The Journey of Discernment: Moving from Partly Cloudy to Clarity

How can we ever know God’s will? This has been a question people have muddled through for centuries. Our angst comes when we are faced with a particular conundrum—a dilemma of competing choices that impacts us personally. We need to make a decision but it feels more dark than light; more cloudy than clear. We live in the mud rather than experiencing a break-through. We want to know--but just can't figure it out with certainty.Should I marry this person? Should I take this job or that job?   Should we move to another city or stay put here? Should I retire or keep working? These questions force us to stop and think through a particular cross-road in life before we move on to acting. It’s those of us who have the tendency to bulldoze our way through doorways of possibility that get into trouble. People have regrets and have to live with regrets.Just last week when I was speaking to a group of business leaders, a man in his 70’s came up to me and said, “I’ve been reading your blogs. I have one thing to say, “Don’t retire. It’s the greatest mistake of my life. I should have never stopped working.” I was stunned to hear him say this but realized that his comments were really an invitation for me to pray more about my decision ahead. It was a signal to think very carefully about my own decision to “reposition” (read the blog I wrote about 'repositioning or retiring) myself. When we make quick decisions, we come to realize that we would have done better and been better had we thought the decision through more deeply.Discernment comes from the Greek word, “diakrisis,” which translated means “to separate” or “to sift through.” We need to learn how to “do” discernment because so many of us want the answers and we want to know on our timetable. It's like we have in our psyche, the erroneous idea that major decisions can be made in 15 minutes or less--then announced--then followed.  Discernment is a lost practice in today's quick world of quick answers and living by Twitter.  It's as if, we want to know God's will but want it sent in 140 characters. We are more shaped by our culture than truth and when it comes to making good decisions, we need to exercise great caution. We want to be able to “sort through” experiences, lists of pros and cons, strengths and weaknesses and then come to a conclusion based on our reason, logic or gut.  Spiritual discernment does not offer us easy answers but invites us into a process of laying down what we thought and how we thought good decisions are made to a journey--a journey of discernment.I am being cautious because, I have spent a life-time building what is my work. A wrong decision could be disastrous and impact people I love and care for a great deal.  I am a "founder" meaning that I have pioneered this work along side of Gwen and there is this disease called, "founder-itis" that I know I have. This disease says, "It's hard to let go of what you started." I'm in a process of working through laying down and repositioning. Some of you are as well.It is my observation that men, in particular find it hard to lay down their work.  Perhaps this is a part of our curse.  Our work gives validation, significance and love, to be honest.  And as a man ages, perhaps some women as well, it is just plain hard to lay down our work. So we choose mantras like, "I'll die with my boots on.But the journey of discernment is not just a left-brain exercise. When may seem linear and logical may not be very spiritual. This journey is moving from a Western mindset of “figuring out” a way to go forward to developing a posture of listening. It is moving away from needing to know—to needing to be in the presence of God. This is the all-important shift we need to make in learning to discern and I needed to shift my own need to know—to learning to be with God to listen—to listen to His voice and to listen to my own true self telling me what door is right.As I entered my 60’s , I began to notice more clouds than clarity. I remember having great clarity in my 50's. But almost on my entree to my next decade of life, the clouds came and the sun seemed to go away and hide. Things, that I once felt sure of seemed to be shifting to a certain unknowing. I suppose I thought that in time that I things would clear themselves up. But after a couple of years of walking in the forest more than in the light, I knew I needed something—or someone to help me. Confusion, lack of peace and anxiety bubbled up within me—more than at any other time in my life or work. For the first time in my life, waves of depression would wash over me leaving me lifeless and limp.  Finally, the straw that broke the camel's back happened on our Staff Team, when a key staff person resigned leaving it back on my shoulders. I was losing confidence. I was losing my grip that I knew I needed to have as a leader, founder and guide to many others. I knew I needed help. I needed a companion to walk with me through the clouds and into more clarity.An Intentional Journey of DiscernmentFor ten months now, I have been on an intentional journey of discernment. I chose to engage an ancient retreat method where I would slow down my need to know the future and enter into a long, slow, season of prayer where I would learn how to listen. I would learn how to listen to God. I would learn how to listen to my own heart and my own desires. I would learn how to distinguish the movements of God within my own four-quadrant heart and notice God moving me forward and through darkness to more clarity.So, I chose a trained, seasoned veteran of such things. I began to work with someone out of my box—out of my comfort zone—out of my normal way of thinking through things.  I had grown tired of groups, denominations and labels of people who think they know everything and have their act together.  Such arrogance and pride disturbed me greatly.  