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Re-encountering Lectio Divina

After two years of stepping back from my involvement in Fr. Thomas Keating's Contemplative Outreach organization (and Christian community per se), i find myself once again opening 'the book' with the practice of Lectio Divina.  Initially, I found nothing but today, I have had a different experience.  An extremely familiar Bible passage yielded a new level of meaning/teaching/encouragement/integration.  So I've answered my question: "Can old things have new meaning?".  And I'm reminded of Ken Wilber's statement that there is an amber Jesus, an orange Jesus, a green Jesus, a teal Jesus and so on.  In the parable about the lost sheep, I encountered receptivity (the listeners) and resistance (complainers - 'let's stick with the level we're at'), an inquiring searching energy (the shepherd - 'something's missing here', awareness, eros too), a general state of being (the sheep), and the friends and neighbours, other aspects of being/relationship (external quadrants/perspectives?).  I saw all these as one, aspects of one.  I saw search, effort, risk-taking - reaching to the next level?, encountering and integrating what was lost or previously not present - shadow perhaps.  I saw integrating energy spill out into the external domains as well. 

Although Lectio has 4 'moments' as Fr. Keating calls them, they don't follow in any rigid progression.  In fact, I'm experiencing what I've heard monastic folk describe as an all-day, ongoing involvement with the practice.  But when I think about moving from meditatio as above, to oratio (a second person practice of prayer), what comes for me is gratitude, the practice so recommended by Br. David Steindl-Rast.  And contemplatio, the fourth moment, isn't lending itself to words, unfolding in the space between, I guess.

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Aspects of one

I too am experiencing a time of “re-encountering” in my life and so I felt an affinity with what you shared.

Your mention of “aspects of one” immediately brought to mind the story of the blind Bartimaeus and how the crowd in the story can be seen as the inner landscape of our lives. Our fears, feelings, emotions, intellect and will often don’t have a clue what to do on the one hand but on the other seem to know exactly what to do next. In this sense they are the hindrances to vision – whatever level we are at. So your mention of the shadow in the parable of the lost sheep seems most appropriate to me.