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?

The Genius of Jesus

"The absolute religious genius of Jesus is that

he ignores all

debt codes,

purity codes,

religious quarantines,

and the endless searching for sinners.

He refuses to divide the world into the pure and the impure,

much to the chagrin of almost everybody—then and now.

Unlike most churches, he is not into “sin management.”

He is into transformation."

Richard Rohr

to read the rest of this quote go here

Midnight Prayer for New Year's Eve

Midnight Prayer

by Richard Rohr

God of the seasons, Lover of the ages,

Master of every moment:

You who are beyond time yet within all time.

We return to you what you have given to us —

the moments, the minutes, the hours, the days,
the weeks, the months, and the year of  2009.

Time has been gracious to us again,

and we thank you for freely giving us these human bodies,

these events, and these relationships.

We have lived another year and we have died another year,

and now you are granting us the beginnings of another.

We now hand over to you the blessed year, 2009,

with all that it gave us and all that it took from us,

knowing that both are necessary, just like our breath.

We trust you in both the givings and the takings,

the inhalings and the exhalings.

May every breath of 2010 be a breath of the Holy Spirit,

joyfully received and joyfully returned,

beginning with this one right now.

Amen.

here is my suggestion for a new year's resolution:

subscribe to Richard Rohr's daily meditations for more great prayers.

(artwork is available from Inkslinger Art.)

Happy New Year!

whose fault?

"The journey to happiness
involves finding the courage
to go down into ourselves
and take responsibility
for what's there:

all of it."

-- Richard Rohr