Daily Lectio: Friday Morning, June 5

Spending another morning with Blessed Mary, wondering through and chewing on the Magnificat….

What a wonderful way to start the morning here in Sewanee!  To sit and look at the window, watch the birds fly around, and see the sun begin to peek through the trees…

In my reading this morning, I am hooked by this other phrase, “He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their own hearts.”  What an enigmatic phrase….

I first think of Tilden Edwards and our many conversations about how the richness of contemplative spirituality, of contemplative practice, lies in this movement of the mind into the heart, of bringing the rational capacities into the space of listening, of silence, of deep, intuitive connection with the divine…that space we call the heart.  It is only by bringing these two together, letting the mind fall into the heart, to descend the rational capacities into the real of the humble and open, the space of receptivity to God’s Presence, that we step into this space of contemplative awareness.

And, here we have Blessed Mary referring to this relationship between the mind and the heart as well, “He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their own hearts.”  Interesting…

This imagination is the capacity of the mind, the capacity for seeing other than what is through our own mental abilities…projecting out as it were… It is a risky space.  And here, that capacity, that practice of thinking other, of wondering other, of leaning into other…this space is described in intimate connection with the heart, with the deep space…the space of listening.

And somehow, in this meeting, in this relationship, in this dynamism, the proud are scattered.

I love the Greek here, because it can also mean “winnowed.”  They are thinned, as it were.  We also get the image of pruned…being pruned.

So, what if this one little verse could have a meaning like this:  “He has pruned the proud, the self-conceited, when their ability to think beyond themselves is brought into the space of deep listening, of receptivity, their spiritual heart.”

I don’t know…but there is some dynamic here that really resonates with me…makes me wonder…

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