A mention of Richard Rohr last Friday caused a bit of
interest. Fr Richard Rohr is a
Franciscan Friar and a significant teacher of Christian spirituality. His latest book is about the second half of
adult life, being a Senior Citizen, and this is something he says… At this stage I no longer have to prove that
I or my group is the best, that my ethnicity is superior, that my religion is
the only one God loves, or that my role and place in society deserve superior treatment. I am not preoccupied with collecting more
goods and services…
He says that therefore we turn to giving back to the world
something of what we have received.
Well, maybe. My immediate
reaction to how he describes the mature, even elderly half of life is Yes! he’s
right, and it’s a kind of liberation which, tragically, some Senior Cits never
discover. For some in the latter part of
life it seems necessary to remain anxious, possessive, acquisitive, even
dogmatic about religion (for or against).
I am no longer interested in proving the truth of anything much. That may sound smug. But it is a time when we are freer, if we
choose, to pay attention to wider and intractable issues of understanding and
reconciling, and enjoying variety.
Fr Rohr goes on about this time of life: (Our)
God is no longer small, punitive, or tribal… That’s something to ponder. God as the Miraculous Finder of Parking
Spaces, is a small god, and I would say an idol. God who sends disease upon alleged sinners, zaps
people out of the blue, is a punitive and capricious god, and an idol. God who loves us best because we follow Jesus
and go to church is a tribal god – and yes, an idol.
We know that we have come within sight of this fruitful time
on the journey if we are finding ourselves impatient with old debates,
especially wrangles about sexuality which we settled in our own minds long
ago. Debates about Christian orthodoxy
became a non-issue once we decided that we are unlikely to be disturbed by you
because you are a Moslem, a Buddhist or an Atheist – but very likely to be
disturbed by you if you are divisive or unloving, strident or dogmatic. We have become aware of the God Jesus called
Father, whose rain falls on the just and on the unjust – or as one modern
writer put it, the scandalous grace that loves not only the morally ambiguous,
but even the homophobes and bigots who condemn them.
Then there is the bit that Fr Rohr put in there about… I am not preoccupied with collecting more
goods and services… I think the important
word is preoccupied. We are not seeking, in the biblical image, to
pull down our barns and build greater – I hope.
Yet it is as well to remember that we do remain in the richest 10% of
humanity. Moreover, to a greater or
lesser degree we enjoy the degree of comfort we have, the freedom to buy
something extra, our life style and possessions and what we can offer to
visitors and strangers. If we can
improve it, doubtless we will. But what
preoccupies us more these days is
within. It has to do with the meaning of
things, making sense of memory, the example of Jesus, the huge questions of violence,
homelessness and tyranny afflicting millions.
Not that we have solutions ready to hand – but it is something to have
become people of prayer and quiet wisdom, and to have acquired a modicum of
humility.
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