I became suspicious actually and wanted help in a different way--a way no one in my circles was talking about. I needed something more that a 10 week Bible study on ‘Knowing the Will of God.” I had done those kind of attempts and led those studies. This felt more raw for me. It feel more desperate. I was thirsty to really know and I needed to enter my thirst and not allow my thirst to be quenched by anyone or anything else.My Guide and My JourneyI chose to walk with a man who was trained in Ignatian Spirituality and someone who knew how to walk with someone who was a bit lost in the woods and couldn’t find his way out. I learned the old, ancient, tried and proven ways of listening to God’s voice within me. I began to distinguish and sift through the confusing feelings of self-preoccupation, worry and anxiety to the more trusted ways of experiencing a deep sense of peace, shalom and well-being. I began praying—every day for an hour—something that I had never really done before because I considered myself to be too busy and too involved—perhaps even too important. In this hour, I would listen to God in all of my life and as I practiced this, I became more comfortable with the process—even to the point of noticing a marked shift in me: I wanted to have this time. I needed to have this time. I wanted a God-listening heart.Then I went and sat in this person’s office every Wednesday at 4:00pm to talk and process together about what was happening in me and around me. With no doubt, this is the deepest journey I've ever walked to date and I have been so helped through my own rawness and clouds to a great sense of well-being. I am so glad to say, that I have moved from being partly-cloudy and into more light. It’s been like a parting in the woods where I found my path to walk in more light than I though possible. The result has been all gain and no loss. I’m still in this process at this very moment however and have not been “released” or “graduated.” I don’t think I will ever be graduated now that I am learning how to listen more deeply than ever before. I don’t want to be released from what I know now to be so true and so deeply meaningful. It’s a big shift for me to quit thinking of “moving on” or moving to the next thing to simply relaxing and staying in this posture of heart muscle that I have been exercising for these past ten months.A God-Listening Heart is Actually Possible!When King David of Israel had died, his son Solomon had a dream where God came and said to Solomon that he, God, would given him anything he wanted. Read the text for itself and see how Solomon responded:“And now here I am: God, my God, you have made me, your servant, ruler of the kingdom in place of David my father. I’m too young for this, a mere child! I don’t know the ropes, hardly know the ‘ins’ and ‘outs’ of this job. And here I am, set down in the middle of the people you’ve chosen, a great people—far too many to ever count.“Here’s what I want: Give me a God-listening heart so I can lead your people well, discerning the difference between good and evil. For who on their own is capable of leading your glorious people?”--I Kings 3:7-9, the Message.Solomon wanted a “God-listening heart.” As I have spent this year in discernment, I am realizing, perhaps more than ever before that I, too, want a God-listening heart. I need that kind of heart. I needed to move away from all I knew and amassed to be a beginner again in the deeper ways of God's Kingdom.I want to live believing that God still speaks—still has important messages to convey to me and I want to not be so busy, so involved, so committed that I can’t listen. Henri Nouwen reminds us that when life begins to feel absurd, we are losing our ability to listen to God. The root word in Latin for “absurdity” is deafness.  Life doesn't make sense anymore when we are deaf to the Voice of God. When we’re deaf to God, life feels absurd. We grown in cynicism, suspicion and are prone to burnout. I see this all the time in my work with leaders in the church and the marketplace.The once soft hearts for God have been hardened and calloused by disappointment, disillusionment and private despair. I say private because where does a leader go these days to confess their own despair at what is happening in the world today?  We all need such places to keep soft and impressionable hearts. This is what a major part of soul care is—to keep a soft, pliable, malleable heart and soul in the midst of such stress, angst and world-wide despair.When Benedict of Nursia began his humble attempt to form Christian communities after the fall of Rome, in the 5th century, he wrote to all his would-be monks, that the first rule to live by is this: “Listen with the ears of your heart.” In our world today, we are clamored with so much inner noise of shame, blame, quilt and self-talk that we can’t hear the truth.  We can't hear the Voice. It's all buzzing sounds. It’s also noisy on the outside: meetings, traffic, emails, Twitter and text. We barely have time to make sense of anything anymore.  Whoever speaks today of the ears of your heart?  That's the kind of language that captured me and still does. It is the language Solomon wanted. It is the reality I have witnessed in thirsty souls who simply want more than easy answers to pressing dilemmas.When we feel the need to move from the cloudy days of life and experience more clarity and inner freedom, this journey begins with learning to listen—trusting that the God who made us in His own image and who loves us, wants to speak with us.It’s a very big year for me. And this will be an important year in the ministry of Potter’s Inn that Gwen and I founded 17 years ago. As I begin to “reposition” this will mean that Potter’s Inn will be impacted and influenced. So I want to be careful. I want to be wise. I want to know that I do have a “God-listening heart.”It’s important when we make decisions to allow affirmation to come. Every affirmation is really an important re-enforcement that we are on the right track—that the pathway we now see with light and clarity is, indeed right. So, I have asked the Board of Potter’s Inn to join me in a “Day of Discernment.” We have asked a Benedictine Monk to spend a day with us as a Board to do group discernment. I’m excited because our Board enthusiastically agreed to have this day retreat and all look forward to this time coming up soon. We will spend a day together in the collective posture of having a “God-listening hearts” to discern—to sift—to separate the many options to seeing greater clarity the way God has for us to walk—and to walk together. It is always a comfort to walk with a few other people when making decisions gaining insight, wisdom and perspective and above all trusting the wonderful process of building authentic community with a few other people.Pray for us in the days and weeks ahead, would you?  Please continue to pray for Gwen and me in the journey ahead--the journey of discernment.Here are some trusted books I'd recommend on discernment:The Jesuit Guide to Almost Everything by James Martin. Martin gives several chapters that are outstanding to discernment.Seeking God Together by Alice Fryling   

