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A friend of mine wrote this brief description what of Rohr is about.

Rohr has an unconventionally big and broad perspective on God and embraces and pulls from all the major world religions (Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Christianity) and doesn't believe that mainline Christianity (as we know it) is the "only way". In fact, he thinks mainline evangelical "Christianity" has been a disaster in many aspects. While he himself is a Franciscan Catholic (though a very big-thinking one) and while he ends up at Jesus as God, on the cross, and heavily immerses in scripture, he embraces everyone and where they are in their own religions and theologies and hopes that he has something to offer everyone, even if they don't share the same theology, in the spirit of: We're all part of the same giant LOVE.

The only reason I mentioned that about Rohr is not to trigger any debate about religion or theology; rather, in case you think this may not apply to you because you don't believe a certain way. You don't have to embrace the physical/literal "Jesus as God" and resurrection to be transformed in your heart and soul and find peace in yourself. I have my own questions and struggles and different thoughts about some of that, but I digress. It's not the point. At all.

See my notes on faith and reason. I quote Paul Tillich, German-American theologian, who said:
"Doubt is not the opposite of faith; it is one element of faith."

She found the following Rohr message comforting as she was recovering from a string of personal tragedies that left her stressed and looking for strength.


Practice: The Welcoming Prayer

I'd like to offer you a form of contemplation--a practice of accepting paradox and holding the tension of contradictions--called The Welcoming Prayer.

First, identify a hurt or an offense in your life. Remember the feelings you first experienced with this hurt and feel them the way you first felt them. Notice how this shows up in your body. Paying attention to your body's sensations keeps you from jumping into the mind and its dualistic games of good-guy/bad-guy, win/lose, either/or.

After you can identify the hurt and feel it in your body, welcome it. Stop fighting it. Stop splitting and blaming. Welcome the grief. Welcome the anger. It's hard to do, but for some reason, when we name it, feel it, and welcome it, transformation can begin.

Don't lose presence to the moment. Any kind of analysis will lead you back into attachment to your ego self. The reason a bird sitting on a hot wire is not electrocuted is quite simply because it does not touch the ground to give the electricity a pathway. Hold the creative tension, but don't ground it by thinking about it, critiquing it, or analyzing it.

When you're able to welcome your own pain, you will in some way feel the pain of the whole world. This is what it means to be human--and also what it means to be divine. You can hold this immense pain because you too are being held by the very One who went through this process on the Cross. Jesus was holding all the pain of the world, at least symbolically or archetypally; though the world had come to hate him, he refused to hate it back.

Now hand all of this pain--yours and the world's--over to God. Let it go. Ask for the grace of forgiveness for the person who hurt you, for the event that offended you, for the reality of suffering in each life.

I can't promise the pain will leave easily or quickly. To forgive is not to forget. But letting go frees up a great amount of soul-energy that liberates a level of life you didn't know existed. It leads you to your True Self.


Some other good messages from Rohr's Meditations

Dualistic and Nondual Thinking

It seems we are all addicted to our need to make distinctions and judgments, which we mistake for "thinking." Most of us think we are our thinking, yet almost all thinking--even among highly educated people--is repetitive and immensely self-referential.

Contemplation is a panoramic, receptive awareness whereby you take in all that the situation, the moment, the event offers, without judging, eliminating, or labeling anything up or down, good or bad. It is a pure and positive gaze, unattached to outcome or critique. Being present and conscious in this way does not come naturally to modern and postmodern people.

The nondual, contemplative mind is a whole new mind for most people! With it, you can stand back and compassionately observe the self or any event from an appropriately detached viewing platform. This is the most immediate and practical meaning of "dying to self" I can think of.

More at Contemplative Consciousness Fr. Richard Rohr- Center for Action and Contemplation

See also:
Interpreting Scripture Return to Religion.
Becoming Stillness - Richard Rohr - YouTube


Last updated 29 Jan 2017