KNOWING GOD
For some time now, I have been engaging the Scripture through an ancient practice called lectio divina (sacred or divine reading). There are various methods to this sacred reading, but one unifying approach is engaging my senses and imagination more than my logic or rational mind when reading the Scripture. I try to immerse myself as part of the story, engaging the imagination to hear, see, speak, smell, taste, touch, and/or feel. I don’t approach Scripture with a focus of an objective minded study but a subjective “reading” of my life. (I actually do not think that there is pure objectivity when reading the Scripture. No one is excluded in bringing our “stuff” into the text).
In this vein, my questions are not “What is God really trying to say?” or “What does this text mean?”
Lection Divina allows for a reading of my life subjectively while trying to steer away from finding the objective answers for all time for all places. My questions are like “What are some words, phrases, and sentences that grab my heart today?” and “What is God inviting me to reflect and to do?” and “What is my response to God?”
“Then he returned from the region of Tyre and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. And they brought to him a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment, and they begged him to lay his hand on him. And taking him aside from the crowd privately, he put his fingers into his ears, and after spitting touched his tongue. And looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. And Jesus charged them to tell no one. But the more he charged them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, “He has done all things well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.” ”
I meditated on the above passage multiple times over the course of one week a few weeks ago, immersing myself in the story twice with two separate groups and twice privately. Each time, different words/phrases and invitations ensued. First time, what got me was the word they. I asked myself, who are “they” in my life and who is my community? I was duly reminded of multiple loving and caring communities my wife and I are part of, prompting me to thank God. Second time, the phrase “taking him aside from the crowd privately” grabbed my heart. I sensed that that was what Jesus was doing with me during this sabbatical and thus deeply affirmed my heart. I am experiencing an elongated intimate and uninterrupted time with Jesus. Third time, the phrase “be opened” captured my current groaning and complaint to God. I asked, “God, open the doors of my future and what I should do.” I asked, “Can’t you just say ‘Ephphatha’ again?” The final time, I imagined the man now able to speak plainly after being healed by Jesus. This healed man was now me. I then embraced God’s invitation for me to “speak”—that I must speak based on what God has shown me and what Jesus has done in my life. I realized afterwards, the invitation to “speak” was an answer to my questioning cry of “be opened” after my community carried me to Jesus and Jesus subsequently met and healed me privately. The invitation was not to ask Jesus to open doors for my future but for me to “open doors” of unaware souls through my “speaking.”
LECTIO DIVINA
is an exercise of engaging the Scripture with an honest reflection of my life using my imagination and senses. The Bible is a collection of sacred writings written by those whose lives’ trajectory merged with God’s story. For the Bible to be Bible, it must interact with authentic experiences of our lives and impact our lives’ trajectory to sync with God’s purpose. Only in this way does the Bible make its full intended impact on humanity. It is meant to be read subjectively, authentically, and truthfully engaging each of our lives. It should not be that we read the Bible, but that the Bible is reading us! If we believe that God is going somewhere (and we do) and that God has a trajectory, our calling then is to align our lives’ trajectory with God’s.
The root meaning of ‘orthodox’ refers to “straight, true, or right praise or opinion.” “Straight, true, or right” based on what?
I propose such a posture only comes from the authenticity and truthfulness of our heart. We can only stay straight, true, or right based on who we are. We do not represent objectively the so-called pure and right opinion. God remains hidden from any dogmatic and concrete opinions about who God is. God refuses to be known by any intellectual pursuit of humans. God is known and unknown. Known because we have experienced God in authentic and real ways. Knowing God is a personal and intimate act. We know God because we experienced God.
I reject the notion that we can know God by deducing God into a set of truths and a belief system. (Mozart rejected Protestantism by saying that “Protestantism was all in the head.”) Also, we leave the unknown-ness of God unknown and as mystery. We dare not turn “mysteries” of God into some formulaic “truths.”
Thomas Acquinas said, “The extreme of human knowledge of God is to know that we do not know God.”
Orthodox truths flow right out of our heart. Our heart recognizes songs, poems, movies, paintings, nature, “hints, and guesses” as transparent mediums of our orthodoxy. Do not search orthodoxy outside of your heart. Orthodoxy rests in our authentic hearts. Our duty is to stay on the straight, true, and right path according to our heart and pay attention to “hints and guesses” and mediums God supplies us with.
I close this blog with a poem by T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets, The Dry Salvages (from stanza V)
Men’s curiosity searches past and future
And clings to that dimension. But to apprehend
The point of intersection of the timeless
With time, is an occupation for the saint—
No occupation either, but something given
And taken, in a lifetime’s death in love,
Ardour and selflessness and self-surrender.
For most of us, there is only the unattended
Moment, the moment in and out of time,
The distraction fit, lost in a shaft of sunlight,
The wild thyme unseen, or the winter lightning
Or the waterfall, or music heard so deeply
That it is not heard at all, but you are the music
While the music lasts. These are only hints and guesses,
Hints followed by guesses; and the rest
Is prayer, observance, discipline, thought and action.
The hint half guessed, the gift half understood, is Incarnation