Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation
Photograph by RoganJosh.
"Scripture: Week 2"
"The Soul's Objective Union with God"
Wednesday, March 2, 2016
"Let us create humanity in our own image, in the likeness of ourselves."[Genesis 1:26]
The Genesis story of the Judeo-Christian tradition is really quite extraordinary. It says that we were created in the very "image and likeness" of God, proceeding from free and overflowing love. This flow will be rediscovered and re-experienced by various imperfect people throughout the Jewish and Christian Scriptures. This sets us on a positive and hopeful foundation, which cannot be overstated. Yet we must also say that it never gained full traction in the life of many believers, either Jewish or Christian. Such utter gratuity was just too good to be true. Further, we could not control or manipulate this love; and anything humans cannot control, we do not engage with or enjoy. The Bible as a whole illustrates through various stories humanity's objective unity with God, the total gratuity of that love, and unfortunately, our resistance to such an "impossibility."
I find that many Christians still have no knowledge of the soul's objective union with God (e.g., 1 John 3:2, 2 Peter 1:4), which all mystics rejoice in or they would not be mystics. Even ministers often fight me on this, quoting Augustine's "original sin," Calvin's "total depravity," or dear Luther's "humans are like piles of manure, covered over by Christ." I am sure they all meant well, but they also dug a pit so deep that many could never climb out or allow themselves to be lifted out. What a shame, literally! Such a negative starting point will not be very effective in creating loving or responsive people.
How do you ever undo such foundational damnation? Grace can only be trusted by an equally graceful human nature. Our work is merely to till the fertile soil, knowing that the Indwelling Spirit has already been planted within, and She is the One who "teaches you all things and reminds you of all things" (John 14:26). Many Christians have tried to pile a positive theology of salvation on top of a very negative anthropology of the human person, and it just does not work. Such traditions produce few mystics and universal lovers. The human self-image is too damaged and distorted from the beginning.
The word sin has so many unhelpful connotations that it's very problematic today. For most of us "sin" does not connote what it really is: the illusion of separateness from God and from our original identity, our True Self. Most people think of sin as little naughty behaviors or any personal moral "stain" we suffer by reason of our bad thoughts, words, or deeds. Paul makes clear that sin is mostly a state, a corporate "principality" and "power," an entrapment, or what many would now call an addiction. Jesus seems to primarily see it as a blindness that traps us in self-destructive behaviors and hard-heartedness. Thus he is always healing blind people and challenging people who see themselves as superior to others.
What we call sins are usually more symptoms of sin and not an inner negativity itself. What we call sins often have more to do with stupidity and ignorance than actual malice. Disconnected people will surely do stupid things and even become malicious, but they did not start there. They began in union, but disunion became their experienced lie and defense. This sounds terrible but it will help you get the point: most people are just stupid more than formally sinful. Anything that is cut off festers and fumes and attacks, while often hoping to regain acceptance. The primary meaning of sin is to live outside "the garden," or in the smoldering garbage dump of Gehenna, below and outside the city walls of Jerusalem--the standing Biblical images of hell or separation from God's reality (Genesis 3:23-24, Isaiah 66:24, Mark 9:47-48). Sin is primarily living outside of union; it is a state of separation, when the part poses as the Whole. It's the loss of any inner experience of who you are in God.
You can't accomplish or work up to union with God, because you've already got it. "Before the world began you were chosen, chosen in Christ to live through love in his presence" (Ephesians 1:4). You cannot ever become worthy by yourself; you can only reconnect to your Infinite Source. The biblical revelation is about awakening, not accomplishing. It is about realization, not performance. You cannot get there, you can only be there. That foundational Being-in-God is for some reason too hard to believe, too good to be true. Only the humble can receive it and surrender to it, because it affirms much more about God than it does about us. And we foolishly believe it should be "all about me"!
Gateway to Silence: "The physical structure of the universe is love."[Teilhard de Chardin]
Reference:
Adapted from Richard Rohr, Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality(Franciscan Media: 1999), 27-30.
The video recordings from CAC's recent conferences are now available in streaming/downloadable MP4 video format.
Francis Factor: How St. Francis and Pope Francis
are changing the world
Featuring Richard Rohr, Ilia Delio, and Shane Claiborne
CONSPIRE 2015: One Reality
Featuring Richard Rohr, Simone Campbell, Chris and Phileena Heuertz, Timothy Shriver, and Mirabai Starr
CONSPIRE 2014: A Benevolent Universe
Featuring Richard Rohr, Rob Bell, and Ilia Delio
Visit store.cac.org to learn more and purchase the videos.
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Richard Rohr's Meditation: "The Magic and Mystery of Intimacy" Center for Action and Contemplation of Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States for Tuesday, 1 March 2016
Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation
Photograph by RoganJosh.
"Scripture: Week 2"
"The Magic and Mystery of Intimacy"
Tuesday, March 1, 2016
The Great Mystery unfolds even further. It seems that Israel's God, Yahweh, who is uncovering and exposing the Divine Self in the Bible, soon desires not just images or holy writings, but even persons with whom God can be in very concrete and intimate relationship--quite literally friends, partners, and companions. Jesus then became the representation of one walking on this earth who fully accepted and lived out of that divine friendship. In fact, he never seemed to doubt it. That must be at the core of our imitation of Jesus, and exactly how we become "partners in his great triumph" (2 Corinthians2:14). Such healed people will naturally heal others, just by being "healed" from the great lie of separation.
God will not settle for mandated or fear-based contracts with servants, but rather desires willing and free relationships with "friends" (John 15:15). This is called a "new covenant" in both the Old and New Testaments (Jeremiah 31:31; Luke 22:20). Even today it still feels new, presumptuous, and unbelievable to most people.
In calling forth such freedom, consciousness, and love, God is actually empowering a certain kind of equality and dignity between God and humanity, as strange and impossible as that might sound. Yet love is only possible if there is some degree of likeness and equality between two parties. Jesus became that likeness, equality, and dignity, so we could begin to imagine it as possible for ourselves too.
One way to read the entire Bible is to note the gradual unveiling of our faces (2 Corinthians 3:18)--the gradual creating of personhood, from infants, to teenage love, to infatuation, to adult intimacy, to mature and peaceful union. We are tempted to avoid the deeper risk of intimacy every step of the way. But biblical spirituality has the potential of creating "persons" who can both receive and give out of love, a love that is always both risky and free. The English word "person" is related to the Latin per-sonare, or "sounding through." The word may also be borrowed from the Etruscan word for mask. The deepest understanding of human personhood is that we are a sounding through from Another Source. If you are afraid of intimate interface, you will never allow this or know its softening power. You will stop the process before it even begins and never know how it works its transformation on the heart, mind, and body. If human eyes are too threatening for you, start with a stone, work up to plants and trees, animals will be easier, and probably only then are you ready for humans, and finally for the divine gaze.
