The spiritual practice of lectio divina (divine/sacred reading) originated in the early centuries of Christianity and survived from then until recently primarily in monasteries and convents. In the past few decades, it has found many practitioners among spiritual seekers. Primarily focused on Bible texts but applicable to all scripture, including LDS ones, and sacred readings, lectio is a way of engaging these texts that concentrates on our discernment of what in the passage is calling to us to explore, and then using it as a catalyst for our inner work. In this way, it becomes a form of scripture reading that truly allows these texts, with their stories and symbols and metaphors, etc. to become daily bread and living water for us. It isn’t so much reading for content or just the action of the story or in an effort to nail down some hard and fast truth in ways that will build testimony of our previously held notions, but a way of approaching the texts with an open heart and soul that allows it to draw you into conversation with it, and with our deepest selves.
In this episode, Latter-day Faith host Dan Wotherspoon introduces this practice and its various elements–lectio (reading), meditatio (meditation/reflection), oratatio (prayer), andcontemplatio (contemplation)–in an attempt to get you excited about engaging scripture in ways that aren’t taught in most traditions. He speaks about each of the aspects, as well as shares as an example some of the ways that his personal practice of lectio led him to discover new things in and about the story told in Luke 4:14-30, but even more to reflect on and help get unstuck in trying to overcome a personal struggle of his.
We hope you’ll enjoy learning about this practice and potentially trying it out for yourself! We all need to draw fresh each day from the well of the Spirit and Divine guidance and encouragement, and this is one discipline that has been extremely helpful for other fellow travelers along the spiritual journey trail.
Thank you for this conversation (and all the others!).
I often do a personalized version of lectio divina as part of my waking up routine by listening to an episode of The Bible Meditation Podcast.
The host reads through a verse or two using the lectio divina practice.
It’s about 5 minutes a day, and helps me approach the reading in a new way.
http://biblemeditationpodcast.libsyn.com/
I look forward to hearing the future discussion on contemplative prayer!
My current version of prayer/meditation is trifold– get present, share, be. I set a timer to ding and direct me to the next phase. Some days the segments are 1 minute each, some days they are longer.
My beginner meditation practice is inspired by a baby step concept I learned from Dan Harris on the Savvy Psychologist podcast–
A minute or more, most days. 😉