Alexander McCall Smith in Toronto November 13, 2013

Alexander McCall Smith is as charming as his books–and very, very funny. On Tuesday, November 12, he kept a large room full of fans chuckling while he spent an hour in conversation with Peter Robinson.

They began by discussing travel. It seems that when you write 4 or 5 books a year, as A. M. S. consistently does, distance is not measured in kilometres, or time spent en route, but in the number of paragraphs or pages written. Chicago to Toronto was half a chapter. A. M. S. confided that he is not a pre-planner when it comes writing. He has an idea of where the book will go, but things keep happening as he writes. He believes that fiction is the result of accessing one’s creative sub-conscious. He does this on a laptop rather than longhand. He finds freedom in leaving pencil and paper behind and has a sense that each of these kinds of writing creates different pathways in the brain. He observed, also, that when he dictates he has a different voice. So he writes instead.

Conversation moved to W. H. Auden of whom A. M. S. has been an admirer since the 1970s. He has recently completed a biography of this poet. It happens, not-so-coincidentally, that Isabel Dalhousie of the Sunday Philosophy Club series sometimes quotes Auden’s poetry and incorporates his words, images and concepts into her internal dialogue about issues. A. M. S. observes that Auden was well ahead of his time when he placed high value on the natural world and promoted responsibility and choice as opposed to determinism. A. M. S. extended this thesis to his observation of the southern African focus on forgiveness, rather than blame and punishment.

A. M. S. was born in southern Rhodesia, close to the border of Botswana. He has a strong sense of place for this part of the world, although his books do not provide detailed descriptions. He says his practice is to note large aspects of place, such as wind or sky, to which readers can bring their own experience and imagination. However, two members of the audience spoke of their visits to there and affirmed his presentation of a specific place and the nature of the people there.

A. M. S.’s current project is a re-write of Emma by Jane Austin. “This is not because Jane Austen needs re-writing,” he explained, “But to bring the characters into the twenty-first century.” “And,” he adds, “I’m having more fun writing this book than any other.”

So he says…however, as I observe this jovial, somewhat rotund man, relaxed and chatty, I wonder if he’s stage-dressing that last comment. I suspect that every book he writes is his favourite.

Through the Eyes of a Small Child November 4, 2013

He was talking about something, like a car crash, that might happen, this four year old boy.

“Then,” he concluded, “I’d go right to heaven and see Daddy.”

He thinks a minute.

“I’d take him chocolate.”

I swallow and think hard before I speak.

“It would be wonderful to see Daddy,” I agree, “But he might want you to wait a little while. He was quite old, wasn’t he, when he went to heaven?”

No answer from the backseat so I forge on.

“Daddy might want you to finish school and have fun doing lots of sports, and get a job you love, and meet a special girl, the way he met Mommy and loved her and she loved him and they loved each other and had you and your brother to love too.”

There’s a kilometer of silence from the backseat before I hear a small “Yeah.”

 

 

Two New Words September 16, 2013

Today I discovered polymath, the non-gender term for “Renaissance man” in the context of an amazing woman who died September 17, 1179–two centuries before the Renaissance period began.

Hildegard von Bingen, also known as Saint Hildegard and Sibyl of the Rhine, was a German Benedictine abbess born in 1089. She wrote theological, botanical and medicinal texts, liturgical songs, and poems, including Ordo Virtutum which may be the the oldest surviving morality play, and she supervised the creation of beautiful miniature illuminations.

Viriditas, my second new word, was key to Hildegard’s understanding of the world, internally as well as externally. Wikkipedia explains the term as follows: “Viriditas (Latin, literally ‘greenness,’ formerly translated as ‘viridity’^1]) is a word meaning vitality, fecundity, lushness, verdure, or growth..” In Hildegard’s writings  viriditas has a double meaning; it is necessary to cherish the physical world on which life depends,and it is necessary to foster the life-renewing “greening” of the Holy Spirit in the Christian’s life.

To see Saint Hildegard’s Tree of Life illumination and to read or hear a poem about her written by English poet Malcolm Guite, visit http://malcolmguite.wordpress.com/2013/09/16/hildegard-of-bingen-a-sonnet/

Basic Dirt Love August 29, 2013

I have two grandsons, aged nine and four, who have a unique set of circumstances to work through, circumstances that are not of their doing but which affect them profoundly.

