“Then I will be joyful in the Lord;
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I will glory in his victory.” Psalm 35:9
In a 1984 interview, Paul Tournier, a
Christian psychologist and author, spoke of his lifelong habit of silent
meditation. I personally don’t care for Tournier’s method of meditation which
is textless and silent; waiting on God with pencil in hand for the voice of God
to speak in the midst of one’s realities. His method is very close to a
pop-psychology exercise in deepening self-knowledge, which while it has some
values, does not answer my own need for the voice of God in my life.
The inimitable devil Screwtape, according
to C. S. Lewis, prefers this type of prayer,
One of their
poets, Coleridge, has recorded that he did not pray ‘with moving lips and
bended knees’ but merely ‘composed his spirit to love’ and indulged ‘a sense of
supplication’. That is exactly the sort of prayer we want; and since it bears a
superficial resemblance to the prayer of silence as practiced by those who are
very far advanced in the Enemy’s service, clever and lazy patients can be taken
in by it for quite long time.[i]
On a practical basis, I have found that my
own mind is not good company when left to itself. It is better that I should start with a text
and let the Spirit lead where He will on the basis of the text. That probably
is the tacit principle lying behind classic Lectio Divina. However, given the
initial objective text, or perhaps a spiritual scene, waiting with pencil in
hand often does help to focus personal Lectio Divina.
The text in Psalm 35:9 starts with the
word “then.” The context of the verse in the Psalm is conflictual, but so is
much of our life experience. The psalmist began in the first verse by praying,
“Contend, O LORD, with those who contend with me; fight against those who fight
against me! Take hold of shield and buckler and rise for my help! Draw the
spear and javelin against my pursuers! Say to my soul, "I am your
salvation! [Psalm 35:1-3]. The psalmist
wanted to see the victory, and “then” glory in it. So do I.
How much of our conflict is circumstantial?
How much is exterior? How much is interior? One needs to take the pants off
fear and parade it around naked in order to see that it needn’t be overwhelming
after all. Fear casts a much larger shadow than the reality it envelops.
Generally, when you think you see a dragon, it usually turns out to just be a
toad.
I don’t intend to ignore reality. Some realities
can be pretty painful. Humankind endures some pretty horrendous things; then
they are over. Jacob said, “Few and evil are the days of my life; then they
were over and Jacob was gathered to his fathers. I have often thought that
Jacob, who created much of his pain for himself, was too negative, and in the
very moment of speaking he was creating and reaping more pain. Our words have
the power to create.
It is better not to stop with the word
“then,” but to go on to the affirmation “I will be joyful in the Lord,” and take
the words “I will” not as a simple future, but as a declaration of intent. It
is a decision, an act of the will that flows from the present into the future
sharing in the very creation of that future. Why should I not rejoice? My hope
is in Him, not in myself, not in the “then,” in the sense of something past, but
in the “now”. I am in His hands. “All is well. All is well. All manner of
things shall be well.”[ii]
Lectio does not start in silence. It ends
in silence. Silence begins after the words, spoken or written. Silence is
wayless. It is waiting on God with the mind stilled, receptive; receptive
beyond words, images, ideas and the usual cacophony of the mind. In silence, after all the words are over, one
receives God Himself. More accurately one receives the Shekinah Kabod, the Abiding
Glory, the mystic cloud of glory that at once both cloaks and conveys the
presence of God. Even the word “presence” is a shield as well as a realization.
Further in. In silence. Further in. The Eternal Word is not always talking. He
just is.
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