Much of the work of midlife is to tell the difference between those who are dealing with their issues through you and those who are really dealing with you.
Richard RohrThe cross is the standing statement of what we do to one another and to ourselves. The resurrection is the standing statement of what God does to us in return.
Richard RohrFaith is so rare-and religion so common-because no one wants to live between first base and second base. Faith is the in-between space where you're not sure you'll make it to second base. You've let go of one thing and haven't yet latched into another. Most of us choose the security of first base.
Richard RohrIf God continues to give me health and a sane mind and verbal ability, I want to teach.
Richard RohrThe journey to happiness involves finding the courage to go down into ourselves and take responsibility for what's there: all of it.
Richard RohrPeople who know how to creatively break the rules also know why the rules were there in the first place.
Richard RohrThe same powerful Scripture text that brings a loving person to even greater love will be mangled and misused by a fearful or egocentric person. This is surely what Jesus means when he talks about the one who has being given more and those who have not losing what little they have.
Richard RohrWe are usually on bended knee before laws or angrily reacting against them, both immature responses.
Richard RohrMen and women are most alike at their most mature and soulful levels. Men and women are most different only at their most immature and merely physical levels.
Richard RohrHeartbreaks, disappointments and even our own weaknesses can serve as stepping-stones to the second half of life transformation. Failings are the foundation for growth. Those who have fallen, failed or 'gone down' are the only ones who understand 'up.'
Richard RohrBeing informed is different from being formed, and the first is a common substitute for the second.
Richard RohrWe all become well-disguised mirror image of anything that we fight too long or too directly. That which we oppose determines the energy and frames the questions after a while. Most frontal attacks on evil just produce another kind of evil in yourself, along with a very inflated self-image to boot.
Richard RohrPrayer is looking out from a different set of eyes, which are not comparing, competing, judging, labeling or analyzing, but receiving the moment in its present wholeness and unwholeness. That is what is meant by contemplation.
Richard RohrEgoic consciousness is the one we all normally operate with, until we are told there is something else! Every culture teaches egoic consciousness in different ways. At that level it is all about me, my preferences, my choices, my needs, my desires and me and my group as the central reference point.
Richard RohrThere are not sacred and profane things, places, and moments. There are only sacred and desecrated things, places, and moments-and it is we alone who desecrate them by our blindness and lack of reverence. It is one sacred universe, and we are all a part of it.
Richard RohrIt’s a gift to joyfully recognize and accept our own smallness and ordinariness. Then you are free with nothing to live up to, nothing to prove, and nothing to protect. Such freedom is my best description of Christian maturity, because once you know that your “I” is great and one with God, you can ironically be quite content with a small and ordinary “I.” No grandstanding is necessary. Any question of your own importance or dignity has already been resolved once and for all and forever.
Richard RohrWe find it hard to love imperfect things so we imagine God is just as small as we are. If we expect or need things to be perfect or to our liking ( including ourselves) we have created a certain path for a very unhappy life.
Richard RohrThe Eucharist becomes a microcosmic moment of belief and power in which we say we believe in the real presence of God in Jesus, in this bread, and in this wine.
Richard RohrWe are just a little tiny flicker of a much larger flame that is Life itself, Consciousness itself, Being itself, Love itself, God’s very self.
Richard RohrChristianity is seen by more and more people as a negative message: anti gay, anti immigrant, anti abortion (as the only life issue), anti gay marriage, anti the Democratic party.
Richard RohrOur culture is almost entirely prepared to not just help you create your false self, but to get very identified with it and attached to it. So, without some form of God experience, which teaches you who you are apart from that - we would say in the religious world, who you are "in" God, in the mind and heart of God - there's almost no way to get out of it.
Richard RohrWhat some now call 'emerging Christianity' or 'the emerging church' is not something you join, establish, or invent. You just name it and then you see it everywhere- already in place! Such nongroup groups, the 'two or three' gathered in deep truth, create a whole new level of affiliation, dialogue, and friendship.
Richard RohrMost of us were taught that God would love us if and when we change. In fact, God loves you so that you can change. What empowers change, what makes you desirous of change is the experience of love. It is that inherent experience of love that becomes the engine of change.
Richard RohrPrayer is sitting in the silence until it silences us, choosing gratitude until we are grateful, and praising God until we ourselves are an act of praise.
Richard RohrWhen you get your,'Who am I?', question right, all of your,'What should I do?' questions tend to take care of themselves
Richard RohrWhen you look at the dominance of Notre Dame, the love of Mary in almost every European country, psychologically, had to come from this recognition of the feminine mediating divine love. And for many people in history, it was clearly the preferred way because women raised most people, not men, so their first experience of unconditional love, of touch, of caring, of nurturing very often came from a woman - that got easily transferred to Mary.
Richard RohrThe Gospel gives human suffering deep, personal, and cosmic meaning, by connecting our pain to the pain of others and, finally, by connecting us to the very "pain of God".
Richard RohrIf you stay in the mainstream of life, you let in the suffering of the world that invariably enters all of our lives by the time we're in our middle years, when we've experienced a few deaths and read a few headlines.
Richard RohrPeople wanted to me to describe more about what I call "the container," and then describe what the second half of life feels like.
Richard RohrThe message of "falling" - failure, death, crucifixion, whatever you want to say - is not really that. Some sort of falling is really found in all the world's religions, just in different languages.
Richard RohrIn the second half of life, people have less power to infatuate you. But they also have much less power to control you or hurt you.
Richard RohrOne time, a Protestant minister said, "We made Jesus blonde haired and blue eyed and very cute. We made Jesus somehow a much more feminine figure." And there's probably truth to that.
Richard RohrMany people who attack me know so little of that larger Tradition, and end up being not very traditional at all. When you invoke the whole and great Tradition, you end up scaring people who call 1950 America "traditional" Christianity. It is just what they are used to in their one limited lifetime.
Richard RohrThe fears that assault us are mostly simple anxieties about social skills, about intimacy, about likeableness, or about performance. We need not give emotional food or charge to these fears or become attached to them. We don’t even have to shame ourselves for having these fears. Simply ask your fears, “What are you trying to teach me?” Some say that FEAR is merely an acronym for “False Evidence Appearing Real.” From Everything Belongs, p. 143
Richard RohrYou do need some successes as a young person. They don't inflate the ego necessarily, they just give you identity and ego structure. But, don't construct your life around creating those. Or you will become narcissistic and ego-centric. That won't get you anywhere.
Richard RohrIf unconditional love, loyalty, and obedience are the tickets to an eternal life, then my black Labrador, Venus, will surely be there long before me, along with all the dear animals in nature who care for their young at great cost to themselves and have suffered so much at the hands of humans.
Richard Rohr