Challenge Yourself

In my last post I mentioned a contemplative practice based on Lectio Divina, the meditative practice of “divine reading.”  It can yield creative insight into challenges that confront us, and help us work out where we sit in relation to key questions or ideas that influence our lives.  I’d like to present it here.

Rejecting or Embracing the Sacred

I recently taught a class in creative contemplation that was based on Lectio Divina, or divine reading.  It is a practice undertaken by contemplative Christians and monks in which one completely surrenders to the voice of God as inspired by a line of scripture.  I have no real allegiance to Christianity, other than my upbringing, and presented the practice in a completely secular course.  Much modern meditative and contemplative forms are presented this way.  Centuries old sacred traditions stripped of theology and much underlying philosophy as a means of adapting each to a stressful, material world.  Sort of like insisting that prayer without an object or spirit to pray to will bring about a miracle.  The act, not the deity, holds the influence.  In my busy life in the city this means poses no problems.  But I spent the weekend at my parents’ house in the mountains, very quiet, and found the entire secularization of sacred traditions troubling.