Visio Divina

Visio Divina

"The experience of praying with icons and other images is quite different than praying with words."—Christine Valters Paintner in Illuminating Mystery: Creativity as a Spiritual Practice, Reflections in Word and Image (Abbey of the Arts Press, 2009).

Return of the prodigal son Rembrandt

God speaks to us in many ways—through relationships, our experiences, sacred texts such as the Bible, and other avenues. Visio divina, Latin for "divine seeing," is a form of prayer that involves meditating with images to listen to God's words. It is similar to Lectio divina, Latin for "divine reading," in which we pray using sacred texts such as Holy Scripture. There are four steps we can follow to practice Visio divina:

1. Sit quietly, close your eyes, and be aware of your breathing. Practice a body scan. Open your eyes and look at the image of art slowly, taking in the colors, people, places, and things. Stay with the image for one to two minutes. You may want to jot down a few words about the image.

2. Close your eyes and take a deep breath. Open your eyes. Take another, deeper look. Is there movement? Are there relationships? Use your imagination. What is the story? Can you place yourself in the story and the image? Do you see deeper meanings than what is on the surface?

3.  Respond to the image with prayer. Does the image take you to an experience or remind you of a person or issue for which you want to offer thanksgiving or intercession? Then, offer that prayer to God.

4. Find your quiet heart center. Stay connected to your body. Breathe deeply. Relax your shoulders, arms, and legs. Rest in this quiet. Imagine God praying in you. God prays beyond words.

Nouwen has written about his profound experience of praying and meditating on Rembrandt's painting, "The Return of the Prodigal Son." This image is an excellent starting point. Then, read what Henri Nouwen has written in The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming.

Henri Nouwen was a Dutch Catholic priest who died in the Netherlands in 1996 at age 64.

—From Kathyrn Shirey, "How to Pray with 'Eyes of the Heart' Using Visio Divina" at www.KathrynShirey.com.

Joanna. https://www.joannaseibert.com/

Praying With Icons

Cushman:  Praying with Icons

Guest Writer Susan Cushman

“I have chosen icons because they are created for the sole purpose of offering access, through the gate of the visible, to the mystery of the invisible. Icons are painted to lead us into the inner room of prayer and bring us close to the heart of God.”—Henri Nouwen in Behold the Beauty of the Lord: Praying with Icons (Ave Maria Press, 1987).

In the 1980s, Henri Nouwen spent four years at a spiritual retreat in France. Each year, someone placed an icon in the room where he would be staying. At the end of these visits, he wrote a book about his experiences with these icons, titled Behold the Beauty of the Lord: Praying with Icons. He gazed at these four icons for hours at a time, and, after patient, prayerful stillness on his part, they began to speak to him. As a man who loved the art of Michelangelo, Rembrandt, and Marc Chagall, he could have chosen any of these Western treasures for his meditations. But he chose icons.
When I became an Orthodox Christian, I embraced icons as “windows to heaven,” and have prayed before them for many years. As an iconographer, I have written many icons—some commissioned, some as gifts, and some that I have kept in our home—and found the process similar to a prolonged prayer. These images of Christ, the Mother of God, and various saints and angels draw my heart to God in a way that nothing else does. In addition to the “set” prayers I pray in the morning and evening, sometimes I pray specific prayers to saints depicted in the icons. Here is one to the Mother of God:

“Forasmuch as thou art a well-spring of tenderness, O Theotokos, make us worthy of compassion; Look upon a sinful people; Manifest thy power as ever, for hoping on thee we cry aloud unto thee: Hail! As once did Gabriel, Chief Captain of the Bodiless Powers.”

—St. John of Damascus, quoted in “Icons Will Save the World” in First Things (12/20/2007) by Susan Cushman.

Susan Cushman

Joanna joannaseibert.com

Catch Every Rainbow

Catch Every Rainbow

Guest Writer: Isabel Anders

“The heav’ns are not too high,

God’s praise may thither fly;

the earth is not too low,

God’s praises there may grow.”—George Herbert (1593—1633).

shannon seibert

We don’t get direct sun in our windows every day in the Pacific Northwest. But on days that it streams brilliantly through my den window, my crystal snowflake-shaped suncatcher turns it into multiple rainbows on my walls. Each one, to me, is a harbinger of hope.

Both sun and rain come to us free of charge—from forces, and perhaps beings—beyond our immediate perception (Matthew 5:45). We are, as humans, not “too low” to receive their bounty (and sometimes their onslaught)—regardless of our deservingness. 

Even though we know there is no “high” or “low” in space as we now perceive it—it is all relational—the ancient images of light and darkness, sun and shadow (and many others) still speak to us on multiple levels. So it troubles me when popular trends co-opt these primordial, long-shared symbols and use them to keep others in or out of favor. We are better off allowing them to reveal to us our inner state of response to Spirit.

In my ongoing informal study of metaphor and religious language (following my graduate school thesis on the subject), I have consistently observed how stumbling upon just the right image, analogy, or picture reveals something about how we perceive reality. Perhaps also, there is the depth at which a metaphor reaches us.

Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote that metaphor aids us in the “before unapprehended relations of things” and can enhance our understanding of them. But sometimes, metaphor, the language of the parables, falls on deaf ears, as it did to many in Jesus’ audience. He explained to his disciples, his serious followers: “It has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 13:11)—thus implying that people would take his relatable illustrations on whatever level they could. 

We don’t need to consciously bring our philosophy with us to catch every rainbow, to feel the cleansing wash of summer rain, or to dance to whatever music fills our ears with delight. Even as we think we “get” the meaning of the forces around us on earth, there may be surprises when light “dawns” in our hearts—or rainbows reveal to us shades of meaning and response that earth itself endorses in receiving from the generous Sun.

“In our world,” said Eustace, “a star is a 

huge ball of flaming gas.” 

“Even in your world, my son, that is not 

what a star is, 

but only what it is made of.”

―C. S. Lewis in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

Isabel Anders is the author of Becoming Flame, Spinning Straw, Weaving Gold, and Sing a Song of Six Birds (Mother Bilbee Tales). https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D53LDWQ8?psc=1

Isabel Anders

Joanna joannaseibert.com