Good morning, good people. Welcome to the grand experiment of Lo-Fi & Hushed, this very first one marks the passage of the Autumn Equinox. And since it is the very first one, I am going to use this space before Lectio to offer a brief introduction on Lectio Divina for those whom this is new for and then we will do a slightly shortened version of lo-fi and hushed. In future sessions, the thought before Lectio will be much briefer
A few quotes on Lectio Divina…
“Seek by reading and you will find by meditating; cry in prayer and the door will be opened in contemplation.”
— John of the Cross
“And eventually, slowly, unerringly, over time, like water on a rock, [Lectio] begins to seep into the monastic soul. It becomes the sacred song of the heart. It changes us so that somehow, someday, we will find the courage and the character and the energy to go on trying to change the world around us.”
— Sr. Joan Chittister
And a quotes on poetry to stitch them together…
“Poetry is a life-cherishing force. For poems are not words, after all, but fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost, something as necessary as bread in the pockets of the hungry.”
— Mary Oliver
“Poetry is not only a dream and vision; it is the skeleton architecture of our lives. It lays the foundation for a future of change, a bridge across our fears of what has never been before.”
— Audre Lorde,
One last juicy one, this comes from Rainer Maria Rilke, really challenging but speaks to the center of Lo-Fi & Hushed…
“If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches; for the Creator, there is no poverty.”
— Rainer Maria Rilke
I share these quotes on Lectio Divina and on poetry to impress upon us the ground they share. In my non cloistered life, mystical poetry has been a breaking open for me when paired with Lectio. Hence Lo-FI & Hushed was born.
I hope you are beginning to get a taste of what Lo-Fi & Hushed might entail. The method itself is best explained by a Carthusian monk of the 12th Century named Guigo II or as I like to call him Guigo the Sequel.
Guigo wrote a book called Ladder of Monks which was basically letter on the contemplative life to a brother. The ladder is the practice of Lectio Divina as an analogy of the soul’s connective movements to God. There are 4 rungs on this ladder; reading, meditation, prayer, and contemplation. One can read this as a method of ascension, like up up up we go to connect with a God in the sky, but my favorite Guigo spin on Lectio says otherwise…Guigo writes, “Reading puts as it were whole food into your mouth; meditation chews it and breaks it down; prayer finds its savour; contemplation is the sweetness that so delights and strengthens.”
Another helpful Guigo shorthand: reading seeks, meditation perceives, prayer asks, and contemplation tastes.
You may prefer to spin this into other metaphors of interdependency, of exchange, of one all your own.
I see the first 3 movements are activated movements towards the Beloved, like a stone skipping 3 times across the water towards Mystery through a poem. I see reading and discursive meditation as the modes of intellectual and storied pursuit of God….prayer as the embodied longing for God in myself and the world. Re-collecting and re-membering movements working on the marrow of the poem. Practically speaking, I think of these first three movements as active in the first half of the practice leading to a threshold.
And that threshold is when the stone stops skipping and submerges into the water. And this is contemplation, the fourth movement that Guigo describes as tasting. A rushing in of God to meet us in our unfinished pursuits. It is a receptive posture. This movement is a passive reception by the acceptance of infused contemplation, an undisciplined grace. the fourth movement, contemplation, is being saturated in a lowing Hallelujah.
In this practice we breathe deep with the Beloved and recognize our pursuits, longings, and hunger that opens us to a place of tasting.
Because this is our first time practicing together like this, I am going to say the name of the different movements when we enter them, in both their English and Latin versions, at spacious intervals to mark transitions, but to thy own self be true. In future sessions I won’t, we will leave that to you and the Spirit to draw upon a rhythm that calls you.
I am dropping a link to the flow of Lo-Fi and Hushed if that is helpful for anyone to follow long with or go at your own pace.
Lectio / Reading
“I do not complain of suffering for love,
it becomes me always to submit to her,
whether she commands in storm or stillness,
one can know her only in herself.
This is an unconceivable wonder.
Which has thus filled my heart
and makes me stray in a wild desert.”
— Hadewijch of Antwerp
photo by Contemplify
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