Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation
From the Center for Action and Contemplation
Week Fourteen: "Human Bodies"
"Trusting Our Bodies"Tuesday, April 3, 2018
Capable Flesh
The tender flesh itself
will be found one day
—quite surprisingly—
to be capable of receiving,
and yes, full
capable of embracing
the searing energies of God.
Go figure. Fear not.
For even at its beginning
the humble clay received
God’s art, whereby
one part became the eye,
another the ear, and yet
another this impetuous hand.
Therefore, the flesh
is not to be excluded
from the wisdom and the power
that now and ever animates
all things. His life-giving
agency is made perfect,
we are told, in weakness—
made perfect in the flesh. (Saint Irenaeus of Lyon (c.130-c.202) [1])
God knew that only humble vulnerability could be entrusted with spiritual power—and so God hid it like a treasure in the simple, largely anonymous body of Jesus. “God’s power is at its best in weakness,” Paul tells us. “For it is when I am weak that I am strong” (see 2 Corinthians 12:9-10).Unfortunately, much of Christianity has been negatively and uselessly trapped in guilt about being “flesh,” while the great messages of the Gospel—grace, healing, and restorative justice—have largely gone unheeded. Obsessive guilt about our embodiment has too often kept us “from the greater matters of the law: justice, mercy, and good faith,” as Jesus says to the Pharisees (Matthew 23:23).
We must begin by trusting what God has done in Jesus. We cannot return to a healthy view of our own bodies until we accept that God has forever made human flesh the privileged place of the divine encounter. We have had enough of dualism, enough of the separation of body and spirit, enough over-emphasis on the body’s excesses and addictions. We must reclaim the incarnation as the beginning point of the Christian experience of God. We are not followers of Plato, but must return to the Hebrew respect for this world and for all the wisdom and goodness of the body. The embodied self is the only self we have ever known. Our bodies are God’s dwelling place and even God’s temple (see 1 Corinthians 6:19-20).
In some ways it may seem simpler to obey usually arbitrary rules about diet or sex than to truly honor the living incarnation we are. Show me a single ascetical or anti-body statement from Jesus. Yet, as Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) said, “Avoiding the risk of a transgression has become more important to us than carrying a difficult position for God.” [2]
I believe God has given us permission to learn wisdom and humility from our bodies and not just to repress them out of fear. Remember, the steps to maturity are necessarily going to be immature. God is an expert at working with mistakes and failure. In fact, that is about all God does. Mistakes do not seem to be a problem for God; they are only a problem for our ego that wants to be pure spirit. We first tend to do things wrong before we even know what right feels like. I am not sure there is any other way.
Gateway to Presence: If you want to go deeper with today’s meditation, take note of what word or phrase stands out to you. Come back to that word or phrase throughout the day, being present to its impact and invitation.
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[1] Adapted and translated by Scott Cairns,Love’s Immensity: Mystics on the Endless Life (Paraclete Press: 2007), 5-6.[2] Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, "The Evolution of Chastity,” Toward the Future, trans. René Hague (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich: 1975), 75.
Adapted from Richard Rohr, Near Occasions of Grace (Orbis Books: 1993), 22, 23-24.
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A Monthly Newsletter from the Center for Action and Contemplation
CONSPIRE 2018
The Path of Descent Is the Path of Transformation
The response to this year’s CONSPIRE conference has been incredible! Within two weeks of opening registration, the 1,000 in-person seats were filled. We wish we had room for everyone who wanted to join us in Albuquerque! Since we don’t, we’re excited to make the online webcast engaging and impactful. There’s space for all in this participatory, embodied experience!
Join co-conspirators from around the world as we listen to powerful talks, participate in contemplative practice, and chat with each other in a sacred, virtual space.
- Franciscan Richard Rohr is a beloved author and speaker known for his teachings on incarnation and initiation. Rather than preaching a Gospel of ascent and power, Richard points to the Paschal Mystery—Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection—as the path we too might follow.
- Barbara Holmes holds a Doctor of Philosophy in Religion and brings her wide-ranging experience (sociology, law, theater) to bear in the struggle for justice and healing. Drawing from African American spirituality, Barbara reframes how we understand contemplation, inviting us to reimagine who we can be in the womb of the “mothering darkness.”
- Brian McLaren is a prophetic voice, unafraid to challenge church and political systems that have oppressed or excluded others. He invites us to look squarely at our institutional and individual shame so that we can learn and grow.
- Barbara Brown Taylor is a New York Times best-selling author. In her book, Learning to Walk in the Dark, Barbara doesn’t shy away from the shadows but explores the generative darkness with vulnerability and courage.
- Mirabai Starr speaks from her own experience of grief and shares wisdom from the mystics to map the journey of loss. As we go deeper into the unknown, we let go of our ideas about God and unexpectedly find that we are one with the divine heart.
Learn more and register at cac.org/conspire2018.
Happy 75th, Father Richard!
If you missed Fr. Richard’s birthday message in the Daily Meditations, read his full reflection here.
A new collection of Richard Rohr's core teachings on Love
The only way I know how to love God and to teach you how to love God is to love what God loves. To love God means to love everything . . . no exceptions. (Richard Rohr)
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Reader Favorites:
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- Irreplaceable "Thisness": Each individual act of creation is a once-in-eternity choice on God’s part.
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- Two Halves of Life: God creates things with the freedom and permission to continue the act of creation.
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"Image and Likeness"
2018 Daily Meditations Theme
God said, “Let us make humans in our image, according to our likeness.” (Genesis 1:26)
Richard Rohr explores places in which God’s presence has often been ignored or assumed absent. God’s “image” is our inherent identity in and union with God, an eternal essence that cannot be destroyed. “Likeness” is our personal embodiment of that inner divine image that we have the freedom to develop—or not—throughout our lives. Though we differ in likeness, the imago Dei persists and shines through all created things.
Over the course of this year’s Daily Meditations, discover opportunities to incarnate love in your unique context by unveiling the Image and Likeness of God in all that you see and do.
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