I must be honest, however, and tell you that there are some people who start with the divine gaze and move down the "Great Chain of Being" to swallows, sunflowers, and stones. But in either case, the great chain that connects us all is always and only love. Connecting more and more of the links of the chain is the supreme work of all true spirituality. A single link is never the full chain.
Gateway to Silence" "The physical structure of the universe is love."[Teilhard de Chardin]
Reference:
Adapted from Richard Rohr, Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality(Franciscan Media: 1999), 53-54.
Selected books now on sale!
Including these and other titles by past conference presenters:
Jesus for President by Shane Claiborne
The Unbearable Wholeness of Being by Ilia Delio
Simple Spirituality by Christopher Heuertz
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Richard Rohr's Meditation: "The Shape of the Universe is Love" Center for Action and Contemplation of Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States for Monday, 29 February 2016
Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation
Photograph by RoganJosh.
"Scripture: Week 2"
"The Shape of the Universe Is Love"
Monday, February 29, 2016
In the beginning Yahweh, the God of Israel, says, "Let us make humanity in our own image, in the likeness of ourselves" (Genesis 1:26). The use of the plural pronoun here seems to be an amazing, deep time intuition of what some would later call the Trinity--the revelation of the nature of God as community, as relationship itself, a Mystery of perfect giving and perfect receiving, both within God and outside of God. "Reality as communion" became the template and pattern for our entire universe, from atoms to galaxies. The first philosophical problem of "the one and the many" was already overcome in God; and we found ourselves to be both monotheists and Trinitarians at the same time. It is one participatory universe of many diverse things in love with one another.
Physicists, molecular biologists, astronomers, and other scientists are often more attuned to this universal pattern than many Christian believers. Paleontologist and Jesuit mystic, Teilhard de Chardin, said it well: "The physical structure of the universe is love." [1] For a contemporary and creative presentation with the same message, read William Paul Young's inspired novel, The Shack. Who would have thought that someone could make the doctrine of the Trinity a mystery novel and a page turner? It has now sold 40 forty million copies worldwide.
According to Genesis 1:26, God isn't looking for servants, slaves, or contestants to jump correctly through some arbitrary hoops. God simply wants mirroring images of God to live on this earth and to make the divine visible. That is, of course, the way love works. It always overflows, reproduces, and multiplies itself. God is saying, as it were, "All I want are icons and mirrors out there who will communicate who I am, and what I'm about." The experience of election, belovedness, and chosenness is the typical beginning of this re-imaging process. Then "We, with our unveiled faces gradually receive the brightness of the Lord, and we grow brighter and brighter as we are turned into the image that we reflect" (2 Corinthians 3:18). You must first surrender to the image within yourself before you will then naturally pass it on--and then you become a very usable two-way mirror.
Henceforth, all your moral behavior is simply "the imitation of God." First observe what God is doing all the time and everywhere, and then do the same thing (Ephesians 5:1). And what does God do? God does what God is: Love. The logic is then quite different than the retributive justice story line most of us were given. Henceforth, it is not "those who do it right go to heaven later," but "those who receive and reflect me are in heaven now." This is God's unimaginable restorative justice. God does not love you if and when you change. God loves youso that you can change. That is the true story line of the Gospel.
Gateway to Silence: "The physical structure of the universe is love."[Teilhard de Chardin]
References:
[1] Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, trans. J. M. Cohen, "Sketch of a Personal Universe," Human Energy (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich: 1962), 72.
Adapted from Richard Rohr, Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality (Franciscan Media: 1999), 35-36.
The video recordings from CAC's recent conferences are now available in streaming/downloadable MP4 video format.
Francis Factor: How St. Francis and Pope Francis
are changing the world
Featuring Richard Rohr, Ilia Delio, and Shane Claiborne
CONSPIRE 2015: One Reality
Featuring Richard Rohr, Simone Campbell, Chris and Phileena Heuertz, Timothy Shriver, and Mirabai Starr
CONSPIRE 2014: A Benevolent Universe
Featuring Richard Rohr, Rob Bell, and Ilia Delio
Visit store.cac.org to learn more and purchase the videos.
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Richard Rohr's Meditation: "The First Bible" Center for Action and Contemplation of Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States for Sunday, 28 February 2016
Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation
Photograph by RoganJosh.
"Scripture: Week 2"
"The First Bible"
Sunday, February 28, 2016
The first act of divine revelation is creation itself. The first Bible is the Bible of nature. It was written at least 13.8 billion years ago, at the moment that we call the Big Bang, long before the Bible of words. "Ever since God created the world, God's everlasting power and divinity--however invisible--are there for the mind to see in the things that God has made" (Romans1:20). One really wonders how we missed that. Words gave us something to argue about, I guess. Nature can only be respected, enjoyed, and looked at with admiration and awe. Don't dare put the second Bible in the hands of people who have not sat lovingly at the feet of the first Bible. They will invariably manipulate, mangle, and murder the written text.
In the biblical account God creates the world developmentally over seven days, almost as if there was an ancient intuition of what we would eventually call evolution. Clearly creation happened over time. The only strict theological assertion of the Genesis story is that God started it all. The exact how, when, and where is not the author's concern. Our creation story, perhaps written five hundred years before Christ, has no intention or ability to be a scientific account. It is a truly inspired account of the source, meaning, and original goodness of creation. Thus it is indeed "true." Both Western rationalists and religious fundamentalists must stop confusing true with literal, chronological, or visible to the narrow spectrum of the human eye. Many assume the Bible is an exact snapshot--as if caught on camera--of God's involvement on Earth. But if God needed such literalism, God would have waited for the twentieth century of the Common Era to start talking and revealing through "infallible" technology.
Notice in Genesis that on the third, fourth, and fifth days what God created is called "good" (1:9-25) and on the sixth day it is called "very good" (1:31); but on the first and second days Scripture does not say it was good. The first day is the separation of darkness from light, and the second day is the separation of the heavens above from the earth below (1:3-8). The Bible does not say that is good--because it isn't! This sets the drama in motion; the remainder of the stumbling, struggling, yet sacred text tries to put darkness and light, heaven and earth back together as one.
Of course darkness and light, heaven and earth, have never really been separate, but "sin" thinks so (sin separates; God and soul unite). That's the tragic flaw at the heart of everything, what Augustine unfortunately called "original sin" and I'd like to call "original shame"--or the illusion of separateness. Jesus then becomes the icon of cosmic reconciliation (Colossians 1:19-20, Revelation 21:1-3). He holds all that we divide and separate together as one (which is really the foundational mystery of "forgiveness") and tells us that we can and must do the same work of reconciliation of opposites (2 Corinthians 5:17-20, Ephesians 2:14-22).
