Communion with God--Lectio Divina

The mind is our link to the spirit; our spirits reach for what we do not know, and we are hungry for what we cannot see.  Somehow, like the young Helen Keller, we must find the right word to unlock what we experience in the spiritual world.  Then, by dwelling on that word, by turning it over in our hearts to understand it, the world of the spirit gradually begins to unfold and reveal itself to us.

All of the ancient spiritual traditions, not only Christian ones, are based on "Wisdom," either the wisdom of the elders, the wisdom of the spiritual healer of the tribe, the wisdom of the monks, of the wisdom of the Spirit of God as revealed in the Scriptures.  Once, those who sought wisdom had to sit under a wise teacher and become a disciple, a listener, a follower---- of Plato, of Buddha, of Christ.

Today, with unlimited access to libraries of the past, we have the ability to read and receive almost any philosophy or wisdom we desire.  But lectio divina is "reading with a difference," according to Daniel Rees, in an article on the subject:

Normally, today, we read either for diversion or for information.  A well-read man is one who has read very widely...If we are to keep abreast of the copious flow of publications in whatever might be our specialty, we must learn to read very rapidly.  We read in a spirit of conquest, with a masculine aggressiveness, out to master and organize the subject matter for our own purposes....

But the requirements of lectio divina run counter to all these modern reading habits; perhaps what comes nearest to them is the way we would read poetry or a personal letter.  It is a manner of reading at a slow tempo, which is reverently receptive and appreciative, aerated by frequent pauses in which the reader gives himself up in a joyful and thankful response to God for what he has read.  It is very akin to prayer....

Lectio Divina can therefore be defined as slow, meditative reading in search of personal contact with God, rather than the mastery of an area of knowledge   ...we moderns tend to approach Scripture wanting to know what we can do with it; the Fathers were more concerned with what the Scriptures could do with them.  They believed that Bible reading was transformative....the attitude that is required is that this act of reading is in itself a direct encounter with God who addresses us in the Scriptures, rather than just reading about him.  The prayerful approach arises from a consciousness of God's presence.

Rees' article gives us a way into Communion with God---listening to Him speak to us through the Scriptures, personally teaching us and revealing to us the exact word for which our spirits are hungry---He feeds us with the finest of wheat, and gives us the best wine.  But we must approach Lectio Divina not with a spirit of "mastering" the truth, but with the kind of humility that allows The Master to teach us the truth.