The Disillusionment of Holy Week

Growing up, I never heard of “Holy Week.” Now, it’s all the rage. I am left to wonder why? As a child, I just anticipated the big day of Easter. I knew nothing about the week before. Now, as an adult, I know that I cannot fully grasp the day of Easter without being grasped by the week before Easter. Perhaps this is why I can fully realize this week as a Holy Week.Our world has become so secular; so filled with eggs and bunnies, robins and nests, chocolate and brightly colored baskets. We want all the color, comfort and cozy things of life without the pain and passion of these days of “Holy Week.” The week before Easter has nothing to do with bright color; nothing to do with bunnies; nothing to do with celebration.Holy Week is a journey of seven days and seven long nights to examine the pain and passion of Jesus. It’s about examining unmet expectations; shattered dreams and painful realizations of disillusionment. When one embraces one's own betrayal; dashed dreams and discarded illusions we've clung to in life, then we are ready for a deeper meaning of Easter.All the people around Jesus were dashed to the ground, along with their dreams and illusions, because of this week. Each one: Mary, Peter, Judas, Lazarus, Martha—all had their personal hopes go bankrupt. Each faced a disillusionment of their own seismic proportions. Each person lost something. Peter lost his loyalty. Thomas lost his faith. Judas lost his life. Mary lost her son. Each day of this week became a new ground zero of faith and failure; betrayal and conviction; courage and cowards. Holy week is holding on to what we have lost in life--or will lose soon. There are no exemptions for some kind of loss. None. Every person must walk through their own holy week of loss, disappointment and bewilderment. These are the very things that prepare us for a new opening in our lives--even the opening of a tomb.On Thursday in particular, it was a day of the bottom falling out of the sky. This happened to us, just today. We had hoped of spending our Easter days with a couple of our sons and their families. Our grandchildren were coming. We found a small house at the beach to hold us. They found a house to hold them. It was all set. Then, it came-- a phone call of Maundy Thursday proportions. There house fell through and a phone call brought the shocking news of a tightly held illusion going south. They were told that their house was double booked and they could not come.When the news came, I at first felt a lunge of panic---my hopes of finding sea shells by the sea shore with my grandkids were harpooned and I was left sinking and felt my dreams drowning in the high tide. We would be alone. We would be by ourselves. A shattered dream--again.But my illusions of Easter are pitiful in comparison to Mary—the mother of Jesus. The son she bore in her womb would soon be crucified and she would stand at the cross as she stood when that angel's message pierced her virgin soul. How Mary did it, is how we all must learn to do it--to do life--to endure and to overcome--for this is the real message of every Easter.I had a Mary moment on Maundy Thursday when that phone call came from my son. I mustered courage to say, “All is not lost. Something will open up.” And it did. Another house came open due to someone elses cancellation and alas, my grands and my sons and their wives will come. It will be Easter after all. There will be sea shelling and eggs and crab benedict to boot.You and I stand this week in a week that truly is holy. Each day as we move close to the grave opening up—which is far, far, far better than a house at the beach opening up, everything in our lives will change.May the disappointments, betrayal, shattered dreams, stings of the many deaths of our journies, converge to a Blessed Easter--a day of every tomb opening for us because of the opening of Jesus' tomb that very holy morn.But until then--until Easter, we must wait in our shattered dreams.

