Tag Archives: Richard Rohr

richard rohr

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I have quoted Richard Rohr frequently.  Here, he actually gives us permission to quote him freely without regards to copyright!  I will not abuse the privilege but I will quote him more freely.  My main intent today is to sell you on him.  He is a tremendous voice for the Christian faith and you can hear from him daily by going to his web-site and signing up.  He is very astute and very humble.

“You can catch more flies with a spoonful of honey than a barrel of vinegar,” says Francis de Sales.

Enlightenment cannot be manufactured, manipulated, or delivered on demand. It is always passed on from another. Jesus both claims to be the Light of the World and then says the same for us too! (See John 8:12 and Matthew 5:14-16.) It is surprising that most do not connect these two scriptures. Wisdom is not a do-it-yourself project. It is a mystery of transmission, contagion, and the passing on of life, as Francis de Sales did so well through his many loving messages in very hostile 17th-century Geneva.

I always tell people who ask if they can quote me that if it is true wisdom then I have no copyright to it. I learned it from someone else. If it is true wisdom it is always “common domain.”

Enlightenment is not about knowing as much as it is about unknowing; it is not so much learning as unlearning. It is more about entering a vast mystery than arriving at a mental certitude. Enlightenment knows that grace is everywhere, and the only reasonable response is a grateful heart and the acknowledgment that there is more depth and meaning to everything. A too quick and easy answer is invariably a wrong one.

Rohr understands that faith involves going beyond ideology, even “sacred” ideology and seeking the truth that lies beyond mere words.  For example, the term “jesus” is far removed from the experience of “Jesus.”  Or, as the Buddhists say, “The finger pointing to the moon is not the moon.”

Now if I can only humbly learn to practice what I here preach.

 

Richard Rohr and the church

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Richard Rohr was recently on a PBS program on religion and ethics.  I provide here a link to his 10-minute presentation and high recommend it.   Some of my regular readers are evangelical and I really think that Rohr’s spirituality and teachings is relevant to evangelicism although he is a Franciscan monk.

In this presentation, Rohr takes to task the church for opting for a “religious comfort zone” rather than meaningful spiritual development.  He also noted the need of “shadow boxing” to address the dark side that is with us all, even Christians.  “We need to clean the lens,” he said, pointing to his glasses.  He was here referring to the fact that we “see through a glass darkly” and our “glasses” are always being “dirtied” by this dark side, this ever-present shadow.

He emphasized the need of prayer and not hollow, empty, formulaic, meaningless prayer.  Instead he recommends meditative prayer in which one clears his/her mind of the clutter, engages in primordial silence, and follows the biblical mandate, “Be still and know that I am God.”  He declares that prayer helps us to let go of our self, to let go of “repetitive compulsive thoughts.”

(You will have to copy-and-paste the following link to your address bar)

<http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/episodes/november-11-2011/richard-rohr/9902/&gt;

homo sapiens sapiens

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“Consciousness is the subtle and all-embracing mystery within and between Everything. It is like the air we breathe, take for granted, and do not appreciate. Consciousness is not the seeing but that which sees me seeing. You must step back from your compulsiveness, and your attachment to yourself, to be truly conscious. Consciousness cannot be “just me” because it can watch “me” from a distance.”  (Richard Rohr)

Rohr’s comment reminds me of a phrase that a friend recently introduced to me—“homo sapiens sapiens” or “man knows that he knows”.  We all “know” but it is possible for us to “know that we know” and immediately we have went “meta”.  That means we have developed a conscious awareness of our “awareness”.   Someone once said, and I think it was the philosopher Ricoeur , “We cannot have a perspective on our perspective without somehow escaping it.”

This meta-cognition is important as it introduced a “gap” (see Deepak Chopra) into our reality.  It gives us pause.  And, in that pause we have an opportunity to realize that there might be another way of looking at the world.

“humility is endless”

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Richard Rohr, a Catholic monk, is one of the most discerning spiritual teachers in today’s public forum.  His book, The Naked Now, is a powerful explanation of the need of “non-dual thinking” in today’s world.  “Non-dual thinking” eschews the tendency to bifurcate the world into categories, especially the oft spoken of “us-them” paradigm.  He also has a daily blog and will also send you a daily meditation which is always right to the point and powerfully worded.

In today’s meditation he declared, “When you truly know, the giveaway is that you do not know.  And by “do not know” he means that you “do not know.”  There is a pseudo-humility available in which you announce that “you do not know” but in the depths of your heart you are very sure of yourself and willing to pound people with the fact that “you do not know.”  This is just another version of Tolle’s “egoic consciousness” masquerading in liberal sophistry.

The “not knowing” he is advocating is a simple awareness that you do not know anything ultimately and that you are only offering one perspective.  Many others will have a different perspective and they too are blessed by God’s Grace.

It is our task to merely be willing to share our perspective here and there but not to get carried away with it and begin to wield it as a weapon.  When we do that we are merely another example of pig-headed fundamentalists attempting to bludgeon others into our world view.

T.S. Eliot, in The Four Quartets, declared, “The only wisdom we can hope to acquire is the wisdom of humility.”  And then he noted, “And humility is endless.”