Richard Rohr is the founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation in New Mexico. He attempts to combine, as I do, being and doing. A call to be prophetic and accept the present moment. I often find he articulates what I believe better than I can. Here is his experience of freedom:
The primal freedom is the freedom to be the self, the freedom to live in the truth despite all circumstances.
That's what great religion offers us. That's what real prayer offers us. That's why the saints could be imprisoned and not lose their souls. They could be put down and persecuted like Jesus and still not lose their joy, their heart, or their perspective.
Secular freedom is having to do what you want to do. Religious freedom is wanting to do what you have to do.
That's what great religion offers us. That's what real prayer offers us. That's why the saints could be imprisoned and not lose their souls. They could be put down and persecuted like Jesus and still not lose their joy, their heart, or their perspective.
Secular freedom is having to do what you want to do. Religious freedom is wanting to do what you have to do.
Everything Belongs
Richard Rohr
1 comment:
it's funny i tend to think that what religion offers is an opportunity to displace the self. it strikes me that it is all to easy to be a "self," preoccupied with my own issues, my own wants and needs, etc. what is difficult is to be for others, to have my own self complacency interrupted by the call of the other. the nominative "i" is an illusory construct that covers over a more basic understanding of the self which is always registered in the accusative, in a relation with the other.
a lot of new age spirituality influenced by eastern religious perspectives seems to offer precisely this type of narcissistic spirituality that is exclusively concerned with making myself feel whole and integrated.
our self help infused culture appears to have lost a more profound understanding of spirituality that is as old as a certain reading of the bible, in which my encounter with those in need--the widow, the orphan, and stranger--lacerates the self and summons it beyond its own, everyday egoism and provides it the opportunity for trascendence. transcendence as transcendence of the self. If the bible is right the others physical needs are my spiritual needs.
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