lectio divina

In the comments to my last post, Monk-in-Training talked about Lectio Divina. I had heard the term before but did not know what it meant. When I read his description I immediately thought, I need to try reading the Bible like that. That was Thursday night.

My first chance came sooner than I expected.

Each year my church sponsors Seminary Weekend, in which a seminary professor comes to town and leads a weekend class. This was the weekened. I'll have more to say about it in a future post.

About an hour into class Friday afternoon, the professor had us turn to Mark 12:28-34, and said, "We're going to practice Lectio Divina with this passage." After going through the exercise we talked about what God was saying to us while we read.

The most amazing thing about my first experience with Lectio Divina was seeing how God spoke to each individual in the class. We didn't all have the same word "jump out", but each person heard something meaningful to him or her.

I'm not normally a person who can process thoughts quickly, and in many conversations I often don't think of a coherent response until later. But in this exercise the words came easily. So easily, in fact, that I was convinced they weren't from me.

I'm planning to look more into Lectio Divina. I only wish I had learned about it sooner.