Sacred Seeing, Sacred Listening!

Uncrowd my heart, O God, + until silence speaks
in your still, small voice; + turn me from the hearing of words,
and the making of words, + and the confusion of much speaking,
to listening, + waiting, + stillness, +silence. (Joyce Rupp)

“In the first creation story of the Hebrew Bible, God ‘speaks’ creation into being: ‘Then God said, Let there be light; and there was light.’ The rhythm of this creation account – ‘And God said’ – calls us to remember a God whose deepest song and sound utters us into being. We contain that sound within us. So when we enter into prayer of the heart through lectio divina, allowing the different sounds and rhythms of this universal music to be the text of our prayer, we are called into relationship with the God who sings to us and through us.” (Christine Valters Paintner)

The prayer practice of Lectio Divina essentially means “divine reading.”  When we encounter a sacred text of the Scriptures, we enter into an encounter with God.  However, we can also encounter the Divine Presence by spiritual seeing and spiritual listening through the “texts” of poetry, art, music, and nature. This practice is the art of being present to each moment in a heart-centered manner.  We step into a quieting, a stillness, a silence and read the text before us.  It is here in our heart-centered space we encounter “a God who is already calling to us from these texts and who offers us a gift each time we make room to receive this presence.”

“Entering the human heart, God’s divine touch sets its strings vibrating.   God draws from them a variety of sounds, from zeal to compunction, which blends into a marvelous spiritual symphony.  Between the sacred author, moved by the Spirit to write the text, and the reader, moved by the same Spirit when reading it, a deep communion is established. Time’s difference do not matter because both are in communion with the Word of the living God.” (Mariano Magrassi, Praying the Bible: Introduction to Lectio Divina)

I offer a few links that provide a “text” for prayer of holy reading, seeing, and listening.  You can learn more about Lectio Divina through these sites as well.

http://www.prayerfoundation.org/lectio_divina.htm
http://centeringprayer.com/lectio_divina.html
http://ocarm.org/en/content/lectio/what-lectio-divina
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwg31R-5xYI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SzjLikClak
 http://www.youtube.com/embed/mcbHKAWIk3I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXT38GS1Hrw&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ip2ZGND1I9Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6v2L2UGZJAM&feature=related
Reflection:
Consider this week experiencing the HOLY in your reading, seeing, and listening.
Let us pray ~
“Incomprehensible Holy Mystery, so often I am blind to your self-communication. So often I fail to see your love that is in plain view. Help me to see. Release me from my inattentional blindness, and allow me to truly see what is before me. May I release myself and others from judgment, and may I discover in the silence who I am in you and who you are in me. Enable me to grow into a maturity that embraces the world and participates co-creatively in the life of the world.  May all creation benefit from my practice of meditation.  Amen. (Judy Cannato, Field of Compassion)
“The eye with which I see God is the same with which God sees me. My eye and God’s eye is one eye, and one sight, and one knowledge, and one love.” (14th Century German mystic, Meister Eckhart)