Good morning…
A friend shared with me Richard Rohr’s daily devotional from 12.1.16. How beautifully these threads of wisdom weave into God’s tapestry blanketing us.
Rohr writes: “At the more mature stages of life…the painful and the formerly excluded parts gradually belong to a slowly growing and unified field. This shows itself as a foundational compassion, especially toward all things different and those many people who ‘never had a chance.’ If you have forgiven yourself for being imperfect, you can now do it for everybody else too. If you have not forgiven yourself, I am afraid you will likely pass on your sadness, absurdity, judgment, and futility to others.
Many who are judgmental and unforgiving seem to have missed out on the joy and clarity of the first childhood simplicity, perhaps avoided the suffering of the mid-life complexity, and thus lost the great freedom and magnanimity of the second simplicity as well. We need to hold together all of the stages of life, and for some strange, wonderful reason, it all becomes quite ‘simple’ as we approach our later years. The great irony is that we must go through a lot of complexity and disorder (another word for necessary suffering) to return to the second simplicity. There is no nonstop flight from first to second naiveté, from initial order to resurrection. We must go through the pain of disorder to grow up and switch our loyalties from self to God.”
I guess this is the simple invitation extended to all right now: “Continue switching your loyalties from self to God.” “This is the assigned moment for him to move into the center, while I slip off to the sidelines” (John 3:30, MSG).
…Sue…
