Tag Archives: Center for Action and Contemplation

Let’s Move Forward with Humility – CAC

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Today’s message from the Center for Action and Contemplation (CAC) below is especially provocative for me. Two phrases jump out:

  • Healing people heal people
  • Let’s move forward with humility not righteousness

May these words of wisdom from Brian McLaren, Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine K. Wilkinson inspire all of us today.

Participating Today

Friday, January 10, 2025

Transformed people working together for a more just and connected world.  
—CAC Vision Statement 

At the recent Students of Life conference, Brian McLaren encouraged the CAC community to practice “engaged contemplation” as a way to participate in a movement for healing, justice, and peace in the world: 

We know that what we do flows from who we are. Our work in the healing work in the world flows from the ongoing healing we experience within ourselves. Just like hurt people hurt people, healing people heal people. But it’s not like we get healed and then we go “fix” everybody else. We’ve met people who think that’s the case, but their sense of having it all together actually makes it harder for them to help others.  

At the CAC, we often refer to Henry Nouwen’s image of being “wounded healers.” Our own process of healing, with all its pain and difficulty, helps us participate humbly, gently, and sensitively in the ongoing healing of others and the world. I think that’s why so many of us are attracted to the work of engaged contemplation. We know that what we do flows from our being and becoming. In contemplation, we’re attending to the curation of our own inner being and becoming. What we do in the world around us flows from this inner lifelong process of healing and growth.… 

None of us know what the near or long-term future holds, but we can gain clarity within ourselves about how we want to show up. I want to show up as a person of peace, but not alone. I want to be in partnership with others to create a circle of peace—not a circle that puts up a wall to keep others out, but one that welcomes others in no matter what happens. We’re not the first ones who have tried to do this. We’ve got to look around, recognize, and be grateful for how many people are doing their part—what they are uniquely called and gifted to do…. 

We are so blessed in the Christian tradition to have so many amazing leaders and teachers who have been creating circles of healing and peace for generations. It is truly inspiring to learn from their examples. But our job is not only to learn from them, but more: to join them in this ongoing work in the world. Marine biologist Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and climate activist Katharine K. Wilkinson write, “Let’s move forward with love, not conquest; humility, not righteousness; generous curiosity, not hardened assumptions. It is a magnificent thing to be alive in a moment that matters so much. Let’s proceed with broken-open hearts, seeking truth, summoning courage, and focused on solutions.” [1] 

Can we accept this magnificent opportunity? To be alive in a moment that matters so much? Dare we believe that this contemplative work and exploration and study that we’re engaged with is not to just make us happier people, but rather to help us be partners together in loving action?  

References: 
[1] Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine K. Wilkinson, “Onward.” in All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis (One World, 2020), 374.  

Adapted from Brian McLaren, “Partnering Together in Loving Action,” Students of Life: The Webcast, Center for Action and Contemplation, November 3, 2024. Access unavailable. 

Our Thoughts Don’t Make It True

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Am I separate from the gloating MAGA hat wearer?

Check out today’s post from the Center for Action and Contemplation: The Pain of Separateness (cac.org/daily-meditations/the-pain-of-separateness/)

Highlights include:

  1. “When we’re separate, everything becomes about protecting and defending ourselves. It can consume our lives.” 
  2. “Whenever we do anything unloving, at that moment, we’re out of union.”
  3. “Whatever separates us from one another—nationality, religion, ethnicity, economics, language—are all just accidentals that will all pass away.”
  4. “Every time we do something with respect, with love, with sympathy, with compassion, with caring, with service, we are operating in union.” 

Restorative Justice: Remembering 9/11

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Today is 9/11. I remember how close I was to the World Trade Center twenty-three years ago. I remember how the call for revenge disturbed our already violence-soaked culture.

Today is 9/11. I am grateful for the wisdom highlights shared by Shane Claiborne, Karl Barth and Melissa Florer-Bixler below.

May we act in peace today for the benefit of all sentient beings.

Restorative Justice

Violence is contagious. Violence begets violence.… Pick up the sword and die by the sword. You kill us and we’ll kill you. There is a contagion of violence in the world; it’s spreading like a disease.  

But grace is also contagious. An act of kindness inspires another act of kindness…. A single act of forgiveness can feel like it heals the world.

Grace makes room … for justice that is restorative and dedicated to healing the wounds of injustice. But the grace thing is hard work. It takes faith—because it dares us to believe that not only can victims be healed, but so can the victimizers.

