De Mello: Lectio Divina and More

De Mello: Lectio Divina and More

“The meditatio [meditation part in Lectio Divina] is done not with one’s mind, but with one’s mouth. When the psalmist tells us how he loves to meditate, how he finds it sweeter to his palate than honey from the honeycomb, is he talking about meditation merely as an intellectual exercise? I like to think that he is also talking about the constant recitation of God’s law—so he meditates as much with his mouth as with his head.”—Anthony de Mello in Sadhana: A Way to God (Liguori, 1998).

De Mello also offers a unique method to practice the Benedictine Lectio Divina. He suggests we read Scripture (lectio) until the word or phrase resonates with us, and then stop (meditatio) and constantly repeat the word with pauses. In this way, we pray not only with our minds, but also with our bodies. Then, when we feel saturated with the word, we stop and enter into prayer (oratio). He also suggests a group form of the exercise, using chant along with large segments of silence.

De Mello adds an extra dimension to the Jesus Prayer by imaging Jesus with each word, saying his name with each breath, and finally hearing Jesus call us by name.

De Mello tells the story of the significant guilt of a man who barely misses his father’s death. My experience is that this is often an impetus that brings many people to spiritual direction. I am constantly amazed at how God works. God calls us back even—and maybe even especially—by those who have died./ God calls us through the good and challenging times of our lives to connect to those who can lead us into spiritual practices that can lead us back to God./

De Mello calls us to live intimately and fully in the present moment, to become part of the grand mystery of God’s love for us and all creation. The present is where we meet God; the present is where spiritual exercises such as Lectio Divina and praying the Jesus prayer take us.

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

Guest Writer: Isabel Anders: Ricoeur and Anonymous: May You Live Long Enough

Guest Writer: Isabel Anders: Ricoeur and Anonymous: May You Live Long Enough

“I find myself only by losing myself”—Paul Ricoeur.

“It is always possible to argue against an interpretation, to confront interpretations, to arbitrate between them and seek an agreement, even if this agreement remains beyond our reach.”—Paul Ricoeur.

my grandmother holding the flowers and her sisters

May you live long enough …

To be able to laugh at your most embarrassing moments in the past—sportingly owning the temporary title of “dunce”—before passing it on to the next clown in this dance of win-and-lose, hit-and-error called “life.”

To side with your former adversaries, if only for a glancing moment—to accept that in certain past disagreements or outright conflicts that cobble your past: “The other person had a point.”

To realize that even your greatest “triumphs” owe much to outside influences: others’ kind and diligent contribution, the coming together of circumstances, and “sparks” of grace flung from afar that happened to hit you at the moment.

To experience prayer as the automatic breathing of petitions for others’ good—urgently present in your heart before your own needs or requests enter your awareness.

To meet someone whose efforts or example—in any category—put you to “shame,” and feel the joy that such understanding, expertise, or goodness exists in the world apart from your receiving any specific personal gain from it.

To recognize that your “defeats,” by the world’s judgment, were blessed checks and balances in the larger arc of your journey toward maturity and self-acceptance.

To feel genuinely sad for people who seemed unfair and cruel to you for no apparent reason, and to lament the conditions that must have made them that way—even when their cruelty caused you genuine pain.

To let go of any idea that we might be able to judge who is worthy or unworthy of anything that comes to them in this life-or in the life to come.

“We look not at what can be seen, but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.”—2 Corinthians 4:18.

“We also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us because God’s love has been poured into our hearts. …”—Romans 5:3-5.

Isabel Anders

Author of Circle of Days: A Church Year Primer--Years B and C: A Celebration of the major themes and Texts of the Church Year

Year A is now out as well!

Joanna   https://www.joannaseibert.com/

Life After Death

Burton: Life After Death

“So, what do you think about life after death?”

Guest Writer: Larry Burton

As an Episcopal priest, I have heard that question, or others like it, more times than I care to count. I think the Resurrection event may not cover the question of what happens when we die, like I would have thought it did. “But,” a friend said, “that was Jesus. This is me.” Fair enough.

We have been reading Frederick Buechner’s A Crazy, Holy Grace. Buechner, who died in 2022 at age 96, was a prolific author and theologian many of us greatly admire. In part of this book, he imagines a conversation with his beloved grandmother, who has been dead for over forty years. She tells him that death is like stepping off a trolley car. Life doesn’t stop but continues as a further deepening understanding of God’s grace and love.

That imaginary conversation stopped me in my tracks. For most of my life as a theologian, I have thought (and taught) something similar, but it was far more abstract and ultimately not satisfying. Buechner has his grandmother put humanity on my abstractness and offers an image of continuity in God that stopped me flat. Did I believe what I had been teaching? Yes. No question. But now, the abstract has taken on a form that challenges and delights. 

So, I had my own conversation with my preacher father and stepmother. Both are dead. But they were delighted to talk with me. “Sorry you had to wait so long to understand,” Dad said after I told him about Buechner’s book. (My father was a Buechner fan, so he was way ahead of me.) My stepmother added her two cents’ worth: “I always thought suddenly I’d ‘get it,’ but it didn’t happen that way. There are always new layers or new heights, and my heart! My heart just continues to open wider and wider.”

My words in their mouths? Or their words in my mouth? Buechner’s grandmother challenges her grandson, just as I am challenged. Buechner’s major point is that memory can be an astounding portal into the wonders of God. So, what do I think about life after death? I am more convinced than ever that as a beloved child of God, access to the reality of God’s love is far more cosmic, mysterious, and wondrous than I had imagined. It is more than Resurrection; it is a continuing transformation, moving toward God’s very heart.

Larry Burton                

Frederick Buechner’s birthday was July 11.

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