A Word from Richard Rohr

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diversity, goodness, Richard Rohr, The Divine Dance, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Having no worthwhile thoughts of my own this morning, I opened Richard Rohr’s book, The Divine Dance. Choosing at random a title from this mountain of creativity, I got just what I needed. The title was “The Delight of Diversity.” (I have loved alliterations for a very long time.) Here’s what I read that I offer to you for today.

“Goodness isn’t sameness. Goodness, to be goodness, needs contrast and tension, not perfect uniformity. If Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all God yet clearly different, and we embrace this differentiation, resisting the temptation to blend them into some kind of amorphous blob, then there are at least three shapes to pure goodness. (And, of course, probably more.)” p. 61.

Chew on that for awhile, will you, especially if you are unhappy or frustrated with your “companions on the journey” today. If you can’t delight in the fact that others are diverse rather than just like you, try to love them anyway. Won’t you, please?

Real and Imperfect

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A Deep Breath of Life, Alan Cohen, Brian Johnson, divine nature, forgive, imperfection, perfect, perspective, real world, Richard Rohr, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

At this moment we’re closing in on what looks to me personally at some moments like an entire month of wasted time. I wake up each morning and gradually a plan for the day emerges in my mind. As I ready for sleep each night, looking back on the day, I ask myself what I have accomplished and can rarely come up with anything more than a zoom call or two in which I have participated. It’s hard not to be disappointed in myself.

This morning I had the good fortune to read two things that assuaged my conscience and shifted my perspective. Speaking of life and how we live it, Brian Johnson (optimize.me) quoted Richard Rohr – one of his new heroes. Father Richard says the following: “A ‘perfect’ person ends up being one who can consciously forgive and include imperfection rather than one who thinks he or she is totally above and beyond imperfection.” Great insight! My favorite line is elsewhere in the text, however, where he writes: “What a clever place for God to hide holiness.”

Alan Cohen, in his book, A Deep Breath of Life, was talking about “the real world” and our participation in it. Although he didn’t speak of perfection directly, he wrote a lovely paragraph that I saw as related. As he sees it: “The real world is a world of kindness, caring, vision, and service. All these qualities are attributes of our divine nature. As children of God, we can only be what God is, and that is everything that is good. We are born of light, and we return to the light. To live in light is to live in the real world.”

So here’s the message that has been renewed in my consciousness once again: Who we are is much more important than what we do. So regardless of how many or how few tasks are crossed off on my ever-present lists, I can be satisfied in this time-out-of-time to be living an imperfect real life!

The Household of God

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Ephesus, gift, global community, greater consciousness, listen, Pope Francis, psalm 19, refugees, Richard Rohr, St. Paul, the household of God, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

It must’ve been an amazing experience to hear the impassioned messages of St. Paul. This morning I can only imagine the gathering in Ephesus catching fire when he proclaims to them that they are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the holy ones and members of the household of God! (EPH 2:19-22) When he adds the claim that – in Christ Jesus – they are being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit, I wonder how many in the crowd were convinced right away, which ones had to ponder and discuss the message and who turned away finding it all too difficult to believe. Once again I am thrown back to images of the crowds lining the streets in our country (or anywhere) to get a glimpse of Pope Francis. There is something palpable about the energy of an event like that and about the outpouring of love that accompanies the one bringing the message.

What does it mean to us today to be “members of the household of God?” Clearly we are called to a greater consciousness, as Richard Rohr says, that “everything belongs” and that we have responsibility in the global community. The psalmist reminds us today of the reach of that responsibility when proclaiming in Psalm 19 that “the heavens proclaim the glory of God and the firmament proclaims God’s handiwork…” Just as we are to hear the words of our brothers and sisters in need (perhaps especially the hordes of refugees in Eastern Europe at this moment), we need to be attentive to the groanings of Earth, working to correct our misuse of her resources. And we can’t depend on daily reminders of our place in this household. It’s time for us to act as mature members, listening to the inner promptings of love and recognition, caring for this dwelling place of God that has been given to us as gift.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Oneing”

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angel, Annunciation, divine unity, God, Lady Julian of Norwich, Luke, Mary, messenger, oneing, Richard Rohr, soul, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, wisdom

I glanced at my “Wisdom” bookcase this morning as I sat down to ponder the day. All the books on those three shelves have something to do with going deeper spiritually. About two-thirds of them are still waiting to open their voices to me but I have great hopes of savoring each of their messages as I go forward. I noticed a thin volume on its side on the second shelf between three other books that arrived recently and found no room for standing upright. Since I couldn’t identify it I had to take a look, of course. As soon as I pulled it out I recognized it as a cherished Christmas gift two years ago named Ripening, a publication by Richard Rohr’s Center for Action and Contemplation, the second in a series called Oneing. I read again the meaning “oneing” as an old English word that was used by Lady Julian of Norwich (1342-1416) to describe the encounter between God and the soul. Rohr uses it to express the divine unity that stands behind all the divisions, dichotomies and dualisms in the world as in the words of Jesus “that all may be one.”

I took this as an answer to what I should write this morning on this day that Christians commemorate the “Annunciation” to Mary that she was to be the mother of Jesus. There are all sorts of questions around the gospel text (LK 1:26-38) – about the messenger/angel (who and how the message was received: just a light, a voice, an apparition, an inner knowing?), about Mary’s response: (fear, hesitation, confusion,disbelief, consideration of Joseph, plausibility of her immediate response?), etc. I’ve had many interesting and some deep conversations about what tradition says and what is a matter of personal faith. I think, though, we could do well to consider Julian’s word as what happened to Mary on that day and then continued to grow in her throughout her life as she lived toward God in the monumental events and the everyday tasks of being herself and being mother. Additionally, we might recall Rohr’s suggestion of how we might proceed to this “oneing” in our lives for the good of ourselves and the survival of the earth.