Today I saw something I’ve never seen before. I stood in the space between a child and God and, from that corridor of light, looked into the eye of the soul. It was marvelous to see: an open doorway into the tabernacle of the heart.
I wasn’t looking for it. Didn’t even know such a thing could be done. And the revelation stopped me cold.
Let me explain.
It’s Friday. I’m in my 13th week teaching high school Sophomores how to pray Lectio Divina. We don’t call it that, of course. I call it Biblical Exploration. As far as I know, there is no high school textbook on this subject – at least not one that I would be willing to use. So I have been writing it myself and feeling my way along the misty corridors of this journey. I have translated the wisdom and approach of Lectio Divina into high school speak. I have demonstrated the method nearly 50 times now – with passages (to name a few) from Genesis, Numbers, Exodus, 1-2 Samuel, 1-2 Kings, Job, Psalms and Proverbs. I have given my students tests where they practice the method themselves.
In all this, I have been trying to nudge them toward the point where they grasp, with their own nous (their spiritual intelligence), that the Word of God is something sacred. Something akin to mystery. Something worth listening to. Something worthy of respect and worth struggling to understand. My goal has been to bring the class to the point where we can sit together – having internalized the discipline and structure of this prayer – and grapple with the Word ourselves, embrace it and absorb it as it bubbles up like a spring of living water in our midst.
Today was to be a major step. In the second part of class, I would step away from my podium, sit down, in a desk like my students, and project, on my classroom monitor, one verse of Proverbs 16 after another. The kids would then read a verse at a time and practice Lectio Divina with it.
“Buckle up,” I say to the kids, “Today you are driving.”
It would be an experiment. How would it turn out?
The first class is always the most unpredictable. Would they revolt at the idea? Would they clam up before the task that was asked of them? Would they run wild when I sat down loosened the regular structure of the class? Anything was possible.
Here are the parameters I give them. Proverbs 16 has 33 verses. I select 26 of them, the number of students in my largest class. Each student gets a verse, projected on the screen. With that verse they will perform steps 2 and 3 of the Biblical Exploration method. That means they read it aloud then restate the verse in their own words, taking pains to be as accurate as possible to the original meaning. They will do this in front of their peers who, I hoped, would do their best not to get distracted in teasing or in side conversations.
As expected, there is some initial resistance. “Mr. Tew, nah, nah, I rather take notes! I don’t wanna do this!” goes one boy’s initial response. But, to my delight, Bell 1 students gradually warm to this public display of earnestness and devotion. In a few moments, little hymns of heart and intelligence, first stuttering and uncertain, then increasingly confident, begin to rise to heaven. I am seated in the front center, in one of those old, one-piece desk/seats, in front of the middle row of students.
This is when it happened.
I am facing the students. The screen on which I project the biblical verses is directly behind me. With a click of the button I bring into sight the verse that a child will read and then re-phrase into her own words, as the wisdom of the monks suggests. Directly in front of me is one of my best students, K. In the seat behind her is A, a gifted child who, to this point, has generally maintained a negative stance toward my class. It is A’s turn. I click the mouse. Her verse pops up on the screen behind me. I’m casually observing. Suddenly I am struck by a vision of light. Two students, eyes intent upon the screen, taking in the Word of God into their adolescent souls. There is light in their eyes. There is innocence. There is earnestness. There is radiance. There is a depth to their gaze. There is – I can almost see it visibly – an inward flow of supernatural light.
I have for weeks been speaking to these children about this mystery of the temple of the heart, this tabernacle of the human soul, this place in the human being where – if we believe Jesus in Jn. 14:23 – the Holy Trinity enters to dwell. Well, today, I saw the open gateway to that Temple. I saw the door cracked open. I saw a glimpse into what God sees and yearns for and waits for. The place in the human heart where the Word of God enters. In that moment, I got a sense, the briefest of senses, of how much God loves us. How much he wants to enter into communion with what is interior to us. I got a sense of how sharp the Word of God is; how it can penetrate into this interior space of the person, cutting past all the other distractions.
That was Bell 1. Quite the start.
Another miracle happened in Bell 4. It’s Friday afternoon. 2 classes earlier, all the kids had to take a Pre-ACT exam, which I proctored. It’s an intense dose of concentration for the kids. To give their fullest measure of devotion in the morning, and then to have to attend to the remaining classes of the day: it’s a lot to ask for from a 15-year-old on a Friday afternoon. By the time they come to my 4th Bell class, it’s the final 90 minutes of the week and I am bracing myself. I figure I am in store for a meltdown of some sort, a class that would be hard for me to rally and to keep in line. Especially since this is Bell 4, the famous class with the 3 Maestros of Mischief, with whom I had often parried earlier in the year.
So what would I do?
I do what any salesman would do. I make a deal with them – and then sell it with all my powers of persuasion. I offer to trim down the first half of my lecture, allow them to eat during the second half (an inspiration I got from my youngest daughter); and I offer the promise of an extended break at the end, if all goes well.