Science is now able to affirm what were for centuries the highly suspect intuitions of the mystics. We now take it for granted, and even provable, that everything in the universe is deeply connected and in foundational relationship, even and most especially light itself, which interestingly is the first act of creation (Genesis 1:3). The entire known universe is in orbit and in cycle with something else. There's no such thing in the whole universe as autonomy. It doesn't exist. That's the illusion of the modern, individualistic West, which tries to imagine that the autonomous self is the basic building block and the true Seer. In fact, all holy ones seem to say that the independent self sees everything incorrectly. Parts can only see parts and thus divide things even further. Whole people see things in their wholeness and thus create wholeness ("holiness") wherever they go and wherever they gaze. Holy people will find God in nature and everywhere else too. Heady people will only find God in books and words, and finally not even there.
Gateway to Silence: "The physical structure of the universe is love."[Teilhard de Chardin]
References:
Adapted from Richard Rohr, Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality(Franciscan Media: 2008), 32-33;
and New Great Themes of Scripture (Franciscan Media: 1999), disc 3 (CD).
The video recordings from CAC's recent conferences are now available in streaming/downloadable MP4 video format.
Francis Factor: How St. Francis and Pope Francis
are changing the world
Featuring Richard Rohr, Ilia Delio, and Shane Claiborne
CONSPIRE 2015: One Reality
Featuring Richard Rohr, Simone Campbell, Chris and Phileena Heuertz, Timothy Shriver, and Mirabai Starr
CONSPIRE 2014: A Benevolent Universe
Featuring Richard Rohr, Rob Bell, and Ilia Delio
Visit store.cac.org to learn more and purchase the videos.
---------------------
Richard Rohr's Meditation: Scripture: "Week 1 Summary" Center for Action and Contemplation of Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States for Saturday, 27 February 2016
Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation
Photograph by mercucio2
"Scripture: Week 1"
"Summary"
Sunday, February 21-Friday, February 27, 2016
The biblical revelation is inviting us into a new experience and a new way of seeing, and evolved human consciousness seems to be more ready to accept the divine invitation. (Sunday)
If the Risen Jesus is the full and trustworthy unveiling of the nature of God, then we live in a safe and love-filled universe. (Monday)
Love is the source and goal, faith is the slow process of getting there, and hope is the willingness to move forward without resolution and closure. And these are indeed, "the three things that last" (1 Corinthians 13:13). (Tuesday)
The fact that Christians include the Hebrew Scriptures as part of our Bible should show us that Christianity was never intended to be an exclusionary religion. (Wednesday)
The Jewish and Christian religions have the power to correct themselves from inside, because of the self-critical thinking they kept as part of their sacred texts. (Thursday)
If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it. (Friday)
"Practice: Reading Scripture with the Mind of Christ"
Looking at which Scripture passages Jesus emphasizes (remember, the Hebrew Bible was his only Bible!) shows he clearly understands how to connect the "three steps forward" dots that confirm the God he has met, knows, loves, and trusts. At the same time, Jesus ignores or openly contradicts the many "two steps backward" texts. He never quotes the book of Numbers, for example, which is rather ritualistic and legalistic. He never quotes Joshua or Judges, which are full of sanctified violence. Basically, Jesus doesn't quote from his own Scriptures when they are punitive, imperialistic, classist, or exclusionary. In fact, he teaches the opposite.
Jesus does not mention the list of twenty-eight "thou shall nots" in Leviticus 18 through 20, but chooses instead to echo the rare positive quote of Leviticus 19:18: "You must love your neighbor as yourself." The longest single passage he quotes is from Isaiah 61 (in Luke 4:18-19): "The Spirit of the Lord has been given to me. He has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives, and to the blind new sight, to set the downtrodden free, and to proclaim a year of favor from the Lord." But Jesus quotes selectively; he appears to have deliberately omitted the last line--"and the day of vengeance of our God" (Isaiah 61:2b)--because he does not believe in a God of vengeance at all.
Jesus knows how to connect the dots and find out where the text is truly heading, beyond the low-level consciousness of a particular moment, fear, or circumstance. He knows there is a bigger arc to the story: one that always reveals a God who is compassionate, nonviolent, and inclusive of outsiders. He knows how to "thin slice" the text, to find the overall pattern based on small windows of insight. He learned from Ezekiel, for example, that God's justice is restorative and not retributive.
We can only safely read Scripture--it is a dangerous book--if we are somehow sharing in the divine gaze of love. A life of prayer helps you develop a third eye that can read between the lines and find the golden thread which is moving toward inclusivity, mercy, and justice. I am sure that is what Paul means when he teaches that we must "know spiritual things in a spiritual way" (1 Corinthians 2:13). Any "pre-existing condition" of a hardened heart, a predisposition to judgment, a fear of God, any need to win or prove yourself right will corrupt and distort the most inspired and inspiring of Scriptures--just as they pollute every human conversation and relationship. Hateful people will find hateful verses to confirm their obsession with death. Loving people will find loving verses to call them into an even greater love of life. And both kinds of verses are in the Bible!
Gateway to Silence: Astonish me with your love.
Reference:
Adapted from Richard Rohr, Hierarchy of Truths: Jesus' Use of Scripture(Center for Action and Contemplation: 2014), CD, MP3 download.
For Further Study:
Richard Rohr, Hierarchy of Truths: Jesus' Use of Scripture (CD, MP3 download)
Richard Rohr, New Great Themes of Scripture (CD)
Richard Rohr, Scripture as Liberation (MP3 download)
Richard Rohr, Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality
Innocence, a new issue of Oneing
"I do believe that we come from God and are returning to God, but we need a softening of the heart in order to see again and find our way home. I know of no way for hearts to be softened other than by a combination of love and suffering." --Ruth Patterson
This issue of CAC's spiritual literary journal features Richard Rohr, Diarmuid O'Murchu, Catherine Dowling, Enrique Lamadrid, and others.
Purchase the limited-edition publication at store.cac.org.
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Richard Rohr's Meditation: "Transforming Our Pain" Center for Action and Contemplation of Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States for Friday, 26 February 2016
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Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation
Photograph by mercucio2.
"Scripture: Week 1"
"Transforming Our Pain"
Friday, February 26, 2016
One of the enlightened themes that develops in the Judeo-Christian scriptures and reaches its fullness in the crucified Jesus is the recognition of the transformative significance of human pain and suffering. We see this most especially in the four "Servant Songs" of Isaiah (chapters 42-53), in the biographies of Jonah, Jeremiah, and Job, in Simeon's prophecy to Mary (Luke 2:34-35), and in Jesus' common warning to his followers. Jesus builds on what his Jewish tradition already recognized--how to hold, make use of, and transform our suffering into a new kind of life instead of an old kind of death. It is the movement from an initial self-created order, to a risky allowing of necessary disorder, to the "third force" reordering that we call the resurrected life. It is a long slog, which we all try to avoid as long as possible.
