Quote

A paradox is a seeming contradiction, always demanding a change on the side of the observer. If we look at almost all things honestly we see everything has a character of paradox to it. Everything, including ourselves.

Richard Rohr

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Richard Rohr
Age: 81
Born: 1943
Born: March 20
Catholic Priest
Motivational Speaker
Priest
Writer
Topeka
Kansas
Change
Paradox
Character
Contradiction
Look
Observation
Everything
Honestly
Looks
Including
Observer
Always
Side
Seeming
Things
Sides
Observers
Almost
Demanding

More quotes by Richard Rohr

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Religion has in fact outdone culture in dualistic thinking - we've become as violent, as hateful toward our enemies, damning them to hell and whatever else, that the world doesn't look to us for wisdom, because we're trapped in the dualistic mind, instead of the mind of Christ that we were supposed to have.
Richard Rohr
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Either you allow Holy Scriptures to change you, or you will normally try to use it to change--and clobber--other people. It is the height of idolatry to use the supposed Word of God so that my small self can be in control and be right. But I am afraid this has been more the norm than the exception in the use of the Bible.
Richard Rohr
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Faith does not need to push the river because faith is able to trust that there is a river. The river is flowing. We are in it.
Richard Rohr
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In solitude, at last, we’re able to let God define us the way we are always supposed to be defined—by relationship: the I-thou relationship, in relation to a Presence that demands nothing of us but presence itself. Not performance but presence
Richard Rohr
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The path of descent is the path of transformation. Darkness, failure, relapse, death, and woundedness are our primary teachers, rather than ideas or doctrines.
Richard Rohr
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Someone has said, 'To be a saint is to have loved many things' —many things — the tree, the dog, the sky, the flowers, even the color of someone’s clothing. You see, when you love, you love, and love extends to everything all the time and everywhere.
Richard Rohr
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In my opinion, most organized religion does neither agentic service nor relational nurturance very well.
Richard Rohr
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The cross solved our problem by first revealing our real problem, our universal pattern of scapegoating and sacrificing others. The cross exposes forever the scene of our crime.
Richard Rohr
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The most courageous thing we will ever do is to bear humbly the mystery of our own reality.
Richard Rohr
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The journey never happens alone.
Richard Rohr
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When you haven't found inner meaning, you will always substitute outer performance. It's the only way to fill that void, that sense of significance - that I am significant. So almost the degree of outer performance can, in many cases, mirror the lack of inner alignment.
Richard Rohr
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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.
Richard Rohr
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We are just a little tiny flicker of a much larger flame that is Life itself, Consciousness itself, Being itself, Love itself, God’s very self.
Richard Rohr
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In terms of soul work, we dare not get rid of the pain before we have learned what it has to teach us.
Richard Rohr
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The great and merciful surprise is that we come to God, not by doing it right, but by doing it wrong.
Richard Rohr
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If you don't transform your suffering, you'll transmit it.
Richard Rohr
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The morning glories and the sunflowers turn naturally toward the light, but we have to be taught, it seems.
Richard Rohr
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Creation is a process that is still happening and we’re in on it! We are a part of this endless creativity of God.
Richard Rohr
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I have prayed for years for one good humiliation a day, and then, I must watch my reaction to it. I have no other way of spotting both my denied shadow self and my idealized persona.
Richard Rohr
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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.
Richard Rohr