This pocket-sized book focuses on giving its readers a clear understanding of the practice of Lectio Devina, its historical use in Quaker practices and how Christian communities have embraced it as a method of exploring scripture in their own context. The author aims to explore how this practice could be used in present-day Quaker ministry. The author advocates for the use of Lectio as an adjuvant to the silence of a Friend’s meeting, encouraging those within meetings to understand when the Spirit moves them to speak, enabling Friends to preach what they would normally wait to hear from others.
The author’s approach to explaining Lectio Divina is clearly embedded in gentleness and openness. You come away understanding that this form of prayer is not about asking questions, it is about sitting with God. A quote used by Fr Romano Guardini that encapsulates the spirit of the book is that Lectio ‘allows seeds to be planted which can grow and fruit in the silence’. This also linked beautifully to the author’s intention to advocate for the use of Lectio on Quaker Meetings. This is a form of prayer with no rush to ‘succeed’. Like many aspects of faith, this goes against what is expected in daily life, it is not goal-oriented, nor busy. The practice of sacred reading does not contain the aim of reading, it holds the hope of experiencing.
The focus on repetition of this practice, using the same passages, choosing short verses to repeat in everyday actions enables reflection on the ability of Lectio Divina to allow for continuous prayer. The chapter entitled ‘Eating the Scroll’ details the historical practice of consuming the Word, committing it to memory so that Scripture is always inside of you, carrying it about your daily life and taking part in the practice of ‘Ora et labora’ (prayer and work). This can most easily be seen to be used in monastic life, with work interspersed with the Daily Offices. But this book challenges us to embrace and try out this idea for ourselves. When the author speaks of how, in his jewish upbringing, Jesus would have ‘consumed’ the scrolls, you can’t help but sit with the idea of what it means for the Word to be within the Word, and how this impacts our experience of reading scripture.
Lectio Divina is a prayer that may change based on the minute details of the specific moment of life, but a prayer that allows relationship with God all the same. Reflecting on this confirms what we already know: that all time spent with God is worth it, nothing has to be new and striking to be ‘of God’.
If I could have one wish from this book it would be for it to donate more time to giving information and reflections on how someone may actually wish to go about Lectio Divina. The parts where the author gave resources on ‘The Friendly Bible Study Questions’ and described the processes of how someone might start to implement this form of prayer in daily life were very welcome, as the author had successfully advocated for the use of Lectio Divina! I am not a Quaker however I can imagine that if you read this and sensed the urging from the author to embrace Lectio within meetings you would want a little more guidance on ‘where to start’. Without this you do finish reading the book feeling a little like something is missing.
The attention paid to explaining that seeing scripture, and therefore God, through different lenses, within Lectio is given particular care. It is made clear that Lectio Divina has no right answer, but that everyone will come away from the same passage with different encounters with the Divine. Observing but not explaining this and refusing to place experiences in a hierarchy allows us to embrace the radical act of not sticking to the rules presented to us and embrace all that is presented to us when we sit with Scripture and invite God to be with us.
Moll Creaser-Ogden
Book Details:
- Lectio Divina: Revelation and Prophesy
- Barbara Birch
- Collective Ink Books
- Paperback
- ISBN: 978-1-80341-721-9