Where the Eye Alights

Book excerpt: Lent is about more than going to church on weekdays and giving up chocolate or social media. It’s also a time to form one’s heart and mind through study and prayer. In Where the Eye Alights, Marilyn McEntyre offers forty short meditations, based on excerpts from Scripture and poetry, that guide readers on a devotional journey from Ash Wednesday through Holy Saturday. As in lectio divina—the spiritual practice of reading Scripture repetitively and meditatively—McEntyre invites us to notice words that may give us pause and summon us to reflection. This book calls our attention to how the Spirit speaks through phrases that can open doors to deep places for those willing to sit still with them. “Lent is a time of permission,” says McEntyre. “Many of us find it hard to give ourselves permission to pause, to sit still, to reflect or meditate or pray in the midst of daily occupations—most of them very likely worthy in themselves—that fill our waking minds and propel us out of bed and on to the next thing. We need the explicit invitation the liturgical year provides to change pace, to curtail our busyness a bit, to make our times with self and God a little more spacious, a little more leisurely, and see what comes. The reflections I offer here come from a very simple practice of daily meditation on whatever has come to mind in the quiet of early morning.”