BD
I want to pick up on an element of Wes’ post from several days ago (here). He titled the post “Rowing into God’s Crosshairs” and I’ve slightly altered this by swapping “crosshairs” for “crosswinds” in order to emphasize the idea of encounter, especially given the analogy of a sailing vessel. As Wes mentioned, “the Word is where we go (fundamentally) to hear from and to encounter the Living God.” I don’t know if Wes had Ben Meyer’s words in mind or not, but his statement made me think of them. Meyer notes that the power or energy of interpretation “is toward ‘encounter,’ i.e., vital contact with an author’s intended sense. ‘All real living is meeting’ (Buber); so is all real interpreting.” (22). I think we can carry that a step further and say we can come into “vital contact” with the very person of God by reading the Word just as a crosswind comes into vital contact with the sails of a ship. In both cases, the encounter propels reader and vessel in the direction the Word and wind determine. For the reader it is a transformative encounter whereby his or her perspective or view of life is steadily altered and brought into alignment with God’s perspective as read in the Text. So, I heartily agree with Wes . . . we should open the Text and read (and read and read), but it raises a question in my mind. How should we read? Is there a way or manner, a method or motivation to our reading that will foster or hinder an encounter with God? I wonder if the traditional Benedictine practice of Lectio Divina (“divine reading”) would be desirable as a compass and sextant for our scriptural voyage toward encounter with the Living God.
BD
3 Comments
Wd
1/14/2014 02:16:11 am
Great point. And great use of the word "sextant."
BD
1/14/2014 02:43:55 am
I agree . . . if we are reading the text to encounter God then the historical-grammatical would only be useful to that end as an initial element and not the whole shabang. I think this is where the concerns of Lectio Divina and its view that scripture is not primarily a text to be analyzed but a living word. I'm reading on book on Lectio Divina at the moment and will posts some thoughts and reflections on the matter in a few days.
Wd
1/14/2014 02:46:31 am
Sounds good. Looking forward to it... Leave a Reply. |