Ever heard someone talk about “lectio”? Want to know more?
Lectio Divina is Latin for spiritual or sacred reading. It is a simple method of praying the scripture that has deep roots in the Benedictine tradition. —Monasteries of the Heart
If you have ever heard someone say they were doing, practicing, or simply “in” lectio it was their way of saying they were reading sacred texts in a prayerful way. I have also heard it used (and use “lectio” myself) to mean prayerful reading of non-biblical texts meant to excite, enlarge, expand, or even quiet, the spirit.
Today, in the time I set aside for lectio I found this post. Like the author, Lowell Graham, I have found the practice of lectio has opened “a rich, luminous connection with the sacred text” and, I would add, even texts like his.
Whenever I read the story of Bartimaeus, something settles deep inside of me. This was the story that I first used when I was taught how to pray the scriptures using the ancient Benedictine method of Lectio Divina. The story has never been the same. From that brief time of prayer has come a rich, luminous connection with the sacred text.
He goes on to share the method of Lectio Divina that he—and so many others—use. I encourage you to read his short post: Lectio with Bartimaeus. Please note his counsel:
[The method I describe] is not intended as a four-step linear process, but rather as a movement between states of consciousness. Let your practice move naturally back and forth through these moments.
I also encourage you to investigate Monasteries of the Heart and their introduction and invitation to Lectio Divina.
Finally, I encourage you to try to make lectio part of your daily routine. Share your questions or comments here. Start a conversation about lectio, find encouragement for making this part of your daily routine, or find affirmation for something you have been doing for a long time without knowing it had a name and a rich history.
The Rutter Requiem and Why It’s Awesome. Yes, I Use the Word “Awesome” Too Much, but It Totally Applies Here.
If you grew up Episcopalian or Catholic (I didn’t), you probably have a head start on all this “requiem” business, but if you’re still catching up (like me), here’s a synopsis: The requiem began as a type of mass to honor the dead. Traditionally, there are twelve parts to the requiem, beginning with the Introit and ending with the In paradisum. However, as composers began to play with the format, they began to see it more as an art form and less as a rigid liturgy. The Rutter Requiem, for example, has only seven movements. The Duruflé has nine, the Mozart seven-ish, and so on. Anyway, more on those later.
So growing up, I’d never heard of the Rutter Requiem. When I finally did, I was about nineteen, thinking that I knew oh-so-much about music (for the record, I didn’t…and still don’t!). I was given the chance to sing the second movement, “Out of the Deep” with a choir at a conference. Long story short, I’d never heard music like that before, and I couldn’t wait to find a way to hear the rest of the Requiem. I mean, I was hooked. It changed how I felt about sacred music in general. Fast forward about seven years, and I still love this work so much and could pretty much never get tired of it.
I’m not going to ramble with biographical info about John Rutter or even with more info about the Requiem itself. You can get all that stuff with a quick Google search. What I’m going to do is much more important–
Requiem aeternam
Out of the Deep (My favorite. Has been referred to as “Anglican blues.” Ahhhhh.)
Pie Jesu
Sanctus
Agnus Dei (My other favorite.)
The Lord is My Shepherd (My last favorite. Yes, I have three favorites.)
Lux aeterna
I hope you love it like I do. More requiem fun to follow.
So what do you think? Does this speak to you? It’s much more moving to hear it in person, of course, but even the recording is still pretty great. Do you have favorite movements? Favorite masses? Let’s chat it up in the comments!
YOSEF
After reading Everett Fox’s excellent introduction from “The Five Books of Moses”, this time on Joseph, I can’t help but regret how quickly our lectionary must move, as we consider only two excerpts in two weeks – betrayal and reconciliation. O well, we can still read the whole account for ourselves.
YOSEF
(Genesis 37-50)
THE STORIES ABOUT THE LAST PATRIARCH FORM A COHERENT WHOLE, LEADING SOME to dub it a “novella.” It stands well on its own, although it has been consciously and artfully woven together into both the Yaakov cycle and the entire book.
Initially the tale is one of family emotions, and it is in fact extreme emotions which give it a distinctive flavor. All the major characters are painfully expressive of their feelings, from the doting father to the spoiled son, from the malicious brothers to the lustful wife of Potifar, from the nostalgic adult Yosef (Joseph) to the grief-stricken old Yaakov (Jacob). It is only through the subconscious medium of dreams, in three sets, that we are made to realize that a higher plan is at work which will supersede the destructive force of these emotions.
