Center for Action and Contemplation - Richard
Rohr's Meditation “Union Not Perfection” – Monday, 25 November 2013
Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation
Seven Themes of an Alternative Orthodoxy
Seventh Theme: Reality is paradoxical and
complementary. Non-dual thinking is the highest level of consciousness. Divine
union, not private perfection, is the goal of all religion (Goal).
“Union Not Perfection”
Meditation 17 of 52
On a first level I see mystical moments
as moments of enlargement. Suddenly we’re bigger. We don’t feel a need to
condemn, exclude, divide or separate. Secondarily, mysticism is a deep
experience of connectedness or union. Maybe that is why we feel larger?
Unfortunately, most of us were sent on private paths of perfection which none
of us could ever achieve. The path of union is different than the path of
perfection. Perfection gives the impression that by effort or more knowing I
can achieve wholeness separate from God, from anyone else, or from connection
to the Whole. It appeals to our individualism and our ego. It’s amazing how
much of Christian history sent us on a self-defeating course toward private
perfection. On the day of my first vows in 1962, the preacher glared at us
little novices and quoted the line “Thou shalt be perfect as your heavenly
Father is perfect!” Most of the honest guys left within the first few years
when they could not achieve it. They were told they could achieve heaven in a
most hellish way.
Many people gave up on the spiritual life
or religion when they saw they could not be “perfect.” They ended up practical
agnostics or practical atheists, and they refused to be hypocrites. Many of us
kept up the forms and the words, we kept going to church, but there was no
longer the inner desire, joy or expectation that is possible on the path of
union. Mysticism does not defeat the soul; moralism always does. Mysticism
invites humanity forward; moralism (read “perfectionism”) excludes and condemns
itself and most others.(Adapted from Following the Mystics Through the Narrow
Gate. . . Seeing God in All Things (CD, DVD, MP3)The Daily Meditations for 2013
are now available in Fr. Richard’s new book Yes, And . . . .)
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