The story of Job is both the summit and also the dead end of the Hebrew Scriptures. Humanity has never known what to do with unjust suffering--which is our universal experience on this earth--until Jesus gives his seismic shift of an answer. One could say that the story of Jesus is the same story as Job, who says, "I know that I have a Living Defender, and he will raise me up at last, will set me close to him, and from my flesh I shall look on God" (Job 19:25-26). This is Jesus' exact faith affirmation on the cross when he first says, "Why have you forsaken me?" (Mark 15:34), followed by, "Father, forgive them" (Luke 23:34), and "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit" (Luke 23:46). Jesus is the new Job, but with a way out and a way through.
Pain teaches a most counterintuitive thing: we must go down before we even know what up is. In terms of the ego, most religions teach in some way that all must "die before they die."Suffering of some sort seems to be the only thing strong enough to both destabilize and reveal our arrogance, our separateness, and our lack of compassion. I define suffering very simply as "whenever you are not in control." Suffering is the most effective way whereby humans learn to trust, allow, and give up control to Another Source. I wish there were a different answer, but Jesus reveals on the cross both the path and the price of full transformation into the divine.
When religion cannot find a meaning for human suffering, human beings far too often become cynical, bitter, negative, and blaming. Healthy religion, almost without realizing it, shows us what to do with our pain, with the absurd, the tragic, the nonsensical, the unjust. If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it. If we cannot find a way to make our wounds into sacred wounds, we invariably give up on life and humanity. I am afraid there are bitter and blaming people everywhere, both inside and outside of the church. As they go through life, the hurts, disappointments, betrayals, abandonments, and the burden of their own sinfulness and brokenness all pile up, and they do not know how to deal with all this negativity. This is what we need to be "saved" from.
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. The natural movement of the small self or ego is to protect itself so as not to be hurt again. As I shared last week, neuroscience now shows us that we attach to negativity "like Velcro" unless we intentionally develop another neural path like forgiveness or letting go.
Mature religion is about transforming history and individuals so that we don't keep handing the pain on to the next generation. For Christians, we learn to identify our own wounds with the wounding of Jesus and the sufferings of the universal Body of Christ (see Philippians 3:10-11), which is Deep Meaning that always feeds the soul. We can then see our own suffering as a voluntary participation in the one Great Sadness of God (Colossians 1:24). Within this meaningful worldview, we can build something new, good, and forever original, while neither playing the victim nor making victims of others. We can be free conduits of grace into the world.
Gateway to Silence: Astonish me with your love.
References:
Richard Rohr, Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality (Franciscan Media: 2008), 24-25.
Innocence, a new issue of Oneing
"I do believe that we come from God and are returning to God, but we need a softening of the heart in order to see again and find our way home. I know of no way for hearts to be softened other than by a combination of love and suffering."[Ruth Patterson]
This issue of CAC's spiritual literary journal features Richard Rohr, Diarmuid O'Murchu, Catherine Dowling, Enrique Lamadrid, and others.
Purchase the limited-edition publication at store.cac.org.
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Richard Rohr's Meditation: "Everything Belongs" Center for Action and Contemplation of Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States for Wednesday, 17 February 2016
Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation
Habit of St. Francis of Assisi (detail), Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi, Assisi, Italy
"Alternative Orthodoxy: Week 2"
"Everything Belongs" for Wednesday, February 17, 2016
Like Jesus, St. Francis did not go down the self-protective and exclusionary track. They both knew what they were for--andwho they were--not just what they were against. That is the heart of the matter. Jesus and Francis had a genius for not eliminating or punishing the so-called negative side of the world, but incorporating it and using it. Francis, merely imitating Jesus, goes to the edge of town and to the bottom of society; he kisses the leper, loves the poor, and wears patches on the outside of his habit so everyone will know that this is what he's like on the inside. Francis doesn't hide from his shadow side, but weeps over it and welcomes it as his teacher.
The history of almost every religion begins with one massive misperception; it begins by making a fatal distinction between the sacred and the profane. Low-level religions put all their emphasis on creating sacred places, sacred time, and sacred actions. While I fully appreciate the need for this, it unfortunately leaves the majority of life "un-sacred." I remember reading about an Irish missionary's attempt to teach the Masai people about the Catholic Sacraments. The missionary said that a sacrament is a physical encounter or event in which you experience Grace or the Holy. The people were then confused and disappointed when they were told there were only seven such moments (and all of these just happened to revolve around a priest). One Masai elder raised his hand and said, "We would have thought, Father, there would be at least seven thousand such moments, not just seven."
In authentic mystical moments, any clear distinction between sacred and profane quickly falls apart. One henceforth knows that all of the world is sacred because most of the time such moments happen in secular settings. For examples, look at the lives of Abraham and Sarah, Moses, Elijah, Mary, and Jesus. Our Franciscan official motto is Deus Meus et Omnia--"My God and all things." Once you recognize the Christ as the universal truth of matter and spirit working together as one, then everything is holy. Once you surrender to this Christ mystery in your oh-so-ordinary self and body, you begin to see it every other ordinary place too. The principle is this: "Like knows like." As St. Bonaventure, the philosophical interpreter of Francis, said (quoting Alan of Lille), "Christ is the one whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere." [1]
You don't have to go to sacred places to pray or wait for holy days for good things to happen. You can pray always, and everything that happens is potentially sacred if you allow it to be. Once we can accept that God is in all situations, and that God can and will use even bad situations for good, then everything becomes an occasion for good and an occasion for God. "This is the day Yahweh has made memorable, let us rejoice and be glad in it!" (Psalm 118:24).
Your task is to find the good, the true, and the beautiful in everything, even and most especially the problematic. The bad is never strong enough to counteract the good. You can most easily learn this through some form of contemplative practice. Within contemplation you must learn to trust your Vital Center over all the passing jerks and snags of emotions and obsessive thinking. [2] Once you know you have such a strong and loving soul, which is also the Indwelling Spirit, you are no longer pulled to and fro with every passing feeling. You have achieved a peace that nothing else can give you, and that no one can take from you (John 14:27).
Divine Incarnation took the form of an Indwelling Presence in every human soul and surely all creatures in some rudimentary way. Ironically, our human freedom gives us the ability to stop such a train and refuse to jump on board our own life. Angels, animals, trees, water, and yes, bread and wine seem to fully accept and enjoy their wondrous fate. Only humans resist and deny their core identities. And so we people can cause great havoc, and thus must be somehow boundaried and contained. But the only way we ourselves can refuse to jump onto the train of life is by any negative game of exclusion or unlove--even of ourselves. If you read the Gospel texts carefully, you will see that the only people Jesus seems to "exclude" are those who are excluding others. Exclusion might be described as the core sin. Don't waste any time rejecting, excluding, eliminating, or punishing anyone or anything else. Everything belongs, including you.
Gateway to Silence: A long loving look at the real
References:
[1] Alan of Lille, Regulae Theologicae, Reg. 7, as quoted by Bonaventure, translated by Ewert Cousins, The Soul's Journey into God, Classics of Western Spirituality (Paulist Press: 1978), 100.