For this is a story of how “ill” -with all its connotations of fate, evil, and disaster is changed to good. Despite the constant threat of death to Yosef, to the Egyptians, and to Binyamin (Benjamin), the hidden, optimistic thrust of the story is “life,” a word that appears in various guises throughout. Even “face,” the key word of the Yaakov cycle which often meant something negative, is here given a kinder meaning, as the resolution to Yaakov’s life.
A major subtheme of the plot is the struggle for power between Re’uven (Ruben) and Yehuda (Judah).
Its resolution has implications that are as much tribal as personal, for the tribe of Yehuda later became the historical force in ancient Israel as the seat of the monarchy.
Although many details of the narrative confirm Egyptian practices, those practices actually
reflect an Egypt considerably later than the period of the Patriarchs (Redford). Of interest also is the prominence of the number five in the story, a detail that is unexplained but that gives some unity to the various sections of text.
In many ways the Yosef material repeats elements in the Yaakov traditions. A long list could be compiled, but let us at least mention here sibling hatred, exile of the hero, foreign names, love and hate, dreams, and deception-even so detailed as to duplicate the use of a goat-kid. But its focusing on a classic rags-to-riches plot, with the addition of a moralistic theme, make the Yosef story a distinctive and always popular tale, accessible in a way that the more difficult stories of the first three parts of Genesis are not.
Everett Fox,
The Five Books of Moses: A New English Translation with Commentary and Notes
(New York: Schocken Books, 1995).
http://www.clarku.edu/departments/foreign/facultybio.cfm?id=365
Remembering artists
Things are not all so comprehensible and expressible as one would mostly have us believe; most events are inexpressible, taking place in a realm which no word has ever entered, and more inexpressible than all else are works of art, mysterious existences, the life of which, while ours passes away, endures. —Rainer Maria Rilke from Letters to a Young Poet.
On August 5th the Episcopal Church remembers Albrecht Dürer. Matthias Grünewald, Lucas Cranach the Elder, Artists.In doing so the Church commemorates all artists and the celebrates and give thanks for the role of art in forming faith and encouraging faith. I tend to be a “visual learner.” Seeing is, for me, the key to learning. As I think about art in the church I am amazed by how much of my faith is informed by what I have seen.
Pictures in story books and illustrated bibles, mass produced plaster and plastic statues, rosaries with beads of all kinds, crucifixes (I grew up Roman Catholic) with poorly formed bodies or bodies gruesome and bloody (but modestly clothed) in their depiction of death, and so on. The art was all around me; I was learning something, (most of which is still being “unlearned”), but mostly this art was simply “background noise,” static. My entry into mystery was unexpected and unforgettable. Having arrived in Rome to continue studies and seminary formation, a group of us were taken from the airport in Rome to the Piazza San Pietro and then into the basilica.
The proportions of the building were certainly awesome but the moment of mystery came as we moved to Michelangelo’s Pietà. In the blink of an eye I was moved from tourist looking at art treasures in a big church to a man in the presence of a profound mystery of life and death, of sorrow and hope, of brutal reality and fragile tenderness. I had forgotten to breathe, I was looking through eyes filled with tears. How did this happen? What just happened? How can stone have such power? How can a “mere mortal” find such power and mystery and beauty in a hunk of quarried marble?
Since that day I have continued to learn. I continue to seek out such beauty and mystery. In my own feeble way I have enjoyed opening my heart to the mysteries seen by the artist and shared with us. I am proud that our church chooses to remember all artists as we commemorate these artists. I hope that you have your own story to tell about the art that has whisked you from this world into realms unexpected, mysterious, and transformative. Please do leave your story here. Leave a comment, start a conversation.
We have selected one work from each of the artists commemorated by the church and will post them here with additional links and more information. Perhaps you would share some of your favorite works by these artists. Perhaps you will share links to your favorites. Keep the conversation going. Thanks.
Dream Vision, Albrecht Dürer, August 5
While Dürer is well known for his woodcuts and naturalistic watercolor I thought this work particularly interesting because of our recent class discussion of dreams and because it’s not that often we have the artists explanation with the painting.
