Quotes from Richard Rohr

If you go to heaven alone, wrapped in your private worthiness, it is by definition not heaven. If your notion of heaven is based on exclusion of anybody else, then it is by definition not heaven. The more you exclude, the more hellish and lonely your existence always is. How could anyone enjoy the "perfect happiness" of any heaven if she knew her loved ones were not there, or were being tortured for all eternity? It would be impossible.

ALL SAYING MUST BE BALANCED BY UNSAYING, and knowing must be humbled by unknowing. Without this balance, religion invariably becomes arrogant, exclusionary, and even violent.

The more that we can put together, the more that we can "forgive" and allow, the more we can include and enjoy, the more we tend to be living in the Spirit.

When the self is surrendered—when we're not too tied to our own agenda, anger, fear, or desire to make things happen our way—we are truly open to love. But be aware of the heart's propensity to clench and close.

Such utterly free and gratuitous love is the only love that validates, transforms, and changes us at the deepest levels of consciousness. It is what we all desire and what we were created for. Once you allow it for yourself, you will almost naturally become a conduit of the same for others.

God hides, and is found, precisely in the depths of everything, even and maybe especially in the deep fathoming of our fallings and failures. Sin is to stay on the surface of even holy things, like Bible, sacrament, or church.

but I do believe that the only way out of deep sadness is to go with it and through it.

Marcus J. Borg, Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time

Holiness has to do with who we are in God, where we abide as a "self" with an utterly reconstituted sense of our own personhood.

Creation is the first and probably the final Bible, Incarnation is already Redemption, Christmas is already Easter, and Jesus is already Christ.

Jesus touched and healed anybody who desired it and asked for it, and there were no other prerequisites for his healings.

It takes uncommon humility to carry both the dark and the light side of things. The only true perfection available to humans is the honest acceptance of our imperfection.

Much of patriarchal Christian interpretation has been trying to avoid pain, trying to avoid being poor, trying to avoid powerlessness. That's why we couldn't hear Jesus. If we had had an image of God as the great mother who is giving birth—as in Romans 8:22—I think history as process, pain, patience, guided destiny would have come more naturally. As it is, we have seen history as a linear obstacle course, something to be conquered, exploited and won. A

Once you wake up, as Jesus and Pope Francis have, you know that cleaning up is a constant process that comes on different timetables for different people, around many different issues, and for very different motivations. This is why love and growth demand discernment, not enforcement.

As Simone Weil said in various ways, it is much easier to make non-Christians into Christians than it is to make Christians into Christians. Cradle Christians are almost totally preconditioned to the carrot-on-the-stick model.

The innocuous mental belief systems of much religion are probably the major cause of atheism in the world today, because people see that they have not generally created people who are more strong, caring, or creative than other groups—and often a lot worse.

pride. If there's too much "I know," it will lead to illusion and ignorance. Isn't that ironic? Jesus says, "The person who says 'I know,' is precisely the blind one" (John 9:41).

In his critique of his fathers and uncles, Jung recognized that many humans had become reflections of the punitive God they worshipped. A forgiving God allows us to recognize the good in the supposed bad, and the bad in the supposed perfect or ideal.

Myth is, in fact, something that is so true that it can be adequately expressed only in story, symbol, and ritual. It can't be abstracted and objectified. Its meaning and mystery are so deep and broad that they can be presented only in story form. When you step into a story, you find it is without limits and you can walk around with it and inside it. It is natural to sing, dance, and reenact a story. It is too big and too deep to be merely "understood" or taught.

If something comes toward you with grace and can pass through you toward others with grace, you can trust it as the voice of God.

Abba is the word that Jesus used to connote safety and endearment. It is actually a child's word, closest to Papa or Daddy. But unfortunately, it suffers today from centuries of being heard (and used) inside patriarchal cultures, implicitly validating a hierarchical worldview.

And to be fully honest, I think your heart needs to be broken, and broken open, at least once to have a heart at all or to have a heart for others.

Ken Wilber described the later stages of life well when he said that the classic spiritual journey always begins elitist and ends egalitarian. Always!

whatever that takes, and then has plenty left over for others. True heroism serves the common good, or it is not really heroism at all.