Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Gridlock

"All spiritual teachers tell us “DO NOT JUDGE.”
For those of us raised in a religious setting, this is very difficult.
In a strange way, religion gave us all a Ph.D. in judgmentalism.
It trained us very early in life to categorize, label, and critique.
It told us all about worthiness and unworthiness.
This judgmental mind told us what is right and wrong,
who is gay or straight, and who is good or bad.
This sort of mind never creates great people,
because everybody has to fit into our way of thinking.
At an early age our grid was complete.
We had decided who fit in and who did not fit in.
We fashioned our own little world.

Christianity that divides the world in this manner
and eliminates all troublesome people
and all ideas different from our way of thinking
cannot be mature religion.
It cannot see the multiple gifts of each moment,
nor the dark side that coexists with it.
This mind does not lead us to awareness,
and above all, this mind will find it impossible to contemplate.
To practice awareness means you live in a spirit of communion;
your world becomes alive and very spacious,
and not divided by mere mental labels."

Richard Rohr
(thanks to Bishop Alan for posting this)

query: how did those 2 cars on the right side of the picture make it out of the gridlock?

4 comments:

Blue Eyed Ennis said...

Wonderful and what a salutary message to dwell on

ROBERTA said...

Phil,
I love that word "salutary"...don't here it often enough! thank you.

VeeKaye said...

Today's quote resonates w/ me today. Thanks, Roberta.

Di said...

Love this.