Because of my love for them, I would like to be the wave that carries them past the sharp, hard reef; I would like to be the parent who gives an excuse note the day they’re set to write the hardest exam of the school year; I would like to be lemon balm and lavender and cool evening breezes to rock them to sleep. But each of these wishes is beyond me.

This is what I can do: I can give them a garden for picking berries and digging dirt, I can read with them stories of adventures and heros and joy at the end of trial, I can pray with and for them that the God of all power will lift, protect, and make them know His love to the end of their days.

A Future With Hope August 10, 2013

            “For surely I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord, “…to give you a future with hope.” (Jeremiah 29:11 NRSV)

It could have been a New Testament church that gathered early Sunday morning while lizards skittered up walls, out of the shadow of palm trees into sunlight. Some people arrived silently, alone, others came in pairs, chatting as they walked. Families bounded onto the scene with bustle and noise. Everyone was greeted warmly and settled into the main room of the house to wait for others to arrive.

The home in which these believers gathered was not a Middle Eastern clay building with a flat roof.  It was a frame building with a galvanized roof that had a cistern on top for collecting rain water. The women were like beautiful flowers in their brightly coloured dresses, the men wore dress pants and open-necked shirts. It was twentieth century Trinidad.

Motilal, whose home this was, had come a long way. Raised in a nominally Hindu family, he spent his life working a little, visiting the rum shop and partying a lot with his friends. Then he became ill. Some Christians came to pray over him in the hospital room where he hovered close to death. He recovered from his illness and embraced the God who had given him back his life.

Good news is not hidden for long, especially in a country where families are both close and far-reaching, and where gossip on the shady side of a bougainvillea hedge is a welcome respite on hot days. Word spread about Motilal’s healing and his conversion. People stopped by to have a cup of ginger tea and ask questions.

Motilal and his wife attended Bible College, then returned to their village where they began a weekly Bible study and prayer group that grew to become a church. They worshiped earnestly and fervently. When they heard of a need, such as Motilal’s brother, Heeraman, who had a rare form of cancer, they prayed for his physical and spiritual health.

Heeraman had emigrated to Toronto with his wife, Ivy, in the mid-eighties. During the winter of 1994 he began having headaches on the left side of his head. As time went on, they came more often and were more painful. But Heeraman worked 6 days a week. His doctor’s appointment had to wait until he had a Saturday off.

The doctor ordered X rays but didn’t know what to make of them. The Ear, Nose and Throat specialist ordered more X rays and a CAT scan. He concluded that the joint holding the upper part of Heeraman’s jaw was missing and would have to be reconstructed using bone from a finger or foot.

The surgeon, expecting a routine operation, was shocked when he unexpectedly cut into a tumour. It fragmented under his knife, like dandelion seeds in a wind, spreading wildly and widely. He did his best to clean up the contaminated area, then closed the incision and referred Heeraman to a teaching surgeon at Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto.

This doctor was tall. His bulk seemed to fill the room. The six interns who trailed him hovered along the far wall.

He was blunt.

“What you have is cancer. You have 6 months to live.”

He paused for a moment, then added, “But don’t worry. You’re in good hands.”

Heeraman stopped listening then, but Ivy heard the rest of what was said. Heeraman was only the 21^st person ever to be diagnosed with this form of cancer and the other 20 people were dead. There were no established protocols for treatment. The doctors asked for permission to use his body for research after his death.

Heeraman’s radiation schedule was grueling. At first he tried to work through the week, before and after his treatments. But after two weeks all he could manage was the subway trip into the city from his Scarborough home. The trip back was the hardest. He had a burning sensation, felt sick, and was weary beyond anything he had ever known or imagined. Sometimes he slept through his stop, woke at the end of the line and had to make the trip back.

His daughter, Renita, who was 12 then, says “I remember him coming home tired, drained and depressed. It was a different side of my dad.”

Meanwhile, in Trinidad, Motilal, his wife and his uncle, who had also come to know Jesus, were praying and fasting for him. Ivy’s family also prayed.

Ivy’s sister, Vilma, proposed that Heeraman return to Trinidad for a visit. At first he was reluctant, but then agreed to go. He also agreed to see Vilma’s pastor, Rev. Bailey, but he did not put much stock in stories of miracles associated with this man. Heeraman came from a Hindu family, although he occasionally attended Christian services with Ivy and their daughters.

