People inside of belonging systems are very threatened by those who are not within that group. They are threatened by anyone who has found their citizenship in places they cannot control.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on how belonging and identity can create fear towards those who exist outside of a defined group.
Richard Rohr's quote highlights the dynamics of belonging and control within social systems. Those who identify strongly with a particular group may feel threatened by individuals who do not conform to or belong within that group, as their presence challenges the norms and stability of the established system. Such fear often stems from uncertainty and a perceived loss of control over identity and values when confronted by differing perspectives or affiliations.
In practice
In a discussion about workplace diversity, one might quote this to illustrate challenges faced by employees who come from varying backgrounds.
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.
America's founding Ideal was the principle of individual rights. Nothing more - and nothing less.
A comfortable, convenient life is not a real life - the more comfortable, the less alive. The most comfortable life is in the grave.
We are certain God's will is that all men share in the good things this earth produces.
A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true.
The mystical life is at the centre of all that I do and all that I think and all that I write.
Suspicious.- To admit a belief merely because it is a custom - but that means to be dishonest, cowardly, lazy! - And so could dishonesty, cowardice and laziness be the preconditions for morality?
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