Richard Rohr

Forgiveness becomes central to Jesus_ teaching, because to receive reality is always to __ear it,_ to bear with reality for not meeting all of our needs. To accept reality is to forgive reality for being what it is, almost day by day and sometimes even hour by hour. Such a practice creates patient and humble people.Forgiveness reveals three goodnesses simultaneously. When we forgive, we choose the goodness of the other over their faults, we experience God__ goodness flowing through ourselves, and we also experience our own capacity for goodness in a way that almost surprises us. We are finally in touch with a much Higher Power, and we slowly learn how to draw upon this Infinite Source.

Faith for Jesus is the opposite of anxiety. If you are anxious, if you are trying to control everything, if you are worried about many things, you don__ have faith, according to Jesus. You do not trust that God is good and on your side. You__e trying to do it all yourself, lift yourself up by your own bootstraps.

The people who know God well__ystics, hermits, prayerful people, those who risk everything to find God__lways meet a lover, not a dictator.

A lot of us pray as if prayer is really twisting the arm of God or convincing God to do something. We think by saying more words we__l talk God into it. We think, __f I say it one more time, God will agree with me._ That very attitude is an alienating attitude. It keeps us in the role of doing it __ight_ or often enough to convince an unready or unwilling God. Wrong, wrong, wrong!19 minutes ago

People who know how to creatively break the rules also know why the rules were there in the first place.

If we seek spiritual heroism ourselves, the old ego is just back in control under a new name. There would not really be any change at all, but only disguise, just bogus self-improvement on our own terms.

Faith does not need to push the river because faith is able to trust that there is a river. The river is flowing. We are in it.

We have been shown how to fight hate without becoming hate ourselves. We have been given a Companion and a Friend and not just a good idea. We have been given joy in the midst of failure, and not just a way of winning or being right.

Much of what is called Christianity has more to do with disguising the ego behind the screen of religion and culture than any real movement toward a God beyond the small self, and a new self in God.

The human ego prefers anything, just about anything, to falling, or changing, or dying. The ego is that part of you that loves the status quo _ even when it's not working. It attaches to past and present and fears the future.

Those who are not true leaders or elders will just affirm people at their own immature level, and of course immature people will love them and elect them for being equally immature. You can fill in the names here with your own political disaster story. But just remember, there is a symbiosis between immature groups and immature leaders, I am afraid, which is why both Plato and Jefferson said democracy was not really the best form of government. It is the safest. A truly wise monarch would probably be the most effective at getting things done.

every time God forgives us, God is saying that God's own rules do not matter as much as the relationship that God wants to create with us.

Life is all about practicing for heaven." p 101.

Knowing without loving is frankly dangerous for the soul and for society. You'll critique most everything you encounter and even have the hubris to call this mode of reflexive cynicism "thinking" (whereas it's really your ego's narcissistic reaction to the moment). You'll position things to quickly as inferior or superior, "with me" or "against me," and most of the time you'll be wrong.

...organized religion is no longer good news for most people, but bad news indeed. It set us up for the massive atheism, agnosticism, hedonism, and secularism we now see in almost all formerly Christian countries.

Your heart has to be prepared ahead of time through faith and prayer and grace and mercy and love and forgiveness so you can keep your heart open in hell, when hell happens.

...religion either produces the very best people or the very worst.

Most Christian 'believers' tend to echo the cultural prejudices and worldviews of the dominant group in their country, with only a minority revealing any real transformation of attitudes or consciousness. It has been true of slavery and racism, classism and consumerism and issues of immigration and health care for the poor.