It’s not, “If I am moral, I will someday achieve union with God.” That’s backwards. We must put the horse before the cart, and not the cart before the horse. Union with God is objectively already given to everyone from the moment of their creation. Who else created them? All we can do is awaken to it. We cannot achieve it. Once we live the life of union and abundance—not hating ourselves and apologizing for ourselves every minute—then we start living in our inherent dignity, a dignity that no behavior has given to us and no one can take away.
Then the horse is first and the cart comes along. Not “If I am moral, I will be in union with God, but when I live in union with God, morality will come naturally and powerfully!” A completely different path.
Richard Rohr
AMEN! I have always believed that, but I'm glad to hear it put into words. I really need to read that Rohr dude.
ReplyDeleteThe Rohr dude has it going on.........and I am grateful for having stumbled upon him when I did.
ReplyDeleteThis that he decribes is a completely different path.
It is finished....now onto the awakening part.
Yeah, what Erin said. If one were to choose one of his books, which one would one start with?
ReplyDeleteErin - yeah, it's logical and apparent and obvious. You could do much worse than reading Rohr, that's for shohr.
ReplyDeleteKent - I love that. It is finished ... now onto the awakening. Whee.
Barbara - hmmm,well, I haven't read all of his books. But I've read Everything Belongs, which is all about living contemplatively, and Hope Against Anxiety: The Transforming Vision of St Francis in an Age of Anxiety. Both are worth it. Jump in anywhere, I doubt it will matter :)
one of the books Sue mentioned is actually Hope Against Darkness
ReplyDeleteThis is from his book Simplicity
"Jesus is too much for us. The Church is a kind of collective teenager. Perhaps we're gradually getting ready to let the Gospel talk straight to us. We have always wanted answers, because in an early stage of human life the first thing we need is certainty. But Jesus doesn't offer us any certainties; he offers us a journey of faith. Jesus doesn't give us many answers; he tells us what the right questions are, what questions the human soul has to wrestle with to stumble onto Christ and the truth."
Oh, yeah, thanks for picking that up, Kent :)
ReplyDeleteA collective teenager - cool :)