[2] For more on how to move beyond emotional and mental addictions, see Michael A. Singer, The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself(New Harbinger Publications: 2007).
Adapted from Richard Rohr, Franciscan Mysticism: I AM That Which I Am Seeking (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2012), disc 1 (CD, MP3 download);
Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi (Franciscan Media: 2014), 10;
and "Franciscan Mysticism," an unpublished talk, April 12, 2012.
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Donate securely online at cac.org/dm-appeal or send a check (USD only) to the address below.
Thank you for joining a movement of peaceful change, grounded in the awareness that we are all one in Love!
The Franciscan Way: Beyond the Bird Bath
a self-paced, online course
March 9-April 26, 2016
Explore Richard Rohr's formative tradition-the radical Franciscan vision of simplicity, justice, and inclusivity. Discover the courageous heart of Franciscanism and a love that knows no boundaries.
The Franciscan Way course features exclusive video teachings by Fr. Richard that are unavailable elsewhere.
Learn more and register at cac.org.
No additional books or materials are required. Scholarships are available. Registration for The Franciscan Way closes February 24, 2016, or as soon as the course fills, whichever comes first.
----------------------
"Saying thank you" Richard Rohr of Albuquerque, New Mexico. United States for Tuesday, 16 February 2016
Twice a year we pause the Daily Meditations to ask for your support for these free email reflections. If each person reading this note contributed just $1, it would more than cover the cost of producing these emails and help us reach more people. Please take one minute to read our Director Michael's note below about how you can help.
The meditations will continue tomorrow with another reflection on the Franciscan Alternative Orthodoxy, continuing our year-long exploration of God's radical and inclusive Love.
Dear Friends,
When I first signed up to receive Fr. Richard's Daily Meditations, it felt like I found someone articulating truths I knew but couldn't express. In reading them, that basic inner recognition percolates into awareness and integration. If you are reading this email, I hope you have experienced the same!
Fr. Richard's Daily and Weekly Meditations are now reaching more than 180,000 people worldwide. CAC spends over $100,000 each year to publish the daily emails and online archive. Every time we receive an email hearing from one of you about how much you value them, we know it's worth it.
Our team is committed to keeping the Daily Meditations free. If you have appreciated receiving them, will you support that aspiration by making a donation today?
Donating is a great way to say "thanks" and to let us know what Fr. Richard's and the CAC's work means to you. If you can't donate financially at this time, know that your prayers for our work are just as needed!
We couldn't do this alone, without your participation and presence. Thank you for joining a movement of peaceful change, grounded in the awareness that we are all one in Love.
Peace and Every Good,
Michael Poffenberger
Executive Director, Center for Action and Contemplation
P.S. Please consider making a contribution to the Center for Action and Contemplation (tax-deductible in the United States). We invite donations of any size. Every gift matters, regardless of the amount! You can donate securely online atcac.org/dm-appeal or send a check (USD only) to the address below. Learn more about charitable giving at cac.org/support-cac.
---------------------
Richard Rohr's Meditation: "The Positive in the Negative" Center for Action and Contemplation of Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States for Monday, 15 February 2016
Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation
Habit of St. Francis of Assisi (detail), Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi, Assisi, Italy
"Alternative Orthodoxy: Week 2"
"The Positive in the Negative" for Monday, February 15, 2016
We must bear patiently not being good . . . and not being thought good.[St. Francis of Assisi]
Whoever is willing to serenely bear the trial of being displeasing to herself, that person is a pleasant place of shelter for Jesus.[St. Thérèse of Lisieux]
In these shocking quotes, Francis and Thérèse are trying to teach us to let go of that deep but deceptive human need to "think well of one's self." That is the ego talking, they would say. Only someone who has surrendered their separateness and their superiority can do this, of course. Anyone who has radically "accepted being accepted" already thinks well of themselves. Their positive and secure self-image is a divine gift totally given from the beginning and never self-constructed. It is quite stable and needs no fanfare.
In a world where imperfection seems to be everywhere, the humble and the honest have a huge head start in spiritual matters and can readily find God in their most ordinary of lives. "To the poor in spirit the kingdom of heaven already belongs" (Matthew 5:3), Jesus says in his emphatic opening line of the Sermon on the Mount.
One thing we all have in common is that we all "sin" (Romans5:12), transgress, fall into our imperfections, and make mistakes. There are no exceptions to this. We are also sinned against as the victims of others' failure and our own social milieu. Augustine called this "original sin." But that does not mean we are bad at the core, which is the way it has unfortunately been misinterpreted for much of Christian history.
You must first remember who you are! You must start with the positive and not with a problem, or you never get beyond a kind of negative problem solving. Your core, your deepest DNA, is divine; it is the Spirit of Love implanted within you by your Creator at the first moment of your creation (Romans 5:5,8:11, 14-16 and throughout). We must know that we begin with "original blessing" as Matthew Fox and others have put it. Augustine was just trying to describe the inevitability of sin in an imperfect world (so we would not be surprised). Unfortunately this poorly named and misunderstood negative notion dominated the next 1500 years of Christianity. The word "sin" implies culpability, and that was never Augustine's point. In fact, his meaning was quite the opposite: we all carry the wounds of our parents and ancestors, which good therapists all know is true. Your sins are not just your own.
Humble honesty about our positive core, and a compassionate recognition that none of us completely lives out of our full identity, is the most truthful form of spirituality. The pull back that creates longing and desire and movement forward--like an extended rubber band--creates both inherent capability andnegative capability. We all find our lives eventually dragged into opposition, problems, or "the negative" (sin, failure, betrayal, gossip, fear, hurt, disease, etc.), and especially the ultimate negation: death itself. What I love about healthy Christianity is its utter realism. Both divine election and death in many forms are presented as the school of life. The Divine Life we have been blessed with, which is actually Love Itself, is big enough to include all failure and death. The genius of the Christian explanation is that it includes the problem in the solution: the cross of failure becomes the catapult toward transformation. Our sins can even become "happy faults," as we sing on Holy Saturday.
We might also call this pull-back or negative capabilityvulnerability or woundability. The vulnerable person has every reason to keep growing through everything that happens to them. The overly guarded and self-protected person is scratched and dented by all "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," whereas the malleable, bendable, flexible, woundable person is almost indestructible. Their wounds are always allowed to be their teachers instead of their defeat.
It is crucial that we understand Jesus was never upset with sinners; he was only upset with people who did not think they were sinners! How marvelous that our God-image is a wonderfully wounded and vulnerable man. This is a most unlikely image for God, unless we are able to comprehend that God is telling us something about the God Self--which is almost incomprehensible: God is also vulnerable.
Gateway to Silence: A long loving look at the real
Reference:
Adapted from Richard Rohr, Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi (Franciscan Media: 2014), 101-106, 111-112.