We are told that we choose whose world we want to live in. We’ll choose wealth or God. We’ll choose violence or God. We’ll choose nationalism or God. We’ll choose racial hierarchy or God. Each case is an example of a different and incompatible operational system. One of those systems, if we live by it, binds us in endless struggle and violence that leads to our own destruction, as well as the destruction of others…. 

Karl Barth, reflecting on forgiveness, writes, “Living by forgiveness is never by any means passivity, but Christian living in full activity.” Barth writes that, when we finally come before God, we will not be asked to give an account of our piety or morality. Instead, we will be asked, “Did you live by grace, or did you set up gods for yourself and perhaps want to become one yourself?” [2]  

References:  
[1] Shane Claiborne, Executing Grace: How the Death Penalty Killed Jesus and Why It’s Killing Us (San Francisco, CA: HarperOne, 2016), 5, 7. 

[2] Karl Barth, Dogmatics in Outline, trans. G. T. Thomson (New York: Philosophical Library, 1949), 152. 

[3] Melissa Florer-Bixler, How to Have an Enemy: Righteous Anger and the Work of Peace (Harrisonburg, VA: Herald Press, 2021), 73, 75–76. 

THREE GOODNESSES – Richard Rohr

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“the great thawing of all logic, reason, and worthiness”

Below is today’s reminder of the power of forgiveness from Richard Rohr and the Center for Action and Contemplation.


Three Goodnesses 

Among the most powerful of human experiences is to give or to receive forgiveness. When we forgive, we choose the goodness of others over their faults, we experience God’s goodness flowing through ourselves, and we also experience our own goodness in a way that surprises us.

We are still living in a world of meritocracy, of quid-pro-quo thinking, of performance and behavior that earns an award. Forgiveness is the great thawing of all logic, reason, and worthiness. It is a melting into the mystery of God as unearned love, unmerited grace, the humility and powerlessness of a Divine Lover.  

Without forgiveness, there will be no future.

People formed by such love are indestructible. Forgiveness might just be the very best description of what God’s goodness engenders in humanity. [2]   

Read this meditation on cac.org.
 
[1] Adapted from Richard Rohr, The Wisdom Pattern: Order, Disorder, Reorder (Cincinnati, OH: Franciscan Media, 2001, 2020), 155, 158–159, 162. 

[2] Adapted from Richard Rohr, The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope for, and Believe (New York: Convergent, 2019, 2021), 72. 

Order, Disorder, Reorder – Richard Rohr

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I have experienced three major disorders in my life, to-date. With each I have gone on to experience three reorders. I know, I know, I should have learned the whole lesson the first time, right?

Unfortunately, some of us, especially me, are slow learners. We need to learn life lessons the harder way, it seems.

Fortunately, Richard Rohr and the Center for Action and Contemplation have some helpful advice to offer. Below is today’s daily meditation.

May we all learn (or relearn?) a life lesson today.

Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditations – from the Center for Action and Contemplation
Order, Disorder, Reorder
 
Richard Rohr shares his paradigm for the transformative process of spiritual maturity: 

It seems quite clear that we grow spiritually by passing beyond some perfect Order, through an often painful and seemingly unnecessary Disorder to an enlightened Reorder or “resurrection.” This is the “pattern that connects” and solidifies our relationship with everything around us.  

ORDER: At this first stage, if we are granted it (and not all are), we feel innocent and safe. Everything is basically good. It is our “first naïveté.” Those who try to stay in this first satisfying explanation of “how things should be” tend to refuse and avoid any confusion, conflict, inconsistencies, or suffering. Disorder or change is always to be avoided, the ego believes, so let’s just hunker down and pretend that my status quo is entirely good, should be good for everybody, and is always “true” and even the only truth.   

DISORDER: At some point in our lives, we will be deeply disappointed by what we were originally taught, by where our choices have led us, or by the seemingly random tragedies that take place in all our lives. There will be a death, a disease, a disruption to our normal way of thinking or being in the world. It is necessary if any real growth is to occur.  

