tended to be quite rigid and even scary. And too much emphasis on magic and unlikely rescue leads to unrealistic expectations.

 

Joel H. Morris perhaps sums it up best: “The best re-imagined stories address what is inconsistent about the original text and make it unmissable. To tell such tales again is to tell them for the first time, to weave a thread in the tapestry of what it means to be human.”

By adding, for a new generation, an underlying awareness from Jesus’ Beatitudes of what goodness is all about—how it might manifest in the choices we make, the people we include, the goals we aim for, and the values that endure—the rhymes in my collection are not “New” so much as, I hope, “Timely.”

Isabel Anders’ Mother Bilbee Legacy Collection of revised nursery rhymes, picture books for children 3 to 8, includes Sing a Song of Six Birds; Mary, Harry, Pete, and Carrie, How Does Your Garden Grow? and the forthcoming Jack Horner’s Christmas Pie.

Isabel Anders

Joanna Seibert. joannaseibert.com

 

Ash Wednesday

Buechner: Ash Wednesday

“In many cultures, there is an ancient custom of giving a tenth of each year’s income to some holy use. For Christians, to observe the forty days of Lent is to do the same thing with roughly a tenth of each year’s days.”

 —Frederick Buechner in Whistling in the Dark: An ABC Theologized (Harper & Row, 1988), p. 82.

We begin our Lenten journey on this Ash Wednesday. It is a day to remember our mortality: “Dust you are, and to dust you shall return.” I think of my favorite aunt, who had Alzheimer’s for more than ten years, who died on Ash Wednesday.  

I remember watching the members of our parish receive the imposition of ashes. Some have cancer or other illnesses, and I know they worry whether they will be present in this body at this church next Ash Wednesday. Some are filled with tears as they stand or kneel at the altar. I wonder who will meet death face to face before next Easter. Could it be even myself or a member of my family? I never imagined we would not be in our churches for two Ash Wednesdays.

I travel back in time to the Cathedral School on Ash Wednesday, when we heard elementary students comment as we placed ashes on their foreheads: “Will it stay on? How do I look? You look funny.”

I remember a beautiful young mother holding her three-month-old baby girl and coming to the altar. Our priest traces the sign of the cross on the mother’s forehead. I do not want her to put the cross on this baby’s head.

I watch as she asks the mother, and then applies the black ashes to the tiny forehead. The little girl does not cry out, but I want to stand up and protest: “No, don’t do that!” My life profession has been to care for tiny babies. I do not want to think of this precious one dying. I will not permit it. I still have no answers as to how to handle the death of a child. 

Ash Wednesday is a reminder of our immortality. I still have difficulty with it. A huge part of me lives as though I and others will live forever. As I grow older, I realize this is not true, as I begin to treasure each day as a gift. Easter tells me there is more than this life—resurrection—a resurrection, a new life. Barbara Crafton calls this life in the resurrection The AlsoLife.

I think again of my aunt. I still sometimes feel her presence. That same Ash Wednesday she died, someone calls to tell me that a dear friend is having her first baby today and has asked for prayers. I pray that the presence of God in the spirit of my aunt will be by the bed of my friend to guide and protect her and her unborn child. 

It is always thus. One person dies, another is born. We all carry the blackened sign of the cross on our forehead. My mind returns to the Cathedral School as I remember a sermon by Beth Maze on Ash Wednesday: “Creation Is Made from Dust.” 

It is good that we have these forty days to ponder all this.

Joanna https://www.joannaseibert.com/