Lectio Divina 157

Luke 10:38 - 42

Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”

Lectio Divina 156

Marilynne Robinson, Gilead.  New York: Picador, 2004, p. 179.

So my advice is this – don’t look for proofs.  Don’t bother with them at all.  They are never sufficient to the question, and they’re always a little impertinent, I think, because they claim for God a place within our conceptual grasp.  And they will likely sound wrong to you even if you convince someone else with them.  That is very unsettling over the long term.  “Let your works so shine before men,” etc.  It was Coleridge who said Christianity is a life, not a doctrine, words to that effect.  I’m not saying never doubt or question.  The Lord gave you a mind so that you would make honest use of it.  I’m saying you must be sure that the doubts and questions are your own, not, so to speak, the mustache and walking stick that happen to be the fashion of any particular moment.

Lectio Divina 155

Saul Bellow, quoted in The New Yorker, July 22, 2013

When you open a novel – and I mean of course the real thing – you enter into a state of intimacy with its writer.  You hear a voice or, more significantly, an individual tone under the words.  This tone you, the reader, will identify not so much by a name, the name of the author, as by a distinct and unique human quality.  It seems to issue from the bosom, from a place beneath the breastbone.  It is more musical than verbal, and it is the characteristic signature of a person, of a soul.

Lectio Divina 154

Teresa of Avila

Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks with
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.

Lectio Divina 153

Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri, quoted in Hinduism Today, July/August/September 2013, 18.

Quotations there have been, in superabundance.  But what original commentary can you supply from the uniqueness of your particular life?  What holy text have you absorbed and made your own?  In what ways have these timeless truths renovated your nature?  Are you content to be a hollow phonograph, mechanically repeating the words of other men?

Lectio Divina 152

Richard Rohr, adapted from The Shape of God: Deepening the Mystery of the Trinity

Great science, which we once considered an “enemy” of religion, is now helping us see that we’re standing in the middle of awesome Mystery, and the only response before that Mystery is immense humility. Astrophysicists are much more comfortable with darkness, emptiness, non-explainability (dark matter, black holes), and living with hypotheses than most Christians I know. Who could have imagined this?

Lectio Divina 151

Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, Sufism: The Transformation of the Heart. The Golden Sufi Center, 1995.

Meditation creates an inner structure of consciousness that enables us to operate at a higher frequency. Through years of disciplined meditation we attune our whole being to the higher frequencies of divine love so that this intoxicating energy can flow through us. Faster and faster flow the currents of love, faster and faster spins the heart. If we resist this energy we could be dangerously battered. If we were not centered we would be thrown off balance. The ego cannot provide the stability and center we need. It must be surrendered so that we can stand on the rock of the Self. Surrender allows us to spin with the dance of total devotion. But as we learn to lose our mind in the empty spaces of the beyond, we also need to be able to come back to our everyday world. The inner world with its intimacy and freedom from restraints is intoxicating, and it can make the outer world seem a cold, alien prison. We carry the consciousness that we are exiles in this world. But one must not allow states of meditation to interfere with everyday life and work. One needs to be able to focus on the outer world and function on the level of the mind whenever necessary.