One thing or another has kept me from finishing Father Rohr’s Things Hidden, but last night I at last came across what has to be the real nuggets in the book. But first, I must say that it is not always easy for me to read Fr Rohr. He is so optimistic that his accounts of God often come across as unreasonable, a fantasy of his own desires. Throughout this book, he explains how accounts of the vengeful Jehovah of the Bible are more reflections of what the more primitive mind demanded – that all the gods of that time were vengeful and exacting, requiring sacrifice to do human’s bidding, so what else could God do? As one reads how Israel slaughtered in the name of Jehovah, however, it is often hard to believe. But I must say he has largely won me over, for the New Testament is almost all about love, love, love, regardless of occasional references to Gehenna (the waste land) and rich men in hell. The allegories to this affect, as Fr Rohr explicates, are all too perfect.
Also, he agrees with me on one large point, and agreement always works in swaying one’s opinion. Recently, Christians have gone through the holiest of times – those last days featuring the Last Supper, the Crucifixion and the Resurrection. What one is made to do during this time is to reflect on the suffering of Jesus. We are told to feel the lash, the nails, the pain and the humiliation. How awful. How God has suffered for us. Yet it has always occurred to me that ALL, or most, of us go through this hell at the end of our lives. Witnessing the long and painful path to death of my parents has made me conclude that perhaps the short time on the cross was more merciful (but don’t ask me to try it). This might appear sacrilegious, but surprisingly, the good father agrees.
This is what forms the first of two parts to what I believe is his primary thesis. Jesus’s life, says Rohr, is a hologram of the universe, including all of our little lives. Here, we too go through: incarnation, ordinary life, initiation (into jobs, marriage, etc), trial (and how!), faith (or struggling with it), death, surrender, resurrection, and return to God. In this, Jesus is not exceptional, but rather the quintessence of the ordinary; he is our lives, put out for all to see. But there is a difference. Moving on to part two, Rohr explains that Jesus is, unlike us, perfect in his life (I use the present tense to accommodate the timeless hologram). He is the unblemished lamb that in former times was used by Israel to appease God. Even so, he is still human. It is this form, even the perfect one, that must die for true resurrection to occur, for our bodies as we understand them are our “false selves” – that is, who we think we are – and they must die for all of us before “resurrection” or true union with God can occur.
And then the kicker: in the image and actuality on the cross, where Jesus became the Christ, we are given the nature of God in the only way God could fully speak to us: in blood. Not words, not poetry, but in the visceral, the real, the undeniable. And in this, we are made to understand that God is not seeking vengeance or sacrifice, but is inviting us to him with all the pathos that can be mustered for Man. The suffering on the cross, then, is not a black mark formed to show us how rotten we are, but God’s way of telling us that it’s OK – that forgiveness and love are to be ours regardless, not because we deserve it, but because God desires it. It is our invitation in blood, and all we have to say is “yes.” It is the supreme act, as it were, of love and acceptance.
And, as I see it, it fits. It fits for all, regardless of one’s religious beliefs or lack thereof, for God is not in finality a face or a body of text, but rather a draw for participation in the hologram, in the whole of the program – in what might be called heaven. And the only thing that stands between us and that is the false self. To overcome, we are given our trials and sufferings, to do as Jesus does – not raise the dead or be perfect, but to fill the template of life, of surrender, resurrection, and return. It is a journey that we ALL must travel, and as Fr Rohr puts it, we may do so willingly – Heaven – or begrudgingly – Hell.
In most of the essays I have written, I have been surprised to discover in the writing that something else was always working behind the scenes as I blindly followed the action. This something else, I am certain, is working for all of us at all times. It is in this that we might choose heaven or hell – to choose to see the marvelous in life, or to despise its discomfort. As Fr Rohr would have us believe, God does not send us to Hell, as no loving being would, but WE do – and it is impermanent, anyway, real only as long as our false selves are real. Instead, we are graphically shown through the Crucifixion that we are humbly, shockingly humbly, asked to join in the universe as full members, no recriminations, no questions asked. We only have to say Yes.