This is the Disorder stage, or what we call from the Adam and Eve story the “fall.” Some people try to return to the original Order and do not accept reality, which prevents them from further growth. Others, especially today, seem to have given up and decided that “there is no universal order,” or at least no order to which they will submit. That’s the postmodern stance, which distrusts all grand narratives, including often any notions of reason, a common human nature, social progress, universal human norms, absolute truth, and objective reality. Permanent residence in this stage tends to make people rather negative and cynical, usually angry, and quite opinionated and dogmatic as they search for some solid ground. [1]  

REORDER: Only in the final Reorder stage can darkness and light coexist, can paradox be okay. We are finally at home in the only world that ever existed. This is true and contemplative knowing. Here death is a part of life, and failure is a part of victory. Opposites collide and unite, and everything belongs. [2]  

At the Reorder stage, we come to that true inner authority where I know something, and the only nature of the knowing is that it is okay because God is in every moment no matter what happens. Nothing needs to be excluded. I can live and work with all of it because apparently God can. For some unbelievable reason, contrary to logic and common sense, everything belongs. [3]  

Read this meditation on cac.org.
 
[1] Adapted from Richard Rohr, The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope for, and Believe (New York: Convergent, 2019, 2021), 247–249. See also “Disorder: Stage Two of a Three-Part Journey,” Daily Meditations, August 16, 2020. 

[2] Adapted from Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer (New York: Crossroad, 1999, 2003), 159. 

[3] Adapted from Richard Rohr, How Do We Get Everything to Belong? (Albuquerque, NM: Center for Action and Contemplation, 2005).   

Focus on Love, Not Sin REPOST

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We can learn a lot from cat ladies. Take Julian of Norwich, for example.

Today’s repost comes from the Center for Action and Contemplation and offers us five provocative statements. Do any of these resonate for you and how might we respond?

  • Radical optimism
  • Sin is not real, only love is real
  • All is well
  • Waste no energy on regret
  • Get on with our holy task of loving

A Focus on Love, Not Sin 

Wednesday, August 14, 2024

Julian’s revelations offer a loving alternative to the focus on sin which characterized the theology of her time. Mirabai Starr writes:  

Julian of Norwich is known for her radically optimistic theology. Nowhere is this better illumined than in her reflections on sin. When Julian asked God to teach her about this troubling issue, he opened his Divine Being, and all she could see there was love. Every lesser truth dissolved in that boundless ocean…. 

Julian confesses, 

The truth is, I did not see any sin. I believe that sin has no substance, not a particle of being, and cannot be detected at all except by the pain it causes. It is only the pain that has substance, for a while, and it serves to purify us, and make us know ourselves and ask for mercy. [1]  

Starr clarifies where Julian located the impact of sin:  

Julian informs us that the suffering we cause ourselves through our acts of greed and unconsciousness is the only punishment we endure. God, who is All-Love, is “incapable of wrath.” And so it is a complete waste of time, Julian realized, to wallow in guilt. The truly humble thing to do when we have stumbled is to hoist ourselves to our feet as swiftly as we can and rush into the arms of God where we will remember who we really are.  

For Julian, sin has no substance because it is the absence of all that is good and kind, loving and caring—all that is of God. Sin is nothing but separation from our divine source. And separation from the Holy One is nothing but illusion. We are always and forever “oned” in love with our Beloved. Therefore, sin is not real; only love is real. Julian did not require a Divinity degree to arrive at this conclusion. She simply needed to travel to the boundary-land of death where she was enfolded in the loving embrace of the Holy One, who assured her that he had loved her since before he made her and would love her till the end of time. And it is with this great love, he revealed, that he loves all beings. Our only task is to remember this and rejoice.  

In the end, Julian says, it will all be clear.  

Then none of us will be moved in any way to say, Lord, if only things had been different, all would have been well. Instead, we shall all proclaim in one voice, Beloved One, may you be blessed, because it is so: all is well. [2]  

The fact that Julian “saw no wrath in God” does not tempt her to engage in harmful behaviors with impunity. On the contrary, the freedom she finds in God’s unconditional love makes her strive even more to be worthy of his mercy and grace. Yet she does not waste energy on regret. She suggests that we, too … get on with the holy task of loving God with all our hearts and all our minds and all our strength.  

References:  
[1] Julian of Norwich, The Showings: Uncovering the Face of the Feminine in Revelations of Divine Love, trans. Mirabai Starr (Charlottesville, VA: Hampton Roads, 2013, 2022), 68. Selection from chap. 27.  

[2] Showings, 223. Selection from chap. 85. 

Mirabai Starr, introduction to The Showings, xviii–xix. 

cac.org/daily-meditations/a-focus-on-love-not-sin/

Hitting Rock Bottom Can Develop Patience and Humility

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My lifetime mantra was adopted from Yogi Bear. I just wanted to be “smarter than the average bear.” (See http://www.unfinishedman.com/smarter-than-the-average-bear/)

I’ve recently learned the hard way that my ignorance and greed are a powerful combination to bring me “back to earth” and, better yet, all the way to “rock bottom.”

