The Lectionary.
A lectionary is a list of readings. As a spiritual discipline, a person may simply open The Bible at the beginning, and start reading. They might read a chapter or more each day. The weakness of this kind of reading is that it is the reading style of our time, the method for reading a novel, or even a text book. It assumes a narrative thread from beginning to end. However, a text book is often not read from cover to cover. It may be designed as a resource with discrete sections to be consulted at appropriate times.
The Bible is even less novel-like. With 39 "books" in the Hebrew Scriptures, and 27 in the Christian Scriptures, there are multiple authors, times, geographic locations, and theological perspectives represented. This considers only the main collection (Canon) of the books common to most Christian traditions. There are also the books not present in the Hebrew Scriptures or "Old Testament" which are often known as the deutero-canonical books. How does one read all this and make sense of it?
Christian groups have traditionally created lists of texts that are considered important to read. They sketch out some of the key planks of that group's tradition, and its understanding of the Christian faith.
One well known modern lectionary is the Revised Common Lectionary, which is used by many churches world wide. It divides the bible over a three year period, based around the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. The readings are chosen to reflect the cycle of church year as it progresses from the hope for a Messiah (Advent), through Christmas, and on to Easter. Each week also has a reading from the Hebrew Scriptures, the Psalms, and from the letters of the New Testament. The Gospel of John is used in each year around the times of the major festivals. There are often readings assigned for special days which do not occur on a Sunday.
Many ministers preach from a lectionary. It provides a discipline which works against the temptation to avoid uncomfortable subjects and concentrate on favourite themes.
A lectionary provides an overview of the Christian tradition. Unfortunately, it also represents a particular theological and historical outlook. Some people point out, for example, that women's stories, often already marginalised in Scripture are further submerged by the RCL . The lectionary is also constructed of short readings, excerpts from the whole, so that some parts of the bible will never be read in public worship under this scheme. It also means that the wider flow of a narrative is interrupted, and perhaps divided in ways never anticipated by the authors. In their own devotions, many people will at least read from the end of the previous week's readings to the end of the designated readings of the current week, in some attempt to overcome this disintegration of the narrative.
Prayer Unplugged
Many writers and thinkers are ambivalent about the effect of our constant engagement with mobile phones, Facebook and the like. Concern ranges from the hearing damage caused by iPods to the destruction of our ability to concentrate, establish relationships, or research beyond surface issues. One such writer is Neil Swidey from the Boston Globe in an article called The End of Alone. He is no Luddite. His article begins with these words; "Don't get me wrong. I love technology. It's magical how it makes the world closer, and more immediate." Even the thoroughly technologically engaged are also worried about our inability to "unplug."
Swidey has a beautiful picture which goes to the heart of the matter.
I'M SITTING IN A PEW near the back of St. Anne's Church in Fall River, a soaring structure of Vermont blue marble that could rival a lesser European cathedral. It was built in the late 1800s, when the southeastern Massachusetts mill city's French Canadian community was big enough to warrant a church able to seat 2,000. On this blustery afternoon, the crowd is more like a tenth of that. The priest is talking, but the lousy PA system makes it hard to hear what he's saying. So I'm doing what I've done before in this situation: trying to keep my young daughters occupied by whispering for them to study their surroundings -- the exquisitely carved red-oak woodwork near the high ceiling, the enormous pipe organ in the rear balcony, the colorful stained-glass windows on every wall. With its combination of architectural grandeur and crumbling-plaster fatigue, the place is like Venice in the unforgiving light of morning, rather than the soft-lit romanticism of night. It's honest and beautiful.
Then I hear an odd chirping. My eyes follow my ears to a pew to my left and behind me, where a guy with slicked black hair and dark glasses is sitting. He's chewing gum and wearing one of those Bluetooth cellphone attachments in his ear.
Hey, man, I'm bored, too. But, c'mon, take that infernal thing out of your ear. Say a prayer. Collect your thoughts. Or just do what my 4-year-old is doing and stare at the ceiling.
Did I mention it was Christmas Day Mass?
Even in a place of worship, people are unable to disconnect from the immediate and let the transcendent connect with them. Swidey's experience is depressingly frequent. I often hear the phone ring during worship, and it's not just doctors on call.
One of the reasons for our mystification and dissatisfaction with prayer is this lack of disengagement. An important aspect of worship is that it is "done down the front" while we sit and are still. Perhaps we engage in the singing of a hymn. Perhaps a prayer touches us, or we tune in to the sermon. Often I tune out, which is just as important. Like the daughters, I idly survey the ceiling and the statuary; pity about the flat ceilinged, iconoblasted worship spaces of so many modern churches.
It's in the idleness that the transcendent and the divine engages us.
I've never forgotten the high school conversation where a friend and I tried to explain to a town friend what you think about on a tractor. We didn't have the vocabulary to explain what happens when you spend eight or ten hours going in circles around a paddock, at little more than walking pace; I once spent 12 hours a day for a whole week, and had not finished the one paddock.
Such experiences made space in our minds. They taught us to be alone. We began to learn the art of contemplation. Swidey wonders how young people can now learn to be alone, and what it will mean for them in the future if they do not.
This learning of solitude learning has many benefits. To work at many tasks involves a comfort in being alone. It needs the maturity of intense uninterrupted activity. The discomfort, almost panic, I saw in my six year old son in the vast aloneness of a desert holiday is something we all need to overcome to function well. There are times when we will all be in desert places.
But solitude especially relates to prayer. Much praying seems akin to texting and email; noisy in church, music in the background, constant input, lots of words. When is there time and space for God to speak in that? When will we be quiet and looking at the ceiling? When will there be tractor times, or long baths, or un-plugged train commutes when something beyond the immediate is able to speak to us? To be serious about prayer means to take time, unplugged, un-busy time. Indeed, the practice of time-wasting by being still and un-busy, and unplugged, is a healthy thing whether prayer is on our minds or not! As someone once said, "The problem with business today is that executives take showers instead of baths."
I'm gaining enough wisdom to be able to chart some of my spiritual health. Honesty demands I confess that some of this is simply to do with getting older; the body can't manage the same ill-treatment it once endured! When I cease walking, keep working, and don't take time out, I get sick. I don't mean TV time out; although stopping work enough to watch TV was a big step forward for me! I mean just sitting and thinking, without an MP3 player, without a book, and not surfing; simply walking home watching the people, and not composing another article or sermon. Getting sick means not only sore backs, or colds, or headaches; it means grumpiness, disconnection, depression, despair. Time out, whether we see it as prayer, or some other form of recreation, is necessary for health. Workaholic Christians, or followers of any faith, are first of all, workaholics. Plugged in, over-texted, constantly twittering and surfing Christians are likewise, Christians second, and reap the consequences.
Andrew Prior
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