Lectio Divina: Four Quartets

I had been meaning to embark upon the practice of lectio divina for some time, but was unsure what text I wanted to contemplate. I had thought of the Tao Te Ching (and that will be next). This morning, I realised that my first effort would be with T S Eliot's wonderfully rich series of poems, Four Quartets, bits of which resonate very much with me.

So this morning, I began with the Buddhist practice of Metta Bhavana (loving kindness meditation) and then read the first stanza of Burnt Norton out loud, then contemplated its imagery, then engaged in wordless contemplation of the deep silence within, and the relationship of time and eternity, and then formulated a spoken prayer out of some of the imagery of the poem. It made me realise that one purpose of spoken prayer is to speak to one's own depths and make a statement of intent.

I did the steps in the wrong order for the classic form of lectio divina, but it felt like the right order at the time.