Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation
Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation for Saturday, 27 May 2017 "Law and Grace" Summary: Sunday, May 21-Friday, May 26, 2017 - The Center of Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States
"Law and Grace"
Summary: Sunday, May 21-Friday, May 26, 2017
Summary: Sunday, May 21-Friday, May 26, 2017
We must recover grace-oriented spirituality if we are to rebuild Christianity from the bottom up. (Sunday)
When you recognize your own radical inability to really obey the purpose of the law and, in that same moment ask for God’s mercy, you have achieved the law’s deepest purpose. (Monday)
Up to now, Christianity has largely mirrored culture instead of transforming it. (Tuesday)
Only our personal experiences of unconditional, unearned, and infinite love and forgiveness can move us from the normal worldview of scarcity to the divine world of infinite abundance. (Wednesday)
God does not love you because you are good; God loves you because God is good. And then you can be good because you draw upon such an Infinite Source. (Thursday)
God’s faithfulness has never been dependent on our worthiness or readiness. This is restorative justice, the divine form of justice. (Friday)
When you recognize your own radical inability to really obey the purpose of the law and, in that same moment ask for God’s mercy, you have achieved the law’s deepest purpose. (Monday)
Up to now, Christianity has largely mirrored culture instead of transforming it. (Tuesday)
Only our personal experiences of unconditional, unearned, and infinite love and forgiveness can move us from the normal worldview of scarcity to the divine world of infinite abundance. (Wednesday)
God does not love you because you are good; God loves you because God is good. And then you can be good because you draw upon such an Infinite Source. (Thursday)
God’s faithfulness has never been dependent on our worthiness or readiness. This is restorative justice, the divine form of justice. (Friday)
"Practice: Trust the River"
Grace and mercy teach us that we are all much more than the good or bad stories we tell about ourselves. These self-made identities are based on hurts and unconscious agendas that allow us to see and judge things in a very selective way. Strangely, your real life is not about “you.” It is part of a much larger stream.
The Spirit is described as “flowing water” and as “a spring inside you” (John 4:10-14), a “river of life” (Revelation 22:1-2). Faith is trusting the Big River of God’s providential love, which is to trust the visible embodiment (the Son), the flow (the Holy Spirit), and the source itself (the Father). This is a divine process that we don’t have to change, coerce, or improve. We just need to allow and enjoy it. That takes immense confidence, especially when we’re hurting.
Usually, I can feel myself get panicky. Then I want to quickly make things right. I lose my ability to be present, ignoring my body and heart while my mind is obsessing. I’m oriented toward goals and making things happen, trying to push or even create my own river. Yet the Big River already flows through me and I am only one small part of it.
Faith does not need to push the river precisely because it is able to trust that there is a river. The river is flowing; we are already in it. So do not be afraid. We have been given the Spirit by a very proactive God. Jesus understands this gift as a foregone conclusion: “If you, who are evil, know how to give your children what is good, how much more will the heavenly Father give you the Holy Spirit?” (Luke 11:13).
Simone Weil said, “Grace fills empty spaces but it can only enter where there is a void to receive it, and it is grace itself which makes this void.” [1] Grace leads us to the state of emptiness, to that momentary sense of meaninglessness in which we ask, “What is it all for? What does it all mean?” All we can do is try to keep our hands cupped and open. And it is even grace to do that. But we must want grace and know we need it.
Ask yourself regularly, “What am I afraid of? Does it matter? Will it matter at the end or in the great scheme of things? Is it worth holding on to?” Grace will lead us into such fears and emptiness, and grace alone can fill them up, if we are willing to stay in the void. We mustn’t engineer an answer too quickly. People of deep faith develop a high tolerance for ambiguity and come to recognize that it is only the small self that needs constant certitude or order. The Godself is perfectly at home in the River of Mystery.
The Spirit is described as “flowing water” and as “a spring inside you” (John 4:10-14), a “river of life” (Revelation 22:1-2). Faith is trusting the Big River of God’s providential love, which is to trust the visible embodiment (the Son), the flow (the Holy Spirit), and the source itself (the Father). This is a divine process that we don’t have to change, coerce, or improve. We just need to allow and enjoy it. That takes immense confidence, especially when we’re hurting.
