Requies Divina: Developing a Practice for the Present

The Heavenly Banquet

In this episode Chad Rhodes and Charlotte Elia discuss Requies Divina, a practice of divine rest that Charlotte has been developing. They also speak more broadly about the difficulties of beginning and establishing habits of spiritual practices and the crucial need for the Church to share its wealth of spiritual tools.

Charlotte: I had been thinking about the pandemic… Congregations had been, since at least the mid-20th century, basing programming on Sunday morning worship, maybe a mid-week Bible study. There’s Sunday school, but it’s primarily academic in nature, and then fellowship events... So when the pandemic happens and churches can’t get together, what are the tools that I have at home as a Christian to actually practice this religion? The church was generally failing because we never taught people how to pray! We didn’t! And then there’s this terrible, terrible thing that’s happening that is scary, and it’s not just the pandemic. It’s the moment that’s unveiling just how bad our health care system was and what huge economic disparity there was in this country and racial inequality and just everything that was happening during that year, and the church had not equipped folks with tools to deal with that in anyway on their own. It’s like, “Christianity happens Sunday morning.” Well, I’m at home, and I’m freaking out, and I don’t have Christian tools to deal with this because we hadn’t been sharing spirituality. So that’s also part of my push because I think the Church, or at least the Mainline American Protestant church, absolutely failed that moment, and they failed it decades before that moment.

You can experience a session of Requies Divina with this recording from our podcast feed. You can also access some 3-minute guided meditations produced by Charlotte Elia at Chester Presbyterian Church's YouTube Channel.

Charlotte: When we talk about starting these other practices, it’s one thing if I intend to put aside ten minutes every morning to sit in silence, but there’s always going to be an excuse for me not do that… but coming to the building, sitting, and then being led, making that commitment to the time, I think is useful for them too, and I hope it leads to them doing more contemplation and meditation. I am hopeful that giving them a basis of positive, tangible experience from that is going to encourage them to broaden their practices.

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