Pondering Means Not Hurrying

“But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.” Luke 2: 19In a single verse, we are privy to what Mary actually did—after she was told that she was going to have a baby and that her baby would have a sacred role in God’s plan for humanity.We see in Mary’s response an action that is beautiful, humble and meaningful. She doesn’t rush around telling her closest friends what has happened. She doesn’t make a plan. She doesn’t fret, worry or let her nerves get the best of her.Mary’s heart reveals two needed postures in today’s frenzied world with 24/7 news in the ever-ready, always on world we live in today. Mary “treasures” the information she has been given. Then, Mary “ponders” it.To treasure and ponder both the seen and unseen things of our lives grounds us. By treasuring and pondering truth, we develop and grow a contemplative soul—a soul that ponders the invisible; a soul that responds rather than reacts and a soul that is anchored in a bigger picture of life than just the urgent, pressing and hurry.[tweetthis]There are five components needed to grow a contemplative soul.[/tweetthis] These five components have been the foundation for Gwen and me in our life in our sabbatical and post-sabbatical. 

1. We need silence. In today’s world of outer noise and inner confusion, silence helps us find our heart. It’s only 18” between our head and our heart but that journey is said to be one of the longest journeys in the world. Silence helps us de-clutter our minds; center our hearts and work through the mental congestion where it seems there is always a sort of committee meeting happening in our minds. Silence is necessary to grow a pondering heart. Without silence, we are told that it is virtually impossible to live a spiritual life.  Every day, seek to spend 10-20 minutes in silence. Start with 10 and grow your time to be more like 20. Most spiritual masters encourage us to spend 20 minutes in quiet---learning to treasure the Presence of God in our midst. There what’s unimportant in our lives grows smaller while what is really important becomes larger and Great.  By far, the very best book I've read on silence this past year is Martin Laird's "Into the Silent Land: A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation."

2. We need Solitude. Solitude is not just being alone. It is understanding the movement of beginning alone and entering the realization that you are not alone—really. You are in God’s presence. As Mary spent time “pondering” her aloneness was transformed in hearing again and again what the Angel actually told her. She relished in that experience. We can relish in ours. When we learn how to “do” solitude, we are entering a movement on which all spiritual mothers and fathers would agree: Without solitude, we cannot find our heart or True self. Solitude grounds us from the applause of people, the scaffolding of position and power and helps us leave the tyranny of the urgent to connect with the Ground of our Being.  I'd highly recommend, Henri Nouwan's The Way of the Heart to help you grasp the classic understanding of solitude.

3. We pray. I’ve found that prayer is the great stumbling block for most people who follow Jesus. We either don’t pray at all or our prayers are more quick rescue pleas from some situation we are hoping to avoid. Prayer is conversation. It is dialogue not monologue. It is a two way, reciprocal conversation where we speak and God speaks. The Ancients said, “God’s first language is silence” and if all we hear is silence from God in our prayers then we posture ourselves to experience a sort of Grand Silence—a quiet that assuages our aches and fears. The silence brings us to Presence. As we “ponder” and “treasure” we articulate what is stirring. We give words to the wordless feelings we experience. We connect. We sit in our connection.  The book that rocked my world this past year on prayer is Cynthia Bourgeault's Inner Awakening.

