I love Richard Rohr - if I had been exposed to this kind of spirituality in the Catholic Church, I may not have found the idea of God so absurd. When I read Rohr, it's easy for me to substitute more universal language for the traditional terms and not lose the meaning.

For example, he says, "When your mental judgmental grid and all its commentaries are placed aside, God finally has a chance to get through to you, because your pettiness is at last out of the way." As I read this, in my head I read "love" in place of "God," and nothing is lost in doing so.

His message is about the essential union of spirituality, as we often find in Eastern traditions, not the individual separation from "Source" we find in Western religion. This is a much more welcoming and inclusive perspective.

Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation - The Narrow Road

Meditation 39 of 52

Seven Themes of an Alternative Orthodoxy - Seventh Theme: Reality is paradoxical and complementary. Non-dual thinking is the highest level of consciousness. Divine union, not private perfection, is the goal of all religion (Goal).

Contemplation is meeting as much reality as we can handle in its most simple and immediate form, without filters, judgments, and commentaries. Now you see why it is so rare and, in fact, “the narrow road that few walk on” (Matthew 7:14). The only way you can contemplate is by recognizing and relativizing your own compulsive mental grids—your practiced ways of judging, critiquing, blocking, and computing everything.

This is what we are trying to do by practicing contemplative prayer, and people addicted to their own mind will find contemplation most difficult, if not impossible. Much that is called thinking is simply the ego’s stating of what it prefers and likes—and resistances to what it does not like. Narcissistic reactions to the moment are not worthy of being called thinking. Yet that is much of our public and private discourse.

When your mental judgmental grid and all its commentaries are placed aside, God finally has a chance to get through to you, because your pettiness is at last out of the way. Then Truth stands revealed! You will begin to recognize that we all carry the Divine Indwelling within us and we all carry it equally. That will change your theology, your politics, and your entire worldview. In fact, it is the very birth of the soul.

Adapted from CAC Foundation Set: Gospel Call to Compassionate Action

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