Just This Quotes

“When you are present, you will know the Presence. It is that simple, and it is that hard.”
― Richard Rohr, Just This

“For many, God is seen--and used--as a partner in our private evacuation plan more than any Love Encounter that transforms mind or liberates heart. Such solipsism is revealed in the little, if any, concern that many Christians show for justice, the earth, or the poor. The fruits of love are often not apparent in them, and not even of much interest to many of them. Thus, our "True God" became missing in action from creation and most human concerns. In my opinion, such a notion of salvation is at the root of much contemporary atheism, agnosticism, abandonment of organized religion, and mental illness itself. We imprisoned God in churches, in ceremonies, and in small, fear-based people.”
― Richard Rohr, Just This

“Your heart needs to be broken—and broken open—at least once to discover what your heart means and to have a heart for others.”
― Richard Rohr, Just This: Prompts and Practices for Contemplation

“We become what we are willing to see.”
― Richard Rohr, Just This

“For these desert mothers and fathers, prayer was understood not as a transaction that somehow pleased God (the problem-solving understanding of prayer that emerged much later), but as a transformation of the consciousness of the one who was doing the praying. Prayer was the awakening of an inner dialogue that, from God’s side, had never stopped. That’s why the Apostle Paul could speak so often of praying “always” (1 Thessalonians 5:17). In simple words, prayer is not changing God’s mind about us or anything else but allowing God to change our mind about the reality right in front of us—which we are usually avoiding or distorting.”
― Richard Rohr, Just This

“To begin to see with new eyes, we must observe—and usually be humiliated by—the habitual way we encounter each and every moment. It is humiliating because we will see that we are well-practiced in just a few predictable responses. Few of our responses are original, fresh, or naturally respectful of what is right in front of us. The most common human responses to a new moment are mistrust, cynicism, fear, knee-jerk reactions, a spirit of dismissal, and overriding judgmentalism [...] instead of allowing the moment to get some control over us—and teach us something new! 

To let the moment teach us, we must allow ourselves to be at least slightly stunned by it until it draws us inward and upward, toward a subtle experience of wonder. We normally need a single moment of gratuitous awe to get us started—and such moments are the only solid foundation for the entire religious instinct and journey”
― Richard Rohr, Just This

“To keep the mind space open, you need some form of meditative practice—something much more than saying prayers. In fact, if recitation of prayers does not lead to a change in consciousness, it is actually counterproductive.”
― Richard Rohr, Just This: Prompts and Practices for Contemplation

“Whenever God is conceived in the soul, it is always an allowing, never an accomplishment.”
― Richard Rohr, Just This

“You cannot know anything spiritually by saying it is a not-that: you can only know it by meeting it in its precise and irreplaceable thisness and honoring it there.”
― Richard Rohr, Just This

“The spiritual journey is a constant interplay between moments of awe, followed by a general process of surrender to that moment. We must first allow ourselves to be captured by the goodness, the truth, or beauty of something beyond and outside ourselves. Then we universalize from that moment to the goodness, truth, and beauty of the rest of reality, until our realization eventually ricochets back to include ourselves. This is the great inner dialogue we call prayer.”
― Richard Rohr, Just This

“Great spiritual teachers learn to balance knowing with not knowing, as illustrated in this oft-quoted aphorism: "It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so." The true biblical notion of faith, which balances knowing with not knowing, is rather rare today, especially among many religious folks who think faith is being certain all the time--when the truth is the exact opposite. But we have little theology of darkness today.”
― Richard Rohr, Just This

“The supreme work of spirituality, which makes presence possible, is keeping the heart space open (which is the result of conscious love), keeping in a "right mind" (which is the work of contemplation or meditation), and keeping the body alive with contentment and without attachment to its past woundings (which is often the work of healing). In that state, you are neither resisting nor clinging, and you can experience something genuinely new.

Those who can keep all three spaces open at the same time will know the Presence they need to know. That's the only prerequisite. People who can be simply present will know the Presence that connects everything to everything. It has little to do with belonging to a particular denomination or religion.”
― Richard Rohr, Just This