Trinidad is the most southern of the Caribbean islands, a green jewel in a turquoise sea. But Heeraman had no eye for its beauty. The journey was exhausting. He needed assistance to get off the plane. The next day he required support to enter Rev. Bailey’s office.

But several hours later he walked out without assistance.

“I felt so good,” he recalls, “As if the sickness was gone. God did something,”

After a moment’s thought, he adds, “I would not say, necessarily, that I was healed at that time. But I felt different. Full of energy.”

Whether at that time or later, Heeraman was healed. All tests for cancer have come back negative in the 18 years since his diagnosis and treatment.

Not only was Heeraman’s physical life restored, his spiritual life began. He started to read and meditate on Scripture. He became a believer in mind, heart and life-style.

The church that Ivy and the girls attended in Scarborough became the spiritual home where he found ways to show his love for Jesus to the family of God. He came early Sunday morning to set up for coffee, then stayed for the washing up. He stopped on his way home from work to cut the lawn. He learned how to operate the sound board.

God’s work in Heeraman’s family continued.

On Good Friday, 2000, six years after her father’s illness, Renita met her future husband, David, a young man whose mother was Hindu and father was Christian. He “randomly” decided to attend the service at Renita’s church that night.

Seven years later, David’s parents and his sister, Alicia, attended the Good Friday service there. Alicia recalls that although she had been in church before “[something] changed that night. I felt a difference inside that I cannot fully explain.”

Now, 6 years later, busy in her career as a Chiropodist, Alicia says, “My walk with Jesus is what keeps me moving… I pray that others can feel God’s spirit through me and in every encounter that I have… My future is completely based on Jesus and what he has planned for me.”

            “For surely I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord, “…to give you a future with hope.” (Jeremiah 29:11 NRSV)

It could have been a New Testament church that gathered early Sunday morning while lizards skittered up walls, out of the shadow of palm trees into sunlight. Some people arrived silently, alone, others came in pairs, chatting as they walked. Families bounded onto the scene with bustle and noise. Everyone was greeted warmly and settled into the main room of the house to wait for others to arrive.

The home in which these believers gathered was not a Middle Eastern clay building with a flat roof.  It was a frame building with a galvanized roof that had a cistern on top for collecting rain water. The women were like beautiful flowers in their brightly coloured dresses, the men wore dress pants and open-necked shirts. It was twentieth century Trinidad.

Motilal, whose home this was, had come a long way. Raised in a nominally Hindu family, he spent his life working a little, visiting the rum shop and partying a lot with his friends. Then he became ill. Some Christians came to pray over him in the hospital room where he hovered close to death. He recovered from his illness and embraced the God who had given him back his life.

Good news is not hidden for long, especially in a country where families are both close and far-reaching, and where gossip on the shady side of a bougainvillea hedge is a welcome respite on hot days. Word spread about Motilal’s healing and his conversion. People stopped by to have a cup of ginger tea and ask questions.

Motilal and his wife attended Bible College, then returned to their village where they began a weekly Bible study and prayer group that grew to become a church. They worshiped earnestly and fervently. When they heard of a need, such as Motilal’s brother, Heeraman, who had a rare form of cancer, they prayed for his physical and spiritual health.

Heeraman had emigrated to Toronto with his wife, Ivy, in the mid-eighties. During the winter of 1994 he began having headaches on the left side of his head. As time went on, they came more often and were more painful. But Heeraman worked 6 days a week. His doctor’s appointment had to wait until he had a Saturday off.

The doctor ordered X rays but didn’t know what to make of them. The Ear, Nose and Throat specialist ordered more X rays and a CAT scan. He concluded that the joint holding the upper part of Heeraman’s jaw was missing and would have to be reconstructed using bone from a finger or foot.

The surgeon, expecting a routine operation, was shocked when he unexpectedly cut into a tumour. It fragmented under his knife, like dandelion seeds in a wind, spreading wildly and widely. He did his best to clean up the contaminated area, then closed the incision and referred Heeraman to a teaching surgeon at Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto.

This doctor was tall. His bulk seemed to fill the room. The six interns who trailed him hovered along the far wall.

He was blunt.

“What you have is cancer. You have 6 months to live.”

