Abiding messages from a period of lectio divina focused on life, death and neighbours

I have just completed over two years reading the words written by Rowan Williams in Silence and Honey Cakes, using the ancient discipline known as lectio divina – ‘Divine Reading’.

What is lectio divina?

What we read is divine – we encounter a passage of scripture to see in it God’s word for us – and

How we read is divine – we read prayerfully, moved by Spirit – we let the text come to us, un-queried, unedited – seeking  to be addressed by what we read, and to respond to that interrogation.

There are four movements to lectio divina:

• We  read – slowly and unedited
• We meditate – we enter deeply into the meaning of the text
• We pray – we respond to God in the light of this meaning
• We contemplate – we simply rest in the presence of God without further words

Looking back over this long exercise, these rather random and not very coherent snippets (slightly adapted in places) will be the abiding messages for me:

“…. a person who is wholly self-consistent, whose identity is completely bound up with the calling to live in God…..”

“…..because of our baptism into life, we are bound to the patient, long-term discovery of what grace, life, will do with us…..”

“Do not take short cuts around the processes of real personal exchange.”

“Intimacy with God is both the fruit and the course of living together.”

“The goal is reconciliation with God by way of truth and mercy.”

“At the moment when we reveal a sibling’s fault, God reveals our own.”

“Withdraw from everything that helps imprison the neighbour.”

“The problem of myself will not just go away or solve itself or get solved by a new environment.”

“….. the temptation to think that going somewhere else will make things easier….”

“Becoming vulnerable before God is the heart of transformation, which we are by no means sure we want, if that is what it costs.”

“Without silence we shan’t get any closer to knowing who we are before God.”

October meeting on letting go of worry, with a rousing chorus from Port Isaac’s Fisherman’s Friends #unitarians

We had a lovely meeting on Sunday 9 October, with the theme “Don’t worry!  Be happy!”  Using our Unitarian freedom, the order of our service was changed, with our usual sharing ritual near the end instead of the beginning, as a means of cementing what had gone before.

As usual, at the start, we had a space in which participants were invited to silently centre themselves and go through in their own minds why they had chosen to be there.  For myself, I usually use that space to recite my personal creed or to remind myself of the insights or intuitions I had most recently received through my personal lectio divina activity.

We then had an opening prayer (or reading) from Kalidasa, an ancient Hindu writer, reminding us to look to this day so that all our yesterdays become a dream of happiness and all our tomorrows comprise a vision of hope.

After a hymn including the words of Sydney Henry Knight: “We do not seek a shallow faith, A God to set us free from trial and error, harm and death....But strength that we may cope...[and] trust the Life invincible within”, we lit our candles of concerns and joys.  This was a cherished time, during which we spoke in the safe space we had managed to establish.

We then had our scripture readings.  We heard words attributed to Jesus from the lost gospel known as “Q”, in which he challenged his followers to stop worrying, as worrying cannot add a single moment to their lives.

We next heard the Buddha’s teaching on causation and circumstances.

We sang another hymn reminding us not to grieve though life be full of sadness, and then we heard the president’s reasons for choosing the two readings from Jesus and the Buddha.

“Jesus deals in emotive pictures, touching the heartstrings.  The Buddha provides a cool, detached, theoretical and intellectual explanation.  Putting these two readings in different language, the first reading says that God has already dealt with what we dread, with the actions we have taken in our lives and the dreaded consequences (though Jesus doesn’t say how).  The second reading says that what has happened, and what will happen, are all included in the natural order of things.  Sometimes the emotional answer is what we need to hear, and sometimes the logical theory gives us more.”

To get down to the nitty-gritty, we then heard a few examples of hints and tips about “not worrying, and being happy.”  One particularly striking one had been derived from Aldous Huxley: we all crave separateness and then as soon as we have grown into separateness we crave peace.  But we can’t have both peace and separateness, so if we want peace more than we want separateness we have to learn to undo our separateness again.

After our seven minute period of silent meditation we heard the prayer poem by George Herbert, “Come my way” and we finished off with a rousing song from Port Isaac’s Fisherman’s Friends “Come all you no hopers, you jokers and rogues.” Hear and watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYA_0R7Vw1s

Come, all you no hopers,
you jokers and rogues
we're on the road to nowhere,
let's find out where it goes
It might be a ladder to the stars, who knows
Come, all you no hopers,
you jokers and rogues.

Leave all your furrows in the fields where they lie
Your factories and offices;
kiss them all goodbye
Have a little faith in the dream maker in the sky
There's glory in believing him
and it's all in the beholder's eye.

Turn off your engines and slow down your wheels
Suddenly your master plan loses its appeal
Everybody knows that this reality's not real
So raise a glass to all things past and celebrate how good it feels.

Awash on the sea of our own vanity
We should rejoice in our individuality
Though it's gale force, let's steer a course for sanity

Unitarians learn to listen in Ringwood

What do we do in our meetings?  Well, we carry out some simple sharing rituals, in which we share silence, candle lighting, and passing small items from hand to hand, and most often, a small amount of food too.  These are all to represent our interconnected nature and may hold extra, private meanings for participants, depending on their personal faith.

We also share the leadership of the meetings.  We make this easy by having a simple but fixed format, which includes space for private contemplation (which may be used for prayer or meditation), listening to music or singing a couple of Unitarian hymns, and most importantly, two readings.  We think of listening to the readings as lectio divina, which means "sacred reading".

Often, lectio divina is a solitary activity, but it can be used very successfully in a small group.  The listening silence that emerges becomes very prayerful, and trust and strong bonds between the participants develop.

Traditionally, the reading activity focuses on scripture.  Scripture is a word whose meaning has changed.  When Paul was writing in the early days of the Common Era, it used to mean anything written down, but more recently the word `scripture` has come to mean the venerated texts from religious writers of various faiths.  Traditional Christians would most often use the Bible, augmented by writings by saints or early Christian mystics.  But as Unitarians we are not constrained by that and a wide range of texts can be used.  Scientific writings can be as important to us as poetry and traditional writings, from whichever faith system has drawn our attention.

As everyone is given the opportunity to select the texts to be read, this arrangement also has the benefit that we can hear the texts and subjects that hold meaning for everyone individually in the group.  So if you are looking for a spiritual community that is interested in your own path and your own belief system, give us a try.  In return, we will give you a good listening to.