Tuesday, August 28, 2018

No easy, "centering," candlelit, feel-good exercise

"the meditative reading of Scripture was understood by the first generations of monastic Christians to be an arduous physical activity, undertaken as penance and ascesis.  By the labor of reading [(lectio divina)], the struggling ascetic might learn to purify his troublesome will and fortify himself against the unwholesome distractions of an incessant mental chattering (the logismoi, interpreted as demonic promptings).
". . . Meditative reading was [only] the first step in a long pilgrimage from the 'region of unlikeness' towards the condition in which the divine image would shine forth fully restored."

     Carol Zaleski, "Attending to attention," in Faithful imagining:  essays in honor of Richard R. Niebuhr, ed. Sang Hyun Lee, Wayne Proudfoot, and Albert Blackwell (Atlanta:  Scholars Press, 1995), 140 (127-149).  Zaleski gives a handy list of her authorities.

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