* irenic *
2006-12-21 05:23:44 UTC
Utterly Humbled by Mystery
by Richard Rohr
Richard Rohr is founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation in
Albuquerque, N.M. He took his Franciscan vows in 1961, and was ordained as a
priest in 1970. Rohr is a frequent speaker and writer on issues of community
building, peace and justice. Center for Action and Contemplation
We love closure, resolution and clarity, while thinking that we are
people of 'faith'! How strange that the very word 'faith' has come to mean
its exact opposite.
Morning Edition, December 18, 2006 I believe in mystery and multiplicity.
To religious believers this may sound almost pagan. But I don't think so. My
very belief and experience of a loving and endlessly creative God has led me
to trust in both.
I've had the good fortune of teaching and preaching across much of the
globe, while also struggling to make sense of my experience in my own tiny
world. This life journey has led me to love mystery and not feel the need to
change it or make it un-mysterious. This has put me at odds with many other
believers I know who seem to need explanations for everything.
Religious belief has made me comfortable with ambiguity. "Hints and
guesses," as T.S. Eliot would say. I often spend the season of Lent in a
hermitage, where I live alone for the whole 40 days. The more I am alone
with the Alone, the more I surrender to ambivalence, to happy contradictions
and seeming inconsistencies in myself and almost everything else, including
God. Paradoxes don't scare me anymore.
When I was young, I couldn't tolerate such ambiguity. My education had
trained me to have a lust for answers and explanations. Now, at age 63, it's
all quite different. I no longer believe this is a quid pro quo universe --
I've counseled too many prisoners, worked with too many failed marriages,
faced my own dilemmas too many times and been loved gratuitously after too
many failures.
Whenever I think there's a perfect pattern, further reading and study reveal
an exception. Whenever I want to say "only" or "always," someone or
something proves me wrong. My scientist friends have come up with things
like "principles of uncertainty" and dark holes. They're willing to live
inside imagined hypotheses and theories. But many religious folks insist on
answers that are always true. We love closure, resolution and clarity, while
thinking that we are people of "faith"! How strange that the very word
"faith" has come to mean its exact opposite.
People who have really met the Holy are always humble. It's the people who
don't know who usually pretend that they do. People who've had any genuine
spiritual experience always know they don't know. They are utterly humbled
before mystery. They are in awe before the abyss of it all, in wonder at
eternity and depth, and a Love, which is incomprehensible to the mind. It is
a litmus test for authentic God experience, and is -- quite sadly -- absent
from much of our religious conversation today. My belief and comfort is in
the depths of Mystery, which should be the very task of religion.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6631954
More by Richard Rohr: http://jmm.aaa.net.au/catalog/keyword/r-6.htm
by Richard Rohr
Richard Rohr is founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation in
Albuquerque, N.M. He took his Franciscan vows in 1961, and was ordained as a
priest in 1970. Rohr is a frequent speaker and writer on issues of community
building, peace and justice. Center for Action and Contemplation
We love closure, resolution and clarity, while thinking that we are
people of 'faith'! How strange that the very word 'faith' has come to mean
its exact opposite.
Morning Edition, December 18, 2006 I believe in mystery and multiplicity.
To religious believers this may sound almost pagan. But I don't think so. My
very belief and experience of a loving and endlessly creative God has led me
to trust in both.
I've had the good fortune of teaching and preaching across much of the
globe, while also struggling to make sense of my experience in my own tiny
world. This life journey has led me to love mystery and not feel the need to
change it or make it un-mysterious. This has put me at odds with many other
believers I know who seem to need explanations for everything.
Religious belief has made me comfortable with ambiguity. "Hints and
guesses," as T.S. Eliot would say. I often spend the season of Lent in a
hermitage, where I live alone for the whole 40 days. The more I am alone
with the Alone, the more I surrender to ambivalence, to happy contradictions
and seeming inconsistencies in myself and almost everything else, including
God. Paradoxes don't scare me anymore.
When I was young, I couldn't tolerate such ambiguity. My education had
trained me to have a lust for answers and explanations. Now, at age 63, it's
all quite different. I no longer believe this is a quid pro quo universe --
I've counseled too many prisoners, worked with too many failed marriages,
faced my own dilemmas too many times and been loved gratuitously after too
many failures.
Whenever I think there's a perfect pattern, further reading and study reveal
an exception. Whenever I want to say "only" or "always," someone or
something proves me wrong. My scientist friends have come up with things
like "principles of uncertainty" and dark holes. They're willing to live
inside imagined hypotheses and theories. But many religious folks insist on
answers that are always true. We love closure, resolution and clarity, while
thinking that we are people of "faith"! How strange that the very word
"faith" has come to mean its exact opposite.
People who have really met the Holy are always humble. It's the people who
don't know who usually pretend that they do. People who've had any genuine
spiritual experience always know they don't know. They are utterly humbled
before mystery. They are in awe before the abyss of it all, in wonder at
eternity and depth, and a Love, which is incomprehensible to the mind. It is
a litmus test for authentic God experience, and is -- quite sadly -- absent
from much of our religious conversation today. My belief and comfort is in
the depths of Mystery, which should be the very task of religion.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6631954
More by Richard Rohr: http://jmm.aaa.net.au/catalog/keyword/r-6.htm
--
Shalom! Rowland Croucher
'It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know
for sure that just ain't so' (Mark Twain)
http://jmm.aaa.net.au/ - 18,600 articles/ 4000 humour
Shalom! Rowland Croucher
'It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know
for sure that just ain't so' (Mark Twain)
http://jmm.aaa.net.au/ - 18,600 articles/ 4000 humour