Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

by Richard Rohr

All spiritual language is by necessity metaphor and symbol.

All we can give back and all God wants from any of us is to humbly and proudly return the product that we have been given—which is ourselves!

Whether we find our True Self depends in large part on the moments of time we are each allotted, and the moments of freedom that we each receive and choose during that time.

Each thing and every person must act out its nature fully, at whatever cost. It is our life's purpose, and the deepest meaning of “natural law.” We are here to give back fully and freely what was first given to us—but now writ personally—by us!

The first half of life is discovering the script, and the second half is actually writing it and owning it.

The first task is to build a strong “container” or identity; the second is to find the contents that the container was meant to hold.

We are a “first-half-of-life culture,” largely concerned about surviving successfully.

Integrity largely has to do with purifying our intentions and a growing honesty about our actual motives.

homes are not meant to be lived in—but only to be moved out from.

We grow spiritually much more by doing it wrong than by doing it right.

The human ego prefers anything, just about anything, to falling or changing or dying. The ego is that part of you that loves the status quo, even when it is not working. It attaches to past and present, and fears the future.