Wellspring: inspiration and guidance for a spiritual journey

Lectio Divina a spiritual practice for Unitarian Universalists, by Tina Simson

Since I’ve begun this New Year celebrating the glorious piles of books I have in my life, I wondered if the spiritual practice of Lectio Divina could be useful for Unitarian Universalists.

According to Wikipedia, Lectio Divina is Latin for divine reading, or "holy reading," and represents a traditional Christian practice of prayer and scriptural reading intended to promote communion with God and to increase in the knowledge of God’s Word. 

It is a way of praying with scripture that calls one to study, ponder, listen and, perhaps sing and rejoice in the words of the divine. It can generate a profound understanding deep within the soul. 

Although we have a diverse relationship to divinity in our communities, I think the practice can be easily adapted for UUs.  If we assume that ‘divine word’ is present in the holy texts from all world religions and in poetry and essays, and if we believe that the words of others, divine or mortal, have deep value to us, then this practice can be truly enriching. 

So here’s how it goes 

Choose the writing you wish to pray.  Short sections from the Bible the Vedas or portions of the Psalms the Tao te Ching or poems are easiest. Choose something new or a piece that you have loved for a long time; a new meaning may come to you.

• Set aside a time and place in which you will not be disturbed
• Settle into a posture in which you comfortable but alert and attentive
• Take a few moments to follow your breath … it should be natural, deep, unhurried

The four phases of this practice should flow naturally as you engage with the reading.

Phase One - Lectio: reading-What does this passage say?

Read the text slowly, gently, out loud. Savor the reading, feel the words in your mouth, listening for the "still, small voice" of a particular word or phrase that says, "I am for you today."

Phase Two - Meditatio: meditation-What does this passage say to me?

Take the word or phrase into yourself. Slowly repeat it several times out loud, allowing it to interact with your inner world. Let your imagination engage the text.

• This is not an intellectual exercise, allow yourself to surrender to the words on the page let them penetrate deeply into our being until you become one with the text.
• Notice as a word or phrase takes hold of you. It will seem to speak directly to you and your present situation. Take in this gift by repeating just the word or phrase.
• This is not a mantra. This is not about quieting the mind, but rather about listening deeply and allowing the words to bring their genuine meaning to you.
• The words may bring joy, sadness, curiosity or any other sincere emotion. Experience the emotion.
• Continue to sit quietly letting the words wash over you. Repeat the words aloud. 

Phase Three - Oratio: prayer- What does the universe say to me, and what do I say to the universe through the text?

Speak to your inner self as the one who knows, loves and accepts you. Experience this divine word or phrase as a means to bless and transform the thoughts and images that are awakened in you. Express gratitude for what you have found in your heart. You may choose at this time to write your inner conversation in a journal.

Phase Four - Contemplatio: contemplation- I am still, resting in divine presence, and letting kindness work through my mind and heart.

Finally rest in the grace of this world. Let go of words and images. Rejoice that grace is with you in silence, spiritual rest, and inner receptivity.

Re-Engaging Daily Life-What possibilities does this open up for me? 

As you come out of contemplation and prepare to resume your normal activities, consider what difference this text will make in how you act in this world? 

What challenges does it pose? What are you called to do?

As with any Wellspring activity, we end with the question, “So what?” Spiritual exploration and practice is always fulfilled by action.  It informs the way we choose to live in this world. So if words have meaning for you, as they do for me, try this practice for a while and see how you are transformed. 

That pile of books on the floor, by Tina Simson

Perhaps it's a condition we UU's have in common, or perhaps it affects anyone who takes time to explore the spiritual side of life. I'm talking about the pile of books I have next to my favorite chair. They are books suggested by teachers, perused at the bookstore at church, or given to me as gifts by people who know me well. They are like wise friends.

At some point in my life, it occurred to me that I could read several books at once, and that I didn't have to read them end to end. That's been a great freedom. I can grab, dog ear, highlight and put down any book in my reach. I can even save some for later. I'm saving Ken Wilbur until I reach a level of consciousness where I can actually understand him, and I have a wonderful copy of The Grapes of Wrath I have yet to read. Steinbeck is one of my favorite authors and this is the only book I have not read. There is something about being "done with Steinbeck" that saddens me. 

I once went on a solitary retreat for four days alone in the woods with no heat or electricity in my cabin.  I met with a spiritual director each day. I was not challenged with the idea of being alone, or not having the usual comforts, until my spiritual director said, bring no books with you! 

