Richard Rohr - Everything Belongs (1999)

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Religion has not tended to create seekers or searchers, has not tended to create honest, humble people who trust that God is always beyond them. We aren't focused on the great mystery. Religion has, rather, tended to create people who think they have God in their pockets, people with quick, easy, glib answers. That's why so much of the West is understandably abandoning religion. People know the great mystery cannot be that simple and facile.

Richard Rohr
What we know about God is important, but what we do with what we know about God is even more important. Too often people think it is necessary that we all see God in the same way (which is impossible anyway), but what is really necessary is that we all follow God according to what God tells us. The fact that God has given us so many different faces and temperaments and emotions and histories shows us how God honors each unique journey and culture. God is not threatened by differences. It's we who are.

Richard Rohr
We have defined freedom in the West as the freedom to choose between options and preferences. That's not primal freedom. That's a secondary or even tertiary freedom. The primal freedom is the freedom to be the self, the freedom to live in the truth despite all circumstances. That's what great religion offers us. That's what real prayer offers us. That's why the saints could be imprisoned and not lose their souls. They could be put down and persecuted like Jesus and still not lose their joy, their heart, or their perspective. Secular freedom is having to do what you want to do. Religious freedom is wanting to do what you have to do.

Richard Rohr
Group-think is a substitute for God-think. The belief is that God is found only by our group. The next step is to establish that identification with our group as the only way to serve God.

Richard Rohr
Much of my criticism of religion comes about when I see it not only affirming the system of normalcy but teaching folks how to live there comfortably. It just increases our stuckness in the old world. As does a lot of poor psychotherapy. Cheap religion teaches us how to live successfully in a sick system.

Richard Rohr
Prayer must lead us beyond mind, words, and ideas to a more spacious place where God has a chance to get in.

Richard Rohr
So much is happening on earth that cannot be fixed or explained, but it can be felt and suffered. I think a Christian is one who, along with Jesus, agrees to feel, to suffer the pain of the world.

Richard Rohr
The world, the system, moves forward out of fear. That's why they have to threaten us to play the game. We're threatened with loss of job, money, reputation, or prestige. It's all based on fear.

Richard Rohr