Falling Upward: A Spirituality For The Two Halves Of Life

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You have touched upon the soul, the unshakable reality of my True Self, where “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30). The "second half of life" is spent discovering what that container holds and finding that God enlarges the container with His grace. And you receive it by being ready for such a world, allowing such a world, even expecting such a world.

Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

The book establishes this idea of the two mountains, though Richard refers to them as the two tasks. A dumb new born-again Christian back then - before I became Catholic - I simply thought that somehow Disney's World of Magic would soon open its gates to her.

He tells us that “If you accept a punitive notion of God…you have an absurd universe where most people on this earth end up being more loving than God. Most of us tend to think of the second half of life as largely about getting old, dealing with health issues, and letting go of our physical life, but the whole thesis of this book is exactly the opposite. We can save ourselves a lot of distress and accusation by knowing when, where, to whom, and how to talk about spiritually mature things. If you are interested in the spiritual journey from a nuanced, Christian perspective, Falling Upward" is definitely worth a read. The second half of life is about learning to recognize, honor, and love this voice and this indwelling Presence, which feels like your own voice too.

Falling Upward: A Companion Journal: A Spirituality for the

In his view we all need our ‘narcissistic fix’ and without it, we will continue in and through life carrying a woundedness that often if not usually leaves us seeking to fulfil these needs in some other way. Its a great book if you are at a point in life where you are counting your gains and losses, and ready to dive into a new adventure behind the looking glass. A Franciscan friar and ecumenical teacher, Father Richard Rohr bears witness to the deep wisdom of Christian mysticism and traditions of action and contemplation.And I asked him… We were talking about spirituality, and I said, “What is your favorite kind of compassion? There is the quick, constant change, particularly that shifting of fortune captured daily in Eastern culture by anyone who plays at the "I Ching;" the larger, seasonal rotation and stages of life changes (to everything, turn, turn, turn…. You will come to a crisis in your life, and after the crisis, if you are open to it, you will enter a space of spiritual refreshment, peace and compassion that you could not have imagined before.

Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

This book is a mixed bag of the occasional encouraging or thought-provoking quote, but the bag is mixed mostly with garbage and I don’t recommend plodding through the frustrating contradictions, statements of superiority, and New Age “look within” and reject-the-system junk that it requires to find the rare gem. Rohr emphasizes "alternative orthodoxy", a term the Franciscan tradition has applied to itself, referring to a focus on " orthopraxy"—a belief that lifestyle and practice are much more important than mere verbal orthodoxy, [15] which he feels is much overlooked in Catholic preaching today. BB: Yeah, it was the whole idea that workers got there at 6:00 in the morning and they were excited because this person paid well, and then other workers came at noon, and workers came at 3:00, and everybody got paid the same, and it was a fair wage. The second mountain is something more profound, one focused more on the impact one can have on the world, and on achieving joy in true enlightenment. That’s why our 2023 Daily Meditations theme, The Prophetic Path, empowers us to not avoid or fear the pain of the world, but turn toward it with compassion.I fervently believe that theology must not be an arcane academic pursuit reserved only for a few super-nerdy types. BB: It’s really hard because you’re like recording the podcast for us, and we’re talking about you, and you feel like you can’t talk back. In this way we forge an ego that does not break down when incomprehensible things happen; an ego that endures, that endures the truth, and that is capable of coping with the world and with fate. Partly as a result, slavery, racism, sexism, classism, xenophobia, and homophobia have lasted authoritatively into our time—by people who claim to love Jesus! BB: I don’t know whether it was you or Anne LaMott because in the version of the book that I have, Anne LaMott wrote the foreword and someone said, “For all the things that we are finally able to give away, they all have claw marks on them.