Starting to read this together at Sunday Group – here are some teasers from the intro…
xvii When Christianity loses its material/physical/earthly interests, it has very little to say about how God actually loves the world into wholeness.
xxii Substance addictions like alcohol and drugs are merely the most visible form of addiction, but actually we are all addicted to our own habitual way of doing anything, our own defenses, and most especially, our patterned way of thinking, or how we process our reality. The very fact we have to say this shows how much we are blinded inside of it. By definition you can never see or handle what you are addicted to. It is always hidden and disguised as something else. As Jesus did with the demons of gerasa, someone must say, “What is your name?”(Luke 8:30). The problem must be correctly named before the demon can be exorcised. You cannot heal what you do not first acknowledge.
xxiv
we suffer to get well.
we surrender to win.
we die to live
we give it away to keep it.
This counterintuitive wisdom will forever be resisted as true, denied and avoided, until it is forced upon us – by some reality over which we are powerless – and if we are honest, we are all powerless in the presence of full Reality.
You can buy Breathing Under Water by Richard Rohr (or any of his other titles) from the Centre for Action and Contemplation website.
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