I say all this as a preface, because I know you probably have similar piles of books. But my friends at the website Spirituality and Practice just came out with their list of the Best Spirituality Books of 2009 and it's a great list. It's diverse and thorough and engaging. And there is always Beacon Press.

I've found that our public library often has many of these titles and reserving them or having them sent to a library near me, feels like free gifts. But actually going to the stacks and browsing can offer true gifts.  Like the first edition book I found by Evelyn Underhill called Practical Mysticism from 1918. It was an amazing guide to mysticism, for people like me who can get caught in their head too often. It was written at a time when our country was at war and  had amazing relevance. 

So if you are thinking that a good New Year's resolution might be to clean up your pile of books, or to systematically read them, or sort them (all things I consider each year) don't. Give yourself the gift of books this year, of great lists from wise people, and of lazy Saturdays at the library with the sages of times past and present. 

A bum knee and Buddhism, by Joy Collins

I have been an avid runner for 37 of my 53 years. Whereas I was once speedy and competitive, for many years now I have been a slow jogger without a running watch. Running has been my most constant meditation practice.That has changed in the last six weeks. As oft happens to a post-50 year old body, my knee began acting up for no apparent reason. As a young, fierce runner, I would just continue running and my body would miraculously heal. Now, 6 weeks later, even a leisurely dog walk around the block causes me pain. I hope to get it correctly diagnosed by an orthopedic doc in mid-January. Meanwhile, my frustration mounts as my body fails me. No endorphins to elevate my mood. No aerobic exercise to burn off holiday chocolate. No anchor of my most constant and calming meditation practice. I find myself snippy, this morning even telling my partner I resented her being able to go to her water aerobics class. This is not very spiritual!

When I paused to check in with myself, I was reminded of a quote from one of the books for our upcoming Wellspring session on Buddhism. In Buddhism Without Beliefs, Stephen Batchelor asks the question: “Since death alone is certain and the time of death uncertain, what should I do?” How does this connect to my bum knee? My knee is a teeny reminder that eventually my whole self will fail. That is certain. When and how is unknown. But not the “if.” Given this truth, what shall I do? There are people I know who seem so gracious and serene at the end of their lives, let alone when they have something relatively minor like a knee problem. And there are those who seem to go kicking and screaming. I think Batchelor is suggesting that while I might not have a choice about my injured knee, I DO have a choice about my attitude. And that Buddhist ideas and practices can help me move away from snippy, a bit more towards gracious. Since I’m not getting any younger, and more ailments and injuries are certain to appear, why not cultivate a bit of graciousness today with my knee? As Batchelor says, “it requires that I examine my attachments to physical health…for they are ultimately lost.” He believes it is simply the ability to keep pondering the illusion of permanence and to stay in THIS moment that will get me through.

Maybe on this gray December day, I’ll go sit for a few minutes in front of the fire with my snoozing dog, and contemplate all that I in fact am grateful for in this very day.

Evolutionary or Revolutionary?, by Joy Collins

Last weekend my spouse and I were in New Jersey to attend a civil union ceremony. New Jersey legalized same-sex commitments earlier this year. The couple, in their mid-60s, have been in love for 47 years. One of the pair, Marge, is a practicing Catholic, active as a lay leader in her parish. Though she knew the answer, she asked her parish priest to perform the ceremony. He declined, but asked if he could come, without his collar. So the ceremony was instead performed by a federal judge, with “Father Mark” incognito. Both Marge and Father Mark have chosen to stay in the Catholic Church, trying to evolve it from within. They take a lot of heat from their more revolutionary friends. Father Mark told me it’s his and Marge’s church too, and if they leave, the powerful win over the loving. Some might think Marge and Father Mark are weak-spined.  However, I think theirs is a courageous stance. The stance of hanging in to slowly move an institution forward.

In Rochester on the other hand, our city gained notoriety 10 years ago when Father Jim Callan not only blessed same sex unions, but allowed all worshipers to receive communion and allowed a woman in vestments on the altar. The Vatican removed Jim as a priest, and he and his 1,000 person congregation are now part of the American Catholic movement at Spiritus Christi Church. I think Father Jim is courageous too. Each is expressing their radicalism in a different way.

