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BB: So, this leads me to another quote, which I think is something that I really… You know we have those internal conflicts, and I couldn’t name it until now. But I have Brené, who’s seven, at Holy Name of Jesus Elementary School and Sister DaVita. And I was scared to death. And then I have the adult in her 50s Brené saying, “It’s okay. God… If this makes us connect… Closer connected to God, we can change these words.” And there’s an internal struggle sometimes. But when I think about this quote of yours all the time, “God is always bigger than the boxes we build for God, so we should not waste too much time protecting the boxes.”

RR: The boxes. That’s the job of a clergyman. He thinks. She thinks, I guess. Yeah. God has to obey our laws. I mean let’s take the whole gay issue. How dare we say to God, in effect, “You may not love gay people. You’re not allowed to, God. We have decided.” And that’s what we’re saying because…

BB: Wow.

RR: We can’t deal with infinity. The human mind can’t form the notion of infinity. So, as all the mystics say, “God is infinite love.” Infinite. We don’t know how to process that. We just don’t. So we pull God down and make an anthropomorphism out of God so he loves like we do, very conditionally, with threats and punishments.

BB: And ego.

RR: Yeah, and ego.

BB: We create a God that loves with ego, which is like the opposite of God.

RR: Oh, you get it. Why didn’t we meet 30 years ago? Darn. When did you start going on the road?

BB: 15 years ago, maybe.

RR: I see. See I was on for 52.

BB: Wow.

RR: That’s why my voice is almost gone now. Go ahead.

BB: When you say… Like, I’m thinking about all the anti-trans bills right now that are really dehumanizing trans kids, especially targeting trans kids.

RR: Yes.

BB: And when you say when you do that, you’re telling God who God can love and who God shouldn’t love.

RR: You are not allowed to love this person.

BB: Oh that is…

RR: We’re back in charge. We’re back in charge. Yeah. Well, you get it, thank you. Thank you.

BB: Well that feels me with grief.

RR: Grief, I know. Imagine the pain we’ve caused so many people at so many levels, who until the recent generation lived lives of pretend, disguise, denial.

BB: A mask.

RR: A mask, when all God wants us to be is who we really are.

BB: So, flawed and imperfect.

RR: Created in the image of God, that’s right. Which always there is a fly in the ointment, and it’s a struggle with that fly, that gets religion on the bad course when you can’t integrate failure, the negative sin, mistake, that’s the work of vulnerability.

BB: Is there a prayerful contemplative way to find our way to an understanding of infinity but to find our way? Do you know what I’m asking? Like… I don’t want an answer, but is there a path to get us closer?

RR: The historic universal paths of spiritual transformation are two, great love and great suffering. Now, great love normally leads to great suffering. So it comes down to great suffering, but it’s learned by great love, and I’m sure you couldn’t know what you know if you hadn’t loved probably more than one person very deeply.

BB: I have.

RR: And that’s where the world of infinity opens up, where you stop trying to limit her, him and make them into your image. Without great love you cannot understand infinity.

Ever-Widening Circles

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Father Richard describes his spiritual development as a “pilgrim’s progress,” with God using the circumstances of his life—particularly his international ministry and travel—to expand his vision, heart, and mind:

As I moved in ever-widening circles around the world, the solid ground of the perennial tradition never really shifted. It was only the lens, the criteria, the inner space, and the scope that continued to expand. I was always being moved toward greater differentiation and larger viewpoints, and simultaneously toward a greater inclusivity in my ideas, a deeper understanding of people, and a more honest sense of justice. God always became bigger and led me to bigger places. If God could “include” and allow, then why not I? If God asked me to love unconditionally and universally, then it was clear that God operated in the same way.

Soon there was a much bigger world for me than the United States and the Roman Catholic Church, which I eventually realized also contained paradoxes. The e pluribus unum (“out of many, one”) on American coinage did not include very many of its own people (women, BIPOC, LGBTQIA+ people, poor folks, people with disabilities, and so many more). As a Christian I finally had to be either Roman or catholic, and I continue to choose the catholic end of that spectrum—remember, catholic means universal. Either Jesus is the “savior of the world” (John 4:42), or he is not much of a savior at all. Either America treats the rest of the world and its own citizens democratically, or it does not really believe in democracy at all. That’s the way I see it.

But this slow process of transformation and the realizations that came with it were not either-or decisions; they were great big both-and realizations. None of it happened without much prayer, self-doubt, study, and conversation. The journey itself led me to a deepening sense of holiness, freedom, and wholeness. Although I didn’t begin thinking this way, I now hope and believe that a kind of second simplicity is the very goal of mature adulthood and mature religion.

My small, personal viewpoint as a central reference for anything, or for rightly judging anything, gradually faded as life went on. The very meaning of the word universe is to “turn around one thing.” I know I am not that one thing. There is Big Truth in this universe, and it certainly isn’t mine.