Usually, I can feel myself get panicky. Then I want to quickly make things right. I lose my ability to be present, ignoring my body and heart while my mind is obsessing. I’m oriented toward goals and making things happen, trying to push or even create my own river. Yet the Big River already flows through me and I am only one small part of it.
Faith does not need to push the river precisely because it is able to trust that there is a river. The river is flowing; we are already in it. So do not be afraid. We have been given the Spirit by a very proactive God. Jesus understands this gift as a foregone conclusion: “If you, who are evil, know how to give your children what is good, how much more will the heavenly Father give you the Holy Spirit?” (Luke 11:13).
Simone Weil said, “Grace fills empty spaces but it can only enter where there is a void to receive it, and it is grace itself which makes this void.” [1] Grace leads us to the state of emptiness, to that momentary sense of meaninglessness in which we ask, “What is it all for? What does it all mean?” All we can do is try to keep our hands cupped and open. And it is even grace to do that. But we must want grace and know we need it.
Ask yourself regularly, “What am I afraid of? Does it matter? Will it matter at the end or in the great scheme of things? Is it worth holding on to?” Grace will lead us into such fears and emptiness, and grace alone can fill them up, if we are willing to stay in the void. We mustn’t engineer an answer too quickly. People of deep faith develop a high tolerance for ambiguity and come to recognize that it is only the small self that needs constant certitude or order. The Godself is perfectly at home in the River of Mystery.
Gateway to Silence: By grace I am saved.
References:
[1] Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace, introductions by Gustave Thibon & Thomas R. Nevin (Bison Books: 1997), 55.
Adapted from Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer (The Crossroad Publishing Company: 2003), 46, 53, 142-144.
For Further Study:
Richard Rohr, New Great Themes of Scripture (Franciscan Media: 2012), CD
Richard Rohr, Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality (Franciscan Media: 2008)
[1] Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace, introductions by Gustave Thibon & Thomas R. Nevin (Bison Books: 1997), 55.
Adapted from Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer (The Crossroad Publishing Company: 2003), 46, 53, 142-144.
For Further Study:
Richard Rohr, New Great Themes of Scripture (Franciscan Media: 2012), CD
Richard Rohr, Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality (Franciscan Media: 2008)
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Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation for Friday, 26 May 2017: "Covenant Love" - The Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States "God is just being true to Godself in loving."
"Law and Grace"
Covenant Love
Friday, May 26, 2017
Covenant Love
Friday, May 26, 2017
YHWH, YHWH, a God of tenderness and compassion, slow to anger, rich in kindness, and abounding in faithfulness. For the thousandth generation, YHWH maintains his kindness, forgiving all our faults, transgressions, and sins. [Exodus 34:6-7]
In this marvelous early affirmation, we have, in the words of Walter Brueggemann, “a formulation so studied that it may be reckoned to be something of a classic, normative statement to which Israel regularly returned, meriting the label ‘credo.’” [1] In it are found five generous and glorious adjectives that describe the heart and soul of Israel’s belief. Somehow, against all odds and unlike their neighbors, they were able to experience a God who was merciful (in Hebrew, rhm), compassionate/gracious (hnn), steadfast in love (hsd), tenaciously faithful (‘emeth), and forgiving (ns’). This is the dynamic center of their entire belief system, as it should be ours. Like all spiritual mystery, it seems to be endlessly generative and fruitful, culminating in the full-blown—and literally unthinkable—concept of grace. God then grows us from the inside out.
In Ezekiel, chapters 36-37, God really chews Israel out through the prophet, telling the people, in effect, “You haven’t done anything right, you’ve missed the whole point.” YHWH disqualifies the children of Israel as a worthy people, almost as if to tell them to throw the whole thing out and start over. Then, seemingly out of nowhere (but really coming from divine mercy, which is always present), God promises to rebuild the project from the bottom up, and says, “I am not doing this for your sake, house of Israel, but for the sake of my holy name” (Ezekiel 36:22). God is God’s own reference point. God is just being true to Godself in loving. God’s faithfulness has never been dependent on our worthiness or readiness. This is restorative justice, the divine form of justice.
