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O Lady ! we receive but what we give,
And in our life alone does Nature live :
Ours is her wedding-garment, ours her shroud !

And would we aught behold, of higher worth,

Than that inanimate cold world allowed
To the poor loveless ever-anxious crowd,

Ah ! from the soul itself must issue forth

A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud

Enveloping the Earth--

And from the soul itself must there be sent

A sweet and potent voice, of its own birth,

Of all sweet sounds the life and element !

Dejection: An Ode

My notes:

The Romantics were tortured with depression, a sort of darkness of the soul...these are some of the most beautiful lines showing forth the glory (sic) of that disease, giving us the prescription to escape the dementors...the crowd , the loveless crowd...notice that...

They were running on the plain harrying the antelope and the antelope moved like phantoms in the snow and circled and wheeled and the dry powder blew about them in the cold moonlight and their breath smoked palely in the cold as if they burned with some inner fire and the wolves twisted and turned and leapt in a silence such that they seemed of another world entire…Then he saw them [the wolves] coming. Loping and twisting. Dancing. Tunneling their noses in the snow. Loping and rising by twos in a standing dance and running on again…He could see their almond eyes in the moonlight. He could hear their breathe. He could feel the presence of their knowing that was electric in the air. They bunched and nuzzled and licked one another. Then they stopped. They stood with their ears cocked. Some with one forefoot raised to their chest. They were looking at him. He did not breathe. They stood. Then they turned and quickly trotted on. When he got back to the house Boyd was awake but he didn’t tell him where he’d been nor what he’d seen.

the crossing

Cormac McCarthy

My notes:

The ethereal grace of the wolves…the mystique and the charm…wolves are much maligned creatures, but McCarthy sees in them the same spirit Wordsworth found in his daffodils.

]]> http://dailylight.wordpress.com/?p=515 Wed, 08 Oct 2008 04:42:22 +0000 rhapsodysinger http://dailylight.pl.wordpress.com/2008/10/08/the-cell-no-of-a-42-yrs-old-pervert-add-a-zero-for-outstation-calls/

This is the number that you should call if you want to talk with with a man who craves sex from kids and repeatedly calls them:

(0)923300****

He hopes to change this number and then again harass.

He is a confirmed pedophile and has a respectable face. He has a lifestyle which is above average. He calls himself Anindya.The girl has called me this morning once again to help her. She is scared to go to the police for the ensuing embarrassment.

Please hunt him.

He has threatened to throw acid on the girl if exposed.

El Cardenal es Biblista, ex rector del Instituto Bíblico Pontificio y ex secretario de la Comisión Bíblica Pontificia. Participó activamente en la redacción de documentos de la Comisión Bíblica Pontificia, en el surco del trabajo iniciado por el Concilio Vaticano II. En reconocimiento a su servicio a la Iglesia en este campo, Benedicto XVI lo creó cardenal en el Consistorio del 24 marzo 2006.

Dividiremos la entrevista en 4 partes. Espero les sea de utilidad.

I PARTE

En todos estos años de estudio de la Palabra de Dios ¿Cuáles son sus motivaciones más profundas?
Cardenal Vanhoye: Ciertamente la convicción de que la Sagrada Escritura es esencial para conocer a Cristo, para seguirle, para investigar todas las dimensiones del misterio de Cristo.

¿Qué falta hoy en la Iglesia para que la Escritura entre cada vez más en la vida espiritual de los fieles?
Cardenal Vanhoye: Faltan dos cosas principales: por una parte, los medios, los instrumentos, los materiales que puedan ayudar a los fieles a acoger bien la Palabra de Dios; y, por otra, la meditación de los fieles sobre los textos de la Biblia. Las dos cosas están ya presentes, gracias a Dios, en la vida de la Iglesia, y se han hecho más presentes gracias al Concilio Vaticano II. Sin embargo, queda siempre algo en lo que progresar: por una parte, educar a los fieles a acoger bien la Palabra de Dios y a acogerla no sólo en la mente, sino en el corazón y en la vida. Esto es claro. Hay que educar a los fieles en esto. Y, por otra parte, para que esto sea realmente efectivo, es indispensable que los fieles mediten la Palabra de Dios y reflexionen sobre ella. Y así su vida se transformará poco a poco por la fuerza de la Palabra de Dios.

