Center for Action and Contemplation – Father
Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditation – Wednesday, 1 January 2014 “Life as Participation”
Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation
Introduction
“Life as Participation”
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
Listen to the news or look around and within
you—it is clear that we are mostly going nowhere. Each individual is on his or
her own to find and create his or her personal meaning. This does not work,
especially for the young. As a result, there is little sense of the common
good. Thus we are repeating the same patterns that produce violence, suffering,
emotional immaturity, and death. We need new ways of thinking and being to engage
with others through our simple humanity, our brokenness, differences, and
complexity. We must do the hard work of learning to live a generative life for
others, living out our sacred soul task in service to the world.
How you do anything is how you do everything!
For our spirituality to be authentic, we must practice unitive consciousness in
our conversations, problem solving, politics, vocations, lifestyle, and even
our dying. Indeed, the goal of mature religion is to help us die before we die,
so we are ready for our real life! All major religions describe this in one way
or another: a false sense of self must be let go of before the True Self can
stand revealed. This is basic and essential conversion.
Our contemplative practice is a “laboratory” in
which we learn to die to our passing emotions and thoughts and to receive the
always-permanent Divine gaze. The rest of our life becomes the field in which
we live out this participation in Love, bouncing back the gaze of grace to the
Other and then having plenty left over for all others besides.
This is what I hope to offer in the coming
year, teachings that offer hope and practical ways of living our spirituality
in our very active lives. We might call it, as Pope Francis does, “spiritual
activism.”
Gateway to Silence:
My true self is love.
Related resources:
Contemplation AND Action (MP3 download)
Contemplation in Action (book)
-------
Center for Action and Contemplation
1705 Five Points Road SW
1705 Five Points Road SW
Albuquerque, NM 87105 (physical)
PO Box 12464
---------
PO Box 12464
No comments:
Post a Comment