I was standing today in the dark toolshed. The sun was shining outside and through the crack at the top of the door there came a sunbeam. From where I stood that beam of light, with the specks of dust floating in it, was the most striking thing in the place. Everything else was almost pitch-black. I was seeing the beam, not seeing things by it. Then I moved, so that the beam fell on my eyes. Instantly the whole previous picture vanished. I saw no toolshed, and (above all) no beam. Instead, I saw, framed in the irregular cranny at the top of the door, green leaves moving on the branches of a tree outside and beyond that, 90-odd million miles away, the sun. Looking along the beam and looking at the beam are very different experiences. But this is only a very simple example of the difference between looking at and looking along.
– C.S Lewis, Meditation in a tool Shed
Visio Divina (meaning: divine seeing) is a multi-sensory way of connecting with God in prayer. The practice of Visio Divina recognises, honours, and incorporates our bodies into our practices and patterns of worship. We are embodied beings and we have been created by God with varied senses – yet our worship and engagement with God is often limited to text and word i.e. The listening, reading and meditation upon the written words of scripture or hearing sermon. I do not desire that this go away, indeed one of our core statements is to be “a people of the text” – the text always has been and always will be central to Christian life and worship. However, we have become over-reliant upon ‘textual’ means of meditation that we have often neglected the other means by which God calls to us. We have neglected the body, often leaving our bodily experience of the world at the door of Church, becoming mere brains on sticks (this is perhaps why we find the sacraments strange or unnecessary). My prayer is that through the practice of Visio Divina at 6:45 we can (re)-enchant our worship with images and be led deeper into the knowledge and love of God. I also pray that this embodied form of reflection will help us ponder the presence of God all around us in daily life, as we lay our eyes upon and ponder the visible world of form, image, texture, colour, and light that Is all around us.
Vision is our primary sense*, we see before we hear, and indeed the world is mediated to us through vision long before it is understood through intelligible speech, let alone through the written word. Visio Divina appreciates that the visual medium is central to the construction of meaning and wholistic worship and that images and visual art can be poignant conveyors of truth and beauty that lead our hearts towards worship and devotion.
Visio Divina understands that at the heart of our desire to take photos, make art, dance, sing and be in beautiful places is a longing to participate in God’s good creation and respond to his presence and grace.
Visio Divina acknowledges our means of communication is not solely linguistic. We are capable of seeing patterns and discerning meaning, feeling and knowledge from images and symbols.
Vision Divina notes that our external visible environment, the light, colour and ‘visual feel’ of a place or stimulus plays a role in the posture of our hearts towards God and others.
Vision is the process of deriving meaning from what is seen. It is a complex, learned and developed set of functions that involve a multitude of skills. About 80% of what we learn from the world around us is due to perception, learning, cognition and activities are mediated through vision. - New jersey Eye Institute
Visio Divina is part of a long tradition of God speaking to his people through visions and with visual demonstrations of his presence. ‘Look at the stars’ God said to Abraham. Turning aside Moses met God in a burning bush. The Tabernacle was adorned with rich and beautiful imagery. ‘The heavens declare the glory of God’ says the Psalmist. ‘Look at the birds… consider the lilies’ said Jesus. The biblical text is full of the imagery of our daily life. And these images, natural or constructed are means by which God woos us and bids us draw near. Images also become how the unseen and incomprehensible can be expressed. As seen in the apocalyptic visions of Daniel, Zechariah, Ezekiel, Isaiah, and John.The Kingdom of Heaven may be like a mustard seed, but it is also absolutely nothing like a mustard seed. To see reality fully we need the abstraction of imagery, poetry and metaphor which call us out from the ordinary into the real. The Renaissance artists understood that there were things that could not be adequately expressed visually or verbally, so they sought to convey meaning and truth through the means of dissemblance, paradox, and absurdity.
'The Virgin and Child with Saints Francis and Sebastian' by Carlo Crivelli, 1491
Among the many symbolic elements in this image (lilies, cucumbers, apples etc.) there is one strange inclusion in the bottom left. Next to St. Francis’s outstretched foot is an intricately painted snail. All the other symbols draw us into the meaning of the painting through resemblance or metaphor. But what about the snail? The snail speaks through negation. It is impossible to fully convey the mystery of the son of God incarnate. Word and image both fail to represent the paradoxical nature of Christ - human & divine. So, what is the incarnate son not like? well, He is nothing like a snail! The snail, rather than satisfy us as an image of Christ, prompts us to recognise and look beyond its inadequacy as a symbol. A snail is a humble creature, Christ was the most humble, but Christ is not like a snail. As we think about how Christ is not like a snail, we are also thinking about what Christ is really like. The snail surprises us, its strangeness makes us ask questions and the questions lead us deeper into the mystery, wonder and beauty of Christ.
The meditative process of Visio Divina draws us deeper into the beauty, wonder, pain & ugliness of the Christian faith. The reflection on images causes us to look along the beam of light rather than at the beam of light, letting us come to claims we have neglected through familiarity and see them with new eyes, allowing our faith and belief to penetrate beyond the realm of reason and into the realm of our imagination.