He paused for a moment, then added, “But don’t worry. You’re in good hands.”

Heeraman stopped listening then, but Ivy heard the rest of what was said. Heeraman was only the 21^st person ever to be diagnosed with this form of cancer and the other 20 people were dead. There were no established protocols for treatment. The doctors asked for permission to use his body for research after his death.

Heeraman’s radiation schedule was grueling. At first he tried to work through the week, before and after his treatments. But after two weeks all he could manage was the subway trip into the city from his Scarborough home. The trip back was the hardest. He had a burning sensation, felt sick, and was weary beyond anything he had ever known or imagined. Sometimes he slept through his stop, woke at the end of the line and had to make the trip back.

His daughter, Renita, who was 12 then, says “I remember him coming home tired, drained and depressed. It was a different side of my dad.”

Meanwhile, in Trinidad, Motilal, his wife and his uncle, who had also come to know Jesus, were praying and fasting for him. Ivy’s family also prayed.

Ivy’s sister, Vilma, proposed that Heeraman return to Trinidad for a visit. At first he was reluctant, but then agreed to go. He also agreed to see Vilma’s pastor, Rev. Bailey, but he did not put much stock in stories of miracles associated with this man. Heeraman came from a Hindu family, although he occasionally attended Christian services with Ivy and their daughters.

Trinidad is the most southern of the Caribbean islands, a green jewel in a turquoise sea. But Heeraman had no eye for its beauty. The journey was exhausting. He needed assistance to get off the plane. The next day he required support to enter Rev. Bailey’s office.

But several hours later he walked out without assistance.

“I felt so good,” he recalls, “As if the sickness was gone. God did something,”

After a moment’s thought, he adds, “I would not say, necessarily, that I was healed at that time. But I felt different. Full of energy.”

Whether at that time or later, Heeraman was healed. All tests for cancer have come back negative in the 18 years since his diagnosis and treatment.

Not only was Heeraman’s physical life restored, his spiritual life began. He started to read and meditate on Scripture. He became a believer in mind, heart and life-style.

The church that Ivy and the girls attended in Scarborough became the spiritual home where he found ways to show his love for Jesus to the family of God. He came early Sunday morning to set up for coffee, then stayed for the washing up. He stopped on his way home from work to cut the lawn. He learned how to operate the sound board.

God’s work in Heeraman’s family continued.

On Good Friday, 2000, six years after her father’s illness, Renita met her future husband, David, a young man whose mother was Hindu and father was Christian. He “randomly” decided to attend the service at Renita’s church that night.

Seven years later, David’s parents and his sister, Alicia, attended the Good Friday service there. Alicia recalls that although she had been in church before “[something] changed that night. I felt a difference inside that I cannot fully explain.”

Now, 6 years later, busy in her career as a Chiropodist, Alicia says, “My walk with Jesus is what keeps me moving… I pray that others can feel God’s spirit through me and in every encounter that I have… My future is completely based on Jesus and what he has planned for me.”

 

A Future with Hope first appeared in Testimony magazine, July/August 2013, Vol. 94, No. 6

Peter Robinson and Review of Watching the Dark

An Introduction to the Inspector Banks books by Peter Robinson and A review of Watching the Dark by Peter Robinson

Author Peter Robinson was born in England and received his undergraduate degree from the University of Leeds. After emigrating to Canada he completed his MA in English and Creative Writing at the University of Windsor and his PhD in English at York University. His first novel, Gallows View, published in 1987 was the first of 27 books featuring Detective Chief Inspector Banks.

Alan Banks is lean and wiry with bright blue eyes that reveal intellect, curiosity and charm. Culturally sophisticated, he listens to a wide range of music genres, is familiar with significant painters and their work, and accurately identifies period buildings.

DCI Banks generally treats the people with respect and courtesy. He is sometimes accused by his detractors of being a romantic, tilting at windmills but is often driven in his pursuit of truth and justice. His success is based on thorough information-gathering followed by a period of turmoil which culminates in an imaginative connection that leads to the solving of the case.

In the early volumes, Banks lives happily with his wife, Sandra, and their two children in Eastvale, a fictitious town in Yorkshire, away from the moral pollution of London. Later, the children move out and get on with their own sometimes-troubled lives and Sandra leaves him for a younger man with whom she has a child. Banks loses his direction for awhile then, and for several books engages in romantic liaisons, often related to his work. Some are consummated, some are not. For many volumes he chain smokes and relies heavily on beverages served during meetings in pubs.

