This I believe
I heard this essay read on NPR this morning. As a lapsed Catholic with religious blinders on, I was surprised at how hard this piece hit me. Father Richard Rohr’s opening statement is so simple, and yet it indicates a great depth of thought:
I believe in mystery and multiplicity. To religious believers this may sound almost pagan. But I don’t think so. My very belief and experience of a loving and endlessly creative God has led me to trust in both.
The entire essay was read by the author with a very gentle tone, but to my eyes, the final paragraph scans as a scathing indictment of some current manifestations of religion:
People who have really met the Holy are always humble. It’s the people who don’t know who usually pretend that they do. People who’ve had any genuine spiritual experience always know they don’t know. They are utterly humbled before mystery. They are in awe before the abyss of it all, in wonder at eternity and depth, and a Love, which is incomprehensible to the mind. It is a litmus test for authentic God experience, and is — quite sadly — absent from much of our religious conversation today. My belief and comfort is in the depths of Mystery, which should be the very task of religion.
Holy shit, so it’s ok not to know. It’s ok to have your faith shaken. It’s ok to be human.
I never thought a Catholic priest would make me feel warm and fuzzy inside, but Father Rohr’s essay did just that. I’d like to get his take on dogma because that’s where I part ways with organized religion.
