Quote

There has to be a womp on the side of the head that defeats and undercuts this game of performance. It has to fall apart. Now unfortunately, that very often does not happen until what I call the second half of life, when there's been enough death in the family and you start experiencing your own physical deterioration.

Richard Rohr

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Richard Rohr
Age: 81
Born: 1943
Born: March 20
Catholic Priest
Motivational Speaker
Priest
Writer
Topeka
Kansas
Happens
Call
Defeat
Undercuts
Doe
Games
Physical
Deterioration
Enough
Start
Second
Defeats
Life
Half
Side
Experiencing
Family
Game
Unfortunately
Often
Head
Performance
Fall
Sides
Apart
Death
Happen
Performances

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I'm not trying to make political statements ,but theological statements. How can religion get itself so identified with one political party, exclusionary world views, or with pelvic morality as the defining issues of the Gospel? Jesus surely didn't. Jesus said to preach the gospel to all nations, which means we do not just talk to ourselve
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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.
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Sin happens whenever we refuse to keep growing.
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Contemplation is an alternative consciousness that refuses to identify with or feed what are only passing shows. It is the absolute opposite of addiction, consumerism or any egoic consciousness.
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You cannot heal what you cannot acknowledge.
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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.
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One wonders how far spiritual and political leaders can genuinely lead us without some degree of mystical seeing and action.
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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.
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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.
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The most courageous thing we will ever do is to bear humbly the mystery of our own reality.
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The people who know God well—mystics, hermits, prayerful people, those who risk everything to find God—always meet a lover, not a dictator.
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When you do the first half of life well, you have a good sense of yourself.
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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.
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Famine, poverty, abuse, you can't keep that all blocked out. If you let those things teach you, influence you, change you, those are the events that transition you without you even knowing it to become more compassionate.
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Much of the work of midlife is to tell the difference between those who are dealing with their issues through you and those who are really dealing with you.
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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.
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Once God and grace move us to the second half of life, religion becomes a mystical matter, rather than a moral matter.
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We are usually on bended knee before laws or angrily reacting against them, both immature responses.
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You have to find some way to not become a cynical or negative person, a person who keeps walking around and opening your eyes in the outside world but inside you close down, a person who stops expecting tomorrow to be better than today.
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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.
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