Watauga County, NC
Some time ago, I took a college-level class with a professor who was not shy about giving us copious amounts of reading, often with different viewpoints for comparison. Towards the end of the class, I fell sick and did my best to at least skim through the assignments. His essay question was confusing to me, but I did the best I could to ascertain what he wanted based on what I read. His comment on my essay was, “You did not engage well with the material.”
True enough. But the turn of phrase stood out to me. I find myself reading many things: articles, posts, emails, books (both written and audio). As a child of my age, I feel accomplished that I got through that news podcast, kept up with my Bible reading plan, prayed the daily Psalms, read a few articles of interest, read and responded to the many forms of communication (email, text, shared documents and chat), and made a little headway on books I have my finger in. But is there any of this material I really engaged with well? Do I really understand much of what I read to the extent that it caused me to ponder, digest, be nourished, and change? How much actually becomes a part of me?
We pray with Thomas Cranmer:
Blessed Lord, who caused all Holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and the comfort of your holy Word we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Many in the church, from ancient to today, have pondered this problem of superficial reading. Augustine, when reading a Psalm, saw that each phrase of the Psalm transitions from expectation (what we will read) to memory (what we have read) in an instant. The only time of attention is the split second the words flit from future to past. This minute point of attention has very little staying power. James says it in a way most Christians recognize: “For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.” (James 1:23,24).
Lectio Divina is a Latin term that simply means holy attention. It is a discipline (or perhaps a practice or an art) where we train ourselves to give holy attention to the things that matter the most, especially Scripture. Most who have thought about holy attention break it up into four steps:
Lectio: Careful study or reading of the text, much like putting food in our mouth.
Meditatio: Searching out the orthodox meaning or big idea of the text that goes beyond simply what it says, much like chewing and breaking down the food.
Oratio: where the truths we learn are translated into earnest wrestling, prayer, and pleading that God works the truths into our lives experientially, much like extracting the food’s flavor into our very being.
Contemplatio: Lifting the mind beyond itself to God, much like reveling with satisfaction in the sweetness itself.
While I can hardly claim to have fully grasped what those ancient mystics were conveying, their earnest insistence on rejecting disengaged, superficial reading in favor of intentional focus—attention, meditation, reflection, struggle, wrestling, and sincere prayer that embeds truth in our minds, memories, wills, and affections—makes my own devotional moments with Jesus feel rather paltry.
Of course, we can’t fully engage with everything we read. Some things, such as pleasure novels, are not intended to have that degree of attention. However, we can pick a few things – a book of the Bible, a Christian book that withstood the test of time, that will take some moderate effort to chew and digest– something with which we can take time to read well, take notes, and ponder.
In this year ahead, as we spin up another Bible reading plan (which is indeed good in itself as far as it goes), we may agree with Dallas Willard, who believed the better option is to “Read less, meditate more.”
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David B. Sable is one of many lay ministers at Christ the King Anglican Fellowship in Boone, NC. He is married to Loretta and they live in Deep Gap. He may be reached at [email protected].
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