What is a Contemplative Reading?  How is it an experience?  

There are many ways to read something, just as there are many different ways to look at something.  Take art for instance.  As an art student one might look at a painting and discern the style, mood, setting, history, and message that the artist was trying to convey.  However, as an art lover, one might gaze at the painting and take in the beauty of the scene which is portrayed and the way that the artist captured details in a way that is evocative.  In modern Christianity we are well versed in reading as a form of study, (which is well and good), but there is more.  Reading contemplatively asks us to step back from the stance of approaching a text as a student with the goal of learning.  Contemplative reading instead invites us toward an experience with a text, with a hope that through it we might be drawn into the presence of God.

Join us on Sunday, November 5th at 9am in Adult Classroom 124 for our next Contemplative Reading session.  We will read a portion of a book by 14th-century writer Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love.  The reading will include a selection from the book as well as a Psalm for reflection.

As a group, we will learn, answer questions, and seek to experience a new way of reading a Christian author.