Beautiful, right? It’s not a picture I took myself- this is simply included with the “sample pictures” folder that came with Vista. Ever since my school has upgraded their technology (overhead projectors, plugins, etc.), I have been using Powerpoint to present notes from my own computer, and this is the picture my students most often see before we commence with the lesson of the day. It’s inspired some conversation, most notably “What’s down the path?” I find it a great source for teaching imaginative/descriptive writing.

Opening up my laptop this morning, with the familiar photo of dirt path, tall trees, and mist before me, I began contemplating, “Am I really walking down the Path set before me? Or am I simply content talking about walking down the Path?” The image is so beautiful from where I stand, at the start of my journey- why bother going into the mist? Into the unknown? Into the unfamiliar? What if it not so beautiful later on? What is out there? Or, if I am walking, are my eyes closed? Focused on the ground?

I think I’ve been lingering too long at the head of the pass, or else not really seeing what is on the path, but instead trudging along blindly, and every once in a while determining where I am by a smudged map written by others.

I am a Christian, and by the tenets of my faith I am charged with “taking up my cross and following Christ,” but lately doubts, distractions, laziness, and confusion have taken hold of me. I came back to the faith three years ago (has it been that long already?), no longer doubting God’s presence in the world, or doubting the sanctifying blood of Christ, but still wary of how Christ was presented to others, and deeply embarrassed and put off by the particular vitriol of the American Christian evangelistic tradition, an approach to “presenting the love of Christ” that seemed arrogant, demeaning, demanding, and hurtful.

But I had a “God moment” as some might title it, (and others deride as naive and delusional- fine- I’m not really concerned in this post about “proving” or “disproving,” everything simply slams up against the wall of Faith anyway), and found this incredible need to explore my new found faith, which effectively dismantled all previous assertions made when I was “born again” in my teens, and assumptions and expectations of the happily “born against” person I had become in my twenties. I discovered the strong tradition and path of monasticism.

Monastic spirituality removed all the hype and pretense of the evangelic tradition of which a majority of my Christian knowledge consisted. Many Protestants may be able to attest to this. Anything that happened before the Reformation and after “Scripture” (re: Christ) is deemed null and void theologically. Christianity went wrong, the Reformation put it right, and all truth comes from the Bible, and that’s it. So I was never really exposed to the early church’s history, even from the intellectually vigorous pulpit of Park Street Church in Boston where I was raised. Or, to be more honest, I never chose to investigate the early history of my faith. When I did, however, in my early thirties, I came across a whole new spectrum and expression of the Christian faith, one that started with St. Antony in the year 300 and went all the way up to Thomas Merton in the 20^th Century. Who were these people- what do you call them? Monks?- that gave up everything they had for God? Who were these people that seemed to have a much more, for lack of a better word, calmer and contemplative approach to the Faith, one that wasn’t about a scorecard with “this many converted,” but a truly humble and grateful sense of the Living God?

[caption id="attachment_84" align="alignnone" width="221" caption="my father, as a monk, Weston Priory 1960"][/caption]

Well, my father, for one.

Okay, this is where it gets a little odd. “Greg, your father was a monk?” “Uh…yep.” “Then all this ranting and raving about not knowing about Church history is kind of…”

Ignorant. Sure, you can say it. I never said I didn’t have a head full of rocks when I was a teenager, or was able to put two and two together (math was never my strong suit). My father was a Benedictine novice monk from 1959-1963 at Weston Priory, in Vermont. My family and I used to take trips up to the monastery when I was a kid- around 6 years old. It remained in my memory as just a long car ride ( 3 hours), old people (the brothers), and two pigs named Bilbo and Frodo who never woke up, or stopped snoring, no matter how much grass I threw on them.

The Lord, I am convinced, jump started this hazy memory of the monastery soon after my “God Moment,” and I googled up the monastery to see if these monks still existed. They did. And wouldn’t you know it, they had something called a Monastic Retreat for Young Men in June of that year (2006), and openings were still available (which is great considering only five men are allowed at a time). I experienced in that short week, at taste at least, of monastic spirituality and culture. The structure and routine of the monastic life: Lectio divina, the Liturgy of the Hours, the Eucharist, ora et labora (work and prayer), allowed me to see a rhythm and pattern to the Christian life, centered on Christ’s love, peace, and goodwill and brotherhood towards others.

