Negative Space in Scripture

This Sunday in a class on Jonah 3, I tried to press people a bit on their assumptions about what is and is not present in the text. One brilliant facet of Hebrew narrative is the great economy authors use in their story-telling. This leaves a lot of room for midrash, or examining and retelling the stories to fill in the gaps according to our assumptions.

In the wake of the class I got the following unexpected but welcome email from someone who was in the class. I hope to explore this idea a bit more in the coming weeks, as well as it's connection to apophatic and kataphatic spirituality.

For now, read this email piece and reflect on your own reading of Scripture. How could reading in the negative space transform your reading of Scripture? How might looking at what is not said, especially in comparison to your assumptions about a passage, change the way you understand God, yourself, and the world?

I just wanted to thank you for the little jewel in class this morning....when you started talking about focusing on what is not written in Jonah...it connected immediately in my mind with the use of negative space in art and photography! Focusing on what is not there helps you to see more clearly what you are looking at...it is so easy to be lulled into a false image of what you expect the thing to look like because of your familiarity with the object...when you pay more attention to what is not there (the negative space) it helps you to more clearly define what you are really seeing.

So often when I am reading scripture, I am lulled into "seeing" it the way I always have...looking at the negative space (what is not being said) may lead me to re-examine what that passage may have to say to me...I realize that this may be a very simple and routine practice for you but for me it was one of those ah-hah moments and I thank you for it!