The Isenheim Altarpiece, Matthias Grünewald, August 5
Martin Luther, Lucas Cranach the Elder, August 5
A Proper 14 Art for Readings August 7, 2011
The Yaakov Cycle
I quite like scholar’s section introductions. Unlike issues, arguments and conclusions which I may or may not welcome, follow or share, good introductions are forward looking – full of hope. The writer seems freer, almost stating the obvious while pulling us onward.
I find Everett Fox’s following introduction to the Yaakov Cycle most helpful as our lectionary reads highlights of the Jacob Cycle through these last and coming few weeks. It is taken from his excellent English translation and commentary “The Five Books Of Moses”
I especially like his last paragraph reminder of “the two levels of biblical reality.”
Last week our discussion ranged from “reads like a novel” to “dysfunctional family” to other literature e.g. “The Red Tent” and I would hope these and Fox’s thoughts below would lead us to read beyond our lectionary samplings and encounter the whole story.
YAAKOV (Jacob)
Genesis
25:19-36:43
BEFORE COMMENTING ON THE YAAKOV CYCLE, IT IS APPROPRIATE TO CONSIDER WHY HIS father Yitzhak (Isaac), the second of the Patriarchs, receives no true separate group of stories on his own.
Yitzhak functions in Genesis as a classic second generation-that is, as a transmitter and stabilizing force, rather than as an active participant in the process of building the people. There hardly exists a story about him in which he is anything but a son and heir, a husband, or a father. His main task in life seems to be to take roots in the land of Canaan, an admittedly important task in the larger context of God’s promises in Genesis. What this means, unfortunately, is that he has almost no personality of his own. By Chapter 27, a scant two chapters after his father dies, he appears as (prematurely?) old, blind in both a literal and figurative sense, and as we will see, he fades out of the text entirely, only to die several
chapters, and many years, later.
The true dynamic figure of the second generation here is Rivka (Rebeccah). It is she to whom God reveals his plan, and she who puts into motion the mechanism for seeeing that it is properly carried out. She is ultimately the one responsible for bridging the gap between the dream, as typified by Avraham (Abraham), and the hard-won reality, as realized by Yaakov.
Avraham is a towering figure, almost unapproachable as a model in his intiimacy with God and his ability to hurdle nearly every obstacle. Adding to this the fact that Yitzhak is practically a noncharacter, and that Yosef (Joseph), once his rise begins, also lacks dimension as a personality, it becomes increasingly clear that it is Yaakov who emerges as the most dynamic and most human personality in the book. The stories about him cover fully half of Genesis, and reveal a man who is both troubled and triumphant. Most interestingly, he, and not Avraham, gives his name to the people of Israel.
Distinctive themes of the cycle include physical struggle, deception, and confrontation. These are expressed through the key words of Yaakov’s name (“HeellHolder” and “Heel-Sneak,” then Yisrael (Israel), “God-Fighter”), “deceive” and similar words, and “face.” Also recurring are the terms “love,” ‘bless,” “firstborn-right,” and “wages/hire” (one word in Hebrew). The cycle is structured partly around etiologies (folk explanations of place-names and personal names) and also around Yaakov’s use of stones in several of the stories.
Continuing from the Avraham cycle are such earlier themes as wandering, sibbling rivalry, the barren wife, wives in conflict, the renaming of the protagonist, God perceived in dreams and visions; and particular geographical locations such as Bet-EI, Shekhem, and the Negev (Cassuto 1974).
Finally, it should be mentioned that the Yaakov stories are notable in the manner in which they portray the two levels of biblical reality: divine and human. Throughout the stories human beings act according to normal (though often strong) emotions, which God then uses to carry out his master plan. In this cycle one comes to feel the interpretive force of the biblical mind at work, understanding human events in the context of what God wills. It is a fascinating play between the ideas of fate and free will, destiny and choice – a paradox which nevertheless lies at the heart of the biblical conception of God and humankind.
Everett Fox,
The Five Books of Moses: A New English Translation with Commentary and Notes
(New York: Schocken Books, 1995).
http://www.clarku.edu/departments/foreign/facultybio.cfm?id=365
Hear what the Spirit is saying 