Mature religions, and now some scientists, say that we are hardwired for the Big Picture, for transcendence, for ongoing growth, for union with ourselves and everything else. Either God is for everybody, and the divine DNA is somehow in all creatures, or this God is not God by any common definition, or even much of a god at all. We are driven toward ever higher levels of union and ability to include, even if some of us go kicking and screaming. “Everything that rises must converge,” as Teilhard de Chardin put it. [1]

[1] Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Future of Man, trans. Norman Denny (New York: Harper and Row, 1964), 192.

Adapted from Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life (San Francisco: Jossey Bass, 2011), 107–109.

The Sacred Wound

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Richard Rohr

Pain teaches a most counterintuitive thing that we must go down before we even know what up is. It is first an ordinary wound before it can become a sacred wound. Suffering of some sort seems to be the only thing strong enough to destabilize our arrogance and our ignorance. I would define suffering very simply as whenever we are not in control.

All healthy religion shows us what to do with our pain. If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it. If our religion is not showing us how to transform our pain, it is junk religion. It is no surprise that a crucified man became the central symbol of Christianity.

If we cannot find a way to make our wounds into sacred wounds, we invariably become negative or bitter because we will be wounded. That is a given. All suffering is potentially redemptive, all wounds are potentially sacred wounds. It depends on what we do with them. Can we find God in them or not?

If there isn’t some way to find some deeper meaning to our suffering, to find that God is somehow in it and can even use it for good, we will normally close up and close down, and the second half of our lives will, quite frankly, be small and silly.

+Adapted from Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality, p. 25.

A WARNING TO RELIGION FROM THE GARDEN OF EDEN – Richard Rohr

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The sin warned against at the very beginning of the Bible is “to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (Genesis 2:17). It does not sound like that should be a sin at all, does it? But the moment I sit on my throne, where I know with certitude who the good guys and the bad guys are, then I’m capable of great evil-while not thinking of it as evil! I have eaten of a dangerous tree, according to the Bible. Don’t judge, don’t label, don’t rush to judgment. You don’t usually know other people’s real motives or intentions. You hardly know your own.

The author of the classic book The Cloud of Unknowing says that first you have to enter into “the cloud of forgetting.” Forget all your certitudes, all your labels, all your explanations, whereby you’ve put this person in this box, determined this group is going to heaven, decided this race is superior to that race. Just forget it. It’s largely a waste of time. It’s usually your ego projecting itself, announcing itself, and protecting itself. It has little to do with objective reality or real love of the truth.

If the world and the world’s religions do not learn this kind of humility and patience very soon, I think we’re in historical trouble.

+Adapted from Beginner’s Mind (Recording).

GOD DOES JUSTICE BY RESTORING THINGS

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INSTEAD OF PUNISHING THEM

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me…he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners.

-Isaiah 61:1

In this reading from Isaiah, the prophet describes the work of the com ing Servant of YHWH. It is precisely this quote that Jesus first uses to announce the exact nature of his own ministry (Luke 4:18-19). In each case, Jesus describes his work as reuniting things that have in any way lost. their divine state or been rginalized or demeaned by society.

Jesus’s ministry is not to gather the so-called good into a private country club and punish the outsiders, but to reach out to those on the edge and on the bottom, those who are last, to tell them they might just be first! That is almost the very job description of the Holy Spirit and, therefore, of Jesus. Some call it God’s unique kind of justice or “restorative justice.” God justifies things by restoring them to their true and full identity in himself, as opposed to retributive justice, which seeks only reward and punishment. To receive unearned love is their only punishment.

+Adapted from Preparing for Christmas with Richard Rohr: Daily Reflections for Advent, pp. 36-37.

There are Many Ways to Experience God – Richard Rohr

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A very little bit of God goes an awfully long way. When another’s experience of God isn’t exactly the way I would describe it, it doesn’t mean that they haven’t had an experience of God or that their experience is completely wrong. We have to remain with Francis’s prayer: “Who are you, God, and who am I?” Isn’t there at least ten percent of that person’s experience of God with which I can agree? Can’t I at least say, “I wish I could experience God in that way”?

What characterizes anyone who has had just a little bit of God is that they always want more of that experience! Could it not be that this Hindu, this Sufi, this charismatic, this Jew has, in fact, touched upon the same eternal Mystery that I am seeking? Can’t we at least give one another the benefit of the doubt? I can be somewhat patient with people who think they have the truth. The problem for me is when they think they have the whole truth.

The mystic probably represents the old shibboleth, “Those who really know don’t speak too quickly. Those who speak too quickly don’t really know.”

+Adapted from Following the Mystics through the Narrow Gate… Seeing God in All Things (Recording).

The River of Grace – Richard Rohr

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Father Richard teaches that a practice of contemplation carries us into the “Big River” of God’s love and enables us to release our fears.  