The Franciscan Way: Beyond the Bird Bath
a self-paced, online course
March 9-April 26, 2016
Explore Richard Rohr's formative tradition-the radical Franciscan vision of simplicity, justice, and inclusivity. Discover the courageous heart of Franciscanism and a love that knows no boundaries.
The Franciscan Way course features exclusive video teachings by Fr. Richard that are unavailable elsewhere.
Learn more and register at cac.org.
No additional books or materials are required. Scholarships are available. Registration for The Franciscan Way closes February 24, 2016, or as soon as the course fills, whichever comes first.
Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation
Habit of St. Francis of Assisi (detail), Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi, Assisi, Italy
"Alternative Orthodoxy: Week 2"
"The Positive in the Negative" for Monday, February 15, 2016
We must bear patiently not being good . . . and not being thought good.[St. Francis of Assisi]
Whoever is willing to serenely bear the trial of being displeasing to herself, that person is a pleasant place of shelter for Jesus.[St. Thérèse of Lisieux]
In these shocking quotes, Francis and Thérèse are trying to teach us to let go of that deep but deceptive human need to "think well of one's self." That is the ego talking, they would say. Only someone who has surrendered their separateness and their superiority can do this, of course. Anyone who has radically "accepted being accepted" already thinks well of themselves. Their positive and secure self-image is a divine gift totally given from the beginning and never self-constructed. It is quite stable and needs no fanfare.
In a world where imperfection seems to be everywhere, the humble and the honest have a huge head start in spiritual matters and can readily find God in their most ordinary of lives. "To the poor in spirit the kingdom of heaven already belongs" (Matthew 5:3), Jesus says in his emphatic opening line of the Sermon on the Mount.
One thing we all have in common is that we all "sin" (Romans5:12), transgress, fall into our imperfections, and make mistakes. There are no exceptions to this. We are also sinned against as the victims of others' failure and our own social milieu. Augustine called this "original sin." But that does not mean we are bad at the core, which is the way it has unfortunately been misinterpreted for much of Christian history.
You must first remember who you are! You must start with the positive and not with a problem, or you never get beyond a kind of negative problem solving. Your core, your deepest DNA, is divine; it is the Spirit of Love implanted within you by your Creator at the first moment of your creation (Romans 5:5,8:11, 14-16 and throughout). We must know that we begin with "original blessing" as Matthew Fox and others have put it. Augustine was just trying to describe the inevitability of sin in an imperfect world (so we would not be surprised). Unfortunately this poorly named and misunderstood negative notion dominated the next 1500 years of Christianity. The word "sin" implies culpability, and that was never Augustine's point. In fact, his meaning was quite the opposite: we all carry the wounds of our parents and ancestors, which good therapists all know is true. Your sins are not just your own.
Humble honesty about our positive core, and a compassionate recognition that none of us completely lives out of our full identity, is the most truthful form of spirituality. The pull back that creates longing and desire and movement forward--like an extended rubber band--creates both inherent capability andnegative capability. We all find our lives eventually dragged into opposition, problems, or "the negative" (sin, failure, betrayal, gossip, fear, hurt, disease, etc.), and especially the ultimate negation: death itself. What I love about healthy Christianity is its utter realism. Both divine election and death in many forms are presented as the school of life. The Divine Life we have been blessed with, which is actually Love Itself, is big enough to include all failure and death. The genius of the Christian explanation is that it includes the problem in the solution: the cross of failure becomes the catapult toward transformation. Our sins can even become "happy faults," as we sing on Holy Saturday.
We might also call this pull-back or negative capabilityvulnerability or woundability. The vulnerable person has every reason to keep growing through everything that happens to them. The overly guarded and self-protected person is scratched and dented by all "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," whereas the malleable, bendable, flexible, woundable person is almost indestructible. Their wounds are always allowed to be their teachers instead of their defeat.
It is crucial that we understand Jesus was never upset with sinners; he was only upset with people who did not think they were sinners! How marvelous that our God-image is a wonderfully wounded and vulnerable man. This is a most unlikely image for God, unless we are able to comprehend that God is telling us something about the God Self--which is almost incomprehensible: God is also vulnerable.
Gateway to Silence: A long loving look at the real
Reference:
Adapted from Richard Rohr, Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi (Franciscan Media: 2014), 101-106, 111-112.
The Franciscan Way: Beyond the Bird Bath
a self-paced, online course
March 9-April 26, 2016
Explore Richard Rohr's formative tradition-the radical Franciscan vision of simplicity, justice, and inclusivity. Discover the courageous heart of Franciscanism and a love that knows no boundaries.
The Franciscan Way course features exclusive video teachings by Fr. Richard that are unavailable elsewhere.
Learn more and register at cac.org.
No additional books or materials are required. Scholarships are available. Registration for The Franciscan Way closes February 24, 2016, or as soon as the course fills, whichever comes first.
---------------------
Richard Rohr's Meditation: "Cosmos Instead of Churchiness" Center for Action and Contemplation of Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States for Sunday, 14 February 2016
Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation
Habit of St. Francis of Assisi (detail), Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi, Assisi, Italy
"Alternative Orthodoxy: Week 2"
"Cosmos Instead of Churchiness" for Sunday, February 14, 2016
Once you are in an authority position in any institution, your job is to preserve that institution, and your freedom to live and speak the full truth becomes limited. Francis taught us to live on the edge of the church, rather than managing the institution. We were not intended to be parish priests. Francis himself refused priesthood, and most of the original friars were laymen rather than clerics. This position offered the Franciscans structural freedom. We were to always occupy the position of "minority" in this world. (The M in OFM stands forminorum, Ordo Fratrum Minorum.) Francis wanted us to live a life on the edge of the inside--not at the center or at the top, but not outside throwing rocks, either. This unique position offers structural freedom and hopefully spiritual freedom too.
The early Franciscans said the first Bible was not the written Bible, but creation itself, the cosmos. "Ever since the creation of the world, God's eternal power and divinity--however invisible--have become visible for the mind to see in all the things that God has made" (Romans 1:20). This is surely true; but you have to sit still in it for a while, observe it, and love it without trying to rearrange it by thinking you can fully understand it. This combination of observation along with love--not with resistance, judgment, analysis, or labeling--just observation with love and reverence, is probably the best definition of contemplation I can give. You simply participate in what one Carmelite described as a long loving look at the real.
For Francis, nature itself was a mirror for the soul, for self, and for God. Clare uses the word mirror more than any other metaphor for what is happening between God and soul. The job of church and theology is to help us look in the mirror that is already present. All this "mirroring" eventually effects a complete change in consciousness. Thomas of Celano, Francis' first biographer, writes that Francis would "rejoice in all the works of the Lord and saw behind them things pleasant to behold--their life giving reason and cause. In beautiful things he saw Beauty Itself, and all things were to him good." [1] This mirroring flows naturally back and forth from the natural world to the soul. All things find themselves in and through one another. Once that flow begins, it never stops. You're home, you're healed, you're saved--already in this world.
