Spiritual Formation 4

WHAT: I am taking a class in Seminary called “Spiritual Formation”. One assignment is to write about a page worth of thoughts that interact with content of each lecture and readings or somehow connect with my own spiritual formation. It’s meant to be more introspective than scholastic.

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This past week in my Spiritual Formations Class, we had a lecture about Lectio Divina (Wiki Article here). After the lecture we were given about 35 minutes to interact with Mark 1:1-13. Read the verse at this link.

This week's Journal entry is a recap of what I did, what I saw and what I prayed.

Part One: Lectio (Reading)

I read the passage through about 20 times. That was a lot of times to read it, but I found that I kept getting distracted in the room with 20+ other students who were doing the same thing. I could hear chairs squeak. I was thinking about all the things that I needed to get done. I had a hard time quieting my inner world enough to engage the scripture (much like my initial Spiritual Formation Assessment when I wrote about my time near the stream). I found that reading it over and over began to help me focus on the scripture.. I noticed that the word "Desert" appeared four times. I also noticed that I've felt like I've been in a desert. The similarity intrigued me, now I was really engaged.

Part Two: Meditatio (Meditate)

I began to chew on the words I was reading. I began to become more and more interested in the meaning behind the words. I noticed things like how Mark considered the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus (Verse 1) was in Isaiah. For Mark the beginning wasn't with genealogies and the Birth Narrative like Matthew and Luke. Nor was the beginning found "in the beginning" like John. Mark saw the beginning in Isaiah who foresaw a forerunner for Jesus who ended up being John The Baptist. I noticed other curious things like how Mark asserts that the "whole" Judean countryside and "all" of Jerusalem. I noticed that The Trinity appears at the baptism; Jesus in the water, God's voice and the Spirit as a dove. I thought was pretty cool until I read something I've never noticed… Apparently it was only Jesus who saw the heaven torn open and only Jesus who heard the voice from heaven. I found that to be a bit disconcerting.

Part Three Oratio (Prayer)

Next, in this discipline, we are meant to pray. It is meant to be a dialogue. It's meant to be deep like a bride and groom. It's meant to be close like a friend to a friend. It's also meant to be a prayer from a servant to God and vise versa. Among other things, I prayed that the Holy Spirit would help me to pray. I found myself praying that God would allow me to be used in a similar sense that John the Baptist was used. I know that he "prepared the way" for the flesh-and-blood Jesus on earth, but I asked if God would use me to help prepare people for Jesus work in their lives and hearts. I asked God to think about allowing the "whole" of Judea and "all" of Jerusalem to come hear what I would have to say about Jesus. I prayed that that would never happen for MY sake, but for God and His Glory.

Part Four Contemplatio (Contemplation)

In this stage we are meant to sit in a wordless time of contemplation. We are meant to simply rest in God's presence. It was at this point that I while I excitedly prayed about being like John The Baptist I realized that I had forgotten that he was beheaded.