Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality For The Two Halves Of Life Quotes
every time God forgives us, God is saying that God's own rules do not matter as much as the relationship that God wants to create with us.
The cross solved our problem by first revealing our real problem, our universal pattern of scapegoating and sacrificing others. The cross exposes forever the scene of our crime.
When we fail we are merely joining the great parade of humanity that has walked ahead of us and will follow after us.
Those who are not true leaders will just affirm people at their own immature level.
The ego hates losing – even to God.
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.
People who know how to creatively break the rules also know why the rules were there in the first place.
Denial of our pattern of failure seems to be a kind of practical atheism or chosen ignorance among many believers and clergy.
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.
Sin happens whenever we refuse to keep growing.
Change is not what we expect from religious people. They tend to love the past more than the present or the future.
God seems to be about turning our loves around and using them toward the great love that is their true object.
We are usually on bended knee before laws or angrily reacting against them, both immature responses.
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.
Whatever good, true, or perfect things we can say about humanity or creation, we can say of God exponentially. God is the beauty of creation and humanity multiplied to the infinite power.
Life is all about practicing for heaven." p 101.
It is no surprise that the first and always unwelcome message of male initiation rites is LIFE – IS – HARD.
If this inner and critical voice has kept you safe for many years as your inner voice of authority, you may end up not being able to hear the real voice of God.
Most people confuse their life situation with their actual life, which is an underlying flow beneath the everyday events.
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.
Without law in some form, and, also, without butting up against that law, we cannot move forward easily or naturally. We have to have something hard and half-good to rebel against.
Self-help courses will only help you if they teach you to pay attention to life itself.
Often it takes outer authority to send us on the path to our own inner authority.
The shape of evil is much more superficiality and blindness than the usual list of hot sins. God hides, and is found, precisely in the depths of everything.
Once you see that your skin and your gift are two sides of the same coin, you can never forget it. It preserves religion from any arrogance and denial.
When you get your, 'Who am I?', question right, all of your, 'What should I do?' questions tend to take care of themselves
I do not think you should get rid of your sin until you have learned what it has to teach you.