I've had the good fortune of teaching and preaching across much of the globe, while also struggling to make sense of my experience in my own tiny world.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the balance between sharing knowledge globally and understanding one's personal experiences.
Richard Rohr expresses a deep sense of gratitude for the opportunity to teach and preach around the world. He contrasts this with his ongoing personal struggle to understand his own experiences, highlighting the idea that even those who share wisdom widely may still face challenges in making sense of their own lives. This duality underscores the complexity of human experience and the importance of introspection alongside outward teaching.
In practice
During a seminar on global learning, this quote can be used to illustrate the importance of personal reflection in teaching.
My scientist friends have come up with things like 'principles of uncertainty' and dark holes. They're willing to live inside imagined hypotheses and theories. But many religious folks insist on answers that are always true. We love closure, resolution and clarity, while thinking that we are people of 'faith'! How strange that the very word 'faith' has come to mean its exact opposite.
The gift of darkness draws you to know God’s presence beyond what thought, imagination, or sensory feeling can comprehend.
I cannot illustrate huge differences between male and female spiritualities except in their starting points, style and fascinations along the way. This is significant, however, and has huge pastoral implications: men must be challenged in the world of doing; women must be challenged in the world of relating.
Much of the Christian religion has largely become “holding on” instead of letting go. But God, it seems to me, does the holding on (to us!), and we must learn the letting go (of everything else).
We do not think ourselves into new ways of living, we live ourselves into new ways of thinking.
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.
We pay a heavy price for our fear of failure. It is a powerful obstacle to growth. It assures the progressive narrowing of the personality and prevents exploration and experimentation. There is no learning without some difficulty and fumbling. If you want to keep on learning, you must keep on risking failure-all your life.
You can try, but you seem cleverer than Fudge, so I'd have thought you'd have learned from his mistakes. He tried intervening at Hogwarts. You might have noticed he's not Minister anymore, but Dumbledore's still headmaster. I'd leave Dumbledore alone, if I were you.
Open your mind before your mouth
The Master observes the world, but trusts his inner vision. He allows things to come and go. His heart is as open as the sky.
Perfect is not on the menu. Nobody is going to be your ideal candidate. You can't dream somebody up out of nothing that's going to be the perfect candidate, so you do have to pick between a series of bad choices.
I wonder what it is that the people who criticize me for telling this story truly object to: is it that I have dared to tell the story? Or that the story turns out not to be the one they wanted to hear?
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