Sunday, January 25, 2009

Lectio Divina - Twenty-three


Stephen Mitchell. A Book of Psalms: Selected and Adapted from the Hebrew. New York: HarperCollins, 1993. Psalm 139 (continued from last week)


Where can I go from your spirit?

Where can I flee from your presence?

If I take the wings of the morning

and fly to the ends of the sea,

even there your hand will guide me

and your spirit will give me strength.

If I rise to heaven, I meet you;

if I lie down in hell, you are there:

if I plunge through the fear of the terrorist

or pierce through the rapist’s rage,

you are there, in your infinite compassion,

and my heart rejoices in your joy.




Sunday, January 18, 2009

Lectio Divina - Twenty-two


Stephen Mitchell. A Book of Psalms: Selected and Adapted from the Hebrew. New York: HarperCollins, 1993. Psalm 139


Lord, you have searched me and known me;

you understand everything I do;

you are closer to me than my thoughts.

You see through my selfishness and weakness,

into my inmost self.

There is not one corner of my mind

that you do not know completely.

You are present before me, behind me,

and you hold me in the palm of your hand.

Such knowledge is too awesome to grasp:

so deep that I cannot fathom it.



Sunday, January 11, 2009

Lectio Divina - Twenty-one


St. Dimitri of Rostov, "The Inner Closet of the Heart," from The Art of Prayer: An Orthodox Anthology, ed. Timothy Ware. London: Faber and Faber, 1997, 46.


Wherever a man is, his heart is always with him, and so, having collected his thoughts inside his heart, he can shut himself in and pray to God in secret, whether he be talking or listening, whether among few people or many. Inner prayer, if it comes to a man's spirit when he is with other people, demands no use of lips or of books, no movement of the tongue or sound of the voice: and the same is true even when you are alone. All that is necessary is to raise your mind to God, and descend deep into yourself, and this can be done anywhere.




Sunday, January 4, 2009

Lectio Divina - Twenty


Genesis 32: 22-32, the NRSV version of the Bible


The same night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had. Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, “Let me go, for the day is breaking.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” Then the man said, “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.” Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.” The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip. Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the thigh muscle that is on the hip socket, because he struck Jacob on the hip socket at the thigh muscle.