That's the kind of salvation that so many of us perhaps expected, but only in the next world--and only for a few it seems--if we follow our own criteria. Meanwhile, we live unhappily and with a sense of scarcity in this world, hoping for some victory later. I believe the victory is now, or it isn't much of a victory; if you don't have it now, you won't know how to live it later, or to even desire it.
Either this world is the very "Body of God" or we have little evidence of God at all. "Transactional" theories of a latersalvation--instead of transformation now--have come to mean less and less to most people. Yet those whose livelihood depends on this theory continue to keep many sincere seekers codependent on such a message and even their precise formulation of it. Such codependency only works among people who do not know how to pray and see for themselves. Salvation is not something you arbitrarily believe in. You only believe in it because you first of all see it. Francis, a living contemplative, walked the roads of Italy in the 13th century shouting, "The whole world is our cloister!" By narrowing the scope of salvation to words, theories, and select groups, we have led many people not to pay any attention to the miracles that are all around them all the time here and now.
Gateway to Silence: A long loving look at the real
References:
[1] Thomas of Celano, "Second Life of St. Francis," Saint Francis of Assisi: Omnibus of Sources (Franciscan Press: 1991), 494-5.
Adapted from Richard Rohr, Franciscan Mysticism: I AM That Which I Am Seeking (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2012), disc 3 (CD, MP3 download);
and In the Footsteps of Francis: Awakening to Creation (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2010), CD, MP3 download.
The Franciscan Way: Beyond the Bird Bath
a self-paced, online course
March 9-April 26, 2016
Explore Richard Rohr's formative tradition-the radical Franciscan vision of simplicity, justice, and inclusivity. Discover the courageous heart of Franciscanism and a love that knows no boundaries.
The Franciscan Way course features exclusive video teachings by Fr. Richard that are unavailable elsewhere.
Learn more and register at cac.org.
No additional books or materials are required. Scholarships are available. Registration for The Franciscan Way closes February 24, 2016, or as soon as the course fills, whichever comes first.
---------------------
Richard Rohr's Meditation: "Alternative Orthodoxy: Week 1 Summary" Center for Action and Contemplation of Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States for Saturday, 13 February 2016
Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation
St. Francis receiving the Stigmata (detail), by Giotto de Bondone from the Legend of St. Francis, 1297-1300. San Francesco, Upper Church, Assisi, Italy.
"Alternative Orthodoxy: Week 1"
"Summary"
Sunday, February 7-Friday, February 12, 2016
Franciscan alternative orthodoxy doesn't bother fighting popes, bishops, Scriptures, or dogmas. It just quietly but firmly pays attention to different things--like simplicity, humility, non-violence, contemplation, solitude and silence, earth care, nature and other creatures, and the "least of the brothers and sisters." (Sunday)
In Francis we see the emergence of a very different worldview, a worldview that is not based on climbing, achieving, possessing, performing, or any idealization of order, but a life that enjoys and finds deep satisfaction on the level of nakedbeing itself--much more than doing or having. (Monday)
The Franciscan School found a way to be both very traditional and very revolutionary at the same time by emphasizing practice over theory, orthopraxy over orthodoxy, love and action over intellectualizing and speculative truth. (Tuesday)
The Christian religion makes the most daring affirmation: God is redeeming matter and spirit, or the whole of creation. (Wednesday)
Salvation is not a magic act accomplished by moral behavior; rather, salvation is a gradual realization of who we are--and always have been--and will be eternally: children of earth and children of God, human and divine at the same time. (Thursday)
In Franciscan parlance, Jesus did not come to change the mind of God about humanity; Jesus came to change the mind of humanity about God. (Friday)
"Practice: Bodily Knowing"
St. Francis objectively experienced mutual indwelling with Jesus and with all of God's creatures. We see this most clearly late in his life when the cruciform shape of reality became the very shape of Francis' body. He received the marks of the five wounds of Christ (this is historically documented from many sources). Francis learned the message, price, and glory of love in the very cells of his body. Full knowing is alwayspsychosomatic knowing, and Francis seems to exemplify someone who fully absorbed the Gospel with his entire being, not just with his head. This is kinesthetic knowing and full body believing.
Take a few minutes to quietly observe and be present to your body. Sitting upright with legs uncrossed and eyes closed, bring your attention to your left knee. Lightly scratch the knee with your fingernails. Focus on the tingling sensation that lingers. Forget about the rest of your body and focus entirely on your knee, feeling it move, touching its outline. Acknowledge distracting thoughts as they arise and then let them go, returning to awareness of your knee.
Repeat this practice with other parts of your body, wordlessly witnessing your body's sensations and contours. Gradually let the tingling flow without controlling it; simply follow your awareness at its own pace and wherever it leads, trusting God's presence within.
Gateway to Silence: Everything is Grace.
Reference:
Adapted from Richard Rohr, Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi (Franciscan Media: 2014), 23, 192.
For Further Study:
Cynthia Bourgeault, James Finley, Richard Rohr, Returning to Essentials: Teaching an Alternative Orthodoxy (CD, MP3 download)
Richard Rohr, The Art of Letting Go (CD)
Richard Rohr, Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi
Richard Rohr with Tim Scorer, Embracing an Alternative Orthodoxy (DVDand workbook)
"Most of us were taught that God would love us if and when we change. In fact, God loves you so that you can change. It is the inherent experience of love that becomes the engine of change."[Richard Rohr]
Join Fr. Richard for a live webcast:
Authentic Transformation
Tuesday, February 23, 2016
4:30-6:00 p.m. US MST*
Register for as little as $1 at cac.org.
*Registration includes access to the replay, which will be available shortly after the live event through Sunday, March 27, 2016.
Richard Rohr's Meditation: "Cosmos Instead of Churchiness" Center for Action and Contemplation of Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States for Sunday, 14 February 2016
Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation
Habit of St. Francis of Assisi (detail), Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi, Assisi, Italy
"Alternative Orthodoxy: Week 2"
"Cosmos Instead of Churchiness" for Sunday, February 14, 2016
Once you are in an authority position in any institution, your job is to preserve that institution, and your freedom to live and speak the full truth becomes limited. Francis taught us to live on the edge of the church, rather than managing the institution. We were not intended to be parish priests. Francis himself refused priesthood, and most of the original friars were laymen rather than clerics. This position offered the Franciscans structural freedom. We were to always occupy the position of "minority" in this world. (The M in OFM stands forminorum, Ordo Fratrum Minorum.) Francis wanted us to live a life on the edge of the inside--not at the center or at the top, but not outside throwing rocks, either. This unique position offers structural freedom and hopefully spiritual freedom too.