The word translated as “steadfast love” is often rendered “covenant love” or “faithful love.” Today we often call it unconditional love. It’s “one-sided love,” if you will, because Israel never keeps its side of the covenant, just as we never keep our side of the relationship to this day. YHWH has learned to do it all from God’s side since we are basically unreliable as lovers. That is the constant message of much of the Hebrew Scriptures from Moses to Job. Yet, as Paul says, “Is it possible that YHWH has rejected God’s people? Of course not!” (Romans 11:1). Divine Love is not determined by the worthiness of the object but by the Total
In this marvelous early affirmation, we have, in the words of Walter Brueggemann, “a formulation so studied that it may be reckoned to be something of a classic, normative statement to which Israel regularly returned, meriting the label ‘credo.’” [1] In it are found five generous and glorious adjectives that describe the heart and soul of Israel’s belief. Somehow, against all odds and unlike their neighbors, they were able to experience a God who was merciful (in Hebrew, rhm), compassionate/gracious (hnn), steadfast in love (hsd), tenaciously faithful (‘emeth), and forgiving (ns’). This is the dynamic center of their entire belief system, as it should be ours. Like all spiritual mystery, it seems to be endlessly generative and fruitful, culminating in the full-blown—and literally unthinkable—concept of grace. God then grows us from the inside out.
In Ezekiel, chapters 36-37, God really chews Israel out through the prophet, telling the people, in effect, “You haven’t done anything right, you’ve missed the whole point.” YHWH disqualifies the children of Israel as a worthy people, almost as if to tell them to throw the whole thing out and start over. Then, seemingly out of nowhere (but really coming from divine mercy, which is always present), God promises to rebuild the project from the bottom up, and says, “I am not doing this for your sake, house of Israel, but for the sake of my holy name” (Ezekiel 36:22). God is God’s own reference point. God is just being true to Godself in loving. God’s faithfulness has never been dependent on our worthiness or readiness. This is restorative justice, the divine form of justice.
The word translated as “steadfast love” is often rendered “covenant love” or “faithful love.” Today we often call it unconditional love. It’s “one-sided love,” if you will, because Israel never keeps its side of the covenant, just as we never keep our side of the relationship to this day. YHWH has learned to do it all from God’s side since we are basically unreliable as lovers. That is the constant message of much of the Hebrew Scriptures from Moses to Job. Yet, as Paul says, “Is it possible that YHWH has rejected God’s people? Of course not!” (Romans 11:1). Divine Love is not determined by the worthiness of the object but by the Total
Generosity of the Subject.
Gateway to Silence: By grace I am saved.
Gateway to Silence: By grace I am saved.
References:
[1] Walter Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy (Fortress: 1997), 216.
Adapted from Richard Rohr, Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality (Franciscan Media: 2008), 168-170.
[1] Walter Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy (Fortress: 1997), 216.
Adapted from Richard Rohr, Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality (Franciscan Media: 2008), 168-170.
Don’t miss CAC’s annual CONSPIRE conference!
Friday, July 7–Sunday, July 9, 2017
Albuquerque, New Mexico and Livestream
Richard Rohr, angel Kyodo williams, Mirabai Starr, and Ken Wilber (via video) talk about Transformation, both personal and social. A spacious rhythm of retreat offers time and practice for bringing mind into heart and body where authentic transformation can take root
Register soon for the in-person or webcast event! Webcast registration includes access to both the livestream and the replay. Financial assistance and a student rate are available.
Learn more at cac.org.
Friday, July 7–Sunday, July 9, 2017
Albuquerque, New Mexico and Livestream
Richard Rohr, angel Kyodo williams, Mirabai Starr, and Ken Wilber (via video) talk about Transformation, both personal and social. A spacious rhythm of retreat offers time and practice for bringing mind into heart and body where authentic transformation can take root
Register soon for the in-person or webcast event! Webcast registration includes access to both the livestream and the replay. Financial assistance and a student rate are available.
Learn more at cac.org.
823 Five Points Road SouthWest (physical)
PO Box 12464 (mailing)
PO Box 12464 (mailing)
Albuquerque, New Mexico 87195, United States
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