4. We become slow. There is an art of slowing that our culture is missing today where everything is fast and instant. The cult of speed causes us to move so fast that we speed by Heaven in our midst. No one who lives with “hurry” as a mantra has time to “ponder” and “treasure” and thus, we miss the richness of a feeding that can be ours. Walk slowly. Move slowly. Be attentive to your taste buds rather than scarfing down our food where there is barely time to taste or “taste and see that the Lord is good.” For more on slowing please read: The Jesus Life by Stephen W. Smith. There are chapters describing the way of the table and the rhythm of life that helps one foster a contemplative heart.

5. We experience consolation. A person who nourishes a heart to “ponder” and “treasure” is a person who learns where the source of consolation really is and how consolation works in the soul of a person. Ignatius of Loyola said that if a person spent time every day to notice how they were consoled by the love and grace of God every single day for three months, they would never, ever be the same again. This is the practice of examining your day---and tracing back through the seen and unseen events of your day and noticing how God was seeking to console you—the way a mother would console a fretting child. Does he do it through beauty? Does God do it through a conversation or something you notice? And the opposite is also true: how did you experience the desolation of God’s seeming absence? Where did it seem that you were totally on your own with God no where in sight?  Jim Manny's book is a classic on this!

  As we enter these days of Christmas an in anticipation of the New Year--- Mary can become a teacher for us—a mentor we need to become less busy and deeper in our hearts!  

Listening to the Word

There is an art to deep listening!

As moderns, we think we know how to read most books.  Yet in our fast society and driven cultures, we graze over books rarely having a moment to sit with what we are reading. We think that reading the Bible through in a year will actually help us.  But it's interesting that Americans are really the only culture that promotes such a thing.  There is a better way to read---a way that ushers you into an experience of encounter that is too deep for words!

Lectio Divina means literally, “Sacred” and “reading.” It is not reading fast. It not reading for information. It is not Bible study. It is the slow art of deep listening. In the ancient way of reading the Scriptures in a sacred way, we simply read a short text of the Scriptures slow. Not everything good is fast. By repeating what you read a few times we are invited into the passage we read. To listen deeply, you  may read the passage several times--perhaps listening to the same passage four times.  It's as if, once is clearly not enough. We read to be read by the Scriptures, not to just gain information.

Reading the Bible in this way is really a child like experience—an invitation to become like a child and hear something very important. Remember when someone might have read to you when you were a child? It elicits feelings of being connected; being with someone; being wanted in a way because someone was taking the time to do this with me—for me—to me.

It’s very similar when we learn to practice reading the Scriptures this way. When we read the story about Jesus calming the Sea (Mark 4:35-41), we read it slowly to see things; to hear things; to smell things; to feel things. We can and will miss the deeper meaning in a single reading of the passage. When we slow down and read the passage several times, we may see ourselves in the boat or in one of the “other boats” that were in the exact same storm. When the boat begins to sink, we may see ourselves frantically bailing out water or holding on for dear life. But as Jesus stands up to quiet the sea, we find ourselves wondering if He might turn to the storm within our own hearts—our work situation; our marriages; the storm of our finances and the storm of today’s fragile world. Everything is possible when we read the Scriptures with new ways and new ears to really listen—to listen very deeply to what is being read.

Cell by cell, our brains need to hear things layer upon layer, so that WHAT can actually change our lives actually WILL  really change our lives. We will feel as the disciples felt on the Emmaus road when they confessed "Did not our hearts burn within us as he spoke to us?"  Reading and by read by the Word nourishes a flame of meaning within us.  An old Greek philosopher said that “Repetition is the mother of all things.” To repeat something is how we as humans learn. Once is simply not enough. We need to hear something really important more than once. We may not be listening the first time. We may be distracted. I may have been focused on an email I should have sent before I even sat down to read the Bible. We’re not fully present. So reading the Scriptures slowly and repeatedly, allows us to hear with our hearts not just speed read with our minds.

