What is Lectio Divina?
Lectio divina is a Latin phrase meaning divine teaching.
I attended a seminar in Houston on November 5, 2005, on Spiritual Disciplines for Ministers led by Duane Bidwell, Ph.D., director of the Pastoral Care and Training Center at Brite Divinity School in Fort Worth, and author of Short-Term Spiritual Guidance
My lecture notes from that seminar contain the following summary description of lectio divina:
Reading—read simply listening, noticing what stands out.
Thinking—read thinking discursively, free associating.
Praying—read and respond aloud or in writing.
Listening—read, then listen in silence. Close with a prayer.
Lectio divina as I have been practicing it:
I had learned of the technique some time in the past and don’t remember where or when. Prior to the seminar, I did not know the history and background of it. But in February of 2005 I started using lectio divina as a part of my regular devotional practice. The way I do it is partly adapted from a book by David Crowder I read earlier that year. That book, Praise Habit
Step 1: Reading:
(I use a timer and give myself 10 minutes for this. Sometimes it goes a lot quicker and I move to the next step. Otherwise I move to Step 2 anyway, when the timer goes off. The timer is part of the discipline: it helps me prevent my mind from wandering too far off task.)
Read a scripture passage—say a Psalm, or a Bible chapter, as long or short as works for you. Read it repeatedly, over and over, not trying to decide, “Oh, that means such-and-so. Got it. Now lets move on.” Instead, read with a sense of waiting. You are waiting for the scripture to speak. You are waiting for the Holy Spirit to enter into the text, and engage you in conversation. An image will emerge, a phrase may stand out, a word may take a life of its own—whatever it is, if you continue re-reading, listening, and waiting for the Spirit to speak, something will happen, and you will know it is time to move to step 2.
Step 2: Meditating:
(I re-set the timer for 10 minutes, but sometimes there is already so much pressure to respond that I do not take the full time before moving to Step 3. I do try to avoid rushing through this step to get to Step 3, though.)
Meditate on the word the Spirit has whispered in your ear. This is not about trying to figure out what the passage means, and this is not logical, orderly, goal-directed thinking (left-brained thinking). This is discursive thinking—letting your mind wander where it will, only bringing it back now and then to the passage before you if it wanders too far afield. What is happening here is that, through the Holy Spirit, you are having a conversation with the Living Word—not the ancient text. You are not concerned with the literal meaning of the Bible, the purposes of its original author, the lesson it is supposed to contain, or anything like that. There is nothing wrong with that kind of study; but that is not the purpose of lectio divina. What you are doing is letting the Word speak to you today about the things of today. This is the part I think of as the divine teaching.
Step 3: Responding:
(I re-set the timer for 10 minutes and always use the full ten minutes for this, no matter what. Sometimes the pressure to respond is so great that I go a little past 10 minutes, but I am careful and diligent not to let it go for more than a short time after the timer: a minute at most—just long enough to finish a thought if necessary.)
Respond in writing to what the Spirit and the Living Word have been discussing with you. I use a technique called “Non-Stops” to do this. I have used it all my adult life for writing magazine articles, papers, reports, or for anything that I’m stuck on and need to brainstorm and gather fresh ideas. It is a way of dumping the contents of your brain on paper, circumventing the mental editors that cause you to be blocked. Put your pen to the sheet of paper, and when the timer starts, begin writing. Write as fast as you can, whatever comes into your head, and do not stop until the timer goes off. Do not worry about grammar, punctuation, spelling or anything else. Just dump your brain. Do not worry whether it makes sense. Write total nonsense, if that’s all you can think of. If you run out of things to say, write total drivel. All that matters is that you do not stop writing as fast as you can until the time is up. With practice, you will find that this frees you from the prison of your routine ways of thinking about things. It pulls insights and patterns from the far corners of your mind. In this case, what you are writing is in response to the teaching that the Holy Spirit has been breathing into you through this process.
Step 4: Praying:
(There is no set time for this step. I simply take whatever time is called for, moving fluidly from this step into my regular prayers.)
Read the scripture passage again, in light of what you have just learned. Offer a prayer of thanksgiving to God for his instruction and mercy and lovingkindness.
The following website contains a bibliography and a great deal of information about various ways lectio divina has been practiced over the millennia: Lectio Divina
