Richard Rohr Quotes - Page 7

What we know about God is important, but what we do with what we know about God is even more important.

Solitude is a courageous encounter with our naked, most raw and real self, in the presence of pure love.

In silence all our usual patterns assault us ... That is why most people give up rather quickly. When Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, the first things to show up were the wild beasts.

The ego hates losing – even to God.

...religion either produces the very best people or the very worst.

God created us for love, for union, for forgiveness and compassion and, yet, that has not been our storyline. That has not been our history.

I think it's important to remember that by the second half of our lives, we are meant to see in wholes, and no longer just in parts.

Love is luring us forward...to the fullness of our own being

Most women prefer circles of sharing to pyramids and hierarchies. They prefer conversation to construction. They will usually choose nurturance and empathy over competition and climbing. They will normally choose connection over simple performance games.

The same powerful Scripture text that brings a loving person to even greater love will be mangled and misused by a fearful or egocentric person. This is surely what Jesus means when he talks about the one who has being given more and those who have not losing what little they have.

The more one gives one's self in creative union with another, the more one becomes one's self.

If we don't learn to mythologize our lives, inevitably we will pathologize them.

Sacramental listening reminds us that current suffering isn't the end of the story. God loves us deeply, and the vision for the future is vaster and more magnificent than we could ever imagine. In these moments of profound human presence, we are awakened to the divine presence and see that the kingdom of God is coming and yet is already here.

To the degree you have experienced intimacy with God, you won’t be afraid of death because you’re experiencing the first tastes and promises of heaven in this world.

If I'm going to continue to be any kind of spiritual teacher, I've got to go deeper myself. And so for me, [I am] preserving long periods of solitude, silence, prayer, journaling, study, writing. I don't turn on music or the TV unless I really need to.

When 'happiness' eludes us - as, eventually, it always will - we have the invitation to examine our programmed responses and to exercise our power to choose again.

Modern culture is in so much trouble, where people don't have a deep inner life, or any deep experience of their true self in God, who they were before anyone said anything about them, before they received their first medal or ego identification. That`s why suffering is so important, because suffering is when those little rewards are taken away from you.

Church practice has been more influenced by Plato than by Jesus. We invariably prefer the universal synthesis, the answer that settles all the dust and resolves every question even when it is not entirely true over the mercy and grace of God.

One wonders how far spiritual and political leaders can genuinely lead us without some degree of mystical seeing and action.

Christianity is seen by more and more people as a negative message: anti gay, anti immigrant, anti abortion (as the only life issue), anti gay marriage, anti the Democratic party.

The school of relationships is where you learn self-knowledge. I just don't know how you could learn it sitting alone in the desert on a rock by yourself. You have to see where you fail at it. And that confrontation with your own ability - "I was again not able to love" - those are the teachable moments.

God is always drawing us closer, blow by blow and bit by bit. And most of the time we do not even know it is happening.

It's important to note that Jesus and Christ are two different faith affirmations. Hardly any Christians have been taught that - they think "Christ" is Jesus's last name.

To keep the middle coming back, you can't say some radically conservative or radically progressive things. That's been the bane of organized religion. It makes me wonder if Jesus' first definition of the church as "two or three gathered in my name" is not still the best way.

Those who are not true leaders will just affirm people at their own immature level.