Quadrant by quadrant, our hearts begin to burn with clarity, insight--knowing that we have been "spoken" to.  We read the Scriptures so that what is being read by move through our heart, quadrant by quadrant--until the Word can penetrate into the deepest, most hidden quadrant—that quadrant Jesus was concerned about most in a human being’s heart.  Jesus, himself, spoke about what’s way down deep—in the fourth quadrant of our hearts—where no one knows what’s really there—not even ourselves. He explained it clearly, “It’s what comes out of a person that pollutes: obscenities, lusts, thefts, murders, adulteries, greed, depravity, deceptive dealings, carousing, mean looks, slander, arrogance, foolishness—all these are vomit from the heart. There is the source of your pollution.” If the source of our pollution is down deep, then doesn’t it just make sense to participate in reading the Scriptures in a way—to that THEY can sink down deep to cure the source of the pollution?   So, doesn’t it really make sense, to let the pure, clean and transforming Word sink way down to the place where transformation really needs to happen? The slowing down of how we read the Scriptures is important so that we can actually be read by the Scriptures. Just to read a passage might bring inspiration. But transformation happens when the Word sinks deeply and ushers us into real change—changing our desires as well as our habits.  Why would we want to skim the passage then--only noting what we've already seen before? This way, even a single word might become our daily bread--the bread that will really sustain us and nourish us!

Henri Nouwen has reminded us, “The Bible is a sacred book and must be read in a sacred way.” Our modern way of reading almost anything began in our grade school experience where we were all taught to read for comprehension—to read so that we might pass the State’s standardized test. But reading the Scriptures in an ancient way not only requires us to re-learn how we actually read the holy book but also requires us to surrender old ways; old styles; and old, long held, gripping ways we go about reading the Scriptures and also being read by them.

There are four things we need to surrender when we begin to read the Bible in an sacred way:

1. We must surrender our desire for power and control.

   In a retreat I attended, people made comments after the various movements of the Lectio way of reading together. Often, the leader might ask, “After I read it the first time, share a word or phrase that seemed to stand out; seem to somehow get your attention.” But as I listened closely to the responses of those sharing, most of the comments seemed more about power and control than about being deeply spoken to in the Lectio. When we read the Scriptures in a way to be read by the Scriptures, it is the power of the Word, not the power of our sharing that matters. The Power of the Word is yielding to the fact that there actually is a Word for us to first listen to before we react to the word.

   We are so quick to speak—and our quickness in speaking may be rooted in our subtle ways of sharing what we already know—some podcast that we recently listened to; some sermon we just heard; some book we just read---that in our sharing our “insights”—we may be sharing facts and statements that seem to underscore OUR importance—not the importance of the Word.  When we learn to respond--not to react to that we have just heard, we are allowing the deep work of listening to happen in us.  It's true in a conversation and it's especially true in a conversation with God through reading the Bible. What someone ELSE said about the passage is simply NOT the agenda here. What God said to you is the crux of the matter. We can forget this.

   It seems odd that power and control can disrupt what people really hear—but it does. We should learn to be careful as we enter reading the Bible in a way so that the power belongs to God and the control is of the Spirit—not of a person.

2. We can surrender to our desire for affection, esteem and approval.

   It truly is amazing and concerning how the human ego can show up in all it’s self-perceived glory—even in something so holy as the reading of the Scriptures. What we share may actually be veiled and smug statements that are more about our self. We think if we say something funny, people might begin to like us or accept us. We surmise that if the insight we share is really deep, people might be impressed with us and seek us out. Someone might notice us. And isn’t it really the entire point of a Lectio to let the Scriptures be noticed and not an extrovert?   Our words can so easily get in the way of someone who is truly in the poster of listening deeply so that they might be spoken to. If we surrender our desire to speak up and get noticed, then we find ourselves in the posture of truly receiving; truly being ministered to; truly being served the very Bread of Life.

3. We learn to surrender our own desire to change any situation, person ---even our own self.

   How often have we all had the experience of sitting in a sermon; experiencing a class or participating even in a Lectio with the hope that the person next to us—might REALLY get it—this time. After all, we’ve already “gotten it” we assume. By our own desires and also efforts, we perhaps think we might manipulate the Spirit to “really speak,” really convict or really get to someone. We can lay this down and as we lay our desires to have someone else change, we posture our own hearts that we can, ourselves be spoken to. Why? Because our motive is not about anyone else—other than ourselves. We are the beggars who need the daily bread.

