1 week ago
10
The digital age has fostered a reading culture often characterized by speed, skimming and superficial, fragmented, and, often, chaotic consumption.
The sacred reading style of Lectio Divina, with its emphasis on slow, meditative, contemplative reading approach, in which you allow a text to “speak” to you, offers a stark contrast to these trends.
Madeline L’Engle has said that "[t]here is nothing so secular that it cannot be sacred, and that is one of the deepest messages of the Incarnation."
With this in mind, while traditionally associated with sacred texts, could the practice and application of the principles of Lectio Divina, with its focus on personal reflection, meditation, and deeper connection and meaning, be extended to all kinds of texts, regardless of the text's original content or intent?
This might include texts that originally might not have had any explicitly religious or spiritual focus, such as secular fiction, historical documents, fairy tales, political manifestos, prose, poems, or philosophical treatises.
If you have had an experience of trying to implement the sacred, contemplative reading approach in relation to "secular" texts, how did it go?
How might changing the way we approach and interpret all kinds of texts reveal deeper, hidden or even originally unintended layers of meaning and personal resonance that might be missed with a more conventional reading approach?
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