The early Franciscans said the first Bible was not the written Bible, but creation itself, the cosmos. "Ever since the creation of the world, God's eternal power and divinity--however invisible--have become visible for the mind to see in all the things that God has made" (Romans 1:20). This is surely true; but you have to sit still in it for a while, observe it, and love it without trying to rearrange it by thinking you can fully understand it. This combination of observation along with love--not with resistance, judgment, analysis, or labeling--just observation with love and reverence, is probably the best definition of contemplation I can give. You simply participate in what one Carmelite described as a long loving look at the real.
For Francis, nature itself was a mirror for the soul, for self, and for God. Clare uses the word mirror more than any other metaphor for what is happening between God and soul. The job of church and theology is to help us look in the mirror that is already present. All this "mirroring" eventually effects a complete change in consciousness. Thomas of Celano, Francis' first biographer, writes that Francis would "rejoice in all the works of the Lord and saw behind them things pleasant to behold--their life giving reason and cause. In beautiful things he saw Beauty Itself, and all things were to him good." [1] This mirroring flows naturally back and forth from the natural world to the soul. All things find themselves in and through one another. Once that flow begins, it never stops. You're home, you're healed, you're saved--already in this world.
That's the kind of salvation that so many of us perhaps expected, but only in the next world--and only for a few it seems--if we follow our own criteria. Meanwhile, we live unhappily and with a sense of scarcity in this world, hoping for some victory later. I believe the victory is now, or it isn't much of a victory; if you don't have it now, you won't know how to live it later, or to even desire it.
Either this world is the very "Body of God" or we have little evidence of God at all. "Transactional" theories of a latersalvation--instead of transformation now--have come to mean less and less to most people. Yet those whose livelihood depends on this theory continue to keep many sincere seekers codependent on such a message and even their precise formulation of it. Such codependency only works among people who do not know how to pray and see for themselves. Salvation is not something you arbitrarily believe in. You only believe in it because you first of all see it. Francis, a living contemplative, walked the roads of Italy in the 13th century shouting, "The whole world is our cloister!" By narrowing the scope of salvation to words, theories, and select groups, we have led many people not to pay any attention to the miracles that are all around them all the time here and now.
Gateway to Silence: A long loving look at the real
References:
[1] Thomas of Celano, "Second Life of St. Francis," Saint Francis of Assisi: Omnibus of Sources (Franciscan Press: 1991), 494-5.
Adapted from Richard Rohr, Franciscan Mysticism: I AM That Which I Am Seeking (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2012), disc 3 (CD, MP3 download);
and In the Footsteps of Francis: Awakening to Creation (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2010), CD, MP3 download.
The Franciscan Way: Beyond the Bird Bath
a self-paced, online course
March 9-April 26, 2016
Explore Richard Rohr's formative tradition-the radical Franciscan vision of simplicity, justice, and inclusivity. Discover the courageous heart of Franciscanism and a love that knows no boundaries.
The Franciscan Way course features exclusive video teachings by Fr. Richard that are unavailable elsewhere.
Learn more and register at cac.org.
No additional books or materials are required. Scholarships are available. Registration for The Franciscan Way closes February 24, 2016, or as soon as the course fills, whichever comes first.
---------------------
Richard Rohr's Meditation: "Alternative Orthodoxy: Week 1 Summary" Center for Action and Contemplation of Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States for Saturday, 13 February 2016
Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation
St. Francis receiving the Stigmata (detail), by Giotto de Bondone from the Legend of St. Francis, 1297-1300. San Francesco, Upper Church, Assisi, Italy.
"Alternative Orthodoxy: Week 1"
"Summary"
Sunday, February 7-Friday, February 12, 2016
Franciscan alternative orthodoxy doesn't bother fighting popes, bishops, Scriptures, or dogmas. It just quietly but firmly pays attention to different things--like simplicity, humility, non-violence, contemplation, solitude and silence, earth care, nature and other creatures, and the "least of the brothers and sisters." (Sunday)
In Francis we see the emergence of a very different worldview, a worldview that is not based on climbing, achieving, possessing, performing, or any idealization of order, but a life that enjoys and finds deep satisfaction on the level of nakedbeing itself--much more than doing or having. (Monday)
The Franciscan School found a way to be both very traditional and very revolutionary at the same time by emphasizing practice over theory, orthopraxy over orthodoxy, love and action over intellectualizing and speculative truth. (Tuesday)
The Christian religion makes the most daring affirmation: God is redeeming matter and spirit, or the whole of creation. (Wednesday)
Salvation is not a magic act accomplished by moral behavior; rather, salvation is a gradual realization of who we are--and always have been--and will be eternally: children of earth and children of God, human and divine at the same time. (Thursday)
In Franciscan parlance, Jesus did not come to change the mind of God about humanity; Jesus came to change the mind of humanity about God. (Friday)
"Practice: Bodily Knowing"
St. Francis objectively experienced mutual indwelling with Jesus and with all of God's creatures. We see this most clearly late in his life when the cruciform shape of reality became the very shape of Francis' body. He received the marks of the five wounds of Christ (this is historically documented from many sources). Francis learned the message, price, and glory of love in the very cells of his body. Full knowing is alwayspsychosomatic knowing, and Francis seems to exemplify someone who fully absorbed the Gospel with his entire being, not just with his head. This is kinesthetic knowing and full body believing.
Take a few minutes to quietly observe and be present to your body. Sitting upright with legs uncrossed and eyes closed, bring your attention to your left knee. Lightly scratch the knee with your fingernails. Focus on the tingling sensation that lingers. Forget about the rest of your body and focus entirely on your knee, feeling it move, touching its outline. Acknowledge distracting thoughts as they arise and then let them go, returning to awareness of your knee.
Repeat this practice with other parts of your body, wordlessly witnessing your body's sensations and contours. Gradually let the tingling flow without controlling it; simply follow your awareness at its own pace and wherever it leads, trusting God's presence within.
Gateway to Silence: Everything is Grace.
Reference:
Adapted from Richard Rohr, Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi (Franciscan Media: 2014), 23, 192.
For Further Study:
Cynthia Bourgeault, James Finley, Richard Rohr, Returning to Essentials: Teaching an Alternative Orthodoxy (CD, MP3 download)
Richard Rohr, The Art of Letting Go (CD)
Richard Rohr, Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi
Richard Rohr with Tim Scorer, Embracing an Alternative Orthodoxy (DVDand workbook)
"Most of us were taught that God would love us if and when we change. In fact, God loves you so that you can change. It is the inherent experience of love that becomes the engine of change."[Richard Rohr]
Join Fr. Richard for a live webcast:
Authentic Transformation
Tuesday, February 23, 2016
4:30-6:00 p.m. US MST*
Register for as little as $1 at cac.org.
*Registration includes access to the replay, which will be available shortly after the live event through Sunday, March 27, 2016.
---------------------
Center for Action and Contemplation
Center for Action and Contemplation
Center for Action and Contemplation
1823 Five Points Road SW (physical)
PO Box 12464 (mailing)
Albuquerque, New Mexico 87195, United States
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