After my retreat, and back “into the world,” recapturing that feeling of love and peace, as Brother Michael warned, did not come easily. I partially shot myself in the foot on this one, choosing to fret and frown and worry about the paradoxes in Christianity I saw. “Why aren’t you people- you Christians- getting this? Why do you have to be so aggressive, so enraged, so un-Christ-like?” My anger turned towards the monastic communities- “Why aren’t you more vocal? Why don’t you speak up against what people are doing in God’s name?” And I began to read, and read, and read, trying to find the arguments that fit, the rebuttals I could use. I tried to find the denomination that didn’t have blood on its hands (literal or figurative). I tried to put on rose-colored glasses. I tried not to look at all. I tried to put it in human terms.

I never turned that anger and frustration against myself, of course. Didn’t Christ once speak of the oak plank and the speck? (Matt 7:4) What exactly was I doing to show the love of Christ to others? Why was I making things complicated and angaging in conflict? What I failed to do, and what I’ve failed to do since, is take myself back to a conversation I had with my wife over coffee at Starbucks, when I finally came back to the faith I had left so many years ago. I remember it clearly: she was worried about the direction I was taking, worried that I may become a religious “fanatic.” I tried to assuage her worry. I quoted from I John: “God is Love.” And that, I continued, is all I know right now, but it is enough, and I am just exploring and discovering what that means. What that means to me, to us, to the world. I did not delve into anything else, but took her hand as she sat, semi-convinced that I wasn’t off my rocker.

So I gaze at the photo on my desktop, and Christ, the good Rabbi, leans in and whispers “Why are you so afraid of the mist? Come, and follow me.” And I think I finally realize the ridiculous answer I so often give to God: “Okay, I’m almost finished with this chapter.” Because who knows what’s out there, right?

But ultimately I should remember who is with me.

]]> http://natewigfield.wordpress.com/?p=538 Wed, 24 Sep 2008 21:48:10 +0000 Nate http://natewigfield.com/2008/09/24/lectio-divina-11/

Lectio Divina is Latin for divine reading. It is an ancient way of reading Scripture that has been kept alive for centuries by the Christian monastic tradition. Lectio Divina is simply a rhythm of reading a given text, meditating on it, entering into prayerful dialogue with God, and creating space to contemplate in stillness.

It is my understanding that the Word of God is not that which can be objectified and thus approached as something we can rationally explain. Rather, it is a mystery that invites us into a relationship. For it is not in the words where we find God, but in our encounter with them.

Thus, Lectio Divina beckons us to delve into the mystery with the hope that we might be transformed by an encounter with the living God.

Genesis 1:26-31

Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.  Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground."

Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it.  They will be yours for food.  And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground - everything that has the breath of life in it - I give every green plant for food."  And it was so.

God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.  And there was evening, and there was morning - the sixth day.

Jesus heals a man who has been ill for thirty-eight years (John 5:1-18). And the religious authorities, when they learn of the healing, do they rejoice? Do they congratulate the healed man? Praise God with him? Are they struck with wonder and gratitude? No; the healing occurred on the Sabbath. So they first upbraid the man for carrying the mat upon which he used to lay since toting burdens about on the Sabbath is forbidden. Then they begin to persecute Jesus because he healed on the Sabbath. He healed! A man who had been sick for nearly forty years is suddenly made well! The religious authorities' obliviousness to these astounding facts staring them in the face, and their persistence in focusing instead on stuffy laws, is almost comical.

How often does our legalism blind us to the "miraculous" - to the kindness of a friend, the need of a stranger, the gift of God? How often do we fail to see the good breaking in upon us because we have created a wall to enclose our hearts in the belief that we already possess all the good we need?

It seems to me that the good - that God - breaking in upon my life, quite often does so in the form of the new, the unexpected, the unfamiliar. I harden my heart around a concept, a hope, maybe even an experience of how God has dealt with me in the past. And if someone offers me a new experience of God, or if I see goodness offered to someone else in a way that does not fit my idea of how God should be, then I resist; I cling stubbornly and angrily to my now petrified remnant of goodness - my idol - and I denounce the living and surprising God trying to break open my heart of stone.