I compare this to almost 500 years ago. Our Rochester Wellspring groups are currently reading For Faith and Freedom, a short history of Unitarianism in Europe, by Charles A. Howe. There are two chapters dedicated to Michael Servetus, who by daring to challenge John Calvin’s Protestant doctrine was burned at the stake in 1553. He believed Jesus was human as well as divine – a heretical threat to the prevailing power structure. Micheal Servetus, the first (and unfortunately not the last) Unitarian martyr, was willing to lose his life for his beliefs.

We don’t ask our Wellspring participants what they are willing to die for. We DO ask them what they are willing to lose, in order to stand up for their beliefs. There is no right answer. Are Marge and Father Mark “right” for working within, some say supporting, the Catholic dogma, or is Father Jim Callan “right” in forcing the Vatican’s hand, and being ousted? I believe we are each called to shine a light to support the “inherent worth and dignity of every person”. And we need to be willing to lose something in that endeavor. At the same time, where we are on the evolutionary – revolutionary spectrum is up to the conscience of each of us.

An Unexpected Treasure, by Libby Moore

Saturday morning I was out running errands and found myself poking through the "hot books" section of our local library. I had a list in my head of a few things I wanted to read, but a new book jumped out at me and landed in my hand and my heart. It's called Here If You Need Me, by Kate Braestrup, a memoir by a woman who become a chaplain for the Maine Warden Service. The dust jacket says she found an unusual calling as a chaplain for search-and-rescue missions in the Maine woods, and that sounded interesting enough. What really grabbed me, though, after I laughed and cried my way through the first couple of chapters, was discovering that she's a Unitarian Universalist minister and that her theology felt completely comfortable to me. In the midst of heart-rending, complicated and difficult stories, she holds an unwavering certainty that love is present and that it matters. Dealing with death more often than most of us, she has thought deeply about what it means and says, in words that sounds so completely right to me: "If you want my considered opinion on what actually happens to us when we die, I have to tell you, I think we just die….If you are, in Christian terms, following Christ, or in Unitarian Universalist terms, completely and wholly in love, then you are in heaven no matter where you are. If you are not in love, you are in hell, no matter where you are. The stories we tell of heaven and hell are not about how we die, but about how we live." So much of this book is about living, about simply being there, loving and caring, not necessarily having the right words (although she often has loving words, funny words, caring words, prayerful words) but being present with the people who need you. May we all find the grace to be present with those we love and to be blessed by the presence of those who love us.

Dailiness, by Libby Moore

Some summers ago at Chautauqua I was introduced to a wonderful little book called Illuminated Life: Monastic Wisdom for Seekers of the Light, by Joan Chittister, who describes the contemplative life in the context of the modern world, with all its distractions and demands. Writing from the Benedictine tradition, which is far removed from my Unitarian upbringing, she still speaks to what matters to me as she sees the challenges of life but keeps a clear sense of what matters most deeply. The lessons from the desert monastics along with her chapters on the spiritual life have relevance for my far-from-monastic life because she is so realistic about the contemplative life in the modern world and why it is so important.

Chittister illuminates the spiritual life by going through the alphabet of its qualities – awareness, beauty, community, and so on, through yearning and zeal. I'm particularly fond of the chapter on Dailiness, which reminds me that the small daily routines of my life are not boring interruptions of my quest for spiritual growth but give me the space to ponder the greater questions. Resistant as I am to household chores, I'm trying to do these chores with a sense of love and connection. I'm trying to keep my life in order because I like having my life in order, because I like being in a calm and peaceful environment.

I've taken to reading a chapter of Illuminated Life as part of my morning mediation, because it gives me something rich and grounded to consider as I sit in silence and then as I move through my day. Here's a piece of what Chittister says about dailiness:

Regularity has been a mark of the spiritual life in every century, in every tradition. The rule of Benedict is built on an ordo of prayer, work, and reading that forms the backbone of every day of the monastic life. Why? Because the spiritual life is meant to be dull? No, because the spiritual life is meant to be constant, meant to be centered. The dailiness of spiritual practices, the practices of daily life, focus the heart and concentrate the mind. Incessant agitation, unending variety, constant novelty, a torrent of gadgetry, a life filled with the strange and the unfamiliar irritate the soul and fragment the inner vision. Dailiness, routine, sameness freees the heart to traffic in more important matters.

During this summer of travels and visits and parties and beaches, it's been such a pleasure each time to come home to the quiet routines of our daily life, where I can look out the window at the pond as I'm washing the dishes and know that this is where I find peace.