Below is a recent post from the Center for Action and Contemplation which informs us that patience and humility are possible when we face our addictions and acknowledge our failings and what must change in our lives to overcome them.

May Richard Rohr’s words below bring some comfort and inspiration today.

Richard Rohr has learned from alcoholics and the Twelve Steps that it’s when we hit rock bottom that we realize how our suffering and God’s suffering are connected: 

Only those who have tried to breathe under water know how important breathing really is—and will never take it for granted again. They are the ones who do not take shipwreck or drowning lightly, the ones who can name “healing” correctly, the ones who know what they have been saved from, and the only ones who develop the patience and humility to ask the right questions of God and of themselves.  

It seems only the survivors know the full terror of the passage, the arms that held them through it all, and the power of the obstacles that were overcome. All they can do is thank God they made it through! For the rest of us, it is mere speculation, salvation theories, and “theology.”  

Those who have passed over to healing and sobriety eventually find a much bigger world of endurance, meaning, hope, self-esteem, deeper and true desire, and, most especially, a bottomless pool of love, both within and without. The Eastern fathers of the church called this transformation theosis, or the process of the divinization of the human person. This deep transformation is not achieved by magic, miracles, or priestcraft, but by a “vital spiritual experience” that is available to all human beings. It leads to an emotional sobriety, an immense freedom, a natural compassion, and a sense of divine union that is the deepest and most universal meaning of that much-used word salvation. Only those who have passed over know the real meaning of that word—and that it is not just a word at all. 

It is at precisely this point that the suffering God and a suffering soul can meet. It is at this point that human suffering makes spiritual sense, not to the rational mind, the logical mind, or even the “just and fair” mind, but to the logic of the soul, which I would state in this way:  

Suffering people can love and trust a suffering God.  
Only a suffering God can “save” suffering people.    

Reference:  
Adapted from Richard Rohr, Breathing under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps (Cincinnati, OH: Franciscan Media, 2011, 2021), 116–119.  

Surviving God

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http://www.amazon.com/Surviving-God-Vision-through-Survivors

Below is an excerpt from today’s Suffering and Survival meditation from the Center for Action and Contemplation.

For a world without misogyny, racism, sexual abuse or violence, the transformation process is a process with ups and downs. flashbacks, and panic attacks.”

Two professors, Grace Ji-Sun Kim and Susan M. Shaw, speak out about surviving sexual abuse.

Theologians Grace Ji-Sun Kim and Susan Shaw show how Jesus is a survivor of violent abuse who leads the way for other survivors to find transformation:  

“For Jesus, the way of God is the way of feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, helping the stranger in a ditch, and demanding equity and justice, whether from judges, religious leaders, or politicians. Surviving with Jesus can redirect our anger, our han, our despair. [3] We can learn to accept ourselves, and we can work to create a better world. Things won’t just be hunky-dory. Transformation is a process. The accurate language for faith is not that “we are saved” but that we are “being saved.”

Susan once heard poet Maya Angelou tell the story of a young man who asked her if she were “saved.” “Are you?” Angelou responded. “Yes,” he replied. “Really?” she countered, “Already?”

Transformation is a process—and for survivors, it’s a process with its ups and downs, flashbacks, and panic attacks. But, as the resurrection confirms, it is the better way; it is God’s way.  

Surviving with Jesus gives us hope that a different kind of world is possible—a world without sexual abuse, without misogyny and racism, and without violence. That’s a world worth surviving for and working toward with faith that in each of us God truly is making all things new.” [4] 

References:   
[1] Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, chap. 13. 

[2] Adapted from Richard Rohr, Breathing under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps (Cincinnati, OH: Franciscan Media, 2011, 2021), 113–115.  

[3] Han is a concept in Minjung theology, which originated in South Korea; it refers to “an accumulation of the suppressed and condensed experience of oppression.” See Jae Hoon Lee, The Exploration of the Inner Wounds—Han (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1994), 139.  

[4] Grace Ji-Sun Kim and Susan M. Shaw, Surviving God: A New Vision of God through the Eyes of Sexual Abuse Survivors (Minneapolis, MN: Broadleaf Books, 2024), 195. 

For the complete post see: cac.org/daily-meditations/surviving-with-jesus/

We Will Not Cancel Us

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Today’s post from the Center for Action and Contemplation includes an excerpt from adrienne maree brown’s book We Will Not Cancel Us: And Other Dreams of Transformative Justice (Chico, CA: AK Press, 2020), 76–77.