Not bad, Fr Rohr! Still, even Jesus, even knowing the template, had his moment of despair. So shall we all. But that’s OK. In the end, it will be as in the beginning, and life will prove a wound healed so perfectly that it might not have existed at all. FK
Also, he agrees with me on one large point, and agreement always works in swaying one’s opinion. Recently, Christians have gone through the holiest of times – those last days featuring the Last Supper, the Crucifixion and the Resurrection. What one is made to do during this time is to reflect on the suffering of Jesus. We are told to feel the lash, the nails, the pain and the humiliation. How awful. How God has suffered for us. Yet it has always occurred to me that ALL, or most, of us go through this hell at the end of our lives. Witnessing the long and painful path to death of my parents has made me conclude that perhaps the short time on the cross was more merciful (but don’t ask me to try it). This might appear sacrilegious, but surprisingly, the good father agrees.
This is what forms the first of two parts to what I believe is his primary thesis. Jesus’s life, says Rohr, is a hologram of the universe, including all of our little lives. Here, we too go through: incarnation, ordinary life, initiation (into jobs, marriage, etc), trial (and how!), faith (or struggling with it), death, surrender, resurrection, and return to God. In this, Jesus is not exceptional, but rather the quintessence of the ordinary; he is our lives, put out for all to see. But there is a difference. Moving on to part two, Rohr explains that Jesus is, unlike us, perfect in his life (I use the present tense to accommodate the timeless hologram). He is the unblemished lamb that in former times was used by Israel to appease God. Even so, he is still human. It is this form, even the perfect one, that must die for true resurrection to occur, for our bodies as we understand them are our “false selves” – that is, who we think we are – and they must die for all of us before “resurrection” or true union with God can occur.
And then the kicker: in the image and actuality on the cross, where Jesus became the Christ, we are given the nature of God in the only way God could fully speak to us: in blood. Not words, not poetry, but in the visceral, the real, the undeniable. And in this, we are made to understand that God is not seeking vengeance or sacrifice, but is inviting us to him with all the pathos that can be mustered for Man. The suffering on the cross, then, is not a black mark formed to show us how rotten we are, but God’s way of telling us that it’s OK – that forgiveness and love are to be ours regardless, not because we deserve it, but because God desires it. It is our invitation in blood, and all we have to say is “yes.” It is the supreme act, as it were, of love and acceptance.
And, as I see it, it fits. It fits for all, regardless of one’s religious beliefs or lack thereof, for God is not in finality a face or a body of text, but rather a draw for participation in the hologram, in the whole of the program – in what might be called heaven. And the only thing that stands between us and that is the false self. To overcome, we are given our trials and sufferings, to do as Jesus does – not raise the dead or be perfect, but to fill the template of life, of surrender, resurrection, and return. It is a journey that we ALL must travel, and as Fr Rohr puts it, we may do so willingly – Heaven – or begrudgingly – Hell.
In most of the essays I have written, I have been surprised to discover in the writing that something else was always working behind the scenes as I blindly followed the action. This something else, I am certain, is working for all of us at all times. It is in this that we might choose heaven or hell – to choose to see the marvelous in life, or to despise its discomfort. As Fr Rohr would have us believe, God does not send us to Hell, as no loving being would, but WE do – and it is impermanent, anyway, real only as long as our false selves are real. Instead, we are graphically shown through the Crucifixion that we are humbly, shockingly humbly, asked to join in the universe as full members, no recriminations, no questions asked. We only have to say Yes.
Not bad, Fr Rohr! Still, even Jesus, even knowing the template, had his moment of despair. So shall we all. But that’s OK. In the end, it will be as in the beginning, and life will prove a wound healed so perfectly that it might not have existed at all. FK
RSS Feed