A Lectio Divina for Gwendolyn Brooks: Honoring the Ancestor, Contemplating Healing

Abstract

The Lectio Divina, divine reading, is a way of reading scripture slowly and mindfully for the intent of communicating with God and releasing one’s attachment to her own ideas and interpretations about what is being read and experienced. However, the Lectio Divina can be applied to any text. I was introduced to it as part of a workshop reading of Frederick Douglass’s “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July” during a weeklong contemplative practice institute sponsored by the Association of Contemplative Mind in Higher Education.