4. We can surrender our modern ways of approaching the Scriptures and embrace the ancient ways.

   When the Bible tells us that “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God” we need to adjust then to the fact that there really is a power that comes from the simple act of listening to someone read the Scriptures.  In our age of light shows and smoke machines--even in worship services, I know it seems odd to say this, but it's simply true. Yet, we are perhaps in our modern times, transmitting the dis-ease of the soul called:  “Attention Deficit Dis-order” and we cannot be still, sit still or really listen unless it is in PowerPoint, loud and perhaps in a rap like cadence. The Lectio experience invites us to simplicity---to turn off iphones and to not use PowerPoint and to simply do the simple thing of the forgotten art of listening. We can learn to grow the ears of the African elephant to literally wrap our ears around a text because we know way down deep that THIS word is what will really fill us; THIS Word is what will really speak to us; THIS WORD is what is really eternal and not cultural and not a way people “use to” hear from God. No, we can hear today if we learn how to surrender to how we actually listen. Culture is shaping us in far, far more ways than we are aware.  Being shaped by the Word is our opportunity here--resisting the shaping of cultural and relevant ways.

In Lectio Divina, we learn to open ourselves to the love and presence of God.  People can get in the way of our opening ourselves.  So we need to be careful to not be a distraction for the love and presence of God.

Lectio is a simple practice that offers rich and wonderful moments in our relationship to God.  To protect this practice a few guidelines are important to ensure we experience what God offers us.

Finally, the one who is reading the Scriptures assumes a very hidden role. You become the flute which the air moves through. It’s the air that matters, not the flute. So, for the ones who lead the Lectio, we can always remember, “It’s not about me.” And when we surrender to that posture, we realize it’s not about our insights---there should be none shared by the one who leads. The leader simply is there to read---not to share their own insights. Their actual physical position, posture and influxes of the voice might also get in the way of someone actually hearing what is important for them to hear. Because we cannot know what God wants to speak to someone else—we, as the reader, seek to remain neutral as if we are simply the vessel. The Lectio is the time to take off the teaching hat; the preaching voice and the group leader’s attempts to get everyone to participate. Some may remain silent—because something too deep for words has perhaps just happened. Lectio is not the time for community building. It’s not the time for teaching. Lectio is the act of surrender our many words for the One, true Word—the Word that changes everything. 

Recommend Resources to help you study this more:

Too Deep for Words by Thelma Hall.  Perhaps the single best reference on Lectio Divina I am aware of now. As I checked just now, there are used copies for a penny!  Go to Amazon to Get it!   

Opening To God by David Benner.  I love this book's wonderful survey of how to enter into the movements of Lectio Divina.  Get it on Amazon Now!

The Lectio Divina Guide - A simple guide a created to get you started.

Feeling divided, exhausted and overwhelmed?