Grace and mercy teach us that we are all much larger than the good or bad stories we tell about ourselves or one another. Our small, fear-based stories are usually less than half true, and therefore not really “true” at all. They’re usually based on hurts and unconscious agendas that persuade us to see and judge things in a very selective way. They’re not the whole You, not the Great You, and therefore not where Life can really happen. No wonder the Spirit is described as “flowing water” and as “a spring inside you” (John 4:10–14) or as a “river of life” (Revelation 22:1–2).  

I believe that faith might be precisely that ability to trust the Big River of God’s providential love, which is to trust its visible embodiment (the Christ), the flow (the Holy Spirit), and the source itself (the Creator). This is a divine process that we don’t have to change, coerce, or improve. We just need to allow it and enjoy it. That takes immense confidence in God, especially when we’re hurting. Often, we feel ourselves get panicky and quickly want to make things right. We lose our ability to be present and go up into our heads and start obsessing. At that point we’re not really feeling or experiencing things in our hearts and bodies. We’re oriented toward making things happen, trying to push or even create our own river. Yet the Big River is already flowing through us and each of us is only one small part of it. 

Faith does not need to push the river precisely because it is able to trust that there is a river. The river is flowing; we are already in it. This is probably the deepest meaning of “divine providence.” So do not be afraid. We have been proactively given the Spirit by a very proactive God.  

Ask yourself regularly, “What am I afraid of? Does it matter? Will it matter in the great scheme of things? Is it worth holding on to?” We have to ask whether it is fear that keeps us from loving. Grace will lead us into such fears and emptiness, and grace alone can fill them, if we are willing to stay in the void. We mustn’t engineer an answer too quickly. We mustn’t get settled too fast. We all want to manufacture an answer to take away our anxiety and settle the dust. To stay in God’s hands, to trust, means that we usually have to let go of our attachments to feelings—which are going to pass away anyway. People of deep faith develop a high tolerance for ambiguity and come to recognize that it is only the small self that needs certitude or perfect order all the time. The Godself is perfectly at home in the River of Mystery.

Adapted from Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer, rev. ed. (New York: Crossroad Publishing, 2003), 142–144. 

INCARNATIONALISM – Richard Rohr

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Pure, unspoiled religion, in the eyes of God our Father, is this: to come to the help of orphans and widows when they need it and to keep free from the enticements of the system. -James 1:27

Whenever the human and the divine coexist, at the same time, in the same person, you have Christianity. I don’t know that it finally matters what Scriptures you read, liturgies you attend, or moral positions you hold about this or that, as much as it is how you live trustfully inside of God’s one world. This creates honest people, people who don’t waste time proving they’re right, superior, or saved. They just try to live and love the daily mystery that they are in the loving presence of God. “God comes to you disguised as your life,” as Paula D’Arcy proclaimed the first time we taught together. Imagine that!

There are basically four worldviews: (1) reality is just matter, (2) reality is just spirit, (3) through religion and morality, you can work to put matter and spirit together (the most common religious position), and (4) the mate rial world has always been the place where Spirit is revealed. You cannot put them together they already are together, as in Jesus. Only the fourth position, incarnationalism, deserves to be called authentic Christianity. It has little to do with the right rituals, only the right reality.

+Adapted from Great Themes of Paul: Life as Participation (Recording). – Richard Rohr

THE IN-BETWEEN OF THINGS – Richard Rohr

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One reason so many theologians are interested in the Trinity now is that we’re finding both physics (especially quantum physics) and cosmology are at a level of development where those sciences in general-our under standing of the atom and our understanding of galaxies-are affirming and confirming our use of the old Trinitarian language, but with a whole new level of appreciation. Reality is radically relational, and all the power is in the relationships themselves-not in the particles or the planets, but in the space in between the particles and planets. It sounds a lot like what we called the Holy Spirit.

No good Christians would have denied the Trinitarian Mystery, but,until our generation, none were prepared to see that the shape of God is the shape of the whole universe! Great science, which we once considered an enemy of religion, is now helping us see that we’re standing in the middle of awesome Mystery, and the only response before that Mystery is immense humility. Astrophysicists are much more comfortable with emptiness and non-explainability (dark matter, black holes), and living with hypotheses than most Christians I know. Who could have imagined this?

Adapted from The Shape of God: Deepening the Mystery of the Trinity (Recording).

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The Call – Richard Woehrmann

It’s not the day on the
calendar that makes the
New Year new, it’s when
the old year dies that the new
year gets born. It’s when the
ache in your heart breaks
open, when new love makes
every cell in your body
align. It’s when your baby
is born, it’s when your
father and mother die. It’s
when the new Earth is
discovered and it’s the
ground you’re standing on.
The old year is all that is
broken, the ash left from all
those other fires you made;
the new year kindles from
your own spark, catches flame
and consumes all within
that is old, withered and dry.
The New Year breaks out
when the eye sees anew,
when the heart breathes open
locked rooms, when your
dead branches burst into
blossom, when the Call comes
with no doubt that it’s
calling to you.