While it is not necessary to start with the first volume of the series, doing so provides the reader with the added interest of watching the development of Alan Banks as a growing, changing protagonist.

Robinson’s writing is tight. Even his frequent descriptions usually advance the plot. The action moves quickly, effortlessly taking the reader along, with added the interest of a word or two in each volume that may require a dictionary.

Be warned: if you rely on the library for copies of Robinson’s books, you must be prepared place a hold and wait awhile. Everyone, it seems, wants to read them.

Watching the Dark (2012) begins as a puzzling homicide by cross bow with no apparent motive. Soon tenuous connections link the first crime to a subsequent murder on a deserted farm. This death seems to point to a smuggling ring which brings illegal immigrants into Britain from Eastern Europe. Banks suspects that both murders are related to the disappearance of a young woman years earlier and travels to Tallin, Estonia. Meanwhile he is dogged by Professional Standards officer, Joanna Passero. Professionally, he is irked by her the way she seems set to foil his efforts. Personally he finds himself attracted to her, although he shows only compassion when he begins to understand her at a personal level.

In many ways this is a classic CI Banks story with up-dated technology, vivid descriptions of Tallin and Estonian countryside and some personal changes. The experienced Robinson reader will note that Banks has given up the chain smoking of previous books and drinks wine rather than Laphroaig. Music references are themed to the story: Arvo Part and Erkki-SvenTuur along with Mahler, Ravel and Tchaikovsky.

Watching the Dark is another satisfying read by a master of the genre.

This review first appeared on Jayne Self’s blog at http://www.christianswhowrite.ca/.

Parking Lot Perspective July 21, 2013

Yesterday was sticky hot, as Ontario sometimes is in July. But I had a great day to enjoy—some errands to run, including present-buying for #1 Son who has just submitted his doctoral thesis, and then lunch with my friend, Cheryl.

Before that, I decided to quickly nip over to the Rec Centre for some wood chips to finish off a gardening project. I worked quickly to load containers into the trunk of my car because I knew the heat would be building. I worked so quickly that I left my purse, with cell phone in it, on the front porch.

The parking area behind the Rec Centre was empty so early in the morning. This was a good thing because I was wearing baggy, earth-stained pants and a misshapen straw hat—great for gardening but not for socializing.

“I’ll be in and out in five minutes,” I thought as I rounded the curb of the driveway and headed toward the pile of woodchips.

Hah!

The car lurched and began making a high decibel clunking, grinding, scraping noise. It felt a little like driving over a curb. But the curb was behind me.

I jammed on the brakes and leapt out to see what was happening.

Nothing. The car was standing alone in a large parking lot, touching nothing.

Puzzled, I got back into the car and started to drive away. But the car didn’t move. I applied more gas, and it still refused to budge. What? A little more gas and it inched forward, as if the handbrake was on and I noticed a smell—as if I were driving with the handbrake on. Needless to say I desisted and went out for another look.

This time I got down and looked under the car.

Good idea!

There was a huge piece of detached curb wedged under the passenger side of the car—not quite suspending the car but pretty effectively suspending operation. I was going nowhere. My phone was back home. Temperature and humidity were rising by the minute along with my blood pressure.

Just about then two city maintenance trucks rolled into the parking lot and summer students got ready to mow and trim grass. I swallowed my pride, borrowed a phone from one of them, called my daughter who called CAA, then waited in the shadow of their truck until I was rescued 45 minutes later.

The tow truck driver who pulled the chunk of cement out from under the chassis marvelled that my little Corolla had managed to drag it so far. Tough little car! That assessment was borne out later when mechanics took me under the hoist to show me there was only cosmetic damage. I was weak with relief. Then I asked for the bill. No charge.

The morale(s) of my story: enjoy every sticky, hot errand that you are able to do, always carry your cell phone and do good deeds every chance you get; it can make a big difference to the recipient and it grows your heart as well.

GUEST BLOG BY STEPHANIE NICKEL March 15, 2013

Would, Could, Should

Eclectic interests. They can be fun and they keep life interesting, but it’s so easy to get distracted by “shiny” things. (If you’ve seen the movie Up, you’ll understand if I stop all of a sudden and shout, “SQUIRREL!”)

