It’s a gift to joyfully recognize and accept our own smallness and ordinariness. Then you are free with nothing to live up to, nothing to prove, and nothing to protect. Such freedom is my best description of Christian maturity, because once you know that your “I” is great and one with God, you can ironically be quite content with a small and ordinary “I.” No grandstanding is necessary. Any question of your own importance or dignity has already been resolved once and for all and forever.
Interpretation
Embracing our modesty allows us to focus on inner peace instead of external validation.
In this quote, Richard Rohr emphasizes the value of acknowledging our own smallness and ordinariness as a pathway to freedom. He suggests that when we accept our humble nature without striving for recognition or validation, we attain a state of contentment and maturity that connects us more profoundly with the divine, allowing us to live authentically without the burden of proving ourselves to others.
In practice
This quote can inspire a personal reflection in a group discussion about self-acceptance.
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.
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.
...and knowledge is one of the finest attributes of man - though often it is most loudly voiced by those who strive for it the least.
It is unity that doth enchant me. By her power I am free though thrall, happy in sorrow, rich in poverty, and quick even in death.
People are at their most mindful when they are at play. If we find ways of enjoying our work blurring the lines between work and play the gains will be greater.
Your failures and misfortunes don't threaten other people. . .It's your assets and your successes that are problems for people who derive their self-esteem from being superior.
Whatever posessions and objects of its desires the lower self may obtain, it hangs on to them, refusing to let them go out of greed for more, or out of fear of poverty and need.
I see what you mean. It must be a huge relief, and an easy way out, to think the devil is always outside of us. (…) we would stop looking for Sheitan outside and instead focus on ourselves. What we need is sincere self-examination. Not being on the watch for the faults of others.” (p. 257).
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