Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

by Richard Rohr

wonder whether we no longer have that real “obedience to the gods,” or sense of destiny, call, and fate that led Odysseus to leave father, wife, and son for a second journey. That is the very same obedience, by the way, that Jesus scandalously talks about in several places like Luke 14:26 (“If any one comes to me without leaving his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple”). I always wonder what so-called family values Christians do with shocking lines like that? Jesus was not a nuclear family man at all, by any common definition! What led so many saints to seek the “will of God” first and above their own? What has led so many Peace Corps workers, missionaries, and skilled people to leave their countries for difficult lands and challenges? I would assume it was often a sense of a further journey, an invitation from their soul, or even a deep obedience to God.