Flitting works well for butterflies, but not so much for people.

As we look at our Action Plan (aka our To Do List), we may want to categorize each item. Would? Could? Should?

The Would List almost always has a second column: the If List. “I would do this, if that happened.” Perhaps, the items on this list should get tucked away. If we review the “if side” of the equation from time to time, we’ll know if we should bump up an item to our Could—or even our Should—List.

Of course, our best intentions tell us to put the Should List up front. But do we? On paper, it’s fairly easy. Living it out, on the other hand . . .

My biggest stumbling block is probably the Could List. “Oo, I could do that.” “That looks interesting.” “I wonder if I could take on just one more thing?”

Although I haven’t read it, I did pick up a copy of Refuse to Choose. Some people are very focussed and work toward a single goal. That’s great if that’s the way you’re wired—and if the goal passes the litmus test that actually earns it a place on the Should List. On the other hand, there’s nothing wrong with pursuing several things . . . if you’re a good juggler.

We would-be jugglers must also focus . . . at least on one thing at a time, no matter how fleetingly. That brings me back to the Should List.

If we have a clear view of what we should do, it will help us keep our priorities straight. If we accomplish these things first, we’ll have a better idea of how much time we actually have for the Coulds and Woulds.

Stephen Covey gave great advice on choosing our personal Should List. He recommends that we decide what we want others to say about us at our funeral and work backwards from there. He also refers to the “urgent” and the “important.”

The Urgent are those things that distract us from what is truly important. It used to be the phone or the doorbell. Now it’s Facebook and Twitter, LinkedIn and Google +. (For some of us, it’s still the phone and the doorbell.)

The Urgent can also include those externally- or internally-imposed guilt trips. “I should keep my floors clean enough to eat off of.” “I should finish just one more project for work before I relax with my family.” “I should be able to get everything on my list done each day.”

As Christians, we have the ultimate guidelines. They’re called The Scriptures. Studying God’s Word ought to be right at the top of our list. The more we do so, the easier it will be to categorize the things on our Action Plan.

Stephanie has many interests, some of which you can read about on her blog: Steph Nickel’s Eclectic Interests.

March 9, 2013

Bryan Patterson's Faithworks

TAXI drivers sometimes seem to have a finer sense of reality than most of us.
Take Allan, for example. During a ride in his cab late one night he mentioned that two of his children had died about the same time a few years ago.
His son had committed suicide and his daughter had been killed in a road accident.
The remarkable thing was that Allan still believed in love, life and God.
“When these terrible things happened, I felt lost for a long time but I never blamed God for this. I realised that life, no matter how terrible it can seem, is still worth living and believing in,” he said.
“Every day is wonderful; a miracle.”
A day after the cab ride, a friend told me of a prostitute who came to her for help. The woman was tired, hungry and so addicted to heroin she could not…

View original post 349 more words

Perspective

 

Amazing how two people can have the same experience and perceive it differently.

I recently read a short article based on the Biblical passage found in1 John 1:5-10. The focus of this piece was that sin may be hidden from others but never from God. Other scriptures were used to remind the reader that God sees every failure. I came away, unsettled, dogged by an image of an angry, vengeful God.

Tonight I read those verses myself and came away exuberant, with a sense of God who is light, who has no darkness at all. I was reminded of the way he has so often taken “bad” circumstances and worked good from them. He doesn’t have to shout and threaten the darkness when it comes; He dispels it by his very presence. I was filled with desire to draw closer to this God of strong light, to bask in the beauty of Him and to luxuriate in the security of his goodness.

As I read further I saw this light operating beyond my own life. Living in the light of God’s presence means fellowship with others who also live there. And it means the freedom of being released from all sin because God is faithful and just to forgive and cleanse. Such freedom! His love draws me like a warm fire on a cold, damp night.

There’s a moral to my story. If you read or hear words about God that don’t resonate with your experience of Him, don’t assume they are right. Find other opinions. Best of all, prayerfully read the primary source yourself. And God, who gave his Word for our good, will speak in your heart what he wants you to hear.

Note: Lectio Divina is an ancient Christian practice of praying the Scriptures. A classic on the subject has been written by M. Basil Pennington. It’s called Lectio Divina: Renewing the Ancient Practice of Praying the Scriptures.