Jesus offers something new, and yet something in continuity with all that has gone before. To the religious authorities who persecute him, he responds, "My father is still working, and I also am working" (Jn 5:17). God does not rest. God created and continues to create anew. God surprises us with new life and can even create something new out of our old, tired, and fearful hearts.

Observation:
Daniel and several other young men from Israel had been captured by Nebuchadnezzer and had been brought into his household. Daniel is the story of his rise among the servants of the king. In the verse chosen for this devotion, Daniel and his fellows, "youths without blemish, of good appearance and skillful in wisdom, endowed with knowledge, understanding, learning and competent to stand in the kings palace and teach..." had been put in education course, prior to their standing before the king. During this time, they were to eat the choicest of food to ensure that they would present the best appearance to the king. Daniel resolved to not defile himself by partaking in the food and wine before him, opting rather to eat vegetables and water. He promised the chief that if after ten days, he and his friends did not look as good as the others, he would eat the same diet as they did. At the end of the time, they looked better than the others.

Application:
Daniel resolved not to defile himself. He stood for a conviction when others chose not to. The way that Daniel chose was the more difficult way, and the scripture suggests that God honored his commitment. God honored Daniel and his friends by allowing them to look better at the end of the trial period than the others who had not chosen the same commitment. An application here might be that God will honor those who choose his way over the way of the world. God honors those who choose to follow his leading and guidance in their lives, no matter where that leading my guide them.

Prayer:
Lord, I pray that you would help me to stay willing to stand in a counter cultural way and to be willing to avoid things that would defile me. And God, I ask that you would honor this commitment. Amen.

While India celebrates her various festivals, more than 50000 Christians live like cattle in Orissa. They live like refugees everywhere. Let us enter for a moment into the lives of refugees in any part of the world. We have to do this exercise if we are to really understand the meaning of being a refugee; otherwise the word has lost all meaning due to unending use by the media. New media should be a gestalt experience; what John Keats long ago called a synaesthetic experience.

The contemporary refugee experiences the most unnerving feelings of powerlessness and despair:

a) There remains no sense of belonging. A refugee is at the mercy of unseen and unfeeling powers that herd her or him from refugee camps to other camps. All sense of family and rootedness are erased till the refugee no longer dares or even feels the need to establish roots in one place again.

b) Nothing is private in the lives of refugees. This includes everything from their sanitation to their sexual behaviors. The refugee is now continuously under what Michel Foucault calls "the gaze". Every movement of the refugee is documented till the refugee accepts that she or he is just a caged animal.

c) All voting rights are suspended.

d) The refugee lives in perpetual uncertainty: she does not know when she will be rehabilitated or asked to move or even beaten for voicing such basic needs as hunger.

In short, the refugee is robbed of his or her name and all remnants of personality are robbed. This is similar to what the British did to us: they called us natives (eg. Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, where the whites are individually named, but South Asians are just grouped under the pejorative natives).

Now Christians in Orissa are victims of mass progroms and are no longer being individually spoken off. They are thus being forced to ghettoize. This is remarkable wicked on the parts of their persecutors. How? The answer lies in theoreticians of violence: René Girard posits the scapegoat theory. The bloodlusts of lynch mobs must be satisfied, no matter what. And characteristically they choose innocent victims. What started as a correctional procedure against forcible-conversion has now gone out of hands. This is perceived as an opportune moment for people to settle their personal animosities against their, may be, more prosperous neighbours. It is impossible to believe that all the thousands who have been forced to flee their homes are proselytizers. They are simply victims of the same evil that had arisen in Salem, Massachusetts, long ago. They are victims of the same evil that had goaded Senator Joseph McCarthy to repeatedly ask perceived enemies of the State whether they were Communists or not. And it is the same evil which prompts my own Hindu leaders in Orissa to retort that none is speaking of the violence done to Hindus in the state. I say to them, if Hindus are being persecuted, let us deal with the persecuting Christians with the rule of law and Hindu apologetics. Let us be scrupulous in ferreting out such Christians who are actively converting poor people, spreading derogatory remarks about Hinduism and forcing Hindus to flee their homes. Let us identify them and settle their hashes once for all. But never should one drop of innocent blood be spilled. Otherwise we are not Hindus but animals.

Remember that Shakti, the Atman is in everyone: yah devi sarva bhuteshu (the Mother resides in all). When we persecute Christians we just hurt the very same Atman within us too.