One, if not the leading cause of burnout and living on empty is that we live divided lives. We live as if our life works best according to a silo mentality. A silo mentality is living in a paradigm of life that puts your work life in one silo, your relationships in another silo; your health in a silo and your spiritual life in yet, another silo. Then we try to keep all the silos full.It’s an illusion to live in such a way—to live as if we can spin our plates or fill our silos keeping everything in balance. Living in an illusion is called denial. Denying the truth will not set a person free. There is a better way to live!We have one heart and the heart cannot be divided—or at least we should not attempt to divide our hearts. We have but one soul—and the soul we have been given needs to function as a whole—and not be splintered or fragmented.The word “integration” offers us a way to navigate the swirling whitewater of competing demands and rivaling priorities. When we move forward to integrate our lives, we bring together all the silos—whether they are empty or full and seek to live one life in one way and at the same time. We are not divided. We are not fragmented. We are not spinning plates.The word “integration” means "to engage in the act of combining parts to make a unified whole." The English word for integration is based on the Latin word which means, “renewal.” To live one life—to live in an undivided way is perhaps one of the deepest ways we can experience renewal.As I travel and continue my work with leaders across the spectrum of ministry and the marketplace, the clarion call I continue to hear is this: “There has to be a better way to live—than all of this craziness that I am experiencing. I am more and more concerned. It's as if we are living intoxicated lives--living nightmare and forsaking a life Jesus described that we could actually live. People 50, 100, and 2000 years ago had challenges like we do in our own day.  They did not have the modern "conveniences" we have today such as fast food, email and texting. With all our progress though, we have not figured out a way to live undivided-to live our one life in our one body with our one family and a few friends. We're bankrupt when it comes to how to live life in a better way.[tweetthis]To move towards integrating your life—not managing your silo is the key.[/tweetthis]We get confused and dazed by all the roles we have in life. Many of us wear many hats. We coach a team; serve on a committee; work hard in our jobs and want to love our families well. But ever since the Industrial Revolution and the creation of the light bulb and now technology, we have become intoxicated with the notion of needing to balance our lives. The Industrial Revolution violated any notion of feeling integrated. It was precisely here that we exploited children and yoked them to the yoke to be producers of goods. The light bulb violated natural time and with the dawn of the light bulb, we found we could do even more—become even more productive. We rested less; slept less and enjoyed life less. Technology made us to be always on and always available. Now tethered to gadgets and iphones we are more enslaved and less happy---but more productive.Yet in the 6^th century, a man by the name of Benedict of Nursia in Italy, developed a model for how to live an integrated life. He established a certain way or “rule” where he recommended moving through each day in a certain and defined boundary. He took the four basic movements of his expanding community: work, study, prayer and rest and then established defined times that you move into each movement. A bell was used to usher people from their work to their rest. When the bell chimed, people stopped what they were doing—whether they were finished or not and moved to rest. They knew that work is really never, ever done. Work will be there tomorrow. It wasn’t about trying to finish all the tasks. It was about a greater goal…a goal which allowed hard working folks to live in a sustainable rhythm. We've given up bells today. We're always on and always available. We feel empty and live our lives in a quiet sense of desperation. We can do better---and we need to do better because the life you are living now, is the only life you will ever live. You will not get another life; another body; another opportunity to live your life. Now is the time.Today, we have no bells. We are consumed. We are over-worked and over-extended and we live our lives living an exhausted life.To begin to live in a new paradigm will call for a radical shift in how you see time and use time. The goals of life will shift. You will cultivate a new paradigm of your time. Rather than manage your time and time manage you; you will foster a way of life that will include all you really need to do in lifeI often hear from folks in ministry: “I never get to pray or read my Bible as I want.” Their spiritual life feels bankrupt. I often hear from marketplace leaders a sense of feeling breathless and living on “thin ice.”David prayed, “Give me an undivided heart that I may praise your name (Psalm 86:11). He, like so many of us expressed his own desire to live in a sustainable rhythm. He wanted his life to feel like a whole life—not a fragmented life.Ezekiel describes God’s desire for us—that we would live our lives with an undivided heart (Ez 11:19).I’m encouraged that God’s heart for us is to live in an integrated way. It’s just that we have become confused in all of our productivity that we now feel more dead than alive.To live integrated means an awakening to how I treat my body in all I do. To live in a sustainable rhythm means, “Enough. I’ve poured out all day long. I now need to rest. I now need to heed the bell and move to something else—something that can and will replenish me.To live integrated means that you want friends who want this same thing. We need to encourage each other when we see someone stopping and lively sanely.To live integrated means a wake up call for the 21^st century church which often lays even more burdens on the shoulders or people than offer them a true sanctuary. The spiritual life may not be about adding MORE to your life---it just may mean, doing less. The modern church must awaken to the spiritual rhythm of Sabbath—a rhythm established by God lived out in the early church. We learn to “cease” (which is the literal definition of Sabbath and give up the foolish notion that we and our jobs are indispensible. Every pastor is really an “interim” leader and will be replaced. The same is true in the marketplace. So, if this is true, why do we feel so yoked to our jobs? There is another way to live that offers us a way to live in a sustainable rhythm and it begins with a new paradigm of integrating your life. Here are some ways you can experiment:

1. Set you phone to ring at the end of your day and then leave work.
2. Implement a day a week that is technology free.
3. Spend more time outside.
4. Take time between each meeting to reflect and integrate how you are feeling with what you are doing. Give yourself 10 minutes between appointments for example.
5. Set your iphone to remind you to pray and lift out of your work several times a day. Read a Psalm. Walk in silence.
6. Make your bedroom a technology free zone for life and rest. Do not sleep with your iphone. Sleep with your spouse!
7. Do not bring phones to the dinner table. The table is a place of gathering, not updating your status!
8. Use the Benedictine movements of life (work, rest, study and prayer) and come up with no more than four categories that will define each day.

Questions to explore: 

1. Is the way your are living your life sustainable?
2. If you could move towards living an integrated life, what would you week look like?
3. To explore this more, read Chapter 7 of Inside Job “The Leader’s Rhythm: Exploring the Lie of the Balanced Life.  Order the book here! Get a free chapter and more!