Much of the work of midlife is to tell the difference between those who are dealing with their issues through you and those who are really dealing with you.
Richard RohrTags: self-knowledge reaction interpersonal-relations
We all become well-disguised mirror image of anything that we fight too long or too directly. That which we oppose determines the energy and frames the questions after a while. Most frontal attacks on evil just produce another kind of evil in yourself, along with a very inflated self-image to boot.
Richard RohrTags: reaction self-righteousness discernment
I have prayed for years for one good humiliation a day, and then, I must watch my reaction to it. I have no other way of spotting both my denied shadow self and my idealized persona.
Richard RohrTags: humility mistakes sin self-perception
The human art form is in uniting fruitful activity with a contemplative stance, not one or the other, but always both at the same time.
Richard RohrTags: productivity contemplation balanced-life
In the second half of life, people have less power to infatuate you. But they also have much less power to control you or hurt you.
Richard RohrTags: emotions independence manipulations
Think of the many, many stories about God choosing people. There are Moses, Abraham, and Sarah; there are David, Jeremiah, Gideon, Samuel, Jonah, and Isaiah. There is Israel itself. Much later there are Peter and Paul, and, most especially, Mary.
God is always choosing people. First impressions aside, God is not primarily choosing them for a role or a task, although it might appear that way. God is really choosing them to be God’s self in this world, each in a unique situation. If they allow themselves to experience being chosen, being a beloved, being somehow God’s presence in the world, they invariably communicate that same chosenness to others. And thus the Mystery passes on from age to age. Yes, we do have roles and tasks in this world, but finally they are all the same—to uniquely be divine love in a way that no one else can or will.
Until we walk with despair, and still have hope, we will not know that our hope was not just hope in ourselves, in our own successes, in our power to make a difference, in our image of what perfection should be. We need hope from a much deeper Source. We need a hope larger than ourselves.
Until we walk with personal issues of despair, we will never uncover the Real Hope on the other side of that despair. Until we allow the crash and crush of our images, we will never discover the Real Life beyond what only seems like death. Remember, death is an imaginary loss of an imaginary self, that is going to pass anyway.
This very journey is probably the heart of what Jesus came to reveal.
This seems to have been St. Augustine's very notion of "memory," not just nostalgia for some past moment, but connecting past, present, and future in one complete contemplative knowing.
Richard RohrTags: consciousness memory awareness peace-of-mind
The people who know God well—mystics, hermits, prayerful people, those who risk everything to find God—always meet a lover, not a dictator.
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