In continuing the “spiritual experiences” theme from yesterday, I thought I would re-post an experience I had over 2 years ago. It can only be described as an existential encounter with God, an encounter that shook me then and re-shook me when I read through my post. I am a firm believer in personal, spiritual encounters with God and a continued revelation from the Holy Spirit through such spiritual encounters. I hope you have had your own “existential encounters,” though having them makes you no more spiritual or closer to God like some would suggest. If you have, why don’t share them with us in the comment section!
I am going through a book on ancient and early church spiritual practices with a guy I disciple on Capitol Hill. This week we are on the “Silence and Solitude” chapter and for our homework I made the wonderful suggestion of spending 2 separate 1-hour sessions in complete silence and aloneness. I thought it would be perfect to illustrate the need for this in each of our lives, until Friday rolled around and I had only 4 days to fit these two times into my schedule!
When I returned from a tightly scheduled day (literally I had six appointments back to back from 8am to 3pm!) I thought it would be a perfect time to get one of the two session out of the way. So I ventured downstairs to our windowless bathroom to sit for one hour, no more no less (in fact I actually set a timer so I could be sure not to miss the one hour mark!). I’ll be honest I really did not expect much, but what transpired could only be labeled as an encounter with my Abba.
You will find the full description of my God-moment below. I must warn you, it sounds down right nutty and mystical, but the spiritual experience really did happened, nonetheless! Hopefully my experience will encourage you in your own walk and convince you of the need to have regular (daily?!?) sessions of silence and solitude built into your own day:
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I was flipping through some old post last evening and came across this near-and-dear-to -my-heart post. It is a reflection on a mini-spiritual pilgrimage I took two years ago to a cabin 3000 feet up in the mountains, miles and miles away from any civilization. I hope you all have similar memories of intimacy with God; I hope you get away with your Abba for days with no contact with the outside world. Those memories are truly sweet…
So long status quo,
I think I just let go,
you make me want to be brave.The way it always was
is no longer good enough
you make me want to be brave.
These words are from the song “Brave” off of Nichole Nordeman’s new CD Brave. I bought the CD the night before I left for my mini-pilgrimage off the iTunes Music Store because I had heard of the song a few times on the radio and think Nichole rocks. Little did I know how thematic this one song would be for my entire trip into the Shenandoah Mountains.
The entire mini-pilgrimage into the Shenandoah was about leaving behind the status quo in life. I wanted to share with you my experience in novus lumen in the mountains and shift away from the status quo. Here are my notes from the experience put in a blog post:
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Lectio Divina literally means “sacred reading.” It is a spiritual practice in which the listener comes to the words of God with no agenda or presuppositions. He approaches a reading of Scripture not as a teacher or theologian or even student. Rather, she comes to the text naked, so to speak, and lets herself be clothed by the reading of God’s words.
History
Sacred Readings has a deep rich history beginning with the Tribe of Israel and later carried through the life of the early church. In both communities, the communal, public reading the sacred writings was a priority. Later, this deep tradition was codified by St. Benedict, a Desert Father, in his The Rules of St. Benedict. Stemming from these instructions, the three elements that guide the life of Benedictine monks are prayer, work and lectio divina. Later, Gugio II, the ninth prior of the Grand Chartreuse, a Carthusian order in France, further articulated lectio divina and established four spiritual steps, including: reading (lectio), meditation (meditatio), prayer (oratio), and contemplation (contemplatio). These four steps are still foundational to the current practice of lectio divina.
Theology
At it’s theological root, lectio divina is inspired by the devotional use of the Bible. One approaches the Scriptures devotionally, believing that it is God’s inspired Word and this living, active text has something to say to individual believers. Lectio divina continues this notion by assuming that, as a person engages deeply the holy words of God, we will encounter Him in the text and will be spoken to and shaped by God Himself. This encounter is not presupposed by years of study or knowledge, rather it is the average, plain encounter that is welcomed in this spiritual practice.
Practice
In regularly practicing lectio divina there are a few things the practitioner can do in this encounter. First, the main emphasis behind “sacred readings” is to shed common interpretive and study methods that usually accompany Bible reading or study. The point is to approach the text plainly and simply, so choose a Bible without notations or explanations and try to shed your own common interpretive devices. Secondly, lectio divina requires calm, quite surroundings, even silence. So seek out space that will allow for a “clean,” undistracted encounter. Finally, choose a passage on which to meditate, preferably a chapter in on book.
From here you move through the four steps from Guigo II: during the first step, lectio, you read or listen to the section of Scripture. It is a calm, deliberative reading where attention is focused to each word and idea contained in the text; the second step is meditatio, a stage that begins to flesh-out the deep meaning of the text and come to grips with the personal emotions and feelings that the text conjures in your inner soul; during oratio, you deliberately ask God for illumination, an act that takes an active step in conversing with God about the meaning of His words and how you are experiencing them; lastly, contemplatio moves beyond the words and intellectual wrestling into the “thin space” where heaven and earth touch. It is a state where one becomes entirely dependent upon God for understanding his revelation apart from any human effort, a state that takes patience and practice to experience well.
While such a practice may be foreign or seem odd to you, I am going to start to incorporate lectio divina into this blog through the form of podcasts. Over the years, spiritual disciplines have become a huge part of my spiritual journey, and I hope the reading of Scripture will help you delve deeply into the cool streams of union with Christ.
Today’s sacred reading is from John 4.
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For thousands of years, the people of Jehovah have come to Him throughout the day to praise Him, confess sin and cry out on behalf of others and themselves. In the life of the early church prayers consisted of almost the same elements as the Jewish customary times of prayer: a recital or chanting of the Psalms, the reading of the Old Testament, to which was soon added the reading of the Gospels, Acts, and Epistles, and at times the singing of canticles (songs), composed or improvised. And of course throughout the life of higher ecclesiastical forms of Church (Roman, Anglican, Lutheran, etc…), fixed-hour prayer was a long held, deeply integral part of personal and communal spiritual practices.
But something has been lost in our technological and cultural evolution, a grounding in the wider, deeper streams of the Community of Yahweh and historical practices has been forsaken. As we have moved into sleeker forms of Church and more technologically savvy worship environments, a tethering to our deep historic past has frayed. As society has become more multi-tasked and cluttered, time for and commitment to spiritual disciplines has waned.
In light of that untethering and waning, I am pleased to introduce an offshoot of this site called The Daily Office at Novus Lumen. It is a site incorporating elements from The Daily Office which is compiled using The Book of Common Prayer to create a simple, elegant, and easily accessible site to anyone around the world at anytime.
This space is dedicated to recapturing ancient fixed-hour prayer for the 21st century and meant to
be an oasis in the midst of your chaotic day. For each day of the week, three amended “offices” are designed to provide simple, yet meaningful sessions of prayer. To get started click the link to the right to bring you to the front page. From there you can choose start from the menu, find the current day, select a time of the day to pray the office and enjoy a time of personal fellowship, praise, and prayer with your Creator and Restorer.
You may access the site using two URLs:
www.thedailyoffice.net
dailyoffice.novuslumen.net
Technorati Tags: prayer, fixed hour prayer, the daily office
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