Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

by Richard Rohr

both Plato and Jefferson said democracy was not really the best form of government. It is just the safest. A truly wise monarch would probably be the most effective at getting things done.

Jesus the Jew criticizes his own religion the most, yet never leaves it!

(Think Gandhi, Anne Frank, Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela, and the like.)

Some theorists say you cannot stretch more than one step above your own level of consciousness, and that is on a good day!

those at deeper (or “higher”) levels beyond you invariably appear wrong, sinful, heretical, dangerous, or even worthy of elimination.

Ken Wilber says that most of us are only willing to call 5 percent of our present information into question at any one point—and again that is on a very good day.

Pope John XXIII's motto might be heard here: “In essentials unity, in nonessentials liberty, and in all things, charity.”

authentic God experience always “burns” you, yet does not destroy you