The history of Western Christendom has been characterised by the struggle between orthodoxy and praxis – holding rational theology and dogma alongside the mystical dimension of faith and life and the wisdom of our inner knowing. Faith vs dogma, law vs grace – the dilemma goes on.
We need a conceptual framework in order to contextualise our experience, to know that we’re part of a bigger narrative. But how can we avoid the pitfalls of idolatry and hypocrisy that we fall into when we cling too fiercely to the signs and symbols of our faith?
Of course the answer is that we need both, external teaching and inner experience, and part of the problem with our contemporary Western church is that these two have become out of sync. Contemplative practices such as Christian Meditation, Centering Prayer and Lectio Divina help us cultivate 'non-dual consciousness', a way of perceiving that gives us the ability not to split the world into internal and external, but to hold the two in balance.
Similarly, our Buddhist brothers and sisters, who are more at home in the realm of formless mystical experience, teach that enlightenment is about finding a state of union between emptiness and form. ‘Joining the view and meditation is the holy tradition’ said a 19th century Tibetan Buddhist. In a sense that’s the whole point of religion and its sacred texts – to provide the view.
The Judeo-Christian faith tradition is uniquely premised on the concept of ‘revelation’. Our sacred text is not just a piece of good or interesting literature, it is the Word of God - prefiguring Christ’s coming on earth and foretelling his ongoing intervention in the course of human history and redemption. This God is revealed to us, known and incarnated in the life and body of Jesus. But it is at the same time an ultimately unknowable and ineffable mystery.
Our human existence is all about negotiating this curious intersection of form and formlessness. If we can, not just to bear this tension, but embrace and celebrate it, we get to take part in the dance of creation. This dance is the Trinitarian flow between Creator God, creaturely existence and the Spirit, and it is the very heartbeat of the Christian faith.
It’s all a question of relationship. The place where we encounter and respond to the truth of the Other is the place where we meet Christ. This other comes to us in the form of friends, family, neighbour and stranger; it comes to us through nature, and through contact with alienated parts of our own souls; and it comes to us through the words of scripture.
While scholarly interpretations of the Bible have done much to increase our understanding, when applied with too heavy a hand, they can tend to dampen our contemplative way of seeing. As Paul said in his letter to the Corinthians, ‘the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.’ It is to this Spirit, this inner meaning, that we attend when we approach scripture from a contemplative standpoint.
When we meditate we seek to empty our minds of who we think God is – our limited concepts and ideas – in order to journey into communion with the divine, beyond words and images. Likewise, when we approach the Bible it would serve us well to shed our pre-conceived notions of what we think the words mean.
The bible is a difficult book. When we encounter it we must be prepared for confusion, incomprehension and possibly even outrage. Moreover, given the distortions that have been laid on the Bible throughout history, even before we open it we’ve got to overcome all kinds of conscious and unconscious tensions and prejudices.
It may help us to have some idea of what it is, and what it is not. According to Thomas Merton, we will be frustrated and disappointed if we look for metaphysical insights or definitive moral codes; nor will we find instructions for contemplative discipline or mystic illumination; still less theological or philosophical systems or any kind of grand Biblical cosmology.
What we will find is a body of oral messages, histories, songs of praise and lamentation; a collection of writings that are prophetic, mystical and eschatological, grounded in history and rooted in ordinary life. The Bible is multi-dimensional, deeply paradoxical, full of conflicting and diverse elements, and sometimes morally problematic.
We cannot fathom these complexities with our rational minds alone, we must encounter them, as in a relationship, and let the text question us and probe our ultimate sense of identity in God. As in life, we discover the underlying unity and inner coherence of the Bible not by excluding and judging, but by embracing and accepting it in its entirely, as it is.
Ultimately the Bible is performative rather than static: its purpose is not to impart information, but to communicate with us. Through it we come into contact with Christ - the ultimate manifestation of the Word uttered by God at the dawn of creation, and revealed to us in all fullness in the historical person of Jesus. This living word comes to us through our prayerful reading of scripture with the power to transform and to liberate.
As Jesus continually exhorts us in the gospels, ‘anyone who has ears to hear, let him hear.’ Likewise in, the prologue to his monastic rule St Benedict instructs his followers to ‘listen with the ear of the heart.’ This is the first principle of the monastic practice of divine reading known as Lectio Divina.
