Breathing Underwater

by Richard Rohr

drowning without knowing it. But do not despair. What Ortega y Gasset

The trouble is that most Christians pushed this great liberation off into the next world, and many Twelve Steppers settled for mere sobriety from a substance instead of a real transformation of the self.

It became theory over practice.

It seems we are not that free to be honest, or even aware, because most of our garbage is buried in the unconscious. So it is absolutely essential that we find a spirituality that reaches to that hidden level. If not, nothing really changes.

We think we are our thinking, and we even take that thinking as utterly “true,” which removes us at least two steps from reality itself.

The world was left with the difficult task of trying to live with even more difficult “dry drunks.” These are people who do not drink or take drugs anymore, but they drive the rest of us to want to drink by their “all or nothing” thinking, which distorts and destroys most calm and clear communication.

Christians are usually sincere and well-intentioned people until you get to any real issues of ego, control, power, money, pleasure, and security. Then they tend to be pretty much like everybody else.

We often gave them a bogus version of the Gospel, some fast-food religion, without any deep transformation of the self; and the result has been the spiritual disaster of “Christian” countries that tend to be as consumer-oriented, proud, warlike, racist, class conscious, and addictive as everybody else—and often more so, I am afraid.

Our inability to see our personal failures is paralleled by our inability to see our institutional and national sins too. It is the identical and same pattern of addiction and denial.

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.

Some form of alternative consciousness is the only freedom from this self and from cultural lies.

We suffer to get well. We surrender to win. We die to live. We give it away to keep it.

An ego response is always an inadequate or even wrong response to the moment. It will not deepen or broaden life, love, or inner laughter. Your ego self is always attached to mere externals, since it has no inner substance itself. The ego defines itself by its attachments and revulsions. The soul does not attach nor does it hate; it desires and loves and lets go. Please think about that, it can change your very notion of religion.

all mature spirituality, in one sense or another, is about letting go and unlearning.

As you have surely heard before, “Religion is lived by people who are afraid of hell. Spirituality is lived by people who have been through hell.”

authentic spirituality is invariably a matter of emptying the mind and filling the heart at the same time.

sin and failure are, in fact, the setting and opportunity for the transformation and enlightenment of the offender—and then the future will take care of itself.

Quote 70 in the Gospel of Thomas is many peoples’ favorite. It has Jesus saying, “If you bring forth that which is within you, it will save you. If you do not bring it forth, it will destroy you.”

This is the way that God seduces us all into the economy of grace—by loving us in spite of ourselves in the very places where we cannot or will not or dare not love ourselves.

Only love effects true inner transformation, not duress, guilt, shunning, or social pressure.

One has to wonder, do we really want people to grow, or do we just want to be in control of the moment?

“Forgiveness is to let go of our hope for a different or better past.” It is what it is, and such acceptance leads to great freedom, as long as there is also accountability and healing in the process.

G.K. Chesterton said that paradox is simply truth standing on its head to get our attention!

We must pray as if it all depends on us, and work as if it all depends on God

Both the chicken and the egg forever produce one another and only dualistic thinking creates the dilemma.

God is humble and never comes if not first invited, but God will find some clever way to get invited.

“In your prayers do not babble on as the pagans do, for they think that by using many words they will make themselves heard. Do not be like them; your Father knows what you need even before you ask him.”

We ask not to change God but to change ourselves. We pray to form a living relationship, not to get things done.

Prayer is a symbiotic relationship with life and with God, a synergy which creates a result larger than the exchange itself.

God gives us power more than answers.

Any attempts at self-conversion would be like an active alcoholic trying to determine his own rules for sobriety. God has to radically change the central reference point of our lives.

The first mind sees everything through the lens of its own private needs and hurts, angers, and memories. It is too small a lens to see truthfully or wisely or deeply. I am sure you know that most people do not see things as they are, they see things as they are!

Prayer was something you did when you otherwise felt helpless, but it was not actually a positive widening of your lens for a better picture, which is the whole point.

God can help you get what you want, which is still a self-centered desire, instead of God’s much better role—which is to help you know what you really desire (Luke 11:13; Matthew 7:11).

It is work to learn how to pray, largely the work of emptying the mind and filling the heart. That is all of prayer in one concise and truthful phrase!

In short, prayer is not about changing God, but being willing to let God change us, or as Step 11 says, “praying only for the knowledge of his will.”

true prayer is always answered

True prayer is always about getting the “who” right. Who is doing the praying? You or God in you? Little you or the Christ Consciousness?

Basically prayer is an exercise in divine participation—you opting in and God always there!

Even most addiction counselors recognize that many addicts are “all or nothing thinkers.” I call this dualistic thinking, and is the normal labeling, rational mind that is good for things like science, math, and turning left or right. But it is at a complete loss with the big five of God, death, suffering, love, and infinity.

Jesus also says, “When you pray, do not babble on like the pagans do,” which is pointing to something other than mere verbal prayer. I would call it the prayer of quiet.

one could conclude that what we call the Our Father was in part a concession, probably a good one, to that understandable social need of ours. But let’s be honest, Jesus himself goes into silence, into nature, and usually alone when he prays. (Check it out in Luke 3:21, 5:16, 6:12, 9:18, 28–29, 11:1, and 22:41.) It is rather amazing we have not noted this.

Since the thirteenth century, no one has been teaching us what to do with our minds when we were alone, at least in any systematic way.

only contemplative prayer or meditation invades, touches, and heals the unconscious!

Let me end this chapter with a fine quote from Thomas Merton who said: “The will of God is not a ‘fate’ to which we must submit, but a creative act in our life that produces something absolutely new, something hitherto unforeseen by the laws and established patterns. Our cooperation consists not solely in conforming to external laws, but in opening our wills to this mutually creative act.”5

It is such divine synergy, people’s willingness to creatively work with the hand that life and sin and circumstance and God have dealt them that is our deepest life of prayer and devotion.

Remember, always remember, that the heartfelt desire to do the will of God is, in fact, the truest will of God.

Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.

Good religion keeps God free for people and keeps people free for God. You cannot improve on that.

But keeping God free (from bad teaching, fear, and doubt) and getting you free (from selfishness, victimhood, and childhood wounds) is the big rub and the lifelong task.