The Lectionary.
A lectionary is a list of readings. As a spiritual discipline, a person may simply open The Bible at the beginning, and start reading. They might read a chapter or more each day. The weakness of this kind of reading is that it is the reading style of our time, the method for reading a novel, or even a text book. It assumes a narrative thread from beginning to end. However, a text book is often not read from cover to cover. It may be designed as a resource with discrete sections to be consulted at appropriate times.
The Bible is even less novel-like. With 39 "books" in the Hebrew Scriptures, and 27 in the Christian Scriptures, there are multiple authors, times, geographic locations, and theological perspectives represented. This considers only the main collection (Canon) of the books common to most Christian traditions. There are also the books not present in the Hebrew Scriptures or "Old Testament" which are often known as the deutero-canonical books. How does one read all this and make sense of it?
Christian groups have traditionally created lists of texts that are considered important to read. They sketch out some of the key planks of that group's tradition, and its understanding of the Christian faith.
One well known modern lectionary is the Revised Common Lectionary, which is used by many churches world wide. It divides the bible over a three year period, based around the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. The readings are chosen to reflect the cycle of church year as it progresses from the hope for a Messiah (Advent), through Christmas, and on to Easter. Each week also has a reading from the Hebrew Scriptures, the Psalms, and from the letters of the New Testament. The Gospel of John is used in each year around the times of the major festivals. There are often readings assigned for special days which do not occur on a Sunday.
Many ministers preach from a lectionary. It provides a discipline which works against the temptation to avoid uncomfortable subjects and concentrate on favourite themes.
A lectionary provides an overview of the Christian tradition. Unfortunately, it also represents a particular theological and historical outlook. Some people point out, for example, that women's stories, often already marginalised in Scripture are further submerged by the RCL . The lectionary is also constructed of short readings, excerpts from the whole, so that some parts of the bible will never be read in public worship under this scheme. It also means that the wider flow of a narrative is interrupted, and perhaps divided in ways never anticipated by the authors. In their own devotions, many people will at least read from the end of the previous week's readings to the end of the designated readings of the current week, in some attempt to overcome this disintegration of the narrative.
Anatomy of a Depression
He remembers being four or five and getting his parents to play hide and seek with him. He comes around the side of the farm house, with the painfully bright white walls and there they are, laughing and hugging at "home," the Hills Hoist (clothes line). He always remembers this. It is the first time he realises he is alone. He is himself, separate from them. It isalways a sharp little grief to remember this separation and betrayal of his world.
At Christmas his mother discovers him looking sadly at a plate of desert. What was wrong? "I thought there would be more to Christmas than this."
Later, the white of the walls, and the bright reflection of the limestone where there is no grass, is too much and he hides indoors. He pulls down the blinds and retreats and feels safe and cool in his bedroom. His mother talks about it being too dark and gloomy, but here he is safe and cool, and his eyes do not hurt from the heat and bright. Something bothers him about this; how will he get through life? But it is his only answer to life, and he lies safe in his thoughts, and the dim light.
In the final year of high school he walks one night around the farm's two largest paddocks. He finds an old knife blade in the dusk, and slams it into the top of a fence post. Slowly as the year progresses, he shifts it one post along, each night, as he walks around the paddocks... depressed without a name for it, instinctively getting the physical exercise that will be a healing gift and saving wall in the years to come.
In those years he will learn that there is more to mental illness than "a breakdown", the only mental illness recognised in his little rural world. He will remember these events and wonder if this is where it all begins.
(This series on Depression is reprinted, with some editing, courtesy of One Man's Web)
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