Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

by Richard Rohr

One could say that the tragedy, the “goat stories” of racism, slavery, sexism, the Crusades, the Inquisition, and the two World Wars, all of which emerged in and were tolerated by Christian Europe, are a stunning manifestation of our disillusionment and disgust with ourselves and one another, when we could not make the world right and perfectly ordered, as we were told it should be. We could not love the imperfection within ourselves or the natural world, so how could we possibly build any bridges toward Jews, Muslims, people of color, women, sinners, or even other Christians? None of them fit into the “order” we had predecided on. We had to kill, force, imprison, torture, and enslave as we pursued our colonization of the rest of the world, along with the planet itself. We did not carry the cross, the tragic sense of life, but we became expert instead at imposing tragedies on others. Forgive my anger, but we must say it.

That was well said