Contemplatives refuse to create false dichotomies, dividing the field for the sake of the quick comfort of their ego. I would ask that you read Rohrs posting slowly and thoughtfully. Rohr tells us, Contemplation is an exercise in keeping your heart and mind spaces open long enough for the mind to see other hidden material. This does not mean that Rohr is advocating some kind of moral relativism, without foundation or standards. No, thats not it. What he is saying, is that we need to get to a place where we withhold the snap judgments and prejudices of our self-centeredness and ego long enough se see reality as an integrated whole, without the artificial parsing that we so quickly and naturally do. Do not look for this to be taught or preached from church pulpits. As institutions, organized religion rarely can raise itself above the tribal level. Rohr observes, In the West, religion became preoccupied with telling people what to know more than how to know, telling people what to see more than how to see. We ended up seeing Holy Things faintly, trying to understand Great Things with a whittled-down mind, and trying to love God with our own small and divided heart. Thats why our whole model of church must change. Tribal Christianity has taken us as far as we can go. It should be included as the repository of our sacred Scripture, collective Tradition and wisdom, but must be transcended from its limitations of exclusivity and demand for concrete certainty over understanding. We should remind ourselves that catholic means universal, and does not refer to either the Roman or Orthodox Christian tribes which both have tried to co-opt the name and concept.
Posted on: Sun, 17 Nov 2013 14:39:10 +0000
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