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.
Interpretation
The ego resists change and clings to familiar patterns, even if they are detrimental.
In this quote, Richard Rohr highlights the tendency of the human ego to resist change and embrace the status quo, regardless of its effectiveness. The ego, which is tied to our identity and past experiences, fears the unknown future and prefers the comfort of what it already knows, often leading to stagnation and dissatisfaction in life.
In practice
In a motivational speech about embracing change in the workplace.
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.
Pride does not wish to owe and vanity does not wish to pay.
Suppose... the body is a God in its own right, a teacher, a mentor, a certified guide? Then what? .... Are we strong enough to refute the party line and listen deep, listen true to the body as a powerful and holy being?
I don't claim to know what it means to say that we are made in the image of God, but I profoundly and instinctively believe it and all that it implies.
The definition of morality: Morality is the idiosyncrasy of decadents having the hidden desire to revenge themselves upon life - and being successful.
Originality is a thing we constantly clamour for, and constantly quarrel with.
Those who choose not to empathize enable real monsters, for without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves we collude with it through our apathy.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.