by Ellen Joyce, Oblate class of 2014
Ellen Joyce
Oblate class of 2014
I was the kind of kid who always had a book in her hand, even (or perhaps especially) when I was supposed to be cleaning my room or setting the table. Later, I was drawn to the study of medieval manuscripts and more generally the history of books, and now I even teach college classes on those topics, emphasizing along the way the great pleasures that reading has to offer.
So it has been a surprise to me to find that lectio divina (divine reading) seems like a lovely idea in principle, and something I was eager to include in my personal rule, but in practice I really struggle to establish as a daily habit. It’s not scripture itself that’s the problem—I love puzzling out its history and profound wisdom. I have good commentaries at hand if I need them. Maybe all the articles I read about the way the Internet is messing with my brain are right: maybe I’ve lost the ability for sustained, deep reading and prayerful attention in an age of clicking and skimming? Maybe I’m confusing lectio with studying or information gathering?I was the kind of kid who always had a book in her hand, even (or perhaps especially) when I was supposed to be cleaning my room or setting the table. Later, I was drawn to the study of medieval manuscripts and more generally the history of books, and now I even teach college classes on those topics, emphasizing along the way the great pleasures that reading has to offer.
I’m beginning to think that the challenge of lectio for me is that it tends to be a solitary activity, whereas I am more of a “social reader.” My richest and deepest experiences of reading scripture are in book groups, in liturgy, or standing in front of a religious image and talking to a friend about how an artist has (or has not) captured a favorite story or idea. It’s conversation with others that draws me into a conversation with the sacred text; the question now is whether I can learn to see lectio itself as a kind of conversation with God.
“Listen” the Rule of Benedict begins, and then “read deeply,” monastic tradition advises. Maybe my problem with lectio is not so much a failure of “deep reading” as one of imagination: I need to learn to read the written text with the “ear of my heart,” as the Rule invites us, and not with the eyes that skim news sites and grade papers. The link between reading and listening is as old as the bedtime stories my mother read to me; I hope to rediscover it as I persist in my efforts to practice lectio divina.