O grande objetivo é fazer com que através da TV a Palavra de Deus possa chegar aos lares e possa ecoar aos ouvidos. É uma boa forma de usar os meios de comunicação para a Anúncio da Palavra de Deus.

header_original_mod"Bento XVI convidou todos os crentes a unirem-se ao Sínodo dos Bispos sobre a Palavra, evento que ele mesmo inaugurou neste domingo, na Basílica de São Paulo Fora dos Muros.

Após a celebração eucarística de abertura, o Papa regressou ao Vaticano para rezar o Ângelus junto a milhares de peregrinos congregados na Praça de São Pedro e sublinhar a transcendência esta reunião eclesial.

Os 253 padres sinodais --51 da África, 62 da América, 41 da Ásia, 90 da Europa e 9 da Oceania--, disse o Papa, foram escolhidos «para representar a todo o episcopado e ser convocados para oferecer ao sucessor de Pedro uma ajuda mais eficaz, manifestando e consolidando ao mesmo tempo a comunhão eclesial».

O Papa ilustrou as finalidades desta assembléia, que tem por tema «A Palavra de Deus na vida e na missão da Igreja» e que concluirá em 26 de outubro.

O Sínodo, disse, «favorece uma próxima união e colaboração entre o Papa e os bispos de todo o mundo; oferece informação direta e exata sobre a situação e os problemas da Igreja; favorece o acordo sobre a doutrina e a ação pastoral; enfrenta temas de grande importância e atualidade».

Recordando a etimologia da palavra sínodo, sýnodos em grego, explicou que se compõe «da preoposição syn, ou seja “com”, e de odòs, que significa “caminho”». Ou seja, acrescentou, «sugere a idéia de “fazer caminho juntos”».

«Esta é precisamente a experiência do Povo de Deus na história da salvação», afirmou, falando desde a janela de seu apartamento.

O Papa convidou «todos os crentes a apoiarem os trabalhos do Sínodo com a oração, invocando em especial a intercessão maternal da Virgem Maria, perfeita discípula da divina Palavra»."

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The night has a thousand eyes,
And the day but one;
Yet the light of the bright world dies
With the dying sun.

The mind has a thousand eyes,
And the heart but one;
Yet the light of a whole life dies,
When love is done.

Francis William Bourdillon

My notes:

Our minds cannot even conceive of the sun ever burning out; it is simply unthinkable. A life without love is similarly catastrophic. This neglected but beautiful poem was first mentioned to me by my Professor at College, the great P.Lal.

]]> http://dailylight.wordpress.com/?p=484 Sun, 05 Oct 2008 02:57:50 +0000 rhapsodysinger http://dailylight.pl.wordpress.com/2008/10/05/lets-make-merry-when-christians-die-we-are-ah-so-civilized/

All of India is now celebrating Hindu festivals and making merry. But this is so against Hinduism. No Hindu can rest in peace till the Orissa Carnage is righted. What evils that we do. I agree that Christians have often been derogatory of our religious practices but violence can never be the answer. We should have the intellectul elan to meet head-on Christian apologetics.  Today's Time of India reports that more than 50,000 people have been rendered homeless in Orissa. Frankly, I am terrified. Not so much for the Christians. They will be taken care of by the God of Love, Mirabai's God.

But I am terrified for you my Hindu Brothers. You shall not find even a inch of space even in hell. & believe you me when I say, that I love and know my own Hindu religion. My Brothers and Sisters who are persecuting Christians, where will you hide? How will you ever return to the Godhead? Adi Shankara in his works repeatedly says that violence is not our way, never. Don't quote the Bhagavad Gita to me, Krishna asks Arjuna to fight. But never for unjust causes. Some Christians are surely to be blamed in Orissa and elsewhere. They should be and have been rightly punished. But why this massacre against the innocent?

The essence of philosophy is the abandonment of all authority in favour of individual human reason...[The university] must be contemptuous of public opinion because it has within it the source of autonomy --- the quest for and even discover of the truth according to nature. It must concentrate on philosophy, theology, the literary classics, and on those scientists like Newton, Descartes and Leibniz who have the most comprehensive scientific vision and of the relation of what they do to the order of the whole of things. These must help preserve what is most likely to be neglected in a democracy.