There’s great compassion and wisdom in her words below. May we not cancel ourselves and one another. …

Writer and activist adrienne maree brown normalizes making mistakes and working towards accountability instead of “canceling” others:  

“We will tell each other we hurt people, and who. We will tell each other why, and who hurt us and how. We will tell each other what we will do to heal ourselves and heal the wounds in our wake. We will be accountable, rigorous in our accountability, all of us unlearning, all of us crawling towards dignity. We will learn to set and hold boundaries, communicate without manipulation, give and receive consent, ask for help, love our shadows without letting them rule our relationships, and remember we are of earth, of miracle, of a whole, of a massive river—love, life, life, love.  

We all have work to do. Our work is in the light. We have no perfect moral ground to stand on, shaped as we are by this toxic complex time. We may not have time, or emotional capacity, to walk each path together. We are all flailing in the unknown at the moment, terrified, stretched beyond ourselves, ashamed, realizing the future is in our hands. We must all do our work. Be accountable and go heal, simultaneously, continuously. It’s never too late. 

We will not cancel us. If we give up this strategy [of canceling], we will learn together the other strategies that will ultimately help us break these cycles, liberate future generations from the burden of our shared and private pain, leaving nothing unspeakable in our bones, no shame in our dirt.  

Each of us is precious. We, together, must break every cycle that makes us forget this.”

For the full post see: cac.org/daily-meditations/confession-not-cancellation/

Light by Which We See

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Here’s a message that’s very important to me and hopefully helpful to you or someone you know:

  • “Begin honest shadowboxing” even if it initially “make us miserable.”
  • Step 4 of the Twelve Steps can lead to “awareness and compassion” for self and others, and
  • Avoid “vengeance on the self.”

Below is today’s meditation from Richard Rohr and the Center for Action and Contemplation from Richard’s book Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps

store.cac.org/products/breathing-under-water-tenth-anniversary-edition

Light by Which We See 

Thursday, July 18, 2024

Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
—Step 4 of the Twelve Steps  

Father Richard helps us understand that a moral inventory or “shadow work” is a necessary part of the spiritual life: 

I am convinced that some people are driven to addictions to quiet their constant inner critic, but it only gives them another thing to hate about themselves. What a vicious cycle! Moral scrutiny is not to discover how good or bad we are and regain some moral high ground, but to begin some honest “shadowboxing” which is at the heart of all spiritual awakening. Yes, “the truth will set you free” as Jesus says (John 8:32), but first it tends to make us miserable.  

People only come to deeper consciousness by intentional struggles with contradictions, conflicts, inconsistencies, inner confusions, and what the biblical tradition calls “sin” or moral failure. The goal is actually not the perfect avoidance of all sin, which isn’t possible anyway (see 1 John 1:8–9; Romans 5:12), but the struggle itself, and the encounter and wisdom that come from it. Law and failure create the foil, which creates the conflict, which leads to a very different kind of victory than any of us expected. Not perfect moral victory, not moral superiority, but luminosity of awareness and compassion for the world. After thirty years in “perfect” recovery, alcoholics are still imperfect and still alcoholic, and they know it, which makes all the difference. 

So shadowboxing, a “searching and fearless moral inventory,” is for the sake of truth, humility, and generosity of spirit, not vengeance on the self or some kind of complete victory. And while seeing and naming our actual faults allows us to grow and change, it may be experienced as an even greater gift by those around us.  

Our shadow self is not our evil self. It is just that part of us that we do not want to see, our unacceptable self by reason of nature, nurture, and choice. That bit of denial is what allows us to do evil and cruel things—without recognizing them as evil or cruel. Ongoing shadowboxing is absolutely necessary because we all have a well-denied shadow self. We all have that which we cannot see, will not see, dare not see. It would destroy our public and personal self-image.  

Jesus says, “Take the log out of your own eye first, and then you will see clearly enough to take the splinter out of your brother’s or sister’s eye” (Matthew 7:5). Step 4 is about dealing with our own log first, so we can stop blaming, accusing, and denying, and thus displacing the problem. It’s about seeing truthfully and fully. Note that Jesus does not just praise good moral behavior or criticize immoral behavior, as we might expect. Instead, he talks about something caught in the eye. He knows that if we see rightly, the actions and behavior will eventually take care of themselves. 

Reference:  
Selected from Richard Rohr, Breathing under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps, 10th anniv. ed. (Cincinnati, OH: Franciscan Media, 2011, 2021), 29, 30–31, 31–32.