Fr rohr blog responses of march 2012

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Johnboy on March 10, 2012 at 1:57 pm said: Bernardian Love begins with love of self for sake of self, love of God for sake of self and love of God for sake of God, and then enjoys love of self for sake of God. Each aspect remains even after being transcended. Agape thus completes but does not forsake eros. We can discern when we are “at play in the fields of the Lord” rather than “at work on our own agenda” after True Self realization. This realization is not always sudden, like an event, but may more often be gradual, like a process, something we will enjoy as a phenomenal state long before we live it as an existential stage. This state gifts us with an earnest, a down payment, a foretaste, first fruits of the Spirit, a proleptic temporal realization (anticipatory glimpse) of an eternal eschatological glory. Some enjoy a more full realization for reasons known to God, alone. I would not envy them for, as St Teresa complained: “If You have so few friends, then You might consider how You treat us!” (or something like that). Fr. Benedict Groeschel said it well: “Early on our journey, our faith is clear but tentative. Later, it becomes obscure but certain.” First fervor and first naivete thus yield to a new fervor and new naivete that suspects “we ain’t seen nothing yet.” http://richardrohr.wordpress.com/2012/02/09/another-true-poem/#comment1313

Johnboy on March 10, 2012 at 1:16 pm said: Such wisdom! So many heresy hunters get caught up in the literalism and dualism that Fr Richard so often critiques, often targeting, for example, “integral life” folks like Ken Wilber, Fr Thomas Keating, Brother David Steindl-Rast & Cynthia Bourgeault as New Age heretics (they’re, instead, panentheists). They try to defend their hypercritical approach with the claim that improper onto-theology (the essential stuff of God) has enormous implications for one’s faith walk. To be sure, some people suffer psychological imbalances from misappropriated “spiritual” practices but those are usually more so corrected by following general prudential norms (like moderation, for example), much less often by obtaining special theological gnosis (like the metaphysics of God, whoa!). The fact of the matter is that BILLIONS in the East over thousands of years have been drawn to God via the realization of UNITARY being (as a phenomenal experience of Oneness, not gifting one with a robust ontological description but certainly having vague nondual implications) and BILLIONS in the West over thousands of years have been drawn to God via a UNITIVE striving (also as a phenomenal experience of Oneness, not gifting one with a robust ontological 1


description but certainly having vague dual implications). Our interfaith explorations in recent decades have taught us that realizations of BOTH unitary and unitive being will inevitably lead to solidarity & compassion. One might reasonably suggest, then, that the practical consequences of praying one path versus another are often overstated? Furthermore, the paths are not mutually exclusive but, indeed, mutually reinforcing? This is not to suggest religious indifferentism but to recommend religious tolerance: http://www.scribd.com/doc/84312610/Religious-Indifferentism-vs-ReligiousTolerance

http://richardrohr.wordpress.com/2012/02/13/is-god-a-person/#comment-1312

Johnboy on March 10, 2012 at 12:26 pm said: Also, many seem to have the charism of the pilgrim, while others minister as settlers. The traditional and conservative are the proper default bias, practically speaking; they are not, however, absolutes, which is how they are too often treated. Most often, politically, we should presume our moral consensus and, instead, characterize our differences as strategic. Don’t most value the same outcomes even as we may otherwise differ on how to achieve them? Any habitual mischaracterization of political stances as essentially moral & ethical rather than practical & strategic is but a cynical demagogic tool to energize a base. http://richardrohr.wordpress.com/2012/02/15/conservative-versus-liberalmorality/#comment-1311

Johnboy on March 10, 2012 at 11:58 am said: Neither libertarian nor socialist impulses reflect essentially theological positions. They are, rather, merely pragmatic critiques that the subsidiarity principle holds in creative tension for all PRACTICAL (not ideological) purposes. As it is, if wo/men were angels, we’d need no government and no market regulations whatsoever and both Christian anarchism and pacifism would reign as Gospel ideals (cf Dorothy Day). There is no theological critique of anarchism and pacifism. So, both subsidiarity and just war principles, instead, represent compassionate pastoral accommodations to our human weakness. At best, they might be considered necessary evils. The modern libertarian impulse of conservatism thus derives from a classical liberalism, which is properly grounded in those subsidiarity principles in the defense of human dignity. Less 2


government and free-er markets are merely the proper default bias. This political approach looks pretty good on paper. How, then, could it look SO bad in reality? Well, borrowing from Chesterton, it’s not that it’s been tried and failed but that it hasn’t been practiced much at all. Specifically, too many libertarians and conservatives treat less government and free-er markets as ABSOLUTES rather than default biases. And they misinterpret liberty as the freedom to do what one simply wants rather than, as Lord Acton counsels, the freedom to do what one clearly must. For their part, socialist ideologues tend to idolize (absolutize) government. And, you know what they say, when the only tool one has is a hammer, every problem suspiciously looks like a nail. http://richardrohr.wordpress.com/2012/02/22/the-pope-is-apparently-not-arepublican/#comment-1310

Johnboy on March 10, 2012 at 10:36 am said: So wisely said! Interesting, too, that the same nondual “hermeneutical spiral” mediates all human value-realizations: 1) what can i know? or literal or descriptive (science) or awareness 2) what can i hope for? or anagogical or evaluative (culture) or hope 3) what must i do? or moral or normative (philosophy) or love 4) what does this mean? or allegorical or interpretive (religion) or faith. http://richardrohr.wordpress.com/2012/02/20/4-senses-of-scripture/#comment1309

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