The Closing of the American Mind

Allan Bloom

My notes:

Peter Watson is his masterpiece A Terrible Beauty, further points out how Bloom had also castigated an MBA education for being ineffective and useless in radically changing anyone's lives. & thus naturally Bloom has drawn flak all over the place.

I for one witness and assert the decadence in our seats of higher learning. Now we have all sorts of rubbish posing as knowledge. When someone can study nothing deeply, the person goes (and often is forced) and studies nonsense which she or he is made to understand as being high knowledge. What for that matter are the following: MBA, M.Com & Mass Comm? Watered down economics, a hodge podge of business tactics given the semblance of scholarship and Mass Comm! LOL, what shall the masses communicate about? The last I heard was Nietzsche talking of the sheep who bleat needing a hard taskmaster! Mass Communication they call it. The barbarians have arrived. ( I could have not mentioned Arnold here but how many of my readers will know of Arnold's fear of having the barbarians at the gate?)

I give up. Call me a chauvinist. But then if you are alone on one side and ten men come to rob you, do their justifications in wanting to rob you hold more water than your single opinion of being persecuted?

I stand acused of bigotry in matters of culture. By the way, is there any left anywhere?

Today it was confirmed that a nun has been raped. This seems to have not bothered anyone. It's like a daily thing. Eat, drink, rape a nun and just move on.

What does it mean to rape a woman consecrated and set aside by God?

Surely nothing for she has not made the first page of any national newspaper. After all, nuns are there to be raped.

I shallno longer be able to look any of nun-friends in the eye again. C'mon label me a Christian lover.

Well I just wanted to say that my dear Hindu Brothers who have done this heinous deed in Orissa, I'd love to see your wives dragged from their houses in the dead of night and raped by thugs and as a bonus: let you be publicly castrated. Om shantih.

& by the way, I am a proud Hindu Brahmin guy. So there you are: come and kill me for I support the Catholics here.

One of the more interesting finds at the Christian Resources Exhibition last week was the Bible Society's LYFE toolset. Initially, I was rather bemused as I couldn't work out what they were selling. It all seemed to be a triumph of style over substance - although Lynley have enjoyed drinking coffee from the enormous free mugs they gave us.

However, having delved a little deeper a couple of things stand out that I think means that this could turn out to be a useful resource. LYFE stands for "Life Your Faith Encounters". It is basically a toolset for small groups meeting to study Scripture in informal settings such as high street coffee shops. Nothing really new in that, but the format of web-based resources makes the whole package more attractive and, perhaps, accessible. As well as being a useful small group discipleship resource the package offers possibilities for faith discovery initiatives such as Alpha follow-up or workplace evangelism.

Most interesting of all, this (post?)modern packaging of timeless truths adopts a three layered model of Read, Reflect and Respond. Where have we seen that before? Essentially, LYFE is a little more than the ancient practice of lectio divina - an intentional engagement with Scripture to aid a transforming encounter with God.

Anything that encourages people to engage with Scripture and its practical application can only be helpful, and in the weeks ahead I plan to see how this resource can help our fledgling discipleship groups...

...and me.

Shakespeare

( Instead of England, read India)

My notes:

We are being daily attacked by Islamic Fundamentalists. Our pretty pols are saying that they'll catch the bastards and settle their hash. But when? Sniffer dogs roams our streets, the malls are unsafe and the Islamic eunuchs are on the prowl.

Eid Mubarak to you my dear Jihadis. This is what I wish for you:

a) Your mother and sister die like beggars.

b) Your dearest ones have cripples for kids.

c) You survive to die of excruciating pain and madness.

Inshallah God will bless you with deformed kids.

We recently had a conference that emphasized the need to return to Don Bosco. How can we better understand St. John Bosco or any other saint for that matter. Our director challenged us to read Don Bosco's writings, his dreams, as well as other texts about him (biographical memoirs) with a new twist.

Instead of reading merely for content, take one text and bring it to prayer in the form of Lectio divina. Of course please know that this does not replace the need for Lectio with the Word! However taking Don Bosco's texts with this new sense of prayer and understanding intrigued me and I will begin to do this ASAP.

Is anyone else doing Lectio with other texts besides the Holy Scripture? I am excited to try this process and see the work of the Holy Spirit.

It's good to be back! God Bless faithful readers!