Quotes from Richard Rohr

Resurrection is contagious, and free for the taking. It is everywhere visible and available for those who have learned how to see, how to rejoice, and how to neither hoard nor limit God's ubiquitous gift.

Great saints are both courageous and creative; they are "yes, and" or non-dual thinkers who never get trapped in the small world of "either-or" except in the ways of love and courage, where they are indeed all or nothing.

We are creating many para-church organizations, and some new studies claim that if we look at the statistics, we will see that Christians are not leaving Christianity as much as they are realigning with groups that live Christian values in the world, instead of just gathering to again hear the readings, recite the creed, and sing songs on Sunday.

In a materialistic society we have projected our sense of worth almost exclusively onto things. That is why it's hard to rediscover our souls in ourselves.

depiction of God in The Trinity seriously, we have to say, "In the beginning was the Relationship." This icon yields more fruits the more you gaze on it. Every part of it was obviously meditated on with great care: the gaze between the Three; the deep respect between them as they all share from a common bowl. And note the hand of the Spirit pointing toward the open and fourth place at the table! Is the Holy Spirit inviting, offering, and clearing space? If so, for what?

First half of life folks will seldom have the courage to go forward at this point unless they have a guide, a friend, a Virgil, a Tiresias, a Beatrice, a soul friend or a stumbling block to guide them toward the goal. There are few in our religious culture who understand the necessity of mature, internalized conscience so wise guides are hard to find. You will have many more Aarons building you golden calves than Moses' leading you on any exodus.

Magdalene loved a very concrete Jesus who led her to a ubiquitous and Risen Christ. Paul started with a Universal Christ and grounded it all in a quite homely and lovable Jesus, who was rejected, crucified, and resurrected. Working together, Magdalene and Paul guide and direct the Christian experience in truly helpful ways toward both Jesus and Christ, but from opposite sides.

They are comfortable knowing, and they are comfortable not knowing. They can care and not care—without guilt or shame. They can act without success because they have named their fear of failure. They do not need to affirm or deny, judge or ignore. But they are free to do all of them with impunity. A saint is invincible.

As Rilke put it, "When we are only victorious over small things, it leaves us feeling small.

We are driven, kicking and screaming, toward ever higher levels of union and ability to include (to forgive others for being "other"), it seems to me. "Everything that rises must converge," as Teilhard de Chardin put it.

The motivation for all morality and religion is the imitation of God, who is love. When religion bases itself in fear, duty, honor, a need for law and order, a need for a superior self-image, or group cohesiveness, it is corrupt. It looks good and will have many defenders, but it is actually at the heart of the problem. The real God is no longer needed or even wanted, and such religion usually becomes the actual enemy of God. The crucifixion of Jesus speaks to this.

You can forgive the outer world only if and when you have first forgiven your own inner world.

We would have helped history and individuals so much more if we had spent our time revealing how Christ is everywhere instead of proving that Jesus was God.

Asking for something from God does not mean talking God into it; it means an awakening of the gift within ourselves.

Be still and wait without hope, for hope would be hope for the wrong thing. —T.S. ELIOT, "East Coker" from the Four Quartets

The True Self has already overcome the contradictions and paradoxes of life, which is symbolized by the Risen Christ who presents the full tension of death and life, earth and spirit, human and divine—and precisely as overcome. That is the standing message that the Resurrected One holds for all of history. He holds and overcomes the ultimate and major tensions of humanity.

What made us think we were

God has to work on the soul in secret and in darkness because if we fully knew what was happening and what Mystery-Transformation-God-Grace will eventually ask of us we would either try to take charge or stop the whole process. No one oversees his or her own demise willingly even when it is the false self that is dying.

In the larger-than-life, spiritually transformed people I have met, I always find one common denominator: in some sense, they have all died before they died. They have followed in the self-emptying steps of Jesus, a path from death to life that Christians from all over the world celebrate during Easter week.

We clergy have gotten ourselves into the job of "sin management" instead of sin transformation. "If you are not perfect, then you are doing something wrong," we have taught people. We have blamed the victim, or have had little pity for victims, while daring to worship a victim image of God. Our mistakes are something to be pitied and healed much more than hated, denied, or perfectly avoided. I do not think you should get rid of

Christians learn to submit to trials because Jesus told us that we must carry the cross with him. Buddhists do it because the Buddha very directly said that life is suffering, but the real goal is to choose skillful and necessary suffering over what is usually just resented and projected suffering. In that the Buddha was a spiritual genius, and we Christians could learn a lot from him and his mature followers.

God is gathering us out of all regions till he can make resurrection of our own hearts from the very earth [emphasis added], and teach us that we are all of one substance, and members of one another; for the one who loves his neighbor loves God, and the one who loves God, loves his own soul.

Yearning for a new way will not produce it. Only ending the old way can do that.

Whenever God is conceived in the soul, it is always an allowing, never an accomplishment.