“We’re in!” They reply.
“OK give me your best effort during the lecture portion and then our experiment and you’ve got a deal,” I counter. They agree and we’re off.
The lecture part goes great. They dive right in: full attention to Proverbs 8, the marvelous mystery of the origins of Wisdom: birthed by God; present at Creation as His artisan; playing with delight as she formed the clods of earth, directed the flow of waters, shaped and set the vaulting skies and firmament.
We conclude with this prayer, every heart listening, every pen scribing: “O Divine Wisdom, you are the artisan, present at creation. Of one nature with God and yet you bid me hear your voice and welcome you into my soul. With Samuel, I pray: speak for your child is listening.”
Into the pregnant pause that fell after this prayer, I explain the parameters of our class-directed experiment as the kids pull out their snacks. Same as I presented it to the other classes. 5 Steps of Biblical Exploration, as usual, but now the students are driving. One by one, verses will go up on the screen; one by one they will read them and transcribe them into the tongue of the American high schooler. This step – the rephrasing of Scripture into your own words – was taught to me by monks as an aid in interiorizing the Scripture, having it soak, so to speak, into the intelligence and thereby impart a more vivid grasp of the details it contains.
We begin: one student reading and re-phrasing; each of her peers magically tranquil, quietly listening. They are showing the kind of listening I pray for but seldom mandate because I want their listening to spring more from freedom, and less from compulsion or fear. Today in Bell 4, the listening spirit of the class does exactly that.
And so, around we go: up and down the verses of Proverbs 16. Each child reads and re-phrases. I help the ones who are struggling. Success. Then it’s on to the next step.
“Who can choose the heart of this chapter?” I ask. This “Heart” Step entails the selection of the central verse that captures the thrust of the larger passage; it should be a verse that can center our reflection and prayer.
Layla raises her hand: “The one about the heart and the path and God directing.”
I know what she means. She means Proverbs 16: 9. It goes like this: “The human heart plans the way but the Lord directs the steps.”
“I agree,” I say. “That is central; it’s rich; it’s worth thinking about and praying about. Let’s choose that one.”
And then it’s time for the fourth step: Reflection, where one summarizes the central elements of the Heart verse in their own words.
“Who can write a Reflection on this verse?” I ask.
It’s a tall order. Verse 9 is a deceptively complex verse. It’s hard to unravel where human agency stops and where God’s action begins. Even I couldn’t just whip this one out, off the top of my head.
Layla, from the center of the room, offers a few suggestions. They don’t quite hit the target. There is a pause, then a hand goes up, next to the window. It’s Shakyla, usually shy and reserved, but now pulsing with some kind of urgency.
“I’ve got it,” she says. And she composes the following line for us, live, with no notes: “The heart and mind has its own pathway but God pushes you to accomplish your goal.”
To a person, the class is pleased and impressed. They offer up approving applause.
“Pastor! Pastor!” they say – while I grab my pen and write Shakyla’s reflection on the board.
“Yes, I like that,” I say. “That’s nice.”
Everyone copies it down in their notes. And then I add, readying the final step, which is Prayer: the act of summing up all the prior content in a prayer:
“Does anyone feel comfortable formulating a prayer in response to this Heart and Reflection?”
A pause. Then:
“I’ll do it.”
It’s McKenzie. Second row from the window, in the back. Hers is another voice that is seldom the first to shout something out. But not today.
“Ok, great, McKenzie. Let’s listen up everyone. I bow my head and close my eyes, awaiting the prayer. McKenzie starts, struggles to find the right words. Then stops. Starts again. Then again stops.
“It’s OK, McKenzie,” I say, and I reset the stage. “We’re a class of Sophomores. We have been learning about Wisdom. She was present at the beginning of the World. She had fun creating it. She also delights in playing with human beings. She’s fun. She has spoken this verse about human plans and the path that God has for us. Talk back to God and this Lady Wisdom.”
Suddenly, McKenzie’s tongue is loosened. She speaks as simply as a young child would speak to her mother. She sums up what we had just learned and distilled over the past hour and 10 minutes. It is clear, it is insightful, it is simple, it is loving, it is trusting.
It’s not a prayer as I would have written it; it’s a prayer as a 15-year-old would speak it. Caught up in the moment, I failed to write it down and I can’t adequately recapture it. It was so perfect; it expressed something that resonated so aptly with what was inside of them. It was the perfect prayer of a Sophomore’s heart.
And in a single voice, they lift up their approval:
“Pastor McKenzie! Pastor McKenzie!”
“That’s a plus 1! That’s a plus 1!” they add (this is class lingo for: that deserves extra credit!).
I readily concede. I mark it down as a Plus 1. I award the class the extended break I had promised them during our original negotiations and then sit down at my desk, marveling at the tender pathways of Wisdom in the human heart.
