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.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the balance between sharing knowledge globally and understanding one's personal experiences.
Richard Rohr expresses a deep sense of gratitude for the opportunity to teach and preach around the world. He contrasts this with his ongoing personal struggle to understand his own experiences, highlighting the idea that even those who share wisdom widely may still face challenges in making sense of their own lives. This duality underscores the complexity of human experience and the importance of introspection alongside outward teaching.
In practice
During a seminar on global learning, this quote can be used to illustrate the importance of personal reflection in teaching.
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.
Church practice has been more influenced by Plato than by Jesus. We invariably prefer the universal synthesis, the answer that settles all the dust and resolves every question even when it is not entirely true over the mercy and grace of God.
No matter what anyone says or does, my task is to be emerald, my color undiminished.
The best way to defend the bombers is to catch the enemy before it his in position to attack. Catch them when they are taking off, or when they are climbing, or when they are forming up. Don't think you can defend the bomber by circling around him. It's good for the bombers morale, and bad for tactics.
We must endure our thoughts all night, until the bright obvious stands motionless in the cold.
Speak only the speech that neither torments self nor does harm to others. That speech is truly well spoken.
Silence is an answer to a wise man.
When what you read elevates your mind and fills you with noble aspirations, look for no other rule by which to judge a book; it is good, and is the work of a master-hand.
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